Future Imperfect #25: Superbugs everywhere!
Welcome to Future Imperfect! This week I’ve been following the arrival of superbugs in the United States, Google’s Project Ara, the rising chance of Brexit, and a blonde-haired apocalypse.
If this is your first time here, be sure to follow the FI publication to get this newsletter in your inbox each week!
Superbugs everywhere!
Prepare yourself for a flood of articles on the arrival of “superbugs” — bacteria that are resistant to even last-resort antibiotics in the United States.
Colistin is the antibiotic of last resort for particularly dangerous types of superbugs, including a family of bacteria known as CRE, which health officials have dubbed “nightmare bacteria.” In some instances, these superbugs kill up to 50 percent of patients who become infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called CRE among the country’s most urgent public health threats.
Health officials said the case in Pennsylvania, by itself, is not cause for panic. The strain found in the woman is still treatable with other antibiotics. But researchers worry that its colistin-resistance gene, known as mcr-1, could spread to other bacteria that can already evade other antibiotics.
It’s the first time this colistin-resistant strain has been found in a person in the United States. In November, public health officials worldwide reacted with alarm when Chinese and British researchers reported finding the colistin-resistant strain in pigs and raw pork and in a small number of people in China. The deadly strain was later discovered in Europe and elsewhere.
This isn’t news to the wider medical community — researchers have been warning of the dangers of the diminishing effectiveness of antibiotics for years now. But some countries are doing better than others. Take the United Kingdom for example:
GPs in England have “dramatically” reduced the number of antibiotics they give to patients, latest figures show. NHS Improvement says prescriptions for all types of antibiotic were down by more than 2.6 million on the previous year to about 34 million in 2015–16.
“Every year, too many people suffer and lose their lives due to antibiotic-resistant infections,” says Dr Mike Durkin, from NHS Improvement. “At a time when the NHS has advanced in many areas of patient care, science and technology, we must work to prevent healthcare going backwards to a time where antibiotics are no longer fighting infections. This is why efforts in the NHS to reduce the overprescribing of antibiotics are crucial, and these latest figures are a significant step forward in this fight.”
True mobile customization
You might want to hold off on that next iPhone purchase. Instead, let Google show you what it has in store.
It’s been more than a year since Google showed Ara to the public, and a lot has changed. The mission hasn’t: Build a smartphone out of interchangeable parts that you can swap on the fly to make your phone exactly what you want right this second. Add a wide-angle camera module for your hike. Swap it for a telephoto — and add a larger battery — for the soccer game. Replace the screen with an E Ink display for reading on a long flight. The idea is, the ability to swap modules would lengthen the life of a smartphone — devices can last five years instead of two — and lessen the waste accrued in the rush to upgrade.
It’s the how, not the what, that was problematic. Today, Rafa Camargo, Ara’s technical project lead, wants to show me what he’s made. He picks the black phone up from the white table in front of him, flips it over, and taps the power button. It turns on. Next, he picks up a camera module from the table, pops it into the phone, opens the camera app, and quickly takes a crisp photo. “There’s your camera, live,” Camargo says.
Hang on. You caught that, right? It works! After years of failed demos, public sputters, and worrisome silence, Ara works. About 30 people within ATAP are using Ara as their primary phone. Camargo actually has the luxury of worrying about things like aesthetics, rather than whether it’ll turn on. “Please pay no attention to how it looks,” he tells me, flipping the blocky smartphone over in his hands, “because it’s a prototype.” It’s not a concept, not an idea, not a YouTube video. It’s a prototype. Developer kits for Ara will be shipping later this year, and a consumer version is coming in 2017. “We have now built all the key components of the platform,” Camargo says. Ara is no longer an experimental part of ATAP: It just became its own division within Google. Now it’s time to find out if there’s room left for another smartphone revolution.
I mean if PC parts can be swapped in and out at will (sorry Apple customers), why treat smartphones any differently? We’ve already merged the phone and the mp3 player — let’s do the same with all of our electronic devices.
Brexit creeps closer and closer
While the UK heads for the vote on June 23rd, uncertainty looms over not just the future of the European Union (via BRINK News)…
Outside the UK, there is speculation that the Brexit vote could spark a series of similar votes on EU membership. A recent Ipsos poll of nine leading EU states found that nearly half of those polled believed the referendum would lead other nations to bring EU membership up for a vote.
…but also the future of the United Kingdom itself:
According to Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs King’s College London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are largely pro-EU, but may try to leave the Union if the Brexit vote passes. This could heighten tensions among countries within the EU and create constitutional instability. Vote Leave, the strongest voice on the pro-Brexit side of the debate, argued that leaving the EU could grant countries such as Scotland greater independence, though others disagree.
There’s little doubt that Brexit would be disastrous on many levels, and it’s frankly incredible that debate on the topic has advanced this far. With polling as close as it is it’s hard to say that it’s such a pipe dream anymore. Bloomberg projects a 19 percent chance of Brexit (which sounds more like a weather report than a political climate-rattling disruption), and seems to be rising as we approach the date of the vote.
Goodbye blondes
Check out this excerpt from Emily Schultz’s new novel The Blondes, a new take on the popular apocalyptic epidemic theme, via Terraform:
Across the circle was a baby in a posh-kid mini-adult outfit. She was climbing on the rim of Washington Square fountain. A few feet away, near an overturned stroller, the mother stood with arms stretched out, not as if she were reaching for her child, but as if she were keeping the blonde toddler away. Two tourists loaded with backpacks had stopped nearby. Stupid and happy, the woman fed the man blue liquid from a water bottle. At the edge of the fountain, the pale toddler began to screech.
Moira was pulling me away, hard.
“She has it,” Moira snapped. She jumped up and then over a concrete bench in spite of her high heels. I felt my stiff, injured knee jerk as she pulled me over it.
At a safe distance, we looked back. There was another high-pitched screech. The small blonde child had turned and run at the man with the backpack. We watched as little fingers clutched at his knees and teeth dug into the muscled white thigh below the hem of his shorts. The toddler’s dress exposed a pull-up diaper. The man stumbled about, exclaiming in another language, attempting to grasp and dislodge her. His girlfriend dropped her sports drink; as the man bent and thrashed, the camera that had been around his neck smashed to the concrete.
“Nein, kinder, nein!” he yelled.
We both turned and ran out of the park, me galloping on my bad knee and Moira sprinting in her heels, her glockenspiel case clutched firmly across her chest.
GIF of the Week: Where we’re going, we don’t need roads
Like Future Imperfect? Why don’t you go ahead and click that recommend button below so others can find it too! And send me feedback at lasky.joshua@gmail.com.
