It’s always interesting to read about the federal regulations about protecting workers spraying toxic chemicals on commercial food products. They have to wear what appear to be astronaut suits because the chemicals are that dangerous. It sounds like something from an agrihorror movie but what’s even more egregious is how most people make these products the core of their health without consciousness of the reality of it.
The new microbiome questions
Science writer Michael Pollan presents an honest and interesting assessment of the emerging science of microbiome health. Say Hello to the 100 Trillion Bacteria That Make Up Your Microbiome - NYTimes.com
The suggested trajectory of the research is that many health and dyshealth trends today might reflect the impacts of agriculural and dietary practices that impact the microbioecosystem we are.
As it turns out, we are a tiny 10% of our whole physiological self hosting the other 90% of microorganisms.
This research will challenge medicine that continues interventions like antibiotics that destroy our natural biosystems. It will challenge commercial food growing and processing practices responsible for massive profits and political advantages.
Architectural resilience
Bridgette Meinhold’s new book, “Urgent Architecture” features dozens of housing models designed to withstand the misfortunes of earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes and rising sea levels. They bend and float, adapt and are portable for the most outrageous weather conditions. Inhabitat
As climate change continues to loom large in preparedness planning globally, these kinds of affordable solutions will be crucial to well-being especially in lower geographic and economic areas.
The end of mental disorders
The current controversy over the DSM-5 is an interesting study in how psychology has at least one foot in the past as it attempts to go forward. This is the psychiatric “bible” of mental disorders used to justify medications, services, benefits, and insurance to people labeled variously with “mental disorders.”
One of the more compelling criticisms of the whole effort is that it reflects outdated science and none of the more relevant and validated sciences like the neurosciences.
The provocation of the neurosciences and cognitive behavioral sciences is that choiceful behavior, regardless of diagnosis, has direct impact on the chemical structures of the brain that in the old sciences are held responsible for behavior.
The future of healthy behavior is requiring behavioral literacy from birth and before in parents and families. The unintended consequences of labels are the continuation of old sciences that have no practical validity because they create the very external locus of control that makes people give up hope in their own self-efficacy.
Fortunately, this is an actionable problem.
The future of entertainment
The entertainment industry has always been inventive and continues its creativity in continuously reinventing its relevance. Its prime asset is not its properties, brands, or financials. Its prime asset is the demand. I would argue that people demand to be pacified as consumers of entertainment to the extent that they are not engaged in their work and world.
The data is there. The vast majority of people feel actively disengaged in their workplaces and communities.
This is not a rant against passive entertainment. It is a call for creating new venues where people can become creators of entertainment and more fully engaged as contributors to a happier world.