Re: bacteria in rain

[Guest guest]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228174801.htmbacteria in rain...

[Guest guest]

Wow, that's interesting. All kinds of far reaching implications. On the personal level, it makes you wonder if we need to think about treating our immediate environments with antimicrobials a lot more rigorously. Or at least as rigorously as we're treating our bodies? Bugs actually living in the moist air could partially explain why I'm having this experienc of feeling so much better in a dehumidified environment. Could also explain why so many pwc report feeling better when travelling to a different location, at least for a few weeks, sometimes months. Maybe it takes a while to "seed" our atmosphere with our own particular bacteria? I had always thought that the bugs in the body take a short term hit when you change your environment, but it never occurred to me that we might actually change our environments as the bugs adapt. Wow, how weird that we might be walking

around unknowingly creating our own personal biospheres. But it kind of makes sense that these parasitical organisms are doing everything they can to create mini ecosystems to ensure their survival. Surviving is what bacteria are best at, that's for sure. I was really surprised the other day to see at least one other person in my area is on the same page I am. I was looking at houses for sale and walked into the master bedroom of a particular house where I saw a dehumidifier at least twice as big as mine (and I thought I'd bought one of the bigger models available). When I saw that monster standing there, not only did I recognize that someone else appreciates the benefits of dehumidification, I turned and got out of that house as fast as I could and then crossed the entire neighborhood off my list. On the flip side, yesterday, I went to

a big home store. Right when you walk in the door there was a huge display of Humidifiers. All different models stacked to the ceiling. And not a single Dehumidifier in the entire store. The unfortunate thing is that we can so easily be convinced of something, like the idea that adding humidity to the air is a necessity for health and dealing with respiratory symptoms when it could turn out not to be true at all. There's a good chance a lot of those people buying humidifiers for their health would actually feel better if they removed moisture from the air they breathe rather than adding it. And the ironic thing is that we've had the most rain in San Diego this "winter" since I moved here 11 years ago. So what are they featuring at 'Bed Bath and Beyond'? Humidifiers?? Logic has obviously left the building. penny Agentbleu <colourbleu@...> wrote: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228174801.htm bacteria in rain...

[Guest guest]

You're assuming that the bacteria that might be in rain are harmful.

My guess is that we've had millions of years to adapt to them and they

are probably not only harmless but helpful and necessary. At least

that would be my default assumption ... it's like one's gut flora, you

don't want to kill them off, just keep them in balance.

Unless I'm missing something the article also doesn't actually say that

these bacteria reach the earth in active form, only that the evidence

points to ice nuclei being bacterial in origin. Do they survive

freezing and thawing before they land as rain? Maybe, maybe not.

--Bob

--Bob

Penny Houle wrote:

Wow, that's interesting. All kinds of far reaching implications.

On the personal level, it makes you wonder if we need to think about

treating our immediate environments with antimicrobials a

lot more rigorously. Or at least as rigorously as we're treating our

bodies?

[Guest guest]

I'm assuming that SOME bacteria in the atmosphere could be harmful. It actually really could explain a lot of things and I'm surprised it hasn't really come up before. On a semi-related note: A friend just told me about a microbiologist featured last week on Montell (Montell's very interested in chronic & autoimmune illnesses, since he has one). Anyway, this guest talked about how critical our external environments are to our health issues and how being exposed to microbes in our environment does NOT strengthen our immune systems as is claimed. She says that after working with microbes all day long, every day, she knows that people are entirely misinformed and misguided on these topics and how seriously microbes are affecting our health. She says she can find MRSA (resistant staph) on the bottom of every shoe she tests, which means

it, and all kinds of pathogens, are being carried into your house regularly. She said it doesn't mean you'll get MRSA, but if you happen to have a cut somewhere, or get the right combination of microbes working against you, you can really get taken down. She said she doesn't allow people to wear shoes into her house, and that we should all be as careful when it comes to what our homes. Also that we should be using diluted bleach for cleaning all the time. Keeping our sponges in a mild bleach solution, etc. She also contested the notion that bleach is harmful to the environment, claiming it dissipates rapidly. And she said that Hydrogen Peroxide and Vinegar are useless against bacteria. side note: I found that timely because I just recently tried to clean some mold off a smooth plastic surface with straight H202 and it did nothing. Then I tried vinegar and again nothing. (I

only did this because I didn't have any bleach on hand). I finally got some bleach and that did the trick. Anyway, back to the main point. I think it makes sense that if bacteria can live pretty much everywhere else that they might also live in the air around us. I never thought of it before, but clearly this scientist is finding evidence of it all over the world in his research. In my own case, I know my particular pathogens like a moist environment (eg. sinuses) so it may be possible that one reason I'm doing so much better with dehumidification is not just because my sinuses are more dried out and don't support the thriving of bacteria there, but if the bacteria are struggling to even survive in the external dry air which means I'm not continuously breathing as many in then they can't keep repopulating my sinuses. Dust mites can't live in dry air, so it might

apply to bacteria as well. Could be another reason people tend to have symptom relief in the desert or in extremely cold climates. I mean, one of the big problems with our treatment is that we seem to be able to knock some of our pathogen loads down, sometimes way down, but they always come back. Maybe the environment is one of the reasons why, and we need to focus on that as much as we focus on our own bodies. At minimum, I definitely find it very interesting and thought provoking. penn Bob Grommes <bob@...> wrote: You're assuming that the bacteria that might be in rain are harmful. My guess is that we've had millions of years to adapt to them and they are probably not only harmless but helpful and necessary. At least that would be my default assumption ... it's like one's gut flora, you don't want to kill them off, just keep them in balance.Unless I'm missing something the article also doesn't actually say that these bacteria reach the earth in active form, only that the evidence points to ice nuclei being bacterial in origin. Do they survive freezing and thawing before they land as rain? Maybe, maybe not.--Bob--BobPenny Houle wrote: Wow, that's interesting. All kinds of far reaching implications. On

the personal level, it makes you wonder if we need to think about treating our immediate environments with antimicrobials a lot more rigorously. Or at least as rigorously as we're treating our bodies?

[Guest guest]

Dear Bob

Have a look at Hoyle and Wickramsingh for the limits of this theory.

R

Re: [infections] bacteria in rain

You're assuming that the bacteria that might be in rain are harmful. My guess is that we've had millions of years to adapt to them and they are probably not only harmless but helpful and necessary. At least that would be my default assumption ... it's like one's gut flora, you don't want to kill them off, just keep them in balance.Unless I'm missing something the article also doesn't actually say that these bacteria reach the earth in active form, only that the evidence points to ice nuclei being bacterial in origin. Do they survive freezing and thawing before they land as rain? Maybe, maybe not.--Bob--BobPenny Houle wrote:

Wow, that's interesting. All kinds of far reaching implications. On the personal level, it makes you wonder if we need to think about treating our immediate environments with antimicrobials a lot more rigorously. Or at least as rigorously as we're treating our bodies?

[Guest guest]

Care to share the limits? Here's another link on the story: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/03/01/2008-03-01_scientists_find_bacteria_in_snowflakes-2.html Funny that "psuedomonas" is one of the "generally harmless" bacteria found most commonly in rain (and wet places in general). A strain of pseudomonas lives in my sinuses and causes me (and many farm animals) problems.Considering pseudomonas is such a bugger to kill, taking at minimum 2 antibiotics for even a chance, I don't find it all that far fetched to think that my own particular pseudomomas could also live for periods of time in my atmosphere to help keep me repopulated. Especially if the air is moist. penny Windsor

<rwindsor@...> wrote: Dear Bob Have a look at Hoyle and Wickramsingh for the limits of this theory. R Re: [infections] bacteria in rain You're assuming that the bacteria that might be in rain are harmful. My guess is that we've had millions of years to adapt to them and they are probably not only harmless but helpful and necessary. At least that would be my default assumption ... it's like one's gut flora, you don't want to kill them off, just keep them in balance.Unless I'm missing something the article also doesn't actually say that these bacteria reach the earth in active form, only that the evidence points to ice nuclei being bacterial in origin. Do they survive freezing and thawing before they land as rain? Maybe, maybe not.--Bob--BobPenny Houle

wrote: Wow, that's interesting. All kinds of far reaching implications. On the personal level, it makes you wonder if we need to think about treating our immediate environments with antimicrobials a lot more rigorously. Or at least as rigorously as we're treating our bodies?

[Guest guest]

There are lots of bacteria and fungi in the air - it doesn't take

raindrops to bring em at ya.

Also, with 1-2% of the healthy population carrying MRSA (I assume

healthy colonized people do shed it, but I don't know) - I wonder if

it's really going to be at all effective to remove shoes indoors.

Maybe so, but it's not intuitively obvious. I would think MRSA would

be all over town.

[Guest guest]

I mistakenly misrepresented that story. My friend let me know that this

microbiologist said that she finds MRSA on " many " shoes, not " every "

shoe. As far as making people remove shoes before entering her home, my

guess is that she's taking the tact that some of the hospitals outside

the U.S. have reportedly been taking (quite successfully) to fight MRSA

and other organisms. Which has been to work much harder not only on

their sanitation methods but on their screening methods of people

coming into the hospital to prevent the introduction and spread of MRSA

among patients.

I've felt for quite a while that we are being bombarded with pathogens

in our environment on a daily basis and that it's probably getting

worse exponentially as our world shrinks in terms of exposure and

contact with people and bugs from all over the world. But I guess it

never really occurred to me, until I read the 'bacteria in rain'

article, that we might each be creating and perpetuating our own little

ecosystems. That perhaps we're walking around unaware in self made

clouds of bugs, much as that Peanuts character, Pigpen, walked around

in his own little dust cloud. This makes me want to get a lot more

stringent about keeping my environment cleaned up, much in the manner

this microbiologist (and the more progressive hospitals) feels is

important.

penny

>

>

> There are lots of bacteria and fungi in the air - it doesn't take

> raindrops to bring em at ya.

>

> Also, with 1-2% of the healthy population carrying MRSA (I assume

> healthy colonized people do shed it, but I don't know) - I wonder if

> it's really going to be at all effective to remove shoes indoors.

> Maybe so, but it's not intuitively obvious. I would think MRSA would

> be all over town.

>

[Guest guest]

> " " ... we will continue to employ agents to check for fruit in

> baggage and dirt on tourists' shoes while hundreds of millions of

> tons of soil dust carrying live microbes continue to be

> transported unchecked overhead. " "

I don't see the irony they seem to be trying to point up. There aren't

millions of tons of fruit swirling around up in the atmosphere are there?

Also, small clumps of dirt on one's shoes could probably contain small

macroorganisms (that's macro), such as nematodes, insect eggs, etc.

Eastern Hemlocks in the USA are currently in the process of being

almost wiped out by an insect pest. Whether a resistent line of

hemlocks will emerge in time, I don't know. I haven't been very

successful in trying to learn how commonly parasites cause extinctions

(or for that matter, how often a parasite goes extinct despite the

continued existence of its host).

I once had a summer job trying to control exotic Eurasian Buckthorn

and Box Elder in Minnesota... that was a crappy job...

Looking at wikipedia, I see that the chestnut blight is considered to

have been introduced by human activity. That's strange. Are there

fungi whose propagules can't be suspended in the air? Maybe it's just

that the infective dose is not reached out in the background

atmosphere - the article suggests there may be a vector since trees

far from other chestnut trees are often noninfected. (We have a

chestnut at UVA that looks healthy.)

Here's an interesting piece of recent news:

" Biologists examining ecosystems similar to those that existed on

Earth more than 3 billion years ago have made a surprising discovery:

Viruses that infect bacteria are sometimes parochial and unrelated to

their relatives in other parts of the globe.

" The finding, published online by the journal Nature, is surprising

because bacteria are ubiquitous on Earth. They've been found from the

upper reaches of the atmosphere to miles below the ocean floor.

Because of their ubiquity, scientists have long believed bacteria to

be cosmopolitan, having similar genetic histories across the globe.

The same was also believed to be true for phages, the viruses that

infect bacteria. "

I think the " everything is everywhere " hypothesis applies only to

free-living bacterial taxa. Of course there are many symbionts that

can only be found on/in the appropriate hosts. I am not totally sure

whether the hypothesis is quite as fully accepted as this article claims.