Most of you will leave here to pursue other professions, in which knowledge-making and using are essential tools. Erica Weissman spent last year studying the skeletal remains of villagers who lived 8,000 years ago in the highlands of Iraq, where the agricultural revolution took hold. Erica showed that the villagers lived only about 35 years. She also began to puzzle out what kinds of diseases and injuries they suffered during their lives. Well, it tells us something about the history of human disease.
Most infectious diseases come from domesticated animals.
The common coldcaused by the aptly named rhinovirusescame from horses, the only other animal that gets colds. So, Erica's study produced information that may be useful to those who study common human diseases. Another Penn student, Gregory Grimaldi, spent much of last year creating a program for the Internet that could make an efficient on-line market in any product. A good market is one in which sellers and buyers have a great deal of information about one another, about prices, about the product, and so on. The Internet is an information medium and will soon be a virtual place for virtual markets.