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Taz, the Warner Bros. version of the Tasmanian devil. Youtube/Warner Bros.

Tasmanian devils could hold the key in a battle to save the lives of 10 million humans

Milk from the marsupial could be used to battle superbugs.

MOTHER’S MILK FROM the marsupials known as Tasmanian devils could help the global fight against increasingly deadly “superbugs” which resist antibiotics.

Superbugs are bacteria which cannot be treated by current antibiotics and other drugs, with a recent British study saying they could kill up to 10 million people globally by 2050.

Scientists at the University of Sydney found that peptides in the marsupial’s milk killed resistant bacteria, including methicillin-resistant golden staph bacteria and enterococcus that is resistant to the powerful antibiotic vancomycin.

The researchers turned to marsupials like the devil — which carry their young in a pouch after birth to complete their development — because of their biology.

The underdeveloped young have an immature immune system when they are born, yet survive growth in their mother’s bacteria-filled pouch.

“We think this has led to an expansion of these peptides in marsupials,” University of Sydney PhD candidate Emma Peel, who worked on the research published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, told AFP.

“Marsupials have more peptides than other mammals. In the devil we found six, whereas humans have only one of this type of peptide.

“Other research in other marsupials has shown that tammar wallabies have eight of these peptides and opossums have 12,” said Peel, adding that studies into koala’s milk had now started.

Australia Devils' Last Stand Tasmanian devils are known for their voracious appetite. Rob Griffith Rob Griffith

The scientists artificially created the antimicrobial peptides, called cathelicidins, after extracting the sequence from the devil’s genome, and found they “killed the resistant bacteria… and other bacteria”.

They are hopeful marsupial peptides could eventually be used to develop new antibiotics for humans to aid the battle against superbugs.

“One of the most difficult things in today’s world is to try and find new antibiotics for drug-resistant strains of bacteria,” the research manager of the university’s Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group, Carolyn Hogg, told AFP.

Most of the other previous antibiotics have come from plants, moulds and other work that’s been around for close to a 100 years, so it’s time to start looking elsewhere.

World Health Organisation director-general Margaret Chan warned last month some scientists were describing the impact of superbugs as a “slow-motion tsunami” and the situation was “bad and getting worse”.

© – AFP 2016

Read: ‘There’s never a minute in the day I don’t feel pain’ >

Read: ‘I regret not talking to my mother about her death, don’t do the same thing’ >

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    Mute DublinCity
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    May 29th 2013, 6:16 PM

    That would go well with my Eva Braun coffee pot.

    211
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    Mute Joseph McGranaghan
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    May 29th 2013, 10:26 PM

    Only for show…

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    Mute Leslie Alan Rock
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    May 29th 2013, 6:23 PM

    Heil have a cup please

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    Mute Leigh Power
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    May 30th 2013, 8:23 AM

    Reich now?

    15
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    Mute Hakuin Murphy
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    May 29th 2013, 6:52 PM

    $199.99 on eBay! That’s a bit reich!

    167
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    Mute Oliver Walker
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    May 29th 2013, 6:43 PM

    I do nazi the resemblance

    134
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    Mute Paul Callaghan
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    May 29th 2013, 6:51 PM

    Definitely a product of the Nazi Partea

    65
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    Mute David
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    May 29th 2013, 6:17 PM

    I once saw a pot that looked like Pol.

    128
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    Mute Darragh Ó Tuathail
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    May 29th 2013, 6:19 PM

    Love it

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    Mute David Boyce
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    May 29th 2013, 6:11 PM

    A storm in a teacup

    126
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    Mute Eamonn Casey
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    May 29th 2013, 7:55 PM

    Is that the final solution or will there be a redesign?

    61
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    Mute Eamon
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    May 29th 2013, 9:18 PM

    I asked the shop assistant “Where can I get one of these?” He told me to “head towards the back of the shop and take the third Reich.”

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    Mute The Polar Bear
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    May 29th 2013, 6:09 PM

    A kettle that looks like Hitler. I don’t see it.

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    Mute DublinLad
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    May 29th 2013, 6:35 PM

    Turn your phone sideways.

    It’ll be as clear as day then…

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    Mute Elizabeth Gibson
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    May 29th 2013, 6:40 PM

    It’s all to do with the handle of the kettle and the knob on the lid, comic hitler.

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    Mute Elizabeth Gibson
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    May 29th 2013, 6:41 PM

    Should say look at the white background through the handle

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    Mute DublinLad
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    May 29th 2013, 6:49 PM

    Stevie Wonder can see the bloody resemblance!

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    Mute ieoinu
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    May 29th 2013, 9:06 PM

    Too soon Barry, too soon!!

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    Mute Niamh May
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    May 29th 2013, 9:43 PM

    Polar bear, step away from your device and have a look from a distance. It worked for me.

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    Mute Ciaran Pollard
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    May 30th 2013, 12:55 AM

    Now it just looks like Hitler laying on his side…

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    Mute Ciara Dowdall
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    May 29th 2013, 6:48 PM

    Looks like they’re in a bit of hot water over this…

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    Mute Ann M Kirwan
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    May 29th 2013, 6:25 PM

    How the hell did they come to that conclusion ?

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    Mute Padraig Stapleton
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    May 29th 2013, 10:50 PM

    Arbeit macht tay.

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    Mute Patty McGonagle
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    May 29th 2013, 6:41 PM

    lets hope the tea party don’t see that kettle!

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    Mute Darragh O Meara
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    May 29th 2013, 7:48 PM

    I’d say the designer got a little giggle when he realised. No better way to sell a few kettles though. You couldn’t buy advertisement like that.

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    Mute Slagrider
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    May 29th 2013, 10:00 PM

    Right, you know Henry Ford,as in Ford motors? Henry was the first non german to be inducted to the nazi party. Anyways, you know Fords car adverts on telly? The slogan “Go Further” ya, if you take out the T ( as in tea,model T ) in further,and swap the R and H around…what do you get?? Spooky shit there man!

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    Mute Linda Fegan
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    May 29th 2013, 10:07 PM

    Are you stoned?!!

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    Mute ieoinu
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    May 29th 2013, 9:07 PM

    I want one!!!!!

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    Mute Lee Maxwell
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    May 29th 2013, 11:08 PM

    Jeez do people have nothing better to do than complain about a kettle?

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    Mute Maurice Riordan
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    May 30th 2013, 2:29 PM

    They do indeed, Lee. For myself, I have been roaring at my cutlery drawer all morning. Much more worthwhile and less intrusive. That spatula is some bastard, it has to be said.

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    Mute Cathy Conley-Portka
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    May 29th 2013, 10:11 PM

    struggling to see the resemblence

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