What Is the Job of an Actor?
Honestly, I couldn’t respect acting as a profession. I thought actors were merely entertainers who distract people from thinking about important problems, and unfortunately, most commercial entertainment is still garbage.
But when I heard Meryl Streep says an actor’s only job is “to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like”, it made me think that commercial entertainment isn’t all that bad.
In fact, I can think of some movies that have done an amazing job of making me feel what it is like to be another person:
異邦人感覚
なんとも表現しようのない感覚を、端的に表現されると、カタルシスを感じる。最近、作詞家なかにし礼さんの、「異邦人感覚」という表現に、まさにそれを感じた。
なかにし礼さんは満洲で生まれたが、1945年の日本の敗戦によって満洲国が崩壊し、8歳だった彼は日本へ追放された。満洲にいても、日本にいても、彼には常に異邦人感覚が付きまとっていた。
自分の場合、日本にいると日本人らしくなく、アメリカにいると日本人すぎる―そんな「よそ者意識」が常について回る。これは、これまで何度も周囲の人から指摘され、自分自身も感じてきたことだ。
おそらく、移民や両親の国籍が異なる人、特異なキャリアを歩んできた人、LGBTQの当事者やビーガンなどのマイノリティも、同じような感覚を抱いているのではないだろうか。境界線上で生き、明確な帰属意識を持たない人たちの気持ちは、自分にもよく理解できるように思う。
今思えば、異邦人感覚を持つことはさほど大きな問題ではない。社会全体に溶け込む必要などなく、自分にとって大切な人がそばにいてくれれば、それで十分なのだ。
ただ、この寂しさが単なる幻想だったと言い切るのは容易い。しかし、そう思えるようになるまでには、時間が必要だった。
Sausage Is the Cigarette of Our Time
It’s no secret that processed meat and red meat are highly likely to be carcinogenic.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an intergovernmental agency affiliated with the World Health Organization, classifies carcinogens into four groups based on the strength of scientific evidence. They published the full list, but here are some examples of each group.
| Group | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Group 1 | Carcinogenic to humans. | tobacco, asbestos, alcoholic beverages, processed meat |
| Group 2A | Probably carcinogenic to humans. | night shift work, dioxins, high-temperature frying emissions, red meat |
| Group 2B | Possibly carcinogenic to humans. | pickled vegetables, PFOS |
| Group 3 | Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans. | caffeine, tea |
Science has been crystal clear about the health risks of processed meat and red meat. The IARC published the report on this back in 2015.
Yet, most people aren’t aware of the risks or don’t take them seriously, just like those who kept smoking cigarettes in the past despite the clear scientific evidence.
The carcinogenic properties of processed meat such as bacon, ham, hot dogs, and sausage are especially shocking as they are in the same group as cigarettes. Though the cancer risk from cigarettes is far higher, processed meat still has a significant association with colorectal cancer at high doses.
Until society changes, we need to take responsibility for our own health and for our loved ones.
How Three People Can Make a Baby - and Why It Matters
Last night, I had intriguing conversations with biotech scientists and a journalist at the DeSci event. Among topics like cultivated meat, blood transfusion, and reproductive technology, what fascinated me most was a baby with DNA from three people.
The basic idea is to use two eggs—one from the mother and one from the donor—remove the nucleus from the donor’s egg, inject the mother’s nucleus into it, and then fertilize it with the father’s sperm. At first, this seemed confusing to me—if the genome is stored in the nucleus, how could the embryo contain DNA from three people?
Curious to learn more, I looked into it when I got home. I found that the BBC reported in 2023 that a baby has been born using the DNA of three people for the first time in the UK. However, this wasn’t a groundbreaking first—the first known case was actually reported in 2016.
Initially, I thought this was another crazy trend, but this technology, mitochondrial donation treatment, is actually an attempt to prevent children from being born with devastating mitochondrial diseases. These incurable diseases can be fatal within hours or days of birth. For some families, like the woman who tragically lost seven children to mitochondrial disease, this technique offers hope for a healthy child.
To address this issue, scientists developed a specialized form of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The goal is to replace faulty mitochondria in a mother’s egg with healthy mitochondria from a donor.
The most commonly used method for mitochondrial donation is maternal spindle transfer, which repairs the egg before fertilization.1 Scientists first retrieve an egg from the mother, which contains faulty mitochondria, and carefully extract its nucleus. They then take a healthy donor egg, remove its nucleus, and discard it, leaving behind only the donor’s mitochondria. Finally, the mother’s nucleus is inserted into the enucleated donor egg, creating a reconstructed egg with her nuclear genetic material but healthy mitochondria. This egg is then fertilized with the father’s sperm, resulting in an embryo free from mitochondrial disease.
But what does this mean for the baby’s DNA—does it truly come from three people?
The answer lies in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which actually makes up about 0.1% of our genome. While nearly all genetic material comes from the parents, mitochondria contain their own small set of DNA, inherited exclusively from the mother. When a donor provides healthy mitochondria, the baby inherits this tiny fraction (~0.1%) of DNA from a third person. However, since mitochondrial DNA only affects cellular energy production, it does not influence traits like appearance, personality, or intelligence. In essence, the donor’s contribution is solely to ensure the baby’s mitochondria function properly, preventing disease while leaving everything else unchanged.
Mitochondrial diseases are passed down only by the mother.↩︎
Why Antibiotics in Animal Farming Are a Ticking Time Bomb
The fear of the COVID-19 pandemic is still fresh in our minds. Everybody would agree that we want to do the best we can to prevent the next pandemic. One major source of the next pandemic is industrial animal farming, where antibiotics are overused. They use antibiotics to prevent disease, treat infections, and promote faster growth. In the 2010s, around 70% of antibiotics used globally were given to farm animals, and there is no evidence that usage has declined.
Antibiotics fight bacteria by killing them or stopping their growth, helping the body heal. However, overuse leads to resistance, allowing bacteria to survive treatments, spread easily, and leave fewer effective options for fighting infections. Resistant strains from livestock can transfer to humans, making illnesses harder to treat and posing a major health risk.
In fact, drug-resistant bacteria like Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter have caused major outbreaks. For instance, multiple antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella Heidelberg triggered large U.S. outbreaks in the 2010s, infecting thousands through contaminated chicken products.
This is another reason why alternative proteins, whether plant-based, fermentation-derived, or cultivated, are a better option. They make it easier to maintain a sterile environment, reducing the risk of bacterial contamination and antibiotic resistance.
Brief Chemistry of Msg
Scientific research today is crystal-clear: MSG is safe. Let me explain why.
MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. When it dissolves in water, it separates into sodium and glutamate ions. Sodium itself is an essential mineral for life and is not inherently harmful; in fact, table salt contains three times more sodium than MSG. Meanwhile, glutamate is naturally present in many foods, including konbu, meat, fish, eggs, kelp, tomatoes, cheese, and mushrooms. Importantly, your body processes glutamate from MSG in the same way it metabolizes glutamate from these foods, as the glutamate in MSG is chemically identical to that found in nature. Given this, consuming MSG is no different from consuming foods that contain glutamate. If MSG were inherently harmful, then all glutamate-containing foods would have to be considered harmful as well—a claim that is not supported by science.