The Sunday paper was always a big deal around the house. Dad would snatch the business section, mom would grab the arts section, and the kids would argue over the comics. Even as an adult, I never bothered with the business section as it seemed boring. I get my best investment ideas from other sections in the Sunday paper.

This week was no exception. While I can't share my paper with you, I've found one story online so that you can read more about one idea that I discovered. Hopefully I can show you that the business section of any newspaper doesn't hold all the clues to a diversified portfolio.

The tobacco industry seems to be a risky investment, especially since many towns have banned smoking in public and many people have tried (some successfully, others not so successfully) to quit smoking. I mean, what good is tobacco, other than to manufacture cigarettes, chewing tobacco, cigars, and other products that induce cancer, emphysema and heart disease?

Yet, this Sunday's paper revealed that an international team of scientists is working to develop a tobacco-based vaccine to prevent a virus that causes most cervical cancers. The treatment would be similar to one that's already on the market, but the big difference is cost. The tobacco-based vaccine still in the works would cost an estimated $3 for three doses, compared with $360 for three doses of the prevalent vaccine.

The low cost would make this vaccine available to women in poor countries, or to the poor in developed countries. The first phase of human clinical trials could start by the end of 2008 in the United States, with more tests planned for countries like India, where poverty, lack of screening, and spotty access to health care leads to late diagnosis and early death.

Look for this vaccine to go through trials, FDA approval, and processing before the first batch is available to the general public. In the meantime, if you type "uses for tobacco" into a search engine, you might discover that very low doses of nicotine can have dramatic effects in controlling the symptoms of Tourette's syndrome, a rare neurological disorder characterized by physical tics and uncontrollable vocalizations which are often filled with obscenities.

There is now also some new data that indicates that nicotine can normalize some of the psychophysiological deficits seen in patients with schizophrenia. One doctor stated, ""We did not set out to study nicotine, we set out to study schizophrenia. But anyone who spends anytime with schizophrenics soon realizes that they smoke a great deal. Indeed, a much higher percentage of schizophrenics, both male and female, are heavy smokers than in the general population, and they smoke the higher tar brands." This heavy smoking led to an investigation on how nicotine affects the nervous system.

In other studies at the University of Maryland in College Park, a team of researchers is focusing on the plant's good side by testing the plant for medicine, cosmetics, and energy purposes. They've learned that at least two proteins exist in tobacco plants, and that both contain all 21 amino acids essential for human health. Because our bodies can't synthesize these amino acids, we get them from our food. In the future, however, tobacco proteins might provide an inexpensive, easy nutritional additive to our diets along with our regular vitamins.

The problem with these stories is that not one reporter mentions where the money has come from to support these projects. If you take into account that the studies at the University of Maryland have been ongoing for the past three years with little to no results, you might imagine that some largesse is involved with this research. The other stories also provide tentative progress, except for the migraine headache relief.

I would guess - and this is a very big guess - that tobacco companies and possibly the government are funding some projects. It wouldn't do to have tobacco farmers out of business, although Congressional buyout bills in places like North Carolina have forced some tobacco farmers to try new farming methods and crops. Instead, it would behoove many tobacco companies to try to find new products that could be gleaned from the "evil weed."

But there's a lot to learn about the tobacco industry before investing, and much of what you might want to learn concerns the varieties of tobacco and the various legislations that many tobacco growers face. This is a transition period for this crop, and it might be the time to learn as much as possible so that you're ready to invest in new life-saving and life-enhancing products that may hit the market within the next five years.

Accordingly, don't gamble on the notion that traditional tobacco companies will hold controlling interests in medical products produced from tobacco. My suggestion is to keep an eye on news coming from concerns that are located in the tobacco belt (from Maryland south to Georgia and from the Piedmont area east of the Smoky Mountains west to mid-America). News like this story from Virginia can help you to keep track of private businesses that may be open to buyouts or takeovers from major companies in the future.

This was just one story out of five that I discovered this past Sunday that sparked my curiosity about future investment possibilities. This particular tobacco story was on page one, not hidden away in some corner of the business section. Even so, I might have missed the investment implications if I hadn't been thinking about diversification. While I would never invest in the tobacco industry as it stands today, tomorrow's possibilities seem interesting...

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin