For the past few days I've been deliberating on what should be my response to the email from Dr. Yong-Cheng (see previous post).
Apologies, incidentally, for mispelling his name originally as Dr.Yong-Chen (which may have confused Google and other search engines; indeed,it is possible that he should be addressed as Dr.Shi (Yong-Cheng).)
Be that as it may, I have decided to respond, not in the manner he suggests, by contacting his legal team, but in the form of a second open letter, which will appear here next Tuesday (March 25th). The reasons for doing so, as well as for my singling out just one of the four patent applicants (which some might think unfair) will be defended then, as well as my reasons for believing his patent application for making resistant starch by enzymic de-branching should never have been granted. It was, after all, my discovery, reported in the open literature, something he and his co-applicants failed to acknowledge.
Dr.Yong-Cheng(Dr.Shi ?) now has a full-time academic appointment, as Associate Professor at Kansas State University. So he should not be surprised if researchers - including retired ones like myself- expect him to observe academic courtesies - and ignore his attempts to hide behind company lawyers. It has not escaped my attention that his generous research funding still comes from his previous employer (National Starch and Chemical Company of New Jersey, USA ) for whom he worked at the time the patent application was filed.
See Wikipedia entry on plagiarism.
Update: Saturday March 22:
Some Google searches to this site have been receiving a "Page not available" messsage, including un-controversial stuff like holiday experiences!
I'm not sure what's causing the problem: it might be the change of site name from (New)Dreams and Daemons to "The Common Room". For an experimental period I've reverted partially to the old nomenclature at the top, at least in the main title. Let's see if that does the trick. If not, I've a reserve site called, guess what, "The Common Room", pure and simple, if all else fails.
Update Sunday March 23
Today sees yet more dumbed-down, blatantly misleading "science" from the Telegraph. I refer to the item on the Home Page entitled "Even in space your boomerang comes back".
A Japanese astronaut aboard the Space Shuttle has shown that a boomerang launched into space comes back, same as on earth. Ipso facto, gravity cannot be the reason why boomerangs come back because, we are told, there's no gravity in space.
Gawd help us! I've sent Roger Highfield, the Telly's Science Editor, a barbed message to his personal website (the Telly itself making it difficult if not impossible to comment on individual articles, or even to contact the Editor, except for letters, or responses to editorials).
And would I be correct in thinking that one does not add to the "font" (sic)of human knowledge?
Second update Sunday
Sky and other news outlets are reporting that Robert Murat, whom the Portugese police had named as a suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann, is to have his computer and other property returned. There is speculation that he may soon have his arguido status rescinded . I drew attention to the plight of this man under Portugese law, who has been neither charged nor convicted of any crime, whose life has been on hold for the best part of a year, who has been the subject of the most lurid speculation in the Portugese and UK press. But here's a curious thing: I tried to locate my post on Robert Murat by looking in the tags on the right, and it was missing. So too was the tag for Maddie McCann. Not surprisingly, when I googled to find my own post it led to a dead link. Well, the post is still there: I tracked it down by finding that "arguido" and "Portugese law" are still in the list of tags, and I was not surprised to find that "Robert Murat" was still in my tags beneath the post.
It would appear that the hosts of this site have unilaterally deleted my tags on the Murat post, and done so without notifying me of that fact. I can understand that the issue is legally sensitive, especially in view of the half million pounds in damages that the Express was forced to pay out to the McCanns. But why the cloak and dagger MO?
Anyway, here's the link to the Robert Murat post which I will update shortly.
Update Tuesday 25 March
Have put comments up today under two of the Telegraph's leader items.
One concerns the Government's "mysterious inflation figures".
The other concerns "Michael Gove's ideas to free our failing schools".
