Germs control us

This is kind of fun (via here):

Now it seems the immune system, and infections that stimulate it, can influence our moods, memory and ability to learn. Some strange behaviours, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, may be triggered by infections, and the immune system may even shape our basic personalities, such as how anxious or impulsive we are.

For example:

It was meant to be a new way to fight cancer. The idea was that injecting a certain bacterium into people would stimulate their immune systems to destroy tumours. Unfortunately, the treatment had little effect on the survival of the terminally ill lung cancer patients in the first trial. It did have one unexpected effect, though: those injected with the bacterium experienced a radical improvement in their mood and quality of life.

I can’t get the article online (it is online through NU but it’s delayed), so I’m going to have to go read it. It really is interesting to see how evolving science can radically change how we see ourselves–if your attitudes can partially depend on infections, then what exactly are we? Could someone become succesful (or not) because of an infection which changes their way of thinking? This is a question that cries out for a philosophical discussion, but not by me.

Bacteria cause rain?

Well then. I might have seen this before but it didn’t register. It seems that much, maybe even most, of rain and snow is caused by bacteria:

The accepted precipitation model is that soot, dust and other inert things form the nuclei for raindrops and snowflakes. Scientists have found these bacteria in abundance on the leaves of a wide range of wild and domestic plants, including trees and grasses, everywhere they have looked, including Montana, Morocco, France, the Yukon and in the long buried ice of Antarctica. The bacteria have been found in clouds and in streams and irrigation ditches. In one study of several mountaintops here, 70 percent of the snow crystals examined had formed around a bacterial nucleus.

The bacteria then use the snow to attack plants to get nutrients. Hmm, does that mean if we want sunny days or less snow we should encourage plants to use antibacterial soap?

In any case, this is another clear indication of the complicated nature of life and the weather.

Another interesting piece is some of the new knowledge of corn. It seems that corn was first cultivated about 9000 years ago and took perhaps 1000 years to change into the form it currently takes (it seems that they were bred from a grass). This is pretty impressive, but the ability to figure this out is also pretty impressive.