Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
This tick could make you a vegetarian
Wired
“First comes the unscratchable itching, and the angry blossoming of hives. Then stomach cramping, and—for the unluckiest few—difficulty breathing, passing out, and even death,” says Wired. A few nips by the lone star tick, so-named because it used to mostly congregate in the southeastern U.S., is enough to develop a violent red-meat allergy. Scientists aren’t totally certain how the reaction develops, but it has to do with a sugar molecule in red meat called galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, or alpha-gal, for short. The tick’s saliva hijacks the human immune system, triggering it to attack alpha-gal with a tsunami wave of histamines. As the tick expands its range across the U.S., more people are showing up with the condition, and so far there isn’t a cure — except to wave goodbye to burgers and lamb roasts forever.
Global peace depends on the water in your tomato
BBC
With the demand for freshwater “expected to grow by 55 percent between 2000 and 2050,” water is “the next oil.” says BBC. Droughts already have set off conflict in places like Syria, where droves of farmers moved to cities when there wasn’t enough rain for their crops, triggering high food prices and exacerbating political tensions. In a 21st Century wracked by climate change, countries import “virtual water” in the form of produce and meat. Over 160 countries depend heavily on food imports — and the water that grows that food — giving them all incentive to avoid war with their suppliers. Call it hydro-diplomacy.
Philly’s lead-coated past has come back to haunt the city
The Inquirer/Daily News
A construction boom in Philadelphia is quickly gentrifying the old city, with hip cafes, renovated neighborhoods, and lots of lead-contaminated dust. Philly once had 36 lead smelters, more than any other city in the U.S. Now, an investigation by The Inquirer and Daily News, found that out of 114 locations, including yards, playgrounds and parks, nearly three out of four had toxic levels of lead. There’s no way to remove the heavy metal from the soil, and even trace amounts can permanently alter a child’s IQ and cause other neurological issues. For some Philly families, a backyard garden no longer feels safe, when lead-dust drifting from a construction site next door can fall on raised beds. Case in point, “an EPA-funded experiment of vegetables grown in (Kensington neighborhood’s) soil with lead at roughly 1,000 ppm found carrots and beets with lead at five to 40 times the safe level for human consumption,” says The Inquirer/Daily News.
Obesity kills way more people than car accidents, Alzheimer’s or terrorism combined
Vox
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine recently found that around the world, 10 percent of people are obese. Obesity rates in 70 countries — mostly poor and middle-income nations — more than doubled since 1980. In fact, the researchers estimated that excess weight led to “four million deaths globally — or 7 percent of the deaths from any cause — in 2015,” says Vox. That’s “more than the deaths caused by traffic accidents, Alzheimer’s, or other deadly issues that get a lot of airtime, like terrorism, combined.” According to the report, it’s our high-sugar, processed food diet that’s killing us, not a lack of exercise. Humans had already adopted a more sedentary lifestyle years before our waistlines started to expand.
This is what hunger looks like: a photo essay of Somalia
NPR
Somalian farmers have always survived on little rain — often just a few inches a year. But whereas a drought used to occur about once every decade, now it’s constant. Deforestation spurred by the charcoal trade has further ruined the landscape and the nation’s farms. Today, half of Somalia faces food shortages, with millions of people migrating out of the country to Yemen and Libya. Desperate to feed their families, fishermen have turned into pirates, making the Horn of Africa one of the most dangerous places in the world to send a boat. This photo essay shows a glimpse of the struggle Somalis face.
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