Befriending Bacteria
Can something too small to be seen enlarge a worldview? From humble origins like household dust and showerhead slime, new insights are emerging into a vital and overlooked player in human health, agriculture and...
Category: Health
Trouble Underfoot
In Louise Penny’s engaging mystery series, chief inspector Armand Gamache often launches an investigation by asking his team, “Tell me what you know.” It’s an effective strategy when assembling clues following a suspicious death....
A Gardening Manifesto — in Six Words
“Be the kind of person who takes supplements – then skip the supplements.” Michael Pollan, “Food Rules An Eater’s Manual” The rules Michael Pollan devised to guide eating could apply just as well to...
Don’t Be So Sure about Personal Care Products
“Raise your hand if you’re SURE!” a deodorant ad once proclaimed, playing to widespread insecurities about appearance and body odor. The promise of radiant confidence and magnetic appeal is what sells personal care products,...
Succumbing to Screens: Two-dimensional Living
“When our attention is perpetually narrowed onto a small screen, our world shrinks to meet it.” — Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World How...
Mud Season Solace
I have a bowl of paper whites, Of paper-white narcissus; Their fragrance my whole soul delights, They smell delissus. E.B. White, “Window Ledge in the Atom Age,” 1946 Winter may finally be over,...
Getting brighter about LED bulbs
“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” biologist Barry Commoner wrote in 1971, proposing that as one of four “laws of ecology.” We’ve had decades to absorb that lesson but it still...
A Time for Rethinking
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be...
