I work with thermally responsive nanoparticles. That may sound a bit scary but it’s not hard to break down those words and understand what I work with. These thermally responsive (responds to temperature change) particles are called Elastin-Like polypeptides (ELP). ELP’s are a single chain of amino acids that bond together (Glycine, Valine, and Proline).

I know what you are thinking… where is the physics in all this chemistry? If I am in physics why do I work with these particles and how do I even know what to do with them? When I started I had the same questions. Here is where the Chemical Engineers come in. I am in a joint program with the lab of Dr. Nolan Holland in the Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Dept. at CSU.  Ali Ghoorchian is a graduate student in Dr. Holland’s lab and he makes the samples I work with.  They have been studying this system for a very long time and know how to create and manipulate our samples.

So why should you care about these particles? The ELP system is a really amazing system to work with. The ELP chains have a transition temperature where they change from a random coil to a hydrophobic b-spiral. The b-spirals clump together at high temperature and it is very difficult to control the ELP chains. To fix this the Chemical Engineers added a “foldon” head group to three ELP chains. This foldon head group stabilizes the transition of the ELP to control the clumping.  The chains with the head group are known as a “Trimer”. Above the transition temperature the ELP’s in each Trimer fold together and clump with other Trimers. The ELP tails are hydrophobic so by clumping with other trimers they avoid water. The head groups are hydrophilic and form an outer barrier around the tails. What forms from many of these trimers together are micelles.

Figure 1: The three armed star elastin-like polypeptide (GVGVP)40 Foldon before (a) and after transition (b). A micelle formed by many of these foldons and polypeptide after transition (c)1.

Micelles are the key to what we are studying. The micelles can be useful for various reasons. They can be used for a drug delivery system, biosensors or viscosity modifiers. How can this be? The fantastic thing about the ELP’s is that they are man-made and can be manipulated very easily. ELP’s have been extensively studied and the Chemical Engineers can change the amino acid sequence to manipulate transition temperature of the micelles. The micelles can be manipulated by salt, pH, temperature, light and solvent.

Since micelles are thermally reversible they are promising as a Drug Delivery System. At high temperatures the trimers group together to form the micelles but at lower temperature they will break up. One can do this over and over again and the ELP’s will act the same. This can be used for drug delivery because if one were to add drugs to the micelle when it is at a high temperature, send it to the infected part of the body, then lower the temperature, the micelle would break up and release the drugs. This is a very interesting and exciting idea for researchers to explore.

So far I have told you a lot of chemistry and engineering but I think you may have noticed I have neglected the physics side of my research. This is the most important part and this is where I come in handy for the Chemical Engineers.  They want to know how these ELP’s change with different stimuli. At the moment we are focusing on salt concentration in the samples. We want to be able to characterize the size and shape of the micelles with increase in salt concentration.

To do this we use Light Scattering Spectroscopy. I work in the Light Scattering Lab of Dr. Kiril Streletzky in the Physics Dept. of CSU and we have this setup.  What is light scattering spectroscopy? This is a system that involves two components: Dynamic and Static Light Scattering. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) uses Brownian motion to give a size for the particles in the samples. Brownian motion is the random movement of particles due to the bombardment by the solvent molecules that surround them. The larger the particle the slower the Brownian motion will be. DLS yields correlation functions and by fitting these functions we are given a diffusion coefficient for the particles which lets us know how a particle diffuses within a fluid. The diffusion coefficient relates directly to the hydrodynamic radius (R_h) of the particle using the Stokes-Einstein equation (for spherical particles). Using DLS gives us a very good idea of size of our particles if they are spherical.

Figure 2: (a) Light Scattering Spectroscopy setup. (b)Example of Intensity fluctuations over time.

We also want to know the shape of our particles as we change salt. This is where Static Light Scattering (SLS) comes in. SLS focuses on average intensity of the scattered light to give us the radius of gyration (R_g). R_g is calculated as the root mean square distance of the objects’ parts from either its center of gravity or an axis. R_g measurements are independent of shape assumption; whereas, any R_h value assumes a sphere. By taking the ratio of radius of gyration over the hydrodynamic radius you can obtain a ratio that directly correlates to shape. A sphere will give a ratio of .77 while a random coil will give a ratio of 1.5-1.8. SLS can also yield molecular weight by looking at the intercept of a one over Intensity vs. angle SLS measurement.

So, we do all these measurements but what are the results? We found some interesting facts about the micelles. With increase in salt concentration we saw an increase in radius, molecular weight, and ellipsoidal shape change of our micelles. We saw that, looking at hydrodynamic radius, there was an increase in size through 3 different salt regimes. In the lower salt concentrations (0-15mM) the size was about 15nm. The middle salt concentration (15-30mM) had an increasing radius from 15-60nm. When we got to the high salt concentrations (30-60mM) there was another plateau of radius between 60-80nm.

Figure 3: (a) Salt concentration and size dependence for samples 67-78.

After gathering our size data we noticed an issue with shape. In the lower salt concentrations the shape seemed to be very spherical but as we increased salt concentration the micelles became more ellipsoidal. We also wanted to understand how the molecular weight changed as a function of our salt concentration. We noticed that the molecular weight followed the same pattern as the radius. This meant that not only was the size of our micelles getting larger but they were increasing in number of trimers.

Figure 4: The ratio of Rg/Rh for our salt concentrations show us that the micelles are hyperbranched spheres for most salt concentrations up to 50mM of salt.

Figure 5: Mw vs. salt concentration for various salt samples. We see that the molecular weight increase within the same regimes that the size increases.

These data will be very useful in understanding how to further manipulate the particles and help us find the right direction to continue our work. The data helps us find the best samples for further experimentation including mixing different types of foldons and using different size chains. We have learned quite a bit but there is still quite a lot of work to be done on this project.

Now, everything sounds like rose petals, but this project also offered its fair share of frustrations. The samples we worked with were extremely temperamental. One observation was that it is important to focus on the sensitivity of our sample to various external stimuli. The biggest factor we had to deal with was pH. pH of the sample would lower over night and we only have consistent data within a very small pH window (10.1-10.4). Because of this we measured each sample on the day it was made. Also, since we are dealing with such a high pH, the way we cleaned the cells also had to be changed. We began using chemicals to make sure all dirt was off the sides of the cell before we used it. After getting through the many trials we were able to form a system for consistent data.

I hope this has sparked you interest in this area of research. It is a very exciting field of study and there is still a lot of work to be done on this project.

I would like to thank my Advisors and the National Science Foundation for funding this adventure. I would also like to thank Kiyomi Deards and Bora Zivkovic for the opportunity to write for this blog.

If you would like to read more on this you can look up Ali Ghoorchian’s paper at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ma100285v

References:

1. A. Ghoorchian, J. T. Cole, and N. B. Holland, Macromolecules 43, 4340 (2010);
2. K.A. Streletzky, J. McKenna, R. Mohieddine, J. Polym Sci B: Polym. Phys. 46, 771, (2008)
3. “Instruction manual for BI-9000AT Digital Autocorrelator”. Brookhaven Instruments Corp. Holtsville NY. 1998
4. “Dynamic Light Scattering: an Introduction in 30 Minutes.” Malvern Instruments: Technical Note: Worcestershire UK. 1-8. Print.
5. Weiner, Bruce B. “What is Particle Size?” Brookhaven Instruments, Holtsville NY. November 2010.

Morning After The Morning's Trash

In my last post, I focused on flaws in the medical device approval process. The Union of Concerned Scientists’ “FDA at a Crossroads” meeting also covered problems with drug approval. This is perhaps no better illustrated than by the disappointing decision by Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius’ to deny the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, over-the-counter status for women under the age of 17. This was a particular disappointment to many because President Obama had promised that decisions at the FDA would be made based on science, rather than politics. Some of us, naively, hoped that “change we can believe in” was real, having forgotten that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t.

Two of the speakers at the recent FDA at a Crossroads meeting were formerly at the FDA; both left because of political pressures. Dr. David Ross, was an FDA reviewer for Ketek (an antibiotic). In a Congressional hearing, Dr. Ross testified that he had been pressured to soften his findings about liver toxicity due to the drug and threatened by FDA Commissioner von Eschenbach, who said, “If you don’t follow the team, if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, the first time you’ll be spoken to, the second time you’ll be benched, and the third time, you’ll be traded,” according to Ross.

The other was Dr. Susan Wood, former assistant FDA commissioner for women’s health and director of the Office of Women’s Health, who resigned from the FDA after Plan B’s approval was initially denied.

The Tradition of Politics at the FDA

Before we delve into the specific discussion of Plan B, let’s look at the context of the politicization of the FDA, under the recent Bush administration in particular, which led to the characterization of the “broken FDA.” During that period access to healthcare information, health services, and medical research became limited by two growing trends: the infusion of increasingly restrictive religious doctrines and the implementation of ideology-driven—rather than scientific, evidence-based—public policies. Initially, access to science-based information was limited through censorship and even distortion in government sources (e.g., data regarding the efficacy of condoms in preventing HIV infections and STDs were removed from the CDC’s Web site). This neither helped reduce the teen birthrate nor STDs. They used the same misinformation tactic with the now discredited breast cancer-abortion link.

Ideologic shifts were also demonstrated by resource allocations. For example, HIV prevention programs at the CDC were reduced by $4 million while funding for abstinence-only programs rose from $20 million to $167 million, despite the lack of evidence of effectiveness, in contrast to the previous peer-review, scientific-merit-based process of NIH grant funding. No federal money is spent on comprehensive sex education. Even worse, since 1982, “Over $1 billion in government funding has been granted to abstinence-only programs…[which] are expressly forbidden from discussing contraception…and often contain factually inaccurate and distorted information. Those who design and operate these programs are often inexperienced, religiously-motivated and frequently have close ties to the anti-abortion movement.”

The trend away from evidence-based medicine affects healthcare practitioners in numerous areas, ranging from patient education and disturbingly eroding standards of medical care to selection of research topics, grant writing, and the research funding process. Upon her dismissal from the President’s Council on Bioethics in 2004 for disagreeing with the administration’s stance on stem cell research, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, a prominent cancer researcher and one of only three full-time biomedical researchers on the council, wrote, “When prominent scientists must fear that descriptions of their research will be misrepresented and misused by their government to advance political ends, something is deeply wrong.” Among her many honors, incidentally, is the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

A brief history of the FDA commissioners and other key persons over the past 20 years illustrates politics at work in the FDA.

David Kessler (commissioner,1990–1997) took a great deal of heat for trying to have the FDA regulate tobacco products and for trying to gain approval for RU-486 (mifepristone).(He lost on both counts.) He was also notable for being appointed by President George H. W. Bush and retained by President Clinton.

Jane Henney (commissioner, 1998–2001), also appointed by Clinton, authorized FDA approval of RU-486. She was, not surprisingly, ousted when George W. Bush took office. She also tried to change business as usual by filling positions with career appointees rather than political ones, actively demonstrating her goal of “leading policy and making enforcement decisions based on science, not on political whims.”

An infamous nominee for chairing Bush’s FDA advisory panel on women’s health policy was Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist. He had helped prepare a “citizens’ petition” calling for the FDA to reverse its approval of RU-486. He was perhaps more widely known for his reported refusal to prescribe contraceptives to married women and as author of a book that “recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments as headaches and premenstrual syndrome.” After the outcry of critics, he was not appointed chair of the advisory panel but did serve on it in 2002–2005, despite bipartisan opposition.

Mark McClellan (commissioner, 2002–2004) was an economist appointed by George W. Bush. McClellan reportedly had decided against approving Plan B for emergency contraception even before his staff completed its analysis.

Lester Crawford (commissioner, July–September 2005) was a veterinarian also appointed by George W. Bush. His term is perhaps best remembered for three features: the audacity of a veterinarian making decisions about women’s health and reproduction, his vehement opposition to Plan B’s approval, and the criminal charges against him for false reporting about holdings relevant to his appointment (that he and his wife owned stocks in food, beverage, and medical device companies that he was in charge of regulating). He got off with probation and a fine.

Susan F. Wood was another casualty of Crawford’s brief and divisive tenure at the FDA. As noted, she resigned because of the politicization of the agency—specifically, having the approval of Plan B emergency contraception denied, despite scientific evidence of the pill’s safety and recommendations from the FDA’s own advisory committee.

Andrew C. von Eschenbach (commissioner, 2005–2009) had been the head of the National Cancer Institute before being appointed as FDA commissioner. He was also tied to the decision of the FDA to deny emergency contraceptives over-the-counter status, despite the recommendation of the FDA’s advisory group and its own staff members, as well as that of many medical organizations.17 The FDA had followed advisory committee recommendations in every other case in the past decade. He is also known for reportedly threatening FDA reviewers who disagreed with him. Von Eschenbach’s ideologic, rather than evidence- based, decisions were so egregious that on March 23, 2009, the U.S. District Court (Tummino v. Torti) ordered the FDA to reconsider its decision blocking access to Plan B. It also ordered the FDA to act within 30 days to extend over-the-counter access to 17-year-olds. The court’s conclusions about the FDA’s behavior were damning.

The FDA’s ability to function and its reputation have been seriously hurt in the past decade. In a 2006 survey of FDA scientists, about 18 percent responded that they had been asked to exclude or alter information or their report’s conclusions for nonscientific reasons. A further 60 percent were aware of cases where industry “inappropriately induced or attempted to induce the reversal, withdrawal or modification of FDA determinations or actions.” One-fifth (20 percent) said they had been “asked explicitly by FDA decision makers to provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information to the public, regulated industry, media, or elected/senior government officials.” Lest you think this survey was markedly biased, even Senator Chuck Grassley, a staunch Republican, commented on the survey report, “The responses of these scientists reinforce the findings of the independent Government Accountability Office, which said the process for reviewing drugs on the market is deeply flawed.”

As a result of the politicization, the FDA staff has reportedly become greatly demoralized, interfering with its ability to function and protect the public. FDA whistle-blowers have testified that the agency considers the drug companies its clients, and its decision-making furthers the interests of those clients.

Many experienced and valuable clinicians have left the agency, leaving a void. Equally importantly, the FDA has lost considerable respect and authority in the eyes of both the public and important members of Congress.

From 2001 to 2009, the most obvious politicization at the FDA was related to women’s health issues, and especially access to contraception.

In March 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity. A further encouraging sign of change was the May 2009 appointment of two well-respected physicians to lead the FDA, Drs. Margaret Hamburg and Joshua Sharfstein. Dr. Sharfstein has since left. Dr. Hamburg, the opening speaker at the UCS conference, noted that it was imperative to build trust in FDA’s integrity, and that it is science-based. Dr. Hamburg concluded that “I agree with the Center [for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER)] that there is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Hamburg—and all women—just had the rug pulled out from them by Sebelius’ overtly political, evidence-be-damned stance.

Plan B Perspective

The irrational decision to overrule the recommendation of numerous experts appears based on the idea that young girls would be buying the pill without parental consent, and that such girls could not do so safely. They ignore that kids can readily buy Tylenol, which has significant liver toxicity and is often a component of deadly drug overdoses. Plan B is far safer—and also unlikely to be used routinely because, at ~$50, it is relatively expensive.

Even the conservative American Academy of Pediatrics urged approval of the morning-after pill for young teens, recognizing Plan B as being a safer alternative to abortions or unwanted pregnancies.

Plan B has the same hormone found in birth control pills, progestin, but in a larger dose. It works primarily by preventing ovulation. In contrast, mifepristone, or RU-486, is used to induce a medical abortion in a process similar to a miscarriage.

What were the arguments against Plan B this time? President Obama expressed his concern as a parent, that his daughters must not have access to such a medicine without adult guidance. His personal preferences are not “evidence-based science”. And he is deluding himself. We can guide our children, but we cannot control their behavior. My hope has been to educate my kids and offer them counsel knowing that, for better or worse, they will make many mistakes along the way. Prevention of pregnancy through ready access to contraceptives is far safer than an abortion or unwanted pregnancy. . .which may doom a teen to a lifetime of poverty and misery. There is a superb cartoon capturing the debate, Matt Davies,’ “Which of these responsibilities is a 15 year old too young to be handed?”—a screaming baby or Plan B pill.

Even the digital world seems to be biased, as now even Siri is getting into the act. Siri conveniently can direct you where to buy Viagra, but feigns ignorance when asked to direct to a reproductive health center offering abortion counseling or services.

The Plan B Decision has been characterized as “Sacrificing ‘Change We Can Believe In’ for Expediency?” “Only half of the nation’s teen moms ever earn a diploma; more than half go on welfare; and more than half of the families started by teens live in poverty.” The Ft. Wayne paper has it right stating, “Plan B politics ignore human toll.” I have never understood how many conservatives can demand censorship, restriction of contraceptives, and control of women’s bodies, all in the name of being “pro-life.” Fetal rights trump a woman’s…but then these people take no responsibility for the care, feeding, and education of these unwanted children. The sanctity of life ends at the womb. A life sentence is a huge price for a moment’s mistake.

Mechai Viravaidya

Even Thailand, which many US citizens likely would (erroneously) consider to be a third-world country, is more enlightened in some health-related ways. For example, Mechai Viravaidya, a former Thai senator and founder of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), and enormously successful family planning NGO, made a brilliant educational campaign focused on reducing both the birthrate and the AIDS epidemic, by making sex education fun and promoting condoms to be as readily available as cabbages. He even has a restaurant and resort known as “Cabbages and Condoms.” It was a wonderful place to visit. (insert pic)

So why did Obama and Sebelius kill OTC Plan B—the first time that the Health and Human Services Commission has ever overruled the FDA? Only two reasons come to mind. The first is that Obama is overtly campaigning for the conservative vote. The second is similar, but a bit less overt—that OTC Plan B was sacrificed to take a firmer stance on having contraceptive coverage as part of all insurance plans.

And Plan B’s got it right, too, in their ad: “I chose a condom but it broke. Now I Have A Second Chance.”

Why don’t the politicians get it?

~~~

Images: Morning After The Morning’s Trash, from waltarrrrr on Flickr; pictures of condom bouqets and t-shirt by the author; Mechai Viravaidya holding a t-shirt, from Gates Foundation on Flickr;

Previously in this series:

Molecules to Medicine: Clinical Trials for Beginners
Molecules to Medicine: From Test-Tube to Medicine Chest
Lilly’s Shocker, or the Post-Marketing Blues
Molecules to Medicine: Pharma Trumps HIPAA?
Molecules to Medicine: Should pepper spray be put on (clinical) trial?
Molecules to Medicine: FDA at a Crossroads—a Tough Place to Be

Is that likely?

First, a little perspective on just how big the Pacific Ocean is. About 70% of Earth is ocean. The Pacific makes up nearly half of that 70%. It is 64.1 million square miles in area. (The contiguous 48 U.S. states cover 3.2 million square miles.)

The Pacific is vast, and distances in the Pacific are vast. Japan lies 4,500-plus miles from North America. Nearly twice the distance from Washington, DC to San Francisco.

Reports of tsunami wash-ins mounted following a December talk by oceanographer Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer in Port Angeles, Washington. Let’s conservatively assume January 1 for an arrival date along the Washington state/British Columbia coast. That’s 296 days after the tsunami. The shortest line from Japan would push flotsam directly into the westward-flowing Alaskan Coastal Current. Instead, to reach Washington state, it would have to track further south, on a route not an inch less than 4,900 miles. A sustained average travel speed of 16.7 miles per day.

So, again, is that likely?

Look at what we know. The North Pacific Current runs generally west-to-east. But it is slow, wide, and inconsistent. In fact, in many spheres it’s simply known as the North Pacific Drift. Estimates of its average speed vary widely. The U.S. Navy reports a range of 2.5-8 miles per day (see p. 5); others say 3-4 miles per day. (This wonderful tracker using NOAA satellite data will help you visualize the exact speed and direction of Pacific surface currents for the entire year.)

Objects floating in this water follow a contorted path. Here’s a buoy track from the western North Pacific.

Here are many buoys tracked by satellite across the eastern North Pacific.

Straight shot? Hardly. So add some more to that 4,900 miles. Now you’re asking drifting objects to travel over 20 miles a day. Not just one day — every single day.

For wash-in reports to be credible, one must make the leap from “much less than 8” to “over 20” miles a day. How? Insert the mystery variable: windage. A nice term for the effect that wind has on a floating object. Clearly a sailboat catching the wind moves faster than ocean currents alone would take it. Likewise, something riding high in the ocean, like a buoy, will probably get an assist from prevailing winds.

But there’s a lot of uncertainty in how much to factor windage into an equation. Especially the North Pacific westerlies, which are inconsistent and spotty through much of the summer — the time when they were supposedly pushing these buoys at 3-5 times the speed of the currents. (NOAA also shows a negative Arctic Oscillation for summer 2011, which tends to suppress the westerlies.)

In late September, a Russian research vessel found other bouyant, high-floating objects identifiably from the tsunami still thousands of miles from North America. They hadn’t even reached Midway Atoll yet. The best science suggests that these buoyant objects are still well over a year away from the West Coast.

So what gives?

Dr. Ebbesmeyer is convinced that the buoys found in Washington and British Columbia are from the tsunami. That, riding high, they found the shortcut that eluded most of their compatriots. However, his own article says that beachcombers have been finding identical buoys for years, and that the video of his December talk “went viral” on YouTube. It’s possible that more locals have simply started noticing them after hearing rumblings of incoming “tsunami debris.”

Which comes to the heart of the matter. We know three things for sure. First, tsunami material will wash up in North America. That’s the physical reality of how the oceans & winds work. Second, while not statistically impossible for Pacific debris to travel 5,000 miles in nine months, it would be very atypical. Third, and most important, thanks to a global culture of plastic, artifacts from Japan and elsewhere around the Pacific wash up in North America all the time. And vice-versa. See, for example, Kamilo Beach in Hawaii — the poster child of a plastic world.

Finding Japanese buoys means that Japanese buoys were lost some time in the past. Anything beyond that is speculation. The Japanese fishing industry is enormous, in one year catching 6.626 million tons! They lose buoys. And a plastic buoy can survive intact in the ocean for decades.

The human tragedy of the March 2011 Japanese tsunami wrenches the heart. The possibility of finding physical remnants of that catastrophe — of piecing lives and stories back together — is compelling. But it can also be seductive, causing leaps of logic that end up telling the wrong tale. Which does nobody any good.

So to beachcombers, scientists, and journalists, please keep in mind what we don’t know. Resist the tail wagging the dog.

Images: Planet Ocean, from Google Earth, North Pacific buoy drift 1998 from http://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/TM/SWFSC/NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-154_P267.PDF; North Pacific buoy tracks 1976, from http://muenchow.cms.udel.edu/classes/MAST602/Eastern_North_Pacific.pdf; “Kamilo Beach”, from Algalita.org at Wikimedia Commons.

CamTrapTeam – (Left to right): Bockary, Kenewa, April and Alusine at a camera trap on Tiwai Island

Our vehicle pulled into the village late one rainy night. Dozens of my new neighbors, Sierra Leone’s Mende people, emerged from their thatch-roof houses, looking cross at being woken up and not exactly welcoming. We unloaded some of my gear underneath the dripping eaves, and as I tried to find something dry to wear, I realized that all my equipment: books, electronics, and gear, were soaking wet in the back of the truck. I had spent the entire day with a driver whose accent was so thick that several minutes into a conversation about cheese, I realized we were discussing chiefs, not cheddar. I had eaten entrails soup for lunch, been bounced over dirt roads for over 10 hours, and knew not a single person around me. I was suddenly glad it was dark so that nobody could see the silent tears streaming down my face.

I rummaged around in the dark and found a flashlight and rain jacket, and clinging to these items as a lifeline, I trudged down to the riverside after my guides to set off across the water to the island. It was pitch black, and I could hear the roar of rapids downriver. I was terrified that we would hit a rock or miss the landing point, but we reached safely. Escorted to a musty tent, I collapsed, exhausted and wondering what I had gotten myself into.

This journey to Sierra Leone was the first step towards my dissertation research. However, my first experiences in Africa were spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa after graduating from the University of Georgia in 2003. Living without electricity or running water in a small rural village in Niger, I was frequently sick with parasites and lost 80 pounds in a year. The temperatures soared over 120°F on some days, and Harmattan winds brought the sands of the Sahara to my doorstep.

However, I challenged myself to participate in every aspect of village life: pounding millet into the daily meal with women, farming alongside men (to their vast amusement), and carrying water from the well on my head. In my second year, I teamed up with park rangers to conduct mammal surveys and organize school gardens and tree nurseries. In this village on the opposite side of the river from one of the few protected areas in the country, I developed a greater appreciation of the struggles facing conservation in a developing country.

HippoInTrap – Male pygmy hippo caught in a pit trap during the trial event

Park W, named for its location along a W-shaped curve in the Niger River, is home to a diverse array of creatures, including cheetahs, lions, elephants, and an amazing bird community. Despite this biodiversity, people in Niger are some of the poorest in the world. The land in Niger is desolate and barren; not much time is spent pondering the merits of conservation when daily life is so difficult. One day I tagged along with park rangers on one of their river outings in a local canoe. Suddenly we spotted another canoe filled with grass on the park side of the river, and the men inside paddled frantically away from us. As we followed behind, a surreal feeling came over me as I realized I was in a “high speed” canoe chase pursuing illegal grass.

The poachers reached the other side before us, but had to leave the grass behind, and the rangers burned the contraband. It seemed so wasteful, when I knew they were stealing grass to feed their livestock. My own education on conservation up to this point had been from a preservation standpoint, where resources should be protected from humans. However, in a country so devoid of resources on one side of the river, and with so many on the other, I began to realize that conservation is far more complicated.

When my Peace Corps tenure ended in 2007, I returned to the University of Georgia to obtain a doctorate in Forest Resources. At the end of my first year of classes, I received an email about an endangered, elusive creature – the pygmy hippopotamus. I was intrigued. There was a possibility for funding field research to study pygmy hippos on a river island in Sierra Leone. I searched the scientific literature, and did not find much information. With the help of my advisors, I wrote a proposal to Conservation International, who agreed to fund me for my first field season.

I arrived in Sierra Leone in October in 2008 to begin my dissertation research on remote Tiwai Island. This 12 km2 river island was designated a Wildlife Sanctuary in the 1980s, and contains one of the highest primate densities in the world. However, I was setting out virtually alone in a war-torn, impoverished country to find an animal that is notoriously difficult to study even for experienced researchers.

Looking at hippo – A boy looking at the freshly painted Pygmy Hippo Mural

Although they superficially look like the well-known common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), pygmy hippos (Choeropsis liberiensis) differ in ecology, behavior, and most conspicuously, body size. The common hippopotamus can reach upwards of 3,000 kg, whereas the diminutive pygmy hippopotamus rarely tops 300 kg. The hippos are so distinct that the species are two different genera. While common hippos congregate in large social groups, the pygmy hippopotamus is rare, solitary and nocturnal; traits that make direct observation nearly impossible and survey methods more complex.

I arrived that rainy night on Tiwai Island armed with 20 remote-sensing camera traps to capture pygmy hippos in digital pictures. I was also exploring methods to safely capture a pygmy hippopotamus and attach a radio tracking device. Since locally pygmy hippos are known to be delicious and they routinely destroy farmer’s crops (see video below), I also created questionnaires to learn about local knowledge of pygmy hippos and conservation perceptions.

During my field research, I spent almost every moment of every day with my 2 local field assistants, Kenewa and Bockary. Although they could not read or write, they knew the forest with its flora and fauna better than any foreigner. By the end of my stay, Kenewa had converted one of his storage rooms into a home off the island for me. He carved my name into the door and said this room would always be mine, no matter where I was in the world. Bockary was the joker of the team and a lady’s man. He claimed to have 10 girlfriends…in one town. Unfortunately this meant that sometimes work items would go missing, as the girlfriends decided they wanted what he had for themselves.

Minah, Tiwai Island’s research coordinator, was also my guide to culture, villages, and the island. He had worked on the island helping foreigners since before I was born. He taught me how to ride a motorcycle and demonstrated local fishing techniques. My team and I discussed all aspects of our cultures, trying to understand our differences and where we had common ground. Although work took up much of our time, my team and I would sometimes go to the local dances, where DJs would set up in a village meeting area and we would dance the night away to “sweet Salone’s” music. Sierra Leone, affectionately known as Sweet Salone, has a burgeoning music industry. Songs range from pure entertainment to expression of inequalities and political commentary.

PoundingRiceFlour – April with the village women while they are pounding flour for a funeral

For many months, we explored forests, farms and the Moa River learning about pygmy hippos’ habits and habitats through photos from the camera traps (see video below). However, though I saw many footprints and dung and captured images of hippos, I had yet to see a single pygmy hippo with my own eyes. Tourists who came to the island for the weekend would sometimes wander into the research station for a conversation. They often implied that I must be a pretty poor researcher if I had never seen the animal I had traveled thousands of miles to find. Even knowing that few foreigners see these rare creatures in the wild, I began to despair.

One day in May 2009 as we paddled upriver in our dugout canoe, Kenewa uttered a small gasp of surprise. There, in the water next to the riverbank, was the animal for which I had been searching for over seven months. With a splash, the pygmy hippo clambered out of the water onto a sandy beach and stopped to watch us. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and I could not help but grin. It locked eyes with us for a few moments before turning and running into the forest. Although pygmy hippos depend on water sources like common hippos, pygmy hippos spend most of their nights in the forest. They have a more sloping profile and their feet are more splayed than the common hippopotamus, which allows them to quietly tunnel under dense vegetation through the forest.

Hippo_OpenMouth – One of the pygmy hippos caught on camera trap on Tiwai Island

Project money ran out after 10 months, and I returned to the States for a 9 month hiatus to write grant proposals appealing for funds. Armed with new funding from several zoos and a Fulbright Scholarship, I flew back in August 2010. Sierra Leone was deep into the rainy season. Although everything was soggy from the unrelenting rain, my arrival that year was far different than my first. People ran out of their houses to greet me and cheer as I stepped out of the vehicle. I looked around and saw familiar smiling faces, and it felt like coming home.

We soon began our first pit trap attempts to capture a pygmy hippopotamus. If the pit traps were successful in catching a pygmy hippopotamus, we would bring a wildlife veterinarian to Sierra Leone to help us anesthetize a hippo. When the hippo was asleep, we would place a radio collar to track the hippo’s movements through the forest. We were interested in learning more about hippo habitat to identify what pygmy hippos need to survive. Using local hunter knowledge and maybe a little bit of “juju”, we dug several holes and covered them with rattan mats and debris. Then it was time to wait.

One morning I woke up in the village and went about my morning routine. Suddenly, Minah approached me. The trap monitors had radioed in to say there was a red river hog in one of our traps. Although it was not a pygmy hippopotamus, it was a great animal to practice our pit trap method on. I gathered a few men and we zoomed to the island on the boat. We rushed to the trap and I looked gingerly over the rim.

HogCapture – Four red river hogs caught in a pit trap

My first thought was “Oh there are two hogs in there.” As they squirmed around, I realized there were more than two. There were four. Apparently the trap checker had only gotten close enough to the trap to see that there was a hog in there before running away in fear. My plan had seemed a lot simpler from the village. We would throw a sheet over the red river hog to distract it, while collapsing one side of the trap so it could climb up. However, red river hogs are one of the most aggressive animals on the island. None of the men were eager to approach the trap. They all looked at me for instruction, but I was flummoxed.

We approached closer, and the hogs started squealing and trying to scramble out. Suddenly all seven of us were up in trees. One of the men looked over at me from his tree and exclaimed that he didn’t know I could move that fast. We debated how to get these animals out without anybody getting hurt. Bockary volunteered to collapse the side, and the rest of us left the area with relief. The hogs soon exited and ran away, too tired to bother with us. Later, Bockary admitted that he volunteered only because he was hungry and the only thing between him and food was making sure the hogs got out safely. Success!

A few tense weeks of waiting later, Minah came to knock on my door and whispered “There’s a hippo in one of your traps.” I called Kenewa and Bockary into my room and said “OK, this is really something amazing, but I don’t want you to tell a soul in this village.” I was afraid of a village riot, with dozens of people rushing to the scene to get a glimpse of hippo if word got out. I did not want anybody getting hurt, so the fewer people at the trap the better. My assistants let out a quiet whoop of joy and we danced around hugging for a few seconds before gathering up a few key people and materials to head to the trap.

As we approached the trap, I saw the most beautiful animal in the world – a pygmy hippopotamus (see video below)! He was lying down, obviously tired from trying to climb out and glistening dark purple in the early morning light. Although we had now successfully captured the hippo, we had to let it go because this was just a trial. Kenewa began to try to collapse one of the walls, but the hippo roared in agitation.

Learning from our previous experience with the hogs, we brought empty canvas bags to fill with dirt to form steps. We filled the bags with dirt and dropped them in. The pygmy hippo attacked the first one and tore it to pieces, which had us all running for the nearest trees (unfortunately I chose the one covered in razor grass). When we placed the second bag in, the hippo used the extra bag as a step to exit the trap, and then ran off into the forest. “Ah bwa!” He’s out! We returned triumphantly to the village. There was a very large party in the village that night. I sent excited text messages to my professors to let them know we were ready to try the real captures.

Pit Trap – The pit trap team circled around a new pit trap

Now that we knew the traps could successfully and safely capture a pygmy hippopotamus, my major professor, Dr. John Carroll and a wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Michele Miller, flew to Sierra Leone to help me capture and radio-collar a pygmy hippopotamus. My advisor, Dr. Sonia Hernandez, would coordinate everything from the United. I added 2 more field assistants (Alusine and Lahai) who could read and write to help. Unfortunately we did not successfully capture a hippo during this time, although we had several near-captures (the pygmy hippos fell halfway in but were able to escape). We hope to travel for another attempt later this year if we can raise the funds.

One of the highlights of my research on Tiwai was when the U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone came to visit me as I was one of the few Fulbright Scholarship students in the country. When we arrived in the village, very few people were around. We had arrived earlier than expected and everybody was still in their fields. I was worried that my plans for a smooth trip would go awry. We made some short introductions to the people in town, and left for the island.

That evening, when I was chatting with the visitors, I heard drums in the distance. As the sound grew louder, we all popped up from our chairs. Out of the forest came the villagers, drumming, singing and dancing. Among them was a man dressed in a full length raphia palm costume. Although I had arranged for a general cultural show in honor of the U.S. Ambassador, this “pygmy hippo devil” (see video below) was a surprise: constructed painstakingly by the villagers just for this night. I was speechless that the villagers took so much pride in their pygmy hippos that this was the animal they chose to display to the Ambassador.

Conflicts in Conservation

The relationships I developed with the local people during my tenure in the Peace Corps and in Sierra Leone gave me a unique perspective of conservation. I witnessed the frustrations that protecting wildlife and land can bring in an area where people are struggling for daily survival. Most of the villagers could not grow enough food to support themselves through the entire year, and have to rely on imported rice when the food ran out. Although they live in areas of great plant and wildlife diversity, this honor means little to people who are subsistence farmers trying to scratch out a living in an unforgiving land.

Radiotelemetrypractice – Radio telemetry, a way of tracking animals through the forest, requires a lot of practice

A civil war devastated the country and Sierra Leone is still struggling to recover. My own field assistants struggled during the war. Kenewa, who was 12 when the war began, was forced to take drugs by soldiers and risked his life to raid food from the rebels. Bockary escaped to Monrovia, Liberia, only to return when the war was over. Minah had to flee for his life into the forest because the rebels thought all foreign researchers had left their money with him. Many of the village men had become Kamojors, the grassroots militia claiming to have magical powers that allowed them to be bullet proof.

During our daily walks in the forests, my assistants told me horror stories of amputations and executions. The decade-long war ended in 2002, when the rebel Revolutionary United Front was defeated. However, with a high infant mortality rate, low literacy rate, and overall bleak poverty level, conservation tends to take a backburner to more pressing issues. Malaria is a major concern in this area, as I personally experienced several times.

However, malaria had an even more personal affect because it killed some of the people I care about. My good friend and confidant, Kenewa’s brother (also called Kenewa), died shortly after my return to the US in 2009. I was in Sierra Leone for his first bout of malaria and took him to the doctor for treatment. However, shortly after I left Sierra Leone, I received a phone call from Minah. Kenewa had complained of headache, and later in the evening told everybody that he was dying. Thinking he was being overdramatic, his brother told him to try to sleep. He complied, and never woke up.

Residents who live near Tiwai hope that conservation of their land can bring foreign assistance in the form of tourism, research or development assistance. However, often the expectations outweigh the reality. When I asked villagers what they would do if they were the “bossman” of Tiwai Island, they responded that they would bring cell phone towers, schools, mosques, clinics, and much more. When I asked them how they would get money to build these, they responded that they would “cry to the outside world.”

Hippo_Devil – Villagers dancing around the pygmy hippo devil

Tiwai is remote by Western standards; the road conditions are unpredictable and never pleasant. A 200 mile journey from Freetown can take anywhere from 6 to 15 hours depending on your vehicle and the season. The tourist facilities on Tiwai Island are best described as rustic, although there is usually electricity (solar-powered) and running (river-pumped) water. Lodging is tents with foam mattresses.

While these amenities definitely provide a full rainforest experience, some tourists do not want to rough it or make the long journey. One visitor remarked to me “I knew it was ‘country’, but I didn’t know it was this country!” Without many visitors, there are not enough funds to satisfy the eight villages that ‘own’ Tiwai. Each year the tourism revenues are divided among the 8 villages for community development. However, during my first year in Sierra Leone, the annual fees were first given to the chiefs to distribute in the communities. These chiefs took what they felt was their share (which was a substantial portion), before handing the money over to the next chief who also took his ‘share’. The money that actually reached the villages was very small, but the villages did not feel that they had the power to change things. Fortunately, a new system was created, and the amount of money that reaches the villages now is greater.

Researchers can help generate more direct funds by providing employment for local residents, introducing capital directly into the local economy. In countries with few educational opportunities, any sharing of knowledge between researcher and resident is beneficial. Field assistants often bring the scientific knowledge they learn during their employment to their families and friends. My field assistants became ambassadors for the pygmy hippopotamus, and helped to disseminate new findings to the communities.

Roads – The road system in Sierra Leone can be unpleasant

Sierra Leoneans place a lot of hope on their children. Some families spend a major portion of their income to send their children to school. The parents hope that one day the children will return the favor and take care of their parents when they are old. A better educated child has a better chance of supporting the family. However, a better educated child also has the chance to improve development in the entire country. If environmental education is also incorporated into the local schools, these children will be equipped to make land management decisions when they begin their own families and, if they return to the village, farms.

For this reason, I conducted environmental education programs in local schools and villages alongside my collaborators, the Across the River Transboundary Peace Park project and the Environmental Foundation for Africa. We also painted murals and printed posters depicting wildlife and the importance of conservation, placed conservation bumper stickers on public transportation vehicles, and created a Pygmy Hippo Awareness Day with t-shirts and contests.

So far the response to our project has been excellent. Residents are proud that their island is an important habitat for this rare animal, as demonstrated during the Ambassador’s visit, and they believe this project will help advertise tourism and research on Tiwai Island. When people view pygmy hippos and other wildlife as more than protein or pests, they are more willing to help in conservation efforts. Our hope is that one day the pygmy hippo can be seen as the diamond of Sierra Leone. As Kenewa once said “We shall never again eat pygmy hippo meat. We have tasted pygmy hippo benefits, and they are sweeter.”

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All images belong to the author, April Conway, and all people in photographs have given permission for the photos to be used.

At the session, many of the women in the room expressed discouragement at how many comments they have received that, while seemingly complimentary, somehow still felt wrong. These comments may have focused on a blog author’s appearance rather than her post’s content, or called attention to the relative lack of women in science as if this should somehow make the addressed female scientist feel good about herself rather than marginalized. Even though these remarks can sometimes feel good to hear – and no one is denying that this type of comment can feel good, especially in the right context – they can also cause a feeling of unease, particularly when one is in the position of trying to draw attention towards her work rather than towards personal qualities like her gender or her appearance.

This isn’t just limited to Internet commenting, either. There are plenty of seemingly positive portrayals of women that nonetheless perpetuate harmful stereotypes, such as the omnipresent depiction of the “how-does-she-do-it-all” housewife. Although a woman might feel complimented by this stereotype and the way in which it paints women as the kind of people who can “magically” get so much done, it is also quite possible for a woman to feel like this stereotype creates an unfair standard of comparison, or, alternatively, like it depicts women as weak, frazzled creatures who should be receiving more help from men in order to manage their lives without suffering a nervous breakdown. In social psychology, we refer to this phenomenon as benevolent sexism. Although it is tempting to brush this experience off as an overreaction to compliments or a misunderstanding of the communicator’s benign intent, benevolent sexism is a phenomenon that is both real and insidiously dangerous.

What Is Benevolent Sexism?

In 1996, Peter Glick and Susan Fiske wrote a paper on the concept of ambivalent sexism, noting that despite common beliefs, there are actually two different kinds of sexist attitudes and behavior. Hostile sexism is what most people think of when they picture “sexism” – angry, explicitly negative attitudes towards women. However, the authors note, there is also something called benevolent sexism:

We define benevolent sexism as a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively positive in feeling tone (for the perceiver) and also tend to elicit behaviors typically categorized as prosocial (e.g., helping) or intimacy-seeking (e.g., self-disclosure) (Glick & Fiske, 1996, p. 491).

[Benevolent sexism is] a subjectively positive orientation of protection, idealization, and affection directed toward women that, like hostile sexism, serves to justify women’s subordinate status to men (Glick et al., 2000, p. 763).

Essentially, there’s now a formal name for all of those comments and stereotypes that can somehow feel both nice and wrong at the same time, such as the belief that women are “delicate flowers” that need to be protected by men, or the notion that women have the special gift of being “more kind and caring” than their male counterparts. And yes, it might sound complimentary, but it still counts as sexism.

Why is Benevolent Sexism a problem?

Admittedly, this research begs an obvious question. If benevolently sexist comments seem like nothing more than compliments, why are they problematic? Is it really “sexism” if the content of the statements appears to be positive towards women?

Well, for one thing, benevolently sexist statements often depict women as weak, sensitive creatures that need to be “protected.” While this may seem positive to some, for others – especially women in male-dominated fields, or those who simply want to be seen as strong – it creates a damaging stereotype. Second of all, by depicting women as homogenously different from men in any way not directly related to chromosomes or genitalia, benevolently sexist statements sometimes justify a climate where opportunities can be withheld from women because they are somehow “different.” Indeed, as Glick and Fiske themselves note in their seminal paper:

We do not consider benevolent sexism a good thing, for despite the positive feelings it may indicate for the perceiver, its underpinnings lie in traditional stereotyping and masculine dominance (e.g., the man as the provider and woman as his dependent), and its consequences are often damaging. Benevolent sexism is not necessarily experienced as benevolent by the recipient. For example, a man’s comment to a female coworker on how ‘cute’ she looks, however well-intentioned, may undermine her feelings of being taken seriously as a professional (Glick & Fiske, 1996, p. 491-492).

In a later paper by Glick and Fiske, they examined levels of hostile and benevolent sexism across 15,000 men and women in 19 different countries. First of all, they found that hostile and benevolent sexism tend to correlate highly across nations. It is not the case that people who endorse hostile sexism don’t tend to endorse benevolent sexism, whereas those who are benevolently sexist look nothing like the hostilely sexist people. On the contrary, those who endorsed benevolent sexism were also very likely to hold explicit, hostile attitudes towards women (although one does not necessarily have to endorse these hostile attitudes in order to engage in benevolent sexism).

Secondly, they discovered that benevolent sexism was a significant predictor of nationwide gender inequality, independent of the effects of hostile sexism. Specifically, in countries where the men were more likely to endorse benevolent sexism, there were also significantly lower female participation rates in politics and the economy, and men generally had longer life expectancies, higher literacy rates, more years of education, and higher purchasing power than women. The warm, fuzzy feelings surrounding benevolently sexist statements come at a cost, and that cost is often actual, objective gender equality.

The Insidious Nature of Benevolent Sexism

A recent paper by Julia Becker and Stephen Wright details even more of the insidious ways that benevolent sexism might be harmful for both women and social activism. In a series of experiments, women were exposed to statements that either illustrated hostile sexism (e.g. “Women are too easily offended”) or benevolent sexism (e.g. “Women have a way of caring that men are not capable of in the same way.”) The results are quite discouraging; when the women read statements illustrating benevolent sexism, they were less willing to engage in anti-sexist collective action, such as signing a petition, participating in a rally, or generally “acting against sexism.” Not only that, but this effect was partially mediated by the fact that women who were exposed to benevolent sexism were more likely to think that there are many advantages to being a woman and were also more likely to engage in system justification, a process by which people justify the status quo and believe that there are no longer problems facing disadvantaged groups (such as women) in modern day society. Furthermore, women who were exposed to hostile sexism actually displayed the opposite effect – they were more likely to intend to engage in collective action, and more willing to fight against sexism in their everyday lives.

How might this play out in a day-to-day context? Imagine that there’s an anti-woman policy being brought to a vote, such as a regulation that would make it easier for local businesses to fire pregnant women once they find out that they are expecting. If you are collecting signatures for a petition or trying to gather women to protest this policy and those women were recently exposed to a group of men making comments about the policy in question, it would be significantly easier to gain their support and vote down the policy if the men were commenting that pregnant women should be fired because they were dumb for getting pregnant in the first place. However, if they instead happened to mention that women are much more compassionate than men and make better stay-at-home parents as a result, these remarks might actually lead these women to be less likely to fight an objectively sexist policy.

“I Mean, Is Sexism Really Still A Problem In 2012?”

It sometimes seems like every day, we hear people claiming that sexism, racism, or other forms of discrimination that seem to be outdated are “no longer really a problem.” Some people legitimately believe this to be true, while others (particularly women and racial minorities) find it ridiculous that others could be so blind to the problems that still exist. So why does this disparity exist? Why is it so difficult for so many people to see that sexism and racism are still alive and thriving?

Maybe the answer lies right here, on the benevolent side of prejudice. While “old fashioned” forms of discrimination may have died down quite a bit (after all, it really isn’t quite as socially acceptable in most areas of the world to be as explicitly sexist and/or racist as people have been in the past), more “benevolent” forms of discrimination still very much exist, and they have their own sneaky ways of suppressing equality. Unaffected bystanders (or perpetrators) may construe benevolently sexist sentiments as harmless or even beneficial; in fact, as demonstrated by Becker and Wright, targets may even feel better about themselves after exposure to benevolently sexist statements. This could be, in some ways, even worse than explicit, hostile discrimination; because it hides under the guise of compliments, it’s easy to use benevolent sexism to demotivate people against collective action or convince people that there is no longer a need to fight for equality.

However, to those people who still may be tempted to argue that benevolent sexism is nothing more than an overreaction to well-intentioned compliments, let me pose this question: What happens when there is a predominant stereotype saying that women are better stay-at-home parents than men because they are inherently more caring, maternal, and compassionate? It seems nice enough, but how does this ideology affect the woman who wants to continue to work full time after having her first child and faces judgment from her colleagues who accuse her of neglecting her child? How does it affect the man who wants to stay at home with his newborn baby, only to discover that his company doesn’t offer paternity leave because they assume that women are the better candidates to be staying at home?

At the end of the day, “good intent” is not a panacea. Benevolent sexism may very well seem like harmless flattery to many (or most) people, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t insidiously dangerous, with far-reaching consequences for men and women alike.

Citations:

Becker, J., & Wright, S. (2011). Yet another dark side of chivalry: Benevolent sexism undermines and hostile sexism motivates collective action for social change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101 (1), 62-77 DOI: 10.1037/a0022615

Glick, P., & Fiske, S. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70 (3), 491-512 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.70.3.491

Glick, P., Fiske, S., Mladinic, A., Saiz, J., Abrams, D., Masser, B., Adetoun, B., Osagie, J., Akande, A., Alao, A., Annetje, B., Willemsen, T., Chipeta, K., Dardenne, B., Dijksterhuis, A., Wigboldus, D., Eckes, T., Six-Materna, I., Expósito, F., Moya, M., Foddy, M., Kim, H., Lameiras, M., Sotelo, M., Mucchi-Faina, A., Romani, M., Sakalli, N., Udegbe, B., Yamamoto, M., Ui, M., Ferreira, M., & López, W. (2000). Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: Hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79 (5), 763-775 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.79.5.763

A wild pigeon with S. calchasi. Note the characteristic head tilt (torticollis). Photo by WRC

Last April I was examining a wild male adult Rock Pigeon that couldn’t fly. The person who found the pigeon suspected a broken wing. On the initial physical exam, I didn’t find any broken bones but the bird was exhibiting odd neurologic behaviors, including ataxia (lack of coordination) and torticollis (head tilt).

My differential diagnoses included head trauma, aberrant parasite migration (a parasite that’s normally found in the gastro-intestinal system migrates to other parts of the body, like the central nervous system), and a viral or bacterial infection causing encephalitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain).

I started the bird on anti-inflammatories and moved it into our isolation ward in case he was potentially contagious to other birds. Over the next five to seven days, the bird’s neurological symptoms progressively worsened. He literally started standing on his head and spinning in circles (see video). The torticollis also worsened. Because of his decreasing status and poor prognosis I humanely euthanized him.

Normally, when we euthanize an animal or when an animal dies, it’s disposed of or saved under a salvage permit for a licensed organization to use in their collections, for research, etc. Sometimes though, we send animals out for additional testing to help pinpoint the cause of the animal’s illness or death. This is done via a necropsy (just like an autopsy but for animals).

Since Paramyxovirus, a highly contagious viral disease in pigeons that manifests as neurological symptoms, including ataxia and torticollis, was high on my list of possible diagnoses, I sent this bird to the University of Minnesota (UMN) Diagnostic Lab (D-Lab) where they would do a necropsy and test for the virus.

In the past WRC has had several pigeons showing similar signs and Paramyxovirus was always suspected. To my knowledge, however, none had ever been sent in for necropsy. A pattern was there, but what was it? What is going on with these neurologic pigeons, I wondered.

Sarcocystis calchasi in the brain of the pigeon. Photo by Dr. Arno Wuenschmann, Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Minnesota

Well, the bird tested negative for Paramyxovirus. However, what the D-Lab did find was shocking. A parasite, named Sarcocystis calchasi, was found in cysts in the bird’s skeletal muscles. The really neat thing? This parasite had never been identified in the United States! It actually hadn’t been identified anywhere outside of Germany (where it was identified in 2009)!

When the pathologists contacted me to tell me this news, I was very excited (as were they!). Tissue samples were sent to Germany to confirm identification of the parasite, and sure enough it was S. calchasi.

The parasite is passed from bird to bird via infected feces, likely from the Northern Goshawk or Cooper’s hawk, which acts as final host in the lifestage of the parasite (does not cause symptoms in those birds). The parasite then migrates from the GI tract into the muscles of the bird. The aforementioned bird had a severe case of meningoencephalitis (inflammation in the brain); however, the parasite was not found there. The parasite’s role in causing neurologic symptoms is still unknown but the UMN’s pathologists are busy researching other birds.

Sarcocystis calchasi in the muscle of the pigeon. Photo by Dr. Arno Wuenschmann, Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Minnesota

With these amazing results, we promptly collaborated and published the findings in “Transboundary and Emerging Diseases.” My first paper as a wildlife veterinarian has been published!

Dr. Arno Wunschmann, a veterinary diagnostician at UMN who discovered the S. calchasi cysts, speaks of what impact this discovery has on the global transmission of diseases:

“This case demonstrates that diseases can spread very quickly and how the use of modern diagnostic tools can help diagnose diseases (in this case PCR). The disease was first described in 2009 in Germany and showed up 2 years later already in Minnesota.

“I was only to able to put the pieces together because somebody in Germany had worked hard to get his cases published in a timely fashion (because the first cases were only seen two years before the paper was in print) and I used the literature resources (including the internet). It is a beautiful example of how the scientific community as a whole is meant to function and can function. Alternatively, one can speculate that the disease went undiagnosed for some period of time but that seems unlikely because the lesion is very obvious (if a pathologist examines the muscle).”

S. calchasi is now recognized as an important differential diagnosis in neurologic pigeons.

Sarcocystis calchasi in the muscle of the pigeon. Photo by Dr. Arno Wuenschmann, Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Minnesota

How many pigeons possibly have it and have been misdiagnosed? That’s hard to say, but since S. calchasi was discovered, we’ve submitted every pigeon (all wild birds, not domestic) that dies while in our care or is euthanized. Nearly 20% have tested positive for this parasitic infection. This is huge news in the tracking of wildlife diseases on a global level.

One of the best parts of this discovery? My curiosity paid off! Wunschmann states: “The case demonstrates nicely how important it is that curious clinicians do not just accept the status quo and submit animals for necropsy. Compliments to you!”

Einstein’s two most memorable phrases perfectly capture the weirdness of quantum mechanics. “I cannot believe that God plays dice with the universe” expressed his disbelief that randomness in quantum physics was genuine and impervious to any causal explanation. “Spooky action at a distance” referred to the fact that quantum physics seems to allow influences to travel faster than the speed of light. This was, of course, disturbing to Einstein, whose theory of relativity prohibited any such superluminal propagation.

These arguments were qualitative. They were targeted at the worldview offered by quantum theory rather than its predictive power. Niels Bohr is commonly seen as the patron saint of quantum physics, defending it against Einstein’s repeated onslaughts. He is usually said to be the ultimate winner in this battle of wits. However, Bohr’s writing was terribly obscure. He was known for saying “never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think,” a motto which he adhered to very closely. His arguments, like Einstein’s, were qualitative, verging on highly philosophical. The Einstein-Bohr dispute, although historically important, could not be settled experimentally—and the experiment is the ultimate judge of validity of any theoretical ideas in physics. For decades, the phenomenon was all but ignored.

All that changed with John Bell. In 1964 he understood how to convert the complaints about “dice-playing” and “spooky action at a distance” into a simple inequality involving measurements on two particles. The inequality is satisfied in a world where God does not play dice and there is no spooky action. The inequality is violated if the fates of the two particles are intertwined, so that if we measure a property of one of them, we immediately know the same property of the other one—no matter how far apart the particles are from each other. This state where particles behave like twin brothers is said to be entangled, a term introduced by Erwin Schrödinger.

Even Bell’s work took years to become recognized. His inequalities were first tested by Stuart Freedman and John Clauser using pairs of entangled photons in 1972. More extensive tests by Alain Aspect and his team a decade later put to rest lingering doubts that the effect might be an experimental artifact. These are the experiments that Scientific American’s staffers have now dramatized in their entertaining video.

Gradually, physicists showed that quantum entanglement was not just weird but useful. It was a resource for information processing protocols such as teleportation, dense-coding and quantum computation. Bell sadly did not live long enough to witness the recent explosion of interest in entanglement.

The world of small particles is definitely weird, but excitingly for us physicists this weirdness is also starting to spread into the everyday world of large things. The quantum revolution has only just begun.

Also see:

- David Kaiser – How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival [Excerpt]

- George Musser – George and John’s Excellent Adventures in Quantum Entanglement [Video]

The Slightly Longer than Five Second Rule.

Book titles are difficult to choose. In theory, a perfect title is concise, compelling, enticing and, oh by the way, accurately conveys some aspect of the book’s contents. In practice, most titles involve more compromise than perfection. The working title of my first book was Unknown. The book was about the biological unknown and what remains to be discovered as told through the stories of the discoverers and would-be discoverers. I liked the title. It seemed to capture some essence of what I was up to and offered a good conversation starter. People would ask what I was doing and I would say “oh, going to spend the afternoon in the Unknown.” The editors were not so sure. One day I received an email forwarded from someone within my publishing house that said, “when is Dunn going to decide on a title?” At first I did not understand and then it became clear. The cover page of my book read, “Title: Unknown.” I got the point. The book became Every Living Thing.

The working title of my new book was Clean Living is Bad for You. This title had the advantage of offering a simple thesis. It also seemed more family friendly than the alternative suggested by my neighbor, “People Who Like it Dirty are More Healthy.” In six words, Clean Living is Bad for You set forth the thesis that living a life that was too clean and devoid of other species makes you sick. I imagined a cover with a kid licking cookies off of the floor beside a neat freak father holding antimicrobial wipes. The father would have a textbox over him that read, “sick” and the kid would have her own textbox reading “healthy.” Inside, you would find ten quick steps to immersing yourself in more kinds of bacteria and, in doing so, living a healthier life with more wealth through embracing the bacteria around you¹.

But then I started to write the book and discovered the Clean Living title no longer captured what the book was about. I suppose in such a moment there are two options. Stick with the simple title, which might be easier to sell, albeit not representative of the book, or give in to the complexity. I gave in to the complexity, hundreds of millions of years of complexity. I wrote about the influence of our changing relationship with other species in general—including the bacteria on our bodies and in our houses, but also the predators in our gardens, pathogens everywhere and crops and cows in our fields—on our health and well being. The title became “The Wild Life of Our Bodies, predators, parasites, and partners that shape who we are today,” which was not quite what the book was about either, but closer.

I changed the title because the book changed. But there was also another issue. I wasn’t sure if the idea that clean living is bad for you was true. We know less about bacteria and clean (or dirty) living than I expected, much less.

In a coarse way, dirty living is good for you and clean living is bad for. You are part bacteria, if you got rid of the life on your skin or in your gut, you would almost certainly die. But, what I had envisioned was an expansion of the slightly more complex idea called the hygiene hypothesis, whose argument goes something like this… Humans moved from rural lifestyles outdoors to hyper-clean lifestyles indoors in city apartments with central air, sealed windows and surfaces scrubbed clean, at every opportunity, with antimicrobial wipes. That transition led us to spend less time getting “dirty” outside. It also “cleaned up” many of the species we need around us indoors that would allow us to get dirty with life. This combination prevented many of our immune systems from developing normally². As a consequence, our immune systems tend to get “messed up” when we live in cities. They revolt against us in the form of asthma, allergies, Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease and, depending on who you ask, maybe even MS and autism. In other words, clean living of one sort or another may be at the root of the majority of modern, chronic, diseases.

The hygiene hypothesis is simultaneously elegant, sweeping, important, vague, and poorly tested. Very little is known about how a change in the bacteria you are exposed to might negatively affect your immune system (though that is rapidly changing as more and more scientists study the problem). Even less is known about how microbes vary with human lifestyles. When nothing is known, many things can seem plausible. The early days in any field like household microbiology are simultaneously delightful and frustrating, a kind of Wild West in which everyone is armed with ideas and ready to shoot.

Is that a Worm in My Colon?—Some things have been tested. It has been shown that the presence or absence of worms in the gut of someone can influence their immune system. Taking worms away from someone with worms can make them more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases. Conversely, adding them back can make them less likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases. Just how worms affect our immune systems is not yet clear, but that there have been negative consequences of getting rid of our worms, at least for some people, is becoming clear. That said, we lost our worms because we started using indoor plumbing and walking around in shoes. When people talk about getting back to nature and being less hyperclean they seldom mean pooping near other people’s feet and hands. The same public health systems that got rid of our worms also save lives, by preventing the transmission of other pathogens, such as Cholera, via that same route. But there is more than a worm at the bottom of this story.

If the hygiene hypothesis were right, we might expect the composition of bacteria and other microscopic species on individuals or in houses to vary as a function of our lifestyles and our health should vary, in turn, as a function of the composition of those microbes. The good news is, this prediction is very testable.

How would you do the study? One approach would be to sample the microbes in houses in rural and urban areas and then, from those same houses, ask individuals about their health and wellness, particularly as relates to immune disorders (I’m not quite there yet, but see footnote four when you get to it). The hygiene hypothesis doesn’t really specify whether it is the diversity (how many kinds), composition (which kinds) or abundance (how many in total) of tiny life forms that matters. You could measure all three. It would be relatively easy, albeit not cheap.

Personally, my guess is that whatever the result is, it is likely to be dependent on other factors. It seems unlikely that urban living in Rio de Janeiro means the same thing as urban living in, say, New York, in terms of exposures to different numbers and types of microbe species. The climate is different. The other species present (e.g., birds, bats, pets and insects) are different. It also seems as though even within an urban environment buildings are likely to differ as a function of their architecture, design, and building materials. Or at least one hopes that how you make a building influences who lives in it. Pigeons prefer to nest in vertical structures. Houses with attics are better for bats. But what we know tends to be about animals, and even then, mostly the animals with backbones. What about the microbes? Someone needs to study how they vary as a function of how and where we live. Fortunately, someone did, sort of.

In December of 2011, Steven Kembel, a research associate at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon, and colleagues published a study in which they compared the microbial composition of hospital rooms that differed in how they were designed. Anyone who has stayed in one knows hospital rooms are not homes and yet the rules that apply to hospital rooms might also apply to homes. After all, the cleanest among us seem to want to make our homes “hospital clean.” I’ve seen the advertisements, you are supposed to scrub and scrub until even the children shine.

The modern, “sterile,” hospital room, with Kembel’s sampling devices and standardized “open window,” installed.

If the hygiene hypothesis is right or even on the right path, what Kembel and crew would expect to see would be that those design elements that make the hospital rooms more like a rural house, more natural in some crude sense, should be more likely to favor a diversity of “good” microbes. Conversely, they might expect that the features that make the rooms more sealed off and “modern,” cleaner if you will, should favor pathogens and disfavor the full richness of other species, that wealth I mentioned earlier.

Is there Life in There?—This is a good moment to point out what is obvious to microbiologists but not to the advertising agencies who tell us to kill the germs, namely that it is not possible to kill “the germs.” The world is dense with other species. Every inch of every thing around you right now is covered in living cells, cells that make do with what you leave them. Your only choice in terms of how you affect these other species, this universal, shimmering, majority, is a choice of which of them to favor and which to disfavor. Microbes happen. There are even bacteria species capable of “consuming” Triclosan, the active ingredient in antimicrobial soaps, wipes and underpants. We live among the microbes much as we live among the molecules (and microbes) in air. And so what Kembel chose to ask was not whether there are bacteria in hospital rooms. Yes, there are. They are on the patients, on the walls, on the children’s books in the waiting room and even on the doctors and nurses. What matters is not whether there is life in there, but which life is in there, which is precisely what Kembel sought to study².

The experimental component of Kembel’s study focused on one aspect of the rooms, whether or not they were vented by standard AC/Heating systems or by windows. Half of the rooms were assigned to one of each of these categories. This was the only factor Kembel and crew varied, but they measured many other features of the rooms, much in the way you might measure additional variables when comparing old and young rain forests, variables like humidity, temperature and wind. When they did, Kembel and colleagues found that the diversity and abundance of bacteria varied as a function of the design of the rooms. BOOM. BIG RESULT. OK, well, wait, the overall result was not so surprising, but there is more, there is the issue of why they varied.

Clean living is Bad for Diversity—Kembel and friends³ found the composition of bacterial communities “in window-ventilated patient rooms” to be “intermediate between mechanically ventilated patient rooms and outdoor air.” Open the window, the lesson seems to be, and both air and microbes come inside. What was more, when rooms ventilated using windows were warmer and drier, they tended to be more like the mechanically ventilated rooms suggesting that it might be, in part, the warmth and dryness of the mechanically ventilated rooms that helps to keep them “different.” These differences in composition were also associated with differences in diversity, the number of kinds of bacteria. The outdoor air was most diverse, followed by rooms with an open window and then, finally, rooms that were mechanically ventilated.

Put it together and it appears the more dry, warm and sealed off a room is the fewer kinds of bacteria it is likely to have. This is exactly what the hygiene hypothesis would predict, or really it is more like what the hypothesis assumes but tends to avoid testing, that the conditions in which we try to envelope ourselves, warm rooms with the windows closed and the central air turned on, lead to the lowest diversity of microorganisms in our surroundings. And what the hygiene hypothesis argues is that while we may tend to think of this as a hygiene success story, it represents failure. This lower diversity may lead our immune systems to develop in such a way as to be unable to make full sense of the world. This aspect of “clean living” may well be bad for us. More needs to be tested and yet Kembel’s results are exciting, a suggestion that our air conditioned/heated, closed off apartments and offices all around the world may be devoid of diversity, a diversity we might need for our bodies to make sense.

Clean Living is Good for Pathogens—Somewhat buried in this paper is another revelation, one that is quieter but, if true, perhaps even more novel. In addition to considering the diversity of benign and/or even good bacteria associated with the environment in general, the paper also evaluated the abundance, or a measure of abundance anyway, of bacteria closely related to human pathogens. The abundance of these bacteria varied among rooms but not simply as a function of how they were ventilated. The best predictor of the number of these potentially bad species was the room’s diversity of bacteria. Rooms with a greater diversity of bacteria had fewer individuals of the bacteria species similar to human pathogens. The diversity of bacteria explained (accounted statistically for) more than half of all of the variation in the number of potential pathogens!

Could the diversity of good bacteria in some rooms actually be reducing the density of bad bacteria? There is precedent for such an idea, though it comes from grasslands rather than hospitals or bedrooms. In grasslands and other outdoor habitats (Grasslands are an appropriate example for Kembel, who started off studying grassland diversity before moving on to hospital rooms), an enormous body of literature considers whether more diverse grasslands are harder for an invading life form to take over. The answer—though I will admit to summarizing a literature that includes hundreds, maybe thousands, of papers in six words— is, yes diversity helps to resist invasion. In those fields, diverse grasses efficiently use the resources invaders need, preventing them from gaining a foothold. Could having a diversity of bacteria in your home or hospital room not only make your immune system more likely to develop normally but also help to outcompete the bad news bugs in the first place? YES, YES, YES, the answer is definitely maybe⁵.

A Better Title in 55 Words or Less—All of this brings me back to the issue of my book title. I think it is possible we will find that clean living leads us to live alongside fewer rather than more bacteria species and that this really is bad for you, for more than one reason. But for now the nuanced title, the title that captures the gist of what we do and don’t know is something like “Scientists may have discovered that Clean Living is Bad for You. The idea is supported so far by the data, but key tests have not been done and it is important to point out that really dirty living is bad for you too. Really dirty living gives you Cholera. Scientists agree you don’t want that.”

Maybe if the publisher chose a small enough font, it would work. Or maybe not.

Table of evolutionary contents: Here you can skip ahead or backward to the other chapters in the story of how we came to depend on or ignore other species during our evolution, whether they be those about the cow, the chicken, the hamster, bacteria (on Lady Gaga, on feet, in bathrooms, as influenced by antimicrobial wipes, as probiotics, in the appendix), pigeons and urban gardens, house sparrows (to be published next week, stay tuned), predators, diseases, dust mites, basement dwellers, lice, field mice, viruses, yeast, the fungus that produces penicillin, bedbugs, houseflies, and more.

Or for the big picture of how I think these stories come together to make us who we are, check out The Wild Life of Our Bodies.

Footnotes

1—I would, of course, have pointed out early in the book that the wealth in question was not economic but rather the richness of microbial diversity, the living wealth of the sort that really does grow on trees and also on you. I swear, I would have pointed it out early.

2—S.W. Kembel, E. Jones, J. Kline, D. Northcutt, J. Stenson, A.W. Womack, B.J.M. Bohannan, G.Z. Brown, and J.L. Green.2012. Architectural design influences the diversity and structure of the built environment microbiome. The ISME Journal. doi:10.1038/ismej.2011.211

3—I don’t know if they are all friends. They might hate each other, but one can only say “and colleagues” so many times and even “colleagues” implies, rightly or wrongly, that they are collegial.

4—There are advantages and disadvantages to being a scientist who also writes rather than a full time science writer. The disadvantage is that if I have a really great story about a crazy scientist who does crazy things (and boy do I have some) you probably can’t tell it because it might be the person who ends up voting on your tenure or reviewing your papers. The advantage is that when you write about something that is really interesting, you can go back to your lab and announce to everyone, “hey, guess what we are going to study.” So it was that I announced to my lab, earlier this year, “hey, part of what we will be studying is whether or not clean living is bad for you…and we are going to do it by letting people do science in their own houses about their own lives!” The broad project is called your wild life, though I don’t mind saying that wasn’t the title we started with.

The folks in my lab and I, along with Holly Menninger and Steve Frank, both also at North Carolina State University, and a whole tribe of scientists from the Nature Research Center have now teamed up with Noah Fierer and his crew (friends) at the University of Colorado Boulder, to do a bunch of fun things none of us could have imagined doing on his or her own⁶. Among them is a big study to sample the life, including but not exclusive to the microscopic life, in thousands of houses across North America. All of this is possible because we are enlisting citizens—you, your cousin, that other cousin no one talks to with the house that doesn’t have running water and your mom—to sample their own houses and, for a subset of more ambitious folks, collect data on the climate, and other habitat characteristics of their houses, from fridge to toilet rim. We want you to help us go boldly where few have gone before, into your bedroom. Wait, that didn’t sound right, but you get the idea.

We already have thousands of people signed up, people to whom we are sending sampling kits, but we will keep sampling until the money runs out because the more houses we are able to sample the more we will be able to tease apart how different elements of how you live (your air conditioning, your pets, your houseplants and even the size of your house) influence what species you live with, so please sign up and hopefully we will be able to get to your house too and in the meantime you can read about our progress and fun, whether or not your house has been sampled and participate in our other related studies about the life in your house, be it bacteria, ants, or crickets. Our goal is to sample enough houses that we can figure out what makes some houses rich in good (or at least benign) bacteria, fungi, pollen and even insects and others abundant in fewer species, some of them pathogens and dangerous pests. In the process, we want to engage people in being able to study their own lives, where big mysteries lurk (albeit sometimes in small bodies). We think part of the story will be climate, part will be urbanization and part will be just how houses are designed (which would be great, because it then allows us to think about how to better design homes), but we could be wrong. We are wrong all the time. That is the thing about writing and science. The story, no matter what its title, doesn’t always lead quite where you think it might. With any luck, it goes somewhere far more fun.

I love my job. The truth is, this story has already taken a fun turn, even before we have gotten the first results back about bacteria, fungi, archaea or pollen. We have already been wrong, in a way. We began our wild life project by asking citizens to tell us about the species in their houses. In doing so, we discovered that a mysterious, hopping, lunging, insect species no one knew was widespread is thriving in basements throughout North America. Is it in your basement, let us know by filling out a survey here.

5—The big caveat in this part of the story has to do with the issue of what it means to be a bacterial species “related to” a pathogen. Because Kembel and colleagues identified bacteria species based on relatively few of their genetic letters, it is easy to know who belongs in what clan, but any given clan is likely to have some wonderful folks and some outlaws. The genus Staphylococcus includes terrible, terrible, pathogens such as MRSA that can kill. It also includes the teddy bear of a species, Staphylococcus epidermidis, which lives all over your body and probably does you a fair number of favors, if you know what I mean. Well, what I mean is that it is a normal component of most human bodies and may even help to defend us against truly bad species, such as closely related pathogens. What all of this means is that the species Kembel calls similar to pathogens are similar, but might or might not be pathogens. What is needed as follow up is a study in which more of the nucleotides of the species present in the rooms are studied to conclusively separate outlaws and teddy bears. OK, that analogy has been taken too far, but the point is what Kembel offers here is not resolution but, instead, a clearly articulated version of a hypothesis with preliminary data, which is what I meant when I said, “maybe.”

6—I know, technically this is a footnote to a footnote. Welcome to my brain. But I wanted to point out two more people are also now involved in helping to make this big project a reality. Holly Menninger was recently at a meeting where, to the sound of fiddle music, she may have convinced Jonathan Eisen to help make the kinds of projects the citizens working with us can do more sophisticated (imagine identifying the bacteria in your house yourself at home) and Jason Bobe to help make the answers we get related to human health more relevant.

Images: Eating Kix off the floor: Chris and Jenni on Flickr; Hospital room with vent to the out of doors (Photo by Steven Kembel); Staphylococcus aureus: Microbe World on Flickr.

The Apollo 1 Command Module after the fire that claimed the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Credit: NASA.

NASA’s Apollo program began with one of the worst disasters the organization has ever faced. A routine prelaunch test turned fatal when a fire ripped through the spacecraft’s crew cabin killing all three astronauts. Today marks the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire, a tragic and preventable accident. There were warning signs, similar accidents that had claimed lives both in the United States and abroad. The Apollo 1 crew could have been saved from a gruesome death.

Plugs Out

L-R: Roger Chaffee, Ed White, and Gus Grissom training for their Apollo 1 flight. Credit: NASA.

The commander for Apollo 1 was Gus Grissom, one of the original Mercury astronauts whose first spaceflight was marred by his capsule’s sinking after splashdown. He flew again in Gemini in a spacecraft he named “Molly Brown.” Senior pilot on the Apollo 1 crew was Ed White, a Gemini veteran who made America’s first spacewalk in 1965. Rounding out the crew was pilot Roger Chaffee, a talented rookie more than capable of holding his own with his experienced crew mates. He was a notoriously good guy who took pains to thank everyone for their contributions to Apollo right down to the janitors.

By the end of January 1967, the crew was going through their final prelaunch tests; barring some major setback, they would make the first manned Apollo flight on February 21. One routine test NASA had done since Mercury was the “plugs out” test, a final check of the spacecraft’s systems.

The spacecraft - Command Module 12 - arrives at the Kennedy Spaceflight Centre clearly destined for Apollo 1. Credit: NASA.

The spacecraft was fully assembled and stacked on top of its unfuelled Saturn IB launch vehicle on pad 34. The umbilical power cords that usually supplied power were removed — the plugs were out — and the spacecraft switched over to battery power. The cabin was pressurized with 16.7 pounds per square inch (psi) of 100 percent oxygen, a pressure slightly greater than one atmosphere. With everything just as it would be on February 21, the crew went through a full simulation of countdown and launch.

A full launch-day staff of engineers in mission control also went through the simulation. The White Room, the room through which the astronauts entered the spacecraft, remained pressed next to the vehicle. A crew of engineers monitored the spacecraft and were just feet away from the astronauts.

Cosmonaut Bondarenko. Credit: spacefacts.de

Grissom, White, and Chaffee suited up and entered the Apollo 1 command module at 1pm and hooked into the spacecraft’s oxygen and communications systems. For the next five and a half hours, the test proceeded with only minor interruptions. Grissom’s complaint of a smell like sour buttermilk in the oxygen circulating through his suit was resolved after a short hold, and a high oxygen flow through the astronauts suits tripped an alarm. But these were minor problems and didn’t raise any red flags in mission control.

The real problem was communication. Static made it impossible for the crew and mission control to hear one another. An increasingly frustrated Grissom began to question how they were expected to get to the Moon if they couldn’t talk between a few buildings.

The Apollo 1 official crew portrait. L-R: Ed White, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee. Credit: NASA.

Just after 6:31 that evening, the routine test took a turn. Engineers in mission control saw an increase in oxygen flow and pressure inside the cabin. The telemetry was accompanied by a garbled transmission that sounded like “fire.” The official record reflects the communications problem. The transmission was unclear, but the panic was obvious as an astronaut yelled something like “they’re fighting a bad fire — let’s get out. Open ‘er up” or “we’ve got a bad fire — let’s get out. We’re burning up.” The static made it impossible to hear the exact words or even distinguish who was speaking.

But flames visible through the command module’s small porthole window left no doubt about what the crew had said. Engineers in the White Room tried to get the hatch open but couldn’t. It was an inward opening design, and neither engineers outside the spacecraft nor the astronauts inside were strong enough to force it open. The men in mission control watched helplessly as the scene played out on the live video feed.

The Apollo 1 crew in a less formal setting. L-R: Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee. Credit: NASA.

Just three seconds after the crew’s garbled report of a fire, the pressure inside the cabin became so great that the hull ruptured. Men wrestling with the hatch were thrown across the room as flames and smoke spilled into the White Room. Many continued to fight their way towards the spacecraft but were forced to retreat as the smoke grew too thick to see through. In mission control, the telemetry and voice communication from Apollo 1 went completely silent.

An hour and a half later, firemen and emergency personnel succeeded in removing the bodies; Ed White was turned around on his couch reaching for the hatch. Over the next two months, the spacecraft was disassembled piece by piece in an attempt to isolate the cause of the fire. The full investigation lasted a year.

The Apollo 1 crew floats around during water egress training. Credit: NASA.

The Apollo 1 accident review board determined that a wire over the piping from the urine collection system had arced. The fire started below the crew’s feet, so from their supine positions on their couches they wouldn’t have seen it in time to react. Everything in the cabin had been soaking in pure oxygen for hours, and flammable material near the wire caught fire immediately. From there, it took ten seconds for spacecraft to fill with flames.

The crew’s official cause of death was asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. Once their oxygen hoses were severed they began breathing in toxic gases. All three astronauts died in less than a minute. Many who had tried to save them were treated for smoke inhalation.

The Chamber of Silence

Astronaut Frank Borman's official Gemini era portrait. Borman was the astronaut's representative on the Apollo 1 accident review board. Credit: NASA.

The fire that claimed the lives of Grissom, White, and Chaffee is eerily similar to one that killed cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko in 1961. Bondarenko was known to his colleagues as a congenial and giving man with great athletic prowess who worked tirelessly to prove he deserved the honour of flying in space.

Part of the cosmonauts’ training was done in an isolation chamber designed to mimic the mental stresses spaceflight. The room, which the men called the Chamber of Silence, was spartan to say the least. It was furnished with a steel bed, a wooden table, a seat identical to what they would have in the Vostok capsule, minimal toilet facilities, an open-coil hot plate for warming meals, and a limited amount of water for washing and cooking. The chamber was pressurized to mimic the capsule’s environment in space. In this case, the oxygen concentration was 68 percent.

Ed White III touches his father's name on the Apollo 1 panel of the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Centre visitor complex. Credit: NASA.

During the test, cosmonauts would exercise mental agility with memory games using a wall chart with coloured squares. They would keep busy by reading or colouring — subjects were supplied with some leisure material. The silence was frequently interrupted by classical music to see how the subjects reacted to a pleasurable shock. Aside from these distractions, sensory deprivation inside the chamber was absolute. The room was mounted on thick rubber shock absorbers that muffled any vibrations from movement outside, and the 16-inch thick walls absorbed any sound. The cosmonauts communicated with doctors by lights. A light told the subject to apply medical sensors to his body, and a light outside the chamber signaled to doctors that they could begin their tests. A different light would signal the end of the isolation test.

The environment was designed to challenge the cosmonauts’ mental stability and adaptability. But the hardest part was that no subject knew beforehand how long his test would last. It could run anywhere from a few hours to weeks.

The Apollo 1 crew walks across the gantry before entering the spacecraft on January 27. Credit: NASA.

Bondarenko was the 17th cosmonaut to go into the Chamber of Silence and on March 23, his ten day test came to an end. A light signaled that technicians outside had started depressurizing the chamber to match the atmosphere outside. It was a routine part of the test, but this time it was interrupted by a fire alarm.

While he waited to leave the chamber, Bondarenko removed his biomedical sensors and wiped the adhesive off with rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad. In his haste to leave, and exhibiting the lack of concentration expected after ten days of mental testing, he didn’t look where he threw the pad. It landed on the hot plate’s coil. Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich theorized that he had been standing next to it at the time. Many subjects left the small heater on all the time to warm up the chilly room.

A dummy rides in a Vostok capsule seat. Credit: Associated Press.

A fire sparked and spread in an instant; everything, including Bondarenko, was saturated with a high concentration of oxygen. Technicians wrenched the door open and exposed the chamber to air, killing the fire instantly, but the damage was done. Doctors pulled a huddled and severely burnt Bondarenko from the room. “It’s my fault,” he whispered when doctors reached him, “I’m so sorry… no one else is to blame.” The severity of the fire was immediately obvious. Bondarenko’s wool clothes had melted onto his body and the skin underneath had burned away. His hair had caught fire. His eyes were swollen and melted shut.

In Moscow, surgeon and traumatologist Vladimir Julievich Golyakhovsky got a frantic call at his office; the severely burned patient was on his way. Ten minutes later, a team of men in military uniforms arrived carrying the blanket-wrapped cosmonaut. They were accompanied, Golyakhovsky later recalled, by an overwhelming smell of burnt flesh.

The damage to the Apollo 1 crew cabin, after the bodies were removed and before the disassembly began. Credit: NASA.

Bondarenko pleaded for something “to kill the pain.” Golyakhovsky obliged and gave the patient a shot of morphine in the soles of his feet. It was the one unscathed part of his body thanks to his heavy boots, and the only place the doctor could find a vein. There was nothing he could do to save the man’s life. Bondarenko died the next morning. The official cause was shock and severe burns.

Lessons at Home

Parallels between the Apollo 1 crew’s and Bondarenko’s deaths are obvious, but how each space agency dealt with the deaths was very different. Grissom, White, and Chaffee were each given very public funerals in accordance with their respective military traditions. Bondarenko’s death was kept secret, his identity covered by a pseudonym. Not until 1986 did the world hear the true story of his death. This has bred speculation that had the Soviet system been more open, NASA would have know about the dangers of training in a pressurized pure oxygen environment and could have saved the Apollo 1 crew. Former cosmonaut Alexei Leonov even suggested that the CIA knew about Bondarenko since the US had pierced the Iron Curtain before the accident.

But this is unlikely. And besides, NASA wouldn’t need to look to the Soviet Union to know the dangers of testing in a pressurized oxygen environment. There were enough incidents in the US to make the danger very clear. Four oxygen fires in the five years before the Apollo 1 accident were proof enough.

The Apollo 1 spacecraft nearing the end of the disassembly. Sometime towards the end of March, 1967. Credit: NASA.

On September 9, 1962, a fire broke out in a simulated spacecraft cabin at Brooks Air Force Base. The cabin was pressurized to 5psi with pure oxygen. Both subjects were protected by pressure suits. Neither sustained burns, but both were treated for smoke inhalation.

Two months later on November 16, four men had been inside the US Navy’s Air Crew Equipment Laboratory for 17 days in an environment pressurized to 5psi of 100 percent oxygen when an exposed wire arced and started a fire. It spread rapidly over the men’s clothing and hands for 40 seconds before they were rescued. All were treated for severe burns, and this was the only instance in which the source of the fire was identified.

Two Navy divers were killed on February 16, 1965 in a test of the Navy’s Experimental Diving Unit, which was pressurized to 55.6psi to mimic conditions at a depth of 92 feet. It was a multi-gas environment: 28 percent oxygen, 36 percent nitrogen, and 36 percent helium. Somehow, the carbon dioxide scrubbers that were designed to remove the toxic gas from the air caught fire. Pressure inside the chamber rose making it impossible for technicians outside to open the door and remove the men.

Gus Grissom's funeral procession. Credit: NASA.

A 1966 oxygen environment fire came frighteningly close to anticipating the Apollo 1 accident. A fire broke out during an unmanned qualification test of the Apollo Environmental Control System on April 28. The cabin was pressurized to 5psi of 100 percent oxygen, just like the spacecraft would be in flight. The fire was blamed on a commercial grade strip heater inside the cabin and the incident was consequently dismissed. The commercial material would not be onboard any manned flights. The board that investigated the accident made no mention of the hazardous environment.

A Lack of Imagination

The Apollo 1 mission patch. Credit: NASA.

These accidents weren’t secret. NASA knew the dangers of a pressurized oxygen environment, which has prompted conspiracy theorists to suggest that the space agency intentionally put the Apollo 1 crew in danger. But this was hardly the case. In truth, no one at NASA gave much thought to a fire in the spacecraft.

In the early 1960s when Apollo was in its preliminary stages, a dual gas system (likely oxygen and nitrogen) was proposed for the crew cabin. This would have been safer in the event of fire, but more difficult overall. A mixed gas environment requires more piping and wiring, which in turn adds weight. Pure oxygen was simpler, lighter, and was already familiar to NASA. The dual-gas idea was scratched.

NASA did address the possibility of a fire in the spacecraft, but only developed procedures for an event in space when the nearest fire station was 180 miles away. Apollo, like Mercury and Gemini, had no specific fire fighting system on board. The 5psi of oxygen in space was considered too thin to feed a significant fire. Anything that could spark in that environment could be taken care of with a few well aimed blasts from the astronauts’ water pistol.

Grissom's, White's, and Chaffee's death are the cover story of Life Magazine's February 10 issue. Credit: Life.

There was no procedure for a fire on the ground. With so many engineers on hand for every test, it was assumed that the astronauts would safe so long as fire extinguishers were nearby. But more importantly in the case of Apollo 1 is the plugs out test’s status: it wasn’t classified as dangerous.

Frank Borman, a Gemini veteran who would go to the Moon on Apollo 8, served as the astronaut’s representative to the Apollo 1 accident investigation board. He made this point about the plugs out test’s status abundantly clear. “I don’t believe that any of us recognized that the test conditions for this test were hazardous,” he said on record. Without fuel in the launch vehicle and all the pyrotechnic bolts unarmed, no one imagined a fire could start let alone thrive. Borman himself hadn’t thought twice when he went through the plugs out test before his Gemini 7 mission. He was confident in NASA and its engineers and stated on record that he would have gone through the Apollo 1 test had he been on the crew.

The Apollo 1 crew expressed their concerns over the Apollo spacecraft in a joke crew portrait. They said a little prayer, and gave the picture to the manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office Joe Shea in 1966. Credit: NASA.

Borman alluded to the Apollo 1 crew’s shared confidence. There had been problems with Apollo’w development, and every astronaut had the right to refuse to enter a spacecraft. “Although there are sometimes romantic silk-scarf attitudes attributed to this type of business, in the final analysis we are professionals and will accept risk but not undue risks,” explained Borman. The Apollo 1 crew felt the dangers were minimal.

With that statement, Borman identified what he considered the crux of the problem and the real reason, however indirect, behind the death of the crew. “We did not think,” he said, “and this is a failing on my part and on everyone associated with us; we did not recognize the fact that we had the three essentials, an ignition source, extensive fuel and, of course, we knew we had oxygen.”

A plaque commemorating the Apollo 1 crew on what's left of launch pad 34. Credit: Christopher K. Davis (via Wikipedia).

Gus Grissom serendipitously wrote his memoirs during the Gemini program. He addresses the inherent risk of spaceflight in the book’s final passage. “There will be risks, as there are in any experimental program, and sooner or later, inevitably, we’re going to run head-on into the law of averages and lose somebody. I hope this never happens… but if it does, I hope the American people won’t feel it’s too high a price to pay for our space program. None of us was ordered into manned spaceflight. We flew with the knowledge that if something really went wrong up there, there wasn’t the slightest hope of rescue. We could do it because we had complete confidence in the scientists and engineers who designed and built our spacecraft and operated our Mission Control Centre… Now for the moon.”

Though tragic, their deaths were not in vain. The substantial redesigns made to the Apollo command module after the fire yielded a safer and more capable spacecraft that played no small role in NASA reaching the moon before the end of the decade. It is a fitting tribute to the crew that the plaque on the pad where they perished reads “ad astra per aspera” — a rough road to the stars.

Suggested Reading:

- Official Apollo 1 site: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollo204/

- Colin Burgess and Rex Hall. The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team. 2009.

- Gus Grissom. Gemini. 1968.

- Apollo 204 Accident. Report of the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Science, United States. 1968. Available online: http://klabs.org/richcontent/Reports/Failure_Reports/as-204/senate_956/index.htm

- Report of the Apollo 204 Review Board to the Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 1968. Available online: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollo204/content.html

- Hearings Before the Subcommittee on NASA Oversight of the Committee on Science and Astronautics. 1967.

When I started reading my first copy of The Disappearing Spoon at 2 am local time in a Beijing hotel room, I was fascinated. I followed Kean readily into the introduction, beginning what I could only imagine would be a tantalizing journey through the periodic table.

I signed on for the prerequisite section ORIENTATION: COLUMN BY COLUMN, ROW BY ROW. We thought back to our first encounters with the periodic table, commiserated about high school exams, and pictured the blank table as a castle. We quickly moved on through our tour—mercury, bromine, top to bottom, east to west, periodic trends! And then, the F-shell elements! Lanthanides, lanthanides, lanthanides, atomic structure, Goeppert-Mayer, the end?! Where are the actinides, my beloved actinides?

It’s ok, I thought, it’s cool. A small oversight. I’m sure he’ll mention the actinides in the text. He must, I mean, really, how can you write about elemental hard-hitters like Marie Curie and Glenn Seaborg without mentioning the actinides? Kean will undoubtedly affirm the four years that I’ve spent in graduate school double-gloving over plastic sleeves, wearing a dosimeter, and stepping onto a hand-and-foot monitor for the sake of better understanding those pesky actinides, right?!

Wrong. Rather than acknowledge the actinides as an independent collection of elements with intriguing properties that have been used to do very big things although they are very much still full of mystery, Kean lumps them together with the lanthanides. He uses the word “actinide” exactly twice, but it is only used in conjunction with the word “lanthanide” when pointing out the two rows at the bottom of the periodic table. Sure, he briefly mentions individual actinide elements—thorium, uranium, and plutonium mostly—in later chapters with some assessment of how they were discovered and how they’ve been used, but he never even dips his toes into the still relatively uncharted waters of the bottom row.

Maybe, though, it’s not his fault.

According to Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who teaches a graduate level course on the chemistry of lanthanides and actinides, the treatment of the actinide elements in The Disappearing Spoon is comparable to the level of recognition that they receive in introductory level college chemistry courses.

“[Kean’s] book is symptomatic of how we educate people, even a chemistry major,” says Albrecht-Schmitt. “In a freshman chemistry course sequence, students learn nothing about actinides, and all they are told about lanthanides is that they are similar to one another.”

In light of worldwide emphasis on the future of energy, crippling incidents like Fukushima, and policies that leave the U.S. wondering what to do with decades worth of waste, the lack of attention given to the bottom row of the periodic table is a bit troubling.

“It’s mind-boggling,” says Albrecht-Schmitt, “that nearly 20 percent of the world’s energy is generated by uranium, but we don’t teach anything about uranium in freshman chemistry.”

The Reappearing Actinides: An Introduction

The modern study of actinides began more than 70 years ago reaching a climax during the Manhattan Project. In that time, they’ve played a vital role in weapons development, nuclear energy, and space exploration.

The most basic definition of the actinide series, comprised of elements 89 through 103, is that it results from the sequential filling of the 5f electron shell. All fifteen elements in the series are radioactive and have half-lives ranging from fractions of seconds to billions of years.

The radioactivity of the actinide elements is caused by their nuclear instability. In order to become more stable, the nucleus of an actinide element undergoes radioactive decay, releasing gamma rays, alpha particles, beta particles, or neutrons. This process of decay produces new daughter elements, which may be stable or radioactive. For example, the transformation of U-235 used in nuclear reactors results in the formation of radioactive, long-lived Np-237 through a process of neutron capture, gamma emission, and beta decay.

Understanding what may seem like the tiniest details about the actinides has important implications for environmental remediation of radioactive contaminants. Unlike the lanthanides, which occur primarily in the +3 oxidation state, the actinides generally have a large range of oxidation states—from +3 to +7. This becomes the most important distinction, a reason why the actinides must be studied independently of the lanthanides, in consideration of the environmental mobility of actinides.

If you would like to know more about what’s happening on the bottom row of the periodic table, check out recent research highlighted in Actinide Research Quarterly, a publication of the G. T. Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science.

I was soon flying towards the “dark side of the moon” and out into the Milky Way during a 3D presentation of the planets that was out of this world. I then eagerly entered the reception at The Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians where finally the opportunity to shoot presented itself and I took full advantage of capturing the guests, listening to speakers and meeting the editors and bloggers at Scientific American magazine in this magnificent setting.

The Beyond Planet Earth exhibit itself was also an excellent and fun place to shoot and I highly recommend checking out the exhibit yourself in person as there are many interactive apps and ways to explore! I have never had an opportunity like this before and I found the museum, discussions and science exhilarating! Perhaps, if there’s a next time, I can roller skate around the deserted museum taking photos and really bring “a night at the museum” to life!

Related:

Scientific American Tweet-Up at the American Museum of Natural History
Getting Ready for Scientific American Tweet-Up at the American Museum of Natural History

But though its call to political action is compelling and clear, Reinventing Discovery left me pondering a puzzle. A key obstacle to open science discussed in the book comes from within: from scientists, ourselves. Established, senior scientists—maybe the ones who are not on Facebook yet—are often painted as fearing the open science movement or trying to block it. But ironically, it may be up-and-coming scientists trying to build careers that perennially have good reasons to be secretive, reasons that the age of networking will never negate. I’ll call this puzzle the open science paradox.

As an example of how scientists themselves can be obstacles to open science, Nielsen describes how Galileo carefully concealed his discoveries from his scientific rivals. And Galileo took it devilishly further than that; he sent letters to Kepler, his rival, teasing him with announcements of his findings encoded in anagrams. That way, if someone else (e.g. Kepler) claimed to discover them first, Galileo would be able to prove that he’d beaten him by decoding the anagrams.

Now I have a permanent job, and I’m an open science acolyte. But when I was a postdoc, I felt and acted much more like Galileo in this example. This kind of secretiveness and competitiveness is a way of life for many of the postdocs and other young scientists I know.

Nielsen does not shy away from this problem. He suggests some potential long-term remedies that senior scientists and funding agency staff could push for. For example, maybe we more senior folks could implement new ways of measuring scientific output. When we’re judging a job applicant’s CV, instead of counting publications, we could count citations of his online preprints or downloads of his software.

But I would like to place on the table the likely possibility that this obstacle to open science will stand forever. That’s because I claim that to get a good job in science, you must brand yourself to compete on the job market. And there will always be young scientists striving to get jobs.

Let’s talk about branding for a moment: the art of making an indelible good impression on as many people as you can. To a marketing guru, branding is associated with getting to the market first, being the first name in everyone’s mind. For example, Al Ries and Jack Trout worked in the advertising department of General Electric and wrote a string of classic, best-selling books on marketing and branding together. As Ries and Trout point out in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, we all know Charles Lindbergh, but who was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic? You have to get there first and you have to let everyone know you did it.

Galileo concealed his discoveries, as Nielsen points out, to buy time during which he could capitalize upon them. That’s a branding strategy. It’s just like when Science or Nature place an embargo on a paper so they can have time to work up a press release and carefully time it. It makes a bigger splash if you make the announcement simultaneously via many news outlets with full color graphics and video than if you just go to your local newspaper with a half-baked story. Every MBA knows that you only get one chance to make a first impression, and a bigger splash means a stronger brand.

So maybe we will never create a completely open science environment for ourselves. Maybe attempts to enforce a completely open science environment would only turn into an arms race, with young scientists forced to develop new ways of branding themselves. I believe we will succeed in opening science wider with new policies and legislation and that we will all learn to embrace more networked approaches to problem solving. But the open science paradox stems from a truth that seems likely to be eternal: old scientists remember their first kiss more than their second, and young scientists know it.

In a commentary, psychologist Dario Maestripieri [ii] gushes that this study has finally demonstrated that “when it comes to personality men and women belong to two different species.”  In spite of the hoopla and pronouncements that men are indeed from Mars and women for Venus this study, and the commentaries, ignore that trying to assess and explain similarities and differences between human genders and sexes is very complicated and quite messy.  Apparently, it also makes people act a little silly.

There are three major problems with the conclusions being drawn from study:  a) “gender” and “sex” are used interchangeably, b) evolved differences in men and women are not being measured, and c) relevant biological and anthropological datasets are ignored.  Let me just review these problems and leave you with a plea for a bit of sanity and some scientific integrity when it comes to thinking and talking about men and women.

“Sex” and “Gender” are not the same thing.  Sex is a biological state that is measure via chromosomal content and a variety of physiological and developmental measures.  Gender is the roles, expectations and perceptions that a given society has for the sexes.  Most societies have two genders on a masculinity-femininity continuum, some have more.  The two are interconnected, but not the same thing.  We are born with a sex, but acquire gender and there is great inter-individual diversity within societies and sexes in regards to how sex and gender play out in behavior and personality.  There is an extensive body of literature demonstrating this, but many researchers interested only in definitive distinctions between men and women choose to disregard it.

To measure evolutionary differences in behavior within a species is extremely difficult, but there are at least two basic methodological approaches that are required. First, assessments must be comparative across more than one population of the species of interest. Second the traits being measured must have some way of being linked or connected with heritable aspects of human physiology or behavior that has an effect on overall fitness, and they must be assessed via measures that are accessible, and replicable, across different populations in the species.  Del Giudici et al. used a large questionnaire sample of mostly white, educated Americans.  Relative to the global diversity in cultural structure, this is a limited sample and not a comparative evolutionary one for the species.

Their data come from assessments of 15 personality variables using scales such as “reserved vs. warm,” “serious vs lively,” “tolerates disorder vs. perfectionistic,” and “shy vs socially bold.”  These are indeed personality assessments but they are mired in cultural contexts and meanings, not easily transferable across human societies in time and space, and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to connect, quantitatively, to any aspect of human physiology, neurology, or other structured, identifiable, target for natural selection to act on.  Also, these are most likely not static traits of individuals, but rather dynamic states that are fluid over the lifetime.

Finally, when talking about evolved differences in behavior between males and females one cannot make statements like “when it comes to personality men and women belong to two different species”  without noting the biological reality that we are, indeed, the same species.  There are no consistent brain differences between the sexes [iii], there is incredible overlap in our physiological function [iv], we engage in sexual activity in more or less the same patterns [v], and we overlap extensively in most other behavior as well. There are some interesting re-occurring differences, particularly in patterns of aggression and certain physiological correlates of reproduction, muscle density, and body size.  However, anthropological datasets show enormous complexity in how and why men and women behave the ways that they do [vi].  Studies in human biology and anthropology regularly demonstrate a dynamic flexibility and complex biocultural context for all human behavior, and this is especially true for gender.

Del Giudici et al. and Maestripieri are trying to counter Janet Shibley-Hyde’s “gender similarities hypothesis” [vii] because they “know” that men and women are more different than similar.  There are many valid points of contention in regards to Shibley-Hyde’s seminal paper and Del Giudici et al. bring up an important methodological one, but do not provide an actual assessment and analysis of the overall data set and meta-analyses that Shibley-Hyde used [viii].   My concern is not so much with some good back and forth in the peer reviewed literature, rather it is with the blogospheres’ and the public’s response to the article and to yet another flare-up in over simplistic assertions about the way that men and women “are” by nature.

There is something about avidly trying to prove men and women are different, or the same, that makes people lose their mind a bit.  No matter how much some want it to be true, it is just not that simple; there are no clear cut and easy answers to why we do what we do, and why men and women sometimes have problems getting along. To ignore the enormous wealth of data on how men and women are similar AND different and to try to tackle this enormously complex reality via one-dimensional approaches is just poor science.

Ama Dablam

Kanchha, our Sherpa guide, took off at an unexpectedly fast pace along what seemed little more than a dry and dusty yak track.  We chased after him as best we could, affected as we were by the combination of altitude and the large lunch we had just consumed at the teahouse at Thokla.

Our destination was Chola Tsho, a large glacial lake contained in a valley formed by two comparatively minor peaks, Awi (17,208 feet) and Arakam Tse (21,073 feet), and held in place by the Chola glacier.  The trail undulated radically (ironically, the locals call this type of terrain “Sherpa flat”), and so it took us close to 40 minutes to walk the 1.5 miles around the hill to the lake.  I had read several articles about the effects of climate change on glacial lakes in this region and was keen to visit one myself to try to understand the problem.

I was in Nepal, trekking in the Himalayas toward the base camp at Mount Everest.  Since I was a boy growing up in England, I had dreamed of walking through these mountains and maybe even one day of climbing to the top of some of the highest peaks on Earth.  Now I was here, on a site visit exploring the possibilities of establishing a program to bring students and alumni to this magnificent place.

The scale and beauty of the Khumbu region was beyond anything I had experienced elsewhere, and while I relished each beautiful day of hiking, it was clear that this region is suffering from the effects of global climate change. It reminded me of the canary in the coalmine; changes in this highly sensitive region appear to presage significant global changes that might dramatically affect all human existence.

Average temperatures in Nepal have risen 1.8oF between 1971 and 1994, with the most extreme increases noted during the dry winter months. This was twice that of similar mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere warming trends over the same time period and was especially great in the Himalayan ranges where we were hiking.

Chola Tsho sits at an altitude of 15,150 feet, and we were several hundred feet higher up the hill, yet even in early December the skies were clear and the daytime temperature reached the mid-60s. Although extremely comfortable and photogenic, this did not feel right.

Anecdotal reports, both published and from our guides, suggest that snowfall amounts at higher elevations between November and January have decreased significantly over recent years, and that the monsoon season, normally between May and September, is becoming less reliable. In other words, it seemed as though we were witnessing the effects of climate change firsthand.

It was not just the smaller peaks that were showing signs of stress; even the summit of Everest itself is affected.  According to published witness reports by Apa Sherpa, who in 2011 at the age of 50 climbed Everest for a record 21st time, there is less snow on the mountain. “The snow along the slopes had melted, exposing the bare rocks underneath, which made it very difficult for us to walk up the slope, as there was no snow to dig our crampons into,” he said. “This has made the trail very dangerous for all climbers.”

Downstream Chola Lake

Apa reports that some expeditions no longer have to melt snow for drinking and cooking at Camp 2 at 21,300 feet, and that he saw running water around Camp 4 on the South Col at 26,000 feet for the first time in 2009. He describes that weather patterns have changed dramatically in the foothills, too, and that potato yields and yak numbers have declined.

Other crops now grow at higher altitudes and have longer growing seasons than in the past. On our trek from Lukla (9,400 feet) to Namche Bazaar (11,280 feet) a few days earlier, we had passed many gardens with healthy crops of cabbage, garlic and bok choy growing far later in the season than they used to, according to our guides. Mosquitoes were found in Namche for the first time in 2008, and there are even reports of houseflies at Everest Base Camp at 17,300 feet. Similarly, we were surprised to see a butterfly hitchhike on the sleeve of one of the Sherpa at 15,000 feet during one of our hikes.

Upstream Chola Glacier

All these observations are consistent with the effects of climate change in this region.

At that moment, the milky green waters of Chola Tsho faced us. Like other glacial lakes in the region, it has been growing as a result of increased snowmelt from the surrounding peaks and from the retreating glacier itself. If trends continue, it seems likely that the moraine dam holding the lake in place will fail, releasing a massive inland tsunami of water and rock to wash down the valley toward the small town of Pheriche.

In the next valley to the southeast, an even more dangerous lake, Imja Tsho, sits at the base of Imja Tse (Island Peak). This lake, now up to a mile and a half long, over a quarter mile wide and 300 feet deep and the fastest growing major glacial lake in Nepal, is the subject of intense international scrutiny by scientists seeking to understand the nature of the risk.

If—or is it when—the lake bursts through its moraine dam, a wall of rock, mud and water will sweep down the valley, destroying homes and land for a generation. The town of Dingboche, where we stayed for two nights to acclimate to the high altitude, is in the path of this predicted GLOF and would undoubtedly be completely destroyed. Following similar warnings a few years ago, some residents moved their livestock to higher ground and evacuated the town. As described to us by our guides, they returned after a few days without incident but remain uneasy about the prospects of a catastrophe.

Ama Dablam Yak

Chola and Imja are just two lakes that threaten this region. Seven miles to the west of Chola Tsho lies the Gokyo valley and the Ngozumpa glacier, which flows from Cho Oyo, at 26,906 feet the world’s sixth tallest mountain. The moraine field at the southern end of the glacier has created Spillway Lake, which has the potential to reach four miles long, six-tenths of a mile wide and 350 feet deep. This lake, fed by a series of smaller lakes sitting on the surface of ice interconnected by caverns and subglacial streams, has been observed to drain and refill within a matter of days as ice melts upstream.

Significant though these local changes are, they pale next to the loss of the Himalayan glacial system as a whole. Here, glaciers are retreating faster than anywhere else on earth, and predictions suggest they may all disappear within 50 years. It is estimated that 1.3 billion people live in regions affected by the Himalayan system, either in flood-prone areas or through their reliance on reliable glacier-derived fresh water. Huge areas of Asia could become uninhabitable if these rivers of ice are lost.

Chola Lake

We had spent close to an hour overseeing Chola Tsho, taking photos and considering how change will surely come to this region, before our guide, with a grin on his face, brought us back to task. We had to get moving if we were to reach our destination at Lobuche, two miles and another 1,500 feet higher up the track to the north, before the sun set behind Cholatse.

Under the clear, warm skies of December, watching rivers roar downstream carrying melt water from Everest south to the plains of Nepal and beyond, I was struck by conflicting feelings of privilege, awe, guilt and humility.  As we climbed up a steep slope to rejoin the trail, struggling once again to keep up, I thought about how long this unique environment could stay the way it is. How was it that the Sherpa we met were so friendly and welcoming and seemed not to harbor any grudge against the outside world that caused these problems? Could local solutions to relieve glacial lake pressures be developed in time to avoid catastrophe? Were global solutions to combat climate change even possible in this hyper-political world? What could I do?

Back in the United States, with time to reflect on these experiences, I think the best thing that I can do is tell people what I learned: that the canary isn’t doing so well these days.

Images by author.

As someone who has spent most of high school and college playing this beloved game, this was music to my ears.

His latest book, Guitar Zero, now available, is the culmination of his work as a student of guitar, music enthusiast and researcher of learning. It joins the ranks of some excellent psychology of music books including Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia, Daniel Levitin’s This Is Your Brain on Music and John Ortiz’ The Tao of Music.

But Guitar Zero is different. Yes, Marcus delves into the academic side of things, but he is also personal. He devotes several chapters to explain his struggles with congenital arrhythmia, learning music theory, playing instruments and he shares wonderful stories from his adventures at Day Jams, “a summer camp where kids ages eight to fifteen learn to play and compose rock and roll,” with his band “Rush Hour.” What comes out is a lighthearted memoir filled with wonderful insights about music and the human mind. Compared to popular psychology books written from the expert’s point of view, Guitar Zero is a refreshing glimpse into the mind of the amateur.

Most interesting was a chapter on what makes successful music. When I spoke with him about the book he told me that most great music finds a balance between familiarity and novelty – a belief that strikes a similar chord with his contemporaries. He explained that, “we enjoy it when we predict something accurately, this is why we like a steady drum beat. But we get a real reward for novelty.” This made a lot of sense to me. We like the verse-chorus 120 bpm structure that most popular music is built off of, but as any one hit wonder will tell you, too much familiarity is boring. At the same time, people don’t necessarily like too much novelty. Just look at John Cage’s “4:33”, a three-piece movement entirely void of notes, or “Changes of Music,” a composition purposely open for the playing of random notes. Listening to these pieces can be irritating and annoying because there is a complete lack of familiarity.

Our propensity to look for a balance between familiarity and novelty in music may have an evolutionary explanation. As Marcus quipped, we are “informavores,” to suggest that, “we like to find new stuff.” Music may simply be an outlet for this trait; it “exploits the human pleasure system” by giving it what it wants, which is why Steven Pinker refers to it as “auditory cheesecake.”

This provokes the question: why do some people have favorite songs that they listen to over and over again?

One reason is that, as Marcus explained, “we are actually not that good at storing detailed representations of songs in our heads.” This means that although we listen to some songs over and over again, we aren’t actually hearing the same song over and over again. Each time around we pick up something new, gain a sense of novelty and get a reward as a result.

This is not the case for experts who tend to habituate to songs much faster. Marcus spends a chapter on expert musicians to explain the difference between them and us. (He was lucky enough to interview Pat Metheny, Terre Roche and Tom Morello.) “Unlike novices or even ordinary experts,” he told me, “true masters are always exploring new techniques and developing a new repertoire.” This is why many of the greatest musicians spent their careers trying to push boundaries by writing material that replaced the familiar with the novel. It’s Dylan going electric, the Ramones going Punk or Pittsburgh’s Girl Talk relying entirely on other art to create new art; these examples and more demonstrate that replacing some familiarity with novelty can be ultimately more enjoyable for the listener.

Another question Marcus asks in Guitar Zero is what, relative to other aesthetics, makes music good. It’s a deep question that influenced philosophers and authors alike throughout the ages: Nietzsche remarked that without music life would be a mistake and Huxley famously confessed, “after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” Marcus explained to me that, “the amazing thing about music relative to some other arts but not all, is that you can really get both of the rewards – familiarity and novelty – at the same time. You can have the familiar in a melody, but you can also change the lyrics or instrumentations to be novel. You have all of these techniques for allowing you to simultaneously get a kick (of dopamine) for successfully predicting a song and appreciating something new and interesting.” Agreed.

By the end of the book Marcus answers his original question: Can a Middle-Aged Dog Learn New Guitar Tricks? There is a surprisingly little amount of scientific literature on whether adults can pick up an instrument later on in life. There is the often-cited 10,000-hour rule, which describes how expertise requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice and the so-called “critical period” theory, which says that if you want to learn something, start early. So how did Marcus, who first picked up the plastic Guitar Hero guitar at age 38 do?

It didn’t take him too long to conquer Guitar Hero (on medium), which he described as a gateway drug to other instruments. Next, he turned to a real acoustic guitar, learning music theory and taking lessons. Now, a couple years later, he can strum a tune on the real thing, and more importantly, he feels comfortable making up his own music – something that he finds to be pleasurable and immensely satisfying. “I might never be Jimi Hendrix” Marcus confesses near the end of Guitar Zero, “[but] I was able to create sounds and textures I had never heard before… for a brief moment I could sense what it was like to explore a new musical landscape.”

(Be sure to check out Marcus’ iphone app “3-in-1 Improviser”, which he personally designed. It allows users to compose, conduct and improvise original music. It was launched at the World Science Festival this summer and was mentioned in The New York Times.)

I want to personally thank Professor Marcus for the interview and friendly correspondence. It was a pleasure.

Images: 1 and 2 from Gary Marcus, 3 from Wikipedia (will update link to the original image later, after Wikipedia blackout lifts)

(Disclaimer: details of this story have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.)

Six months into medical school, I learned the place I feel most like a doctor is not in class or in the hospital. It is at home, with my family.

Last month, I had the pleasure of visiting my family for a long holiday break. I was greeted with a barrage of innocuous medical questions. My father wanted to know about his arthritis medication. My aunt was more concerned about her headaches.

“You should ask your doctor,” I said each time, summoning my template response. I was not frustrated; questions like these I expected, and I knew how to handle.

A week later, my parents received a phone call. It was a close friend, saying he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

My parents were devastated. I wanted to play the part of caring daughter, supporting a grief-stricken family. I had no interest in playing local medical expert. I wanted to offer comfort, not wisdom.

But the questions inevitably came. My mother came to my room that evening holding a pad filled with questions she scribbled down from the phone conversation. For the first time, I was forced to confront the boundaries of my role.

It is plainly wrong for a first-year medical student to offer any sort of advice. Yet as she progressed through her questions, it felt wrong, too, to plead blanket ignorance. Some of her questions seemed purely academic.

Did I advise on the course of treatment the friend was considering? No. Give a prognosis? Of course not.

But did I explain how someone who never smoked a cigarette in his life can still get lung cancer? And how cancer can be genetic, even if someone is the first in the family to get it? Yes and yes.

I paused at the phrasing of my mother’s next question. “Lung cancer is one of the bad ones. Right?”

***

I have heard several stories of cancer survivors who, years later, did not remember much of the beginning of their illness, but had it tattooed on their brain how long they were told they were going to live. For this reason, my clinical preceptors recommend steering clear of hard and fast numbers when talking to individuals. Rather, doctors should emphasize that each patient’s situation is unique.

The lesson I got from these stories is that when you are in the medical profession, your words matter. People have a special propensity for recalling anything that can be interpreted as a prognosis.

The same holds true for those just perceived to be in the medical profession. And, like it or not, a first-year medical student falls into this category.

What I realized from going home is that I can now state an objective medical fact – and have it interpreted as a personal diagnosis. I do not speak all that differently from how I spoke six months ago. Yet I am heard differently.

Talking about lung cancer, as an illness, is not the same as talking about our family friend’s lung cancer. But to my parents, it could be taken that way.

I do understand my mother’s motivation in asking. I ask my computer scientist friend when something goes wrong with my computer, and I feel fortunate that my friends have skills to impart to me informally. I would probably feel mildly offended if he waved his hands and said he was unqualified to say anything. But you know more than I do, I would probably say. Come on – tell me something.

Is medicine different? Certainly. It’s inherently about human life. But is it fundamentally, categorically different?

Just because I am in medical school, am I no longer allowed to state objective scientific facts, because they might be deciphered incorrectly? How much of someone else’s interpretation is my responsibility?

I chose my words carefully. “For some people, the symptoms of lung cancer can be subtle or mistaken for other respiratory problems, so it’s tough to catch early. The course of treatment depends on several factors, like the size of the tumor and whether it has spread,” I offered.

***

People ask questions for many reasons. They might be genuinely curious. Or, they might have a vested interest in the answer.

I spent my holiday break walking a moral tightrope between providing information and censoring myself for fear of misinterpretation. I was torn between wanting to educate and worrying I would somehow mislead. Between trying to help, while being cautious not to overstep my boundaries.

The simple solution to my dilemma is: say nothing. Say: “ask your doctor.” Say: “I’m sorry, but this is not my role.”
But, choose to say anything more, and you must always consider how it might be construed. What can be read between the lines. What can be taken out of context.

While I do not think it is feasible to hide behind a mask of invariable silence whenever the topic of medicine arises, I do think part of my new role is being more sensitive to gauging the asker’s motivations and adjusting my answers accordingly. Whether I feel like a doctor or not, I am aware that I am seen as speaking from a different position than I was a year ago.

I was careful to remind my parents that every patient’s situation is unique, that I am far, far from a physician, and that I am not involved in their friend’s care and therefore don’t know the details of his situation. Yet I still wonder if I spoke irresponsibly.

Sometimes, there is no bright line between information and advice.

It would be unfair to say that another’s misreading of my words is entirely on my shoulders. But I think I’d be just as reckless in blinding myself to the possibility.

Image: VIC CVUT at Wikimedia Commons

Researchers in the United Kingdom have demonstrated for the first time a phenomenon known as inattentional deafness. It seems when we are concentrated on a highly involved visual task, we block out auditory information around us that is unrelated to the task at hand. In other words, we may be involuntarily putting sounds “on mute” while we concentrate on activities that take a great deal of our attention visually and and this can turn us into poor listeners.

Inattentional Blindness:

Now we have all probably heard of something called “inattentional blindness” and the infamous visual awareness test that Chabris and Simons conducted back in 1999 in which one is asked to watch a video and count the number of times a basketball is passed by one of two teams. If you haven’t seen it, it was similar to the following video. Check it out!

Visual Awareness Test (by dothetest.co.uk):

In the original version of this test, also known as the “invisible gorilla” experiment by Chabris and Simons, the mental task of counting passes had about 50% of viewers so distracted that they were visually unaware of the gorilla walking (or in this case, the bear moonwalking) right into the middle of the screen. A moonwalking bear, hello? A gorilla beating on his chest? Come on! (For the record, I missed both!)

Perhaps you have also heard about the study that came out in 2009 in which distracted cell phone users were visually unaware of a clown on a unicycle passing them as they were walking and chatting away on their phone. I mean, really. How could you not notice a clown pedaling right passed you on a unicycle!

Visual awareness has been well researched and there are many interesting studies out there on how distractions can take away from your vision. If you’d like to have a little more fun with it, I will list a couple of other videos at the end of this post. But for now let’s turn our attention towards hearing and distractions causing a decrease in our auditory awareness. What is this newly named phenomenon of inattentional deafness?

Inattentional Deafness:

In May 2011, Macdonald and Lavie set up a series of experiments putting the theory of inattentional deafness to the test. They found subjects were able to hear a beeping sound being played through headphones while they performed a visual task on the computer if the task was relatively easy but as the level of difficulty of the visual task increased, they became unaware that a sound was even there.

The setup of the experiment went like this. On the computer screen, a series of crosses were presented to participants, one by one, each for a short interval. The cross had one green arm and one blue arm and the lengths of the arms on the cross varied slightly. Each person was asked to either indicate which arm was blue or judge which arm was longer. Determining color was thought to be a very easy visual task with a low amount of perceptual load. Conversely, participants who were asked to detect the subtle difference in length of the two arms were said to have a more challenging task, requiring more visual attention and therefore having to endure a higher perceptual load.

The experiment had three parts. In the first part, experiment 1, white noise was played through the headphones and participants were told that they were to wear the headphones throughout the experiment. Researchers said the white noise would “aid concentration by blocking out noise from people passing the testing room…[according to researchers] participants seemed to take this instruction at face value and did not seem suspicious [of the need to] block out the sound of people passing by.”

During the last cross presentation, the white noise was accompanied by a beeping sound. Participants were then stopped and asked at the end if they had heard “anything different about the sound coming through the headphones during the last trial?” Their response was noted. Then they were asked to perform one more trial in which they were told to ignore the cross and just listen to the sound coming through the headphones to make sure each person had good enough hearing to detect the sound. If they didn’t hear it when they were actively listening for it, then they were excluded from the study and replaced.

From the results in Experiment 1, Macdonald and Lavie concluded that their hypothesis was in fact correct. At times when a higher visual load was presented (determining length of the arms of the cross), the participants were less likely to hear the task-unrelated tone sounding through their headphones.

However, they wanted to prove their point further so they did a second experiment without the white noise. They thought that maybe the presence of white noise could possibly cause subjects to actively ignore all noise during the entire experiment. By taking away the white noise from the headphones, the presence of sound (versus natural silence) should be easier to detect and therefore be more noticeable. They found that, again, when the participants had the more dauntingly visual task of detecting the subtle difference in the length of the arms on the cross, they were a lot less likely to notice the beeping sound being played through the headphones, even in the absence of all other sound. So again, if a task takes a lot of visual concentration and attention, it can cause a decrease in auditory awareness. Now you think they would stop there, but Macdonald and Lavie took it to the next level once more.

In experiment 3, they sought to eliminate the possibility that those who were on the low perceptual load team were a little aloof during the experiment and those who were on the high perceptual load team maybe were a little more motivated, engaged and attentive because of the nature of their work being a little harder. So they made it a length only discrimination task where each person was asked nothing about color, only which arm of the cross was longer. Sometimes the difference in lengths between the arms of the cross was grossly obvious, other times it was subtle. They also increased the number of trials presented. Macdonald and Lavie found that still, those with a higher perceptual load (distracted with determining a more subtle difference in arm length) heard the sound less often than those who had the easier visual task of the more grossly obvious difference in cross arm length. Their results were “not as robust” but they were still there.

More studies need to be conducted on inattentional deafness to truly see how it affects our everyday lives. Macdonald and Lavie have concerns about inattentional deafness and driving a motor vehicle stating that if people were “less likely to notice an auditory alarm while engaged in a high-visual-load computer task, [then] the sound of a car horn while attending to a visually loaded billboard” also might pose a problem. Safety out on the roadways is definitely a concern.

Perhaps another interesting modification to the study would be to replace the tone sounding through the headphones with a person’s voice saying a word. Maybe a bizarre word that you wouldn’t just happen to overhear in the laboratory like zebra or halloween. Would the participant be completely unaware of human speech like it was of the tone when engaged in a highly visual task?

After researching this topic, I know I will be practicing more patience when I catch someone not listening to me. It may not have been intentional. And also I pledge to put down the smartphone and have some real “face-time” with the person sitting right across the table from me the next time I’m out for coffee. After all, they are deserving of my undivided attention. My emails, texts and tweets can wait. Unless of course I see a moon-walking bear, then all bets are off, sorry guys, I have to tweet pic that.

Additional tests of your visual awareness:

The Colour Changing Card Trick (by Richard Wiseman/Quirkology):

Test Your Awareness: Whodunnit? (by dothetest.co.uk ):

Also, check out the fun book by Chabris and Simons, The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions deceive us.

Photo Credits: Man with glasses (Matt Jeacock /istockphoto), i-distractions and Author pic (Erica Angiolillo/Gotcha! by Erica), Bear (Trine de Florie /stockxchg photo).

References:

Boss, M. Caggiano, J. Hyman, I. McKenzie, K. Wise, B. (2010) Do You See the Unicycling Clown? Inattentional Blindness While Walking and Talking on a Cell Phone. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 24:597-607.

Chabris C. and Simons, D. (2011) The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions deceive us. New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Macdonald JS and Lavie N. Visual perceptual load induces inattentional deafness. Atten Percept Psychophys. 2011 Aug; 73(6):1780-9. doi: 10.3758/s13414-011-0144-4

“I back away from conscious thought and turn the problem over to my unconscious mind. It will scan a broader array of patterns and find some new close fits from other information stored in my brain.” –Arthur Fry, Co-creator of the Post-it note

The idea that consciousness involves different streams of thought has a long history. Paul Bakan has shown that as early as the medieval writings in the Zohar, one of the books of the Jewish mystical biblical commentaries in the Kabala, one finds a distinction between two forms of cognitive thinking: hokma, or wisdom and binah, or intelligence. The former has been linked to the right brain and to synthetic mental processes, and the latter has been linked to the left brain and to analytic thought. This conception of a dual nature of ongoing mental processing is also traceable to the early flowering of neurological research and theory in the works of A.L. Wigan and J. Hughlings Jackson. This early work suggested that there might indeed be two forms of thinking, propositional or verbal-analytic and representational or what we might today call narrative or experiential.

While cerebral research in the latter half of the 20^th Century focused relatively gross linkages of such forms of thought to left and right brain hemispheres, recent technological advances in brain imaging are suggesting a revival and resurgence of scientific explorations into both psychological-behavioral and neuroscience evidence bearing on possible dualities of ongoing conscious processes. Daniel Kahneman’s recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow, describes modern research on the two systems of the mind. “System 1” thought processes operate automatically, process information fast, are heavily influenced by context, biology and past experience, aid humans in mapping and assimilating newly acquired stimuli into preexisting knowledge structures, and are self-evidently valid (experience alone is enough for belief). In contrast, “System 2” thought processes are deliberately controlled, effortful, intentional, and require justification via logic and evidence.

While Kahneman’s book, and his research, has been influential in psychology and economics in helping us understand the fallibility of human reasoning and decision making, we think his emphasis on the fallibility of System 1 overlooks the important adaptive value of System 1 for creative thought and imagination. System 1 is a broad system, comprising evolutionary adaptive tendencies, domain-specific expertise acquired during an individual’s learning lifetime, episodic memories, gut feelings, and implicit learning capacities. Reflecting the diversity of System 1 processes, there are many different dual-process theories, and different theorists emphasize different aspects of System 1. While it’s certainly true that there are moments where our inability to use System 2 to override System 1 can lead to errors in reasoning and decision making, we also think there are crucial moments when one can fail to use System 1 to override System 2!

In a hot-off-the press article in Journal of Personality, Paul Norris and Seymour Epstein (a highly influential dual-process theorist and originator of the cognitive-experiential self-theory), found that an experiential thinking style (System 1), but not a rational thinking style (System 2) was positively associated with performance measures of creativity, humor, aesthetic judgment, and intuition, as well as self-report measures of empathy and social popularity. A rational thinking style was associated some measures of adjustment, and both thinking styles were positively related to personal growth. Interestingly, what people reported about their own thinking style tended to agree with other people’s observations of their thinking style. As Norris and Epstein note,

“The two systems have unique disadvantages as well as advantages. Thus, the rational system [System 2], although superior to the experiential system [System 1] in abstract thinking, is inferior in its ability to automatically and effortlessly direct everyday behavior, and the experiential system, although superior in directing everyday behavior is inferior in its ability to think abstractly, to comprehend cause-and-effect relations, to delay gratification, and to plan for the distant future. Since each system has equally important advantages and disadvantages, neither system can be considered superior to the other system.”

Similar ideas can also be found in new conceptualizations of human intelligence. According to the recent Dual-Process theory of Human Intelligence, neither mode of thought is absolutely more important than the other. Instead, the key to both intelligence and creativity is the ability to flexibly switch between different modes of thought depending on the task demands.

To put things in perspective, here’s a summary of a number of findings over the years showing the positive and negative attributes associated with a rational and experimental thinking style (adapted from the recent Norris and Epstein article):

What a terrific list of positive attributes to have! It would be nice to have all of the positive attributes, while minimizing the negative effects of each, no?

One of the wonders of System 1 is its ability to feed creative insights to System 2. This often happens precisely when System 2 is taking a rest. Kahneman calls it “lazy” to let down your System 2, but our interviews even with scientists suggest that it is “very hard” to sustain long sequences of abstract thought. Not only that, instead of being lazy, it may sometimes be genius. Many famous anecdotes exist about the benefits of incubation, or time away from a task, for coming up with creative insights to a problem. In recent years, scientific findings support the importance of letting the mind incubate.

In a recent study, Jonathan Smallwood and his colleagues found that participants who were given an easy task conducive to mind-wandering during an incubation period showed greater improvements in creativity compared to those who engaged in a demanding task, had quiet rest, or no break during the incubation period. In fact, the individuals who were induced to mind wander showed an improvement of 40% compared to their baseline level of creative performance! What’s going on here? The researchers raise the possibility that “mind-wandering may enhance creativity by increasing the likelihood of non-conscious associative processing, consistent with the spreading activation hypothesis for incubation effects.” In other words, when we allow our minds to wander, we may be increasing the chances that System 1 will make creative associations for us.

Of course, System 1 isn’t doing all the work. The most creative insights typically involve some sort of surprising interaction between the current contents of your working memory and the long-term memories stored in System 1. A recent fascinating experiment confirms this view. The researchers investigated the functional brain characteristics of participants while they engaged in a task involving the ability to constantly update the contents of working memory. None of their subjects had a history of neurological or psychiatric illness, and all had intact working memory abilities. They administered two different versions of the same working memory task during the fMRI scanning session, one version requiring much more concentration than the other.

Participants were asked to display their creativity in a number of ways: generating unique ways of using typical objects, imagining desirable functions in ordinary objects and imagining the consequences of “unimaginable things” happening. The creativity test they used has been linked in prior studies to Openness to Experience and frequency of visual hypnagogic experiences (e.g. lucid dreaming, hallucinations), which in turn have been associated with vividness of mental imagery.

The researchers found that the more creative the participant, the more activity in their default brain network was altered. The default network brain areas are most active when individuals are focused on the contents of System 1 (their internal stream of consciousness). In this study, creative individuals had the most difficulty suppressing the precuneus area of their default brain network while engaging in the more effortful working memory task. The precuneus is the area of the default network that typically displays the highest levels of activation during rest (when a person is not focusing on an external task). The precuneus has been linked to self-related mental representations and episodic memory retrieval.

How is this conducive to creativity? According to the researchers, “Such an inability to suppress seemingly unnecessary cognitive activity may actually help creative subjects in associating two ideas represented in different networks.” In other words, the most creative individuals were those that had the working memory abilities to solve the effortful task but also had an ‘open mind’ to allow the wandering thoughts coming in from System 1 to make creative connections. In a sense, these creative folks were simultaneously able to live in a dream state while concentrating on the outside world. That’s quite a juggling act, but creative people seem to be able to do it more fluidly than others!

Intriguingly, prior research has shown a similar inability to deactivate the default network among schizophrenic individuals and their relatives (who are more likely to have schizotypy). This doesn’t mean that mindwandering is necessarily pathological. The key to functional creativity is the ability to keep System 1’s internal stream of consciousness “on call” while being able to concentrate on an external task. It appears it’s conducive to creativity to go out of your mind just a little bit, just as long as you can eventually come back to reality.

Another recent study from Jonathan Schooler’s lab supports the importance of both thought processes for creativity. Individuals completed a creativity test requiring the ability to identify a word in common with other words. While they completed the task, they were caught zoning out by the experimenter, and were also given the chance to report when they caught themselves mind wandering. Participants also completed a measure of inhibition, requiring them to read aloud four short stories while ignoring certain portions of the text.

While zoning out was detrimental to creativity, those who caught themselves mind wandering performed best on a measure of creativity. Those catching themselves mind wandering also showed the highest levels of inhibitory control. These results are consistent with a recent study conducted by Jennifer McVay and Michael Kane, who found that those with the best inhibitory control are the ones who catch themselves mind wandering and have low zone out rates. This study goes beyond those findings though by also highlighting the importance of mindwandering: “This study suggests that both creative thought and mind-wandering may both depend on being able to gain mental distance from what you are doing while maintaining meta-awareness of the contents of imagination.” As Schooler and his colleagues note in a recent review, a number of difference research studies now suggest that mind wandering reflects these two crucial processes: the capacity to disengage attention from perception as well as the ability to notice the current contents of consciousness (“meta-awareness”). In other words, the ability to harness your System 1 thought processes in a way that is accessible to System 2. It’s all about the dynamic interaction of the two modes of human cognition.

There’s no doubt that Daniel Kahneman and his late colleague Amos Tversky have done a fine job cataloguing all the ways in which System 1 contributes to some of our biases in reasoning and problem-solving. But among Kahneman’s discussion of System 1’s contribution to the many errors found in human reasoning, we hope that the creativity of System 1 isn’t lost. As we mentioned in our earlier article, we don’t have to promote either System 1 or System 2. We can promote both. And in so doing, we are promoting true creativity — creativity that is both novel and useful. Put quite simply: we think System 1 deserves more love.

Lucille "Lulu" Weinstein

The first thing one would notice about Lulu is her smile. “Hello, dear, when is your party?” Lucille “Lulu” Weinstein beams at me. “I need to decide what to wear. What are you going to wear to the party? A blue dress or a pink one?”

Lulu’s effervescent and undeniably sweet personality easily charms. She’s the kind of lady who wants to have a nice time and look good doing it. The 87 year old who likes to put on lipstick and pull back her hair into a neat twist suffers from Alzheimer’s. It’s a chronic disease marked by bouts of confusion and a rather frightening sense of losing one’s identity.

Alzheimer’s leads Lulu to jump from asking about the weather to discussing a party she’s made up in her head. Lulu, a patient at Carmel Board and Care, California, is lucky. She’s cheerful and gentle, and has been placed by her loving family in a top nursing facility whose employees care for all of her basic needs as well as her emotional ones. She has a constant stream of visitors and is generally happy.

Many Americans, those who cannot afford first-rate private care, are not so lucky.

Americans 65 years or older were numbered at 39.6 million in 2009, making up 12.9 percent of the U.S. population or about one in every eight Americans. That number will increase, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is estimated that about 72.1 million older persons will make up the 65 plus age bracket by 2030. With a rising aging population comes a growing demand for special care facilities. Living longer means that diseases become long-term and chronic, and services are more expensive as people spend more time in facilities. Not everyone will be able to afford private care and will eventually come to rely on social welfare—but can governmental services, city and federal alike, cope with demands?

Unless one has had to navigate tricky geriatrics services for an elderly loved one, they don’t usually consider the ramifications of getting older. Los Angeles, after all, is often perceived as the land of perpetual youth, both by California residents and tourists. The Sunset Strip is filled with aspiring models and actors, some beyond their prime, perfectly coiffed, with sprayed on tans and a disconcerting, overabundance of face-lifts. There is an understandable sense of trepidation people feel about aging, so it’s hardly surprising so many of us try to delay it as long as possible. But there is no way to ignore, however, that the Baby Boomers have begun to collect benefits while taking advantage of already economically strained health and social services.

“There seems to be a sort of fear, if you will, of aging,” said Valentine Villa, a California State Los Angeles Social Work professor and the director of the Applied Gerontology Institute. “In aggregate we are doing better in terms of health, in terms of socioeconomic status. We’ve been living longer.”

The issues that surround aging are complicated. For example, there are shortcomings as certain demographics have a higher likelihood of age-related problems evident in Los Angeles.

“We see disparities, racial disparities, among African-American women in particular and among African-American and Latino children,” said Karen Lincoln, associate director of the USC Roybal Institute.

The ailments are both genetic and linked to culture or socioeconomic situations, such as food culture and the realities of poverty. They can lead to higher instances of problems ranging from diabetes to obesity—ailments that are more prevalent among ethnic communities in Los Angeles. As people live longer, many more are now becoming old enough to suffer from chronic illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

“Latinos, African Americans, some Asian and Native Americans don’t do as well as non-Hispanic whites,” said Villa.

Beyond demographic concerns exists challenges that health care providers will face as aging populations experience more long-term, debilitating illnesses that will require around-the-clock care.

“A lot of those people who would have died of heart attacks are now [suffering from] Alzheimer’s that they would never have got because they would have died early,” said Kelvin Davies, professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and an expert in Alzheimer’s. “We used to have more coronary care units… that was the shining star of hospitals twenty years ago.”

Davies’ research looks at why people age, focusing on Alzheimer’s and other age-related ailments. His latest study published in August in the Journals of Gerontology found that Lon protease, an enzyme, or a substance that increases the rate of a reaction is mobilized less frequently as a cell ages.

When Lon protease isn’t called on as frequently, cells are less protected from oxidative damage, such as peroxides and free radicals, which cause damage to a cell.

Davies and his research team exposed cells to various oxidative stresses, such as ozone, hydrogen peroxide, pesticides and herbicides and other toxins. In experiments, some of which used human lung cells, Lon production increased to fight oxidation. The process can be likened to rusting or food spoiling.

“You find that if you give cells the right opportunity, cells adapt,” said Kelvin Davies, professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. “They adapt by changing their gene expression which means that they start making more of some proteins and less of others.”

Scientists believe Lon protease protects mitochondria, organelles that transform oxygen to energy. With the decrease of Lon production, mitochondria function starts to deteriorate. Older cells don’t have that same ability to adapt to environments that cause damage, however, so they ultimately die.

“What we think is going on is that this is part of a normal, adaptive response that all cells have,” explained Davies.

Davies’ research shows that as people age they are less able to cope with stresses ranging from physical, such as chronic illness, to psychological, such as Alzheimer’s.

In Alzheimer’s the process of Lon protease can be compared to soldiers in a war. Oxidants are warded off or endured because of the mobilized Lon. Older cells, however, take longer to produce Lon in experiments.  The longer it takes cells to mobilize Lon, the more a cell has to cope with oxidation which eventually kills it.

“If you disable Lon protease, if you genetically modify [Lon protease] or if you decrease the rate of a cells’ production of Lon protease, the cells are particularly sensitive to oxidation stress and typically die,” said Davies.

Davies’ findings can help scientists to better understand the aging process and in the future could direct medicine to new diets and drugs that improve the quality of life. Researchers could potentially find treatments that would increase the productivity and function of Lon protease. No current treatment, including much-advertised, over-the-counter supplements that contain enzymes, is capable of increasing Lon productivity, according to Davies.

He is also cautious about exaggerating the research.

“We understand very little about the aging process,” said Davies. Scientists first need to understand better what changes in aging and what contributes to the aging process, and understand that current research is not going to provide an immediate remedy for chronic, age-related diseases.

Davies says current treatments aren’t promising and notes that the future for Alzheimer’s patients looks bleak.

“Unless somebody comes up with something for Alzheimer’s then we’re going to need an awful lot of care facilities because people are just not able to cope in their own homes all the way through the disease,” said Davies.

Health care dollars will go to these new facilities for chronic care where a patient may sometimes spend years. And, for those who rely on programs like Medicaid, care and equipment winds up being an expensive taxpayer burden.

“It’s not their fault, but we need to do something about coping with that,” argued Davies.

Organizations like the Department of Aging are concerned about rising numbers of chronic illnesses, especially in light of the U.S. Census Bureau’s newly released numbers which show a record 46.2 million Americans—1 out of every 6 people—are living in poverty today. “The only word for it is grim,” said Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in a September report.

Los Angeles’ Department of Aging is particularly focused on “low income, socially isolated” senior citizens who require more assistance, according to Laura Trejo, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Aging.

“We are keeping a watchful eye so people are not falling through the cracks,” said Trejo. The organization provides support to senior citizens and disabled individuals that include transportation, especially for disabled citizens, and a daily nutritious meal for senior citizens who are disadvantaged.

As more people find themselves out of work and facing poverty, the City of Los Angeles could see an increase in residents who seek public services of which plenty have been cut due to budget woes. Los Angeles’ Department of Recreation and Parks which provides senior citizens with centers has lost two sites, said Carolyn James, principal recreation supervisor. Park services for the elderly keep individuals, especially more independent seniors, engaged. They give seniors a place to gather and hold events—to socialize. In Los Angeles and throughout the state, budget cuts have threatened public programs such as these.

The Department of Aging has fared better, but they, too, “have been impacted in loss of city resources,” according to Trejo. The organization’s budget is made up of federal and state grant funding from the Older Americans Act, the Older Californians Act, and the Medi-Cal program.

For the first time since WWII, nearly 1 in 5 young adults are at risk for living in poverty. This number is the highest jobless rate for young adults since WWII.

It could also have larger implications as people move back in with their parents or grandparents suddenly find themselves contributing to their children and grandchildren’s households. According to experts these seniors often contribute their social security and pensions to their children and grandchildren.

With city services already stretched to the limit, the private sector sometimes offers a better alternative in terms of quality.

“The private sector has managed to help,” said Phoebe Liebig, associate professor of Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Liebig notes private services, financed and run by businesses or religious groups, which include care facilities and programs for senior citizens.

MCL Medical, a company that supplies several for-profit facilities with adult diapers and nutrition formulas for elderly patients, has had to navigate governmental bureaucracy that pervades the Medi-Cal program.

“Not only does Medi-Cal not pay providers but they do not provide patients with adequate services,” said Ofer Elkayam, president of MCL Medical. “They use subpar adult diapers, for example, which often lead to bed sores when they aren’t changed frequently enough.”

Elkayam has worked with senior citizens in some capacity for more than two decades.

“You cannot ever forget that you are dealing with people,” he said. “It could be our parents, it could be us there.”

At Carmel Board and Care Elkayam’s wife, Edva, oversees eight privately run health facilities in the San Fernando Valley, each house boasting three full-time caregivers for every six patients.

“Families of our patients want peace of mind and we give it to them,” said Edva Elkayam. “Always you let your patients feel that you understand them.”

The nursing facilities under the Carmel umbrella offer a private trainer specialized for the elderly, gourmet-style meals and regular activities designed to keep patients engaged. Unlike most facilities, Carmel doesn’t keep to a visiting hours schedule but instead implements an open-door policy so family members can visit loved ones at any reasonable hour.

Patients like Lulu are happy here and are loved by the staff.

“Did you meet my Lulu?” Florence Ormilla, a house manager for one of Carmel’s homes in Woodland Hills, asked me.

Ormilla is responsible for everything from administering medication to making sure patients, who she likens to her grandparents, aren’t bored.

“I left the Philippines…but found my inner peace and contentment that I’m doing my part,” said Ormilla. “I am their granddaughter now, I take care of them.”

Health care facilities are filled with many well-intentioned individuals, but many lack these same resources. Whereas Lulu has constant engagement, those individuals living in poorer quality facilities—including some public nursing centers—face poorer care and less one-on-one interaction.

Although it is impossible to know how bad it is, several reports document that at least one in ten patients have reportedly been abused in nursing institutions. Most crimes go undetected, according to the national Center on Elder Abuse.

Mistreatment of elders can range from physical and sexual abuse to psychological harm and abandonment.

In 2008 a five star rating system was adopted by President George W. Bush to help evaluate cost of treatment as well as to bring scrutiny to failing facilities.

But not everyone has saved for retirement or is able to afford best treatment. And many who have paid into individual retirement arrangements have also lost funds with the recent market downturn.

Some experts say current programs, like Social Security and MediCare, will have to play a big part in the solution even though they may need some reform.

“Yes, there will be shortfalls,” said Villa, “but we can do things to change this.”

Others are less optimistic about the future of social security. When social security was introduced by FDR there were 163 people working for every one person receiving it. By 1950 there were about 15.3 people working for every recipient. Within the next 15 years there will be two people working for every recipient. In 1940, when the average life expectancy was 60 years of age, the retirement age was set at 65. Today the average life expectancy is about 82 and the retirement age is still 65. The current system is not sustainable (But see).

“There’s a larger population that is going to have to rely on social security with fewer people paying into that system,” said Lincoln. “You’re going to have this huge population of people who are receiving the benefits and fewer people paying into it,” said Lincoln. “That’s just a recipe for disaster. I’m not sure how we can sustain this system.”

It isn’t just the poor who rely on social security because people from all segments of society collect their benefits—but with a limited pool the funds are not indefinite.

“I’m not sure what we can do for those who are retiring now, but certainly we need to begin to think about how to prepare people for retirement,” explained Lincoln.

One method could combine social security with other types of funds, while at the same time educating people about retirement. Experts agree social security just won’t be enough, especially with more people taking advantage of the program.

Given a choice most people—understandably—prefer to age in their own homes. Eventually, however, the best intentioned of families may need to place a mother, father or grandparent in care. It isn’t an easy decision either emotionally or financially. The care, after all, is costly—in excess of $3,500 a month at the best of facilities. Insurance typically only covers a portion of that. It’s unclear how our society will cope with changing aging demographics, especially in light of current economic turmoil the nation faces. What is clear is that conversations about aging need to take place so that people are aware of the limitations of social security and city services. Reports indicate that Americans save less and spend more—ultimately it will be this that will create a perfect storm as people live even longer and find that they need to rely on flawed, untenable programs.

Images by author.

A DNA molecule that is methylated on both strands on the center cytosine. Christoph Bock, Max Planck Institute for Informatics. Image used by permission of its author.

In a study published in late 2011 in Nature, Stanford University geneticist Anne Brunet and colleagues described a series of experiments that caused nematodes raised under the same environmental conditions to experience dramatically different lifespans. Some individuals were exceptionally long-lived, and their descendants, through three generations, also enjoyed long lives. Clearly, the longevity advantage was inherited. And yet, the worms, both short- and long-lived, were genetically identical.

This type of finding—an inherited difference that cannot be explained by variations in genes themselves—has become increasingly common, in part because scientists now know that genes are not the only authors of inheritance. There are ghostwriters, too. At first glance, these scribes seem quite ordinary—methyl, acetyl, and phosphoryl groups, clinging to proteins associated with DNA, or sometimes even to DNA itself, looking like freeloaders at best. Their form is far from the elegant tendrils of DNA that make up genes, and they are fleeting, in a sense, erasable, very unlike genes, which have been passed down through generations for millions of years. But they do lurk, and silently, they exert their power, modifying DNA and controlling genes, influencing the chaos of nucleic and amino acids. And it is for this reason that many scientists consider the discovery of these entities in the late 20th century as a turning point in our understanding of heredity, as possibly one of the greatest revolutions in modern biology—the rise of epigenetics.

Epigenetics and the state of chromatin

In Brunet’s lab, epigenetic inheritance is a big deal. Their Nature paper was the first to describe the phenomenon as it applies to longevity across generations, a breakthrough that emerged out of their quest to better understand the role of chromatin in inheritance.

Chromatin is a compact fiber of proteins and DNA that exists in either a condensed or a relaxed state. It assumes its condensed form during cell division in order to facilitate the splitting of chromosomes for distribution to daughter cells. Segments of the fiber, however, may retain this form when a cell is not dividing, with the result that genes occurring in these segments are fixed in an inactive state. Other stretches of the fiber, on the other hand, relax and open to allow regulatory proteins to access the DNA and activate genes.

Certain epigenetic modifications, such as the binding of methyl groups to histone proteins, the bobbins around which DNA is wound for chromatin packaging, are responsible for holding the fiber in an open state. But modifications are dynamic. During development, for example, chemical moieties attach to and detach from histones or DNA in an orchestrated fashion, their fluid dance aiding the execution of important functions, such as the establishment of patterns of gene expression for different types of tissues and the silencing of parental genes, a phenomenon known as parental, or genomic, imprinting.

Modifications can also accumulate during an organism’s lifetime. Because some of these acquisitions may affect DNA passed through the germline (in eggs and sperm) and may not be beneficial, they are erased at the time of reproduction, and the chromatin is returned to its original state. The process is not faithful, however, so some modifications slip through. In this way, chromatin modifications in parent DNA that are not reprogrammed are transmitted to the next generation.

Epigenetic inheritance of longevity in nematodes

The difference in coat color in these two genetically identical mice is due to epigenetic modifications. Jennifer Cropley, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute Image used by permission of its author.

There is increasing evidence that epigenetic modifications are transgenerational (inherited through multiple generations) in a variety of species. Examples include coat color in mammals, eye color in Drosophila, symmetry in flowers, and now longevity in C. elegans. These findings are exciting and raise intriguing questions about the seemingly limitless nature of epigenetics.

But the work of teasing out epigenetic modifications and their effects is arduous. To uncover the involvement of methylation in nematode longevity, Brunet and colleagues began by assessing the lifespans of C. elegans that were deficient in one of three genes, ash-2, wdr-5, or set-2; decreased or absent expression of these genes previously had been found to increase longevity in the species. They then crossed nematodes with genetic deficiencies with nematodes of normal genetic composition, pairings that in typical Mendelian fashion yielded wild-type (genetically normal) individuals, as well as individuals carrying the genetic alterations. Measurements of longevity were recorded for each of these populations and were compared with those of control populations (wild-type nematodes descended from wild-type parents). The findings revealed that the controls lived an average lifespan, whereas wild-type nematodes genetically identical to the control population but descended from mutant parents lived 20 to 30 percent longer.

Thus, the genetic deficiencies, though not inherited, had effected some type of change that endowed the genetically normal offspring of mutants with the same length lifespan that the mutants themselves experienced. The change, the Stanford team deduced, was methylation.

The proteins encoded by ash-2, wdr-5 and set-2 are part of a histone methylation complex known as H3K4me3, which is found across species ranging from yeast to humans. But the mechanisms underlying the inheritance of longevity are not clear. As Brunet explained, “We did not observe a global decrease in H3K4me3 levels in genetically wild-type descendants from mutants that are deficient in H3K4me3. We interpret that as saying there is not a global dearth of H3K4me3 that is inherited epigenetically.” Thus, the team’s current model is that when the proteins are scarce or absent, H3K4me3 methylation is lost at specific locations in the genome, and longevity-associated modifications in chromatin state, or possibly other types of modifications (e.g., non-coding RNAs), are passed to the next generation.

Transgenerational inheritance of acquired characters in humans

Epigenetics has given life to Lamarckism and the previously discarded idea that characteristics acquired during an individual’s life are heritable. In fact, many scientists already have warmed up to this idea. “There seems to be a renewed acceptance for the Lamarckian concept (in limited cases),” Brunet said. “This could change our understanding of inheritance in that it would add another component, probably minor, but present, in addition to Mendelian genetics.”

It also adds another layer of significance to our daily lives. A number of environmental factors, from nutrients to temperature to chemicals, are capable of altering gene expression, and those factors that manage to penetrate germline chromatin and escape reprogramming could, in theory, be passed on to our children and possibly our grandchildren.

But while several studies have suggested that transgenerational epigenetic inheritance can occur in humans, actual evidence for it is scant. Among the more convincing cases thus far involves the synthetic estrogen compound diethylstilbestrol (DES), which was used in the mid-20th century to prevent miscarriages in pregnant women. DES, however, dramatically increases the risk of birth defects. It is also associated with an increased risk for vaginal and breast cancers in daughters and an increased risk of ovarian cancer in maternal granddaughters of women exposed to DES during pregnancy. Studies in mice have suggested that neonatal DES exposure causes abnormalities in the methylation of genes involved in uterine development and uterine cancer; in mice these abnormalities were still present two generations down the line, suggesting a transgenerational effect.

Given the elusive nature of inherited epigenetic modifications, it seems that, despite decades of investigation, scientists remain on the brink of understanding. The possibilities, however, seem endless, even with the constraint that, to be inherited, epigenetic modifications must affect gene expression in the germline, a feat that even genetic mutations rarely accomplish. But with the skyrocketing prevalence of conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and autism, which have no clear genetic etiology in the majority of cases, as Brunet pointed out, “It seems that all complex processes are affected by epigenetics.”

While scientists continue to search for definitive evidence of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans, the implications so far suggest that are our lifestyles and what we eat, drink, and breathe may directly affect the genetic health of our progeny.

Adulterated, in the interest of good science, from Sartre 1967, p. 174.

A man can live many lives. Paul Ehrlich has. Once, he was a butterfly biologist. Another time, he wrote the book called The Population Bomb, a book that triggered global conversations about the fate of humanity. Still another, he described the relationship between plants and the animals that eat them. A plant evolves, he says, to escape its herbivores and then the herbivores evolve, in response. This war goes on, he found, forever.

All of these and others of the lives of Paul Ehrlich have been lauded. I want to talk about the life of Ehrlich no one ever seems to mention at the award ceremonies, Ehrlich’s life as the guy at the party with the one good liner, the one that everyone laughs at even though it crosses, some say tramples, unspoken social lines.

The specific one liner I am talking about here is one I heard when Ehrlich visited North Carolina State University, where I work. I was helping to host his visit and he and I were talking at the back of a large conference room. We were both looking at the backs of a crowd of hundreds gathered in front of us and, of all things, discussing back pain. We agreed—back pain is terrible. He told me to take care of my back and then, as he looked to the audience and stepped forward through the crowd to give his talk, he left me with a sentence somewhere between punch line and universal truth…“ back problems all started when we began walking upright. The other bad thing about walking upright is that it made it hard to sniff each other…¹” With that, he strode, upright, to the stage and began to speak.

Sometimes, when I think of Paul Ehrlich, I think of people sniffing each other. And as several new studies reveal, when it comes to sniffing each other, men are like dogs. Women are too.

Two dogs engaging in what Ehrlich called “the good old days.”

The Yin and Yang of Dogs—With dogs, we have all seen it happen. A man and a woman walk down the street toward each other, one with a black lab on a blue leash, the other with a beagle on a white leash. As they approach, the dogs notice each other and circle, awkwardly, until one begins to sniff the other. It is an event simultaneously vulgar and everyday.  Sometimes the woman’s dog sniffs the crotch of the man, to which the man inevitably says something like “oooohh, goodness, he must smell my cat.” As everyone seems to know, this is the “greeting” of dogs. What no one seems to know is what information is being conveyed in such a greeting. Is it really just “hi!” or is there more being whispered by a dog’s ass?

Before we answer that question I’ll posit our ancestors did what the dogs do. Living on four legs, they saw and smelled some version of what dogs see and smell, which is to say, the rich and fetid world of odors around them, but also of each other. Then, as Ehrlich points out, they stood up, which caused many problems for their and our backs, and made it much harder, in a casual interaction, to take a whiff of each others business.  Sniffing one and other then became a part of our history, not who we are, simply who we were. Or so it might seem.

Many generations have passed between those days when we walked on all fours and today. Our stance changed as we began to climb into the trees and then, again, as we climbed back onto the ground.  Many other things changed too though, among them how and where our bodies produce odors.

The scent produced from a dog’s body comes, in large part, from their apocrine glands. These glands are nearly everywhere on a dog’s body, but are largest and most dense in a dog’s two anal sacs.  We also have these glands, if not the large sacs dogs and other carnivores use to house them. If we did bend over and smell each other, in other words, we would smell a version of what dogs smell (through less sensitive noses, though our sense of smell is better than tends to be appreciated). What has changed in this time is the location of these glands. When primates evolved, these glands shifted such that they are clustered not just on the bottoms of primates, but also on their tops. Primate chests are very often covered in apocrine glands. This is true in gibbons, but also capuchin monkeys, macaques and many other primates, including all of the apes. Natural selection favored individuals with genes for producing glands in places where the sniffing would be, well, easy.  Like humans, gorillas and chimpanzees also have a high density of these glands in their armpits, where their hair is also denser. It must have been with the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas in which the armpit, in all its reeking glory, evolved².

The Garden of Bodily Delights?—There are many mysteries related to apocrine glands, one of which is how they produce their odors. This is one of the few mysteries that is, at least partially, resolved. Although mammalogists tend to talk about the stinking secretions of these glands, the secretions themselves are largely odorless. At least in primates and foxes³, and I suspect in dogs, the stink comes instead from what the secretions feed—bacteria. Each apocrine sweat gland feeds bacteria, many of them of the genus Corynebacteria, though hundreds of species can be present in a given cluster of apocrine glands. These bacteria, depending on their species, mix, and abundance, produce the unique odor characteristic of a monkey’s chest or, in all likelihood, your dog’s butt. In other words, your dog stinks because it feeds special bacteria that produce an odor that, in turn, communicates a specific message to other dogs.

The idea that other mammals communicate using the odors of bacteria is fascinating to me. The question becomes just what they communicate. You might be surprised to know very little is known about just what dogs are doing when they sniff. Through such sniffing they can discern whether or not the animal they are sniffing is a boy or a girl, though presumably this is already readily apparent to a dog by the time they get close enough to start sniffing. But what else? No one knows.

In primates, the stories are clearer, if not yet clear. When primates sniff each other, they can use odors to identify individuals. They also identify individuals who smell better, either in terms of their status or their loveliness In terms of the latter, the bacteria being cultivated by these primates on their bodies are, in one form or another, potentially sexy, a garden of foul delight. Yet, what we know about the odors produced by non-human primates still seems to be only part of the story, a hint of a more complicated bouquet.

A gorilla displaying, proudly, its axillary apocrine glands. I don’t speak gorilla, but am pretty sure this means, “I dare you to sniff me.”

One dog’s backside is another man’s armpit—A little more may be revealed when we think about Paul Ehrlich’s body, or yours or mine for that matter. Human bodies have apocrine sweat glands too. Just as in dogs they are found in what biologists euphemistically call “the peri-anal region,” (or maybe that is the opposite of a euphemism) as well as around their genitals. But they are also found in our armpits. Our armpit odor is produced nearly exclusively by the odor of bacteria that are, in turn, fed by glands in our armpits⁴. In other words, when you sniff, however unintentionally, the odor of your neighbor’s armpits you are doing exactly the same thing a dog is doing when it sniffs another dog’s behind.  This gets me back to Paul Ehrlich’s joke, the one about the good old days of sniffing each other, nose to tail.

It appears we never really stopped sniffing each other. We just, quite accidentally, started doing so in a more decorous manner, as a function of having stood up. This, I suppose, is what the joke bemoans, the good ole days of less decorum, but it leaves unanswered the question of just what information is being transmitted when we sniff other people, or when dogs sniff other dogs, or, for that matter, when dogs smell on someone else the odor of their cat.

I will start in answering this question by saying that it is clear that the answer we have is only partial, but at least three things seem to emerge consistently across species.

I stink therefore I am—In smelling other individuals we can apparently tell who they are, or at least who they are not. We can, as a recent study conducted by high school students indicates, at the very least identify our own smell, and, with a reasonably high frequency, that of a friend⁵. Maybe this is not significant in our daily lives. Maybe it is, but at least in broad terms it seems true. A group at Mahidol University in Thailand has recently published a paper showing that an electronic nose they have developed (I kid you not), can also tell between the odors of different people on the basis of their bacteria⁶. We smell different because they, the bacteria, are different⁷. In deciding how to act toward others, who to bite, throw a stick at, or attempt to toss out of a tree (or an office), knowing who is who seems important. Maybe it is less important for humans than it was for our ancestors and yet we can clearly still perform the trick.

You sure have a pretty smell—Once, when I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee I was sitting behind a man and a woman on a bus when he turned to her and said, ”You sure have a pretty smell to you,” to which she said “thank you,” and then initiated more of a conversation. Smelling pretty is, actually, a big part of why our bodies spend energy feeding bacteria. We may not think of the odors of armpits as pleasant, and yet our subconscious mental circuitry appears to be constantly evaluating the smells of others and choosing between them. In smelling other individuals we are able to rate their sexiness and we appear to do so in ways that might benefit our potential offspring’s well being. For example, when we discern among odors, we tend to rate the odors of individuals with different immune (HLA) genes as more favorable than the odors of individuals with similar immune genes. Mating with folks with different immune genes will tend to confer a greater immunological diversity to your offspring, which in turn is likely to make them better able to defend against a diversity of potential pathogens. Many of the choices we make on the basis of body odor appear heightened when women are ovulating, and decisions about preferences are most likely to truly be decisions about mates. For example, when ovulating, women tend to prefer the smells of behaviorally dominant men⁸.

Pardon me sir, I don’t think I smell very well—The most recent revelation about our smells, the news item of the last few months, is that humans appear to be able to discern the smells of sick and healthy individuals and prefer the odors of healthy ones. For a number of years, scientists have known that mice infected with any of a variety of parasites—be they lice, protists, gut worms or viruses—are less sexy to other mice than are uninfected mice⁹. Bust last month Mikhail Moishkin and colleagues at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia, published a study in which they had female volunteers compare the odor of the sweat of healthy men, men infected with Gonorrhea and men who had been treated for Gonorrhea. The women consistently rated the odors of the men with Gonorrhea as worse than either those without the disease or those who had already been treated for it¹⁰. If you are sniffing someone, being able to detect that they might be sick (or more specifically that they might have Gonorrhea) based on the smell of their bacteria seems incredibly useful. Might we be able to discern sickness and health more generally on the basis of odors? The mice can. I bet we can too, but time and more experiments in which teenagers sniff sick people will tell.

Our odors may be displays, like the peacock’s tail, displays that were once honest, but with the invention of perfumes and deodorants have become, perhaps, corrupt.

The peacock’s armpits—The truth is no one has yet assembled these pieces into a complete evolutionary story. There is a small amount of research on dogs, which tends to focus on behaviors rather than on odors. In non-human primates, there is much more research on how individuals make choices based on odors, but less research-virtually none—on the bacteria themselves. In humans, there is research on the bacteria and research on the odors, but the two bodies of literature are largely separate.

I’ll take a stab at the story that winds all of these bodies of research together. Perhaps, our bodies evolved the ability to feed bacteria in order to produce smells that signaled both who we are (in terms of our identity and relatedness) and how we are (in terms of our health). Because the bacteria need food and are influenced by our microbial health, they provide an honest signal, like a peacock’s tail, of our fitness. A sick peacock has an ugly tail, a sick dog, monkey or man, may well have an ugly odor. All of this seems to fit with what we know, perhaps with the added twist that in highly social organisms—which include dogs (AKA wolves), monkeys and humans—smell has the potential to also convey some measure of social dominance or lack thereof, where alpha males smell sexier than the poor reeking chumps who get beat up at the beach.

But the puzzle is only partially assembled. A world of details remains unresolved. How costly are the foods we give to the bacteria we farm in our armpits and elsewhere? By what means do pathogens influence the way we smell? How do our brains process different odors? It appears as though most of the mental circuitry associated with processing bodily smells is subconscious, as for many social signals⁹. We make many of our most important decisions about how to regard each other without having those decisions ever rise to above the sea of the subconscious. So much for free will, but I digress; the point is we don’t really understand how our brains process the odors of others. We also don’t really know how the bacteria of different parts, individuals, or species differ and what consequences those differences have. A woman once asked me at a talk, why her armpits smell sweet when she visits the desert. I don’t know the answer, but differences in the bacteria we farm and consequently how we smell must exist as a function of where and how we live.

Then there is a final piece to this story, the issue of subterfuge. Very early in our human history, we began to take advantage of smells produced elsewhere in nature to perfume our bodies. We think of perfume as lovely in moderation, but there is another way to think of perfume, as a way to cheat. When you apply deodorant or perfume, you are covering up the odors produced by your bacteria with an odor regarded as pleasant, at least to the conscious brain and perhaps, if the perfume and deodorant companies have done their jobs, to the subconscious too, which is important since that seems to be where the decisions are being made¹¹.  I’m not sure where this leaves us other than with the impression that nearly the entirety of modern humanity has figured out how to smell like a peacock. Beware both the wolf in sheep’s clothing and the Gonorrhea that smells like Old Spice.

All of this leaves me with the question of why dogs sniff people’s crotches. As Paul Ehrlich might say, if he were a dog, maybe it is just because standing on two legs to reach people’s armpits is bad for their backs. Or maybe, in sniffing where they do, dogs call our bluff. Even when our armpits say “Old Spice,” where dogs sniff still has the potential to say, “Gonorrhea.” No matter what perfume we wear, we can be dogged by the truth.

For more about how our interactions with other species, be they microbes or tigers, shape who we are, read Rob’s book, The Wild Life of Our Bodies.

For those who would like to learn more about the evolution of the bacteria in our armpits, gorilla’s armpits, monkeys chests and dog’s backyard gardens, you won’t have to wait long. Julie Horvath-Roth and David Kroll, both now at the Nature Research Center are beginning a new project, in collaboration with yourwildlife.org to study the species we actively, but subconsciously, seem to be farming on our skin. For now, stay tuned, or just keep your nose to the wind.

~~~

1-For the record, this is the least crude bit of humor I’ve ever heard from Paul Ehrlich, even on that particular day.

2-See Ellis, R. A., Montagna, W. 1962. The skin of primates VI. The Skin of the Gorilla (Gorillia gorilla). American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Vol. 20: 72-93. In this article it is concluded, apparently, for the first time that among the apes only the gorilla and the chimpanzee have an “axillary organ” (AKA stinky armpit) like that in humans.

3-See, for example, Gosden, P. E., Ware, G. C. and E. S. Albone. 1975. The microbial flora of the anal sacs of the red fox, Vulpes vulpes and of certain other carnivores. Although the literature on the microbiology of animal smells is often discussed as though it is new, in 1975 E.. S. Albone was already suggesting that the odors produced by the anal sacs of lions, mongooses, dogs, tigers, maned wolves, bush dogs, domestic cats and foxes were produced by microbial “fermentation” of fats produced by the apocrine glands in these sacs. These anal sacs, although they have a terribly unappealing name, are really very much gardens. Helen Keller was a fierce advocate of sensory gardens with species planted in them with strong and characteristic smells. Carnivores already have such gardens in their, well, you know… Albone, E. S. and G. C. Perry. 1975. Anal sac secretion of the Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes… Journal of Chemical Ecology. 2: 101-111.

4-It is because of these glands, it has been argued, that we maintain hair in our armpits and around our privates, so as better to waft the smells of bacteria out into the air. Our conscious minds may cover bacterial odors up with deodorant, but our subconscious bodies rather consistently say, instead, “yo, smell this.” For a nice discussion of pubic and armpit hair in the context of our evolution (and that of lice) see… “Weiss, R. A. 2009, Apes, Lice and Prehistory. Journal of Biology. 20. (doi:10.1186/jbiol114)

5-Olson, S. B., Barnard, J. and L. Turri. 2006. Olfaction and Identification of Unrelated Individuals: Examination of the Mysteries of Human Odor Recognition. Journal of Chemical Ecology. 32: 1635-1645. DOI 10.1007/s10886-006-9098-8

6-A surprisingly large literature on electronic noses exists, but for this particular article see Wongchoosuk, C. et al. 2011. Identification of people from armpit odor region using networked electronic nose. Defense Science Research Conference and Expo (DSR). 10.1109/DSR.2011.6026826

7-When trained dogs pursue an individual person (trained, for example, based on the smell of their clothes), they are doing so based on the odors of their bacteria too.  Mosquitoes, recent research has shown, also cue in on humans on the basis of bacterial smells. People with more bacteria are more attractive to mosquitoes. All of this together indicates that while the way we look is largely based on our own cells that the way we smell, our smell-identity if you will, is entirely a function of other species. You are who they, the bacteria, are.

8-Havlicek, J., Roberts, S. C., and J. Flegr. 2005. Women’s preference for dominant male odour: effects of menstrual cycle and relationship status. Biology Letters. 1: 256-259. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2005.0332

9-It should also be discerned from this sentence that scientists spend a slightly unhealthy amount of time thinking about the sexiness of mice.

10-The other details of this study are also of interest. The men who had higher antibody titers, as would be expected if their immune systems were more actively fighting the Gonorrhea, smelled even less pleasant to the women. The authors of this study think that the immune system itself is triggering odors that lead to differential choices by the women though it seems plausible to suspect that these smells, like nearly all, human odors, are mediated by bacteria. Interestingly, the sick men did not just smell unpleasant, they smelled “putrid,” in contrast to the healthy men who were categorized as tending to smell either floral or some nuanced mix of floral and putrid. Moishkin, M. et al. 2011. Scent Recognition of Infected Status in Humans. The Journal of Sexual Medicine. DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02562.

11-For an absolutely fascinating discussion of social signals and the extent to which they are subconscious see this paper by Bettina Pause, although I will warn you that it will leave you feeling as though you have very little control over the biggest decisions in your life.  2011. Processing of Body Odor Signals by the Human Brain. Chemosensory Perception. DOI: 10.1007/s12078-011-9108-2. It is from this paper that I stole the lovely and apt quote from Sartre.

Images: Paul Erlich: Stanford News Service; Two dogs: Vik Cuban on Flickr; Dog sniffing Eliza Dushku (all over the Web, let me know if you can find the original photographer); Gorilla: tomsowerby on Flickr; Ruth St. Denis in The Peacock: New York Public Library on Flickr.

Any human-made object in orbit that does not serve a useful purpose is considered debris. Common kinds of debris include satellites that have reached the end of their lives; the rocket stages used to place satellites in orbit; bolts and other objects released during satellite deployments (known as mission-related debris); and fragments from the intentional or accidental breakup of large objects. It also includes the rare failed spacecraft that has stalled in orbit, such as the Russian Phobos–Grunt probe, which was bound for a Martian moon but instead is expected to crash to Earth in the coming days.

In recent years the number of large objects tracked by U.S. military sensors and listed in the official government catalogue has reached an all-time high of around 15,000 pieces of debris, plus about 1,000 active satellites. This growth in space debris has become a concern because of the threat posed to satellites and to piloted spacecraft. The very high speed of objects in orbit means that debris as small as a centimeter can seriously damage or destroy a satellite. And debris can linger in orbit for decades or longer at high altitudes so it builds up as more is produced.

The risk of collision between large objects in low Earth orbit—below 2,000 kilometers in altitude—has doubled in the last five years. The chance that an operating satellite in the heavily used altitudes between 800 and 900 kilometers will be hit by a large piece of debris in its lifetime is now likely a few percent. While still a small risk to any individual satellite, it is becoming comparable to other threats to satellite life, such as electrical failures, that satellite owners work hard to minimize.

Moreover, recent studies by NASA and others show that low Earth orbit is already supercritical: the density of debris has become so great that collisions in orbit generate additional pieces of debris faster than atmospheric drag removes it from orbit. Additional debris particles further increase the frequency of collisions, leading to a slow-motion cascade, known as the Kessler Syndrome, that would cause the amount of debris to increase even if humankind ceased rocket launches entirely.

This fact has an important implication: remediation measures, such as removing large, massive pieces of debris from orbit, are needed. Researchers are actively developing various strategies for remediation, but no quick or inexpensive fixes are in sight.

The immediate challenge of minimizing the creation of debris is also crucial. New orbital debris emerges from two broad types of activity. The first is routine space pursuits and the accidental breakup of objects in orbit. The second is the intentional destruction of satellites by anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons.

Concern about debris growth led the U.S. and other countries to create the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC); around the mid-1990s the international community started taking serious steps to reduce the amount of debris created in normal space operations. One major change was venting from satellites the residual fuel that could explode. Such efforts have helped, but the other category of debris—that from intentional destructions—has the potential to nullify any gains. This is evident in the figure below, which shows the growth of debris in the official U.S. government catalogue.

The red trend line in the figure above shows the historical trend in debris growth from the beginning of the Space Age through the mid-1990s. Over the following decade, the growth rate decreased and instead followed the blue trend line. This change reflects the debris mitigation efforts that began during the 1990s, and the graph shows that both fragmentation debris and mission-related debris remained roughly constant. Had this trend continued, those 15 years of debris mitigation efforts would by now have resulted in some 3,000 fewer large objects in space compared to business-as-usual—that is, an extrapolation of the red trend line.

Unfortunately, several significant events between 2007 and 2009 instead increased the current debris total to about 2,000 objects above the red trend line. The jump in 2009 was due to an accidental collision between a U.S. Iridium satellite and a Russian Cosmos satellite. But the very large jump in early 2007, which represents more than 3,000 large pieces of debris, resulted from a Chinese ASAT test that purposely destroyed the defunct one-ton Fengyun 3C weather satellite.

ASAT weapons can completely fragment a satellite, creating huge amounts of debris. And the natural targets of such an attack could be much larger than the satellite destroyed in the Chinese test. U.S. spy satellites, for example, have masses well over 10 tons. Based on NASA’s debris model and the Chinese ASAT test, the destruction of a single 10-ton satellite could produce as many as 750,000 pieces of debris larger than a centimeter, instantly doubling or tripling the amount of debris of this size in low Earth orbit.

Unless the international community addresses the threat of intentional satellite destruction, all the other efforts to preserve the space environment may be futile. This is a race that the slow and steady approach of debris mitigation may not win.

Dr. Abdolreza Simchi

Iran has dominated the news recently in a chess match between itself and the West. From the country’s ongoing nuclear program to the capture of an American spy drone to the current threat of closing the Persian Gulf from oil tankers, fears of an unstable, aggressive Iran spring to life for the American citizen. Yet, there is another Iran that hasn’t been advanced in the media. One that Dr. Abdolreza Simchi and his research group work in everyday in the capital city of Teheran. Dr. Simchi is a distinguished nanotechnology researcher heading the Research Center for Nanostructured and Advanced Materials (RCNAM) at the Department of Material Science and Engineering of Sharif University, where he focuses on biomedical engineering and sustainable technology. Nanotechnology is a new and interdisciplinary field where scientists can engineer atom and molecules on the nanoscale, fifty thousand times thinner than a human hair.

Dr. Simchi represents a bridge between Iran and the West. He has received many awards for his work, not only from Iran, but also from Germany, the UK, and the UN. He earned his PhD in a joint program between Sharif University and the University of Vienna and then worked at the German technology institute Fraunhofer at the beginning of his career. Dr. Simchi is now ranked as the fourth nanotechnology scientist in Iran and was awarded the title of Distinguished Researcher of the Teheran Province by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since 2001, he has written over 200 papers, authored four patents, two books, and founded the first Iranian nanotechnology journal, Scientia Iranica Nanotechnology.

The nanotechnology drive in Iran has skyrocketed over the past few years despite Western sanctions. Iranian news stations and websites are constantly highlighting a new breakthrough or conference. This past October, the Fourth Iran Nano Festival was held in Teheran, where thousands of companies and research centers showcased their breakthroughs and technological advances. Days before the festival, Dr. Nasrine Soltankhah, vice president of Iran’s Science and Technology sector made a speech where she ranked Iran as 12th in world nanotech development. Whether you are skeptical of this statement or not (they actually used the Thompson Reuters Web of Knowledge to calculate journal articles published per year to get this statistic), Iran’s nanotech development is robust and is changing Iranian society. Even nanotechnology experts in the West have been impressed with the quality of the results. Iran’s scientific establishment is heavily subsidized by its government (about 75% according to a UNESCO report). However, due to the growth of nanotechnology and the field’s focus on problem solving, Iranian entrepreneurs and infrastructure sectors are collaborating and benefiting from the scientific applications. Moreover, Iran has been pioneering national public nanotech education for schoolchildren.

I interviewed Dr. Simchi about his research, the state of nanotechnology in Iran, and how this budding field can better his people’s lives.

What sparked your interest in nanotechnology?

I was first introduced to nanotechnology when I was working in Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing and Advanced Materials (IFAM), in Bremen, Germany. At that time, the institute was involved in development of a method for preparation of silver nanoparticles distributed into a monomer to be used for fabrication of antibacterial polymers. I was very excited to see how the size of particles governs the antibacterial effect and the product can be used for fabrication of biomedical parts. I became more interested in this topic as many handicapped from the war between Iran and Iraq could be benefited from this technology. After being hired at Sharif University of Technology (SUT) as Assistant Professor and working as a consultant in the Center for High-Tech Industries Development (HTIC), I learned more about the capability of the technology for water treatment, environmental remedies, energy storage, etc. I told myself: “This is a technology that can answer many national and global issues, so this is the future!”

In the years 2003-2004, I worked hard to convince my colleagues at the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department to establish a research center (RCNAM) at SUT to create a multidisciplinary framework for collaborative research in this fast-growing technology. This activity was not welcome by some, but a few were more realistic about this issue. In 2004, through strong support of the university dean, Prof. Saed Sohrabpour, HTIC and the Iran Nanotech Initiative Council (INIC), a group of Sharif professors from different departments, particularly MSE, Physics, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering, gathered together and established The Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (INST) of SUT.  INST was the first national institute offering a PhD Nanotechnology program. INIC has ranked SUT and particularly MSE and INST as leading academic centers for nanotechnology development for consecutive years. In conclusion, the national condition, the competitiveness of SUT orientation, and the multidisciplinary nature of nanotechnology sparked my interest in this amazing area of nano-scale world.

You were trained as a metallurgist and devoted your time to the study of alloys, composite materials, and other advanced materials, both on the nano and macro level. Why did you start researching biomedical applications as well?

This is true. I am principally a metallurgist, and specifically a particulate materials scientist. However, I always look at science and technology side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder. In fact, it is of prime importance to me, as an engineer, to see where and how my research output might be utilized; the maximum and direct benefit for the nation and human beings are my utmost aims. In simple words, I look towards the national interests. My people suffer from cancer (Iran is a country with high-cancer risk), environmental pollution (for instance, Tehran is one of the most polluted cities in the world), and limited water resources (dry lands). Therefore, I keep trying to combine my knowledge on particulate materials with nanotechnology, i.e. size effect, to improve healthcare via biomedical applications of materials, and to combat environmental problems. I am particularly interested in developing nanoparticles for diagnosis and therapy and to use them in tissue engineering applications.

Which disciplines is your research group comprised of? What current projects are you working on?

My research area is diverse but the main disciplines are comprised of the following areas:

·      Biomedical applications of nanoparticles for diagnoses, cancer therapy, and
targeted drug delivery

·      Nanostructured coatings and composites for tissue engineering applications

·      Nanostructured materials for hydrogen storage for mobile applications (green technology for automobiles)

·      Nanomaterials for energy harvesting from sun (solar cells) and photocatalysts for environmental issues

·      Light-weight structures, e.g. composite materials and functional materials, for automotive applications

As a scientist who has worked both in Iran and Europe, what have been the main challenges unique to Iran that nanotechnologists have faced and how have they have adapted?

Nanotechnology is involved with nano-scale materials and phenomena. Experimental and theoretical work in this area requires various analytical techniques and high-speed computers. Iranian nanotechnologists are basically challenged with limited access to advanced analytical techniques and research budgets. To adapt to the current situation, INIC has grounded a network between different institutes and labs to give scientists and researchers accessibility to analytical equipment. INIC also supports students, post-docs, and researchers via various grants. Through a coherent, focused, and comprehensive program, INIC aims widespread national interest on nanotechnology from schools to universities. Many colleges, universities, and institutes are now working together on multidisciplinary research areas and share their facilities, equipment, and findings.

Since 2010, your journal, Scientia Iranica Nanotechnology, can be downloaded online in PDF form. What guided you to make these articles fully available to the public?

I believe in science without borders. Iranian scientists benefit from the findings of other researchers through many international journals and books. We also like to present our findings to scientists of other nations and contribute to worldwide nanotechnology development.

In the past few years, the INIC has put forth many programs educating schoolchildren in nanotechnology. What has their approach been to make nanotech accessible?

We believe that infrastructure is an essential element and prerequisite of sustainable development. The utmost important part of infrastructure is human resources. We do look at the human resources as a chain from schoolchildren to professors, specialists, and experts. INIC is linking together different elements of this chain through its National Nanotechnology Program. Specifically, they have grounded several programs for schoolchildren. The programs are compromised of inviting lecturers to give talks, educational seminars for teachers, developing educational software to introduce basics of nanotechnology to children, distributing easily-understandable books and articles to the public, and hosting annual festivals for schoolchildren.

Do you think America’s call to increase sanctions against Iran will affect your country’s progress in nanotechnology? Will America’s push to unite Europe against Iran affect your collaborations with scientists around the world, specifically in Germany and England?

I believe sanction has two faces. On one hand, it restricts the accessibility to facilities, equipment, and materials. This part is certainly disturbing the progress. However, I see another side that somehow is good! The sanction has limited the mobility of our students and experts. I believe the strength of the country is its talented and brilliant students and well-established academic media. This is the most important difference between Iran and other neighboring countries. Over three million students have now enrolled in Iranian Universities. Hundred thousands are now registered at graduate levels. This is a true strength and advantage of Iran. As far as the American and European banning of the mobility of Iranian students via visa restriction, we enjoy more and more from forced-prohibited brain drain.

What is the wonder in rapid development of Iran in scientific publication when thousands of talented graduate students join the university annually? This is a direct consequence of well-educated students, working hard even in a tough condition.  I am personally an example of this scenario (although I am not belonging to the upper 10% of talented scientists in Iran). I was unable to go to the US to visit Standford University due to the September 11 tragedy and was twice refused a visa to visit UC Berkeley. What would have happened if I had been successful to go to the US and possibly settle down? Up to now, I have graduated many talented students at SUT. They are really brilliant and I am very proud of them. Some of them left the country to continue their studies in Europe and the US but many are living in Iran and truly contribute to nanotechnology development.  Since my research area is not strategic and has no dual applications (mainly biomaterials and green technologies), I enjoy collaborating with many scientists in the US, Canada, Europe, South Korea, and Japan.

The Iran Nano 2011 Festival highlighted not only Iran’s scientific progress, but also the commercialization of nanotechnology breakthroughs. Do you think market demand will play an important role in determining funding in nanotech?

For sure yes. Many factories and managers are now aware of the advantages and benefits of nanotechnology. There are high demands in industries for advance technologies, particularly under current tightened sanctions. We see more and more requests for targeted research projects. INIC encourages applied research and provides help in commercialization. In the future, market demand will definitely determine the research direction.

Where do you see nanotechnology’s greatest benefit to the Iranian people coming from?

I believe we can enjoy nanotechnology’s benefits both from improved life standard through medical cares and enhanced national gross income via advanced technologies to produce high quality products at competitive cost. The former includes any activities that advance healthcare, diagnoses, monitoring, and therapy. The latter is closely linked to industry. Various industrial sectors of Iran can benefit from nanotechnology; perhaps the most important ones include extraction of oil and gas, petrochemical industry, automotive industry, water treatment and environmental remediation, and energy sector.
Related links:

Dr. Simchi’s Research Center: http://www.cnam.ir/
Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: http://nano.sharif.ir/en/?module=People
Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council Website: http://en.nano.ir/
Vice President Soltankhah’s Announcement: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9007160260
Scientia Iranica Nanotechnology Online (bottom of page): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10263098/18/3

This might sound like a flawed project, but the student defined “smarter” as “higher scores on math and memory tests” and demonstrated that tactile learners scored better while chewing gum.

See first:

Part I:  3 Strategies for an Original Science Fair Project
Part II:  How to Answer the 5 Most Common Questions from a Science Fair Judge

~~~

Designing your own science fair project should be exciting and fun, but without a little guidance it is often stressful for parents and students.  This post is to help both of you get started designing an original, creative, and technically correct science fair project.  First, keep in mind the 5 basic steps of the scientific method (see Part I:  3 Strategies for an Original Science Fair Project).

QUESTION => HYPOTHESIS => EXPERIMENT => RESULTS => CONCLUSION

Sounds straightforward, but finding a good question is usually the biggest hurdle, so let’s take a look at the type of question you should be looking for.  The structure of your question needs to be something like…

• What is the effect of one thing on another thing?

• What happens to something when I change something else?

• If I increase this thing, what will happen to that thing?

The scientific term for those “things” is variables.

One variable will be changed by the student.  That variable is called the independent (or manipulated) variable.  In the questions above, the independent variables are “one thing”, “something else”, and “this thing” because these are the variables that will be manipulated.

Another variable in the experiment will be monitored to see if anything has happened to it in response to the changes in the first variable (i.e. the independent one).  The variable that the student thinks might change is called the dependent (or response) variable.  In the questions above, the dependent variables are “another thing”, “something”, and “that thing”.  And the prediction for how it might change is called the hypothesis.

For example:  How does the length of the straw affect the distance traveled by a spitball?

Here, the independent variable is the length of the straw and the dependent variable is the distance traveled by the spitball.

Everything else, such as type of straw, diameter of straw, type of paper used for spitball, amount of paper used for spitball, angle of straw, etc., is not part of this specific question, so the student will not focus on them (i.e. the student will keep these things the same when conducting their experiment).  Sometimes we call these controlled variables, but that often confuses students because they are not the actual “control”.  Other times we call them constant variables, but that is an oxymoron (how can something be both constant and variable?).  Use whatever terminology the teacher asks for, but note that as long as they are not changed, they will not affect the results.

Getting from question to hypothesis is the next step.  The choices for hypotheses, and it is really important that the student picks one BEFORE conducting the experiment, are:

• As the length of the straw increases, the distance the spitball travels increases because …
• As the length of the straw increases, the distance the spitball travels decreases because …
• As the length of the straw increases, the distance the spitball travels does not change because …

All teachers and science fair judges like to see the reasoning behind why the hypothesis was chosen. The reasoning shows the student did research or has some understanding of, or interest in, the question.

Getting from question to experiment is now easier.  The student will CHANGE the independent variable, and MEASURE the dependent variable.  Repeat at least 3 times.  Experiment done!  Now graph your results, make a conclusion, and get ready for judging (see Part II:  How to Answer the 5 Most Common Questions from a Science Fair Judge).

FYI:  If you are interesting in the spitball experiment, you will need to find a way to standardize the “blowing” of the spitball.  In other words, how will you make sure that the puff of air is the same each time?  (Hint:  what could you use – besides your own lungs – to provide the puff of air?).

Also, make it your own project by asking a slightly different question.  Perhaps something like:  How does the type of paper affect the stickiness of the spitball?  Here you will need to figure out a way to quantify (i.e. generate a number) for “stickiness” (Hint:  sticky objects will stick longer than not-so-sticky objects, and time is an example of a quantitative, dependent variable).

Good Luck!  There is more science fair project help at my website, http://science-fair-coach.com

Dr. Adbel-Mottaleb in Tahrir Square

Today is the last day of Egypt’s regional elections. The revolution there, with its daring protesters and turbulent course of events, has captured a global audience. However, the aspect of this change that has not been talked about is its impact on Egyptian technological progress, especially in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a new field in science and engineering where scientists from different specializations collaborate to control the placement of atoms on the molecular level, and has produced astonishing breakthroughs with applications across the board.

Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Mottaleb is the leading nanotechnology consultant in Egypt and Director of the Nano Materials Masters Program and the founding director for the Center of Nanotechnology at Nile University. He also helped write a chapter for NATO Science for Peace on nanomaterial consumer applications, as well as numerous research papers and articles on the issue of nanotechnology for developing countries. I sit down with him to discuss the importance of nanotechnology, the state of technological progress and public nanotechnology education after the revolution, and Egypt’s future role in the global nanotechnology landscape.

What inspired you to pursue a career in nanotech?

When I started back in ’97, I was going after my PhD. I got excited by some of the possibilities offered by nanotechnology on an academic level, because the ability to handle material on an individual manner, meaning individual building blocks, was very exciting for me. I started working on the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) and the fact that you can actually see data that can reveal the molecular structure was just amazing.

You began by working at universities in both Belgium and Germany. Why did you decide to return to Egypt?

At the end of 2004 I started organizing a nanotechnology conference in Luxor, Egypt. That was the first conference in the Middle East on that level and it was very successful. We had 164 international participants, 100 Egyptian researchers, and about 150 students. The amount of discussions and collaborations that were engaging at the conference was amazing. That pushed me to start considering what nanotechnology can do for the Middle East, and I came to the conclusion that there is a very rare opportunity for countries there to be able to contribute scientifically to the body of knowledge worldwide.

It’s an opportunity for the younger generation of scientists to get out of the deadlock we’ve reached. I mean, if you look at any fundamental or technical field or discipline in science that has been around for the past thirty or fifty years. Because a lot of work has been done, it’s becoming more and more difficult for young scientists without enough resources and funding to contribute to the world of scientific advancement and see and feel the significance of the work they do. In nanotechnology that’s not the case. There are a lot of things we don’t know and understand. The possibilities are just infinite. Secondly, specifically for the young researchers, in the Middle East we have this stupid tradition where people look into your exact field of specialization, and the older you are, regardless of how you’ve done all this time, the more senior and the more powers you have. Now, with nanotechnology as a fresh field, there was no one who was specialized and old in nanotechnology. That gives an opportunity to the younger generation to solve problems and to claim a space for themselves where they can work unhampered by the older generations. Thirdly, this technology is very applicable. You can see it today in the lab, and within a year or two, you can see it on the market. This gives the youth the ability to get excited and interested in such research.

In the end, I saw that there’s something I can contribute to this development. My wife and I organized the whole conference. My wife is not a scientist; she’s a political scientist, in ethics and minority rights. That showed me that we have the ability to organize, coordinate, and spot opportunities. We have the scientific backgrounds, the local knowledge of how the market here works, and the cultural aspects. There was a small window of opportunity that we needed to capture. That’s what made us move back to Egypt and start SabryCorp as a consultancy firm, trying to advise governments, companies, schools and anybody who might be interested in this technology on how to develop this technology and raise awareness for those who are not interested, so they can understand its impact, because they are not aware what the technology can do.

What are some of the strategies you use to engage and inform the public about nanotechnology?

We work in three directions. The first direction was of course scientific conferences, and eventually we moved it into more business-oriented conferences where we introduced this technology to specific sectors. I talk about the engineering applications of disciplines, the medical applications, the science applications, the cars, you know, the defense and security issues. We try to show them the impact of the technology, and how this can affect their competitiveness and positioning in the market. We also focus on academic conferences looking at the technological aspects of nanotechnology, and add some business people to give focus to the meeting to show the researcher what they can do, or what problems people face.

The second direction is speaking at different events, on TV, in newspapers. We try to explain it in a layman’s approach, about what the technology is and what it can do. I’ve talked to lawyers and philosophers, or the humanities, and I’m trying to discuss the socio-economic impact of nanotechnology, the regulations required, and how to really push the ethical questions: should we invest in this technology, what type of investments we need to make and how to direct it.

The third application that we have, we started a non-profit program called in2nano (in2nano.sabrycorp.com), something we started to target high schools, where we talk to kids who are between fourteen and eighteen. We give them a very interactive workshop, discussing nanotechnology and its applications, using things that teens would connect to. We use a lot of things from global media and movie culture, and from Egyptian culture. We even call this program “the falafel guide to nanotechnology,” because one of the main themes of the program is falafel.

We engage them in a whole different way. We participated in some events down here in Egypt for schools, whether it’s in the library of Alexandria, or run by the Ministry of Research summer camps for the students. We also visit many schools to give the workshop. We applied for funding and received ten months from the Research, Development and Innovation Agency here in Egypt (an EU-funded program). The idea behind the project was that Egypt has over 40 to 45% of the population under the age of thirty. Each year we have almost a million students going into university, and it has been noticed recently that there has been a decline of students going into science-based disciplines. Everyone wants to go into business or computer science more or less. My idea was that this is probably because of the way that science has been presented to them. It’s boring, it’s not exciting, it’s irrelevant to their lives. So when the program starts, one of the very first opening remarks I say is: “I don’t care where you want to go, you want to be a lawyer, you want to be philosopher, you want to be a medical doctor, an artist, an architect, you want to be anything, it doesn’t really matter, because nanotechnology’s going to impact your life,” and I show them how it impacts their lives.

One of the things we do in this program too, before we talk to the students in the workshop, is handing them a survey, the main question we are really looking at is what do you think about nanotechnology? Are you looking at a career in science or not? After the lecture we do another survey, and ask them similar questions but in a different way. What we’ve found is that the amount of students who were saying they would not pursue a career in science, has decreased. The amount of students saying maybe increased, and the amount of students saying yes, has increased. On an average of 50%. If you look at it from the gender base, females increased significantly: it’s almost 30% of them who are now saying that they might consider a career in science. Right now, we are trying to maintain the program, but that requires funds, and with the global recession and the revolution in Egypt, that’s becoming more and more difficult. We really hope to continue it, because it’s one of the core messages of SabryCorp and carries great hope for this region.

How has the revolution affected the nanotech industry as a whole in Egypt?

Well, we don’t really have a nanotech industry, but we have a number of initiatives that were started by the previous government, whether it was a national level research center, litigating funding seeds, or different initiatives within the universities themselves or the research groups. Unfortunately, in this environment, people are really afraid to commit to anything new. Any project that we are running is facing a lot of difficulties because of funding issues and because if you had managed to engage with the previous government, you’re kind of labeled as a remnant, despite the fact that you had nothing to do with the government itself. You had a project, you applied for the project, or you managed to convince those responsible that this was something important, and they funded it.

Overall, research in Egypt right now is badly suffering. For example, I also have a position at Nile University, and founded the Center for Nanotechnology at the University. At the time we started it in 2010, this was the first place offering a Master’s Degree in nanotechnology, and that was initially a 4 million dollar seed fund provided by the Egyptian government over three years. We only got half a million, and there’s about 2 million dollars overdue since last April. And we’re not able to convince the funding agencies to honor their commitments. We cannot fund the research that we are doing at our center.  Despite this situation, we are working as hard as possible to ensure that our work continues. We’re applying for funding at different places but that takes time and money we don’t have. It’s a change phase and we have to go through it. We need the support of the international community to be able to go through something like this.

And how has that affected research at the nanocenter?

It has slowed things significantly, because now our students have to try to use facilities wherever available in Egypt. This always depends on the availability of the equipment and the response costs for us to use the equipment and the facilities at other universities or research centers. We’ve rented some labs from some companies located near the university, which are not even adequate. Our research has slowed down, students are frustrated but committed to finish and go to work, and contribute to the society and to Egypt. It has affected us deeply, negatively, but we are committed to solve it.

A significant hurdle we are facing now is the fact that the Egyptian government has stopped our move into our new campus. Since 2007, we have been operating out of temporary facilities and awaiting the completion the campus. The government has granted Ahmed Zewail (1999 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) the full use of our campus, and since May 2010, he is refusing to allow the university to move into the facilities. This is despite the fact that the facilities were partly funded by donations to the university and the facilities remain unused to date.  Several rounds of negotiations have failed due to his insistence on shutting down the university. He plans to build a new university (Zewail University). It is very difficult to us to understand his position and intentions. We hope that the international community will support us and not allow the shutting down of a very young and successful university.

How has Egypt been faring with regard to the “nanodivide,” the gap between Western and developing countries in nanotechnology advancement?

I would say that we’ve manage to raise our [research and development] significantly, but because of the events that have been way over the past year, on the practical ground, I don’t think we’ve advanced very much. We’re making components press forward, but it is slow. And we need to speed up the process a little bit.

What do you think is the best way for Egypt to advance its nanotech R&D?

I think we need a national nano initiative. It needs specific and measurable targets that all the resources that are going to be allocated for nanotechnology are going to be put into that area, and achieving targets. We need a significant collaboration with the international community. We need to find a way to establish such bi-lateral collaboration schemes, and in the end, we need the facilities. We have a huge untapped human resource power here, I mean, it’s really wonderful to see a fresh graduate from university writing a full proposal and standing up and defending it on a very scientific level, and really holding a sound argument. Unfortunately they are unable to execute these proposals because of the lack of funding and the lack of facilities.

This is really the way out, and nanotechnology can affect the culture in this region. You can use the interdisciplinary thinking and push the idea that you cannot do something on your own, you need collaborations, you need to blend other disciplines, and this is very similar to having foreigners or people in different language speaking countries having to find a way to work together. Nanotechnology really instills that into the minds of the students, and gives them the opportunity to question and challenge the conditions or the dogmas they have, whether it is about science, or culture, or politics. Nanotechnology is a wonderful venue to promote intercultural dialogue, and interfaith dialogue. You can really see the opportunities.

What aspects of nanotechnology do you think will improve the lives of the Egyptian people the most?

My approach to research in developing countries is specific to identifying key problems and key advantages in the society or research community, and to address these problems. For example, I believe healthcare, as a discipline, is a huge area that can better the lives of the people. I’m not talking about new pharmaceuticals, or new procedures, I’m actually more interested in providing preventative measures. Hepatitis C (HCV) is a pretty dominant disease in Egypt, with almost 50% of the Egyptian population susceptible to the disease at one point in their lives. Many people are not able to identify it and get diagnosed early on, until it reaches an advanced stage where it’s almost impossible to treat. If we have a simple mechanism to detect it earlier, it would save the government and society a lot of money and hassles. The idea is that you need to really screen the entire Egyptian population for the disease. The standard methods are very expensive and are only available in specific areas. Using a technology like a portable sensor with a disposable chip that can easily detect the presence of HCV with a high sensitivity, and you don’t even need highly trained medical personnel. It would be like the diabetes check machine. We can take such systems around, door to door, and actually test people for it. We need something like this, and there are things that have been developed for other diseases.

The issue with water is also tremendously important. We suffer a huge problem with water resources here in Egypt. There are water quality and contamination [issues], and water treatment [would be essential]. Also, we have the option of working with desalination. The last major issue, in my opinion, would be energy. Specifically Egypt, with the amount of renewable energy resources that we have here is tremendous. We really need to focus on that area and try to push research and come up with some commercial products very quickly in this area. There are other areas, like printed electronics, for example, which would offer countries like Egypt, where we do not have the traditional infrastructure for an electronics industry, a fighting chance, looking at specific niche applications, like printed solar cells for example, or printed sensors, stuff like that. It’s cheap, and easily fabricated here, would be good areas to work on. This is just giving you some examples. There are, of course, a lot of other examples, but these, in my opinion, are the priorities.

In terms of global partnerships, where do you see Egypt’s potential in the future of nanotech? What does Egypt bring to the global community?

Right now, worldwide, if I read the statistics correctly, there is a big deficiency in manpower highly qualified to do advanced research in nanotechnology. Egypt is full of human resources. The second thing is, the entire world is affected by how developing countries are doing. So even Europe, or the States, or Canada, or Japan, and so on, suffer consequences from the status of developing countries and how bad situations are there, in terms of healthcare services, water quality, and education. Egypt can really be the pilot project for the Middle East and Africa, even to the developing world generally, and that will affect the global status worldwide. Egypt has a culture of cooperation and a long history of cooperation with the States, Canada and Europe. We do have a lot of resources and mechanisms that can be used and replicated eventually into developing countries.

In terms of laymen in the States, or Europe, there are products that are coming out of Egypt, especially in agriculture for example. So, developing more agriculture cooperation is a must. With regard to renewable energy, there are a number of projects that are looking into the possibilities of generating electricity here in the Middle East using advanced methods and exporting that energy to Europe. I think we do have a significant role to play. It might not be very clear at the moment, but I believe that we can significantly contribute to the global nanotechnology market, and additionally that we are a very important market for the technology scene.

Related links:

SabryCorp Website: http://www.sabrycorp.com/sc/index.html
in2nano Website: http://www.in2nano.sabrycorp.com/conf/in2nano/08/Program/schools.cfm
Nile University Center for Nanotechnology Website: http://www.nileu.edu.eg/nano/index.html
Nile University in the News: Nature Middle East http://www.nature.com/nmiddleeast/2011/110315/full/nmiddleeast.2011.32.html

You can follow Dr. Adbel-Mottaleb on twitter @NUnanoDir