[R]esearchers at the University of California San Diego who combine experiments and mathematical modeling have discovered an unexpected mechanism that allows bacteria to survive antibiotics.
As described in the March 7 early online release of the journal Cell, Dong-yeon Lee, Maja Bialecka-Fornal and Gürol Süel of UC San Diego's Division of Biological Sciences, along with Leticia Galera-Laporta of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain), and colleagues discovered that bacteria defend themselves against antibiotics by controlling the uptake of alkaline metal ions. When under attack by antibiotics, bacteria were found to modulate magnesium ion uptake in order to stabilize their ribosomes -- the fundamental molecular machines of life that translate genes into proteins -- as a survival technique.
[...] The new findings lay the scientific groundwork for new ways to counteract antibiotic resistance.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:06AM (1 child)
Bacteria aren't smart. Researchers found an existing mechanism that current treatments don't work for.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:26AM
my own opinion is that bacteria are a lot smarter than the rovers we sent to mars, and those rovers are remarkable.
bacteria are a complex organism that measure their environment and change their behavior based on these measurements.
both the bacteria and the rovers have a set of specific instructions that they use to change their behavior.
the rovers would ignore input that is not accounted for in their instruction set, just as bacteria.
but bacteria's instruction set is generated through a genetic algorithm, it is unique to each individual, and it can handle much more diverse scenarios than can the rover's instruction set.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:18AM (2 children)
Makes me think of my days in biology when I was in college. Had a cute professor that smoked at the podium of the lecture hall while we took our exams and warned us if we saw blood in our pee to RUN to the nearest emergency room. Ah, Biology! Good times, indeed :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:37AM (1 child)
Did the professor ever give an explanation on what type of ailment that is a symptom of?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 13 2019, @09:32AM
Well probably betting on the thought that when you meatbags get blood in the pee it is a good tactic to visit the emergency room anyway.
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(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday March 13 2019, @03:18AM (3 children)
uses Envz to pump out antibiotics too....
I suspect this is common in all species that encounter antibiotics - trade efficiency of X for survival of Y.
Evolution folks - "It just works" TM ;-)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 13 2019, @09:38AM (2 children)
So, they met antibiotics earlier. Natural antibiotics, like penicillin. Or maybe there have been so many generations in so many hospitals, but personally I still think the current model of aimless mutation plus selection in a purely physical universe is missing something in terms of ways to store knowledge and/or awareness. All things that pertain to the natural, not the supernatural, so don't cite those enemies of rational thought, the atheists. (/flamebait)
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @10:28AM
DNA is used to store knowledge, if you want to think of it that way.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:07PM
Unhhh... penicillin is a natural antibiotic. So is tetracycline. Etc. Most human antibiotics are either natural antibiotics or small variants on same.
That said, most of them also aren't frequently encountered at high concentration in natural environments, so the selection pressure in favor of variants that express ways of dealing with them are small. Until people start using those antibiotics, when the ones that can't handle the antibiotics die off, and the next generation is all from the bacteria that survived. (Do note, however, that many bacteria can share genes not only within the species, but between species. And not only between generations, but within a single generation.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.