Microbiome treatments are taking off - The Economist   

In a small laboratory at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London, Désirée Prossomariti is processing donations. Each is weighed, tested for pathogens, filtered, centrifuged and then freeze-dried, before being turned into a powder to be encapsulated and given to patients. The process takes a strong stomach, for the donations are of fresh faecal matter. “I don’t smell it any more,” says Dr Prossomariti.

The lab workers are not interested in the faeces themselves, but the tiny organisms they carry. Scientists have long known that the guts of animals, including humans, are full of bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms. But it is only recently that they have come to understand just how important they are. Far from a collection of mere passengers, the microbiome is a vital part of a healthy body. Its members help break down food, produce chemicals that regulate the body within which they live, and repress the growth of other, harmful species of bacteria.

It is one of those harmful bacterial species that Dr Prossomariti’s pills are designed to repress, through a process known as a “faecal microbiota transplantation” (FMT). Five pills (or “crapsules”, as the lab workers like to call them) can overcome a recurrent infection of Clostridium difficile, a bacterium which has evolved resistance to many antibiotics. As its name suggests, the idea is to copy a healthy person’s gut ecosystem and reproduce it in someone whose microbiome is out-of-kilter.

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A new gonorrhoea drug was developed by a non-profit foundation - The Economist   

GONORRHoEA IS an old affliction. The book of Leviticus mentions a contagious condition involving the continuous emission of semen and a painful erection. Only 2,500 years later, in the mid-20th century, did the discovery of antibiotics bring relief.

But not, perhaps, for long. Decades of exposure to antibiotics have led N. gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes the disease, to develop resistance. With few new antibiotics coming onto the market, the bug is once again gaining the upper hand. Failures of treatment are being reported in many countries. It is now designated a “priority” pathogen by the World Health Organisation.

The news on November 1st that zoliflodacin, a new antibiotic, had been successful in a clinical trial was thus welcome. The drug inhibits an enzyme called type II topoisomerase, which, among other things, is vital to bacterial reproduction. More interesting than how zoliflodacin works, though, is how it came into being. Most drugs are developed by private companies. Zoliflodacin was created with the assistance of the American government and the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), a non-profit outfit funded by a mix of organisations including the Wellcome Trust, a big charity, and the Swiss canton of Geneva.

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Could AI help find valuable mineral deposits? - The Economist   

The future is electric. That means it will need a lot of batteries, motors and wires. That, in turn, means a lot of cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel with which to build them.  Great times, then, for prospectors, and particularly for any who think they can increase the efficiency of their profession. Several firms are applying artificial intelligence (AI) to the process, both to improve the odds of surface strikes and to detect underground ore bodies that are invisible to current techniques.

KoBold Metals in Berkeley, California, Earth AI in San Francisco and VerAI in Boston are tiddlers at the moment, as are SensOre, in Melbourne and OreFox, in Brisbane. But at least one bigger fish—Rio Tinto, an Australian-British firm—is also keen. They are garnering reams of geological, geochemical and geophysical data to feed to software models. These, they hope, will spot patterns and draw inferences about where to sink new mines.

Some of the data are new. But a lot once mouldered in the archives of national geological surveys, journals of geology and other historical repositories—or, in the case of Rio Tinto, which has been operating for 150 years, sat in the form of rock cores in various sheds around the world.

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How two teams plan to smash the world sailing-speed record - The Economist   

Launched in 1869, the Cutty Sark was the fastest sailing ship of its time. These days the clipper is a London tourist attraction. In its prime, when it dashed across the world carrying tea from China and wool from Australia, it could reach a heady 17 knots (31.5kph, or 19.6mph). Modern racing yachts, employing radical designs based on 150 years of advances in aerodynamics and hydromechanics, go much faster. And even stranger craft are hoving into view, as part of an attempt to break the speed record for a sail-powered craft, which was set, in 2012, at 65 knots.

Speeds have been rising for years. In the 1970s, as hulls became narrower and slippier, racing yachts began to slice through water at more than 30 knots. In the 1980s daredevil windsurfers reached over 40 knots. They were overtaken in the 2000s by kitesurfers at more than 55 knots. The physical demands and risk of injury from balancing on a small board at such a pace, however, means that sailing vessels—of a sort—are back in the race.

The present record was set by Paul Larsen, an Australian. He used an odd-looking catamaran called Vestas Sailrocket 2, which rose above the water on hydrofoils and was propelled by a wingsail. These rigid structures, which resemble a vertically mounted aircraft wing, harness the wind more efficiently than cloth sails.

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