Desert Creosote Bush Could Treat Giardia and “Brain-Eating” Amoeba Infections
health.ucsd.edu
health.ucsd.edu
Even setting aside the arguably much greater ethical and moral issues with such extinctions, think of all the species that could have yielded remarkable and useful secrets to us after proper research -- if they still existed. Sometimes I wonder if by such wanton destruction is sealing its own doom.
Perhaps a cure to a some future cataclysmic disease outbreak might have lain in a formerly living organism that can no longer help us because we killed it off. Or maybe some revolutionary new material could have been inspired by an extinct species, had we only been able to study it.
In fact, it's almost guaranteed at this point that humanity has reached an instigation of self-controlled evolution take-over that can no longer be stopped or turned back, short of an extremely near-term (within a century or so) self-destruction event.
Within this century, humans will no longer exist as we think of the species today. There's no amount of extinction that is likely to occur in that time frame to prevent humanity from pushing radically forward in governing its own evolution. Where we're going, these 'natural medicinal opportunities' will not matter. The hyper evolutionary leap that has already begun with robotics, CRISPR, AI, etc., will make most of this discussion hilariously trivial very soon. There's nothing that likely can stop what's coming at this point (unless someone wants to load up an asteroid event soon).
> We previously developed a high-throughput screening CellTiter-Glo ATP bioluminescence-based assay to assess antiparasitic activity [48], and used this assay to test compounds 1–9 against the trophozoite stage of E. histolytica, G. lamblia, and N. fowleri. Compounds 1–6 displayed dose response antiparasitic activity against all three pathogens by reducing the culture density by 50% (EC50) compared to untreated trophozoite cultures (Table 3).
If I am translating it correctly, they only tested this in vitro (not in rats, not in humans). So, as you say, this may not be useful to cure us. Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1217/
Indeed, scuppernogs have an excellent reputation for disease resistance. The xkcd is very relevant, also for grapes.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/06/18/how...
It must have some properties, it grows in unbelievably dry and hot areas and nothing eats it. It doesn't seem to be susceptible to fungus or rots or really anything I've ever observed.
And if this has anything to it, there is a whole lot of creosote stretching from West Texas to California that isn't much good for much else. Except making the desert smell wonderful when light rains pass through.
Wonder what a creosote fed Oryx steak tastes like? And presumably free from brain ameoba as well!
Send that bush to China now! I have yet to know anybody who lived in a big city in China and never had it