Text 3.

If bingeing on chocolate makes your trousers too tight, blame the genes

CHOCOHOLICS no longer need to feel quality about their craving. They are simply the victim of their genes, scientists have found.

The so-called “sweet tooth gene” has been identified by separate teams of researchers and helps explain why some find it harder to resist chocolate bars and cream cakes.

It also raises the possibility of designing a drug which could “switch off” the gene and help

people resist sugary foods. Children, in particular, risk their health by eating too many sweets and chocolates.

To identify the gene, the research teams - based at Harvard medical School in Boston and mount Sinai School of medicine in New York – conducted almost identical experiments using mice which have differences in their ability to taste sweet foods. They compared the DNA of the two types of mice and noticed differences in the gene called TIR3.

Dr. Gopi Shanker, of the Mount Sinai team, said: “It contains information which produces a protein called the sweet taste receptor.

“This recognizes the sweet content of food and initiates a cascade of events which signal to the brain that a sweet food has been eaten.” Dr. Shanker added: “Exactly the same gene exists in humans, so it means that if your parents have a sweet tooth then you probably will as well.”

Research by the Harvard team has come to the same conclusion.

But Aubrey Sheiham, professor of dental public health at University College, London, said the results did not provide chocoholics with an excuse to give up dieting.

He said: we have always know that some people have a sweeter tooth than other. But it has

also been proved that if you gradually expose people to less sugar, then the body becomes

accustomed to less. They will be satisfied with a lower level of sweetness.

Mr. Sheiham warned against any form of gene therapy which sought to deactivate the

sweet tooth gene.

“We have produced this gene through evolution because sweet food in nature are not poisonous and also give us energy. We all need to have some sugar in our diet”.

The U.S researchers are using their discovery to develop artificial sweeteners without an

aftertaste.

Text 4 OH, WHAT A CARRY ON!

‘They are wonderful things for other people to go on,’ Jean Kerr, an American dramatist once quipped. Flying has become safer, faster and cheaper but I seem ever more stressful. One frequent cause is the noise that children, especially bored once, inflict on other travelers. A year ago one magazine proposed that all planes should have child-free zones, just like no-smoking zones; children (and parents) should be confined to the back of the plane. As yet, sadly, no airline seems to agree that children should be screened and not heard.

Undeterred, we would like to raise another cause of what economists call a negative externality. i.e. something which is nice for you but imposes costs on others. This is excessive carry-on luggage. In America six out of ten passengers now take a suitcase on to a flight rather than check it in, three times as many as in 1990. The result is delay, because flights take no longer to board. Passengers trying to squeeze 3-foot suitcases into 2-foot bins hold up people trying to board behind them. Some travelers have tried to take refrigerators, television sets and even a stuffed moose-head on board. The problems of both children and luggage could be solved in one stroke by putting the children in the hold, to make more space for carry-on luggage. But that we concede, might be unacceptable. Instead, to reduce delays, most airlines are rightly imposing stricter limits on the size or weight of bags that can be carried on to planes. This has provoked outrage as passengers are forcibly separated from their belongings at check-in.

Understandably: if you put luggage in the hold, you have to wait ages for it at the other end – if it shows up at all.

Once you have experienced the nightmare of waiting at the luggage carousel until it stops, with no sign of the suitcase you checked in, it is clear why people prefer to plug their cases on board. You took a flight from London to Tokyo; your luggage and your smart clothes decided to hop on to one to Los Angeles. Not an externality but certainly negative.

In America only 0.5% of bags go missing, but if you are a frequent traveler, that risk is too high. A survey of 150 frequent fliers found that two-thirds had experienced some sort of delay or loss to their luggage in the previous 12 months. And, if luggage remains lost, your likely compensation is paltry- a maximum of $1,250 regardless of whether your clothes were bought at Wal-Mart or Armani.

If airlines are to restrict carry-ons, therefore, they also need to offer better compensation for delayed or lost luggage. At the least they should extend frequent-flier miles to luggage as well as its owner: if your luggage travels to Tokyo via Los Angeles, you should get triple frequent- flier miles. In addition, passengers could be made to pay if they want to take extra luggage on board. Better still, given the frequent correlation between the size of the traveler and the weight of his (yes, bis) carry- on, why not take a tip from Papua New Guinea? When flying within the country, a passenger used to be weighed along with his luggage before boarding the plane. Fight the flab and you can bring your bag on board. Aero planes and diets would then indeed be closely connected.

Text 5 GEORGE’S TRIAL

George had stolen some money, but the police had caught him and he had been put in

prison. Now his trial was about to begin, and he felt sure that he would be found guilty and sent to prison for a long time.

Then he discovered that an old friend of his was one of the members of the jury at the trial.

Of course, he did not tell anybody, but he managed to see his friend secretly one day. He said to

him, “Jim, I know that the jury will find me guilty of having stolen the money. I cannot hope to be found not guilty of taking it –that would be too much to expect. But I should be grateful to you for the rest of my life if you could persuade the other members of the jury to add a strong

recommendation for mercy to their statement that they consider me guilty.”

“Well, George,” answered Jim, “I shall certainly try to do what I can for you as an old

friend, but of course I cannot promise anything. The other eleven people on the jury look terribly strong-minded to me.”

George said that he would quite understand if Jim was not able to do anything for him, and

thanked him warmly for agreeing to help.

The trial went on, and at last the time came for the jury to decide whether George was

guilty or not. It took them five hours, but in the end they found George guilty, with a strong

recommendation for mercy.

Of course, George was very pleased, but he did not have a chance to see Jim for some time

after the trial. At last, however, Jim visited him in prison, and George thanked him warmly and

asked him how he had managed to persuade the other members of the jury to recommend mercy.

“Well, George,” Jim answered, “as I thought, those eleven men were very difficult to

persuade, but I managed it in the end by tiring them out. Do you know, those fools had all wanted to find you not guilty!”

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