Monday, April 23, 2012

A TB-busting Discovery


In 1882 Robert Koch discovered the TB bacillus—one of the human race’s oldest pests—and one that continues to infect about one third of us. The bacterium doesn’t rate high in our awareness in comfortable Middle America because it tends to thrive in poverty and rides piggyback with other ailments like HIV, also rampant in the third world. A latent form of the microbe hides out within us, however, ready to strike when opportunity arises. Such dormant TB recently turned up in 120 Longmont students in Colorado and among college students at CU.

The May issue of the North Forty News will carry my article about some good news regarding TB: CSU researchers have found a way to keep TB cell walls from forming properly—a discovery that may provide a potent new weapon for replacing antibiotics that are rapidly becoming ineffective. Check in at www.northfortynews.com sometime after April 24. The article will be under “Science and Nature.”

I created the following image of Koch and his microbe discovery using white pencil and charcoal pencil on blue matteboard. I feathered the boundary in Photoshop. I believe the monocolor approach will work well on other future projects. Pencil is still an effective medium.


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