Antibiotic resistance spreads to bacteria in birds with no human contact

[~Di]

BTW, there aren't really antibiotics in cleaning solutions. I think the word you're looking for here is antiseptic or antibacterial. Most antibacterial products contain the active ingrediant of chlorine bleach or plain old rubbing alcohol. There's no way I'm going to stop disinfecting my cutting board after dismembering a raw chicken! We wouldn't have to wait for the bacteria to evolve, since we'd probably die of salmonella poisoning first.

 

The advice about taking antibiotics is spot on. When one really needs them to fight a serious infection, the entire dose must be taken as prescribed even if one is feeling better after a few days. Misuse of these drugs, both over-use and under-use, has been documented as at least a participating cause of these new, frightening superbugs.

[Humodour]

How long. Oops. A summary: OK, Di, but it's highly unlikely your decreasing your chances of food poisoning anymore than if you used soapy water to clean your cutting board. Also, some studies indicating no relationship between decreased risk of disease and infection, and use of antibacterial cleaners.

 

BTW, there aren't really antibiotics in cleaning solutions. I think the word you're looking for here is antiseptic or antibacterial. Most antibacterial products contain the active ingrediant of chlorine bleach or plain old rubbing alcohol. There's no way I'm going to stop disinfecting my cutting board after dismembering a raw chicken! We wouldn't have to wait for the bacteria to evolve, since we'd probably die of salmonella poisoning first.

 

The advice about taking antibiotics is spot on. When one really needs them to fight a serious infection, the entire dose must be taken as prescribed even if one is feeling better after a few days. Misuse of these drugs, both over-use and under-use, has been documented as at least a participating cause of these new, frightening superbugs.

 

Not really. Instead of getting caught up in semantics I'll just leave this one to wikipedia: "The term originally referred to any agent with biological activity against living organisms; however, "antibiotic" now is used to refer to substances with anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, or anti-parasitical activity.". There's more definition fapping here if it matters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiseptic

 

Point is it produces resistance, whatever you call it. One of the few exceptions to this is alcohol-based cleaners... which most unfortunately aren't, due to the inappropriateness of using alcohol in most contexts. Even then, alcohol-resistant strains do evolve.

 

Food and Drug Administration published reports that questions the use of antibacterial soap and hand sanitizers saying that it found no medical studies that showed a link between a specific consumer antibacterial product and a decline in infection rates

 

Recent research from Dr. Levy's lab (Aiello, et al., 2005) concludes that "The results from our study do not implicate the use of antibacterial cleaning and hygiene products as an influential factor in carriage of antimicrobial drug-resistant bacteria on the hands of household members." However, a more recent literature review performed by Dr. Levy (Aiello et al., 2007) concluded that "The lack of an additional health benefit associated with the use of triclosan-containing consumer soaps over regular soap, coupled with laboratory data demonstrating a potential risk of selecting for drug resistance, warrants further evaluation by governmental regulators regarding antibacterial product claims and advertising."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibacterial_soap

 

On Salmonella:

 

While these infections would normally only require a treatment of antibiotics, if not resolved naturally, the long-term usage of antibiotics in both the poultry and beef industries may have created a strain of salmonella which is resistant to antibiotics.

 

Some of the best ways to prevent Salmonella are washing your hands before and after dealing with meat, keeping cold food cold and hot food hot, and not letting foods touch utensils that have been contaminated by raw meat. The utensils themselves are unimportant - cleaning them as normal with basic detergent is perfectly sufficient for removal of Salmonella. Detergent is often the most effective way to remove bacteria because the molecules used actually attach themselves to bacteria and wash them away (due to polarity).

 

If you insist on using antibacterial cleaner to clean just your cutting board, that's fine. I'm targeting the people who deliberately buy antibacterial household cleaners thinking they are doing themselves any good. But do note that all authoritative sources on Salmonella prevention suggest washing contaminated utensils with hot soapy water, without any recourse to antibacterial cleaners. Personally, I reckon you're falling for yet another hygiene marketing trick.

 

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/f.../salmonella.htm

 

Salmonella isn't an especially deadly bacteria, either. Most cases of Salmonella poisoning resolve themselves without medical intervention (often unbeknown to the victim).

 

And no, we won't see the resistance immediately (multi-resistance that is - pretty much every bacteria now is resistant to at least one thing we use). But future generations will soon, so let's not resort to the "it doesn't effect me" argument - especially since it may well yet, especially as you grow older and have a less capable immune system.

 

A succinct presentation of my point is here:

Media advertisements press the point that bacteria in the home are harmful and must be eliminated by using any number of the antibacterial or antimicrobial products available.

 

These cleaning products are no more effective at preventing infection in the home than good personal and household hygiene using ordinary soap, warm water and plain detergent. Consumers should avoid using these products unless they have a specific medical reason to do so.

 

Here is a nice study on the usefulness of antibacterial household cleaners, for further reading: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/140/5/321

 

This innovative trial found no difference in episodes of infectious disease symptoms over one year in 228 inner-city households randomly assigned to use antibacterial household cleaning products or identically packaged products without antibacterial ingredients.

Edited January 18, 2008 by Krezack

[Fenghuang]

If Hades can turn an argument into something he's done before, he will turn an argument into something he has done before. Especially religion. I was going to say something before, but wasn't sure if anyone would take his bait.

 

Uh, well it was me who brought up evolution/creationism actually.

 

Visc: Yeah I agree. I think that looking at plant evolution is the best way to understand evolution on a macroscopic scale, since it's the most well-documented and has the most dots connected up.

 

Here's an interesting tidbit: Birds are the only surviving dinosaurs. Odd isn't it? You'd think that more than one species of the thousands of dinosaur species would have survived to this day... then again a lot of what people consider dinosaurs weren't dinosaurs. E.g.: pterosaurs (flying reptiles) weren't dinosaurs, but were very closely related. Crocodiles weren't dinosaurs, but lived at the same time and were very closely related. Turtles weren't dinosaurs, they lived at the same time, but are as related to Humans as they were to dinosaurs.

 

For example, here is one of the closest ancestors of mammals:

 

The Dimetrodon.

 

We didn't actually evolve from that, but it was the closest relative of the "reptile" we DID evolve from. Which is funny because most people think the Dimetrodon is a dinosaur, let alone a mammal-like reptile.

 

And, not that it's probably a shock, velociraptors are very close cousins to birds, which are both living members of the dinosaur group maniraptor. Which isn't that hard to believe if you examine illustrations of the velociraptor:

 

 

Further, T. Rex had feathers and was also a close relative of birds.

 

These birds here seem to be the closest to the other raptors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite#Galler..._Living_Species

 

A not to scale comparison of velociraptor feet with pigeon feet:

 

Oviraptors (mistakenly called egg snatchers) didn't actually steal and eat the eggs from other dinosaurs, but sat on their own nests to keep them warm - like birds do, and like other dinosaurs didn't.

 

You sort of realise that your old conception of reptiles being hard, stiff, big, slow and scaley isn't exactly correct considering they gave rise to birds and mammals and indeed many of them resembled/were birds and mammals.

 

Hey, I've seen the Jurassic Park movies too!

[Humodour]

but they were wrong because trex and raptros didn't hsave feathers

[Tale]

How are you so certain that the Tyrannosaurus had feathers? I'm looking that up quickly and the main support for your side is the Dilong paradoxus that was found preserved with indications of protofeathers. However, tyrannosaurids in Canada and Mongolia were preserved with actual scales.

 

This National Geographic article seems to put forth the opinion that Paradoxus is different because it was an early ancestor. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...thery_dino.html Along with every other article I can find online.

Edited January 18, 2008 by Tale

[Humodour]

Yeah and birds have scales on their feet, while feathers themselves are modified scales. On all specimens of clade coelurosaurian, at least one fossil specimen of each species has been found with feathers. There is only one excepytion to this rule: ornithomimosaurians, and all evidence indicates that's only because we haven't found any fossils which preserved the feathers

 

Do fossils without feathers indicate lack of feathers? Certainly not, considering the immense chance occurrence of the fossil occurring in the first place, let alone fossilising somethinh as soft as a feather. That's like saying fossils without skin indicate lack of skin.

 

screw science when drunk arg.

 

EDIT: oh an p.s.: we've found fossils of t.rex with feathers.

 

some stupid link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...thery_dino.html

Edited January 18, 2008 by Krezack

[Tale]

That's the same link I showed you. Which makes an exception for it as an early ancestor.

 

Where have you read about the finding of Tyrannosaurus with feathers?

Edited January 18, 2008 by Tale

[Humodour]

If you're of the opinion that T.rex wasn't feathered, even though its ancestors and relatives were, that's totally cool with me.

[Tale]

I'm not "of the opinion." I don't know. But I'm not satisfied taking your word for it. I'd like to know the details about the actual T. Rex fossils with protofeathers you said had been found.

[alanschu]

EDIT: I later realized I don't care...

Edited January 19, 2008 by alanschu

[thepixiesrock]

EDIT: I later realized I don't care...

 

Hahahahaha

[Sand]

EDIT: I later realized I don't care...

You cared enough to make a post stating you don't care.

[Nick_i_am]

Jee, I wonder what the 'EDIT' means.

[Fenghuang]

but they were wrong because trex and raptros didn't hsave feathers

 

That's because Velociraptor looks really dumb with feathers.*

 

*See Jurassic Park III and the pictures you posted.

[Humodour]

Pfft. I think this one is pretty cool:

 

Edited January 21, 2008 by Krezack

[thepixiesrock]

It looks like he's wearing a poofy sleeved shirt. Looks like he's running awfully fast, must be on his way to some tea party.

[Fenghuang]

He could be late for a very important date!

[Humodour]

It looks like he's wearing a poofy sleeved shirt. Looks like he's running awfully fast, must be on his way to some tea party.

 

He would rip your head off and feed it to his chicks.

[Tale]

I actually heard that Velociraptors make fine housepets.

[Humodour]

I actually heard that Velociraptors make fine housepets.

 

Have you not read xkcd?

 

 

Haha. Here is a guy who used an evolutionary algorithm to solve the optimisation problems above:

 

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~beck0778/velocirapt...ociraptors.html

Edited January 21, 2008 by Krezack

[Tale]

Those are wild raptors, not domestic.

[Humodour]

Those are wild raptors, not domestic.

 

You, sir, like to live on the edge.

[Guest The Architect]

It's about time someone pushed him off!