The Washington Post has just reported the infant formula industry hired Republican lobbyists to dampen a federal government campaign to increase breast feeding in the US. Early breast feeding is connected with lower rates of asthma and diabetes, but also lower rates of profit for manufacturers of infant formula. The Bush administration, which puts the…

The tensions are heating up between a gift economy revitalized by the web and corporations who make money to the degree they can keep information scarce and expensive. Until recently the only way research could be made available was through journals often published by corporations less interested in science than in profits. With the coming…

Photo by Guy Edwards Sam Harris, a meditating Village Atheist, has a letter in the latest Nature. He takes the magazine to task for praising a Christian scientist, Francis Collins, for “engaging ‘with people of faith to explore how science — both in its mode of thought and its results — is consistent with their…

One of the most interesting things intellectually about the rise of the net is how the gift economy is pushing into turf long dominated by the commodity economy. See here and here. Today this is particularly the case with news, and the future of our country may depend on it. News used to be dominated…

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