Water fluoridation has been advocated by the U.S. Department of Health, the World Health Organization, and, as an effect, dental associations and national health councils all over the world. It has been argued that fluoride is a nutrient mineral that is essential for human health, and the optimum concentration is just under one milligram per litre. The WHO claims that “Any public water supplies with fluoride levels below 0.1 mg/l (ranging up to 0.3 for cooler climates) need to be fluoridated with artificial fluoride.” Yet no evidence supports that fluoride is an essential nutrient for humans, or that it has any oral health benefits.

The average American drank 105 liters of bottled water last year, compared to a modest 6 liters thirty years ago. The global consumption is increasing steadily, and the growth has surpassed a yearly 10% in Australia. What happened to tap water?

The research of Dr. Edward de Bono is important and should be understood by design practitioners who want to improve their ability to generate creative ideas in a design situation. While education traditionally has focused on literacy and maths, the ability to think effectively—in this case, generate ideas—has been forgotten and neglected. Creativity is a vague term, and is commonly regarded a gift or a talent that can not be learnt. As designers, we rely on the ability to create something out of nothing, and originality is valuable—if not necessary. Designers use a variety of tactics in order to produce good ideas, but few of these are rooted in science and an understanding of how the brain functions. The problem might be that designers are unaware that such ideas and techniques exist. It might also be based on misconceptions about what creativity is. By studying de Bono’s work one can learn how to use the brain more efficiently and—ultimately—become more able to produce a higher number of ideas in a design environment. The following text will explain how the brain organises itself, how it is a system that has to be beat in order to generate creative ideas and how it can be done. Simplicity as a value will also be discussed.

It was been called “the most efficacious American political illustration since ‘Uncle Sam Wants You’” by the New York Times. It also got the designer sued by the world’s largest news gathering organisation, Associated Press.

A great talk from Sir Ken Robinson on creativity’s position in schools, as mentioned in this week’s essay The Brain as a System and the Creative Tool PO. Robinson argues that we do not grow into creativity; we are educated out of it. It is well worth the 20 minutes!