Right now, everyone seems to be worried about The Virus. I’m not. And I’ll tell you why below. A reader sent this to me recently: “Anyway, I think you can be a good voice to reassure fear, to educate people and to guide them out of panic to be responsible and ready. You can save […]
Let’s briefly recap: Plants trap their valuable minerals and nutrients in a strong web of fibres. To digest those fibres, animals need the help of microbes. Fibre-eating microbes need help to stay happy and healthy. A healthy gut microbiome needs a healthy skin microbiome. The two are linked at either end. Skin microbes need shade
Without the Sahara desert, the Amazon rain forest could not exist. Surprised? Apparently, it’s true. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. Dust. Mighty desert winds sweep mineral-laden sand into the upper layers of the atmosphere. This dust gently settles over the Amazon basin, supplying important nutrients (especially phosphorous) to the poor soils
“She discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children, but because of the friendship formed while raising them.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera OK, so I lied. This email is not about Zika. Not too much, at any rate. But it
Human bodies contain about 60% water. Sometimes, it’s noticeable, especially in the brain region, which contains about 75% water. Politicians may hold more water, possibly even hot air, but scientists have yet to confirm this. What remains when we take away the water? The rest, as they say, is dust and ashes. Close on 20%
Someone once told me, “99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.” To which I replied, “1% of doctors give the rest a good name.” Come to think of it, though, I don’t know ANY evil lawyers personally, and only a handful of doctors so bad, I wouldn’t entrust them with my pet cockroach.
Chances are, your mother taught you to wash your hands (with soap and water!) before eating (and after visiting the loo). Chances are, you still do (well, most of the time anyway). But where does this practise come from? We know from the Good Book that the Jews had hand-washing rituals for as long as
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. – HS Haskins (though also attributed to many other “soft philosophers”) We’re at the beginning of a (slightly shop-soiled) new year. Somehow, that feels grand and important to most of us. Behind us lies a year of
As the year limps towards its speedy end with reckless confidence, you may wonder what will happen when the final page on the calendar turns. The short answer is, “I don’t know.” The slightly longer answer is, “With a bit of luck, some of the things we learned this year will come in handy next
I’ve been silent for much longer than I’d have liked. My sincere apologies for this. Over the past year, I reflected on my first 20 years as a doctor: how my patients make the wrong choices, how my colleagues make the wrong choices and – hey presto! – how I make the wrong choices. I
