doubling down

    I started this blog to raise my voice about the importance of long-term investment in science and discovery. Today I am doubling down on that goal. Data is our friend. Facts are for everyone. Evidence based decision making is logical. This is not a foray into elitism. On the contrary, it is a fact finding adventure in mutual discovery. Let's play the hashtag game - #factsareforeveryone #dataisourfriend

    I have spent time on this blog talking about why diversity is important to me. In that post I did not mention compassion. Some consider it a buzzword - I consider it essential. For me, one of the first steps toward understanding compassion is to identify and begin to understand my privilege. It is hard. It can be so difficult to see what is most obvious. I work on it every day. And it is not static. It changes. And I try to take the time necessary to recognize those changes.

    The second component of compassion is listening. Another hard task. Especially when I don't like what I am hearing. This is still a work in progress for me.

    One thing I listen to a lot of is podcasts. I live in southern California - I spend a lot of time on the road. And there are so many awesome ones that have helped broaden my perspective. Some of my favorites are Hidden Brain (insights from social science research), Embedded (soul chilling headline backstories), More Perfect (a glimpse into our highest court), Song Exploder (how songs are made), This Week in Evolution (the nerdiest of all nerdy), Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People (talk about learning to listen, this is such a good way to practice), 10% Happier (mainstream conversations about meditation), and of course This American Life and Radiolab. This list clearly exposes me as a huge left of center nerd. I would love to expand my repertoire though, please share your favorites.

Some of my favorite episodes focusing on particularly timely topics:

1. Seriously? (This American Life) - all about the facts

2. Too Sweet, Or Too Shrill? The Double Bind For Women (Hidden Brain)

3. Why Our Brains Weren't Made To Deal With Climate Change (Hidden Brain)

4. The Problem We All Live With, Parts I & II (This American Life) - instrumental for cracking open privilege

    I tried to find a way to end this with some reassuring, but not overly sappy words. Instead, I follow in the foot steps of my mother and seek wisdom from the Dalai Lama:

“The creatures that inhabit this earth - be they human beings or animals - are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world."
- Dalai Lama XIV (The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Buddhism)

Zika & Wolbachia: Update

    Just a short update on our Wolbachia miniseries from last summer. Remember that question I posed a few months ago -- how effective will Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes be at limiting the spread of human disease? Three months later and we are already closer to getting some answers. Science's Kelly Servick recently reported that two different types of mosquitoes will be released in Brazil to try and prevent the spread of infectious diseases transmitted by the mosquito species Aedes aegypti. The data collected from these releases (in addition to others) will provide the data necessary to continue evaluating the effectiveness of various methods.

    The first release will focus on Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes (previously described here) and is being implemented by the nonprofit organization Eliminate Dengue. These mosquitoes are infected with a strain of Wolbachia that will spread through existing mosquito populations and prevent mosquitoes from transmitting diseases (such as Dengue and Zika). While these releases consist of females (that can bite), the effects of the release are longer lasting because Wolbachia should persist in the resident population of mosquitoes.

    The second release is a genetically modified mosquito developed by the for-profit company Oxitec. These are different from the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes because their genome has been altered and now contains a modified gene (tTAV: tetracycline-repressible transcriptional activator variant) that kills developing mosquitoes. Males with this gene are released, they mate with females of the resident population, and then the males die. All offspring from these matings contain the modified gene and die before they reach reproductive maturity as adults. Thus, this method is different than the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes because its goal is to control mosquito populations rather than eliminate their ability to transmit disease. This method may appeal to residents because it reduces mosquito populations and only introduces new males into the population (that cannot bite); however, once the males mate and die a new batch of males must be released. And this can get expensive.

   

  Again, the risks (and expense) associated with these methods needs to be considered in conjunction with the benefits. Preferably from objective third parties. I’ll keep you updated as the story continues to progress.

curiousity on the road

    I have been doing a lot of traveling over the last few weeks so this post comes in the form of pictures (most are courtesy of my husband).

    At the beginning of September we flew to Jackson Hole and spent five days backpacking in Grand Teton National Park, followed by a couple of days driving around Yellowstone.

Alaska Basin (actually outside of the National Park in Caribou-Targhee National Forest)

Me at Sunset Lake, also in Alaska Basin

Behaving like an ectotherm at Marion Lake after our first day of hiking

    We encountered a few more people at Yellowstone, and also a few bison and elk.

My husband's genius photography makes it look like we are the only ones there gazing across the valley

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

    Last week a work event brought me to the Duke Lemur Center, a research facility housing 250 lemurs from 21 different species. What an amazing place. Lemurs are very cute and charismatic so I knew it would be a fun experience. It is not a zoo, but tours are available by appointment. We got the VIP tour (it always matters who you are with!), and I was absolutely blown away. It is one of those experiences where you can feel yours eyes and smile widening with each second. The facility, its staff, and the lemurs absolutely amazed me. I was pretty busy asking questions so didn't take a ton of pictures.

Coquerel's Sifaka (Propithecus coquerli) more interested in eating leaves than me

    What a great experience. If you are ever in the Durham area I highly recommend you inquire about making an appointment for a tour of the facility.

getting from here to here

    If you keep up with this blog you know I am intrigued by the process of science and do my best to share a whole story when possible. Not just the brilliant outcomes and success stories, but also the setbacks, failures, and hurdles. To understand the process better I often seek out conversations with researchers to find out what the whole story is. When it comes to stories involving bioinspiration I want to know what comes first, the biology or the engineering? Is there a need that is subsequently filled by biology? Or does biology inspire a solution to a problem we didn’t know we had? If we go back and look at some previous posts there are times when it seems obvious. For instance, with the Velcro® story, it seems George de Mestral started with the biology, the burr, and found a function for the biological mechanism, adhesion. On the other hand, the adhesive needle story clearly started as a surgical need that was fulfilled by biology. Jeff Karp and his team were searching for biological examples of things that attached to animal tissue. Not only do parasites fit this need, there is a large diversity of parasites that have many different ways of attaching to their host (they also study non-parasitic mechanisms of attachment such as porcupine quills). Often times Karp and his colleagues go to the zoo or aquarium for inspiration, but you can’t see internal parasites visiting these venues. For the parasite work they went to the Google and poured over pages and pages of parasite images. I recommend you try it; it could be a moment of enlightenment. Karp kindly referred to his study subjects as ugly critters, I prefer to consider them marvels of evolution. 

A screen shot of the Google search - I started the hard work for you.

    A couple of months ago there was a story in the weekly UC San Diego newsletter that caught my eye. The newsletter often highlights current research being done on campus, and this particular article profiled a research team that developed a robot capable of collecting scientific samples on Mars. It was a cool project that incorporated bioinspiration, undergraduate involvement, and the teeth of sea urchin. The sand substrate on mars is difficult to collect because it is very fine and flows through traditional grasping pinchers. Picking stuff up on Mars could be compared to the arcade game from 1980 where you pay money to use the slippery three-pronged claspers to pluck a a stuffed animal out of the bin. It is difficult. Working with researchers at the Scripps Institute of Oceonography, members of the McKittrick group engineered an effective grasping mechanism inspired by the teeth of the sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus fragilis, which are very strong and have evolved to scrape rock substrates.

The crane game.

    In order to get a better idea of how this process works I emailed the group leader, Dr. Joanna McKittrick, and she accepted my request to come and meet with members of her team and suggested I sit in on one of their weekly group meetings. To get to their building from my office I walked passed the iconic UCSD Geisel Library toward the engineering quad. You know you are in the engineering quad when you see the ‘Fallen Star’ sculpture (a lop-sided house) on top of Jacobs Hall. I arrived at the lab with the intention of gaining insight into the process of bioinspiration, but my interviewing skills were a little rusty. I found it easier to talk about the outcomes of the project and absorb the process. I started out talking to a senior graduate student, Steven Naleway, who was defending his dissertation the following week and has since joined the faculty at the University of Utah’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. I was impressed he was giving me the time of day. A week before I defended my dissertation I was not granting interviews to nosy biologist bloggers. We started out in his office and he walked me through the “process” of bioinspiration starting with biologists, an organism, and an investigation of the structural details of the study subject. Then comes the materials science to mimic the structure, which involves expertise in engineering, physics, and chemistry. This was depicted as a circular process that led to bioinspiration. The reading material on his desk reflected this process - Fishes: A Guide To Their Diversity and Mechanical Behavior of Materials. While we were talking Joanna McKittrick came in followed by her mini dog. Her and Steven discussed a few pieces of business, such as the previous weeks outreach event at a local elementary school, and then she left followed by the dog. She gave me a sidelong glance but was not overly curious about me, or why I was taking up her graduate students time. My conversation with Steven moved down to the lab as more graduate students returned to the shared office and wanted their chairs back.

    The lab was empty of people but filled with what looked to me like a hodge podge of machinery and equipment that I could not deduce the function of. Some pieces looked like they could have been there since 1960, and other items could have arrived yesterday from the manufacturer. As the time for lab meeting approached we walked through the rest of the lab and passed through a small room with a large table covered in inspiration. A shark jaw, an armadillo carapace, and a dried fish on a stand. In this part of the lab it was clear the biology came first. Whether it was finding a useful function for sea urchin teeth, understanding how a woodpecker skull withstands the constant impact of banging its beak into trees, or investigating seahorse armor.

Piranha on a stand. This isn’t the fish in the lab (it wasn’t a piranha), but it looked similar.

     Lab meeting was attended by Joanna, her dog, her Diet Dr. Pepper, five graduate students (one female, five male), and one undergraduate (female). As is customary for these types of events, each person is responsible for defending their productivity from the previous week. The conversation moved around the room as the group members described what they had been up to, what they found out, and what setbacks they encountered. All of the members contributed to a brainstorming session for difficult problems, and then the discussion moved to the next person. Joanna runs a straightforward meeting and balances razor sharp directness with thoughtful suggestions and encouragement – a tried and true method to get #$%$ done. The conversation topics ranged from hydroxyapatites and nanoindentation to 2D freeze casting and how the elementary school kids demonstrated gender specific appeal for the various demos the lab group brought to the elementary school. 

    Integrated into this depiction of “process” for how graduate and undergraduate projects move forward, I should also share the light-hearted elements of camaraderie. For instance, one of the graduate students recently returned from his “Vegas wedding” and everyone offered their congratulations and asked if Elvis was there, and then proceeded to rib him for having an Apple sticker on his Lenovo laptop.

    In the end I learned more about the process of the sea urchin inspired Mars rover from the original article in the UCSD newsletter. Maybe that says more about my interviewing skills than anything else. But hey, I was working my way into the arena and had a great time.

the wo/man in the arena

    President Obama touched on one of the themes of this blog last week at the DNC, and I could not pass up the opportunity to talk about it here.

       “She knows she’s made mistakes, just like I have; just like we all do. That’s what happens when we try. That’s what happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described – not the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone ‘who is actually in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs…[but] who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.’”

John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt (image source) at Glacier Point in Yosemite in 1903. After spending three days in the wilderness with John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt was convinced to expand Yosemite National Park.

    President Obama’s quote of Teddy Roosevelt (the 26th president of the United States who I admire for putting conservation in the limelight) came from a speech titled “Citizenship In a Republic” Roosevelt gave at the Sorbonne on April 23^rd, 1910:

       “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

    For me, right now, this quote hums to my bones and fingernails. I think I react so strongly to this message because I know how much effort it takes to be aware of my fear; and to not let mistakes and perceived failures deride my thoughts, behavior, and decisions. Learn from them, yes – berate myself for them, no. It inspires me to sidestep my ego, push myself into the arena, and maintain the strength to stay there. Some days I would rather retreat to a cabin in the woods. But resiliency abounds and cannot be ignored; inspiring, seemingly ego-less individuals that move from one arena to the next with grace and humility. There are many examples I could highlight here but there is one story in particular that I think about often. Yitang (Tom) Zhang is a mathematician that made headlines for solving a very difficult problem in number theory while working as a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire.

    Zhang graduated from Purdue University with a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1991 but was unable to get a tenure-track position. After eight years of making ends meet doing odd jobs, he was given a temporary position teaching calculus at the University of New Hampshire. In academia, these positions are difficult because they offer no permanence or stability, are often seen as ‘less than’, and can be difficult on the ego. But Zhang kept himself in the arena, whether he meant to or not, and received many awards for his break through in number theory, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2014. In previously published profiles (Unheralded Mathematician Bridges the Prime Gap and The Pursuit of Beauty) Zhang describes himself as shy and is quoted as saying “[m]y life is not always easy.” And it has not been free of mistakes either. In 2007 he posted a paper to an online archive (arxiv.org, a Web site that hosts papers before they are published) that was wrong, which he left up so he could eventually fix it. But one quote in Quanta Magazine stood out to me:

       “Zhang said he feels no resentment about the relative obscurity of his career thus far. ‘My mind is very peaceful. I don’t care so much about the money, or the honor,” he said. “I like to be very quiet and keep working by myself.’”

   Zhang continues his work at UC Santa Barbara where he was offered a full professorship in 2015. I would love to hear who keeps you in the arena - please let me know.

UCSB Campus (Storke Tower)