Bacteria Bots

This article has been all over the news lately.  It's pretty amazing stuff. The gist of it is that a man living with AIDS for more than a decade developed leukemia. When it came time for a bone marrow transplant, the surgeon remembered having read about people who were naturally resistant to the HIV virus, according to the BBC 1 in 1,000 Americans and/or Europeans is resistant to HIV.

It's inspiring to think they may have a cure for this illness in my lifetime. Although this is far from a cure, and it's not quite what they need to make a vaccine. It shows that they're close.

Hand washing is the number one thing you can do to prevent the spread of germs and microbials. The general rule of thumb is to scrub your hands for as long as it takes to hum happy birthday to yourself. After you rinse your hands use the paper towel to turn off the faucet and open the bathroom door.

Handwashing dates back to the 1840's when a Vienna Doctor, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, noticed women were dying at alarming rates in the student delivery room, but not in the midwifery rooms. The situation was so bad women were afraid to be seen by the student interns. Trying to assertain the reason for the deaths Dr. Semmelweis noticed the students were coming directly from their autopsy class to the delivery room. He promptly ordered all his students to scrub their hands before entering the delivery room. Overtime the mortality rate dropped to about 1%.

It's quite a jump from a delivery room to preparing your own dinner, but it's clear from this story that germs are easily spread by the hands, so be cautious if you can.

The word bacteria doesn't usually bring "goodness" to mind, but there are some good types of bacteria. One type that's been quite popularized lately is the bacteria that is found in yogurt. 

What is this bacteria? The type of bacteria which I'm familiar with is "acidophilus" - I used to pronounce it acido-philous, but I think its really pronounced aci-dophil-ous. Looking this up, I'm learning that there are many types of bacteria in yogurt:

Bacteria in some yogurts:

• Lactobacillus acidophilus
• Streptococcus salivarius
• Lactobacillus delbrueckii

Why is this bacteria good for humans? I don't claim to have a full understanding of the process, but I believe that these types of bacteria can live inside our intestines and help digest the food we eat.

Wonderful thought, isn't it?