TEXT D The Roslin Institute announced last week that it had applied to patent the method by which its scientists had cloned Dolly the sheep. The patent, if granted, would apply to "nuclear transfer technology" in both human and animal cells. One point of the patent is to help fund research into cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart failure. Its other aim is to make some money. Last May, the Roslin Institute was taken over by Geron, an American biotech company. Geron has committed $32.5 million to research at the Roslin. It wants to get its money back. Two scientists from Stanford who developed the use of restriction enzymes, one of the fundamental techniques in biotechnology, made about pounds 80 million out of it in the 17 years before the patent expired. So you can see why Geron-Roslin is so keen to get its patent. There’s nothing wrong with that. Without the prospect of a return at the end of investment, no one would ever lend money to anyone involved in bio-medical research—and given the huge sums now required to develop a new drug, or a new diagnostic test for some medical condition, that would mean there wouldn’t be any research. It is wonderful when people give money to worthwhile causes with no hope of personal gain. But appealing to altruism simply won’t raise the billions required to develop and market drugs and therapies that rely on biotechnology. For that, you have to appeal to investors’ self-interest—which is why the bulk of medical research is funded not by charities or even tax-payers but by private companies and individuals. The fact that biotech research depends on patents generates profound hostility. The opposition to the patenting of genetic sequences, cells, tissues and clones—critics call it "the privatization of nature"—takes many forms, from a Luddite desire to stop scientific research to a genuine, if mistaken, conviction that common ownership is always morally preferable to private property. But all of the objections have a single root. the sense that it must be wrong to make money out of the constituents of the human body. They cannot be "owned" by any individual, because they belong to everyone. There cannot be "property in people". That is a profound mistake. The truth is rather the opposite: there is only property in things because there is property in people. People own their own bodies, and that ownership is the basis of their property rights (and most other individual rights, come to that). The problem with the law as it stands is that it doesn’t sufficiently recognize an individual’s property rights over his or her own body, and his or her entitlement to make money out of it. The outcome of a lawsuit in the US nearly 10 years ago defined the de facto rules governing the ownership of human tissues, and the financial exploitation of the discoveries that derive from them. In Moorev the Regents of UCLA the issue was whether an individual was entitled to a share of the profits that a biotech company made from developing drugs or treatments derived from cells that came from his body. Dr David Golde had discovered that John Moore, one of his patients, had a pancreas whose cells had some unusual properties that might be helpful in treating a form of cancer. In his laboratory, Golde developed what his called a "cell line" from Moore’s cells and patented it. When Moore found out, he sued Dr Golde for a share of whatever profits the cell line generated. Mr. Moore lost. The court said he had no right to any of those profits, because he did not own the cells removed from his body. Moreover, the court held that since "research on human cells plays a critical role in medical research", granting property rights to the patient from whom the cells came threatened to "hinder research by restricting access to the raw materials". In essence, that decision said that biotech companies could own and make money out of human cells and tissue—but the person from whom that tissue or cells came could not. The logic behind that decision is bizarre. No one except the most unreconstructed communist disputes that I own my own body. Indeed, it is only because I own my body that I can come to own anything else independent of it, mixing my labor with something being the most fundamental means by which I can come to own it. If cells from Mr. Moore’s body are his property, how can anyone else come to own them—unless he sells or gives those cells to them (778 words) Why does the author mention the Stanford scientists in the second paragraph
A. To compare hard work done by Roslin Institute to that of the two Stanford scientists.
B. To prove that scientific research can make money be the patent.
C. To suggest that why Geron-Roslin is keen to get its patent.
D. To underline that Geron company is money-oriented.
TEXT A Several years ago I visited Egypt. After leaving Cairo and traveling through the hot desert sands I eventually found myself standing in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Cheops—one of the mighty wonders of the ancient world. Entering a small doorway in the pyramid’s base I climbed upwards towards the center. And there I was at the heart of this great stone mountain in the burial chamber of a Pharaoh. As I stood there, I reflected on where I was. Was I in the middle of the tomb of a king, the most powerful ruler the world has ever known Or was I at the center of something much more mysterious A monument of such mathematical accuracy and advanced architecture that the modern world can only marvel at A magical shape built by a civilization whose knowledge and wisdom have been lost today I was silent in wonderment. The Great Pyramid at Giza, built for the Pharaoh Cheops, is large, to say the least. It is built from 2300000 blocks of stone, each weighing 15 tons, and as Napoleon’s scientists calculated, it contains enough stone to build a huge wall all around France. At the time when it was completed (over 5,000 years ago), it must have been magnificent-covered in white limestone and topped by a cap of solid gold. Yet ever today it is a marvel—and even more than that, a mystery. How did the Egyptians (who still hadn’t discovered the wheel) build such a huge monument; each stone put together with such precision that architects today would have difficulty copying How were these huge stones cut, carried and lifted into place, when the people only had simple wooden rollers, levers and primitive tools But perhaps these are the least of the Great Pyramid’s mysteries. For it is quite possible that this pyramid was not used as a tomb at all. In A.D. 800, when the Sultan of Baghdad, Al Mamud, finally managed to reach the central burial chamber of Cheops (after tunelling passed large stones that blocked the entrance), he found nothing! The chamber was empty. Unlike other tombs that possessed the kings’ priceless treasures, this one was completely empty. Nothing was there. Was the Great Pyramid something other than a tomb In 1638 an Oxford professor measured the king’s chamber and was shocked by its "exact" size. Even Sir Isaac Newton became interested in the pyramid’s perfect shape. However, it was John Taylor, the editor of The Observer, whose studies brought about the most amazing discovery. He showed, quite clearly, by the measurements of the pyramid, that the early Egyptians must have known the value of pi. Amazingly, they were 4000 years ahead of their time. The Pyramid of Cheops now became a great mystical symbol with strange magical powers. It has even been suggested recently that it was built with the help of aliens from outer space. A UFO landed and its occupants taught the Egyptians all their skills. On a more realistic level, British astronomer Richard Proctor believed that the pyramid was a hut observation room for viewing the stars and calculating the movement of the heavens, Not only are the sides of the pyramid perfectly lined to the tour points the compass, but the passage to the king chamber is precisely in line with it Pole Star. It became, obvious that builders of the pyramid also knew that the World was round. They knew the exact itude of the Earth, the length of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, the acceleration of gravity and the speed of light. Another idea is that this shape is a giant clock-its great shadow use for calculations on the sand. The Egyptians could keep a constant record of time and know easily the length each year. In fact the Czech engineer Karel Drbal was so interested in all he heard about the Great Pyramid that he built a small replica of it out of wood. He found a definite relationship between the shape of the space inside the pyramid and the physical, chemical and biological processes going on inside the space. Into his pyramid he placed a razor blade (at the same level as the king Chamber) and, to his astonishment, he found it always saved sharp. However much he shaved with it, if he put it back in the pyramid it remained sharp. Today you can even buy the Cheops Razorblade Sharpener in the shops and there arc also pyramid-shaped milk and yogurt cartons that are said to keep their contents fresher for a longer period of time. Sleeping within a pyramid structure is supposed to give beautiful dreams and a much rested body and mind in the morning: Buts of all the mysteries of the Great Pyramid, it is the one offered by the Institute of pyramidology (yes, there is one!) in London that stirs my imagination most. They say that by using the measurements and mathematical properties of the shape, the future can he predicted. They claim that Cheops predicted the crucifixion is of Christ and the beginning of World War One. And what of tomorrow Well, if the Great Pyramid is right, then at least those of us in the 20th century are saved, The Day of Judgment, the "end of the world", will be in 2979. Perhaps then, when the dust clears (and that is left standing is the Pyramid of Cheops), a UFO land at once again and little green men (the same ones hijacked the planes in the Bermuda Triangle) will jump out and dance on the hot sands. (938 words) The early Egyptians must have known about ______.
A. the theory of relativity
B. pi
C. The speed of sound
D. pyromancy