Staphylococcus aureus. Recently in the news, a major past subject was once again in the news. The super bug is known to be an almost impossible bacteria to cure. A student at a school and a foot ball player recently got infected and died. A popular Mixed Martial Arts fighter is also now infected. Over 500,000 patients are known to be affected with this super bug. I saw some disgusting pictures of people with this super bug. http://www.mmanews.com/other/Pics--Quotes:-Randleman-Suffering-From-Awful-Staph-Infection.html ">Staph Infection - Randleman

Yeah, it is one of the consequences of the Iraq war, people pumped full of antibiotics after getting shot, battlefields and helicopters are not exactly compatible with keeping everything sterile, not to mention the patients getting moved around all the time and this particular bacterium's knack to cull resistance genes from other kinds of bacteria. The good news is it is only an issue for people with weakened immune systems.

It is also because of all these anti bacterial handwash people are using. Maybe people don't get it even after they see how immune roaches are. I spray them with half a can of roach kill and they still don't die.

The antibacterial handwash isn't really the issue, those are generally classes of disinfectant, and have a lot of cheap effective replacements(like bleach and ammonia). The kinds of stuff bacteria can adapt to(if overused) is stuff that humans can safely use internally.

My science teacher says that if you use the handwash that says, " This kills 99.99% of bacteria" then you shouldn't use it because then say there were 10000 bacteria cells, one of them would be left and that one would adapt and reproduce more and then it would keep adapting more and more until you can't kill it. Like the Descolda in the book "Xenocide by Orson Scott Card if anyone's read it. Anyway back on topic, that's why the schools in my district use soap that just washes the bacteria off your hands.

EDIT: And those pictures were nasty!!! Was that his chest/stomach area?

True, antibacterial handwash is no more effective than normal soap, but the issue here is the resistance to antibiotics that can be taken as medicine, like penicillin or cipro.

If we keep using these antibiotics, eventually the ones that are immune are also going to reproduce. This same thing deals with insectside where farmers are massively spraying them on crops and now they are suffering from crop losses.

Care to point out some relevent sources for your Iraq War claims?

I found the article I was thinking of, but it seems to be a different bacterium. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/enemy.html

A simple mistake. Good article though.

Interesting. Technology grows and grows... soon we will find a way to kill it, they will mutate, and we will learn new stuff. If we all were hippies this wouldnt happen... then again, no.

Thats only because you can't guarantee to kill 100% of bacteria. The way the hand santizer work is that is dries out the cells, thus killing them. This is very effective, so the cell would have to adapt so much as to not require water.

There's also the issue that maybe it just doesn't typically reach all 100% of them physically. If it didn't touch it, it probably isn't going to kill it.

Snap

I thought you were talking about the new "Bird Disease" that is supposed to wipe out humanity.

You're talking about Staph Infection.

My grandma had that shit in her knees.. Nasty stuff

The bird flu, or H5N1, is not currently transmissible human to human, you'll only get it if you have a lot of close contact with birds.

Why are we worrying about bacterium?

Mutating viruses are the superbugs that are going to kill the majority of people.

Yeah, last I checked, people have a bit of a problem killing viruses, considering that a virus isn't technically alive.

are you talking about MSRA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus
it just spreaded into las vegas

Virus has, and have been mutating since birth of viruses. Some viruses have disappeared over the years while new ones have arrived. It's just the way viruses work.

Thanks for pointing out what has already been said