May 24, 2012 Jeff Jacoby: The peace process battered Israel's reputation Near-nuclear nation threatens to walk out of summit unless it gets its way Clifford D. May: What Iran's Rulers Want Michael Muskal: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low, according to poll Chris Farrell: Are We in a Tech Bubble? Kimberly Lankford: Switching Medicare Advantage Plans Mid-Year Bryan McIver, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Understanding hyperthyroidism and its variety of treatment options French rights groups want Google to stop suggesting 'Jew' Two-fly rule for Beijing toilets The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak! May 23, 2012 Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Baghdad talks highlight Western naivete Putin's latest defiance shows Obama's whisper didn't work Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts Lisa Gerstner: 4 Money-Etiquette Questions Answered Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You Art Markman, Ph.D.: Get smart: How to bulk up your creativity muscles Israeli scientists use skin cells to help repair heart muscle Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right May 22, 2012 David S. Cloud and Kathleen Hennessey: Obama changes mind on Pakistan invite to NATO summit --- and then gets dissed by country's president US Senate approves new sanctions against Iran ahead of Baghdad talks Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide Supreme Court: Twins can't claim dead dad's benefits Thomas M. 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What you need to know before you buy Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again Environmental Nutrition Editors: Get the facts on palm sugar sweetening The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES) May 14, 2012 Richard Simon: Purple Hearts for domestic terror victims? Nando Pelusi, Ph.D.: The privacy paradox: Surrounded by strangers, we risk isolation, anxiety Chris Farrell: Investing Lessons from the Great Recession Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia Tiffany O'Callaghan: New hormone mimics effects of exercise without the sweat The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight May 11, 2012 Rabbi B. 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Jewish World Review How antibiotics and vaccines work By Marshall Brain http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) All human beings get sick on occasion. It's so common that we build sickness into our schedules, in the form of "sick time." We can't really predict when it will happen, but sickness happens to everyone. And sickness comes in many forms. The two most common causes of sickness are viruses and bacteria. We hear about these things all the time. On the virus side there are cold viruses, flu viruses, tetanus, smallpox, mumps, measles, polio and many more. On the bacteria side there are all kinds of bacterial infections like skin infections, lung infections, urinary tract infections and so on. Your body has an immune system that works well to eliminate sickness. For example, if you catch a cold, your immune system will eliminate the virus that causes the cold in a week or two. But many of these diseases can elude the immune system, or overwhelm it, or take too long to resolve. And some diseases you never want to get in the first place (e.g. polio) and you would like to prevent it from getting a chance to take hold. For these reasons, we have vaccines and antibiotics. Vaccines take care of viruses, while antibiotics eliminate bacteria. Let's start with viruses. A virus particle is a very odd thing. And it is tiny - much smaller than any human cell or bacteria cell. It consists of some kind of shell that contains a tiny amount of genetic material. The virus particle bumps into to a human cell, attaches to it and injects its genetic material into the cell. This genetic material then works its way into the normal genetic machinery inside the living cell and instructs the cell to create more virus particles. The cell becomes a factory for new virus particles. These new particles are released into your body, where they take over more cells, and so on. If your body didn't respond to the virus, the viral replication process would never end. You would either die, or you would always be sick. So the immune system has a system for eliminating viruses. Once cells in the immune system recognize that a virus has invaded, the immune system begins to create antibodies that attach to that specific type of virus particle. Antibodies are complex protein molecules that your body constantly produces. Each antibody will attach only to a specific item. For example, once you get a strain of flu, your body will begin to create antibodies that attach to the virus particles of that strain. The next time virus particles for that strain of flu enter your body, antibodies are already there to eliminate it. In other words, your body learns about each kind of virus particle one at a time. Once it has started to produce antibodies against that type of particle, your body will continue producing them for many years. This is where vaccines come in. Let's say that you would like to keep a person from ever getting polio. What you would do is inject something into the body that trains the immune system without causing the disease. For example, you might inject inactivated virus particles - particles that have the right shell, but which contain inactivated genetic material. The immune system learns to recognize the shell and make the antibodies against it. Whenever the real polio virus shows up, your body automatically eliminates it. Antibiotics use a completely different mechanism. In the case of antibiotics, the goal is to eliminate living bacteria cells that are swimming around and reproducing inside your body. The action of an antibiotic is very simple: It is a selective poison that kills the invading bacteria cells without killing your body's cells. The reason why scientists can create these selective poisons is because bacteria cells and human cells have fundamental differences. For example, an antibiotic may get into a certain type of bacteria cell and gum up its ability to build its cell wall. Since the cell walls of a bacteria cell and a human cell are different, this poison will kill the bacteria cell while having little or no effect on human cells. This leads to an obvious question: Why do we still get colds and flu, and why do some bacterial infections defy antibiotics? In the case of colds and flu, it turns out that there are thousands of different viruses that cause the same kinds of symptoms. And the viruses change. So there is no way to create one vaccine that eliminates all the possibilities. In the case of bacteria, they evolve. Some small number of bacteria cells can contain a mutation that is not affected by the poison. Those cells then reproduce, and scientists have to discover a new poison to kill them. That takes time. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment by clicking here. Previously: How mucus works How iron and steel work How aspirin works How igloos work How the Predator UAV works How retention ponds work How water absorbers work How melamine works How digital music works How coal mining works How an economic depression works How the liver works How 3D movies work How oil pipelines work How jet packs work How seismographs work How Olympic technology works How Personal Rapid Transit works How 3G works How the Global Position System (GPS) works How octane works How cruise missiles work How submarines work How miles work How octane works How food preservation works How beer works How holding your breath works How smoke detectors work How heat pumps work How your night vision works How concentrating solar collectors work How your key fob works How the common cold works How the Large Hadron Collider Works How making a TV show works How dry cleaning works How exoskeletons work How an oil refinery works How landfills work How the Orion spacecraft works The cutting edge in HDTV Redefining the CD How the HDMI cable scam works How glow-in-the-dark toys work How the subprime mortgage crisis works How gift cards work How Tasers work How giant TV screens work How foreclosure works How Air Force One works How wildfire fighting works How vitamins work How ejection seats work How reattaching limbs works How hot air balloons work How paparazzi work How counterfeiting works How CDs work How the Edsel worked How Stinger missiles work How hybrid cars work How sharks work How mosquitoes work How diesel engines work How water towers work How the Dawn mission works How Kassam rockets work How the North American Eagle works Why aren't we flying to work? How tofu and soy milk work How Colony Collapse Disorder works How airbags work How the U.S. income tax works How gum works How caffeine works How Daylight Saving Time works How a cruise missile works How snow making works © 2007, How Stuff Works Inc. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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