Another "Supermoon?"

One would think that full moon being a "Super" should denote something wondrous. Oh, it will be really Super tomorrow night(08.10.2014). But it really won't be that super. Any full moon that occurs during the top ten percent of perigee(closest to earth in this case). The gag is on the media. This full moon is barely outside the 90th percentile. Why label something when you do not possess enough knowledge to use the label?

Of course humans have to catalog everything. I will not be watching..although we are predicted to have a very good sky for viewing. Go and read the space.com article. It is good for elucidation and a few chuckles.

We will likely never see a real Supermoon--unless the earth-moon system destabilizes due to some cosmic impactor, or at least a close call--but the Supermoons I would find wondrous would be those early moon passes of, say, 4 billions years ago. The earth-moon system was at pretty roughly 0.5 its current mean distance.

Now we can get sort of sciencey. According to Newton's Law of Gravitation(inverse square of the distance between mass centers) the earth-moon system should be stable, but there is another factor in play. Tidal forces. Both of the terrestrial and oceanic types. This generates friction between the two masses. Why? Because the earth is not precisely elastic, and that transfers angular momentum from the earth to the moon, resulting in both the moon's recession over time and the slowing of its speed relative to the earth..which is slowing down as well. Those full moons would have been something to see.

The moon will be biggish, but let us not call it "Super" as it does not technically meet the criteria.

I should note here that the above explanation of the history of the earth-moon system is really lacking in detail. I think that anymore detail would result in seizures and irritable bowels.

Tick Vector Meat Allergies and Ebola

Hey, it is Happy Friday!

The first bit I have known about for some time. The link between some tick bites and an allergic reaction to red meats is not new, but the mechanism now seems understood. Read on, gentle reader:

Few patients seem aware of the risk, and even doctors are slow to recognize it. As one allergist who has seen 200 cases on New York's Long Island said, "Why would someone think they're allergic to meat when they've been eating it their whole life?"

The culprit is the Lone Star tick, named for Texas, a state famous for meaty barbecues. The tick is now found throughout the South and the eastern half of the United States.

Researchers think some other types of ticks also might cause meat allergies; cases have been reported in Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Japan and Korea.

Here's how it happens: The bugs harbor a sugar that humans don't have, called alpha-gal. The sugar is also is found in red meat - beef, pork, venison, rabbit - and even some dairy products. It's usually fine when people encounter it through food that gets digested.

But a tick bite triggers an immune system response, and in that high-alert state, the body perceives the sugar the tick transmitted to the victim's bloodstream and skin as a foreign substance, and makes antibodies to it. That sets the stage for an allergic reaction the next time the person eats red meat and encounters the sugar.

The mote that the medical community finds out about ticks, the worse the prognosis if one gets bitten. Here is where the Lone Star Tick is found in the US.

There is so little that is really known about tick-vector illnesses, that--as in NH--anyone bitten should get at least a big loading dose of doxycycline. I fully understand that it will not help the alpha-gal allergic reaction, but it does provide prophylaxis against most other bacterial and parasitic illnesses.

Now on to ebola..

Current ebola outbreak possibly far worse than we know. This hardly qualifies as news. Underreporting of ebola is likely the norm. That the official figures could be 50% lower than actual cases is eyebrow raising, but not entirely unexpected.

Read the reader comments by the armchair scientific and/or medical experts. I fear for the present of my country. Fear, uncertainty and doubt, reign supreme in the USofA. We are so fearful, we cannot--as a populace--ever get anything done on the really big issues. Yes, Virginia, fear of job loss is indeed a fear.

I see the only true hope for humanity is far less humans inhabiting this tiny blue slightly oblate sphere. No, I am not advocating any draconian measures to wipe out a few billions of people. But we could start by not replacing the fallen. Nah. That's far too reasonable to be considered. We are almost certainly doomed as 'functioning' societies. We are burning things up at many levels.

See! I told you it is Happy Friday! Have fun, and play safe!

Tom Petty

Okay, this is neither news, nor sciencey. I bought TP and The Heartbreakers newest, Hypnotic Eye. I see(no pun intended) that it is Tom and the boys' first No. 1 album. That's hard to believe. I would have thought that Damn the Torpedoes was a No. 1 album.

Initial thoughts on Hypnotic Eye...

It is not my favorite TP offering. Wildflowers snags that honor. Of course The Heartbreakers played on Wildflowers but aren't mentioned in the liner notes..if memory serves.

Damn The Torpedoes is perhaps my favorite TP effort that acknowledges The Heartbreakers. This is a very close race. There are lots of albums in the running here. 1989's Full Moon Fever and 1991's Into The Great Wide Open are perennial favorites as well.

Where does Hypnotic Eye stand? Too early to tell. I like it very much. I listened to an interview with Tom about the upcoming album..he called it "a straight-up rocker." It does have some heavier stuff, but it is more bluesy overall; and dare I say jazz influenced? I do.

One last thing..the track Forgotten Man pays huge homage to American Girl. That is a very good thing.

I am certain to give this one a lot of time, but it didn't give me the instant chills that Wildflowers did.

Anyone that commonly works with Dylan, and is a member of Traveling Wilbury's just has to make special music. This one will not disappoint.

A prediction: there will be four singles issued from Hypnotic Eye.

Ebola! It just keeps getting worse

See the latest CDC info here.

With case deaths approaching one thousand, this is the worst ebola outbreak to effect humans known to this date.

The CDC has now raised its response level to 'Level One', the highest alert status.

I am trying to find a graph that is as current as today, but cannot find one. If this graph is accurate--and I strongly suspect that it is, as the current outbreak was believed contained in May--then the curve has yet to flatten. Given the somewhat long(up to roughly 22 days) incubation period, it looks like things will get worse before they get better.

Maybe far worse.

As I reported sometime earlier, this ebola strain was first reported to be "Ebola Zaire." Then it was reported to be 97% equivalent to Ebola Zaire. Now I will go on record as stating that this ebola strain indeed seems a newly discovered strain. In addition, it now appears likely that this strain has been cycling in nature in a host or hosts in West Africa until the massive outbreak this year. Of course the likelihood that we will ever determine "patient zero" is quite nearly zero.

One has to wonder about transmissibility of this new strain. Is there an aerosol component in this strain that has been lacking up till now? Or have other natural reservoirs been co-opted by the strain that humans are much more likely to come into contact with? Some of both? Something entirely unexpected? No doubt researchers are working on these--and other--questions even as I type.

This outbreak is certainly different from those since 1976. One would think that in the intervening decades that containment would--all other things being equal--far better today. That is why I have speculated that something about this strain is different. I hope that the answers are fast in coming.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria, and why I stockpile but do not use

This is a year old piece about an AB resistant bacterial strain. Oddly, it is referred to as an opinion piece.

There are more current reports that simply verify and expand the findings a bit.

Here in tick-vector-illness-central the medical community had to be dragged kicking and screaming to write scripts for agents effective against Lyme and other bacteria transmitted via tick bites. This has proven to be very unwise. Now, all tick bites are treated with a one day course of doxycycline as prophylaxis. If a person goes on to present with Lyme--or other bacterial illness--the standard course is a 21 day treatment.

This CRE issue is evolution in overdrive. The selective pressure being resistance to common and uncommon antibiotics.

This is why I have ABX on hand, but have never given myself a course of any antibiotic. In my 53 years of life, I have been on two courses of ABX. The first was back in 1980 when I was given erythromycin for a non-specific urinary tract infection(yes, I know how disturbing that reads), and the last was doxycycline to treat Lyme. I am very cautious about laissez-faire use of ABX. If only the bovine and chicken husbandry industries would follow suit. Don't expect change anytime soon. These are powerful industries, and 'Mericans want their cheap animal products. It is a matter of 'having choices' after all. No one dare do anything that is scientifically sound if it interferes with individual choices. *huge eyeroll*

It is likely the case in other New World countries with the possible exception of Canada.

If highly therapy resistant bacterial strains become the norm, then going to a hospital could be a dangerous thing to do.

One needs to be cognizant that evolution does not work on time scales, but generational scales. Fast growing bacteria can multiply in as little as 20 minutes. Let us perform a worst case thought experiment for humankind, and a best case scenario for out bacterial foes.

Let us use 1948 as a starting point. Penicillin was--by then--widely available and used. The possible doublings--and hence chances for errors in replication which could lead to resistance--is roughly 174,155,117 generations. The entire genome of a fast growing bacterial species could be replaced several times over given the geometric progression under ideal circumstances. That is really quite sobering.

Some researchers are predicting a 'post-antibiotic' future. Almost surely some microbes will defeat current medicine while others will not.

Even now, lack of exposures is by far the best weapon. Sure bacteria are ubiquitous, but thankfully, most are not pathogenic to humans.

Hand washing beats hand wringing every time.

Be informed, but don't succumb to irrational fears. Yes, I know how odd that may seem coming from me, but I do not fear pathogens--in fact, I rarely fear things which might ACTUALLY kill me--but I do believe in being prepared.

I am fully aware of my awfully clipped sentence structure that pervades this post. This post is also lacking proper linkages and segues between topics. I am simply too fatigued to care. It has been a hell of a weekend, and my brain is full. I would like to be excused now. I have the Sword of Damocles still over my head. It is not yet known if and what manner my eye issues are going to take. I have a mere eight days to get my ocular pressures into an acceptable area. One eye is really close, the other not nearly so. I'm coming to terms with the whole mess, but it still troubles.