More Science: Microbes, Pathogens & Parasites

Time for another science roundup... this time -- biology!

==  Toxins, Viruses and Parasites ==

By some estimates, your body houses ten times more bacteria than cells with your DNA.  But that is only the start of our humiliation! DNA surveys now suggest that humans have thousands of viral species in and on us. Most of them likely coexist within our gut in peace and harmony. This notion - of relatively harmless viruses that therefore have escaped notice by science - has been around a while. It features prominently in my short story “The Giving Plague.”

The importance of the micro-biome - the vast array of symbiotic bacteria living in human bodies, especially the gut, was portrayed vividly in a 1930s novel by Aldous Huxley -- After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. But only now are we truly dialing into the importance of what Huxley then called “intestinal flora.” Now read how scientists are at last uncovering hints of huge communities of viruses that lurk below our notice, possibly affecting our health. These gut bacteria may even influence our food choices -- getting us to eat what they want. We have a lot to learn.

Seems that that engineered probiotic bacteria (“friendly” bacteria like those in yogurt) in the gut produce a therapeutic compound that inhibits weight gain, insulin resistance, and other adverse effects of a high-fat diet in mice. “Of course it’s hard to speculate from mouse to human.”   In fact, we are finding ever more longevity-related mouse results that have no bearing on humans! Still…

(BTW Huxley's novel is very good, if perhaps placid-paced by modern tastes. And it turns out on the last page to have been science fiction, all along!  In any event, it should be required reading for singularity-immortality guys and gals.)

Our Microbiome may be looking out for itself. Both Greg Bear and I have been talking about this for a long time… Greg in great detail in transfixing novels. Is your micro-biome affecting your behavior… for its own self-interest? We know that the paramecium Toxoplasma may be altering the personalities of perhaps half a billion people. 

In our guts, bacteria make some of the same chemicals that our neurons use to communicate with one another, such as dopamine and serotonin. And the microbes can deliver these neurological molecules to the dense web of nerve endings that line the gastrointestinal tract. A number of recent studies have shown that gut bacteria can use these signals to alter the biochemistry of the brain. Compared with ordinary mice, those raised free of germs behave differently in a number of ways. They are more anxious, for example, and have impaired memory.

Gut bacteria may also play a role in autism: research suggests that restoring microbial balance could alleviate some of the behavioral symptoms of autism.

Funny how we're on a roll about symbiosis between micro-organisms and macro-fauna today. It's all interconnected. As Greg Bear shows in Vitals, Kim Stanley Robinson showed in the Mars series, and I discussed in Earth (especially) and in Brightness Reef.

You can have  your personal microbiota tested at companies such as uBiome. 

== More biology! ==

See a chart tracking the Ebola virus's disturbing and deadly spread through Africa. 

Speaking of strange interactions between the micro and macro... Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a single-celled parasite that has infested many modern human societies that keep cats, and as many as 60 million americans. Its subtle effects may include warping personality! (And sometimes physical illness.) Now some researchers claim that TG may be a good model for stimulating the immune system against cancer. Okay. But don’t go rushing to sniff your cat’s litter box. As I said, TG may be doing humanity vast harm by affecting our personalities, exacerbating our rising inability to negotiate and solve problems.  In any event, we see no correlation between TG sufferers and reduced cancer levels. Still, maybe there’s a usable connection. Let's hope this pans out. Go science.

Other researchers have found that a modified version of a toxic bacterium may help shrink cancerous tumors.

More on microbes, pathogens and parasites: Eight diseases to watch out for at the beach.

And while we're on the subject... Creepy slideshow: World's worst parasitic worms.

And in Wired: How Life made the leap from single-celled to multi-celled organisms.

Then there's... Shocking” news about electric eels and other voltage producing fish: "They're using the same genetic tools to build their electric organs in each lineage independently.”

==Planetary Ecosystems==

Tiny Flying Robots Are Being Built To Pollinate Crops Instead Of Real Bees. And sure, there’s a chilling aspect — which the Greenpeace site very cleverly conveys with this creepy satire, reminding us that cautionary criticism is the only way to expose possible errors….

Still, those who deride any and all forms of technological remediation as inherently bad, e.g. that it might reduce the imperative to save real bees, have got something wrong with their perception of human nature. It is possible to move forward in many directions, at once, toward the goal of saving the world -- as it was both consciousness raising and high technology that enabled us to save the whales. 

And yes, while top priority goes to reducing our impact-damage and preserving the natural ways. (I am taking part. Having provided bee swarms with makeshift shelters in the past, up on a nearby hill… I’ve now set up a real hive box… why not?) Still, our worst problem is single-minded monomaniac prescribers, who declare that there is only one, zero-sum, answer to anything. We need to move on all fronts, at once.

You will spend some time exploring this interesting — and disturbing — graphic: A Disappearing Planet, charting genuses and species bordering on extinction. Amphibians are in real trouble. Heck we all are. Though there's still hope.

Can we stop a killer fungus killing off amphibians?

Do offshore wind farms create fecund artificial reefs? Seals who cluster and forage seem to think so.

Remain agile.  Let's learn to be good planetary managers.