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How to survive boiling water

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Re: How to survive boiling water

#81
post #57

Fascinating post. Why did the author steep the tea at home? "It was at this point I realized I needed a sterile-ish way to transport the steeped tea and tea bags from my house to the lab." Was steeping the tea at home somehow relevant to the experiment?

If I had to guess, it would be because that's exactly the environment and process that consumers will use, so it would capture variables such as "what if the probiotic was out-competed by a bacteria living on your mug?" And then I would assume the sterile transfer was to preserve this state of the tea as-made without changing it on the way to the lab.

So bring mugs to the lab? Make the tea in a kitchen at the lab?

Re: How to survive boiling water

#82
post #69

> about 7 out of 10 people in the U.S. were prescribed antibiotics in 2024 according to . This blew my mind so I double checked the source. It links to https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/data-research/antibio... which contains some numbers but not the claim. It links to various reports, the latest one (2024 at the time of writing) https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/media/pdfs/2024-Annual-Re... says at the top of…

There's no way 7 in 10 people were prescribed antibiotics in 2024. This looks like a simple and egregious misinterpretation of the data, which seem to be all too common. I could believe there were 700 prescriptions given in the US per 1000 people in the US population. But many of those would be repeats to the same smaller number of people. I still would say there's way too much antiobiotic use - every time doctors ha…

This would be my read.

Hell - my children just this year would have counted for 10+ doses (my daughter 6 all by herself for a series of severe ear infections).

Re: How to survive boiling water

#83
post #69

> about 7 out of 10 people in the U.S. were prescribed antibiotics in 2024 according to . This blew my mind so I double checked the source. It links to https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/data-research/antibio... which contains some numbers but not the claim. It links to various reports, the latest one (2024 at the time of writing) https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/media/pdfs/2024-Annual-Re... says at the top of…

Yes, it's "number of prescriptions" (but not "number of people prescribed" or "number of doses"). One person could be prescribed an antibiotic (or multiple) several times a year.

I'm amazed that there are 1216 antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 people per year in West Virginia though (2.5x the rate of California or Colorado, which itself frankly seems pretty high). Are large parts of the South just awash with bacterial infections, are people being prescribed antibiotics for viral illnesses, or are they just taking antibiotics prophylactically?

Re: How to survive boiling water

#84

Hockey stick? Glass beads? What happened to the good old inoculating loop?

Loops are good for streaking. It's hard to get even coverage with a loop, so loops would make it hard to get accurate CFU/ml counts. Loops are more likely to get you single colonies even if you're inoculating from a high density culture, so loops are usually used when picking single colonies is the goal. Sterilized cheap flat toothpicks work pretty well for streaking too.

Re: How to survive boiling water

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a lot of arguments that sounded, at first glance, like legitimate concerns. But I haven't seen any that weren't rooted in "People are telling me to be scared so my concern must be legitimate," or "I don't know how this works and it sounds new so I'm worried." I think people with followings online got a ton of economic benefit from scaring people, the same as the rest of the news industry. Remember Upton Si…

> I think people with followings online got a ton of economic benefit from scaring people Yes, it was very upsetting at the time and unfortunately remains a constant. I guess one has to go through that at least once to recognize a grifter. > so even in hindsight, none of the concerns seem to have been legitimate. The point was not only that the vaccines were rushed, it was also that there was a tremendous amount of c…

> There are a few countries that didn't do that (Sweden comes to mind) and they ended up not having a much worse outcome than anyone else.

I have no doubt Sweden did better than say sub-saharan africa. But it seems to me that only their neighbors are good comparison and they did worse than all of them.

Norway 1,050 deaths / million

Denmark 1,696 deaths / million

Finland 2,058 deaths / million

Sweden 2,812 deaths / million

> The government turned tyrannical re: vaccines and mandates, did the guns help?

I mean, the federal government had no mandate. So like were Floridians going to shoot up DeSantis because he didn't make a mandate? Or shoot up the other guy they elected, Trump (Biden not president until Jan 2021).

And then you don't really expect New Yorkers who elected Coumo to then shoot him up either?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_...

Re: How to survive boiling water

#86
post #69

> about 7 out of 10 people in the U.S. were prescribed antibiotics in 2024 according to . This blew my mind so I double checked the source. It links to https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/data-research/antibio... which contains some numbers but not the claim. It links to various reports, the latest one (2024 at the time of writing) https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/media/pdfs/2024-Annual-Re... says at the top of…

Yes, it's "number of prescriptions" (but not "number of people prescribed" or "number of doses"). One person could be prescribed an antibiotic (or multiple) several times a year. I'm amazed that there are 1216 antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 people per year in West Virginia though (2.5x the rate of California or Colorado, which itself frankly seems pretty high). Are large parts of the South just awash with bacteria…

> antibiotics prophylactically

Ticks are pretty bad nearby in WPA, I've taken antibiotics prophylactically for them.

Re: How to survive boiling water

#87
post #69

> about 7 out of 10 people in the U.S. were prescribed antibiotics in 2024 according to . This blew my mind so I double checked the source. It links to https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/data-research/antibio... which contains some numbers but not the claim. It links to various reports, the latest one (2024 at the time of writing) https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/media/pdfs/2024-Annual-Re... says at the top of…

Wait is that individual doses? Like one prescription would commonly be for 20-30 doses.

Re: How to survive boiling water

#88
post #69

> about 7 out of 10 people in the U.S. were prescribed antibiotics in 2024 according to . This blew my mind so I double checked the source. It links to https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/data-research/antibio... which contains some numbers but not the claim. It links to various reports, the latest one (2024 at the time of writing) https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/media/pdfs/2024-Annual-Re... says at the top of…

I had 2 or 3 rounds of antibiotics and steroids in 2025 for a stubborn ear infection.

Re: How to survive boiling water

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's "number of prescriptions" (but not "number of people prescribed" or "number of doses"). One person could be prescribed an antibiotic (or multiple) several times a year. I'm amazed that there are 1216 antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 people per year in West Virginia though (2.5x the rate of California or Colorado, which itself frankly seems pretty high). Are large parts of the South just awash with bacteria…

> antibiotics prophylactically Ticks are pretty bad nearby in WPA, I've taken antibiotics prophylactically for them.

What about ivermectin? I've taken ivermectin prophylactically when traveling because I'm afraid of bed bugs. Pretty sure you can do the same with ticks. Just stop by your local farm supply store and pick up some of that nasty apple flavored horse paste. Just make sure you dose it right. Easy to do. Absolutely disgusting.

Re: How to survive boiling water

#90
post #69

> about 7 out of 10 people in the U.S. were prescribed antibiotics in 2024 according to . This blew my mind so I double checked the source. It links to https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/hcp/data-research/antibio... which contains some numbers but not the claim. It links to various reports, the latest one (2024 at the time of writing) https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/media/pdfs/2024-Annual-Re... says at the top of…

Yes I stopped reading there after checking the source myself and seeing the same discrepancy. I had also noticed earlier in the article she wrote, "This finding was great news for Napoleon. The French were losing money, and perhaps more alarmingly, their reputation, exporting wine to the British – the wine would “spontaneously” go bad during shipping."

Pasteur was born after Napoleon was exiled. Maybe she is referring to Napoleon III, but then it's misleading to just write "Napoleon." Two factual mistakes in the first couple pages and I can't trust the rest. Especially on a topic I know little about so I can't be discerning regarding.

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