http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30657486 This is encouraging to see with the increasing threat of antibiotic resistance. Hopefully human testing with this drug will go well, and more will be developed Of course, like the article states, the same problem can and likely will emerge again with newer antibiotics. It's interesting to see research on possible antibiotic alternatives, like liposomes and antimicrobial peptides. I'm curious to see if/how these will eventually be applied as well. Some studies have even used lactic acid bacteria from honeybees on common pathogens! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141102160004.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110608093745.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140908093741.htm http://phys.org/news/2014-09-bacteria-bees-alternative-antibiotics.html
It kills me that it's 2015 and people still demand antibiotics for colds and such, and doctors actually prescribe them Then again, I've met many people who honestly didn't know that they were supposed to take the whole course, not just a few while you're feeling bad like they're for symptom relief. I kind of feel like education regarding antibiotic use is inadequate, but not to be too pessimistic, I wonder if people would listen to it anyhow. And above all, doctors need to grow a pair and stop prescribing unnecessary antibiotics just to shut them up. All this, and our antibiotic overuse still pales in comparison to some other nations, like India. And if mass feeding of antibiotics to livestock plays a role in resistance (I imagine it does, but I'm not too educated on that subject), that's another large strike.
I never realized that only 1% of soil bacteria can be grown in the lab. In fact, I never knew that soil was the primo place to find bacterial diversity. Interesting stuff!
I'm not too educated myself, but I know that for a hot second we thought we found a plant that naturally produced tramadol.. but then we found out that it was just because we were pumping our livestock full of it and they were excreting it.. which in turn got sucked up by the plants. I'd imagine it's the same with antibiotics, probably even worse.. and that's a scary thought that after we pump our livestock full of it, they pump our plants full of it. That's just going to increase the chances of something evolving to become immune to them.
This is interesting, but, unfortunately, it's technically against the forum rules... I'm gonna just lock this for now, and check on it...
Sorry about the lull people...just wanted to verify that this was okay... We're good to go...re-opened...