Once again...
The average investor cannot short a bulletin board stock, unless they have connections with a market maker.
Market makers can go short on any stock as long as it is related to ""bona fide market making activity" (Rule 3350). Naturally, the key is the term "bona fide". The NASD manual clearly states that market makers should not go short a security simply for speculative purposes. However, there are several market makers widely known to do almost nothing but short stocks for their own account. NASD rules make it extremely easy for a market maker to begin making a market in any stock. Then you have the whole naked shorting issue which artificially inflates the float when the certificates arenot delivered....google "naked short selling" and see what comes up...
the bottom line is, Torvec can be shorted, has been shorted and the process includes the type of behavior we have witnessed here and on the raging bull board...based on the tighly held nature of the float, relative to last years volume, I would suggest to you that there is a sizeable short position in Torvec.