Playing in the Dirt

Another Canadian first we discover playing in the dirt can be bad for you.

Antibiotic Resistance Widespread in Nature

Which may mean that eating dirt is ok after all, since its full of healthy bacteria, sort of.

Survival of the fittest Why bacteria are becoming more potent

But there is always a silver lining, this may help us develop more effect antibiotics.

After all it was a Canadian that first discovered penicillin and created antibiotics.

The eureka moment

But the most fabulous example Lightman recounts is the story of Alexander Fleming's discovery of antibiotics. Fleming was a quirky character, and one of his quirks cultivated penicillin, quite literally. Finding his colleagues annoying in their tidiness, always cleaning and neatly putting away their test tubes and plates at the end of each day, Fleming, just to be contrary, left his Petri dishes of bacteria out for weeks, festering and fermenting. Sick with a cold, he once sneezed on a bacterial culture, and then 10 days later noticed the bacteria that had been sprayed with his mucus disappeared.

He discovered penicillin by an even more haphazard and passive methodology. He had been investigating forms of staphylococci for a humdrum academic article, and again left the dishes out longer than necessary, exposed to the open air, suffused as it was with microbes and spores. One day he noticed "white fluff" in the culture, which turned out to be mould. And he observed that the staphylococci nearest the mould had magically dissolved. "Take a look at that," Fleming said to a visitor. "Things fall out of the air." And presto: The world had penicillin.

Soil harbours bacteria that contain antibiotic resistance genes. So is this where hospital superbugs get their protective genes from? Superbugs abound in soil

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Canada
antibiotics
science
medicinebacteria
biology
super bugs
Alexander Fleming