The Human Microbiome is an Eco-System:

Our Microbiome is an “ecological community of symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms” found in and on all multicellular organisms studied to date from plants to animals. The microbes includes bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses.

Many kinds of eco-systems including David Latimer’s sealed terrarium that he first planted 53 years ago and has not been watered since 1972 yet continues to thrive in its sealed environment.

 

Microbes are the oldest forms of life on earth:

Researchers at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin–Madison have confirmed that microscopic fossils discovered in a nearly 3.5 billion-year-old piece of rock in Western Australia are the oldest fossils ever found and indeed the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth. [https://news.wisc.edu/oldest-fossils-found-show-life-began-before-3-5-billion-years-ago/]

 

First Observation of Living Microbes:

 

Microorganisms are invisible to the human eye so we didn’t know they existed until the invention of the microscope. The smallest of bacteria is about .2 μm to the largest about 50 μm (micrometer = 1 millionth of a meter or one thousandth of a mm), Viruses can be as small as 100 nanometers. (one billionth of a meter or 1,000,000th of a mm)

First time any microorganisms were identified was by van Leeuwenhoek in 1683 who used single-lensed microscope of his own design. He analyzed some plaque from his teeth and wrote the above words to his colleges at The Royal Society. A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as “the Father of Microbiology”.

 

The Human Microbiome

The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was a United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) research initiative to improve understanding of the microbial flora involved in human health and disease. Launched in 2008, the first phase (HMP1) was a five-year project that focused on identifying and characterizing human microbial flora. The second phase, known as the Integrative Human Microbiome Project (iHMP) launched in 2014 with the aim of generating resources to characterize the microbiome and elucidating the roles of microbes in health and disease states. The program received $170 million in funding by the NIH Common Fund from 2007 to 2016, with the iHMP closing in 2017. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Microbiome_Project>

 

The decrease of Infectious Disease and increase of what is called modern diseases of Allergic & Autoimmune Diseases and the correlation to the human microbiome. This is one of the goals of the NIH funded Human Microbiome Project (HMP).

[The Human Microbiome Project – Lita Proctor]
[The Human Microbiome Project – Lita Proctor PPT Slides 2018-02-06]

 

The Microbiome

Erica Sonnenburg claims this is a real image (cross section of the colon stained with fluorescent probes) and won 2nd place at some Nikon Image Contest. The image shows the colon microbes on the upper left, the green layer is the gut mucus layer and the blue being human cells.

It is this mucus layer that protects the human cells from the microbes. Leaky Gut Syndrome is when this mucus layer becomes permeable and microbes infect human cells… [Disclaimer: Unlike the scientific phenomemon of increased intestinal permeability (“leaky gut”), claims for the existence of “leaky gut syndrome” as a distinct medical condition come mostly from nutritionists and practitioners of alternative medicine is a fad diagnosis using the alleged condition as an opportunity to sell a number of alternative-health remedies. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut_syndrome>]

The opening of intercellular tight junctions (increased intestinal permeability) can allow passage of microbes, microbial products, and foreign antigens into the mucosa and the body proper. This can result in activation of the immune system and secretion of inflammatory mediators. Increased intestinal permeability is a factor in several diseases, but the cause–effect relationship between increased intestinal permeability in most of these diseases is not clear. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestinal_permeability>

The microbiome is more than just a bunch of microorganisms living on our body and in our gut! It is integral to many of our organs, our Brain and crucial in our Immune System. This is brand new science that has only been possible since the extreme drop in costs for DNA sequencing:
– Adds 10 times more cells. (DNA)
– Adds 100 times more genes.
– Communicates and exchange molecules with human cells.
– Bonnie Bassler’s work shows that it communicates with itself and other microbes controlling various genes and activities called Quorum Sensing.
– It interreacts with our Immune System strengthening or weakening it.
– It helps us with processing foods like starches, fibers, grains and much more.
– It literally interacts with our genes to make us who we are.
– We share our microbiome in all the environments we interact with and amongst ourselves and our pets.
– There is much discussion about how and whether to treat the microbiome as another organ or organ system of the human body.

 

[Katherine Pollard Decoding the Human Microbiome] – 2016 Stanford School of Medicine

 

Like a finger print the Human Microbiome is totally unique to every individual, although sharing a large volume of species the difference between each of us is unique. Rob Knight’s lab has identified the microbiome of every person is unique and they can match a mouse and keyboard to the person by swabbing the keyboard in the well-known “Keyboard Study”.

 

[The Human Microbiome – Eric Alm, PhD, Martin Blaser, MD, John Cryan, PhD, Rob Knight, PhD] 2013 Eric Alm in a study “A Year in My Microbiome” tracked 300 different factors (everything they could think of significant enough to record and measure.)

 

[Eric and his students microbiome analysis]
Interesting points he discusses here that even though the microbiome is very different between individuals and that the microbiome changes day-to-day it doesn’t really change that much month-to-month or year-to-year. That the microbiome is very stable over time to a degree. (Baby’s changes into and adult then into an elderly biome.)

The Microbiome & Human Health

There appears to be strong connection between the Gut Microbes & Brain: Science is trying to better understand the effect on the brain, mood, cognition, emotion and perhaps visceral pain.

 

Problems are numerous:

Lots of paper to point out the sharp decline of infectious diseases due to hygiene, vaccinations, and antibiotics simultaneously an equally sharp rise of autoimmune and chronic inflammation disease:
– Asthma
– Allergenic responses
– Crohn’s disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome
– Type 1 & Type 2 diabetes (especially in young children)
– Multiple Sclerosis
– Obesity

 

Solutions:

Dietary fiber or roughage is the indigestible portion of food derived from plants. It has two main components:[1]
-Soluble fiber, which dissolves in water, is readily fermented in the colon into gases and physiologically active by-products, and can be prebiotic and viscous. This delays gastric emptying which, in humans, can result in an extended feeling of fullness.
-Insoluble fiber, which does not dissolve in water, is metabolically inert and provides bulking, or it can be fermented in the colon. Bulking fibers absorb water as they move through the digestive system, easing defecation. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiber>

Dietary fibers can act by changing the nature of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract and by changing how other nutrients and chemicals are absorbed. Some types of soluble fiber absorb water to become a gelatinous, viscous substance which may or may not be fermented by bacteria in the digestive tract. Some types of insoluble fiber have bulking action and are not fermented. Lignin, a major dietary insoluble fiber source, may alter the rate and metabolism of soluble fibers. Other types of insoluble fiber, notably resistant starch, are fermented to produce short-chain fatty acids. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiber>

 

Probiotic (Lactobacillus) experiments in mice showed significant response over multiple tests.

Scientists Eric & Justin Sonnenburg’s strategy for their family’s health:
– They have increased the fiber in their diet.
– They built a nice vegetable garden in their front yard and encourage the kids to play in the dirt, eat the vegetable straigth from the plants.
– They have added a small family dog that is allowed in and out of the house, on the furniture, licking the kids, etc.

 

If worse comes to worse – Eat Shit!

[Gut Bacteria, Diet, Essential Fatty Acids, Probiotics, and Fecal Transplants – James Adams, PhD]

– Probiotics: (4 studies) Adams claims a little affect but hard to really quantify.
– Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT): 92% cure rate making it the most successful therapy for Clostridium Difficile (C-Diff or CD)

 

Fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), also known as a stool transplant, is the process of transplantation of fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a recipient. FMT involves restoration of the colonic microflora by introducing healthy bacterial flora through infusion of stool orogastric tube or by mouth in the form of a capsule containing freeze-dried material from a healthy donor. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant>

The results expressed by doctors and patient’s is simply amazing. Patient’s on their death bed after tons of antibiotic treatments, hospitalization, huge costs and suffering are cured permanently by eating a little shit from someone else. Almost no side effects, cheap, natural, easy and cured at the highest rate of any other medical therapy!

 

My Interest:
– Understanding our microbiome related to our health. (Daughter)
– Understanding our microbiome related to our environment. (The Built Environment)
– Understanding our microbiome related to where we live. (Are China microbes bad for us?)

 

Our Health:

Part of the result of the HMP-2 was that the human microbiome is much more complex than previously understood but what became clear in this 10 Year Study is that the loss/gain of specific microbes and/or specific metabolic pathways are characteristic of diseased patients verses healthy patients suggesting the significant role our microbiome plays in health and disease.

 

Our Environment: The Built Environment

[Jessica Green Good germs make healthy buildings – TED Talk]

In collaboration with AutoDesk, Jessica’s lab sampled over 300 rooms in this building and built a model of the microbial composition. Interesting, and much like the body different rooms (bathrooms for example) share similar microbes but the microbial community from offices to classrooms, to bathrooms are distinct. Similar to the body where many sites have similar community but the different sites have their distinct communities.

Microbes are dispersed around by people and by air.

Jessica looked at the air handling units from different parts of the building and like the rooms, particular air handling units had same communities while the air handling unit in a different part of the building had a distinct community.

At this part of the talk Jessica describes comparing the microbial community to the outside air, building rooms that were blocked off from air ventilation at night compared with the day when air is being moved. The rooms that were blocked off when entered the next day had a strong smell and their data suggesting it was from leaving behind the air born bacteria soup from the people the day before.

Compare this to rooms with a ventilation system that allowed air in throughout the night they could see the microbial community tracked the outdoor air microbes much closer. The ventilation design helped washed away the buildings resident microbial landscape.

[Daniel comment: This is what Johannes and I experience with the Air Purifier’s we are testing that they “wash or scrub” the resident air leaving a nice feeling, smell-less air that seems clean and important being as we live in China with all that it brings.]

 

Where we Live: China

[The Human Microbiome – Eric Alm, PhD, Martin Blaser, MD, John Cryan, PhD, Rob Knight, PhD] 2013
(X-Axis is time and Y-Axis is Species) Here Eric Alm’s Human Gut Ecology Project Alm describes when his student went to Bangkok for a month during this study his microbiome changed almost immediately when arriving in Bangkok indicated in Red & Blue (different species) and almost immediately went back to normal when returning to the US.

Above Katherine talks about very distinct strains of bacteria (Eubacterium rectale) and its presence in different countries and pointed out that Europe and NA show a little bit of a mix but in China and Africa very distinct. [37:33 min mark]

[In Katherine Pollard Massive Data Sheds Light on Your Microbiome _ Talks at Google at the 38 min mark discussing this map above finding a “geographic signal with microbes”]

 

Question:
If microbes are cosmopolitan, then what effect do they have on foreigners?

Are the microbes in China suitable to a white western foreigner? Could they be beneficial, strengthening our diversity or might they be unhealthy being species we didn’t evolve with and possibly messing up gene expression, digestion or immune system function?

Observation:
It seems that most the foreigners health appears to be deteriorate very fast. My personal health decline was dramatic but attribute a lot of cause to a problem with too much smoking and drinking. I also feel that China is hard on westerners for relatively poor food, water, air quality. The soils seem depleted with low biodiversity. Heavy air, light and noise pollution and negative environmental psychology all draw on our reserves now I am wondering about the effect of China microorganisms. Some microbiome research suggests that environment and geographic location harbor particular strains or species that may add a negative influence health to the western life?

 

My Family’s Microbiome Testing:

uBiome is a biotechnology company based in San Francisco that has developed key technology to sequence the human microbiomes. The company was founded by Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte who were scientists in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences. The company has proprietary machine learning algorithms that analyze the sequence data and compare it with the company’s proprietary database of microbiomes, built from the samples that partners and single customers send to them, and web-based software that allows individuals to view their microbiome and make certain comparisons. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBiome>

 

Purchased 3 Gut Kits for the family in 2016:
The kits were shipped to China no problem (empty) but after taking stool samples taken no shipping company would take them. Tried all shipping companies and various tricks but no go. Second samples taken using the spare tubes May 2017 and a friend took out of China them back and shipped to uBiome from Canada.

 

Results June 2017

 

Comparative Data:
Comparing your sample compared to the average of all samples of this type.

 

Some other cool features of uBiome dashboard:

 

Daughter’s Wellness Match

 

Father’s Wellness Match

 

Results from Study & Testing and Reality:

– All indicators show normal and comparable with the uBiome Database.
– Understanding the importance and role of the microbes we made adjustments and monitoring results.
– Diet changes
– Environment changes
– Continuous study and testing (Will get sampling done every few years, or if a major change in environment or health.)

 
Diet:

We have modified our diet to help stimulate or support our microbiome. Other than a good variety of foods as fresh as possible to including;
– Added a supplement Probiotic Ultra 25 Complex by GNC
– Found a nice new brand of juice claiming microorganisms.

– Switched to a Quality Aged Cheese
– Lot’s of Yoghurt
– Olives (Prefer fermented but settling for the vinegar preserved)
– Pickles (Prefer fermented but settling for the vinegar preserved)
– Fresh squeezed juice. (Multiple fruits)
– Need to focus on dietary fiber; clarify which are accessible, increase intake, and monitor.

Looking for but not able to find:
– Sauerkraut (fermented, non-vinegar)
– Peppers (fermented, non-vinegar)
– Onions (fermented, non-vinegar)
– Organic meats (frozen)
– Organic powders and or spices
– Would love to import some wild game meat from Canada. (Moose, Dear, Elk.) Anyone reading this with access to this kind of food I would be happy to import and distribute in China. (I have full capability.)

 

Environment:

The Ecosystem of the Built Environment (Our homes and offices where we spend most of our life.)

Being quite aware of this hypothesis:
– Changing of our washing and cleaning habits. No longer use any chemicals except a bit of bleach for known problems areas. (Dog pee/poo on floor and toilet, or if mold forms but don’t have that problem anymore.)
– Added lots of plants and animals with constant interaction.
– Get out to seaside and mountains and play in as much nature as we can although I very much doubt if the nature setting I can expose my family to are beneficial in this country because they seem so depleted of biodiversity with 5000 years of Chinese stomping around on it.

 

Continued Study & Observation:

Because our microbiome changes with environment, diet, health and age;
– We will continuously get sampling done every few years, or if a major change in environment or health.
– We will continuously monitor our health, especially daughter for any of the modern diseases appearing so we can deal with them immediately.

 

Other Interesting Facts on the Microbiome

 

Evolving & Disappearing Microbes:

Martin Blaser has demonstrated that a particular taxa h.pylori has been with humans, 100% of humans for 100,000 years and has been on a slow decline to where now only 6% of children have this bacteria and appears it will be gone in a few generations.

 

Air Pollution & Pathogens:

[Katherine Pollard Decoding the Human Microbiome]
[42 min mark] Katherine Pollard talks about as the earth warms (global warming) the microbes change and actually will like the warmer weather and that will have consequences for us. Pollard’s lab is starting to create models to do predictions with different parameters.

Fungal allergens in air will change as the climate changes (1000 homes project) and some pathogens like Epicoccum Nigrum a wicked pathogen that can kill immune deficient humans. Their model above shows the areas most affected in red.

 

“Microbiota molecules resemble that of drugs leaving us wonder about the effects they have on our bodies, moods, brains and diseases.”

 

Antibiotic Fed Animals
Martin Blaser made some interesting comments on the point of feeding our animals antibiotics to grow them fat so have to wonder about what is happening to our kids. We know that trace amount of those antibiotics remains in our foods so really should research what effect that is having if any.

Probiotics
Martin Blaser said right now, I’m actually a big believer in probiotics; I think that’s going to be part of the future of medicine, that we’re going to understand the science of the microbiome well enough so that we can look at a sample from a child and say this child is lacking such-and-such an organism and now we’re going to take it off the shelf and we’re going to give it back to that child. … Just as today the kids are lining up for the vaccines, in the future, maybe the kids are going to be drinking certain organisms so that we can replace the ones that they’ve lost. From <https://www.npr.org/2014/04/14/302899093/modern-medicine-may-not-be-doing-your-microbiome-any-favors>

 

Quorum Sensing



Bonnie Bassler and her lab is one of the leader in the understanding how bacteria communicate with each other and act as a group to affect us and our health. Bassler now claims that it is very clear that bacteria play an important role is gene control and or regulation as the above list demonstrates. (Bacteria on the left and gene function on right.)

 

State of the Science:

The above slide demonstrates the gaps or weakness in the microbiome studies:
– Most of the research is using mouse models, not humans. Despite the similarities we are very different.
– They are not able to really determine causality.
– There is much discussion about how and whether to treat the microbiome as another organ or organ system of the human body.
– Role of diet and interventions is still very unclear. [Daniel: Despite the numerous claims from entrepreneurs and their health products including probiotics.]

– The role of genetics and gene interaction still very unclear. [Daniel: Though there is lots of evidence that microbes do play a role in our gene of activating/deactivating and even gene regulation.]

 

[Katherine Pollard Decoding the Human Microbiome] – 2016 Stanford School of Medicine
Talks about how “bias” affecting results and a huge need to be aware of that when looking at data. She lists many points that affect or prevent accuracy. For us laymen we need discernment, and realize without an understanding of how this science works we may read a paper thinking its accurate when in fact it is not. (Many factors influence accuracy including bias on reading data, sample quality, sample size, contamination, and many other factors would be critical to understand the knowledge obtained.)

[Daniel comments: Other science I have watched showed how in the past scientific papers produced by reputable scientists and qualified labs published in top peer reviewed journals have come out with things like “scientists have identified the gene for “obesity, speech, diabetes, on and on” only to find out later that is simply not 100% accurate.]

Leading scientists say the media has mislead us and it is much more complex than being able to point to a single gene and make claims. We now have expanded our understanding and realize multiple genes, environment and now random chance all play a significant role let alone the interaction with the millions of genes and cells from of our microbiome. (Robert Sapolsky – The traditional “Nature vs. Nurture” debate now has a third component of chance. Random chance is now playing a strong role making behavior much more complex increasing variability.)]

 

Comments on Microbiome Company Ethics/Claims:
Erica Sonnenburg said that she has seen some unbelievable claims from some of these companies. One she says claimed to make a custom Probiotic based on your microbiome which she says is absurd, and has no idea where they get that information from because she and her lab think that is impossible at the current state of knowledge.

 

Resources:

The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) [https://hmpdacc.org/]
The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) was a United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) research initiative to improve understanding of the microbial flora involved in human health and disease. Launched in 2008, the first phase (HMP1) was a five-year project that focused on identifying and characterizing human microbial flora. The second phase, known as the Integrative Human Microbiome Project (iHMP) launched in 2014 with the aim of generating resources to characterize the microbiome and elucidating the roles of microbes in health and disease states. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Microbiome_Project>

HMP results from the now completed 10 years project reported to the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research committee meeting.
– [NIH Human Microbiome Project An Update – Eric Green 2013]
– [The Human Microbiome Project – Lita Proctor]
– [The Human Microbiome Project – Lita Proctor PPT Slides 2018-02-06.pdf]

Bonnie Lynn Bassler, Ph.D is an American molecular biologist. She has been a professor at Princeton University since 1994. In 2002, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She has won the Wiley prize in Biomedical Sciences in 2009 for “pioneering investigations of quorum sensing, a mechanism that allows bacteria to “talk” to each other to coordinate their behavior, even between species.
Bassler’s Lectures:
– [The Secret Language of Bacteria – An ASM Microbes After Hours Event]
– [Bonnie Bassler-How bacteria talk-TedTalk]
– [Bonnie Bassler (Princeton) Part 1 Bacterial Communication via Quorum Sensing]
– [Bonnie Bassler (Princeton) Part 2 Vibrio Cholerae Quorum Sensing and Novel Antibiotics]

 

Rob Knight:
Rob Knight is a professor at the University of California, San Diego and the co-founder of the American Gut Project. he is also a co-founder of the Earth Microbiome Project. His lab’s research involves the development of laboratory and computational techniques to characterize the microbiomes of humans, animals, and the environment.
– [Rob Knight How our microbes make us who we are – TED Talk]
– [From the Human Microbiome Project to the Earth Microbiome Project – Rob Knight]
– [Establishing causality in microbiome studies – Rob Knight 2017]

 

Justin & Erica Sonnenburg:
– [Understanding The Microbiome, Erica Sonnenburg, PhD]
– [Your Microbiome What Is It, and How Can It Help or Hurt You]

 

Katherine Pollard:
– [Understanding The Microbiome, Erica Sonnenburg, PhD]
– [Your Microbiome What Is It, and How Can It Help or Hurt You]

 

Katherine Pollard:
[Katherine Pollard Decoding the Human Microbiome]
2016 Stanford School of Medicine:
Now a shotgun approach obtaining multiple sequences (Huge text file: 50 million 100-letter long sequences) has enabled scientists to identify the species of organisms that wasn’t possible just 5 years ago.

 

[Claire Fraser – The Human Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease]
Excellent and informative lecture by another leader in the field. Very good for a layperson to get a general understanding of the Microbiome.

 

[The Human Microbiome – Eric Alm, PhD, Martin Blaser, MD, John Cryan, PhD, Rob Knight, PhD]
Four big names with Microbiome Research each present a short talk then a Q&A panel discussion.

 

[Close Friends The Microbiome and the Immune System]
Gastrologist Susan Lynch PhD describes the connection between our microbiome and our immune system.

 

[The Evolving Human Microbiome]
Dr. Alexander Khoruts MD presents and excellent lecture on the Evolving Microbiome and the new frontier in medical therapeutical applications.

 

[Ashlee Earl Why Microbes Matter]
[Ashlee Earl The Face of Bacillus Subtilis Genomes and Biofilms] 2008
The first talk is an excellent presentation for laypeople to get to know and better understand the microbiome. The second talk a little more focused on the bacteria of her research. Both excellent talks.

 

[Dianne Newman (CalTech) Part 1 An Overview of Microbial Diversity and Evolution]
[Dianne Newman (CalTech) Part 2 Microbial Respiration of Arsenate]
[Dianne Newman (CalTech) Part 3 Interpreting Molecular Fossils of Oxygenic Photosynthesis]

 

Built Environment:
In social science, the term built environment, or built world, refers to the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from buildings to parks. It has been defined as “the human-made space in which people live, work, and recreate on a day-to-day basis.” From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Built_environment>

 

[Jessica Green The Ecology of Indoor Environments]
[Jessica Green Good germs make healthy buildings – TED Talk]
Jessica studies the relationship of the microbial community in our even more sealed and controlled indoor environments called “the built environment”.

 

[Brent Stephens – Perspectives on Microbial Interactions in Built Environments]
Brent looks at the literature regarding the role of the built environment, microbes and human health citing many of the latest studies in the field so an excellent resource for better understanding microbes in the built environment and the studies associated.

 

[Unimaginable, unprecedented, microbial diversity by Professor Jim Prosser]
Jim Prosser speaking on the abundance and complexity of the microbes that make up our earths soils, and their role in the PH and nitrification.

Personal development has become a key issue for the 21st Century. It seems the evolutionary growth and development of the human brain led us out of Africa to colonize the world, to develop communities, master the natural resources of the lands and grow our population to dominate the world. Our brain led us out of the Dark Ages into the light of reason and science which paved the way to improve the lives of the human population.

According to Steven Pinker and his incredibly important work from his 2018 book “Enlightenment Now” shows us the data that the world is a much better place and that the philosophy of the Enlightenment was a success. It empowered humans to use our brains to better make sense of the world around us and begin to live lives of purpose and meaning.

The Enlightenment philosophy created the industrial revolutions that built machines to do the physical labor freeing our minds to further develop unleashing creativity and literacy further improving our lives. Our creative brains led us to develop the sciences that would build our new world and ushered in the Information Age starting about seventy years ago with Claude Shannon. The proliferation of books, education and arguably more important the dialogue, arguments, and sharing of ideas fueled the modern world building the Digital Age hyper-connecting humanity on their pocket computers.

The Internet converging with the Smart Phone has leveled the playing field where billionaires use the same device as the people from rural China and Africa. The accessibility to the worlds knowledge for anyone, anywhere changes the game with a shift to our truly human attributes and skills.

Even our values are changing as we get tired of ancient beliefs and arguments that have no basis in reality. The philosophy what used to serve humans is no longer satisfactory. We shifted from a slavery mentality to one that includes all of humanity and now all of life including the planet itself. The Dalai Lama once claimed the ultimate purpose of humans is “the pursuit of happiness” which mirrored the Declaration of Independence and that may well have been throughout the 20th century but seems we are entering into a new age, an Age of Intelligence that is augmented with machines soon to use Artificial General Intelligence.

The machines of the Industrial Revolution freed us from physical labor that helped us further develop our cognitive capacities. The Age of Intelligence has ushered in Big Data, AI, the Omics, including the Connectome, the Microbiome and the Exposome, created intelligent machines that outperform humans millions-to-one which we need to do the processing to help us figure out the complexities of the human mind, the universe, the Omics and more important the existential problems facing the world.

As super computers and intelligent systems augment our cognitive tasks pushing us to Peak Brain (Educational Neuroscience) it is clear that leaves humans to do the things that make us truly human, to focus on the skills that computers can’t do well (at least for now) and enable us to flourish together. This is the Age of Personal Development enabling a thinking, feeling, breathing human to grow beyond their tribal mentalities, develop one’s self to create a life of purpose and meaning and the courage to extend that far beyond one’s family unit as far into society as one can.

If your blessed to be born with a really high IQ then you will likely be led and educated in the fields that require high levels of cognition, even then to develop personal and soft skills will only serve you to be a better communicator, project manager, team collaborator and/or self-leader to benefit your career and add value to the organization. The rest of us will have more pressure to develop excellent personal skills to aid us in being better employee’s, better managers, increase our creative and innovative capacities, better friends, family members and contributors to society.

Based on thousands of hours research, fifty years life experience, data from dozens scientists and educational institutions Daniel argues that personal development is one the key human issues for the 21st century. He explains how he came to this conclusion and suggests a path or a system one can use to identify one’s own intelligences, surface what is truly important, enhance one’s opportunities and regardless of how life works out to have purpose, meaning and direction.

He invites dialogue on the subject to refine our understanding and applications to ensure positive results, create a community sharing ideas and experiences and enjoy the journey of personal growth.

Is Overpopulation a problem?

By looking at this graph from the Wikipedia Page is sure looks like we are heading for a major problem considering almost all the growth has happened in the last 100 years and we had two world wars and a major pandemic in 1918 that claimed to take 5% of the world’s population.

Our world grows in the amount of people at a rate of;
– 80 million per/year
– 1.5 million per/week
– 250,000 per/day
– 10,000 per/hour

I vaguely recall reading a book called “The Myth of Overpopulation” or something like that and one thing that stuck was the claim that you could fit the entire world’s population in a 2000 sq/ft home in the State of Texas alone. Let’s do the math on this claim;

Back when the book came out there was only about 6 billion people on the planet and rounding off the sq/km is 697,000 sq/km in the state. Convert 697,000 sq/km into meters = 697,000,000 sq/m, Divided by 6,000,000,000 = 8.6 sq/m per/person (92.5 sq/ft). Apparently this is true which kind of puts population in a different perspective.

I live in Qingdao, Shandong Province. There is almost 100 Million people in this province according to Wikipedia and local sources. Me and some friends ride motorcycles and traveled this whole province and I tell you and have commented to all my friends that I almost don’t believe these statistics because I just don’t see that kind of population. If it is true then it sure seems like it is not a big problem for the world to hold a lot of people. (Note: Most of the people don’t drive cars, have relatively poor life style with very little movement or activity.)

 

So what’s the problem?

[Sir David Attenborough on Overpopulation]
Sir David performed an outstanding talk about overpopulation to an affluent audience in England. Sir David is a passionate Naturalist and excellent story teller. According to Attenborough this is considered to be one of the major problems the world faces as it underlines all other problems.

He point that the industrialization of the world has literally change the chemical composition of our air, ocean and lands and temperature of our planet. He claims there is one factor that ties this all together and that is the increase of population. That increase exacerbates all the other problems;
– Global warming
– Desertification
– Pollution or land, air, water
– Species extinctions
– Spread of diseases
– Growing and supplying of food
– Poverty, Conflict, Resource depletion

 

The Stats on Population:

Approximately 4.3 billion people live in these ten countries, representing around 58% of the world’s population.
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population>

The worlds Mega-Cities all with more than 10,000,000 people:

The 2017 World Population Wall Chart by the United Nations is full of details and data about our world’s population.
4 of the 29 Key Findings are;
1. According to the results of the 2017 Revision, the world’s population reached nearly 7.6 billion in mid-2017. The world has added one billion people since 2005 and two billion since 1993. In 2017, an estimated 50.4 per cent of the world’s population was male and 49.6 per cent female. In 2017, 9 per cent of the global population was under age 5, 26 per cent was under age 15, 13 percent was aged 60 or over, and 2 per cent was aged 80 or over.
2. Current estimates indicate that roughly 83 million people are being added to the world’s population every year. Even assuming that fertility levels will continue to decline, the global population is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to the medium-variant projection.
3. In fact, continued growth of the world’s population is expected at least until 2050, even if the decline of fertility accelerates. The projections of the 2017 Revision indicate that there is a 95 per cent probability that the global population will be between 8.4 and 8.7 billion in 2030, between 9.4 and 10.2 billion in 2050 and between 9.6 and 13.2 billion in 2100.
4. Future population growth is highly dependent on the path that future fertility will take, as relatively small changes in the frequency of childbearing, when projected over several decades, can generate large differences in total population. In the medium-variant projection, it is assumed that the global fertility level will decline from 2.5 births per woman in 2010-2015 to 2.2 in 2045-2050, and then fall to 2.0 by 2095-2100. In an illustrative example where the future fertility level of each country is consistently half a child above the levels assumed for the medium- variant projection, the global population would reach 10.8 billion in 2050 and 16.5 billion in 2100.
5. Click here to get the full Wall Chart and the other 25 key findings. [https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_Wallchart.pdf]

 

United Nations [https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/]

According to the United Nations in the March 2017 report; “The total fertility rate for the world as a whole fell from around 5 live births per woman in 1950-1955 to 2.5 births in 2010-2015. As a result of this global transition, an increasing share of the world’s population now lives in countries where total fertility has fallen below the replacement level of approximately 2.1 live births per woman over a lifetime; at this level of fertility, each generation of parents exactly replaces itself with an equivalent number of children who survive to adulthood, ensuring a long-term growth rate of zero.1 Conversely, a relatively small proportion of the world’s population now lives in countries with high levels of fertility — conventionally defined as more than 5 live births per woman. Given the projected future course of fertility, it is expected that this proportion will continue to decrease. Thus, the end of high fertility is near and should become a reality within the next decade or so, according to the results of the 2017 Revision of the World Population Prospects.”

 

Click here for report
[https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/PopFacts_2017-3_The-end-of-high-fertility.pdf] or visit United Nations website to view all their publications. [https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/]

 

[Hans Rosling on global population growth]
Hans Rosling was a Swedish physician, academic, statistician, and public speaker. He was the Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and was the co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system. He held presentations around the world, including several TED Talks in which he promoted the use of data to explore development issues. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rosling>

An excellent speaker, a very entertaining and informative very high tech presentation that explains our human population, how we got to 7 billion and where we are going. Rosling shows us a positive trend and relieves some of the panic and worry about overpopulation.

This graph shows data from the Gapminder program Rosling founded and the divided demographics between the developed countries with small families and long lives compared to the developing countries with large families and short lives since 1963 to the world shift up to 2012. (Below)

Rosling claims that the idea of a “Population Bomb” stirred up by some authors and the media couldn’t be more wrong as demonstrated by the above two slides. [Data from the Gapminder Program – https://www.gapminder.org/]

The below slide try’s to explain why the population increased so dramatically in the last 80 years. He claims this is because of survival rates as show in the below graph. In the 1800’s we had an average of 8 children with only 2 surviving to reproductive age. By the 1900’s with advancement of technology and medicine (industrial revolution) having slightly less children but better survival rates up to today where only two children but all surviving to adulthood.

 
[Graph heading: Babies born per women in the World]

Rosling calls this graph the “Big Fact” of his lifetime and that is that we have reached “Peek Child”. The (numbers of babies born (on average) is now 2 and stable. The United Nations estimates the number of children will not increase throughout this century as shown in the above United Nations report.

 

Income-Lifespan Graphs
1800 Everyone was down in the poor with short lifespan:

2012 a big shift out of poverty into prosperity. A positive change in world demographics rarely reported by the media, but Rosling cautions us as we still have a long way to go to pull the rest of the 1-2 billion out of poverty.

 

Skeptics of Overpopulation:

The Population Research Institute (PRI) [https://www.pop.org/] is a (501c3) non-profit research organization whose core values hold that people are the world’s greatest resource. PRI’s goals are to educate on this premise, to expose the myth of overpopulation, and to expose human rights abuses committed in population control programs. Our growing, global network of pro-life groups spans over 30 countries.

We pledge to:
– Debunk the myth of overpopulation, which cheapens human life and paves the way for abusive population control programs.
– Expose the relentless promotion of abortion, abortifacient contraception, and chemical and surgical sterilization in misleadingly labeled “population stabilization,” “family planning,” and “reproductive health” programs.
– Defund these programs by exposing the coercion, deception, and racism inherent in them.
– Emphasize that people are the most valuable resource on the planet, the one resource we cannot do without.
– Promote pro-natal and pro-family attitudes, laws, and policies worldwide.
– Encourage programs to help the poor become agents of their own development.

 

Criticism of PRI on Wikipedia:

The Population Research Institute (PRI), an anti-abortion, anti-contraception advocacy group, has criticized predictions of overpopulation and attendant resource scarcity, with some describing overpopulation as a “myth”. The PRI argues that advances in agricultural, medical, and industrial technology have allowed global economic productivity to keep pace with rising populations despite Malthusian predictions to the contrary. PRI further says that family sizes are naturally declining worldwide due to higher living standards, increased availability of contraception and better economic opportunities for women. However, other commentators have described PRI’s arguments on overpopulation as deceptive. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population>

From the Population Research Institute (PRI) is this website dealing specifically on what they deem as “The myth of overpopulation” in which they raise some good points and have a valid debate.
[https://overpopulationisamyth.com/]

 

Episode 1: Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth
According to the U.N. Population Database, using the historically accurate low variant projection, the Earth’s population will only add another billion people or so over the next thirty years, peaking around 8.02 billion people in the year 2040, and then it will begin to decline.

 

Episode 2: 2.1 Kids: A Stable Population
When a population decreases in size, the number of potential mothers also decreases. We say that countries with very low birthrates–like Japan’s 1.21 children per woman–are in demographic collapse because each new generation is little more than half the size of the one that preceded it. At this rate, it would take only four generations to reduce the size of population to 10 percent of its initial size.

 

Episode 3: Food: There’s lots of it
Both of the world’s leading authorities on food distribution (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] and the World Food Programme [WFP]) are very clear: there is more than enough food for everyone on the planet.

 

Episode 4: Poverty: Where We All Started
Essentially, the only way that poverty has ever been defeated, anywhere, is by infrastructures that humans have set up. So, when poverty does exist, it is when these infrastructures either 1) don’t exist, like in underdeveloped nations, or 2) are broken or have holes in them. Essentially, fixing poverty is about fixing bad infrastructure, not about eliminating people.

 

Episode 5: 7 Billion People: Will Everyone Please Relax?
The United Nations Population Division (UNPD) is the most reliable source of population statistics in the world, which is why we use their numbers for our videos. And, according to the UNPD, population growth will continue to slow down over the next few decades. In fact, if current trends persist, our growth will halt right around 8 billion by 2045. After that, our numbers will start to fall off, slowly at first, and then faster.

 

Episode 6: Urbanization: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad City?
When more people are grouped together, they are able to put their minds together and come up with better ideas and ways to improve in their society. Because of this, the city is able to offer more opportunities, so people move there.

 

Read more and watch their videos explaining each of the above points in detail.
[https://overpopulationisamyth.com/]

 

Research & Reports from PRI:
Below is a sample of some reports and resarch, please visit their website for all reports [https://www.pop.org/?taxonomy=vocabulary_3&term=in-depth-reports] and publications [https://www.pop.org/weekly-briefing/]

[https://www.pop.org/crude-birth-rate-estimates-1950-2015/]

 

Xi Jinping Places Catholic Church in China Under Direct Party Control
The decision means that the proposed Vatican-China agreement would not merely be a surrender of the Chinese faithful to the Communist Party—it would be an utter betrayal of the faith. From <https://www.pop.org/xi-jinping-places-catholic-church-in-china-under-direct-party-control/>

 

Family Planning Organizations Abuse Women and Children
International family planning programs claim to offer “reproductive health,” but instead they bring a host of human rights abuses to the unsuspecting and uneducated. From <https://www.pop.org/family-planning-organizations-abuse-women-and-children/>

 

Confucius Institutes: Trojan Horses with Chinese Characteristics
Confucius Institutes are described as non-profit public institutions aligned with the government of the People’s Republic of China whose purpose is to promote Chinese language and culture, as well as facilitate cultural exchanges. This seemingly benign purpose leaves out a number of purposes both salient and sinister, namely, sanitizing China’s image abroad, enhancing its “soft power” globally, and creating a new generation of China watchers who well-disposed towards the Communist dictatorship. From <https://www.pop.org/confucius-institutes-trojan-horses-with-chinese-characteristics/>

 

Resources:

[Sir David Attenborough on Overpopulation]
Sir David performed an outstanding talk about overpopulation to an affluent audience in England. Sir David is a passionate Naturalist and excellent story teller. This is a story that needs to be told and congratulate Sir David on his style and courage to address those who may be the ones who need to hear it most.

 

[Gapminder – https://www.gapminder.org/]

[Why the world population won’t exceed 11 billion _ Hans Rosling _ TGS.ORG]
[Hans Rosling on global population growth]

 

[Overpopulation facts – the problem no one will discuss Alexandra Paul at TEDxTopanga]
Alexandra Paul the actress is also an activist discussing the overpopulation problem of the planet and pleading with people to have only 1 child.

 

[The Science of Overpopulation]
The entertaining but informative Henk now doing this SciShow program. A quick 10 min overview of the population facts above showing us the well know and quite startling population graph from 10,000 BC to present. Kid of matches the C02 graph as well.

 

Population Research Institute (PRI) is this website dealing specifically on what they deem as “The myth of overpopulation” in which they raise some good points and have a valid debate.
[https://overpopulationisamyth.com/]
[https://www.pop.org/]

Of course Smart Technology, our mobile phones and access to the Internet is revolutionizing the world. There is no doubt about the power of information but is it really making us smarter human beings? Or is it creating brains full of loose connections setting us up for early dementia?

The answer is not as simple as one might think. Most reasonably aware people recognize that it is simply a tool, and how you use the tool is most important but science is pointing to new evidence about how information is processed in our brains that should cause for alarm in the use of smart technology.

Nicholas G. Carr is a prominent American author of several books criticizing Smart Technology and its negative effects in his books Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage and The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr argues that technology is simply making us dumber because of the primary way information transfers into knowledge. It reduces critical thinking, attention, and reduces our ability to transfer valuable information into our long-term memory.

Some definitions for the following:

• Working memory: Trying to keep something in your mind short term (Example: going from one room to anther to do something and forget what you were going to do.
• Spatial memory: The memory that allows us to navigate our way through the world. To find your car in the parking lot or find your keys in your house. (London Taxi Driver PET Scan study).
• Long-term Memory (LTM): Is the stage where information is held indefinitely.

Carr points out how memory is retained and retrieved which is especially important in the aging brain. The 2012 Arizona State University public lecture series entitled “Living Beyond 100” has evidence that supports Carr’s view. In the lecture titled [Beyond-100-The Aging of the Brain] Professor of Neurology Carol Barnes claims that memory is stored in our synaptic connections and the strength of those connections makes a difference if we are going to able to retrieve information or not. Barnes said “Although you don’t lose neurons, our synaptic connections get weakened and lost during aging.”

Some science to support this claim originated in 1949 when Donald Hebb predicted that memory is related (stored) in the synaptic connections. Hebb’s prediction that memory is stored in the synaptic connections became further verified by Terje Lomo with his discovery termed Long-term Potentiation. Many scientists have now demonstrated in rat experiments that synapses can become stronger improving spatial memory hence the well-known phrase “cells that fire together wire together”.

Some Brain Facts:

• Human Brain: Weight, approximately 1500 grams +/- 100 grams.
• Neurons: Approximate count as of 2010: 86 Billion.
• Synaptic Connections: Each of the neurons has on average 7,000 synaptic connections to other neurons making trillions of connections.
• A neuron, also known as a nerve cell, is an electrically excitable cell that receives, processes, and transmits information through electrical and chemical signals.
• Neurons do not divide. (The process of neurogenesis then involves a final cell division of the parent neural stem cell, which produces daughter neurons that will never divide again. Most neurons of the human central nervous system live the lifetime of the individual but there is now strong evidence that new cells can emerge in the hippocampus and olfactory bulb.)
  
• A typical neuron consists of a cell body or soma, dendrites, and an axon.
• We typically don’t lose neurons but synaptic connections become weakened or lost over time.
• Synapses can become stronger improving spatial memory.

Synapses can become stronger and the strength of a connection makes it more likely to be retained maintaining strong cognitive ability throughout life. How information is obtained is also critical if it is to be stored for later use. Just packing your brain full of information is of no use if you can’t recall it, if you can’t retrieve it and bring it to your working memory for discussion or problem solving.

This is a potential problem with the way many use smart technology. These social networking platforms encourage bad habits of information gathering that set the brain up for weak connections. News Media is similar in that it is short bites of information that is rarely retained. The only thing you can remember about the news is the stuff you see over and over again which is not informing you but programming you, and to a negative bias as well. Think about it, in fact think about people you know who watch the news everyday as their primary source of information, not only will they view the world as negative but you will also be able to notice they can’t remember small details well. This whole habit of quick bites of information does not help build strong brain connections.

Media is not a source of knowledge, it is an opinion maker! Without depth of context it is easy to draw wrong conclusions, create misunderstanding and just be flat out wrong. Not only is the information superficial but it sets up the false sense of knowing or the delusion of being smart. Professor Frank Keil reveals data from a study that demonstrated people think they are smarter by just having “access” to the Internet. Of course just having an internet connection doesn’t make you smarter but that is what most unconsciously believe. This is a delusion and a form of intellectual arrogance that will prevent or limit you from gaining knowledge or becoming wise. This is also not good for healthy relationships either.

The above screenshots come from the Intellectual Humility MOOC created by the University of Edinburgh Philosophy Department. These particular videos are available on YouTube [V. Introduction to Humility and human cognition] but highly recommend the full series and or take the MOOC.
V. Humility and human cognition. Part 1 Introduction (Prof. Frank Keil)
V. Humility and human cognition. Part 2 Humility, arrogance and base rate neglect (F. Keil)
V. Humility and human cognition. Part 3 Developmental over optimism (Prof. Frank Keil)
V. Humility and human cognition. Part 4 The illusion of explanatory depth (Prof. Frank Keil)
V. Humility and human cognition. Part 5 Illusions of argument justification _ insight (F. Keil)
V. Humility and human cognition. Part 6 Illusions of the outsourced mind (Prof. Frank Keil)

To quote Carr again, “information is not knowledge, it’s not intelligence, and it’s certainly not wisdom.” To gain, retain and turn information into knowledge or wisdom we need to fully engage with information, we need to think about it, internalize it, dialogue about it and contemplate it if we want to turn it into knowledge that is retrievable for action. Getting bits and bytes of information through your smart phone are highly unlikely to be retained and not likely to strengthen your synaptic connections or the relationships involved.

There has been a radical shift in thinking about the human brain, its plasticity and its adaptability. Fifty years ago experts thought the brain passively deteriorates. Now we know the brain actively adapts and can remain strong throughout long life with cognitive training and good information processing habits. Doing crossword puzzles is not going to help you find your keys but education and lifelong learning is said to be the top predictive factors for cognitive health.

 

Personal Information & Privacy

Then come the issue of privacy, personal information and companies mining our personal data to manipulate us into buying their products, and worse changing our views buy plugging information in smart, creative and subtle ways without us even recognizing it.

That is the work of con artists! If your not aware of how a con artist works then do a little study and you will find they operate and manipulate based on information they gather about you, what you like and what you want. I was completely surprised when I had a look at some of my friends profiles on the popular China WeChat program. I don’t use the program for all the above reasons and more but was curious as if some of my employees were spending lots of time socializing on their mobile phones and not focused on their work.

When I saw my one of my employees profile I was shocked. This girl posts everything a con artist, including all the marketing companies could use to change her opinions about the world and have her buying a bunch of shit she doesn’t need. She posts daily about where she has been, what she has been doing and everything she likes and dislikes. After reading the last few months I had a completely new understanding of this employee. I am not a psychologist but had some training and what this person revealed I could easily see that marketing companies, con artists and worse, people out to steal identities could take full advantage of this person and mess with their life.

I then asked to see many of my other friends profiles and found a lot less posts of course but very similar information. People post things they like, little comments and general information it is very easy even for an armature to create a profile and manipulated people as they wish.

If that is not scary enough just look at what you agree to when you install their APP. The following is what you agree to when you click “Agree to Terms” before downloading the very popular Mobile App WeChat:

In case your not reading the smaller print：

• Read and write your profile and contact data.
• Read all your SMS or MMS (not just the APPs messages but all messages.)
• Control connections and “full” Internet control.
• Act as an “Account Authenticator” manage and use the credentials of the account.
• Modify and or Delete SD Card contents.
• Read your phone state and identity.
• Change your audio settings, “Record audio” and take pictures and videos. I am not sure if I am reading this right but are they saying they can control your phone and use your camera to take pictures, or video and record what is being said or done in real-time without your permission?

How well do you trust your Mobile APP company?

And is not just about trusting your Social Media or Smart Tech company because they themselves may be trust worthy but others can hack into and or get data in other ways. I am sure most of you are aware of the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal. If not there is a lot on YouTube or the following are a couple good summaries on the subject.

[Cambridge Analytica whistleblower ‘We spent $1m harvesting millions of Facebook profiles’]

[Facebook whistleblower We tested Trump slogans in 2014]

We have to assume there are many data collecting companies and or governments that will intentionally or unintentionally misuse human privacy rights, the apps data and or our personal information without our consent to market products or shape our way of thinking. You need to take personal responsibility on what data you share on the internet or any app and if possibly just avoid using them all together. Join the Delete Facebook campaign and “uninstall” these social media APP’s unless you have a really good reason to use them and if so be careful of what you share and reveal about yourself. Certainly “uncheck” any options to receive additional information, advertisements or any other third party soliciting.

 

Conclusion

It is likely that the future will be a symbiotic relationship with smart technology. The “Semantic Age” as described by Paul Cohen is where machines know you well enough to predict your responses, finish typing your sentences, find the web pages you want, recommend books, music and products you would love to have. At many levels technology will keep you in the game (life) with a hearing aid, pace maker or some sophisticated AI medical interface that keeps your doctor informed or keeps you alive.

But Smart Technology cannot treat us as the unique individuals we are from our life’s experiences and memories. It does not help us build deep meaningful human relationships. My article on [Applications from the Science of Happiness] showed that quality relationships is key to having a meaningful long and healthy life but it is not about how many relationships you have but the quality of them.

Smart Technology is a great tool if used wisely, it can enhance our lives and help make some things more efficient but needs some awareness and proper applications not to slip into a life of sound bites and loose connections.

A good friend of mine once said alcohol is for smart people referring to how destructive it can be if you don’t have a good handle on it and your not aware of when it is having a negative impact on your life. The same may be said about smart technology if not used wisely.

“Smart Technology is for Smart People”

 

Additional Resources:

In the Intelligence Squared debate [Smart-Technology-is-Making-us-Dumb-IQ2-Debate] you will notice that the “for the motion side” brings up many excellent points on just how problematic smart technology can be while the “against the motion side” simple argues how valuable it can be missing the whole point of the debate in my view and even still half the people agree it is making us dumber. If they were to ask “Is the misuse of Smart Technology making us dumber” then I am sure it would be closer to unanimous.

 

Arizona University Public Lectures 2012 Series on Living Beyond 100
[Beyond-100-Information and Immortality]
[Beyond-100-The Aging of the Brain]
[Beyond-100-The Biology of Aging Why Our Bodies Grow Old]
[Beyond-100-Living Beyond 100 Can We, and What If We Do]
[Beyond-100-Repair, Regeneration and Replacement Revisited]

 

University of Washington Department of Psychology
Allen L. Edwards Psychology Series
[How We Remember, Why We Forget, and Why It Matters, Part 1 – 2012]
[How We Remember, Why We Forget, and Why It Matters, Part 2 – 2012]

Not directly related to Smart Technology but a more in-depth understanding of how memory works.

 

[Ecopsychology Reinventing the Human-Nature Relationship in the Digital Age, Part 1 – 2013]
[Ecopsychology Reinventing the Human-Nature Relationship in the Digital Age, Part 2 – 2013]

Not directly related to Smart Technology but two excellent talks that reveal the connection between the new digital world and nature, that humans evolution in nature is changing and the importance of keeping nature in our lives as we adapt to the new digital world.

 

[Technology _ the human mind _ Susan Greenfield _ TEDxOxford]
[Susan Greenfield – Internet & Mind]

 

[You can grow new brain cells. Here’s how _ Sandrine Thuret]

 

[Why I Don’t Use A Smart Phone _ Ann Makosinski _ TEDxTeen]

A young girls story how not having a mobile phone for most of her teens, growing up having to make her own toys all part of what helped her be so creative and innovative at a very young age.