Category Archives: Immortality Medicine

To mark our 150th year, were revisiting thePopular Sciencestories (both hits and misses) that helped define scientific progress, understanding, and innovationwith an added hint of modern context. Explore theNotable pagesand check out all our anniversary coverage here.

Germs first came into focus, literally, under the microscope of Robert Koch, a doctor practicing in East Prussia in the 19th century. Until then, as Popular Science reported in September 1883, getting sick was attributed to everything from evil spirits to impurities of the blood. Koch first eyed Bacillus anthracis, or anthrax, in animal tissue in 1877, from which he linked microbes with disease. But it was his isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1881then known as consumptionthat set off an avalanche of germ discovery.

In the 1880s alone, Koch and others cataloged a slew of plagues: cholera (1883), salmonella (1884), diphtheria (1884), pneumonia (1886), meningitis (1887), and tetanus (1889). By 1881, Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, had already developed the worlds first vaccine, used on sheep to prevent anthrax.

Henry Gradle, a Chicago physician and the author of Popular Sciences 1883 The Germ-Theory of Disease (originally delivered as a lecture to the Chicago Philosophical Society in November, 1882) had been a pupil under Koch and brought word of the German and French discoveries to the US and UK. Gradle writes with great flourish, not holding back his disdain for those who disagreed with the new germ theory, likening them to savages of human antiquity who saw only evil spirits in diseaseas vulgar as such phrases are in a modern context.

Although now considered a watershed moment for medicine, at the time, germ theory had gaping holes, including anunderstanding of the immune systems role in disease. Antoine Bchamp, a chemist and Pasteurs bitter rival, argued that it was not germs but the state of the host (the patient) that caused illness otherwise, he noted, everyone would be sick all the time. Bchamp had his followers who stood fast against the germ theory.

As Thomas Kuhn, a noted scientific philosopher, proposed in his 1962 essay, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, paradigm shifts like germ theory were revolutions, because they shook both science and society.

Scourages of the human race and diseases are attributed by savages to the influence of evil spirits. Extremes often meet. What human intelligence suspected in its first dawn bas been verified by human intelligence in its highest development. Again, we have come to the belief of evil spirits in disease, but these destroyers have now assumed a tangible shape. Instead of the mere passive, unwitting efforts with which we have hitherto resisted them, we now begin to fight them in their own domain with all the resources of our intellect. For they are no longer invisible creatures of our own imagination, but with that omnipotent instrument, the microscope, we can see and identify them as living beings, of dimensions on the present verge of visibility. The study of these minute foes constitutes the germ theory.

This germ theory of disease is rising to such importance in medical discussions that it cannot be ignored by that part of the laity who aspire to a fair general information. For it has substituted a tangible reality for idle speculation and superstition so current formerly in the branch of medical science treating the causes of disease. Formerlythat is, within a period scarcely over nowthe first cause invoked to explain the origin of many diseases was the vague and much-abused bugbear cold. When that failed, obscure chemical changes, of which no one knew anything definitely, or impurities of the blood, a term of similar accuracy and convenience, were accused, while with regard to contagious diseases medical ignorance concealed itself by the invocation of a genus epidemicus. The germ theory, as far as it is applicable, does away with all these obscurities. It points out the way to investigate the causes of disease with the same spirit of inquiry with which we investigate all other occurrences in nature. In the light of the germ theory, disease is a struggle for existence between the parts of the organism and some parasite invading it. From this point of view, diseases become a part of the Darwinian program of nature.

The animal body may be compared to a vast colony, consisting as it docs of a mass of cells the ultimate elements of life. Each tissue, be it bone, muscle, liver, or brain, is made up of cells of its own kind, peculiar to and characteristic of the tissue. Each cell represents an element living by itself, but capable of continuing its life only by the aid it gets from other cells. By means of the blood vessels and the nervous system, the different cells of the body are put into a state of mutual connection and dependence. The animal system resembles in this way a republic, in which each citizen depends upon others for protection, subsistence, and the supply of the requisites of daily life. Accustomed as each citizen is to this mutual interdependence, he could not exist without it. Each citizen of this animal colony, each cell, can thrive only as long as the conditions persist to which it is adapted. These conditions comprise the proper supply of food and oxygen, the necessary removal of the waste products formed by the chemical activity of all parts of the body, the protection against external mechanical forces and temperature, as well as a number of minor details. Any interference with these conditions of life impairs the normal activity of the entire body, or, as the case may be, of the individual cells concerned. But the animal system possesses the means of resisting damaging influences. Death or inactivity of one or a few citizens does not disable the state. The body is not such a rigid piece of mechanism that the breakage of one wheel can arrest the action of the whole. Within certain limits, any damage done to individual groups of cells can be repaired by the compensating powers of the organism. It is only when this compensating faculty fails, when the body can not successfully resist an unfavorable influence, that a disturbance arises which we call disease. This definition enables us to understand how external violence, improper or insufficient food, poisons, and other unaccustomed influences, can produce disease. But modern research has rendered it likely that the diseases due to such causes are not so numerous as the affections produced by invasion of the body by parasites.

Of these a few are known to be animalsfor instance, the trichina, and some worms found in the blood in certain rare diseases. But the bulk of the hosts we have to contend with is of vegetable nature, and belongs to the lowest order of fungi-commonly termed bacteria.

Special names have been given to the different subdivisions of this class of microscopic beingsthe rod-shaped bacteria being termed bacilli; the granular specimens, micrococci; while the rarer forms, of the shape of a screw, arc known as spirilla.

Bacteria surround us from all quarters. The surface of the earth teems with them. No terrestrial waters are free from them. They form a part of the atmospheric dust, and are deposited upon all objects exposed to the air. It is difficult to demonstrate this truth directly with the microscope, for in the dry state bacteria are not readily recognized, especially when few in number. But we can easily detect their presence by their power of multiplication. We need but provide a suitable soil. An infusion of almost any animal or vegetable substance will sufficemeat broth, for instancethough not all bacteria will grow in the same soil. Such a fluid when freshly prepared and filtered, is clear as crystal, and remains so if well boiled and kept in a closed vessel, for boiling destroys any germs that may be present, while the access of others is prevented by closure of the flask. But as soon as we sow in this fluid a single bacterium, it multiplies to such an extent that within a clay the fluid is turbid from the presence of myriads of microscopic forms. For this purpose we can throw in any terrestrial object which has not been heated previously, or we can expose the fluid to the dust of the air. Air which has lost its dust by subsidence or filtration through cotton has not the power of starting bacterial life in a soil devoid of germs. Of course, the most certain way of filling our flask with bacteria is to introduce into it a drop from another fluid previously teeming with them.

In a suitable soil each bacterium grows and then divides into two young bacteria, it may be within less than an hour, which progeny continue the work of their ancestor. At this rate a single germ, if not stinted for food, can produce over fifteen million of its kind within twenty-four hours! More astounding even seems the calculation that one microscopic being, some forty billion of which can not weigh over one grain, might grow to the terrific mass of eight hundred tons within three days, were there but room and food for this growth!

During their growth the bacteria live upon the fluid, as all other plants do upon their soil. Characteristic, however, of bacteria-growth is the decomposition of any complex organic substances in the fluid to an extent entirely disproportionate to the weight of the bacteria themselves. This destructive action occurs wherever bacteria exist, be it in the experimental fluid, or in the solid animal or vegetable refuse where they are ordinarily found. It constitutes, in fact, rotting or putrefaction. The processes of decomposition of organic substances coming under the head of putrefaction are entirely the effect of bacterial life. Any influence, like heat, which kills the bacteria, arrests the putrefaction, and the latter does not set in again until other living bacteria gain access to the substance in question. Without bacteria, no putrefaction can occur, though bacteria can exist without putrefaction, in case there is no substance on hand which they can decompose.

No error has retarded more the progress of the germ theory than the false belief that the bacteria of putrefaction are identical with the germs of disease. The most contradictory results were obtained in experiments made to demonstrate on animals either the poisonous nature, or, on the other hand, the harmlessness, of the fungi commonly found in rotting refuse. But real contradictions do not exist in science; they are only apparent, because the results in any opposite eases were not obtained under identical conditions. The explanation of the variable effects of common putrefactiongerms upon animals is self-evident as soon as we admit that each parasitic disease is due to a separate species of bacteria, characteristic of the disease, producing only this form and no other affection; while, on the other band, the same disease can not be caused by any other but its special parasite. It can be affirmed, on the basis of decisive experiments, that the bacteria characteristic of various diseases float in the air, in many localities at least. Hence rotting material, teeming with bacterial life, may or may not contain disease-producing germs, according to whether the latter have settled upon it by accident or not. Even if these disease-producing species were as numerous in the dust as the common bacteria of putrefaction, which we do not know, they would be at a disadvantage, as far as their increase is concerned. For experience has shown that the germs of most diseases require a special soil for their growth, and can not live, like the agents of putrefaction, upon any organic refuse. In some cases, indeed, these microscopic parasites are so fastidious in their demands that they can not grow at all outside of the animal body which they are adapted to invade. Renee, if a decomposing fluid does contain them, they form at least a minority of the inhabitants, being crowded out by the more energetically growing forms. In the microscopic world there occurs as bitter a struggle for existence as is ever witnessed between the most highly organized beings. The species best adapted to the soil crowds out all its competitors.

Though the putrefaction bacteria, or, as Dumas calls them, the agents of corruption, are not identical with disease-producing germs, they are yet not harmless by themselves. Putrid fluids cause grave sickness when introduced into the blood of animals in any quantity. But this is not a bacterial disease proper; it is an instance of poisoning by certain substances produced by the life-agency of the bacteria while decomposing their soil. The latter themselves do not increase in the blood of the animal; they are killed in their struggle with the living animal cells. The putrefaction-bacteria need not be further present in the putrid solution to produce the poisonous effect on animals. They may be killed by boiling, if only the poisonous substances there formed remain.

In order to prove the bacterial origin of a disease two requirements are necessary: First, we must detect the characteristic bacteria in every case of that disease; secondly, we must reproduce a disease in other individuals by means of the isolated bacteria of that disease. Both these demonstrations may be very difficult. Some species of bacteria are so small and so transparent that they can not be easily, if at all, seen in the midst of animal tissues. This difficulty may be lessened by the use of staining agents, which color the bacteria differently from the animal cells. But it often requires long and tedious trials to find the right dye. The obstacles in the way of the second part of the proposition mentioned are no less appalling. Having found a suspected parasite in the blood or flesh of a patient, we can not accuse the parasite with certainty of being the cause of the disease, unless we can separate it entirely from the fluids and cells of the diseased body without depriving it of its virulence. In some cases it is not easy, if possible, to cultivate the parasite outside of the body; in other instances it can be readily accomplished. Of course, all such attempts require scrupulous care to prevent contamination from other germs that might accidentally be introduced into the same soil. If we can now reproduce the original disease in other animals by infection with these isolated bacteria, the chain of evidence is complete beyond cavil and doubt. But this last step may not be the least difficult, as many diseases of mankind can not be transferred to animals, or only to some few species.

If we apply these rigid requirements, there are not many diseases of man whose bacterial origin is beyond doubt. As the most unequivocal instance, we can mention splenic fever, or anthrax, a disease of domestic animals, which sometimes attacks man, and is then known as malignant pustule. The existence of a parasite in this affection in the form of minute rods and its power of reproducing the disease are among the best-established facts in medicine. It is also known that these rods form seeds, or spores, as they are termed, in their interior, after the death of the patient, which germinate again in proper soil. These spores are the most durable and resisting objects known in animated nature. If kept in the state of spores they possess an absolute immortality; no temperature short of prolonged boiling can destroy them, while they can resist the action of most poisons, even corrosive acids, to a scarcely credible extent.

Another disease, of vastly greater importance to man, has lately been added to the list of scourges of unquestionable bacterial origin. I refer to tuberculosis, or consumption. It is true, this claim is based upon the work of but one investigatorRobert Koch. But whoever reads his original description must admit that no dart of criticism can assail his impenetrable position. Here also a rod-shaped bacillus, extremely minute and delicate, has been found the inevitable companion of the disease. With marvelous patience Koch has succeeded in getting the parasite to grow in pure blood, and freeing it from all associated matter. It must have been a rare emotion that filled the soul of that indefatigable man, when he beheld for the first time, in its isolated state, the fell destroyer of over one eighth of all mankind! None of the animals experimented upon could withstand the concentrated virulence of the isolated parasite. This bacillus likewise produces spores of a persistent nature, which every consumptive patient spits broadcast into the world.

Relapsing fever is another disease of definitely proved origin. If we mention, furthermore, abscesses, the dependence of which on bacteria has lately been established, we have about exhausted the list of human afflictions about the cause of which there is no longer any doubt. Some diseases peculiar to lower animals belong also to this category. The classical researches of Pasteur have assigned the silkworm disease and chicken cholera to the same rank. Several forms of septicemia and pyemia have also been studied satisfactorily in animals. Indeed, the analogy between these and the kindred forms of blood-poisoning in man is so close that there can be no reasonable doubt as to the similarity of cause. This assumption, next door to certainty, applies equally to the fevers of childbirth. The experimental demonstration of the parasitic nature of leprosy, erysipelas, and diphtheria is not yet complete, though nearly so. Malarial fever also is claimed to belong to the category of known bacterial diseases, but the proofs do not seem as irreproachable to others as they do to their authors.

The entire class of contagious diseases of man can be suspected on just grounds of being of bacterial origin. All analogies, and not a few separate observations, are in favor of this view, while against it no valid argument can be adduced; but it must be admitted that the absolute proof is as yet wanting. Many diseases also, not known to be contagious, like pneumonia, rheumatism, and Brights disease, have been found associated with parasites, the role of which is yet uncertain. It is not sophistry to look forward to an application of the germ theory to all such diseases, if only for the reason that we know absolutely no other assignable cause, while the changes found in them resemble those known to be due to parasites. In the expectation of all who are not blinded by prejudice, the field is a vast one, which the germ theory is to cover some day, though progress can only continue if we accept nothing as proved until it is proved.

There can be little doubt that in many, perhaps in most instances, the disease-producing germs enter the body with the air we breathe. At any rate, the organism presents no other gate so accessible to germs as the lungs. Moreover, it has been shown that an air artificially impregnated with living germs can infect animals through the lungs. How far drinking water can be accused of causing sickness as the vehicle of parasites can not be stated with certainty. There is, as yet, very little evidence to the point, and what there is is ambiguous. Thus, exposed from all quarters to the attacks of these merciless invaders, it seems almost strange that we can resist their attacks to the extent that we do. In fact, one of the arguments used against the germ theorya weak one, it is trueis, that, while it explains why some fall victims to the germs, it does not explain why all others do not share their fate. If all of us are threatened alike by the invisible enemies in the air we breathe, how is it that so many escape? If we expose a hundred flasks of meat-broth to the same atmosphere, they will all become tainted alike, and in the same time. But the animal body is not a dead soil in which bacteria can vegetate without disturbance. Though our blood and juices are the most perfect food the parasites require, though the animal temperature gives them the best conditions of life, they must still struggle for their existence with the cells of the animal body. We do not know yet in what way our tissues defend themselves, but that they do resist, and often successfully, is an inevitable conclusion. We can show this resistance experimentally in some cases. The ordinary putrefaction-bacteria can thrive excellently in dead blood, but if injected into the living blood-vessels they speedily perish. Disease-producing germs, however, are better adapted to the conditions they meet within the body they invade, and hence they can the longer battle with their host, even though they succumb in the end.

The resistance or want of resistance which the body opposes to its invaders is medically referred to as the predisposition to the disease. What the real conditions of this predisposition are, we do not know. Experience has simply shown that different individuals have not an equal power to cope with the parasites. Here, as throughout all nature, the battle ends with the survival of the fittest. The invaders, if they gain a foothold at all, soon secure an advantage by reason of their terrific rate of increase. In some instances they carry on the war by producing poisonous substances, in others they rob the animal cells of food and oxygen. If the organism can withstand these assaults, can keep up its nutrition during the long siege, can ultimately destroy its assailants, it wins the battle. Fortunately for us, victory for once means victory forever, at least in many cases. Most contagious diseases attack an individual but once in his lifetime. The nature of this lucky immunity is unknown. The popular notion, that the disease has taken an alleged poison out of the body, has just as little substantial basis as the contrary assumption that the parasites have left in the body a substance destructive to themselves. It is not likely, indeed, that an explanation will ever be given on a purely chemical basis, but in what way the cells have been altered so as to baffle their assailants in a second attempt at invasion is as yet a matter of speculation. Unfortunately for us, there are other diseases of probable bacterial origin, which do not protect against, but directly invite, future attacks.

A question now much agitated is whether each kind of disease germs amounts to a distinct and separate species, or whether the parasite of one disease can be so changed as to produce other affections as well. When investigations on bacteria were first begun, it was taken for granted that all bacterial forms, yeast cells, and mold fungus, were but different stages of one and the same plant. This view has long since been recognized as false. But even yet some botanists claim that all bacteria are but one species, appearing under different forms according to their surroundings, and that these forms are mutually convertible. The question is a difficult one to answer, since bacteria of widely differing powers may resemble each other in form. Hence, if a species cultivated in a flask be contaminated by other germs accidentally introduced, which is very likely to happen, the gravest errors may arise. But the more our methods gain in precision, and the more positive our experience becomes, the more do we drift toward the view that each variety of bacteria represents a species as distinct and characteristic as the separate species among the higher animals. From a medical standpoint this view, indeed, is the only acceptable one.

A disease remains the same in essence, no matter whom it attacks or what its severity be in the individual case. Each contagious disease breeds only its own kind, and no other. When we experiment with an isolated disease-producing germ, it causes, always, one and the same affection, if it takes bold at all.

But evidence is beginning to accumulate that, though we can not change one species into another, we can modify the power and activity, in short, the virulence, of parasites. Pasteur has shown that when the bacteria of chicken cholera are kept in an open vessel, exposed to the air for many months, their power to struggle with the animal cells is gradually enfeebled. Taken at any stage during their decline of virulence, and placed in a fresh soil in which they can grow, be it in the body of an animal or outside, they multiply as before. But the new breed has only the modified virulence of its parents, and transmits the same to its progeny. Though the form of the parasite has been unaltered, its physiological activity has been modified: it produces no longer the fatal form of chicken cholera, but only a light attack, from which the animal recovers. By further enfeeblement of the parasite, the disease it gives to its host can be reduced in severity to almost any extent. These mild attacks, however, protect the animal against repetitions. By passing through the modified disease, the chicken obtains immunity from the fatal form. In the words of Pasteur, the parasite can be transformed into a vaccine virus by cultivation under conditions which enfeeble its power. The splendid view is thus opened to us of vaccinating, some day, against all diseasesin which one attack grants immunity against another. Pasteur has succeeded in the same way in another disease of much greater importance, namely, splenic fever. The parasite of this affection has also been modified by him, by special modes of cultivation, so as to produce a mild attack, protecting against the graver form of the disease. Pasteurs own accounts of his results, in vaccinating, against anthrax, the stock on French farms, are dazzling. But a repetition of bis experiments in other countries, by his own assistants, has been less conclusive. In Hungary the immunity obtained by vaccination was not absolute, while the protective vaccination itself destroyed some fourteen percent of the herds.

Yet, though much of the enthusiasm generated by Pasteurs researches may proceed further than the facts warrant, he has at least opened a new path which promises to lead to results of the highest importance to mankind.

The ideal treatment of any parasitic disease would be to administer drugs which have a specific destructive influence upon the parasites, but spare their host, i.e., the cells of the animal body. But no substance of such virtue is known to us. All so-called antiseptics, i.e., chemicals arresting bacterial life, injure the body as much as if not more than the bacteria. For the latter of all living beings are characterized by their resistance to poisons. Some attempts, indeed, have been made to cure bacterial (if not all) diseases by the internal use of carbolic acid, but they display such innocent naivete as not to merit serious consideration. More promising than this search after a new philosophers stone is the hope of arresting bacterial invasion of the human body by rendering the conditions unsuitable for the development of the germs, and thus affording the organism a better chance to struggle with them. Let me illustrate this by an instance described by Pasteur. The chicken is almost proof against splenic fever. This protection Pasteur attributes to the high normal temperature of that animal, viz., 42 Cent. At that degree of warmth the anthrax-bacillus can yet develop, but it is enfeebled. The cells of the birds body, thriving best at their own temperature, can hence overcome the enfeebled invader. Reduction of the animals temperature, however, by means of cold baths, makes it succumb to the disease, though recovery will occur if the normal temperature be restored in due time. In the treatment of human diseases, we have not yet realized any practice of that nature, but research in that direction is steadily continuing.

The most direct outcome of the germ theory, as far as immediate benefits are concerned, is our ability to act more intelligently in limiting the spread of contagious diseases. Knowing the nature of the poison emanated by such patients, and studying the mode of its distribution through nature, we can prevent it from reaching others, and thus spare them the personal struggle with the parasite. In no instance has the benefit derived from a knowledge of the germ theory been more brilliantly exemplified than in the principles of antiseptic surgery inaugurated by Lister. This benefactor of mankind recognized that the great disturbing influence in the healing of wounds is the admission of germs. It had been well known, prior to this day, that wounds heal kindly if undisturbed, and that the fever and other dangers to life are an accidental, not an inevitable, consequence of wounds. But Lister was the first to point out that these accidents were due to the entrance of germs into the wound, and that this dangerous complication could be prevented. By excluding the parasites from the wound, the surgeon spares his patient the unnecessary and risky struggle, giving the wound the chance to heal in the most perfect manner. Only he who has compared the uncertainty of the surgery prior to the antiseptic period, and the misery it was incompetent to prevent, with the ideal results of the modern surgeon, can appreciate what the world owes to Mr. Lister. The amount of suffering avoided and the number of lives annually saved by antiseptic surgery constitute the first practical gain derived from the application of the germ theory in medicine.

Some text has been edited to match contemporary standards and style.

Continued here:
From the archives: The germ theory of disease breaks through - Popular Science

By Discount Liquor

May 6, 2022 | 10:01 AM

Mead (/mi:d/) is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 18%. The defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverages fermentable sugar is derived from honey. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling; dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Wikipedia

Often associated with Viking feast halls, mead is a class of alcoholic beverage that has seen a resurgence in recent years. But the origins of mead go back much further than men in boats with funny helmets. In fact, it is believed that mead may be the oldest form of alcoholic beverage in the world, with evidence that mead was being made in ancient China as long as 9000 years ago. (Sorry beer drinkers).

Through history, mead played an important role in many cultures. The Greeks considered mead to be the Nectar of the Gods, and as such it was believed to give the drinker divine blessings such as strength, wit, and even immortality. In Viking mythology, there was a legendary drink called the Mead of Poetry that was said to make the imbiber into a scholar or poet, as it was made from the blood of a divine keeper of knowledge. And though your doctor will never give you a prescription for it, some herbal meads were used as medicine for depression, digestion and hypocondria.

Recently, mead is once again starting to gain popularity among craft producers. There are roughly 300 commercial mead producers across North America, and that doesnt count the back yard and basement mead producers. A quick search online will yield dozens of quick, easy, 10 to 15 step processes to make your own mead at home and feel like a viking. just try not to sail across the ocean and plunder England.

Read the rest here:
Mead More Than Just The Drink of Vikings - paNOW

The short answer to this existential question, according to researchers, is that the science of anti-ageing is worth it. The wisdom seems to be that we must strive to expand the human lifespan, and thereby expand progress and unbridled scientific innovation.

This idea witnessed a breakthrough last week, when scientists were able to turn the clock back 30 years for human skin cells without losing any function. Published in eLife, the study enlisted regenerative technologies for their work. A process that induces stem cells turns normal cells into stem cells or cells that dont have a unique identity and can be turned into any kind of cell. While research hasnt yet caught up sufficiently with the latter half of the equation, the new method in the current research shows another way.

Instead of waiting for the 50 days it usually takes to turn a normal cell into a stem cell, researchers at theBabraham Institutes Epigenetics research center waited only 13 days until the signs of ageing were lost and cells temporarily lost identity. They then kept the cells under normal conditions and waited for them to regain their functionality as skin cells miraculously, it worked. Our results represent a big step forward in our understanding of cell reprogrammingThe fact that we also saw a reverse of ageing indicators in genes associated with diseases is particularly promising for the future of this work, Diljeet Gill, author of the study, said.

Importantly, the cells didnt just look younger, they also functioned like they were much younger. In essence, the cells were reprogrammed to behave as if they were much younger. This can help in regenerative medicine, whose functionality can range from healing wounds to Alzheimers treatment, according to the researchers.

This isnt the first time research has been devoted to the question of anti-ageing. Fuelled by the all too human anxiety of death and decrepitude, science has always searched for the elusive fountain of youth now potentially found in the form of stem cells.

But there is an understudied side to it all: who benefits from ageing slower, or halting ageing completely?

Related on The Swaddle:

What if People No Longer Want To Live Forever?

If literature and fiction are anything to go by, immortality is usually the quest of the villainous. And just as art imitates life, in the real world the funding for much anti-ageing research can be traced directly back to the worlds foremost billionaires.

its about ensuring old age is enjoyed and not endured. Who wants to extend lifespan if all that means is another 30 years of ill health? This is about increasing healthspan, not lifespan, Janet Lord, from the Institute for Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham told The Guardian. Lord is one of several pioneering researchers to have become interested in Altos: the richest Silicon-valley startup youve never heard of. Also a part of Altos? Wolf Reik, Gills supervisor and leading epigenetics researcher.

A nexus of big tech, government, and science seem to be at the helm of the race to extend the finish line, ad infinitum. The Methuselah Foundation is another such startup, backed by Peter Thiel another billionaire who is hell-bent on anti-ageing tech. Their mission is to make 90 the new 50 by 2030, and they work on similar regenerative technologies. Unity Biotechnology, another Silicon-valley startup aims to flush out senescent cells or a build-up of damaged cells that cause inflammation in the body. This method could potentially eliminate diseases associated with old age, according to the company that draws its reserves from funding from Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel.

To be sure, many of these companies have some compelling research; and the science itself is almost too good to be true. But while this may be the case, the idea is deeply troubling for how it individualizes medicine and ageing to a factor of optimizing the health of only those who can afford it. For everyone else, the usual stressors and imminent threats of the modern world threaten to cut their lives short at every turn: poverty, hunger, violence, and ecological collapse.

Moreover, the blind pursuit of this science overlooks systemic factors in age-related disease. We can be healthy only when the entire community is also healthy, wrote Rupa Marya and Raj Patel in Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. Marya and Patel argue that our bodies suffer from inflammation as a result of an onslaught of the injustices of the world: colonialism, capitalism, and environmental destruction that actively harms ecosystems. The key to living longer, then, may not be completely hidden in our cells but in our surroundings.

Here is the original post:
Scientists Are Finding Ways to Reverse Ageing. Is It Worth It? - The Swaddle

Author of the brilliant short story collection The Dark Dark (2017) and the wonderfully odd and moving novel Mr. Splitfoot (2016), Samantha Hunt is one of our most interesting and bold writers. Now she has published her first work of nonfiction, The Unwritten Book. Its a characteristically wild effort that defies genre distinctions, flits from the profound to the mundane with fierce intelligence and searching restlessness, and at its best, delves deep into the recesses of the human heart with courageous abandon.

Hunts fiction has always been obsessed with ghosts and haunting, darkness and the uncanny; in this newspaper, I once referred to Hunt as an aficionado of the liminal. The Unwritten Book is if anything even more consumed with the transitional, with mortality and immortality, the spectral and the mysterious, than her fiction has been. Because this time, its personal. The Unwritten Book is Hunts idiosyncratic version of a grief memoir, an alternately crazed and cool musing on grief, literature, and her late fathers identity as both a man and an aspiring writer.

The Unwritten Book referred to in the title isnt actually unwritten, just unfinished; its a partially complete manuscript by her father that she finds in his desk only days after he dies at 71 of lung and colon cancer. But the phrase also refers to paths snuffed out, experiences aborted, stories never shared. There was much more he should have seen in life, Hunt laments. She is unhinged by her fathers dying, distraught by the loss of stories he hadnt yet told her.

The books subtitle is An Investigation, and Hunt appears as a kind of gothic Nancy Drew, a daughter/detective trying to interrogate her dead dad. The dead leave clues, she writes, and life is a puzzle of trying to read and understand these mysterious hints before the game is over. Hunt astutely parses her fathers words even as she refuses to reduce them to simple explanations, deftly teases out the relationships between his fiction and his life while allowing for mystery to remain, annotates and elaborates and expatiates with charm, wit, and an insistence on her fathers fundamental unknowability.

Intermittently, and covering somewhat less than half of The Unwritten Books total pages, Hunt presents two texts side by side: the chapters of her fathers book on the right, her annotations of these pages on the left. Printing her annotations in tiny font was a mistake not only because it strains the eyes but also because it diminishes Hunts insightful, hilarious, eloquent words in relation to the relatively hackneyed prose of her father. With typical Hunt humor, she acknowledges that her fathers book may not entrance us: Apologies if this is boring you, she says. Hunt herself never bores us; her fathers book unfortunately does.

But in the annotations and the chapters or sections without her fathers book, other vibrant characters emerge: Hunts daughters, with whom she shares a passion for the boy band One Direction, her editor, her long-suffering mother, her husband, and her five siblings, a gang of Hunts who saved each other as they navigated their fathers alcoholism, detectives, alert to the slightest changes in scent, demeanor, and language.

Hunts mind is capacious and supple; her musings cover everything from the films of Werner Herzog and Tobe Hooper to the fiction of W.G. Sebald, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison to the music of Nick Cave, Gillian Welch, and Patti Smith. Watching her link wildly disparate topics is part of the fun. Referring to her mothers drawerful of nail polishes beside a toy turtle beside a pink pillow beside an expired jar of my dads cancer drugs beside a golden statuette of the Virgin, Hunt declares: I make it make sense. I plot these points and create a chalk line around the ghost, all thats missing. But at times, this book could have benefited from a clearer chalk line; some readers will feel lost, confused by its jumble of styles, approaches, and stories.

At one point, Hunt wonders: perhaps this is a self-help book Im writing, a wellness manual that urges us to live closer to our dead. If this is the case, it is literature that emerges as the best medicine and reading as the most salubrious activity. Reading and books have always enabled Hunt to commune with the dead, connect across boundaries of space and time with other voices, transcend human limitation and loss. I carry each book Ive ever read with me, just as I carry my dead those things that arent really there, those things that shape everything I am, she insists. In books we can find our ways back to the worlds we thought were lost, the world of childhood, the world of the dead. The Unwritten Book ponders and enacts this art of losing with an intoxicating blend of humor and pathos.

THE UNWRITTEN BOOK: An Investigation

By Samantha Hunt

FSG, 384 pages, $28

Priscilla Gilman is a former professor of English literature at Yale University and Vassar College and the author of The Anti-Romantic Child: A Memoir of Unexpected Joy.

Original post:
Investigating a book of the dead in 'The Unwritten Book' - The Boston Globe

It is heartening to note that Ayurveda is going places. As reported in the media and further endorsed by the PM, the Ministry of Ayush has signed a Host Country Agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO) for establishing a WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (GCTM) at Jamnagar in India, with its interim office at the Institute of Training and Research in Ayurveda (ITRA) in Gujarat.

It must be noted here that after the establishment of the global headquarters of the International Solar Alliance in Gurugram some five years before, India will be a host to yet another global body, this time in Gujarat. The primary objective of this centre is to harness the potential of traditional medicine from across the world through modern science and technology and improve the overall health of communities across the globe.

This welcome development provides a global window for all traditional medicinal systems in India to work in collaboration with bodies worldwide. Secondly, it also marks a kind of international recognition for one of the significant sections of our traditional knowledge systems. With an Ayurvedacharyaand not an administrative services officialheading the AYUSH ministry, it would be reasonable to expect that AYUSH would do everything to build up further on this opportunity.

India is home to a plethora of traditional medicinal systems. We have Siddha, Yoga, Naturopathy, Tibetan medicine and a variety of region-specific herbal medicines besides Unani and Homoeopathy. However, in popularity, Ayurveda is perhaps the most widespread traditional medicinal system, well-entrenched in Indian society.

Unlike many modern medicinal systems, Ayurveda is essentially known for an integrated and holistic approach that attempts to provide lifestyle solutions to several common health issues. Also, generally speaking, Ayurveda has no side effects.

The emphasis on preventive and therapeutic approaches in Ayurveda is almost incomparable. It aims at immortality and in the shorter term, focuses on all-round wellness. Notably, the state of California, in the US, has now introduced Yoga in schools as a way of lifestyle modification.

They also have introduced mindfulness as a part of the curriculum in many schools. Such examples of state recognition to what is essentially an Indian traditional medicinal system are indicative of the fact that demand for Ayurveda and traditional medicines in general is growing.

However, even with several unique features of Ayurveda, the apparent limitations of it cannot be ignored. From the commoners point of view, like fast food, fast medicines are preferred and Ayurveda often fails on that count. Administration of Ayurvedic medicines like kadhas and churans are comparatively not so user friendly.

While allopathy claims to offer single-window solutions, Ayurveda demands multiple treatments and the increasing pace of life makes it unfriendly to the patient.

Sanskrit names of medicines sound difficult to pronounce and remember, lack of standardisation in mechanisms for the production of Ayurvedic medicines and apparent inadequacies in treating acute infections and other emergencies are some of the many challenges that have prevented the speedy development of the science. In popular perception, sadly Ayurveda continues to be associated with poor research, poorer documentation in global languages and low evidence base.

For Ayurveda to blossom globally as one of the most ancient and significant knowledge systems, marrying traditional Ayurveda to modern medicinal research and documentation systems is a must.

To that end, collective and structured efforts for unanimity leading to self-confidence in the Ayurveda fraternity, adoption of modern research methodologies without compromising on the essential indigenousness and documentation of research in globally acceptable systems are the three critical requirements.

Many times, the Ayurveda fraternity comes across as a divided house. While differences of opinion on scientific or policy issues may be genuine, they are construed as issues of personal ego. Whatever the reality, the impact is disastrous as it prevents a strong, united approach and punctures the self-confidence of the fraternity. This is obviously detrimental to the growth of Ayurveda as a science.

Happily, the leadership of the AYUSH ministry is deeply conscious of this situation and is determined to transform the same. Vaidya Kotecha, a renowned Ayurveda expert, is working for the integration of AYUSH in healthcare delivery and national health programmes.

He understands the challenge of establishing evidence-based applications and research by AYUSH practitioners. In an interview, he has suggested four key strategies to achieve the ministrys goals.

These include:

1. Standardisation of quality control (R&D); 2. Sustainable development of resources; 3. Integration of AYUSH in health delivery systems; 4. Promotion of science and technology as an integral part of AYUSH development for the promotion of AYUSH-based healthy living.

My only request to the ministry would be that it should convince the decision-makers to desist from referring to allopathy as modern medicine. Singling out allopathy in this way makes all other medicinal systems look un-modern. This should not happen.

All these strategy points are critical and if we work together on them, the days of having an independent Lancet (the most famous and globally established journal for medical research) for Ayurveda and Yoga besides all traditional Indian knowledge systems are certainly not too far.

Vinay SahasrabuddhePresident, ICCR, and BJP Rajya Sabha MP(vinays57@gmail.com)

More here:
Working towards a Lancet for Ayurveda and Yoga - The New Indian Express

HUMANS could live until the ripe old age of 150 years according to recent research and scientists are racing to work out how.

Harvard geniuses, biohackers and internet billionaires are all looking for ways that humans can crack the code on aging.

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WaitButWhy blogger Tim Urban writes the human body seems programmed to shut itself down somewhere around the century mark, if it hasnt already".

And Urban is right! There are no verified cases of a person living to be older than 122, though the oldest living person is on their way at age 119.

Researchers at GERO.AI concluded the "absolute limit" of the human lifespan to be between 100 and 150 - they came to this conclusion by analyzing 70,000 participants up to age 85 based on their ability to fight disease, risk of heart conditions and cognitive impairment.

The Conversation reported that not a single participant showed the biological resiliency to live to 150 - but notes the study is limited by today's medical standards.

Will improvements in medicine, environment and technology to drastically lengthen the average lifespan and make 150 a reality?

The human body is made up of about 30trillion cells. Cells are constantly dying and being replaced by replicants.

Within the cell body there are chromosomes - these are DNA strands with the code written for humans within them.

At the end of a DNA strand is a microscopic bundle of non-crucial DNA, so that none of the important stuff gets snipped off when the cell divides.

A cell can divide itself about 50 times before it's lost its ability to replicate.

As more and more cells become ineffective and die, the signs of aging start to show in gray hair, weaker bones and vision loss.

Some theorize this process can be stopped or reversed.

Researchers at Harvards Sinclair Lab write: If DNA is the digital information on a compact disc, then aging is due to scratches. We are searching for the polish.

Dr David Sinclair, the founder of the lab and one of the foremost scientists working on anti-aging technologies, led an experiment that restored the vision of elderly mice.

The team injected the mice with a serum of genes that affected the DNA of the cells in the eye.

Our study demonstrates that its possible to safely reverse the age of complex tissues such as the retina and restore its youthful biological function,Sinclair said.

Some people are fighting age not with tests on mice, but on themselves.

Dave Asprey is an author and entrepreneur who predicts hell live to 180 based on his method of biohacking.

Asprey, 49, has invested over $2million in technologies he believes will alter his biology including stem cell injections and cryotherapy chambers.

Asprey was quoted as saying The things I am working to pioneer, some of them are expensive, some of them are free like fasting. This will be like cell phones, everyone has cell phones - everyone will have anti-ageing. Change can happen rapidly in society.

But even visionaries like Elon Musk are wary of immortality, and the billionaire theorizes it could lead to an elderly population with stagnated ideas.

Although the body shuts down, there is a line of thinking that if just our consciousnesses could be preserved, maybe humans could live longer not just 150 years but forever.

Our capacity to get the brain to interface with a computer is currently low weve applied chips that communicate with just a few hundred of the 86billion neurons but a Russian billionaire is aiming to duplicate our entire consciousness and upload it onto a computer where it can live forever as a robot or hologram.

In the 2045 Initiatives manifesto, Dmitry Itskov writes People will make independent decisions about the extension of their lives and the possibilities for personal development in a new body after the resources of the biological body have been exhausted.

Of course, if this idea were to be achieved, you would have to exit your current body in favor of your "new body".

Is that, on some level, a form of death? Do you restart at age zero once your consciousness has been duplicated? Do you age at all while living inside a computer?

These are biomedical ethics questions that are sure to be debated as the search for a prolonged lifespan carries on both in the hospital and the computer lab.

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Humans could live up to 150 years will you make it beyond a century?... - The US Sun

Apitherapy is an alternative therapy that uses products made by honeybees for medicinal purposes. These products include honey, beeswax, royal jelly, pollen, propolis, and bee venom. Apitherapists may use a combination of these products, depending on the condition they are treating.

Throughout history, people have recognized how important bees are, both as pollinators of plants and for the products they make.

The American Apitherapy Society says that honeybee products can treat various conditions, including arthritis, multiple sclerosis (MS), shingles, and gout.

This article explains what apitherapy is, what products bees make, and how people use the different honeybee products. It also looks at the benefits of apitherapy and the potential side effects and risks.

Apitherapy is a natural therapy that uses products made by honeybees for medicinal or health benefits. Some people also refer to it as bee therapy.

Apitherapy has had a role in traditional medicine for centuries. The ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Chinese civilizations all used honeybee products to treat injuries and illnesses.

Today, researchers believe that these products promote health by reducing inflammation, improving circulation, and stimulating the immune system.

Most of the products that people use for apitherapy come from one species of honeybee: Apis mellifera. Honeybee products that someone may use for apitherapy include:

Honey is probably the most well-known bee product. In apitherapy, people use honey in its raw form, which means that they have not filtered, processed, or heat-treated it. Honey contains small amounts of protein, minerals, vitamins, and enzymes. It also has antifungal and antiviral properties.

Worker bees produce venom to protect themselves and their hives from attack. Bees sting their attackers, injecting them with their venom. Bee venom is a mixture of proteins, amino acids, water, and volatile compounds that cause a painful reaction.

Honeybees secrete nutrient-dense royal jelly to feed their larvae for the first few days of their lives. After that, only the bees that will become queens continue eating royal jelly. Worker bees usually live for 46 weeks, while queen bees can live for up to 6 years. Royal jelly is rich in B vitamins, proteins, and antioxidants. Antioxidants reduce the levels of free radicals in the body, which experts think may be responsible for aging.

Pollen, which worker bees collect from plants, is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and amino acids. Bees pollinate plants while collecting pollen, as they transfer it from one flower to another. They also eat it, and it provides most of their dietary protein.

Propolis is a sticky substance that bees make from plant resins. It is antiseptic and antimicrobial, and honeybees use it to keep the inside of their hives free of bacterial and fungal infections.

Bees make wax to construct their honeycombs and plug the honey cells when they are ready. Bees also mix the wax with propolis to cover any cracks in the hive and protect the bees from infections.

Bees process pollen by mixing it with honey and different enzymes. The pollen ferments and forms beebread, which is both nutrient-rich and easy to digest. It also preserves the nutrients in the food.

People have used apitherapy for centuries, and researchers continue to explore new ways of utilizing these products.

In 2020, an article in the journal Wiley Public Health Emergency Collection suggested that people with COVID-19 may benefit from the antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties that these products contain.

Research suggests that people use apitherapy to treat nerve pain, conditions such as arthritis and MS, and injuries such as wounds or burns.

However, the researchers stress that people receiving this treatment need to persevere with it, as the results may take time.

Apitherapists may suggest using different hive products in combination with other elements, such as essential oils. Each product has its own characteristics and potential health benefits for humans.

Research in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research shows that honey has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumor, and antimicrobial properties, as well as heart-healthy qualities.

A person can eat honey or apply it directly to a wound or scar. In an older study from 2010, honey was effective in treating diabetic foot ulcers, although the healing process took up to 3 months.

People use bee venom to treat a variety of ailments, including Parkinsons disease, MS, arthritis, and nerve pain.

An article in the journal Molecules explains that therapists administer bee venom in one of three ways: direct sting, bee venom acupuncture, or bee venom injection.

Royal jelly, honey, bee pollen, and propolis are all rich in nutrients and vitamins, and some also contain proteins. People can benefit from these by taking them as a dietary supplement.

A 2020 review article reported that mouthwashes containing propolis might reduce dental plaque and gingivitis, or gum disease. However, the authors noted the need for more research to confirm this.

Some people find that eating honey made from local wildflowers reduces their hay fever symptoms.

Some people are allergic to bee stings and other bee products. They may have a reaction, which, in some cases, may be life threatening.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of injectable bee venom for desensitizing people who are allergic to it.

Other possible negative side effects of apitherapy include:

Apitherapy uses products from honeybees to promote human health.

Therapists may use these products to ease the symptoms of neurological diseases, such as Parkinsons, and autoimmune conditions, such as arthritis.

Anyone considering using apitherapy to treat an existing condition or symptom must talk with a doctor to make sure that there are no possible interactions with their current medication.

Continue reading here:
Apitherapy: Benefits, risks, and more - Medical News Today

IN THE LAST DECADE, poets have increasingly addressed human-induced injury to the world. Historically, poets have always consorted with nature, relying upon its rhythms as deeply related to the imagination. Climate change consciousness has made a myriad of eco-disasters visible: our air, waters, forests, mountains, urban spaces, and other species, all under threat. A whole new way of living and writing is called for. This biannual column will review two or three new poetry volumes that expand poetic inquiry into our eco-relations, our abuses, and the very sources of our breath and inspiration.

Though it ends David St. Johns The Last Troubadour: New and Selected Poems, The Way It Isis its own book, and bends toward the oceans elements. An ecological love song, it offers a way, tremblingly alive toward acceptance, and a profound letting go. Both impersonal and tender in tone, these poems reflect upon the follies and joys of being human through a balladeers confidential style,agile lyricism, the kind to liberate the ego, an avenue of acute necessity now. Each of these 50-plus poems use couplets (with some staggered strategic one-liners); the first lines extending with nine to 12 stresses, while the second line of the couplet draws back to three, at most five stresses, mimicking the emotional wave crashing and then withdrawing, the sound of breath or sea foam trailing off yet these couplets connect, mostly forming perfect grammatical sentences, inflected by the ballads of John Jacob Niles, a folk pioneer who introduced the ballad to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, among other 1960s songsters. Niless breathy falsetto still hypnotizes in songs such as Go Way From My Window. He tracked and transcribed Appalachian folk ballads, with his handmade mandolin, conveying recurrent yet unique human tragedies, with the ring of the inevitable. St. John first learned these songs from his grandmothers gift of a record and songbook.

The communal trail of humans within nature, nature within the human, drives St. Johns culling of folk stories made out of the weather. The Way It Is writes from the rocks, haunted by the possible, writing with signature ampersand, with no periods, and lots of space. An ending never begs for closure, staying vulnerable. The alternating measures of long and short lines and the space between line endings as well as between the couplets provide overtures to silence, giving permission to contemplation. Apertures let measured light in, while readers hang fire, and the poet, with a threadless needle,stitchesthe poems with breath.

The subject matter, along with trying for songs persistence, faces our communal mortality, erosion, eco-bereavement, political repression, lovers and friends coming and going, place names proliferating, and many tales. In several poems, the Russian Revolution of 1917 spurs poetic and political resistance, the one taking heat from the other. In Alexandr Blok, for instance, the speaker recalls dining with Moscow scholars a married couple, and after reaching back into the dark century & at last, retrieving his black cashmere // Overcoat bought from a thrift store, he disappears into the snowy night, in upstate New York // Not Moscow or St. Petersburg. He imagines others see him walk as the most lyrical shadow alive. In other words unseen.In another poem, he puts it uncompromisingly: Reverie is a state beyond all forms allowed by the state.

Shadows, shades, slanted-ness slip-slide throughout.A new Romantic, a new Symbolist, St. John also embodies the 21st-century survivor, after the wars, revolutions, atrocities, exiles not expecting gauzy immortality, or a vatic post, instead inclining towarda way, a path to the it is, inclining toward the anonymous home-made, the making of homes as poems; in this way, he exemplifies what H.D. called spiritual realism. Besides, thin careful arms awaiting Icarus, convinces that Icarus had to fall; these poems grip us with their wide, yet wry acceptance of what Generation tags as those lyrics / of pure human spittleyou know // That song I mean the one about all of us fiercely / irrelevant & yet so briefly alive.We the irrelevant, tipping toward world disaster, the very impetus for feeling yet so briefly alive.This is the way it is.The spittle, and the transmission of it.

St. John, expert at suture, leaps between couplets, as he does near the opening of Generation, while considering the emptiness in authenticity when, in fact, [g]rowing so precisely redacted, he admits:

So I cant help it & maybe Im doing all right? Someone else has to tell me

I spend all my time in meetings & almost noneWith the few people I love

The Last Troubadour, brings in the dazzling Joshua, another maker spitting arc-welder // Over armatures of rebar shaping a dozen abstract / guitars or mandolins as though he could recover those times as lost as song.Other characters, shaping and shaped by the environment, wander throughout this West Coast anthem Jolene, flamenco dancer with her peeled off shirt, and PTSD Elijah, disturbed by her riveting gunshot rhythms (Hot Night in Akron), set against a landscape of hungry boys and hungry girls (The Way It Is). See also Evangeline & Her Sisters, Backstreets, and the delicious Lucky,with its abandoned house now a place where / kids come to drink & fuck: the grass and the glassless window zooming in on a hen her head broken and her belly eaten open, the backdrop for Luckys own tale of being thrown out of everywhere. This loss and dislocation vaporizes as we follow myriad trails.

Alongside portraits of invisible lives that are obscure without the poets eye, My Life As Sandoz Mescaline sets more ballad material into motion, a hallucinated fairy tale, the very finest arctic dog team ever known and in one somatic heartbeat Id harnessed my spoon-sized sled // To their oracular dancing bodies & in an instant like night fog / I was gone. In almost every poem, St. John evanesces; the ego, unseen, slips out; he identifies with Claude Rains in the film adaptation of H. G. Wellss The Invisible Man. Being gone wages the question of where one is going and the way it is. But gone also leaves an opening for what Bhanu Kapil calls soft craziness. An Ecclesiastical Sketchbook is beyond desire and fear (mostly), the altar a place of offerings, sacred rituals so faltering is a reminder of human vanity. The last poem in this collection, Script for the Lost Reflection, provides the erasing inherent in writing:

& Im exactly who I say I am tonight just an image

Of a last reflection fading slowly as summer light before your eyes

Growing up in Fresno, St. John is a poet of California,particularly its Northern incarnation, the wild Big Sur Coast, its bridges built by the WPA in the 1930s, offering hair-pin curves, disallowing development, though climate change and the Silicon Valley wages its eco-attacks. In one poem, while he sits at Big Surs Henry Miller Library and Gallery, he reads Millers The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, a fierce objection to Americas overwork sterility and consumerist superficiality. Also central to this books emanating power, it highlights the iconic Big Sur of Edward Weston (18861958), whose early photographs in the late 20s of the coast haunt with their three layers, the gelatin one composed of light-sensitive silver compounds that turn into the image after it has been exposed. Survival. Little Sur sights elephant seals with their yelps echoing off canyon walls. This early tide as porous knuckles of rock // Shoulder their way above the foam. Tied to this topography and its lore, St. John absorbs ecological distress: You see this landscape is the landscape of / my valley the one I remember // Out of the plunder that is the swollen glow (Vineyard).

Perhaps the most dazzling poem in this collection is Emanations, haunted, teased out from one of St. Johns geo-anchors, Jeffers Country, centered on the stone home the poet Jeffers built, or rather did so after laborious tree planting, lifting improbably giant boulders and rocks, creating a memorial to the ragged coast as well as to himself as part of the land, with sea as interlocutor: it takes great / strength to believe truly // In solitude trusting its sinews & silence holding yourself against / waves of your own darkness. In this long-segmented poem, we remeet Evangeline (from Evangeline & Her Sisters the sisters being her skinny twin silver / .38s,); here, she is in rehab near Point Pinos Lighthouse. The poem then eases us into Tor House, where the mouth simply drops seeing Thirty feet beyond his window those huge looming eggs of stone / the granite boulders Jeffers // Hauled & rolled from the shore every afternoon. Hawk Tower, where Jeffers wrote, faces off the harsh land, even harsher than a skeptical man / who walks mornings not speaking / The worlds raw sea edge awaiting him he who made / stone love stone (this last phrasing my wifes favorite). St. John revisits Cypress Cove, and those lethal rocks // smashed by purposeful waves & those skyrocket cathedrals of spray. We learn that the troubadour poet had [f]or years kept a notebook of obscure trails between Point Lobos / & Gorda all those glories. (I want this notebook!)

From Tor House, we move into the house built from Cliff Mays blueprints by the poets mother, another maker, in this poem of nested homes (his aunts painting cottage crops up as well). This deserves quotation more fully; note the second line has more stresses, words setting stone by stone in a plotted layout:

I grew up in a house of redwood glass & stone []

A lesson in organic mid-century modern aspiration huge exposed beams of solid redwood its ceiling planks too

The fireplace a mosaic of flagstones & multicolored volcanic rocks & living room walls pale Australian gum

All these natural materials communicated from the mouth of Jeffers County; the home was a testament to possibility (in Fresno), an ecopoetic image of living with the land and not exclusivelyon it so bound to its elemental nature.The poem culminates in a solitary visit to Tor House, in silence / by the bedby the sea-window a good death-bed,with the proximity of the pulse of waves licking raw the shore stones as pines & cypress / chimed in the sea wind.

There are elegies in this book, one for Larry Levis (The One Who Should Write My Elegy Is Dead) that starkly calls to us, so briefly alive, idiosyncratic lives, akin to diverse driftwood, washed up at Andrew Melera State Park in Big Sur, there, as elsewhere in this ecopoetic love song, its characters are arrested by salt, twisting like Monterey pines. In this manner, St. John calls upon a cliffs majestic sweep, correcting human arrogance, a crucial claim made by Jeffers himself in the early 20th century:

We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confidentAs the rock and ocean that we were made from.

These lines from Carmel Point transition to Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who embodies this kind of we that was made from water, rock, plus mammal cartilage, seaweed, burr, feelers everywhere. Gumbss Dub: Finding Ceremony is indebted to many ghost voices, those calling for freedom from sedimented cultural binaries of black and white, male and female, humans and creatures. Both a gathering and a recovery, this last pivotal volume in a trilogy, commits to a new poetics. Using a broad canvas, Gumbs generously offers instructions for ritual healing, sometimes cryptic, sometimes deadly lucid: the rising you could be any of us, followed by an injunction to save the top of your head for the water. dont let nonsense burn it / out. cleanse with salt and coolness. thousands of years ago it was a / spout. place your head in places worthy. place your hands over your / heart. bless yourself with generations. thats a start. This start prepares for the poets map for survival and resplendence, charted necessarily across a long hypnotic text, its 15 sections, gradually, letting its medicine work.

The book prompts the reader to enact self-instructions discovered through listening, and breathing into rhythmic, ancestral memory, here with the wild Atlantic and Caribbean coasts. Not an easy occupation, she warns how do we breathe across generations. ask yourself. this is / not the power of positive thinking. this is no birthday wish in smoke. / this is existence or absence. no joke. Reading like a guided meditation, Gumbs sets forth a way of welcoming ancestors:

put yourself in the center and draw them in, stand where you stand-which is not under and not over. you. not gonna get over it. andwhere you stand is not always standing either, is it? sometimes quick-sand sometimes bended knee, very often that cross-legged thing youdo, sitting on the floor or hugging your own legs like they were peo-ple. be where you are and draw them to you. you might need to moveyour hands, one of those legs or a book from blocking your heart,that would be a good start. put your arms out like if you were float-ing water. daughter. they know where to find you.

With the backdrop of the English colonizing Jamaica in 1655, with its already enslaved Africans, Gumbs cleaves away using the masters tools (to re-cite Audre Lordes famous proviso that you cant build afresh with tools shaped by an oppressor logic). Here the poet unveils other tools, akin to the tactics of whales navigating beneath the sea, hearing and mothering each other. Gumbs uniquely traces the transformation from cultural conditioning to discover kin for at some point we all had to learn how to see the invisible. the unborn. the unremembered, the discounted, ourselves. As medium-poet, she can even hear what the coral said: and their call to dream until you birth yourself in water singing with bones of all your lost [] breathe not from your mouth, / not from your nose but through your hair and through your skin. Skin embodies porous empathy. Humanity, indeed, must uncenter itself to have a chance of survival; she calls for inevitable prompts for stillness, dance, screaming. Noting the problem with owning, and creating a self-justifying story, that unlike blood it only binds you to one life, ecosystems possess for this poet an uncanny awareness:

the trees knew, the trees and the ferns and the moss and the lichenknew. The rocks knew [] the bacteria in your eyes, between your teeth,roaming the smooth expanse of your stomach knew and acted

With the enormity of what we face, our climate crisis, that the smallest plankton had to / get ready after centuries of making life out of sun. Taking the perspective of an ecosystem herself, she records the mountainous islands of trash. the unearned permanence of plastic.

Gumbs uniquely taps with phrases, from the opus of critical race theorist Sylvia Wynter, who wrote through the 1970s and the 1990s, insistently rethinking of what exactly we mean by human. (The title Human Being as Noun? Or Being Human as Praxis? Towards the Auto-poetic Turn/Overturn, an unpublished manifesto, gives a clue.) Gumbs chooses emphatic moments, or pressure points, for each footnoted prose poem (the predominant form with lots of space between them). The phrases create a force field in order to return to the flow of eco-rhythms, prayers, and invocations. Wynters 1976 Ethno or Sociopoetics, defines socio-poesis, as a true revolution in poetry based on context, as opposed to Ethno-poetics, which in its historical self-making created a self, a we that exists only through the negation of an Other. In other words, Dub honors Wynters ideas, which include the latters reflection upon colonized LANDS [.] SERVED AS THE CATALYST FOR THAT TOTAL commercialization of land and labour, the central dynamic of capitalism. TOTAL stands naked here, propelling Gumbss own socio-poetics, dependent on context, and upon collaborative lyricism, a collective we.

One of Wynters potent phrases, The Ceremony Must Be Found, (Boundary 12.3 1984), haunts the collection; it directs us to read Dub as alternative space, with humans less powerful than the aquatic deeps. Dub reminds that more than six centuries of systemic persecution leaves us searching for another model for being in the world. In our time, books, like this one, allow for visceral epistemology-in-action, using inner expansive space to escape commodification, or to move beyond being bound, or dubbed. This involves intuited memory of the hold of a slave ship, while also holding her readers in the process.

Gumbs reverbs dub poetry, originally a form of performance art, emerging out of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1970s, essentially spoken word backed by reggae rhythms, and characterized by political commentary. Noting in her introduction that dub also refers to the doubling journey of a queer Caribbean diasporic Black feminist writer (herself) with Wynter, a world historical Caribbean theorist, almost Gumbss grandmothers age. Not surprising, Gumbss Caribbean ancestors are powerful interlocuters in this work, but she also contacts Irish ancestors who shipwrecked into the Caribbean and stayed, alongside those who survived the Middle Passage. The section Blood Chorus lives through thrown-over captives us? we let the whales name us. deep with their moaning, we put our ears underwater.

Dub provides an acoustic whooshing the reader through a ceremonial working through, where the corals, folded along the edge of / generations. you will have a problem the problem being a self to keep going. Listening deeper, the poet is called to write page after page so you can see / us, facing morning so we can see you, you will be surrounded and / astounded. you will be surprised and thoroughly revised. you will not / be the you you thought you knew, footnoted with Wynters phrase the correlated Otherness continuum from the essay Human Being as Noun? Gumbs herself states she needed to unlearn herself, situating one of her selves in a continuum: and if you can believe a black woman artist would most likely end up screaming in the asylum, (another Bertha from Jane Eyre?), supplemented with self-inquiry: think what could have made / me the way I am. think. how I made you the way you are. And what was it made both of us, with the warning, are / you ready? tagged with Wynters the center of the universe as its dregs. Together, theorist and poet, bow to so-called discards, here boda, combined whale, human, and goddess: boda made herself by breathing.

For present-day sufferers of environmental dissociation, Gumbs incants: put your forehead in the / water. she will show you. here i am. This linguistic touch reaches through these pages. In the section losing it all, a ballad for self-love emerges:

quiet your mind and open your heart. Open your heart. open your heart.calm your mind down so you can open your heart. im not going to say it again.

dance well so you can leave it all there. leave it all there. leave it all there.dance hard so you leave it all there. Soft with yourself and the pain.

wash clean so you can swim in your skin. Shrug off the sin. be born againwash clean so the day can begin. im not going to say it again.

Key to her practice, Gumbs include[s] speakers who have never been considered human, attuned to whales, corals, barnacles, bacteria. This poesis calls for repetition and repletion, also the timing and rhythm of prayer, making Dub an artifact and tool for breath retraining and interspecies ancestral listening, posing the delicious question: What if you could breathe like coral from a multitude of years ago? or What if you could breathe like whales who sing underwater and recycle air to sing again before coming up for air? To approach this possibility, Gumbs relies on the incantatory power of the spoken broken word. Syncing with other ecopoetic projects, interspecies communication appears urgent. Elsewhere, in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, out as well in 2020, Gumbs calls herself a marine mammal apprentice, trying echolocation, an undersea mammals way of bonding through song. [T]he breathing of whales is as crucial to our own breathing and the carbon cycle of the planet as are the forests, she writes, adding, if humans retreated to pre-commercial whaling numbers their gigantic breathing would store as much carbon as 110,000 hectares, the size of the entire Rocky Mountain National Park.

With interior rhyming, these prose poems choreograph an untangling of the knots of the heart, particularly the one created by the self/other blueprint set down as permanent. Dub wakes us concussively. Both wrenching and playful, it offers instructions (two sets of them), warnings, and its central bid to listen to the undrowned. Her achieved hope for interspecies communication generates possible activism. Within the cultural whiplash of the 21st century, dialectical thinking crumbles to the touch. Gumbs directs humans toward diverse ways of knowing, releasing denigrated embodiments, and thankfully resurrects Wynters swift disabling of Western epistemology and logic, through singing, breathing, healing, touching.

Susan McCabe is a professor of English and Creative Writing at USC, and has published H. D. & Bryher: An Untold Love Story of Modernism (2021), Elizabeth Bishop: Her Poetics of Loss (1994), and Cinematic Modernism (2005) and received as well the Agha Shahid Prize for a book of poems, Descartes Nightmare (2008).

See the article here:
Eco-Relations: On David St. John's The Way It Is and Alexis Pauline Gumbs's Dub: Finding Ceremony - lareviewofbooks

I

f you stay well versed in the ever-evolving buzz ingredients in skincare, you may have noticed an unusual but familiar fungus popping up everywhere you look.

Mushrooms have been tipped as one of this years biggest trends for their superfood and adaptogenic powers. At Cult Beauty alone, searches for mushroom skincare are up 320 per cent year on year, while snow mushroom is up 243 per cent and reishi - nicknamed the mushroom of immortality in Ancient Chinese literature - increased by a whopping 3000 per cent. This may be in part due to the Netflix documentary Fantastic Fungi that put the spore on the centre stage and revealed its magical properties - but they have actually been used in Eastern cultures for centuries due to the immunity-boosting action.

The recent influx in the use of shrooms makes sense when you break it down. In particular, reishi mushrooms have many benefits for the complexion that include their calming effect. Due to the beta-glucans content, which are natural sugars, they can soothe itchy and irritated skin. For this same reason, the ingredient works as an anti-inflammatory which reduces redness for blemishes, acne and minimises puffiness. The fungi are also antioxidants to protect against free radical damage and hydrates the skin too, improving the look of fine lines and wrinkles. While Lions Mane has anti-microbial properties and encourages healing. They are also rich in B vitamins to improve skin tone, add radiance and balance natural oil.

Tero Isokauppila, author of Healing Mushrooms, founder of Four Sigmatic and all-round natural health expert explains: "Mushrooms have been around for thousands of years and form a fungi kingdom similar to plants and animals. There are millions of mushrooms in the world. We only use around 10 of them and weve chosen the ones with the most research and functional benefits like Reishi, Chaga and Lions Mane.

All of the functional mushrooms are known to help with immune support and hormonal balance, which are more important than ever in current times with plenty of stressors to the body. More specifically, Reishi is known to combat stress and help with sleep whereas Chaga has one of the most antioxidants of any food on the planet, which is why people use it to help with their everyday immunity. Lions Mane has become the best-selling mushroom in the United States because of its support for brain health and focus."

Who should be using mushroom skincare?

"Functional mushrooms like Chaga and Reishi are adaptogens, Tero furthers. They are tonic meaning they are safe to use and can be taken anytime of the day as they are not stimulants. Functional mushrooms are generally recommended for daily use to anyone over the age of five but we recommend consulting a health practitioner before using them. Everyone could do with some help with their everyday immunity and stress - and mushrooms are one of the best foods out there to help with that, without any side effects."

Incorporate the supercharged ingredient into your beauty cabinet with the best mushroom skincare below.

With Origins cult Mega Mushroom Treatment Lotion, one is sold every eight seconds - and if thats not a testament to its nourishing powers, we dont know what is.

The product has been upgraded with the help of Integrative Medicine expert Dr Andrew Weil to create an even more advanced formulations that includes Adaptogenic Licorice Root with Glycyrrhetinic Acid. This ups the ante for your skin, strengthening its own defences against environmental aggressors.

It is also packed with more reishi mushrooms than ever before - 10 times in fact - as well as sea buckthorn and fermented Chaga that calm irritation, reduce redness and leaves skin hydrated, healthy and happy.

The Keys Soulcare Nourishing Cleansing Balm transforms from an oil to a milk when applied onto the skin. It melts makeup, dirt and impurities from the day with a stellar cocktail of niacinamide, zinc PCA and snow mushroom. At the same time, it works to even out skin and bring luminosity to dull complexions.

The brands The Promise Serum (25) also contains the same combination and is great for blemish-prone skin.

This serum is packed with reishi and snow mushrooms to reap their anti-inflammatory rewards. Snow mushroom has moisturising properties and boosts our natural collagen production, while reishi hydrated and detoxifies. They are combined with hyaluronic acid complex and penthenol (a plant-derived form of Vitamin B5) in order to pack even more hydrating properties into the skin.

Harness the power of shrooms with Miranda Kerrs Kora Organics Milky Mushroom Gentle Cleansing Oil. The dual-action formulation removes dirt and grime from the day, while injecting fatty acids to nourish and hydrate your complexion. Silver ear and snow mushroom help to revive stressed out skin.

Make (mush)room in your skincare routine for this supercharged serum from MARA. It contains the powerhouse combination of vitamin C with herbs and marine botanicals for that glow-from-within look. The labels proprietary algae blend takes a starring role and is rich in omegas 3, 6 and 9 to protect against free radical damage. Reishi mushroom is included for its ability to soothe sensitivity and redness so this product can be used by all skin types. Its hypoallergenic, vegan, cruelty-free, fragrance-free and alcohol-free.

Biossance is renowned for its signature use of squalane, an heavy-hitting ingredient that mimics the hydrating oils that are naturally found in the body. In this must-have serum, it is souped up by the addition of a white shiitake mushroom blend to tackle dark spots and correct discoloration. The vitamin C does its thing to give a radiant complexion.

Q+A specalises in no-nonsense skincare that keep the ingredient line-up minimal and efficacious - all at an affordable price tag. The Zinc PCA Facial Serum is one of the bestsellers and contains just four ingredients. Zinc PCA controls and balances oil, while reishi and shiitake mushrooms soothe inflammation, minimises the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and strengthens the skins barrier. The specific white shiitake used is known and loved for its ability to fade dark spots and brighten.

Its 99 per cent natural and vegan and is ideal for those with oily, stressed or normal skin types.

The Wake Up Beautiful collection from vegan skincare label Pacifica puts adaptogenic mushrooms in a starring role. The range which includes the Dream Jelly Face Wash (16), Overnight Retinoid Cream (25) and Retinoid Eye Cream (18) combines high-performance ingredients to combat fine lines and wrinkles. Alongside the fungi is melatonin, retinoid and quinoa for an advanced hit of youthfulness.

Our favourite - the Retinoid Serum - works double duty to give age-defying effects, while giving your complexion a radiance boost. It is lightweight and can be easily incoporated into your evening routine. Just add a couple of drops after cleansing and leave overnight to maximise its benefits. While retinol in the past may have been drying, this hydrates at the same time to prevent any down time.

When your skin is in need for a comforting refresh, hit the reset button with this mask from REN Clean Skincare. Sensitives, sun exposure and stress can melt away with the soothing powers of white mushroom extract. The ingredient brings the moisture, calms inflammation and leaves your skin feeling silky soft.

Link:
Best mushroom skincare products: Lotion, serums and cleansing balm - Evening Standard

The events of "Avengers: Infinity War" last long enough to reach 2018, as evidenced by a number of onscreen dialogues and confirmed by Feige. The film ends with the Blip, in which half of all life disappears in moments. In several films and TV shows, characters explicitly state that the Blip lasted five years, and a dramatically emphasized title card in "Avengers: Endgame" makes that clear as well. As Thanos Blipped Strange, he spent 2018 to 2023 simply not existing. As shown in "Black Widow," those who were Blipped didn't notice the passage of time at all, and so to Strange, one moment it was 2018, and the next it was 2023.

During Strange's five-year absence, the remaining population of the universe carried on, and a few notable events took place. Two are of particular importance, as they undoubtedly featured in Strange's tour of alternate futures. First, around a month after the Blip, the remaining Avengers locate Thanos and kill him, but not before learning that the Infinity Stones are all destroyed. The second, and universally critical, event of note takes place five years after the Blip, when Scott Lang is finally freed from the Quantum Realm and returns to Earth.

Read more here:
Doctor Strange's Entire Timeline In The MCU Explained - Looper