I was listening to NPR Science Friday on podcast a few nights ago and caught an interesting segment detailing a recent discovery regarding bacteria found in soil.  It has been demonstrated (for example, by the discovery of the nylon bug) that bacteria in the presence of an abundance of one substance or another may evolve to be able to metabolize that substance... even if the substance is synthetic.  It's also been shown that bacteria in the constant presence of antibiotics will evolve immunity.

These newly discovered soil bacteria have done both.  That is, not are they only immune to a disturbingly long list of known antibiotics, they have evolved to the point where they can actually eat antibiotics.  The Royal Society of Chemisty has an article on this recent discovery:

[...] The soil samples were taken from many different places [in the USA] including public parks and farms, pristine forest, and land treated with wastewater.

'The increase of multiple-antibiotic resistance in human pathogens is continuingly weakening our ability to fight infectious disease, and any accessible reservoir of resistance mechanisms that could transfer to pathogens could exacerbate the problem,' say Dantas and Sommer.  

So far, the researchers haven't found any known human pathogens among their antibiotic-consuming organisms, but they say that some are closely related species. This might make it rather easy for pathogens to acquire antibiotic-resistance and antibiotic-metabolising genes from innocuous bacteria. [...]

Scary stuff!  But rather unsurprising since antibiotics get into the environment every day through their continued use.

The segment on the antibiotic-munching bacteria was followed by another segment on an alternative form of antibacterial treatment called phage therapy.  Phage therapy, instead of using chemical substances to combat bacteria, uses viruses, specifically bacteriophages--viruses that only infect bacteria.  This sort of therapy was predicted shortly after the discovery of bacteriophages in 1917.  Once antibiotics were discovered (in 1941) phage therapy wasn't pursued further in the west, but continued to be studied in Russia.

The advantage of phage therapy is that the anti-bacterial agent is also a living organism, so as bacteria evolve to become immune to it, the phage species also evolves to continue to prey on the bacteria.  Antibiotics, being chemical compounds, do not evolve, hence eventually bacterial evolution will defeat an antibiotic unless you can rapidly deplete the bacterial population to the point where your own immune system can fight off the infection successfully.  As bacteria with antibiotic resistance can be found in the environment, and people have been infected with resistant strains, there is apparently renewed interest in phage therapy.

No human phage treatments are presently approved in the USA, though the use of phages to prevent bacteria from growing in food have been approved here.  Phage therapy on humans is used in some states of the former USSR, especially Georgia.  In the NPR podcast linked above the scientists interviewed spoke of a patient with a resistant bone infection that was successfully treated using bacteriophages after being told here in the USA that amputation was his only recourse.  Interesting!

"What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous ... it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God. Get out of that seat ... You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

-- Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), speaking to atheist Rob Sherman

If Rob Sherman was a Jew or a Muslim or a Methodist or anything but an atheist, Representative Monique Davis would be openly castigated from every direction (and deservedly so).  But it's okay to hate atheists here.  Welcome to my country.

Mr. Sherman was testifying to the Illinois House State Government Administration Committee about a one million dollar grant slated to go to a Baptist church that was trying to rebuild from a fire.  As you know churches already don't pay taxes, so it seems rather curious that anyone would think it okay for tax money to go to a church--especially in a country where church and state are supposed to be separate.  The grant money story is pretty smelly all on its own, but I am not at all surprised that any outspoken atheist would have an opinion on the matter, and might choose to testify to government bodies on the matter.

But Monique Davis feels otherwise.  She feels atheists have no right to testify to the American government.  And for that matter we are destroyers, and dangerous to children.  And it's okay to censor or silence us.  Oh and the country was founded on Christian principles.

How does someone like this even get elected in the first place? Shame on you Monique Davis.  You madam, are no Democrat.

Hat tip to the excellent science blog Pharyngula for the story.  You won't be hearing about it on Fox.

My father's mother, and my last surviving grandparent passed away last week.  She was 92 years old.  I'll be attending her funeral tomorrow.  This was pretty rough on all of us, coming as it did shortly after the first anniversary of my Dad's passing.  I find myself wondering if I will always greet spring with sadness.  My Nana was a spirited character throughout most of her life, and I remember many happy afternoon visits with her when I was a kid.  I'll miss her.

Here's an obituary for my Nana.