As if straight out of the cutesy book 'wind in the willows', the good ol and extremely photogenic water voles ( Arvicola amphibius ) returns from the brink of UK extinction, with a little help from the human hands that orchestrated its near extinction in the first place.
As such, Kielder Forest in Northumberland, England will now get to see 700 Scottish highlander water voles invade and conquer its lush and serene country setting in the summer of 2017.
Not by accident, nor is it born in a devious water vole plot to reclaim the mainland of the United Kingdom.
Instead, this is one of the many wonderful rewilding wildlife and sustainable projects going on in Europe right now.

Cheetahs have already disappeared from more than 90 percent of their natural habitat in Africa ( not to mention in other areas such as the middle east ), and the wild population continues to decline in an unsustainable way.
Today fewer than 7000 adult cheetahs are estimated to survive in the wild.
Making the cheetah one of the world's most endangered land living apex predators.

But not all hope is lost and there is not just a global consensus that the situation as it is is impossible for the cheetah but plenty of hard work is also being done to rectify the near extinction that awaits the cheetah.

Planet Earth. Our bluish marble of brown and green.
Apex species. Planet Earth is inhabited by a rapidly evolving and diverse humanoid species which as this planet's current primary apex predator is actually made up by a wide range of multiple hominid species mutually forming it's diverse genetic origin and lineage.
Mutant name. Contemporary humans.
Planetary trajectory, unknown.
The entire planet, solar system and milky way galaxy dart and weave, jump and spin all over the place inside the known universe. It might feel as if it is this solid zen-like teacup of calmness, but in reality, it is constantly changing shape and form, mass, speed, and trajectory.
The speed of planetary travel can be measured as millions of kilometer per hour. ( Not millions actually, just 828,000 kilometers per hour to be exact )

Life is this endless canvas of soft and hard, varied in the raw and softly spoken whispers, and inside of that endless change and variation it gladly have room for differing taste in music, and my kind of metal is absolutely not for everyone :).
As such I have never been surprised that most of the same people that find something pleasingly calm or beautiful in my writing and photography usually consider it an absurd contradiction that I so happily mix it up with grinding death metal of various shades.
But for me it speaks with the same voice.

It slowly happens over time, you know, by the hands of natural evolution and life itself, it happens through every second of every day that ticks us by. From the way the earth turns, and the soil grows, the way that water and wind erode things over the course of eternity.
It happens through the tunnels that ants and termites build and the way that sand polish stone.
The way we walk and swim, build and leave behind things, the water that carves its own changing path through the rocky cold mountains that run through our entire planet. It is seen in the roots of the trees that refuse to die after 10 000 years and slowly crack the ground open.

Every person carries with them their own style and touch, in person, clothes, fitness, thoughts, sex, books, movies, passion, music and life.
The way you are and see the world carries through in everything.
It shows in the gym, and the board room, the way you handle your lover, and in the style and feel of your living room.
The person that you are is not just reflected in those things, but your surroundings in life and nature and home speak back to your inner self and carries with it real significance for how much you, in turn, will enjoy both life and the castle you call your own home.




This is my contribution to your life.
Fine art for the living room walls.
Duvet covers for the continental bed and snugly warm blankets for both autumn nights and the cold winter.

'The Musk colony' as it was informally called could right now be thought of as a real but still very challenged success simply because the fleet had actually managed to reach their destination and somewhat to his own surprise, the entire fleet was still operational, bruised but functional.
And considering how space travel and logistics had been prone to so many errors in the decades leading up to their unparalleled launch, the fact that they were all here, it was nothing but amazing. Taken for granted by the crew, by now at least, but still nothing but amazing.

And while it was true, that they still had not actually put any human feet on the ground. Or even landed a single ship or UAV.
We had reached our destination.

They came marching in at dawn, shoulder to shoulder they formed long winding columns of wordless but well-armed soldiers in gleaming dark armor that stretched as long as the eye could see. 500 men passed us by with the rising sun painting the light of this new day behind their backs. But this would not be a day of peaceful tranquility under the light of the rising sun, instead, the sun rose up from beneath the horizon as the herald of war and death in what we all knew would turn out be just another day in their relentless campaign.

Almost 7 million dead people around the world in one single year ( 2015 ), due to smoking.
Making it account for 11.5% of worldwide deaths during 2015.
Out of the roughly 7 million dead people, 52.2% lived in four countries, China, India, the USA, and Russia.

13 countries, Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA have showed significant year-to-year rates of decline of smoking between 1990 and 2015.

But while an increasingly lower percentage of the global population keep up with the filthy and unhealthy habit of smoking, as time goes by due to our global population increase the total number of smokers is still going up, and it is now close to 1 billion people!.

Let us start from the tail of the end. Because we all know that every good tale comes equipped with an end that makes the rest of the story worth reading.
And as such, the developing story of salt is a story of the roughly 2.5 million deaths around the world which could be prevented each year if global salt consumption was to be reduced below the recommended levels.

When it comes down to health and fitness, and the cerebral battlefield of chess the simple truth is that they are very much alike.
There are no unearthly and illogical surprises waiting in the dark of night that will upend and change the actual fabric of the landscape.
Your opponent can not cast fiery magic and summon demons from the netherworld to do their bidding.
Instead what we have is a beautifully defined field of known and still developing, yet for now, unknown for you and me facts and variables, and the vast amount of personal choices those known, but evolving facts allows us to make.

And at every step of that personal journey, chess and fitness will leave you standing as the sole commander, at a vast field made up of pure facts and deductive knowledge and the cause and consequences that every single choice will give birth to.

'The people that bleed' is our own label for a series of videos, all produced by UFC, that I feel show us a more real and nuanced, intimate perhaps view of the actual soul and personality of the real human being that makes up the flesh and bone, heart and thoughts behind the bravado and attitude of the MMA fighter persona.

In this 9 minutes long video, we get to meet Brad Picket (25-14 MMA, 5-9 UFC), a tiny blue collar sized UK based fighter whom retired after his final UFC fight on march 18, 2017 against Brandon Vera.

For most people getting a bit more fit, and healthy by eating cleaner food and less calories and working out more is a great life improving choice.
And for most, that will lead to health improving reductions in unhealthy body fat levels and body weight. But as we previously talked about in another article, when you are already in shape, rocking a fit and toned body, eating healthy amounts of healthy food, doing weights and cardio, there comes a limit where dropping even more in body weight and body fat becomes damaging and unhealthy instead of health and fitness improving.

And beyond that basic reality, you have the insanity of MMA and Boxing weight cuts that far to many pro fighters go through just so they can fight in a weight class that they are to athletic and big to actually be fighting in.
I am saying that because MMA style weight cutting is not something that anyone interested in health and fitness should ever do.
Period.

Neither should pro fighters in my own opinion. In a ideal world you would be the only one doing MMA style weight cuts, allowing you to fight people 20 to 30 lbs smaller than you, with much shorter leg and arm reach, 20+lbs less muscle mass and all the disadvantage that would give them in strength, endurance, strike impact and absorption.
But you see, when every other fighter do the same weight cut, no one benefits, and everybody suffers from the exact same detrimental and unhealthy exhaustion that MMA style weight cuts are. With less fitness come fight night and potentially worse health for the long haul as the only real result.

Time and science continually march forward, and that is a thing of utmost beauty. But that simple fact also requires all of us to keep an open mind towards the way we do our own fit and healthy life so that we can continually adapt and improve as we uncover new layers of scientifically established health and fitness knowledge, and at times, accept that new health and fitness science-based knowledge might force us to change direction and toss out old established "truths".

So today we find ourselves in a brave new world where a comprehensive Swedish study covering the health impact of daily dairy and fruit consumption ended up giving us so much new scientifically based knowledge about our health and food choices that the time has come to update our "dairy for the fit and healthy guidelines".

Organic and sugar-free yogurt is still with us, while milk is completely tossed to the side, yes even lactose-free milk gets the boot out my door.
Why you might ask?
Well, the answer is simply put science baby, adapt or die :).

Milk is as far as we understand it right now causing real health issues over time that simply do not happen when you consume sugar-free yogurt or no dairy at all.
This Swedish study involved close to 200 000 people, and the accumulated data over several years indicates that a high milk consumption shortens individuals life span through increased oxidative stress and inflammation caused by that daily milk consumption.
And as such milk has to go since yogurt provides all the same high-quality nutrition as milk and thus, all the benefits of dairy can be met through organic, sugar-free yogurt without risking the by now, strongly implicated long-term health issues associated with drinking milk.

The Cerebellum inside our individual selfs will dance its very best only to its own bidding. Hidden away, inside and behind the curtain of what we consider our conscious thoughts, our "little brain" powers on with magnificent poise.

The small, behind the scene part of what we think of as our brain, is despite its small size (The Cerebellum makes up about 10% of homo sapiens total brain volume) commandeering the majority of our brains neurons.

Science continually spits out more reasons in a never ending string as to why anyone interested in their own health and body should also be caring for a sustainable society and world.
As if it is not already bad enough with modern day life´s annoying sidekick, air pollution, causing cancer, asthma and respiratory diseases and crazy smog in a growing number of cities. We can now add dementia to the list of unpleasant and unhealthy effects that life in any unsustainable society will cause through air pollution.


Swedish researchers at Umeå University have uncovered compelling evidence for a direct link between air pollution and dementia. The run down is that if you happen to live in an area that leaves you exposed to air pollution you will run a 40 percent greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia compared to if you would have chosen to live in a city with healthier air and environment.