Early warnings are too late when parameters change rapidly.

Tipping (or sudden transition) from a desirable state to an undesirable one can result in catastrophic changes, affecting natural environments, human societies and economies. Early warning signals (EWSs) are developed to forewarn such an impending tipping. However, when control parameters are varied fast, we observe that EWSs detect an impending tipping past bifurcation points; this questions the applicability of EWSs in preventing tipping.

High-throughput method for Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing based on Fluorescein Quenching by Bacteria: Application to Urinary Tract Infection.

We recently reported a sugar-induced bacterial release of 13-Docosenamide and its ability to quench fluorescein. This simple handle to monitor bacterial growth is readily applicable to develop a quicker antibiotic sensitivity testing method along with a low-cost field-use optical instrumentation. Conditions were standardized to perform this new procedure in the most preferred and CLSI-recommended microdilution format in 12-well strips.

13-Docosenamide release by bacteria in response to glucose during growth-fluorescein quenching and clinical application.

Our investigations on extracellular biochemical events to find readily and sensitively detectable/measurable molecular targets for developing easier, simpler, and quicker diagnostic methods and tools for bacterial pathogens led to the observation that bacteria grown in the presence of glucose produced a compound capable of quenching fluorescein. Under the experimental conditions, among various sugars, glucose was found to induce maximum amount of the quencher when Escherichia coli was grown in presence of 50 mM glucose in rarified LB. The release of quencher closely following bacterial growth significantly from fourth hour after moderate inoculation.