Evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald drags us into the sewer to discuss germs. Why are some more harmful than others? How could we make the harmful ones benign? Searching for answers, he examines a disgusting, fascinating case: diarrhea.<hr color="black" align="left" width=40%> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="432" height="285" id="VE_Player" align="middle"><param name="movie" value="http://static.videoegg.com/ted2/flash/loader.swf"><PARAM NAME="FlashVars" VALUE="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/PaulEwald_2007_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="scale" value="noscale"><param name="wmode" value="window"><embed src="http://static.videoegg.com/ted2/flash/loader.swf" FlashVars="bgColor=FFFFFF&file=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/PaulEwald_2007_high.flv&autoPlay=false&fullscreenURL=http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true" quality="high" allowScriptAccess="always" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" scale="noscale" wmode="window" width="432" height="285" name="VE_Player" align="middle" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></object>
It's quite a simple concept, when you think about it. I would love to see humanity reverse the effects of antibiotic resistence.
that would not be an easy task, you'd have to reverse evolution. It's an interesting idea but I don't think it's realistic present day, we don't have to capabilities yet to really manipulate things on global scale like that.
that's the way humans have to start thinking!! ..we have to start working with nature and not against it! Too often we have the mentality of "that thing's harmful so it's our enemy and we must destroy it", but we forget that a lot of the components that make up our own cells were once invaders into our system. When we learned to work with them (and to get them to work with us) we found they were so useful they are now an integral part of us. ..that's the attitude we need to have for everyone and everything that interacts with us (no matter how negatively its current interactions with us are)
very cool video....we talked about this is my evolution class, but it really didn't hit home like this lecture did
