The.Economist.2007-02-10 (966424), страница 44
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She prefers to understand basicodour science using petunias and snap-dragons, which have about ten smelly chemicals apiece. She hasmade an encouraging discovery. By studying the many different pathways through which flowers maketheir fragrances, she has found consistent patterns in the way these pathways are regulated.Such co-ordinated patterns suggest that a type of protein called a transcription factor is involved.Transcription factors switch genes on and off in groups. If Dr Dudareva is right, cut roses have lost theirfragrances not because the genes that encode their hundreds of scent molecules have each lost theirfunction, but because the plants no longer make a few transcription factors needed to turn the wholesystem on.This suggests that the task of replacing lost fragrance is more manageable than it seemed at first blush.But even when the transcription factors in question have been identified, the problem of the energetictrade-off with pigment production and longevity will remain.
So Dr Dudareva is also measuring howquickly the enzymes in scent-production pathways work, in order to identify bottlenecks and thus placeswhere her metabolic-engineering efforts would best be concentrated.Dr Dudareva's methods may also help to improve the job that flower-scents originally evolved to do—attracting insects that will carry pollen from flower to flower. By modifying the smell of crops such asvanilla, which have specific pollinator species, different insects might be attracted. That could expand therange in which such crops could be grown and thus make some poor farmers richer.
A change, then, frommaking rich but romantic men poorer.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipChildren's medicineThe ideal versus the bestFeb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionA programme to make drugs safer for children is up for renewalA SPOONFUL of sugar helps the medicine go down. That is the philosophy behind America's PaediatricExclusivity Programme. Youngsters often metabolise medicines in a different way from adults andsometimes experience unpredictable side-effects, but the children's drug market is not always big enoughin its own right for firms to bother with trials needed to find out the details of such differences.
The bribethat the ten-year-old programme offers in order to shift that balance is a six-month patent extension onany product tested in appropriate child-focused trials.It seems to have worked. More than 300 studies have been carried out under the programme's auspices,and 115 products have had their instructions for use changed so that doctors can prescribe them tochildren with reasonable confidence. Nevertheless, the scheme, which is up for renewal, and will bedebated in Congress next month, is being questioned. Some observers think it is too generous, and thatthe patent extension should be shortened or tailored in some way.A paper just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Jennifer Li, of DukeUniversity in North Carolina, and her colleagues suggests the critics have a point. However, it concludesthat tinkering may undermine the purpose of the scheme—better health for children.Dr Li's team looked at one drug that had been granted paediatric privileges in each of nine categories(cancer, cardiovascular disease, psychiatry and so on).
The team was interested in the cost of conductingthe tests deemed necessary by America's Food and Drug Administration for a drug to qualify for specialtreatment, and the benefits that accrued from the patent-extension. The costs were estimated by FastTrack Systems and Covance Central Laboratory Services, two firms that conduct such trials undercontract.
Sales data were obtained from a third firm, IMS Health, which collates information on drug salesfrom around the country.In the cases of eight of the nine drugs, the researchers concluded that there was, indeed, a benefit to thecompany (in the ninth the cost of the trials seems to have exceeded the value of the patent extension). Ina similar number of cases there was also a benefit to young patients (in other words the “labellinginformation” describing prescription and side-effects was changed to account for their needs), though theteam made no effort to quantify that benefit.
The researchers did, however, quantify the benefit to thefirms—and they found an enormous range. In the most lucrative case the value of extra protected saleswas about 74 times the cost of the trials, and it was more than 20 times costs in three other cases.On the face of things, that does argue for less generous terms—a three-month extension, perhaps, orsome sort of differential period depending on projected earnings. On the other hand, that wouldcomplicate a scheme that, whatever its perceived vices, is both clear and effective. In an era where fewerblockbusters seem to be hitting pharmacies' shelves, that might, in turn, lead to fewer tests.
Faced withthe same dilemma (though not informed by Dr Li's research) the European Union decided last month tointroduce a scheme similar to the one being questioned in America. It would be ironic if America nowchose to change its.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group.
All rights reserved.About sponsorshipEconomics and anthropologyPatient capitalFeb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionYour parents were right. Patience is a virtueIN MODERN economies, inequality is a fact of life. But disparities of income are a relatively recentphenomenon. For most of the species's existence, humans lived in small foraging bands that had littlematerial surplus and therefore enjoyed a relatively egalitarian existence. The invention of agriculture, whichgenerates a surplus that can be stored and also gives value to land, permitted this to change. But permissionis not prescription.
Exactly why some people were able to accumulate more than others has been somethingof an anthropological mystery. The archaeological record is little help, but the main hypotheses have beenluck, intelligence and aggression. These all, of course, play their part, but now a fourth phenomenon has beenadded to the list: patience.Writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour Victoria Reyes-Garcia, of the Autonomous University of Barcelona,and her colleagues describe a study they carried out on the Tsimane', a group of Amerindians who live inBolivia's slice of the Amazonian rainforest. Until recently, the Tsimane' were almost entirely cut off from therest of Bolivian society. They were not quite hunter-gatherers—besides hunting and foraging, they alsopractised slash-and-burn agriculture—but they did live in self-sufficient villages, and there was little disparityof income between villagers.In the 1970s missionaries started running elementary schools in Tsimane' villages, and the best studentshave had the chance to continue their education in a nearby town.
Those who do well can find jobs as villageteachers, or work for government or development organisations. Even those who manage only a few years'schooling are better placed than their confrères to work for cattle ranchers and logging companies. As aresult, income inequality in Tsimane' society is as high as that in Britain (although overall wealth is obviouslymuch lower). Dr Reyes-Garcia wanted to find out what determines who wins and who loses.One phenomenon that is almost unique to humans is deferred gratification—in other words, patientanticipation of a reward. Dr Reyes-Garcia and her colleagues therefore guessed that as the Tsimane' becamemore enmeshed in modern society, the more patient of them would do better than the less. The Tsimane'straditional subsistence economy depends on folk knowledge and learned skills that have quick pay-offs.Formal schooling does not pay off for years, but opens the door to bigger potential incomes.To test their idea, the researchers offered all 151 adults in two Tsimane' villages a choice between receiving asmall amount of money or food immediately, getting a larger amount if they were willing to wait a week, andgetting a larger amount still in exchange for several months' wait for payment.
They found that the moreeducation a villager had, the longer he was willing to delay gratification in return for a bigger reward.Five years later, Dr Reyes-Garcia and her colleagues came back again. They re-interviewed 100 of theirvolunteers (the other 51 were unavailable for one reason or another) and found that those who had shownmost patience in the original experiment had also seen their incomes increase more than those of their lesspatient counterparts. The effect was relatively small—the incomes of the patient had grown 1% a year fasterthan those of the impatient.
Over a lifetime, though, that adds up to a significant amount of inequality. Thepatient, then, could take their place alongside the lucky, the smart and the violent at the top of society'sheap.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipClimate changeHeating upFeb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionA gloomy UN-backed report is publishedTHE fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in Paris onFebruary 2nd, is important, unsurprising and will probably be uncontroversial. It is important because the IPCC is thebody set up under the auspices of the United Nations so that governments should have an agreed-on view of thescience on which to base policy. It is unsurprising because, although some of the figures differ from those in thethird assessment report published in 2001, the changes are minimal and its broad conclusion, that something seriousis happening and man is in part responsible, remains the same (though the authors now say that man is “very likely”to be responsible, rather than just “likely”).
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