Geography
1. Is there any bias? (My professor says there is usually always bias: consider the wording, source and publisher)2. Provide a short summary. Like 1-6 sentences. or whatever is necessary3. Something you found interesting in this articleSource: Air, Soil and Water Research, 13(1) Published By: SAGE PublishingAbstractSoil influences human health in a variety of ways, with human health being linked to the health of the soil. Historically, emphasis has been placed on the negative impacts that soils have on human health, including exposures to toxins and pathogenic organisms or the problems created by growing crops in nutrient-deficient soils. However, there are a number of positive ways that soils enhance human health, from food production and nutrient supply to the supply of medications and enhancement of the immune system. It is increasingly recognized that the soil is an ecosystem with a myriad of interconnected parts, each influencing the other, and when all necessary parts are present and functioning (ie, the soil is healthy), human health also benefits. Despite the advances that have been made, there are still many areas that need additional investigation. We do not have a good understanding of how chemical mixtures in the environment influence human health, and chemical mixtures in soil are the rule, not the exception. We also have sparse information on how most chemicals react within the chemically and biologically active soil ecosystem, and what those reactions mean for human health. There is a need to better integrate soil ecology and agronomic crop production with human health, food/nutrition science, and genetics to enhance bacterial and fungal sequencing capabilities, metagenomics, and the subsequent analysis and interpretation. While considerable work has focused on soil microbiology, the macroorganisms have received much less attention regarding links to human health and need considerable attention. Finally, there is a pressing need to effectively communicate soil and human health connections to our broader society, as people cannot act on information they do not have. Multidisciplinary teams of researchers, including scientists, social scientists, and others, will be essential to move all these issues forward.ConclusionThe idea that soils are important to human health is widely accepted in the modern scientific community. Soils are recognized for their contributions in areas such as the supply of adequate quantities of nutritious food products, medications, and for their assistance in developing the human immune system. Negative health impacts also occur when foods are grown in soils that have nutrient deficiencies or when people are exposed to toxic levels of chemicals or pathogenic organisms through contact with soil or soil products. However, there are still many things we do not know about the links between soils and human health. The potential role of soils in the development of ARB needs additional research, as do the methods used to investigate soil microorganisms. Investigation of the links between soil macroorganisms and human health has barely begun, and there is a need for a more holistic understanding of the soil ecosystem and its links to agronomic production and broader human health. As the global population grows, we will need to produce more food that maintains or enhances its nutrient content on essentially the same land area, assuming we can reverse our current losses of arable land to degradational processes. A large amount of work has focused on heavy metals pollution, plastics, pesticides, and related organic chemicals, but this work typically focuses on a given pollutant as a stand-alone issue. In actuality, the soil is a mixture of many chemicals that are in a very chemically and biologically active environment; research into the health effect of chemical mixtures and how those mixtures react and interact in the soil environment is badly needed. Beyond research, there is a need for scientists to effectively communicate their findings to the broader public, who will not be aware of the challenges and opportunities we face if scientists do not get the word out. Closing all these gaps will require multidisciplinary teams that are able to communicate across those disciplines, as, for example, soil scientists are not typically trained in human health issues and human health experts are not typically training in soil science, while neither of these groups are typically trained in effective large-scale public outreach. Therefore, we need agronomists, biologists, chemists, communications experts, medical doctors, public health experts, toxicologists, sociologists, soil scientists, and others working together toward common goals within the soil and human health realm. In some cases, achieving these collaborations will require a paradigm change in how we presently approach human health issues.