Although genetic mutations in bacteria and viruses can lead
to epidemics, some epidemics are caused by bacteria and
viruses that have undergone no significant genetic change.
In analyzing the latter, scientists have discovered the
importance of social and ecological factors to epidemics.
Poliomyelitis, for example, emerged as an epidemic in the
United States in the twentieth century; by then, modern
sanitation was able to delay exposure to polio until
adolescence or adulthood, at which time polio infection
produced paralysis. Previously, infection had occurred
during infancy, when it typically provided lifelong immunity
without paralysis. Thus, the hygiene that helped prevent
typhoid epidemics indirectly fostered a paralytic polio
epidemic.
Another example is Lyme disease, which is caused by
bacteria that are transmitted by deer ticks. It occurred only
sporadically during the late nineteenth century but has
recently become prevalent in parts of the United States,
largely due to an increase in the deer population that
occurred simultaneously with the growth of the suburbs
and increased outdoor recreational activities in the deer's
habitat. Similarly, an outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever
became an epidemic in Asia in the 1950's because of
ecological changes that caused Aedes aegypti, the
mosquito that transmits the dengue virus, to proliferate.
The stage is now set in the United States for a dengue
epidemic because of the inadvertent introduction and wide
dissemination of another mosquito, Aedes albopictus.
Excess inventory, a massive problem for many businesses, has several
causes, some of which are unavoidable. Overstocks may accumulate
through production overruns or errors. Certain styles and colors prove
unpopular. With some products—computers and software, toys, and
books—last year’s models are difficult to move even at huge discounts.
Occasionally the competition introduces a better product. But in many
cases the public’s buying tastes simply change, leaving a manufacturer
or distributor with thousands (or millions) of items that the fickle public
no longer wants.
One common way to dispose of this merchandise is to sell it to a
liquidator, who buys as cheaply as possible and then resells the
merchandise through catalogs, discount stores, and other outlets.
However, liquidators may pay less for the merchandise than it cost to
make it. Another way to dispose of excess inventory is to dump it. The
corporation takes a straight cost write-off on its taxes and hauls the
merchandise to a landfill. Although it is hard to believe, there is a sort of
convoluted logic to this approach. It is perfectly legal, requires little time
or preparation on the company’s part, and solves the problem quickly.
The drawback is the remote possibility of getting caught by the news
media. Dumping perfectly useful products can turn into a public
relations nightmare. Children living in poverty are freezing and XYZ
Company has just sent 500 new snow-suits to the local dump. Parents
of young children are barely getting by and QPS Company dumps 1,000
cases of disposable diapers because they have slight imperfections.
The managers of these companies are not deliberately wasteful;
they are simply unaware of all their alternatives. In 1976 the Internal
Revenue Service provided a tangible incentive for businesses to
contribute their products to charity. The new tax law allowed
corporations to deduct the cost of the product donated plus half the
difference between cost and fair market selling price, with the provision
that deductions cannot exceed twice cost. Thus, the federal government
sanctions—indeed, encourages—an above-cost federal tax deduction for
companies that donate inventory to charity.
Coral reefs are one of the most fragile, biologically complex, and
diverse marine ecosystems on Earth. This ecosystem is one of the
fascinating paradoxes of the biosphere: how do clear, and thus
nutrient-poor, waters support such prolific and productive
communities? Part of the answer lies within the tissues of the corals
themselves. Symbiotic cells of algae known as zooxanthellae carry
out photosynthesis using the metabolic wastes of the coral thereby
producing food for themselves, for their corals, hosts, and even for
other members of the reef community. This symbiotic process allows
organisms in the reef community to use sparse nutrient resources
efficiently.
Unfortunately for coral reefs, however, a variety of human activities
are causing worldwide degradation of shallow marine habitats by
adding nutrients to the water. Agriculture, slash-and-burn land
clearing, sewage disposal and manufacturing that creates waste by-
products all increase nutrient loads in these waters. Typical symptoms
of reef decline are destabilized herbivore populations and an
increasing abundance of algae and filter-feeding animals. Declines in
reef communities are consistent with observations that nutrient input
is increasing in direct proportion to growing human populations,
thereby threatening reef communities sensitive to subtle changes in
nutrient input to their waters.
During the nineteenth century, occupational information
about women that was provided by the United States
census—a population count conducted each decade—
became more detailed and precise in response to social
changes. Through 1840, simple enumeration by household
mirrored a home-based agricultural economy and
hierarchical social order: the head of the household
(presumed male or absent) was specified by name,
whereas other household members were only indicated by
the total number of persons counted in various categories,
including occupational categories. Like farms, most
enterprises were family-run, so that the census measured
economic activity as an attribute of the entire household,
rather than of individuals.
The 1850 census, partly responding to antislavery and
women's rights movements, initiated the collection of
specific information about each individual in a household.
Not until 1870 was occupational information analyzed by
gender: the census superintendent reported 1.8 million
women employed outside the home in "gainful and
reputable occupations." In addition, he arbitrarily attributed
to each family one woman "keeping house." Overlap
between the two groups was not calculated until 1890,
when the rapid entry of women into the paid labor force
and social issues arising from industrialization were
causing women's advocates and women statisticians to
press for more thorough and accurate accounting of
women's occupations and wages.
A recent study has provided clues to predator-prey
dynamics in the late Pleistocene era. Researchers compared
the number of tooth fractures in present-day carnivores
with tooth fractures in carnivores that lived 36,000 to
10,000 years ago and that were preserved in the Rancho
La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. The breakage frequencies
in the extinct species were strikingly higher than those in
the present-day species.
In considering possible explanations for this finding, the
researchers dismissed demographic bias because older
individuals were not over represented in the fossil samples.
They rejected preservational bias because a total absence
of breakage in two extinct species demonstrated that the
fractures were not the result of abrasion within the pits.
They ruled out local bias because breakage data obtained
from other Pleistocene sites were similar to the La Brea
data. The explanation they consider most plausible is
behavioral differences between extinct and present-day
carnivores—in particular, more contact between the teeth
of predators and the bones of prey due to more thorough
consumption of carcasses by the extinct species. Such
thorough carcass consumption implies to the researchers
either that prey availability was low, at least seasonally, or
that there was intense competition over kills and a high
rate of carcass theft due to relatively high predator
densities.