A Traveler's Tales of Tummy Troubles

Betty the Bat made another circle through the latrine, this time dipping a wing in friendly recognition (or so I imagined).  I had been there four times already and the night was still young. The open-pit latrine was down a walkway lit by kerosene lamps, the smell of which brings a touch of nausea to this day. Another smell that haunts me is the disinfectant/deodorizer the lodge used in the latrine, because this night effluvia was coming out both ends of me, meaning at times my head was disturbingly close to the source of the odor.  The latrine was about 100 feet from the rooms in our lodge on the Amazon River in Peru, where earlier in the day we had arrived for a few days of exploring flora and fauna of the jungle.  In the afternoon we had gone fishing for piranha and the chef had prepared them for us to taste at dinner.  I, however, never got that far -- before I could take my first bite my intestines told me in no uncertain terms to make that first trip to the latrine.  Probably something I ate for lunch, but it was never clear. Whatever the exact cause, after a day in a hammock watching the Amazon flow by (while my wife had a great adventure trekking through the jungle),  I rejoined the living.

Over the 40+ years my wife and I have been traveling, we have both had a number of incidences of traveler's tummy troubles. When we relate stories like the one above to other people (usually in a bout of "competitive complaining") they often assume our intestinal problems occur more often in third-world countries and exotic locales within them.  Actually, our experience doesn't offer strong support for this.  A counter example to my upchucking along the Amazon occurred recently in Sweden, undoubtedly one of the most developed, squeaky clean places on the planet.  In this case some "Toast Scoggen" cleaned me out better than a colonoscopy prep. On the other hand, a trip to Zambia, Africa a few years ago included a meal cooked for us by local village women in open pots on the ground  -- no problems at all. And yes, it happens in the good old USA.  I once ran back to our motel after dinner at a restaurant in Maine, nearly leaving a trail of DNA as I went. 

Timid travelers also assume that if they stick to eating in upscale places they will be less likely to encounter problems.  Again, not our experience.  Many years ago I remember having lunch at the very posh Acapulco Princess hotel and then waiting outside a bathroom shortly afterwards for my wife's bipolar evacuation of it.  On the same trip, however, we ate a fish dinner at a local beach restaurant, selected from several as being the most upscale and clean-looking.  But as we left we discovered the food had actually come from the restaurant next door, prepared in a tiny shack where cockroaches seemed to be the dishwashing staff.  No intestinal distress at all.

Another of our observations is that there are definitely individual differences in susceptibility -- some people are just plain more prone to traveler's tummy than others.  Many years ago my wife and I started sharing our food in restaurants -- two or more dishes which we split between us. Since then we have discovered that even when exposed to exactly same food we have different intestinal reactions.  Perhaps the first time this was apparent was on our first trip to France, where I spent a good portion of time in the bathroom but my wife never had any problems. On this trip I did a very good imitation of a Bulimic, because even though I was sick a lot I kept on eating because the food was so good.  We later figured out that part of the difficulty was that in those days my stomach was pre-loaded with a high amount of acid from many cups of coffee, vitamin C supplements, and routine ingestion of aspirin for various aches and pains. Mixing all that acid with rather rich food was like a recipe for a volcano science project.  After cutting down on the supplemental acid, the next trip to France was much more pleasant, though far more fattening.

Although my problems in France were likely due to stomach acid, the most common cause of traveler stomach troubles is exposure to microbes.  About 80% of all cases are caused by bacteria of several kinds (mostly of the E. coli variety) and 10% or so by viruses (like the infamous Norovirus) and various protozoa (see Wikipedia). According to the CDC, intestinal problems are the most common travel affliction (other than walletus depletiosis) hitting 30-70% of all travelers, usually within the first week or so of their trip.  Although visitors to developing countries are at higher risk, all destinations have a significant risk level, even the most highly developed (as my personal experience attests).  Also, travelers from developed countries get sick more often than those from developing regions (Medicinet), and all visitors have a higher incidence than locals because the residents have developed resistance to the most common pathogens (Wikipedia) . Note, this often makes terms for traveler's tummy troubles like "Montezuma's Revenge" rather appropriate -- it is payback for germs invaders brought from Europe that infected the natives who had no natural immunity.

Traveler's intestinal problems nearly always last only a few days and go away on their own, though many people like to take antibiotics and anti-motility drugs like Lomotil.  (I love the double meaning of "anti-motility").  These treatments have their downsides, however.  Popping antibiotics may kill the offending bad microbes but it will also kill the beneficial ones that live in your gut and help protect you from other kinds of infections (see How About a Fecal Transplant?, Microbes for Breakfast!, and Fabulous Synthetic Poop!).  And male geezers with prostrate problems should be wary of the side effects of some anti-motility medications -- you may become plugged up in more ways than you wish (I speak from experience on this one).

So, is there any way to prevent this unpleasantness?  Being very careful in what you eat and drink is certainly good advice, but as the CDC notes, "Traditionally, it was thought that TD [Traveler's Diarrhea] could be prevented by following simple recommendations such as 'boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it,' but studies have found that people who follow these rules may still become ill."  It is also the case that often a traveler can't follow these recommendations for practical reasons (like when traveling with a group or as a guest of a local resident).  The CDC is pretty blunt and realistic about this: "Although food and water precautions continue to be recommended, travelers may not always be able to adhere to the advice. Furthermore, many of the factors that ensure food safety, such as restaurant hygiene, are out of the traveler’s control."  My own experience, as illustrated by the examples above, is certainly in line with the CDC's conclusion -- being careful is prudent but hardly guarantees you won't still get sick at some point and predicting when or where is very difficult.

Besides trying to watch what you eat and drink, there is evidence that taking daily doses of bismuth subsalicylate, the active ingredient in Pepto Bismol, can cut the incidence of stomach illness by up to 50%. But there are a number of side effects and interactions that make its use questionable for many people:  "BSS commonly causes blackening of the tongue and stool and may cause nausea, constipation, and rarely tinnitus. BSS should be avoided by travelers with aspirin allergy, renal insufficiency, and gout and by those taking anticoagulants, probenecid, or methotrexate. In travelers taking aspirin or salicylates for other reasons, the use of BSS may result in salicylate toxicity" (CDC ). Sounds like the cure may be as bad as the problem. Likewise, preventative doses of antibiotics do seem to work, but they may lead to greater stomach problems down the road by encouraging bad microbes that are resistant to antibiotics and therefore very difficult to treat. Also, good microbes aid in digestion and help fight a wide range of diseases -- killing them may not be a very wise thing to do.  Speaking of good microbes, one preventative measure which seems to me like it should work is to ingest probiotics (like yogurt, kefir, and soft cheese), but so far the research is inconclusive (even so, I try to keep up my input of yogurt while traveling).

It seems to me we are left with two choices.  One is to buy some virtual reality goggles and experience travel electronically, without the messiness and risk of actually doing it. This certainly avoids traveler tummy troubles, but also removes some of the most rewarding aspects of real travel, like unplanned interactions with real people.  As you might guess, I heartily reject this option. The second is to accept that occasional tummy troubles are a small cost to pay for the life-enriching experiences that come from being exposed to cultures other than your own.  Traveling in total comfort and safety is not possible and even if it were, I don't think it would be desirable because the most beneficial aspects of travel involve a certain degree of challenge and adventure that can lead to surprisingly positive experiences.  Like making friends with Betty the Bat.

The Drones are Coming! The Drones Are Coming!

DJI Phantom

Actually, the drones are already here, and many more are on the way.  The international market research company Deloitte estimated the number of non-military drones reached 1 million in 2015, driven by sales of 300,000 during that year alone. Business Insider predicts the consumer market will grow by 19% annually for the next 5 years, and Teal Group estimates $93 billion will be spent on non-military drones over the next 10 years. In other words, soon that buzzing in your ear won't be a mosquito, it will be your neighbor's drone.

Until recently the military was the big player in the field of drones, where they have proven invaluable in reconnaissance, spy work, and even as tactical weapons.  However, their military debut was not a smooth one and it took a team of renegade military researchers working against the establishment to develop the first workable weaponized model, called the Predator.  A fascinating article by Wired Magazine recounts how almost everything about the project was cobbled together from off-the-shelf pieces of technology but assembled in a uniquely clever way that proved its worth and introduced a new era in modern warfare.  In October of 2001 a pilot sitting in Virginia fired a missile from a Predator drone in Afghanistan and killed a Taliban commander's two bodyguards. Remote-controlled war with a joystick was born. Military drones require a complex and expensive support infrastructure and the drones themselves can be very expensive depending on the size and capabilities.  In contrast, small commercial and consumer models now available are very inexpensive and simple to operate.

The rise of small drones for commercial and private use was made possible by several technological advances that have come together at the same time: lightweight and durable materials for the drone's structural components;  wireless communication via hand-held computer devices (such as smart phones and tablets); easily programmable flight control circuits that can take advantage of GPS systems; lightweight, powerful, small rechargeable batteries; small high-quality cameras with live video and recording capabilities.  The low cost of consumer-level drones also makes them attractive -- just a few hundred dollars and you're all set.  Drones at this level are touted as potentially having great commercial usefulness, for example to deliver small online purchases, provide agricultural monitoring, allow visual inspections in hazardous environments, provide low-cost mobile security surveillance, and many other industrial applications. One of my first personal encounters with a drone was when a neighbor recently put his house up for sale and the realtor used one to take some of the promotional photos. As useful as these and other applications sound, the possibility of large numbers of drones flying around at once is a sobering thought, and some kind of oversight seems essential to keep it orderly, safe and minimally intrusive -- problems that are currently being considered by various agencies like the FAA and CAB.

The explosive growth of the number of non-military "hobbyist" drones has brought challenges that in some ways parallel those of other technological advances, particularly the cell phone.  The rapid deployment of cell phones outpaced social norms and protocols for using them, and we are still catching up.  For example, we continue to debate how these devices should be used appropriately in public situations where the cell owner's conversations are a potential distraction and annoyance to other people -- such as on airplanes and in restaurants.  Drones have the potential to be at least as disruptive and they expand the potential to invade other people's privacy -- wouldn't it be tempting to fly your camera-enabled drone over a celebrity's house or use it to spy on your neighbor?

In addition to the privacy question, the nuisance factor of personal drones with cameras looms large.  Imagine a sporting event where spectators send their drones over the action for a better look, ruining the visual enjoyment of the event for other people in the stands.  Or imagine visiting a monument like Mt. Rushmore or a national scenic treasure like Yellowstone Falls and having to contend with a cloud of "selfie-drones" vying for best camera position. In some cases steps to deal with the nuisance factor have already begun.  I recently visited Volcanoes National Park here on the island of Hawai'i and noticed a NO DRONES sign at the entrance gate and at scenic overlooks.  If ever I were tempted to fly a drone myself, this is the place, particularly to get a better look at the lava lake that is just barely visible from the observation platform about 1.5 miles away at the summit of Kilauea Volcano. However, the majestic impact of this awesome sight would be greatly diminished if dozens of private drones were buzzing around, and I applaud the restriction.  Maybe a compromise would be to have a park ranger fly an official drone over the caldera once at hour or so, with the live video feed being fed to monitors for visitors to watch.

As you might guess, the potential of drones has not been lost on nefarious ne'er-do-wells, criminals, and even terrorists. British police report drones being used to case houses and businesses for burgleries, and to smuggle drugs into prisons.  In Japan a drone landed on the office bulding of the Prime Minister, and in the U.S. drones have landed near the White House. According to a chilling assessment by CNAS, a bi-partisan think-tank focusing on national security:

"Though most COTS [Commerical Off The Shelf] drones have relatively short range and limited payload capacity, they have been successfully used to smuggle drug packages and could be modified to carry explosives, firearms, or other damaging objects instead. To date, The Wall Street Journal reports, 'authorities in the U.S., Germany, Spain, and Egypt have foiled at least six potential terrorist attacks with drones since 2011,' and more can be expected. The difficulty of monitoring and regulating the sale of such systems in the future – a major contributor to their appeal to disruptive actors – is compounded by the fact that they are dual-use, with both military and civilian applications, and unlike firearms do not require registration." (CNAS 2015 Report, A World of Proliferated Drones)

Much of the drone's appeal to the Bad Guys is that their small size and modifiability makes them very transportable, concealable, hard to detect at low altitudes, and difficult to restrict from designated areas. The CNAS report explains this problem very clearly:

"While some COTS drones contain firmware that restricts flight in designated 'no-fly zones,' such as those around airports and certain national security landmarks, skilled programmers could remove these restrictions. Furthermore, such restrictions do not apply to drones assembled from component parts....given the construction material, small size, and flight altitude of most hobbyist systems, they are rarely visible on radar and are therefore particularly difficult to detect. For this reason, defenses against them often require either visual or possibly auditory identification or concerted signal-jamming to disrupt the operator’s communications link with the system and/or the system’s GPS. Most such detection methods however, require either a pre-existing knowledge or expectation of the system’s presence in a given area and thus are markedly less effective against unanticipated use. And as future systems begin to incorporate GPS-independent means of navigation, such as visual-aided or inertial navigation, signal-jamming will cease to be an effective countermeasure. For these reasons, hobbyist systems hold significant disruptive potential." (CNAS Report)

Although there may be no perfect defense against drone misuse, there are still some ways of making malfeasance more difficult. Authorities in tech-happy Japan are taking a "Drone versus Drone" approach with special six-propeller drones equipped with a 10'x6' net that can snag violators right out of the air.  Laser guns that can knock out the electronics of drones have been developed by American and British companies. In contrast, Police in Holland and in Britain are considering “a low-tech solution for a high-tech problem” by using trained eagles to
hunt down and destroy offending drones. It seems eagles react to drones as rival birds of prey and instinctively attack them to defend their territory, and their eyesight is so good they can easily avoid the propellers.

There are several takeaway lessons worth noting in the drone phenomenon.  First, technological advances are hard to predict.  Few people expected ten years ago that today there would be over a million drones in private hands. But this is neither the first nor last time that a major technological development has caught us by surprise and we should probably resign ourselves to expect the unexpected in the future.

Second, technology invariably has unintended and unanticipated consequences.  Drones have been used since the 60's in the military, but the sudden proliferation of small drones intended for recreational and commercial use has brought with it a host of issues that have little to do with recreation or business -- serious issues of privacy, safety, security, and social interaction. The suddenness and intensity of these consequences causes significant social disruption and an uncomfortable feeling that things are out of control until our institutions and social mores adapt to the new challenges.

Finally, the pace of scientific and technological advance seems to be increasing, perhaps because much of the time progress rests on incremental achievements in many fields, and a single technological development, like small inexpensive drones, results from a novel joint application of newly available knowledge in several seemingly unrelated areas. We are in an age of tremendous scientific advancement in a range of disciplines from nano-tech to astrophysics that offer opportunities for unparalleled numbers of technological innovations. For better or worse, I suspect this pace is not going to slow down anytime soon.

Ok, that's it. I'll just "buzz off" now if you don't mind...

My Lessons From Owning An Apple Orchard

Some things in life sound soooo good at the time but the ultimate reality is rather different -- maybe still good, but not in the ways we first thought.  This is about one of those things in my own life.

WeeFolks Tending Their Orchard

Before retiring and moving from Ohio to Hawai'i, my wife and I owned a thousand-tree apple orchard for about 10 years as partners with another couple.  Sounds romantic, right? -- your very own apple orchard, all that luscious, colorful fruit and those rows upon rows of beautiful trees in an idyllic country setting of rolling hills and green fields, with soft, fragrant breezes and birds and butterflies and bees flitting here and there in the bright golden sunshine, and puffy white clouds dotting a deep blue sky. (Cue the violins.)  The reality was a little less Disney-esque.

Our involvement in the orchard took place while we were pursuing our full-time careers as university psychology professor and middle-school math teacher (i.e., our "real" jobs).  Besides posing physical challenges to us that were quite different from our regular jobs, owning the orchard also taught us many unforeseen lessons about agriculture, producing food as a business, and dealing with a very diverse group of people.

The orchard had been planted by two of my university friends and their wives 10 years earlier as part of their plan for retirement.  The idea was that the orchard would provide a stimulating and lucrative activity in their golden years, combining healthy exercise and fresh air with a supplemental source of income.  In 20/20 hindsight this was not a well-grounded assessment, for reasons that will soon become clear.  When one of the partners died prematurely his widow had little interest in continuing the project, and we were offered the chance to buy her share of the partnership.

My wife and I knew nothing about apple trees, but we loved gardening on a small scale and this seemed like a natural extension of our mutual interest.

Just a few bushels

Our soon-to-be-partner reported that in earlier years the work required by the orchard had been easily accomplished on weekends and occasional afternoons so that there had been minimal interference with career commitments.  Most of the crop had been sold through the local farmer's market on Saturdays and also through direct orders solicited at local public schools where the wives were teachers.  Sounded good.  However, lesson # 1 came very quickly when we learned that apple trees take years to reach their peak production and these were just approaching that point -- instead of a crop of a few bushels to sell we were soon faced with the challenge of marketing up to 23 tons of apples, something our partners hadn't anticipated in their idyllic retirement plan. Also, larger mature trees require much more work to maintain that small newly planted ones, with the attendant increase in time demanded. This was way more than a gentleman's hobby!

We sold the orchard shortly after our partners moved to Seattle.  It seems the wife of my friend had other retirement plans that didn't include farm work in southern Ohio.  Overall we regard our experience as a positive one, and we're glad we did it.  The lessons I learned were many, and I think they changed my outlook in ways I still appreciate.  Here are a few that stand out in my memory:

Nature Always Wins  

NOW what?

I now know why harvest celebrations are such a big deal -- that is the only time a farmer can truly regard the crop as a success.  In the case of apples, at any moment during the growing season nature can change a promising crop into something fit only for pigs.  In the spring, for example, a frost at the end of the blooming period can kill most of the developing fruit.  We used to cringe if there was a warm period at the end of winter because it might stimulate the trees to start blooming early and therefore be vulnerable to a cold snap.  Or too much rain during the bloom could keep bees from pollinating the blossoms and could encourage diseases that would stunt and disfigure the fruit, making much of it unsalable.  Or a fall thunderstorm right before the apples were picked could knock the fruit to the ground and turn a good crop to crap in a matter of hours. Or any number of other things outside of our control could make or break the year's production.  No matter how hard you work at growing food, nature always wins.  The best you can do is to encourage the factors that contribute to a good crop (pruning, fertilizing, spraying) and then hope for the best.

Growing Food for a Living is HARD WORK!

I also now have a keen appreciation for how much physical effort is involved in producing food, and I have a deep respect for anyone who makes a living doing it.  Remember, I'm talking about small-scale operations, not big corporate agribusinesses here. Our orchard was quite small by industry standards, and small enterprises often require more personal effort because expensive labor-saving equipment isn't available and relying heavily on paid labor is cost-prohibitive.  In our case we supplied most of the labor ourselves -- pruning, spraying, mowing, picking, transporting, and selling. Boy did I learn a lot during this process.  For instance, pruning has to be done carefully and correctly or else you can actually damage an apple tree and prevent it from bearing fruit.  But if you have 1000 trees to prune each spring in a matter of a few weeks, you have to do this skilled work quickly and efficiently.  I first read a couple of books on the subject and then practiced on the job -- lots and lots of practice over the years, to the tune of maybe 5 or 6 thousand trees total (I pruned half the trees each year, my partner the other half).

Likewise, picking apples may seem simple, but it actually requires skill to do correctly in order to avoid damaging the tree's "fruiting spurs," which are small branches near the current fruit that will bear fruit the following year.  Also, ripe apples are prone to bruising and have to be gently handled to reduce spoilage and preserve eye appeal.  And of course you have to do this quickly because there is only a few weeks' window to get it done.  We tried hiring helpers to assist in the picking but in southern Ohio there wasn't a pool of skilled migrant workers familiar with apples like there is in the big apple-producing regions of the Pacific Northwest.  Instead, we tried high school kids and university students but we found pretty quickly that most of them really didn't have a concept of "physical work," nor where their pay was coming from.  I remember one kid being very puzzled when I tried to explain that unless he picked at a certain rate, we were paying him more to pick a bushel of apples than we could sell them for -- in other words that he was actually costing us money, not helping us.  He was one of the many that didn't last very long.

Organic?
[Warning:  I am probably going to offend some you in the next section.  My apologies, but tough Pippins.]

Anyone who has had an apple tree in their yard knows that much of the time the apples are small, shriveled, home to a variety of wriggling critters, and the leaves often look as if they have leprosy.  This is because humans like apples, insects like apples, fungi like apples, and moldy microbes like apples. The trees themselves do not care what the fruit looks like or whether it appeals to human senses as long as it produces seeds that can perpetuate the species.

Advocates of organic food often seem to have the belief that all you have to do is let nature take its

Organic!  Yummy!

course and plants will bless us with a bounty of attractive and healthy food.  I assure you nature has other ideas.  Growing food, including apples, without active management practices that increase our competitive edge against all the other critters who also consider apples their own food source, would be exceedingly difficult and wasteful. This doesn't mean that we should ignore the possible health and environmental consequences of non-organically raised food, but we should be discerning, selective, and realistic in our assessments.

In our orchard we followed something called "Integrated Pest Management."  We did use chemical sprays but we tried to minimize the amount and limit their ecological impact.  For instance, in the spring we switched chemicals during the bloom period to avoid killing bees, and at other times we used sprays that were less toxic to beneficial "predator insects" so they would provide some degree of natural biological control of harmful insects.  We tolerated a certain level of infestation and only took extra action if the problem exceeded reasonable limits.  Regular pruning and fertilizing to keep the trees healthy helped them fight off disease and insects and reduced the need for chemical intervention (but certainly didn't eliminate it).  Finally, our sprayer was a low-flow-high-effort rig that allowed us to confine the spray -- in contrast to large commercial orchards where the sprayers create a fine-droplet fog that covers everything in the area whether it needs it or not.  Our method was less effective in controlling pests, however, and we had a much larger percent of unsaleable fruit than a large orchard would tolerate.

Show Me the Money!

A major set of lessons from owning the orchard had to do with the economic realities of producing food.  The "bottom line" is that thankfully we weren't depending on income from the orchard as our main source of support.  We never actually lost money but we didn't make much either, and if we put even a minimal value on our own labor we were in the red most years.  I admire any small food producer who can make a living this way.

When you are producing food you are at the bottom of a supply chain with several links, and at each level the value and profit margin increase.  In our case, we sold our apples wholesale for 1/4 to 1/5 of what we could get for them selling retail.  However, this increased profit margin was tempered by the greater time required and by additional costs of selling retail.  Further, there were only so many bushels we could sell at the retail level and this didn't come anywhere close to the total production of the orchard.  The greatest part of our crop went at a wholesale price that was just a smidge above our production costs, or for cider apples that were pretty much a break-even proposition.  In short, owning a small apple orchard won't make you rich, at least in monetary terms.

Another lesson was in the effects of supply and demand on the price we received for the apples.  For example, in years when nature cooperated and we had a very good crop in terms of quality and quantity, we often got less money per bushel.  This is because in agriculture if you have a good crop, many others do too.  Supply up, price down.  This fluctuation, however, is greater at the bottom of the supply chain than at the top.  In other words, in a good year things might cost somewhat less at the grocery store, but the price farmers receive for each unit they produce is considerably lower -- what may save them is that they have more to sell, but of course more product => more work.

These economic lessons are still with me when I visit farmer's markets.  I don't complain that the prices are pretty much the same as in the grocery store because I've been on the other side of the counter and I know the profits are going directly to the people who deserve them the most.

 These are Really Good People

Without a doubt, the most positive and enjoyable lessons from our adventure into agriculture came from the people we encountered while selling our apples.  On Fridays we picked the best apples we could for the Saturday morning market in our town, and early in the morning we set up our stall for a 4-5 hour session of selling direct to our customers.  It is hard to describe the warm fuzzy feeling of having people buy something you have produced that gives them pleasure and enjoyment.  We enjoyed talking to them, explaining the qualities of the different varieties of apples and describing our growing process. We had many repeat customers and this enhanced our satisfaction and made all the hard work worthwhile.  The market was also a social affair in our small town, and many of the customers were our friends.  In this context, however, we were able to interact on a different basis and to explore a different aspect of our friendship.  Our other main retail outlet was through the schools where my wife and the wife of our other partner taught.  My wife would solicit weekly orders in fall, and then we will fill them on a personalized basis for pickup after school.  This was time-consuming but very enjoyable because it was such a personal interaction.

We also met many other people, including other sellers, whom we probably would not have encountered in any other way because our lives were otherwise focused in different social realms.  The people we dealt with in selling our apples wholesale, like the family that ran a roadside market and used our apples for their cider, were folks we would not have been likely to befriend if it had not been for the orchard.  In general the people we encountered were down-to-earth, hard workers, shrewd in business dealings and extraordinarily decent and positive in their outlook.  They taught me that intelligence and skill aren't always reflected in a college degree, that contributions to society don't necessarily correlate with your tax bracket, and that a reputation for being honest, fair and hard-working was more valuable than money.  Definitely worthwhile lessons.......

Sweet Sweat, Part 2: "Never Let Them See You Sweat"

We humans are built to sweat.  And we do, up to a gallon per hour under extreme circumstances. To accomplish this prodigious feat, each of us has 2-4 million sweat glands.  These are spread all over our bodies, but with greater concentrations in regions with more hair, such as armpits, groin, scalp and yes, probably eyebrows (see Part 1).  Among mammals only primates and horses cool their bodies by evaporating large amounts of sweat from these glands, and they are the only two mammals who perspire in their armpits.

Being efficient sweaters means that we humans are very good at regulating the core temperature of our bodies. This ability has given us at least two evolutionary advantages over our less sweaty brethren.  First, it allowed early humans to engage in endurance activities like running down and killing other animals for food. Second, the heat generated by our big brains burning a lot of calories can be managed through the evaporative cooling produced by sweating. In other words, Big Brain <==> Big Sweat. (Note to you heavy sweaters out there -- no, it doesn't follow that you are smarter that someone who doesn't sweat as much as you do.....)

Mayo Clinic's Depiction of Sweat Glands

There are two kinds of sweat glands: eccrine and apocrine.  Eccrine glands open directly onto the skin and are found over most of the body, with higher concentrations in the hands, feet, forearms, forehead, chest and back. Apocrine glands open into hair follicles and so are found in areas where follicles are abundant, such as armpits, groin, scalp, and yes, even eyebrows (see Part 1).  There is considerable variation from person to person in the total number of sweat glands, but the region-to-region relative differences are the same. Thus, one person might have few glands in say, the eyebrows, whereas another has more in that region.  But both people have more glands in their arm pits than in their eyebrows.  You might say it's more normal to have fewer glands in the eyebrows (again, see Part 1)....

The sweat from the two kinds of glands differs in composition and in potential stinkiness.  Eccrine glands produce perspiration that is mostly water, with some salt and trace elements. In most people this sweat is odorless, both as it emerges and after it has dried. Apocrine glands, on the other hand, are a boon to the $3 billion a year deodorant industry because they produce a milky, chemically complex sweat that is 20% proteins and fats, and skin bacteria love it.  The bi-products of their digestive process are odoriferous -- and we have been conditioned to regard the smell as offensive.  Nearly 90% of adult Americans are proactive about body odor by taking frequent showers and baths and using commercial deodorants and antiperspirants.  An interesting paradox is that many soaps increase the natural pH level of the skin, making it more friendly to bacterial growth. Thus, frequent showering may actually encourage higher concentrations of bacteria and therefore make chemical deodorants even more necessary.  One way around this dilemma besides going back to the "once-a-week-bath-whether-you-need-it-or-not" routine is to use pH-balanced bath soap.

Perspiration is triggered by three primary sources:  environmental heat, exercise, and stress.  Oh, and "power surges" brought on by hormonal changes in women -- definitely a topic worth a whole other blog and so it won't be considered here.  Stress has a strong social component, as indicated by a recent survey of American & Canadian adults in which 62% of the participants reported stressful work situations brought on sweating, and nearly half said this occurred when interacting with their boss or with colleagues.  In the same survey,  2/3 said they perceived someone who was sweating as being nervous and uncertain.  Thus the adage "Don't ever let them see you sweat" to avoid the attribution that you are unsure of yourself and not in control. Probably the most famous historical case of this was the first Kennedy/Nixon debate in which Nixon was visibly perspiring, leading to a widespread belief that he lost the debate.  Stress sweat comes on suddenly and almost always activates both kinds of glands, which means it often produces the most odor -- stress stinks, literally.

Heat and exercise are perhaps the two most "natural" sources of sweating, and they illustrate our somewhat ambivalent attitudes toward perspiration.  On the one hand we spend $3 billion a year on antiperspirants and on the other we deliberately seek out certain situations where the objective is to sweat buckets.  For instance, in terms of hot environments, consider saunas, steam baths, and "sweat lodges" as examples where sweating is desirable, healthy, and even sacred.  Vigorous physical exercise, with its inevitable liquid result, is eagerly sought after in natural environments as well as in fitness centers with hi-tech equipment.  In the U.S, alone, people spend about $ 22 billion per year on health clubs, where if you aren't seen sweating, you're regarded as just not working hard enough, an evaluation applied equally to men and women in that context.

This brings us full circle in this exploration of perspiration, back to the question whether there is really a sex difference in sweating.  We can easily dismiss the romantic notion that ladies "merely glow," but do women and men perspire at the same level under the same conditions?  Fortunately, there is some pretty solid scientific evidence that addresses that question in a recent experimental study by several Japanese researchers published in the journal Experimental Physiology (Ichinose-Kuwahara et al., 2010).  A less technical but more readable presentation of this research is in a New York Times article by Gretchen Reynolds.

The researchers compared the sweating rates of healthy men and women who were either very fit (amateur endurance athletes) or who exercised very little.  The average age of the participants was about 21, which unfortunately doesn't allow confidently generalizing the results to geezers, but is still informative.  The sweat output of the participants was measured while they rode a stationary bike under increasingly higher pedaling intensity.  The temperature of the room was held at 86d, pretty toasty.  The researchers measured both the number of sweat glands that were activated and the amount per gland at several sites on each participant's body.

For both men and women, those who were very fit sweated more during exercise than those who were less fit, a finding that has also been found in other research studies.  The functional importance of this is that the body's core temperature can be kept below a critical level longer if sweat glands start pumping earlier during strenuous exercise.  Regular work-outs condition the body to do this.

Now for the question at hand. The sweat rate for men was higher than for women in both the fit and unfit groups, although the difference was small for less fit groups.  Men achieved this soggy superiority by sweating more per gland, not by having more glands activated. This same result has been found in other studies that didn't involve exercise and instead looked at sweating under different temperature and humidity conditions -- i.e., "passive sweating."  The bottom line appears to be that men's sweat glands pump out more perspiration, period.  The best evidence to date is that this is associated with testosterone levels, not a structural difference between men and women.  For instance, prior to puberty when hormones begin to run amok, both boys and girls sweat at the same rate and from the same number of glands.

One last point. Sweating cools the body and lowers core temperature.  This means that women in the exercise study tended to be hotter than men in both the fit and less fit groups.  A possible inference from this result is that if you sweat less, you may perceive the same environment as warmer than someone who sweats more because your body is actually hotter.  Of course it is also possible that people who don't ordinarily sweat much may reverse the direction of attribution --  "If I'm sweating, the environment and me must be really hot."  I suspect this attributional method of assessing comfort level is quite common. Either way, this could account for many marital disagreements, present company included.

For me the conclusion of all this is that sweating in humans has important implications in terms of economic impact, physiological functioning, evolutionary processes, and social relations.  And it is a prime example of the common feature of our species to elevate something that is basic and essential to something that is a complex phenomenon with additional qualities that are to a fairly large extent the product of our big brains.  Whew!  I think it's time for a shower......
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Sources & Resources

Perspiration, Sweat Glands, Deodorants, Sweat Lodges, Hot Flashes  - Wikepedia
Sweating and body odor - Mayo Clinic
The science behind sweating - The California Aggie
Sweating: - MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia 
Statistics and Facts on Health and Fitness Clubs - Statistica
Sex differences in the effects of physical training on sweat gland responses during a graded exercise - Ichinose-Kuwahara et. al.-  Experimental Physiology (2010)
Do Women Sweat Differently Than Men? - The New York Times
Sweating Survey - International Hyperhidrosis Society
Stress Sweat - YouBeauty.com
Body Odors & pH Balances | Livestrong.com

Sweet Sweat: Part I - Liquid Gold

Wife:  My eyebrows are sweating.

Me:  What??

Wife:  It's so hot my eyebrows are sweating. They always do.

Me:  What?

Male readers who have been married for a while will recognize this is a time to shut up.  The correct response, if any, is to acknowledge the discomfort and then quickly move on.  However, I made not only one mistake but two.  First, I denied that it was particularly hot.  Then I questioned whether eyebrows were a normal place to sweat.

My penance was to do some research into the topic of perspiration and possible differences among people in where and when they sweat.  I found that there is a wealth of information about this topic, and to someone as warped as me it turned out to be very interesting. There was so much material that rather than share it in one long blog I've decided to torture you with two shorter installments.  Here goes.  Oh, and be patient -- we'll eventually get to that eyebrow thing....

"Horses Sweat, Men Perspire, 

                  But Ladies Merely Glow......"

This Victorian-Era euphemism captured the view in the early 1900's toward perspiration -- a gross aspect of animal nature, found in restrained and diminished form in male humans and quite incompatible with the ethereal sensibilities of Victorian gentlewomen. This idea now seems rather quaint, given the more accurate perceptions available to us in coed fitness centers and in athletic venues.  Men and women sweat, not just horses.

Although we may have a somewhat more realistic view of perspiration these days, we are still quite ambivalent about it, as indicated by the lucrative $3 billion a year deodorant and anti-antiperspirant industry in the U.S. (Euromonitor Marketing Research Report, 2014).  We know we sweat but we pay a lot of money not to do so, and we pay to make sure we don't stink even if we do.  The fact that perspiration and odor are big business should make us suspicious that at to least some degree our attitudes might be the result of Madison Avenue manipulation.  A recent article by Sarah Everets published in the venerable Smithsonian Magazine offers considerable evidence that this is correct:

"In the 1910s deodorants and antiperspirants were relatively new inventions. The first deodorant, which kills odor-producing bacteria, was called Mum and had been trademarked in 1888, while the first antiperspirant, which thwarts both sweat-production and bacterial growth, was called Everdry and launched in 1903.  But many people—if they had even heard of the anti-sweat toiletries—thought they were unnecessary, unhealthy or both." (Everets, 2012).

What do you do if you have a product that people don't perceive they have a need for, and even regard it negatively?  The answer is that you create a market for the product by convincing people they really do need it, and that it is perfectly safe.  The first advertising campaign for anti-antiperspirants began in 1912, designed by James Young, a copy writer for a New York advertising agency and former traveling Bible salesman.  Directed at women, the campaign promoted a product named Odorono, stressing its healthfulness and also suggesting that perspiration was a problem needing to be solved:

"Young’s early Odorono advertisements focused on trying to combat a commonly held belief that blocking perspiration was unhealthy. The copy pointed out that Odorono (occasionally written Odo-ro-no) had been developed by a doctor and it presented “excessive perspiration” as an embarrassing medical ailment in need of a remedy." (Everets, 2012)

The campaign worked -- sort of.  The sales of Odorono jumped initially but flattened out after a few years.  It seems that while the campaign led many women to be familiar with the product, 2/3 still didn't think there was a need for it.  Young switched to what has become a time-honored way for advertisers to manipulate perceived need --- focus on fear of social embarrassment that the product can take away.  Here's a sample of Young's 1919 sales pitch for Odorono in Ladies Home Journal: "A woman’s arm! Poets have sung of it, great artists have painted its beauty. It should be the daintiest, sweetest thing in the world. And yet, unfortunately, it’s isn’t always." The advertisement went on to explain that women may be stinky and offensive, and they might not even know it.  "The take-home message was clear: If you want to keep a man, you’d better not smell" (Everets, 2012).   Although the ad was considered offensive by many readers because it dealt with a socially taboo topic, Odorono sales jumped 112 percent by the next year.

Other companies copied the Odorono marketing approach and over the years the ads became much bolder.  A particularly blunt example is a 1937 advertisement for Mum (now Ban):

"You’re a pretty girl, Mary, and you’re smart about most things but you’re just a bit stupid about yourself. You love a good time—but you seldom have one. Evening after evening you sit at home alone. You’ve met several grand men who seemed interested at first. They took you out once—and that was that. There are so many pretty Marys in the world who never seem to sense the real reason for their aloneness. In this smart modern age, it’s against the code for a girl (or a man either) to carry the repellent odor of underarm perspiration on clothing and person. It’s a fault which never fails to carry its own punishment—unpopularity."  (Everets, 2012)

Campaigns to convince men that they needed these products began in 1935, with the introduction of the first deodorant for men called Top-Flite.  These ads, too, focused on insecurities -- in this case of men trying to obtain and keep depression-era jobs.  But why was there a 20-year delay in developing and pitching these products to men? Could it be that men don't sweat as much as women or that they stink less?  Doubtful. The more likely reason is that advertisers viewed women as more likely to adopt these products because our society had primed them to respond to a fear-based pitch that emphasized the possibility of social rejection.  The insecurities of the Great Depression changed men's attitudes and made them more susceptible to a fear-based appeal for a product that promised to make them more successful in white-collar jobs -- thus opening a huge new market for deodorant products (Everets, 2012). Ads stressed how lack of personal grooming could ruin a career and threaten a man's role as successful family provider, as well as his general "macho" attractiveness to women, by being unknowingly stinky at the office.

Of course, the advertisers first had to go to great lengths to disassociate the male version of the product from the female version, even though the active ingredients and their strengths were exactly the same. Thus the name "Top-Flite," a clear reference to the game of golf, which at that time was seen as a "man's" game. Other strategies included using containers in the shape of whiskey jugs and blocky black bottles and incorporating scents like "leather," "pine," and "old spice." 

So, are the advertisers right, are we humans naturally drippy, stinky creatures?  Is perspiration the nemesis of advanced civilization?  Do men sweat more than women? Do eyebrows really sweat?  Answers to these and other questions will be in Part 2:  "Don't Ever Let Them See You Sweat"

My New Chip & Pin Card Works! (Well, Sort Of...)

I've blogged previously about the difficulty my wife and I had last year while traveling in Europe with our "Swipe & Sign" credit card (see American Travelers Abroad: The Chips Are Down). Briefly, the problem is that U.S. credit card technology is way behind most of the rest of the world, where the standard is the much more secure "Chip & PIN."  Transaction information is encrypted via the chip embedded in the card, and then rather than a signature that anyone can fake, a personal PIN number is required to complete the transaction.  An American traveling abroad can still charge things because most card readers there do have a swipe slot and will generate a paper slip to be signed.  However, this assumes the transaction involves face-to-face interaction.  Many point-of-sale transactions in Europe are at unattended machines that (a) only accept chip cards and (b) require a PIN. These include toll booths, gas stations, parking garages, and ticket machines for public transportation --- in other words, many of the venues tourists are likely to encounter.

After our difficult experiences last year my wife and I decided to see if we could get a chip and pin card for future travel.  I quickly found that several companies offered Chip cards, but they were not true Chip & PIN cards because they still required a signature.  Indeed, the first type is what American credit card companies are now distributing in the wake of several high profile data hacks, such as the Home Depot and Target debacles.  These cards, if used with a chip reader, are definitely more secure than the swipe cards they replace because they are harder to counterfeit and the transaction is more securely encrypted.  However, they may do you no good at all in the unattended purchase situations you are likely to encounter while traveling abroad.  Here is the description included with my new Chase chip card that I recently received:

You may be asked for a PIN, rather than a signature, when using chip card readers abroad.  If this happens, you may be able to cancel the PIN prompt and complete the transaction.  Just in case, it's always a good idea to carry local currency for payments at unattended kiosks that may require a PIN.

News Flash, Chase:  Many of those unattended kiosks won't allow payment with cash!

The card my wife and I settled on was the Barclay Arrival + which was touted as having true PIN capabilities and no foreign transaction fees. We received the card and set up a PIN, but of course we had no opportunity to test it here in the U.S.  Our first complete test abroad came a short while ago on a trip to Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and Saint Petersburg, Russia.  Here's my report.

When the chip was inserted into card readers it worked flawlessly everywhere.  Not once did a merchant have to swipe the card.  So far so good.  However, I was disappointed to find that in all face-to-face transactions I was required to sign the charge slip, rather than enter my PIN.

The real test came when we encountered unattended machines.  This occurred  when we landed in Stockholm and needed to buy tickets for the transfer bus from the airport to the downtown area.  In the arrivals area we found a collection of unattended machines selling train and bus tickets.  We stuck in our Barclay card and it asked for our PIN. I entered the number and .... voila! IT WORKED! Wow, we Americans had finally entered the 21st century in terms of banking technology!

Later we needed to buy metro tickets, which in Stockholm are available for sale in certain stores and from unattended machines located near the metro turnstiles.  I held my breath the first time we stuck in the card.  Bingo! -- it asked for our PIN and accepted it!  This happened several more times during the course of our stay.  In short, every time we encountered an unattended machine on this trip the PIN functioned perfectly.  What would have happened if we tried to use a Swipe & Sign or a Chip & Sign card?  Don't know, don't care.  I do know that last year in Europe we were unable to complete these transactions with our old credit card and it was a major pain in the butt.

Apparently the Barclay card's default is to require a signature, but if a PIN is absolutely required it will accept it.  This isn't as good as I had hoped, but it is certainly an improvement and probably the best we can do at the moment.  To the best of my knowledge, there is no true Chip&Pin card where the default is PIN available to Americans at this time (see Note 1 below).  If you know of one, please forward the information to me.

In preparing this blog I did some research on chip cards and immediately found that there is still a lot of confusion about them, especially the difference between Chip&Sign cards and Chip&PIN (with signature also, like my Barclay card).  I even found one forum in which a person with a Barclay Arrival + card claimed the PIN wasn't accepted abroad -- clearly false given my experience of a few weeks ago, as well as reports of other travelers.  At any rate, here is the best and latest assessment of true Chip&PIN cards available to Americans I could find, dated August 1, 2015:  MileCards.Com, "11 Chip & PIN credit cards with no foreign fees."

Happy travels!!
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Related Blogs & Notes
American Travelers Abroad: The Chips Are Down
One Way That Chip Credit Cards Aren't More Secure
Note 1 -- I've come across a few unofficial reports of Chip & PIN cards from some credit unions that will ask for a PIN when read by the new readers now being distributed in the U.S.
Note 2 -- I've also come across an unofficial report that foreign chip readers are being modified to accept Chip & Sign cards from the U.S.  This seems doubtful to me -- or a least a bad idea if true -- because it lowers the security of unattended transactions.

Bah Humbug! (Redux)

A few years ago I wrote a blog about my mixed feelings concerning the Christmas season (Bah, Humbug! (Sort Of),12/12).  My attitudes haven't changed much, but in honor of the reflective spirit of the Holidays I want to expand a bit on this topic and offer some additional observations

It's become clear to me that a major trigger for the beginning of my Christmas malaise is the spectacle of Black Friday.  This occurs the day after Thanksgiving, a holiday which seems to bring out the best in people, including many sincere displays of generosity and charity.  The very next day, however, there is a tidal wave of selfish acquisitiveness in which the motto seems to be "Push, Shove, Grab, Buy" as people fight for everything from t.v.'s to toys.  These are most certainly not all intended as gifts, but rather are often desirable material possessions that are priced so low that the result is the retail equivalent of a feeding frenzy.  If there really is a "war on Christmas" as some have argued, I suggest that it isn't liberal philosophy but rather over-amped commercialism that is the major source.  At any rate, this day marks the beginning of my Christmas season emotional doldrums.

I have been ambivalent about the holiday season for quite some time, and I think the seeds were planted in childhood.

As a kid I can remember being so excited that I was unable to sleep on Christmas Eve.  Everything was so special -- the decorations at our house and around the city, the presents under the tree, the Christmas music on the radio and in the shopping malls, the heartwarming holiday specials on television, the dozens of Christmas cards we sent and received.  Although my family wasn't devoutly religious, we usually attended midnight mass on Christmas Eve at our local Episcopalian church.  Christmas day was a hectic family affair that started with opening presents, followed by dinner in mid-afternoon with in-laws and relatives, more exchanging and opening of gifts, then socializing until 8 or 9 o'clock.  All in all this was a very intense and long day.

The next day was a big let down.  I can remember getting together with neighborhood friends to compare gifts and to play with each other's stuff.  But the big thrill was over and it seemed anticlimactic.  Amazing what a difference 24 hours can make -- from heartfelt joy, eager anticipation, and warm fuzzy emotions to a kind of emptiness, deflation and a feeling of  despondency.  And those presents I had wanted so badly almost never lived up to my expectations.

As an adult I have to fight a tendency to become a bit depressed during the holiday season.  It's not that I'm a Scrooge at heart -- I really would like to feel the holiday spirit and experience those warm fuzzies again.  But it is hard to do when retailers start their holiday push even before Halloween, Christmas carols are used to sell merchandise rather than express holiday sentiments, and buying gifts is evaluated in terms of contribution to GNP rather than as a gesture of caring.  It seems commercialized, shallow and insincere.

And of course it is hard to reconcile the messages of goodwill and peace with pervasive international conflict, with the exploitation, denigration and ruthless subjugation of large segments of the global population, and with politicians and even some religious leaders calling for policies that are at odds with compassion and loving kindness. If we could act like it was Christmas Eve throughout the year these problems might disappear. But I fear we are more likely to act like it was the day after Christmas -- or even worse, Black Friday

To end on a more positive note, and to illustrate my ambivalence, not just negativity toward the holidays, I'll offer this thought:  maybe capturing the spirit of the season shouldn't be easy.  Maybe the challenge of overcoming the obstacles, of seeing past the commercialism, conflict, and shallowness can lead to a more significant personal and social experience.  I think it's worth a try.  Maybe now more than ever.