Newsworthy Science

[Angst]

That's depressing. EnglishEdward noted quinine. Any other tools to continuously combat malaria if they go immune to the current front-line drugs?

 

[GinandTonic]

They were talking about a new antimalaria thing recently. IIRC it lived in the same part of the body or whatever as the malaria parasite but didn't make people ill. Malaria couldn't get a foothold competing for the same resources.

An icky thought - to infect you with a parasite for the rest of your life.

 

[bernie14]

They were talking about a new antimalaria thing recently. IIRC it lived in the same part of the body or whatever as the malaria parasite but didn't make people ill. Malaria couldn't get a foothold competing for the same resources.

An icky thought - to infect you with a parasite for the rest of your life.

Well, it wouldn't be a parasite would it?

 

[GinandTonic]

Well, it wouldn't be a parasite would it?

If I recall correctly it was a benign parasite, but the medical crew would know more.

 

[Samson]

I have never heard of such a therapy, but that does not mean it does not exist.

However the most nightmare apocalyptic technology in vaguely my field has been proposed as a solution to malaria.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Resistance to front-line malaria drugs confirmed in Africa

Scientists have confirmed that malaria parasites in Africa have developed resistance to a key family of drugs used to protect against them, and it seems NOT to have spread from SE Asia but developed de novo in Africa.

In the six Southeast Asian countries that make up the Greater Mekong Subregion, Plasmodium falciparum has developed resistance to derivatives of artemisinin, the main component of first-line treatments for malaria. Clinical resistance to artemisinin monotherapy in other global regions, including Africa, would be problematic.

In this longitudinal study conducted in Northern Uganda, we treated patients who had P. falciparum infection with intravenous artesunate (a water-soluble artemisinin derivative) and estimated the parasite clearance half-life.

The independent emergence and local spread of clinically artemisinin-resistant P. falciparum has been identified in Africa. The two kelch13 mutations may be markers for detection of these resistant parasites.​

In simple English, what does this mean for those vaccinated and un vaccinated against malaria?​

 

[Samson]

In simple English, what does this mean for those vaccinated and un vaccinated against malaria?​

There is no effective vaccination for malaria. For everyone, but mostly poor people, who get malaria it means there is more chance of the drugs working less well or not at all, and so the disease being worse.

 

[The_J]

They were talking about a new antimalaria thing recently. IIRC it lived in the same part of the body or whatever as the malaria parasite but didn't make people ill. Malaria couldn't get a foothold competing for the same resources.

An icky thought - to infect you with a parasite for the rest of your life.

Well, it wouldn't be a parasite would it?

If I recall correctly it was a benign parasite, but the medical crew would know more.

I have never heard of such a therapy, but that does not mean it does not exist.

So this is all kinda right. They are currently working on basically infecting people with an irradiated version of Malaria. This version can't replicate beyond a certain stage, due to the radiation damage. It does manage to live for a while, and the body manages to mount an immune defense against these weakend Malaria parasites. Afterwards people seem to be sufficiently protected from Malaria.

Obviously this is a complicated thing, and I think the initial trial hasn't been that big, so it's very at the beginning.

EDIT: Seems I was wrong about the irradiation, but they hammer them directly with drugs in an early stage of infection, https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih...aria-vaccines-provide-strong-lasting-immunity

There is some research in the field of C. difficile to so something more what @GinandTonic said: C. difficile has a version which is pathogenic, and a version which is not. There have been attempts to inoculate people with the non-pathogenic verison, with the hope that it occupies the same ecological niche and that pathogenic version can't get in. Results are soso, due to various reasons.

However the most nightmare apocalyptic technology in vaguely my field has been proposed as a solution to malaria.

I think there are missing some critical information to make this explanation easier:
The mutant mosquito produces only male offspring. If the mutant pairs up with a normal female, the next generation will only be male. If they spread enough, they'll get extinct.

(the male mosqito does not bite and suck blood, also an important detail)

 

[bernie14]

If I recall correctly it was a benign parasite, but the medical crew would know more.

humans live with all sorts of creepy crawlies

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

So, it seems Woody Woodpecker is extinct now...

Ivory-billed woodpecker - Wikipedia

... it was just declared extinct in the wild by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Another troll bites the dust

 

[Samson]

The power of Dionysus—Effects of red wine on consciousness in a naturalistic setting

Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (≈ 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were examined in a naturalistic study taking place in a wine bar located in one of the most touristic areas of Lisbon, Portugal. One hundred two participants drank in one of three conditions: alone, in dyad, or in groups up to six people. Red wine increased pleasure and arousal, decreased the awareness of time, slowed the subjective passage of time, increased the attentional focus on the present moment, decreased body awareness, slowed thought speed, turned imagination more vivid, and made the environment become more fascinating. Red wine increased insightfulness and originality of thoughts, increased sensations of oneness with the environment, spiritual feelings, all-encompassing love, and profound peace. All changes in consciousness occurred regardless of volunteers drinking alone, in dyad or in group. Men and women did not report different changes in consciousness. Older age correlated with greater increases in pleasure. Younger age correlated with greater increases in fascination with the environment of the wine bar. Drinking wine in a contemporaneous Western environment designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience may trigger changes in consciousness commonly associated with mystical-type states.
​

Wine gets you drunk shocker. It is interesting how the effects intersect:

Spoiler Table of effects :

 

[The_J]

I'm also pretty sure that this would get less attention, if a less cultured ethanol version was used.
Or can you imagine this being perceived the same by the media and listeners/readers with vodka or tequila?
Because I'm sure the effect on the participants would be the same.

 

[Samson]

I'm also pretty sure that this would get less attention, if a less cultured ethanol version was used.
Or can you imagine this being perceived the same by the media and listeners/readers with vodka or tequila?
Because I'm sure the effect on the participants would be the same.

I am not sure how it is being perceived by the media, I have only seen it reported in New Scientist. I think we need a more through multilevel analysis, taking that, the environment and other factors into account. I am up for being a data point, who is buying the booze?

 

[Hygro]

For sciene!

 

[Angst]

didnt know i did science on a daily basis

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'd be curious about the questions they asked to determine the changes.

 

[Berzerker]

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-italian-sailors-knew-america-years.html

Italian traders were told about America by N Europeans long before Columbus

 

[Angst]

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-italian-sailors-knew-america-years.html

Italian traders were told about America by N Europeans long before Columbus

I first read this wrong and was like "no" (understanding it as Italians having reached America before Columbus). So happy I reread it with a slightly more present brain.

This is pretty cool. It's both unsurprising and, in extension of unsurprising, endlessly fascinating that the story of Leif's discovery were circulated before Columbus' travel. That said, I'm unsure what "fire" this supposedly sets "fuel" on in regards to what Columbus intended to look for. I remember reading original sources, albeit translated, from Columbus himself in high school. While largely ridiculous, his report on the New World were pretty clearly adamant that he had reached the East Indies. What's this "fire"? Are a substantial number of scholars saying he was actually looking for Vinland/"Markland"?

 

[Samson]

It looks like allergies may protect against cancers in tissues that are directly exposed to the outside world. The evidence is not strong, but the hypothesis is that Ig E is part of our defence against toxins.

New Scientist "quick questions" 2007 Review 2016 Review

 

[Birdjaguar]

Ahead of his time!

FROM THE ARCHIVE

June 8, 1895

Telephoning Without Wire

The Boston Transcript says: Professor Alexander Graham Bell believes that telephoning by means of a beam of light will yet be commercially practicable. This belief has grown out of a long course of experiments with selenium,

which is marvelously sensitive to the influence of light, when exposed to which it gives vibrations that can be electrically transmitted. This remarkable power of transmission induced Professor Bell to test other materials with a view to determine how far they possessed the same quality. He placed various substances in a test tube, and, after making a connection with a hearing tube, subjected them to the influence of intermittent light. Sounds of varying intensity were heard through the tube, according to the intensity of the light and the color. Objects that were diffuse, as woolen, cotton, worsted, etc., gave out the loudest noises. One day, as an experiment, he blackened some red worsted with lamp-black.

The sounds it uttered were heightened to such a pitch that they positively rasped on the ear.

Nov. 4, 1905

The Telephone Habit

Once acquired, there is no cure for the telephone habit.

The world got along for a great many centuries without telephones, but now that it has become accustomed to them, they are felt to be indispensable.

The telephone development in the United States has been especially remarkable in the past 10 years. When it is recalled that telephones were first introduced into commercial use in Wall Street in 1878, the statement made by the telephone company that there are now in service and under contract in Manhattan and Bronx 179,215 telephones, or one to every 14 persons, is calculated to astonish. According to this statement, there are now more telephones in Manhattan and Bronx than there were at the beginning of the year in the entire City of Greater New York.

In this connection an article by Frederick W. Coburn in the November number of the Atlantic Monthly is of interest. He says that no longer ago than 1889, it was held that when in some remote time there would be three telephones to every hundred people in the United States, the limit of telephone use will be reached. A few years ago, the telephone people began to predict a probable 10% development as the limit; but so rapid has been the expansion in the last five years that now the prediction is made that the time is approaching when every fifth individual in the country will be a telephone user. That would mean substantially one telephone for every family.

Aug. 28, 1953

United States May Have 50 Million Phones by October, Statistics Show

New York—Telephones in the United States, increasing at the rate of 200,000 a month, should pass 50 million sometime in October. American Telephone & Telegraph company statistics showed 49,250,000 telephones in service for all companies June 30—a gain of about 1.2 million in the first six months of 1953.

AT& T subsidiaries in the Bell System maintained almost 40.4 million telephones in the June 30 total. The remainder, slightly under 8.9 million, were operated by 5,234 other companies, almost all of which were connected with the Bell System for long distance communication.

Jan. 21, 1982

Bell’s Future

A Newly Free AT& T Will Move Gingerly, Industry Watchers Say

It Must Deal With Inertia, Its Continued Regulation and Tough Competition New Stress on Salesmanship Despite its new freedom to enter any business it wishes except local telephone service, American Telephone & Telegraph Co. probably will concentrate at first on the business it knows best—telecommunications. And even there, change will be gradual and its course uncertain.

By permitting the company to expand beyond the bounds of its regulated history, the pending settlement of the government’s antitrust case against it gives AT& T a license to transform itself from a dull utility into a glamorous high-technology concern that could dominate the emerging age of information. If the settlement is approved by a federal court and not altered by Congress, the company eventually could become a formidable competitor of established rivals in computers, broadcasting, cable television, publishing, and electronic parts and equipment manufacturing. But little of that, industry people say, is likely to happen soon.

“News of the settlement broke like a thunderclap across the industry, but putting it into effect will require the usual inchworm governmental process,” says Christopher Mines, a senior telecommunications analyst at the Yankee Group, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting company. “It’ll go like the Vietnam peace talks: little real progress and a lot of discussion about the shape of the table and where people sit. Five years is a good estimate for real change, especially for the average residential or business telephone customer.”