"In the absence of more targeted grant or scholarship programs, more people are taking out student loans, and they are borrowing more. All that borrowing adds up to a total of $1.3 trillion, nearly triple what it was a decade ago."
DSL is unfortuantely the best internet connection in the small town I live in. The upload rate of these connections is really slow, and for large uploads, can saturate the connection. What this translates to in the real world is constant complaints from people about how their internet connection has just died for no good reason. What's happening in 99% of these cases is that some iPad in their house is backing up to iCloud, and bufferbloat from this upload is temporarily wiping out download speeds.
What I did was install the OpenWRT firmware on my TP-Link router, and install the SQM (Smart Queue Management) QoS application on it. This shapes uploads so that bufferbloat is greatly reduced. I tested all of this on DSLReport's Bufferbloat page, and it works great.
Yeah, it's too hard. It's too hard if the converter doesn't exist! When I have a lab mate send me a Powerpoint 2007.pptx file and I have to wait six months to open it on my Mac because Microsoft hasn't put out a converter for Microsoft Office 2004 for OSX and it's unusable data until then...
My worry is that the people who replaced those who resigned care more about the Administration's talking points and less about the science. If these newly-hired partisans are career hires instead of political apointees, the true danger will last long after Bush is gone from office, as they'll be a sleeper-cell for the next administration, if Democratic.
I do research on Staph. It's frustrating to everyone doing this work that in 50 years, we have really just a handful of targets in bacteria to attack. Here are our targets and some examples of the antibiotics we use
What's great about this this new drug from Merck is that it's target isn't on the list above. It's a new target (fatty acid metabolism) and it's well tolerated by mammals.
But it's not the only new one out there. Check out these papers on:
a) targeting the proteolytic machinery of bacteria, i.e. clp proteases Brötz-Oesterhelt, H. et al. Dysregulation of bacterial proteolytic machinery by a new class of antibiotics. Nature Med. 11, 1082-1087 (2005) http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v11/n10/abs/nm130 6.html
and
b) targeting Holliday junctions, i.e. how DNA recombines Gunderson Carl and Segall Anca, 2006. DNA repair, a novel antibacterial target: Holliday junction-trapping peptides induce DNA damage and chromosome segregation defects. Mol. Micro. 59 (4), 1129-1148. http://segall-lab.com/PDF/Gunderson2006.pdf
And don't forget to wash your hands! Make a researcher happy and save the drugs for another day!
The discovery of myomers (artificial muscles) in the Battletech universe was a little less sanguine:
Atlas: Is everything all set? Unauthorized personnel out?...Everyone behind the safety barriers?...All right. Good luck, everyone. O.K. Devers, charge the myomer bundle. Devers: Myomer bundle charge at 100 percent. Atlas: Trethers, measuring instruments ready? Trethers: Yes, sir. Atlas: Fine. Iona, turn on the cameras. Countdown from five, four, three, two, one, discharge.
[Professor Atlas pushed the discharge switch. Immediately, all the potential energy stored in the myomer bundle became one swift and powerful contraction as the electric current traveled through it. The new myomer bundle composition of "Schwarzenegger's Bicep" contracted into a mass one-tenth its original size. It ripped the thick metal tubing of the test harness to shreds, causing ten-kilogram lead weights to be tossed into the air like confetti. Some of the scientists had to run for their lives to avoid the falling weights.]
Atlas: My God. Am I hallucinating? Trethers: Professor, the contraction was off the scale of my instruments! Atlas: Which means what? Trethers: A pull of over one metric ton! Atlas: I think it's time to get rip-snorting drunk, don't you?
I agree - and want to add one more point to to the above:
7.) Drive more! Short drives give lousy mpg for any car. My '04 Prius gets 44 mpg doing the short (15 min.) commute to lab everyday up and down very large hills. When I've driven it longer on flatter terrain, I consistently get 55-60 mpg.
I'd say the 31 mpg hybrids need a tuneup. All the ones I know are running >40 mpg.
Unfortunately you're forgetting that location in the newspaper counts as well. Underreporting can be the choice of putting an important article above the fold on A1 or give it a few scattered pages between D3 and D8.
I know two people who have them, but they're for the older version of the iPod (the newer version came out a few weeks after the iTrip appeared - d'oh!). The FM transmitter is just the same as all the others I've tried - scratchy and fickle, even when right next to your stereo. But it's compact and turns off with your iPod, whereas other transmitters stay on, draining the batteries.
What many are saying is that we should be careful about how closely we're pruning our collective genetic tree. How much genetic diversity do we want to give up for health when the oddball mutations may be what "saves" us from the next unknown diseasea. Cystic fibrosis is indeed a horrible disease and way to die, but it may have been selected for a thousand years ago as a way to (temporarily) survive other more rapid ways of dying (i.e. cholera). The same can be said for malaria and sickle cell anemia.
As a Staph researcher, I should say that it's wonderful that there's a new promising antibiotic out there, BUT we have no information on a) how effective it is on different strains of Staph b) if it's specific to Staph or to a wide variety of bacteria or MOST importantly c) if it's toxic to humans. The last thing you want is to get sicker while taking it.
So treat this more as a press release, less as a scientific discovery until the peer reviewed articles and FDA approval phases start.
First off, Staph is normally carried in your nose and throat and skin. This is not a bacteria that you just pick up in hospitals, although you are more likely to get a resistant strain when you are in a hospital (and the larger the hospital, the greater the chance for a resistant strain!). BUT studies that have examined what kids on the playground are carrying have shown that at least a third of the kids have a strain that is resisitant to some commonly used medicinal antibiotic.
So this is not just limited to the hospital. You can pick these bugs up in normal life, then when you become immunocompromised or have a deep wound, they can establish and cause disease.
As for using antibiotics in animal feed, you're correct that it's not a bad idea at all! But the problem arises when we use the same antibiotics to make our cows a little bigger and to cure us of infections. Fluoroquinolone use is a great example. These drugs have been very effective in controling infections, but overuse by in livestock has created a large reservoir of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is not controversial. Look at the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) position on this topic. The solution to having your burger and keeping healthy is to have different classes of antibiotics. The highest class would be used for human disease only. The lowest class would be for farm animals and food production. A middle class would have a mix between the two. But the most important drugs would be saved for humans, not so that we can have that taaaaasty burger!
So for your lack of worry, I'd encourage you to attend the ASM meeting in Washington this May, or any other microbiology conference, and talk to any microbiologist there. Trust me - we're very close to losing control of Staph. It IS very dangerous. It can kill a good deal of people if uncontrolled. It did so before penicillin, but there are few of us left who remember those days. This month, we just have lost the last best drug available to us, and we are now faced with a window of vulnerability to this bacteria.
And I'm not a doctor yet either - but in a couple years more (and a few/. posts less) I'll have a microbio PhD.
If you check out "Biohazard" by Ken Alibek, you'll see that the Russians (not the Soviets; our friends the Russians) engineered the vaccinia virus to hold Ebola genes. They claimed that it was for a vaccine application, but everyone looking at it knew it was a test to see if variola (i.e. smallpox) could be engineered the same way to hold the hemorragic genes of Ebola.
There are definitely examples where an antibiotic-resistant strain is less fit than its wild-type strain in an antibiotic free setting. However, it seems that there are many more examples where the bugs just keep holding onto the resistance genes for decades, even when the antibiotics are no longer prescribed. So while it may be theoretically possible to infect someone with a more fit, less resistant strain, you'd probably kill the person due to the shock induced by the immune system reacting to so amy new bacteria.
There's this beautiful study done by a fellow in Florida where he's created a new strain of Streptococcus mutans (the critter that causes the majority of cavities) that kills its cousins (other S. mutans without the resistance gene) and also doesn't acidify your mouth. The end result is that a bad Strep is pushed out (so to speak) of your mouth by a good, non-cavity forming, Strep. It's going to be marketed in about 5 years like the fluoride rinses that you get at the dentist - only this time, no cavities for life!
And one more thing about preventative bacteria - probiotics as well as the indigenous flora in your body. Many pathogenic bacteria have a tough time competing/establishing a flagella-hold in a normal setting due to the presence of pre-existing, normal (i.e. non-pathogenic) bacteria. However, if you take antibiotics that are broad-spectrum (i.e. CIPRO (damnit!!!)), you can wipe out the good bacteria, allowing the bad bacteria to establish and cause lots of problems. So don't self-medicate!
This bacteria has acquired a set of genes from a strain of Enterococcus that is resistant to vancomycin (VRE). Enterococcus has been known for a while to be resistant to vanco through three different evolved mechanisms, which all have the same result of modifying the cell wall. We microbiologists knew it was only a matter of time before Enterococcus donated some genes to Staph and made VRSA. So Staph didn't evolve the genes de novo. Those came from VRE, and *those* came from the original bacteria that made vancomycin to begin with (you have to have the resistance if you're going to make the poison, right?).
It actually does - it contains triclosan, the over-used and poorly understood antibiotic. And while you're correct that it doesn't contain vancomycin, what it does do is select for those Staph that are resistant to triclosan. That's particularly a bummer when you DO get VRSA and decide to try to treat your infection with triclosan and find out, hmm, it's resistant to that TOO.
Rats!
"Every Species on Earth", except the prokaryotes
on
Every Species on Earth
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While the article mentions microbes, after looking at their site and seeing but one microbiologist on their advisory board of 66 members, I have a feeling the larger effort is going towards finding the multicellular critters. This is quite a shame, considering the amazing diversity and incredible importance of bacteria and archaea.
I suppose this is only normal, as there are hundreds of species of bacteria in our gut alone, to say nothing of what's on and inside any other creature. And even though we're discovering microbes in places we never thought they'd be (deep in the earth at giga-Pascal pressures, deep in ice, at sulfur vents in the ocean, etc), we can only culture on a plate or in growth media less than 0.5% of what we see!
So "Every Species"? Hardly. Just the cute and cuddly ones that look good on the cover of National Geographic. And maybe a few slimy ones to gross out the kids.
At a recent conference up here in Hanover, NH, there were reports that a few Iridium satellites will be purchased by the government and retained as a emergency backup in case of a situation where other communications (i.e. cell phones, land lines, etc) go down around major metropolitan areas. I guess counting the number of shooting Iridium stars to see if they all go down would be the best way to start to verify this.
Niles
Slashdot Mirror
From the NPR article:
"In the absence of more targeted grant or scholarship programs, more people are taking out student loans, and they are borrowing more. All that borrowing adds up to a total of $1.3 trillion, nearly triple what it was a decade ago."
DSL is unfortuantely the best internet connection in the small town I live in. The upload rate of these connections is really slow, and for large uploads, can saturate the connection. What this translates to in the real world is constant complaints from people about how their internet connection has just died for no good reason. What's happening in 99% of these cases is that some iPad in their house is backing up to iCloud, and bufferbloat from this upload is temporarily wiping out download speeds.
What I did was install the OpenWRT firmware on my TP-Link router, and install the SQM (Smart Queue Management) QoS application on it. This shapes uploads so that bufferbloat is greatly reduced. I tested all of this on DSLReport's Bufferbloat page, and it works great.
FWIW, Mythbusters tested it.
Episode 33: Killer Brace Position and Cellphones vs Drunk Driving
The brace position on airlines increases chance of death: mythbusted
Talking on a cellphone while driving is as dangerous as drunk driving: confirmed
http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/06/mythbusters_killer_brace_posit.html
From the same:
"On July 15 2010, Apple released iOS 3.2.1 (build 7B405) for iPad (first generation). We verified that iOS 3.2.1 does not exhibit this bug."
Yeah, it's too hard. It's too hard if the converter doesn't exist! When I have a lab mate send me a Powerpoint 2007 .pptx file and I have to wait six months to open it on my Mac because Microsoft hasn't put out a converter for Microsoft Office 2004 for OSX and it's unusable data until then...
IT'S TOO HARD!
My worry is that the people who replaced those who resigned care more about the Administration's talking points and less about the science. If these newly-hired partisans are career hires instead of political apointees, the true danger will last long after Bush is gone from office, as they'll be a sleeper-cell for the next administration, if Democratic.
I do research on Staph. It's frustrating to everyone doing this work that in 50 years, we have really just a handful of targets in bacteria to attack. Here are our targets and some examples of the antibiotics we use
0 6.html
1) DNA replication/Gyrase (cipro)
2) RNA synthesis (rifampin)
3) folate metabolism (sulfa drugs)
4) Protein synthesis (erythromycin, chloramphenicol, linezolid)
5) cell wall (penicillin, vancomycin)
What's great about this this new drug from Merck is that it's target isn't on the list above. It's a new target (fatty acid metabolism) and it's well tolerated by mammals.
But it's not the only new one out there. Check out these papers on:
a) targeting the proteolytic machinery of bacteria, i.e. clp proteases
Brötz-Oesterhelt, H. et al. Dysregulation of bacterial proteolytic machinery by a new class of antibiotics. Nature Med. 11, 1082-1087 (2005)
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v11/n10/abs/nm13
and
b) targeting Holliday junctions, i.e. how DNA recombines
Gunderson Carl and Segall Anca, 2006. DNA repair, a novel antibacterial target: Holliday junction-trapping peptides induce DNA damage and chromosome segregation defects. Mol. Micro. 59 (4), 1129-1148.
http://segall-lab.com/PDF/Gunderson2006.pdf
And don't forget to wash your hands! Make a researcher happy and save the drugs for another day!
The discovery of myomers (artificial muscles) in the Battletech universe was a little less sanguine:
Atlas: Is everything all set? Unauthorized personnel out?...Everyone behind the safety barriers?...All right. Good luck, everyone. O.K. Devers, charge the myomer bundle.
Devers: Myomer bundle charge at 100 percent.
Atlas: Trethers, measuring instruments ready?
Trethers: Yes, sir.
Atlas: Fine. Iona, turn on the cameras. Countdown from five, four, three, two, one, discharge.
[Professor Atlas pushed the discharge switch. Immediately, all the potential energy stored in the myomer bundle became one swift and powerful contraction as the electric current traveled through it. The new myomer bundle composition of "Schwarzenegger's Bicep" contracted into a mass one-tenth its original size. It ripped the thick metal tubing of the test harness to shreds, causing ten-kilogram lead weights to be tossed into the air like confetti. Some of the scientists had to run for their lives to avoid the falling weights.]
Atlas: My God. Am I hallucinating?
Trethers: Professor, the contraction was off the scale of my instruments!
Atlas: Which means what?
Trethers: A pull of over one metric ton!
Atlas: I think it's time to get rip-snorting drunk, don't you?
I agree - and want to add one more point to to the above:
7.) Drive more! Short drives give lousy mpg for any car. My '04 Prius gets 44 mpg doing the short (15 min.) commute to lab everyday up and down very large hills. When I've driven it longer on flatter terrain, I consistently get 55-60 mpg.
I'd say the 31 mpg hybrids need a tuneup. All the ones I know are running >40 mpg.
Five hundred years? Try ten. W's pappy suggested the exact same thing back in 1990.
Unfortunately you're forgetting that location in the newspaper counts as well. Underreporting can be the choice of putting an important article above the fold on A1 or give it a few scattered pages between D3 and D8.
"Sugar may be cheap, but sterilized sugar solution in a handy refill cartridge will cost a pretty penny."
Nah - I sterilize my glucose solutions in lab with a 0.22 micron filter that costs about 25 pretty pennies. I wouldn't worry about cost.
I know two people who have them, but they're for the older version of the iPod (the newer version came out a few weeks after the iTrip appeared - d'oh!). The FM transmitter is just the same as all the others I've tried - scratchy and fickle, even when right next to your stereo. But it's compact and turns off with your iPod, whereas other transmitters stay on, draining the batteries.
What many are saying is that we should be careful about how closely we're pruning our collective genetic tree. How much genetic diversity do we want to give up for health when the oddball mutations may be what "saves" us from the next unknown diseasea. Cystic fibrosis is indeed a horrible disease and way to die, but it may have been selected for a thousand years ago as a way to (temporarily) survive other more rapid ways of dying (i.e. cholera). The same can be said for malaria and sickle cell anemia.
As a Staph researcher, I should say that it's wonderful that there's a new promising antibiotic out there, BUT we have no information on a) how effective it is on different strains of Staph b) if it's specific to Staph or to a wide variety of bacteria or MOST importantly c) if it's toxic to humans. The last thing you want is to get sicker while taking it.
So treat this more as a press release, less as a scientific discovery until the peer reviewed articles and FDA approval phases start.
Niles
First off, Staph is normally carried in your nose and throat and skin. This is not a bacteria that you just pick up in hospitals, although you are more likely to get a resistant strain when you are in a hospital (and the larger the hospital, the greater the chance for a resistant strain!). BUT studies that have examined what kids on the playground are carrying have shown that at least a third of the kids have a strain that is resisitant to some commonly used medicinal antibiotic.
/. posts less) I'll have a microbio PhD.
So this is not just limited to the hospital. You can pick these bugs up in normal life, then when you become immunocompromised or have a deep wound, they can establish and cause disease.
As for using antibiotics in animal feed, you're correct that it's not a bad idea at all! But the problem arises when we use the same antibiotics to make our cows a little bigger and to cure us of infections. Fluoroquinolone use is a great example. These drugs have been very effective in controling infections, but overuse by in livestock has created a large reservoir of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is not controversial. Look at the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) position on this topic. The solution to having your burger and keeping healthy is to have different classes of antibiotics. The highest class would be used for human disease only. The lowest class would be for farm animals and food production. A middle class would have a mix between the two. But the most important drugs would be saved for humans, not so that we can have that taaaaasty burger!
So for your lack of worry, I'd encourage you to attend the ASM meeting in Washington this May, or any other microbiology conference, and talk to any microbiologist there. Trust me - we're very close to losing control of Staph. It IS very dangerous. It can kill a good deal of people if uncontrolled. It did so before penicillin, but there are few of us left who remember those days.
This month, we just have lost the last best drug available to us, and we are now faced with a window of vulnerability to this bacteria.
And I'm not a doctor yet either - but in a couple years more (and a few
If you check out "Biohazard" by Ken Alibek, you'll see that the Russians (not the Soviets; our friends the Russians) engineered the vaccinia virus to hold Ebola genes. They claimed that it was for a vaccine application, but everyone looking at it knew it was a test to see if variola (i.e. smallpox) could be engineered the same way to hold the hemorragic genes of Ebola.
Yikes.
There are definitely examples where an antibiotic-resistant strain is less fit than its wild-type strain in an antibiotic free setting. However, it seems that there are many more examples where the bugs just keep holding onto the resistance genes for decades, even when the antibiotics are no longer prescribed. So while it may be theoretically possible to infect someone with a more fit, less resistant strain, you'd probably kill the person due to the shock induced by the immune system reacting to so amy new bacteria.
There's this beautiful study done by a fellow in Florida where he's created a new strain of Streptococcus mutans (the critter that causes the majority of cavities) that kills its cousins (other S. mutans without the resistance gene) and also doesn't acidify your mouth. The end result is that a bad Strep is pushed out (so to speak) of your mouth by a good, non-cavity forming, Strep. It's going to be marketed in about 5 years like the fluoride rinses that you get at the dentist - only this time, no cavities for life!
And one more thing about preventative bacteria - probiotics as well as the indigenous flora in your body. Many pathogenic bacteria have a tough time competing/establishing a flagella-hold in a normal setting due to the presence of pre-existing, normal (i.e. non-pathogenic) bacteria. However, if you take antibiotics that are broad-spectrum (i.e. CIPRO (damnit!!!)), you can wipe out the good bacteria, allowing the bad bacteria to establish and cause lots of problems. So don't self-medicate!
This bacteria has acquired a set of genes from a strain of Enterococcus that is resistant to vancomycin (VRE). Enterococcus has been known for a while to be resistant to vanco through three different evolved mechanisms, which all have the same result of modifying the cell wall. We microbiologists knew it was only a matter of time before Enterococcus donated some genes to Staph and made VRSA. So Staph didn't evolve the genes de novo. Those came from VRE, and *those* came from the original bacteria that made vancomycin to begin with (you have to have the resistance if you're going to make the poison, right?).
It actually does - it contains triclosan, the over-used and poorly understood antibiotic. And while you're correct that it doesn't contain vancomycin, what it does do is select for those Staph that are resistant to triclosan. That's particularly a bummer when you DO get VRSA and decide to try to treat your infection with triclosan and find out, hmm, it's resistant to that TOO.
Rats!
While the article mentions microbes, after looking at their site and seeing but one microbiologist on their advisory board of 66 members, I have a feeling the larger effort is going towards finding the multicellular critters. This is quite a shame, considering the amazing diversity and incredible importance of bacteria and archaea.
I suppose this is only normal, as there are hundreds of species of bacteria in our gut alone, to say nothing of what's on and inside any other creature. And even though we're discovering microbes in places we never thought they'd be (deep in the earth at giga-Pascal pressures, deep in ice, at sulfur vents in the ocean, etc), we can only culture on a plate or in growth media less than 0.5% of what we see!
So "Every Species"? Hardly. Just the cute and cuddly ones that look good on the cover of National Geographic. And maybe a few slimy ones to gross out the kids.
Niles
At a recent conference up here in Hanover, NH, there were reports that a few Iridium satellites will be purchased by the government and retained as a emergency backup in case of a situation where other communications (i.e. cell phones, land lines, etc) go down around major metropolitan areas. I guess counting the number of shooting Iridium stars to see if they all go down would be the best way to start to verify this. Niles