Meet the Tech Firm that's Gonna Make a KILLING Off Of Zika

Today the CDC confirmed that the Zika virus, which is carried by the A. Aegypti mosquito, is responsible for thousands of birth defects in children. On top of that, public health officials are worried about other health affects of Zika, that could hurt not only humans in-vitro, but post-natal babies and adults. 

As per usual in our technified and super-scientific age, cue the solution. That same A. Aegypti mosquito has been studied for some time due to the fact that it's responsible for transmitting both Malaria and Dengue fever. With such fatal diseases associated with it the medical, technology, and general scientific communities have given it a lot of attention. So much so that

1. The Gates foundation has funded the mapping of the mosquito's genome
2. UC Irvine has developed mosquitoes with strong immune systems that defeat the parasites that cause these debilitating and fatal diseases.
3. The Center for Infection Disease Dynamics has developed a fungus that kills mosquitoes before parasites have enough time to turn the little insects into viable hosts. 

You can imagine the amounts of cash that those three efforts took. But there's one that'll trump them all. About two years ago, in late March of 2014, NPR's RadioLab radio-show and podcast produced an episode called "Kill 'em All." In it, they spoke with a British-based lab called Oxitec. If ever there were an evil dystopian name to call your company, there you go. Oxitec's solution to the mosquito problem stands out from the others in that it's both radical in its manipulation of the insect and jaw dropping in its effects. 

The company maintains biological farms or factories wherein they breed the doomsday mosquitoes A. Aegypti-- but their recipe for mosquito farming includes tweaking the bug just a little bit. Oxitec manipulates the DNA of A. Aegypti so that the males (which don't bite people to begin with) carry a special gene. This gene has no affect on the males, so when Oxitec releases these guys into the wild in vast numbers, the females are happy to mate with them. What happens next is the key.

Baby mosquitoes born of the Oxitec males are hindered by the gene. The gene hinders all of the males' offspring so that they don't survive until maturity-- effectively killing off the population of mosquitoes in the area by wiping out an entire generation.

Oddly enough this is tactic - wiping out a generation-- is what scares so many people about Zika.

So what are the consequences of this Dr. Frankenstein-type of science? There's not much debate about it actually. NPR reported earlier this year that both Rutgers and Penn State entomology professors were fine taking out the bug. 

"If we took out Aedes aegypti, that would be something," [Andrew Reade of Penn State] adds. "Nothing good comes from them, just that people get really sick."

[Rutgers entomology professor Dina Fonseca] feels similarly. "I'm not worried about eradicating an invasive mosquito. It's an urban species that specializes on feeding on people," she says. "The result of removing them is health to humans and more people."

Still, one man's trash is another man's treasure. It's clear that the same qualities that make mosquitoes like A. Aegypti so abhorrent to mankind actually do jungles and rain forests like the Amazon an important service by making sure people don't regularly settle there, which would significantly add to the problem of global deforestation. By being at once annoying, painful and in the case of Zika, Dengue and Malaria, dangerous pests, mosquitoes help the Amazon, which has been called "The Lungs of the Earth," due to its role in generating the oxygen most life on the planet, from being easily reduced to ashes for the sake of condos, corporate head quarters or resorts. If the Amazon goes, we may all go soon thereafter. 

That said, it's pretty clear that solutions like the one Oxitec and other firms like it have proposed is a clear winner for human-populated areas that don't have much reason to appreciate mosquitoes like the Southern US, Europe, and some of the smaller Caribbean islands. 

It might be time to think about buying some stock in Oxitec, or its parent company, Intrexon Corporation**, which picked up the mosquito start up for a cool $160 million in the summer of 2015.

**These biotech guys are great at choosing horrifying and ominously cold names for their companies.

"Don't Count Fitbit out Yet" →

 "Fitbit, an eight-year-old company, went public in June amid a wave of skepticism about the impact that Apple's new smartwatch might have on its business.

Yet Fitbit has consistently beaten Wall Street's earnings estimates in the second half of the year. On a conference call with analysts in November, Fitbit's CEO said the Apple Watch had "no material impact" on its business. And now Fitbit is proving to be one of the most popular gifts over the holiday season, a key period for gadget shopping.

Translation: Don't count Fitbit out yet."

While some may be surprised, Fitbit's resilience actually makes a lot of sense. The fact is that Christmas has always been about kids and kids today care about the one huge experiential offering that (1) Fitbit has focused on and (2) that Apple's never been able to get their products to properly exploit: Social.  

Hop into the Fitbit app and one of the first things you'll notice is that the bottom navigation bar has four items. Two of them-- Challenges and Friends are not only in the Center, but they're easy to tap on because of that location. Challenges allows you to compete against specific friends for the day, weekend or week and friends is a more casual way to see what life is like on the leaderboard. As Apple's Watch is somewhat an "all things to all people" device, the lack of focus on that Fitness component is to be expected. But it's also something that Apple may be able to overcome. 

Let's get back to kids. Kids are relatively irresponsible compared to their adult counterparts since they're still being raised. Parents factor this into their gift decisions. A) They break things. Which means if you're a parent that wants to support your post-Millennial, Generation Obesity child, and you can choose between an indestructible watch+fitness band for 

B) They're forgetful so battery life matters because they always want to play with their device. The Apple Watch lasts about 20 hours with moderate use. The Fitbit HR counts battery life in DAYS. Sleeping over at a friends for the weekend and forgot your Fitbit charger? You'll be fine. Not so for Apple Watch. 

C) Price is also a thing parents are concerned about. At $147 for the Charge HR (Amazon as of this writing) , a couple with two tweens or teens can get each of them a robust fitness device without breaking the bank. 

D) Finally, the most important thing-- interaction. The Apple Watch is wonderfully compelling. For children, that's an issue. While a Fitbit HR quietly does its thing all week long; allowing youngsters to wear it in class with little to no distractions or associated drama, the Apple Watch, like all Apple products, wants you to play with it and to pay attention to it. This isn't because it's the One Ring or anything nefarious like that but because that's what happens when devices have touch screens-- users are compelled to touch them. To a teacher, that touching, no matter how meaningful, is fiddling with a distraction. 

this isn't to say that Apple didn't have a strong showing this Christmas with their wearable. It's safe to say that they've trounced the Pebbles and Galaxy Gears and even Android Wear devices sales numbers this holiday. That's probably the more important target...not Fitbit.

 "Instead, some industry watchers now believe there are enough wrists out there for both Fitbit and Apple to succeed — at least for this holiday season."

These devices -- especially the base models are inexpensive enough to own more than one. And in 2016, that's probably what's going to happen for a lot of interested consumers; especially when the second version of the Apple Watch debuts.

Who knows? Maybe they'll buy Pebble and become the "independent wearable company." 

Women Marry Less These Days →

From US News and World Report:

"Researchers within the Princeton-Brookings report identified several contributing factors to marriage gaps between various classes. For one, there is a smaller pool of "marriageable" men – those with steady, well-paying jobs -- now than there used to be, especially among those with lower education levels.

For example, 82 percent of men ages 25 to 34 were part of the U.S. labor force in 2012, compared with 93 percent in 1960, according to the Pew Research Center. The share of men who are incarcerated also has surged, with black men and those with low levels of education particularly affected. 

Economically, the gap between earnings for men and women has narrowed, reducing the budgetary boost a woman could get from marriage and making it less necessary from that standpoint. In 1980, women earned less than 70 percent of what men earned. By 2012, the gap had narrowed to 93 percent."

So Women get married less because they don't *need* men as much, economically. Now they just look for men that they actually like.

And there aren't many of those. So they stay single. Then it's much less of a problem to leave should he becomes a jerk.

On the flip-side, it's almost too bad because marriage is awesome.

The Reason Why Witches Ride Brooms →

According to Megan Garber, writing for The Atlantic in early October 2013 (click blog title for link), apparently, one of the fungi that feeds in old rye bread (ergot) is somewhat hallucinagenic. It makes people sick when they invest it, but absorption through the skin causes a flying-like sensation. So between the 1300s and the 1700s people used to take that mold, along with brewed up roots and other things (witches brew) and rub it on a broom handle. Then ladies would insert that between their legs (no panties back then) and get hi. This is why witches "fly" on brooms. 

But sometimes people got high from unwittingly eating the mold. Or bein forced to tear it cause nothing else was around:

 "The Massachusetts of 1692 likely did see an outbreak of the fungus that had contributed, in other contexts, to 'witch's brew.'

The epicenter of the outbreak? Salem."

Science!