Worsening insomnia, healthier gums, and fancy water bottles

Saving your gums, a plant at a time

Great news for parents, you can now scare your children into eating apples and figs (specifically their peels), with something new: gum disease.

That’s right. A team of researchers based at São Paulo State University tested morin, a naturally occurring compound in plants like the above, against multiple bacteria. It has shown anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial effects against bacteria which cause gum disease.

But you can’t just get access to morin’s benefits by simply consuming something with it; it has to be processed first. The researchers are trying to find a way to optimise its delivery so that it can provide the most benefits to us, as saliva will quickly wash away anything in a person’s mouth that doesn’t stick to teeth or gums.

Luciana Sales has developed a solution that could solve this problem, and is testing it out with morin.

Naturally, it’ll still be a while before we can see the fruits of their labour.

An exciting time for water enthusiasts

One Water, a ‘premium’ bottled water company, debuted its interlocking bottle technology at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which took place in January of this year. 

Nothing new has come up, but some news outlets are re-reporting the event now, and have been over the past few months. This is likely a way to boost attention to their bottles. 

If it's to boost attention, then it worked. But it doesn't bode well if they've had to consistently draw attention by repeating the same information throughout the year.

According to them, they source their pure spring water directly from the Canadian Rocky Mountains. How wonderful it is, that they desire to “unite all the world’s best water sources under one label,” which sounds eerily similar to “let’s monopolise a basic necessity.”

But credit where it’s due, their bottles do stack together quite nicely, making them easier to transport. It helps minimise packaging materials and carbon emissions from shipping by 35%, they say.

So if you like water, maybe you’ll buy their bottles. I’m probably sticking to Pakola's water, though.

Small homes, long drives and no rest

The modern working man and woman don’t have much going for them.

Data regarding commute times and sleep patterns were gathered from online surveys in Japan. It showed that small living spaces, long commutes and longer hours were associated with insomnia.

Around 30 to 40% of adults report experiencing some kind of insomnia. Japan has the lowest sleep duration among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, falling at one hour below average.

Longer commutes were associated with both insomnia and sleepiness during the day, while smaller homes were correlated with only insomnia.

So obviously, the solution is to just get bigger homes and get them closer to your workplaces. I wonder why nobody’s done that by now. Surely it just didn’t occur to them to treat themselves to better living standards, right?

Right.