The human race has used cannabis for 5,000 years. But for the last (almost) 100, it has been vilified in the United States as a “gateway drug” that will “fry your brain.” Federal prohibitions have limited opportunities for the scientific community to study the benefits (not just the harms) of this plant, particularly when it comes to stress reduction and a healthier Endocannabinoid System.
The Endocannabinoid System is present in all mammals and regulates bodily functions in the face of stressors. Strangely, despite its critical importance to our existence, we’ve only known about it for a few decades. We do know that it can become less effective in the face of chronic stress or major trauma, and that we can support its function with healthy diet, exercise, and cannabis.
You can get more done with efficiency – to a point. Unfortunately, many of us believe multitasking is efficient, even though it usually makes us even less productive in the end. Multitasking can reduce our effectiveness as well as our capacity for critical thought, meaning that the real key to success is identifying critical tasks and prioritizing them, rather than trying to do it all.
Physics, cooking, energy efficiency, and public health: so many of my passions are the ingredients of this blog post about our new induction cooktop. Magnetic induction cooking equipment has recently been getting cheaper, more accessible, and more popular, but it has long been safer, cleaner, and more energy efficient than the conventional alternatives, such as gas flames and electric coils.
Foraging can be risky business, especially when the ingredients in question contain toxins. With that said, I generally have fun cooking with invasive or aggressive plants from my garden, and milkweed was no exception. I recently learned more about this versatile plant and its historic medicinal applications while learning how to cook the seed pods that start to appear mid-summer.
Today we are surrounded by more information than we can process, and we are drawn to stories that align with what we want to be true. That has dire consequences during pandemics, when we rely on scientific data to save lives. Unfortunately, most humans don’t change their minds when confronted with facts, which is the primary education tactic for people in the sciences.
I had hoped my first bout with COVID-19 (during 2024’s “FLiRT” variants) would be my last. Unfortunately, 2025’s “Nimbus” caught up with me, landing me on the couch for many hours with nothing to do but research my adversary. It is more important than ever that we understand these increasingly transmissible COVID-19 variants, especially in an age of decreasingly reliable information online.
As we enter July, it is once again time to examine our relationship with plastic (which permeates so much of our daily lives and this blog already). While it can be difficult to find alternatives to plastic, especially in food packaging, it is important to understand how some so-called alternatives can be harmful (or not really be alternatives at all).
Rituals can bring comfort in times of grief, but they can also be counterproductive when arbitrary standards override personal needs. While grieving a loss myself, it was interesting to explore rigid societal expectations around mourning in a time of massive technological and cultural upheaval. (And we’re not talking about the twenty-first century: this post focuses on the birth of fast fashion during the Victorian Era.)
After several years of trying to replace my turf lawn with clover, I’m no longer sure clover is what I want. Native alternatives to turf grass can require a massive amount of time, effort, and maybe some unsavory chemicals to ensure a successful conversion. While I won’t be doing that any time soon, I still hope that what I have is “better,” if not “best.”