For informations' sake, this policy resulted in a global 2.5 increase in the incidence of malaria by 1975. China, for example had an estimated 9 million cases in 1975 compared with 1 million in 1961; similarly in India, the number of cases jumped from 1 million to over 6 million cases in the same time period.

Yet, on the surface, no one can argue that technology seems to make our life more comfortable. We like to believe that the technological paraphernalia protects us from the blows of nature. More and more, we live in a virtual reality made by humans for humans. We call the maintenance of this virtual reality "work" and few people actually question the validity and the efficacy of such a mode of interaction with our environment as we are increasingly dependent on it. Meanwhile, the natural world is fast disappearing behind the smoke-screen of our new, improved reality. Of course, we can marvel at the recent prospect of growing organs from a single cell taken from the patients themselves thereby solving problems of compatible donors and immune-rejection all at once.

It is also true that last year, for the first time in ages, the obituary of a famous L.A Newspaper didn't list any AIDS related deaths thanks, it is claimed, to a combination of three synthetic compounds. With the rapid advances in genetic science, we can predict that relatively soon, the interface between human beings and their technology will be organic or bionic as it is often referred to. Imagine future human beings directly connected to the Internet, thanks to an organic implant surgically fitted into their brain...no doubt for a handsome fee ! If you think I've lost it, check this: the first bionic eye has just been invented and tested on a human patient by the medical team of the John-Hopkins institute in Baltimore - USA.

On another level, global life-expectation is on the increase; we (at least in our technologically-minded world) have mountains of food stored away to fend off the ghost of starvation; in short, humanity is thriving, thanks to its technology.

But is it that simple ? To invent and use technology to modify our environment to our benefit is by no means new. Since the beginnings of agriculture (about 20,000 years ago), we have selected plants, bred animals, modified the landscape, protected ourselves against the elements and tried to eradicate diseases (and what else did the Romans ever do for us ?). Yet, for most of this period, some kind of balance existed between "the natural world" and the "human world". The current picture is somewhat different though.

As far as our global genetic inheritance is concerned, we are currently witnessing the worst disaster since the mass-extinction of the dinosaurs. While it is difficult to be precise with such information, some experts estimate the current extinction rate to be about 18,500 species per annum. The principal reason for their disappearance being the destruction of their natural environment by humans. If the evolutionary path partly depends on a rich and creative chaotic and random shuffling of genes among the myriad life-forms inhabiting this planet, what can such a tremendous loss do to its course ? Could we have missed out on unknown species, potentially useable as Medicine among these dodos ?

Similarly, our food seems to have also decreased both in diversity and in quality. A report from the US congress published as early as 1936 warned that vegetables produced by the agricultural industry were lacking most minerals as those in the soil were not being properly replaced (unfortunately, this also applies to organic food). A considerable amount of produce (such as varieties of apples and carrots) has also disappeared from the shops. Genetically modified vegetable (some of them now containing fish genes) have been introduced as improvements on species which evolved over eons. Could this also contribute to poor health ?

As for longevity, it seems the longest-lived people on record do not inhabit our technological world but dry,mountainous places where the air is pure and the drinking and watering water comes from mineral-rich glacier melted ice. These people frequently live in their 120's and do not seem to suffer from heart diseases, cancer or stroke to name the three most prevalent killer-diseases of our technological world.

Some studies on the common cold have showed that pharmaceutical drugs-takers took, on average, one day longer to recover, had a lower antibody response and more nasal stuffiness than the placebo group. Perhaps this tends to show that our immune-systems and cold viruses are old acquaintances and that we can only marginally improve our genetically inherited response to such infections. In fact, we now know that the overall, long-term use of antibiotics results in a poorer immune-response in humans and stronger strains of bugs.

Just like "Qing Hao" now comes to the rescue of malaria sufferers and scientists alike, other herbs could well prove invaluable in the future. As a Chinese Herbalist, I am regularly informed of the degree of depletion of certain species. Unfortunately, the list of endangered or severely depleted species grows steadily longer leaving us more and more disarmed in the face of illness. I believe it has never been so crucial to protect and cherish our planet as now. To use technology to preserve the richness of the natural world instead of exploiting it to death would be, in my view, a most welcome and needed innovation.