Bruno's Mauritian Blog

A vaccine against the dreaded Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is nearly there! A team of scientists from the USA have discovered a virus-like particle that mimics the CHIKV.

CHIKV is a very infectious virus transmitted to humans via some species of mosquitoes. The re-emergence of the virus in Kenya, 2004, lead to widespread infection within the Indian Ocean, including Mauritius.

Gary Nabel from the Vaccine Research Center, US National Institutes of Health, Maryland, USA and some colleagues made a vaccine which works with non-human primates. They assembled proteins to form virus-like particles (VLPs), which mimic the virus but aren’t infectious. Rhesus monkeys injected with the VLPs produced antibodies which made them completely immune to the CHIKV.

Immunization with this alphavirus VLP vaccines represents a serious strategy to contain the spread of the CHIKV in the human population.

Link to paper: Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/nm.2105

Peter Backus, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick, modified the Drake equation to obtain an estimate of the odds of finding a girlfriend in the UK. I will adapt his method to determine the odds of finding an Asian-looking girlfriend in Mauritius.

The Drake equation is used to find a serious estimate of the number of evolved extraterrestrial civilisations that might exist in the Milky Way. The equation was developed by Dr Drake in 1960.

This equation is generally written as

N = R* f_p n_e f_l f_i f_{e L}

where

N = the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way with which communication might be possible,
R* = the rate of star formation per year in the Milky Way,
f_p = the fraction of those stars that have planets,
n_e = the average number of exoplanets that have the potential to support life per star that has planets,
f_l = the fraction of the above that has actually developed life at some point,
f_i = the fraction of the above that has actually developed intelligent life,
f_c = the fraction of ET civilizations that has developed radio communication, and
L = the length of time such ET civilizations emit detectable signals into space.

N = The number of potential Asian-looking girlfriends

R* = The rate of formation of people in Mauritius
This is about 25,000 people per year in the 80s.

f_w = The fraction of Mauritians who are female
Since I am heterosexual, I will focus on the female group. (0.51)

f_m = The fraction of Mauritian women who live in the island of Mauritius
I do not want to spend air or boat tickets to go regularly to Rodrigues. (0.97)

f_a = The fraction of Mauritian women living in the island of Mauritius who are age-appropriate
Being in the mid-twenties, I’d rather look for a twenty-something woman. I do not want to out of touch since I haven’t read the latest Twilight novel, nor do I want to end up with a milf. Let’s say I am looking for a woman between 20 and 29 years of age. (0.17)

f_h = The fraction of age-appropriate Mauritian women who live in the island of Mauritius who have an Asiatic trait
I am not trying to be communalist here, but I was lacking a parameter I could quantify. You can substitute 1.0 here if you do not care about the race. (0.72)

f_b = The fraction of age-appropriate Asiatic female who live in the island of Mauritius who I find physically attractive
Crucial for choosing a girlfriend. This is a rather subjective parameter. I would say, just like Peter Backus, that I find 1 in 20 age-appropriate Asian-looking female living in Mauritius physically attractive. (0.05)

L = The length of time, in years, I have been looking for one
Euh, let’s say 10 years.

The new equation is

N = R* f_w f_w f_a f_h f_{b L}

Plugging in the values, I get N = 25,000*0.51*0.97*0.17*0.72*0.05*10 = 757.

So there are 757 Asian-looking potential girlfriends in Mauritius. This is about 0.06% of the population of Mauritius. This does not seem so bad at first: it’s roughly 6 out 10000 people. But this does not take into account the fraction of these women who will find me attractive (depressingly low, to plagiarise Backus), the fraction of these females who will be single and the fraction of these who I can get along with.

So, if 1 in 20 of these women find me attractive, half are single and I can get along with 1 in 10 of them, this decreases this girlfriend pool to … 2. So there are only two Asian-looking girls in the whole of Mauritius who could be my girlfriend!

In 2006, most Mauritians seemed to be against the then Mr Sithanen. However, at that time, I thought he was, by far, the best minister in the Labour cabinet. His financial policy seemed audacious and radically different from his predecessors (including himself – when he was Chancellor under SAJ). I somehow felt that his courageous decisions would pay dividends in the long term. 3 years later, after a financial melt-down, and a lot more exposure to socialist literature and scientific reports on climate change and the energy crisis, I find myself being radically opposed to Dr Sithanen’s ultra-liberal ideology.

His last budget is yet another poor economist’s attempt to brand himself as “green”. But clearly Dr Sithanen, like all ultra-liberals, fails to understand the real scientific issues behind sustainability, energy management and climate change. His budget is still focused on conventional short-term economic growth. This is a blatant mistake, considering that we just witnessed the failure of the capitalist system. We should start thinking about REAL alternatives, not just buying some ecological (toxic mercury???) lamps, or new buses. Dr Sithanen and his liberal acolytes should watch the following video: The point of no-return. It might help them to understand what is really at stake these days.

There is a gross misconception that Dr Sithanen’s brave financial policies warded off the financial crisis, and helped Mauritius to maintain a positive economic growth. The chancellor boasts that Mauritius has a positive growth, while big economies like the US and the UK are in recession. However, he fails to inform us that almost all African countries are also experiencing positive growth. The financial crisis simply did not hit us badly! This monster (financial crisis) only affect ultra-liberal economies – this explains why the liberal Anglo-Saxons were hit the hardest, whilst more conservative France and Germany are already out of recession.

The reason why Mauritius did not experience the hard times the UK (where I currently live) is facing now is because of its conservative economic system. There is almost no social mobility at the top of the Mauritian pyramid. The very rich have set up cartels and monopolies and kill all new entrants. They are already in a comfortable position and do not need to invest in risky (toxic) financial products. Americans and British invested in these toxic sub-primes and we all know the consequences now. In Mauritius, all big companies and banks are conservative and therefore will not easily go bust, like Lehman Brothers or Northen Rock for e.g.

Also, the economic climate of the MSM-MMM government in 2000-2005 was as difficult as what we are experiencing now. As mentioned above, a financial crisis affects only ultra-liberal economies and should not really be counted as an handicap for our island. However, our economy is affected by fluctuation in sugar prices, dwindling tourism arrival, removal of preferential tariffs for our textile products, or soaring fossil fuel prices. These are the same difficulties that both MSM-MMM and Labour governments have been facing in the past 7 years or so. Therefore, Dr Sithanen has not done anything extra-ordinary regarding the crisis.

Even the Stimulus Package was almost useless (except for one MP and his textile factory, which was experiencing difficulties sometime before the no 8 partial elections). Only a few millions were spent out of the committed billion, and most companies are already OK now. So keeping the stimulus package until December 2010 is a pointless measure. There is no sortie de crise, simply because there has been no crisis in Mauritius. However, we do note that one of the companies in difficulty and which needs the help of the stimulus package is a BPO company owned by one of the PM’s advisors.

Dr Sithanen’s vision is still blurred by an ultra-liberal rhetoric. It is this ideology which brought the financial crisis upon the world. It will be this ideology that will bring the ecological demise of the planet. Nothing good can come out in the long term from a budget inspired by this deeply flawed philosophy. We need an out-of-the-box mindset and real, sustainable alternatives to this ultra-liberal mess.