Don't mess with molecular biologists.

First the Laura K. Pahl plagiarism thing, now this. Intellectual elitists of the world, unite!

Jasper Rine, a yeast geneticist at UC Berkeley, went all Dirty Harry at one of his lectures recently. It seems Prof. Rine's laptop was stolen, so he made it clear to the class that not only did he already know who the theif was, but that he was the wrong goddamn science geek to mess with:

Transcript from Blast Radius: A World of Pain:

"I'm not particularly concerned about the computer. But the thief, who thought he was only stealing an exam, is presently - we think - is probably still in possession of three kinds of data, any one of which can send this man, this young boy, actually, to federal prison. Not a good place for a young boy to be.

You are in possession of data from a hundred million dollar trial, sponsored by the NIH, for which I'm a consultant. This involves some of the largest companies on the planet, the NIH investigates these things through the FBI, they have been notified about this problem.

You are in possession of trade secrets from a Fortune 1000 biotech company, the largest one in the country, which I consult for. The Federal Trade Communication is very interested in this. Federal Marshals are the people who handle that."

The rest of the bitch slapping of the theif is excellent too. See Jasper get his cop on here torrent link
or just hear it here small mp3 link
or just read the transcript here