World Health

The World Health committee is concerned for the general health of the population of the World, regardless of whether you are from a developed or under-developed country.

The topics to be discussed in the World Health Committee 2019 are:

A: The question of Reforming the Global Pharmaceutical Industry

B: The question of Combating the International Obesity and Diabetes Epidemic

C:  The question of the World Water Crisis

Research Reports

Topic A:

Topic B:

Topic C:

The Chairs of this committee are:


This Doctor Upended Everything We Knew About The Human Heart

In the 17th century, English doctor William Harvey tore down theories that had been popular in Europe for nearly 1,500 years.

Until 1628 few Europeans disputed the teachings of Galen, an accomplished Greek physician and scholar. Galen lived in the second century A.D., and his teachings would come to dominate European medicine and scholarship for centuries.

Galen’s massive contributions to medicine cannot be denied. He was the first to identify the physiological difference between veins and arteries. He also disproved a 400-year-old theory that arteries conveyed not blood but air throughout the body (the name artery comes from this original idea: The Greek arteria means “that which conveys air”). By the 16th and 17th centuries scientific methods had evolved, making it easier for new scientists to challenge the old ones. Galen’s theories were sitting ducks, waiting for a physician like Englishman William Harvey to take them down.

Galen taught that there are three main interconnected systems in the body: the brain and nerves; the heart and arteries; and the liver and veins. According to Galen, dark, venous blood formed in the liver and then travelled through the veins throughout the body to deliver nourishment and build and maintain tissues. Some blood would come into contact with air in the lungs and go to the heart. From there, this bright red blood went to the brain to form “pneuma,” a substance responsible for sensation and feeling.

According to Galen’stheory, the blood did not return to the liver or the heart. Instead, it would be consumed by the body, which meant that it needed to be constantly replenished. Sometimes the liver might produce too much blood, and the body became imbalanced, leading to illness. Galen’s cure was bloodletting, as drawing off the excess fluid would restore equilibrium.

Galen's view of the circulatory system in De Arte Phisicali et De Cirurgia (1412) by John Arderne

Other scientists had discovered the true nature of circulation centuries before Harvey. One of the main manuals of Chinese medicine, written 2,600 years ago, stated that “all of the blood in the body is pumped by the heart, completes a circle and never stops moving.” In the 13th century the Arab doctor Ibn an-Nafis described so-called “small circulation” in which blood circulated only from the heart to the lungs and back without reaching other parts of the body.

In 16th-century Europe Galen’s teachings were beginning to be challenged. The Spanish physician Michael Servetus argued that the venous blood was purified in the lungs before returning to the heart. Out of respect for, or fear of, the Galenic tradition, however, this philosopher and doctor did not describe the pathways through which the blood circulated. His contemporary the Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius demonstrated in the 1500s the flaws in Galen’s anatomical description of the heart, but he did not challenge the rest of his teachings.

The growing scepticism of Galen’s work had a great influence on William Harvey, who was born in Folkestone, England, in 1578. The son of a farmer, Harvey showed great promise as a child, and his father encouraged his studies. As a young man he studied at the King’s School in Canterbury and at Cambridge University. He completed his medical education at the University of Padua in 1602. He returned to England and began practicing medicine and teaching. In 1607 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in 1609 he was appointed physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. Harvey’s star continued to rise: In 1618 he became the royal physician, serving both James I and his successor, Charles I.

Published in 1628, Harvey’s small volume On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals—about 70 pages long—became a gigantic milestone.

Through his teachings and observations, Harvey began to develop a new theory to explain how blood flowed through the body. He applied rigorous standards to his research and only accepted conclusions as proven when they were based on evidence from repeated experiments. He collected data from phlebotomies (drawing blood from a vein) and palpitations of arterial aneurysms (abnormal dilation). He conducted thorough research, including numerous dissections of human beings and as many as 40 animal species. Harvey pored over the results before compiling them and publishing his groundbreaking Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus (On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals) in 1628. Harvey’s small volume—about 70 pages long—became a gigantic milestone.

In this book (first published in Latin, and then in English 25 years later) Harvey laid out the evidence supporting his case that blood moved throughout the body in a circle. His strongest evidence was that it would be impossible for the body to replenish the amount of blood it would consume under Galen’s theories. He arrived at this conclusion by calculating the total volume of blood that moves through the body in an hour and showed that it was too high for the body to replenish. Therefore, the amount of blood in the human body must be constant and in perpetual motion.

Harvey’s observation of beating animal hearts showed him how the heart, not the liver, functions as the engine for the circulatory system: “It must therefore be concluded that the blood in the animal body moves around in a circle continuously and that the action . . . of the heart is to accomplish this by pumping.” The action of the heart moved blood out through the arteries to the body and then back to the heart through the veins.

Harvey applied a tourniquet to the arm of a volunteer, who gripped an object in his hand. He then waited for the blood vessels to swell due to the buildup of liquid flowing through them. The small globular protuberances (B, C, D, E) indicate the presence of venous valves.

He then applied pressure with his finger to stop the blood, keeping it from flowing past point H. The vein between points O and H did not fill with blood, which demonstrated that there the valve at point O was acting like a dam and preventing the blood from flowing backward toward the hand.

Because Harvey’s work challenged the accepted ideas of the time, it was greeted with a mix of interest, scepticism, and hostility. In England many were intrigued by his writing and persuaded by his science. King Charles I saw the academic value of his work, but some conservative doctors levelled accusations of quackery at him, causing his private practice to suffer. In Europe his discoveries were not embraced, and detractors included leading writers of the period. While Molière and Boileau supported Harvey’s views, Descartes—who initially accepted blood circulation—rejected the idea that the heart pumped the blood. Despite initial resistance, Harvey’s theory of circulation was widely accepted by the time of his death in 1657 at age 79.

Paradoxically, the growing acceptance of Harvey’s work on circulation was not adopted by practicing physicians right away. Traditional remedies (such as enemas and purgatives) were based on Galen’s idea of human physiology, but doctors still applied them to patients. Bloodletting, in particular, remained a popular treatment for illness; even Harvey supported its use. A half century after Harvey’s death, the French king Louis XIV was still accepting traditional treatments. Throughout his life, the king was treated with 2,000 purgatives, hundreds of enemas, and 38 bloodlettings.

Named in honor of one its most illustrious members, William Harvey House is the accommodation wing of the Royal College of Physicians in London. It was built in 1826 by the Regency architect John Nash.

Professionally, Harvey remained in service to the royal family and was sent on several diplomatic missions to Europe. He largely retired from public life in 1645, but he did continue his medical research into the human body with a focus on reproduction. While his work on circulation is certainly his greatest achievement, he also produced the pioneering work Exercitationes de generatione animalium, or On Animal Generation, on embryology in 1651. The last years of his life were spent in poor health, as he suffered from gout, kidney stones, and insomnia before dying from a stroke.

In life Harvey had been unable to prove the connection between veins and arteries, but four years after his death, another scientist would build on Harvey’s legacy. Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) revealed the passages that connected the venal and arterial systems. Using a microscope, he discovered minuscule vessels, the capillaries, the missing piece of the puzzle.

Lead Image: William Harvey conducts an experiment before King Charles I of England to demonstrate his theory of blood circulation. RUE DES ARCHIVES/ALBUM

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Coal to Newcastle or ice to eskimos - there is the inevitable cliché for Oamaru whisky to Scotland.

Yesterday, 648 bottles of whisky from the New Zealand Whisky Company's store in historic Oamaru was loaded on to a truck to begin the journey to Scottish whisky, wine and spirit wholesaler Gordon and McPhail in Elgin (about 60km east of Inverness), Scotland.

In the shipment are a number of different 700ml bottle labels, including medal-winning whisky.

New Zealand Whisky's New Zealand manager Deb Preston said this was the first shipment to the wholesaler by the new company and followed sales promotions in the United Kingdom, boosted by medals won in prestigious overseas competitions.

In the shipment were South Island single malt 18 and 21-year-old, Dunedin Distillery Doublewood 10-year-old Milford single Malt 15, 18 and 21-years-old and Cask Strength Whisky 1987, `88, `89, `90 and `93.

Export of the Cask Strength Whisky was a major breakthrough for the company.

"It is top of the line, in the top echelon of whisky," she said.

The company just learnt at the weekend that its whiskies had won gold, silver and two bronze medals at the Wizards of Whisky world whisky awards.

The gold was awarded to the 1993 Cask Strength, which was included in yesterday's export shipment.

The Doublewood and the South Island single malt 18-year-olds both won silvers, and the bronze was for the South Island 21-year-old.

Those awards followed two of the company's whiskies winning world's best awards at the Whisky Olympics in Michigan, United States.


Fishing in Russia

Russia, with it’s numerous rivers and lakes, has more water than any other country in the world, offering very interesting fishing opportunities: Atlantic salmon, 7 species of Pacific salmon, 2 species of taimen trout, several subspecies of arctic char, grayling, lennok trout, huge Yakut pike and many, many more. The vast majority of the best fishing destinations is hard to reach and remain unknown to international sportsmen. Others, including Kola peninsula, Kamchatka peninsula and Sakhalin island are becoming standards by which other destination measure their success. Fishing is very popular in Russia and as a drawback, many places close to large cities are overfished. Fortunately, hard to reach locations don’t suffer from overfishing and their numbers are endless. Contact Sergei Shushunov for any questions related to fishing in Russia.


Want to become an airline pilot?

This program is designed to help prepare you for the REAL world of aviation.
Would you say no if your aviation job depended on it?
We had to.
As a PPL trainee or a CPL trainee or licence holder you can enhance your training to date by joining.
You receive emails each week with a module to work through — called eClasses.
You get access to our monthly (members only) webinar where we cover all the topics that a pilot encounters so you can be prepared.

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HTC’s Vive X accelerator invests in 26 AR/VR startups

HTC has announced that it is investing in around 26 ambitious AR/VR startups through its Vive X accelerator program. The new batch of startups brings the total number of investments to 80 since July 2016.  The new startups joining the HTC Vive X program ware from the field of medicine, education, entertainment and enterprise markets.

Vive X is a strategic investor that offers access to expertise, resources, planning, and an extensive network throughout the AR/VR industry. By making all of its resources available, Vive helps these startups with tasks that go beyond financial investment.

Some examples include QuarkVR, developer of compression and streaming technology for untethered VR and AR experiences; positional tracking solutions from Antilatency for mobile and tethered VR headsets; Configreality, developer of a spatial compression algorithm designed to allow users to feel as if they’re moving in a large area when actual physical space is limited; and brain-computer interface developer Neurable, a company that is using advancements in electroencephalography to bring real-time “brain control” to VR.

Edtech startups include JuDaoEdu, a firm dedicated to the research and development of VR labs for K-12 students for physics, chemistry, biology and science education; and Lenqiy, a VR content developer producing science, engineering, technology, art and mathematics VR tools for teenagers.

Taipei based VRCollab takes modeling to the next level, enabling architects, engineers, planners, and consultants to collaborate seamlessly on construction projects. Its software converts models for use in design reviews, building requirement approval, and construction coordination. It also automates document generation.

Beijing-based Yue Cheng Tech, also joining Vive X, which seeks to become the Netflix of VR, has selected more than 300 high-quality VR experiences from over 50 partners across 15 countries.

Any startups interested in joining the accelerator program can learn more and apply on HTC’s website.


Newton's laws of motion

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Related to Newton's law: Newton's law of cooling

Newton's laws of motion:

see motionmotion,
the change of position of one body with respect to another. The rate of change is the speed of the body. If the direction of motion is also given, then the velocity of the body is determined; velocity is a vector quantity, having both magnitude and direction, while speed
..... Click the link for more information.

Newton's laws of motion

Three fundamental principles which form the basis of classical, or newtonian, mechanics. They are stated as follows:

First law: A particle not subjected to external forces remains at rest or moves with constant speed in a straight line.

Second law: The acceleration of a particle is directly proportional to the resultant external force acting on the particle and is inversely proportional to the mass of the particle.

Third law: If two particles interact, the force exerted by the first particle on the second particle (called the action force) is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted by the second particle on the first particle (called the reaction force).

The newtonian laws have proved valid for all mechanical problems not involving speeds comparable with the speed of light and not involving atomic or subatomic particles. See Dynamics, Force, Kinetics (classical mechanics)

Newton's laws of motion

The three fundamental laws concerning the motion of bodies that were formulated by Isaac Newton and published together with the law of gravitation in Principia, 1687. The laws are
1. Every body continues in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line until that state is changed by the action of a force on the body.
2. The rate of change of linear momentum is proportional to the applied force, F , and occurs in the same direction as that of the force, i.e.
F = d(mv )/dt = m (dv /dt) = ma
where m is the mass, v the velocity, and a the resulting acceleration of the body.
3. Every action is opposed by a reaction of equal magnitude that acts in the opposite direction to the action.

The first law was conceived by Galileo, who first realized the falsity of the Greek notion that a force is required to maintain a body in motion. Newton's laws of motion and of gravitation are fundamental to celestial mechanics.

Newton’s Laws of Motion

three laws that form the foundation of classical mechanics. They were formulated by I. Newton in 1687. The first law is: “Every body continues its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it is compelled to change that state by an external impressed force.” The second law is: “The rate of change of linear momentum is proportional to the impressed force and takes place in the direction of the straight line along which the force acts.” The third law is: “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or, in other words, the mutual actions between any two bodies are always equal and act in opposite directions.”

Newton’s laws of motion followed from a generalization of numerous observations, experiments, and theoretical investigations conducted by Galileo, C. Huygens, Newton himself, and others.

According to modern concepts and terminology, in the first and second laws the term “body” should be understood to mean a mass point, and “motion” to mean motion with respect to an inertial frame of reference. The mathematical expression of the second law in classical mechanics has the form d(mv)/dt = F, or mw = F, where m is the mass, ν the velocity, and w the acceleration of the point, and F is the impressed force.

Newton’s laws of motion cease to be valid for objects of very small dimensions (elementary particles) and for velocities close to the velocity of light.

Galilei, G. “Besedy i matematicheskie dokazatel’stva, kasaiushchiesia dvukh novykh otraslei nauki, otnosiashchikhsia k mekhanike i mestnomu dvizheniiu.” Soch., vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1934. (Translated from Latin.)
Newton, I. “Matematicheskie nachala natural’noi filosofii.” In A. N. Krylov, Sobr. trudov, vol. 7. Moscow-Leningrad, 1936. (Translated from Latin.)
See also references under MECHANICS.

Newton's laws of motion

[′nüt·ənz ′lȯz əv ′mō·shən]
Three fundamental principles (called Newton's first, second, and third laws) which form the basis of classical, or Newtonian, mechanics, and have proved valid for all mechanical problems not involving speeds comparable with the speed of light and not involving atomic or subatomic particles.
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Is there a need to involve extra entities (dark matter) or to modify forcibly the fundamental Newton's law to explain of this and others cosmological effects?
Worldwide research into suitable predators, parasites and pathogens has increased dramatically over the last 25 - 30 years and is probably almost comparable to the gradual decline of man-made chemicals - read Newton's Law of Motion again in the first paragraph
ACCORDING to Newton's law, RL bosses should appoint an Englishman to coach the national team Down Under in this season's Four Nations tournament.
Newton's law in the form of F=ma, where F is the force on the body, a the acceleration and m the mass of the body, can be used to describe the motion of point bodies and the centre-of-mass motion of rigid bodies.
An average of 20,000 students participate in each of the trips, which have taken students from the Grand Canyon to study fossils to the Indianapolis Speedway to see Newton's law of motion in action.
Sir Isaac Newton's law of motion teaches that something at rest tends to stay at rest, while something in motion wants to stay in motion.
The show also illustrated Newton's law that force equals mass times acceleration by having a student kick various sizes of a soccer ball.
The exhibition's title refers to the gravitational constant, one of the most difficult values in physics to measure; although it appears in both Newton's law of gravitation and Einstein's theory of relativity, it remains imprecise to this day.
By positioning the body properly, Newton's Law will produce great results.
notices the problem requires regrouping or describes a scenario associated with Pythagorean Theorem, Newton's Law, etc.
Another consequence of gravity having an unrecognized short-range component would be that the exponent in Newton's law of gravitation (i.
NEXT PROJECT: In '06 we're premiering Superforce, which is a mix of action magic, Newton's law, and quantum physics.


Growing Our Food

A couple months ago, I worked with my friend Julia in my garden. The experience made me realize that I really need to be working with people in general. Despite there being only the two of us, the work was much more than twice as productive and fun as my experiences trying to work alone. By working together, our work carried itself forward, effortlessly.

20lbs Potatoes

Me Kicking Weeds

Julia and I weeded everything, harvested 20 lbs of potatoes, and planted some peas (which got flooded out not long afterward

A group working together is far more productive than everyone doing their thing as a sum of isolated individuals. While individuals might have a range of goals and personal preferences, they can work together where their goals are shared. Some might want to do it for recreation, some for aesthetics, and some for feeding themselves, while everyone would have a range of personal temperaments and philosophies on gardening.

Hopefully there are some people around me that, like myself, want to grow as much food as possible for themselves as a part of gaining control over the food they eat. I want to grow as much as I can by myself, for myself, and if I were to be a part of a community, by the community and for the community. Such a community could organize around the simple goal of trying to grow as much food as possible with the resources available. While there can be an emphasis on growing food together, people can in addition work for local farmers in return for food, and buy and trade any remaining food that cannot be gained through working directly. By coordinating their work and distribution, the group can collectively gain control over the food they eat. Any individual can have more control based on their personal preference, and as needed draw on the resources of the group to exchange any work or skills.

While anyone and everyone can help with a collective effort, for anyone like myself who is serious about growing food for self-sufficiency, there would have to be some focus on making goals and documenting labor and yields. While this might sound overbearing, in the end it would be very rewarding, as the practicality of growing one’s own food would be demonstrated.

Personally, I would want to work directly with people who are relaxed, and do not feel too pressured, with the work carrying itself at its own pace, as I described my work with Julia being. Everything is not about yields – there are ethics, philosophies, personal preferences, and people with varying abilities. The group can grow a variety of things, with a variety of methods, with a variety of people. If the full range of things are included in the group’s documentation, that will give a truly broad understanding. If goals are not met, what matters is that the levels productivity are being observed, and people choose how they wish to act accordingly.

To begin, over the winter, the group can consider all the land available to them, consider potential yields, the amount of work needed to grow, the way that they want to go about gardening, and make goals of yields based on the time people are willing to commit. The best way to make this work is for there to be regularity – regular meetings in the winter, and when the spring rolls around, create a regular schedule. Clear plans can be developed by the time spring starts. When the work begins, the hours that people worked should be recorded, from the time commuting to the gardens to the time washing and processing the food. This way true comparisons can be made. Time and yields should also be compared to the costs of comparable food in the grocery store or farmers market. By planning ahead, and working regularly and mindfully, and looking back at the progress made and acting accordingly, a community can over time gain control they can over the food they eat.

I Need Help!

I am now going to seek help with my garden.

Very Late Start

Since my last post over a year ago, my efforts and results have been quite pathetic. At the end of last year, in a 20 x 40 ft garden, I believe that all I had to show was an eggplant and a half-grown green pepper.  My efforts this year have not gone far this year either, but I still have time.

According to the chart for planting, I can still plant some beets, beans, summer squash and cucumbers. In the first week of August, I can plant peas, radishes, spinach, and turnips. All of these are relatively easier to grow, but that could still be easier said than done.

So far, I have planted some potatoes and onions, and they seem to be doing okay, but I won’t really know until I pull them out of the soil.

My desire was to, as I had in the years previous, sheet mulch the whole garden. There is a leaf pile a bit far from the garden, but close enough that I could wheelbarrow it over. The idea of sheet mulching is to make things easier, but given the size of my garden, and the fact that I did not have material dumped at the edge like I had previous years, it quickly became impractical. Just thinking:

*Ideally, sheet mulching is 18-24 inches
*My garden: 20 x 40ft = 800 sq ft
*Volume required: 800 sq ft * 1.5-2 ft = 1200-1600 ft^3
*Wheel barrow load: 2-3 ft^3
*1200-1600 ft^3 / 2-3 ft^3 = 400-800 loads
*5 minutes per load * 400-800 loads = 30-70 hrs of work

What was I thinking!?

I suppose I’ll keep mulching a few plants, especially the potatoes, but I need to just do some old fashioned digging and planting.
I’ve started some summer squash seedlings, and would like to also start some cucumber seedlings as well. I would also like to plant a couple rows of beans and see where that goes.
What I really need to focus on is gearing up for the first week of August, because I am not sure whether the other plants will fail or not. This is my last chance to do things diligently.

But I need help. I have worked on a farm, but I still don’t have the experience of growing things start to finish. If I can have some people who can help me along, that will be great. I have some ideas, and I’ll see how they pan out.

While this does not exactly fit with the philosophies I want to practice, it will still go a long way. After all, I can only do what I can right now. My goal of having a garden that nearly grows itself with minimal effort is far off. For that I really need my own land. Right now I have to use the garden I’ve got. Though it’s too remote, and the City tills the soil against my will, undermining some of the philosophies I want to test, the garden does have a lot of space, with a lot of sunlight and water, in a relatively chemical-free area. This will be a start in feeding my desire to be relatively self-sufficient with food, by giving me basic experience in growing my food.

I also need to see what I can forage. I will look into that and write about it shortly. As for my eating habits… I cook occasionally, and that always feels great. But I still need to experiment with eating simply, and raw. I should also cook most of my lunches. In the long run, I want to move out, or at least have the necessary independence to live the lifestyle I want. Fortunately, what I can do in the meantime is quite substantial.

some ideas before the growing season

Common Sense

Looking across the horizon, the notion that the earth was flat was obvious to the eye, and as all eyes saw it that way, it was deemed common sense. We tend to look only as far as what we experience, becoming comfortable with the way we see, and say there is no other way. At most one tends to look only as far as what trusted people know; through observation, measurement and travel, peoples worldview slowly changed from flat to round, from linear to circular, and the ground beneath their most basic assumptions changed, though the world looked the same.

People often go much further in undoing common sense, and reveal a world to themselves of their own making. As teeming millions worked the soil, plowing it with the help of farm animals, they directly experienced the work required to reap the necessary fruits of survival, and such hard work was deemed common sense, but when the tractor was built, millions were made aware that the possibilities were not so limited.

Yet, to complicate the matter of reality further, as much as people reveal new possibilities to themselves, they often create their own illusions. It is in fact an almost daily occurrence that people make mistakes, and create their own problems. Mistakes can turn into ongoing lifestyles and are perpetuated for generations and centuries and deemed common sense with the “test of time”. Multiple generations lived on slavery and the oppression of women and children for hundreds or even thousands of years, as whole societies very psychology becomes dependent on it. After all, if one cannot always trust what they see, that should also be applied to what appears to have been revealed. If the tractor seemed to reveal one thing, it was that just if something has been done for generations, it does not deem it right or necessary.

In order to examine the perceptions we create of our world, we must once in a while challenge ourselves. Was the tractor really an improvement over the plow? To truly begin to examine how we relate to our most precious resources, one should look at the assumptions held about farming itself. To begin, why did it take 5000 years to go from the plow to the tractor, while it took 150,000 years to go from foraging to agriculture, something requiring far less complexity in its early stages? We can give many answers based on our assumptions, but it may help the most to directly observe the few hunter-gathers that remain today. Indeed, there are some people who likely still think the earth is flat and have never heard of a tractor or plow. Looking at such people as they had once glanced across the horizon, modernites deemed it common sense that they are ignorant savages, perpetually living on the edge of starvation. Even the most prominent intellectuals devoted much time to explaining these peoples inherent inferiority. While the field of anthropology in the West was initially devoted to this topic, things started to change along with the political environment in the 1960s. Taking a closer look, anthropologists such as James Woodburn found that groups such as the Hadza in the deserts of Tanzania live in an area abundantly rich for their numbers. Observing their daily lives, Woodburn found that the Hadza spent only two hours a day collecting all the food they needed, which was done socially at an even pace in groups. Learning this in an introductory book to cultural anthropology years ago, in a chapter entitled The Meaning of Progress, my world view turned upside down. While I considered the plow an improvement over foraging, and the tractor an improvement over the plow, I slowly realized that progress was, if anything, nonlinear. The Ju/Wasi are a similar group in Southern Africa, living a life of abundance. While there are 80 species of edible plants, they choose to only use around 20. Their staple is the Mongongo Nut – a daily diet of around 300 nuts (probably around 200 grams) provides over 1200 calories and 56 grams of protein. A single grove, of which there are many, produces thousands of kilograms of nuts. Their meat intake, provided by porcupines and hares, and the occasional giraffe, antelope, or other large game, provided 175-200 pounds per person per year, on par with consumption in developed countries. The Ju/Wasi also live in groups of 30-40 when watering holes are more evenly distributed, and 100-200 when only large watering holes remain during the dry season. The groups are so small that they are inherently self-governing and do not need a standing government to ensure fairness. Studies that include archeological evidence suggest that they have in fact lived in peace in the area for around 20,000 years. Genetic studies have shown that they have, because of their stable lifestyles, constituted a separate descent from the origin of humanity. If one takes a closer look, their appearance does not resemble most Africans. Their appearance have characteristics of people all over the world, from the hair of Africans to the higher cheekbones of East Asians.

Ju/Wasi tribeswoman

Ju/Wasi tribeswoman

mongongo nuts

mongongo nuts

mongongo tree

mongongo tree

The irony of the Ju/Wasi’s abundance was seen in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, in which it depicted a tribe praising the gods for providing them a world without want. While it is an exaggeration and a stereotype of the noble savage, as well as having many racist connotations, it showed the ironies of abundance. When an airplane (a noisy bird) flew over and dropped a bottle of coke – seen as junk by the pilot – it was a strange object that must have been a gift from the Gods. People used it as a tool for a variety of things, but as there was only one, it was too scarce a resource, and people experienced property, one could say poverty, for the first time, along with jealousy, anger, and even violence. Xi, the main character, decides that the bottle is evil, and goes on a journey to throw it off the edge of the world, in the process encountering modern civilization. The movie actually used people from a Ju/Wasi tribe. When the actor who played Xi was paid a small amount for the movie, he literally let it blow away as he had no attachment to money.

a scene from the Gods Must be Crazy - Xi holding the coke bottle

It is common for hunter-gatherer groups to know that one can plant a seed and watch it grow, but the extra work needed to grow and maintain crops would be unnecessary and illogical. The reason that some people at some point in time decided to do this was, of course, because of the increase in numbers of people. If a population does not stabilize below a certain threshold, people either had to engage in war or change the way they dealt with their resources, or of course, a combination of both. The only places that would allow such a growth would be areas of productive soil, whether in forests or grasslands. In fact, one thing that has protected hunter-gatherers like the Ju/Wasi and Hadza for so long is that the area was likely seen as inhospitable for agriculture.

People went from hunting and gathering to slash-and-burn, or swidden agriculture, to irrigation agriculture, and larger and larger groups were needed to regulate the use of water and the storage and distribution of food and later trade, going from city states to nation-states and empires. Each level of complexity required more work to sustain it. The following data, taken from Eric Wolf in 1966 shows the results:

Days of Labor Per Acre Per Harvest By Type of Agriculture

Type of Agriculture

Days of Labor Per Acre

Advanced swidden

Plow cultivation

Hoe Cultivation

Irrigation Agriculture

Land Needed to Feed 100 Families Using Different Agricultural Methods

Agricultural Method

Number of Acres Needed to Feed 100 Families

Swidden Agriculture

Swidden with garden plots

Irrigation Agriculture

Some anthropologists now go as far as to claim that our decision to leave a life of hunting and gathering was the worst decision we ever made. While this may be taking things a little far, a closer look at the source of the diet of the Ju/Wasi may reveal deeper insights. Mongongo trees exist in groves, separated by large distances, and a single tree can feed many people, and a grove dozens. Trees, unlike domesticated grains, require little to no maintenance once they are rooted, and in the case of the Ju/Wasi, they seed and take care of themselves.

Edible Weeds

There are in fact many trees throughout the world that, like the Mongongo, are tremendously productive for the human diet. Last year I came across Rose Barlow’s weblog on foraging, where I saw that one could actually harvest and eat acorns from oak trees growing around them. According to the weblog, “100 grams of acorn flour (roughly one cup) contains a whopping 500 calories, 30 grams of fat, and 54 grams of carbohydrates”. Down the street from me, there was an oak tree, and at the time, the acorns were dropping all over the lawn and along the street. My friend Matt and I gathered them, and cracked them individually, ground them in a coffee grinder to make flour, and made bread out of it (see foraging). It was a demonstration in why people in various environments also had to take up cooking – acorns have to be boiled to leach out the tannins, which are poisonous and bitter, and were used traditionally to tan hides. Apparently Native Americans and Europeans alike used acorns as a staple. This makes one think – what if such trees were planted in such a density as to produce enough grain and protein equivalents to fill one’s diet? It takes long term planning, as trees grow slowly, but once they do, one could be self-sufficient with little time required. In other words, with enough knowledge and time, could people could become hunter-gatherers in a densely populated, urban environment? Doing a careful analysis, I found that oak trees can produce enough grain equivalents for 3-5 people per acre, exceeding modern grain production, but significantly less than what would be required by such local agriculture (double digging can produce grains for around 18 people per acre). Perhaps it is possible to create oaks that produce higher yields. I have heard that people have been able to successfully dwarf nut trees and induce them to produce in a few years, whereas oaks can take nearly 80 years to mature to full production. Perhaps if the possibilities provided by domestication and technology were applied to the possibilities of abundance that many hunter-gatherers live in, we could have the best of both worlds.

Less is More

Years ago Masanubo Fukuoka worked as a microbiologist in a lab devoted to some of the most important modern agricultural discoveries, such as the isolation of giberellin, the hormone that makes plants grow. The very biology of plants could be induced to produce greater yields. Fukuoka was very devoted to his work, and one day collapsed. He woke up and had a revelation, and concluded that, despite the fact that he was finding the inner workings of life, “Humanity knows nothing”. People found him to be eccentric, as he wandered along beaches and across the countryside. One day he came across a rice plant growing wild in a ditch. At that moment it clicked for him, and he returned to his childhood village, and practiced his philosophy in farming. He dubbed this method Wu Wei, the closest equivalent in English being Do-Nothing Farming. He grew rice, and without a plow or even compost. He simply mimicked nature – for example, after the rice was threshed, the straw was thrown back where it came from, decomposing into the ground and building an even layer of humus. Every year he was able to do less and less, as the soil built fertility, and the whole ecosystem adapted to the rhythmic function. He achieved comparable yields to modern farming with less effort. When people repeatedly studied his techniques, it was difficult to reproduce, because he had developed an intrinsic and deep understanding of how the farm worked, which required years of doing less and less.

Fukuoka tapped a deep insight into the nature of relationships of mutual dependence. While domesticated rice cannot grow without the intervention of farmers, the fact that “humanity knows nothing” was blatantly demonstrated to Fukuoka when he saw the rice plant in the ditch. Though it came to Japan as a domesticated plant, some plants strayed and through their own efforts became wild, being able to seed themselves and require their own intervention. Though traditional and modern farming both require increasing knowledge, Fukuoka asked what can one not do, so that the plants and ecosystem can do it themselves, like the rice plant? This experience suggested that as much as we domesticated plants and animals, they domesticated us, and rather than us not being at the whims of nature anymore, we are often only at the whims of a dependence of our own making.

The “goal” of Fukuoka’s do-nothing farming is based on the idea that if one does not do more and more, and has nature do more and more, one can achieve the point where human intervention becomes absolutely minimal. What Fukuoka may have meant when he said “humanity does not know” is that we do not deliberately know our knowing, in the same way that we do not see our seeing, feel our feeling and so on. In the same way, ultimately growing our growing is futile. Plants grow themselves, and in fact the more one meddles with plants, the more one does anything too deliberately, the more it destroys the original nature of what does. If one has ever tried to count their breath while breathing normally, it is nearly impossible. Yet there are people who meditate on their breath until they gain an awareness of normal breath. Similarly, growing food must be increasingly less deliberate. While any farmer can at some point do what they do naturally, almost in their sleep, it is a different thing to, as one does with their breathing, be able to gain such a conscious awareness through practicing mindfulness. As one who starts with their breath, it is initially very deliberate, but as the practice goes on, the ability is increasingly gained. For Fukuoka, agriculture was a meditative, spiritual practice. Ultimately what is gained is a conscious awareness of ones part in an ecosystem.

When farming on a smaller scale, with careful observation, Fukuoka found that he could plant vegetables that provided themselves perennially. He would initially sow a mix of vegetable and clover seed among growing weeds, and let things take their course, observing and tweaking things along the way. Some seeds would germinate, but vanish in weeds, while some survive and a few would flourish. He would allow plants to grow, and remove many of them to be eaten, but leave several here and there to seed themselves, becoming semi-wild. This he acknowledges is possible for a family of 5-6 people, over an area of 100 square yards, but larger scale production requires systematic rotations, like how he grew rice.

The stark metaphor that was revealed to Fukuoka when he saw the rice plant in the ditch goes much deeper. Once while working on a farm, someone showed me various weeds that found places to grow themselves where they could. He showed me lambsquarters, which he said was like a wild spinach, and burdock, which could be boiled and eaten. From then on I saw the plants everywhere – in gardens, lawns, and sidewalk cracks. Someone once told me that on a farm he worked on in New York, they would weed the lambsquarters and sell them in the market at a high price. I recently returned from India, where I saw it growing in the desert climate of Rajasthan and the more tropical climate in Tamil Nadu, and people ate it regularly in both places. Lambsquarters is a relative of spinach, and is far healthier. When observing this, one then has to ask – why are we growing vegetables when all around us, vegetables are growing themselves? People in fact find them a tremendous nuisance when imposing vegetables that require a tremendous amount of work. Perhaps when people realize the opportunities growing around them, they can take advantage of them, going even further than Fukuoka.

Over All
from the
Tao de Ching

The Way never does anything,
and everything gets done.
If those in power could hold to the Way,
the ten thousand things
would look after themselves.
If even so they tried to act,
I’d quiet them with the nameless,
the natural.

In the unnamed, in the unshapen,
is not wanting.
In not wanting is stillness.
In stillness all under heaven rests.

Do-Nothing Eating

The dependence that Fukuoka and others have found agriculture to rest on goes much beyond the farmer – it goes into grocery stores, markets, the kitchen, the dinner table, the mouth and the body. It transcends the time and space of one individual or family. The whole process of food production is deeply convoluted by how complex food production is and has become. The ecology of the modern day economy is very strange. People do some work unrelated to food for which they get paid, from which they can forage in the supermarket. In fact, anyone with sufficiently low income qualifies for food assistance, or someone who has made lucrative investments can retire off the income gained through others labor. Food is neatly packaged, and is almost bizarrely disconnected to where it came from. It is common for children to think that food comes from cans, and almost universal for people to not know what the plant looked like, whether it is a small plant, bush, or tree. This disconnects the majority of people from how much work is required to grow food, as the work they did to pay for the food is hardly ever equivalent. This comes from the great benefits of specialization, where people share burdens and are able to create much more than what they can as individuals. On the more basic level, most households in the world have a mother and wife that cooks, and a father and husband that “brings home the bacon”. This eases the burden for the individual, but when people are disconnected from the greater picture of their interrelationships, that is beyond the individual and beyond the family, or even the community, it can lead to a dependence on the whole. The family expects a certain diet from the matriarch, and likewise they depend on her for all their diet. Growing up, I hardly cooked any meals for my family, and was completely dependent on my Mom for her cooking. In college I lived in the dorms, where I ate in the dining hall for a flat charge. If I got married right out of college and my marriage was a traditional one, I would still be eating the same things that my Mom cooked, with the same amount of labor that went into it. Furthermore, we eat what is available in the supermarket, and farmers provide for what we are willing to buy. Fukuoka sold his rice for a market, or for the dependence of a particular diet, while perhaps he could have grown things that require even less intervention (his purpose was also to demonstrate his ideas).

modern foraging

modern foraging

Even to change an individual’s diet can be tremendously difficult, let alone the cohesion it would take for a whole family or society. Even if the food tastes better, one’s body can be use to, or addicted to, a certain diet. I saw a video recently of a group of people with type-2 diabetes who went through a program, and were given a diet of raw food without meat. It was agonizing for them at first, and they all wanted to leave. But within two weeks, some of them did not need to take insulin shots, and after a month, they all lost a tremendous amount of weight. It would have been very difficult for them to do it alone, and it really required the help of the program and the people.

Yet I have found with my own efforts something like a do-nothing eating and cooking that has been much easier, and an attempt to incorporate the whole picture into my diet. I lived alone last year, and had to learn to cook on my own effort. I really took some time figuring out the costs of the food I was eating, and experimented with different things. Soon I was able to cook simple meals that were delicious, from scratch, and cost less than $1.00. At some point I thought about the fact that tomatoes taste good raw. I remember eating raw green peppers when I was little. I learned that on top of taking more time, cooking also takes the majority of nutrients out of food. In fact, there is no botanical difference between a fruit and a vegetable. Yet if someone saw you eating a raw tomato or green pepper like an apple, they would think you are crazy. None of this was entirely new to me, but with the combination of all the right elements – with me cooking and eating for myself, paying for my food, and having done a little bit of foraging and gardening, things have become increasingly clear to me.

Experimenting with ones diet can be one of the most tremendously empowering experiences. I had learned that in his early life, Gandhi’s first demonstrations in self-empowerment were with experimenting with his diet while he was studying in London. Eating the food available in Britain, a notoriously bland cuisine, especially for an Indian, was agonizing. At some point Gandhi decided to focus on the taste of things, eating foods plain and raw. Remembering that, I was was inspired and started to pack lunches and snacks that were literally just a bunch of raw vegetables, buttered bread, and cheese, and it made no difference to me in taste and saved time.

simple, quick, efficient

simple, quick, efficient

As I got the hang of cooking and eating as such, I started to go a bit deeper than cooking simple meals. Observing the whole process of food production, from foraging to farming to markets to the dinner table, I have started to apply wu wei to the whole process. If one were to look at wu wei within their small nook of the picture, they could simply go to the supermarket and buy processed food with food stamps that they could heat up in the microwave. In fact, to do less, you have to consider the whole process. Fukuoka used traditional small tools despite the fact that farming could be done more easily and massively for one person with large machinery. The idea was not simply to work less. The idea was to bring the process closer to oneself, and have the whole system do less and less. While cooking things from scratch, I also considered each thing I ate, and the process that was undergone to bring it to me. For example, milk and cheese should be considered, though delicious, nonessential as the level of dependence that is required for a society on cows is tremendous, and people can gain the same amount of nutrition from simpler foods.

While people specialize out of convenience, or out of their desires to do things that they love, or for that matter forced, disconnecting our awareness from our production processes, especially those we rely on most, is in fact dangerous, like driving blindfolded. While we cannot see everything that’s in store for us, agriculture and industry have taught us that we are largely the makers of our fate. But when we create a world of which we are collectively unaware, we are only disempowering ourselves more than ever, being at the whims of ourselves more than we were ever at the whims of nature, and unaware of the possibilities we can collectively create.

Two poems provided by Wendell Berry from his introduction to Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution:

Our Meddling Intellect

Misshapes the beauteous form of things –

We murder to dissect

William Blake:
He who binds to himself a joy

Doth the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sunrise

published article

I recently had an article published in the Ames Progressive about local agriculture and my experiences at Growing Power.

Some Results

A couple weeks ago began the first experiments, and they’ve been pretty successful. First I foraged a little, then I eventually planted a bunch of radish seeds. The radishes have been coming up pretty well, and I’ve got things going well in general.

My experiments with eating simply, cheaply, healthily and tastily have been going quite well as well. I’ve been making stir fries which are incredibly delicious, for about $1. At this rate I could easily eat all I need in a month for less than $100.

Over the weekend I took a ride to Des Moines on a whim and tried on the fly. I got a place to stay at the last minute, sitting at a coffee shop in downtown Des Moines. It was a success in cheap, spontaneous traveling. I only payed for some coffee and a meal at Java Joes (which, hopefully in the future I can get from a grocery store and make on the go). The place I stayed was very comfortable and safe, and the people were perfect hosts. Of course this is a gift economy I’ll have to return some time.

The following morning I visited my friend Robin, who had a baby a little over a month ago, and she made me a very simple meal of rice, beans, and tomatoes. She said it costs around $1.50. My friend Emily was planning on visiting Ames, and she brought me back home, where I partially came around with the couchsurfing, letting her stay on my couch.

This morning Emily brought me along to her friend Gary Guthrie’s farm, where I helped pick potatoes using a broadfork. He cooked us a delicious simple meal of sweet potato tortillas, and we were off. He offered to pay me, but I gladly took some sweet potatoes, carrots, and garlic instead. Emily returned to Des Moines, where she delivered some produce for Gary.

And now for my foraging adventure…
I didn’t want to overload the main page with pictures, so made a separate link.

Starting the Growing, Simplifying the Eating

I have been quite busy since I last wrote, but I did most of the necessary reading for now. I don’t think there are any other conventional crops that I can grow other than radishes, so I will begin the double-digging process in my backyard garden and just grow that.  I will weed, clear out, and inspect the city plot garden, and grow radishes there as well. Planting tiny seeds an inch apart in such large gardens will take a great deal of precision and patience, which I must prepare myself for. In going through the weblog on foraging, which is luckily of the same relative climate and geography, I found that there are quite a lot of opportunities left, with plants that have been slowly growing and around, like lambsquarters and dandelion greens, while there are some that are likely ripening now, like acorns and walnuts. It would be amazing and seemingly simple to harvest and grind acorns into flour to use as a substitute for cornmeal. I believe we have a walnut tree in our backyard, which is ironic because it is a problem for gardens, but while I didn’t garden, it is one of the few things ripening now.

I have come to some interesting realizations recently about food in general. It occurred to me that instead of complicating my time cooking and preparing, I could eat simple things, maybe sprinkling some herbs and flavorings. In our culture it is considered proper to eat an apple straight, but not a green pepper or tomato. Lately for snacks and sides, I’ve been simply eating a tomato and some lettuce, or sticking all the ingredients of a sandwich in a bag, and eating them separately. This is much more simple, equally tasty and cost effective, while when one considers the effort that goes into various food products that the consumer doesn’t bear, it is tremendously simpler. For example, milk and cheese, as much as I love them, should be considered nonessential, as it takes a tremendous amount of energy and work to produce, and one can get the nutrients in simpler ways. Eating things that are as close to being unprepared and simply flavored is the way to go. Of course it’s not a problem to cook something more extravagant once in a while, but for the vast majority of the time, it would be ideal to rely and thrive on simple and good-tasting food.

I am logging everything I eat, making notes, and improving this process as I go. I need to find the cheapest, easiest, best-tasting, raw, local, and organic recipes and ingredients. I’m starting with some simple baking, and moving towards everything else. For breakfast and snacks, I want have bread I baked, and fruits and vegetables. For dinner, soups, salads, stir fries, tortillas. As I move towards a life of growing the food I eat, it will also be easier to eat things that are off the vine, out of the ground, or stored. Eventually I want to be able to reduce my dollar food costs to little or nothing, and have an abundance of what I need growing and stored around me. I’ll keep updates of my eating experiments as well as my growing and gathering experiments as I go.