Study finds ‘Godfather’ gene

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

‘The [Godfather] gene is present in wheat, barley, canola, cotton and rice, meaning the technology is applicable to all these important crops.’ Image: szefei/iStockphoto The global population hit the 7 billion mark Monday 31 October. However, 850 to 925 million people are already experiencing food shortages and with only 46 per cent of the 2.3 billion metric tons of cereal grain produced daily being consumed by humans, the world’s new population faces food insecurity. La Trobe University Professor of Botany, Roger Parish, and his team have been working on new technology for hybrid seed production which will not only have considerable economic advantages for Australian agriculture but may also be a line of defence as food supplies decline. ‘We have discovered a ‘Godfather’ gene that acts as a master switch in the pollen production process. We can manipulate the activity of the gene. It can be turned off to prevent pollen production and allow crossing with the pollen of a different line—outbreeding. The gene is subsequently reactivated in the hybrid plant, thereby ensuring pollen production occurs and hybrid grain is produced.’ ‘This gene is present in wheat, barley, canola, cotton and rice meaning the technology is applicable to all these important crops,’ says Professor Parish. ‘Hybrid vigour is a way to increase yield in plants and in this world where we are running out of food very quickly, any way to increase production is important and hybrid vigour can increase production by up to 30 per cent,’ says Professor Parish. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Pencil vs Camera: Incredible piece of Art

Gender and Access to Clean Water

Access to clean water is a fundamental human right safeguarded by The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Access to clean water and sanitation is also part of The United Nations Millennium Development Goal nr 7. 

This video shows some of the water-related challenges that face women in Tanzania's financial capital Dar es Salaam. The video features interviews and information on United Nations' and Tanzanian water policies.

The video has been made by Robert Roy Hoffman Castaños in a collaboration between the United Nations Associations of Norway and Tanzania and FK-Norway.

Colombia: Wayuu Gold, Fighting for Access to Fresh Water

In some parts of the world it's as rare as gold — and getting a hold of some, nearly impossible. To one of Colombia's largest indigenous groups indigenous groups, Wayuu, that gold is fresh water. Soon their water will be siphoned from Wayuu lands through new pipes to a nearby town, where the population is not indigenous. As struggles for ethnic rights, such as access to water, are recreated across the country, the community deals with an additional strain on their resources — climate change. Due to a changing climate, water has become even scarcer, leaving the community without a wet season for up to two years at times — before they would at least get this yearly. This documentary tracks one extraordinary woman fighting for her community's very survival.

(Producer: UN Women, 21st Century; Year of Release: 2011)

The Virtual Nurse Will See You Now

A few pointers: A patient interacts with a virtual nurse.
Glenn Kulbako

BIOMEDICINE

The Virtual Nurse Will See You Now

In the hectic world of a hospital, a computer-simulated nurse can be surprisingly comforting.

• BY EMILY SINGER

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Researchers at Northeastern University have developed a virtual nurse and exercise coach that are surprisingly likable and effective—even if they're not quite as affable as the medical hologram on Star Trek. In fact, patients who interacted with a virtual nurse named Elizabeth said they preferred the computer simulation to an actual doctor or nurse because they didn't feel rushed or talked down to.

A recent clinical trial of the technology found that Elizabeth also appears to have a beneficial effect on care. A month after discharge, people who interacted with the virtual nurse were more likely to know their diagnosis and to make a follow-up appointment with their primary-care doctor. The results of the study are currently under review for publication.

"We try to present something that is not just an information exchange but is a social exchange," says Timothy Bickmore, associate professor in Northeastern's College of Computer and Information Science. Bickmore led the research. "It expresses empathy if the patient is having problems, and patients seem to resonate with that."

Bickmore first became interested in working on "virtual agents" after seeing demonstrations of very early interactive animated characters. "I was amazed at how people were instantly mesmerized by them, and how quickly this effect vanished when the characters did something stupid," he says. "I was interested in seeing how they could be engineered to maintain the enchantment over long periods of time and be used for practical purposes beyond entertainment."

He adds that patients with little or no computer experience seem to prefer the virtual person to more standard computer interactions, because it feels more natural.

"Most people get frightened when they hear they are going to get care from a computer, so to hear so clearly that we are not short-changing patients is gratifying," says Joseph Kvedar, a physician and founder and director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners Healthcare. Kvedar has collaborated with Bickmore in the past.

To develop the computer-controlled avatars, researchers first recorded interactions between patients and nurses. They then tried to emulate the nurses' nonverbal communication by endowing the virtual character with hand gestures and facial expressions. (The resulting animation is, however, much simpler than today's sophisticated video games.)

Researchers also add small talk, asking users about local sports teams and the weather, which real nurses and coaches often do to put patients at ease. The verbal interactions are fairly basic; the nurse or trainer has a set repertoire of questions, and users choose from a selection of possible answers. For anything beyond that repertoire, the virtual agent will refer the patient to a human health-care provider.

Adding these apparently simple touches of humanity does appear to influence how people interact with the program. Patients more accurately reported their health information when interacting with the virtual character than they were when filling out a standard electronic questionnaire.

"This was designed from the ground up to be patient-friendly, warm and engaging; it's not necessarily the most lifelike and real-human-looking representation, but through trial and error, they have found the characteristics that resonate with patients," says Steven Simon, chief of general internal medicine at the VA Boston Healthcare System. "I think they are just scratching the surface in terms of how it can best be used, such as in patients with chronic conditions, such as asthma and diabetes." 

Such technologies will become increasingly important with rising health-care costs and an aging population. "We already know we don't have enough health-care providers to go around, and it's only getting worse," says Kvedar. "About 60 percent of the cost of delivering health care comes from human resources, so even if you can train more people, it's not an ideal way to improve costs."

Kvedar worked with Bickmore on a second, home-based trial, in which a virtual coach called Karen encouraged overweight sedentary adults to exercise. Users checked in with Karen three times a week, and she gave them recommendations and listened to their problems. Over 12 weeks, those who talked to the coach were significantly more active than those who simply had an accelerometer to record how much they walked.

"Older adults seem to be really accepting. They like the social aspect of it," says Bickmore. "With the home-based agent, I think they would like to chat with them longer than we let them."

Some users wanted to know more about their virtual coaches, so Bickmore's team experimented with giving the characters a backstory. They found that participants whose virtual coach told them stories in the first person were more likely to log into the system than those who heard the same stories in the third person.

"They had more frequent conversations with the coach when it was being more human, and they did not report feeling more deceived," says Bickmore. He adds that when asked, participants do understand the character is virtual, but they say they sometimes forget. "They say they will feel guilty about not logging in, which means they have formed some kind of emotional bond."

But not everyone responded well to Karen. One of the challenges in broadening the use of this technology will be creating virtual characters that can learn from users and adapt to their preferences.

Bickmore's team is now working on a virtual nurse that would reside in the hospital room. Patients can talk to it about their hospital experience, report pain levels, and ask questions. The researchers are also integrating sensors into the system, to record when the patient is sleeping, for example, or to track when different doctors enter the room.

In a pilot study, patients had an average of 17 conversations with the nurse per day. "When we interviewed them afterward, we found that the agent seemed to be effective at addressing the loneliness you often feel if you're at the hospital by yourself," says Bickmore. 

Test Could Show Which Cancers Will Respond to Chemotherapy

Tumors closer to committing "cellular suicide" are more sensitive to conventional anticancer drugs.

• BY ERIKA JONIETZ

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A laboratory test that evaluates how close cancer cells are to a specific form of cell death could help oncologists predict which patients will benefit from chemotherapy drugs. Researchers tested samples from patients at several hospitals and showed that those whose cancer cells were on the edge of self-destructing responded better to various kinds of chemotherapy.

The test helps explain a long-standing puzzle in oncology. Cancer biology dogma holds that chemotherapy drugs target all rapidly dividing cells, leading to both tumor death and side effects such as hair loss and gastrointestinal distress. But some rapidly dividing tumors, such as pancreatic cancers, tend to be highly resistant to chemotherapy, while some slow-growing cancers, such as chronic myelogenous leukemia, respond well to the drugs.

The new research, led by Anthony Letai, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, suggests that regardless of how fast the tumor cells divide, the cancer's likelihood of responding to chemotherapy is correlated with, and perhaps determined by, whether they are approaching a type of cellular suicide known as apoptosis. Apoptosis is a natural process in multicellular organisms, but it is often disrupted in cancerous cells. The study was published online last week in Sciencexpress.

"This is a very important paper," says Peter Sorger, a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the research. He says identifying patients who might be responsive to chemotherapy is "the key issue in contemporary cancer pharmacology—individualizing treatments so specific drugs are given to patients likely to respond."

Letai and his colleagues tested samples from patients with four kinds of cancer: multiple myeloma, acute myelogenous leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, and ovarian cancer. The process involves taking live tumor cells and exposing them to proteins that promote apoptosis. In cells already on the edge of committing apoptosis, the membranes of energy-producing organelles called mitochondria break down and take up more of a fluorescent dye that the scientists used to monitor the process. This mitochondrial disintegration is one of the first steps in apoptosis. The researchers then followed the patients' response to chemotherapy and found that those whose cells took up the most dye had the best outcomes.

Though the test is more complicated than most cancer diagnostics because it involves handling live cells, Letai believes it could be a practical way to predict which cancer patients will respond to chemotherapy. "In the cancer biology world today, people are looking at genetic biomarkers almost exclusively for trying to understand the response to chemotherapy," he says. "Something like this, a more functional assay, comes out of left field."

Letai's lab is already testing whether the assay could be used in clinical cancer therapy, andEutropics Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which Letai cofounded, has licensed the technology. If clinical trials go well, Letai says, the test might be used for acute myelogenous leukemia in about five years. He hopes that ultimately it will be applicable to most kinds of cancer. Sorger calls the possibility "highly likely."

The researchers also investigated whether treating tumors to move their mitochondria closer to the threshold of apoptosis could boost the efficacy of conventional chemotherapy. They treated a myeloid leukemia cell line with an experimental drug, made by Abbott Labs, that mimics the apoptosis-promoting proteins used in their cell assay. The treated cells became more sensitive to three different chemotherapeutic agents. Abbott and Genentech are collaborating on clinical trials of a related drug, which can be taken orally, to see if it increases the effectiveness of various chemotherapy medicines used for both chronic lymphocytic leukemia and various solid tumors.

Highly Efficient Oxygen Catalyst Found: Rechargeable Batteries and Hydrogen-Fuel Production Could Benefit

Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Student Jin Suntivich (left) and Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Kevin J. May (right) inspecting the electrochemical cell for oxygen evolution reaction experiment. (Credit: Photo by Jonathon R. Harding)

Science Daily  — A team of researchers at MIT has found one of the most effective catalysts ever discovered for splitting oxygen atoms from water molecules -- a key reaction for advanced energy-storage systems, including electrolyzers, to produce hydrogen fuel and rechargeable batteries. This new catalyst liberates oxygen at more than 10 times the rate of the best previously known catalyst of its type.

The team, which includes materials science and engineering graduate student Jin Suntivich, mechanical engineering graduate student Kevin J. May and professor Yang Shao-Horn, published their results in Science on Oct. 28.The new compound, composed of cobalt, iron and oxygen with other metals, splits oxygen from water (called the Oxygen Evolution Reaction, or OER) at a rate at least an order of magnitude higher than the compound currently considered the gold standard for such reactions, the team says. The compound's high level of activity was predicted from a systematic experimental study that looked at the catalytic activity of 10 known compounds.

The scientists found that reactivity depended on a specific characteristic: the configuration of the outermost electron of transition metal ions. They were able to use this information to predict the high reactivity of the new compound -- which they then confirmed in lab tests.

"We not only identified a fundamental principle" that governs the OER activity of different compounds, "but also we actually found this new compound" based on that principle, says Shao-Horn, the Gail E. Kendall (1978) Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

Many other groups have been searching for more efficient catalysts to speed the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction is key to the production of hydrogen as a fuel to be used in cars; the operation of some rechargeable batteries, including zinc-air batteries; and to generate electricity in devices called fuel cells. Two catalysts are needed for such a reaction -- one that liberates the hydrogen atoms, and another for the oxygen atoms -- but the oxygen reaction has been the limiting factor in such systems.

Other groups, including one led by MIT's Daniel Nocera, have focused on similar catalysts that can operate -- in a so-called "artificial leaf" -- at low cost in ordinary water. But such reactions can occur with higher efficiency in alkaline solutions, which are required for the best previously known catalyst, iridium oxide, as well as for this new compound.

Shao-Horn and her collaborators are now working with Nocera, integrating their catalyst with his artificial leaf to produce a self-contained system to generate hydrogen and oxygen when placed in an alkaline solution. They will also be exploring different configurations of the catalyst material to better understand the mechanisms involved. Their initial tests used a powder form of the catalyst; now they plan to try thin films to better understand the reactions.

In addition, even though they have already found the highest rate of activity yet seen, they plan to continue searching for even more efficient catalyst materials. "It's our belief that there may be others with even higher activity," Shao-Horn says.

Jens Norskov, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University and director of the Suncat Center for Interface Science and Catalysis there, who was not involved in this work, says, "I find this an extremely interesting 'rational design' approach to finding new catalysts for a very important and demanding problem."

The research, which was done in collaboration with visiting professor Hubert A. Gasteiger (currently a professor at the Technische Universität München in Germany) and professor John B. Goodenough from the University of Texas at Austin, was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Hydrogen Initiative, the National Science Foundation, the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Chesonis Foundation.

Savannas and Forests in a Battle of the Biomes

Princeton researchers report that savanna wildfires — such as this one in South Africa — maintain the balance between forest and savanna, but that these blazes may be susceptible to human activity. The border between the habitats could degenerate into patches of encroachment in some areas. The researchers suggest forests that experience less rainfall due to climate change could become more prone to land-clearing fires. At the same time, the breakup of the savanna through land use, fire-prevention measures and road construction could disrupt the natural path of fires, presenting an opportunity for forests to take root. (Credit: Carla Staver)

Science Daily — Climate change, land use and other human-driven factors could pit savannas and forests against each other by altering the elements found by Princeton University researchers to stabilize the two. Without this harmony, the habitats, or biomes, could increasingly encroach on one other to the detriment of the people and animals that rely on them.

The Princeton researchers reported this month in the journal Science that savanna wildfires, combined with climate conditions, maintain the distinct border between savannas and forests in many tropical and subtropical areas. Savanna fires keep tree cover low and prevent forests from encroaching on the grassland. When tree cover is high, as in a forest, fires cannot spread as easily, halting the savanna's advance into the forest.

But the Princeton team's findings suggest that savanna wildfires could be heavily influenced by factors such as climate change, road construction and fire-prevention measures. Less rainfall can result in an uptick in fires that can transform a forest into a savanna, just as breaking up the landscape through road construction and fire control disrupt natural blazes and allow a forest to sprout where there once was a savanna.

The researchers suggest that because of these factors, large stretches of South American and African forest and savanna could degenerate into chaotic mutual encroachment. The changeover from one biome to the other -- which can happen within several decades -- can be extremely difficult to reverse once it has happened, explained lead author Carla Staver, a doctoral student in the laboratory of co-author Simon Levin, the Moffett Professor of Biology in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Environmental Biology. She and Levin worked with co-author Sally Archibald, a senior research scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa.

Plants and animals that thrive in a forest or savanna often cannot transition from one habitat to the other, Staver said. The Science paper illustrates that the loss of savanna to forest is just as ecologically traumatic -- though less well known -- as deforestation, she said.

"Savanna and forest are definitely not locally compatible," she said. "There is a risk of losing plants and animals endemic to one or the other, which would affect the people who depend on those species.

"Savannas, for instance, are useful to people as cattle rangeland," she said. "When forests encroach, the grass productivity decreases dramatically and the land becomes much less useful. In terms of livelihood, that would have a huge impact."

The team's work provides among the first experimental evidence that fire feedback -- the ecological effect of fires -- is the dominant force in maintaining the division between forests and savannas, and that it can determine where the habitats flourish. The researchers used satellite data of fire distributions -- combined with climate and soil data, as well as satellite data of tree cover -- to survey the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Australia and South America.

The researchers found that the frequency of fires determines whether forest or savanna will dominate an area more than other factors such as rainfall, seasons and soil texture, especially in areas with moderate precipitation. Regular fires prevent trees from establishing and savannas from turning into forest. A lack of fires allows a forest to develop, which in turn excludes future fires.

Human alterations to the climate and landscape, however, may disrupt the natural spread of fire in many areas and lead to very rapid changes in biome distribution, the Princeton researchers suggest. Direct actions such as building roads and deploying methods such as controlled burning that prevent the natural spread of wildfires could break up savannas, altering wildfires and allowing forests to take root. At the same time, drier conditions -- particularly in areas now experiencing diminished monsoons -- rob forests of their primary safeguard against fire, rain.

Under these circumstances, a forest can overtake a savanna, or vice versa, in a matter of decades, and a return to the original terrain would prove exceedingly difficult, even if the original climate conditions return, Staver said.

"If a savanna were to turn into a forest, for instance, that change would be quite sudden, much quicker than we might expect, and it would be hard to reverse," Staver said. "You'd cross a threshold where fire cannot spread anymore. Conversely, if a forest dried out and fire started to spread, it could turn into a savanna, maintained by fire. The magnitude of change needed to return a biome to its original state would be much more than it needed to change in the first place."

The Princeton research could be significant in determining the "future trajectory" of global forest cover, and also illustrates the natural obstacles to restoring cleared forests, said Brian Walker, who studies ecological sustainability and resilience as a research fellow at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia.

"Savanna systems are very resilient across a range of climatic and herbivore variation, in regard to fire. Forest systems are less so, except under very high rainfall where fire cannot be regular," said Walker, who had no role in the Princeton research but is familiar with it.

"In the case of rainforests, once they are in a state where fire can play a role and therefore keep the system in a savanna state, it is extremely difficult to prevent fires from recurring, and so the chances of a savanna state getting back to rainforest are small. In the original forest state, the amount of dry fuel in the ground layer is insufficient for fire to take hold and 'run.'"

In a broader sense, the Princeton findings stress that encroachment is not a threat unique to forests, Staver said.

"There's a sense among savanna ecologists that the loss of savanna is considered secondary to deforestation as a conservation concern, but it really shouldn't be. The loss of functionality and diversity in the savanna is just as important as in forests.

"At the moment, we can't say that one is winning out over the other," Staver said. "We can come up with examples where savannas are encroaching into forests and forests are encroaching into savannas. Both are happening extensively, and both are really huge issues that are likely to become even more important."

This research, reported Oct. 13 in the journal Science, was supported with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

World's Most Efficient Flexible Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Created On Plastic

Wang and Helander were able to re-construct the high-refractive index property previously limited to heavy metal-doped glass by using a 50-100 nanometre thick layer of tantalum(V) oxide (Ta₂O₅), an advanced optical thin-film coating material. This advanced coating technique, when applied on flexible plastic, allowed the team to build the highest-efficiency OLED device ever reported with a glass-free design. (Credit: © University of Toronto)

Science Daily — Researchers in the University of Toronto's Department of Materials Science & Engineering have developed the world's most efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) on plastic. This result enables a flexible form factor, not to mention a less costly, alternative to traditional OLED manufacturing, which currently relies on rigid glass.

The results are reported online in the latest issue of Nature Photonics.

OLEDs provide high-contrast and low-energy displays that are rapidly becoming the dominant technology for advanced electronic screens. They are already used in some cell phone and other smaller-scale applications.

Current state-of-the-art OLEDs are produced using heavy-metal doped glass in order to achieve high efficiency and brightness, which makes them expensive to manufacture, heavy, rigid and fragile.

"For years, the biggest excitement behind OLED technologies has been the potential to effectively produce them on flexible plastic," says Materials Science & Engineering Professor Zheng-Hong Lu, the Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Organic Optoelectronics.

Using plastic can substantially reduce the cost of production, while providing designers with a more durable and flexible material to use in their products.

The research, which was supervised by Professor Lu and led by PhD Candidates Zhibin Wang and Michael G. Helander, demonstrated the first high-efficiency OLED on plastic. The performance of their device is comparable with the best glass-based OLEDs, while providing the benefits offered by using plastic.

"This discovery, unlocks the full potential of OLEDs, leading the way to energy-efficient, flexible and impact-resistant displays," says Professor Lu.

Live Longer With Fewer Calories? Key Enzyme Involved in Aging Process Found

Yeast. (Credit: Mikael Molin)

Science Daily  — By consuming fewer calories, aging can be slowed down and the development of age-related diseases such as cancer and type 2 diabetes can be delayed. The earlier calorie intake is reduced, the greater the effect. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have now identified one of the enzymes that hold the key to the aging process.

By gradually reducing the intake of sugar and proteins, without reducing vitamins and minerals, researchers have previously shown that monkeys can live several years longer than expected. The method has also been tested on everything from fishes and rats to fungi, flies and yeasts with favourable results. Caloric restriction also has favourable effects on our health and delays the development of age-related diseases. Despite this, researchers in the field have found it difficult to explain exactly how caloric restriction produces these favourable effects."We are able to show that caloric restriction slows down aging by preventing an enzyme, peroxiredoxin, from being inactivated. This enzyme is also extremely important in counteracting damage to our genetic material," says Mikael Molin of the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology.

Using yeast cells as a model, the research team at the University of Gothenburg has successfully identified one of the enzymes required. They are able to show that active peroxiredoxin 1, Prx1, an enzyme that breaks down harmful hydrogen peroxide in the cells, is required for caloric restriction to work effectively.

The results, which have been published in the journal Molecular Cell, show that Prx1 is damaged during aging and loses its activity. Caloric restriction counteracts this by increasing the production of another enzyme, Srx1, which repairs Prx1. Interestingly, the study also shows that aging can be delayed without caloric restriction by only increasing the quantity of Srx1 in the cell. Repair of the peroxiredoxin Prx1 consequently emerges as a key process in aging.

"Impaired Prx1 function leads to various types of genetic defects and cancer. Conversely, we can now speculate whether increased repair of Prx1 during aging can counteract, or at least delay, the development of cancer."

Peroxiredoxins have also been shown to be capable of preventing proteins from being damaged and aggregating, a process that has been linked to several age-related disorders affecting the nervous system, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The researchers are accordingly also considering whether stimulation of Prx1 can reduce and delay such disease processes.

A Short Neurological Test

Find the C below.. Please do not use any cursor help. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 2- If you already found the C, now find the 6 below. 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 69999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 3 - Now find the N below. It's a little more difficult. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM This is NOT a joke. If you were able to pass these 3 tests, you can cancel your annual visit to your neurologist. Your brain is great and you're far from having a close relationship with Alzheimer.

At 7 billion, realizing the economic benefits of family planning

 BY CRISTIAN BAEZA 

With the 7 billionth baby joining the planet, many of us are rightly concerned about the challenges posed by a growing population and its impact on health care, climate change, food security, jobs, and poverty.

Here at the World Bank, we’ve been talking recently about the critical link between population change and economic growth. In some countries, where falling fertility rates have led to expanding working-adult populations and a smaller proportion of dependent children, the economic and social impact has been transformative.

For example, Thailand’s Minister of Finance said at a Bank panel last month that after his country introduced a national family planning policy in the 1960s, more women had the time and opportunity to access education, and take jobs in manufacturing and services. This shift was matched by greater government investment in health, education, gender equality, and skills training for women and the growing young population, together with reforms improving the country investment climate, all resulting in a generation of healthier, more educated and more productive citizens.

As a result, people’s opportunities and quality of life improved. This way, Thailand put in place long-term policies to ensure economic benefit from its demographic transition—it harnessed the “demographic dividend.”

But Thailand isn’t alone. Other countries, such as Indonesia and South Korea, have followed similar paths.

Governments have found that, the more rapid the pace of fertility decline, the more favorable the ratio of young dependents to productive workers to potentially realize the dividend. But there is a short window of opportunity during which fertility and dependency ratios fall to invest in education and health care, and to create job opportunities to benefit from the demographic transition.

Failure to address high fertility with large and growing population cohorts results in unsustainable health care and schooling costs and lags in economic growth, and may increase the risk of social and political unrest. But, addressing high fertility is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to harness the demographic dividend.

To do so, countries also need to invest in new generations and create an environment conducive to good jobs.

Greater investment and policy efforts to reduce the barriers to family planning and reproductive health services (including availability of contraceptives and services, as well as empowering women to access them) is essential if the demographic dividend is to materialize at all. This is a priority for the Bank in our Reproductive Health Action Plan.

So let’s treat this milestone as an opportunity.  In a world of 7 billion, if we empower women to plan for their families, if we invest wisely in women’s and children’s health and education, if we create the conditions for good jobs, the demographic dividend is there for the taking.