By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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All it took for me to lose my fear of biotechnology, specifically the manipulation of DNA, was hearing about the therapies that have been developed in the past few months.

I don’t even need major specifics, although we should always do our homework about science news. All I needed to know is that the scientific community has been working on the heavy stuff and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

In this year of our Common Era of 2024 we might see the roll-out of a number of vaccines and therapies targeting malaria, HIV, sickle-cell anaemia and some cancers.

What a time to be alive!

This is very much needed to counterbalance some of the other developments that are anticipated for this year. Apparently, a whole bunch of countries will be going to the polls, including my own — I think. Tanzania will be going through local elections in preparation for our general election in 2025. We will come to them closer to date.

In the meantime, can we talk about the US? I don’t mean to give them undue attention, it’s just that ignoring them entirely is futile, considering the influence they exert upon us all, and that bellicose attitude bristling with nuclear threat. So, if Americans are about to vote and the options are two polarising geriatric men, probably best to keep an eye on how they are doing.

There is an opinion that I support that the rest of the world should have some say in whom America elects. Decidedly so, with veto power. And, honestly, it is unfair to limit this to America. Based on metrics such as global economic power and influence, military power and nuclear weapons, there are a number of countries that I think might benefit from some meddling from the rest of us citizens of the planet, who suffer the consequence of “bad” decisions on their part.

If ever we are to slide into a New World Order, heh, this would be a format that might just yield some slightly more democratic rather than oligarchic rule.

In the event, we definitely all need a plan in case Donald Trump manages to win for whatever reason.

Locally speaking, a spell of rain has broken the heat wave across the city, but also hopefully filled up the dams upon which we depend for our power needs. In 2024, it will be awkward to hear dubious claims about how we apparently don’t conform to the water cycle and rainfall somehow doesn’t result in rising dam levels. It will be particularly sad if this is the case and we sacrificed our Kihansi frogs for another project named Julius Nyerere that isn’t quite up to par.

I don’t want to put much more pressure on the year fresh out of the gate, so let me end here. If, however, the extraterrestrials feel like this is the year they want to make their debut on Terra, that would be fine. We need a distraction now that Elon Musk has broken Twitter and maybe they come bearing technological gifts like limitless power to help us cool the planet before we roast ourselves and the rest of the biosphere into extinction.

Have a good one!

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report; Email [email protected]