Us and our friends
The average person has about 1013 cells, of several hundred types, in their body. That's 100 trillion cells in every one of us. But we have company. For every single cell in our body, we have 10... guests... bacteria, fungi, archaea (like bacteria, but simpler). And that's a good thing, because we couldn't do without many of them. In fact, there's a growing concern that overzealous attention to sanitation and hygiene may actually be harming us by eliminating helpful microbes. In a 2009 Scientific American article Katherine Harmon writes:
With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment—which is still largely uncharacterized—most of these rapid changes are not yet understood.
Perhaps the biggest miracle of the last hundred years is the ascent of knowledge. What we know, as a people, would not have been even imaginable a century ago. Our challenge is this: how do we apply what we do know in the face of the vastly larger set of things that we don't? One answer is a respectful appreciation of our history and roots. The people who have gone before us may not have been able to explain why (for example) vegetables grown with compost are better for you, but they grew them and prospered. A culture of honor and respect is a good place to start, in applying what we learn in ways that will prove to be sustainable and life-giving.
Posted by Administrator on Monday, July 26, 2010
