Good Advice for Holobionts

 

h/t Ilargi Meyer

Invaded by Alien Creatures: They were not unfriendly, after all.

Four days flat in bed. Fever, cough, runny nose, pain in all joints. I can't remember having been  so sick for quite a while. And it wasn't even Covid! I tested four times, because everybody was telling me, "it has to be Covid."  But, no, all the tests were negative. If it doesn't quack like a duck, then probably it is not a duck.

I think there are moments when the elements of the holobiont that's your body get together to send you a message. A strong message that my own immune system and the creatures that had come inside my system were sending to me, together. It was, "Take it a little easier. No matter how bad things are in the world, there is just so much that you can do. So take a few days of rest. It is not a suggestion, it is an order." I obeyed, grateful. I am also grateful to the little critters, whatever they are, who helped my body to carry out a cleansing that was evidently needed.

Sometimes you think that you are a sort of ghost stuck inside your head - a sort of microprocessor that resides behind those two cameras you call 'eyes'. But you are much more than that: you are a body, a full body. Muscles, nerves, blood, a heart, lungs, gut, all the rest. You are a holobiont: many creatures living together. And there is no obvious boundary between what is "you" and what is "outside you." You continuously exchange information with the outside. You breathe, eat, drink information in the form of the genes of the creatures we call "germs," but which normally have no intention to harm you. It is just that your immune system must learn to recognize these creatures. It is a continuous exchange that makes your body able to thrive in a genetic "soup" that surrounds every one of us and of which we are all part. 

If you try to keep these creatures away using filters or disinfectants, you remain deaf and blind to that information. You are defenseless to the first batch of creatures which happen to be a little more aggressive than the usual. And, sometimes, you need to go through the readapting, relearning, and cleansing I went through. It is a little painful, but afterward you feel great, especially if you were wise enough to avoid taking medicines (although, I have to confess, I took a few aspirin pills!).  

In any case, we are all part of the great holobiont we call Gaia, the Goddess. May She be praised for Her wisdom and Her patience with those sons and daughters of Her, so silly and so unruly. Onward, fellow holobionts!

The Secret of the Long Life of a Good Holobiont

Liliana Lippi, my mother in law, died last week at 101. You see her  in a picture taken for her 101th birthday, last July. with her two daughters and her son (on the left, my wife, Grazia). She also had four grandchildren and two great-granddaughters. What was the secret of her long life? Probably not a single factor, but perhaps the main one was that she managed to attain a certain harmony with the people and the things that surrounded her, as a good holobiont should do. 

I already wrote about Liliana's Longevity in a previous post published for her 100th birthday. Here is a longer and updated version.

Liliana Lippi was born in Florence, Italy, in 1920. She arrived into a completely different world from the one she left. When she came of age, in the 1930s, there were no TVs, no refrigerators, no supermarkets, no fast food, few homes had phones, very few people had cars. And her home had no central heating system: in winter she would sometimes wake up in the morning seeing that the water in the washbasin near her bed had frozen solid at the top. 

Her life as a young woman was typical of that age, when middle-class women, as she was, were supposed to be housewives and no more. She could cook, sew, clean, and perform other household skills. She never learned how to drive a car -- she couldn't even ride a bicycle. As most Florentines at that time, she couldn't swim and she was always a little afraid of the sea. No one remembers having ever seen her in a swimsuit. 

That doesn't mean her life wasn't rich in emotions and satisfactions. She had several suitors and the one who finally could touch her heart was a young Sicilian student who was studying at the Art Institute of Florence, close to where she lived. You may wonder how courting could take place in an age without telephones and social media: Liliana told me that the boy she eventually married would walk up and down along the street where she lived until she noticed him! You can find the same technique to get the attention of girls in Boccaccio's Decameron, written six centuries earlier! Probably, Sumerian boys would do exactly the same thousands of years ago. 

Liliana's sentimental life was adventurous. One reason was that, at the time, it wasn't so usual for a Florentine girl to have a Sicilian fiancé. Southerners were often shunned in Florence, just like Africans are, nowadays. Consider that the family of the boy (Giovanni) was not rich, and you have a recipe for contrasts in the family. Liliana's father, Mario, was never happy about this prospective marriage, but one of the characteristics of Liliana's personality was that she was stubborn about her choices. She wanted that boy and she had him, despite all that happened, including the war starting, Giovanni being drafted and sent to fight in Africa, then coming back to Florence and being wounded at a leg in a gunfight among the factions battling in the civil war. 

Eventually, Giovanni and Liliana did manage to get married in 1946. Then, they both moved to Sicily over a slow steam train that took two days to travel from Firenze to the city of Messina, where Giovanni's parents lived. Liliana remembers Sicily as an exotic place: a sort of wonderland. She and Giovanni were met at the train station by Giovanni's relatives who had arranged their transportation using a traditional, brightly colored Sicilian cart pulled by a donkey. And the Sicilians, in turn, were awed by this Florentine girl whom they considered a princess, of a sort. 

It seems that Liliana had a good time in Sicily, the problem was that there was no job there for Giovanni and that the home where they were living hosted the whole family, Giovanni's parents, and his sisters and brothers. When Liliana got pregnant of her first child, they came back to Florence where they settled in the house that her grandfather had bought for the whole family. Giovanni worked as a woodcarver, a skill he had learned at the Art School, while Liliana was a housewife. She had children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Giovanni died in 2003 at 89, Liliana survived him for almost two decades, dying at 101 in peace at her home, in her bed, surrounded by her children. She had been living in that same home since 1929. 

Despite some problems typical of old age (mainly arthritis), Liliana lived a reasonably healthy life up to her last 2-3 weeks. Remarkably, up to the last moments, she showed no signs of dementia, so common with old people nowadays. Of course, she would forget things and sometimes lose track of the conversation, but 15 days before dying, she was still sewing without needing glasses. Up to the very last day, she recognized her children and she was obviously happy to have them close to her. 

So, what was Liliana's secret for such a long life? Diet, exercise, medicines? Or what?

Let's start with food. Among the things she never ate there was junk food: pizza, hamburgers, Chinese food (she didn't even know what Chinese food was), or soft drinks. She didn't drink alcohol, not even wine. About what she ate, hers was a relatively high-protein diet in the form of eggs, chicken and rabbit meat, and also the boiled meat used to prepare the soup, a habit reported to have scandalized the British travelers who visited Florence at the time of the "Grand Tour. She also loved the fat part of the meat, including the fat coming with prosciutto (ham). She also drank milk every day, in the morning and before going to bed. About carbohydrates, she ate bread, very rarely sweets, and she was also fond of the kind of Italian soup we call "minestra in brodo." Personally, I hate it but maybe should reconsider after seeing how well it worked with her! In terms of vegetables, Finally, she was not especially fond of vegetables, which always appeared cooked at her table-- she seemed to be somewhat suspicious of salads. In short, not a ketogenic diet, but surely not vegetarian.

What else? She didn't smoke, she drank a little coffee, but that was her only recreational drug. She had an active life, but she wouldn't even dream of "exercising" in a gym or running along the street. She did watch TV, a little, when she was free of the various chores at home. But she never was interested in the news or in politics. Not an intellectual, she was nevertheless a voracious reader of all kinds of books, newspapers, and magazines.  

In terms of medicines, she avoided them as much as possible. When she was in her 70s she was found to have very high blood pressure and her doctor had her taking the full spectrum of pressure-lowering drugs: beta-blockers, diuretics, and other stuff that I can't exactly classify. I don't know how effective these drugs were. In any case, she never took statins to reduce her cholesterol level which was supposed to be in the normal range. Or maybe not, I have no idea of when she last checked that, possibly 10 years ago or more. 

During the Covid period, her physician insisted to vaccinate her with the Pfizer thing, last spring. I don't think it had any effect, good or bad, we never had her tested for the coronavirus since she showed no symptoms of it. What I can tell you is that we never isolated her, never had her wear a mask, her relatives newer wore a mask when staying with her, and we never prevented her from seeing her great-granddaughters. She enjoyed their company a lot, nearly up to the last moments of her life.

In the end, I don't want to stretch too much the analogy with holobionts, but there is something in living a good and long life that has to do with attaining that kind of harmonious equilibrium that is the characteristic of holobionts. They are creatures living in symbiosis with each other in a non-hierarchical network. We humans can do that if we are well connected with the other humans surrounding us. Of course, there does not exist a perfect set of interactions but, on the whole, is the way we are built to live: part of the human social holobiont. 

Liliana surely was a good social holobiont. I told you that she was stubborn, but that was when it was about herself. With the others, she was very flexible, never trying to impose anything on anyone, accepting things as they came.  And she had a rich social life: her home was always open to relatives and friends coming for lunch -- she was the hub of a remarkable network of interactions among people. No one seems to remember her going mad at something or someone. Maybe this is the secret of a long life, maybe not. And so it goes. 

Here is Liliana for her 100th birthday. You see with her daughter (Grazia) granddaughter (Donata), and great-granddaughter (Aurora). All of them are daughters of the Goddess Gaia, connected over nearly one century of life, a snapshot of the great chain of beings that keeps turning and turning, and has been doing that for billions of years, and will keep doing that for many more years. 

When the Ice Will be Gone: The Greatest Change Seen on Earth in 30 Million Years.

 

 

An image from the 2006 movie "The Meltdown," the second of the "Ice Ages" series. These movies attempted to present a picture of Earth during the Pleistocene. Of course, they were not supposed to be paleontology classes, but they did show the megafauna of the time (mammoths, sabertooth tigers, and others) and the persistent ice, as you see in the figure. The plot of "The Meltdown" was based on a real event: the breakdown of the ice dam that kept the Lake Agassiz bonded inside the great glaciers of the Laurentide, in the North American continent. When the dam broke, some 15,000 years ago, the lake flowed into the sea in a giant flood that changed Earth's climate for more than a thousand years. So, the concept of ice ages as related to climate change is penetrating the human memesphere. It is strange that it is happening just when the human activity is pushing the ecosystem back to a pre-glacial period. If it happens, it will be the greatest change seen on Earth in 30 million years

 

We all know that there is permanent ice at Earth's poles: it forms glaciers and it covers huge areas of the sea. But is it there by chance, or is it functional in some way to Earth's ecosphere? 

Perhaps the first to ask this question was James Lovelock, the proposer (together with Lynn Margulis) of the concept of "Gaia" -- the name for the great holobiont that regulates the planetary ecosystem. Lovelock has always been a creative person and in his book "Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth"  (1979) he reversed the conventional view of ice as a negative entity. Instead, he proposed that the permanent ice at the poles was part of the planetary homeostasis, actually optimizing the functioning of the ecosphere. 

Lovelock was perhaps influenced by the idea that the efficiency of a thermal engine is directly proportional to the temperature differences that a circulating fluid encounters. It may make sense: permanent ice creates large temperature difference between the poles and the equator and, as a consequence, winds and ocean currents are stronger, and the "pumps" that bring nutrients everywhere sustain more life. Unfortunately, this idea is probably wrong, but Lovelock has the merit to have opened the lid on a set of deep questions on the role of permanent ice in the ecosystem. What do we know about this matter?

It took some time for our ancestors to realize that permanent ice existed in large amounts in the high latitude regions. The first who saw the Northern ice sheet was probably Eric the Red, the Norwegian adventurer, when he traveled to Greenland around the year 1000. But he had no way to know the true extent of the inland ice, and he didn't report about them.

The first report I could find on Greenland's ice sheet is the 1820 "History Of Greenland", a translation of an earlier report (1757) in German by David Crantz, where you can find descriptions of the ice-covered inland mountains. By the early 20th century, the maps clearly showed Greenland as fully ice-covered. About Antarctica, by the end of the 19th century, it was known that it was also fully covered with a thick ice sheet. 

Earlier on, in the mid 19th century, Louis Agassiz had proposed a truly revolutionary idea: that of the ice age. According to Agassiz, in ancient times, much of Northern Europe and North America were covered with thick ice sheets. Gradually, it became clear that there had not been just one ice age, but several, coming and going in cycles. In 1930, Milutin Milankovich proposed that these cycles were linked to periodic variations in the insulation of the Northern Hemisphere, in turn caused by cycles in Earth's motion. For nearly a million years, Earth was a sort of giant pendulum in terms of the extent of the ice sheet. 

The 2006 movie "An inconvenient truth" was the first time when these discoveries were presented to the general public. Here we see Al Gore showing the temperature data of the past half million years.

An even more radical idea about ice ages appeared in 1992 when Joseph Kirkschvink proposed the concept of "Snowball Earth." The idea is that Earth was fully covered by ice at some moment around 700-600 million years ago, the period appropriately called "Cryogenian."

This super-ice age is still controversial: it will never be possible to prove that every square kilometer of the planet was under ice and there is some evidence that it was not the case. But, surely, we are dealing with a cooling phase much heavier than anything seen during relatively recent geological times.

While more ice ages were discovered, it was also clear that Earth was ice-free for most of its long existence. Our times, with permanent ice at the poles, are rather exceptional. Let's take a look at the temperatures of the past 65 million years (the "Cenozoic"). See this remarkable image (click to see it in high resolution)

At the beginning of the Cenozoic, Earth was still reeling after the great disaster of the end of the Mesozoic, the one that led to the disappearance of the dinosaurs (by the way, almost certainly not related to an asteroidal impact). But, from 50 million years ago onward, the trend has been constant: cooling. 

The Earth is now some 12 degrees centigrade colder than it was during the "warmhouse" of the Eocene. It was still ice-free up to about 35 million years ago but, gradually, permanent ice started accumulating, first in the Southern hemisphere, then in the Northern one. During the Cenozoic, Earth never was so cold as it is now.

The reasons for the gradual cooling are being debated, but the simplest explanation is that it is due to the gradual decline of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over the whole period. That, in turn, may be caused to a slowdown of the outgassing of carbon from Earth's interior. Maybe Earth is just becoming a little older and colder, and so less active in terms of volcanoes and similar phenomena. There are other explanations, including the collision of India with Central Asia and the rise of the Himalaya that caused a drawdown of CO2 generated by the erosion of silicates. But it is a hugely complicated story and let's not go into the details.

Let's go back to our times. Probably you heard how, just a few decades ago, those silly scientists were predicting that we would go back to an ice age. That's an exaggeration -- there never was such a claim in the scientific literature. But it is true that the idea of a new ice age was floating in the memesphere, and for good reasons: if the Earth had seen ice ages in the past, why not a new one? Look at these data:

These are temperatures and CO2 concentrations from the Vostok ice cores, in Antarctica (you may have seen these data in Al Gore's movie). They describe the glacial cycles of the past 400,000 years. Without going into the details of what causes the cycles (solar irradiation cycles trigger them, but do not cause them), you may note how low we went in both temperatures and CO2 concentrations at the coldest moments of the past ice ages. The latest ice age was especially cold and associated with very low CO2 concentrations. 

Was Earth poised to slide down to another "snowball" condition? It cannot be excluded. What we know for sure is that during the past million years or so, the Earth tethered close to the snowball catastrophe every 100,000 years or so. What saved it from sliding all the way into an icy death?

There are several factors that may have stopped the ice from expanding all the way to the equator. For one thing, the sun irradiation is today about 7% larger than it was at the time of the last snowball episode, during the Cryogenian. But that may not have been enough. Another factor was that the cold and the low CO2 concentrations may have led to a weakening -- or even to a stop -- of the biological pump in the oceans and of the biotic pump on land. Both these pumps cycle water and nutrients, keeping the biosphere alive and well. Their near disappearance may have caused a general loss of activity of the biosphere and, hence, the loss of one of the mechanisms that removes CO2 from the atmosphere. So, CO2 concentrations increased as a result of geological emissions. Note how, in the figure, the CO2 concentration and temperatures are perfectly superimposable: the reaction of the temperature to the CO2 increase was instantaneous on a geological time scale. Another factor may have been the desertification of the land that led to an increase in atmospheric dust that landed on the top of the glaciers. That lowered the albedo (the reflected fraction of light) of the system and led to a new warming phase. A very complicated story that is still being unraveled. But how close was the biosphere to total disaster? We will never know.

What we know is that, 20 thousand years ago, the atmosphere contained just 180 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 (today, we are at 410 ppm). That was close to the survival limit of green plants and there is evidence of extensive desertification during these periods. Life was hard for the biosphere during the recent ice ages, although not so bad as in the Cryogenian. Lovelock's idea that permanent ice at the poles is good for life just doesn't seem to be right.

Of course, the idea that we could go back to a new ice age was legitimate in the 1950s, not anymore as we understand the role of human activities on climate. Some people maintain that it was a good thing that humans started burning fossil hydrocarbons since that "saved us from a new ice age." Maybe, but this is a classic case of too much of a good thing. We are pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere that our problem is now the opposite: we are not facing an "icehouse Earth" but a "warmhouse" or even a "hothouse" Earth. 

A "hothouse Earth" would be a true disaster since it was the main cause of the mass extinctions that took place in the remote past of our planet. Mainly, the hothouse episodes were the result of outbursts of CO2 generated by the enormous volcanic eruptions called "large igneous provinces." In principle, human emissions can't even remotely match these events. According to some calculations, we would need to keep burning fossil fuels for 500 years at the current rates to create a hothouse like the one that killed the dinosaurs (but, there is always that detail that non linear systems always surprise you . . .)

Still, considering feedback effects such as the release of methane buried in the permafrost, it is perfectly possible that human emissions could bring CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere at levels of the order of 600-800 ppm, or even more, comparable to those of the Eocene, when temperatures were 12 degrees higher than they are now. We may reach the condition called, sometimes, "warmhouse Earth."

From the human viewpoint, it would be a disaster. If the change were to occur in a relatively short time, say, of the order of a few centuries, the human civilization is probably toast. We are not equipped to cope with this kind of change. Just think of what happened some 14,500 years ago, when the great Laurentide ice sheet in North America fragmented and collapsed. (image source) (the 2006 movie "Meltdown" was inspired exactly by this event). Earth's climate went through a series of cold and warm spells that is hard to think we could survive. 

 

Human survival concerns are legitimate, but probably irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. If we go back to the Eocene, the ecosystem would take a big hit during the transition, but it would survive and then adapt to the new conditions. In terms of life, the Eocene has been described as "luxuriant." With plenty of CO2 in the atmosphere, forests were thriving and, probably, the biotic pump provided abundant water everywhere inland, even though the temperatures were relatively uniform at different latitudes. A possible mental model for that period is the modern tropical forests of Central Africa or Indonesia. We don't have data that would allow us to compare Earth's productivity today with that of the Eocene, but we can't exclude that the Eocene was more productive in terms of life. Humans might well adapt to this new world, although their survival during the transition is by no means guaranteed. 

Again, it seems that Lovelock was wrong when he said that ice ages optimize the functioning of the biosphere. But maybe there is more to this idea. At least for one thing, ice ages have a good effect on life. Take a look at this image that summarizes the main ice ages of Earth's long history

 (image source)

The interesting point is that ice ages seem to occur just before major transitions in the evolutionary history of Earth. We don't know much about the Huronian ice age, but it occurred just at the boundary of the Archean and the Proterozoic, at the time of the appearance of the Eucaryotes. Then, the Cryogenian preceded the Ediacaran period and the appearance of multicellular life that colonized the land. Finally, even the evolution of the Homo Sapiens species may be related to the most recent ice age cycle. With the cooling of the planet and the reduction of the extent of forested areas, our ancestors were forced to leave the comfortable forests where they had lived up to then and take up a more dangerous lifestyle in the savannas. And you know what it led to!

So, maybe there is something good in ice ages and, after all, James Lovelock's intuition may have hinted at an important insight in how evolution works. Then, there remains the question of how exactly ice ages drive evolution. Maybe they have an active role, or maybe they are simply a parallel effect of the real cause that drives evolution, quite possibly the increasing concentration of atmospheric oxygen that has accompanied the biosphere over the past 2.7 billion years. Oxygen is the magic pill that boosts the metabolism of aerobic creatures -- what makes possible creatures like us. 

In any case, it is likely that ice ages will soon be a thing of the past on planet Earth. The effect of the human perturbation may be moderate and, when humans will stop burning fossil hydrocarbons (they have to, one day or another) the system may reabsorb the excess CO2 and gradually return to the ice age cycles of the past. That may occur in times of the order of at least several thousand years, possibly several tens of thousands. But the climate is a non-linear system and it may react by reinforcing the perturbation -- the results are unknowable. 

What we know for sure is that the cycle of Earth's ecosystem (Gaia) is limited. We still have about 600 million years before the sun's increasing brightness takes Earth to a different condition: that of "wet greenhouse" that will bring the oceans to boil and extinguish all life on the planet. And so it will be what it will have to be. Gaia is long-lived, but not eternal.

The Secret of Holobionts: How Excessive Efficiency can Kill

 

Five minutes are enough to take a look at this amazing video. It is extremely well done and it tells you about things that you would never have suspected. How can it be that trees exist? Well, it turns out that their metabolism is truly alien and it exploits physical phenomena that you wouldn't have imagined could be used in that way. But Mother Gaia has many tricks!

One point that has fascinated me most is how this behavior of threes highlights a fundamental characteristic of holobionts: the individual organisms that form the holobiont do not act with a purpose, they do not have "in mind" to benefit the group. But, if it is true that what's good for the hive is good for the bee, also the reverse is often true. And especially in this case. 

Trees pump water by evaporating water, which means they lose most of it. From the video, you'll learn that just about 5% of the pumped water is used by the tree for its needs. The rest evaporates away -- it is the process of evapotranspiration. 

So, trees are highly inefficient pumping machines. But, curiously, this inefficiency is what benefits the forest. This huge evaporation is what puts in motion another pump: the biotic pump. It is a mechanism that generates a depression that, in turn, pulls water from the humid atmosphere near the sea all the way to the inner areas of the forest. Without this mechanism, forests could hardly exist inland. 

If trees were 100% efficient, they would evaporate nothing and the forest would die. I think there is a deep message here, not valid just for forests: too high efficiency can kill. Living is sharing, and if there is no sharing there is no life.

 

 

 

How I cured my Stiff Neck: Holobionts and Health.

 

This is a reflection on epistemology in medicine. It deals with my personal case of a bad stiff neck that lasted for more than a year, until I found the trick to make it go away. Please understand that I am no doctor and I don't claim to be able to cure anyone. I am just pointing out that you should always remember that you are a holobiont. So, if you treat your biome well, your biome will treat you well.

 

About two years ago, I developed a bad case of stiff neck. Sometimes it meant so much pain that I had to stop whatever I was doing and clench my teeth to avoid screaming. And sometimes I really screamed aloud. Then, I had to trust God every time I crossed a street because I couldn't turn my head to see if a car was running in my direction. 

There are various medicines you can take to ease the pain of a stiff neck and I tried several of them. Aspirin, NSAIDs, creams, exercises, acupuncture, massages. But, apparently, my case was bad enough to be resistant to pills, creams, and manipulations. What the hell was happening to me?

I tried to reason it over and I thought I had found an explanation. More or less in coincidence with the start of my neck pain, I had relocated to a new home. It was partly underground, and the humidity inside was much higher than in my old home. On the right, you see one of the windows of my new home. No, not the big one. Look at where my wife, Grazia, is pointing. Yes, that one! The hygrometer in the new home consistently marked over 70% humidity, whereas in the old home the needle would normally stay between 40% and 50%.

I know that correlation doesn't mean causation, but the logical inference was that humidity was the reason for my stiff neck. I found that it is commonly written on the Web that indoor humidity should be between 40% and 60% for optimal comfort, and that seemed to confirm my suspicion: my home was too humid. Even my hygrometer said that there was something wrong when the needle went over 70%. It was made in Germany, and their boffins are said to know what they say. Humidity could have been the reason of my stiff neck. 

So, I bought a professional dehumidifier, It made a lot of noise and it considerably raised my electricity bill, but it did lower the humidity level at home. Not so much, but it could bring it below 70%. But the effect on my neck was nil. During that period, I also happened to visit Iran for a couple of weeks. Tehran is a very dry city, I had brought my hygrometer with me: humidity was around 20%. I thought that it would have some good effect on my stiff neck, but I noted no improvement at all. 

In the meantime, I searched the literature to try to understand why the "perfect" humidity is situated exactly in the middle of the scale. I found very little. Plenty of people say that if humidity goes above 80%, it is bad for your health. And they say that, above that level, you should see green mold appearing on the walls of your home. I saw that happening at home, but did it have anything to do with my stiff neck? I couldn't find a serious study on the effect of high humidity on human health and, in particular, on neck pain.

About one year and a half of pain had gone by when I had one of those serendipitous moments that change your life. Wait one moment..... something HAD changed about two years before: I had bought a new pair of glasses with bifocal lenses. As soon as I started thinking about that, I also noted that in moving to the new apartment I had set up my desk on a table that was a little higher than the one I was using before. And I noted that in order to focus my eyes on the screen, I had to strain my neck backward.

This noted, this done. I got rid of my glasses, discovering that I didn't really need them to read text on screen. And the improvement was rapid: I felt better after just a few days. Completely getting rid of the stiffness took at least 4-5 months, but I can report to you that now it is gone. Zero pain, it is wonderful! I can turn my neck as much as I like and I can cross the street in safety. 

So, what did I learn from this experience? That medicine is a complicated matter. I am trained as a scientist and I am a firm believer in the experimental method. But that's very difficult to apply to medicine. In my case, I found a trick that cured my neck, but does it have a general validity? Does it prove that humidity doesn't cause health damage? Does it prove that my stiff neck was caused by my new glasses? Would that apply to other people? How could I tell?

It is the general problem of "evidence based medicine." The golden standard in medicine is the "randomized controlled trial." That means a complex series of procedures to evaluate a significant number of patients while trying to control all the multiple parameters that might affect their health. 

Seen in this light, my experience with neck pain doesn't count anything. How can I prove that my neck improved because I stopped wearing my glasses? How can I exclude other factors, maybe a special astral conjunction? Or something else? 

The interesting point of this story is that it would be practically impossible to carry out a randomized controlled trial on whether excessive humidity causes a stiff neck. Think about that: how do you find a standardized set of patients? How do you standardize the humidity conditions? How do you define the intensity of one's stiff neck? In addition, who would pay for such a study? Since it doesn't involve pills, no pharmaceutical company would sponsor it. 

The result is that everybody says that medicine is a science, but it is a peculiar kind of science where the "scientific method" is often applied in a creative way (to say the least). That was seen very well with the recent Covid epidemics, where most of the actions that governments took were not based on hard data, but on haphazard evaluations taken on the spur of the moment. Just as an example, we saw everyone suddenly disinfecting everything, everywhere, all the time. Do we have proof that all that has any effect on the spread of the Covid epidemic? No, as you can read on "Nature" -- not normally so unreliable as a source.

Does that mean that randomized control studies are a bad idea? Not at all, and I invite you to follow the blog by Dr. Sebastian Rushworth, a true gold mine of ideas, suggestions, and data, all useful for your health. He is specialized in evaluating randomized control studies and he is very good at translating the dry and incomprehensible language of scientific papers into something that normal people can understand. 

It is, just, that medicine is a world that deals specifically with the most complex system we know: the human body. And complex systems, it is known, can't normally be described in terms of "causes" and "effects." No, complex systems only know forcings and feedbacks. And a small forcing applied on a complex system can generate a chain of feedbacks that sends the system to a completely different state. Just like when a pair of new glasses pushed me from a state of "healthy neck" to a state of "stiff neck."

In the end, I think that always asking for proof in medicine is a double-edged weapon. It may help in many cases, but in others it may lead you completely astray. If you ask me (and let me repeat, I am not a doctor) I would say, "try what looks reasonable and keep what works." And always remember that you are a holobiont. Treat your biome gently (don't try to kill it using disinfectants) and your biome will treat you gently. And onward we go, fellow holobionts!

(on a line completely opposite to that of trusting randomized control studies, you may be interested in the work of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, who wrote the book “Gut and Psychology Syndrome." She never mentions the concept of holobiont in her book or in her talks, but her whole approach is very, very holobiontic!)

Nutrition to Cure the Human Holobiont: the Right Path to Health?

 

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride explains her theory about nutrition as the origin of most maladies. It is a long video, but somehow I managed to hear it all.

 

In my life, I never was the kind of guy who looks for trouble. But, occasionally, I found myself in situations where I thought that a (very) rapid retreat was the best strategy (1). My genetic set-up seems to be geared on "run" rather than on "fight," and who am I to criticize my ancestors?  

But I can tell you that some members of a certain category of people seriously tried to kill me: medical doctors. I won't go into the  details, it is not the purpose of this post to smear medical doctors, even though I would have a few horror stories to tell you about myself and people I know. 

Apart from my personal case, if you want a truly blood-chilling example of medical malpractice, you can find it in Siddhartha Mukerjee's book "The Emperor of All Maladies." In it, you can read, for instance, how the standard treatment for breast cancer up to less than a century ago was to mutilate women in the most gruesome ways. And it was totally useless. There are other cases, for instance the idea of strict bedrest following a heart attack may have killed millions, worldwide, as reported by Dr. Bernard Lown (2). 

So, doctors can be very dangerous, at least some of them. But there is a category of medical doctors who stand apart from the rest because they are much less dangerous than the average: nutritionists.

The advantage of the nutritionist's approach to health is that it is difficult to kill someone by telling him or her to eat (or not to eat) some specific kind of food. True, some diets that have been proposed in the past are so terribly unbalanced that they can kill in the long run. You may wish to read Lierre Keith's book The Vegetarian Myth (2009) for an in-depth criticism of some extreme kinds of diets. But, overall, it is difficult to propose a diet, no matter how quixotic, that does worse than the current "standard" diet based on hamburgers and soft drinks. 

The nutritional approach stands in stark contrast with the standard medical approach. As I said, I am not here to smear medical doctors, but my experience with them is that their approach is to match your symptoms with a specific pill, and there you go. Next patient, please. Always busy, stressed, and overworked, that's about the most you can expect. 

The problem with this approach is that, as you get older, you tend to accumulate pills just like you accumulate fat in your love handles. And nobody can say to know exactly what's the cumulative effect of all those pills together. On this point I can tell you about my mother in law, Liliana, who turned 100 last year. At some moment, this winter, she seemed to be very sick and we were thinking she was going to leave us. When the doctor came, he agreed with us that the good thing to do was not to give Liliana more pills during what might have been the last days of her life, but to have her stop taking most of those she had been taking for years. 

The result was remarkable: in a few weeks, Liliana improved a lot and she returned alert and in reasonably good shape for a centenarian. That doesn't mean she will live to 110, but this little miracle was impressive. Liliana's case is not unique. I am told that it is a typical that when someone very old is taken off their usual medicines, they often dramatically improve. 

Now, please understand that I am no medical doctor, I am not recommending anything or anyone, and I am not telling you to take or not to take any medicine. I just wanted to propose that in the future medicine may well become something different than the current one. I started with the clip by Dr. Campbell-McBride not because I think she says something better than other nutritionists do. In fact, if you look at books written by nutritionists, you'll find a wide variety of approaches and I have the impression (just an impression!) that some nutritionists strongly disagree with each other. But this is typical of science in a phase of rapid progress. 

What impressed me in Dr Campbell-McBride is how deep and wide is the scientific basis of what she says. And her approach to try first to understand the natural mechanisms that lead to a sickness and the attempt to avoid approaches that may lead to worst side effects. Another good thing about her is that she was smeared in an article in the Daily Mail, where they even cast doubts on whether she was really a medical doctor. That is, of course, a badge of honor for her! Probably, she received this treatment because she is Russian, and Russians have to be evil by definition.

Dr Campbell-McBride never mentions holobionts in her book or in her book but, clearly what she is discussing about is the human holobiont taken as the unit to be cured: including the microbiota that makes the human organism function. Will that be the medicine of the future? I can't say that, but for sure the concept of holobiont is leading us to many new concepts and new ideas

 

(1). An occasion when I saw myself at the risk of physical violence was when I found myself surrounded by a group of screaming men in a Roma (Gypsy) camp, seemingly intending to beat the hell out of me. When I realized what was happening, the most angry one was too close to me to give me a chance to turn and run away safely -- the Roma are almost never armed, but you never know. So I could only stand and face him, as calmly as I could. But the situation quickly de-escalated. It turned out that he was angry at me just because I was the closest Gadjo he could find. His wife had left him and the social workers had taken his daughter away from him. Add to that a little alcohol, and he had gone bonkers for good and he was angry at all the Gadji, not without reasons, poor fellow. The other Roma were puzzled just like me, but it was soon clear that they had collected around me to protect me, not to harm me. Eventually, we even became friends. You may think I was lucky but, really, I knew what I was doing when I entered that Gypsy camp. I didn't expect troubles and I had none. In fact, a Gypsy camp is normally one of the safest places of the world. 

2.Dr. Bernard Lown died less than one month ago. A great man by all means: Physician, cardiologist, professor at Harvard University and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He was the inventor of the defribrillator, proposer of many successful ways to help people suffering of heart failure. He was also the recipient of the Nobel prize for peace. You can read his thoughts at his blog that he kept until 2012. Lown died at 99 after a life full of activities and, I imagine, of great satisfactions. Gaia was gentle with this son of hers who did so much for his many brothers. May he rest in peace. 

 

 

 

 

A Diet for the Human Holobiont.

 

A picture taken at an open-air market near Florence in 2015. As you see, overall, people are not fat in Italy. But that doesn't mean we don't have our share of obesity problems. 

The human holobiont is a wonderful machine that can do many things in many different ways. It has a "dual fuel" system that allows it to subsist on two main kinds of foods: one his carbohydrates, the other is fat. You probably know something about how switching to the fat-based metabolism can improve your health and reduce your weight. That's called the ketogenic, or "keto" diet. 

I won't go into the details. I just wanted to tell you that I am experimenting now with a relatively new version of the ketogenic diet, called sometimes the "pseudo-fasting" or "Fast-Mimicking Diet," developed by prof. Valter Longo presently at the USC university but, incidentally, born in Italy. 

The story of this and other similar diets is long, but the basic concept is always the same: you tend to mimic the way the human holobiont machine would work in its natural environment. There, it wouldn't normally have a 100% daily supply of high-energy content carbohydrates, from Corn Pops to ice cream. And, clearly, this kind of diet is not good for us for many reasons. Not only it makes us obese, but it also generates diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, all that. It is called the "Metabolic Syndrome"

Recognizing the problem, led to several proposals to solve it: diets, mainly. One is the "paleo diet," others involve intermittent fasting. In all cases, you try to reduce the amount of carbohydrates you eat. The idea is to exploit the capability of your body to switch to use fat as an energy source. It is a different concept than that of the "standard" diets, which often consist of reducing calories without worrying too much about what kind.

At the basis of the ketogenic diets, there is the idea that you mimic a condition that your ancestors would normally encounter in their lives: that of running out of food. We store energy in the form of fat just as a precaution against that event. When we don't have enough carbohydrates, we can switch to fat and that makes us leaner and fitter. Our body "understands" that there is a problem and it moves to remedy it. Under the ketogenic regime, you are on the prowl. You are searching for food. 

So, how is the pseudo-fasting working? I can tell you about my personal experience. I am not obese, just moderately overweight. The main reason I am trying this diet is to reduce my blood pressure without using pills -- and all the typical problems you have as you age (I am 68): gastro-esophageal reflux syndrome, sleep apnea, pre-diabetes, if you are over 50 you know about that.  

The version of diet that I am following involves a reduced food intake: 40 grams of nuts and about 400 grams of vegetables per day -- plus a little olive oil (a must for Italians!). As I am writing this post, I am on the 4rth day of a 5-day cycle. It seems to work: I can see that I am in the ketogenic mode using "keto sticks." I've lost about two kgs, so far. Not much, but it is something, and I am still halfway through the cycle. And my blood pressure is going down, nothing dramatic, but a little, yes. 

What I think is interesting is how the pseudo-fasting diet is a relatively easy diet to follow. In the past, I had tried the alternate fasting diet, you fast one day and you eat normally the other. It is fine, but I found it a little harsh. At least for me, pseudo-fasting was much easier: a little hungry the second day, but no problems the other days. The beauty of the idea is that you don't separate yourself from the rest of your family at mealtimes. You eat with them, although, of course, you eat very little and food of low nutritional value. 

I also think it is important that this diet is not made to punish you by making you hungry. We tend to think that our ancestors were primitive brutes and would go hungry all the time. No, not at all. As Chuck Pezeshki explains, humans are social animals and tend to share food. There must have been times harder than others, but hunger must have been rare, just as over-abundance. Hunger and obesity are maladies of what we call "civilization." So, I think the pseudo-fasting diet does mimic something that our ancestors would experience: periods of scarcity where they had to cope by being smart and efficient and make the best use of their (our) dual-fuel metabolic system.

Then, of course, I am experiencing the same sensations that I had with the more conventional fasting. All sensations that are part of the evolutionary tools you have inherited from your ancestors: you feel more tired, but also more alert. You tend to conserve energy, but you are ready to go into running mode if you see a potential steak in your hunting range. Or, more likely, edible berries not so far away. A peculiar sensation is the different range of vision. Somehow, I tend to detect things at a larger distance, noting details that I don't normally note. I don't know if this is common, but it makes sense: if you are on the prowl, then you have to be alert for any possible food source, even a distant one. 

Then, of course, when you are on a diet, you tend to dream of eating good things! But I figure that it is normal. I woke up this morning while dreaming of caviar and champagne. Yes, like James Bond and Vesper Lynd in "Casino Royale." A diet that gives you this kind of dreams must have something good in it!

So, how does that relate to the concept of holobionts? Well, it is because you shouldn't forget that what keeps you alive is a large number of little creatures inside your cells: the mitochondria. They are the source of energy for everything we do, but, remarkably, they don't share your genetic code. Their DNA is just theirs, you inherit them from your mother and not from your father. For some reason, when the female ovum is fecundated, the mitochondria carried by the male spermatozoa are destroyed and disappear forever. So, mitochondria are creatures living inside the human organism. They are a perfect example of symbiosis: they couldn't live without you and you couldn't live without them! That's how holobionts function. 

And we keep going. Who knows? One day we could find a way to stop the obesity epidemic that's making so many people sick and unhappy in the world. Onward, fellow holobionts!

To go more in-depth, do read this wonderful post by Chuck Pezeshki. And thanks to Dr. Alberto Santini for having placed me on the pseudo-fasting track!

Holobiont Science: Sometimes a Little Vague, but Always Interesting

 

Holobiont science is sometimes a little vague, but always interesting. Here is an example.In this paper, http://www.zoologia.hu/list/Why_infest.pdf, Rozsa and Apari argue that head lice in humans is a useful symbiont because it generates an immune response that helps protect humans from body lice, which can be dangerous as vector for harmful bacteria. (the photo above is from the paper)

 

It is an interesting story where you learn that there are at least two types of lice living with humans. And you learn that apes have only one kind, probably because they are uniformly hairy. Rozsa and Apari go on suggesting that the "touching heads" human habit has the specific purpose of diffusing health lice in such a way to spread the immunity to body lice. Apes, they say, don't touch each other's heads because they don't have such a need. 

 

Which is, as I said, very interesting, but is it true? Honestly, it gives you the idea that the authors are piling up one hypothesis after the other, none of them being really supported by data. For instance, in the places where I live, there is no habit of touching heads as a form of salutation or an expression of friendship. Then, are we sure that apes touch heads less frequently than humans do? I don't think we have solid statistics on that point. Besides, why are body lice dangerous, but not head lice? One more mystery of holobionts! 

 

But it is nevertheless a nice idea that adds a little more to the complexity of the idea of holobionts. And the picture that illustrates the paper (in lieu of non-existing data) is truly charming. Two distinguished professors exchanging lice. Wonderful!

The Chimera and the Holobiont

 

This is a rather ambitious project of mine where I examine a subject I have been working on for a long time, the Chimera myth, from several viewpoints: myths, lore, history, symbolism, and more. But I also try to take a look at the Chimera from the view point of a beloved concept of mine, that of the "Holobiont."

You probably already know that the term "chimera" has a specific meaning in biology: an organism having more than a single set of genes. But these creatures are normally considered some kind of freaks, the result of the work of some mad scientists or the like. But chimeras (in the biological sense) are just a special case of "holobionts" -- with holobionts defined as creatures composed of organisms of different species. And that's clearly the case of the Chimera. 

In this clip I try to outline how the concept of a multiple organism, a holobiont, is a general concept in ecology, but also in fields such as memetics, where "memes" act indeed as holobionts, having "sex" with each other and exchanging information to create new memes. Or new myths, it is the same thing. Or the whole ecosystem. In the end, we are all chimeras!

I hope you may find the clip interesting. It was not easy to make it: I am not a professional and I have to apologize if it is a little rough at some moments. But I did my best. I have also to thank the Frilli Gallery in Florence and Ms. Clara Marinelli for having allowed me to film their full-size replica of the Chimera of Arezzo.

The Secret of Holobionts

 

"Braiding Sweetgrass" is a wonderful book, the kind that's best digested a few pages at a time. (h/t Erik Assadourian). In it, the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, happily moves back and forth from the uses of her Native American ancestors and her knowledge as biologist. She never uses the concept of "holobiont," but the book teems of holobionts on almost every page.

 

I am about halfway through it, and the book remains full of surprises. Here is what I read this morning, while drinking my coffee. It is about how the ancient Native Americans had found a way to optimize their plots of land by planting together three different seeds: corn, beans, and squash, poetically referred to as the "Three Sisters." Kimmerer goes on describing the details of exquisitely intricate ways in which these three species collaborate with each other, maximizing the supplying of nutrients to all three. She says.

 

"It’s tempting to imagine that these three are deliberate in working together, and perhaps they are. But the beauty of the partnership is that each plant does what it does in order to increase its own growth. But as it happens, when the individuals flourish, so does the whole. In reciprocity, we fill our spirits as well as our bellies."

 

And that's the true secret of holobionts.

On the Importance of Having Limbal Rings. The Evolution of Humankind

 

 

 

 

This short movie, Vikaari, has recently appeared on the "Dust" site and I think has several interesting features, relevant to the concept of holobionts. 

 

It is very well done as a movie, although it is deeply contradictory in many aspects. For one thing, it is a narrative disaster. First, the movie tells you that the Vikaari, children born without a visible iris in the eyes, are good people, and the target of Nazi-like bad guys. Then, we see the Vikaari killing their pursuers using their psychokinetic powers in bloody and cruel ways, apparently without any regret. Needless to say, this completely destroys the narrative tension of the movie and leaves you totally baffled about what the filmmakers wanted to say.

Indeed, I think the filmmakers were badly confused on several planes. First of all, in their decision of presenting this "new race" of children as something that will replace current human beings, engaged in destroying their own planet. Is this a hope or a fear? Difficult to say, but surely evolution doesn't work in that way. 

And then, why the choice of iris-less eyes as a defining mark? Most people rarely consciously perceive the characteristics of the irises of their fellow human beings. But the shape of the iris tells us much of the genetic inheritance of a person -- on this point, the film-makers got it right, although in reverse. A human being without a visible iris is not a modern human.

 

The iris is an easily modified, highly visible human trait. There is a whole genetic story in the human iris. From what we can say, light-colored eyes have been rare, although DNA studies indicate that they did exist in the Mesolithic period. Curiously, Europe is the continent where, nowadays, light-colored eyes are most common. But it is only a few centuries ago that light-colored irises start to appear in paintings. If they had existed before, surely painters would have noted them and shown them in their paintings. Green eyes are a modern trait in Europe, they seem to come from Northern Asia. They do spread easily because they are a typical "epigamic" trait. They give a certain advantage in the sexual competition for mates. 

 

And then, there are limbal rings. The dark ring that surrounds the iris. Also a typical epigamic signal, they are likely to be a feature of the modern main organism of the human holobionts. Here you see the eyes of Sarah Brightman, a modern human specimen, notable for their light green color and well detectable limbal rings. As epigamic signals go, Ms. Brightman is surely beaming them out loud and clear!

 

Note the difference from other mammalian eyes. Most animals, even our close relatives, the apes, have dark eyes, no limbal rings, and not even a large and well detectable sclera. You see it in the image: this (probably) female bonobo doesn't look at all like Sarah Brightman, although she also surely sends powerful epigamic signals to the males of her species. 

So, why do the Vikaari of the movie have no irises and no pupil? They are, actually, the specular version of the "black eyed people," characters of a recent horror movie. In both cases, filmmakers understood that the lack of sclera or of the iris is a characteristic of a creature that is not fully human. A new species (as in Vikaari) or an otherworldly evil creature (as in "black eyed creatures"). No wonder that regular humans react with great perplexity and sometimes violently. And their violence is reciprocated in Vikaari. 

The existence of these films shows our limited understanding, and also limited tolerance, of what makes humans human. A small difference in the extent of the sclera or in the color of the iris is sufficient to turn otherwise fully human creatures into enemies, at least in these fiction pieces. But we all know very well that it happens also in the real world for other, no more important genetic traits, such as skin color. 

 

There is a thin line that separates the horrible from the attractive: nobody would be killed for having green eyes, but the white-eyed Vikaari could be if they existed for real. But that's the way evolution works. Sometimes gradually, sometimes in bumps. The human holobiont of the future will not be the same as it is now and it was in the past. It is the giant holobiont that we call the ecosphere that changes all the time. Onward, fellow holobionts!

Finally, for your curiosity, the "Statue of a Standing Nude Goddess," presently at the Louvre Museum and coming from excavations in the Middle East. Note the eyes without irises. It is not clear if that was a bug or a feature: once they had decided to use rubies for the eyes of this statuette, there was no way they could have shown irises or pupils. But maybe it was intentional: this figure may have been supposed to be somewhat otherworldly or even threatening. Note the horns on her head, a typical attribute of the Moon Goddess. Already at the time when it was made, probably the 2nd century CE, goddesses were rather unpopular and suspicious, not unlike our modern witches. 

 

 

 

The Loving Reaper as a Holobiont. An Interpretation by Jenny Jinya

I don't think I'll engage in commenting the details of this story by Jenny Jinya, the young German lady who has been creating incredible stories (see here, here and here.). After all, we all know that the way to boredom lies in telling the details. But try to take a look at this story. It is not just a moving story, it has an unbelievable depth. It resonates of so many motives and ideas that are part of human history that it left me breathless: the Goddess, Death, the Otherworld, kindness, piety, benevolence, mercy, and much more. 

But the bewildering element of this story is how all these things are linked together. Jenny Jinya has truly understood how the universe works: life and death need each other and neither could exist alone. The holobiont concept is not just about symbiosis, it is about communication. And the universe is a giant holobiont that moves, changes, grows, shrinks, expands, returns, and restarts, all because its elements communicate with each other and the result is the never-ending cycle of life and death. Sometimes, we use the term "love" for this kind of communication and it is truly the most powerful force in the universe.

 

 

A New Holobiont in Gaia's Family

 

Had you ever heard of the "Plastisphere"? Well, it is a new ecosystem that thrives on the plastic islands in the sea created by human activity. 

 

The term was coined in 2013, but these little critters are still thriving nowadays as you can see in a more recent article. 

 

For sure, they'll soon have plenty of food in the form of the six billion (yes, 6x10^9!) plastic face masks discarded everyday by humankind and, eventually, ending up floating somewhere in the ocean. 

 

And here is how the plastic plate appears to our little friends, the microbes. Bon Appetit!

 

 

Sex Among Holobionts: Love is a Horizontal Thing

 

  Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is reported to have said, "Only love interests me, and I am only in contact with things that revolve around love."  His paintings have a certain "holobiontic" quality. This one, "Les Amoureux de Vence" was painted in 1957,

 

What do holobionts, empathy, and harmony have in common with sex? One thing: they are all forms of horizontal transmission of information. We tend to see ourselves as multicellular organisms and, for us, sex is indeed a "horizontal" thing, in a certain sense. 

But, sex was not invented by multicellular creatures. On this planet, sex is mostly something that bacteria engage in, freely exchanging genetic materials among themselves. It is free love that goes on all the time among single-celled creatures. And it is the way they evolve. It is by exchanging genetic materials that bacteria have become more and more capable to resist to the human attacks against them by means of antibiotics.

And even viruses, which can't reproduce by themselves, have sex with each other. It is just that they can only do that when two different viruses find themselves in the same host cell. That can become even a little weird when the two viruses come from different previous hosts, say a pangolin and a human being. In any case, viruses evolve very fast, that's why almost every year a new wave of influenza spreads over the world. 

For larger holobionts, such as human beings, the situation is different when you consider the reproductive mechanism of the main organism, the human one. Two human organisms exchange genetic information, but then this information must be "read" in a complex process that involves the birth of a new human being (and, unfortunately, the death of the old one). It is slow: in terms of evolutionary prowess, viruses and bacteria run circles around us. Fortunately, our immune system can also change fast enough to match the new threats, and we are also defended by the "good" biome that form the human holobiont, the bacterial and viral symbionts we carry with us. And we are part of the larger holobiont we call the ecosystem.

Holobionts are fractal systems: the true embodiment of the poem of Jonathan Swift

The Vermin only teaze and pinch
Their Foes superior by an Inch.
So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller yet to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum:

And so it goes.