THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

“It is sometimes said that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side of the globe.”
This quote comes from the 2004 film The Butterfly Effect and is inspired by a theory taken up and debated in numerous areas.
Once again, as happened for the War of the Worlds: the inspiration comes from a science fiction novel, it is in fact Ray Bradbury who in his Sound of thunder attributes to the proper death of a butterfly during a journey through time, a variation of future events:

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling,
“No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that. No!”
Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.

Another coincidence, also in this case the story was broadcast by the BBC in 2011: here if you want to find the podcast (butterfly from about 35 minutes but I would advise you to listen to it all if you have time).
The butterfly symbol was taken up by Edward Lorenz, mathematician and meteorologist professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in his 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Science and later in a 1979 lecture that went down in history.
In general, the butterfly effect belongs to quantum physics and more precisely to the basis of chaos theory.
Chaos is the most congenial aspect to me, but actually I didn’t want to talk about this … not this time, at least.
Antonietta Gatti is perhaps known to most as “the wife of” despite her respectable curriculum. Her skills add up over time, and I would list, almost a bit to summarize, this recognition: she has been awarded the title of Fellow of the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering for her contribution to the progress of science. The various national societies of biomaterials and bioengineering have tens of thousands of members worldwide and the union of the various companies has elected Dr. Gatti to be part of the elite of scientists that consists of 32 members, and she was part of a parliamentary commission of inquiry as a responsible consultant. I know, difficult to read, but I found her report very interesting, perhaps because I live in a highly polluted area: here the mortality rate from tumors is terrible:
She deals with nanopathology or pathologies induced by micro and nano-sized particulate exposures, i.e. powders with dimensions less than 100nm (0.1 microns) but her research has become difficult due to the reduced availability of a suitable microscope.
Her flapping wings has not changed the world yet, but she has been able to reach the hearts of people who have made it possible to buy a new electron microscope with their donations.
Let us not stop at the fact that individually we cannot make a difference, let us not stop flying lightly on the difficulties, each of us can be the butterfly of change, let’s believe it, and do not let ourselves be crushed in the mud.

HOW ‘BOUT GETTING OFF OF THESE ANTIBIOTICS?

HOW ‘BOUT GETTING OFF OF THESE ANTIBIOTICS?

Whenever I think to the word antibiotics I find myself humming this phrase by Alanis.
Of course, antibiotics are a phase from which we all hope to get out quickly.
What maybe not everyone knows, is that pharmaceutical companies, or more specifically investors, do not consider convenient anymore to invest in the research necessary to fight the new bacteria that have become resistant, since the economic return is small.
Sick people take antibiotics for a week at most.
Much more profitable to address to other types of medicines that treat patients for years, without eliminating the disease, such as medicines for diabetes.
In addition, manufacturers are experiencing problems due precisely to the ineffectiveness of antibiotics designed to defeat infections that can no longer eradicate fungi and bacteria that have developed defenses against medicines following decades of overuse.
Ironically, bacteria evolve more intelligently than we do.
It will be that they still have survival at heart, but we only are slaves to money.
Can you figure Fleming while being told that it is not economically convenient to continue researching his penicillin?
In reality, there is little to laugh: as reported by the New York Times, pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis have left the sector while other companies are bordering on insolvency.
Antibiotic start-ups have gained weight in recent times but an example of the situation may be the 15 years and above all the billion dollars used to approve and insert a medicine against urinary tract infections among essential. Sadly emblematic numbers.
In the past, scientists with modest means managed to obtain stunning results, in the past twenty years, only two new classes of antibiotics have been introduced, the rest are variations of existing drugs.
I am referring to the research data of the New York Times, the research situation in Italy is sad. While it was a researcher and medical officer of the Italian Navy who first understood the bactericidal power of some molds. Vincenzo Tiberio sensed a connection between the water taken from a well on whose walls there was a layer of mold, and the subsequent use of water from the same well once the walls were cleaned, managing to demonstrate the therapeutic action of some substances contained in molds.
Guess what: I feel like we have ended up at the bottom of the water well, and that the water is not clean.

Pin It on Pinterest