Antibiotics

                Penicillin was one of the greatest inventions in history; it saved hundreds of millions of people. Today penicillin is absolutely worthless when treating bacterial infections and diseases. Doctors sometimes use it for its placebo effect on patients who “really need antibiotics”. Nature evolves with the situations given to it and bacteria can do this at a rapid pace. They can evolve so rapidly they might be catching up with us humans, the fastest evolving beings in this world.

                Bacteria are catching up with technology. We keep creating new antibiotics but over time the bacteria will gain a resistance and the medicine will be useless. As humans, we evolve unbelievably quickly which has made us incredibly successful but if bacteria are faster and become one step ahead of us, we are toast and they flourish in a world of globalization and humans.  Hundreds of antibiotics have been created and treated patients until they are unusable. Sooner or later if we aren’t careful, we will run out of treatment and bacteria can spread rampantly across the world.  

                Doctors are now much more careful when handing out antibiotics. People need to realize that a cough is not a good reason to go get antibiotics; we cannot over use them to the ground. By being cautious, bacteria can hopefully take longer to evolve and become resistant. Handing out antibiotics all willy-nilly can lead to some serious consequences. Research for new ways of killing bacteria is also becoming a major priority as the super bacteria scare is increasing. This week, scientists are using lipids and membranes to essentially bait bacteria into getting killed by our immune system. You can read more here (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141102160004.htm). I think this research is absolutely essential.   Biased on how fast bacteria are evolving, we are quickly running out of antibiotics to kill this nemesis. If we run out of antibiotics with no other treatment, sickness and infections will become untreatable leading to millions of deaths. Funding and focusing on research of new methods will keep humanity from being destroyed by the microbes that surround us.  We don’t want any zombie apocalypses or pandemic attacks. If the popular game, Pandemic ever happens where we run out of antibiotics, get a ticket on the next ferry to Madagascar before it’s too late.  

Isolation

                                In honor of Halloween weekend, we will talk about vampires, deer vampires, with fangs. The musk deer is an odd species; it’s a deer with fangs that look like Dracula. Although they have giant fangs, they are still herbivores and only eat plants and leaves. These creatures are mostly found in eastern Asia but some more endangered species are found in Pakistan and Afghanistan, located in the foresty highlands of the Himalayas.  Most species of these fanged deer have been hunted to extinction for the musk gland they possess. It is one of the rarest and expensive animal parts in the world. The gland is used to make perfumes and to give things that “musky” smell. They can be sold in some places for 20,000 USD per pound. Read more here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_deer).

                Humans are spread all over the world, we can be found everywhere. We think we know everything about nature and what’s going on around us. Some places in the world are completely unknown to us. Thick jungles, deep ravines and caves, and deserts are isolated from humans; the conditions are usually too rough for us.  A lot of undiscovered species can be found in these areas, especially jungles where the diversity is gigantic. We are spread all over the world and a lot of it we have discovered and learn about, but we aren’t everywhere and we as humans still have a lot to learn.

                This week, after thought to be extinct, the musk deer makes an appearance in Kashmir after sixty years of being lost. It’s odd that a species, with such a distinct feature of giant fangs hasn’t been seen in 60 years. This is also weird because Kashmir, the area where these musk deer were found after 60 years is not a desolate area. Although it is at a high elevator, it is not completely barren and it is striking to me that 60 years go by without a human sighting of an animal. It’s not like they decided to disappear from earth for a while then come back. There must be some secret society of these deer were no humans can find them. They are hiding, making sure we don’t take their beautiful and musty smelling glands. 

DNA

                Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is important.  DNA is a long but extremely thin strain of nucleic acids and other compounds. You can find about five feet of DNA stuffed into every single cell in your body.  Every bit of code that makes you who you are is found in every cell, coiled up into chromosomes, ready for telling our cells what proteins to make. It’s mind boggling to me that everything we are, every thought, every part of our body comes from the coding of DNA’s nucleic acids, Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and Thymine.

                This week, scientists figured out a little bit more about DNA. We still don’t know everything though and all this information can literally change in a flash. Studies suggest only 8.2 percent of our DNA is actually used to make proteins which is the main way our bodies are run. Only 1 percent is actually used to create proteins, the other 7 percent are just telling the cell when to start and stop coding. Read more here (http://www.sci-news.com/genetics/science-only-8-2-human-dna-functional-02083.html). Scientists and writers of this article suggest that the rest of the DNA has no use, it doesn’t help at all, and that it is non-functional. Why would we have so much DNA that doesn’t have a use? Why is it there? Do we even need it? It doesn’t seem right that 92 percent of our DNA is just sitting there in our cells doing nothing. Nature is extremely efficient, whatever you believe in, our bodies and all of biology works like a Swiss watch, every little gear and part works perfectly to run smoothly. Species die out and go extinct if they aren’t functioning the way nature wants them to.  In our bodies and make up…. Somehow or someway that other part of our DNA is used, we don’t know it yet but ever part of us is important. The appendix is thought to be useless, but scientists keep studying and are starting to find possible purpose for what they thought was a waste of space. Our bodies and evolution did not create something to be absolutely useless; everything we use has some purpose.

 We definitely do not know everything; everything we do know is minuscule compared to what we have to learn. Our knowledge is still expanding; 50 years ago we had no idea about so many processes and things our body does. There are so many unknowns in our world and in science. We cannot just push stuff off we aren’t certain about as being useless, we just need to keep looking, there is a reason for everything in this world, nothing is useless. Looking through the other ninety two percent will be hard, it is extremely difficult to find patterns with just four codes and billions and billions of digits long.