Twitter, as a means of communication, is big in the bug world. Bacteria release chemicals to communicate–it’s called quorum sensing–and when the message gets loud enough the colony shifts direction. Bees use it to choose a new hive–the site with the most bees on its doorstep wins. But in nature twitter is democratic–it’s one bug […]
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Making America Safe Again does not mean going to martial law or a police state. That’s what Duterte is doing in the Philippines and it has translated into killing anyone suspected of drug dealing. There are better ways to make us safe. An introduction to these ideas is on our Facebook page, America’s Favorite Country […]
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Addressing bullying: When Trump had dissenters at his rallies he raised the cry: ‘kick um out’, ‘hit um in the face’, and his followers obeyed. When he did not like his TV contestants efforts he said: ‘You’re fired.” When he won the election he appointed a staff from his closest supporters–his clique. Those are the […]
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Thirteen years ago I wrote an article that was published in Medical Hypotheses about how we can tame bacteria. Last week I got this video from a friend in Australia that shows how this is happening. My article was based on the ideas of Nathan Sharon whose research was on how bacteria attach to us […]
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Reading the news about antibiotic resistant germs causing urinary tract infections? As we have written, this is a war we have little chance of winning. The other side is just too good at coping with our weapons and we can’t adapt near as fast. We need another option! In our real world wars we look […]
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Common Sense Medicine is not just about health care and medicine. There are other elements in our culture that are also in need of common sense. Violence is one of them. Despite our news and the feelings they prompt violence is decreasing in the US. Violent acts of a criminal nature, however, are being replaced […]
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Should we be humane and let them in, or safe and keep them out? There are pretty clear cut arguments on both sides. So far there does not seem to be any middle ground. A biological perspective may provide that. We, that is our bodies, get invaded all the time; mostly it is by biting […]
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John Bolton at the American Enterprise Institute is talking about a new level of warfare after the Paris attacks. We all have a tendency to think in those ways. When we are attacked our first response is instinctual and aimed at surviving, and that usually means fighting back. But this instinct is played out in […]
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More and more we are learning that bacteria are not all enemies. There are good bacteria; ten times more bacteria living on us and in us than we have cells and mostly they are good. Bacteria are the unquestioned masters of life on earth, both in durability and variety. As one doctor put it, we […]
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I just finished reading Lee Kuan Yew’s book, One Man’s View of the World. I read it because I knew a bit about how Lee had been instrumental in building Singapore into one of the best societies in today’s world. Lee, who died earlier this year, was a conservative. I consider myself a liberal in […]
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