Just two hundred years ago, koalas flourished across Australia. Now
they seem to be in decline, but exact numbers are not available as the species
would not seem to be ‘under threat’. Their problem, however, has been man,
more specifically, the white man. Koala and Aborigine had co-existed peacefully
for centuries.

Today koalas are found only in scattered pockets of southeast Australia,
where they seem to be at risk on several fronts. The koala’s only food source,
the eucalyptus tree, has declined. In the past 200 years, a third of Australia’s
eucalyptus forests have disappeared. Koalas have been killed by parasites,
chlamydia epidemics and a tumour-causing retrovirus. And every year 11 000
are killed by cars, ironically most of them in wildlife sanctuaries, and
thousands are killed by poachers. Some are also taken illegally as pets.
The animals usually soon die, but they are easily replaced.

Bush fires pose another threat. The horrific ones that raged in New
South Wales recently killed between 100 and 1000 koalas. Many that were
taken into sanctuaries and shelters were found to have burnt their paws
on the glowing embers. But zoologists say that the species should recover.
The koalas will be aided by the eucalyptus, which grows quickly and is already
burgeoning forth after the fires. So the main problem to their survival
is their slow reproductive rate – they produce only one baby a year over
a reproductive lifespan of about nine years.

The latest problem for the species is perhaps more insidious. With
plush, grey fur, dark amber eyes and button nose, koalas are cuddliness
incarnate. Australian zoos and wildlife parks have taken advantage of their
uncomplaining attitudes, and charge visitors to be photographed hugging
the furry bundles. But people may not realise how cruel this is, but because
of the koala’s delicate disposition, constant handling can push an already
precariously balanced physiology over the edge. Koalas only eat the foliage
of certain species of eucalyptus trees, between 600 and 1250 grams a day.
The tough leaves are packed with cellulose, tannins, aromatic oils and precursors
of toxic cyanides. To handle this cocktail, koalas have a specialised digestive
system. Cellulose-digesting bacteria in the caecum break down fibre, while
a specially adapted gut and liver process the toxins. To digest their food
properly, koalas must sit still for 21 hours every day.

Koalas are the epitome of innocence and inoffensiveness. Although they
are capable of ripping open a man’s arm with their needle-sharp claws, or
giving a nasty nip, they simply wouldn’t. If you upset a koala, it may blink
or swallow. Or hiccup. But attack? No way!

Koalas are just not aggressive. They use their claws to grip the hard
smooth bark of eucalyptus trees. They are also very sensitive, and the slightest
upset can prevent them from breeding, cause them to go off their food, and
succumb to gut infections. Koalas are stoic creatures and put on a brave
face until they are at death’s door. One day they may appear healthy, the
next they could be dead. Captive koalas have to be weighed daily to check
that they are feeding properly. A sudden loss of weight is usually the only
warning keepers have that their charge is ill.

Only two keepers plus a vet were allowed to handle London Zoo’s koalas,
as these creatures are only comfortable with people they know. A request
for the koala to be taken to meet the Queen was refused because of the distress
this would have caused the marsupial. Sadly, London’s Zoo no longer has
a koala. Two years ago the female koala died of a cancer caused by a retrovirus.
When they come into heat, female koalas become more active, and start losing
weight, but after about sixteen days, heat ends and the weight piles back
on. London’s koala did not. Surgery revealed hundreds of pea-sized tumours.

Almost every zoo in Australia has koalas – the marsupial has become
the Animal Ambassador of the nation, but nowhere outside Australia would
handling by the public be allowed. Koala cuddling screams in the face of
every rule of good care. First, some zoos allow koalas to be passed from
stranger to stranger, many children who love to squeeze. Secondly, most
people have no idea of how to handle the animals; they like to cling on
to their handler, all in their own good time, and use his or her arm as
a tree.

For such reasons, the Association of Fauna and Marine Parks, an Australian
conservation society, is campaigning to ban koala cuddling. Policy on koala
handling is determined by state government authorities. But in May last
year, delegates raised the issue in a meeting of the Australian Nature
Conservation Agency, with the aim of instituting national guidelines. Following
a wave of publicity, some zoos and wildlife parks have stopped turning their
koalas into photo opportunities, but more has to be done.

As Wheeler, a keeper of small mammals at London Zoo, says: ‘You wouldn’t
do this to a giant panda, so why a koala?’ So, with many keepers themselves
under threat, they’re likely to be more appreciative of a cuddle, and it
would be kinder to the koala.

When John Lennon was gunned down, Beatles fans would have paid thousands of
pounds for the singer’s fingernails, hair or teeth, and probably more for
other parts of his anatomy. They would give their eyeteeth for his – but
Yoko would have had something to say about it. All that was needed was a
neat, clean and ‘ethical’ means of mass-producing John Lennon (or any other
star). Mullis, as a biochemist, had the resources to do just this.

In 1983, Mullis, working for the bio-technology company Cetus, discovered a
chemical reaction called the polymerase chain reaction. Seven years later,
Cetus sold the patent for the technique for a staggering $3 million
to Swiss pharmaceuticals company Hoffmann-LaRoche. The PCR reaction has
been a boon to molecular biology, as it enables sequences of DNA to be
copied quickly and easily, producing a steady supply of genetic material for
study.

But Mullis saw another way in which PCR could be turned into a nice little
earner. One evening, chatting with friends over the money-making potential
of being able to copy dinosaur DNA (in Jurassic Park style), someone piped
up that Elvis’s DNA would be infinitely more marketable. Using the PCR and a
tiny flake of tissue, you could churn out Elvis’s DNA by the vatload.

But there were still hurdles to overcome. DNA isn’t exactly big, so admiring
the potential product could prove a problem. The twirling strands dotted
with coloured spheres that adorn science classrooms may look very pretty,
but you need to remember how many times they are magnified. What was needed
was a product that was attractive in its own right.

Mullis hit on the idea of jewellery. Worldwide we spend millions on
gemstones, so he decided to go into the bauble business. The trinkets would
consist of transparent stones containing tiny ridges filled with liquid and
DNA-covered glass spheres. The beads would jiggle around and sparkle as the
jewellery moved, so people would realise there was something special inside.
But it simply worked out too expensive. To justify their miraculous
contents, the jewellery had to be made of high-quality materials. There
seemed little point in marketing items so costly that only the Elizabeth
Taylors of this world could afford them, particularly as it was the very DNA
of stars such as this that would be the selling point of the jewels
themselves.

So Mullis decided to tap into another market that already existed –
collectors’ cards. Card swapping is a national obsession among American
school children, and it also provided another weapon for the marketing
armoury – the educational angle. Each credit-card type collectable would
bear a tiny bump containing the precious genetic code, and a picture of the
famous person’s face. On the back, you could read the base sequence
represented on the DNA (though one has to wonder whether the average
American 10-year-old would find C-A-G-C-C-A and so on a stimu-lating read),
and a wealth of fascinating facts on the person portrayed in the picture.

So far, only a prototype card has been produced, containing no DNA, but a
picture of Albert Einstein (tapping in on the educational angle again) and
a booklet to explain what DNA and the PCR are. But the world is now
Mullis’s oyster. All he needs is a single cell and the PCR. And why stop at
DNA? What film buff could resist his very own lock of Marilyn Monroe’s hair?
A bit more research on how to splice Marilyn’s genes into a cooperative
bacterium, and persuade them to churn out hair proteins, and hey presto.
(Though you would have to remember Marilyn’s tresses were naturally mousy
brown, and fans may want to bleach the hair peroxide blonde, for extra
authenticity.)

Stars can make millions from film appearances and recordings, so how about
selling their DNA? And there’s nothing to limit the concept to living idols.
Even Tutankhamen and the Bog Man’s remains contain DNA as fresh as the day
those boys kicked the bucket, so picture a posse of modern-day Burke and
Hares, ferreting out gruesome fragments from mortuaries and graveyards.

And what about the families of deceased superstars? They may be more than
willing to part with a lock of their loved one’s hair, or even a toenail
clipping for suitable financial remuneration.

But readers will have latched onto the potential misuse of the PCR – human
cloning. With DNA swap cards changing hands across the globe, what is to
stop vital genetic material falling into the wrong hands? Just think of it
– mass-produced Madonna. And how are stars to retain possession of their
identities? Would they have to take out the equivalent of a patent on their
genes, to stop some stealthy fan or paparazzo from pilfering a hair from a
jacket sleeve, and selling it for the DNA? One of the most sought-after jobs
in Hollywood could become that of cloakroom attendant – all you would have
to do would be to groom carefully each garment for flakes of skin, or even
dandruff. Of course, human clones are still in the realms of science
fiction, but look to the future. Could a child buy an Adolf Hitler card,
keep it safe until he or she grows up to be a famous biochemist, inventing
revolutionary new techniques, and release a horde of infant Hitlers on an
unsuspecting world?

Mullis claims he would ‘inactivate’ any DNA before it was used in his
products, but can we believe him? What if he ‘forgot’, or a sample was
stolen from his laboratories? You have to admit that all those famous genes
floating around are more than a little spooky. And, after all, isn’t one
Terry Wogan more than enough?

Carina Norris is a journalist based in Middlesex.

Individuals governments and multinational companies all profess to share
a green philosophy, but how much have they really changed? Not much, according
to Miles Litvinoff, who believes there has been ‘a lot of talk and little
²¹³¦³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô’.

What the rich North has belatedly perceived as an environmental crisis
is a way of life to millions in the Third World. For generations, they have
lived with the degradation of poverty, hunger, oppression and the exploitation
of their economies and natural resources.

But a time of crisis is a time of opportunity. In Earthscan Action Handbook,
Litvinoff catalogues the major problems people and the planet face, and
puts them in their historical context. He also sets out realistic, though
rarely simple or swift, solutions for the 1990s.

He follows each half of the book with a guide setting out his solutions
and the ways in which ordinary people can contribute.

The first section concentrates on the lives of millions of people struggling
to make ends meet on hopelessly low incomes, trapped because of decisions
made by governments around the world. The right to eat in an affluent world
where more people starve to death or die of hunger-related diseases than
ever before, the problems of poor health, increasing populations, the role
of women, and abuses of human and civil rights all come under Litvinoff’s
microscope.

Then he turns his attentions to the plight of the planet. In this second
section, he focuses on deforestation, the death of the soil; the abuse of
that precious resource, water; global warming; vanishing species; the importance
of biological diversity; and the dangers and consequences of war.

Books of lists have become increasingly popular in the past few years,
but this handbook is much more. True, it gives hundreds of addresses and
an extensive reading list for anyone who seeks corroboration of the facts
themselves. But after revealing in disturbingly stark detail the morass
of problems he believes face the Earth and its inhabitants, Litvinoff goes
one stage further.

He provides a guide setting out his solutions to these problems, and
the ways in which ordinary people can contribute. He includes scores of
suggestions for positive action from writing to MPs to making sure that
you buy no furniture made from tropical hardwoods.

He urges everyone to think of themselves as ‘conservers’ and not ‘consumers’,
both in their homes and in their workplace, and to become involved in national
and international campaigns to obtain justice for the oppressed and protection
for the environment. ‘By being satisfied with moderate material comfort
and rejecting luxury, we are acting in solidarity with oppressed people
±ð±¹±ð°ù²â·É³ó±ð°ù±ð.’

Carina Norris trained as a biologist and is now a science journalist.

What immediately springs to mind when you think of the word ‘green’?
For most people the answer would be the environment, the greenhouse effect,
global warming, rainforests, CFCs and whales – protecting the planet. But
in Dr Patrick Pietroni’s The Greening of Medicine, the ‘green’ can be read
as ‘holistic’. Picetroni feels that modern medicine has suffered through
becoming entrenched in bureaucracy and red tape, and a heavy reliance on
high-tech surgery and drugs.

The Greening of Medicine is less concerned with the medical profession’s
relationship with the planet than with its relationship with fellow human
beings and our inner selves. The book is very heavily biased towards the
psychological and philosophical shortcomings of the medical profession.
But this has not prevented Pietroni from assembling the hard facts to support
his point of view.

Medicine is an expanding business, with more and more drugs being prescribed
each year, and Pietroni mourns that doctors now seem to be more interested
in studying diseases than in treating patients. He then addresses the stress
that medical professionals suffer. Mental illness, including depression
and suicide, are twice as high for doctors than others of similar professional
standing; and the incidence of alcoholism among doctors is three times the
expected figure for professional groups.

Pietroni then examines areas of medicine in which he sees encouraging
trends towards more humanistic approach, namely the fields of childbirth,
terminal care, cancer and the treatment of the mentally ill. In his chapter
on self-care and folk-care (alternative medicine), he praises the shift
in emphasis towards self-care, much of which has been brought about by the
rise in consumerism and the increasing amount of knowledge available to
the patient. Shelf-help groups, such as Alcoholics anonymous, also have
an important part to play.

Peitroni also explains that more and more pople are turning to practitioners
of alternative medicine because they could offer patients more time to listen,
a more compassionate approach, and also a slightly ‘mystical’ approach which
attracts people dissatisfied with the clinical attitude of the mainstream
medical professional.

If what you want is a book on alternative medicine, this is not the
one for you, but as a philosophical discussion on the ways in which modern
medicine falls short of fulfilling humanity’s deeper needs, The Greening
of Medicine definitely fulfils its aims.

Chris Norris is a freelance writer.

Raymond Livings’s idea was inspired by the spinning signs outside petrol
stations. His design for the turbines consists of two vertical aerofoils
connected to a boom which rotates about its centre. So the turbine has a
vertical axis and the power generator is situated on the ground underneath
the rotating boom.

The device stands about 2 metres tall and has a maximum diameter of
about 3 metres. As the central reservation of a motorway is 4 metres wide
there is no danger of the rotor blades hitting passing traffic.

With a vertical axis the turbines can be powered by wind from any direction
without having to reposition itself. Each turbine will take two thirds of
its energy from the atmospheric wind that flows past it. The rest of the
energy comes from wind generated by the traffic.

The closest that the turbines can be placed to each other safely and
efficiently is 15 metres. With 2000 kilometres of motorway in Britain, there
would be space for about 130 000 wind turbines. The turbines would cost
about Pounds sterling 10 000 each to produce – comparable with the cost
of a small conventional wind turbine.

Each turbine would produce about 3 kilowatts at maximum output – when
the wind speed reaches approximately 50 kilometres per hour. At wind speeds
above this, the rotor blades continue to spin at the same speed, producing
energy at a uniform frequency which allows synchronisation with the National
Grid.

The design also incorporates an inherent safety mechanism that causes
it to stall when the wind speed reaches 105 kilometres per hour. The vertical
aerofoil blades are pivoted at the point where they are connected to the
boom. As the wind speed increases, centrifugal force makes counterweights
at the base of the blades swing out, causing the blades to swing inwards.

This change in their orientation reduces efficiency, slowing the blades
down. If the blades swing far enough in – to reach an angle of 22 degrees
from horizontal – the turbine stalls. The counterweights then reset the
blades to a vertical position, and the blades start to turn again. Carina
Norris

WHY ARE the primates disappearing? And what can we do about it? These
are two of the questions Dale Peterson sets out to answer in this fast-
moving diary of his travels to see the world’s endangered primates before
they disappear.

The ‘deluge’ of the title refers to the killing and exploitation of
the non-human primates, and to the destruction of their environment, the
tropical forests. But this book is not the bitter and depressing ramblings
of a cynical conservationist. Peterson has identified ‘arks’ in the form
of nature reserves and captive-breeding programmes, refuges until the danger
from the deluge has passed.

You do not need to be a primatologist to appreciate The Deluge and the
Ark. Peterson’s impeccably researched digressions on the biology of the
primates, and of the ecology of their forest homes, are clearly and elegantly
written.

He examines the economic and social pressures that lead to increasing
encroachment by people into these animals’ precious environment, precious
not just to them, but to us. The world’s tropical forests are a supply of
vital and varied resources as food, firewood and pharmaceuticals.

The inspiration behind this book was a Brazilian monkey of a rare species
known as a muriqui. There were only 350 muriqui left, and their habitat
was scheduled for destruction if no one could raise the money to buy it.
So Peterson decided to raise the money by writing a book – this one.

Peterson left his American home one wintry morning, embarking on a voyage
across three continents that lasted 3 years. He met golden lion tamarins
in Brazil, colobus monkeys and gorillas in Africa, teddy-bear-like indri
and aye-aye in Madagascar, and the old man of the woods – the orang outang
in Borneo.

After returning to the US, Peterson’s primatological marathon was not
over. Cotton-top tamarins in a research laboratory and douc langurs in a
zoo provided him with an opportunity to discuss the ethical and conservation
issues of the trade in live primates. He also examines the progress that
captive breeding is making in its attempt to increase the population and
genetic diversity of the world’s caged primates.

Peterson rounds off his voyage of discovery with Koko the ‘talking’
gorilla, who has learnt a form of sign language. He also examines the prickly
questions: Just how ‘human’ are primates? Is the dividing line between ape
and man not quite as clear cut as it seemed? A final word: buy this book,
you won’t regret it and the muriqui will thank you for it.

Carina Norris works for the press office of New ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´.