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Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Friday ordered former pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli to pay $64.6 million for illegally ballooning the price of a drug to treat parasitic diseases. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York also barred Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life. "Banning an individual from an entire industry and limiting his future capacity to make a living in that field is a serious remedy and must be done with care and only if equity demands," she wrote in her ruling. "Shkreli's egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running and ultimately dangerous illegal...

The Bank of England unveiled the design of a new banknote celebrating mathematician Alan Turing, who helped Britain win World War Two with his code-breaking skills but is believed to have killed himself after being convicted for having sex with a male partner. The new 50-pound ($69) note features an image of Turing, mathematical formulae from a 1936 paper he wrote that laid the groundwork for modern computer science, and technical drawings for the machines used to decipher the Enigma code. The polymer note also carries a quote by Turing about the rise of machine intelligence: “This is only a...

The head of MI6 has apologised for the “misguided, unjust and discriminatory” ban on gay spies, 30 years after the restriction was lifted. In a message on Twitter, Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, apologised for the treatment of LGBT staff and potential candidates before the government-wide security ban was lifted in 1991. Same-sex relationships were decriminalised in Britain in 1967. However, it took more than two decades before the security bar to LGBT individuals serving in any of the UK intelligence agencies was rescinded. Mr Moore said this was down to a “misguided view that they...

It was 1952, and Alan Turing was about to reshape humanity's understanding of biology. Fairy circles in Namibia. (pum_eva/Getty Images) ============================================================================== In a landmark paper, the English mathematician introduced what became known as the Turing pattern – the notion that the dynamics of certain uniform systems could give rise to stable patterns when disturbed. Such 'order from disturbance' has become the theoretical basis for all sorts of strange, repeated motifs seen in the natural world. It was a good theory. So good, in fact, that decades later, scientists are still discovering stunning examples of it in unusual and exotic places:...

'Fairy circles' of Africa baffle scientists (Filed: 10/05/2004) Twenty-five years of research fail to find the cause of a mysterious natural phenomenon, reports Tim Butcher at Wolwedans Camp One of Africa's most mysterious natural phenomena still cannot be explained despite 25 years of research, scientists admitted yesterday. Rings known as "fairy circles" that pockmark vast areas of desert in Namibia and South Africa have baffled botanists from the University of Pretoria and the Polytechnic of Namibia. They have ruled out termite activity, poisoning from toxic indigenous plants, contamination from radioactive minerals and even ostrich dust baths as possible causes. "At...

Enigma of Namibia's 'fairy-circles' - Namibia's "fairy circles" are a popular tourist attraction South African botanists say they have failed to explain the mysterious round patches of bare sandy soil found in grassland on Namibia's coastal fringe. They looked into possible causes of the "fairy circles" - radioactive soil, toxic proteins left by poisonous plants, and termites eating the seeds. But tests do not support any of these theories for the rings which are 2-10m across, New Scientist magazine reports. For now, the botanists are left with "fairies" to explain the phenomenon. Termite trenches Lead scientist Gretel van Rooyen is...

The head of Britain's digital espionage agency has apologized for the organization's historic prejudice against homosexuals, saying it failed to learn from the treatment of World War II codebreaker Alan Turing. In a rare public speech, GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan told a gathering organized by the rights group Stonewall that the agency's ban on homosexuals had caused long-lasting psychological damage to many and hurt the agency because talented people were excluded from working there. "The fact that it was common practice for decades reflected the intolerance of the times and the pressures of the Cold War, but it does not...

At a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Shkreli repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says no person shall be compelled in any criminal case "to be a witness against himself." Wearing a sport jacket and collared shirt rather than his usual T-shirt, he responded to questions by laughing, twirling a pencil and yawning. Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, asked Shkreli what he would tell a single, pregnant woman with AIDS who needed Daraprim to survive, and whether he thought he had done anything wrong. Shkreli declined to answer....

Martin Shkreli, who drew national scorn for hiking the cost of a life-saving drug 4,000 percent overnight, has been arrested, according to multiple reports early Thursday.The 32-year-old founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceutical made headlines in September for raising the price of Daraprim, often used to treat HIV and AIDS patients, from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill after buying the rights to the drug.His arrest is reportedly not related to that price increase.Shkreli is accused of illegally taking stock from a biotechnology firm he launched in 2011 called Retrophin Inc., Bloomberg reported, and using it to pay off...

"News that Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and other drugmakers have bought rights to old, cheap medicines that are the only treatment for serious diseases and then hiked prices severalfold has angered patients. It's triggered government investigations, politicians' proposals to fight "price gouging," heavy media scrutiny and a big slump in biotech stock prices." "Turing's Shkreli, under fire from all sides, said late last month that he would lower the price of Daraprim, but hasn't so far. A Turing spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday but recently noted the company is capping patient copayments at $10."

I don't see any other logical reason for him speaking the way he did.

Gripe as we might, consumers understand that price increases do happen. What’s not as easily understood is how the price for something can go from $13.50 one day to $750 the next — especially when it’s a generic drug used to save lives. For decades, Daraprim (pyrimethamine), an anti-parasitic used to treat malaria and toxoplasmosis, had been made by GlaxoSmithKline and sold for as little as $1/tablet until not that long ago. Then in 2010 GSK sold the drug to CorePharma, which began to raise the price. Within a year, revenue from Daraprim jumped nearly ten times even though the...

So, this weekend's news in the tech world was flooded with a "story" about how a "chatbot" passed the Turing Test for "the first time," with lots of publications buying every point in the story and talking about what a big deal it was. Except, almost everything about the story is bogus and a bunch of gullible reporters ran with it, because that's what they do. First, here's the press release from the University of Reading, which should have set off all sorts of alarm bells for any reporter. Here are some quotes, almost all of which are misleading...

The acclaimed fiction author tells the tale of the man who changed the world, though few have heard of him. John Atanasoff got an idea one night in the late 1930s and developed it into the first computer. Ms. Smiley discusses the man, his invention and his obscurity with Washington Post technology writer Cecilia Kang. Jane Smiley has written 15 works of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize winning A Thousand Acres. She's also written four works of non-fiction and been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2006, she received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for...

Is Science Fiction About to Go Blind? - Aug 2004 - Google Books ResultPopular Science - Vol. 265, No. 2 - 112 pages - Magazine Perhaps he/it is refusing interviews for fear of failing the Turing test. ... SF story is like running a simulation with certain types of driving ground ...

The Prime Minister has released a statement on the Second World War code-breaker, Alan Turing, recognising the "appalling" way he was treated for being gay. Alan Turing, a mathematician most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes, was convicted of 'gross indecency' in 1952 and sentenced to chemical castration. Gordon Brown's statement came in response to a petition posted on the Number 10 website which has received thousands of signatures in recent months. Read the statement 2009 has been a year of deep reflection -- a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts...

  Alan Turing, who is said to be the father of modern computer science, was a WWII code-breaker until he was prosecuted by the British government for having homosexual relations. Thousands have now signed a petition calling for a government apology.Turing committed suicide two years after his prosecution in 1954, but was before given experimental chemical castration as a “treatment”. He is most well known for his NAZI enigma code breaking work for the British during the second World War and his helping establish a test to measure the intelligence of a machine which is now known as a Turing Test.So...

Thanks to Google, there's extra riches in store for the next winner of computing's "Nobel Prize." Today, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) announced that Google has joined Intel in funding its prestigious Turing Award, upping the accompanying cash prize from $100,000 to $250,000. It's no coincidence that the president of the ACM, Stuart Feldman, is also the vice president of engineering at Google. "The Turing Award is the highest award in the field of computing science and recognizes achievements that push the boundaries of innovation," Feldman said. "With the continuing financial support of Intel and the newly added contribution...

When I asked Google Maps to "Get directions" from New York to London, step #23 advised me to "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi," get out of the water on the shores of northern France, drive 200 miles up the coast, and then cross the Channel to the UK. The map even shows me at which pier in NYC I should jump off to start my epic Leif Ericsson quest. Does Google Maps' geo algorithm have a slight bug, or has some programmer hidden a virtual Easter egg in the company's code? The world of complex software applications is...

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a prize-winning computer scientist who failed to return from a quick trip to the Farallon Islands on Sunday. Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Amy Marrs, said Jim Gray, 63, was reported missing by his wife at 8:35 p.m. A ten-year veteran of Microsoft and winner of the prestigious A.M. Turing Award, Gray is a technical fellow whose work focuses on databases and transaction processing systems. Gray set out from San Francisco alone on Sunday morning in his 40-foot sailboat named ``Tenacious.'' The conditions were good, and Gray was expected back Sunday evening. Gray's wife...