“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger, something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus, Philosopher (1913 – 1960)
Tu Youyou
She tested an ancient herbal remedy on herself first—then it saved millions of lives and earned her the Nobel Prize.
China, 1930s. A girl named Tu Youyou grows up during turbulent times—war, occupation, social upheaval. As a teenager, she contracts tuberculosis and has to suspend her studies. Lying in bed recovering, watching life continue without her, she makes a decision about her future.
If she survives this, she will dedicate her life to healing. She will make sure others don’t have to suffer as she has.
Tu Youyou keeps that promise.
She studies pharmacology, eventually becoming a researcher at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing. She’s methodical, detail-oriented, and deeply curious about both ancient remedies and modern science.
Then comes 1967.
The Vietnam War is raging. Chinese soldiers serving there are dying—not just from combat, but from malaria. The mosquito-borne disease is killing troops faster than bullets. It’s decimating military operations across Southeast Asia.
And the parasite is getting smarter. It’s developing resistance to chloroquine and other modern antimalarial drugs that once worked reliably. Soldiers are dying, and medicine is failing them.
The Chinese government launches Project 523—a secret military research program to find new malaria treatments. They turn to an unconventional approach: mining ancient Chinese medical texts for forgotten remedies.
Tu Youyou, then 39 years old, is appointed to lead the project.
Her team begins the painstaking work of reviewing over 2,000 traditional Chinese medicine recipes from ancient manuscripts. They’re looking for anything that mentions treating fever, chills, or symptoms that might indicate malaria.
One herb keeps appearing in texts spanning nearly two millennia: qinghao, sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua). Ancient healers had used it to treat intermittent fevers.
Tu Youyou begins experimenting with extraction methods. She tries boiling the herb, the traditional preparation method for many Chinese medicines.
It doesn’t work. The extracts show no antimalarial activity.
She tries again. And again. Dozens of attempts using different solvents, temperatures, and techniques. Nothing works consistently. The active compound remains elusive.
Then she finds something crucial in an ancient text.
Ge Hong’s “A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies” (4th century CE) mentions preparing qinghao by soaking it in cold water and wringing out the juice. Not boiling. Cold extraction.
Tu Youyou realizes the problem: heat was destroying the active compound.
She adjusts her method, using low-temperature ether extraction instead of boiling. This time, it works. The extract shows powerful antimalarial activity in laboratory tests, killing the malaria parasite efficiently.
But laboratory success means nothing if the treatment isn’t safe for humans.
Tu Youyou needs to test it on people. But she refuses to risk patients’ lives before knowing the treatment is safe. Clinical trials require evidence of safety first.
So she does what any dedicated scientist facing ethical constraints would do.
She tests it on herself.
Tu Youyou takes the experimental artemisinin extract, monitoring herself for adverse reactions. When she experiences no serious side effects, her research team volunteers to try it as well.
Only after confirming through self-experimentation that the compound wouldn’t cause immediate harm do they proceed to formal clinical trials.
The results are extraordinary.
Artemisinin doesn’t just slow malaria down or suppress symptoms. It destroys the malaria parasite in ways scientists had never observed before. It works against drug-resistant strains. It acts quickly. And it’s remarkably effective even in severe cases.
Over the following decades, artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) become the gold standard for treating malaria worldwide. The World Health Organization recommends them as first-line treatment.
The impact is staggering. In regions of Africa and Southeast Asia where children once died routinely from malaria, mortality rates plummet. Millions of lives—particularly children under five—are saved.
Tu Youyou’s discovery doesn’t just treat a disease. It transforms global public health.
In 2015, at age 84, Tu Youyou receives the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She becomes the first Chinese woman ever to win a Nobel Prize in science, and the first citizen of mainland China to win a Nobel in any scientific category.
The Nobel Committee’s citation is clear: “for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.”
When Tu Youyou gives her Nobel lecture, she’s characteristically modest. She emphasizes the collaborative nature of the research, the contribution of her team, and the wisdom embedded in traditional Chinese medicine that made the discovery possible.
But make no mistake: her brilliance, persistence, and courage were essential.
She bridged ancient wisdom and modern science. She persisted through countless failures. She risked her own health to ensure patient safety. And she turned a 1,600-year-old herbal remedy into a 21st-century lifesaving drug.
Today, artemisinin-based treatments have saved an estimated millions of lives. The exact number is difficult to calculate, but studies estimate ACTs have prevented hundreds of millions of malaria cases and millions of deaths since their widespread adoption.
Think about that scale. One woman’s discovery, rooted in ancient texts and validated through modern science, has fundamentally altered the trajectory of one of humanity’s oldest and deadliest diseases.
Malaria has killed more humans throughout history than perhaps any other disease. It shaped the rise and fall of civilizations, influenced military campaigns, and devastated populations for millennia.
And a Chinese pharmacologist, mining forgotten medical manuscripts and combining ancient preparation methods with modern extraction techniques, found a way to fight back.
Tu Youyou’s story is about more than scientific achievement. It’s about respecting traditional knowledge while subjecting it to rigorous modern testing. It’s about persistence in the face of repeated failure. It’s about ethical courage—testing experimental treatments on yourself before asking others to take the risk.
And it’s about remembering what it feels like to be sick and helpless, then dedicating your entire life to making sure others don’t have to endure the same fate.
The girl who nearly died from tuberculosis grew up to save millions from malaria.
All because she kept a promise she made to herself in a hospital bed decades earlier.
American Heart Association Suppresses Truth – Low Cholesterol Kills
Nina Teicholz tells Joe Rogan that the government ran huge studies proving saturated fats and cholesterol aren’t linked to heart disease, but then hid the findings.
An Interesting Dream
Had an interesting dream last Sunday. As a result of which I realised I am a dealer.
Not a drug dealer who sells drugs to overcome emotional of physical pain.
Not an arms dealer who sells weapons to wage war.
I am a Solutions Dealer. I point people to solutions to problems.
You got a communication problem?
I got a course I can recommend to fix that!
You got a relationship problem?
I know a course that will fix that!
Got a friend with a drug problem?
I know a program that will fix that!
Got a child with a study problem?
I have a solution for that too!
Got a moral dilemma, an ethics problem?
Got something for that too!
Lack purpose or direction in life?
Even have a blog post for that one!
Lonely?
Got that one totally taped!
Now I read somewhere that sanity is the ability to create problems and intelligence is the ability to solve them. If you have too few problems you overly fixate on one. I even know how to solve THAT one too!
(I didn’t solve all the problems I know how to solve, I am not the smartest man who ever lived! I just know where to find the solutions.)
But that puts me into a sanity related problem. To stay sane I need to invent some more problems!
So I have decided my problem is how to help as many people as possible live a better life!
You want to improve something in your life? Call me! Your local Solutions Dealer!
Net Zero Activists Stumped By Shock New Evidence Showing No Link Between CO2 & Temperature Over Last Three Million Years
The climate science world (‘settled’ division) is in shock following the discovery in ancient ice cores that levels of carbon dioxide remained stable as the world plunged into an ice age around 2.7 million years ago. Levels of CO2 at around 250 parts per million (ppm) were said to be lower than often assumed with just a 20 ppm movement recorded for the following near three million-year period. In addition, no changes in methane levels were seen in the entire period. Massive decreases in temperature with occasional interglacial rises appear to have occurred without troubling ‘greenhouse’ gas levels, and this revelation has caused near panic in activist circles.
How To Fill Raised Beds
Tomato Growing Made Simple
Tomatoes reward small, smart habits. A few simple steps can turn average plants into strong, productive ones.
1 Feed the soil first
Add compost or organic matter at the bottom of the planting hole. A little wood ash can also boost nutrients.
Relatable mistake – planting straight into poor soil and expecting miracles.
2 Trim before planting
Remove the lower leaves a couple of days before transplanting. This encourages deeper rooting and helps reduce disease risk.
3 Water wisely at the start
Avoid overwatering early on. Slightly drier conditions encourage roots to grow deeper and stronger.
4 Pinch the suckers
Remove side shoots when they’re about 5 cm long. This helps the plant focus its energy on fruit production instead of extra foliage.
Simple, consistent care leads to healthier plants and a more generous harvest. Small actions, big tomato rewards.
How To Prune Rosemary
Rosemary hides its problems well — it still smells good even when half the base is dead. Annual pruning prevents the point of no return from arriving unannounced.
The rule that governs rosemary is the same as for lavender: below the green zone lies grey wood that does not regenerate. Without annual pruning, the shrub lignifies from the base upward, and within three years you have a bare trunk topped by a green tuft at the tips. At that point there is no recovery — old rosemary wood does not carry dormant buds capable of breaking back into growth.
How to manage it through the year in the Northern Hemisphere:
— Late February to early March: formative prune. Cut back the green stems by roughly a third, keeping carefully above the visible junction between the soft young growth and the rigid old wood beneath. That junction is the line that must not be crossed.
— April and May: leave the plant completely alone and enjoy the flowering. This is the main pollinator window — early bumblebees and honeybees depend on rosemary as one of the first substantial nectar sources of the year.
— June: a second light trim to remove spent flowerheads and encourage new lateral growth.
Two rules that never change:
— The dry grey bark at the base is a no-cut zone. Cutting into it leaves permanent stubs that will produce nothing.
— Remove stems that cross through the centre of the shrub. Without airflow, the interior stays damp and fungal problems develop.
After six to eight years, even the best-managed rosemary thins at the base. Replacing it with a rooted cutting taken in summer is a better option than trying to force recovery from an old plant.
The line between green and woody is the only secret to a compact rosemary for years.
For the Southern Hemisphere (e.g., Australia)
Seasons are reversed, so shift the timing by about 6 months to match the equivalent part of the seasonal cycle:
- Main formative prune: Late August to early September (your late winter/early spring).
- Leave alone for flowering: Roughly October–November (your spring flowering window for pollinators).
- Light trim after flowering: December (your early summer).
Fruit Tree Helpers
Each plant at the base of your fruit trees has a specific role: feeding the soil, deterring pests, attracting pollinators, or covering bare ground. Together they form a self-sustaining ecosystem that works for the tree throughout the year and progressively reduces the maintenance it demands.
Comfrey — deep roots that draw up calcium, potassium, and phosphorus from subsoil layers. Cut the leaves five or six times per year and leave them as a free mineral mulch directly under the tree.
Chives — sulphur-rich foliage that deters aphids and limits fungal disease around the trunk. Self-maintaining once established.
White clover — a living mulch that fixes atmospheric nitrogen in the root zone and provides continuous nectar for pollinators from spring to autumn.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) — flat flower clusters that attract hoverflies and parasitic wasps, both significant predators of aphids and caterpillars.
Daffodils — toxic bulbs planted in a ring near the trunk to deter voles and other burrowing rodents that target fruit tree roots.
Calendula — root exudates that reduce harmful soil nematode populations, and a strong scent that disorients flying pests.
Sweet alyssum — a dense mat of tiny flowers that draws hoverflies, lacewings, and parasitic wasps in large numbers throughout the season.
Borage — one of the best bee plants in the British garden, improving fruit tree pollination significantly. Self-seeds reliably from year two onwards.
Nasturtium — the most effective aphid trap plant available. Aphids gather on nasturtiums in preference to almost everything else nearby, drawing them away from the tree.
The more this system matures, the less you need to intervene.
The Plastic Detox
Jack Seale, The Guardian:
“Get up, after a restless sleep. Shower, using products that contain plastic and are in plastic containers. Fix your hair and deodorise your body using sprays smoothed by plastics, before putting on clothes woven from synthetic (plastic) fibres, picking up your plastic phone and heading out, sipping water from a plastic bottle. Chew plastic gum. Buy a snack wrapped in plastic and receive a receipt printed on plastic-covered paper. Come home, take food out of its plastic packaging, cook it with plastic utensils, then store the leftovers in plastic tubs and clean up with detergents that contain plastics and come in plastic bottles. Clean your teeth with a plastic toothbrush and plastic-infused toothpaste. Go to bed.
The list of ways in which humanity is committing species suicide may be long and growing, but The Plastic Detox is here to suggest that room should be found for the overwhelmingly widespread use of petrochemical-derived plastics.
That’s the main concern of this documentary’s protagonist, epidemiologist Shanna Swan, whose 2021 book Count Down claimed that chemicals in plastic are a factor in falling sperm counts. Swan, a vibrantly bustling grandmother of six and great-grandmother of a precious one, hooks us in with an experiment flavoured by reality TV. Visiting Florida, California, and Idaho, she finds six couples who are struggling to conceive, and challenges them to live for three months with their exposure to plastics dramatically reduced.”
After all this doom, Swan’s final visits to the six couples reward us with happy tears: her admittedly small-sample experiment has produced startling results, including some that go beyond being pregnant or not.