A missed opportunity with Gates:
Mr. Gates, of Microsoft fame, has given a lot of money to support some worthy causes. Among others, he wanted to find ways of controlling malaria, as do I. Specifically he was looking for someone, “Developing a genetic strategy to deplete or incapacitate a disease-transmitting insect population.” Well that is exactly what I was doing with the paper Fluctuation of fertility with number in a real insect population and a virtual population M.L. Herbert & M.G. Lewis, African Entomology 21(1): 119–125 (2013) and there is more to do along the same lines. I just learned how specific his demand was. In fact I tried to get in touch with his foundation and point out the he might be interested in what I had done, but I could never find a way to send them a note. You know I would have if I could have.
Now it appears to be too late. (A New Challenge ECONOMIST vol. 413 no. 8908 October 11, 2014 page 87) He has redirected his foundation to seek social rather than scientific goals.
All right. I blew that one. Maybe there is a philanthropist out there who’d like to see babies come back, but I doubt I ever find one.
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