| Home | My photos | Forex | My trading | Contacts |
|
|
You Can't Become Rich In Your Pocket Until You Become Rich In Your Mind | ||||
|
Financial professionals can give each investor access to information that the financial laboratories had previously reserved for only the largest pools of moneyBiotechnology Food production was the first beneficiary of advances in biotechnology. Diverse strains of plants or animals were crossed to increase the gene pool. The hybridized offspring that were created were selected to produce the greatest number of desirable traits in future crops. This was 5000 B.C. Although we have been practicing genetic engineering on this planet for a long time, we did not know exactly how it worked until 1953, when the American biochemist James Watson and the British biophysicist Francis Crick presented their famous double-helix DNA model. The next milestone came in 1973 when American geneticist Stanley Cohen and American biochemist Herman Boyer removed a gene from one bacterium and inserted it into another with the help of an enzyme. With this event the term genetic engineering officially en tered our lexicon. The Human Genome Project was the next pivotal event in the field of biotechnology. The project constructed detailed genetic and physical maps of the building blocks of DNA that Watson and Crick had uncovered in 1953. The mapping of the human genome was completed as we entered the twenty-first century. This crowns 7,000 years of evolution in the field of biotechnology. We tend to think of biotechnology first in medical terms, possibly because the innovations are so newsworthy and personally important. An example was the manufacturing of Factor VIII in 1986. The human gene that codes for blood-clotting protein is transferred to hamster cells grown in tissue culture. The result is manmade Factor VIII, which can be given to hemophiliacs who lack this necessary bloodclotting protein. Countless lives have been saved. Other medical advances too numerous to count are filling the pipelines of companies like Genzyme and Amgen. It is instructive to visit the Web sites of both of these companies to appreciate the array of treatments that are improving human productivity by ameliorating disabilities and keeping people healthier. Another area benefiting from the advances in biotechnology is agriculture. The results of a study reported by the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP) are stunning. The research focused on six biotech crops planted in the United States: soybeans, corn, cotton, papaya, squash, and canola. The finding was that four billion pounds of food and fiber were added to the output of the acreage utilized in the study. Farm income increased by $1.4 billion, and pesticide use declined by 46 million pounds. Biotechnology and Materials Engineering That biotechnology will help us live longer has almost become a clich. These medical advances will be fully appreciated only when we ourselves wind up on the operating table with a doctor inserting manmade cartilage into our creaking joints or a healthy section of homegrown tissue into a worn out area of our hearts. The agricultural advances made by biotechnology seem to hit the news most often when people protest against them. History reveals that hostile attitudes toward improving the characteristics and the output of the food we eat eventually fade as it is discovered that the benefits outweigh any perceived threat. An example can be found in Mexico over 7000 years ago, when an agricultural experiment by the highly sophisticated civilization there created a more palatable and nourishing form of corn. For proof that this event took place, anthropologists point to the fact that as far back as 5000 B.C. no wild forms of the plant have ever been located.32 Human nature being what it is, no doubt the first crop of sweet tender ears produced by ancient experimenters would have been thought by some to be endowed with any number of diabolical properties. While medicine and agriculture get the biotech headlines, the applications of biotechnology to the fields of engineering, mathematics, and physics are less known. Biomimetics, for example, is the design of systems and materials that mimic nature. This work has created classes of smart materials that are already in use. One of these is the memory used in smart cards. Another is smart skis that change shape in response to stress. Smart polymers are being developed that function as muscles for robots. Biometric sensors can provide personal security systems with the ability to identify voice, fingerprints, and handwriting characteristics. The innovations flowing from the marriage of biotechnology with physics and engineering are not futuristic speculations. They are at our fingertips. According to Rand, The level of development and integration of these technologies into everyday life will probably depend more on consumer attitude than on technical developments.33 Consider how these developments will change the way we view the world: clothes that respond to weather, interface with information systems, monitor vital signs, deliver medicines, and automatically protect wounds; airfoils that respond to air flow; buildings that adjust to weather; bridges and roads that sense and repair cracks; kitchens that cook with wireless instructions; virtual reality telephones and entertainment centers; and personal medical diagnosis possibly interfaced with medical centers. The convergence of biotechnology with nanotechnology, according to Rand, is the most promising near-term event. Over the next 5 to 10 years, chemical, fluidic, optical, mechanical, and biological components will be integrated with computational logic in commercial chip designs.34 Large-scale systems such as satellites, laboratory equipment, communication equipment, and computer networks can be integrated with micro-scale components and built at a fraction of todays cost. Who is paying attention? Who takes down the fact that air travel and personal transportation are being revolutionized and that sensors can fit on the head of a pin? Besides the people who are creating these things, airplane, science, and engineering buffs do people like Nathan Myhrvold, who was Microsofts chief technology officer and who Bill Gates put in charge of the future and who formed a new company dedicated to generating and growing innovations.35 He pays attention, and so do the people at Rand and at corporate laboratories across the nation. Companies like Microsoft and Intel already have plans in place and structures set up to capitalize on new science. Economists at the Federal Reserve pay attention because it explains high productivity growth and low inflation. And Hollywood pays attention. Steven Spielberg consults at length with scientists and engineers about the effect of innovations on our daily lives. But the movie version makes it seem futuristic; it is not. A single development sends waves of new business opportunities fanning out across the economic pond. But when an extraordinary number converge, as they have early in our twenty-first century, they bring the deluge of wealth-creating potency that is at our fingertips right now. It is investors who should be paying attention. It is the companies of the Digital Dow2 index and the other companies of the new investment culture that are capitalizing on the long list of innovations, including those explained earlier. If we pay attention, we will not get left behind like so many did a century ago when they ignored those newfangled Dow Jones companies like Edison General Electric. THE PEOPLES MARKET A certain alertness is required now. The investment culture is under new management. It is led by visionaries who favor creativity over conformity. They are supported by can-do, entrepreneurial individualists. We can expect things to move very fast. At the same time, barriers have come down. The new business culture needs everyone with a new idea and the skills to make it useful. It is okay to be a dreamer, or a nut, as long as you just do something. The engine of the new market culture is information. Access the Web site of any Digital Dow2 company, and the doors will open to everything from the lunchroom to the executive suite although often there is not much of an executive suite. Even the way most of these companies trade their stock provides transaction visibility that had not existed before the birth of the new dominant investment system. Barriers between companies have fallen. Corporations share information and form alliances across geographic, cultural, and economic sectors. Lines have blurred between the disciplines of engineering, biotechnology, and computer science as new discoveries are made that can benefit all concerned. By joining these collaborations, the school of investment analysis could discover ways to quantify the value of the companies of the new dominant investment system. In her book, Market Magic,36 Louise Yamada explained how the laws of physics should be applied to measurements of economic output. Her convincing arguments lead one naturally to ponder how the principles of physics, microtechnology, and engineering can be applied to individual stock analysis as well. Barriers between investors and their advisors have fallen as new forms of compensation put investment professionals and their clients on the same side of the table. Financial professionals can give each investor access to information that the financial laboratories had previously reserved for only the largest pools of money. In this way each person can find the zone where he or she can best capitalize on the new investment culture that we are fortunate to have the chance to be a part of. There is a lot to do. The market has been handed over to us by a noble old guard, who though weary at the end had created a mighty thing. Now it is our turn . . . and we are open for business. NOTES 1. William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations (New York: Quill, 1991), p. 105. 2. Ibid., p. 9. 3. Ibid., p. 362. 4. Ibid., p. 10. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., p. 364. 8. Ibid., p. 8. 9. Ibid., p. 11. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid., p. 359. 12. Ibid., p. 356. 13. Ibid. 14. Bill Gates (with Collins Hemingway), Business at the Speed of Thought (New York: Warner Books, 2000), p. xviii. 15. William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations (New York: Quill, 1991), p. 358. 224DIVORCING THE DOW 16. New York Times, December 2, 1989, as it appears in Generations. 17. William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations (New York: Quill, 1991), p. 360. 18. Ibid. 19. Harry Dent, The Roaring 2000s (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 256. 20. Ibid. 21. Rich Blake, Is Time Running Out for the S&P 500? Institutional Investor Magazine (American Edition), May 14, 2002, p. 2. 22. James Fallows, Freedom of the Skies, Atlantic Monthly (June 2001): 37-49. 23. John Heilemann, Reinventing the Wheel, Time (December 10, 2001): 81. 24. Segway Press Release, April 30, 2002. 25. John Heilemann, Reinventing the Wheel, Time (December 10, 2001): 81. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Army selects MIT for $50 million institute to use nanomaterials to clothe, equip soldiers, MIT News. Retrieved June 11, 2002, from web.mit.edu/ newsoffice. 29. Rand is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting scientific inquiry. It was created in 1948. Today Rand stands for bringing empirical, nonpartisan, independent analysis to the study of economic and scientific problems. 30. Global Technology Revolution. Retrieved June 12, 2002 from www. rand.org/publications. 31. Global Technology Revolution. Retrieved June 12, 2002, from www. rand.org/publications. 32. Encarta, History of Biotechnology. Retrieved July 15, 2002, from encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages. 33. Global Technology Revolution. Retrieved June 30, 2002, from www. rand.org/publications. 34. Ibid. 35. Evan I. Schwartz, The Invention Factory, May 2002. Retrieved June 12, 2002, from www.technologyreview.com. 36. Louise Yamada, Market Magic (New York: Wiley, 1998). |
|
|||||||||||||||
Previous Issues
|
| ©2007 Olesia | Home • My photos • Forex • News • My trading • Contacts |