Bringing in millions through patents invariably requires university leadership to confront what a patent is: an authorization to sue for infringement. Patents confer the right to exclude others from using a given invention, without the patent holder's permission, for a twenty-year term. Permission, of course, costs money--something universities…

Librarians and scholars who seek to counter the rampant commercialism and consolidation that endanger equal and affordable access to knowledge can learn from the recent successful effort to pass health-care reform. Organizations with a commanding presence in an industry naturally seek to institutionalize their indispensability. They finance…

In June 2010, the Association of American Medical Colleges issued the third and final portion of its conflict-of-interest policy initiatives. The task force on "Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Care" did not mince words when it described the impetus for these initiatives: "It is imperative that the possibility or perception of [financial conflict…

Sewage sludge is composed of residuals removed from wastewater that comes from homes, hospitals, and industries. Wastewater-treatment systems are designed to remove pollutants that could contaminate public waterways. Sludge--called "biosolids" by those who produce it, spread it, and regulate it--includes these pollutants as well as…

Although some consider electronic publishing to be the wave of the future, publishers must first build an infrastructure of citations, copyrights, authentication, and preservation to make it work well. Consistency is a crucial consideration in making information and documents accessible, and significant resources must be dedicated to archiving…

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax bioterrorism mailings, the science community and others worried that technical articles might inadvertently aid those planning acts of terrorism. Some authors asked the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) for permission to withhold critical information from…

The high price of subscribing to scientific journals threatens scientific communications. A coalition of universities, libraries, and learned societies, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), is using electronic publishing to reverse that trend and provide affordable alternatives to costly print publications.…