In my impoverished region, IMO it's not antibiotic resistant microbes that are an issue, it's the lack of money to buy antibiotics. A drug susceptible Klebsiella pneumoniae will kill a patient just as dead as a drug resistant one, if there is no drug at all when it's needed.

Unfortunately one of the points of the article is true. Pathogens evolve to develop resistance to drugs. It's in the very definition of life.

Life is traditionally defined as an attribute by a construct/entity/object to reproduce, evolve, and metabolize. All microbes evolve, and have been evolving for billions of years, meeting every challenge to survival, and they will do so in the face of antibiotics.

As <tpstar> noted, infectious disease committees in most hospitals (not all though) strictly regulate the use of antibiotics.

Let us be pessimistic and presume that a time will come when the most common pathogens in the community have evolved some kind of resistance to most available antibiotics. What then?

There are still ways by which modern understanding of disease helps in the control of infectious diseases. Since the time of Pasteur, foodstuff have been undergoing heating to kill pathogens. Aseptic techniques are applied in the operating room and hospitals. ICUs and even wards undergo fumigation. Persons identified as carriers of dangerous diseases are isolated.

An apocalyptic science fiction scenario that could be possible in our present lifetime is based on the theoretical knowledge to genetically engineer an infectious pathogen that is resistant to all antibiotics. Imagine that some genocidal institution transfers all known genes of antibiotic resistance into Yersinia pestis and other pathogens, that can spread quite easily, and releases these strains all over the world? Once simultaneous cases begin, it would be quite difficult to stop the spread of multi pathogen plagues without antibiotics.

Below is an interesting article that the drawings of Homo sapiens idaltu we see in the mainstream mass media have been manipulated to more resemble modern skulls. This article is a showcase of the prognathism found in most if not all ancient human skulls, including Australopithecus sp.

http://cro-magnons.com/human-evolut...

Prognathism is a term that describes the jutting out of the maxilla and mandible bones of our face away from our cranium's coronal plane. In most modern humans, these align, meaning we have more or less flat faces. Not so with ancient humans. What I find peculiar in the article above is that it claims that <all> humanoids before 12,700 years had prognathic skulls. (The article does not use the term 'prognathic', but <monkey mid-face>.)

Prognathism comes in degrees. As one goes back in time, different species of humans exhibit greater degrees of prognathism. Take a look at the head of a chimp sideways, that's an obviously prognathic skull.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...

See left picture.

In the picture of a chimpanzee's skull base in the link to which I posted above, I just realized I can identify what seems to be the foramen ovale in the supra tentorial compartment and in the posterior fossa compartment what looks like the internal acoustic meatus and the the jugular foramen. The largest hole is of course the foramen magnum, where the cervico-medullary junction is located. The holes are rather difficult to see because they are so small in the picture, but the bony parts -sphenoid, petrous, sella turcica, clinoids, clivus etc.. are all easily seen.

This is awesome, the base of the chimpanzee skull looks exactly like that of a human! I would probably conclude that it was a human skull if I were just shown the floor of the skull, and given no other info.

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Astronomers discover 'Trojan asteroid' in Uranus' orbit

http://rt.com/news/uranus-trojan-as...

Thanks, as always, for the interesting links!

"Looking at the stratigraphic map of the Kuldana Formation from bottom to top it is apparent that Pakicetus inachus, Pakicetus attocki, and its close relatives Nalacetus and Icthyolestes all lived in freshwater habitats in the area at about the same time. There had obviously been a radiation of pakicetid whales early in the history of the group.

By the time the relatively more recent limestone layer was being laid down, however, the area was inhabited by a different assemblage of semi-aquatic whales. Not only were there two different species of Pakicetus (Pakicetus calcis and Pakicetus chittas), but also the long-snouted remingtonocetid Attockicetus. The fact that the remains of Ambulocetus are found not far above this layer suggests that this portion of the formation is from a time when early whales were diversifying from the earlier Pakicetus-type form. Some of those, such as Ambulocetus, can be slotted in to represent a transitional form between Pakicetus and living whales, while others (i.e. Attockicetus) cannot.

This pattern contrasts with the traditional image of constant change between forms along a straight line. Instead there appears to have been an early diversification of which few forms survived (primarily Pakicetus) but did not change very much. Yet this group of survivors formed the basis for a later radiation of forms that were adapted to spend more time in the water, with Pakicetus overlapping with some early members of this second radiation before going extinct. Unfortunately the record from this area is not yet complete enough to identify direct ancestors and descendants, but the overall pattern accords more closely with the pattern predicted by punctuated equilibrium than the popular view of whale evolution as a straightforward march to the sea."

Something similar occurred with early humans. In a given time-span, several early human species evolved, and lived side by side. (See the tables in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolu...) Evolution in early forms creates a bush of diversity instead of a "March of Progress."

Few in this generation <24 and under> appear with ill feelings toward the Philippine nationals or their involvement during the American war,

Our elder generation in our household won't speak much of that era, asking to allow their memories to be spent on the future and not the past, there are monuments of various downed bombers throughout the country, including the famed B-52,

Thanks to various restoration groups and organizations, several sites of historical value were repaired or restored, some images of the destruction and restoration of Huế are here

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http://climateemergencyinstitute.co...

This article claims that

1. <oxygen levels in the atmosphere are falling>

but

2. <the rate of oxygen decline was less than expected>

Should we humans be worried? The article claims that <Enclosed spaces with an oxygen concentration of 19.5% instead of the current 20.95% is already said to be oxygen-deficient (Ho, 2009). A concentration below 19.5% is no longer healthy and safe for humans and animals. >

I thought it was O2 saturation of arterial blood that counts. Below pO2 90, deleterious effects may occur. Does 19.5% atmospheric O2 cause a drop of arterial pO2 all the way down to 90? I don't really know, but I would tend to disagree. I have seen a lot of patients (and see them every week), mostly comatose (GCS 8 and below), that had aspirated and had some blockage in the trachea and bronchi, yet still had pO2 above 90. Admittedly I am not a pulmonologist, and so I am just speculating here.

(Maybe we can put a healthy primate in an airtight room, attach an oximeter, and keep lowering the room air's oxygen content. Repeat this for several more subjects.)

In any case, mammals evolved in the Triassic. I do not know how accurate the Wikipedia article on Triassic; it claims that the mean atmospheric Oxygen content was 16% by volume, in contrast with 21% today.

If the above claim is correct, mammals evolved with a physiology able to tolerate atmospheric O2 at 16% by volume.

(Same room in the above experiment. Lower O2 to 16%. Place several species of mammals inside the room, maybe even healthy human volunteers with oximeters and see if they tolerate this air. Do the same for lower levels of O2 such as 13% and 10%, and a higher level such as 19%.)

Let us be optimistic and assume that 16% or more O2 is the cut-off for a healthy mammalian (and human) physiology. In the article above, <Dr. Keeling found a 0.0317% decline in atmospheric oxygen from 1990 to 2008 (Klusinske, 2010).>. That's still quite far from 16%, or even his cut-off at 19.5%.

What else buffers O2 decrease in the face of massive fossil fuel burning?

My post in <twinlark's forum>

Logically, if O2 is being subtracted from the atmosphere by combustion of fossil fuels, and it's not decreasing as fast as expected, O2 must be adding back into the atmosphere.

One mechanism of action has been describes above. Organic material is carbonized, releasing its O2 back into the air. In brief:

1. Fossil fuels combustion

CH or C + O2 → CO2 + H2O

2. Plants take in CO2 and H2O in photosynthesis and produce organic molecules:

CO2 + H2O → CHO

3. The organics are eventually transformed into CH4 in biological decomposition and carbonized in charcoal producing fires or diagenesis.

CHO → CH + O2; C + H + O2

In the above chain, there is <no net input or output in atmospheric O2>. Oxygen is taken from the air in order to combust carbonaceous fossil fuels. The CO2 produced eventually gives its oxygen back to the atmosphere after getting fixated by plants and carbonized.

Another mechanism of action:

<Oxygen is being take off from the Earth's lithosphere or rocks, and somehow released into the air.> How?

Surface rocks and minerals contain abundant oxygen, but often in very stable silicate minerals, which remain as rocks just about forever.

On the other hand, carbonate rocks, upon heating readily release CO2. This CO2 can be taken up by plants, which later undergo carbonization, thus releasing net O2 into the atmosphere. Mankind has greatly contributed to this process through the mining of carbonate minerals, especially in the cement industry, which converts solid calcium carbonates into vast quantities of CO2 (plus concrete and cement).

Another way by which mankind is freeing oxygen from the lithosphere is by its metal ore smelters, specifically in the iron industry. Around 95% of the world's metal production is iron, and it comes from iron oxide ores in the lithosphere. In smelters, the iron is freed from the oxygen, which is joined to elemental carbon, forming CO2. This CO2 can be processed by plants as described above, to eventually produce a net influx of O2 into the atmosphere. The same is true for other oxide ores such as aluminum oxides, but to a lesser extent.

"Yosemite fire grows to become California's third biggest ever; 246,350 acres charred."

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/...

The traditional way of looking at this phenomenon was that it destroys a climax community and dumps loads of CO2 into the atmosphere.

This is misleading. The 'ideal' of a static climax community in ecology is implicitly regarded as suspect by some biological studies. Personally, I do not think it exists. Small 'catastrophes' such as forest fires recur regularly, some in a few years such as fires, others in decades such as huge volcanic eruptions, others in tens of thousands of years such as mini ice ages.

The ecosystem seems geared to adapt to those that occur in the shorter time spans. Rather than static climax communities, we have cyclical recurring communities.

Take this forest fire. Mass media treats it almost hysterically. Yet such a fire occurs every few years somewhere in the world, and smaller fires occur somewhere in the world all the time. In each case, it sort of cleans up the forest floor allowing sunlight to reach ground level. The ashes act as natural biochar and stimulate nutrient retention. The over-all result is that there follows a glut of oxygenic photosynthetic biomass build-up, that in a year probably would have compensated for all the oxygen that the fire consumed, and more than sequester back all the CO2 released. This fast biomass build-up continues for several years, perhaps decades. I suspect the net result is that the original biochar that the forest fire produced is permanently buried in deeper layers of the soil (eventually to become hydrocarbons and coal after millions of years), and would represent net CO2 subtracted from and net O2 added to the atmosphere. Since forest fires, both large and small, occur all the time somewhere in the world, this process would account for a lot of CO2 sequestration and net O2 emission.

just read what I consider to be an "immortal post" written by you, and I have to say it's unique to your style. I doubt anyone ever wrote anything like that before, anywhere.

You have this facility to make a serious point outrageously funny in the most concise fashion possible.

I am still laughing and it's been a good 3 minutes.

But the sac was fun! And he was all tied up in knots, with a bow on top, after that. :p

<VBD> thanks, doc, breathtaking topic! ;) Only, I'm having a little trouble getting enthusiastic about forest fires - no doubt the forest flora will recover soon, but the loss of life (wildlife, pets and strays abandoned in human-evacuated settlements...) is horrific.

<VisayanBraindoctor> Of *course* <we humans should be worried>. The signs point either towards extinction, or else massive social destruction and depopulation. It's hard to see an optimistic future. So worry ...

<Annie> Was that an "immortal post" or an "immoral post" ... ??

<Thanh Phan> -- < to allow their memories to be spent on the future and not the past> -- I wish I knew how to do that, to project 'memories' in either direction. Sometimes I remember the future, but it tends not to match the past ...

Good to see you back here!