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You wake up feeling awful—pounding headache, runny nose, sore throat. You decide to go to the
doctor, 6 today, there’s no need for the old-fashioned ritual of physical exam, throat culture, and
blood test. Today, all you have to do is simply spit twice in a plastic bag.
A lab technician tests your saliva for the unique DNA markers of the 200 most common diseases. An
hour later the results are in: you have a serious bacterial infection. But there’s good news: the bacteria does
not carry an antibiotic 7 gene, so that a single megadose of penicillin (given through the ear) will do
the trick.
As you leave the lab, the doctor calls you into her office. Your saliva contained a few of your cheek
cells, she explains, which were tested for a variety of genetic disorders. One came up 8 . You are
seized with fear as the doctor says your risk of developing a tumor by age sixty is several hundred times
greater than the average person’s.
9 , the doctor continues, the government is now distributing a new pill to reduce your cancer risk
dramatically. What’s more, the pill will save society millions of dollars by preventing thousands of cases of
colon cancer nationwide. You leave the doctor’s office feeling healthier for the moment and very relieved
that you just 10 a bullet in your future.
Sound incredible? The revolution in molecular biology has made the technology described above not
only possible, but probable within the coming decades. In about ten years genetics has already conquered
diseases that took centuries even to name.
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The age of fossil fuels will not last forever. According to the World Resources Institute, fossil fuels will
be ultimately 11 in the future. Yet for three reasons it is likely that they will be phased out sooner than
we expect. First, air pollution and the threat of global warming will require us to stop using fossil fuels
before supplies are exhausted. In order to 12 the climate, we will substantially reduce carbon
emissions by reducing energy consumption. Second, three oil crises in the past have exposed the
vulnerability of the global economy and its dependency on political developments in the volatile Middle
East, an area rich in fossil fuels. Third, coal, while the most 13 of all fossil fuels, is environmentally
most damaging because it is a major contributor to air pollution and acid rain.
Some alternatives to fossil fuels have been promoted, but they are not without problems. Natural gas is
one example since it contains less carbon per unit of energy. However, the greenhouse effect of natural gas
is many times stronger than that of carbon dioxide. It will, thus, be phased out 14 as a primary source
of energy. Some people have hailed nuclear energy as a means to slow global warming. Others claim that
nuclear technologies are uneconomical and dangerous. They see the roughly 500 nuclear plants worldwide
as a permanent 15 to people living within a distance of hundreds or even thousands of miles.
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