Cats and the Black Death

     In honor of our cat poems in class, I decided to talk about those little devils.  Well, what do cats have to do with the Black Death?

     In the middle ages, it is important to understand that people associated cats with witches and evil.  This was also around the time that the Black Death was very popular.  The plague was spread by fleas that lived on rats.  "The black plague, also known as the black death, is a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.  It enters the body through the skin and travels via the lymph system.  The bacteria live in the digestive tracts of fleas.  The fleas, of course, live off blood from a host, and when the fleas swallow the blood, it becomes infected with the bacteria.  As the bacteria multiply inside the flea, and intestinal blockage forms, starving the parasite because nutrients cannot be absorbed.  The flea vomits in an effort to clear the blockage, and since the flea is starving, it feeds voraciously.  When the infected flea vomits the diseased blood into a bite site on a host animal or human, the host becomes infected with the black plague."
 Cats would control the rat population by hunting them and killing them, silently doing good for people.  When rumors started to spread about cats and the association with evil, many cats were immediately killed.  Because of the decline of cats, the rat population quickly rose, resulting in the Black Plague spreading very quickly.
     I guess that goes to show you, every creature serves a purpose, even cats!

Dude, Let's Play!

     When I go over to a friend's house, or someone comes over to mine, one of the main things we do is play video games.  Grab a controller, and play!  It's fun, but have you ever wondered how dirty that controller is that you are holding in your hand?
     When we play video games, often we are so drawn into the game, we don't quite realize what we do when we are playing.  For example, we touch our face, sneeze, cough, blow our noses, touch objects, and sweat.  Very often, gamers don't wash their hands before or after playing...and I don't quite recall a time when I
heard someone say, "dude, I need to wash my controller!"  Playing and grabbing the controllers, we don't realize just how much can be living and growing on a gaming controller.
     "The hand-held controllers contain on average 7,863 germs per 100 square centimeter - that's five times more than a toilet seat..."  Think about that.  Something gamers commonly do, is eat while they game.  A favorite food of gamers everywhere is pizza - which you eat with yours hands.  Touching the controller then eating the pizza means that you are exposing your hands to a dirty surface and eating whatever may be transferred.
     Maybe when we decide to play our video games, we will remember to clean our controllers first, not eat when we game, and try to limit the mindless movements we make while playing, such as touching our faces.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/games-consoles-controllers-five-times-2254476

Vamire...what?

When you hear the phrase “I want to suck your blood,” you think of vampires, right?  Well similarly there are vampires in the microbe world!  Now how does this work?  A bacteria species lives just by sucking the life out of other microbes, pretty cool huh?  Well as cool as that is, it gets better.  The bacteria has the potential to be considered a living antibiotic.  The bacteria works by attaching itself to the cell wall of the victim, then sucks out all the nutrients and energy from the cell, leaving that cell dead.  This strategy can be used for treating bacteria based human diseases. 

“‘Pathologists may eventually be able to use this bacterium to fight fire with fire, so to speak, as a bacterium that will aggressively hunt for and attack certain other bacteria that are extremely harmful to humans,’ study researcher Martin Wu said in a statement.”

These bacteria have been extremely difficult to study because they are contaminated by the other bacteria they feed on.  A study at the University of Virginia had used modern genetic techniques to isolate and sequence the genome of the vampire bacteria.  According to the study, the bacteria can't live on their own, even if all the nutrients needed are available.  "That's because they don't have the genes necessary to transport some integral nutrients through their cell wall, so they need to get them directly from other bacteria."    

Understanding how the bacteria functions may be able to help us with the living antibiotic idea.  "Traditional antibiotics breed resistance as the bacteria adapt to the drugs and "escape" their antibacterial effects.  This resistance leads to super-bugs, bacteria that are resistant to multiple kinds of drugs."  If we would somehow be able to use these "vampire" microbes to our advantage, we would be able to avoid the "super-bug" and the adaptation to antibiotics, and will reduce our dependence for the use of "traditional" antibiotics.   

http://www.livescience.com/16822-vampire-bacteria-genome.html

#GetEducated

     Want to know what really grinds my gears?  When someone formulates an idea with absolutely NO logic behind it.  Let me back-track here...Ebola.  With all the hype in the news about the Ebola Virus lately, it's no wonder why there are such wild theories.  

I logged onto Instagram today, checking to see what's new.  I saw a post about AMC's The Walking Dead.  I, being a huge fan of The Walking Dead, decided to see the video post.  The post was all the way from season one!  This is the video clip:

Yes, sorry about the bad quality of  this video I found, but this was on season 1 of The Walking Dead. So what is going on?  The scientist wont let the survivors leave, and the CDC is about to destruct, killing everyone and everything inside it..."We protected the public from very nasty stuff!  Weaponized smallpox!  Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country!"  So what, right?  Well the caption on the video on Instagram was "The Walking Dead talks about Ebola before it became known???"  Wooooow... 

     Here's what I've got to say about that...Ebola was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River.  1976.  Our current year is 2014.  So, it was first discovered in 1976...meaning we have known about Ebola....since 1976.  For some reason it really makes me mad at the fact that people are posting things without any background knowledge.  The person's post is making it seem like there is some weird conspiracy theory...no.  Ebola has many strains, and the way it spreads is what makes Ebola so dangerous, so yes, if not contained, it probably could wipe out half of a country.  Sorry to say, but this is NOT the first Ebola outbreak the world has experienced.  So why are people acting like this is such a new virus?  Yes, it is scary but it is not new.  (Unless you consider 1976 new...) 

Want some information on the Ebola virus NOT from random people?  Visit the CDC's website.  http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/about.html

You pierced your whaaaaat?

    Piercings are a way of self-expression, also a form of addiction.  Once you pierce one thing, sometimes you constantly want more piercings.  I, myself, am guilty of this so-to-say, "addiction."  I have 8 piercings: naval/bellybutton, 3 ear lobe piercings, a tragus, conch, cartilage, and rook..yet I still want at least four more.  As with any piercing, you are told about the risk of infection, but usually you, as the person being pierced, ignores the risks and warnings because we are so excited to get pierced.  Some things before I get pierced that I look up are pain level, healing time, and stories about the healing process.  I have always been really good with piercings,they never reject nor get infected, until I pierced my rook.. (piercing to the right),  No, this is not my ear, but this is a rook piercing.  Notice the location, as well as it does not completely pierce the whole ear, rather curves inside the ear.  Meaning if you were to see the back of the ear, it would appear as if there was no piercing.  Cleaning a piercing, my piercer always says to clean it twice a day with non-scented, anti-bacterial soap.  I didn't put much thought into this piercing getting infected, but when you think about it, it would right?  This piercing actually has, by looking up stories, an unusually high infection rate.  Almost every story I read, the person experienced an infection.  A few days after piercing my rook, I had my first piercing infection. ..not cool.

   So now what? Do you take the piercing out?  NO.  The piercing will close up, and if not cleaned properly, the infection will remain in the ear and will still spread.  At this point, I waited a few days to treat my infection, thinking it was "just healing."  When my ear became swollen, felt hot to touch, and hurt to touch....and oozy...that is when it all became real.  So what is recommended?  A saline soak.  A simple solution actually.  

One of the best things you can do for all healing or irritated piercings is a saline soak. A warm, mild saltwater solution irrigates, cleanses, and allows the cells to rejuvenate. Saline soaks keep the cells well hydrated while simultaneously flushing out fluid and cellular material that accumulate in the wound. This reduces crusting and helps prevent pockets of trapped matter, which can create unsightly and difficult-to-eliminate bumps. If this debris is not removed, it can impede healing. The warm water also opens capillaries and stimulates blood flow, which transports oxygen to the region, promoting healing.  This is not an invitation to swim in the ocean, where you might encounter numerous microbes, motor oil, and other hazards. The goal is to use a solution with a saline concentration similar to that of the human body.

.

A saline soak.  Within a day, my infection had started to heal.  Since the cartilage area of the ear does not have great blood, it does not have a great supply of immune cells to the ear to fight off infections...therefore resulting in my infected rook.  Although I did acquire an infection, what happens to those who have a serious, untreated infection?  Hospitalization.  Piercing in the mouth are especially serious when they become infected...so how are they treated once in the hospital? 

We give them an antibiotic to usually treat the streptococcus or staphylococcus bacteria that is on the skin.  But the antibiotics wont help because they needed an antibiotic that could fight the gram negative bacteria found in the mouth.  

In some cases, the part of the body can become disfigured, scarred, or even death.  As many piercers will tell you, it is all about keeping the area clean.  But sometimes there can be other factors that fall into play: how sterile is the piercing environment, how sterile is the piercing equipment, how sterile is the area being pierced, and how well are you willing to keep the piercing clean? Microbes are everywhere, beyond our control.  A piercing is basically an open wound, a hole in your body that needs to heal.  So when it is not kept clean, microbes can enter the infected site and do some serious damage to the given are. Yes, some areas are more prone to becoming infected, but that just means you need to take extra care, and immediately take action if the thought of infection crosses your mind.  Certain activities must be avoided because of the exposure to certain microbes.  A piercing is a small hole in one’s body but can cause major consequences if not cared for properly.   

http://www.piercingbible.com/saline-soaks
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117058&page=1&singlePage=true

The Microbial Footprint We Leave Behind

     Hospitals are thought of to be sanitary and clean right?  Well once we check in, or even visit, we leave behind our microbial footprint.  There is a study where officials are swabbing a new hospital to identify pattern of microbes and pathogens.  The research began as soon as the hospital was up in January 2013, taking swabs of light switches, floors, air ways, water systems, and bed rails at a hospital located in Chicago.  When the hospital was open to the public, workers and patients were also swabbed...an estimated 15,000 swabs are expected by the end of the study...Impressive, right?
     After collecting about 4,500 swabs, and analyzing 600 of those, researchers say that the microbe community has changed just DAYS after the doors were opened!  70,000 of those Microbes are thought to have moved in due to construction, shocking right?

"Gilbert and his team found significant differences between microbial communities in individual hospital rooms. Patients who stayed for only short periods, such as those undergoing elective surgery, had a transient influence on their rooms’ microbial communities; after cleaning, the rooms reverted to a pre-patient state. Microbes from long-term patients — including people with cancer or those who had received organ transplants — had time to settle into the rooms. The patients' microbial fingerprints lingered after they checked out of the hospital and their rooms were cleaned."

Clearly, we all have our own microbial footprint we leave behind, whether we are there long term or short term.  Strangely, no pathogens have been discovered...yet.  So where do hospital-related infection come from?  This study still has more to prove but it will be interesting when a pathogen does show up.  We all have a human microbiome, only makes sense that a hospital does, too!  A hospital microbiome!


http://www.nature.com/news/patients-leave-a-microbial-mark-on-hospitals-1.13057

Monkey Business Surrounding Ebola

           

            So, having a conversation about Ebola, we all know it’s a horrible virus, but how much about Ebola do we really know?  Specifics on Ebola can actually be very interesting when researched.  And did you know monkeys may hold the key to a vaccine of the deadly virus?

            What exactly is Ebola?  It is a virus that was previously known as haemorrhagic fever that causes severe symptoms, and often death.  When people think of Ebola, we think of it to be a rather recent disease.  But, the first case of Ebola actually appeared in 1976, in Nzara, Sudan, and in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo, near the Ebola River, thus the name “Ebola.” Ebola is transmitted a series of different ways including: “close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals.” (Source: WHO).  Signs and symptoms of Ebola can seem to be similar to those of a flu: fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat.  Other, more intense symptoms include: vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver functions, and internal/external bleeding.  “People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus. Ebola virus was isolated from semen 61 days after onset of illness in a man who was infected in a laboratory.” (Source: WHO).  Ebola seems somewhat flu-like, but I’m pretttyyyy sure you would know…FEEL the difference between having a flu, and having Ebola, one being more severe and all…

            Monkeys.  Monkeys solve all our problems, right?  When we are sad, all we want is a monkey.  Right?  Well, maybe not, but a very recent study has shown that scientists are testing possible treatments that might cure some human Ebola cases.  Studies have been conducted, injecting 18 monkeys with lethal doses of Ebola.  There were three groups of moneys, each group had 6 monkeys within it, and each group received the possible treatment in different intervals of time.  The possible treatment is an experimental drug cocktail, ZMapp.  All monkeys who received ZMapp, lived and had no signs of Ebola virus three weeks after being given the treatment.  “Severe symptoms of the disease—heavy bleeding, rashes and a large increase in liver enzymes—disappeared.” (Source: New Treatment Provides Hope For Human Ebola Cases).  So, all the monkeys that received the treatment lived.  What happened to the three monkeys that did not receive the treatment?  They died by the eighth day.  So what is ZMapp?  According to the CDC ZMapp “is an experimental treatment, for use with individuals infected with Ebola virus. It has not yet been tested in humans for safety or effectiveness. The product is a combination of three different monoclonal antibodies that bind to the protein of the Ebola virus.” (Source: CDC – Questions and answers on Experimental Treatments and Vaccines for Ebola.)  It will be interesting to see the results when ZMapp is tested on people who are infected with Ebola, possibly becoming a cure, or not.

            Since this is a clinical trial, it can take years to deem ZMapp “safe and effective” for human use.  Ebola is a very complicated virus, having different strains, therefore requiring different drug cocktails.  This recent discovery can impact people as a whole because it may, or may not become a cure.  Yes, these results may seem impressive at first, but when you think about it, there were only 3 monkeys that weren’t treated versus 18.  If there were more trials, with larger numbers, the maybe the information will seem more…reliable. Personally, I find Ebola interesting because while I was researching it, I found that it first appeared years ago, 1976, yet there is still not a cure.  Ebola, as well as any other virus, demonstrates how microbes can be harmful to the human body.

Works Cited

"Ebola Virus Disease." WHO. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.

"New Treatment Provides Hope for Human Ebola Cases." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.

"Questions and Answers on Experimental Treatments and Vaccines for Ebola." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 08 Aug. 2014. Web. 28 Aug. 2014.