Finding things that kill bacteria is easy. Finding things that kill bacteria and do not significantly harm the host, now that is the hard part.
That's exactly what they claim to have found (at least so far in tests on mice). They also assert that they think it would be extremely difficult for MRSA to adapt to this drug, as it would require a fundamental change in the structure of it as being a gram positive bacteria.
I should have specified a human host. Biotech is littered with drugs that seems to work great on test animals but have serious side effects on humans.
TFA bascially makes the point that you now have to pay for a lot of things individually on airlines that you used to get for "free", and that not everybody enjoys paying for these things. True enough, but the article brushes off the very real benefits of paying less when you get (and need) less. For example:
As fliers have learned all too well in the last decade, air flight has become unbundled. Want a bit of leg room? That will be a $50 upgrade for a seat in your airline’s “premium economy” cabin. Sandwiches are on sale for $9, a glass of wine for $7. Checking that bag costs $25, and there is a $200 change fee for your ticket, or buy a much more expensive one upfront.
However, what's wrong with bringing fewer bags, if you want to, or else paying the going price for the bags you really need?
In the cable world, I certainly can imagine someone whining about "Why do I now have to pay X for channel Y - that's a ripoff!", but I don't see how it can be a bad thing to pay less for only what you really want. It really boils down to economics: if it now is efficient to allow people to select and pay for cable channels individually, that's bound to happen. It's only a matter of time.
Unfortunately the airlines have been pushing their fees by deliberately making basic service as unbearable as possible. The seats are getting smaller while the waistlines are getting larger. A so called upgrade to a seat they can fit in is not a value added service, it is a necessity.
And exercise is the rest.
The human body is so efficiently optimized to run on as few calories as possible that exercise simply is not effective as a counter to overeating. The calories in a piece of cheesecake would take hours of moderate exercise to burn off. Of course exercise has many benefits, especially in keeping the cardiovascular system in shape which mitigates some of the risks of obesity even if not loosing weight.
The primary problem we have today is not automation, it is over-concentration of wealth. Automation will destroy jobs to the extent that the people running the companies implementing the automation wish it to. If those companies are run by people who are happy to deliver worse service as long as they can pay fewer people, then, yes, we have a problem, but it is not with the technology.
There is no such thing a technological determinism. It's people all the way down.
The true problem is a society that values material wealth above all else. The concentration of wealth is just a symptom. The irony is that if wealth were more evenly distributed it would lead to greater economic growth and increased wealth for everyone, especially those at the top.
"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe
