Word: bacterias
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...activities in space. Best known for banning governments from putting nuclear weapons into orbit, the treaty also requires space-faring nations to avoid "harmful contamination" of other worlds while exploring the solar system. Human beings have yet to set foot on other planets, so the risk today comes from bacteria that can hitch a ride on unmanned spacecraft like NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, which arrived on the red planet's surface last May. (See pictures of the Mars Rover's five years in space...
When it comes to bugs like bacteria and parasites, we've been trained to think that less is better. But there are some good guys in the microbial world - bugs that do the unglamorous work of keeping us regular and helping to relieve a range of disorders from diarrhea to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Now a new study suggests that the same microbes may even help us stay slim...
...none of this means that downing the latest probiotic yogurts, which contain certain strains of good gut bacteria, should be the next weight-loss craze. For one thing, says DiBaise, the strains that were dominant in the normal-weight people are not the same as those promoted in the popular probiotic yogurts. Second, there is no evidence that probiotic products can do anything about weight loss; the latest scientific studies have shown only that probiotics can relieve antibiotic-related diarrhea, as well as alleviate IBS and aide regularity. "It is interesting to look at microbial flora," says Lynne McFarland...
...wider animal kingdom, this is a bizarre, even perverse evolutionary innovation. We also have more sweat glands than any other animal on earth--we can sweat almost a gallon an hour. We don't think of ourselves as poisonous, but our mouths are as full of noxious, infectious bacteria as is a Komodo dragon's, and a human bite can be seriously toxic...
...than almost any water source on the planet. First, the dark beer-colored sewage is pulled through a series of tubes stuffed with thousands of fibers pierced with holes 1/300th the size of a human hair. Anything larger than 0.2 millionth of a meter - which includes suspended solids and bacteria - is left behind. The cleansed water is then forced at high pressure through hundreds of tubes that are filled with tightly wound plastic membranes. Reverse osmosis, as the process is called, stops nonwater molecules - including viruses and pharmaceuticals. (The last part is particularly important; an Associated Press investigation earlier this...