A history of the discovery of bacteriophages. Will the well - forgotten old become new?

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
E. Frolova
Keyword(s):  
Antibacterial Agents ◽  
Host Organism ◽  
Pathogenic Microorganism ◽  
Antibiotic Resistant ◽  
Widespread Distribution ◽  
Endocrine Diseases ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Resistant Strains

Staphylococcus is considered to be one of the most common pathogens that can lead to the development of numerous pathological processes, from pyoderma to peritonitis. Being a potentially pathogenic microorganism, it is able not to make itself noticed for years, peacefully coexisting with the host organism. But should one only go through a viral infection out of bed, suffer from stressful situations, or simply get overcooled, the potentially pathogenic microflora activates and manifests itself as a local or general infectious process. Activation of staphylococcal microflora is most often observed in sickly people with weakened immune systems, suffering from endocrine diseases, having long ellneses. Long-term and uncontrolled use of antibiotics with the formation of resistance to them is also of great importance. It is the widespread distribution of antibiotic-resistant strains of staphylococcus that makes doctors and scientists look for new forms of controling this and other microorganisms. Against this background, it’s time to recall the bacteriophages long forgotten in the era of the craze for antibiotics, especially given the fact that over the past thirty years not a single completely new group of antibacterial agents has been synthesized.

How the Desert got a Past: A History of Quaternary Research in Australia’s Deserts

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Smith
Keyword(s):  
Climate Changes ◽  
Conceptual Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

This paper examines how the past of desert landscapes has been interpreted since European explorers and scientists first encountered them. It charts the research that created the conceptual space within which archaeologists and Quaternarists now work. Studies from the 1840s–1960s created the notion of a ‘Great Australian Arid Period'. The 1960s studies of Lake Mungo and the Willandra Lakes by Jim Bowler revealed the cyclical nature of palaeolakes, that changed with climate changes in the Pleistocene, and the complexity of desert pasts. SLEADS and other researchers in the 1980s used thermoluminescence techniques that showed further complexities in desert lands beyond the Willandra particularly through new studies in the Strzelecki and Simpson Dunefields, Lake Eyre, Lake Woods and Lake Gregory. Australian deserts are varied and have very different histories. Far from ‘timeless lands', they have carried detailed information about long-term climate changes on continental scales.

scholarly journals Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kornelia Kończal
Keyword(s):  
Significant Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In early 2018, the Polish parliament adopted controversial legislation criminalising assertions regarding the complicity of the ‘Polish Nation’ and the ‘Polish State’ in the Holocaust. The so-called Polish Holocaust Law provoked not only a heated debate in Poland, but also serious international tensions. As a result, it was amended only five months after its adoption. The reason why it is worth taking a closer look at the socio-cultural foundations and political functions of the short-lived legislation is twofold. Empirically, the short history of the Law reveals a great deal about the long-term role of Jews in the Polish collective memory as an unmatched Significant Other. Conceptually, the short life of the Law, along with its afterlife, helps capture poll-driven, manifestly moralistic and anti-pluralist imaginings of the past, which I refer to as ‘mnemonic populism’. By exploring the relationship between popular and political images of the past in contemporary Poland, this article argues for joining memory and populism studies in order to better understand what can happen to history in illiberal surroundings.

To Utopia and Back: A Cycle in the History of the Chinese Communist Party

1981 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 407-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Past ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Sixtieth Anniversary

On 1 July 1981 the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation. To mark this occasion, the Party itself issued a statement summing up the experience of recent decades. It seems an appropriate time for outsiders as well to look back over the history of the past 60 years, in the hope of grasping long-term tendencies which may continue to influence events in the future.

Resilience of plant and testate amoeba communities after climatic and anthropogenic disturbances in a Baltic bog in Northern Poland: Implications for ecological restoration

The Holocene ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariusz Gałka ◽  
Kazimierz Tobolski ◽  
Aleksandra Górska ◽  
Mariusz Lamentowicz
Keyword(s):  
Human Impacts ◽  
Testate Amoebae ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Testate Amoeba ◽  
Raised Bogs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ombrotrophic Peatland ◽  
History Of ◽  
Climate Cooling

This study explores the history of the development of Sphagnum communities in an ombrotrophic peatland – Bagno Kusowo – over the past 650 years, based on high-resolution plant macrofossil and testate amoebae analysis. Our research provided information related to the length of peatland existence and the characteristics of its natural/pristine state before the most recent human impacts. Changes in the Sphagnum communities before human impact could have resulted from climate cooling during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA). In this cold and unstable hydrological period, among vascular plants, Eriophorum vaginatum and Baeothryon caespitosum dominated in the peatland vegetation. Peat-forming Sphagnum communities survived the drainage conducted during the 20th century at the Bagno Kusowo bog. We provide three important messages through this study: (1) testate amoebae reflect similar hydrological trends in two peat cores despite considerable microhabitat variability, (2) average long-term water level 10 cm below the surface should be a target for active bog conservation and (3) sites like Bagno Kusowo are extremely important to preserve the remains of pristine biodiversity (including genetic diversity of plants and protists) that was completely removed from most of the raised bogs in Europe due to human activities, for example, drainage.

Trends in the frequency, extent, and severity of spruce budworm outbreaks in eastern Canada

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Blais
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Spruce Budworm ◽  
Forest Composition ◽  
Eastern Canada ◽  
Clear Cutting ◽  
The Past ◽  
Spruce Stands ◽  
History Of

The history of spruce budworm (Choristoneurafumiferana (Clem.)) outbreaks for the past 200 to 300 years, for nine regions in eastern Canada, indicates that outbreaks have occurred more frequently in the 20th century than previously. Regionally, 21 outbreaks took place in the past 80 years compared with 9 in the preceding 100 years. Earlier infestations were restricted to specific regions, but in the 20th century they have coalesced and increased in size, the outbreaks of 1910, 1940, and 1970 having covered 10, 25, and 55 million ha respectively. Reasons for the increase in frequency, extent, and severity of outbreaks appear mostly attributable to changes caused by man, in the forest ecosystem. Clear-cutting of pulpwood stands, fire protection, and use of pesticides against budworm favor fir–spruce stands, rendering the forest more prone to budworm attack. The manner and degree to which each of these practices has altered forest composition is discussed. In the future, most of these practices are expected to continue and their effects could intensify, especially in regions of recent application. Other practices, including large-scale planting of white spruce, could further increase the susceptibility of forest stands. Forest management, aimed at reducing the occurrence of extensive fir–spruce stands, has been advocated as a long-term solution to the budworm problem. The implementation of this measure at a time when man's actions result in the proliferation of fir presents a most serious challenge to forest managers.

scholarly journals Memory and Alterity in Zar: Religious Contact and Change in the Sudan

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M Kenyon
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life History Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Ninteenth Century ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in the Blue Nile town of Sennar, supported by archival and historical documentation, this article explores the history of Zar spirit possession in Sudan, and the light this throws on the interplay of religions over the past 150 years. Life history data supports the argument that contemporary Zar is grounded in forms and rituals derived from the ranks of the ninteenth-century Ottoman army, and these remain the basis of ritual events, even as they accommodate ongoing changes in this part of Africa. Many of these changes are linked to the dynamic interplay of Zar with forms of Islam, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other. In the former colonial periods, political power resided with the British, and Khawaja (European) Christian Zar spirits are remembered as far more important. Today that authority in Zar has shifted to spirits of foreign Muslims and local holy men, on the one hand, and to subaltern Blacks, on the other. These speak to concerns of new generations of adepts even as changes in the larger political and religious landscapes continue to transform the context of Zar.

scholarly journals Mycobacteriosis treatment challenges in patients with HIV-infection

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
M. A. Savchenko ◽  
A. M. Panteleev
Keyword(s):  
Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy ◽  
Opportunistic Infections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
The Past ◽  
Highly Active ◽  
History Of ◽  
One Year

Over the past decade, in Russian Federation there has been a steady increase in the incidence of MAC-infection in patients with HIV (the growth of nosology over the past five years, on average, was 57% per year). This determines the interest in this problem, especially in terms of the high inefficiency of treatment for the disease, the long term and cost of treatment. The history of the study of Mycobacterium Avium Complex-infection (MAC) originates in the early eighties in the United States, when the prognosis for a patient with AIDS and mycobacteriosis was extremely poor: mortality within one year after the detection of pathogen reached 71%. The role of infection in the thanatogenesis of patients was, however, established only by the beginning of the nineties. The detection of macrolide activity against the pathogen significantly improved the prognosis for patients, especially in combination with highly active antiretroviral therapy. The widespread introduction of antiviral drugs into practice and the ability to achieve immune reconstitution prevented the development of opportunistic infections, but did not solve the remaining issues of the treatment of the MAC-infection. The main one is the treatment of patients with a clarithromycin-resistant pathogen. There is no consensus on the sensitivity of non-tuberculous mycobacteria to antibacterials.

scholarly journals New Data Record Extends History of Global Air Pollution

Eos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Witman
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
Data Record ◽  
History Of

Researchers extend long-term aerosol records to the past 40 years by combining two existing algorithms to process satellite data over both land and sea.

scholarly journals Clinical challenges with hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKP) in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanzhu Chen ◽  
Yi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Klebsiella Pneumoniae ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Clinical Microbiology Laboratory ◽  
Consensus Definition ◽  
Antibiotic Resistant ◽  
Resistance Determinants ◽  
The Past ◽  
Resistant Strains ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractHypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKp) is an evolving pathotype with higher virulence than classical K. pneumoniae (cKp) and is characterized by community-acquired, multiple sites of infections and young and healthy hosts. hvKP infections were primarily found in East Asia and have been increasingly reported worldwide over the past few decades. To better understand the clinical challenges faced by China with hvKP, this review will provide a summary and discussion focused on recognizing hvKP strains and prevalence of antibiotic-resistant hypervirulent strains in China and the mechanisms of acquiring antimicrobial resistance. Compared with cKP, hvKP is likely to cause serious disseminated infections, leading to a higher mortality. However, sensitive and specific clinical microbiology laboratory tests are still not available. Given the limited published data due to the clinical difficulty in differentiating hvKP from cKP, extrapolation of the previous data may not be applicable for the management of hvKP. A consensus definition of hvKP is needed. Furthermore, an increasing number of reports have described hvKp strains with antimicrobial resistance acquisition, increasing the challenges for management of hvKP. China, as an epidemic country, is also facing these challenges. Quite a number of studies from China have reported antibiotic-resistant hvKP strains, including extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL), and carbapenem-, tigecycline-, and colistin-resistant strains. hvKP infections, especially those of antimicrobial-resistant strains, pose to be a great threat for public health in China. Therefore, an immediate response to recognize the hypervirulent strains and provide optimal treatments, especially those with resistance determinants, is an urgent priority for China.

The Trouble with Rubbers: A History of Condoms in Modern China

NAN Nü ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-178
Author(s):  
Sarah Mellors
Keyword(s):  
Condom Use ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Past ◽  
Planning Decisions ◽  
Aids Crisis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The Individual

Abstract In recent years, public health officials and scholars have voiced their concerns about comparatively low condom use in China, citing high rates of abortion and the growing HIV/AIDS crisis. By examining condom use through the lenses of gender and the history of medicine, this article traces heterosexual condom consumption in China from the early twentieth century to the present and situates contemporary attitudes toward condoms within long-term contraceptive patterns. Rather than simply taking for granted the role that men play in family planning decisions, this research takes men and masculinity as a central focus. An eye to the past reveals numerous historical obstacles to condom use, as well as an enduring aversion to condoms grounded in fears of reduced male sexual pleasure, and the gendered assumption that birth control is the sole responsibility of women. Analyzing evolving perceptions of condoms sheds light on constructions of sexuality, gender relations, and the roles of the state, society, and the individual in contraceptive decision-making in China.

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