Cover Story Pfizer goes to India - Penn Engineeringtriangle/issues/spring07.pdf · 2007-04-17 · number generator has brought about the unbelievable possibilities that human minds

�e Most Commonly Used Drug…Sold Right Here At Penn

By Leonardo Guercio p10

Where are the magic pills?By Valeria Montero Garnier p7

Solar Space PowerBy David Huang p15

THE PENNSYLVANIA TRIANGLEA PUBLICATION OF THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - ESTABLISHED 1899

Spring 2007 Volume 92, Issue 2

By Bharat Moudgil p12

Western Drug Companies Enter�e Global South

Cover Story

Pfizer goesto India

Apex

Michael Young is a junior studying physics and materials science. He is the editor-in-chief of the Triangle.

editor’s desk

A business opportunity shines

wherever there is an unfilled need.

Well, the Economist reports that only

3% of the research and development

expenditure of the pharmaceutical

industry is directed towards “tropical

diseases” while the rest goes towards

treating diseases of the rich.

Who then is filling that gap between

bench science, poor countries, and the

marketplace?

Previously we at the Penn Triangle

featured the One Laptop Per Child

project as an example of how radically

re-engineering and re-pricing existing

technologies can have social change-

inducing potential in new markets.

This issue’s cover story, Pfizer in India,

is a feature comparable in scope and

gravity.

The driving question in this issue

that we present is how can exorbitantly

priced American drugs ultimately go

to reach the poor. The large price tag

on brand-name drugs reflects the high

underlying costs of research, clinical

trials, regulation, intellectual property

protection, and marketing. If the

production of a generic drug takes

place in a developing country, then

even more factors account for the

price differentials, including wages,

production efficiency, opportunity

costs, as well as economic comparative

advantage from international trade. But

if the principle of diminishing marginal

returns to capital serves as any guide

for us, American drug companies can

benefit immensely from moving into

developing nations.

Big pharma is flocking to India to

test American drugs for the lower costs,

technological prowess, and English-

speaking business culture. Another

important reason is that Indians are

also technically classified as Caucasian

anthropologically speaking, so American

companies can carry out clinical

drug tests in India and use the same

racially-based data for Americans. This

movement has inevitably cast questions

about the new social responsibilities and

economics of outsourcing clinical trials

to the third world.

The proliferation of generic drugs

and knockoffs in developing nations

is merely a symptom of the more

chronic conditions in the economic

landscape. It reflects upon the lack

technical expertise, financial resources,

and industrial infrastructure that

researchers abroad enjoy. Underground

drug pirating, cutthroat generic brand

competition, and failed enforcement of

international intellectual property rights

add to the intricate socioeconomic

forces at play. These problems call

for reform in international patent law

and business models. We—budding

engineers, financiers, and policy-

makers—in the developed world stand

at these crossroads, which Triangle

would like to call “econoethics”.

At the same time, American

companies are importing business

methods into India. The “western

recognition of protocol to the Indian

workplace” in Moudgil’s words is

a valuable asset to Indian business.

Analyzing Pfizer’s conduct in India

gives us a starting point to witness the

exciting transformation in the way we

do business, develop technology, and

reach out to the global community.

An exemplary model provided for

us already is OneWorld Health, the first

non-profit pharmaceutical company

in America. The company identifies

“orphan” drugs, drugs that are dropped

from pharmaceutical development for

lack of funding, and develops them

for consumers in emerging countries.

OneWorld has attracted venture

financing as well as intellectual property

donations from companies, academia,

and foundations ranging from Pfizer

to Yale to the Gates Foundation. A

warning though that unlike stories in

more popular magazines the work we

talk about here isn’t sexy or glamorous—

diarrhea kills more children a day

than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria

combined.

So, whether you’re pre-med,

business, engineering, or just want to

learn more about health and technology

in other parts of the world, we hope that

this issue’s Triangle will help you look at

current issues in a new light.

By Michae l YoungThe Impact of Technology in Developing Countries

Pennsylvania Triangle www.penntriangle.com Spring 20072

Penn Triangle: Spring 2007contentsAbout the PennsylvAniA triAngle

Editor-in-Chief: Michael YoungPresident: Steve HershmanExecutive Editor: Tushar KhannaFaculty Advisor: Dr. Noam Lior

Editing Manager: Rachel OmanskyCopy Editors: Steve Hershman, Shawn Dimantha, David Huang, Jan-ice Gunther, Karishma Mehta, Bharat MoudgilProduction & Graphics: Greg Capobi-anco, David Huang, Aiwen Xu, Tushar Khanna, Michael Young, Karishma Mehta, Rachel OmanskyCover Design: Rashmi Pujari

Webmaster: Steve HershmanBusiness Manager: Shawn DimanthaPublic Relations: Sundar Balu

All material within this publication is copyright 2006 the Pennsylvania Triangle, unless otherwise stated. The Triangle is published twice annually by students at the University of Pennsylvania, and is funded in part by the Student Activi-ties Council.

The opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the administration, faculty, or the student body of the University of Pennsylvania.

Contact Information:322 Towne Bldg, 220 South 33rd StPhiladelphia, PA 19104E-mail: [email protected]

Interested In contrIbutIng?

The Triangle encourages submissions of articles or photos from students and faculty alike. Just visit us on the web at www.penntriangle.com.

edItor’s desk: APeX The Impact of technology in Developing Countries Michael Young

2

cover story: PFIZer In IndIA: Westerndrug coMPAnIes enter tHe gLobAL soutHExamining the effects of western pharmaceutical corporations on the scientificand cultural communities in India. Bharat Moudgil

12

conscIousness: WAcky scIenceOur field of global conscious may in fact be able to prevent terroristattacks and lessen the effects of natural disasters worldwide. Aiwen Xu

4

revIeW: JAred dIAMond’s coLLAPse Review of the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond about the environmental forces of social change Chenghong Huang

17

MedIcIne: tHe Most coMMonLy used drugCaffeine, the most commonly used psychoactive substance in the world,has both benefits and dangers. Leonardo Guercio

10

HuMAn deveLoPMent: WHere Are tHe MAgIc PILLs?How technology for sustainable development depends on socialintegration. Valeria Montero Garnier

7

energy: soLAr sPAce PoWerSpace-based power generation may be the solutionto the world’s growing energy needs. David Huang

15

Pennsylvania Triangle www.penntriangle.com Spring 2007 �

tAngents: PreJudIce FroM tHe unconscIous MIndAre perceptions and judgments of other human beings controlled by factors of the unconscious mind? Tushar Khanna

29

Wacky Science

Exploration looks for more than typical research journal articles which, although relevant, add little to the large body of extant knowledge in general science fields like biology and chemistry. The SSE journal is more interested in somewhat wacky and offbeat theories that the general population usually sees only on television shows such as The X-Files.

At the 24th annual meeting held in May 2005 in Florida, learned talks on consciousness physics, astrology and parapsychology were presented. Surprisingly, although open-minded, these scientists are not completely “off their rocker” or gullible. They do show skepticism and draw a line between what is believable and what is complete absurdity. Some participants are, in fact, from well-known universities such as Princeton, Virginia Tech or the University of Colorado and have spent most of their

consciousness

Science has, stereotypically, always been a structured and empirical subject filled with rigid

facts. However, there is another side of science and research that is equally important, though perhaps not so immediately obvious. If you have ever planned an experiment or read about breakthroughs in science and engineering, it becomes clear that much of our scientific progress feeds off of our human curiosity, creativity and imagination. And not only does science have spunk, it can also be unbelievably controversial at times, bringing in all sorts of ethical debates. Take, for instance, Darwin’s theory of evolution or an old favorite—Ptolemy’s declaration that the

earth was spherical; both caused great anxiety and paradigm shifts among not only the scientific community, but also among everyday citizens. Although almost fantastical and entirely against the thoughts of their time, these cutting-edge discoveries turned out to be legitimate theories which changed our perspective of the world for the better.

Creative theories that are perceived as impossibilities are still in the making today. This is where the Society of Scientific Exploration (SSE) enters the picture. It is the perfect platform for all those “crazy” and “mad” scientists

out there: think psychic abilities and supernormal faculties or a scientist taking thousands of digital pictures just to see if UFOs do appear in photographs. Essentially, the SSE is a support

organization that publishes a journal, the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and holds annual conferences in the US and Europe for such researchers to present their otherwise hard-to-support research. Founded by fourteen scientists in 1982, the organization boasts 800 members in 45 countries worldwide today. Unlike the prestigious, yet generic, journals such as Science or Nature, the Journal of Scientific

Human Consciousness and its Potential to Predict the FutureBy Aiwen Xu


They are just more interested in all those somewhat wacky theories that the general population usually only sees on shows like The X-Files.

lives successfully conducting “normal” research. Their academic background, however, doesn’t stop them from trying to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster or arguing that close encounters with Venus may have triggered the miracles of the Old Testament.

But how legitimate are these research results? And what methods are used to research these “weird” topics? One topic of research that really grabbed my attention was that of Dr. Roger Nelson of Princeton University’s Global Consciousness Project. A project that started out as a simple probability experiment with a random number generator has brought about the unbelievable possibilities that human minds may actually be able to remember not only the past, but the future as well. “Remember the future” sounds like an oxymoron, right? Let’s start from the beginning.

The theory begins with a simple small black box called a Random Event Generator (REG). It is about the size of two cigarette cartons with a microchip no more complicated than that of a normal pocket calculator. Not only does it look unremarkable, it also does nothing more than randomly generate, like an electronic coin flipper, streams of numbers containing zeros and ones depending on the completely random and unpredictable static noise it picks up from its surroundings. And, as normal probability would dictate, this machine generates equal numbers of ones and zeros. This is usually confirmed by graphing the results, which produce a

straight line; any variation from equal numbers of ones and zeros would appear as a bump in this straight line. However, in the 1970s, Professor Robert Jahn of Princeton University, who believed in paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and telekinesis, set out to use the REG to investigate the effects of human thoughts on this number generator.

He took this machine outside and asked passersby to concentrate on the

machine, effectively forcing it to become biased and flip more of one number than the other. And it worked! Over and over again, perfectly ordinary people were able to affect the results of the usually unbiased REG. This phenomenon was unexplainable by the laws of science and math and yet the experimental results were replicated many times over. Soon these stunning results attracted another professor of Princeton, Dr. Roger Nelson; he took the experiment a step further and brought the REG to group meditation

sessions. Once more, the patterns of numbers generated by the REG shifted significantly.

So stunning were the results that Dr. Nelson quickly connected 40 REGs from all over the world to his laboratory computer and began generating millions of streams of data day in and day out. For a long time, the collected results remained a straight line, but on September 6, 1997, something astonishing happened: the

graphs from all over the world spiked upwards due to a sudden, substantial change in the generated number pattern. But along with what was happening on REGs all over the world, this day was important for another, quite different, reason. An estimated one billion people worldwide were grieving while watching Princess Diana’s funeral broadcast live on their television screens.

Had the concentration of very strong human emotions and conscience of the world been able to shift the REG

Pennsylvania Triangle www.penntriangle.com Spring 2007 5

REG’s have been “aware” of events ranging from the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia to the 2000 hung elections in the US

Data from random event generators across the world form a “Tapestry in EGG time”

output? Despite not being able to really explain it, Dr. Nelson was convinced that these two events were somehow linked. In 1998, therefore, he gathered scientists from different establishments and regions of the world to try to explain this unbelievable mystery. Thus the Global Consciousness Project was founded.

At present, the project has made substantial progress and even greater discoveries. Now there are a total of 65 “Eggs,” as these REGs have been renamed, in 41 different countries and, together, they were all “aware” of events

ranging from the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia to the 2000 hung elections in the US. Moreover, they are also able to detect typical annual world events, such New Year’s, where we feel greater emotions of optimism and happiness. But to this day, the strangest and most fascinating of all findings has been that of the day of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Not only were the Eggs able to sense the attacks as they took place, but there was also a huge shift in number patterns four hours before the events even took place—before the terrorists even boarded the planes. This was a huge step in the Global Consciousness Project because not only had the Eggs sensed our human reactions, it had sensed them before an event, indicating that maybe we as humans had sensed what was about to occur. However, many skeptics question this theory saying that it was just a coincidence that these Eggs registered an event of such historical importance. If so, then why did the Eggs register another major shift in the last two weeks of December 2004, 24 hours before a tsunami hit South-East Asia and as a result, took the lives of a quarter of a million people? Was

that also just a coincidence? Logically, the chances of the Eggs sensing something at a particular moment in time and not sensing anything are the same: one to a million. Therefore, is the fact that they did significant?

Have scientists unknowingly found a machine to predict major world events of the future? It started out as simply machines sensing human thoughts and therefore showing bias in their random number generation but now it has become much greater and the spotlight is on us humans. Are we able to predict the future

in our subconscious and externalize it with the help of REGs? According to Dr. Nelson, this experiment is only the very beginning of the first investigation into an extraordinary

subject hardly yet researched: the paranormal. Today, 75 different scientists in 41 countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain have all come together in hopes of tapping into a collective human subconscious, wondering just how great is the potential of the human mind.

Scientific Research Already Conducted

There is much evidence in the world that our thoughts, on some level, do affect our actions and therefore the outcomes of the events of the world. Think of prayer, for example, or even our stubborn desire to gamble against odds with money, love or our lives. Descartes suggested that the mind is the only thing that can experience truth—a raw emotion without any filters. However, our minds are isolated from the world such that, in order to communicate the truth that we feel, we have to use signs, language and movement, therefore revealing filters of interpretation. Certainly we can think that a painting or piece of music can evoke the same truth or emotion in two different people, but this idea can never be proven or tested because once it is brought out of


It is in fact possible that time may flow both forward and backward like tides and if time does ebb in this way, then we could possibly be remembering future world events

our minds, it is distorted. However, what if our subconscious or conscious could create a field much like a magnetic field and could therefore influence the world in ways such as the number generation of the Eggs?

According to Professor Chris French of Goldsmith College in London, there is nothing in physics against seeing into the future. It is in fact possible that time may flow both forwards and backwards like tides and, if time does ebb in this way, then we could possibly remember future world events. We just have to tap into that part of our minds, which is precisely what the Eggs have been up to.

In the mid 1970s, Dr. John Hartwell of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands found data in support of humans looking into the future. He scanned people’s brainwave patterns as he showed them provocative pictures. His amazing finding was that at each trial, the subject’s brain showed great activity a few seconds before the picture was shown. At the time, this phenomenon was seemingly inexplicable. Fifteen years later in the US, researcher Dean Radin started testing the skin resistance, which varies with moods such as surprise and shock, of subjects as he too showed them provocative pictures. Again, their resistance fluctuated a few seconds before the pictures were actually shown. Although at first unbelievable, these results were maintained with every replication of the experiment.

Are we finally tapping into our psychic abilities? Sure, it would aid us in world security in terms of catastrophic events to come, but, more importantly for the human race, have we found our global consciousness? Maybe we are connected far more deeply than we could ever imagine.

Aiwen Xu is a sophomore in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences studying Bioengineering

lmost a decade ago we survived Y2K, and today our ambitious dreams have yet to find a limit. But where are the flying cars that science

fiction predicted would fill the skies? Where are the magical pills that would instantly cure any disease? At the very least, our brightest scientists in the new millennium surely would have found a way to cure the perpetual curses of pollution, famine and poverty. Perhaps (although many people are still unaware) we have created solutions to our greatest problems. The technology needed to alleviate poverty as well as the knowledge necessary to eradicate famine is already available. In practice, however, society still needs to gather the courage to swallow the pill.

While the higher costs of biodegradable plastics and green energy sources may prevent their worldwide production, technological breakthroughs have crafted affordable solutions to other urgent challenges. The effectiveness of these developments highly depends on how successfully corporations and governments integrate them into society.

The Magic Pills for Safe H2O Regardless of whether you volunteer to build schools in desperate regions or preach religion in war-torn villages, your aid can only have an impact once people stop struggling to live until the next sunrise. The most crucial requirement for survival, naturally preceding any other needs, is access to clean, disease-free water. Engineers have already excelled at inventing both reliable and low-cost solutions to release the poor from the chains of unsafe water; the rest depends on how effectively we

overcome the challenges embedded in society to implement them:

1. Biosand Filter (Cost: $50 per station)The Biosand Filter is used as a station where residents can fill their bottles. Once installed, the cost of a gallon

comes down to only one penny. The available water is first poured at the top of the three-foot device and then passes through a sand filter. In the first layer of sand, a biofilm called ‘schmutzdecke’ contains “good” microorganisms such as algae and protozoa which thrive

Where are the Magic Pills?How technology for sustainable development depends on social integration

By Valeria Montero Garnier

human development

A


on the “bad” bacteria in the water. Throughout the sand journey, harmful pathogens are destroyed by the hostile environment and the lack of food.

2. Lifestraw (Cost: $3 per straw)All you need to drink safe water is a small plastic pipe with seven layers of filters, the Lifestraw. You can hang it around your neck and never worry about needing an electricity source or replacing spare parts. Vestergaard Frandsen, a company which also sells mosquito bed nets, ‘imagineered’ the LifeStraw with the patented PuroTech Disinfecting Resin, which instantly kills bacteria. The 25 cm long tube with a 29 mm diameter can purify up to 700 liters of water, the equivalent of a year’s water consumption for an individual. However, if the device is used on saline water, the lifetime of the straw is slashed in half. Unfortunately, heavy metals are not filtered and viruses are more likely to pass through layers with holes as small as 6 microns in diameter.

3. PuR (Purifier of Water)“A mini water treatment plant in a sachet”

Sachet to filter 10 liters:Production Cost: $0.1Selling Cost: $0.03Emergency Relief: $0 Donated

If you hiked though the woods, or traveled through a rainforest to help villages, wouldn’t you wish that you would not have to carry water, the heaviest supply in your backpack? Proctor and Gamble’s scientists Philip Souter and Colin Ure earned the 2006 National Inventor of the Year award for creating PuR, a seemingly magic (and inexpensive) powder that filters water. First, a sachet of powder is stirred into 10 liters of water. Pathogens are eliminated while heavy metals and other impurities coagulate and precipitate to the bottom. After stirring for five minutes, the clear water is filtered through a cloth and rests for 20 more minutes to allow the

disinfectants time to react. And voilà! Your water is safe.

With so many viable solutions, why can’t more than one billion people find safe water to drink? Worse, the increasing overpopulation in developing nations reduces the water supply even more. P&G’s PuR resembles the magic pill; the technology captures the potential needed to solve the problem on a magnified scale. However, a pill will never work unless people first become aware of their needs.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Understanding Incentives

How do you teach millions of poor people in remote areas that the source of their miseries lies in the seemingly clear water they survive on? Despite the overwhelming obstacles, there is still hope. In his book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C. K. Prahalad analyzes Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), which has persuaded thousands in India to wash their hands. In addition to heavily



Valeria Montero Garnier is a sophomorestudying finance.

investing in reliable distribution systems, they have focused on strategies to change people’s behaviors. One of their most effective approaches consists of visiting schools to teach about bacteria with ultra-violet wands. The children, amazed to see previously invisible bacteria, then teach their families the importance of washing their hands.

In many cases, the greater needs of the poor have pushed technology to its limits. Prahalad also describes Aravind Eye Care System and Jaipur Foot, two companies which deliver the highest

quality health care solutions to the poorest people without relying heavily on philanthropy. Surgeons at Aravind Eye Care System quickly gain expertise by performing over 50 surgeries per day, of which two-thirds are free of charge. Similarly, Jaipur Foot offers prosthetic legs to the poor, which outperform most models in rich countries. Amputees in India often need to work barefoot in harsh environments. Their urgent needs inspired the development of this lighter, more mobile, and more resistant to wear-and-tear prosthetic. In addition, the Jaipur Foot only costs $30, while less functional counterparts cost several thousands of dollars.

Ideally, companies should genuinely strive to make a difference in people’s lives. In reality, however, solidarity in the capitalist world requires incentives. Proctor and Gamble’s generous commitment to providing safe drinking water in Africa has already impacted thousands of lives with PuR, although their incentives are not analogous to the traditional philanthropic mindset:

“We’re going into some of these countries where P&G has no presence. And maybe it’s 50 years from now when we have

business in Haiti, but someday, we’ll want to. What better way to learn the distribution infrastructures and government relationships than coming in with a product that’s saving lives?”Greg Allgood Director of P&G’s Children’s Safe-Drinking Water Project

Technology will only truly become available in mass to the poor through an effective business model similar to HLL’s strategy. Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, recently won the

2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his innovative strategies in microfinance – an incentive-harnessing model with the potential to offer access to life-changing products, whether they are soap, PuR, or credit to buy a truck for the village.

Democracy as FreedomSo how important is the role of

technology in alleviating poverty? Even though we can mass produce food and genetically alter it for nourishment, such technology has not really helped to eradicate hunger – and it won’t. Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, gathered counterintuitive statistics demonstrating that famines are not correlated to food shortages, but rather to governmental systems. In democracies, the communication of the free press, the voice (and more importantly, the votes) of the population, as well as the threat of competing political parties, together pressure the government to focus towards people’s greatest needs. Sen also found curious evidence showing that during the decades of both world wars, the life expectancy in England and Wales sharply increased! Even though thousands died and food supply was scarce, technology was not necessarily the main source of the general well-being (although it was the source of greater firepower). Instead, the development came from the social sharing programs that the British government

fostered. Therefore, before technology can make a difference in people’s lives, society needs transparent and stable political systems capable of successfully implementing the technologies.

Consider the government’s influence on a simple technology needed to prevent malaria: mosquito nets. As international aid focused donations towards dramatically reducing malaria, African governments imposed higher tariffs on anti-malaria products to increase their tax revenues. Only after strong international pressure, the leaders of 26 African countries finally agreed to reduce taxes in the Abuja Declaration of 2000. Even so, two years later many politicians had still not taken active steps to change their policies.

The twenty-first century has long since arrived, and with it came amazing inventions that have exceeded our wildest dreams. The only missing puzzle piece is the willingness of societies to experiment applying technologies to cure our diseases. Now more than ever, we need our governments to rapidly learn from each other’s successes and guide companies towards socially responsible ventures. Above all, technology integration depends on individuals, people just like you and me. We can dream of a better world, imagine

amazing technologies, and lead our lives with the will to change. To achieve our global development, we must focus on embedding solidarity in our educational systems. Only until social conscience is adopted throughout the world will humanity finally digest the magical pills of technology.

Engineers have already excelled at inventing both reliable and low cost solutions to release the poor from the chains of unsafe water; the rest depends on how effectively we overcome the challenges embedded in society to implement them

Therefore, before technology can make a difference in people’s lives, society needs transparent and stable political systems capable of successfully implementing the technologies.

medicine

The Most Commonly Used DrugSold Right Here at PennBy Leonardo Guercio

he most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world today is not nicotine or alcohol, but caffeine. This should come as no surprise

to Penn students when they consider how many coffeehouses are on Penn’s campus alone: roughly one coffeehouse per block. Coffee is by far the most popular drink in the world, with over 400 billion cups being consumed annually and global retail sales at about $70 billion.

Many students at Penn need caffeine in order to face the long day ahead of them, and most of them get it in some form of coffee. Michelle Ablamsky, a senior economics major says that “some mornings when I don’t hit up Wawa for my coffee, I’ll just go back home and pass out.” Benjamin Himes, a junior biology major, needs heavy doses of caffeine to keep him

functioning throughout the day and into the night. “It’s my crack,” he says. In essence, caffeine is a drug.

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant that can cause alertness and ward off drowsiness. Caffeine works via two different pathways. First, caffeine acts as an antagonist to adenosine, a sleep-promoting neuromodulator that is found at synapses throughout the brain. Adenosine inhibits the release of several molecules that are more active in the brain during waking hours. The caffeine molecule is similar in structure to the adenosine molecule. It can therefore bind to adenosine receptors without activating them. Due to the decrease in adenosine receptor activation, there is an increase in dopamine and cholinergic activity, both of which have stimulatory properties. Caffeine can also increase serotonin levels, which can heighten one’s mood.

Secondly, caffeine blocks phosphodiesterase (PDE) from converting cyclic AMP (cAMP) to AMP, resulting in cAMP buildup in body cells. The buildup of cAMP in body cells allows the effects of epinephrine and dopamine to persist for long periods of time because cAMP participates in the cascade produced by cells in response to epinephrine. Therefore, because caffeine blocks the removal of epinephrine and dopamine, it intensifies and prolongs their effects. Also, an increase of cAMP in the parietal cells of the stomach epithelium causes an increased activation of protein kinase A (PKA), which ultimately results in higher levels of gastric acid secretion in the stomach.

Development of a tolerance to caffeine has two main effects on an individual. First, because caffeine decreases adenosine sensitivity, the

T


number of adenosine receptors in the brain will increase, making the body much more sensitive to adenosine. This sensitivity will lead to a decrease in the stimulatory effects of caffeine. Second, because the body is much more sensitive to adenosine, if the person reduces his or her caffeine intake, it will lead to increased effects of adenosine binding, leading to withdrawal symptoms. If a person has an extremely high caffeine intake over long periods of time, he or she may develop what is known as caffeinism, a condition that is marked by physical and mental addiction to caffeine. The most common withdrawal symptoms of caffeine are headaches, fatigue, weakness, drowsiness, impaired concentration, anxiety, irritability, and increased muscle tension. Withdrawal symptoms usually persist until adenosine receptor levels in the brain return to a normal state.

Caffeine, although considerably less harmful, can be abused in the same manner as illegal drugs. An acute immediate overdose of caffeine, greater than 250mg (roughly the equivalent of

3 cups of coffee), can lead to a state of overstimulation of the central nervous system called caffeine intoxication. The symptoms of caffeine intoxication are not unlike symptoms of cocaine intoxication, which include restlessness, excitement, insomnia, muscle twitching, rambling speech, and rapid heartbeat. In cases of extreme overdose, the results can sometimes be fatal. The amount of caffeine required for a lethal dose is approximately 150-200mg per kilogram of body weight, roughly 140-180 cups of coffee; fatal in theory, but not in practice. Recent surveys have shown, however, that most caffeine overdoses do not come from coffee ingestion but rather from an overdose on caffeine pills, in which the most likely cause of death is seizure or heart attack.

Caffeine, however, has positive effects if it is used responsibly. In small doses, it can enhance alertness, elevate mood, and improve focus. It is sometimes used in conjunction with medicines to increase their effectiveness. Caffeine can make analgesic pain relievers up to 40% more effective in relieving

headaches and can help the body to absorb medicine faster, promoting faster relief. Caffeine is also used to help treat some breathing problems in premature infants. Several studies have also shown that the consumption of coffee significantly reduces risk for Parkinson’s Disease, diabetes, heart disease, and cirrhosis of the liver.

Caffeine is an excellent example of why moderation is so important, especially since it borders on the realm of drugs. If used in moderation, it has many positive qualities that can contribute to a healthy lifestyle. If it is abused, however, it can lead to sleeping disorders, addiction, and other potentially harmful effects. Keep that in mind the next time you have the urge for that double espresso from Bucks at 1am to help you pull that all-nighter.

Leonardo Guercio is a Junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is majoring in Biological Bases of Behavior with minors in Chemistry and Psychology.


cover story

Western Drug Companies Enter the Global SouthBy Bharat Moudgil

Notorious for infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS, India has catered to the needs of its people by having generic pharmaceutical companies market copycat drugs for much lower prices to the

people. As Pfizer solidifies its presence in India, western research protocol and economic influence can both benefit and impair India’s healthcare sector.

Pfizer: 1849. GlaxoSmithKline: 1880. Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1889. The first pharmaceutical companies arose in the late nineteenth century. Since then, they have become multi-billion corporations, becoming omnipresent, crossing borders, and spanning cultures. These companies have been both glorified for their groundbreaking discoveries and advancements as well as vilified for their improprieties and greed.

The twenty-first century has increased global access to pharmaceutical drugs, but only in a theoretical sense. Technological

advancements have facilitated the import and export of medicinal drugs, but there are still hindrances to providing drugs to those who need them most. The term “techno-imperialism” has been used repeatedly recently to convey the idea that technologically advanced states have, in a sense, colonized the rest of the world. Wealthier clients in what has been called the Global North are able to afford medicines and have access to them. The “Global North” is more an economic term than a geographical one. It refers to the First World and its economic resources, as well as its concentration above the equator. As global pandemics such as HIV/AIDS and regional diseases such as yellow fever in South Asia continue to become more prevalent in developing nations, we are forced to reconsider how we look at pharmaceutical corporations. Are criticisms of these companies justified or unwarranted? Unfortunately, the delineation of right and wrong

is not so clear-cut in these particular circumstances. Corporations like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck are just that: corporations. They are companies operating in a capitalist global order, where their primary function is to make money. This role may sound heartless, but the practice is understandable. While we empathize with worldwide suffering, those who are manufacturing the treatments have to have some incentive to follow through with their research and then public distribution of their drugs. It is our responsibility as fellow citizens of the world to care for the impoverished developing world. Are we to pin our moral obligations as citizens onto these companies? Of course. Ordinary citizens like you and I generally lack the resources to conduct drug research and then ship the results to sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, some can argue that Americans have come to view pharmaceutical corporations, who have access to such resources, as a medium

Pfizer in India


through which Western society can help its less fortunate counterparts. It would seem that we have come to expect human consideration to outweigh the capitalist tendencies that have characterized multinational corporations in the twenty-first century. Capitalism must be made secondary to global citizenship.

There are also political implications of the pharmaceutical corporations’ worldwide proliferation. An area of particular interest is India: despite being hailed as Asia’s newest superpower, the majority of its inhabitants are impoverished. They are often forgotten in light of the shopping malls and luxury good boutiques that have become commonplace in the sub-continental state. India, with the world’s second largest population, has the second largest number of HIV/AIDS patients in the world, and it is predicted that it will soon overtake South Africa in that dubious distinction. Indian government officials have taken note of this trend, although cultural constraints make the public discussion of HIV/AIDS rare. In 1987, after a sharp rise in HIV/AIDS cases the previous year, the National AIDS Control Programme was established, which has been working to establish treatment facilities and most importantly, spread awareness throughout India.

India has become a hotbed of clinical research in the past several years. The opening of the economy, spearheaded in the 1990s by the current-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has allowed more foreign direct investment in the country, thus allowing a greater number of pharmaceutical companies to come into the country to conduct research. One of the primary benefactors of these policies has been Pfizer. The world’s largest pharmaceutical company established a center for clinical research in 1995, and this division has flourished in the last decade.

Pfizer’s research successes in India are impressive. Phases II through IV Clinical Trials have been conducted in various fields including oncology, cardiovascular diseases, psychiatry, respiratory diseases, and metabolic ailments. Critics claim that pharmaceutical companies do not invest nearly as much money in “tropical diseases” as they do in illnesses that

are more common among affluent Westerners, such as Alzheimer’s or heart disease. However, the most important gains in Pfizer’s research have been made in infectious diseases, including malaria and typhoid, two viruses which exist in the Indian climate. Pfizer has boasted that its clinical research center has grown from four to forty-six employees. Despite this nearly twelve-fold growth, forty-six researchers working in a country with over one billion people seems disproportionate. Pfizer has been working to establish a comprehensive research infrastructure in India, evident with its importation of equipment such as DXO (bone densitometry) to newly-

built research centers in sub-continental metropolises such as Mumbai.

Until 1995, the Indian government recognized only process patents. This means that the actual products (i.e. drugs) were not patented, so that researchers could slightly alter the process and could produce an identical drug, but could apply for patent rights because their process was technically different. Therefore, drug “pirates” would study drugs produced in the United States and then produce a cheap substitute, which would be sold for much less than its American counterpart. Initially, this practice seemed beneficial, as many Indian patients cannot afford to pay full price for drugs produced by companies like Novartis and Merck. The majority of India’s twenty thousand pharmaceutical companies manufacture generic drugs. However, proper research methods were never required for these so-called knock-offs, and therefore India lacked the kind of expertise that researchers abroad enjoyed. Drug companies are now outsourcing all research and development (R&D) work to India, which is a major step for both India and the global pharmaceutical industry. Researchers in India have been producing “precursor drug compounds” for use in western drug companies for

several years, but drug trials were always conducted elsewhere. Now, with new stipulations in place patients all over India will have access to experimental treatments. Moreover, pharmaceutical corporations will be able to save time and money by recruiting volunteers faster. They will also have the opportunity to tap into India’s vast resources of chemists and pharmacological researchers.

Skeptics, many of whom are leaders of developing nations, have questioned whether the drugs made by pharmaceutical corporations will ever benefit those who need it most: their people. In 2001, Cuban President Fidel Castro entered into an agreement with

South African leader Thabo Mbeki to provide less expensive alternatives to the HIV/AIDS drugs marketed by western pharmaceutical companies. Not surprisingly, India, Iran, and Indonesia applauded Mbeki, who had spent several months criticizing exorbitantly-priced American drugs. Prior to the outsourcing of clinical trials, drug companies could take compounds from Indian scientists and then use them to make drugs geared towards their European clientele. Now, with clinical trials actually taking place in India, it seems natural that the drugs are going to be more regionally targeted, as is evidenced with Pfizer’s work in the area of infectious diseases. Nevertheless, governments are still suspicious of the pharmaceutical industry’s intentions. As a result, in the summer of 2006, health ministers of developing countries stated that western pharmaceutical corporations are not dedicating enough funding to research conditions that plague the developing world.

Intellectual property has also become a contentious issues for American and European pharmaceutical corporations, and states of the Third World, particularly India. India’s now-defunct practice of process-patenting essentially ignored this


The first time I had ever heard of DSL modem was in India. Their cell phones are sleeker and more advanced, and now most of the cars on the street are Mercedes, Chevrolets, Toyotas, and Hondas. But, as one portion of urban Indian society is becoming more affluent, the majority of Indians are concentrated in rural areas, many of which are startlingly underdeveloped

western construction. The capitalist West has had a hard time selling this idea to the developing world, which scoffs at western patents of traditionally eastern remedies. Moreover, in spite of the allegedly generous amount of money being poured into places like India by pharmaceutical corporations, countries such as India and Brazil have been manufacturing generic HIV/AIDS drugs and marketing them to fellow members of the Global South. (To clarify, the term ‘Global South’ is the opposite of the Global North, indicating that most impoverished countries are situated to the south of the wealthier ones.) For doctors and patients in the Third World, determining the issues of who thought of the drug first and who should have the rights to its profits, is irrelevant in comparison to the bigger picture of managing widespread illness. Thus, even though countries like India are perceived as democratic and obviously capitalistic, there seems to come a point at which public opinion cannot be swayed with abstractions such as intellectual property - especially in the face of mounting global health catastrophes.

In addition to the scientific

implications of new research initiatives in the developing world, there are social and even cultural repercussions to this western pharmaceutical invasion. India is at a crossroads. It features a rapidly-growing middle class and an increasingly wealthier aristocracy due to economic growth and prosperity. Their cell phones are sleeker, and Shakira is just as popular as Shah Rukh Khan, a Bollywood megastar. But, as one portion of urban Indian society is becoming more affluent, the majority of Indians live in rural areas, many of which are startlingly underdeveloped. There is a push towards modernism, as well as a tight grip on Indian heritage and cultural traditions.

However, can we really call a pharmaceutical infiltration a threat to Indian culture? The proliferation represents a political modification of the previously socialist Indian economy. Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations are importing American and European business culture, but that may not be a bad thing. They are bringing the western recognition of protocol to the Indian workplace, which can only benefit the Indian population. While it is arguable

that these companies are taking advantage of the burgeoning human resources that India has, they are, at the same time, helping the Indian research community. By importing research methodology, Indian pharmaceutical companies can avoid marketing drugs that have not been adequately tested.

However, this modernization of the Indian pharmaceutical industry could have unintended effects, mainly that of a possibly decreased access for India’s masses to its drugs. With a more western mindset, we can expect Indian drug companies to soon become like western pharmaceutical corporations, which could lead to higher drugs prices. The issue of utmost importance is that of affordability. Despite the apparent underhandedness of previous Indian patent laws, which essentially allowed the copying of American drugs, these medicines were inexpensive. As standards of manufacturing and research increase, it is only a matter of time before prices exhibit a similar trend. Western pharmaceutical companies realize this, and so influencing the Indian drug market has the potential to be extremely beneficial and lucrative for them. From the capitalist perspective, this is a brilliant plan. Yet from the humanitarian perspective, Indians, while gaining access to theoretically better-quality drugs, may not have the opportunity to ever get them due to financial barriers. The entrance of the western pharmaceutical industry into India will be a good thing. They can hopefully work with Indian scientists to provide better drugs to the millions of sick and impoverished Indian people. India must also be cautious about the amount of influence it allows western companies to have. If prices of antiretroviral drugs in India begin to resemble those in the United States, it will prove disastrous for the Indian public. Capitalist temptations cannot undermine the primary need to help the ill in India.

Bharat Moudgil is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences studying political science and chemistry.

14 Pennsylvania Triangle www.penntriangle.com Spring 2007

energy

Solar Space PowerPower Plants out of this World By David Huang

pace is the final frontier. Will space also be the final destination of our power plants? Energy is the life force of modern society. Maintaining this supply of energy,

however, is one of the biggest challenges we face going into the 21st century. Due to the phenomenal growth of the world’s population and economy, power consumption has doubled over the past twenty years. At the same time, rising awareness of the decaying state of the environment has added complications to the market for the world’s energy supply. Not only will we need more and more energy, we will require clean and renewable energy if there is any chance of halting the rapid deterioration of our environment.

Response to such challenges has materialized in the development of systems such as wind and solar electrical generators. While such methods may hold some promise, renewable energy is still largely overshadowed in the market by much more cost-efficient “unclean” sources such as coal, gas and nuclear energy. Unclean sources currently generate 90% of electricity in the United States. While current renewable energy systems are expected to become more cost efficient, they all suffer from fundamental problems associated with their terrestrial deployment. Wind and ground solar power face the problem of consistency due to weather fluctuation and the night-day cycle, resulting in the need for temporary energy storage. Both wind and hydroelectric power require specialized land for maximum efficiency. Ground solar power requires a significant portion of land area: If we completely rely on ground solar collectors, an estimated 7.5% of the earth’s land area would be needed for solar collection by the year 2100.

Space PowerThe solution: build a power plant literally out of this world – in space. The

basic design plan is as follows: a satellite is sent into space where it deploys solar collectors to harvest energy from the sun using the same solar (photovoltaic) cell technology as ones used on earth. The satellite then uses the captured energy, converted into electricity onboard, to generate a microwave energy beam to a ground-based receptor. On ground, the microwave beam is then very efficiently converted into electricity once again.

By placing the solar collector in space, energy may be collected, unobstructed by the atmosphere or day-night cycles, resulting in a four- to ten-fold increase in the amount of available energy for a collector of the same size on ground. Space offers many other advantages such as the lack of environmental degradation on the system, a perfect heat sink, and the capability of lighter structures due to its free-floating state. While none has been built so far, the design holds a lot of promise as space technology improves.

Commonly proposed structural designs for the satellite include the “sun

tower,” which consists of a series of tethered discs that collect energy while floating in space. Another design, the “solar disc” consists of a satellite with a large disc 3-6 km in diameter that is always pointed at the sun to collect power, with a smaller microwave transmission disc always pointing to the earth. Other recent designs emphasizing mechanical simplicitiy have also appeared. The satellites would probably be deployed in a circular geosynchrous orbit, in which the rotation of the satellite about the earth matches the rotation of the earth so that the satellite is consistently at a single point above the equator. An alternate orbit is the highly elliptical Molniya orbit through which the satellite can traverse near the earth’s poles.

Microwave…satellite?While solar cells and satellite orbits are both familiar technologies already in frequent use, the concept of microwave power transmission is probably less familiar. Microwave transmission is the most commonly proposed method for

S

The proposed Sun Tower gathers solar energy from its leaf-like solar arrays and beams down the energy to earth in the form of microwaves.


transmitting the power to earth due to its excellent transmission through the earth’s atmosphere. Application experiments involving microwave power transmission have been performed as early as 1964 when William C. Brown flew a small “helicopter” powered by a ground microwave antenna which beamed microwave to a rectenna attached to the helicopter. While no experiments have been done on the scale necessary for a satellite power plant, it is estimated that a 36-45% overall efficiency from the satellite to the power grid can be attained, including an approximate 85% efficiency in converting microwave to DC power on ground. Considering the greatly increased amount of energy available in space, the number is in fact

very favorable compared to current ground-based solar collectors.

The ground-based unit would consist primarily of rectennas (rectifying antennas), a type of mesh-shaped antenna that efficiently converts microwaves into DC current. Compared to ground solar collectors, the rectennas would take up only a fraction of the space. The rectennas on the ground would work in conjunction with the microwave antenna onboard the satellite by sending a beacon to the satellite, which would then be able to locate the ground unit to accurately transmit the beam. While this picture might resemble a space weapon, the microwave beams that would be employed are at a level actually harmless to ground life. Similar microwaves are already in use for communication satellites. An alternative proposal to the microwave beam is a laser beam, but current technology is only capable of about 5-10% efficiency of conversion into electricity and the use of space laser will be more controversial to international politics.

Challenges and ProspectsAs of now, the biggest challenge is simply getting the idea off the ground.

By far the single largest obstacle is the cost of sending equipment into space, which now is priced around $12,000-$20,000 per kilogram. Considering expenditures and the lifespan of such a satellite built with current technology, electrical generation of a solar satellite would cost about $35 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), substantially higher than the $.05/kWh figure for most conventional power plants. (A kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy, equivalent to 3.6 megajoules).

Is it possible to reduce the current theoretical cost by 700 times? According to Penn’s professor of Mechanical Engineering Noam Lior and faculty advisor to the Triangle, cost reduction and hence, the future use of space

power satellite, is not only possible but inevitable.

The key lies in the development of reusable launch vehicles that can substantially reduce the cargo cost into space. Initial flight testing of systems has already begun, such as with the Falcon series, which seeks to lower the cost to $3-4,000/kg.. Considering how rapidly transportation has developed since the Industrial revolution, a 700-fold improvement does not seem beyond our grasp. Crucial to the development of space transportation is the growing demand of commercial satellites, which is expected to grow at a rate of 6% every year. Another proposed idea to solve the space transporation problem is to build a space “elevator” consising of a platform climing a carbon nanotube cable tethering an orbiting counterweight. A very positive consideration is that many of the technologies necessary for the space system (i.e. complementary technologies) will simply be adapted from those developed in other fields. Developments in ground-use solar (photovoltaic) cells and light-weight carbon nanotubes, for example, will all play a crucial role in the space system. Given its integral use of more

advanced forms of current technology, it is clear that solar space power will be the next logical development in power generation.

Development has already gotten started. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announced in 2001 the initiation of a project to build a 20,000 metric ton solar space satellite costing about $17 billion. If launched by its expected launch date of 2030, it may be the first satellite to generate significant amounts of power from outer space. While expected to be only half as cost efficient as conventional power plants, it would nonetheless be a monumental achievement considering that such a system built using present-day technology is estimated to be only one-700th as cost efficient as conventional means.

Given the population and environmental needs of our society, it is difficult to make a case against solar power satellites. According to Professor Lior, “The option of space power for mankind’s future energy supply is of vital importance and we have to start developing it now because it will take many decades to mature. If we wait too long it may be too late.”

Besides technological hurdles, there will also be great challenges and complication in national and international politics. For the U.S., a strong government support will almost certainly be necessary to fund development of space-based power. Furthermore, if such systems do become widespread, will there be international disputes as to how space should be utilized by individual nations? The conclusion is that in order to make such a large scale project possible, both national and international governments will need to throw in their support. Stephen Hawkings once said, “Space is key to human survival.” Can the world come to utilize space for the sake of humanity? Only time will tell.


Noam Lior: “The option of space power for mankind’s future energy supply is of vital importance and we have to start developing it now because it will take many decades to mature. If we wait too long it may be too late.”

David Huang is a sophomore studying materials science and economics


f it weren’t for the massive stone statues that dot its coastline, Easter Island would just be another unremarkable island, home to a few drab grasses, shrubs, and almost

no wildlife. Today, these statues attract intrepid tourists willing to brave a five hour plane ride from Chile. Inevitably they ask the questions, “who built these statues?” and “how did they survive on this bleak island?” The answer is surprising, because Easter Island was not always so desolate and lifeless. Like the statues, its current environment is a legacy of an ancient civilization. When humans first arrived, Easter Island was blessed with subtropical forests, flocks of seabirds, and a wealth of seafood. A civilization flourished for hundreds of years there, but its practices were ultimately unsustainable. The islanders slowly but surely cleared the forests for cropland and lumber. Consequently, wind erosion became a serious problem, and crop yields plummeted. Islanders hunted many local species to extinction, and they were left with fewer and fewer sources of food. A famine ensued, the island population fell drastically, and the survivors had to eke out a meager existence. In hindsight, the islanders could have averted disaster if they were more prudent with their environmental choices. Jared Diamond tells this and other tales of ecological disasters in his latest book Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond unravels the factors associated with the collapse of past civilizations and applies his conclusions to modern society. This informative, thought-provoking work is well worth any reader’s time.

Collapse is by no means a primer on all societal collapses in human history. Diamond only examines societies that failed because of an ecological collapse associated with environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors,

friendly trade partners, and how the society responded to these stresses, his “five-point framework.” The first half of his book examines past societies, including Easter Island, the Mayans of Mesoamerica, the Norse of Greenland, and many more. The five-point framework constitutes his variables, and he identifies to what extent each influenced the collapse of a particular society. Readers interested in history will especially enjoy this half.

The second half of his book discusses the ecological successes and failures of contemporary societies. This half is more controversial, but likely more relevant to most readers. A striking example is the island of Hispaniola shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Two centuries ago both nations were ecologically similar, but because of different environmental policies, today the Dominican Republic has many preserved forests while Haiti is in danger of completely its losing tree cover. In part because of its better environment, Dominican Republic is more productive and consequently prosperous than Haiti. He uses these

contemporary examples to warn the reader about the possibility of a global collapse—not a sudden apocalyptic event, but a slower process of declining standards of living.

Diamond’s background is unusual for a social scientist. He has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and a Ph.D. in physiology. He is trained as a natural scientist, and this carries over into his writing. Readers of Guns, Germs, and Steel will notice that Collapse is written in a similar style. Diamond approaches his subject matter scientifically. For each failed society, he forms a hypothesis, tests it using natural experiments, and determines the contribution of each variable to the collapse. His arguments and examples are grouped into lists, all of which is explained in detail. He supports his claims with a prodigious amount of data, usually quantified. His prose is a little dense and dry, but he breaks up the monotony by inserting little anecdotes, such as his experience with kangaroo meat and his paraphrase of a Norse saga. Parts of his book feel somewhat rambling and long-winded, but Diamond always clearly summarizes his main arguments at the beginning and end of each chapter. This gives Collapse a repetitive feel, but since it is long for a popular work, the summaries keep the reader grounded. Collapse may not win an award for literary style, but readers interested in substantive ideas will be rewarded.

Diamond’s position in Collapse is clearly pro-environmentalism, but he doesn’t automatically equate protecting nature with good and destroying nature with evil. Ironically, some of the most successful environmental protection policies are not carried out by First World democracies but by Third World dictators. Dominican Republic dictator Joaquín Balaguer took environmental

Jared Diamond’s CollapseBook Review

By Chenghong Huang

review

I

protection to the extreme, such as outlawing all logging and ordering his soldiers to shoot illegal loggers. Balaguer was an evil dictator, yet he was one of the most effective environmentalists of the modern world. Similarly, Japan’s well-preserved forests are a result of the imperial edicts, not a democratic campaign. Since Diamond examines environmentalism independent of morality, his message is more palatable to those readers who might otherwise dismiss him as someone who “favors endangered purple louseworts over the needs of people.”

Environmentalists usually view extractive industries such as lumber and oil as enemies, and vice versa. Environmentalists blame businesses for being profiteers who care nothing about the public good, while businesses call environmentalists unrealistic and ignorant of economic realities. While Diamond sides with the environmentalists, he acknowledges the perspective of industry. He recognizes and even agrees with the principle that business exist to maximize profits. Sometimes the interests of business and environmentalism intersect, as in the case of the Chevron oil field in Kutubu, Papua New Guinea. Chevron instituted strict environmental standards at Kutubu because it has a long term interest in the region and needed the support of local residents. However, extractive

industries usually make a short term profit and saddle society with long term costs. Unfortunately Diamond does not offer much quantitative support here, nor does he perform more cost-benefit analyses. He does not address questions such as “is the societal benefit of using coal greater or less than its cost in environmental damage?” Even though Diamond’s economics is not fleshed out, it is refreshing to read an environmentalist author who examines the views and motives of businesses without simply calling them “greedy” or “evil.”

Even though Diamond diagnosed the ecological problems facing contemporary societies, he repeatedly emphasizes that the world is not doomed to determinism. People can make a difference and protect their future. Societies such as Iceland and Japan have successfully created a sustaining ecology. However, perhaps the greatest disappointment of Collapse is his failure to suggest effective cures beyond broad environmental policy changes. He uses typical environmentalism lines, such as it is the public’s responsibility to pressure the government and businesses to adopt environmentally friendly policies, but he refers the reader to the further reading list for what the reader can do as an individual. He advocates prevention, which may not work in all situations. How can the world convince Rwandans

to have smaller families? Can countries such as India and China afford to slow economic development, thereby leaving millions of people in poverty? How can the world convince Japan to stop importing trees from Indonesia when Japan has greater forest cover? Diamond comes up short when trying to answer these questions. In short, Diamond delivers a passionate cry for action, except the reader is left wondering what actions to take.

Collapse is ultimately a warning, a call for contemporary society to learn from history and avoid repeating it. Diamond does not appeal to the reader’s emotions or sense of morality. Instead, he uses reason to convince the reader of his views. He advocates environmental protection while properly acknowledging the perspective of industry. It is unfortunate that Diamond does not offer solutions beyond general calls to take preventative measures. Even so, Collapse’s many strengths overcome its few weaknesses. It is a stellar book recommended for any reader remotely interested in past or present ecological failures.

Chenghong Huang is a sophomore in the College studying science.


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Prejudice from the Unconscious Mindby Tushar Khanna

tangents

W e all claim that we do not discriminate. Many say racism is no longer an issue that needs to be addressed in public discourse, and still

others profess to be being completely fair and open-minded. But, what if you took a simple test that revealed you really do discriminate every day, at a very fundamental and unconscious level? What if you discovered that your perception and judgment of other human beings is controlled by many factors of which you are not consciously aware? It was Sigmund Freud who first popularized the concept of the unconscious mind. While this idea was initially faced with much criticism, modern theories in cognitive psychology have revived its presence in scientific investigations. Currently, any mental activity not mediated by conscious awareness can be labeled as part of unconscious processes. While it is not

surprising that things like skill-based procedural knowledge and priming are controlled and learned unconsciously, it has astonished scientists to learn that prejudice and bias also have their roots in the unconscious.

This was initially discovered by having a subject perform certain tests, while simultaneously scanning the person’s amygdala using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The amygdala is a group of neurons that is responsible for fear conditioning, which is the mental association of stimuli with danger or aversive consequences. Increased activity in the amygdala signifies that a given stimulus is perceived as more of a threat or negative presence by the subject. In research pioneered by Matthew Lieberman at the University of California in Los Angeles, scientists subliminally presented random Caucasian and African-American subjects with pictures of black and

white faces, and then scanned their brain activity using fMRI. These faces were shown for three-hundreths of a second each, a time period so short that subjects were not consciously aware that they had seen any faces. The result of the tests was that all subjects showed a larger amygdala response to observing black faces, indicating a racial prejudice by preferentially associating black faces with danger.

This finding revealed concrete evidence of an unconscious bias at work. What was shocking in this experiment was that the same results were obtained whether the subjects were black or white. What was more comforting, however, was that those subjects with no explicit racial bias but strong implicit racial bias revealed heightened activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. The vPFC is part of the brain’s executive system, controlling and suppressing different areas of the


Tushar Khanna is a junior studying Chemical Biomolecular Engineeing. He is the Executive Editor of the Triangle.

brain. Therefore, this result indicated that, on a longer timescale, those who were unconsciously racist but outwardly not racist had their prejudiced amygdala responses suppressed by the PFC before they could surface to conscious

awareness. This seems to finish the story. We

all harbor prejudiced associations, but with education and perspective, the frontal lobes of our brains suppress our racist tendencies and our actions become unbiased. However, recent research suggests that this still may not be the case.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a recently invented tool that is designed to measure the strength of associations between mental representations of stimuli in memory. It was designed by Professor Mahzarin R. Banaji at Harvard University. The test requires a subject to associate two things together, such as black faces and positive words or black faces and negative words, for instance. Various sets of two pairings of faces and words are presented on a screen, and a subject has to identify the better pairing. This test is grounded on the idea that a shorter response time indicates better association in memory.

This test also reveals an unconscious bias in subjects, who more

slowly respond to associating black faces with positive words. Tests revealed that people showed a bias for Christians over Jews, the rich over the poor, non-Muslims over Muslims, and a plethora of other preferences. Furthermore,

this test reveals more shocking results: African Americans are biased against blacks, homosexuals are biased against homosexuals, working women more strongly associate men with careers, and so forth. And not only do people show prejudice against people similar to themselves, but this unconscious bias in subjects affects their behavior. For instance, various tests show that those with an implicit bias against Mexicans are more likely to declare a Mexican guilty on a crime scene, or those with an implicit bias against homosexuals are more likely to avoid eye contact with a homosexual they meet.

Our implicit biases alter our perception and expectations. The way we interpret present events we are experiencing and remember stored memories of past events is dictated by implicit biases. No longer is it sufficient to claim that the prefrontal cortex suppresses biased associations from the amygdala to yield unbiased explicit declarations, because people’s explicit views are not always sufficient to

account for their actions. Furthermore, this implicit association system present in our brains may be a remnant from our primitive past. It would have been beneficial for Cro-Magnon man to instantly associate a snake in a jungle with danger, even if conscious reasoning might reveal that the particular snake is not poisonous. Yet, this primitive system of unconscious association still remains, and subtly manifests itself in our social behavior.

This recently developed tool in cognitive neuroscience could change society. The IAT could be used to tell if cops are more likely to shoot a black criminal, or if a juror is more likely to convict a certain type of person. Employers could use the IAT on potential employees to make hiring decisions. Judges could use the IAT to tell if a criminal has been rehabilitated. Even more broadly, the IAT could be used to tell when affirmative action is no longer necessary.

However, the IAT is not without criticism. Some critics claim that the IAT simply measures awareness of cultural bias present in society. Other critics claim that the IAT measures novelty or unfamiliarity, and not necessarily a bias. Also, it has been shown that clever subjects can fool the Implicit Association Test and acquire whatever scores they desire.

Yet even if these criticisms are incorrect, and the IAT really does illuminate an aspect of our minds that was previously shrouded, it does provoke a dilemma. Should we be judged by our thoughts or actions? Philosophers like Immanuel Kant and spiritual leaders of all varieties have supported the view that our thoughts and intentions determine who we are, while law enforcement and statesmen would claim that our actions are most relevant. The important thing now is to be careful with the knowledge that cognitive neuroscience is revealing, for misuse of this information could be catastrophic.


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Cover Story Pfizer goes to India - Penn Engineeringtriangle/issues/spring07.pdf · 2007-04-17 · number generator has brought about the unbelievable possibilities that human minds