Microbe bank opens doors
Boingboing reports on the Brazilian government's shrewd salvo against biopiracy. The government pays to archive its native microbial fauna before the bioprospecters can swab down Brazil's natural resources and sell them to the highest bidder. The state archives and maintains these strains under controlled conditions, thereby facilitating the investigations of science and industry. In exchange, biotechnologists must pay royalties to use these species.
Brazil opens microorganism bank:
The Brazilian government is funding an open collection of indigineous microrganisms that will stave off the practice of foreign companies coming to the south, taking what grows there, and locking it away in patents that the countries of origin can't afford to license.
[Via Worldchanging.]
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Posted by: krusty | March 26, 2005 at 10:54 PM
Good for the Brazilians! I hope the plan works.
Posted by: Jacobo | March 27, 2005 at 05:28 PM
Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 43842, and it got it right! Pretty neat.
Posted by: Merideth Carleton | November 14, 2005 at 06:46 PM