Patents on Ice: Antarctica as a last frontier for bioprospectors--and their intellectual property. Article by Gary Stix. Intro: "A patent and trademark office has yet to open its doors on McMurdo Sound or at Prydz Bay. But the microbes and fish that live in Antarctica and its environs have already become the subject of patent claims. The Spanish patent office granted a patent in 2002 for wound healing and other treatments with a glycoprotein drawn from the bacterium Pseudoalteromonas antarctica. Also that year Germany handed out a patent for a skin treatment using an extract from the green alga Prasiola crispa ssp. antarctica. And an application now before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office covers a process for producing antifreeze peptides discovered in Antarctic bacteria. [...]" Link
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
