The Bacteria Issue
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Let's be Fwends is a journal about agility, organisations, technology, and the larger media landscape. And most importantly the role of all of us in all of that.
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Let's be Fwends #151:
The Bacteria Issue

"Well, Corporal Westerburg, just why do you think you’re a plant?"
~ Philip K. Dick
Welcome to issue 151, from the sunny island of Mallorca. Today, we'll take a slight detour from the regular programming: I have three links for you all dealing with bacteria, and how they connect to us. The issue of individual health is of high importance. Take care of yourself, to have enough energy to take care of others, too!
Bacteria and Depression
You are not just 'you'. You're also the host of roughly 38 trillion microbial cells, which outnumber your own body cells by about 8 trillion. Of those, around 10.000 to 100.000 billion live in your digestive tract and provide various important services to your body. Amongst other things, they neutralise pathogens and help break down certain carbohydrates.
But they can also have serious side effects. For example, a recent paper claims that the Morganella morganii bacteria, a common resident in our guts, can under certain conditions be a major contributor to major depressive disorder.
Bacteria are not just managing your digestion, but also play a vital role in many bodily functions, mental ones included. It's high time to give them the attention they deserve.
A Gut Health Guide
How can you help your digestive tract to stay healthy, and what can you do to foster a gut microbiome that supports you? Vincent Ho has compiled a guide for maintaining a healthy gut, and ironically, it's full of actions that are recommended for general health, anyway. So, what's good for you is also good for brain, is good for your gut, is good for the trillions of bacteria you carry around. Maybe this is all connected, symbiotically, for the mutual benefit of all parties involved? 🧐
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome
Your body is extremely protective of your brain. It tries to keep most outside influences away from it, out of fear of pathogens, parasites and other things that can endanger its health. Not many things can pass the so-called Blood-Brain-Barrier, the function of which is still not completely understood.
So, the news that fish might have a living, thriving brain microbiome, similar to a gut microbiome is huge (if true). Because when it comes to the blood-brain-barrier, there is no relevant difference between fish, and say mammals like mice, or humans.
What would the presence of a brain microbiome in humans mean?
Even in small numbers (...) resident microbes could influence our brain metabolism and immune systems. If they are truly present, this would suggest an extra layer of neurological regulation that we didn’t know existed.
We have so much to learn. And one thing I'm taking away is that this idea of I, of someone with distinct boundaries, a clear identity and a complete sense of self is deeply flawed.
And that every model of society, way of understanding the world, framework used to interpret and make sense of data, that is based on the idea of the self, that is merely interfacing with other selfs, is broken, and in its essence, wrong.
"I am host to 38 trillion organisms, and I need to take care of them, so that they can take care of me" is quite a thing to think about, isn't it?
Poetry Camera
Let's be Fwends wouldn't be itself if it didn't include at least one quirky link to brighten things up again:
"Poetry Camera prints poems instead of pictures."
It's a quite clever application of AI image recognition and generative text generation. Take a picture, and have the AI write a poem about its observations. See it in action.
That's it for this edition of Let's be Fwends. Eat lots of fermented foods, get enough sleep, exercise. Be nice to your bacteria, they might poison you if you aren't. 🦠
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