Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Piracy off-East Africa has subsided, thanks to a coordinated international response.

But a flare-up off the coast of West Africa isn't receiving the same attention, from governments, or even from the shipping companies that are at risk.

And our correspondent tries out a training simulation for armed police. It didn't go well.

It's hard to measure how much these exercises reduce shootings,

but they do reveal the nuance behind split-second life-or-death decisions.

First up, though, the first baby ever born using in vitro fertilisation turned 41 this summer. Without IVFI wouldn't be here.

My sons wouldn't be here. There'd be

six to eight million of us not here. The hope and joy for people to have families is amazing.

Louise Brown, who is now herself a mother of two, says her own mother would be astonished

at how far the technology has come. Yet, fertility remains one of the least understood

areas of medicine. Clinics, nevertheless, often present it as an exact science. And demand is growing.

Europe and America are the largest markets, with places such as China catching up. With the

potential for recession-proof demand and large profit margins,

investment has been flooding into Femtech, and clinics are finding ways to expand their clientele.

The fertility sector has always played on hope, the hope to have babies, but now it increasingly

also plays on fear, the fear that one might wait too long

with trying for a baby or that you might struggle to have one.

Sasha Nauta is the economist's public policy editor.

By playing on that second emotion, fear, there's a whole host of new business opportunities

that fertility experts and their investors are honing in on.

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