Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

Seems to me the big story of the year is nothing to do with IS but that little piece about antibiotic resistance. I wonder how long it will take for people to change their behaviour to make much more effort to avoid infection in the first place?

What struck me was the usage of one of the last line of defensive anti biotic drugs : colistin.

It was the use in livestock that struck me.

Figures of 400 and 600 tonnes of use in Europe / USA seemed alarming enough.

But then they mentioned 12,000 tonnes (eek) in China.

That is off the scale. Little wonder that other bugs are developing resistance.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

Seems to me the big story of the year is nothing to do with IS but that little piece about antibiotic resistance. I wonder how long it will take for people to change their behaviour to make much more effort to avoid infection in the first place?

I suspect that the solution will be to misuse the remaining antibiotics that work and use cleaning products that kill '99.9% of germs' thus ensuring that any kind of infection control is rendered useless.

Then moan like hell because a drug company that has spent billions on solving the problem, at least temporarily, wants to make a profit.

kabayiri

PasturesNew wrote: »

So, of all the things we could've worried about and prepped for: nuclear attack, aliens invading, tsunamis, Yellowstone Park blowing, asteroids hitting the Earth, ISIS .... it'll actually be some bug you caught on the local bus that'll see everybody off.

We are overdue a pandemic.

The Spanish flu of 1918 killed many more than died in World War 1.

I'm prepping for this by watching films like World War Z and Legend over and over. :cool:

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

So, of all the things we could've worried about and prepped for: nuclear attack, aliens invading, tsunamis, Yellowstone Park blowing, asteroids hitting the Earth, ISIS .... it'll actually be some bug you caught on the local bus that'll see everybody off.

My first full-time job was in a path lab back in the early 80s and even then we could see resistance growing in cultures from patients. There's as much antibiotics being given to animals as humans.

Forget the space race or the arms race, there should be massive investment in searching for new antibiotics. And any continuation of the current system of selling /using them as profligately as they are now is just bonkers. If the world doesn't get organised about use of them, there'll have to be an "antibiotic holiday" which isn't remotely as jolly as it sounds.

If only vaccines were easy to develop.

CKhalvashi

Generali wrote: »

The idea is that by increasing the investible pool of money you increase investment and thus increase the productive capacity of the country.

That's fine, to the point that the Queen's head is privatised, and British Airways is more Qatari than British, due to other wealth funds being ahead of the mark and seeing an obviously brilliant investment.....

Generali

CKhalvashi wrote: »

That's fine, to the point that the Queen's head is privatised, and British Airways is more Qatari than British, due to other wealth funds being ahead of the mark and seeing an obviously brilliant investment.....

Without wishing to politicise things, I don't think it's contentious to say that the British Government has shown that it is very bad at running British businesses down the years.

The point of the Future Fund in Aus for example is that it covers future liabilities, not that it props up Aussie companies that should have been taken out and shot years ago. It's to cover the state pension and healthcare needs of people currently working.

CKhalvashi

Generali wrote: »

Without wishing to politicise things, I don't think it's contentious to say that the British Government has shown that it is very bad at running British businesses down the years.

Completely agreed.

This is where a lot of European countries are bad (Norway one of the best IIRC), including the Georgians. I'm not going to deny that, or say that any one government is brilliant/worse than the others.

The point of the Future Fund in Aus for example is that it covers future liabilities, not that it props up Aussie companies that should have been taken out and shot years ago. It's to cover the state pension and healthcare needs of people currently working.

One word. Qantas (where exactly the opposite to BA happened, and actually one I agree further with)

That's surely the general idea, however with a largely ageing population worldwide, it's possibly only a matter of time before this fails to happen.

I know that Aus is seeing huge immigration, but you still have those that arrived in the 60s/70s retiring, and in my personal case, my parents (who arrived in the UK in the early 90s) will be retiring soon. I still have about 35 years to go (turned 33 last week), although probably won't be working that long.

Generali

OMG,so, so hot. So very, very hot. It's 42C with a Force 5 breeze so you just desiccate. Just unbelievable. And the air con isn't running very well. And it's 42C. Please make it stop. Cold beer is helping a little I have noticed. I am about to run a double blind study with Mountain Goat Highland Ale and Little Creatures Bright Ale*. I will report back as to which one has the better cooling qualities.

We have a cool change coming through at about 8-10pm at which point the temperature will drop to 22C. Go Cold Change! Go Cold Change! Cooooold Chaaange!!!!!






*NB this is not a double blind study at all, it's just me drinking 2 bottles of cold beer.

CKhalvashi

Not sure if it's reached the news in the UK yet, but the Russian state Duma has proposed to introdude the death penalty for terrorism offences.....

michaels

Doesn't that sort of temp change play havoc with your body?

I guess when it gets that hot and windy suddenly the lack of airtightness in Aussie homes that tou have mentioned before matters again.

Still on the brightside in a couple of weeks the pool and the cold beer together may provide some relief. We will think of you as we struggle through the force 7 driving sleet tomorrow morning.