stability of relationships

The past few times I've been to see them, I have been actively poly at my medical practioners. Their reaction has varied from amused to bemused: I'm not sure any of them have ever met someone in an openly non-monogamous relationship before. But now they ask about both my partners and how the relationships are going (these things are important to emotional and mental health), even if they are puzzled by a situation where I live with my boyfriend all the time and my girlfriend comes to stay occasionally, sometimes with her husband as well.

I was thinking (in the back of my mind while I was working) that it's very pleasing that most of the people around me are in fairly stable, long-term relationships. Richard & I have been together for 5+ years, as have Alexa & Rowan and inquis & barty. hatter & bfo have been together for 3? 4? years, and meeping and Peter (who still doesn't have a livejournal) have been together for about that time as well. We're all a bunch of old married couples, except that none of us actually are married. Oh, I think bfo might want to get married sometime, but (as far as I know) most of the rest of us are happy just to drift along together. Richard & I have talked about getting married, or at least having a commitment ceremony several times, but every time we've come to the conclusion that we don't need to: "it ain't broke, so why fix it?".

( Read more... )

scary scientific research about allergens

In the process of my (degree) research, I found some terrifying figures about asthma and allergies. So I thought I'd share them with you :) I hope this is comprehensible to people without a science background: I've used the same standard units throughout, so don't worry about what the units are, just compare the figures.

Apparently, each person can shed as much as 1g of skin per day. This dead skin is colonised by saprophytic fungi (whatever they are), and then by dust mites (Dermatophagoides, which means skin-eater. Yum). Dust mites are arthropods measuring 300 micrometers (or 0.3mm), and grow from egg to adult in 25 days. Here is the really disgusting bit: floor or mattress dust samples typically contain 100 to 1000 mites (dead or alive) per gram. Do the maths *shudder*.

( Dust mite poo, and particulate matter concentrations... )