http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/20/monsantos-gm-corn-and-cancer-in-rats-real-scientists-deeply-unimpressed-politics-not-science-perhaps/ "Their claim is that the rats fed GM corn and Roundup got more such tumours earlier than the control group. The criticism of this finding is that the control group was simply too small to allow such an observation to be made with any certainty. And they have not conducted, or at least not presented, the standard statistical tests which would allow they or us to determine whether the results were the outcome of pure blind chance." http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/09/anti-gmo-researchers-used-science-publication-to-manipulate-the-press/ "Any journalist that wanted to receive an advance copy was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement before receiving one. That agreement prohibited the outlet from sharing the results with any outside experts before the embargo lifted. In other words, if a press outlet wanted to be one of the first to cover the story, it would have to run the story without having any experts sanity check the paper." "The embargo lifted during a live press conference from the researchers, hosted in London in cooperation with the Sustainable Food Trust. The SFT conveniently had a press release prepared; a release claiming that the research was "supported by independent research organization, CRIIGEN." However, this neglected to note that the paper's lead author, Eric Seralini, is on the CRIIGEN board." Conflict of interest, and keeping the newspapers from doing any fact checking before publication ... that's not accepted protocol. https://embargowatch.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/stenographers-anyone-gmo-rat-study-co-sponsor-engineered-embargo-to-prevent-scrutiny/ " One of the main reasons for embargoes �" if you take many journals at their word �" is to give reporters more time to write better stories. Part of how you do that is talking to outside experts. And scientists �" ones interested in science, anyway, not those interested in spin and political points �" should welcome that kind of scrutiny."

Claire, very inventive. That idea of putting in the wire fencing down the side of the house and then putting rambling roses on stilts running on the top is a riot! I used to love your rose arch so I hope this becomes a great substitute. It looks great so far. And to surround the tasty phlox with the phlox the critters don’t like to eat, genius...lol. Hope that works out. From a distance, that green fencing is not very noticeable. That is such a sweet birdhouse, teapot. Your 8 year old must be so excited to see birds and babies in it! It's such a positive lesson in seeing the rewards from making something with your own hands, to actually end up with birds in it. Gee, I didn’t know you didn’t have turkeys, Claire, but I guess Jane may pick up the slack in that area. How fun! Hope they stick around, Jane. Sorry Jane, didn’t mean to burst your bubble with the chipmunks. It is really just a rumor with no basis in fact that I am aware of…..how’s that, better? (g)

You're not pestering me at all--I don't often get a chance to sound smart! :-) I'm pretty sure the photo was posed. My father loved to do stuff like that. A scanner like this one would absolutely do a good job with photos. I think prints aren't mentioned much in the description or in reviews because it's understood that the scanner is fine for them. Its ability with slides and negatives is the big plus. The description says this, which might interest you: Enhance old photos: Built-in retouching technology removes much of the dust and scratches on original prints, improving image quality. I've scanned documents on mine, and turned them into PDF files. It's easy. As far as I know the scanner must make a wired connection to the computer, so it would have to be in close enough proximity to do that. Let us know what you decide. If you think of any more questions, ask away!

Pam, Mainly because Kinkos (or wherever) is getting a profit , albeit small, from pictures owned by the portrait studio. I realize they are pictures of *your* kids. Your kids are simply the subject of the portrait. If an author writes a biography about someone, the subject of that biography doesn't have the right to do whatever they want with it. The intellectual property still belongs to the writer, as it should. *You* may not be selling the pictures to a magazine, but the studio can't possibly know who will and who won't try to exploit their work. When you talk about old photographs, you answered the question... "there's no way to get another copy without doing it ourselves." If the original photographer is still around, and has copyrighted the photos, and still has the negatives, then you can get another copy from him. If there is "no other way" to get a copy, then the copyright doesn't apply (of course it also depends on the copyright laws of when the photograph was taken). Disney... when you buy patches or something similiar with disney characters, then the company producing those patches must have an agreement with Disney. Disney is notorious for protecting their copyright, so if someone is doing it illegaly, and Disney finds out about it, they will come down on them. If you were to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse it would be different, becuase *you* would be the one doing the work, and as long as you or no one else is profiting from that work it is not considered copyright infringement. It's not illegal unless you go to a craft fair and try to sell those pictures (and disney has gone after crafters for doing that very thing) But again, in the case of a portrait, when another business (Kinkos, Staples. etc.) is profitting from copying someone else's work, Kinkos or Staples are the ones breaking the copyright. If you copy the pictures on to your computer, and do not use them for anything other then personal use, you are fine. I'm not trying to be argumentative about this (really, I'm not :o). It's just that as a photographer, who owned my own studio, copyright is the only way I had of protecting my work and it is an issue I feel very strongly about. Rebecca