Anyone want a virus sandwich this morning?

[Jamastiene]

Who wants a virus coated hot dog?
Coming soon to a deli near you.

FDA approves viruses for treating food

Sat Aug 19, 2:55 AM ET

WASHINGTON - A mix of bacteria-killing viruses can be safely sprayed on cold cuts, hot dogs and sausages to combat common microbes that kill hundreds of people a year, federal health officials said Friday in granting the first-ever approval of viruses as a food additive.

The combination of six viruses is designed to be sprayed on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products, including sliced ham and turkey, said John Vazzana, president and chief executive officer of manufacturer Intralytix Inc.

<snip>
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060819/ap_on_he_me/edible_viruses

[radwriter0555]

1. Another cultural first for American Food.

YUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[billyskank]

2. I wonder in what ways this can go horribly wrong?

:scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke: :scared: :puke:

[Jamastiene]

3. I'm sure there will be a movie in the future

about this subject. I can just see it now. This is going to be weird.

Btw, your smilies are making me think my cursor looks like it is blinking faster than normal. Is that an illusion?

[billyskank]

4. No, the cursor really is flickering

Wierd!

[Jamastiene]

5. Did your cursor flicker was faster than normal too?

It is weird. I wonder what caused that. Are the smilies javascripted? That may be it. Javascript does that sometimes. Otherwise, I don't know.

[billyskank]

6. No javascript

The smileys are just animated gifs.

What's most wierd is, chances are you're using a different browser to me, and on a different operating system too.

[Jamastiene]

14. Netscape 7.2 and Windows XP Home Edition

service pack 2 is my setup.

I meant to insert the animated gifs (smilies) into the html code, do they use javascript on the forms where we post messages?

[MoseyWalker]

7. this sounds like an onion article

This is what we've come to? Spraying viruses on our food supply?

Holy Mary, mother of grilled cheese.

[WCGreen]

8. Well, there was this woman I knew named Iris....

And she worked with this pretty little thing named Violet...

Now she was so tiny that she felt she did not deserve a name so large as violet so she just called herself V...

IT was no coincidence that these two girls, I can say girls cause they was girls when they started to work over to the Combine Factory, though I met them though when they was whole women...

Well they was a fussin' over somthin' one day in the plant, by this time they was women but everyone in town still called them girls cause the weren't married yet, that's what folks use to do back then...

I says to them in my most melodious voice... "Lady's, can I be assisting you gettin' yourselfs out of this fussin' you seem to have gotten yourselfs into. No one should be a fussin' on such a fine morning as this..."

I said that cause it was a fine morning...

Well they as started to gigglie real girlie like but with a lot of women under all that gigglin', if you get my meaning...

"and they said, WCGreen, you sure can..."

They knew my name 'cause most everyone did, bein' that I was the most handsomest man in those parts...

Well V grabbed up one hand and the Iris took hold of the other and they pulled me out to the combine testin' area out back behind that plant...

Next thing I know we was a rollin' in the hay that was left over from testin' the combines and Iris was on the right side and V was there on the left and we was a rollin' around in that hay...

Well doncha know that we all read on left to right unless of course you were one of the chosen folk who read from right to left...

So I looked left and saw V....

And I looked right and and saw Iris...

And I said, outloud mind you....

"Thank you lord for lettin' me have this Viris Sandwitch...."

[Whoa_Nelly]

9. Well...guess it's time to get back to growing my own food and

cooking at home.

:yoiks: This is insane. It takes years, and still more years to come, to approve HIV/AIDS drugs, but viruses?? Sure, why not...we can TRUST the FDA to be looking out for our best interests. :sarcasm:

[deucemagnet]

10. Not to worry, they're only bacteriophages, and they're...

perfectly safe. Actually that's a pretty clever use for the bacteriophage.

Just a little background on the bacteriophage: they are a special type of virus that only infect bacteria (their name means "bacteria eater"). They're very useful in molecular biology for making genomic libraries. In Russia, a lot of effort was put into "phage therapy", in which certain species of phage were used to treat infections in people. Phage therapy never became popular outside of Russia, because the human immune system eliminated the phages before they could finish their job and destroy the bacteria causing the infection. After the Manhattan Project, some of the scientists felt bad about what they had created. They decided to concentrate on something that could be beneficial to mankind. What did they study? If you guessed bacteriophages, you are correct!

[MoseyWalker]

11. thanks for the info!

that sets my mind to rest a little, but that evolving, changing thing still bothers me.

:hi:

[BreweryYardRat]

12. Ditto.

We don't want them mutating to prey on our digestive bacteria.

[deucemagnet]

13. I guess it will take a little while for the public to accept it.

I'm a microbiologist, so this type of thing doesn't bother me in the least.

Here's another thing I didn't mention about phages: they look really cool! I had to download a few pics after my last post. Phages look and act like little lunar landers, and once they bind to their receptor on the bacterial surface, they inject the DNA contained in the head just like a syringe.



Here's an electron micrograph of many phage attacking a bacterium:

[Deja Q]

15. Hundreds in a nation of hundreds of millions?

I'd rather risk death.

Mind you, with this crackpot idea, I probably needn't worry.

After all, I don't eat those particular foods.