Living and surviving the city

I stumbled upon this tweet from WHO: https://twitter.com/WHOSEARO/status/937632756967784449 The thing that took my interest was that the air pollution was named the ' silent killer '. Why? One reason is, because it causes lot of death but nobody see the actual immediate danger. You can see pollution maps, pollution predictions, you can even smell and some time see it but few people do because they doubt, argue and question before they put something over they faces, it is kinda the new normal so why bother? Lets be a bit theoretic. To what you can compare it? To something invisible and deadly as well. To me, the  ionizing radiation  bears lot of common marks with the urban air pollution. No I am not kidding. Lets compare both of them in detail: Ionizing  Radiation: is tasteless and invisible Air pollution : sometimes it smells and can be seen, sometimes not. And sometimes we mentally block it away from our senses. Ionizing  Radiation ...

Did it happen to you that you went to visit someone and notice little things in the apartment that are 'not OK' ....little things like a picture hanging a little bit off, a spider web, some tooth paste on the sink, dirty window and so on. Nothing serious. If it is a close relative you can afford to ask about it and you get some answer like this: I did not saw it! It was always like this! There is no point to clean the sink because kids mess it up each time! It takes too much effort to clean that window so we live with it as is! The phenomenon the homeowner experiences is called ' Mental block ' it is due to subconscious erasing of reality that causes you distress or unwanted feelings. It is a mental mechanism that causes  people involved in horrible situations not to remember details afterwards. Subconscious, brain chooses to block the information that causes pain or discomfort. The same thing happens with us when we live with the air pollution. You can sme...

I red this article recently http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42199200 and it was immediately clear to me who the  benefiters of PAPP are. In the same time, the article proposes that covering half of your face with a scarf could help. I do not dispute that. However how effective placing a simple piece of 'cloth' over the face sounds, I would not bet the life of my child  on it. This particular article is dealing with the low air temperature a person is taking in which affects the persons health and/or comfort. That's a point where PAPP could help. By means of technology the air could be treated more complex than just simple  filtering. Heating is one of the options. By bringing the temperature closer to nominal levels wearer will have more comfort and in this case also health benefits. On broader scale, PAPP could not only stop the environment from triggering a shock but prevent the outbreak of the disease at first place. Asthma is known to be one of the sym...