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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • They address concentrations varying among sites and comparative to urban areas. They also did other tests besides what you mentioned. Note:

    Time- and spatially integrated samples of I/SVOCs were collected during box flight segments (for example, Fig. 1A) and downwind transects and analyzed by means of gas chromatography on both unit-resolution and high-resolution mass spectrometers [gas chromatography–electron ionization–mass spectrometry (GC-EI-MS) and gas chromatography–time of flight (GC-ToF)], which revealed abundant complex mixtures of I/SVOCs near both surface mining and in situ facilities (Figs. 2 and 3). IVOCs (C12 to C18) and SVOCs (C19 to C25) were uncharacteristically abundant relative to VOCs (Fig. 1E) and were observed around various facilities, as shown in selected flight samples in Fig. 2A (additional examples are available in figs. S6 and S7). The relative abundances and composition varied between and around facilities, with maxima ranging from C17 to C22 (Fig. 2A, figs. S8 and S9, and tables S5 and S6), which may suggest varying on-site sources and emissions pathways. There are stark differences in the observed concentrations when compared with that of urban areas.

    Emphasis added to the last sentence mine. Why shill for oil at the expense of your own health?



  • Found the answer on npr:

    It’s difficult to unravel whether the meat itself, or some constituent of the meat, may explain the increased risk of diabetes. Another possible explanation is, people who consume a lot of red meat may have other things in common that could drive up their risk. For instance, excess body weight is a key risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes.

    It turned out, the participants in the study who consumed high amounts of red meat also had higher BMIs. They consumed more calories and were less physically active compared to those who consumed the least red meat. Researchers used statistical methods to adjust for confounding variables. “We found that about half of the excess risk with red meat consumption was explained by excess body weight,” Willett says, “but there was still an increased risk [of developing diabetes] even after taking into account body weight,” he says.

    source

    So basically 50% of the risk was lack of activity/obesity, with the other half variable risks from things like (possibly even primarily) red meat.







  • In this study, Rosenberg and her colleagues looked for drugs that could prevent or slow down E. coli bacteria from developing resistance to two antibiotics when exposed to a third antibiotic, ciprofloxacin (cipro), the second most prescribed antibiotic in the U.S. and one associated with high bacterial resistance rates. The resistance is caused by new gene mutations that occur in the bacteria during infection. The drug DEQ reduces the speed at which new mutations are formed in bacteria, the team finds.

    Previous work from the Rosenberg lab had shown that bacterial cultures in the lab exposed to cipro turn up mutation rate. They found a mutational “program” that is switched on by bacterial stress responses. Stress responses are genetic programs that instruct cells to increase production of protective molecules during stress, including stress from low concentrations of cipro. Low concentrations occur at the beginning and end of antibiotic therapies and if doses are missed.

    The same stress responses also increase the ability to make genetic mutations, the Rosenberg group, then many other labs, have shown. Some of the mutations can confer resistance to cipro, while other mutations can allow resistance to antibiotics not yet encountered. Mutation-generating processes that are turned on by stress responses are called stress-induced mutation mechanisms.

    Bacteria with antibiotic resistance mutations can then sustain an infection in the presence of cipro. This study is the first to show that in animal infections treated with cipro, the bacteria activate a known stress-induced genetic mutational process. Cipro resistance occurs mostly by the bacteria developing new mutations, both clinically and in the laboratory, rather than by acquiring genes that confer antibiotic resistance from other bacteria.

    Looking to prevent the development of antibiotic resistance, the researchers screened 1,120 drugs approved for human use for their ability to dial down the master bacterial stress response, which they showed counters the emergence of resistance mutations. In addition, and counterintuitively, they wanted “stealth” drugs that would not slow bacterial proliferation, which would confer a growth advantage to any bacterial mutants that resist the mutation-slowing drug itself. That is, drugs that are not antibiotics themselves.

    “We found that DEQ fulfilled both requirements. Given together with cipro, DEQ reduced the development of mutations that confer antibiotic resistance, both in laboratory cultures and in animal models of infection, and bacteria did not develop resistance to DEQ,” said first author Yin Zhai, a postdoctoral associate in the Rosenberg lab. “In addition, we achieved this mutation-slowing effect at low DEQ concentrations, which is promising for patients. Future clinical trials are needed to evaluate the ability of DEQ to decelerate bacterial antibiotic resistance in patients.”

    This is pretty neat!