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But genome detective work could uncover new weapons in the war on bugs

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, (MRSA) a nasty strain of bacteria that resists most antibiotics, probably developed its defenses while spending time down on the farm, a new study says. It has been thought that humans' antibiotic abuse is the catalyst in superbug genesis, but this new research suggests it’s the animals, and the drugs we feed them, that we should worry about.

A new paper in the journal mBio, published by the American Society for Microbiology, describes how a human strain of MRSA started out as a drug-defeatable bug and then transferred into the pig population, where it developed resistance to two common forms of antibiotics. Then the newly potent antibiotic-resistant staph jumped back into humans. Researchers traced its evolutionary history by examining 89 genomes from humans, turkeys, chickens and pigs from 19 countries.

“[It’s] like watching the birth of a superbug,” Lance Price, director of the Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Flagstaff, Ariz., said in a statement.

The CC398 strain of MRSA first appeared in 2003, and is found in pigs, cattle and poultry in the United States, researchers said. It’s in nearly half of all meat in the U.S. food supply, according to the American Society for Microbiology. Most of the time, you can kill it by cooking your food thoroughly. (At least one other staph strain previously jumped from humans into chickens, and humans can also pass it on to their pets.)

Livestock are commonly fed a cocktail of pro-growth hormones, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals to help them grow faster and prevent infection in the crowded spaces where they spend their lives. Among several concerns, opponents of this practice say profligate antibiotic use can force microbes to mutate and become more dangerous. This is apparently what happened with CC398.

“The most powerful force in evolution is selection. And in this case, humans have supplied a strong force through the excessive use of antibiotic drugs in farm animal production,” said Paul Keim, a co-author on the study and director of Northern Arizona University’s Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics. “It is that inappropriate use of antibiotics that is now coming back to haunt us.”

So what’s next? Developing new antibiotics that can fight harder or with different methods. A separate study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society discusses a new way to do this.

It’s difficult to test lots of hard-to-culture microbes harvested from soil in the hopes of finding new antibacterial agents to exploit. Instead, Sean Brady and colleagues removed DNA snippets from some soil bacteria that would not grow in lab cultures, and inserted it into bacteria that do grow in culture. The lab-friendly bacteria served as incubators for this foreign DNA, enabling Brady and colleagues to study various substances the bacteria made. This metagenomics method led to two new antibacterial compounds, called fasamycin A and fasamycin B. And guess what they killed: MRSA.

Their method could be a new way to find natural antibiotics that have not been accessible before, the researchers say. They could conceivably be used to fight new strains of MRSA, like CC398, and any other drug-resistant mutants that may jump from animals to humans. Until the microbes evolve to resist them, too.

In the nine years since the Humane Genome Project wrapped up, gene sequencing has gotten faster and cheaper at a pace rivaling the computer industry. Now a technology company in the UK has another breakthrough, taking a cue from the computer industry itself: A cluster of fast individual compute nodes, so easily scalable that the company made a USB-powered disposable version.

The goal is to democratize sequencing and eliminate the still-heady costs associated with genetic analysis, making DNA and protein sequencing as commonplace as an exam with a tongue depressor.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd. uses a proprietary nanopore detection system to seek out and study molecules. Nanopores are organic molecules with a hole in them, embedded in a polymer membrane. The membrane’s electrical field allows individual strands of DNA to pass through the nanopores, and the disruption in current through the nanopore can be analyzed and matched to base pairs.

The company uses this setup in two configurations: the GridION system, which consists of nodes filled with disposable test cartridges containing multiple nanopores, and the MinION, designed for portable analysis of single molecules.

Each GridION node and cartridge is initially designed to deliver tens of gigabytes of data every 24 hours. Initially, the company intends to make 2,000-nanopore cartridges, but has plans for a 20-node installation using an 8,000-nanopore configuration. The latter would be expected to deliver a complete human genome in 15 minutes, the company says.

MinION is much smaller and can sequence up to 150 million base pairs in six hours. It uses blood, plasma and serum for sample analysis, like other lab tests, and it doesn’t need polymerase chain reaction amplification techniques to work. It will be on sale for $900 later this year, according to the company.

With technology like this, fast, sub-$1,000 genome sequencing could become commonplace.

[via ZMEScience]

Augmented-reality eyewear is the next step toward a future in which we never again have an unmediated view of the world

Google announced yesterday that before the end of 2012, you will be able to buy augmented-reality smart eyeglasses from the search giant. The Android-powered glasses will have an onboard camera that monitors in real time what you see as you walk (or, heavens preserve us, drive) down the street. The lenses will then overlay information about people, locations, and whatnot directly into your field of view.

We knew this day was coming, but I certainly didn't suspect it'd be so soon. Never again will you have to wonder Where is the closest Pizza Hut? or What make of car is that? or Don't I know her from somewhere? Ubiquitous smartphones have already given us the ability to swiftly look up information with only a moderate disruption. Smartglasses completely remove the mediating step of pausing to wonder and ponder and research: data is simply there, an inseparable part of your visible world.

Overlay Google Maps onto the real world, and navigation becomes effortless. Overlay reviews and menus onto restaurant storefronts as you pass them; overlay nutritional data onto your plate as you eat; overlay purchasing info if you particularly admire your co-worker's new shoes; overlay translations of foreign signage, breaking news, hilarious kittens romping at your feet.

As smartglasses become popular, the world will start to seem naked and inaccessible without a glossy data layer on everything.As smartglasses become popular, the world will start to seem naked and inaccessible without a glossy data layer on everything. Everyday activities, maneuvering through the physical world, socializing, working, learning, will all be increasingly eased by the use of glasses; increasingly, until these activities start to feel almost impossible without the glasses. Who's going to have patience to laboriously explain facts to a non-data-overlaid person? Give you my business card? Point you in the direction of Fifth Avenue? I don't even remember how to spell my name! Where are your Googles?

Will businesses see the need for physical signs and billboards? Will municipalities bother to maintain physical street signs and traffic signals? Will smartglasses make the university lecturer's blackboard and salesman's PowerPoint obsolete as well?

What comes after that? With everyone wearing glasses (or, at this point in the future, contact lenses or implants), individual appearance becomes as malleable on the street as it is now on the Internet. You can overlay your real body with a digitally altered one, saving money on subtle nose surgery or just completely living life as a furry avatar.

What, though, will it take to get us to that tipping point, when head-up augmented reality suddenly shifts from a novelty to a ubiquity? Wearing cumbersome goggles on your face as you proceed through your day is a bit more of an intrusion than I for one am ready for. Sony's 3DTV goggles are impressive and designed only to be worn in the comfort of your couch, and still I have yet to meet someone who owns a pair. The gear will have to be small and easy to integrate with your basic life processes. Perhaps AR windshields in our cars will become common first, before we put them on our faces.

But, however it comes -- the fully mediated future has begun.

A team from Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials has created a new thermoelectric fabric they call Power Felt. It's constructed of "tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers," though the final product looks and feels like fabric, and creates and electrical charge from changes in temperature--like, say, touching it with your hot finger, or sitting on it with your hot butt (hot in this case referring to temperature and thus wholly inoffensive science).

Thermoelectrics isn't a new field, but it's mostly been hampered by expensive materials that can cost up to $1,000 per kilogram. But Corey Hewitt, a graduate student at Wake Forest and member of the Power Felt team, says the new design could drastically bring down the price. For something small, like a cellphone case, the addition of Power Felt could cost as little as a dollar extra. And there are all kinds of possible applications, from apparel to car seats.

A team from Wake Forest University's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials has created a new thermoelectric fabric they call Power Felt. It's constructed of "tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers," though the final product looks and feels like fabric, and creates and electrical charge from changes in temperature--like, say, touching it with your hot finger, or sitting on it with your hot butt (hot in this case referring to temperature and thus wholly inoffensive science).

Thermoelectrics isn't a new field, but it's mostly been hampered by expensive materials that can cost up to $1,000 per kilogram. But Corey Hewitt, a graduate student at Wake Forest and member of the Power Felt team, says the new design could drastically bring down the price. For something small, like a cellphone case, the addition of Power Felt could cost as little as a dollar extra. And there are all kinds of possible applications, from apparel to car seats.

Space elevators have been our shared dream for years, but like other promising technologies of the future, they’re just concepts on a distant horizon. Now a Japanese construction firm that specializes in the very tall could make them a reality. By 2050, so still pretty far on that horizon, but hey, it’s a start.

Obayashi Corp., which is almost done building the giant structure above, the Tokyo Sky Tree, wants to build a space elevator that would reach 22,370 miles (36,000 km) above the Earth — that’s above the altitude where geosynchronous satellites orbit. It would take a week to ride up the elevator, traveling on some type of vessel tethered to carbon nanotube cables.

In Obayashi’s plan, a carbon nanotube cable would stretch one-quarter of the way from the Earth to the moon, about 60,000 miles (96,000 km) and attach to some type of spaceborne counterweight. The other end of the tether would be anchored at an Earth-based spaceport, as reported by the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.

The elevator car could carry up to 30 people and would travel at 125 MPH for a week. Tourists could stay at the waystation at 22,370 miles up, and scientists and researchers could go all the way to the end of the tether. There are unfortunately no leads on cost, where to build it or who would finance the project, however.

AFP reports that the company was inspired by its work on the Sky Tree, a 2,080-foot tower that will contain telecommunications antennas and a visitor’s deck offering panoramic views of the capital. “Our experts on construction, climate, wind patterns, design, they say it's possible,” spokeswoman Satomi Katsuyama told AFP. In 40 years, maybe so.

[Yomiuri Shimbun via Slashdot]

In October, manufacturing 100-watt incandescent lightbulbs will become illegal under the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act. As part of the same legislation, 60- and 40-watt ones will be banned by 2014. Compact fluorescents (CFLs) are the simplest-to-make replacement but contain the neurotoxin mercury, have a bluish hue, and don’t illuminate instantly. The regulations are prompting lighting companies to develop new, environmentally friendly ways to produce light that have none of CFLs’ downsides.

NOW
The Electron Stimulated Luminescence (ESL) bulb, pictured top, produces the soft light of an incandescent but is far more efficient. The bulb shoots a beam of electrons through a vacuum toward the glass’s phosphorescent coating, similar to how old cathode-tube-based TVs work. The first ESL bulb, an R30-shape for recessed ceiling fixtures, uses just 19 watts to produce the same amount of light as a 65-watt incandescent. Bulbs appropriate for household lamps will come out later this year. Vul R30 ESL $15

SOON
LED bulbs are 75 percent more efficient than incandescents but can short out if they get too hot. Fried circuits are common if the bulb is installed threads-up, because rising heat overwhelms its heat sink. The company Switch uses a food-grade liquid to cool its LED bulbs, allowing them to work in any orientation. In the bulb, the liquid pulls heat away from the LEDs and causes it to dissipate through the glass. The resulting bulb cools 40 percent better than other LEDs. The placement of the LEDs gives an incandescent-like, omnidirectional glow. Switch Switch75 $25

LATER
The greenest lighting would use no electricity at all. The Bio-Light concept from Philips Design could generate a negative carbon footprint by turning waste into light. Glass containers of bioluminescent bacteria suspended in liquid would be connected with tubes to an anaerobic digester that processes household waste. As the organisms ate the sludge or methane gas from the digester, they would softly glow. The bacteria could be genetically engineered to shine in various hues and to start producing light when they sensed that it was dark out.

Virginia has sneakily allowed adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples.

If you are in Virginia and thinking of having a baby which would be adopted, have an abortion instead!

Businesses in Central America support drug legalization.

That would be a big step forward but we need it in the US as well.

The Israeli hawks' lobby wants the US to change its policy so as to go to war to stop Iran from developing even the capability to make nuclear weapons.

Wal Mart subcontracts operations to other companies, which sometimes rob their workers.

Climate scientist Peter Gleick says he obtained the Heartland documents by pretending to be someone else.

This affirms that the documents are genuine, except perhaps for the one which Gleick says he received anonymously and sought to validate. However, he says that the other documents agree with that one in substance.

Obama's plans to revive US manufacturing sound good but the methods he proposes are too weak to achieve the goal.

In Homs, hospitals have been turned into torture chambers and doctors that treat wounded protesters are punished brutally.

When it says that "The men torturing him weren't even trying to get information," it falls into the common but erroneous belief that torture is a means of getting information. Torture is a system for getting false confessions, or simply for venting hatred; the supposed desire for information is a pretense.

The US Trade Representative boasts that the TPP negotiations are fully transparent (but only if you're a lobbyist for big business).

The secretive process is part and parcel of the malicious purpose of this treaty.

A proposal to give whales a legal right to life and freedom.

I might support this. It's a lot more reasonable than offering such rights to a 3-month human fetus.

Shows presenting dolphins would be able to continue if the dolphins stay and perform voluntarily. Sometimes dolphins are willing to do that.

Soot from industry in Asia is falling on Himalayan glaciers and making them melt faster.

Environment scientists say drastic action is needed to avoid eco-disaster.

Thich Nhat Hanh says that putting an economic value on nature is not enough — it is necessary for people to love the world's ecosystems.

If that is really necessary, it would require the elimination of corporations (psychopaths).

The Russian heatwave of 2010, which destroyed a large amount of the harvest, became 3 times as likely due to global heating.

In other words, it could have happened without global heating, but probably would not have happened.

Since the days of $4 gas began, the single-cylinder motorcycles and scooters that dominate international megacities have become increasingly common on American streets. Engineers at Yamaha created the Y125 Moegi concept to capitalize on that trend. They based it on the company’s first motorcycle, the 1955 125-cc YA-1, but they also included some modern touches, in particular an ultralight frame and a new cylinder design that could help make the Moegi one of the lightest and most fuel-efficient motorcycles ever.

The Y125 Moegi, which is 90 percent aluminum, weighs just 176 pounds (50 pounds less than an entry-level Vespa). Engineers molded the aluminum frame using Yamaha’s proprietary “controlled-filling” die-casting process. Controlled filling reduces air bubbles in the finished parts by 20 percent, making it possible to build strong, thin components that are 30 percent lighter.

Like the original YA-1, the Moegi runs on an air-cooled, 125-cc engine, which connects to the bike’s 20-inch rear wheel with a simple belt drive. But engineers replaced the YA-1’s lawnmower-like two-stroke with a low-friction four-stroke. They also incorporated another Yamaha invention: the DiASil cylinder, the world’s first mass-produced all-aluminum, die-cast motorcycle cylinder. The DiASil’s abrasion-resistant aluminum alloy dissipates heat at three times the rate of steel. When the engine isn’t being adequately cooled by the wind (for example, when riding uphill or stuck in traffic), there’s less power loss resulting from increased engine heat.

Yamaha hasn’t announced a horse-power rating for the Moegi engine, but 10 to 15 horsepower would be enough to propel a bike this light to 50 mph. Yamaha engineers have said, however, that the Moegi could achieve 188 mpg, which would make it nearly four times as efficient as a typical motorcycle.

Mileage: Up to 188 mpg
Weight: 176 pounds