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    1、The politics of Hurricane Sandy Oct 29th 2012, 16:29 by Lexington TweetIS HURRICANE SANDY capable of altering the election result? The presidential candidates are hunkering down and trying to avoid looking partisan as this big, wet storm heads for the eastern seaboard. But any number of calculations

    2、 are being made by the campaigns. Plausible arguments are flying, explaining why this storm is bad news, or is it good news, for both sides.In a conference call with reporters on Monday morning, bosses at the campaign headquarters of Barack Obama in Chicago stressed that the president is focused “on

    3、 the storm and governing the country“, and noted that he had cancelled events in storm-hit states from Florida to Wisconsin. A well-handled disaster can strengthen an incumbent president (just as a Katrina-level bungle is a political, as well as human disaster).Mitt Romney cancelled events planned f

    4、or Monday night and Tuesday, citing the need to avoid putting supporters in danger or tying up emergency services. In Virginia, the Romney campaign bus will be delivering storm-relief supplies. The Romney campaign also sent out a notice that it had suspended fundraising emails to the District of Col

    5、umbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.To be brutal, a certain amount of bad weather on election day helps conservatives in every democracy. In crude terms, car-driving conservative retirees still turn out in driving rain, when bus-taking lower-income worker

    6、s just back from a night shift are more likely to give rain-soaked polls a miss. School closures are a particular problem for low-income families or single mothers scrambling to find childcare. In this case, the weather is supposed to clear up well ahead of election day, but the impact could be felt

    7、 in the turnout of early voters.Democrats will perceive that as bad news. The Obama campaign has pinned big hopes on increasing turnout among Obama-supporting “sporadic voters“, the sort of voters who give mid-term elections a miss but may turn out in presidential years. According to Michael McDonal

    8、d, an elections expert at George Mason University whom I spoke to last week, this is the precise moment in the election cycle when sporadic voters are most likely to turn out.The very first early voters are those who cannot wait to vote: they are the partisans who could be seen queuing outside polli

    9、ng stations in Ohio or Florida on the first mornings of early voting, like bargain-hunters hitting the sales. Now, several days into early voting and a week from election day, would normally be the moment when less zealous supporters were supposed to be finding a moment to cast a ballot.There are ot

    10、hers who believe that Sandy will benefit the president, with the storm freezing the election campaign, and Mr Romneys perceived momentum, in place. In short, nobody knows how it will impact the race.For proof of the uncertainty that reigns just now, I can only cite my favourite campaign email of the

    11、 last 24 hours, a four-paragraph missive from Mr Romney in which one full paragraph is devoted to asking supporters to bring campaign yard signs indoors before the storm strikes. “In high winds they can be dangerous, and cause damage to homes and property,“ Mr Romney urges.Sensible advice, no doubt,

    12、 but something in me likes the idea of a multi-billion dollar election juggernaut being halted by visions of a voter impaled then pinned to a wind-lashed lawn by a flying Romney-for-president yard sign.Middle-class blues IT MUST be worrying to Chinas leadership that some of the largest outbreaks of

    13、urban unrest in recent years have occurred in some of the countrys most prosperous cities. The most recent example, in the port city of Ningbo, involved thousands of people facing off with riot police in a protest over plans to expand a chemical factory in the city. After three days of sometimes-vio

    14、lent demonstrations, the city government announced on October 28th that it was halting the project (as the Associated Press reports). For now at least, the protests appear to be subsiding.They were triggered by the same middle-class fears that inspired large-scale demonstrations in the port cities o

    15、f Xiamen in 2007 and Dalian last year. All related to projects involving the manufacture of paraxylene, a toxic chemical, which protesters believed would pollute the environment. Ningbos, however, were unusual for their violence and their proximity to a political event of huge importance to the Comm

    16、unist Party. On November 8th the party will convene its 18th congress in Beijing. So determined is it to prevent disruption of this event, and of a meeting right after it which will endorse sweeping changes to the countrys leadership, that taxis in Beijing are even said to have been ordered to disab

    17、le the mechanisms that allow passengers to open rear windows. A Chinese newspaper, the Global Times, says this is because officials do not want people throwing dissident leaflets out of them. (Many drivers have not complied.)The party is particularly nervous this year as the countrys economic growth

    18、 slows and members of the new middle class become more anxious about their prospects in the years ahead. Even the official media sometimes hint at this. Another Chinese newspaper, the China Daily, reported recently on a survey of Beijing residents that was conducted by a government-sponsored think-t

    19、ank in the capital. Only 1% of respondents said their quality of life had greatly improved in recent years, while one-fifth said it had improved slightly. More than one-third said they felt no change, and more than 40% said their lives were worse.Even the state broadcaster, CCTV, has offered a rare

    20、hint that the partys efforts to portray a country of growing happiness are being greeted by some with cynicism. Beginning in late September it broadcast a series of programmes called “Reaching the grass-roots: peoples voices from within”. Ministry of Tofu, a blog about Chinese society, reported that

    21、 producers of the series must have been somewhat disappointed if they expected their interviewees, who were asked how happy they were, to gush with satisfaction. Many dodged the question and some gave answers that were nonsensical or funny.On its website, the government news agency, Xinhua, offered

    22、a similar description of the responses given to the CCTV cameras (here, in Chinese). Chinas ever-boisterous users of Twitter-like services gleefully took to one anecdote in particular, about a migrant worker in the northern province of Shanxi. The words “are you happy” in Chinese happening to sound

    23、identical to “are you surnamed Fu”, the worker replied to the question by answering, “My surname is Zeng”. CCTVs willingness to air this clip was an unusual deviation from its propaganda-driven norm. Xinhua blamed the responses of Mr Zeng and others on “the pressures of life” in a fast-changing Chin

    24、a. Such pressures, as recent events in Ningbo have shown, are generating restlessness even among beneficiaries of the countrys economic transformation.Hello mothers, hello fatherA technique intended to eliminate mitochondrial diseases would result in people with three genetic parentsIS IT possible f

    25、or a child to have three parents? That is the question raised by a paper just published in Nature by Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University. And the answer seems to be “yes”, for this study paves the way for the birth of children who, genetically, have one fat

    26、her, but two mothers.The reason this is possible is that a mothers genetic contribution to her offspring comes in two separable pieces. By far the largest is packed into the 23 chromosomes in the nucleus of an unfertilised egg. In that, she is just like the childs father, who provides another 23 thr

    27、ough his sperm. But the mother also contributes what is known as mitochondrial DNA.In this sectionMitochondria are a cells power-packs. They convert the energy in sugar into a form usable by the cells molecular machinery. And because mitochondria descend from a bacterium that, about 2 billion years

    28、ago, became symbiotic with the cell from which animals and plants are descended, they have their own, small chromosomes. In people, these chromosomes carry only 37 genes, compared with the 20,000 or so of the nucleus. But all of the mitochondria in a human body are descended from those in the egg fr

    29、om which it grew. The sperm contributes none. And it is that fact which has allowed doctors to conceive of the idea of people with two mothers: one providing the nuclear DNA and one the mitochondrial sort.The reason for doing this is that mutations in mitochondrial DNA, like those in the nuclear gen

    30、es, can cause disease. These diseases especially affect organs such as the brain and the muscles, which have high energy requirements. Each particular mitochondrial disease is rare. But there are lots of them. All told, there is about one chance in 5,000 that a child will develop such an inherited d

    31、isease. That rate is similar, for example, to the rate of fragile-X syndrome, which is the second-most-common type of congenital learning difficulty after Downs syndrome. Mitochondrial disease is thus not a huge problem, but it is not negligible, either.New batteries, pleaseTo find out whether mitoc

    32、hondrial transplantation could work in people (it has already been demonstrated in other species of mammal) Dr Mitalipov collected eggs from the ovaries of women with mutated mitochondria and others from donors with healthy mitochondria. He then removed the nuclei of both. Those from the healthy cel

    33、ls, he discarded. Those from the diseased cells, he transplanted into the healthy cells. He then fertilised the result with sperm and allowed the fertilised eggs to start dividing and thus begin taking the first steps on the journey that might ultimately lead to them becoming full-fledged human bein

    34、gs.Nearly all of the experimental eggs survived the replacement of their nuclei, and three-quarters were successfully fertilised. However, just over half of the resulting zygotesas the balls of cells that form from a fertilised eggs early division are knowndisplayed abnormalities. That compared with

    35、 an abnormality rate of just an eighth in control zygotes grown from untransplanted, healthy eggs.This discrepancy surprisedand worriedDr Mitalipov. The abnormality rate he observed was much higher than those seen when the procedure is carried out on other species. That, though, could be because thi

    36、s is the first time it has been attempted with human eggs. Each species has its quirks, and if mitochondrial transplants were to become routine, the quirks of humans would, no doubt, quickly become apparent. With tweaks, they could be fixed, Dr Mitalipov predicts.However, turning this experiment int

    37、o a medical procedure would be a long road, and not just scientifically. Dr Mitalipov has little doubt that his zygotes could be brought to term if they were transplanted into a womans womb. That experiment, though, is illegaland, in the view of some, rightly so. But the fact that it now looks possi

    38、ble will surely stimulate debate about whether the law should be changed.Two kinds of question arise. One kind is pragmatic: would the process usually work and, if it did, would it always lead to a healthy baby who would have a normal chance of growing into a healthy adult? The second kind of questi

    39、on is moral, for what is being proposed is, in essence, genetic engineering. Not, perhaps, as classically conceived because no DNA is artificially modified. But it is engineering nevertheless. And that might worry some people.On the first kind of question, the auspices are good. When Dr Mitalipov te

    40、sted his zygotes, he could find no trace of mutated mitochondrial DNA in them, so the purpose of the procedure seems to have been achieved. And an experiment on monkeys that he began three years ago has produced four healthy offspring that are not apparently different from any other young monkey of

    41、their age. These are preliminary results, but they are encouraging.It is on the moral questions that things may stumble. There is no consensus. Some people oppose such genetic tinkering in principle. Some worry about the consequences of a third adult being involved in the traditionally two-person pr

    42、ocess of parenthoodthough the mitochondrial contribution is restricted to genes for energy-processing proteins and is unlikely to have wider ramifications on, say, family resemblance. Some worry that three-parented individuals may themselves be worried by knowledge of their origin. But until recentl

    43、y such questions have been hypothetical. Now they are real. In September, for example, Britains Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which deals with such matters, launched a public consultation to discuss the ethics of creating three-parent offspring of the sort Dr Mitalipov proposes. This

    44、 consultation runs till December 7th and the results will be given to the government in the spring.In the end, whether three-parent children are permitted will probably depend on the public “uggh!” factor. There was once opposition to in vitro fertilisation, with pejorative terms like “test-tube bab

    45、y” being bandied about. Now, IVF is routine, and it is routine because it is successful. In the case of mitochondrial transplants what will probably happen is that one country breaks ranks, permits the procedure, and the world will then see the consequences. If they are good, you will never find any

    46、one who will admit to having opposed the transplants in the first place. If they are bad, the phrase “I told you so” will ring from the rafters.Torrent of scandal AT HIS first news conference as Chinas prime minister, Wen Jiabao introduced himself to reporters packed into a cavernous room in the Gre

    47、at Hall of the People (as well as to a live television audience) with an unusual reference to his own family history. Chinese leaders normally hide behind the smokescreen of “collective leadership”, downplaying their own attributes. But Mr Wen waxed lyrical about his own upbringing: “I am a very ord

    48、inary person. I come from a family of teachers in the countryside. My grandfather, my father and my mother were all teachers. My childhood was spent in the turmoil of war. Our home was literally burnt down by the flame of war and so was the primary school, which my grandfather built with his own han

    49、ds. The untold suffering in the days of old China left an indelible imprint on my tender mind.”As a tour de force of investigative reporting by the New York Times now reveals, Mr Wens family circumstances have changed a lot since those days. It says that the prime ministers relatives, including his wife, have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion. It notes that Mr Wen has “broad authority” over the major industries where his relatives have made their fortunes. Their business dealings have sometimes been hidden in ways that suggest the relatives are eager

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