Exactly What We Need

Maybe it’s because I’m an “Adult Child of an Engineer” that I am constantly contemplating how to redesign things that work okay - but could be better. The human body is one of those things that I often think falls way short of perfection. (And the older I get, the shorter it falls.)

For instance, I’ve often wondered why my arms couldn’t be just a little bit longer, so I could reach and scratch the middle of my back. Maybe, evolution determined long ago that people who sought the company of others, if for no other reason than to get their backs scratched, stayed together and for survival purposes at least, we really are better off together.

Another redesign I would vote for would be to completely do away with fingernails. Other than peeling the occasional orange, I see no use for them and for those of us that work in the soil with our hands, it’s a constant annoyance trying to keep them clean. But maybe always having a small dose of healthy soil under their nails helps explain why kids who grow up on farms tend to be much healthier than the population at large.

In fact, 70% of antibiotics in use today originate from soil bacteria. Unfortunately, the overuse of these antibiotics, especially in animal feed, has created antibiotic-resistant “super bugs”. In 2018, in a race against time to find new antibiotics, the National Institute of Health (NIH) funded a research program which collected 2,000 soil samples from across the country. Researchers discovered in many of those soil samples, a new class of antibiotics called “malacidins.” Happily, malacidins are very successful at wiping out many drug-resistant “super bugs,” including the dreaded and deadly MRSA infection.

So maybe once again, it’s the big picture of microscopic organisms that we are missing. Maybe by working with the earth and in essence scratching its back while tending its soil, the earth will watch out for ours by providing us with precisely what we need.

P.S. I still wish my arms were a little bit longer.