“A baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from a tree. But that's still the product of human invention to decide where to begin the bat and where to end the bat.”
—Gregory Castanias, a lawyer for Myriad Genetics, in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court for a case about whether human genes can be patented.
“We have a bonus system here that we've known has rewarded perverse behavior, but now we're able to put some real numbers on it, and it's a bigger bonus than we've ever understood.”
—Dr. Atul Gawande, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, to CNN Money on a study he co-authored that found surgical complications can lead to higher profits at hospitals.
Follow Outliers on Twitter: @MHOutliers
Send us a letter
Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
