Bacteria Discovered In Irish Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs (msn.com) 88
NBC News reports on how microbiologist Gerry Quinn "followed up on some folklore his family had passed on to him."
Old timers insisted that the dirt in the vicinity of a nearly 1,500-year-old church in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, an area once occupied by the Druids, had almost miraculous curative powers.... "Here in the western fringes of Ireland there is still a tradition of having this folk cure," Quinn told NBC News. "We can look at it and see maybe it's just superstition -- or we can actually investigate and ask, 'is there anything in the soil that produces antibiotics...?'"
Once Quinn and his team decided to focus on the Irish soil, they narrowed their search to a specific type of bacteria, called Streptomyces, because other strains of this bacteria have led to the development of 75 percent of existing antibiotics, Quinn said. The bacteria was discovered by a team based at Swansea University Medical School, made up of researchers from Wales, Brazil, Iraq and Northern Ireland. The researchers first tried the newly discovered strain of Streptomyces on some garden variety bacteria. In their petri dish experiment, "it knocked them out," Quinn said. "Then we thought we'd take it one step further and find some multi-resistant organisms."
The bacteria in the experiment killed four out of the top six organisms that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. "It's quite surprising," said Quinn... "The lesson is, some of the cures are right underneath your feet."
Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary geneticist/microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, tells NBC that more research is needed before this yields a super-antibiotic -- but "it's a cool discovery."
The World Health Organization has named antibiotic resistance as one of 2019's ten top public health threats.
Once Quinn and his team decided to focus on the Irish soil, they narrowed their search to a specific type of bacteria, called Streptomyces, because other strains of this bacteria have led to the development of 75 percent of existing antibiotics, Quinn said. The bacteria was discovered by a team based at Swansea University Medical School, made up of researchers from Wales, Brazil, Iraq and Northern Ireland. The researchers first tried the newly discovered strain of Streptomyces on some garden variety bacteria. In their petri dish experiment, "it knocked them out," Quinn said. "Then we thought we'd take it one step further and find some multi-resistant organisms."
The bacteria in the experiment killed four out of the top six organisms that are resistant to antibiotics, including MRSA. "It's quite surprising," said Quinn... "The lesson is, some of the cures are right underneath your feet."
Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary geneticist/microbiologist at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, tells NBC that more research is needed before this yields a super-antibiotic -- but "it's a cool discovery."
The World Health Organization has named antibiotic resistance as one of 2019's ten top public health threats.
It was alcohol (Score:5, Funny)
Drunken Irish bacteria are good fighters
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a nearly 1,500-year-old church in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, an area once occupied by the Druids
And now the Christians and Druids will have a war in Northern Ireland over whose bacteria it is.
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More like one set of Christians, another set of Christians, and the Druids.
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They're still vastly preferable to Asatru-tards.
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Obligatory XKCD.
https://xkcd.com/1217/ [xkcd.com]
Happy St Patties Day (Score:4, Interesting)
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Material Discovered In Chernobyl Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs
Can't imagine why this is less newsworthy...
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Is it... radioactive material?
So it kills 4 drug-resistant superbugs. And pretty much every other cellular life too.
This is not great news...
Now I'll go and read the article... oooh, there is no linked article! Why is that, I wonder?...
Searching for "Material Discovered In Chernobyl Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs" finds... with Google, just this article.
Hmmm.
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Nah it's probably some kind of toxin.
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Don't trip over your cape, Captain Obvious!
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What's bothering you, Brexit or the Rugby?
Re: Happy St Patties Day (Score:1)
It'd be the rugby. It's the English who voted for the collapse of the Good Friday Accords when they voted for Brexit.
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Well .... they actually voted for Vera Lynn doing a spit roast with Richard Todd & John Mills on the white cliffs of Dover plus 20 squagillion in tax cuts for Rees-Mogg & his chums. I mean for the NHS. Oh, and to be allowed to keep the Queen on stamps.
The GFA was just collateral damage.
Re:Christchurch (Score:2)
Here we go (Score:2)
I can see where this is going.
The profit-driven pharmaceutical industry is going to capture this bacteria, culture it, and formulate some new medication that will "save thousands of lives."
Everyone happy, right?
Maybe. That's not the end. Right now that magical cure is "right underneath your feet" (TFA). What they will ignore are those bacteria are part of a complex ecosystem where the parts are interconnected and dependent on each other. But they can't package and make a profit on an ecosystem
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
You read it here first, folks.
What you said was so generic, I doubt even a single person read it here first.
You didn't name the name of the thing, so it doesn't even have that much difference compared to the standard rant.
Re: Here we go (Score:2)
Was he trolling? It's hard to tell. Pretty weak either way.
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No, see, when you don't have information yet, but you're making conclusions, you're already wrong.
If the event ends up happening the way you guessed, you were still wrong when you made the conclusion without evidence.
I stand by everything I said; there was not yet enough information to judge. The only public information was eyewitness accounts. If you don't believe the eyewitness accounts, it is still true at that stage that they are the only information you have. So the realistic, rational choices about wh
Re: Here we go (Score:1)
Yep, you describe the mudhole that is the U.S. very well.
They should be burned to the ground, really.
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Meanwhile, if someone can make money on new antibiotics now the future can just go fuck itself. Use it up and breed (pun intended) future trouble because PROFIT!
Re: Here we go (Score:2)
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Now you know why Irish Spring soap is so strong! Never leave home without it! Eat two bars before entering a hospital just to be safe! Always wash your hands with hand sanitizer.
I get my bacteria resistance by eating Lucky Charms cereal. That crap tastes like medicine anyhow.
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Completely accurate. Want an example: anti-bacterial hand soap/dish soap. Advertising is awash (pun intended) with "Kills 99.99% of Germs!". Meanwhile current bacteria populations are becoming immune to the agents used in these products. It's called evolutionary adaptation and it works no matter what anyone thinks about evolution or god.
Meanwhile, if someone can make money on new antibiotics now the future can just go fuck itself. Use it up and breed (pun intended) future trouble because PROFIT!
You know, I've been hearing about the resistant-microbe-pocolypse on /. for what, 20 years now?
Nobody doubts the existence of resistance, but the apocalypse part is taking a little longer than anticipated.
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1. Go to a hospital (not that I'm wishing you ill health, this is just an example).
2. Stay long enough to learn the names of about ten nurses and janitors in addition to several doctors.
3. Develop an antibiotic resistant infection.
Voila! The apocalypse has arrived for you. Get well soon.
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Completely accurate. Slashdot even had a story about it: Third World Superbug Resistant to 26 antibiotics [slashdot.org]
Years ago I knew a girl who was a fellow student in high school. She took a trip to India and came in contact with some awful pathogen which proceeded to destroy multiple organs and resulted in her death, despite the best available medical care in the US.
India is still a filthy third world country, with raw sewage flowing in the streams and rivers.
Given how many good, interesting, and quite safe places
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Yeah...
Just like bacteria that were found to be penicillin resistant decades BEFORE we started using penicillin...
like this article says:
https://www.theatlantic.com/sc... [theatlantic.com]
Penicillin is use by bacteria to defend themselves. Of course there are other bacteria that are resistant to it! That's how bactiera A can eat bactiera B! Bacteria A are resistant to the effects of bacteria B's defenses, penicillin.
We "discovered" it thousands of years after bacteria had. So obviously there are many bacteria out there in th
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Informative)
Your main point might be correct, but this is not. Penicillin was derived from mold, not from bacteria. RTFA that you linked.
better start rebuilding the soil then... (Score:1)
Old Wives Tales (Score:1)
'But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.'
-- Lord of the Rings
So don't over use it (Score:2)
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Sure but other bacteria/fungus/mold will evolve ways to beat those bacteria. Most of this resistance probably doesn't come from us using the antibiotics at all but rather from the bacteria competing with each other. Which is how they evolve their offensive (antibiotic) capabilities in the first place.
I think the overuse concern is overblown in any case. The issue isn't the drugs being overused, the issue is the drugs not being used completely. If you take the full course and you completely wipe out the infe
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Except that the whole time you're peeing that antibiotic into your nearest convenient body of moving water.
Not finishing a full course of antibiotics is definitely bad, it turns your body into an experiment in directed evolution. Overuse (not just in humans) of antibiotics is also bad because it turns your local waterways into similar experiments.
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How long until (Score:1)
Rub some dirt on it! (Score:3)
So, the macho 'rub some dirt on it' thing actually works if you have special dirt... #themoreyouknow
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Rather than turning this into a drug they should stick with this method of application. That will curb usage a bit.
One bit of woo is true (Score:1)
If one bit of woo is true, then two bits of woo are true. If two bits of woo are true, all woo is true.
You can bet pounds to pigshit that some people are going to interpret this as proof that crystals, homeopathy and pyramids work.
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Nonesense. This is nothing but evidence that the druids worked with aliens who engineered this bacteria for them.
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I don't know about that. But I'm willing to concede that there's precious little evidence to the contrary.
A proper trial, then another one (Score:2)
They need to run a proper trial, and then another one.
Why? To be sure, to be sure!
Old Wives' Tale (Score:2)
I can't remember where or when I first heard this - it was a long time ago - but it's a toss up between congenital laziness and 'belief' in the 'wisdom of wives' that accounts for my casual attitude towards cleaning / a little bit of dirt.
"A child that hasn't eaten their weight in dirt by the time they're two won't make it past five"
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It is pretty far fetched to assume that playing in the dirt is beneficial because of its anti-bacterial properties. For each bacterium that the dirt kills, it brings hundreds of other ones.
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"It is pretty far fetched to assume that playing in the dirt is beneficial because of its anti-bacterial properties."
And yet this site would have never been discovered if playing in dirt didn't turn out to be beneficial for the locals who were aware of it over the course of thousands of years. Or are you suggesting playing in the dirt was not beneficial and this superbug killer bacteria that was found when looking for the explanation of the benefit is just a coincidence?
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Or are you suggesting playing in the dirt was not beneficial and this superbug killer bacteria that was found when looking for the explanation of the benefit is just a coincidence?
It would only be a coincidence if the dirt from the next town did not have similar properties. However, it is quite common for soil bacteria to make anti bacterial toxins. Most of our antibiotics are based on them. The problem is not so much finding them, but rather finding the ones that we can safely ingest or apply to open wounds, while still maintaining their effectiveness.
According to folk tradition, people would not "play in the dirt", rather they would wrap it in cloth, and place it under their pillow
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"It would only be a coincidence if the dirt from the next town did not have similar properties."
I'd contend it would still be a coincidence even if the bacteria exists throughout a fair bit of the region. There are no passed down tales of healing with the dirt where I live and I'd venture this particular variety of highly effective bacteria isn't here either.
"However, it is quite common for soil bacteria to make anti bacterial toxins." It is not however common for those toxins to more effective than known a
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That's not due to the antimicrobial properties of dirt. It's due to the microbes in the dirt. Many studies, some very large, have shown that exposure to a greater variety of microbes as a child is associated with a better immune system: both better at fighting infection and less likely to engage in autoimmune reactions.
The trick is to get that exposure without catching something that will actually kill you. Dirt is pretty decent for that.
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As long as you don't get soil-borne anthrax.
Indian have such beliefs too (Score:2)
Thinking about it, this would be like deliberately exposing oneself to various pathogens, fungi, bacteria, virii that are endemic to different parts of the country. And this is a sort of primitive immunization protocol, isn't it. If it so happens some temple pond is always infested w
People are dying; distribute the new drug NOW!! (Score:2)
Seriously, though--good on the researchers if they've found yet another antibiotic, but...
Everyone here knows this just buys us a (little) time and doesn't address the fundamental issue, right?
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Everyone here knows this just buys us a (little) time and doesn't address the fundamental issue, right
There is no fundamental issue to be solved, there is only buying more time.
Kills more than that (Score:2)
Bacteria Discovered In Irish Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs
Although missing from the summary, it also kills potatoes.