Free Republic

What the hell? No store here in Columbus has toilet paper. I'm not looking to hoard the stuff, I just need to be able to wipe my a**. Why toilet paper???? People must have the stuff packed to the rafters in their basements and garages. Best I can figure the news about no toilet paper during the Venezuela economic meltdown must have scarred our psyche pretty bad. It's to the point where it might be prudent for the secretary of commerce to hold a news conference and re-assure folks that there is no toilet paper shortage.

The journal Clinical Infectious Disease recently published findings showing that a cluster of antibiotic-resistant bacteria called Campylobacter coli has been found in a number of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Seattle, Wa., and Montreal, Canada. According to researchers, one of the bacterial strains has acquired a new gene that makes it able to resist antibiotics via the DNA sequences known as CRISPR, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Shortchanged Palindromic Repeats. (Not to be confused with the gene-editing technology also known as CRISPR.)

Travellers suffering from "Montezuma's revenge" or "Delhi belly" can take comfort from the discovery that the bacteria responsible for the runs may protect against cancer. The find also suggests a new way to treat colorectal cancer. Researchers were struck by how the cancer strikes disproportionately more often in industrial nations than developing countries. Conversely, traveller's diarrhoea, caused by intestinal Ecoli infections, is more prevalent in developing countries. Dr GianMario Pitari and colleagues at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the growth rate of a population of actively dividing cancer cells...

<p>The Golden Arches aren't going away. And poor Ronald McDonald will continue to muster a smile.</p> <p>McDonald's in Hinsdale, Ill., looks cheery, but the chain has problems.</p> <p>But with a new CEO on tap, just about everything else at McDonald's (MCD) is on the table. Or, perhaps, soon could be flying off the table.</p>