Today is January 28, and Lenina has a smashing headache; she is a Streptococcus pneumoniae researcher. Not that this was the main reason for the headache, but an important meeting was being held today to launch the Pneumococcal Molecular Epidemiology Network’s [PMEN] new paper in Science . Oddly enough, her role at the meeting is to summarize the history of Streptococcus pneumoniae prior to her group’s latest bit of information. The meeting would cover the history and evolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae , in general, and the 40 year history of the PMEN-1 clone, specifically. History. The summary was sitting on her desk at work, in the laboratory.

When Lenina was first forced to rethink vaccination in her newer world she had to get over the fact that infants [not embryos] and the elderly [old people?] were targeted. However, "Sterilization is civilization" remained her mantra throughout both worlds. All infectious diseases should just go away; certainly there was a way to either annihilate or prevent them. Sometimes she would be so distraught at work that she would repeat unintelligible nursery rhymes. Her co-workers find her smart, but a little strange most of the time.