Mothers interfere with their children’s lives even more than most offspring realize. That they nag about eating habits is well known. What goes unnoticed is that mothers leave cells inside their children’s bodies, which may help with repairs when a child’s own cells go disorderly. This form of maternal interference is called microchimerism—the presence of a small number of cells that originate from another individual and therefore genetically distinct from the cells of the host individual. A mother’s cells can endure until a child reaches adulthood and perhaps throughout life. But scientists do not know exactly how common microchimerism is. It is detected more often in people with autoimmune conditions, which has led to the suggestion that the maternal cells could trigger those diseases. But healthy people have them too, seemingly with no ill effects. Lee Nelson, of the University of Washington, suspects that everybody has a few maternal cells. Her most recent work argues that, at least in some cases, they help rather than harm. Dr Nelson and her colleagues took blood samples from three groups of young volunteers and their mothers. The first group comprised 94 young volunteers who had type 1 diabetes; the second were 54 of their healthy siblings(brothers or sisters); and a further 24 were children without diabetes who were not related to anyone else in the study. The researchers then compared DNA from the mothers and their children. Because mothers pass copies of about half their genes to their children, some genes in any child-mother pairs will be unique to the mother—those that the child has not inherited from her. Others—versions of genes that came from dad—will be unique to the child. Dr Nelson used the uniquely maternal genes to find mothers’ cells in the volunteers’ blood. The technique found maternal cells in about half the diabetics’ samples, but in only about one-third of the healthy siblings’ samples and in less than one-fifth of those from the unrelated volunteers. Moreover, the microchimerism was not only more common but also more pronounced in diabetics. Dr Nelson also looked for signs that the maternal cells had caused the diabetes but found no evidence. So, contrary to established opinion, she believes maternal cells can do children good. These cells may help any bodily organ work better, she says, apart from the reproductive kind. Mothers’ protective interference goes on—seen and unseen.

The energy crisis, which is being felt around the world, has dramatized how the reckless despoiling of the earth’s resources has brought the whole world to brink of disaster. The overdevelopment of motor transport, with its increase of more cars, more highways, more pollution, more suburbs, more commuting, has contributed to the near-destruction of our cities, the disintegration of the family, and the pollution not only of local air, but also of the earth’s atmosphere. The catastrophe has arrived in the form of the energy crisis. Our present situation is unlike war, revolution, or depression. It is also unlike the great natural catastrophes of the past. Worldwide resources exploitation and energy use have brought us to a state where long-range planning is crucial. What we need is not a continuation of our present perilous state, which endangers the future of our country, our children, and our earth, but a movement forward to a new norm in order to work rapidly and effectively on planetary problems. This country has been reeling under the continuing exposures of loss of moral integrity and the revelation that lawbreaking has reached into the highest places in the land. There is a strong demand for moral revival and for some commitment that is vast enough and yet personal enough to enlist the loyalty of all. In the past it has been only in a war in defense of their own country and their own ideals that any people have been able to invoke a total commitment. This is the first time that we have been asked to defend ourselves and what we hold dear in cooperation with all the other inhabitants of this planet, who share with us the same endangered air and the same endangered oceans. There is a common need to reassess our present course, to change that course, and to devise new methods through which the world can survive. This is a priceless opportunity. To grasp it, we need a widespread understanding of the nature of the crisis confronting us—and the world—a crisis that is no passing inconvenience, no by-product of the ambition of the oil producing countries, no environmentalists’ mere fears, no by-product of any present system of government. What we face is the outcome of the invention of the last four hundred years. What we need is a transformed lifestyle. This new life style can flow directly from science and technology, but its acceptance depends on an overriding commitment to a higher quality of life for the world’s children and future generation.

I am one of the many city people who are always saying that given the choice we would prefer to live in the country away from the dirt and noise of a large city. I have managed to convince myself that if it weren’t for my job I would immediately head out for the open spaces and go back to nature in some sleepy village buried in the country. But how realistic is the dream? Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population lives in massive tower blocks, noisy, dirty and impersonal. The sense of belonging to a community tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. All you can see from your window is sky, or other blocks of flats. Children become aggressive and nervous—cooped up at home all day, with nowhere to play; their mothers feel isolated from the rest of the world. Strangely enough, whereas in the past the inhabitants of one street all knew each other, nowadays people on the same floor in tower blocks don’t even say hello to each other. Country life, on the other hand, differs from this kind of isolated existence in that a sense of community generally binds the inhabitants of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But country life has disadvantages too. While it is true that you may be among friends in a village, it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. There’s little possibility of going to a new show or the latest movie. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on an expedition to the nearest large town. The city-dweller who leaves for the country is often oppressed by a sense of unbearable stillness and quietness. What, then, is the answer? The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off; the city breeds a feeling of isolation, and constant noise batters the senses. But one of its main advantages is that you are at the centre of things; and that life doesn’t come to an end at half past nine at night. Some people have found (or rather bought) a compromise between the two: they have expressed their preference for the “quiet life“ by leaving the suburbs and. moving to villages within commuting distance of large cities. They generally have about as much sensitivity as the plastic flowers they leave behind—they are polluted with strange ideas about change and improvement which they force on to the unwilling original inhabitants of the village. What then of my dreams of leaning on a cottage gate and murmuring “morning“ to the locals as they pass by? I’m keen on the idea, but you see there’s my cat, Toby. I’m not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those hearty males down the farm? No, he would rather have the electric imitation-coal fire any evening.

What is a woman worth? That is the question that has to be faced by divorcing couples and by their lawyers. The answers seem to be getting curiouser and curiouser. Last week a judge ordered an insurance broker to give his former wife a settlement of ￡48m. She had earlier refused his offer of about ￡20m, which is why the matter went to court. No doubt Beverley Charman was an exemplary wife, and it is written in the Book of Proverbs that the price of a virtuous woman is above rubies, but even so, 348m seems a little steep. It would buy a couple of continents’ worth of rubies. What women are really worth is beset with confusion and contradiction. There was a time when what women wanted was equal pay for equal work. One of the logical consequences was that no woman was entitled to take out of a marriage any more than she brought into it. That view was later softened by a recognition that childbearing and childcare present a serious opportunity cost to most women. So now people tend to agree that at divorce a woman should be compensated both for the real value that she brought to the marriage and for the opportunity cost to herself—her long slide down the career ladder, her loss of a personal pension, her reduced chances of finding another spouse. Then there is a surprisingly unliberated tendency among women, and among men, to make estimates that are unfairly biased in favor of women. The judge in the Charmans’ hearing said that this was one of the very small category of cases where the wealth created is of extraordinary proportions from extraordinary talent and energy of the husband and therefore the husband could keep more than half the assets. That still left the wife with 48m(37% of the assets). But then the judge made some odd remarks about old-fashioned attitudes. Discussing John Charman’s determination “to protect what he regards as wealth generated entirely by his efforts“, he said: “In the narrow, old-fashioned sense, that perspective is understandable, if somewhat outdated.“ Wrong. It is the judge who sounds old-fashioned. This country is awash with clever and hardworking men who make huge sums of money while their wives do little to contribute to domestic comfort and not much to advance their husband’s careers. That does not mean they are not entitled to proper compensation on divorce, but I think the assumption that they are entitled to half the fruits of the marriage, unless there is good reason why not, is absurd.

“Microchimerism“ refers to a form of maternal interference in which mothers

It is stated in Paragraph 2 that microchimerism could

Some genes in child-mother pairs will be unique to the mother in that

According to Dr Nelson in the last paragraph, maternal cells would

What is the author’s attitude towards maternal interference?