Antibiotics found in cockroaches

Cockroach brains. It was the last thing I expected to encounter in the hallway.
 We were at saint somebody church for a wedding reception. On the way back from taking a break from the festivities I stopped to check out the bulletin board. There were notices about a guy who had donated a large sum of money, two reminders for an upcoming Russian festival, pictures of fresh-faced children and an article about cockroach brains.
 My brother-in-law saw it, too and can verify that I am not making this up. The article said that the brains of cockroaches produce antibiotics. Who knew they even had brains? It was something I had never thought about before. Apparently these nasty insects make substances that can destroy some of the deadlier bacteria such as Escheria coli and others that have become resistant to traditional antibiotics. Perhaps that is how they can thrive amongst filth.
Further investigation revealed that the critter’s brain is not one tiny little thing in its head. Rather the brain is spread throughout its body. Talk about strange!
Researchers from the University of Nottingham noticed that soldiers returning from the Middle East had unusual infections, but the bugs were “unperturbed.” How could a person tell if an insect is perturbed or not?
So what did the scientists do? They didn’t assume that the soldiers had been exposed to diseases to which they had no natural immunity. Nope. They ground up various cockroach body parts and mixed them with different bacteria to see what would happen. They did the same with locusts. “Leaving these mixtures overnight on petri dishes revealed that the extracts from brains and from locust thorax nerve tissue killed nearly 100 percent of the bacteria.”
First, most normal people don’t chop up insects and then put them in petri dishes with deadly bacteria. How did they even think of that? Second, Nottingham? As in Robin Hood? That’s what the article said. The article was subtitled Cockroach Brains. I guess locusts aren’t disgusting enough to grab our attention.
 The story pinned to the corkboard was from the National Geographic, which is a very reliable publication. Everything I’ve looked up since I first saw the torn page confirms what I read at the reception. The gist of the story was that someday we may find a use for the vermin.
 That was the only thing that bothered me. Do we really think that every living thing on this planet is here to be exploited by us? Can’t we accept that there are some creatures that exist that have no benefit to mankind? I didn’t think so.
 I talked to my brother-in-law for awhile before heading back to our table. Our table mate, a retired wine seller, was in the middle of a story about how much our old hometown of Dayton, Ohio had changed. So much of what we remembered had been torn down since the last time we were there. I did not tell them about the cockroach brain article in the hallway. Apparently he and his wife own a bed and breakfast in the older part of town and I didn’t think they would appreciate a story about bugs of any kind, even if they might someday provide a cure for what ails us.
We watched the bride and her friends dance to everything from oldies, to bluegrass to polka. We finally said our goodbyes and went back to our  hotel. There was a teensy weensy spider in the bathtub. I scooped him out onto the spotless floor with a warning to stay away from researchers, especially ones from a prestigious university in the United Kingdom.
I never would have guessed that I would find out so much about medical research by going to a reception or that cockroaches could be so interesting.[[In-content Ad]]