Drug-Resistant Bacteria...pathway to man's demise?

The Lachuguilla cave system, where scientists discovered antibiotic-resistant bacteria, is part of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Above, an explorer admires the the Selenite Chandelier display in Carlsbad Caverns.

"Drug-Resistant Bacteria Discovered in 4-Million-Year-Old Cave"

In pristine and ancient samples of bacteria, uncontaminated by human activity, researchers find resistance to several antibiotic treatments, both natural and man-made.

by

Alexandra Sifferlin

April 12th, 2012

Time

More than 400 meters below the Earth’s surface, in a virtually untouched 4-million-year-old cave, scientists have discovered antibiotic-resistant bacteria, whose existence could explain why the modern drugs we use to treat infections are failing.

Our overzealous use of antibiotics, largely in hospitals and on animal farms, has long been blamed for fostering the emergence of drug-resistant “superbugs.” But the bacteria samples from the isolated Lechuguilla cave system in New Mexico suggests that drug resistance is actually an ancient trait. It’s possible that bacteria’s drug-resistance genes evolved millions of years ago in organisms like those on Lechuguilla’s cave walls, and are showing up in superbugs now through bacteria’s natural process of gene swapping.

The pristine samples of bacteria taken from the cave revealed that the bugs are not infectious to humans but can fend off several types of antibiotics, including newer synthetic drugs

“Clinical microbiologists have been perplexed for the longest time. When you bring a new antibiotic into the hospital, resistance inevitably appears shortly thereafter, within months to years,” study leader Gerry Wright, a chemical biologist at McMaster University in Ontario, told National Geographic. “It’s still a big question: Where is this coming from. Almost no one thought to look at other bacteria, the ones that don’t necessarily cause disease.”

Since the discovery of the Lechuguilla cave in 1986, very few have been allowed to explore it, which makes it ideal for studying life that have been uncontaminated by human activity. Wright and his team looked at 93 types of bacteria procured from the cave, testing the strains against 26 different antibiotics. About 70% of the bacteria were resistant to three or four classes of antibiotics, and three of the strains — distant relatives of anthrax — resisted 14 of the 26 antibiotics.

“Our study shows that antibiotic resistance is hard-wired into bacteria,” Wright told Scientific American. “It could be billions of years old.”

Many questions still remain. The findings add to the evidence that antibiotic resistance is ancient, but it doesn’t explain how that resistance gets into hospitals or farms today. It’s also not clear how the cave bacteria’s seeming antibiotic resistance evolved, or whether it’s really resistance or something else. Stuart Levy, a physician and microbiologist at Tufts Medical School, told National Geographic:

“It’s an issue of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did microbes generate the antibiotics down there, then resistance developed, or is it the other way around?” The cave bacteria, the thinking goes, may generate natural antibiotics during “chemical warfare” with their microbial competition.

But even if bacteria’s ability to evade drugs is entrenched in its evolutionary history, it doesn’t mean the health-care or livestock farming industries are off the hook. Indeed, Wright’s study comes on the heels of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposal asking drug manufacturers and veterinarians to drastically reduce their use of antibiotics in agriculture to prevent resistance.

The researchers said they also discovered novel mechanisms of drug resistance in the bacteria they studied, another reason antibiotics must be used carefully. The authors write:

This fact further underlines the importance of the judicious use of antibiotics to avoid selection of existing resistance elements and their subsequent mobilization through microbial communities thereby limiting the effectiveness of these drugs to treat infectious diseases.

Physicist beats stop sign violation

Dmitri Krioukov, Sr.

This is marvelous...the laws of physics beats the laws of man.

"Police officer blinded by science, argues physicist"
To get out of a $400 stop sign violation, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego, uses math in his defense.

by

Liane Yvkoff

April 14th, 2012

c/net

The next time you find yourself in traffic court, add the "Krioukov defense" to the list of strategies you can use to weasel your way out of a stop sign violation.

Dmitri Krioukov invoked the laws of physics to beat the $400 traffic ticket he was issued when a police officer observed him allegedly running a stop sign, according to an article in Physics Central. The University of California, San Diego, physicist drafted a four-page paper detailing his defense, arguing that the police officer mistakenly thought he ran the stop sign owing to a unique combinations of events.

Krioukov explained that the officer, who was parked 100 feet away from the stop sign, was approximating his angular velocity rather than his linear velocity, which could give the observer a different perception of the driver's actual speed. Using graphs and mathematical formulas with lots of squiggly lines and symbols, Krioukov argued that to an observer, a vehicle traveling at a constant speed could look very similar to a vehicle decelerated quickly (supposedly to a complete stop), and then accelerated quickly again if at the exact moment the vehicle came to a stop the observer's view was obscured.

And of course, that scenario is exactly what happened, wrote Krioukov.

As Krioukov was driving his compact Toyota Yaris down the road he sneezed as he approached the stop sign, resulting in a very hard brake. The stopping distance of the Toyota Yaris isn't published by the auto manufacturer, but Krioukov estimated that he decelerated at 22.36 mph. At that same time, a larger vehicle, about the size of a Subaru Outback, passed his car and obstructed the officer's view of his full and complete stop.

The Outback-size vehicle didn't have a stop sign, but Krioukov argued that the car's larger length hid his Yaris for crucial seconds. As he accelerated quickly, as Yarises are known to do, the officer mistakenly thought he never stopped at all.

To understand or poke holes in Krioukov's defense, you'd probably need a degree in math or physics, which probably neither the judge nor the police officer have in their legal arsenal. In fact, Krioukov has published his paper on a public Cornell University server and has opened his work to the public to find a flaw in the case. But that may be too late for the State of California.

Without a way to call BS on this argument, the judge let the ticket go. Regardless of whether Krioukov's argument was solid, the magistrate and the state probably found it easier to dismiss the case than to admit they had no idea what the physicist was talking about.

The paper...

"The Proof of Innocence" by Dmitri Krioukov

Ruthven Campbell Todd..."Space Cat"

"...Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake, and as a writer of children's books. He wrote also under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell." [Wikipedia]

Ruthven Campbell Todd [Wikipedia]

Science poster

Bye, bye bonds

They used to be available at any bank and when they reached maturity they could be redeemed instantly at any bank. Then things changed. Redemption took two weeks or more and now they are gone.

"Bonding Experience Is Lost as a Traditional Gift Disappears"

Fans Miss Paper U.S. Savings Bonds, Struggle With Online Ones; 'Family Thing'

by

Robin Sidel

April 11th, 2012

The New York Times

Pam Root always bought U.S. savings bonds to commemorate the birth of her grandchildren. But the newest addition to her family will get cold, hard cash.

When her four other grandchildren were born, Ms. Root walked into her local bank to buy the bonds. Starting this year, however, the only way to buy savings bonds is directly from the Treasury Department—online.

"I don't feel comfortable putting my grandchild's Social Security number online," says the 58-year-old receptionist from Harwinton, Conn., whose grandson Matthew arrived last month.

Across the U.S., grandparents and other fans of traditional savings bonds are mourning their loss. A mainstay of American finance since the 1930s, the paper bonds have been eliminated as a government cost-saving measure.

The bonds strike an emotional chord with generations of Americans who have bought and received them for birthdays, weddings, graduations and bar mitzvahs.

"It's a family thing," says New Yorker Robyn Miller, 53 years old, whose two teenage sons have received thousands of dollars worth of paper savings bonds over the years from grandparents, cousins and family friends. She stashes them in a safe-deposit box.

For generations, the government urged Americans to buy savings bonds as part of their patriotic duty. Companies rewarded productive workers with them and encouraged employees to buy them through automatic payroll deductions. They cost as little as $25 and increase in value slowly until they mature in as many as 30 years.

Hollywood jumped on the bond bandwagon, too. In 1966, "Bewitched" actress Elizabeth Montgomery stood in front of a Christmas tree and told television viewers that the bonds were "guaranteed to please." Bob Hope, John Wayne and Bugs Bunny pitched savings bonds in TV ads.

But sales of savings bonds plummeted as Americans gravitated to other financial instruments like mutual funds and college-savings accounts. The government sold just $1.5 billion worth of paper savings bonds last year, down 86% from $11.3 billion in 2003.

"It's time for us to take a 1935 model and make it a 21st-century investment tool," Public Debt Commissioner Van Zeck said when the government announced the all-electronic move last summer. The change is expected to save $70 million in processing costs over the next five years. Existing paper bonds can still be redeemed at banks.

The switch doesn't sit well with many savings-bond buyers, who say an electronic gift is a poor replacement for a paper bond that can be tucked away for the future. Many savings-bond fans prefer the certainty of a savings bond to a stock certificate whose underlying worth can fluctuate widely.

They also say U.S. savings bonds provide children with an important lesson about saving for the future.

"The kids nowadays, they have too many toys and too many clothes," says Sinmin Wu, 81 years old, of San Diego, who has bought paper bonds for his daughter's two young sons.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the electronic system is that it is difficult to navigate. Those hurdles become even bigger for grandparents who aren't computer savvy or lack easy access to the Internet.

To buy savings bonds online, buyers first have to set up an account on the Treasury's website, which requires an email address, Social Security number and bank-account number. Once purchased, the bond is placed in the buyer's electronic account.

The site doesn't accept credit cards. Money to purchase the bond comes out of the buyer's bank account.

"It's not an easy site to use. We will admit that," says Mckayla Braden, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of the Public Debt, which is part of the Treasury Department.

She says the agency has been deluged by angry consumers since the January change, receiving some 18,000 calls a week, up from 1,000 before the change. One woman who thought she was buying paper bonds online was so upset that the department agreed to refund her $2,000 purchase.

Even some younger consumers are flummoxed.

"I was uncomfortable with it. If I could use a credit card, maybe I'd buy one," says John Hedges, a 48-year-old human-resources manager who lives in Glastonbury, Conn. He poked around on the government website after learning that the bonds weren't available at his bank.

The new procedure is equally exasperating for bankers, who often have to break the unpleasant news to customers who still expect to buy savings bonds at a branch.

Taylor Thompson, a financial consultant at Pioneer Investment Services in Rapid City, S.D., says he tries to help his clients navigate the online process. "By the time we get halfway through it, they are so confused and frustrated that it just ends up deterring them," he says.

Two of his clients are Sharon and Bill Costner, parents of actor Kevin Costner. The couple recently spent hours with Mr. Thompson trying to figure out how to register for an account so they could track two $5,000 bonds that they bought for themselves last year.

"We will take our $10,000 out as soon as we can—one way or another—and we no longer intend to buy them," says Mrs. Costner, 83 years old.

It is even a lot of work to give an electronic savings bond as a gift because the recipient must also set up an account. The sender can't zap the gift to the recipient without knowing the recipient's full name, Social Security number and Treasury account number.

"The element of surprise is completely gone," says Doug Schoen, a 59-year-old political analyst in New York who recently bought a savings bond online for a colleague's new baby.

Barbara Petrick, a retired high-school teacher who lives in Jersey City, N.J., usually presents a $25 savings bond as a history prize to a graduating senior at William L. Dickinson High School where she used to work. She already is resigned to replacing this spring's savings bond with a gift certificate.

"I'm disappointed," says Mrs. Petrick, who describes herself as "not that great with a computer."

Mr. Wu says he is willing to give the electronic process a try in order to buy savings bonds for his new twin granddaughters.

Lin-Hua Wu, his daughter and mother of the baby girls, is skeptical.

"He'll never do it," she says. "He won't try to buy anything on Amazon."

Deceased--Jack Tramiel

Jack Tramiel
December 13th, 1928 to April 8th, 2012

Complete Commodore 64

"Jack Tramiel's epic journey from Auschwitz to Silicon Valley"

by

Douglas Martin

April 12th, 2012

The New York Times

Jack Tramiel, a hard-charging, cigar-chomping tycoon whose inexpensive, immensely popular Commodore computers helped ignite the personal computer industry the way Henry Ford's Model T kick-started the mass production of automobiles, died Sunday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 83. The cause was heart failure, his son Sam said.

Commodore rose to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, producing the first computer to sell a million units. Another model, the Commodore 64, sold more than 20 million units - four times the sales of the Apple II, which is often said to have established the personal computer market.

Sales of the 64 exceeded $1 billion. Tramiel's business model was ruthlessly efficient: He introduced a new product at the lowest price possible, and as the competition matched his price he went even lower. He did this by slashing costs, hiring top talent, selling in mass-market stores like Kmart, and owning the suppliers of chips and other components. He changed directions in an instant, going so far as to introduce a new product even if it hurt sales of an existing one. He liked to say that business is war.

Tramiel's boldness was suggested by a full-page newspaper ad he ran in 1983 when Commodore was flying highest: "Commodore Ate the Apple." In fact, Tramiel had so little use for Apple's emphasis on design elegance and technical sophistication that Time magazine called him the "anti-Steve Jobs." Tramiel wanted affordable, easy-touse computers in every home; he spoke of serving "masses, not classes."

He was born Jacek Trzmiel in Lodz, Poland, on December 13, 1928. After the German invasion in 1939, his family was confined to Lodz's Jewish ghetto, where they lived in a single room while his father scratched out a living repairing shoes.

In August 1944, the Nazis deported the family to the Auschwitz death camp, where Josef Mengele, the SS officer notorious for conducting heinous experiments on inmates, selected Jacek and his father for work detail at a nearby camp. His mother remained behind in Auschwitz and survived; his father did not.

After being liberated by the US troops, Tramiel scrounged around Europe for two years, picking up odd jobs. He had himself admitted to a psychiatric sanitarium just so he could eat.

In 1947 he married Helen Goldgrub, whom he had met in a concentration camp, then left for the US, where his wife joined him in 1948 and his mother in 1949. Joining the Army, he learned to repair typewriters. After his discharge, he drove a cab, used a GI loan of $25,000 to buy a typewriter store in the Bronx, and changed the spelling of his surname.

In the 1950s he moved his business to Toronto, where he had family and where the laws made it easier to import typewriters from Europe. By then, his business had grown into an officemachine company. He chose the name Commodore, after glancing at an Opel Commodore while riding in a cab.

In the 1960s, Tramiel became the subject of a widely publicized insider-trading investigation involving loans to his company. Although he was not indicted, the publicity made it difficult for him to continue to do business in Canada, so he moved the company to the emerging Silicon Valley area of California in the late 1960s.

A trip to Japan introduced him to digital calculators, and he began to manufacture them. The competition to cut prices in the calculator business was unrelenting, so he scrambled for ways to cut costs. He decided to buy his own chip supplier, and settled on MOS Technology in Norristown, Pa. An unexpected jewel in the purchase was an engineer at MOS, Charles Peddle, who had developed a faster, cheaper computer chip, the 6502 microprocessor. Peddle persuaded Tramiel to let him use the chip to build the prototype of a PC.

With support from a Canadian investor, Irving Gould, Commodore introduced its Personal Electronic Transactor, or PET, in 1977. It was soon in a price war with the new computers of Apple and the Tandy Corp. Commodore was helped by its dominance in the European market and by a marketing strategy of selling two PETs to schools for the price of one.

In 1980, Commodore leapfrogged its competition by introducing the VIC 20, the first home computer selling for less than $300. Commodore manufactured 9,000 units a day, making it the first computer to sell more than a million units.

(The Apple II, introduced in 1977, reached the million mark a few months later.) Tramiel introduced the Commodore 64 in 1982. It offered 64 kb of memory compared with the 46 offered by the Apple II, and sold for half as much. The 64 had colour graphics and was the first personal computer with an audio synthesizer chip.

Commodore's financial success was dazzling: 100 shares of its stock bought in 1977 at under $2 a share were worth more than $70,000 by 1983. In January 1984, Tramiel resigned as president, chief executive and director.

Months later Tramiel bought the home video-game division of the Atari Corp. After Atari lost ground to Nintendo and other competitors, he sold it and retired in the mid-1990s, then became involved in venture capital and real estate.

In addition to his wife, Tramiel is survived by his sons, Leonard, Sam and Garry, and five grandchildren.

Jack Tramiel [Wikipedia]

Commodore 64 [Wikipedia]

Psst...wanna buy a quarter for $29.95?

Heads or bones? Invisible during the day, the Pachyrhinosaurus' skeleton glows in the dark.

"Canada's newest coin glows in the dark"

These collectible quarters featuring a dinosaur on one side will light up your pocket, but they cost $29.95 apiece.

by

Tim Hornyak

April 11th, 2012

CBS Interactive

The Royal Canadian Mint just can't sit still. Like a hyperactive kid, it has revamped Canadian cash, first introducing plastic bills and then killing the penny. Now it wants people to play with glow-in-the-dark quarters.

The mint's latest collectible coin features a dinosaur whose skeleton shines at night from beneath its scaly hide.

It's actually two images on one face, which could be a world's first. The other side depicts Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty does not glow in the dark.

Made of cupronickel, the coin has a face value of 25 cents but is much larger than a regular Canuck quarter.

It shows an artist's rendering of Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, a 4-ton, 26-foot dinosaur discovered in Alberta in 1972. It's the first in a four-coin series of photo-luminescent prehistoric creatures.

The mint says the skeleton can best be seen after the coin is exposed to sunlight, or to fluorescent or incandescent light for 30-60 seconds, adding that the luminescence won't fade with time.

The glowing novelty is a first for the mint, but sadly it won't be for general circulation.

The dino's mintage is limited to 25,000, and collectors who want to count their dinosaurs at night will have to pony up to the tune of $29.95. Canadian, of course. It launches April 16.

The shiny Pachyrhinosaurus may not be as cool as New Zealand's Star Wars, but at least it can keep you company in the dark.

And if the mint can do something similar for coins in circulation, I might just enjoy wearing wearing holes in my pockets with them.

cupronickel [Wikipedia]