Three faiths to a building

Berlin thinks it is making religious history as Muslims, Jews, and Christians join hands to build a place where they can all worship. The House of One, as it is being called, will be a synagogue, a church, and a mosque under one roof. An architecture competition was held and a winner chosen - the striking design being a brick building with a tall, square central tower. Off the courtyard will be the houses of worship for the three faiths - a synagogue, a church, and a mosque - and each of the three areas in the House will be the same size, but of a different shape designed according to the religious needs and particularities of each faith. There are for instance two levels in the mosque and the synagogue but only one in the church. There will be an organ in the church and places to wash feet in the mosque. The complex is to occupy a prominent site - Petriplatz - in the heart of Berlin. The location is highly significant, according to one of the three religious leaders involved, for the city where Jewish suffering was planned is now the city where a centre is being built by the three monotheistic religions which shaped European culture. But enough about that because speaking of culture, a weakness in the defences of "superbug" bacteria has been uncovered by British scientists, raising the prospect of new treatments to tackle infections that are resistant to antibiotics. The researchers have identified a weakness affecting the membrane barrier that surrounds some of the most drug-resistant bacterial cells. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, may pave the way to a new generation of drugs that work by bringing down the defensive wall. At the heart of their findings is the way "gram negative" bacterial cells transport the barrier's molecular "bricks". Professor Changjiang Dong, from the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Norwich Medical School, said: "We have identified the path and gate used by the bacteria to transport the barrier building blocks to the outer surface. Importantly we have demonstrated that the bacteria would die if the gate is locked. This is really important because drug-resistant bacteria is a global health problem. Many current antibiotics are becoming useless, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. The number of superbugs are increasing at an unexpected rate. This research provides the platform for urgently needed new-generation drugs." There will be an obvious risk with this new development: the bacteria will in time realise what's going on and from there adapt to survive, requiring us to go further just to stay on top of the bacteria, which is already important as the rise of resistant bacteria around the world poses a global threat greater than that of climate change. Bugs such as MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are becoming increasingly immune even to antibiotics that are the last resort in treatment, adding risk to operations and procedures that should be routine.