Word: superbug
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...George Clooney contest for the best picture of him,” Coen said. Yesterday evening, Coen, who said she was suffering from a cold, did not mention specific plans for the future apart from her intention to “kick the superbug.” “My ideal future would be having an editing job and writing when I feel like writing,” she said. Despite the number of law students in the audience, the discussion barely touched upon legal issues. “Gawker had one lawyer and we called on him only...
...past month, schools have shuttered their doors, sanitized their hallways and alerted parents to the presence of the spreading drug-resistant bacteria in locker rooms and on wrestling mats. At least three students have died of the infection. Headlines have alarmingly--if predictably--cried out warnings of a superbug, and there is in fact cause for real worry...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70% of the bacteria that cause infections in hospitals are resistant to at least one antibiotic. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which causes boils or pimples on the skin, is only the latest superbug to make the rounds and has appeared in dozens of high school and college athletic locker rooms, as well as in three NFL locker rooms. Drug-resistant tuberculosis cases, including those of the variety affecting Speaker, have risen along with peaks in AIDS cases, as people with weakened immune systems are especially vulnerable to infection...
...take ethanol, the gasoline substitute manufactured today mostly from corn. It currently takes a lot of harsh chemicals to process ethanol, but microbes could do the same thing. "I think it's doable within this decade," says Patrinos, "that we will develop a superbug that can make that conversion in a very clean way." Indeed, JGI, in collaboration with the San Diego-based biotech company Diversa, is sequencing communities of bacteria from the guts of termites in an effort to find genes that make hydrogen and ethanol. It's also looking for genes that enable microbes to metabolize radioactive waste...
...bird flu has helped transform a regional university into a world player in disease research, and its staff understand that they are part of a vital bulwark. "Hong Kong is a very strategic place to be for emerging-infectious-disease work," says Yuen. And when the next would-be superbug pops up, at least scientists will have one more arrow in their quiver...