One of humanity’s most impending threats come from organisms too small to spot with the naked eye.
In the next few decades, antibiotic-resistant superbugs could become more deadly than cancer, playing a role in 10 million deaths each year. They already contribute to the death of some 700,000 people annually.
“Superbugs are those that become resistant to many of the commonly used antibiotics due to misuse and overuse over the years,” James Hedrick, the lead researcher of advanced organic materials at IBM Research, told Digital Trends. “As they become resistant they become harder and harder to treat. Why worry? There are very few last lines of defense available.”
After nearly losing his leg to a bacterial infection in 2016, Hedrick was inspired to find a solution to the global superbug problem. He and his team partnered with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in Singapore to create a synthetic molecule capable of killing five types of superbugs with limited side effects, according to a paper the team published last week in the journal Nature Communications. Their hope is that this molecule can be used to create antimicrobial drugs capable of treating antibiotic-resistant infections.
“Our macromolecular antimicrobials mimic, to some degree, our innate immune system.” Hedrick said, “That is, antimicrobial peptides. This is a synthetic version of these natural polymers that act against the ‘ESKAPE’ pathogens that are responsible for most hospital-acquired infections. Moreover, it works on multi-drug resistant pathogens. This paper is the first example of a synthetic polymer that has been used in vivo to eradicate several different types of infections. The polymer is uniquely designed such that it does its business and then rapidly degrades into non-toxic byproducts that are easily passed from the body. Finally, serial sublethal passages of the polymer with bacteria, designed to promote resistance, did not facilitate any resistance.”
In their paper, Hedrick and his colleagues demonstrated for the first time that a biodegradable synthetic molecule can have a broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity in mice with limited toxicity. The study also gives weight to the new “macromolecular therapeutics” research field, which may be our best bet to quell the emergence of superbugs.
Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.
The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.
In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.
Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.
What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.