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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Stiff microbial films often coat medical devices, household items and infrastructure such as the inside of water supply pipes, and can lead to dangerous infections. Researchers have developed a system that harnesses the power of bubbles to propel tiny particles through the surfaces of these tough films and deliver an antiseptic deathblow to the microbes living inside.
Biofilms are slimy colonies of microbes held together by internal scaffolds, clinging to anything they touch. About 80 percent of all medical infections originate from biofilms that invade the inner workings of hospital devices and implants inside patients. Eradication is difficult because traditional disinfectants and antibiotics cannot effectively penetrate a biofilm's tough surface, the researchers said.
In the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, a team led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign describes how they used diatoms -- the tiny skeletons of algae -- loaded with an oxygen-generating chemical to destroy microbes.
"Most of us get those black or yellow spots in our showers at home," said co-author Hyunjoon Kong, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a Carle Illinois College of Medicine affiliate. "Those spots are biofilms and most of us know it takes a lot of energy to scrub them away. Imagine trying to do this inside the confined space of the tubing of a medical device or implant. It would be very difficult."
Looking to nature and basic mechanics for a solution, the researchers developed a system that uses naturally abundant diatoms along with hydrogen peroxide and tiny oxygen-generating sheets of the compound manganese oxide.
Video of the microbubblers in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjK4QguW0wA
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @10:46AM (4 children)
You mammals are all a bunch of bigots. You hairless apes are the worst. Most of us microscopic life forms mean you no harm. We're just trying to make a living, and to raise our young. You've destroyed most of the swamps and marshes we loved so much. Now, you come to evict us from the few remaining environments that we love. You apes need to just sit down, and think about this. If you insist on your genocidal ways, we may very well launch a real germ-warfare campaign against you. Maybe not all mammals, just you apes. Just stop persecuting all of us!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @11:53AM
It's an interesting history:
You microbes fight with exponential growth & mutation on short time scales, and historically you often win the day.
Since Pasteur and others, a few humans brought thinking & experimenting to the table and lately the tide has been turning our way. The battle cry for years has been, the only good microbe is a dead microbe.
Most recently, humans are starting to figure out that you don't all look (or work) the same.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 24 2018, @09:31PM
Hang on, hang on.
You started it, killing off our anaerobic cousins with your oxygen-making photosynthesis.
Never forget!!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday September 24 2018, @09:57PM
We're sorry. On a positive note, Washington DC is full of sludge, and we've got a lot of hurricanes coming in, turning previously mammal-residential areas into new wetlands, so head over there and knock yourselves out!
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:29AM
As usual, the privileged complain about how put upon they are!
By far the largest amount of biomass on the planet is all of you single cell organisms. Us "hairless apes" and in fact all mammals are just an afterthought. And you've got so much diversity of species we still aren't even sure how many different kinds of you there are, but it's more than the rest of us combined.
I figured you'd be so busy chowing down on all the opportunities we give you (garbage dumps, oil spills, entire fields of genetically identical plants to exploit) you'd never notice.
Cheetahs have room to gripe. Passenger Pigeons and Tasmanian Wolves do too, but haven't said much lately. But microbes? Y'all are doin' fine! We got a little respite through anitbiotics but you just evolve to be resistant and go right back to what you were doing. And worst, the biggest users of antibiotics are *ta-da* MICROBES! All those "mycins" we use? You came up with 'em first. And now you gotta complain when we use just a tiny little bit of them. Feh!
I'd pee on you, but you'd even be happy about that too because of all the usable nitrate in it!