A Special Tomatoes can Help Parkinson’s Patients

- Adam Clare
lab

Researchers found a way to put a key chemical that helps Parkinson’s patients into tomatoes. The amino acid L-DOPA helps people process dopamine, which in turn, helps alleviate the troubles which Parkinson’s brings. Currently L-DOPA is delivered synthetically (through a pill) and this can cause severe side effects, whereas delivering it “naturally” in an organic vessel reduces the likelihood of side effects. Maybe this will lead to other pills being converted to delicious foods!

The scientists’ research focused on turning tomatoes into a sort of factory to produce Levodopa (L-DOPA), a major Parkinson’s therapeutic. L-DOPA has been the gold standard drug for the management of PD symptoms since 1967, but it is typically obtained from synthetic sources. There are serious concerns about a shortage of the drug as incidences of PD rise. Turning tomato plants into factories to make this natural compound carries several benefits over synthetic versions or having L-DOPA synthesized naturally by other plants. 

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Thanks to Neva!

Work Culture is Changing for the Better

- Adam Clare
Collision at home

Managers who care more about time than results will have to change thanks to better approaches to work. The idea of having to sit at physical location all day regardless of how busy you are is no longer acceptable. A new attitude to work is a postive thing about the pandemic; ongoing flexible hours, a four day work week, and results driven work are all being considered.

Workers aren’t asking for more money, they are asking for respect.

“It is a lot more feasible, possible, imaginable, accessible because we’ve practised so much working from home,” said Ezzedeen, who holds a PhD in organizational behaviour and development.

“And people have developed ways of working from home — setting up their home office, figuring out how they’re going to talk with a team, investing in the technology to support it. So there’s no going back.”

Thompson said a results-only work environment requires a shift in thinking about what it means to manage.

“The manager is not managing ‘me’ anymore. The manager is managing work. Not me. I don’t have to ask permission to go to the dentist. I don’t have to say, ‘Oh, I’m coming in at nine this morning instead of eight. Is it OK If I go to my child’s play?’ All of that crap disappears.”

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This City Captures Drinkable Water from the Air

- Adam Clare

fog

Aquifers feel there pressure of increasing populations and farms; as a result, cities around the world get drastically close to running out of water. The solution in some places may have been under our noses the entire time: fog. In Lima they already have a system in place to capture water from fog to supplement existing sources, and other coastal cities are paying attention. The coolest part of the fog catching technology is that it comes from ancient techniques using tees!

In 2009, German conservationists Kai Tiedemann and Anne Lummerich planted 800 she-oak trees in Peru to create a natural fog-catching system that aimed to replicate this ancient technique. During their research they found that trees with vertical, needle-like leaves work as an organic net to which drops of water adhere. They later went on to develop artificial nets that could also capture water.

Marzol has been studying “the hidden precipitation” in fog for nearly 25 years now, partly because modern meteorological instruments struggle to measure its relationship with precipitation. During the course of her research she has witnessed the social transformation that can occur in communities that collect fog water.

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Milan’s Massive Mobility Mission

- Adam Clare
a couple, bicycles

The Cambio project in Milan aims to get more people on two wheels while also improving the cityscape. Milan once had a reputation as an industrial city clogged with traffic, but now with cleaner air and easy streets the city’s attracting more people. To improve life within the city they are building an extensive bicycling network, known as the Cambio project. Not only will this make getting around in the city easier it will also make the air even cleaner. Way to go Milan!

The project aims to ensure that around 80% of homes and services in Milan, such as hospitals, schools and railway and underground links, are located within one kilometre of each bike route. The paths will also feature state-of-the-art infrastructure, including low-impact motion-sensor lighting, digital displays, and a network of fibre optic cables, as well as dedicated bike parking stations.

The first path is scheduled to be ready this summer, while the entire network is due to be completed by 2035.

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Spreading the Movement Against Sprawl

- Adam Clare

Where you live matters. Who chooses in what type of building you can choose to live in matters too. Undoubtedly most people want to live in walkable communities, yet in many areas it’s actual illegal to build places that don’t rely on cars. Low density sprawl is bad for everything yet municipalities in North America continue to only permit single family dwellings. It’s time to let people choose in what type of building they want to live in instead of forcing only low density in new developments.

ZONING STUFF YOU CAN DO

1) Join the Climate Town Discord. Since there’s not a great/accessible database of everyone’s local zoning meetings (as far as we could find), we think it would be pretty slick to harness our community’s collective power to make it easier to get this information. We just created a channel called “#zoning” (https://discord.gg/cqRpTpeAH2), where you can drop by and tell us how your local zoning meeting smelled, or share a link that we missed to help other Climate Townies affect change in their community. (And in case you’re like me from a month ago and have no idea how to use Discord, here’s a helpful beginner’s guide – https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/… to-Discord)

2) Sign up for Public Comment Workshop from YIMBY Action – Feb 15, 2022 5pm Pacific: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis…

3) City Specific Zoning or Board Meeting Links: Los Angeles: https://planning.lacity.org/about/com… New York City: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cau/communi… Chicago: https://www.thecha.org/about/board-me…

4) Don’t see your city? They’re often hyper-local, a little hard to find, and go by different names. Search your ‘zip/town/city’ and these search terms:

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