Pretty simple, huh?

http://tinyurl.com/6a2baeh

The Telegraph today may be showing pretty pictures of bacteria but they display OLD-STYLE  microbiology when we know at a molecular level now that these matters are far more complex than pinpointing the great big "bruisers" of microbes like E coli and helicobacter pylori.


This study "provokes reexamination of the traditional view of killing strategies against bacteria" and contains some far more challenging actual shots of bacteria. And this paper points out the seriousness of microbiologists ignoring the need to research cell-wall-deficient bacteria.

The ridiculousness of showing the public computerised pictures of the fearsome "bogeyman" pathogens that can be easily named is particularly evidenced by recent papers on nanobacteria and others that have long shown a link between these incredibly tiny  microbes and calcifying human conditions, like artery or kidney disease.

All this research (which does not receive media coverage) indicates it is this increased depth of knowledge we need to seek if we are ever going to get to grips with chronic illness.

Our fossilized beauty

The recent unearthing of my childhood fossils and stones collection has resonated with my belief in the gradual structuring and reinvention of our human body over time.

I do not believe that we consist only of our isolated selves, our personal lifelong genes. We are not self-contained, pure and untainted within our skins; and current developments in microbiology and genetics give me encouragement in believing this.

What if each of us, when we were tapped with a little fossil hammer, broke open to reveal complex beauty? The beauty created by additional beings within us that have gifted their pattern to our make-up.

Maybe we have many quiet contributors within us that will not be revealed for a very long time, despite how clever we think we are in scientific terms. Until the relevant patch of earth cracks and crumbles, the true face of the stone will not be exposed to examination and awe.

What I am suggesting is that we are the sum of many people - past and present - and also many other things, so that our physiology and health may get a little improved, or a little worsened over a period of our lives; or maybe both of these possible actions, in one lifelong balancing act.

The possibility that some creature could slip a few genes in to another unrelated creature simply by living with them was once thought to be extremely rare. Recent studies on intracellular bacteria and their hosts seriously question this view

When I look at the magnificent tracery of ancient fossils within my stone collection I'm excited about what we can learn in the near future about the greater complexity of our human body - if we are prepared to think inside and outside ourselves.

Working in harmony

I have so missed singing in a choir! I finally got to a community choir rehearsal this week and loved it, despite my tiredness afterwards.
Voices training up and down the scales with fun exercises, learning new musical parts and words, having a laugh with friends and people I hadn't met before.
It involved a lot of concentration for me but, oh, when our choir leader's hand counted us in and our voices wove together - the beauty of that connected sound thrilled me.


So much in our society today separates.
And there is a lot in scientific practice that separates everyone out to their specialisms. Often the system, or social norms, keep us firmly apart from others with a scientific perspective that comes from a slightly different discipline.
But I have found that some barriers have been brought down gradually over the last few years, for those who seek out connections. 


Now hear some encouraging words for patients from distinguished professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology, University of Michegan Medical School Fred Neidhardt:"Not uncommonly, investigations of infectious disease proceeded largely in medical school departments of internal medicine or pediatrics, while explorations of the intricacies of microbial growth processes were pursued at the same schools in basic science microbiology departments. 
"That situation has been changing in the past couple of decades, and finally the frontiers of bacterial physiology and of virulence (molecular pathogenesis) have virtually fused."


In a post-antibiotic age where microbes are the focus of close attention in acute and chronic medical processes, that is a good thing to know - the scientists, whose combined knowledge may understand the problem better together, are now talking to each other!
Prof Neidhardt says the science has undergone a "seachange" because their differently wise voices are now "intertwined".


To all of my friends and acquaintances with more know-how than I: please, share the knowledge you have across professional boundaries, listen to people you haven't listened to before, join your wisdom to others' wisdom. The rising chorus will produce something connected and more wonderful that will benefit us all.