OT: The Evolution of Bacteria on a "Mega-Plate" Petri Dish (Kishony Lab)

[Demon69]

The lateral-flow tests are not sensitive enough to detect COVID in exhaled fog or droplets. But if you breathe enough of those droplets in, you will likely get infected.

My wife contracted Omicron a week or two ago, and I soon developed it as well, even though we are both fully vaccinated and boosted.

I administered the BinaxNow lateral-flow test to my wife, who had a scratchy cough and needed lots more sleep than normal, and she was strongly positive. (I didn't test myself on the assumption that I already know the answer - I had developed the same cough and sleep demand.)

In this test, one scrubs the inside of both nostrils up to 3/4" (19mm) in with a swab, collecting whatever is right on the mucosal skin that lines the nostril, and becomes a home for COVID. This is far more direct than sampling the droplets emitted while speaking. The scrubbing doesn't really hurt, but is maddeningly ticklish.

She probably got it from her immediate family, many of whom came down with Omicron as well. (There was a lot of travel because there was a death in the family.) In the immediate family, all are vaccinated and none of these infections were serious, none requiring medical attention.

Thanks, kinda what I suspected.
I used the NHS rapid antigen tests kits, I had about 20 so tried various ways including coughed up sputum. Everything showed strongly positive with the exception of the breath condensate effort.
I think it was my daughter that brought it home from work but not sure, my symptoms were loss of smell, constant headache (the worst part for me as it robbed sleep), average cold symptoms. The tests I collected below, the bottom rack taken using the suggested method. From noticing symptoms to testing clear was 7 days.

GF tested positive a couple days after I did and had a similar trip.
The articles I read about testing for Covid in breath using the Gesundheit Machine were varied, which also led me to question. Seems to be a paper out there to suit any view.

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

Seems to be a paper out there to suit any view.

Like it or not, even the best intentioned scientists introduce some bias to their work, they go looking for "abc" and find it, ignorant to the fact that what they should be looking for is "xyz". Peer reviewed data is the best we have for now, but the reviewers are not reperforming the research, just saying it does look correct. My guess is that 10 years from now we will have a much better understanding of this virus, and the mistakes made that got us to where we are today.

I'm still keeping my covid zero policy, have not needed or even seen a rona test kit

 

[jim rozen]

I haven't studied smallpox in great detail, but what I have read says while it can be airborne, but you have to work pretty hard at it. ...

Incorrect. Read "The Demon in the Freezer"

The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story: Preston, Richard: 8601401355847: Amazon.com: Books

 

[GregSY]

A single book...one with a bombastic cover and a summary full of fear-inducing words, no less .... does not constitute a body of medical knowledge.

As noted above, we've reached an age where a person can find a 'scientific' treatise to support any, and all, conclusions.

The simple fact is the medical community has taken a beating when it comes to the trust of the general population. Some of that is deserved...and some of it has been fostered by their allowing politics and the media to enter into the medical field. Hell, we now have Supreme Court judges issuing medical advice when I always thought judges were tasked with determining legality, not making policy.

 

[jim rozen]

A single book...

Then don't read it.

 

[GregSY]

I'll take you up on that.

 

[lucky7]

And there’s the problem. Read widely on a subject, listen to experts who’s life’s work is this topic, ask informed thoughtful questions, and then and only then you can offer a reasoned opinion. Watch Your choice of cable news, youtube videos, don’t read widely, disrespect actual experts, and well, you get the picture.

I couldn’t agree more- when politics inserts its big fat nose into medicine, individuals and society as a whole suffers.

L7

 

[Joe Gwinn]

They didn't say, but they probably autoclave all bio waste [thus killing the just evolved super-bugs].

An afterthought. There is also a larger answer:

By far the biggest driver to the evolution of bacteria to be drug-resistant is the use of antibiotics by the ton in farming, to yield increased weight at slaughter for a given amount of animal feed. Antibiotics are cheaper than the feed thus avoided.

Why the connection? Because the immune system is expensive to run, and takes at least 10% of the animal's caloric budget, and uses lots of proteins to make the immune system's weaponry. Prophylactic antibiotics reduce that expense. The cost being diffuse - the gradual loss of effective antibiotics for use in medicine.

If the use of antibiotics in farming were illegal, with use of antibiotics reserved for sick animals only, the consumption of antibiotics would drop from tons to pounds. And greatly slow the loss of effective antibiotics. It's hard to find new classes (families) of antibiotics, versus tinkering within the families we already have.

 

[boslab]

Intensive farming can’t work without antibiotics, there’s a dairy farm down the road from me, the cows don’t leave the shed, I don’t care if they have music auto milkers and back scratchers the cows should be in fields eating grass as designed not recycled protein from f knows where, feeding sheep protein caused the “cow madness” that resulted in cjd in humans, what will they think of next, oh we can’t waste this crematorium fat, let’s make I bet it’s not natural butter, oh hang on didn’t that already happen in Germany during WW2, hydrogenated human fat, very tasty I’m sure.
Mark

 

[boslab]

Girls are getting bigger, increased protein my arse, they would never lie would they?, male breast cancer is rising , the graph is a straight line, nature and y=Mx+c should be a warning bell
Mark

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

Here is a little food for thought on the after effects of the flu pandemic of of 1918, whether it applies to covid is still an unknown, but there is that "long covid" thing already.
Encephalitis lethargica: 100 years after the epidemic | Brain | Oxford Academic

 

[jim rozen]

If the use of antibiotics in farming were illegal, with use of antibiotics reserved for sick animals only, the consumption of antibiotics would drop from tons to pounds.

This is pie-in-the sky, the beef/chicken/hog/etc industries will gladly spend immense amounts of money lobbying to keep this from ever happening. It would basically mean death to their profit stream.

 

[dgfoster]

This is pie-in-the sky, the beef/chicken/hog/etc industries will gladly spend immense amounts of money lobbying to keep this from ever happening. It would basically mean death to their profit stream.

Pie may, in fact, play a role in male breast cancer (a rarity still) since obesity is a major risk factor as is old age. Breast Cancer in Men | CDC. Both have increased in recent decades. Lesson: the dangers of “post hoc ergo propter hoc.” Take a look at the link for other risk factors that stand up to statistical analysis like Black ethnicity, Prostate cancer therapy, Kleife liters Syndrome, etc.

Maybe start a new thread if this area is of concern, but it is clearly unrelated to the topic of this thread.
This looks like another potential tangential diversion of this thread.

Denis

 

[GregSY]

All this is true or at least has merit, well enough.

But it all, also, dances around the bottom line that doesn't change - people die. It bothers me, the arrogance which surrounds the wave of sentiment popular with the adult-children of today's society. If we JUST eliminate wars, racism, guns, CO2 emissions, disease, and anyone making over $400,000 per year (except the true heroes of our culture, athletes and musicians)....we no longer will need to die.

Imagine...a never-ending life of concerts, parties, drinking, smoking dope, dancing, and just flat being cool. It's there....I can taste it.

So anyway, the stupid bastards of the past died. The died from the Spanish Flu, bullets, disease, wiping back-to-front, and not wearing safety belts. But not us! We - through mutual cooperation, common understanding, and coercion - have death in our gunsights!

 

[jim rozen]

.... If we JUST eliminate wars,

Gee whiz never saw anyone die in a war!

 

[Joe Gwinn]

This is pie-in-the sky, the beef/chicken/hog/etc industries will gladly spend immense amounts of money lobbying to keep this from ever happening. It would basically mean death to their profit stream.

No doubt. But, what was done before penicillin became widely available, in WW2?

All that's required is about 10% more feed. Not the end of the world.

MRSA is an example of the the problem to be solved:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - Wikipedia

Drug-resistant TB is another example:

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis - Wikipedia

 

[jim rozen]

All that's required is about 10% more feed. Not the end of the world.

No argument there. My point is this issue has been tried and tried multiple times and the big business folks manage to shut it down each time.
The science is right. But outlawing antibiotic use in animal feed is one of those third rail issues apparently. Every time it's tried the big guns come out.

And then you have the medical folks bathering on about 'restricting antibiotic use' in humans. Absurd to discuss the ten percent situation and then
deliberately ignore the other 90 percent.

 

[mhajicek]

Here is a little food for thought on the after effects of the flu pandemic of of 1918, whether it applies to covid is still an unknown, but there is that "long covid" thing already.

Indeed. I got sick in March of '20. I'm still not back to the health and vigor I had before. Picked up a couple chronic conditions, and my energy level has suffered considerably. I'm far from alone in that respect; how much damage has that done to the economy?

 

[Zeuserdoo]

Jim Rosen,

I've seen the same thing with water restrictions here. 90% of the water here is used for farming, but the local government beats to death the idea that watering your yard is the problem. There are much more efficient ways to water farms than overhead watering during the heat of the day, but you see it happening to grow corn and wheat all over around here.

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

Indeed. I got sick in March of '20. I'm still not back to the health and vigor I had before. Picked up a couple chronic conditions, and my energy level has suffered considerably. I'm far from alone in that respect; how much damage has that done to the economy?

Sorry to hear that, hope you get better! I've been isolating at a level few could endure, projects and exercise (hiking the mountains and firewood) have kept me from going bonkers, I think... I was fully prepared for 2 years, questioning if I can handle another without getting too strange