Hopefully you will find this as interesting as I did. Several years ago, I read a news article about a woman whose husband contracted a bacterial infection that was antibiotic resistant.  In the article, he was near death, like, VERY near. He had been sick for months, barely alive, and doctors had no more treatments, The wife was an infectious disease epidemiologist, a researcher, not a doctor. She had one idea left.
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Their story has come out in book form, called The Perfect Predator. As we travel a great deal by car, we listen to a lot of books, and that was the last one we listened to. I was fairly riveted by the story, though mostly by the actual science of it, less the more personal stuff. Still, it was an amazing story.

You can read an actual news article about them HERE. 

You can read a bit more about the book HERE. 
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Basically, there has been a lack of new classes of antibiotics in 60 years, and the existing ones are becoming less useful as bacteria adapts and becomes resistant to them. As such, our health care system faces some dire problems in the future, in a way, regressing our ability to fight infections to pre world war 2, and penicillin days.

A hundred years ago though, there was a science going on trying to fight infections with viruses. It seems weird to think, but some viruses live to ‘eat’ some bacteria. And that science has continued throughout the century, though with the advent of antibiotics, it has been studied far less in western medicine. Particularly, it has been continued to be studied in the former Soviet Union, and specifically, in Russia, Georgia, and Poland.

These viruses, called Phages by the author of the book, are collected from all kinds of places, as viruses thrive in all kinds of places, particularly waste. Okay, so all this preface to a story and book that I enjoyed is really to get to this, AI was used reccently to invent a new class of antibiotics. Read about it HERE. New Class of Antibiotics Discovered Using AI | Scientific American

It is a fascinating article, not only about the use of AI, but using the AI to also EXPLAIN how the AI came to its conclusion. Instead of using the AI to solve a problem, the scientist asked the AI to show how it came up with the solution, thereby teaching the scientists its method, and also proving its theory.

While antibiotics appear to have a lifespan of usefulness, being able to invent new ones will be critical to the health of humans. Having something else in the arsenal of fighting infections, whether it’s a new antibiotic, or a new format completely, as in phages, will be critical to the continued survival of our world as we know it. That sounds overdramatic, but I don’t think it is.
Fighting infections has arguably been the single most important medical advancement in human history. Surgery, dentistry, cuts and abrasions, food borne illness, eating, drinking, human interaction, they are all able to spread infections. Fighting off those infections is a human requirement.

By Rick Rouse

Note: Rick's Tech Tips provides helpful tech tips for all levels of Tech.   Sign up for this newsletter.

You probably know how important it is to wipe all of your personal information from your computer’s hard drive before selling it or giving it away.
But did you know it’s just as important to wipe away every trace of your digital life from your smart phone before selling it as well?
Lets face it, there’s really no way to know whether the person who answered your Craigslist ad is honest or not.
And what if the buyer is simply curious by nature and decides to take a gander at the photos you’ve taken and the text messages you’ve sent and received over the years?
Believe me when I tell you that whatever information is on your phone when you hand it over to a new owner will almost certainly be viewed and read.
That’s why it’s extremely important to digitally wipe your phone clean of any and all personal files and information before handing it over to the buyer after you sell it. Here’s what you need to do:
1 – Back up your contacts and photos so you’ll be able to restore them onto your new phone.
If you have an Android phone you’ll find instructions for backing it up right here.
If you have an iPhone, click here.
2 – If your phone has a SIM card, remove it and keep it. The new owner can (and should) procure one of his/her own.
3 – If the phone has an SD card installed in it, remove it and keep it.
Note: Be sure to let the buyer know you’re selling the phone without SIM card or SD card.
That should prevent them from being upset later if they bought the phone expecting it to have those items.
4 – Reset the phone back to its factory settings.
You’ll find instructions for resetting the phone in its user manual.
If you no longer have the manual you should be able to download or access a digital copy from the “Support” section of the manufacturer’s website.
Now that you have removed all of your personal information and photos, you can safely hand over the phone to its new owner with no worries.

My brother reminded me that I forgot the most important tech tip EVER, in last week’s News. So here goes, hang on tight.

Try rebooting! What that actually means is to do a power cycle, or, power it off, then power it on. Yes, that is likely the single most critical and worthwhile tech tip I can offer. And it’s not just me, a lot of tech folks will tell you, ‘Rebooting’ cures a whole lotta what ails you.

From TVs to cars, to phones and computers, a power cycle can often be just the thing to resolve problems. Too bad you can’t do that with our government, but I digress.

So Bruce, thanks for the reminder.

Now, on to the next thing. Tech can be tricky, and super frustrating, so be patient, and if you are getting angry, then call for help. Call your kid, or your grandkid. Call a neighbor or a friend, but don’t get mad. Sometimes you need to take a break. Feel free to write me at [email protected] if you need to, and I’ll try and help.

Don’t fall for any scams. I talked about this last week and, over that time, I received several, including one from ‘UPS’ about a package unable to be delivered to me.  What’s the thing about getting a text message that says ‘Hi’, or the one saying they haven’t seen me in a while and let’s get together and blah blah blah. I delete those and report them as junk, which is an option when selecting Delete.
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Final tech tip of the day, ease up on the tech. Go take a hike, or at least a walk, and look around where we live. It’s stunning here. Northern New Mexico has to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Don’t want to walk, then drive. One of the most stunning drives I’ve ever done is up Hwy 84 to 64 and across to Taos, and then down to Espanola through the Rio Grande Gorge. So much to see.

By BD Bondy
 
Carol asked me to write about my 5 favorite tech tips from the past year. Since I don’t remember any of them, I’ll just write about 5 good tech tips.
 
If you still actually use a computer, particularly for writing, then learn the basic keyboard shortcuts. Copy & Paste, Bold, Underline, End, That sort of thing. A Windows link you should have is HERE. 
 
For Apple Users HERE:
 
Backup your data. On tablets and phones, you’re probably saving to a cloud based service that backs up a certain amount of your data. That’s a good thing. However, if you only backup 5Gb of the data, you probably need to buy some more space. On my iPhone, it’s 99 cents a month to get 50Gb of data, which backs up both my phone and my computer. Carol pays for one or two terabytes of data, as she has more devices and more to save. On my PC, I use a backup drive. I attach it every once in a while and copy and paste the folders I want saved. On a Mac, you can use Time Machine.
 
Keep your device up to date. For the most part, this is a great thing to do. You can turn the option off on many devices, but it’s usually a good idea to keep it up to date. Bugs get fixed, new security updates get installed, and once in a while, a new feature will be loaded.
 
Use the cruise control on your car. And I mean, set it to the speed limit. It’ll keep you going a steady speed, maybe avoid getting stopped by a cop, and it’s easier to drive that way. Don’t be in a hurry, relax, and enjoy the ride. It’s best to get to where you’re going safely and in one piece.
 
Look out for scammers. Don’t believe everything you see on your device. Social media is not the right place to get your news. The IRS isn’t sending you messages to pay up, the US Marshal’s aren’t requiring you pay a fine or go to jail, and Apple and Microsoft are definitely not monitoring your computer for viruses and trying to fix it for a fee.
 
I still get messages from “UPS” that say they couldn’t deliver a package and please call this number, blah blah blah. They’ve been coming to my house for over 20 years, so there’s no reason they can’t deliver a package. Often, the grammar is obvious enough that something is fishy, but checking the sender’s email address by clicking on it and expanding the info is a great way to find that it isn’t really from whomever they say they are.
 
There you go, some free tech advice, worth every penny. 

It’s the end of 2023, and another ‘good riddance’ I say. That’s not really fair, as there were some great things in 2023. And there’s always good and bad to live with. That’s the real world, I suppose. I am fortunate enough to have a great deal to be thankful for, so I will amend my statement to, ‘so long 2023’.
 
For those of us lucky enough to live in Northern New Mexico, technology sometimes seems a fuzzy, distant thing on the horizon. It seems to come upon us more slowly here. It also sometimes sneaks in on us, without our noticing. Driving through Espanola, there are a lot of Wi-Fi devices and cameras mounted on the traffic lights. Subtle, in a way you might not notice.
 
I have a bunch of cameras at my house, mostly to watch the animals that show up, but also to see when the UPS driver snuck up so quietly and left several packages, so quietly my dog didn’t notice. The guy is a Ninja.
 
I was facetiming my daughter last night and it was dark on her end. She said something like ‘Hey Google, turn on the living room lights’ and the room lit up a second later. I forget that sort of thing is easy to do and commonplace elsewhere. I have a friend here in Abiquiu that controls his office lights with his iPhone. I guess it’s not so far off. I feel like a chump as I have to stand up and walk over to the lightswitch. Still, I can look at the feral cat that lives under our porch, from an app on my phone, so I’m not a total troglodyte.
 
All this is a lead-in to an article I read about some commonly used IoT, or Internet of Things. My refrigerator isn’t ordering groceries for me yet, but that tech is out there. My cousins are farmers in Illinois and their tractors map the planting using GPS, which is then used during the harvest. John Deere is definitely a leading edge company when it comes to using tech in agriculture.
 
We have a smart thermostat that is controlled from Carol’s phone. She can access the thermostat from anywhere she has an internet connection. Particularly useful when we’re coming home, let’s say, from a long day in Santa Fe and it’s gotten cold and we’d like to warm the house up for when we get there.
 
Medicine is getting into it with smart watches that can not only monitor your heart rate, but they can measure your oxygen, temperature and some are now doing blood pressure and blood glucose. I have a little pocket device that can do an EKG. I can see in the near future where you can have clothing with built in sensors that send info to your phone about your health.
 
Newer cars are connecting to the internet now as well, not only for navigation and music, but they can automatically sense an accident and send an ‘SOS’ for help. There is way more going on than what is obvious, and you can read about some of that HERE. Real-World Examples of IoT Software Development Success (msn.com)