MICHAEL Cliff, are you still working on the surfer’s microbiome?

CLIFF It’s been kind of delayed on my part, mostly because I’m participating in peer review. J can attest to the discrepancies you can have among authors who each want to tell the story they want to tell. I think maybe the attention it got up front might have put me at a disadvantage, because I think people see it now as an opportunity to share their own work. The finding that I want to put out into the literature is that there are molecular fingerprints that nature puts on us. And the more we frequent the marine environment, the more these fingerprints exist on our skin. I think we’re all pretty familiar with the idea that we as humans leave our signatures everywhere. I wanted to propose a different way of looking at it, where nature is this entity that can leave its fingerprint on us, especially in the ocean environment.

Something that J does really well is effectively communicate these very complicated ideas, and translate them, and make them accessible and meaningful to people. And it’s backed by empirical evidence, like J was saying earlier. I think we have enough empirical evidence to support the positive feelings that we’re getting. The human body is an incredibly sophisticated instrument, so finely tuned and ultra-calibrated that there’s no manmade equivalent. When we talk about technology and progress, we need to remember that the human body, our smell, our sight, our touch, our thoughts are incredibly advanced. And if they’re pointing us to want to be around water, I think we should really listen to that.

MICHAEL You’re finding microbes that are common in people that spend time in the ocean. I’m wondering if any of those microbes are pointing us to the ocean in the way that our gut flora can point us to different foods? Maybe the pull toward water that we feel in our souls is actually millions of bacteria driving us?

CLIFF I am interested in the way things communicate. Specifically, I like to look at the chemical language that organisms have. One of the easiest models to study is bacteria, because they use chemicals primarily to communicate between each other and to other species. There’s a lot of research in the microbiome world that describes certain types of gut microflora metabolizing food and releasing byproducts, which happen to function as neurotransmitters in our bodies. It’s a very methodical process in which the gut microbiome can alter mind states. The bacteria send chemical signals from the gut, which are absorbed into the bloodstream through the large intestine, pass through the blood-brain barrier, and attach to receptors in the brain. We’ve studied how these processes happen in controlled environments. Once you start getting further away from controllable environments like, say, in the ocean, that’s when a lot of our peers don’t necessarily like hearing what we’ve got to say.

If we look at something that comes from the ocean, and is going to affect the brain, [other scientists] just feel that there are too many variables and confounding factors. If you have someone who experiences the ocean’s effects firsthand, if you have anecdotal evidence, some biologists will try to attribute the effects to other factors, like, Oh, it’s probably because that person slept really well, or didn’t sleep well, or they ate a cheeseburger. If we can show that there’s a biological pathway for this process where ocean bacteria can potentially alter mind states, I think it would open up resources and technology. We can explore this field, instead of writing it off as a dead end. That’s maybe what J was talking about. Water just isn’t assigned enough value. But if someone said there’s a potential for gut microflora to cure Alzheimer’s or cure COVID, trillions of dollars would flow into it right now. But the value system, like J was saying, it’s not there.

J There’s definitely a headwind with the Blue Mind work. It really is free, in a lot of ways. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a place where the water quality is good and you have access, I mean, the gate’s open. There’s less interest if you can’t monetize or commodify something. Then there’s less about it in the research. The research is going to be poorly funded or not funded at all.

Anything that’s really good for a lot of people and really close to free—such as surfing, or swimming, or just sitting on the beach and looking—in our Western culture, is not going to get attention. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s just a fact about grant making and the profit motive system. Conversations like this are part of the answer. Connect the dots rigorously. Tell the story well, and share it wildly.