…plus disposable rain bonnets and the Chinese river dolphin
Three sartorial items from my childhood have largely disappeared, at least in the company I keep: handkerchiefs, plastic head scarves, and galoshes. Some might say this is a good thing. Handkerchiefs are unsanitary, disposable rain bonnets are hardly fashionable, even among the grandmotherly set, and there is little of haute couture in a pair of rubber overshoes (in fact, there is none). So begone with them.
The merits of their passing into oblivion aside, around the time that these items disappeared from the landscape, the science of genomics arose. Is there a connection?
No, of course not. One would have to be completely and unhealthily obsessed with handkerchiefs to attempt to make that connection, or simply mentally deficient. Probably both.
For one, these three items haven’t completely vanished. Once I noticed the absence of handkerchiefs I pined for them, and was quickly (albeit reluctantly) given a new package of twelve by my family. Galoshes and disposable headscarves are still sold too, though I doubt you can find many young people who will dare to sport them. Secondly, the timing isn’t quite right. While the advent of techniques capable of sequencing a small genome (Maxim-Gilbert and the Sanger technologies) were created in the late 1970’s, which corresponds to when these three items disappeared from my life, genomics really arose to prominence in the 90’s and afterwards. Genomics depends primarily on two technological platforms: high-throughput DNA sequencing, and lots of computational power. Physical maps of the genome are important too, but those other two legs are the real technological pillars of the field, and each didn’t have the right stuff for large scale genomics until the late 90’s.
The demise of handkerchiefs and the emergence of genomics were not cause and effect. Nor did the recent extinction of the Chinese river dolphin trigger the rise of genomics, for that matter.
So, handkerchiefs and genomics, and their fall and rise, are not causally linked. One might as well say that the extinction of the Chinese river dolphin (last specimen seen in 2002) is related to the rise of genomics. The timing for this dolphin vs genomics hypothesis (late 1990’s-early 2000’s) is even better than for my supposed handkerchiefs/genomics link. However not even the most hyperkinetic conspiracy theorists, those who can make detailed and manifold connections between any random news story and the Illuminati, would suggest that the poor river dolphin had anything to do with the rise of genomics, or the other way around. [Though there was a Star Trek episode in which Dr. Crusher “activated the introns”, and the crew “devolved”, with Counselor Troi turning into a fish, but that doesn’t really encompass this situation.]
Nonetheless, if one is willing to stretch a point, there might be a connection between all these events. At least the passing of plastic headscarves, galoshes, river dolphins, and genomics. Handkerchiefs I’m not sure about, and since I’ve started using them again and genomics hasn’t collapsed, maybe they aren’t in the equation. Plastic headscarves probably faded away when women worried less about protecting elaborate, towering hairdos from the rain; our busier lives and two income families favor more casual and easier to manage hairstyles. More importantly, we simply have to worry less about protecting our heads from rain these days. The same goes for galoshes- we now can avoid rain without having to cover our shoes. Online shopping, indoor malls, giant one-stop shops like Walmart, and two car families mean less trudging through the wet to get all the errands accomplished. Possibly handkerchiefs fit into this this schema too, in terms of being part of a general inclination towards convenience. Economic development may therefore be the driving force behind the disappearance of all these fashions.
The river dolphins, for that matter, were also done in by economics. Increased river traffic, habitat destruction (and not being as cute as pandas) are the primary factors in their disappearance. Having only a backflip as their sole defensive strategy didn’t help either.
What links galoshes and river dolphins with genomics is money
Money connects all these phenomena, more money spent on our part (buying that second car, or being willing to replace shoes more often), more money spent (and earned) by property developers, more money spent by NIH and biotech on research, and more money spent (and earned) by the factories shipping goods down the Yangtze river. Since 1970 the gross world product has increased over six fold. By and large, and though it may not feel like it on some days, we (the average “we”, not necessarily the personal “we”) are much richer than we were when galoshes ruled the land. This increase in money means more money spent on convenience, shoes, and the shipment of those shoes through the dolphin’s habitat.
And the rise of genomics? Genomics is a costly science. The Human Genome Project, which oversaw the sequencing of the first human genome, cost about $2.7 billion US dollars. Science, overall, has been moving towards larger, costlier studies. One indication of this is the rise of scientific publications with many authors, sometimes numbering in the thousands, leading to the coining of the word “hyperauthorship”, though dozens or even hundreds are more common. This is because resources must often be pooled to perform a genomics study. Not only is the equipment expensive, but the science usually depends on putting together a large study population. After the first paper describing the sequencing of a species (which in itself involves a large team), follow-up studies will describe why one individual is different than another, and that often means looking a lot of people. This involves many hospitals and collecting of many records, and also simply means that the reagent costs go up too.
A study of the genetic variations involved in a reasonably simple disorder, for example, macular degeneration, might entail looking at DNA samples from a thousand people. Trickier studies, those looking at complex diseases like hypertension, or trying to discern small increases in a treatment or test’s efficacy, may need to have patient numbers in the tens of thousands. That costs money. Fortunately, despite spending more money on shoes and that second car, we have more research money too; the budget of the NIH has increased about five-fold (adjusting for inflation) since 1970. For those worried about the sustainability and financial prudence of these expenditures, it’s been estimated that the money spent on the Human Genome Project gave an over fifty-fold return, in terms of the US economy. I’m sure my buying that Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD box set had a similar economic return. Genomics not only uses a lot of money, it seems to be increasing wealth too.
As money helped give birth to genomics and contributed to the death of the dolphins (and galoshes), discovery of a lost population of river dolphins would not endanger the science. Nor would a resurgence in the popularity of galoshes.
From this we can conclude two things. One, as plastic headscarves and river dolphins are not causally linked to the development of genomics as a leading science, and are only connected via an association with our underlying economics, we don’t need to worry that a fortuitous finding of a lost population of river dolphins will doom our science. Nor would a resurgence in the popularity of galoshes cause the science to collapse. Therefore I can continue to enjoy my rediscovery of handkerchiefs guilt free.
Secondly, since increased money may have contributed to the rise of genomics, more money might help it ascend to even greater heights. Despite the advances in the field we’ve seen in the past 20 years, we’ve really only set the stage of what needs to be done. To move past simply knowing what genes there are in the human genome to understanding what these genes means about our health and biology requires studying people. A lot of people. As part of an initiative to better target health care based on our personal genomes, the US government is pursuing a “one million genome” initiative. Private companies and institutes have similar “million genome” plans. Through these large scale efforts, which we’re still building the technology to be able to complete, we hope to be able to truly use the potential of genomic medicine. Galoshes and disposable rain bonnets are accepted attire, but not required (or forbidden).