Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

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Tag Archive for ‘antibiotic’

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Antibiotic resistance impacting wildlife

Bottlenose dolphins and humans have a lot in common…at least when it comes to developing resistance to antibiotics. After looking at over 700 pathogens collected from 171 wild Bottlenose dolphins captured in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida, researchers discovered that 88.2% of the pathogens were resistant to at least one antibiotic. The pathogens were especially resistant to erythromycin (91.6%) and ampicillin (77.3%). The animals were likely exposed to antibiotics […]

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Discovering new antibiotics in…saliva??

Scientists have discovered that they can quickly identify new antibiotics using bear saliva. This is because saliva from East Siberian brown bears is home to a diversity of bacteria. (Okay granted, this is true of many wild animals – the study referenced here focused on bears.) Although it does not sound very sophisticated, a team of scientists at Rutgers University thought that they may be able to identify novel antibiotics […]

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“Shirley Temple” protein found in platypus milk may help fight drug-resistant bacteria

Platypuses are rather bizarre mammals. For one, they lay eggs and although they feed their young milk, they sweat this milk from glands on their belly. Because the young lap up the milk and they live in burrows, they are exposed to microbes at a very young age. Like many mammals, platypus milk has antibiotic properties to help protect the young. However, the antibiotic protein found in platypus milk appears […]

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#4: Komodo Dragons have antibacterial blood

Komodo Dragon

Here is the 4th most popular post so far this year: Researchers studying komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) at George Mason University discovered 48 previously unknown peptides in their blood that might have antimicrobial properties. Their findings were published in the Journal of Proteome Research. For the largest lizard, these peptides may help prevent the animals from getting infections from their own saliva, which is host to at least 57 species of bacteria. With this number […]

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