Blogging from the Bog

   The use of vegetable matter and plants as alternative fuel sources may not be as far off into the future as we once thought.  With new developments coming onstream daily in the quest for renewable and sustainable energy there is massive interest gaining on this scientific frontier.  Some products such as corn and miscanthus can often consume more energy in the process of conversion to fuel to make them non runners (for the time being); but, as close to home as in Britain they are taking these ideas seriously.

   Processing sugar into fuel accounts for more than 50% of Brazil’s crop production as they have taken advantage of this technology and made it a viable industry.  We used to have a thriving sugar beet industry in this country.  What are the chances of revitalizing that?  The sooner we decrease our dependency on Middle East crude oil the better off we will be both economically and ecologically.  And not alone that, there is growing evidence that the profits from Saudi Arabian oil are also being used to fuel terrorism!

   There is speculation out there that the Saudi’s are playing an intricate game of cat and mouse with their foreign policy objectives.  On the one hand they seem to have the U.S. government convinced they are allies in the Middle East, yet on the other they are financing and undermining the Western way of life.  In an article published yesterday Amy Goodman interviews some experts to determine why the focus, on the insurgencies in Iraq, is being placed on the Iranians instead of the Saudi Arabians where it belongs.

   Even though the Saudi’s are financing a major propaganda campaign attacking the ideals of the United Sates, the U.S. government has it’s sites set on making out that Iran is the major threat to the stability of the new Iraq.  What is going on here? 

   We will all be much better off when we are less dependent on oil production.

   There is yet another Super Bug amongst the growing list of nosocomial pathogens that are notorious for being resistant to antibiotics.  This lad’s name is Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, and although PA is not as popular as his co-conspirator Mrs. A (Methicillan-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) he is making up for the lack of press coverage by being a very artful dodger.

   This lad is everywhere, in water, soil, on plants and even on some animals.  He isn’t fussy about his eating habits as he can survive on 75 different substances, thrives in up to 37′C (98.6′F) weather and doesn’t mind when it gets to 42′C (107.6F’), and he doesn’t even need oxygen to breathe if he has nitrates, and guess where those are?  Among many other places they can be found in septic systems and field runoffs that find their way into the waterways.  Hmmm, that couldn’t happen anywhere near you could it? 

   Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the fourth most common pathogen and accounts for 10% of all hospital acquired infections, it is the most common pathogen isolated from patients hospitilized for longer than seven days.  He has minimal nutritional needs and this bacterium produces a biofilm that colonizes indwelling devices such as catheters and mechanical breathing apparatae.  Case ratio fatalities in patients that are infected with PA who have cancer, cystic fibrosis, or burns is 50%.  He can cause septicemia, urinary tract infections, pneumonia, endocarditis, dermatitis, and osteochondritis to mention but a few.  He is a most versatile beastie!

   P. aeruginosa can be identified by his gram morphology (gram-negative), inability to ferment (lactose or sucrose), a positive oxidose reaction, fruity odour, and flourescence under ultra-violet light in early sightings of colonies and their presence in wounds.  He can live in the sinks, on the mops, and in hard to clean instruments, PA can be brought into the hospital by plants and flower arrangements, and especially unwashed hands!  While all the scientists are trying to find a cure with chemicals and macrophages, you can eliminate this bio-bad boy with 10 seconds of washing up with soap and water!

   He is a common enough creature and does little or no harm to healthy individuals but he is always on the look out for an opportunity to get busy.  He can be transmitted around the wards from patient to patient on stethoscopes carelessly utilized and not sterilized by the doctors, personal contact between patients by the staff, he can be picked up from keyboards, phones, and instrument panels, and also from contaminated food and water consumed by an immunocompromised patient.  The gift of clean hands may be a more important present to bring to patients than a bouquet of flowers!

The DNA face of PA.

   With the mad prices of houses and the way young couples are mortgaging their futures away you would have to think they are walking a fine line between the property ladder and financial disaster.

   House prices are so high that in order to qualify combined incomes are multiplied by 5 or 6 and after possible heavy borrowings from parents gets them a variable rate 100% 30 year mortgage IF they can compete with the demand for the house they want.

   The gamble is: will incomes rise in the next few years to make this recent purchase affordable, and will housing prices, at such a high cost base, be an investment with growth potential?

   I think Duplex hits the nail on the head in his blog and offers a bit of insight and Alex brings up the point of repossessions in his comment.  And A Random Walk explains the scenario as a pyramid scheme.  Risky business indeed.

   But wait a minute.  If the young couple want to raise a family one of these incomes is going to be lost or at least severely diminished for a period of time.  What then?  Never mind the fact that they may choose to have two or three children over the next few years and now you are talking about nearly a decade of one income paying the mortgage AND the cost of raising a family?  What’s the options?  Day care, family child minders, a creche, repossession, or no children?  Those are not options!

   The government has got to get a grip on this spiralling inflation and the precarious state of the housing market.

   It is quite possible that repossessions are un-Constitutional according to Article 41 Section 2 Subsection 2 on matters dealing with The Family, in which the government must endeavour to insure that mothers should not be forced to work for economic reasons to the neglect of their household duties.  That sounds like a loophole to me!

   Over one hundred thousand years ago there was the beginning of a series of migrations out of East Africa.  These bands of adventurers first travelled south and eventually north up the rivers and coastlines between the great desert to the west and the salt ocean on the east until they reached another body of water that is now the Mediterranean Sea.  Here they found routes through a kinder climate and environment that allowed them to choose several directions to pursue.  These are the Chronicles of Modern Man.

    The migrations lasted for many millenia until finally they reached every corner of the earth.  Along their journeys they met others, similar hunter-gatherers who walked upright, used tools, and could communicate.  Though they were a lot alike there were enough distinctions between these ancient hominids and our travellers that little or no connubial interaction took place that had lasting effects.

   Scientists have now been able to map these migrations using DNA techniques to identify genetic markers.  These markers are actually changes in the DNA of our travellers and were probably unwisely termed mutations in the early days of chromosome research.  Most of these mutations went unnoticed though some caused alterations in skin, hair and eye colour which would be readily recognized upon birth.  The reason these genetic markers are so important in tracking our travellers is that once the change happened there was no going back.  The genetics of a particular group stayed with them as they migrated (or settled) and would not have occured in the population that they left behind.

   Whatever skills our travellers had, coupled with beneficial moderations to their genes, they were able to analyze and adapt better to the sudden and violent climatic and evironmental changes that brought about the destruction of their cousin hominids.  By 25,000 BCE we were alone, but the genetic mutations were still happening.

   Sometime after the domestication of animals and farming (10,000 BCE) came about there arose small permanent communities, longer life spans, and trade.  Somewhere in what is now northeastern Europe there was an outbreak of smallpox that had devastating and long reaching results.  It is thought that this virus triggered a unique change in the DNA of the afflicted survivors and their offspring, and it has been labelled as the CCR5-delta32 mutation.  In a case of nature coming to the rescue this mutation was to insure that the smallpox virus would not eliminate great numbers of these same creatures again; but alas, there is more!

   During the 1665 Plague epidemic the town of Eyam, England put a self imposed quarantine on themselves to save the neighbouring towns and villages.  The few who survived had the delta32 allele!  Discovered when genetic testing of their descendants was done it has been confirmed that this mutation protects us from the Plague as well.  Eyam had an unusually high population percentage (14%) with this mutation as compared to a roughly 10% average throughout Europe, Ireland has 11.3%.

   As mentioned before there is no going back for these mutants.  The delta32 mutation happened in Europe and is today only found here, in western Asia, and North Africa, and of course in their descendants.  What makes these geographic locations significant is another virus that the CCR5-delta32 mutation protects us from:  HIV-Aids.  If you have been clicking the links as you read this you will not be surprised to know that if you have two pairs or copies of this delta32 gift you almost certainly will not contract smallpox, plague, or Aids. 

   Unfortunately, on the continent of Africa where Aids is rampant, and where even one copy of a delta32 in the genome sequence would offer some resistance, it is not in their Genetic History to have this protection against the horrible effects of this new disease.  In a harsh twist of genetic fate those who stayed in Africa also had some DNA changes, to protect against malaria some chromosomes adapted to build a resistance but had a side affect, sickle-cell anaemia.  So far there are no known side effects to the CCR5-delta 32 adaptation.