Friday, January 9, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/08/1356350/-Muslim-groups-in-Detroit-donate-100-000-to-help-avoid-water-shutoffs-for-residents

Photograph – Crowds protesting water shutoffs in Detroit.

Positive news for Detroit residents on the verge of having their water shut off:

Two Muslim organizations are donating $100,000 to provide assistance to Detroit residents facing water shutoffs or recovering from recent flooding.

The Michigan Muslim Community Council has partnered with Islamic Relief USA, the largest Muslim charity organization in the country, to help thousands of households at risk of having their water shut off. The grant will be divided between the Detroit Water Fund, United Way of Southeastern Michigan and Wayne Metro Community Council.

The organizations are hoping to encourage others to follow suit:

"We are hoping this is going to be contagious," Anwar Khan, CEO of Islamic Relief USA, said in a statement. "The most important thing we have is not our money, it's our energy and our enthusiasm, and it's our people. … Also, it is important to us in our faith to help our neighbors. It is a part of our faith to help our friends."




Clearly not all Muslims are jihadists, and they certainly aren't all poor. The Michigan Muslim Community Council has partnered with Islamic Relief USA. “The grant will be divided between the Detroit Water Fund, United Way of Southeastern Michigan and Wayne Metro Community Council.” I had heard that donating to the poor is a mandate in the Islamic religion. This time the recipients are of no particular religion, they just need help. God bless these peaceful Islamic people. They are very good neighbors. It is vital that our government, in focusing on the jihadist threat, do just that and refrain from putting negative pressure on the good citizens.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-terror-suspects-in-charlie-hebdo-attack-resurface-in-stolen-car/

Paris terror suspects cornered
CBS NEWS January 9, 2015


Photograph – Members of the GIGN (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group) sit in a helicopter flying over Dammartin-en-Goele where a hostage-taking was underway after police hunting the brothers who killed 12 people earlier this week exchanged fire with two men during a car chase, Jan. 9, 2015.

The suspects in the terror attack on a newspaper's Paris office were holed up in a business Friday after stealing a car northeast of the French capital, as police responded to a separate hostage situation inside Paris.

There was gunfire and heavy police activity around the town of Dammartin-en-Goële, about 25 miles northeast of Paris along the N2 highway, which falls within the corridor that became the focus of the manhunt for the Charlie Hebdo shooting on Thursday.

There were multiple reports that one or more people had been taken hostage inside a printing business on an industrial estate in Dammartin, less than 10 miles to the northeast of Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. Two runways at the airport were closed to flights amid the ongoing police operation, which included several helicopters hovering over the scene.

Heavily armed police surrounded the industrial estate, which sits in the middle of farmland. Security forces was seen walking along rooftops on the estate.

"We are almost certain it is those two individuals holed up in that building," Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said live on French television. Brandet later said he could not confirm the suspects had taken anyone hostage.

The printing business where the suspects were trapped, called CTD, has a small staff of only about five employees, including the owner and at least two relatives. Their whereabouts late Friday morning as the standoff played out could not be confirmed.

France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said only that an "ongoing operation" to apprehend the suspects was underway in Dammartin. Elite French troops and anti-terror police quickly swarmed into the area, and police were not allowing members of the media to enter the village.

French officials told the Associated Press that police had established phone contact with the suspects, French-Algerian brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, but there was no confirmation that negotiations were underway. One report said the men were refusing to talk to police.

A U.S. Counterterrorism source told CBS News on Friday that officials do no expect the Kouachi brothers to give up. The feeling is that they have been avoiding capture and hoping to go down in a blaze of glory or escape to fight another day.

As further evidence that trying to talk the Kouachi brothers down could prove difficult, a French lawmaker told the AP that the men had told police they wanted to die as "martyrs."

Meanwhile, another hostage situation was unfolding after a shooting at a Jewish grocery store in the east of Paris. The incident in the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood came as a manhunt continued for a gunman who fatally shot a police officer on Thursday morning just south of the capital in Montrouge.

The suspect, who shot the officer after a car crash and then fled on foot, was identified Friday by French police as Amedy Coulibaly, born in 1982. Police were also looking for his girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, in connection with the Thursday shooting.

Coulibaly was reportedly the same man inside the Paris grocery store on Friday, holding as many as five hostages. The Interior Ministry denied reports that two people had been fatally shot in the grocery store attack.

As the grocery store standoff played out, CBS News' Elizabeth Palmer reported that subway station at the Trocadero, right in the heart of central Paris, was evacuated and police were responding to some unknown threat there. Social media users reported possible gunshots fired inside the subway, but the agency which runs the system said in a tweet that whatever had caused the scare was "over."

At least two people were arrested in connection with the attack in Montrouge as of early Friday, but not the primary suspect.

Coulibaly is believed to be an acquaintance of the Kouachi brothers, and possibly a member of the same group rounded up in 2008 for recruiting jihadists to travel to Iraq.

French officials said there were no known deaths or injuries resulting from the gunfire Friday in Dammartin, either, and emergency officials there had not reported any casualties.

A man who claimed to have spoken to the suspects Friday morning told a French news outlet they appeared calm and told him to "go home," adding that they did not intend to kill civilians. The man's account could not be independently verified.

A communications officer at Dammartin's city hall confirmed to CBS News that all residents had been asked to stay inside.

The Kouachis, in their early 30s and both with documented histories of jihadist activity, have been on the run since they allegedly killed 12 people in a massacre at the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. They were raised in France.

Cherif Kouachi's arrest in 2008 for recruiting fighters in France to travel to Iraq made him the more well-known of the two, but his older brother Said may actually have stronger ties to al Qaeda terrorists, CBS News' Bob Orr reported Thursday.

U.S. sources said French investigators have evidence Said traveled to Yemen in 2011 and linked up with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, the terror network's affiliate based in the country. CBS News has been told Said "spent several months" in Yemen training with AQAP.

Multiple witnesses to the attack on Charlie Hebdo's office, and the man who had his car stolen by the brothers Friday morning, said the men had claimed an affiliation with AQAP.

During Said's time in Yemen, AQAP's terror operations were being run by the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

Awlaki was the inspiration behind Nidal Hassan's massacre at Fort Hood. Awlaki also led the failed attempts to hit the U.S. with bombs smuggled onto jetliners inside underwear and computer printers.

It's not clear if Said had any direct dealings with Awlaki before returning to France in 2011. Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike on September 30th the same year.




“The printing business where the suspects were trapped, called CTD, has a small staff of only about five employees, including the owner and at least two relatives. Their whereabouts late Friday morning as the standoff played out could not be confirmed. France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said only that an "ongoing operation" to apprehend the suspects was underway in Dammartin. Elite French troops and anti-terror police quickly swarmed into the area, and police were not allowing members of the media to enter the village.... Meanwhile, another hostage situation was unfolding after a shooting at a Jewish grocery store in the east of Paris. The incident in the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood came as a manhunt continued for a gunman who fatally shot a police officer on Thursday morning just south of the capital in Montrouge. The suspect, who shot the officer after a car crash and then fled on foot, was identified Friday by French police as Amedy Coulibaly, born in 1982. Police were also looking for his girlfriend, Hayat Boumeddiene, in connection with the Thursday shooting. Coulibaly was reportedly the same man inside the Paris grocery store on Friday, holding as many as five hostages. The Interior Ministry denied reports that two people had been fatally shot in the grocery store attack.... Coulibaly is believed to be an acquaintance of the Kouachi brothers, and possibly a member of the same group rounded up in 2008 for recruiting jihadists to travel to Iraq.... During Said's time in Yemen, AQAP's terror operations were being run by the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki was the inspiration behind Nidal Hassan's massacre at Fort Hood. Awlaki also led the failed attempts to hit the U.S. with bombs smuggled onto jetliners inside underwear and computer printers.”

These jihadists certainly are busy bees, especially Anwar al-Awlaki – Fort Hood, computer bombs and underwear bombs. He isn't really trying to become a martyr. He just wants to do as much damage as possible without getting caught. The others are out to see their victims die and then be “martyred.” I think that kind of jihadist is mainly young and adventuresome – a soldier, while those like al-Awlaki are more vicious and wily. President Obama's continuing to target individuals and kill them with drones has been criticized, but if anyone thinks they can be reformed, I have to disagree, and the only way to get rid of them is one at a time. We aren't fighting an enemy that sends soldiers out in the field to fight as a group, except for ISIS, but faceless people who don't care who they kill as long as they are Westerners. It's cold and calculated mayhem. I wish the French luck in subduing them all.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/01/09/375440666/a-sizable-decrease-in-those-passing-the-ged

A 'Sizable Decrease' In Those Passing The GED
Cory Turner
JANUARY 09, 2015

One year after the launch of a major overhaul of the GED exam — the first since 2002 — the high school equivalency program has seen a sharp drop in the number of people who took and passed the test, according to local and state educators and the organization that runs it. In addition, at least 16 states have begun offering or plan to offer new, alternative tests.

Combined, these changes represent a dramatic shift in the equivalency landscape dominated by the GED since its inception during World War II.

Last January, the GED test moved to the computer. It also got more expensive, by most accounts more difficult — and, for the first time, the program is being run on a for-profit basis. The new GED Testing Service is a joint venture between the American Council on Education, the nonprofit that has run the program since it began, and the education company Pearson.

What effect did all of these changes have on test takers?

"Our number of graduates for this last calendar year has dropped about 85 percent," says Myles Newman, who helps coordinate GED preparation for one school district in Lexington County, S.C. States including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Colorado are reporting large drops as well.

Nationally, the GED Testing Service says while it has seen a "sizable decrease," it won't be able to release final 2014 numbers for several weeks. But here's what we know so far:

In 2012, a total of 401,388 people passed the GED test.
In 2013, people rushed to take the old test in its final year, creating a bump: A total of 540,535 people passed.
How many earned a GED credential in 2014? In the general population: 58,524.

This drop, first reported in the Cleveland Scene newspaper, is dramatic, but that 2014 number is also incomplete. It excludes state and federal prisoners — thousands of whom pass the test in a typical year (although, in the past, many fewer than 100,000). It also excludes those taking alternative tests, though that number, too, is not yet large.

The decrease is considerable and, combined with the development of those alternative tests and some states' decision to abandon the GED entirely, represents a challenge to the exam's decades-long dominance in the field of high school equivalency.

Origins Of The GED
During World War II, vast numbers of young men and women left school before graduation to fight for their country. The government foresaw a need to help them get back on track when they came home. So the American Council on Education created the GED in 1942.

Over the decades, the use of the GED credential expanded. It never measured up to the high school diploma in terms of cachet or opportunity — and research has long confirmed that it does not translate into comparable earnings. But it came to represent a second chance: for immigrants too old to attend school, for prisoners trying to turn their lives around, for teen parents or anyone whose life has gotten in the way of his formal education.

Over the years the test has been updated five times, and those upgrades commonly resulted in drops in participation the following year. The last update, in 2002, resulted in a one-year drop of 53 percent in test takers.

But this time around, some adult educators are reacting strongly to changes that they say create unnecessary barriers for people who are already struggling: the test's increased difficulty, higher cost and computer requirement.

"Teachers are telling us that the new test is virtually impossible for students to pass," says David Spring, who with his wife, Elizabeth Hanson, runs the website Restore GED Fairness in Washington state. Both are educators who have spent years helping people prepare for the GED.

Nicole Chestang, a vice president at the American Council on Education, says that the new test is more difficult by design and that the upgrade was needed to keep the exam current — for students and for employers who rely on the GED as a measure of what they can expect.

"I think we're doing people a real disservice if we don't raise the bar so they are positioned for today's jobs," Chestang says. She says it's computer-based because that's what's required in most workplaces. And, in terms of added cost, she notes that some states will help cover the expense of the test.

Spring and Hanson are supporters of a different equivalency test, called the High School Equivalency Test, or HiSET, produced by the nonprofit ETS and the University of Iowa. The HiSET is now coming into use in 12 states.

McGraw-Hill produces yet a third test , called TASC, which has been approved now in nine states. Thirty-four states still offer only the GED.

Because of the way they're designed, plus their lower cost and paper-and-pencil delivery options, "HiSET and TASC are much fairer to students," Spring argues.

Jason Carter, the national director for HiSET, says ETS created its test in response to concerns by many states about the GED's for-profit shift. He says preliminary estimates are that 30,000 to 35,000 people passed the HiSET in 2014.

Nevada offered all three options last year. There, the cost of the GED was $95 and the TASC and HiSET tests were $65.

"We just wanted to have choice," says Jeff Wales of the Nevada Department of Education. "Many of our clients prefer paper, and we wanted to make sure that everyone had an equal opportunity to succeed."

He adds that the state saw "low numbers of test takers [in 2014] across all tests. The year was a lot of transition — for test centers, school districts and test takers."

Chestang acknowledges that 2014 was a "rocky time" for states and the GED but says she she's worried about these new alternatives.

"The thing that concerns me about having lots of tests out in the marketplace is that it creates a lot of confusion for test takers," she says. "And I also want to make sure that we're all setting the same standard for people."

For 72 years, the GED was the only game in town, no matter which town you lived in. Then, in a matter of one year, 10 states dropped it.

The days of one monolithic high school equivalency test are over. And that means, for the first time, someone in Boston or Baton Rouge who's hoping for a second chance won't have to pass the GED.




“One year after the launch of a major overhaul of the GED exam — the first since 2002 — the high school equivalency program has seen a sharp drop in the number of people who took and passed the test, according to local and state educators and the organization that runs it. In addition, at least 16 states have begun offering or plan to offer new, alternative tests.... Last January, the GED test moved to the computer. It also got more expensive, by most accounts more difficult — and, for the first time, the program is being run on a for-profit basis. .... But this time around, some adult educators are reacting strongly to changes that they say create unnecessary barriers for people who are already struggling: the test's increased difficulty, higher cost and computer requirement. "Teachers are telling us that the new test is virtually impossible for students to pass," says David Spring, who with his wife, Elizabeth Hanson, runs the website Restore GED Fairness in Washington state. Both are educators who have spent years helping people prepare for the GED.... Spring and Hanson are supporters of a different equivalency test, called the High School Equivalency Test, or HiSET, produced by the nonprofit ETS and the University of Iowa. The HiSET is now coming into use in 12 states. McGraw-Hill produces yet a third test , called TASC, which has been approved now in nine states. Thirty-four states still offer only the GED. Because of the way they're designed, plus their lower cost and paper-and-pencil delivery options, "HiSET and TASC are much fairer to students," Spring argues.”

Why make the test harder? In what way did they make it more difficult, besides the new requirement that it be taken on a computer? See the following OpEd on the subject. http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Restore-GED-Fairness-in-Life_Arts-Common-Core_Education_Education-Curriculum-140803-410.html, Restore GED Fairness, Quicklink submitted by Don Smith , August 3, 2014 . This article specifically complains about the Common Core math which it views as unnecessarily difficult, and possibly above the understanding level of most high school students. The article says that Common Core math does away with such things as multiplication, etc., and uses theoretical problems instead. It seems the new GED has been bought by Pearson, a for-profit organization linked to Bill Gates, and uses the new Common Core math rather than what the kids have been taught. If this is true of Common Core, I will have to change my opinion about states mandating teaching it. The article blames the change to Pearson and a competency test of this kind on the demands of many businesses who want some objective way of evaluating would-be employees, and a standardized test fills the bill. I have clipped below a summary selection from what is a long article on the website http://restoregedfairness.org/. I suggest you look at the site for more information. The two new alternative tests are preferred at this site over the 2014 GED.

“Thank you to the Washington State Democratic Party 
for passing our Resolution on September 13th 2014 at the Democratic Party State Convention in Ferndale, Washington to allow the HiSET test to be a testing option in Washington State. If students can have the HiSET test as an option to the Pearson Vue GED test, thousands more Washington students will be able to enter college and get a job because the HiSET test is normed to the actual abilities of high school student nationwide, while the Pearson Vue GED is not. Thank you for your sense of justice Washington State Democrats!

Why We Need to Restore GED Fairness

“Any business that released products that had never been tested in the real world, that had never been subject to corrections based on experience, would soon be bankrupt.”     

 Math Teacher Explains What is Wrong with the Common Core January 28 2014   http://dianeravitch.net/2014/01/28/26541/ – “When I saw the math portion of the 2014 Pearson GED test in March 2014, I was surprised by its difficulty. I had taught GED classes several years ago, and this new math test was nothing like the previous math test. I took the new GED math test myself and flunked. I also learned that only 2 students from our GED program earned their GED during Winter quarter 2014 on the Pearson GED test compared to the usual 25 students. I did some research and found out that very few students earned their GED in Washington state during winter quarter 2014. I started thinking. Why did Washington State adapt this difficult test? Do students really need to be able to answer two-step probability questions to get training to be a hair stylist or a nursing assistant?  

      Since then I have given a sample GED math test of 5 questions to 40 people with college degrees and only 5 people could answer 4 out of the 5 questions correctly. I figured if educated people can't pass the GED math test, it isn't a fair test. I don't expect many people who have dropped out of high school will stay with a GED program one to two years to meet the demands of the math test. I think we will better serve these students by having a test that they can pass more easily and then get them into college or job training as soon as possible, so they are not stuck in remediation to get to a math level which they may never need. By the way, of the five people who could pass the mini 5 question GED math test, two were engineers and one was a math major. All 40 people I gave the test to, like me, wonder what is going on. The purpose of this website is to try to understand what is going on and to seek a remedy."
Elizabeth Hanson, M. Ed. Basic Skills Teacher

We are two college educators who want to inform parents and other concerned citizens about the harm currently being inflicted on at-risk young adults by a few misguided billionaires. Together we have more than 40 years of experience teaching at local community colleges.  In January 2014, the difficulty of the Math portion of the GED test was greatly increased in order to align with a billionaire funded untested program called Common Core - which was supposedly developed to prepare students for a 4 year college degree program but which was actually developed to make schools and students look like failures in order to accelerate the drive to privatize our public schools while helping Wall Street hedge fund manager make billions of dollars selling shoddy “educational” products to uninformed parents and their kids. Everywhere Common Core tests have been implemented, from New York to Kentucky to California, student failure rates have skyrocketed. Here in Washington State, the pass rate for the new test has fallen from a historical rate of about 60% to an estimated rate of less than 10%. The problem is not with our students. It is with the fatally flawed math portion of this Common Core test. 

Corrupt Corporate Takeover of the GED
 
Please, someone, time for in-depth journalism or a dissertation that documents how Pearson bought American education and what it means for our children. 
Diane Ravitch November 26 2012 
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/26/does-pearson-own-american-education/

I agree. Let's take a closer look at a huge corporation called Pearson and their role in destroying the GED, destroying our schools and destroying the self esteem of our children and young adults. 

History of the GED

The first GED exam was created in 1942 by the non-profit American Council on Education to help World War II veterans. Since then the exam has been updated three times – in 1978, 1988 and 2002. More than 17 million people have earned their GED certificate. A new update of the GED was scheduled for 2012, but then it was postponed because of major changes in US curriculum due to a Gates Foundation backed scam called Common Core. In 2011, a for-profit corporation called Pearson took over the GED and created a Common Core version of the GED which they released in January 2014. 

What difference does it make if the GED test is owned by a nonprofit agency or a for-profit corporation?

The GED test has historically been a gateway to college and better employment opportunities for countless out of school youth and adults. The keys to that gateway are now controlled by a for- profit organization. 

Why the 2014 GED Test Changed So Dramatically
 
An important step in problem solving is understanding the underlying cause of the problem. That is certainly true with solving the GED test problem as this extremely harmful test is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem. That deeper problem is the takeover of our educational system and our government by a handful of billionaires who buy elections and bribe elected and non—elected officials to do their bidding. 

The reason the GED difficulty was increased dramatically was to accommodate a new kind of math called Common Core. This gets rid of traditional math skills such as multiplication and division and replaces these with a convoluted series of abstract mind games that are not developmentally appropriate for most young children. Below is a short 4 minute video where a mom explains this problem to her extremely misguided school board.” 





http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/08/375914334/honda-fined-70-million-for-underreporting-deaths-and-injuries

Honda Fined $70 Million For Underreporting Deaths And Injuries
Sam Sanders
JANUARY 08, 2015

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has fined Honda $70 million, for according to NHTSA, "failing to report deaths, injuries, and certain warranty claims to the federal government." NHTSA says Honda failed to report 1,729 death and injury claims tied to their vehicles between 2003 and 2014, and that the company failed to submit "early warning reports identifying potential or actual safety issues." The NHTSA also claims Honda underreported warranty and customer dissatisfaction claims.

Congress limits NHTSA fines to $35 million, but the $70 million fine total for Honda was accomplished by fining the company twice: once on the death and injury claims, and another time on the warranty and dissatisfaction claims.

Honda has issued a response to the fines, and said "it has identified several shortcomings in its compliance with NHTSA's Early Warning Reporting requirements."

The AP reports that Honda said in a statement, "We have resolved this matter and will move forward to build on the important actions Honda has already taken to address our past shortcomings in early warning reporting."

The Wall Street Journal reports that under a consent order Honda signed related to the fines, the company will have to do more than just pay $70 million:
"...the Japanese auto maker will be forced to complete two audits from third parties of the company's compliance with regulatory reporting obligations. Honda will also have to train personnel on an annual basis and develop written procedures for complying with early-warning-reporting requirements, which mandate that auto makers submit quarterly reports to regulators flagging deaths, injuries and customer complaints with vehicles, among other things."

NHTSA says its issued more than $126 million in civil penalties in 2014 alone, a number "exceeding the total amount collected by the agency during its forty-three year history."

The Center for Auto Safety was one of the first organizations to raise questions about Honda's record on reporting deaths and injuries. The advocacy group sent an open letter to NHTSA in October of 2014, alleging that Honda was "not reporting all death and injury claims filed against it with NHTSA." The Center for Auto Safety's executive director Clarence Ditlow told NPR that he's happy the company is being punished, but also said, "In reality 70 million dollars is a small amount of money to a auto manufacturer, which can make billions of dollars each year in profits."

Ditlow did say he's hopeful the Department of Justice will investigate and fine Honda as well, because fines from that department can be larger than $35 million. "The Justice Department can open a criminal investigation, as it did with Toyota, which can lead to billion-dollar fines," said Ditlow. "And that's an amount of money that's enough to make even the largest auto company sit-up."




I do love my Honda, but their failure to report safety concerns and complaints until forced to do so makes them look like other billion-dollar businesses who are above the law. This article states that $70,000,000 is a drop in the bucket to Honda, but that if the Justice Department sues them for billions, perhaps they will “sit up.” Big business is a world that is basically corrupt. The switch keys that mysteriously turn themselves off while the car is moving are more shocking to me, though. That is a nightmare scenario, like when brakes fail at 70 mph, and the airbags that open explosively and eject pieces of metal – shrapnel in other words. I try to keep my speed in the 50 mph range except when on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit, and then I only go 60. I also drive in the right lane when possible, so I can turn the wheel to the right on to a berm if something like a brake failure happens. I would rather run into a ditch than into another car.





http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/07/375616162/compound-from-soil-bacteria-may-help-fight-dangerous-germs

Scientists Hit Antibiotic Pay Dirt Growing Finicky Bacteria In Lab
Richard Harris
January 7, 2015

Scientists say they have discovered a natural compound from bacteria that may prove to be a potent new antibiotic. This news comes at a time when many current antibiotics are losing their oomph — germs become resistant to them.

The new compound is especially intriguing because it appears that it might not lose its germ-killing potential, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Curiously, the researchers didn't set out to find new antibiotics. Kim Lewis and his colleagues at Northeastern University in Boston were actually figuring out how to grow bacteria that had never been grown in the lab before.

"The majority of bacteria on this planet are 'uncultured,' meaning they don't grow on our petri dishes," Lewis says. "And when I'm talking about 'the majority,' it is 99 percent."

So Lewis and his colleagues developed a system that allows them to explore this biologically rich but secretive world. Basically they built a vessel that would hold bacteria-rich soil between two membranes.

"Then this contraption, which we call a diffusion chamber, it goes back into the soil from which we took the bacteria," Lewis says.

It turns out that once bacteria  start growing and building tiny colonies in the contraption, those colonies can be transferred to the lab. At that point they do grow in Petri dishes. Lewis' lab was off to the races.

This is much more than just a curiosity. Most antibiotics are derived from natural products secreted by bacteria and fungi that live in the soil, including widely used drugs such as Terramycin, Vancomycin and Streptomycin.

So Lewis, collaborating with a company he co-founded called NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, started examining the natural compounds secreted by his newly isolated soil bacteria to look for potential new antibiotics.

They've already found more than two dozen. And one of them, which they've named teixobactin, looked like a winner: It's deadly to several different kinds of disease-causing bacteria and isn't toxic to mice.

"It cured mice of skin and thigh and lung infections," Lewis says. In the lab the compound killed bacteria that cause serious staph infections, strep and tuberculosis. But the best part came when they ran another set of crucial tests.

"The most intriguing thing about this compound is the apparent absence of resistance development," Lewis says.

It seems that disease-causing bacteria don't become resistant to this antibiotic. And that's because the antibiotic latches on to parts of the bacteria's cell wall that can't mutate. Mutations are how bacteria typically develop defenses against drugs.

So Lewis is making a bold claim, tentative as it may be: "This for all practical purposes may be a largely resistance-free compound," he says.

"That's pretty exciting news, I think, for the field," saysGerry Wright, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Antibiotic resistance keeps infectious-disease doctors up at night. For instance, there are some strains of tuberculosis that have developed resistance to all known antibiotics. Still, getting from discovery to drug isn't easy.

Wright says there are economic and regulatory challenges in bringing a new antibiotic to market, which governments have been working to solve.

"We're moving in the right direction there, and so if we can kick start the science at the same time, we'll have a route toward helping to solve the antibiotics crisis," Wright says.

Scientists still need to test teixobactin in people. That's likely to take several years, and there's no guarantee it will work as well in humans as it does in mice. (NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Mass., a company founded by Lewis and Slava Epstein, another Northeastern professor, holds the patent for this potential drug, Lewis says).

Even if this particular product doesn't pan out, Lewis and his colleagues at Northeastern now have plenty of other tough-to-grow bacteria that they can study in the hunt for new antibiotics.




“So Lewis and his colleagues developed a system that allows them to explore this biologically rich but secretive world. Basically they built a vessel that would hold bacteria-rich soil between two membranes. "Then this contraption, which we call a diffusion chamber, it goes back into the soil from which we took the bacteria," Lewis says. It turns out that once bacteria  start growing and building tiny colonies in the contraption, those colonies can be transferred to the lab. At that point they do grow in Petri dishes. Lewis' lab was off to the races.... Most antibiotics are derived from natural products secreted by bacteria and fungi that live in the soil... They've already found more than two dozen. And one of them, which they've named teixobactin, looked like a winner: It's deadly to several different kinds of disease-causing bacteria and isn't toxic to mice.... In the lab the compound killed bacteria that cause serious staph infections, strep and tuberculosis. But the best part came when they ran another set of crucial tests. "The most intriguing thing about this compound is the apparent absence of resistance development," Lewis says.... And that's because the antibiotic latches on to parts of the bacteria's cell wall that can't mutate. Mutations are how bacteria typically develop defenses against drugs.... Scientists still need to test teixobactin in people. That's likely to take several years, and there's no guarantee it will work as well in humans as it does in mice.”

This is really good news. I had been concerned – not quite worried, because I have a certain confidence in science to keep solving problems – about this problem with our antibiotics one by one becoming ineffective. One of my fears about having any kind of surgery is that I will pick up a resistant staph bacteria from the hospital while I'm in there. I have become conscious of the need to carefully take antibiotic pills exactly according to the doctor's instructions, as bacteria can grow and mutate in the few hours between when I took my pill and when I should have taken it, thus possibly making the germ resistant. I hope these new antibiotics will be as useful and helpful in humans, as they are in mice.