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War of the Roses

MUDCAT FALLS -- The annual Calabash County Spring Home and Garden Show erupted in violence as two rival rose breeders, one armed with a patent lawyer and the other pruning shears, went after each other thorn and petal over alleged dirty tricks during the judging of the floral finals.

The normally staid proceedings erupted into a melee after Attorney Steve Dallas attempted to serve Pistol Creek University Biology Professor Austin Boerner with court papers on behalf of his client, local greenhouse entrepreneur Enrico Vibert. Boerner responded by slapping Dallas with a fist full of thorned roses, drawing blood and an anguished cry from the local lawyer.

"The professor, he stole my beloved Blue Bayou," cried out Vibert. "I was first -- just like Elisha Gray, Leibniz and the Vikings! And everybody knows it."

The suit alleges that Boerner violated Vibert's patent for the world's first blue rose, the discovery of which could yield millions, if not billions, in royalties by capturing up to a 20% share of the retail market for roses. The professor claims that his work with directed evolution led to the discovery independently of what any "yahoo in Mudcat Falls" might have been up to in their "outhouse."

"The 'Somatic Selection Theory' predicts the germline transmission of acquired somatic mutations of antibody V-region genes," explained Boerner. "It could be affected via the agency of the enzyme reverse transcriptase -- copying RNA into DNA-- plus the ubiquitous, naturally occurring endogenous RNA retroviruses, produced by lymphocytes, acting as 'gene shuttles' ferrying mutated V-region gene sequences into germ cells. This would then be followed by the physical integration of this somatically derived genetic information into the germline DNA so as to replace a pre-existing gene sequence. And Eureka! A blue rose."

"Whatever!" countered Dallas. "We'll see you in court."

The American Rose Society declined to comment on the controversy, though they reaffirmed their organization's disdain for Lamarck's Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics.

Boerner was later disqualified by ARS judges when blue food coloring was discovered in his vase's water.



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