Why all medical research should be publicly funded

Much so-called "medical research" is simply corporate PR. Or, it if is not that, it is at least biased - and is therefore not really scientific.

For a good explanation of why this is so, see the article, "Medical researchers face conflicts of interest", at: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5391L820090413

The only solution, as I have argued elsewhere, is that all medical and other fundamental research should be publicly funded, with all resulting IP in the public realm, along with much more real competition at the level of medicines and other products and applications.

Scientific research is at present driven either by defence considerations (which we can let pass for the present) or simply by what will make money. And what makes most money is cures for the diseases of the rich. That is why there is so little research into the diseases that affect most people.

What should drive medical and other scientific research is the public interest - and that will not happen unless research is exclusively publicly funded.

How do we prevent that from ending up in a government monopoly? By ensuring that anyone and everyone is free to use the resulting intellectual property to make any and all applications, products, medicines, et al - which then have to compete freely in the marketplace.

Lower backk muscles go before shoulder muscles

I recollect my now-deceased father-in-law being encouraged, in his eighties, by doctors to do exercises that might strengthen his upper back and shoulder muscles in order to counter what were becoming round-shoulders

Now that I am 60, I notice the same round-shoulders tendency creeping up on me

However, on doing the exerices he was recommended, along with other exercises, I deduce that muscles in the lower back start becoming weak first, and that these are what need to be strengthened before there is any chance of the exercises for rounded-shoulders having much effect

Moreover, the muscles in the lower back are the really substantial muscles whereas those in the upper back are, relatively speaking, less substantial

Once the more substantial ones become weak, there is little chance of exercises (that do strengthen the upper back and shoulders) doing much to counter rounded shoulders

On the other hand, once the muscles in the lower back are strengthened, then the exercises for the upper back do help.