No More 'Miracles From Molecules': Monsanto's Name Is Being Retired (reuters.com) 236
Flexagon writes: Germany's Bayer announced today that in its link-up with Monsanto, it's retiring the "Monsanto" name, and with it the name of the company that originally sponsored Disneyland's "Adventure Thru Inner Space" attraction. The $63 billion takeover will wrap up on Thursday. "Bayer will remain the company name. Monsanto will no longer be a company name. The acquired products will retain their brand names and become part of the Bayer portfolio," it said.
The decision to retire the name is a smart business move. "These days Monsanto is shorthand for, as NPR's Dan Charles has put it, 'lots of things that some people love to hate': Genetically modified crops, which Monsanto invented," reports NPR. "Seed patents, which Monsanto has fought to defend. Herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, which protesters have sharply criticized for its possible health risks. Big agriculture in general, of which Monsanto was the reviled figurehead."
The decision to retire the name is a smart business move. "These days Monsanto is shorthand for, as NPR's Dan Charles has put it, 'lots of things that some people love to hate': Genetically modified crops, which Monsanto invented," reports NPR. "Seed patents, which Monsanto has fought to defend. Herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup, which protesters have sharply criticized for its possible health risks. Big agriculture in general, of which Monsanto was the reviled figurehead."
Toxic brand (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Toxic brand (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but now Bayer will be the name that attracts all the hate for Monsanto's portfolio of products.
Not that I disagree with that move, it's actually more honest, but still...
Re:Toxic brand (Score:5, Interesting)
Name changes used to work, but these days they tend to backfire. Journalists will still call them Monsanto (now rebranded Bayer due to bad publicity).
All changing your name like that does is publicly admit that your reputation is impossible to salvage and you are trying to be sneaky. It's not like in the old days where such things could get by unnoticed.
Wtf are you talking about? They are not changing (Score:4, Insightful)
> All changing your name like that does is publicly admit that your reputation is impossible to salvage and you are trying to be sneaky.
What the heck are you talking about? Why in the world would the larger company, Bayer, change ITS name to the name of the smaller company it is acquiring? Of course Bayer is keeping their name.
What could be sneaky be if $bigcompany bought $smallcompany and then changed its name to $smallcompany. Keeping their name is what companies normally do when they make acquisitions.
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Why in the world would the larger company, Bayer, change ITS name to the name of the smaller company it is acquiring?
See: AT&T
But seriously, huge companies do not usually use the parent company's name. How many products in the grocery aisle have you seen marked as Mondelez International? You see plenty of Kraft, Nabisco, Cadbury, etc.
And Bayer :) Brands (Score:2)
You also see Bayer in the supermarket, it's a brand.
As you said, Mondelez International isn't a big grocery brand (it's a new company) Nabisco and Kraft are major consumer brands. Of course if you're choosing between a major brand name and new name nobody has heard of, you keep using the successful brand.
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OK, sure - one of many, many examples. Pepsi owns Quaker oats, Dole, Frito Lay. None of those are named Pepsi despite it being a much bigger brand. In fact, none of them even list Pepsi on the packaging.
Incidentally, Gatorade is owned by Quaker Oats Comany - not directly by Pepsi.
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Actually, journalists have to use the current name, so it's actually more like "Bayer (formerly Monsanto) has just announced new lawsuits against farmers".
T
Re: Toxic brand (Score:2)
What, you expected something reasonable? From marketing?
Cambridge Analytica is now Emerdata (Score:4, Informative)
That's right: now do us a service by reminding everyone everywhere: Emerdata is the new Cambridge Analytica.
It's easy to memorize Emerdata, like the French merde. Shitty data or something.
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Re:... but the Asshattery remains. (Score:5, Insightful)
What is hilarious is that the same people that constantly shout, "Science!" with respect to their causes that they find are supported by science, completely ignore the conspicuous lack of science to support their claims about GMO, Round Up, etc.
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Sure. A poison is just harmless. This is the kind of nonsense that makes you "science groupies" look no better than members of the American Family Association or the Taliban.
We have plenty of examples of things we once thought were harmless that didn't turn out to be so harmless later. We also have good examples of "science" driven by political and corporate agenda.
Anyone that's ever taken a stats course should be well aware of that great line attributed to Clemens & Disraeli.
Your blind faith is unwarra
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Mistakes (Score:3)
CO2, Tetraethyl lead and lead in general, CFCs, Thalidomide, and perhaps cigarettes. It's a short list, and doesn't actually refute overall point, but yes, there have been a few fairly serious scientific errors in the past.
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Note that everything on your list is from a time before we had regulations in the western world for how drugs and chemicals would be introduced. Basically everything that was released up till the 1970:ties was without the regulated clinical trails that we have today. That CO2 and CFC:s affect the climate can hardly be seen as a scientific error since that very topic wasn't even a question back when they where introduced. And lead have been known to be poisonous since long before modern science was even inve
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You're defending a specious point presumably because you skipped the part where I didn't disagree with your conclusion. You are quite wrong about the lesser claim, and quite correct about GMO safety.
You can argue whether the government's position on tobacco and lead represented scientific consensus, but the CO2 story is unequivocal. Arrhenius published his theory of CO2-induced climate change in 1896, and Angstrom refuted it convincingly five years later. Over the subsequent five decades the foundations for
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Re: Mistakes (Score:2)
CO2, Tetraethyl lead and lead in general, CFCs, Thalidomide, and perhaps cigarettes.
I would love to see you provide the doubtless voluminous reams of studies which were used to determine that those things are harmless.
Thalidomide is perhaps the only legitimate example in your list, and that particular drug was never approved for use in America because the FDA required more rigorous studies than other nations did.
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The CO2 theory of climate change was disproved by Angstrom in 1901, and not revived for fifty years. Callendar 1949 [wiley.com] gives an overview of what it calls the theory's "chequered history". CFCs were used for decades before their effects in the upper atmosphere became known, and even Lovelock's initial discovery vindicated them. For lead you should refer to the Wikipedia articles on the subject of TEL, Robert Kehoe, and Clair Patterson. Probably Thomas Midgely's promotional efforts are relevant to both of those
Re: Mistakes (Score:2)
Um, not know about climate change don't snt make CO2 harmless, and not knowing about the ozone layer doesn't make CFCs harmless. Both can be quite harmful to humans.
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That's wonderful, but not the point of contention. There was valid science suggesting that these things were harmless. In the case of AGW there were several reasons to believe that CO2-induced climate change was impossible, which stood unchallenged for decades. Clearly that situation has changed, and again, this has nothing to do with the original claim that GMOs are safe, or whether lead, sugar, tobacco, or CO2 are actually harmful. However, while there are at best a handful of cases where the scientific p
Re: Mistakes (Score:2)
That's wonderful, but not the point of contention. There was valid science suggesting that these things were harmless.
Again, no, no there wasn't. Let's stick with CO2 just to keep things simple. You can make the argument that most scientists believed it couldn't cause climate change. You can claim that they had papers which supported that position. You might be right about those specific claims. But that would not, and could not, have been evidence that CO2 was harmless. It would merely have been evidence that CO2 wasn't harmful in that specific way. It was still known that a person emersed in a high concentration o
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CO2 is harmful apparently even at 600ppm [nih.gov] in terms of clear thinking. CFCs are delicious though. I am drinking a cocktail of 1 part chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC22) to 3 parts cranberry juice with a splash of seltzer and it is yummy. No adverse affects afaict aside from brain death.
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Re: ... but the Asshattery remains. (Score:3)
Sure. A poison is just harmless. This is the kind of nonsense that makes you "science groupies" look no better than members of the American Family
Actually yes, poison is harmless in most cases. No matter how much you may think that the food that you eat is "natural", "organic", "pure", "homeopathic", "in tune with Gaia", or whatever your fetish may or may not be, you're still going to end up with poison somewhere in the mix. I'm not setting it, it's just a fact.
The key thing that you're overlooking is that it's the dose that makes the poison, not the substance itself. Take meadow saffron for example; extremely deadly plant, eating a leaf will most li
Re: ... but the Asshattery remains. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes I agree! How peoole can make any claims that non-GMOs are safe with respect to the wider ecosystem, with virtually no test data is ridiculous and anti-science BS
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And how much of this work done at "Obama's EPA" is really just grandfathered in work from some previous administration? How are we to trust the work of the Trump EPA, when the President himself says things like "Global warming is a Chinese hoax" (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385)?
Once the Trump administration is finally in the dus
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Good strawman argument. OP points out that GMO are not fully tested with respect to how they'll affect the ecosystem, and you respond with a rant specifically about toxicity in humans.
Re:Toxic brand (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, Bayer isn't called "IG Farben" for good reason. Bayer associates with "aspirin", which is good, right!?!
"Give a man aspirin . . . and he'll be free of headaches for a day."
"Give a man Zyklon B, and he'll be free of headaches for the rest of his life."
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Give a a man Plutonium 210 and you will be free of one more headache.
-- Vladimir Putin
Give a man Plutonium 210 and scientists around the world will wonder how you got around the current laws of physics to make it
Perhaps you're thinking of Polonium [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Toxic brand (Score:5, Informative)
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It's a toxic brand
People aren't stupid, and will realize Roundup is now produced by Bayer. Bayer will just be the new 'synonym' for Monsanto.
Having said that all, i don't believe genetic modification or roundup is bad per-se. It's how it's been used that's possibly bad - with corn producing its own poisons, and roundup being available at consumer level and it's commercial use poorly regulated. People forget that Monsanto's products are also essential for feeding 8 billion people. However, it's also good that environmental-aw
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What's the point of feeding 8 billion people if you're poisoning them at the same time?
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If feeding them keeps them alive for longer, despite being poisoned, then that's exactly the point.
What amount of poisoning are you talking about by the way? What increase in life expectancy can we expect by banning Bayer products?
Re: Toxic brand (Score:4, Insightful)
People aren't stupid
If that were true they wouldn't have demonized Monsanto in the first place ...
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My anecdote: Tried the knockoff WallyMart brand, it worked poorly if at all. Not sure why as the percentage of glyphosate was the same according to the bottles. The real deal killed everything within days. I was trying to avoid giving big bad Monsanto any of my money, but I needed to kill the weeds so they got me in the end.
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The reason the wal-mart knockoff didn't work despite having the same concentration of glyphosate is that it likely didn't have the same surfactants which make the glyphosate effective in the first place.
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It's a toxic brand: I'm surprised it took that long. I mean, Bayer isn't called "IG Farben" for good reason. Bayer associates with "aspirin", which is good, right!?!
I guess it's better than to be associated with Heroin, which would not be good.
N.B. Trademarks can have interesting stories...
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The Monsanto name was toxified by its intellectual property shenanigans. How does Bayer's record compare?
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It's a toxic brand
To leftist lunatics. To us normal people, it's a company that makes agricultural products.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Look into the lies of the Holocost for your self.
Don't know why I'm responding to an AC, but anyway...
As the decedent of a German (non-Jewish) immigrant, who had family on both sides of the war, and who met veterans of that war, and who's been to Dachau, and lived in German for many years, let me just say... BULLSHIT. Look into it yourself you lying piece of dung.
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For the life of me, I can't figure out the root motivation for holocaust denialism.
They can't handle the idea that human beings are capable of being barbaric?
Is it a hatred of Jews so seething that they can't accept that genocide is anything other than a good thing?
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You would think that instead of denying the holocaust, they would be celebrating it?
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Well how many of the veterans actually involved would still be alive? Many were tried and executed, and a lot more were killed in action during the war itself.
Also given that involvement in such activity is likely to result in your execution, how many do you think would actually admit to it?
Holocaust Denial (Score:2)
If you're not on the revisionist side of the argument, why don't you pipe down? Holocaust denial does not deserve some sort of rigorous disproof. Being shouted down in public is their least deserts; they're lucky that such speech isn't criminal.
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How much did the holocost cost, I wonder.
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Sooooo (Score:4, Insightful)
Monsanto name is gone, however their genetically modified crops that only grow with their products remains.
i.e. nothing has changed.
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Also I don't get why their crops should only grow with their products? Roundup is just Glyhosate, which you can buy from many manufacturers since the patent ran out.
Re:Sooooo (Score:5, Informative)
Monsanto name is gone, however their genetically modified crops that only grow with their products remains.
Their patents on both glyphosate (Roundup) and RR crops expired long ago.
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Monsanto name is gone, however their genetically modified crops that only grow with their products remains.
Their patents on both glyphosate (Roundup) and RR crops expired long ago.
So does that mean no one uses it any more or has it been re-branded like Posilac when they sold it to Eli Lilly? Like anything they did that got bad press. I wonder what other goodies are in their $63 Billion portfolio? Such lovely chaps to invent a seed like that and then sue the farmers whose fields it infects. Monsanto, loved by all, how we will miss them.
They deserve a meme, I suggest:The Brand is gone butt the assholes remain.
Re:Sooooo (Score:5, Informative)
Every major chemical company produces glyhosate products, here is one from Bayer: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bayer... [amazon.co.uk]
And no, Monsanto never sued farmers whose fields where infected. All lawsuits have been with people who "intentionally replanted patented seeds": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Naturally, that contention may be true or it may be false and Monsanto *might* just have the edge in hiring a large team of legal experts to grind the defense into the dirt.
So point to a single lawsuit where this was not the case. The truth is that the farmers are actually demanding that their suppliers sue misusers since otherwise the farmers would not have a level playing field.
Kind of hard to prove a negative, but according to that Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]:
Can you explain why they drop over 92% of their cases? Especially considering the farmers are "demanding that their suppliers sue"?
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My limited understanding of the American legal system is that most civil lawsuits are settled out of court so I assume here that that is what happened to the 92%. On their own web site ( https://monsanto.com/company/m... [monsanto.com] ) Monsanto writes:
There have been farmers who were contacted and provided information that resulted in Monsanto closing the case. The vast majority of farmers who are presented with facts showing infringement admit the violation and pay a settlement.
Which seams to support my assumption. Also according to their commitment to farmers ( https://monsanto.com/company/c... [monsanto.com] ) we find item #10:
It has never been, nor will it be Monsanto policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seed or traits are present in farmer's fields as a result of inadvertent means.
Just words of course but it would be quite hard for them to sue for such a case without having this text thrown in their face by the d
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The problem I have with your argument is that all of your sources are from monsanto.
A 2 second web search provided tens of articles, here is six:
monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents [theguardian.com]
monsanto-sued-farmers-16-years-gmos-never-lost [naturalsociety.com]
monsanto-patents-sue-farmers [rt.com]
the-enemy-of-family-farmers [huffingtonpost.com]
monsanto-wins-lawsuit [huffingtonpost.com]
seeding-fear-the-story-of-a-farmer-who-took-on-monsanto [modernfarmer.com]
All of which tell a different story.
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By any other name it just sounds like badge engineering.
See? We're no longer Monsanto.... (goes on to do the same evil stuff Monsanto did, just under another name ...)
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Kind of like look at the silly monkey,,LOOK AT THE SILLY MONKEY!
A new motto (Score:3)
Bayer is now the biotechnology migraine headache of the 21st century.
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Now that's a good business sense! They are CREATING a market for their flagship product! [wikipedia.org]
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A new motto, Bayer: "Greed From Genetics".
I thought it was
Bayer: "ask about our Heroin for Kids!".
Smart business moves, require Stupidity. (Score:2)
"The decision to retire the name is a smart business move."
The decision is a smart business move only because you have enough idiots out there who fall for the sleight-of-name trick.
A company being forced to change it's name tends to say a lot about all of the immoral, unethical shit that piled up high and deep to justify such a change. In the end, little will change other than the name. All the shit that people were pissed off at Monsanto will continue for one reason; because it's profitable.
And the ignorant masses will fall for it, as they celebrate their "win
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For all the (justifiable) hate on the company, I still feel a little sad for Edgar M Queeny’s legacy to disappear.
Target change (Score:2)
Oracle (Score:2)
In related news, Oracle is changing its name to "Cuddly Bunny".
Sounds Familiar (Score:2)
So, no more buying Bayer then (Score:2)
So, I will start boycotting pharmaceuticals from Bayer then ...
Besides those brand containing "Bayer" in the name, they also own Adverio, AgraQuest, Agreva, AgrEvo, AlcaFleu, Athenix, Berlifarma, Berlimed, Berlipharm, Berlis, BGI, Biagro, Biogenetic Technologies, BlueRock Therapeutics, Casebia Therapeutics, Centrofarma, Chemdyes Pakistan, Chemion, Collaterial Therapeutics, Conceptus SAS, Cooksonia Opco, Cooper Land Company of New Jersey, Coppertone, CorporaciÃn Bonima, Covestro, CropScience NewCo, Curr
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The parent listed subsidiary companies.
As to products to no longer buy, Bayer makes it easy. Thanks Bayer!
* Products from A to Z [bayer.com]
* Consumer health brands [bayer.com]
* Bayer Brands [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia.
But who... (Score:2)
...should all our lunar gopher complaints be addressed to now?
Also: Agent Orange (Score:2)
Granted, Agent Orange was a long time ago, and Monsanto wasn't the only company producing the herbicide, but it was still a very, very nasty product that had severe consequences for the people of Vietnam and many US soldiers who fought there.
Re:What's Bayer's ethics like? (Score:5, Funny)
No, no ethic problem here. If you get sick with 'monsanto' products, they will provide you with some aspirin :)
Re:What's Bayer's ethics like? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a company, or organization or even a person that you can really point to and say this is truly a force for good?
We live in a world with trade-offs. We can't get what we want exactly how we want it. And what we need is different for every person, and changes all the time.
Having worked with many of these Evil corporations, and working with some of the organizations that people seem to call good. There isn't a super villain attitude of some guy trying to make lives difficult for people. But people who are trying to improve their own lives and their family as a priority as millions of years of evolution have conditioned us to do.
So the demand was for food, that is free of pests, and will not be less toxic. Monsanto did that.
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What's Bayer's ethics like? Will we see any change in "evil" Monsanto?
Unfortunately the ethics of liberals has not changed. Monsanto's evil will just be globally replaced with "Bayer" on all those websites. The Hollywood stars that the left consults on science policy will start boycotting aspirin.
Re: What's Bayer's ethics like? (Score:2)
Education.
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Check wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Re:A rose^H^H^H^H turd by any other name (Score:5, Funny)
These products are why rampant starvation is a thing of the past. Your statement is a REAL example of white privilege.
Re:A rose^H^H^H^H turd by any other name (Score:4, Funny)
Forget it, Jake, it's Chi--er, an AC troll.
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> These products are why rampant starvation is a thing of the past. Your statement is a REAL example of white privilege.
Quit swimming in the kool-aid. "Rampant starvation" ended well before the rise of Monsanto, their herbicide, or their franken-plants.
Their products mainly fuel the Western junk food industry. They don't "feed the world". They make your Coke and Twinkies cheaper.
The vast majority of nutrient dense foods are not GMO.
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Or I can look at year-over-year global GHI trends and--oh, look--they're all going down. Besides, three miles from my house are slums with the poorest Americans and rampant obesity.
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Syria isn't in Africa, and Germany didn't send U-Hauls to anyone. Arable land has been going up. Population has grown faster than arable land, but not nearly as fast as they productivity if that arable land. You need a better source for your talking points.
Re: A rose^H^H^H^H turd by any other name (Score:2)
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They could be from the moon for all I care. It's easily apparent they aren't from the parts of Africa with the worst famine.
Re: A rose^H^H^H^H turd by any other name (Score:2)
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But farmers always had the option to not buy their products the next year.... they chose to because of the increase in profits / revenue and reduction of labor. It's lock-in for a growing season. If you didn't buy their products next year they had the right to come in and see if you were still using it (without purchasing it) but 99.99% of the people didn't and no issues occurred.
Re:Monsanto gave bio-engineering a bad name (Score:5, Interesting)
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Zyklon was invented (discovered) by Fritz Haber, a Jewish German scientist. He was one of the main driving forces behind the use of poison gas in WW1. A certain irony that his invention would be modified by Bayer to be odourless as Zyklon B and thus more usable as a key component in the Holocaust.
Bayer were also instrumental in introducing Heroin as a 'superior' pain killer (though they did not invent it).
Fritz Haber also invented the Haber process, still used to manufacture Ammonia, one of the most important chemical processes for production of fertilizer. Also explosives. The World is a confusing place....
The Fritz Haber story is an interesting one. A Nobel laureate for developing the Haber - Bosch process, he pioneered the use of poison gas in WWI and was decorated for his service and made a Captain by the Kaiser. His institute developed Zyklon-A as a fumigant. With the rise of the Nazis, Haber, despite his conversion to Christianity and military service, was stripped of his positions and eventually left Germany.
NB: The History series on Einstein had Faber's wife shoot herself in the house, she actually sho
Re:What The Fuuuuuu??? (Score:5, Funny)
How can you patent a seed????
Submit a patent application with the necessary paperwork.
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How can you patent a seed????
Submit a patent application with the necessary paperwork.
Is it patentable legally if you just copy and paste sequences you found in natural plants?
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It is patentable legally if the patent office says yes. Whether a court enforces it is a different question, but there's nothing illegal about patenting pretty much anything.
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With "paperwork", you mean of course legal tender paperwork.