You are only 43% human
Hello there :)
Welcome to issue sixty one of Manufacturing Serendipity, a loosely connected, somewhat rambling collection of the unexpected things I’ve recently encountered.
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Speaking of coffee, grab yourself a suitable beverage my loves, let’s do this thing...
**shameless self-promotion**
I'm launching a brand new course in May which I'm very excited about! It's a four-week live workshop series (delivered over Zoom) on Ideation for Digital PR.
Each week, there will be a 90 minute session where I'll guide attendees step-by-step through the ideation process I personally use. I’ll suggest a range of exercises attendees might like to complete between sessions; plus they’ll be plenty of time for Q&A each week.
These are the dates:
- Week 1: May 3, 2023, 5:00PM - 6:30PM (UK time)
- Week 2: May 10, 2023, 5:00PM - 6:30PM (UK time)
- Week 3: May 17, 2023, 5:00PM - 6:30PM (UK time)
- Week 4: May 24, 2023, 5:00PM - 6:30PM (UK time)
Tickets are £120 (excluding Eventbrite fees), and there’s also the option of booking the course, plus a private, 45-minute 1:1 coaching session with me.
Full details can be found here, and you can book your spot here. Tickets are selling pretty fast so if you’d like to attend, get a wriggle on my loves.
Part I: Things I’ve Encountered…
Whilst I was away on my Arvon writing course last week, writer Tania Hershman (one of the tutors), shared the following article as a writing prompt. I’ve found my thoughts keep returning to it, and so I wanted to share it with you too.
(Please note: the article below was published in 2018. As such, the science, and thinking on this topic will likely have advanced since. I have done some research, but the handful of newer articles I found weren’t really “new” — i.e. they were citing the same studies as this 2018 article. Nevertheless it’s entirely possible that there are newer studies out there that I’m not aware of.)
You're more microbe than you are human
“More than half of your body is not human, say scientists.
Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists*.”
Yes, really! Humans are only 43% human!
*Friends, I don’t love this “microscopic colonist” thing for reasons which will become clear later.
“Understanding this hidden half of ourselves - our microbiome - is rapidly transforming understanding of diseases from allergy to Parkinson's. The field is even asking questions of what it means to be "human" and is leading to new innovative treatments as a result.
"They are essential to your health," says Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute, "your body isn't just you".
So, if only 43% of our cells are human, what makes up the other 57%?
“No matter how well you wash, nearly every nook and cranny of your body is covered in microscopic creatures. This includes bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria). The greatest concentration of this microscopic life is in the dark murky depths of our oxygen-deprived bowels.
Prof Rob Knight, from University of California San Diego, told the BBC: "You're more microbe than you are human." Originally it was thought our cells were outnumbered 10 to one."That's been refined much closer to one-to-one, so the current estimate is you're about 43% human if you're counting up all the cells," he says.”
Also noteworthy:
“… genetically we're even more outgunned.
The human genome - the full set of genetic instructions for a human being - is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes. But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.
Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: "We don't have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own. What makes us human is, in my opinion, the combination of our own DNA, plus the DNA of our gut microbes."
But what are these microbes up to?
“Prof Knight said: "We're finding ways that these tiny creatures totally transform our health in ways we never imagined until recently. It is a new way of thinking about the microbial world.
To date, our relationship with microbes has largely been one of warfare. Antibiotics and vaccines have been the weapons unleashed against the likes of smallpox, Mycobacterium tuberculosis or MRSA. That's been a good thing and has saved large numbers of lives. But some researchers are concerned that our assault on the bad guys has done untold damage to our "good bacteria".”
Side note (or possibly a side rant): what’s with this: “good guy”; “bad guy” labelling?!
But back to the article — here’s where things get really interesting, how have our medicines impacted the “good guys” (ugh, I really hate that label) that live within us?
“Prof Ley told me: "We have over the past 50 years done a terrific job of eliminating infectious disease. But we have seen an enormous and terrifying increase in autoimmune disease and in allergy.
Where work on the microbiome comes in is seeing how changes in the microbiome, that happened as a result of the success we've had fighting pathogens, have now contributed to a whole new set of diseases that we have to deal with."
At this point, Holly Corfield Carr (also a course tutor) introduced us to the concept of the holobiont. A holobiont is an assemblage of a host (in this case our bodies), and the many other species living in or around them (in this case the microbes), which together form a unit via symbiosis (a mutually beneficial relationship).
Possibly you’ll remember that I said I didn’t love the notion of the microbes that live on and within us being characterised as “microscopic colonists”? Here’s why:
Can these bacteria and microbes which form 57% of our cells accurately be called colonists? They aren’t just part of us, they are us — as Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute said:
"your body isn't just you"
Those microbes are not colonists, instead, our bodies, plus these microbes make up a holobiont. We are holobionts!
The article then goes on to talk about both current and future avenues of research, and potential applications. I’d strongly encourage you to read the whole thing.
Moar serendipitous finds:
On happiness, & the value of NOT having the things you DON’T WANT
David Epstein shares some wisdom from American psychologist Hillel Einhorn, via an old video clip:
“… in a Chinese restaurant one night, after the meal, I brought the usual fortune cookies. I opened the cookie and I read my fortune. It was a very interesting one, it said:
“Don't think about all of the things that you want, that you don't have, think of all of the things that you don't want, that you don't have.”
[…]
Of course we think about:
what we want that we have
what we want that we don't have
what we don't want that we have
But rarely do we ever think about [all of the things that] we don't want and don't have.
And so I like to use this example to point out that if the correlation between wants and haves is some notion of happiness, because [there are so many things] that we don't want and don't have, we're actually a lot happier than we think we are.”
(Please note: the text above is based on the video transcript with a little light editing from me to aid clarity).
A library is a rainbow in the clouds…
“In the autumn of 2010, shortly before Dr. Maya Angelou received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture — a research division of the New York Public Library — acquired her papers. She visited NYPL for a public event celebrating the occasion, during which she broke into song to illustrate the life-saving role libraries have always played in the lives of the people during the darkest of times. She went on to share the story of how a library had saved her own life as a child.”
Here, Alex Murrell argues that from film to fashion, and architecture to advertising, creative fields have become dominated and defined by convention and cliché:
“In every field we look at, we find that everything looks the same.”
Abby VanMuijen and Michelle McGhee at The Pudding have developed this set of interactive tools to help you name and visualise how you’re really feeling. It’s really lovely — take a little break and go have a play with them.
Jukhee Kwon turns abandoned books into paper sculptures
South Korean artist Jukhee Kwon says she takes inspiration for her sculptures from the books themselves:
“Discovering an abandoned book is just the first part of the process. After that, I often imagine its time spent in the hands of previous owners. As I cut into the pages, I’m interested in connecting that past to the present moment – patiently awaiting whatever emerges.”
If you’re in London, Kwon’s exhibition, Liberated is at October Gallery until April 22.
Part II: Books I’m Reading Right Now
Subsong, by Holly Corfield Carr — a collection of “poems, field notes, and songs for being alone”. I’m reading one piece each night before I go to sleep, which is a lovely way to end the day.
Part III: Things I’ve Been Watching
Just the one recommendation this fortnight: the delightfully titled, My Year of Dicks. This Academy Award-nominated short film, directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttier, is based on Pamela Ribon's memoir, Notes to Boys: And Other Things I Shouldn't Share in Public.
In an article for Mashable, Belen Edwards says:
“Over five chapters, "My Year of Dicks" recounts 15-year-old Pam's quest to lose her virginity in the early '90s. Each chapter features art by a different animator and draws on a different element of Pam's imagination, turning her affection for boys into animated flights of fancy. She fantasizes about edgy vampire skateboarders and brooding arthouse heroes. A day at the fair becomes an anime adventure, while a fallout with a friend devolves into a true horror film.
"My Year of Dicks" deftly navigates adolescent awkwardness, from mortifying sex talks to house parties gone wrong. Gunnarsdóttir and Ribon have created a film that is sweetly honest and hilariously cringeworthy in equal measure. Basically, it's puberty in a nutshell.”
It is really wonderful, I’d highly recommend watching it.
Part IV: What I’ve been up to…
My Arvon writing course was absolutely amazing, and I have returned home brimming with ideas.
Work-wise, I’m super-excited about my new course; plus I had a lovely time talking to Jerrel Arkes about Digital PR stuff for TheInbound4cast. You can listen to the episode here.
What’s next?
It’s the long Easter weekend and I am very excited to have no plans whatsoever. I will do a little fiction writing, read some books, and possibly-maybe-finally get around to wrangling my email inbox into some semblance of control.
Later this month, I’ll be heading to BrightonSEO which I’m sure will be ace — maybe see you there?
That’s all from me for now :)
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Big love,
Hannah x
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