Protease Antipain

In the few centuries since bacteria and viruses were known to cause diseases, zoonotic epidemics have become linked with animals, some used as food: Cholera from any animal feces, influenza from chicken and pigs, plague and typhus from bats, cats, opossums and rats, salmonella from all poultry, smallpox (killed 500 million people over 12,000 years) and tuberculosis from cows. Mosquito bites transfer Chikungunya, West Nile and Zika viruses, dengue fever, and malaria among humans. Pandemic incites health concerns; people gravitate to whatever they think improves immunity, including bicycling. A  plethora of ills and potential for death await those who don't proceed with care.

To fight Hepatitis C, HIV, and retroviruses, they’ve developed several antipain drugs around protease inhibitors which have extended patients’ lives up to 60%. Some of these compounds are found in common foodstuffs: Apple, banana, cabbage, legumes such as soybeans, potatoes, seeds, spinach, some herbs and spices, tomatoes, what’s generally identified as ingredients of a healthy diet, and whole wheat. A couple of almonds every day are supposed to preclude cancer. Is relying on food quackery or will dripping elderberry syrup into your tea actually prevent contagion or provide a remedy? You are what you eat, it’s said; food is fuel, and inner chemistry enables mental focus and rational stability. Too little Vitamin D you get for free from sunshine causes depression. Niacin deficiency can cause psychoses. Sugar and white flour increase incidence of diabetes. A human body completely replaces itself every 7 years or so, some parts more quickly, versus brain cells irrevocably lost along with memories and spirit, which can be a source of serious distress. To forget and forgive might relieve your stress.

When three friends - played in childhood by Christina Ricci, Gaby Hoffmann and Thora Birch - reconnect in 1991 to help Ashley Aston Moore through end of her first pregnancy, they compare Now and Then (Lesli Linka Glatter, dir., 1995), their coming-of-age summer. During big bike boom of 1970, all kids on camera have one that they ride incessantly around otherwise empty suburban streets. Gaby attempts to retrieve a bracelet from a storm drain but gets trapped as water rises. Walter Sparrow, whose reclusive character only comes out at night to ride his bike, rescues her. Adult perspectives allow them to reconcile. Critics knocked film as a girly version of Stand By Me, though it has become an admired cult classic.

Television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, Season 8, Episode 21 (1997) was a roast of movie Time Chasers (David Giancola, dir., 1994). Crow (Bill Corbett) complains, "Come on, this can't be the hero of the film. He has a geeky ten speed bicycle. He should have at least have a cool burnt orange Stingray. This can't be the star. Maybe he's going into the house to meet the real hero." In one scene cyclist/inventor/protagonist Matthew Bruch carjacks a Yugo, crashes it into a rack of bikes, flips car over, pardons himself saying to owner, "I don't drive," then steals a bike to continue his flight from corporate goons chasing him. Duly listed in B&C's appendix, took until today's cable streaming to actually watch this low budget turkey.

You must count health among gifts you have to apply to retain. Rigorous exercise boosts mood, builds stamina, and buoys libido. Everything that Lila Says (Ziad Doueiri, dir., 2004) bubbles up from an abundance of hormones, apex of imagination, and avid self propulsion. After moving in with her aunt in the Arab ghetto and throughout story sweet sixteen Lila (Vahina Giocante) in a short skirt rides her moped around contemporary Marseilles like a pro to tease young men. Story narrator Chimo (Mohammed Khouas) falls for her simulation of smoldering sophistication, and she his kind sincerity. There’s a long scene of a heavy petting balanced aboard her rolling bike. Chimo’s fickle friends sexually harass her, and jealous pack leader rapes her, proving she was a virgin after all her worldly words. Heartbroken, Lila moves to Poland, and Chimo plans to follow, but writing this story earns him a scholarship to an exclusive Paris school.

A lonely elephant escapes zoo captivity through an abandoned Santander bike-share unit, a London Underground subway ride, then a purchased unicycle to home on Serengeti Plain in Paradise, Coldplay’s 2011 hit. "When she was just a girl she expected the world, but it flew away from her reach... Life goes on, it gets so heavy. The wheel breaks the butterfly, every tear a waterfall. In the night, the stormy night, away she'd fly and dream of paradise." You can say you saw everything once you see an elephant fly.

Very Good Girls (Naomi Foner, dir., 2013) Gerri (Elizabeth Olsen) and Lily (Dakota Fanning) take trains from Flatbush enclave to Brighton Beach to meet up and skinny dip. Then they ride their bicycles along sea strand. Later they talk of divesting themselves of the vexation of virginity before going off to college at summer’s end. Gerri collides with an ice cream truck manned by David (Boyd Holbrook) and starts flirting. David is really an artist who takes photographs and turns them into posters he pastes all over New York City. When Lily sees one that shows her bicycling from behind, she returns to ice cream cart and starts an affair with David. Gerri gets jealous, and tries to seduce David after her dad dies. This threatens her friendship with Lily.

Life goes haywire for newlywed GenXers Alice and John Macy (Juno Temple and Michael Angararo) when Alice swipes The Brass Teapot (Ramaa Mosley, dir., 2013) from an antique shop owned by an aged Nazi concentration camp survivor. Since ancient times, the teapot was coveted and stolen by generals, genocidal maniacs, heads of state, and history’s most infamous villains, including Hitler. All exploited its one magical property: treasure commensurate with the degree of pain or suffering. emotional or physical, holder personally experiences or witnesses. In this social allegory on greedy effects and mental defects, the Macys are nonentities. John commutes by bike to a dead end telemarketing job. Unemployed recent grad Alice takes their beater Pinto to her consecutive unsuccessful interviews. When she accidentally burns herself, teapot belches out a couple of Benjamins, seemingly a godsend for a couple struggling to make ends meet. But there’s a curse, of course.

After successful Afghan ops together, soldier Robbie Arnell, handler for USMC Malinois dog Max (Boaz Yakin, dir., 2015), advances into a Taliban held position to protect injured dog, but gets gunned down doing so. His teenage brother Josh Wiggins, who sells illegally copied video games, winds up with surviving hero, who’s talent is sniffing out munition caches. They embark on a series of adventures together in which dog teaches boy the bad pay and bitter fruit of crime.

The Intergalactic Council of Superior Beings (voices of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Terry Jones) intercepts Voyager II, then convenes as judge and jury to try Earth for destruction or inclusion, not that they’ve ever chosen the latter. Procedure means randomly selecting a sole individual, very nearly settling upon Sarah Palin, to have power to do Absolutely Anything (Terry Jones, dir., 2015). Nope, it’s bicycling nerd, school teacher, and small man Neil (Simon Pegg). Neil just wants to not get run over by a van, which tacos his wheel causing him to be late again, survive another day among his unruly students, and woo lovely neighbor Catherine (Kate Beckinsale), who hardly knows he exists. Discovering his powers, then doing selfish or stupid things with them, including making his dog Dennis (Robin Williams, posthumously, in final film role) talk and think like a human, are enough to convince him to transfer his powers to Dennis, which averts global catastrophe at the final moment. Anyone but a bicyclist would have done worse.

The Brothers Grimsby (Louis Leterrier, dir., 2016), orphaned and separated as children, reunite and retreat to their Lincolnshire home town, where juvenile delinquents on bikes roam litter laden, traffic free streets devoid of industry. Nobody dad of eleven kids Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen), a demented soccer hooligan who works the dole system with devoted girlfriend Rebel Wilson, and secret agent Sebastian (Mark Strong), falsely accused of going rogue, fight through adversaries on both sides to prevent terrorist Penelope Cruz from killing billions of poor people. Despite disgusting scenes and slapstick antics, these heroes save the day, and noted bike hater Donald Trump dies of AIDS along the way. Hurray!

Cultural artifacts related to bicycling are forever emerging, so it's hard to keep up chore of cataloging. One can query many search engines to find references to bicycling, but results relate not to culture primarily but to racing, as if life is nought but a Darwinian contest you cannot escape and must lose. Aggravating. Aussie filmmakers Eleanor Sharpe and Nickolas Bird document MAMIL (2018) regarding middle-aged weekend warriors clad in lyric who have “all the gear and no idea” what drives them from family and jobs into obsessed road lust. Maybe it’s just a chance to test self esteem against hand picked competitors for narcissistic dominance in land down under. Narrated by long time Tour reporter Phil Liggett, this string of sound bites purports to clarify.