Silver benefits

Silver makes antibiotics thousands of times more effective 

I mentioned earlier this year that I was trying a new deodorant which claimed to incorporate silver ions.   (The exact quantity of them remains a mystery.)  I am happy to report that it seems to work well.

Silver's useful effect against bacteria other than those that live in my armpit (sorry for that image) are discussed in the above Nature article:

Many antibiotics are thought to kill their targets by producing reactive oxygen compounds, and Collins and his team showed that when boosted with a small amount of silver these drugs could kill between 10 and 1,000 times as many bacteria. The increased membrane permeability also allows more antibiotics to enter the bacterial cells, which may overwhelm the resistance mechanisms that rely on shuttling the drug back out.

That disruption to the cell membrane also increased the effectiveness of vancomycin, a large-molecule antibiotic, on Gram-negative bacteria — which have a protective outer coating. Gram-negative bacterial cells can often be impenetrable to antibiotics made of larger molecules.

“It’s not so much a silver bullet; more a silver spoon to help the Gram-negative bacteria take their medicine,” says Collins.

But too much silver does have toxicity:

Vance Fowler, an infectious-disease physician at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, says the work is “really cool” but sounds a note of caution about the potential toxicity of silver. “It has had a chequered past,” he says.

In the 1990s, for example, a heart valve made by St. Jude Medical, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, included parts covered with a silver coating called Silzone to fight infection. “It did a fine job of preventing infection,” says Fowler. “The problem was that the silver was also toxic to heart tissue.” As a result the valves often leaked².

Before adding silver to antibiotics, “we’ll have to address the toxicity very carefully”, says Fowler. Ingesting too much silver can also cause argyria, a condition in which the skin turns a blue-grey colour — and the effect is permanent.

That bit about blue-grey skin puts me in mind of alleged UFO aliens.   Possibly, they come from a planet (or future) with too much silver.  (It's a theory....)

Water everywhere

There seems to be a lot of flooding going on in the Northern Hemisphere recently:

*  the Northern Indian floods, which are described as being the result of an early monsoon season for that part of the country, could have killed at least a thousand people.  The most remarkable image was perhaps this one:

although it would be good to know the size of the statute we are looking at, to give us some scale.*

The papers are not giving too much detail as to how unusual this weather event is, but Jeff Masters at Wunderblog explains more:

According to the Indian Meteorological Department, Uttarakhand received more than three times (329%) of its normal June rainfall from June 1 - 21, and rainfall was 847% of normal during the week June 13 - 19. Satellite estimates indicate that more than 20" (508 mm) or rain fell in a 7-day period from June 11 - 17 over some regions of Uttarakhand, which lies just to the west of Nepal in the Himalayas. Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, received 14.57" (370 mm) of rain in 24 hours June 16 - 17....

The June 2013 monsoon rains in Uttarakhand were highly unusual, as the monsoon came to the region two weeks earlier than normal. The monsoon started in South India near the normal June 1 arrival date, but then advanced across India in unusually rapid fashion, arriving in Pakistan along the western border of India on June 16, a full month earlier than normal. This was the fastest progression of the monsoon on record.

Masters does acknowledge, however, that some are saying deforestation, dam building and mining with inadequate environmental oversight has contributed to the scale of the floods,  and I would presume there is some truth in that.

*  Central and Northern Europe:   the recent floods there have been reported as being of record height for some rivers and cities (the countries affected include Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Germany.)  But to get more detail on the event, it's again worth looking up Jeff Masters:

The primary cause of the torrential rains over Central Europe during late May and early June was large loop in the jet stream that developed over Europe and got stuck in place. A "blocking high" set up over Northern Europe, forcing two low pressure systems, "Frederik" and "Günther", to avoid Northern Europe and instead track over Central Europe. The extreme kink in the jet stream ushered in a strong southerly flow of moisture-laden air from the Mediterranean Sea over Central Europe, which met up with colder air flowing from the north due to the stuck jet stream pattern, allowing "Frederik" and "Günther" to dump 1-in-100 year rains. The stuck jet stream pattern also caused record May heat in northern Finland and surrounding regions of Russia and Sweden, where temperatures averaged an astonishing 12°C (21°F) above average for a week at the end of May. All-time May heat records--as high as 87°F--were set at stations north of the Arctic Circle in Finland.

 Masters notes that it is increasingly argued that these changed patterns are part and parcel of global warming:

 If it seems like getting two 1-in-100 to 1-in-500 year floods in eleven years is a bit suspicious--well, it is. Those recurrence intervals are based on weather statistics from Earth's former climate. We are now in a new climate regime with more heat and moisture in the atmosphere, combined with altered jet stream patterns, which makes major flooding disasters more likely in certain parts of the world, like Central Europe.

 * Canadian floods:  the phrase "record flood"is appearing for the current Calgary event is appearing even in places like the Wall Street Journal, so it must be true.   The reason for the flood is again being put down to a "blocked"weather system (and this time it is not Jeff Masters talking):

The heavy rain is also the product of an odd set of circumstances, says Stephanie Barsby, CBC's meteorologist in Edmonton.

The massive weather system responsible for the storms was still trapped over southern Alberta on Friday by a high-pressure system to the north and winds blowing toward the west, the opposite direction of the prevailing winds throughout Canada.

"That high pressure system is preventing the storm from moving north, and the Rockies are preventing it from moving west, so it's stuck right over the regions that are seeing the flooding," said Barsby.

"It's unusual to see a system stuck in one place for such an extended period of time."

 All of these events have reminded me of a recent letter that appeared at Nature Climate Change regarding increased flooding due to a warming planet.  The article got a bit of publicity in the mainstream media, but not that much.  Here is what the ABC said: 

But now researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan have done just that, presenting global flood risk for the end of this century, based on the outputs from 11 climate models.

The team predicts a large increase in flood frequency in parts of Asia, Africa and South America. It forecasts more moderate increases in northern Australia and Tasmania.

In certain areas, they predict flood frequency will decrease, including eastern and northern Europe and central North America.

You can see what Tim Flannery says in that report too.   As he is continually grossly misrepresented on water issues for Australia, it's a wonder Andrew Bolt hasn't been there already trying to twist something out of it.   It is a sign of Bolt's lack of intelligence (or rather, ideological motivation not to understand an issue) that he continues to have a ridiculous inability to understand that increasing the water cycle can mean both longer droughts and worse floods in some places.

I see that there is news this morning of another study about how climate change will affect the Indian monsoon with increased variability, in the region which is presumably the most unable to afford adaptation to floods.

In any event, I have been saying since the extraordinarily widespread Australian floods of 2011  that increased flooding and drought may well be the first climate change effect which really becomes very clear and convinces government and voters that serious action on CO2 needs to be taken.  Recent events suggest I may be right.

*  Update:  Here's the same statue, I think, at a different angle:

Here it is, from the same direction, in flood:

And by the way, who is that guy on Shiva's head? 

People aren't as upset with carbon pricing as much as politicians think they are?

Abbott carbon tax mantra blunted

I'm not sure whether to take encouragement from this, or doubt the accuracy of the survey:

Fewer voters want to see the carbon tax removed now than before it took effect on July 1 last year. Nearly half, or 48 per cent, wanted the tax scrapped a year ago.

But a poll of 1009 people, conducted by JWS Research for the Climate Institute, found just 37 per cent of them now supported the Coalition's intention to wind the tax back in favour of its ''Direct Action'' policy, which involves paying companies to reduce emissions.

Even fewer people - 34 per cent - would back an Abbott government calling a double dissolution election to fulfil its ''pledge in blood'' to repeal the tax.

Fewer than half the Coalition voters would back Mr Abbott taking Australia back to the polls.

Is it possible that, even though it hardly ever gets any commentary by economists, people have worked out that the Coalition "direct action" plan is a crock? 

Skin cancer risk

Look beyond the sun for skin cancer culprits, doctors warn

I was a bit surprised at the size of the risk increase:

Even things that seem unrelated to UV light—such as getting an organ transplant or a tattoo, or having an autoimmune disease—have been linked to skin cancer diagnoses.

People who've had an organ transplant have an extremely elevated risk for skin cancer—up to 200 times higher than others, according to Ibrahim. 

This stems from the medications that must be taken after a transplant to suppress the immune system. As a result, the immune system, which normally fights off growing cancer cells, may not be strong enough to do its job.

Organ transplant recipients should talk to a dermatologist to get an idea of their baseline risk for skin cancer and find out how often they need to be screened. Ibrahim said that some high-risk people who've had organ transplants need screening every three to four weeks.

Very witty, Bernard

I wish Crikey didn't have so much locked behind its paywall, but in any event, Bernard Keane's latest column is free to view, and has many witty lines.  First, talking about Labor:

...a party one step short of seriously considering consulting John Curtin via Ouija Board about how to resolve the Rudd-Gillard tension. It’s a party frozen in fear, terrified that any move it makes will be a mistake but painfully aware that doing nothing means a wipeout. The Liberals went through it in 2007, but Labor, as if to demonstrate that anything Tories can do, they can do better, are taking it to new levels.

Still, at least the Prime Minister has the the crucial Russell Crowe endorsement to add to Hugh Jackman’s support; with a visiting Arnie, the PMO could boast she had Gladiator, Wolverine and the Terminator. Then again, Tony Abbott doubtless has Dad and Dave and the cast of Division 4.

The next part, summarising the Coalition's policies, is pretty much spot on:

So far, there are two kinds of Abbott policies: those that mimic Labor, and those that look terrible. His Direct Action climate change policy is an open, albeit expensive, joke; his paid parental leave scheme is loathed by many within his own party and in the Nationals. His industrial relations policy is essentially a commitment to keep Labor’s Fair Work Act until the Productivity Commission gives him political permissions to go to voters with reforms; his broadband policy is, courtesy of Malcolm Turnbull, NBN lite, although at least 30% and probably more of Australian households will get the full-cream version.

And then the summary of the Coalition's "let's keep Gina happy and her cheques flowing in" Northern Australia project is really terrific:

 The Abbott vision is that northern Australia becomes a cornucopia of tourism, agriculture and mining, apparently unaware it’s tricky to have even two of those together let alone all three, and climate change is hardly conducive to any. Just ask tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef.

In fact, this deep north stuff is downright weird. It’s not just Tony Abbott’s own big government DLP mindset emerging — it’s shared by Coalition MPs with functioning brains like Andrew Robb, the small government types at the IPA and far-Right miners like Gina Rinehart. It’s straightforward, Whitlamesque regional development, complete with Whitlam government policies like moving public servants around. It’s social and economic engineering on a huge scale; there’s not a market mechanism in sight. Indeed, there’s a utopian tone to the whole thing, not dissimilar to the early, funny socialist visions that were untainted by the nasty experience of the real world. It’s as if the Right wants to create a new Australia, one free of all the bad things about the current one like pesky unions, well-paid workers and restrictive environmental regulation, a place where entrepreneurs, with just a little help from taxpayer handouts, some government spending on infrastructure where no one currently lives and a few indentured public servants, can breathe the (admittedly, rather humid) air of freedom and create a more efficient economy.

Funny how Sinclair Davidson (and everyone else who blogs at Catallaxy) simply refuses to talk about the IPA's broad endorsement of this policy.

More self indulgence (as inspired by Catallaxy)

Excuse me while I indulge myself...

For a certain writer at Quadrant

Embarrassing

I've just discovered, while googling my name for a work related purpose, that a young man from England has a twitter account in my name.  His tweets indicate he may well run the most boring twitter account in the universe, as it comprises mainly of short complaints:  "it's so cold today, hate this weather"  "when's my next pay rise?"  "I wish I was on holiday again".  To break up the monotony, there is the occasional "great time last night".  But it's nearly completely devoid of information. 

Come on, lad:   a namesake of me has to be more interesting.  And stop smoking.  (He thanked his Mum for a gift of fags.  D'oh.)

Fish to the foreground

Farmed fish overtakes farmed beef for first time - life - 19 June 2013 - New Scientist

It's just - interesting...ok?

Bringing back Zeus

BBC News - The Greeks who worship the ancient gods

I hope they draw the line at temple prostitutes, nude olympics, and pederasts ceremonially chasing boys, though. 

Some Friday weirdness for you

Yowie sighted at Bexhill - witness asks to stay anonymous | Northern Star

An anonymous, but interesting, claim of a recent yowie sighting in Northern New South Wales.  

Local science makes me proud

Catalyst: Dengue Fever - ABC TV Science

I was very impressed with the state of science in Queensland as shown on Catalyst last night.  

The first story was about the promising looking plan to replace dangerous mosquitoes in Cairns with bred ones that will not carry the dangerous Dengue Fever.  

You can watch the video at the link (or see a transcript.)

The second story was about scramjet research based a the University of Queensland.  They've been plugging away at this for a long time, but still seem to be making advances.  

The story is not yet up on the Catalyst website, but I'll link to it when it is.

Tony loves Gina

   

As inspired by Malcolm Farr's story today which should have been titled "How the Coalition plans a complete suck up to Gina Rinehart."

Quick and early success with vaccination

Sexually transmitted HPV declines in US teens

Since a vaccine against HPV was introduced in 2006, 56 percent fewer girls age 14-19 have become infected, said the research announced by the US Centers for Disease Control and published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

CDC Director Tom Frieden described the findings as a "wake-up call" that the vaccine works and should be more widely used. Currently, about one-third of girls age 13-17 are fully vaccinated.

 I wonder what percentage of 14 to 19 year old girls were formerly infected, though.  Certainly, go a bit older and the figures are big:

The CDC says about 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20s, are infected with HPV, and every year some 14 million people become newly infected.

Hot where it counts

All-Time Heat Records Broken in . . . Alaska?! | Climate Central

It hasn't had attention in the Australian media, as far as I know, but recently Alaska has been having all time record heat, even while England continues with another wet and cool summer (and possibly may have more in the coming years.)

Someone in a comment somewhere on the net said it reminded them of chaos theory, which suggested some systems go through swings from one extreme to another until they settle into a new state.   That did ring a bell with me too.

The criteria as defined by Catallaxy

As far as I can tell, the main criteria by which Sinclair Davidson, Judith Sloan and others who post at Catallaxy for an economist to run Treasury (or the Productivity Commission) is that they have never been identified as expressing belief in, or have worked on, matters relating to environmental causes, and climate change in particular. 

Hence, Davidson says Treasury all started to go wrong when Ken Henry came in back in 2007.  

Of course, one would think that an economist who went out hard on a stagflation warning two years ago might be more circumspect in criticising Treasury for getting their recent years forecasts wrong, but no...

Awesome

More data storage? Here's how to fit 1,000 terabytes on a DVD

In The Conversation today:

 In Nature Communications today, we, along with Richard Evans from CSIRO, show how we developed a new technique to enable the data capacity of a single DVD to increase from 4.7 gigabytes up to one petabyte (1,000 terabytes). This is equivalent of 10.6 years of compressed high-definition video or 50,000 full high-definition movies.

They also point out:

 Some 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years.

Their two light beam technique, which reduces the "dot" size when burning a DVD, is said to be:

...cost-effective and portable, as only conventional optical and laser elements are use, and allows for the development of optical data storage with long life and low energy consumption, which could be an ideal platform for a Big Data centre.

I'm not sure if that means it won't be turning up on a home PC, but still, it sounds a remarkable advance.

The Age tries comedy

(As inspired by this story in The Age this morning: Abbott, the thinking person's prime minister.)

No Bond gadgets needed?

Uri Geller psychic spy? The spoon-bender's secret life as a Mossad and CIA agent revealed - Features - Films - The Independent

This sounds very improbable, but interesting:

We may know him for spoon bending antics and for his lengthy friendship with pop star Michael Jackson but showbiz psychic Uri Geller has seemingly had a lengthy second career as a secret agent for Mossad and the CIA, albeit one that was more Austin Powers than James Bond.

Geller was at the Sheffield Doc Fest this week for the premiere of Vikram Jayanti’s The Secret Life Of Uri Geller – Psychic Spy?, a new film that offers compelling evidence of his involvement in the shadowy world of espionage.

“Uri has a controversial reputation. A lot of people think he is a fraud, a lot of people think he is a trickster and makes things up but at the same time he has a huge following and a history of doing things that nobody can explain,” Jayanti says of his Zelig-like subject....

 The doc leaves a question mark in its title but provides so much background evidence that we are left in little doubt that even its most outlandish assertions are rooted in truth. Whether or not Geller had psychic powers, US security forces were certainly prepared to take a very hefty wager on him.

The documentary doesn't just rely on Geller's claims (in fact it says he is guarded in what he says):

Jayanti didn’t rely on Geller’s own cryptic testimony. Instead, he spoke to the high-level officials involved in recruiting and using him. These include scientists from The Stanford Research Institute as well as senior CIA operatives. Among the interviewees with first hand knowledge of Geller’s psychic spying activities are former CIA officer Kit Green, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man to walk on the moon), physicists Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff, and retired US army colonel John Alexander (of The Men Who Stared At Goats fame). A Brit, Nick Pope, once the British Government’s UFO boffin, also puts in an appearance. 

Hmmm.  Given that most of those named are prominent as believers in the paranormal, I wonder how reliable some their testimony might be.

Anyway, sounds well worth watching.