ECOSCIENCE BY A NNE AND PAUL EHRLICH

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Paul Ehrlich (Bing Professor of Population Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University) and Anne Ehrlich (Senior Research Associate, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford) are familiar names to ecologists and environmentalists everywhere. As well they should be. Because it was Paul and Anne who—through their writing and research—gave special meaning to the words "population", "resources", and "environment" in the late 1960's. (They also coined the term coevolution, and did a lot to make ecology the household word it is today.) But while moat folks are aware of the Rhrlicha' popular writing in the areas of ecology and overpopulation (most of us— for instance—have read Paul's book The Population Bomb) . . . far too few people have any idea of how deeply the Ehrlichs are involved in ecological research (research of the type that tends to be published only in technical journals and college textbooks). That's why it pleases us to be able to present—on a regular basis—the following semi-technical column by authors/ecologists/educators Anne and Paul Ehrlich.

Whenever populations die out and species become extinct, the most serious consequence is the loss of the ecosystem services the creatures formerly helped provide . . . but that's far from being the only serious repercussion of extinction. Few people, for instance, are aware of the enormous direct economic (and other) benefits Homo sapiens derives from its living companions on this global spaceship, and even fewer realize that the potential benefits are greater still!

PLANT HEALERS

Many examples of the direct "pluses" that Earth's flora and fauna provide us with can be found in the field of medicine. In 1955, Paul's father died after a grim, 13-year battle with Hodgkin's disease, a leukemia—like disorder. Just after his death, Canadian scientists discovered that an extract of the leaves of a periwinkle plant from Madagascar caused a decrease in the white blood cell count of rats. When chemists at Eli Lilly & Co. analyzed the periwinkle's leaves, they discovered a large number of alkaloids . . . poisonous compounds evolved by the plant to fend off predators and parasites. (See our column in MOTHER NO. 50 . . . to order back issues, turn to page 116.)

Two of the alkaloids, vincristine and vinblastine, have since proved effective in the treatment of Hodgkin's disease. Indeed, with radiation combined with these and other drugs, it's now usually possible to control—or even cure—this kind of cancer. Thus a chemical that was later found in a plant species could have greatly prolonged Bill Ehrlich's life . . . and it's now available to aid the 5,000 to 6,000 people, in the U.S. alone, who contract this disease each year.

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