So glad to see this. One less barrier to hopping on public transit.
OP links to a 2014 study, but recent research as of 2022 continues to show promise. Pretty cool.
“Previously, the lab showed that injecting FGF1 dramatically lowered blood glucose in mice and that chronic FGF1 treatment relieved insulin resistance. But how it worked remained a mystery.
In the current work, the team investigated the mechanisms behind these phenomena and how they were linked. First, they showed that FGF1 suppresses lipolysis, as insulin does. Then they showed that FGF1 regulates the production of glucose in the liver, as insulin does. These similarities led the group to wonder if FGF1 and insulin use the same signaling (communication) pathways to regulate blood glucose.”
I hadn’t thought about it this way, and I definitely agree. Similar communities on the same topic may evolve to offer a different vibe or different focus. The more a user interacts with the communities, the more differences they would discover (and appreciate??!?). Or people might just get frustrated and give up. Who knows. We are all humans, I suppose.
I’m really not sure how to solve for 1. So much of modern white collar work is patently pointless (or counterproductive). Definitely hard to stay engaged, especially when few of the benefits of increased productivity actually accrue to the folks doing the work. The disingenuous messaging of bullet 2 often highlights the difference in priorities between those who benefit from from increased productivity and those who just, you know, end up having to work more.
I am hopeful that human ingenuity and the acceleration of communication and information sharing can outpace some of the long term problems that we created (such as climate change and growing wealth inequality). I’m not hopeful enough to be “optimistic,” but I’m hopeful that there will be a path where civilization endures in such a way as to create some as-yet unforeseen opportunities and advancements for the generations to come. Maybe it’s just pessimism in sheep’s clothing, but it’s all I’ve got.