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Javier E

The Battle for DuPont - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • DuPont is a pretty well-run company. Under the leadership of Ellen Kullman, a company veteran who became its chief executive in 2009, this once unwieldy conglomerate has undergone a great deal of change, with more still to come. It has cut some $2 billion in costs, eliminating a third of its management; announced the spinoff of its performance chemicals business; and “refreshed” its board with such corporate stalwarts as Edward Breen, who is best known for turning around Tyco International in the early 2000s. Since Kullman took over, the company has delivered 266 percent in total shareholder returns, easily outpacing the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. It is in the middle of a major restructuring designed to boost earnings growth.
  • Have we really gotten to the point where the activist now gets the benefit of the doubt, no matter how well run the company?
  • In the DuPont/Trian fight, the hedge fund is on record as saying that the company is not getting a return on its research-and-development spending. Yet R.& D. — science — is at the very heart of DuPont’s business model and always has been. And it can take years to turn a scientific advance into a successful product. A DuPont stripped of much of its R.& D. doesn’t just hurt the company; it hurts the country.
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  • Activist funds are now such a powerful force in the market that many companies — even good ones — have no choice but to offer them board seats.
  • “Activism has caused companies to cut R.& D., capital investment and, most significantly, employment,” he said. “It forces companies to lay off employees to meet quarterly earnings.”“It is,” he concluded, “a disaster for the country.”
Javier E

In a Bean, a Boon to Biotech - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer, have manipulated the genes of the soybean to radically alter the composition of its oil to make it longer-lasting, potentially healthier and free of trans fats.
  • “It almost mirrors olive oil in terms of the composition of fatty acids.”
  • “We have been told if we have a product that is beneficial to consumers it will be much more acceptable,”
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  • Both Monsanto’s Vistive Gold soybeans and DuPont Pioneer’s Plenish soybeans are engineered to silence the gene for an enzyme that converts oleic fatty acid into linoleic acid. The resulting oil has very low levels of linoleic and linolenic acids, which are polyunsaturated and responsible for soybean oil’s short shelf life. By contrast, about 75 percent is oleic acid, three times the level in a conventional soybean. Oleic acid is a monounsaturated fatty acid that is the main component of olive oil.
anonymous

Germ theory changed parenting. Will coronavirus do the same? - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • Germs changed all that. More than a hundred years ago, germ theory — the discovery that microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses caused disease — had a profound impact on almost every aspect of human behavior, just as the novel coronavirus could do after the current pandemic ends.
  • Sharing beds, whether at home or in public lodgings, became unacceptable; laws against spitting in public went on the books; and restaurants began requiring waiters to shave their beards and mustaches. Out went the fashion for long skirts and Victorian decor with its heavy drapery, where germs might lurk. In came an entire industry of sanitary products and disinfectants, such as Listerine, and spotless porcelain toilet fixtures.
  • By the end of the 19th century, mothers and other primary caretakers became cautious about cuddling or touching their children for fear of breeding deadly infections.
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  • Parents, heeding the advice of physicians and even the U.S. government, adopted a style of care that was chilly and aloof.
  • With the development of compound microscopes in the 1600s, scientists got their first glimpse of microorganisms. In the mid-19th century, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch demonstrated that bacteria were the agents of some diseases. By the close of the century, scientists identified viruses.
  • All that would shift again by the middle of the 20th century, when psychologists such as John Bowlby and Harry Harlow exposed the potentially traumatic side effects of remote parenting on child development.
  • In ancient times, disease was thought to be the result of an imbalance of body fluids or an affliction from the gods. Later, scientists suspected that illnesses might be transmitted through the air or water, but weren’t clear how.
  • In 1870, 175 of every 1,000 infants died in their first year of life; by 1930, the number decreased to 75. Yet the hands-off approach that kept children safe from germs also ran counter to the instinctual need for physical affection that all primates, including humans, have.
  • Refrigerators and vacuum cleaners were marketed not only as labor savers but as necessities for good hygiene. When the DuPont Cellophane Co. brought out plastic wrap in the 1920s, the product was hailed as a sanitary innovation for keeping food and other personal items.
  • In 1888, the “Wife’s Handbook” warned mothers that a single touch was teeming with deadly germs that might harm her infant, and public campaigns urged caution when preparing family meals.
  • Harlow’s and Bowlby’s insights set the stage for a shift toward child-centered and emotionally connected parenting that remains in fashion today. But it came too late for generations whose upbringings were marked by an excessive fear of germs
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