Rosacea may be caused by mite faeces in your pores

There are tiny bugs closely related to spiders living in the pores of your face. They have long been considered mere passengers, doing no harm beyond upsetting the squeamish. But they may be causing an ancient skin disease that is estimated to affect between 5 and 20 per cent of people worldwide, and 16 million in the US alone. Kevin Kavanagh of the National University of Ireland, in Maynooth, now thinks he has discovered the cause – and it isn't for the faint-hearted.

 

The potential role of Demodex folliculorum mites and bacteria in the induction of rosacea.

"Rosacea is a common dermatological condition that predominantly affects the central regions of the face. Rosacea affects up to 3% of the world’s population and a number of subtypes are recognized. Rosacea can be treated with a variety of antibiotics (e.g. tetracycline or metronidazole) yet no role for bacteria or microbes in its aetiology has been conclusively established. The density of Demodex mites in the skin of rosacea patients is higher than in controls, suggesting a possible role for these mites in the induction of this condition. In addition, Bacillus oleronius, known to be sensitive to the antibiotics used to treat rosacea, has been isolated from a Demodex mite from a patient with papulopustular rosacea and a potential role for this bacterium in the induction of rosacea has been proposed. Staphylococcus epidermidis has been isolated predominantly from the pustules of rosacea patients but not from unaffected skin and may be transported around the face by Demodex mites. These findings raise the possibility that rosacea is fundamentally a bacterial disease resulting from the over proliferation of Demodex mites living in skin damaged as a result of adverse weathering, age or the production of sebum with an altered fatty acid content. This review surveys the literature relating to the role of Demodex mites and their associated bacteria in the induction and persistence of rosacea and highlights possible therapeutic options."

  Journal of Medical Microbiology / continue reading

Happened today, true.

Burning Man 2012

Revellers ride a decorated vehicle during the Burning Man 2012 "Fertility 2.0" arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. More than 60,000 people from all over the world have gathered at the sold out festival, which is celebrating its 26th year, to spend a week in the remote desert cut off from much of the outside world, to experience art, music and the unique community that develops.
Picture: REUTERS/Jim Urquhart / more 

 

Tomorrow is once in a blue moon

Tomorrow night, Friday 31 August, sees the rising of a blue moon, as in the expression used to describe something which only takes place very rarely.  more 

 

Commemoration for 12 firemen killed in 2007 Kornat wildfire held

Commemorative events in memory of 12 volunteer fire-fighters who died in a blaze on the Kornat five years ago were held on that Adriatic island on Thursday, with families of the victims, the locals of victims' home-towns, government officials.

 

London's Mayor tells Croats 'don't be slaves'

"London's Mayor Boris Johnson, who has been holidaying this summer in Croatia, has issued a warning to Croatia ahead of joining the European Union.
"Croatia is a beautiful country with great economic potential, but don't become slaves of Brussels democracy. There are also good sides to the EU, such as free trade, and no barriers for young talent," Johnson told website net.hr., adding that now was not a good time to join the Euro."
via Croatian Times Online News  / more

Christopher Hitchens’ Mortality: An honest book about death.

"Before being diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens wrote in his memoir, Hitch-22, “I want to stare death in the eye.” This seems, of course, an impossible blustery task, but in his last book, Mortality he comes astonishingly close to pulling it off.One of the many remarkable things about this remarkable collection of observations about what he calls “living dyingly” is that Hitchens doesn’t resort to charismatic English humor as a way of deflecting the difficulty of his subject—which is not to say that he is never funny or that there aren’t flashes of his characteristic wit throughout, but rather that he doesn’t allow irony or humor to overtake the truth-telling that is his real business here. He does not use his considerable comic gift as a way of not facing or not examining or not describing, which itself is part of the courage that the book both documents and enacts. If he were here, Hitchens would object to the idea of courage. He says that the word courage should be reserved for voluntary situations, for things you willingly do: He rightfully points out that he has no choice about the things people are calling him brave for.What is powerful about this book is that Hitchens is doing a close reading of death; he is examining its language, critiquing its clichés."
via Slate Magazine / continue reading

Bin Laden Raid Became Re-Election Mission, SEAL Book Says

 "The mission was twofold: first and foremost, kill Osama bin Laden. Then, once the deed was done and the troops were back safe, help re-elect the president of the United States by promoting the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist.

That’s the accusation in “No Easy Day,” the firsthand account of the bin Laden raid from Matt Bissonette, a former member of SEAL Team 6. Copies of the book, due out next week, were obtained by the Huffington Post and by the Associated Press’ Kim Dozier.

In the excerpts they present, Bissonette praises President Obama for giving the green light to attack bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. But even before the mission began, Bissonette and his fellow SEALs knew that the raid would be played up by the White House for political purposes."
via Wired.com /continue reading

Steampunk Fairy

Imgur

In the High Country of Mars

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this photo of the base of Mount Sharp, a 3.4-mile-tall peak it is expected to reach in about a year. The hill in the center is about 300 feet tall.
  Science News - The New York Times

Back To School

The village where people have dementia – and fun

How is society to look after the ever-growing number of people with dementia? A curiously uplifting care home near Amsterdam may have the answers.

 

A Day Without Immigrants

Paul Krugman comes to Croatia

The 2nd Adris Business Forum, which will be held in the town of Rovinj on Croatia's Adriatic coast on 5 Ocotber, will have a special guest, Nobel - Prize winner Paul Krugman, reports website Tportal. The American award winning economist will address Croatia's political and business elite on how to successfully overcome the effects of the recession in the global economy. Krugman comes to Croatia not long after announcing a manifesto for economic sense with Britain’s Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, calling for wider use of stimulating fiscal policy to reduce unemployment and boost economic growth. The manifesto was signed by almost 9000 people, including a number of prominent economists. Krugman won the Nobel-Prize in Economic Sciences in 2008, when he was a professor at Princeton Univeristy in the U.S. Krugman is a passionate and eloquent speaker, an uncompromising critic of the economic policies of strict austerity and is well known for his columns in The New York Times.
Croatian Times

How Hollywood pitch meetings go

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How To Make an Electricity-Free Refrigerator

Conventional refrigeration does an incredible job keeping food fresh. But that technology hasn't helped desert dwellers without steady electricity. A more recent development in refrigeration—the Zeer pot-in-pot refrigerator—only requires water, sand, and a hot, dry climate to preserve produce through evaporative cooling. Here's how to make the simple gadget.

 

Move over Kanzi; there's a new tool-wielding creature catching more than just attention.

Just days after Kanzi the bonobo chimp stunned researchers around the world by creating his own tools similar to man to access food, a Green Heron has shown its own ability to bait and catch fish. Carrying a piece of bread to the water's edge, the tiny heron is captured on camera repeatedly dropping the bait onto the surface, carefully, to attract the surrounding fish.

 

What do ants and the Internet have in common?

 A Stanford ant biologist and a computer scientist came up with the answer: On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. The researchers are calling it the "anternet." Deborah Gordon, a biology professor at Stanford, has been studying ants for more than 20 years. When she figured out how the harvester ant colonies she had been observing in Arizona decided when to send out more ants to get food, she called across campus to Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of computer science at Stanford and an expert on how files are transferred on a computer network. At first he didn't see any overlap between his and Gordon's work, but inspiration would soon strike.  more

 

The Man And The Moon

“The odds is gone, / And there is nothing left remarkable / Beneath the visiting moon.” That’s what Cleopatra thought, in her bereavement, but our restive age, in its quest for the remarkable, had a better idea: How about visiting the moon? Yeah. Much was asked of Neil Armstrong, and he was commensurate. He held attitude. We held our breath.
By Anthony Lane / more

 

Are you flirting with me ?

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Animals in the Womb

Captured using revolutionary four-dimensional imaging technology and anatomically accurate models, scientists have managed to shed light on the world of mammals inside the womb. As diverse a bunch as they are - elephant, dog, dolphin and penguin are all shown united by their similar stages of development.

 

US astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, has died at the age of 82

Earlier this month he had surgery to relieve blocked coronary arteries. He walked on the Moon on 20 July 1969, famously describing the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind". Last November Armstrong, along with three other astronauts, received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest US civilian award. He was the commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. He and fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin spent nearly three hours walking on the moon.
 via BBC News

 

So you have bought a new MacBook...

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Rolling in the Higgs

Meanwhile In The Perfect World

The world would be much better place, if these things came true...

 

Don't laugh at Bob

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