Techdirt. Stories about "usda"

Techdirt. Stories about "usda" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "usda"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Exporting Weird Meats Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100301/1519388347/dailydirt-exporting-weird-meats.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100301/1519388347/dailydirt-exporting-weird-meats.shtml

Puerto Rico is planning to get rid of its overpopulation of iguanas by exporting the meat of this lizard -- and selling it for up to $6 per pound. These reptiles aren't native to the island, but since they were introduced in the 1970s, the creatures have thrived -- and currently outnumber the human population in Puerto Rico. [url]

There's an interesting outlier in the trade imbalance between the US and China -- American chicken farmers supply China with a vast number of chicken feet. And US researchers somewhere are working on genetically modified chickens to grow more than two feet... [url]

After years without USDA funding for the inspection of slaughterhouses for horses, Congress lifted the inspection ban in 2011. Horse flesh isn't expected to become a widely popular entree in the US, but some 200,000 horses per year could be processed and exported. [url]

To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100301/1519388347 Fri, 3 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Bacon Tastes Good. Pork Chops Taste Goood. Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120126/17055417561/dailydirt-bacon-tastes-good-pork-chops-taste-goood.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120126/17055417561/dailydirt-bacon-tastes-good-pork-chops-taste-goood.shtml red meat" on its website. Here are just a few more fascinating tidbits on pig products.

A severe nosebleed (caused by a rare blood disorder that prevents normal blood clotting) can be stopped with a rolled up piece of salt cured pork. This salt pork remedy has actually been around for several decades -- but it doesn't work with bacon, so don't grab just any slice of deli meat. [url]
Bacon-flavored toothpaste is available for folks who like to brush their teeth as an appetizer for breakfast. Don't swallow this stuff or use as a condiment. [url]
The use of lard isn't too common in cooking anymore -- but who's to blame for that? Pig fat just doesn't sound as appetizing as hydrogenated vegetable oils... does it? hmm. [url]
To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120126/17055417561 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:00:00 PDT DailyDirt: Video Challenges Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111014/13295416368/dailydirt-video-challenges.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111014/13295416368/dailydirt-video-challenges.shtml

Create your own Public Service Announcement on how technology has made an impact on creativity. There's a $1000 prize available, and it's due on October 28th, 2011. (Oh yeah, and you can keep the copyright to your submissions for this one because we're sponsoring it!) [url]

The USDA has a Fruits&Veggies contest looking for a 30-second video on how to add more plants to your diet. The first prize is $1500, and the submission period ends November 15, 2011. [url]

Submit a video on the theme of Unlikely Innovation here. The winner receives $5000, and it's due on December 30, 2011. [url]

To find other interesting links for entrepreneurial folks, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111014/13295416368 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:42:04 PDT Cocoa Genome Released... But Is It Really In The Public Domain? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100919/00444911066/cocoa-genome-released-but-is-it-really-in-the-public-domain.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100919/00444911066/cocoa-genome-released-but-is-it-really-in-the-public-domain.shtml Cacao Genome Database. Sounded interesting, but it was a busy week, and I wasn't able to spend much time digging into it. I was intrigued, however, by the claim in the press release that the team had "released the preliminary findings of their breakthrough cacao genome sequence and made it available in the public domain". It's so rare to hear of some big companies doing research and release it into the public domain, that it, alone, seemed newsworthy, and something I wanted to explore.

Thankfully, before I even got the chance to, I saw Glyn Moody point me to Glen Newton's analysis of the claims of public domain and open access for the data, only to discover it's not true. While they are making the data available, it's hardly public domain. You have to agree to a license that has some serious restrictions in it (and some contradictions). For example, it lists out the ways you can use it -- and leaves out commercial use. Real public domain doesn't care (and doesn't require a license).

Then there's this:

The User shall not transfer the information referred to in this agreement, or any copy of them, to a third party without obtaining written authorization from the Providers which will only be provided subject to the third party user entering into this same IAA.

I'm kind of wondering if this is just boilerplate that the lawyers threw into this not understanding what public domain means. But it seems pretty silly to (a) create a license for supposedly public domain data which (b) doesn't allow you to tell anyone about what's in the license!

There is a nice bit in the "license" where it says you can't use the data in a patent application, but one would hope that the data being in the public domain would exclude it from being used in a limited fashion elsewhere anyway (sans license agreement). Separately, someone in the comments notes that the original license agreement said that if you used the data, you couldn't publish any articles about your findings until some period in the future -- but that clause was later removed (though, it's unclear if those who signed in prior to the removal still need to live by that).

However, I do have a pretty serious question: is this data in the public domain? Last year, we pointed out how difficult it is to put something into the public domain. Here, we have a case where Mars, the main company behind the research, has put out a press release, which clearly states:

Today, Mars, Incorporated, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), and IBM released the preliminary findings of their breakthrough cacao genome sequence and made it available in the public domain.

Thus, one could easily read that and believe these findings are public domain. But, then, when you go to the actual site, it claims all sorts of license restrictions. So, if someone goes and copies all the data and puts it on their own site, is that legal? It certainly looks like the company put the info into the public domain via the press release, and once something is in the public domain, you can't reverse that (well, unless you're the 10th Circuit appeals court). So, it certainly looks like someone could make the argument that the license Mars is trying to put on this data is meaningless. The company has already declared it in the public domain, and thus, no license applies. But, here's where the lack of any clear rules for how you officially make something public domain come into play. Would Mars claim that the press release "misrepresented" the company's position?

I don't mean to come down too hard on Mars. It's actually quite nice that a company would do such research and try to make it "open" and try to prevent it from being locked up in patents. I really do commend such actions, and don't wish to negate that point. But, I think the public domain is a really important thing, and if a company wants to put content into the public domain, they should be clear about what's really in the public domain.

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]]> the-public-domain-has-no-restrictions http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100919/00444911066 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:45:00 PDT More Examples Of Patent Incentives Making The World Less Safe Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100315/1000478564.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100315/1000478564.shtml hoarding bird flu samples and refusing to share them with researchers, because they're afraid that someone will come in and patent the cure, based on the samples they provide, and that will make it much costlier to Indonesia to get the vaccine. Of course, the end result instead might be no vaccine at all... It looks like we may be facing a similar issue with Ug99, a fungus that is aggressively killing wheat crops in Africa and the Middle East -- potentially having a massive impact on global food supplies. FormerAC alerts us to an article about the fight against Ug99, where it's noted that Pakistan won't share some important samples with the rest of the world, again out of fear that some big company will patent what they find:

As the breeders keep tinkering, South Asia is bracing for impact. The CDL recently tried to get its hands on a suspicious P. graminis sample from Pakistan that is said to knock out Sr31. But the country is reluctant to share: "Some countries regard isolates of their pathogens as part of their genetic heritage," CDL director Marty Carson says. "I guess there's a fear that we'll patent something off of it."

Well, given Monsanto's history of patenting disease resistant crops -- and then over-aggressively attacking anyone who uses such crops (even accidentally), it would seem like a rather legitimate fear. Perhaps, rather than brushing this fear off, the USDA's Cereal Disease Laboratory (CDL) should work to do something to fix things?

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]]> hoarding-the-info-needed-to-save-us http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100315/1000478564