Human lungs make bodies continuous with atmospheric air quality

Evidence

Whenyou draw a breath of air, it is pulled deep and then deeper into your lungs. Down tiny branching pathways, closer and closer to the bloodstream which is waiting for the oxygen it carries. In the alveoli, your breath is but a single cell away from your blood. The cells are glistening and wet, so that the oxygen may dissolve and pass over. Through this thin watery film, deep in the lungs, our bodies become continuous with the atmosphere. For better and for worse. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 401

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The alveoli-as-continuity image supports the trees-as-infrastructure piece’s theme of humans embedded in living systems — here the intake organ itself dissolves the boundary.
• XREF: A vivid listening/observation-as-method framing of breath — connects to the soundscape thread of the body as receptor of environmental condition. — connects to: Commercial spirometers still correct for an unproven assumption that Black lungs hold less air — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 975; Seashore breakers match the relaxed human breathing rhythm — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 751

Broader Connections

• Commercial spirometers still correct for an unproven assumption that Black lungs hold less air #qualifies (0.78) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 975
• Seashore breakers match the relaxed human breathing rhythm #exemplifies (0.72) — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 751