DOOMSDAY 2012!!!!

Strange...my post just vanished somehow. I'll paraphrase:

Chucky, we do seem to have a similar outlook (or else you're being conciliatory but I don't really get why). I learned a long time ago that people don't talk about this stuff, so to kick it around in here is refreshing because I don't need the 'mask' here.

It's funny that you mentioned MRSA. I was going to include that and VRE in my argument but went with just necrotizing fasciitis alone when I trimmed the post down for length. The important thing is that all three of them are hardy and widespread. Normally, an organism needs only one or the other to survive and prosper. So where do we look to see what's different, what's new, what's changed...

My Ferengi reference might be a little soft because I haven't seen a whole lot of the show. My take was always that they were a race imbued with technology before their society was morally developed enough to address the ramifications of using it. I think this was the idea behind his 'Prime Directive' as well.

Einstein and Oppenheimer were, quite literally, way ahead of their time. We now have knowledge that we can't (won't) deploy to serve the human race and is used to destroy one another or for simple profit.
Sounds Ferengi doesn't it ?

Another example might be the plotline from a (Twilight Zone I think?) story where a guy is given a box with a button on it. A press of the button means that his wish will be granted but the cost will be the death of a complete stranger. The argument is interesting.

Shinji, I invite you to elaborate on your post. Sounds like an interesting direction...might be fun to follow it.

Oolie wrote:Chucky, we do seem to have a similar outlook (or else you're being conciliatory but I don't really get why). I learned a long time ago that people don't talk about this stuff, so to kick it around in here is refreshing because I don't need the 'mask' here.

Hi, I'm not being 'concilliatory', and everything that I speak is the pure truth. I am aware that sentences on the Internet can be misinterpreted, so, I try to use normal, unambiguous language and everything I type is the truth. If I used sarcasm anywhere, I would specifically state that it is sarcasm... ...

Alas, I am not studying general microbiology this year. I am now focussing on the microorganisms which are used in the biotechnology and pharamaceutical industries. I have just finished going over antibiotics, which was very interesting indeed. People never realise just how important 'bugs' are. Hell, they live all over our skin, in our noses, on our 'private' parts, and in our GI tract.

Did you ever hear of the endosymbiotic theory dude? I think that it would interest you immensely.

Kevin

Hell, they live all over our skin, in our noses, on our 'private' parts, and in our GI tract.

I automatically assume everyone knows this, but there's a David Suzuki (yeah, I know...) doc all about this.
I don't know how widespread it is but it certainly ought to be online. Anyway, I wash my hands EVERY TIME since seeing it, lol.
Remember the scene from the Dustin Hoffman flick 'Outbreak' ? In the theatre, someone coughs, germ's-eye view....I don't ride public transit anymore either, lol

endosymbiotic theory

endosymbiotic

Hmmm, sounds interesting.
Ain't the net sweet ?

hehe, did you look it up? i think it's an awesome thing to think of (endosymbiosis). I haven't seen outbreak but I can imagine the scene that you are talking about. Actually, I have OCD and was very surprised by the fact that learning about all of these bugs didn't put my OCD into overdrive. I'm actually happy to have bacteria growing all over me, and on my food.

In fact, I have become somewhat less hygienic about what I put into my mouth these days. For example, if my food falls on the floor or ground outside, I will just pick it up and eat it without care. You see, we have to be exposed to microorganisms in order to keep our immune systems strong. 'Over-cleanliness' of people from bacteria can lead to things such as allergies, I believe. It's tied into the immune system.

I've been away from the site for a while but, yeah I did look it up Kevin. I don't know enough to argue it one way or the other comfortably but, at first glance, it does make some sense.

For those who haven't checked it out: the premise is that single celled organisms can 'absorb' nearby cells but instead of metabolizing them like they normally do for food, the absorbed cells continue their normal functions within the host cell. Basically a parasite whose presence isn't detrimental to the host and carries on its normal functions within the environment of the host cell. The examples I read about involved the theory that chloroplasts were originally algae that were 'absorbed' this way and continued to perform their primary functions within (but independent of) the host cell. Is that about right ?

Of course, my mind automatically goes to the mechanism or catalyst by which this first occurred, i.e. what inhibits the host cell from metabolizing the 'interloper' in the first place ?
Does the cell somehow recognize that there's more benefit in employing this new component to perform its normal functions in the service of the host, or is it just a freak occurrence that worked out beneficially and in so doing provided yet another example of natural selection at work ?

BTW, I should clarify something about my 'conciliatory' comment. I always question why people say things much more than what they're actually saying. Since I started hanging out here, I've learned that's a schizoid thing. Nothing personal.

Back to bugs in general though, I couldn't agree more that our paranoia has actually decreased our resistance and weakened us as a species. But then, everything fades and maybe this is what starts our decline. Without getting too personal, one of my favorite holidays is to head out into the bush and live paleolithically. I do take a backpack with food, clothing, etc but it gets cached unless I really need it. As a result, I drink local water and eat what I can find or hunt. It's mentally refreshing, keeps the rat-race in perspective and, most importantly I think it has a lot to do with why I rarely get so much as a sniffle.

When I went to Mexico a few years ago, the standard cautions about drinking the water were repeated to me ad nauseum, predominately by people who had never been anywhere. I have since learned (and practiced) that, by introducing oneself gradually to new water and food sources, most discomforts don't materialize. Obviously things like Giardia and Cryptospiridium aren't what I'm talking about, but the infamous Montezuma's Revenge wouldn't have been an issue before our ability to transport ourselves to a foreign environment almost instantly. If one had to take weeks or months to get to a new destination, one's system would be adjusted to the varying chemistry and different microorganisms found in the new environment. A four hour flight doesn't allow you to adjust to anything, especially not when your first exposure happens suddenly when the door of the aircraft is opened.

So, once again, we are weakened by our technology rather than enhanced by it.

From a social engineering aspect, I think it's part of the 'fear programming' that we're confronted with every day. I have CBC and BBC loaded as 'live bookmarks' in Firefox so, with the click of a toolbar button I can see a dozen or so of the most recent headlines. It seems that about two thirds of them describe something new to be afraid of. Of course, manufacturers are quick to offer a 'solution' that you can buy....ranging from antibacterial everything right up to Dubya coming out after 9/11 and saying "keep buying stuff"...
A cure for cancer won't be found until the research isn't so lucrative.

In that vein, I just started re-reading an old textbook about the Roman Empire up to 565AD. I always find it interesting to compare history to the present because the repetition of successes and mistakes fascinates me from an anthropological perspective, especially since I think we're due for a 'social earthquake'. But then, maybe that's just the peddlers of fear doing their thing - personally I don't really care much one way or the other but I'm certainly enjoying the show!

You are arguably the most interesting person I have encountered for a long time. My eyes lit-up when you mentioned how you live 'paleolithically'. I have imagined how I would cope doing this but I don't think that I would fair too well, considering the terrible weather here. What shelter do you use for sleeping?

Ummm, the endosymbiotic theory is about cyanobacteria becoming incorporated into plant-cells as chloroplasts, and bacteria becoming incorporated into animal cells as mitochondria. Chloroplasts and mitochondria are the sub-cellular organeeles that are responsible for producing energy for the cell.

Basically, what would have happened is that these organisms were originally sub-cellular parasites, but somehow their genomes became incorporated into the plant and human genomes. The plant and animal cell could then produce much more energy thatn it previously could and this probably paved the way for much more complex plants and animals.

The biggest supporting evidence for this is that chloroplasts and mitochondria each have their own separate strands of DNA, and the sequences of these closely resemble bacterial DNA.

Kevin

The unique DNA strand makes sense and the fact that it remains as a unique component within the cell is what I was trying to describe from what I read but you put it much more succinctly that what I've read. The light went on for me when you mentioned the unique DNA in these organelles. I haven't studied this stuff too much since high school but I'll have to dive in so I can use it in other arguments as well, especially as a natural parallel to the progression of technology (a sudden and exponential increase in energy production).

Right now though, I'm addressing a bunch of libelous claims that a competitor is posting all over the 'net about the company I work for. That's sucking up most of my personal 'research' time at the moment. Endosymbiosis is definitely on my list though.

Yeah, the paleolithic thing is a lot of fun and it allows me to learn new skills and make a lot of my own gear. I spend a ton of time in the bush so it started as a way to ensure that if something goes wrong while I'm in the boonies, I won't have to rely on someone else to save my bacon. Mmm...bacon....

I also enjoy reading the travel diaries of the overland explorers that opened up western Canada and some of the native techniques they describe fascinate me. A lot of the indigenous skills have been lost because (in part) of a dark chapter in Canada's history: the residential school system. Native kids were pulled from their villages and housed in boarding schools and assimilated into modern culture and punished if they didn't integrate fully. While it gave them the tools to integrate, it robbed us all of the ability to live off the land. Physical and sexual abuse were also rampant and, like it or not, most residential schools were run by religious organizations. That's an example of the harm that religion can do. Bear in mind that the last of these schools was closed in 1998...

The federal and provincial governments are making political gestures of reconciliation but the churches (RC and Anglican) that ran the joints don't acknowledge their level of culpability in the blatant abuse of basic human rights. But then, this comes from organized religions' need to classify and dehumanize people based on what they believe. Specifically, whether or not they believe 'correctly' and that's morally reprehensible.

Anyway, learning and practicing the Stone-Age techniques is a way for me to do something constructive about the issue. The culmination of it for me would be to plant a native vegetable garden and live off it for a year, combined with harvesting wild game. It also goes back to how severely we manipulate our own food supply, yet another example of us taking control of our own evolution. A wild diet consists of so many different elements and I don't believe we know enough about human physiology and nutrition to include all the elements we need, so there's at least the possibility that we are chronically short on nutrients whose function we haven't even discovered yet.

How about a theoretical example: let's say that GMO canola inhibits the production of yabba-yabba-yabba (Y3) in blood cells and say that Y3 has been shown to cause cancer in large amounts when studied in mice and a noticeable but insignificant boost to the immune system in moderate quantities...

To ignore the evolutionary development of Y3 in the first place is to do ourselves a disservice, given that the human physiology is full of 'dormant' elements that conventional evolutionary arguments would say we are 'done' with. However, my argument is that devolution is just as natural a process (nature exists as cycles: a few pages back) as evolution. Without these dormant processes there's nothing to keep devolution in check, which knocks us off the evolutionary plateau on which we currently find ourselves and actually hastens our species' decline through an increased susceptibility to elements of our environment that a natural lifestyle would otherwise provide a buffer against. Increased illness is part of this, along with normally-benign or minor infections becoming harder to get on top of, but we've covered that already.

If we analyze the reduction Y3 in the human bloodstream overall, we would find it's due to the increased use of GMO canola worldwide. While GMO foods allow us to feed people more efficiently, we just don't have the long term results to objectively decide whether that's a benefit or not. Look at the problems that foreign aid creates in times of famine - you've now got populations that are dependent on foreign aid because, thanks to foreign aid, the population has grown far beyond what the local environment can support.

So why do we continue sending aid (GMO products) ?
Because it means we don't have to address our own mortality and the fact that, yeah...life is hard and most of the time it sucks. Thanks, 'god','creator','flying spaghetti monster', whatever ....malicious bastard: 'giving' us the morality to see the injustice but actually doing something noble about just it makes it worse.

Remember the Peanuts cartoons where Lucy always pulls the football away as Charlie Brown is about to kick it ?...every single time...nuff said.
Except to bring up that 'road to hell...' saying. That's from a pretty popular book isn't it ?

Whew...anyway....
Stone Age camping/hunting: ideally my shelters are a bed of stripped spruce boughs about 2'high (compresses to about 1/2 that) under a low-slung lean to facing downwind with a fire right in front and a reflector (stone or logs) to bounce the heat back into the shelter. Unlike a normal campfire, the trick is to build a fire that's long rather than round - that way you have heat hitting you all down your body. And you don't have to buck up the firewood so much ! From what I've read, the climate here is similar to that of Dublin except with way more rain. It's more of a mind-over-matter thing anyway: if you're focussed on your discomfort you'll never enjoy it. It's not as comfortably as sitting at home but it's way more enjoyable. Do you do much regular camping ?

I've made and cooked in rough-hewn wooden bowls and I can see why things like metal pots and axe heads were so valuable in that environment. Think about what the internet did for global communication: that's the scale we're talking about.

With the way my mind works, I'll be hiking and I'll look around and see stuff that's not only eye-candy but useful as well. One of the best foods I've ever eaten is cattail shoots. You have to get muddy and wet to get them but imagine a palm heart with a subtle taste somewhere between apple and celery...mostly. It really makes me wonder why we don't market this stuff commercially. And who knows, maybe it's rich in Y3...lol
Spring also brings out the fiddleheads...think coiled asparagus. Stuff a trout with them and some wild onion. Rabbit/blackberry stew...grouse breast roasted in rockweed...Mmm...I'm getting hungry now.

Hmmm, I get the feeling that you are a well-accomplished person who is head-strong, tenacious, and creates and achieves goals. I am so intrigued by the fact that you go out a and live 'in the bush', as you say; and thanks for explaining how you do it. I don't go camping much at all. Camping IS popular in this country, but only when the weather is predictable (and it's not predictabe right now).

So why do we continue sending aid (GMO products) ?
Because it means we don't have to address our own mortality and the fact that, yeah...life is hard and most of the time it sucks. Thanks, 'god','creator','flying spaghetti monster', whatever ....malicious bastard: 'giving' us the morality to see the injustice but actually doing something noble about just it makes it worse.

This reminds me of one of my own sayings: 'Nature had to give us a brain in order for us to realise that having a brain is a very bad idea indeed'. It's kind of like a paradox. I think that we would be all better-off if we were never born and all our elements and energy were still scattered throughout nature.