Vol. V Issue No. 2

DickinsonScienceMagazine

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CONTENTS 24 April 2019 - Volume 5, Issue #2

Editor’s Choice 5

The Science of Sex and Gender

Thinking Backwards: An 8 Outdated Earth in Modern Times

Features 22 Why Thanos was Wrong

31 A new schedule for school

25 (Keep Your) Eyes Wide Shut

31 Living in a toxic world Skulls and Soyboys: Stop

32 Misinterpreting Science to

Support Your Shitty Politics

Science News Understanding the Role of 10 Exercise-Linked Irisin in Alzheimer’s Disease Does the World’s Second 12 Case of HIV Clearing Bring Hope to End AIDS? 13 Opportunity, Lost

Research 14 Our Microbial Bodies 15 The Search for Third Light 16 Hiking to Hearths: The Chemistry of Historic Iron Production 18 Team Science Experiences of Healthcare 20 Seeking 21 Calling All Solvents: The Search for an Azeotrope of

Opinion

Technology 27

The Roles of Biomimicry in Today’s Technology

29 Biometrics How Pennsylvania Can 30 Adopt Green Tech

Entertainment 33 Ready Player One Lovers in a dangerous 34 spacetime Under The Microscope with Associate Professor 35 of Chemistry Rebecca Connor

Health & Wellness Your Area is Your Air: Air 36 Pollution, Asthma, and Environmental Justice Interpersonal Risk Factors 38 for Binge Eating Disorders CAR-T Therapy: A New 40 Frontier for Blood Cancer Treatment Chronic Wasting Disease: 43 Are Humans the Next Victims?

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Letter from the Editor

Hello everyone! I’m Tom Wegman, the new editor-in-chief for the Dickinson Science Magazine. I’ve been working on the Science Magazine since my second semester freshman year and fell in love with it, so I’m so happy to be put in charge. I hope that in reading this issue you can see why I’m such a fan.

The theme for this issue is science in popular culture. If you know me, you already know I’m a massive nerd, especially when it comes to movies. I like movies a lot. I’d attribute a large part of my interest in science to movies I watched growing up, such as Jurassic Park fueling my interest in dinosaurs. Popular culture gets a lot of people hooked on science, whether it be a movie, book, or video game. Maybe it gets the science right, or, in a lot of cases, very very wrong. But a lot of the times when I’ve talked with people about their interest in science, they can cite some very specific bit of popular culture that got them interested.

I’d like to thank all of my editors who helped work on the magazine! They did a wonderful job, as did the writers who wrote the articles. And, of course, a thank you to you, the reader. I’m really proud of what we’ve created this semester and I hope you enjoy. If you like what you see, consider applying to be an editor next semester or to write an article! We’re always looking for new talent.

-Tom Wegman ‘20

DSM Dickinson Science Magazine Editor-in-Chief Tom Wegman ’20 Managing Editor Jacqueline Hwang ’19 Executive Layout Editor Alice Kuklina ‘20 News Editor Yuna Lee ’21 Features Editor Anna Peterson ’21 Research Editor Abigail Brickler ’21 Science & Technology Editor Hiya Sawhney ’22 Science & Entertainment Editor Alexis Scott ’19 Opinion Editor Ariana Patterson ’22 Health & Wellness Editor Jacqueline Hwang ’19 Executive Copy Editors Allison Curley ’19 Ayana Rahman ‘22 Copy Editors Jordan Cox ’21 Sydney Taylor ’21 Event Coordinator Janice Wiss Faculty Advisor Missy Niblock Email: scinews@dickinson.edu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DsonScienceMagazine/ Issuu: http://issuu.com/dickinsonsciencemagazine

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Editor’s Choice

The Science of Sex and Gender Associate Professor of Psychology and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Megan Yost

Three flawed assumptions about sex and gender have been prominent in our society: (1) there are only two sexes, (2) a two-sex categorization system is a biological fact, and (3) sex and gender align in a natural, predictable way, with female biology associated with identification as a girl/woman and male biology associated with identification as a boy/man (Kessler & McKenna, 1978; see also Crawford, 2018). These assumptions came to the

forefront of political awareness when, in October 2018, a leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) showed proposed changes to Title IX that would establish a legal definition of sex. Specifically, the memo read, “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof

Are there only 2 sexes that are biologically determined?

The DHHS memo exemplifies the first two cultural assumptions: it shows the mistaken belief that a male body, with a typically-appearing penis and functioning testicles, always results from XY chromosomes and that a female body, with a typically-appearing clitoris and vagina and functioning ovaries, always results from XX chromosomes. Biological research shows, instead, that sexual development (the development of the physical body into

male, female, or another configuration) is a complex process that does not simply involve chromosomes.

In approximately 98% of births, development proceeds through a typical pattern of sexual differentiation into male and female. At conception, a typical zygote has inherited one sex chromosome from the father (either X or Y) and one from the mother (X). Anatomically, for the first 6 weeks of pregnancy, embryos have no struc-

of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.” (reported by the New York Times, October 21, 2018).

However, research on biological sex and psychological gender demonstrate that this is an incomplete and overly simplistic way of thinking about sex and gender.

In this essay, I will share some of the research on the complexities of sexual development and psychological gender identity development.

tures that are male or female. Instead, they have embryonic structures that will eventually become sex organs. For example, the embryonic genital bud can become the glans of the penis or the glans of the clitoris, and the embryonic urogenital fold can become the shaft of the penis or the labia minora. Thus, all embryos begin in a unisex stage, with the potential for anatomic development in a typical male or typical female direction, depending on the action of specific genes (e.g.

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Editor’s Choice Choice Editor’s the sex-differentiation region of the Y chromosome (SRY)) and hormones.

In approximately 2% of births, sexual development results in an infant who is intersex. Intersex conditions can occur due to chromosomal variations, with individuals having multiple copies of sex chromosomes.

Klinefelter syndrome, for instance, involves multiple X chromosomes with any number of Y chromosomes (e.g., XXY, XXYY). Although external genitalia appear typically male, people with Klinefelter syndrome have small testes, lower levels of testosterone, and low sperm counts.

Intersex conditions can also occur due to genetic variations. For example, a fetus with XX chromosomes

Gender identity refers to one’s core sense of self as a gendered person. The third cultural assumption we have is that gender identity will correspond to biological sex, with genetic/biological males identifying as men and genetic/ biological females identifying as women.

Already, the above discussion of the varieties of biological sex show that this binary system is insufficient and fails to consider intersex identities.

Research shows that most people with Klinefelter’s syndrome, for instance, tend to be raised as boys and identify as men, but some feel the gender categories do not apply to them and they identify as intersex. People with complete androgen insensitivity (XY chromosomes but no ability to respond to testosterone) tend to be raised as girls and identify as women.

Psychological research with intersex children points to the role of social and biological factors in gender identity development. People with con-

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may progress through fetal development to ultimately be a baby born with male-typical genitalia if they have the SRY gene. This results in a baby with a penis and small testicles that do not produce sperm.

An incredibly diverse range of intersex conditions can occur due to genetic variations that result in atypical hormone levels or in bodies that do not respond to hormones. People with 5 alpha-reductase have XY chromosomes but a genetic variation that results in bodies that do not masculinize in utero. When they are born, they have female-typical external genitalia, but at puberty, the clitoris develops as a penis and they go through a typical male puberty. Congenital adrenal hy-

perplasia (which can occur in XX or XY fetuses) causes the adrenal glands to produce more testosterone than is typical. In an XX fetus, babies are born with male-typical or ambiguous genitalia; in an XY fetus, men have deep voices and very well-developed musculature.

The full range of possibilities of sexual development shows that our cultural assumptions of a two-sex system that is always congruous is faulty.

These possibilities further point to the absurdity of using “genetic evidence” to determine sex. Intersex individuals—people who are not exclusively male or female biologically—exist, and the DHHA definition ignores that fact.

Does biological sex always align with gender identity?

genital adrenal hyperplasia who are raised as boys tend to identify as boys, and those raised as girls tend to identify as girls. However, those girls often have more stereotypically masculine-typed behaviors (preferring rough-and-tumble play) and interests (sports, electronics) than is typical of most girls. This could be because of higher levels of testosterone, and because the masculinization of their bodies leads other people to treat them the way boys are typically treated, or a combination of the two. A biosocial approach seems most appropriate to understanding gender identity development.

Of course, the existence of transgender people (individuals whose gender identity is not aligned with the societal expectations associated with their natal sex) and nonbinary people (individuals whose gender identity is other than male or female) immediately calls into question the cultural

assumption of sex-gender alignment.

For trans and nonbinary individuals, gender identity is not tied to sex. Although biological researchers have attempted to identify factors associated with someone being trans, the results have been inconclusive or contradictory. Social scientific research shows that trans people exist across cultures and have existed throughout history.

The DHHA changes “would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with” (New York Times, October 21, 2018), meaning that the approximately 1.4 million trans people in the U.S. would simply not be recognized by the federal government. These proposed changes to Title IX would ultimately result in a loss of civil rights for transgender people. Given that the DHHA definition of sex is completely unsupported by research, this is particularly troubling.

Editor’s Choice

Conclusions Biological variations in sexual development and psychological variations in gender identity all point to the failings of our binary system of gender. This binary is the default assumption in our soci-

ety, but it need not be so (it already isn not so in some other cultures, but that is beyond the scope of this article). As we acknowledge the existence of, and begin to listen to the experiences of, intersex peo-

ple, trans people, and nonbinary people, perhaps we can become more accepting of the biological and social diversity that has always been with us.

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Editor’s Choice

Thinking Backwards: An Outdated Earth in Modern Times Anonymous Student The concept of a flat Earth is usually seen as religious, outdated, and undeniably incorrect by modern society, but there is a growing subset of the population that vehemently believes in a geocentric flat Earth (FE) model. The idea remained dormant for over a century, but reemerged when NBA star Kyrie Irving revealed he believed in a FE model. To understand why the idea has regained momentum, we must examine the reasons for which flat earthers believe what they do.

The chief principle behind the FE model is Occam’s razor: the simplest solution is the most likely to be correct. On an empirical basis, the Earth appears to be flat, and since that is the simplest answer, it is probably true. What we

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quickly realize when asking flat earthers to defend their opinions is that the evidence used to dis-

The sun and moon revolve in circles, with day covering a half-circle, and night covering another half-circle credit contradictory claims is not at all simple and barely follows empirical logic.

Like all conspiracy theorists, proponents of FE believe in an or-

ganization that is “in-the-know” whose members are purposefully deceiving the population to advance their interests. In the case of flat earthers, the people who are “deceitful” are people in positions to observe the Earth and its curvature or lack thereof—anybody who has been above the needed height to observe the curvature of the earth. This would includenational and international space organizations and pilots. Flat earthers believe that space organizations do not send anything into space because it is much cheaper to manufacture fake evidence. It is interesting to note that to believe in FE, you must also accept the moon landing conspiracy.

The other threat to the FE model is commercial airlines.

Their motivation is also money because the quickest flight path would be across the arctic in any long flights if the FE theory is true (see the United Nations logo for reference); however, to support a round Earth gives airlines an excuse to take long circuitous routes to charge more for flights. Additionally, proponents claim that the height allowed to be reached during commercial flights is not high enough for passengers to truly observe the Earth’s curvature or lack thereof.

Additionally, the FE model is in complete dissonance with our understanding of fundamental physics. The FE model depicts Antarctica as an ice wall around the outside of the disk earth. This is the explanation for why the water does not fall off the edge of the earth. One problem with this is that for most of Earth’s existence, the poles have not been covered in ice, so at any period where there was no ice blocking the water, it would have all fallen off.

The cosmology of the FE model is even more nonsensical. The sun and moon revolve in circles, with day covering a half-circle, and

night covering another half-circle.

If this were to be true, then night would not exist, because the sun would always be visible from essentially every point on Earth, as would the moon. Furthermore, flat earthers suggest that the sun and moon circle around the Earth, but the planets revolve around the sun. This is a direct contradiction to Occam’s razor, which is so fundamental in their beliefs. The simplest solution is that all (globeshaped) planets revolve around the sun, but instead flat earthers make excuses for why Earth does not follow the same rules as all other planets.

One such rule is that we do not experience the gravity of the Earth because it is flat and therefore not particularly massive. Instead, acceleration due to gravity is attributed to a cosmic force that continuously accelerates us and all other objects in the universe in a singular direction at 9.81 m/s2.

Like many other conspiracy theories, flat earthers use counter-arguments that are incredibly complex, yet the only real arguments they present to prove a FE model are failed experiments from the

Editor’s Choice 1800s that tried to prove the Earth was round.

The use of Occam’s razor is a masquerade; the true reason that these “skeptics” believe in a flat Earth is not because of Cartesian doubt or any other philosophical principle. Their paranoia of large institutions combines with their feelings of unimportance, resulting in the creation of an illusory threat that only they know about.

The sad reality is that this only exacerbates those feelings of unimportance and loneliness because now they believe that everyone else is ignorant and they feel like no one is listening to them, calling them crazy. This creates a vicious cycle that drives people further and further into the depths of conspiracy, to the point where any logical counterargument is dismissed. Flat Earth is no different than any other alien, fake moon landing, or 9/11 conspiracy. Nothing is special about flat earthers; they are not enlightened, and the theory itself is just another addition to an ever-growing collection of name-brand conspiracies.

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News

Understanding the Role of Exercise-Linked Irisin in Alzheimer’s Disease

In 1901, Dr. Alois Alzheimer was introduced to Auguste Deter, a middle-aged woman that had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt, Germany with symptoms of severe memory loss, erratic behavior, and a heightened sense of paranoia. Given her relatively young age, Deter’s condition was a mystery to most of the physicians at that time. She was diagnosed with senile dementia and passed away five years later in 1906. When Dr. Alzheimer conducted a post-mortem examination of her brain, he found a mysterious web of tangled brain fibers and thick plaques (Ellison, 2018). Upon this investigation, Dr. Alzheimer published his unusual findings without much attention from the scientific community.

Ninety years later, however, Alzheimer’s records were reexamined as the central case study for the discovery of the illness that plagues 5.7 million Americans today, the notorious Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

One of the reasons for the characteristic loss of memory in AD patients is due to shrinkage of the hippocampus, a structure in the brain linked to memory formation and emotions (Henneman et al., 2009). But what causes the hippocampus to shrink in these patients? The short answer is that scientists still are not completely sure. There are so many complex pathways and factors involved that make it difficult to be certain. While previous studies have shown a 12-26% reduction in hippocampus size in patients with PTSD and a 15% reduction in patients with depression, more information is still needed (Sapolsky, 2001). However, with the massive evidence suggesting that exercise helps alleviate a variety of neurological condi

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Jacqueline Hwang ‘19

tions, could exercise also play a role in preventing the deterioration of the hippocampus?

When a person exercises, the muscles release a hormone known as irisin. First discovered in 2012, Irisin is a derivative of the fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 5 (FNDC5). Initial studies investigating irisin found that it functions to help the body burn calories through thermogenesis (Lee et al., 2014). However, new research by a team of scientists in Brazil and Canada has shed light on the role of irisin in stimulating memory formation and preventing reductions in hippocampus size, suggesting that lack of exercise, and thus a lack of irisin, may influence the development of AD.

To arrive at this conclusion, Lourenco et al.

(2019) tested the effects of high and low levels of irisin in mouse models. To mimic low levels of irisin, mice were infected with lentiviruses harboring a irisin knockdown. To induce high levels of irisin, different mice were infected with adenoviral vectors harboring overexpression of irisin.

Data acquired through immunoblots, mass spectrometry, behavioral tests, ELISAs, and RT-PCR showed that 1) knockdown of irisin impairs longterm potentiation and novel object recognition memory in normal mice and 2) overexpression of irisin rescues synaptic plasticity and memory in mice with AD. While more research is needed to confirm the potential for irisin to combat the degradation of the brain in AD patients as well as to investigate how much exercise is realistically needed to yield a significant response, there is hope for AD patients—and we, as scientists and a society, should never forget that.

News

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News

The

acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic has resulted in roughly 35 million deaths worldwide since its first case in the 1980s.

AIDS is the third most severe stage of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. HIV weakens patients’ immune systems by attacking the CD4 cells that defend human bodies from infections and disease. As a result, patients infected with HIV have relatively more vulnerable immune systems and live under the life-threatening risk of getting cancers and other opportunistic infections (“About HIV/AIDS”). Currently, over 37 million people are infected with HIV despite the medical advances that make it possible to detect the virus in an earlier stage and control spreading. Recently, the world’s second case of HIV clearing in a London AIDS patient after a successful bone marrow transplant brings hope to scientists and pharmaceutical researchers in the medical field to end this deadly pandemic (Kelland, 2019a).

Almost three years ago, an AIDS patient in London received a bone marrow transplant from a donor with genetic mutation, CCR5, which was resistant to HIV. Highly sensitive tests today do not detect any sign of remaining HIV in his body even after he has stopped taking antiretroviral medicine. This groundbreaking cure of HIV infection opens tons of new possibilities for future research on AIDS eradication. As HIV expert Sharon Lewin stated, the cure owed its success to both CCR5’s genetic resistance to HIV infection and a side-effect of bone marrow transplant. When CCR5 is transplanted into the receiver’s immune system, a “graft versus host” side-effect destroys all the old immune cells carrying HIV and replaces them with a brand-new immune system made of the HIV-resistant CCR5 cells. In this case, HIV will be eradicated because the virus cannot replicate in the new immune system (Kelland, 2019b).

Although the patient’s cure provides motivation for scientists in the prolonged process of fighting AIDS, the idea

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of bone marrow transplant has a high risk and is expensive which makes the process an uncommon option for most HIV patients. Many patients have reported having less concern about continuing to take antiretroviral drugs to control the disease instead of receiving a transplant.

Current progress in HIV treatment using genetic mutations includes editing CCR5 outside of the body with advanced technology and re-implanting the edited cells back into the patient’s immune system. This approach does not guarantee complete replacement of infected cells because only part of the CCR5 cells are edited and some cells carrying HIV can still be left alive in the body. Thus, despite that a second case of AIDS cure has been achieved, the process of finding a safer and more effective solution to end AIDS is still ongoing. What the second cure of AIDS suggests is a new possibility of using gene therapy to combat the pandemic, which also requires further research (Kelland, 2019b).

Does the World’s Second Case of HIV Clearing Bring Hope to End AIDS? Mia Yao ‘20

Opportunity, Lost

News News

Claire Jeantheau ‘21

Where were you when Opportunity’s mission was declared complete?

By now, you must have learned of the fate of NASA’s beloved Mars rover; broadcasted widely, the news was the last thing a space nerd of any degree would want to hear in the middle of a bleak February. A friend admitted to crying when she saw the first headline. At Astronomy Club’s annual Valentine’s Star Party, visiting students gasped “how dare you!” at a doodle in the craft room, marked with the now-viral interpretation of Opportunity’s alleged last words: “My battery is low, and it’s getting dark.” Across social media, millions of people mourned a robot which they most likely had never encountered in person with drawings, Tweets, and memes.

Do I exaggerate? Barely. There seems to have been some united feeling brought on by the rover’s passing, and with good reason. Launched in July, 2003 and landing in January, 2004, Opportunity’s time on Mars lasted close to 15 years, encompassing four American presidential elections and the entirety of my public school career. In other words, I have few life memories from a time before the rover, affectionately nicknamed “Oppy”, be-

gan traversing the red planet. Even more impressive is that the length of Opportunity’s mission was initially set at only 92.5 Earth days. There were many times that it could have fallen, like when a dust storm in 2007 prevented its solar panels from charging, but Oppy held on. Alongside Spirit, the second half of NASA’s Mars Rover Exploration Mission, the rover captured over 342,000 raw images of the stunning surface of Mars. Opportunity’s discovery of the mineral hematite, which forms near water, during its life also hinted that liquid may have once flowed beneath that same surface.

As for Opportunity’s final message, the words which have been claimed by the internet are a poetic interpretation of the data sent in June 2018 before it stopped communicating. Another dust storm kept the skies above the rover dark for more than a month, making consistent power an impossibility. The announcement weeks ago was less of

a sudden death and closer to a final pronouncement after months without receiving information. These are the facts—and yet, for many, the decision to end Opportunity’s mission after hoping that it might pull through yet again still feels like the loss of something greater.

Oppy is survived by the Curiosity rover, which maintains a presence of exploration on Mars, along with a less tangible remnant: a sense of hope and discovery. As a last sendoff for Opportunity, NASA engineers played the song “I’ll Be Seeing You” by Billie Holiday; “I’ll be looking at the moon / but I’ll be seeing you” are its wistful, fitting ending lines. NASA’s website also currently features a project allowing users to write postcards to Opportunity and its team. In a time when so much on Earth feels miserable and disorienting, it is reviving—though bittersweet—to be able to look up together and remember something that once was beyond.

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News

Our Microbial Bodies Michael Murphy ‘20

The

human body is a magnet for all types of bacteria. Anyone who has seen posters detailing the importance of personal hygiene would be well-aware. The good news, though, is that the body does not only attract disease-causing bacteria. In fact, it is entirely normal for parts of human skin to host anywhere from hundreds of thousands to even millions of colony-forming units (CFU). For example, a normal human scalp can have more than one million CFUs per square centimeter (WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care: First global patient safety challenge clean care is safer care, 2009).

Perhaps even more surprising is the presence of bacteria within the human body; scores of bacteria and other non-human microorganisms (e.g. viruses and fungi) live within the gut. Collectively known as the gut microbiota, similar to the bacteria on the skin, gut bacteria are present in healthy humans. Furthermore, they do not simply exist within the body, free from interaction with the human cells. Advances in technology have also enabled researchers to explore the potential function of gut microbiota in overall quality of life (QoL) and psychiatric diseases, such as depression.

A study by Jeroen Raes et al. (2019) explored this research topic. The team analyzed data from the Belgian Flemish Gut Flora Project (FGFP), measuring features of the gut microbiome via stool samples. QoL indicators and general-practitioner-reported depression were also collected. Several correlations were found between bacterial genera (plural of genus) and QoL indicators. For example, elevated levels of the genus Coprococcus were positively

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correlated with healthier scores of general health perception, physical functioning, and body pain. In addition, depleted measures of the genus Flavonifractor were negatively correlated with physical functioning scores. Dialister and Coprococcus were consistently depleted in depressed individuals who did not seek treatment. The data further suggest the presence of a symbiotic relationship between the microbiota and host. Several microbial pathways were found to influence GABA (a neurotransmitter) and tryptophan (a precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin) metabolism. Importantly, over 90% of serotonin is produced by cells in the gut (Gershon, 2013). Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are commonly prescribed to treat depression.

Thus, future research will likely analyze this relationship more rigorously.

While strong correlations between the microbiota and wellness were found in the study by Jeroen et al. (2019), attempts to establish causation in rodent models have not been easily translatable to humans (Kelly et al., 2017). Taken together, the findings support efforts to further explore the role of the human gut microbiota. It is also important to note that the methodology of Jeroen et al.

(2019) did not allow the researchers to establish directionality of the microbiota-gut-brain axis relationship.

Additional research should focus on the topic of directionality, as well as what lifestyle choices (e.g. diet) could promote the “good” bacteria and limit the “bad.” Afterall, if we must live with trillions of non-human cells on and within our bodies, we might as well optimize our relationship with

Research

The Search for Third Light Alaina Einsig ’19

Space

is a vast place, and

the amount of stars within it is seemingly infinite. Think about the night sky for a moment and try to guess how many stars are up there. Now, take whatever that number was and multiply it by two. Because it turns out that many of the stars in our sky have their own stellar companions.

These systems are called binary stars, and most of them are so far away that they appear as a single speck of light to the naked eye on Earth. The two stars can be far apart, so much so that they take years to circle each other. Or they can be close enough that they touch. Either way, they leave a unique signature of light when one star eclipses (passes in front of) another from our point of view.

This can be uncovered by repeated observations on a telescope. The signature, caused by the dimming and brightening pattern of light caused by the orbiting stars, is called a light curve.

This was the assignment that I was tasked with for my Observational Techniques class last Fall: choose a binary star system and take enough data to plot a light curve. I spent quite a few hours rounding up candidates. Constellations in the sky change as the earth revolves around the sun, so I had to choose one that would be visible throughout the fall semester. I also had to choose a star with a short period, one that could complete its light curve in a reasonable amount of time (though we are astronomers, Professor Hamilton-Drager was adamant that we didn’t stay up until 4AM watching stars on a school night!). I settled on VZ Piscium, a random binary in the constellation of Pisces.

It was bright enough for Dickinson’s telescope to see, in the sky during the right part of the year, and had a short enough period that I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over

it as the fall nights turned to long winter ones (the period is about 6 hours long).

Though it was chosen arbitrarily, a little digging revealed that VZ Piscium was a lot more interesting than we originally anticipated. Papers on my star were published regularly until 2004, where there was a huge gap in publications until January of 2018.

Most noted an anomaly in the consistency of the light curve – every 17 years or so, there was a variation in the normally stable curve.

Since the anomaly appeared regularly, the papers suggested it may be caused by a third star in the binary system. And that’s where my senior thesis was born.

What started out as a simple observation project proved to be much more interesting than my advisor or I anticipated.

Where the 2018 paper only had one night of data on the star, Professor Hamilton-Drager and I collected a total of 15 nights between last semester and winter break. So far, I’ve run a reduction process on all the nights, which corrects for small errors in the chip on our telescope and makes sure the light we receive in the images is even and accurate.

I then measured the light from my system and produced the light curve. So far, it seems to fit the data observed in the previous papers. Our final two steps are placing the light curve in the context of previous data to see if we can find that variation and creating a 3D model of VZ Piscium.

Regardless of whether or not we find the third star, working on this project has been incredible for me. Not only have I taken on the research of a little-known star, but I’ll be able to contribute something new to the field, and potentially discover a third object that no one has definitively seen before. No matter what that 3D model shows, I’m happy to have brought VZ Piscium to life on screen before my eyes.

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Research

Hiking to Hearths: The Chemistry of Historic Iron Production Visiting Lecturer of Chemistry Kathryn Barker

Iron

furnaces were abundant in the nineteenth century Cumberland Valley, with at least ten of them in operation within 50 miles of Dickinson College. There, woodchoppers harvested the seemingly plentiful lumber, and colliers converted the wood to charcoal by burning it on 30 to 40-foot diameter hearths. Wagons hauled the charcoal to local furnaces where it reacted with iron ore quarried from pits like the one that is now nearby Fuller Lake. The local abundance of accessible ore, wooded land, and limestone (for the removal of impurities) allowed the production of iron products such as stoves, cookware, tools, nails, cannonballs, and shot and gave Pennsylvania a leading role in the industrialization of the nation.

General Chemistry students do not often do their learning outside, but last spring my General Chemistry students studied this important industry with a place-based approach. Before stepping outdoors, they learned some relevant chemistry, seeing carbon as an oxidizing agent, pyrolysis as a way to convert wood to charcoal, and the effect of high temperature on reaction rates. They learned a little about the local landscape, the geology of mineral

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formation, and about how the locations of the original charcoal hearths can be detected remotely with present-day LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) techniques.

Students handled samples of charcoal, iron ore, and limestone (provided by retired Dickinson geologist Noel Potter and his wife, geologist Helen Delano.) They thought about the sustainability of this industry on the level of the atom (what percent of the chemical reactants end up as useful products?), the environment (what were the effects of timber harvesting?), and in social terms (were furnace labor practices equitable?), and wrote sustainability-themed essays.

The unit concluded with a field trip to Pine Grove Furnace State Park where Dr. Andre Weltman, a local expert on iron production at the park, shared details of charcoal and iron production and more samples.

He guided the class to sites where evidence of this industry still exists, finding 150-year-old charcoal at an old

hearth, slag near the furnace stack, and remnants of the local cemetery. Later, half the class hiked up to an exceptional view of the Cumberland Valley from Pole Steeple, detecting the presence of several charcoal hearths right on the trail. Other students explored the old Carlisle Iron Works furnace stack where it stands near the Appalachian Trail in Boiling Springs.

This year’s General Chemistry class will repeat these experiences and will also welcome Dr. Weltman to speak on iron production on campus in April in a lecture open to the public.

(This project was the result of the author’s desire to connect her passions for hiking and chemistry, and was supported by her participation in the Dickinson College Valley and Ridge faculty workshop for sustainability.)

Research

“Charcoal Hearths, Collier Huts and Haul Roads: Traces of the Iron Industry Across South Mountain.”

Wednesday, April 16th at 7:00 p.m.

Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium Dickinson College Andre Weltman, chairman of the Friends of Pine Grove Furnace State Park, will discuss the connection between the 19th-century charcoal iron industry and today’s South Mountain landscape. Modern trails and campsites often overlap with still-visible remnants of an important part of iron making: transforming the forests into charcoal fuel for the region’s iron furnaces. This history presentation will include discussion of pyrolysis, the destructive distillation of wood and the “chemical wood industry.”

Andre Weltman demonstrates the height of a charcoal pit at Pine Grove Furnace State Park

CHEM 132 Hikers with Dr. Weltman near Pine Grove Furnace State Park

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Research

Team Science

Ashir Borah ’19 and Associate Professor of Biology Mike Roberts

Historically, a single name may have been associated with an important discovery. In recent years, however, it has become clear that collaborative science is the most productive way to move the field forward. A recent article on the molecular genetics of ovarian cancer, published in the journal Cancer Discovery, has 27 authors representing 19 departments at 13 different research universities and institutes from 6 countries (Lin et al., 2019). In many fields of biological research today, “team science” is the approach of choice/necessity.

Team science involves the coordinated efforts of many researchers with diverse areas of expertise providing results from a variety of data sources for the purpose of answering seemingly intractable questions. On a smaller scale, team science involves a group of researchers working on unique aspects of a common problem. This

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is the approach being carried out by “Team AML” in the laboratory of Prof. Mike Roberts (Biology) at Dickinson College with his collaborator, Prof. Jeff Forrester (Mathematics).

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is the most common leukemia in adults and the second most common leukemia in children. It is estimated that over 21,000 new cases of AML will be diagnosed in 2019 and 11,000 AML deaths will occur. Standard treatments for AML, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant, frequently lead to remission, but relapses are common and often fatal. The mortality rate for AML has increased over the past two decades, indicating that new treatments are desperately needed. The spring 2019 edition of Team AML includes 11 students from three majors (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, and Computer Science) and

their goal is to incrementally advance our understanding of this disease.

The common problem being explored is how leukemia cells can be genetically reprogrammed to stop dividing, acquire normal myeloid cell characteristics, and/or undergo genetically programmed cell death. This can be accomplished in cell cultures using a compound called PMA, which drives leukemia cells to self-destruct in just two days but is too toxic for patient use. Student researchers have discovered that about 1,250 genes change in expression levels as the treated AML cells evolve toward self-destruction. Genes that encode “master regulators” of gene expression (i.e. transcription factor genes that produce proteins turning sets of other genes on or off), are among the 1,250 and are the focus of Team AML’s attention. Individual researchers

Research

are altering the expression of one or two master regulator genes to better understand how they might contribute to leukemia cell reprogramming. In addition, the team investigates large clinical datasets of gene expression and survival to correlate cell line findings with patient samples. Each team member investigates their genes of interest to collectively reveal a bigger view on novel ways that AML cells might be coerced to stop dividing, behave normally, or self-destruct.

But, amongst all the cell culturing, micropipetting, and biochemical assays, where does a computer scientist fit in? Interdisciplinary research provides a unique opportunity for Ashir Borah ‘19 (Computer Science, Mathematics) to apply what he has learned in computer science to the field of cancer molecular genetics.

The experience of being on a team of molecular biologists affords the

chance to learn a different “language”, not only new terms, but also concepts and methods in the biological sciences. In return, the molecular biologists start to learn the language of computer science and the possibilities it provides for understanding what the data are revealing. Equally important is development of the skills to communicate effectively in a diverse group and be a part of a team where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The experimental data shape the computational analyses performed, the results of which influence the next experiments conducted. This feedback loop is one of the significant benefits of team science.

When researchers from different disciplines work together, ideas come into being that might never be imagined from a single perspective. Specific concepts and principles from multiple fields can

be applied to a complex problem in ways that sometimes produce unexpected results. Borah credits his team science experience with helping him secure a job as an associate computational biologist for a cancer research group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Participation in team science provides opportunities to practice competencies central to the mission of the liberal arts education at Dickinson: effective communication, appreciation of diverse perspectives, innovative thinking, and useful application of these skills.

Being part of a team promotes both cooperation and healthy competition to achieve a common goal – on top of that, it’s fun!

[Team AML 2019: Kayla Bendinelli, Kevina Birungi, Shannon Bonner, Ashir Borah, Lilly Bussema, Jeff Forrester, Katie Koczirka, Kate Levangie, Kellyn Madden, Ryan McMahon, Kate Mnuskin, Mike Roberts, Ashley Tucewicz]

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Research

Experiences of Healthcare Seeking Adjunct Professor of Health Studies Margaret Winchester

The

health care system in the U.S. is broken. We outpace every other country in the world with our spending, using around 17% of the GDP towards healthcare, with incommensurate poor health outcomes. There are persistent health disparities that map closely to other forms of social injustices. Meanwhile, the health care safety net is working to ameliorate disparities and improve access to care for individuals left out of other services through a lack of insurance, underinsurance, or lack of other resources.

The safety net consists of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), free clinics, and other organizations catering to vulnerable populations. Our local FQHC operating as part of the safety net in Carlisle is Sadler Health Center.

In my research as a medical anthropologist, I examine how people around the world work with limited resources to access health care. I use qualitative methods to see how this access affects individual experiences, whether in urban Uganda, rural South Africa, Brooklyn, New York, or here in Carlisle. At the core of qualitative work on health care access is the notion that people are good at telling their own stories. Individuals are experts at identifying needs and gaps in care, in ways that may not be apparent through a survey or other methods. When done in conjunction with a research team and other types of methods, health-seeking narratives give a rounded picture of the therapeutic landscape. We can use voices of experience to inform policies and advocate for healthcare reform.

Through teaching the senior seminar in Health Studies here at Dickinson, I was introduced to the dedicated team at Sadler Health Center, who are providing quality primary care services to thousands of Cumberland and Perry County residents each year. Professor David Sarcone (International Business and Management) and I met with Sadler CEO Ken Green to see if student research could address specific needs identified by the organization. We were asked to assess a patient engagement intervention that Sadler is using, called the Patient Activation Measure (PAM). PAM consists of doing a survey to assess how engaged a patient is in their

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own healthcare and subsequently tailoring healthcare to meet patients at their current level, using motivational interviewing and multiple techniques.

We received funding from the Partnership for Better Health to assess the PAM survey and examine the context of health seeking. My students in Fall 2017 and 2018 have participated in all stages of the research process, from developing surveys and interview guides to applying for ethical approval, and from collecting in-person interviews to data analysis and report writing. Both groups of students made community presentations to share the findings of their work with Sadler representatives and other community partners. We found in initial interviews that Sadler’s team made the process of enrolling in Medicaid easy and accessible to their clients, which can potentially serve as a model for other facilities. Our research is ongoing, with a student research coordinator and several student interns.

When data collection is complete later this year, we will be able to assess the validity of the PAM survey in the Sadler population and to show the context of health care management for patients with diabetes. We hope that beyond giving students an experience of community-engaged work, our research can inform Sadler’s patient interventions and serve as a platform for advocacy, giving voice to a few of the millions of users of the health care safety net around the country.

Research

Calling All Solvents: The Search for an Azeotrope of DMSO Amanda Meinschein ‘19

If

you have been fortunate enough to participate in the Organic Chemistry Laboratory work at Dickinson, you are certainly familiar with Dimethyl Sulfoxide or DMSO. If you haven’t had that privilege, DMSO is an organosulfur compound that is a polar aprotic solvent. In other words, it dissolves both polar and nonpolar compounds, which is useful in dissolving a lot of substances at once. It also has a very high boiling point at 372.2oF or 189oC. With its high boiling temperature, DMSO takes some time to heat up, causing unnecessary wait times in labs, which can add to research costs and be a frustrating situation for everyone.

It is also a major headache for the pharmaceutical industry as DMSO, which freezes at a higher temperature than water, is used to store drugs under development because it gives the drug a longer shelf life. However, since it takes so long to boil DMSO, it is very hard to remove from the stored drug. Wouldn’t it be great if we could make DMSO boil at a lower temperature and slash the wait times for all chemists the world over and increase the speed of drug discovery? Also, imagine getting your Organic Chemistry labs done earlier and being able to make it to the caf or to practice on time. Reducing these frustrating wait times and complications is the motivation behind my research.

Our research utilizes chemical mixtures that are called azeotropes. An azeotrope is a mixture of at least two different liquids that can have a higher or lower boiling point

than the two liquids that were used to make it. Also, it is important that the two or more liquids cannot be altered or changed by a simple distillation. When these liquids are boiled, the resultant vapor will have the same components as the two liquids that were used. For example, alcohol is an azeotrope between ethanol and water. That’s why when companies make grain alcohol it says 95% content instead of 100% content because part of it doesn’t come off with the distillate. As of now, no one has found an azeotrope for DMSO that would create a lower boiling point and provide the benefits listed above. Professor Gavenonis (Chemistry) and I are trying to become the first.

As you might expect, attempting to create an azeotrope for DMSO begins with the distillation of a solvent and a sample of DMSO. After some liquid boils off and collects in the distillation head, the collected liquid is run through a gas chromatograph along with plain DMSO and a plain version of my original solvent selected for this distillation. The machine-produced graphs are analyzed, and if DMSO and the solvent show up in the distillation, it is then tested on a rotary evaporator. Currently, we have tried about twelve different solvents including 1-Butanol, DMF, and Trimethyl Borate, with at least one showing positive results. Our next step with this promising result is to perform further tests with a rotary evaporator. If we end up obtaining a positive result from the gas chromatograph and the rotary evaporator, the final step would be to test the azeotrope by dissolving a solid and trying to remove the extra solvent that was mixed with DMSO. Until we get to that point, we are still trying various combinations of solvents in hope of getting the desired reduction in boiling

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Feature

Why Thanos was Wrong Nathaniel Rines ‘19

Those

of you who keep up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and have watched their latest mashup movie, Infinity War, know that part two is coming out this year. I figured that since the new movie is on most fans’ horizons, a good revisitation of the first one might be valuable.

Specifically, I’d like to talk about the main antagonist, Thanos, who wants to vaporize half of all s e nt i e nt beings.

If you someh o w haven’t heard of the Infinity War movie, it made quite a splash. There’s a big grape dude named Thanos rightfully concerned with the issue of overpopulation throughout the galaxy. In this fictitious world, there are many alien planets with intelligent life and many of them struggle with a lack of resources adequate for their inflated population.

Although noble in objective, Thanos’ methods are quite questionable.

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Plagued by a vision of suffering, he goes to great lengths to obtain power in order to eliminate half of the universe’s population with a set of powerful artifacts that lets him turn entities to dust instantly.

Many people have actually written articles about this same exact subject, engaging in discourse like “why didn’t Thanos just create more resources with his immensely powerful artifacts?” and “is it ethical to kill people to save the rest?”. To me, though, these seem like plot holes that Marvel expects you to fill in and to use your suspension of disbelief. More importantly, this is the Dickinson Science Magazine! I want to share a different take, an irrefutable argument to why Thanos was not just wrong, but downright ignorant using math and science. In order to understand why Thanos’ plan was fundamentally bogus, though, we have to understand population dynamics—in other words, how prolific life is as reproducing and what patterns it exhibits. I promise it’ll be easier

Fig. 1. A graph displaying an exponential growth curve with no carrying capacity. Shows how a species would grow in number when they are nowhere near their limit. Modified from Openstax biology, 2016

than I’m making it sound.

All species of life follow the similar population growth rules, these can be shown using the exact same equations and graphs (“Exponential and Logistic Growth”; Vandermeer, 2010; Edwards and Edwards, 2011).

Firstly, a species will grow in number as much as it possibly can until hits its limit, which we call a carrying capacity(“Exponential and Logistic Growth”; Vandermeer, 2010; Edwards and Edwards, 2011). When a species is growing in population, it will actually start reproducing faster as the species becomes more numerous because, among other factors, there are now more individuals procreating. This is called exponential growth, and it looks like Figure 1. Scary, right? Thankfully, as we talked about, all species have a carrying capacity, which is determined by the limiting factor. The limiting factor is some attribute that limits a population size, such as food, space, or predation(“Exponential and Logistic Growth”; Vandermeer, 2010; Edwards and Edwards, 2011).

When a species approaches its carrying capacity, it will start to slow in growth as the limiting factor weighs more and more heavily on the group. The trend then begins to look like Figure 2, which

we call logistic growth(“Exponential and Logistic Growth”; Vandermeer, 2010; Edwards and Edwards, 2011).

As we discussed, these concepts apply to all organisms including humans, but currently we are still growing exponentially4-7. The graph of human population growth looks like Figure 3 (“Boundless”). Humans have been able to push our limiting factors out of the way with vaccines to prevent disease, mass industrial food production, safer birthing practices like c-sections, and much more. This is actually a really

Fig.2. A graph displaying a Logistic growth curve with a marked carrying capacity. Shows the patterns of population growth when a carrying capacity is approached. Modified from Openstax biology, 2016.

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big problem because although humans are capable of growing in number, we are still causing massive amounts of damage on the environment per capita (“Boundless”). We plug billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year (“Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data”; Dennis et al., 2018; “Climate Change”), we dump millions of pounds of plastic in the ocean every year (“When The Mermaids Cry: The Great Plastic Tide”), we cut down millions of acres of forest every year (“Deforestation”; Brandford, 2018), and this just isn’t sustainable. And for every additional person on the planet, these environmental disasters will only be exacerbated.

So, we can confidently say that overpopulation is a massive environmental issue that will cause future suffering, and Thanos is totally justified in his actions, right? Wrong! Because the human population is growing at such a blistering pace, killing half of all people won’t simply solve the problem of overpopulation. The human population doubling rate has grown shorter and shorter over the past few centuries, and by 1987 is was as low as 37 years (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, 2019)! If we go by these numbers, Thanos’ mass kill-

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ing will only be a bandage on the gaping wound that is overpopulation. From this we can assume either of two possible mindsets. The first is that Thanos is just plain uneducated.

This is the theory I choose to believe, although it’s a hard one to swallow. Thanos is an ultrapowerful being who is apparently super intelligent too. I’m a lot more familiar with science than I am with comics, but Wikipedia says that he has “superior scientific knowledge.” To me, this strikes me as a man who would at least have a general idea of how population dynamics works, especially if he was killing half of the universe based on a plan centered around population dynamics!

There is another possibility, though. Perhaps Thanos is much more demented that we previously thought. Maybe Thanos’ plan wasn’t to kill half of everyone in the universe once, but instead to have mass-cullings on the regular. Maybe he has some sort of twisted Logan’s Run-esque dystopian future planned where he becomes an overbearing tyrant keeping the universe from ever getting too populous every 40 years. Not only do I shiver at the dark and wild mind it would take to try to pursue such an agenda; I also don’t believe that’s the character Marvel was trying to make. Thanos showed genuine emotion for the people he was killing in the move. He talked about “Rest[ing] and watch[ing] the sun rise on a grateful universe” after he finished his first killing spree.

Maybe he hides his demonic intent well, but I just don’t see it. I think Thanos is just extremely cocky and uneducated in his own affairs.

Now, with all of this said, there is a counterargument to be made. While the human population growth rate is incredibly high right now, we are seeing signs of it slowing a little. By 2024, some estimate that we’ll see the doubling rate for the population down to about 50 years rather than

37 years (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, 2019). Perhaps by 2088, the doubling rate will be 95 years (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, 2019). I do think, however, that human growth patterns are still a glaring flaw in Thanos’ plan. Whether it be 40 years or 80 years, these mass cullings will have to happen again and again and again, and if his plan is to continue until population growth levels off, it could take tens—maybe hundreds— of wipes until peace is made. And again—not going into the philosophical side—but I’m pretty sure killing billions of people wouldn’t be a great thing even once. The narrative Marvel has presented us with is that Thanos is a confused, but ultimately compassionate, being who truly does want to limit suffering, and I don’t think that endless death into the future is part of his mentality.

I think Infinity War actually has some weird truths to it that we can take away from this. The Infinity War tells us that, yeah, overpopulation is a problem, but it also shows us how complicated it is. There’s no clear cut answer to it, and a lot of people don’t really understand its implications or the science behind it (sorry but I’m talking about you, Marvel).

Maybe with sustainable practices we can offset some of the increases in environmental degradation due to overpopulation, but right now no one really knows what the future is going to look like for sure. We need to be skeptical of people proposing easy solutions. The challenges ahead will not be a cakewalk and if someone is presenting a one-solution-fixesall idea, it’s probably not going work as planned. So I guess if I have one thing to say to you all, it’s “don’t be a Thanos”.

Don’t be that dude who hears one fact or idea and suddenly believes they know everything about it. Because Thanos is more than just wrong, Thanos is lowbrow.

Thanos is a trademark of Marvel Characters Inc.

Fig. 3. A graph showing historical human populations both continent specific, and for the whole world over the period of 1000 years. Modified from Openstax biology, 2016 24

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(Keep Your) Eyes Wide Shut Celia White ‘21

On

January 24th, Netflix released Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. Immediately, it seemed like the country became obsessed. Everyone I know watched it; if they say they haven’t, the response is typically a rave review or “you just have to see it”. That kind of reaction is far from uncommon. The U.S. has been fascinated

by Bundy — and serial killers in general — for decades. This obsession is international; from the Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper to Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, people can’t let go of their fascination.

The recent use of DNA tests to find murderers who were never caught has reopened a lot of old cases, resulting in such outcomes as the capture of the long-elusive Golden State Killer.

The use of DNA testing for criminal cases and the media attention it has gained has helped to bring the phenomenon of serial murder further into the spotlight. Lately, there has been an increase of movies and TV shows following the lives and crimes of some of the most famous murderers. My Friend Dahmer was released in 2017 to largely positive reviews; later this year, following the release of The Ted Bundy Tapes, another movie recounting Bundy’s life will be released starring Zac Efron.

IMDb lists over 1,000 films about serial killers, many of which have been added in the past two decades.

But why this obsession? What is it about the brutal acts of these people that fascinates the public? It’s incredibly prevalent in pop culture, and the attention people give it is borderline obsessive. It’s like a thriller come to life. Any number of adults claim to have personally interacted, or have a family member who interacted, with Ted Bundy. My own mother talks about how one of her coworkers went on a date with him and the FBI visited their workplace weeks later. Why do people wear this as a badge of pride? What is it about serial murder that is so disturbingly compelling?

Actually, the answer is simple: we’re curious. We have to be in order to survive. We need curiosity so that we can navigate the world safely and effectively. It’s an intrinsic aspect of human and animal psychology, referred to by Pavlov as the “what-is-it?” reflex. Contemporary views of curiosity explored in a neuroscience-based research study, note that we are naturally curious creatures from birth (Kidd and Hayden, 2015). It’s how we learn, how we understand the world, and most importantly, it’s vital to our survival. If we don’t figure out the nature of our surroundings, we can’t categorize things as threatening or non-threatening, which leaves us vulnerable to attack.

It makes sense, then, that we would be fascinated by violence and murder, something that goes so strong-

ly against our social and moral laws. On a very basic level, we instinctively work to understand the motives and behaviors behind murder in order to avoid being murdered. That’s our brains’ logic. It’s the same reason we can’t look away from an accident scene: morbid curiosity. This phenomenon has been studied for decades, and rightly so: why do we want to see something so disturbing that it leaves us on edge for hours afterward? It’s the same thing that happens when we watch horror movies: we’re tense and jumpy the entire time, but we can’t bring ourselves to look away.

This is explained by a psychological phenomenon referred to as “negativity bias”. Studies have found that our brains’ neural pathways are activated to a higher degree by negative stimuli than by positive stimuli. In one study at Ohio State University, participants were shown a series of photos; some were positive or neutral, such as pictures of pizza or a hair dryer. Others were negative: dead cats, mutilated bodies. The electrical activity in the cerebral cortex of each participant was monitored during the experiment, and the researchers found that the surge of electrical activity in the brain was far greater in response to images that produced a negative emotional response than those that produced a positive emotional response (Ito, Larsen, Smith, Cacioppo, 1998). These impulses travel

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Opinions Feature

researchers found that the surge of electrical activity in the brain was far greater in response to images that produced a negative emotional response than those that produced a positive emotional response (Ito, Larsen, Smith, Cacioppo, 1998).

These impulses travel to and are processed by the amygdala, one of the parts of your brain in charge of emotion, memory, and, in a sense, survival instincts.

What this means, in simpler terms, is that we learn more from negative stimuli than from positive stimuli. This is important because it keeps us alive.

When presented with a potential threat, we need to absorb and process all the relevant information that we can in order to avoid being harmed, ourselves. It’s not a conscious process; we don’t stare at an accident scene with the active intention of learning how to avoid accidents ourselves. However, as far as instinctive processes go, it’s a pretty powerful one.

It makes sense, then, that we’re fascinated by violence. On an instinctive level, we pay attention in order to survive; when we hear about serial murder, our brains need to process all of the related information available in order to avoid being murdered, ourselves. We need to understand what traits contribute to someone being capable of murder so that we can avoid people with those traits.

We also need to understand so that we can categorize. Our world and our identities within it revolve around categoriza-

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tion. A critical component of social psychology is “Social Identity Theory”, within which the idea of social identity is defined as “a person’s sense of who they are based on group membership(s).” (McLead, 2008) In a nutshell, that refers to our social construction of “the other” and a sense of “us vs them.” Social psychologist Henri Tajfel proposes that we form social groups based on our perceived sim-

feel better about ourselves.

Despite being separate and distant from the out-group, we still seek information about them to find verification that they are, in fact, different than we are. In order to know what we are, we also have to know what we are not.

Keeping this in mind, consider serial killers as an out-group whose behavior is so far beyond what we deem acceptable that we

ilarities; in other words, we socialize with people who are like us. Everyone else, by extension, is unlike us.

These two groups are known as the in-group (us) and the out-group (them).

The main aspect of Social Identity Theory is social comparison, the idea that the in-group will try to find negative aspects of the out-group “in order to enhance group self-image” (McLead, 2008). In simpler words, we notice negative things about other people to

hardly consider ourselves to be of the same species.

We refer to murderers as “ruthless,” “animalistic,” and “inhuman.” Most of us cannot fathom the mental state required to murder someone, especially in the often brutally violent ways seen in serial killings. There is very little about murderers that we can relate to, and by not being able to relate, we are automatically placing them in the out-group.

That piques fascination. Socially and psycho-

logically, we are compelled to pay attention. If we are going to enhance our own self-image, even if it is only our internal perception of ourselves, we need some way to get the upper hand.

We need to notice what the out-group is doing that separates them from us, things that we can label as negative so that we are reassured of our superiority. This is not necessarily conscious.

We are probably not sitting down to watch serial killer documentaries with the active thought of “let me see how horrible these people are so that I remember I’m a good person.” It is an unconscious categorization that we do automatically.

But in order to do it, we have to observe.

Thus, pop culture’s fascination with serial killers can be traced to a combination of negativity bias and social identity theory.

We have a self-preservation-based need to understand why these people behave the way they do. What traits lead to someone becoming a serial killer? We need to understand so that we can avoid them. That is negativity bias. But we also are compelled to understand so that we can categorize murderers as unlike us because we are wired to a mentality of us vs them.

If we don’t know what makes us different from a serial killer, then that would mean that there is nothing to separate people like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer from the rest of us.

And that is a scary thought.

Amidst

the constant desire and expectation for practical and recreational technological innovation, modern-day human society operates under the pressure of constantly advancing the way we envision, create, and implement technology into our lives.

Who would suspect that the blueprints for what may be our most valuable technological breakthroughs lie within the nooks and crannies of nature itself?

Fringing the borders of human-centered thought lies a plethora of cryptic, yet well-developed natural processes and features whose organisms are attributed to the natural systems around us. While the innovations made by humans have only come about during the short time that we have inhabited Earth, many other organisms have existed, evolved, and thrived over a much larger expanse of time. Therefore, certain non-human modes of function and survival have advanced to such a degree that, as humans, implementing similar innovations into our technology could benefit our societies and populations immensely. As society is faced with complex problems, the need for complex yet organic—often ingenious— solutions to these problems are being pioneered through the method of biomimicry.

Biomimicry (otherwise known as biomimetics) is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies (Biomimicry Institute). Through scientific engineering and problem-solving, the concept and application of biomimicry has been gaining traction in recent years. The receptivity and success of biomimicry is especially notable in the case of implementing nature-inspired designs towards modern-day methods of transportation and infrastructure. Through biomimicry, both developed and developing countries globally can work towards solving problems efficiently and sustainably (Biomimicry Institute). As technological advancements are made and adjustments are identified within society’s needs from technology, sustainable factors can form around these technologies to ensure that humans are not overextending their advancement towards negative outcomes.

What are some examples of biomimicry? In terms of transportation, Japanese bullet trains have been inspired by and modeled after the beak morphology of kingfisher birds. The kingfisher’s specialized beaks, which allow them to dive into water when hunting with little to no splashing on impact, seemed to be the perfect model for increasing aerodynamics and streamlining the nose of the train; after this biomimetic design change was applied, results included that these Japanese 500 series trains proved to be 10%

Technology

The Roles of Biomimicry in Today’s Technology Valerie Kuppek ’21

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Technology

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faster and conserved 15% more electricity (Adams, Digital Trends). Another example of a design solution borne from biomimicry that benefits everyday society includes the execution of infrastructure and architecture similar in ventilation to that of termite mounds. Sound odd? Interestingly, the natural ventilation and cooling properties that termite mounds provide to the planet and arid ecosystems may just be the perfect model for creating our own buildings that use natural convection systems.

Countries like Zimbabwe have already executed this concept through construction of publicly accessible buildings, such as shopping malls that utilize this natural convection system, and found its function yielded 10% less energy than a traditional air-conditioned shopping mall (Adams, Digital Trends).

Within environmental context, other innovations have been made through biomimicry concerning how humans harvest and utilize energy. Wind turbines, a moderately effective way of harvesting energy, may start to be modeled after the tubercle-shaped fins of humpback whales; with the nodules on the flippers of these massive animals proving to be an adaptation that creates steeper and more significant movements throughout the water than a completely streamlined flipper morphology, and from there arises the hypothesis that nodular design of air turbines may be more beneficial than current models used today (Adams, Digital Trends).

There are also ideas tied to biomimicry that have not yet been put into large-scale effect, one of these being the adhesive foot components various species of geckos.

Adhesive materials are in demand within several scientific and everyday areas, whether it be robotics or household technology. Within recreational technology, gecko-inspired synthetic adhesives have allowed people to climb walls. These synthetic adhesives, typically composed of silicone, plastics, carbon nanotubes, and other miscellaneous materials, are not at the peak of their potential, but also show promise with multiple research teams across the globe developing similar designs that allow scaling heights of up to 3.6 m (11.8 ft) (You, Science). While these designs may be exciting, the replication of gecko-like adhesives can definitely be developed to the caliber of even being applicable from field biology and observation methods to military technology and methodology.

The exciting thing about biomimicry is that it is not only bringing forth creative technology never-before conceived with such precision, but it is also encouraging the scientific community to delve into topics and research that may have been overlooked or minimized in the past. Through thoroughly understanding the biological, chemical, and ecological components of the natural world around us, humans are on the path of mindfully enhancing our own environments in the image nature may have very well intended them for.

Technology

Biometrics While

Bryce Haver ‘20

facial recognition may seem new, the field of biometrics can be traced back to the 1850s when prisons started using photography to keep track of inmates. Facial recognition itself, however, can be traced to the 1960s when Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe devised a system for noting key landmarks on each face. After the tragedy of 9/11, the demand for biometrics skyrocketed as people started to feel unsafe. As of 2019, there is a projected investment of 23 billion dollars in the industry (Tucker, 2014). This huge jump in investment may be attributed to the newly-created automation process. Now thermal imaging, facial recognition and skin texture analysis are capable of “nearly real-time use on a massive scale.” (Sharma, 2018)

A common misconception about facial recognition software is that it is only found in security companies or within governments to provide protection. There are also many private companies that use this technology for other reasons. One app (http://www.helpingfaceless.com) is currently using facial recognition technology to help parents of kidnapped victims find their children by uploading a photo of them and comparing it to other pictures and videos. Amazon is also using facial recognition software to help improve security, and in the future facial recognition software might be used as a signature for paying online (Kottasova, 2016).

There are a lot of controversial issues around utilizing facial recognition software. For example, Facebook uses the pixels in your photos and the ones you are tagged in, in order to market products specifically to you. While there is a way to option out of this by turning off “face recognition” in your settings; it is automatically on until you do go to settings (How Does Facebook’s Face Recognition Work?, 2019).

One argument that supports this type of software is that it benefits users, providing them with more opportunities to find items and services that they would be interested in. However, many people are discomforted by how this technology threatens their privacy, especially when the technology is not in their best interest. In 2015, Walmart set up a facial recognition system that can identify potential shoplifters.

Although this technology is not scanning random people, it does use a gallery of previous suspected or caught offenders and can notify a manager (Roberts, n.d.)

Rapid improvements in the industry have been made, but how has the law kept up with said changes? The main law that monitors biometrics is the Biometric Information Privacy Act 740 ILCS 14, commonly known as BIPA. “BIPA provides a private right of action to…residents ‘aggrieved’ by private entities that collect their biometric data (including retina scans, fingerprints and face geometry) without complying with the statute’s notice and consent requirements,” (Kurth, 2019). This law allows people to file putative class action lawsuits so common people can have their rights protected. However, technology is always growing, and in this author’s opinion it is the peoples’ responsibility to be vigilant and make sure our rights are not being violated.

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Technology

How Pennsylvania Can Adopt Green Tech Sammie Trvalik ‘21

Green technology aims to mitigate our heavy dependence on finite resources like carbon-based fossil fuels through use of alternative energy. A downfall of renewable technologies is that they are potentially location specific, so in order to make the shift to renewable energy, it is important to determine which specific technologies are realistic by location. Pennsylvania’s climate varies dramatically; it lies in the humid continental zone but geographic features like the Appalachian mountains have an effect on local weather patterns, meaning alternative energy resources must be just as variable.

Carbon Capture

While there have been great efforts to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, we still need ways to remove the existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In order to combat this issue and speed up the process of attaining a cleaner atmosphere, many climate scientists explore the use of carbon sequestration.

This technology was not invented by humans; trees and other vegetation naturally use carbon dioxide in their own processes and release oxygen, a process that we can mimic with technology. Research teams at the University of Pittsburg and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created small capsules that primarily use baking soda to absorb carbon as power plant exhaust flows through the small structures. The smaller structure also requires less electricity during operation, and the increased surface area allows slower absorbing (and more affordable) materials like baking soda to be used as solvents (“Professor models system using baking soda filled capsules to capture CO2 emissions”, 2018). As a state with heavy industry emissions, technologies that capture carbon before it reaches the atmosphere are incredibly important in Pennsylvania’s potential to combat climate change.

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Algae

Technically, algae falls under the biofuel category, as it derives its energy from oils found naturally in the plant. While algae fuel costs more than other forms of biofuels upfront (like corn), it is estimated that it yields a total fuel production approximately 70 times the amount of other biofuels. Many algae farms use ponds or open water to grow their algae, but as the technology improves, some companies are moving to closed systems and vertical systems to make the process more efficient (Walton, 2008). Even more attractive is the fact that these farms can be placed next to fossil fuel power plants and recycle the CO2 released, given that algae naturally produces its energy through photosynthesis. Most current algae fuel technologies derive energy from the sun, like the majority of renewables, but scientists are working with over 1,000 strains of algae that are adapted to varying climates, reducing location specificity (“Energy 101”, 2012).

Biogas and Biomass

Biogas and biomass are quickly gaining traction among the farming world, which makes it very applicable to farm-heavy PA! Biogas and biomass are both forms of biofuel, which extract energy through the breakdown of organic materials and waste. However, biomass is based in combustion and releases harmful gases (like methane) back into the atmosphere. Oftentimes, the plants used are specifically grown for biofuels. On the other hand, biogas uses anaerobic digestion of waste materials to trap the methane released and use it to produce heat, electricity and carbon dioxide.

Farmers popularly use compost from plants and animals and use the leftover manure to add nutrients to their soil1.

Opinions

A New Schedule for School

Opinions

Alex Arnette ‘22

At the end of last year, The American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote an article about the effects of delaying high school start times on academic performance. The study, conducted in two high schools over a period of two weeks, found that delaying start times by just 55 minutes increased the median time slept by 34 minutes. Both schools also saw a 4.5% increase in average grades during the study. Of the two schools, only one saw increased attendance and punctuality. The more economically disadvantaged school had significantly fewer tardy and absent students after the start time delay than before.

The current theory that teenagers simply have a later circadian rhythm does not explain the variance between economic class. I believe that kids who need to work jobs and care for younger siblings are disproportionately less wealthy than those who do neither. Because they have more tasks to complete, typically at night, these students benefit more from later wake up times. Delaying school start times would not only improve sleep schedules and grades for all students, but also shrink the gap between students of different economic backgrounds.

Living in a Toxic .

World

The modern world is full of chemicals that are Amanda Meinschein ‘19 toxic to humans and the environment. After taking Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology with Professor Witter (Department of Chemistry), I became aware of the amount of chemicals present in our daily lives. The new car smell that we all know is produced by volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can also be found in cigarettes, building materials, furnishings, pesticides, gasoline, and more. When combined with atmospheric nitrogen oxides, VOCs create tropospheric ozone, better known as smog, which creates air quality problems. Short term exposure to VOCs causes headaches and eye irritation, while long term exposure can cause more serious damage.

It is likely that we also come into daily contact with flame retardants, which are common in furniture. These compounds persist in the environment after the material itself has reached the end of its useful life. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were common early flame retardants that have spread to the polar regions, showing up in the breast milk of native Arctic people and the fats of orcas, as well as other predators. Though PCBs are slowly disappearing since being banned in 1979, they are being replaced with new chemicals whose affects are not completely understood. I think humans need to thoroughly examine the secondary effects of the chemicals that we use and the places where they are deposited. Global warming is already affecting ecosystem health. Global toxin distribution stands to make a bad problem worse.

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Opinions

Skulls and Soyboys: Stop Misinterpreting Science to Support Your The Shitty Politics Whole Soy Story by Dr. Alexis Scott ‘19

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Kaayla T. Daniel expresses a strong disdain for the “soy industry” and warns readers about compounds in soybeans called phytoestrogens, which she states mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen. Daniel’s claims are drawn from a study which associated phytoestrogens with reproductive problems in sheep1, which has also been picked up by alt-right personality Paul Joseph Watson. Watson claims that a high-soy diet is responsible for the feminization of American men and their liberal politics2, and dubs men who do not conform to societal expectations of masculinity “soyboys.” As an influential figure in the alt-right community, Watson possesses a significant platform through which to spread these ideas.

However, current evidence suggests that soy does not significantly affect testosterone levels in men3 and probably does not influence their politics. Pseudoscientific concepts, such as soyboys, have long been used to reinforce damaging norms. Scientific racism, which used craniometry to justify racial castes, was prevalent until the 1950s. More recently, pseudoscience has appeared under the façades of “skepticism” and “reason,” despite citing studies that largely have not been subject to scientific rigor.

Although it is tempting to dismiss these incidents as outliers, they must be recognized for their power to uphold systems of oppression and harmful worldviews. True science seeks to develop a fuller understanding of the world through meticulous examination of evidence. As such, scientists must denounce deliberate misinterpretations developed to push social and political agendas.

Entertainment Opinions

Ready Player One Tom Wegman ‘20

Ready

Player One is one of the few movies I’ve almost walked out of in recent years. It’s truly painful, especially considering its two hours and twenty minutes long runtime.

The story depicts 2045 as a dystopian world, where humanity has decided to escape into a virtual reality world known as OASIS to avoid dealing with the consequences of worldwide environmental and economic collapses. Our protagonist is a nerd named Parzival, who uses his obsessive knowledge of ‘80s pop culture to solve puzzles that, when completed, will lead to ownership of the OASIS (and by extension, the world). He teams up with his friend Aech and a gamer girl named Art3mis, with whom he immediately falls in love by virtue of being the only girl he’s ever interacted with. Together they face off against a giant corporation looking to gain ownership of the OASIS in order to maximize profits from it. The plot is completely boring and all the main characters are totally unlikable. There are no real stakes to any of the big action set pieces either—at any moment the characters could just take off their VR headsets and be fine.

There’s one sequence that takes place in the setting of The Shining, and it looks just like the real thing. Finding out later that they digitally recreated the set instead of just splicing new CGI on old footage was actually pretty neat. Hopefully,

that same kind of technology can be expanded upon—imagine how cool it would be to see photorealistic interactive spaces based on historical photos?

The rest of the CGI looks pretty bad, though, which surprisingly I think was the intention – to make it seem like a video game. I’ve seen video games out today that look better, and this movie is supposed to take place a little over twenty years from now.

The film celebrates “nerd culture,” but by doing so brings to light many of the worst aspects of it, from excessive gatekeeping to casual sexism. It really feels outdated in today’s world in terms of how the protagonist shows off how much of a “real nerd” he is and the entire romance subplot is handled in just the worst way possible. Any time two romantic leads were on screen I found myself either cringing or bored out of my mind. In a world where video games are incredibly popular and comic book movies are topping the box office consistently, do we really need to treat being a nerd as something special?

It’s passable, which is why I give it 2/5 stars. It’s a Speilberg movie.

It’s competent. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It has solid enough performances from all the actors (Mark Rylance stands out as the best).

It has and solid enough set pieces.

That being said, I’d much rather watch The Room another time than have to sit through Ready Player One another time. At least that movie has a soul.

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Entertainment

Lovers in a dangerous spacetime Cecelia Lamancusa ‘20

Imagine

that a new multiplayer game appears on your usual gaming platform. It looks entertaining and seems like a game that could actually have an interesting coop system that isn’t practically like the rest of them. But then, it turns out to be a bust. The co-op style you thought you were going to get isn’t even really co-op since one of your friends can finish the stage and leave you and the others at the beginning. If this sounds familiar to you, have no fear, for there might actually be a game with the co-op gameplay that you’ve been looking for.

As anti-love enters into your realm, evil robots appear and attack the planets and the people on it. As one of the protectors of love and peace, AKA Lovers, you and up to three other lovers get on your battleship and begin your quest to destroy all the anti-love and restore the love in the universe. The fate of the universe rests upon your team in the game Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime.

The play-through of the game is also very simply and nicely made. Each player has basic controls for the character’s movement and an action that changes depending on the device that character is near. You and the other players stay in the cozy ship you call home that only changes with upgrades while the layout of the land changes in every stage with its own surprises. Luckily, you find gems along the way that can enhance your lasers, shields, Yamato (your big weapon), and even the engine itself. You also can combine two types of gems and create combo weapons. There are sadly only 6 types of combinations with all the gems, but it does not devalue some of the amazing weapons the game has to

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offer. One of these is a laser wrecking ball that is both a ludicrous weapon that has a wide hit range but also not an overkill weapon due to its usually imprecise shots. But you can’t go into the world without first selecting one of the adorable characters as your own.

As you follow your quest in this brightly colored universe, you will learn that unlike other co-op games, you and the other players actually have to work together. This is no Smash game where it’s everyone for themselves nor is it like a sci-fi version of Super Mario Bros. that attempts to have players work as a team. In Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime you don’t assist each other. You rely on each other. If one person is falling behind, the performance of the ship dealing with its surroundings will also fall behind. The only way to deal with the enemies in this world is to be a well-oiled machine. This game works best with stronger teamwork than what is needed for Overcooked and better communication with other players than in Fortnite. However, because it is so team-dependent, this game becomes a lot more difficult when you don’t have at least three players in total. When playing the game, the engine and shield are easily maintained if the players remain at those stations. However, if there is no one else to shoot the lasers, one of the parts of the ship must be inactive. It is not impossible to play the game with either only two people or you and the AI character provided, but there is a major difference between playing with one friend and playing with three friends. With so many new multiplayer games showing up practically every day, it is quite a treasure to find a co-op videogame that engages all players to lead you and your team to victory in a fun universe.

Entertainment

Under The Microscope with Associate Professor of Chemistry Rebecca Connor

Interviewed by Anna Peterson ‘22

Anna Peterson: What is the basis of your research here at Dickinson?

Dr. Rebecca Connor: Largely my work relates to heat-shock proteins and their role in helping maintain cancer cells, but also the normal biological stress factors, like oxidative stress.

AP: How are students involved in your research?

RC: [Students] perform a lot of the experiments for me. I have five students working in my lab this semester and they are doing a range of things such as synthesizing HSP-70 inhibitors to studying whether certain molecules induce the heat-shock response in human cells.

AP: Why do you think sustainability is important in the field of biochemistry?

RC: I think biochemistry has a lot of solutions to offer sustainability and I think it’s something that our students don’t tend to think about because our biochemistry courses tend to be a lot more medically focused. There’s a lot of aspects to sustainability problems that we can address with biochemistry, such as how do you get clean water in a way that’s sustainable, or developing plants that can survive with our changing climate.

AP: Developing plants?

RC: Yeah, like transgenic plants… it’s sort of like breeding in a much faster way. But also, we can learn a lot from plants, such as the biochemistry of their photosynthetic processes, and [thinking about] can we harness any of that for solar cell technology?

AP: Do you have any advice for young biochemists or scientists starting in the field?

RC: Don’t be afraid of failure. A lot of science involves trying something and it not working, so you tweak it and try it again, and it still doesn’t work and you tweak it and try it again, and eventually, if you’re lucky, you get it to work.

AP: What’s on your bucket list?

RC: There’s lots of things I want to do. Scientifically, I would like to do silkworm research and look at how we can modify the silk that they produce in biochemical and chemical ways. You can feed them different stuff… people have taken mulberry powder and added dyes to it, and the silk that silkworms produce then comes out with a dye. I have an interest in textiles, my First Year Seminar was on textiles, and that would be an interesting intersection. That’s part of my bucket list too, to bring textile research into my laboratory, whether it’s biomaterial design or something like that.

AP: I’m sure there’s actually a big intersection there… we think of textiles as synthetic but everything comes from somewhere, and a lot of it must come from plants.

RC: Yeah, plants, or animals, too. If you think about sheep’s wool, it’s all protein. Protein chemists can do a lot, in theory, with wool.

AP: Thank you so much for your time!

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Health and Wellness

“The best predictor of health and well-being in our society is ZIP code.”

- Dr. Robert Bullard Dr. Robert Bullard, the father of environmental justice, recognizes that environmental vulnerability is defined by race and income. Poor neighborhoods and communities of color have the lowest ratios of parks to people, the highest pollution rates, and the closest proximity to highways, chemical facilities, power plants, and large-scale industrial sites. The cities we build are spatial representations of social systems. Institutionalized inequality is reflected in the places that we live, and the consequences are not only inequitable, but fatal.

Air pollution is one of the most recognized examples of environmental injustice. Particulate matter emissions were found to disproportionately negatively affect communities of low socioeconomic value in 2018 study released in the American Journal of Public Health. Communities of color and low-income neighborhoods see significantly higher health threats due to air pollution, including increased asthma, respiratory failure, heart problems, and, in the worst cases, death.

The Bronx is a prime example of environmental injustice and air pollution. One out of four children in the

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South Bronx has asthma while the national average is less than one in ten.

The Bronx is situated between several major highways including the Bruckner, the Major Deegan, and the Cross Bronx that are responsible for receiving and delivering food and supplies to much of the tristate area. The immense amount of exhaust released by trucks and industries in the Bronx is the leading cause of particulate matter accumulation. Asthma threats are not only found outside homes, but also within them. High poverty rental areas typically receive less maintenance and monitoring and often come with more mold, pests, second-hand smoke, mites and asbestos, all of which increase the risk of asthma.

In the South Bronx, the asthma hospitalization rate is substantially higher than both the national average and other areas of New York City. Throughout the duration of an 18-month period between 2015 and 2016, the South Bronx made over 5,000 asthma-induced 911 calls for a population of about 600,000 while Manhattan made about 6,000 calls for a population of over 1,600,000. Asthma is a leading reason for which people miss school or work, reducing education quality

and income. As the Bronx is one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States, lack of funding for asthma treatment and management causes emergency room visits to often be treated as primary care for asthma related issues. The CDC estimates that the United States spends over $80 billion in asthma-related costs annually.

This is a huge expense to taxpayers. Instead of treating these devastating effects, financial focus could be used on mitigating the causes of air pollution and building safer, more just places to live.

With extreme fluctuating weather patterns, increase of precipitation, and pollen release changes, climate change is sure to magnify the effects air pollution induced asthma. It is important to recognize existing injustices and to support the incredible initiatives of the past, present, and future to create healthy and equitable spaces and communities. Leaders in the movement include Majora Carter for her work in “Greening the Ghetto” by turning dumps into riverside parks in the South Bronx and founding essential community organizing groups such as Sustainable South Bronx, and Dr. Bullard for improving the lives of fence-line communities in Houston and calling well-needed attention to environmental injustices everywhere.

Clean air is a basic human need. Policy and planning must treat it as such.

Health and Wellness

Your Area is Your Air: Air Pollution, Asthma, and Environmental Justice Liza Bucchin ‘19

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Health and Wellness

Interpersonal Risk Factors for Binge Eating Disorders Anna Kehan Bao ‘19

According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental

Disorders (DSM-5), eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by severe disturbances in people’s eating behaviors. Of all EDs, Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is the most common in the U.S. and has been studied comprehensively. Symptoms of BED include recurrent episodes of binge eating and a sense of lack of control over eating during each episode. Among the various risk factors for BED, interpersonal problems are believed to play an especially important role. The relationship between BED and interpersonal problems appears to be bidirectional: interpersonal problems exacerbate disordered eating and people with BED are likely to have more interpersonal issues (Arcelus et al., 2013). This article will specifically explore how childhood experience, personality traits, and an inaccurate interpretation of others’ attitudes influence BED development, maintenance, and treatment outcomes.

BED Development: Childhood Experience and Personality Traits Research has found that individuals with BED are more likely to have a history of sexual or physical abuse,

bullying, parental criticism, parental neglect, and parental overprotection compared to healthy controls. They also tend to be victims of vicious relationships during their childhood or adolescence that can negatively pressure them to find relief through excess food consumption (Fairburn et al., 1998).

In addition to childhood experience, personality traits are also associated with the timing and sequencing of BED development. For example, Blomquist et al (2012) suggest that early BED onset is influenced by the strength of an individual’s dominant or submissive personality and vice versa. Always being extremely dominant (e.g. forcing group members to use his or her idea in group projects) or extremely submissive (e.g. doing everything that the group leader tells him or her to do in group projects) contributes to an early BED onset. Conversely, individuals who develop binge eating behaviors at a young age are likely to remain either extremely dominant or submissive, thereby triggering more interpersonal problems in their lives (Blomquist et al, 2012). Moreover, the negative affect theory posits that binge eating serves to provide comfort and distraction to cold individuals (e.g. individuals who always ignore other people’s greetings) when placed in an uncomfortable environment (Wilfley et al., 2000; Ambwani, 2015; Stice and Agras, 1999; Ansell, Grilo, and White, 2012). However, unlike cold individuals who only show binge eating behavior when they experience negative effects, warm individuals (ex., individuals who always take the initiative to greet with a smile) show binge eating patterns regardless of the type of tension experienced (Ansell, Grilo, and White, 2012; Ambwani, 2015).

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BED Maintenance: Inaccurate Attitude Interpretation

Health and Wellness

Inaccurate attitude interpretation also plays a role in the onset and maintenance of

BED. It is both directly and indirectly associated with binge eating. Individuals with BED symptoms are hypersensitive to social interactions and tend to feel socially inferior to others, anxious, and fearful. Thus, binging episodes might be triggered by their anxiety and fear (Ambwani, 2015; Steiger et al., 1999; Pruitt, Kappins, andGorman, 1992). Furthermore, when individuals with BED inaccurately interpret others’ attitudes and try to respond in ways with which they are not familiar with (e.g. a submissive person misinterprets his group member’s attitude and consequently tries to be dominant), negative effect might be evoked (e.g. for a submissive and dependent person, being the dominant one in an interpersonal situation is not comfortable). And thus, as has been mentioned in the previous sections, individuals with BED might use binge eating as an inappropriate coping skill to deal with the negative effect.

BED Therapeutic Effects: Individual Personality Traits Individual personality traits are not only involved in BED development and maintenance, but also play a role in therapeutic effects. Although being warm or cold is not associated with BED symptoms declination, being dominant or submissive is (Newman et al., 2017). Compared to submissive individuals, dominant individuals tend to experience a more obvious decline in BED symptoms during treatments in most studies (Borkovec, Newman, Pincus, and Lytle, 2002; Dinger et al., 2013; Newman et al., 2017; Thomas et al., 2014).

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Health and Wellness

CAR-T Therapy: A New Frontier for Blood Cancer Treatment Sydney Gilkey ‘21

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There is a new reason for hope for

those suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the leading cause of childhood cancer. ALL is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that leads to the production of immature lymphocytes called lymphoblasts that can accumulate and impede the ability of healthy cells to fight infection (“Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia”). Traditional remedies for ALL include chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, but these are ineffective for about 1 in 10 of ALL sufferers. Included in this 10% is Yuvan Thakkhar, an adorable 11-year-old boy in London who recently became the first NHS patient to receive a new personalized treatment called CAR-T therapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London (Walsh, 2019). The success of this therapy would have tremendous implications for those like Thakkhar with blood cancers that were unaffected by traditional treatment; relapsed ALL, the leading cause of child death by cancer, may not be a death sentence any longer.

CAR-T is a form of immunotherapy, a quickly emerging fifth pillar of cancer treatment that uses the unmatched targeting abilities of the patient’s own immune system to attack the tumor. In CAR-T therapy, this immune response against the tumor is kick-started by the genetic modification of the patient’s T-cells, immune cells that are responsible for the attack of pathogen-infected cells. Normally, T-cells do not recognize tumors as a threat, but they can be redirected to do so by introducing a genetically engineered receptor, a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), that will specifically recognize and bind tumor antigens, specific proteins found on the

Health and Wellness tumor cell surface. To cause expression of the CAR on the T-cell, the patient’s blood is drawn, the T-cells are filtered out of the blood, and a viral vector is used to inject genetic material into the T-cells that leads to the expression of a CAR on the cell surface. The modified T-cells are then duplicated and reintroduced to the patient (“CAR-T Cells”).

In theory, the new CAR-T bearing cells should be able to recognize tumor cells

bearing the targeted antigen and effectively wipe out the entire tumor from the body.

Growing numbers of clinical trials support the efficacy of CAR-T therapy; for example, one trial for a therapy that specifically targets the CD19 antigen resulted in complete remission for 27 out of 30 patients with ALL (Maude et al., 2014). This success and others like it led the FDA in 2017 to

approve CD19 CAR-T therapy for the treatment of ALL in people 25 years or younger (“CAR-T Cells”). CAR-T therapy has also seen success as a treatment for adults with advanced lymphomas. In one clinical trial using CD19 CAR-expressing T-cells, nearly half of participants with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma achieved complete remission (Kochenderfer et al., 2014). While these results are promising, there were some side effects of the therapy observed during clinical trials that are of concern.

One of the most common is cytokine-release syndrome, which occurs when the patient’s T-cells quickly excrete many more cytokines than normal. Typically, cytokines stimulate a normal immune response, but the release of such massive quantities has led to deleterious but treatable symptoms, such as fever and extremely low blood pressure, in about 30% of CAR-T therapy recipients (Ghorashian et al., 2015).

However, all of the negative side effects, including cytokine-release syndrome, observed during the clinical trials were reversible, and seem to be significantly outweighed by the therapy’s unprecedented successes.

CAR-T therapy has the potential to not only save countless lives but also to dramatically alter the typical approach to blood cancer treatment. CAR-T is tailored personally to each patient, and its design allows it to form lasting memory against the target in a way that works with the patient’s immune system rather than against it. Also, if the therapy works as predicted, Yuvan and the many afflicted children like him could be granted the previously infeasible opportunity to lead a normal life, and that is the therapy’s greatest success.

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Health and Wellness

Chronic Wasting Disease: Are Humans the Next Victims?

Jordan Levandoski ‘21

Chronic

wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal illness that affects the brain, spinal cord, and tissues of deer, elk, and moose. The disease is believed to be caused by abnormally folded proteins, called prions, that lead to progressive neurodegenerative conditions in host organisms.

These abnormal proteins do not multiply in their host, but instead act as a template in which normal proteins of the brain and spinal cord are misfolded into prions (Robertson, 2018). CWD is one of many prion diseases. Others include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (the human form of mad cow disease).

The symptoms of advanced CWD include a variety of changes in behavior and appearance.

Infected hosts are known to have drastic weight loss (hence chronic wasting disease), lack of

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coordination, drooling, excessive thirst or urination, drooping ears/tongue, and the lack of fear of people. CWD can have an incubation period of over a year and the symptoms of the disease may develop slowly. This is a common feature of prion diseases. There have been cases where symptoms are not evident until years after the animal has been infected. This and the fact that it shares common symptoms with malnutrition and several other diseases makes CWD hard to diagnose. The disease has proven to be fatal and a cure has not yet been discovered (CDC, 2019).

The disease appears to be limited to species of deer, elk, and moose, but studies have been conducted to determine if the infection could be spread to other species. A study was conducted in which hamsters and mice were inoculated with CWD prions isolated from experimen-

tally infected deer. Several mice and hamsters succumbed to the clinical disease, but successful interspecies prion transmission proved to be dependent on the compatibility of the invading prion conformers and the structural determinants of the host (Herbst et al., 2017). Another study was conducted in which macaques, which are genetically similar to humans, were fed infected meat or brain tissue from CWD-infected deer or elk. The study is ongoing, but thus far 11 out of the 21 macaques have been available for assessment: three of the 11 animals showed neurological symptoms and six of the 11 showed signs of wasting. This research suggests that CWD may be able to cross the barrier that has been preventing CWD from infecting other species. The main concern among scientists is the potential for humans to become infected (Czub et al., 2017).

Health and Wellness

Michael Osterholm, one of the public health scientists who sounded the alarm for the AIDS epidemic and Mad Cow Disease, is urging the public to take CWD as a serious public health threat. The fact that the disease is now in at least 24 states in the U.S. and in two provinces in Canada makes it a very real and immediate problem.

Osterholm says that scientists do not know how likely it is for the disease to jump from deer to humans, but he does not think that we should wait for someone to become infected. A step in the right direction would be the elimination of game farms since they are largely credited with the transmission of this prion. Osterholm also believes that hunters should have access to a test for CWD that they can use in the field.

This test could save them from eating infected deer meat and from contracting the disease.

The thing that startles Osterholm the most are is the similarities between CWD and mad cow disease. Mad cow disease was first recognized in 1986,

but we did not see the first case in humans until 1996. The public was in denial and the necessary precautions to protect the public were not taken. This could potentially be the same for CWD in humans. The long incubation period is difficult to follow up on in terms of human exposure and outcome and is the reason why the public is not recognizing the impact of the issue.

The public tends to wait until there is a case in humans before it recognizes that people are susceptible to the disease. Osterholm predicts that the issue will only get worse with the increasing number of infected deer (Williams, 2019).

In conclusion, CWD has been handled as a wildlife-management issue rather than a human health issue.

This human health issue could unfold in one day or in ten years. But, if history has taught us anything about potential public health threats, it is that there are necessary precautions that the public needs to take to mitigate such a huge risk.

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Crossword Puzzle

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Bibliographies Science News Understanding the Role of Exercise-Linked Irisin in Alzheimer’s Disease Ellison, JM. The History of Alzheimer’s Disease.

BrightFocus Foundation. 2018.

Henneman WJ, Sluimer JD, Barnes J, et al.

Hippocampal atrophy rates in Alzheimer disease: added value over whole brain volume measures. Neurology. 2009;72(11):999-1007.

Lourenco MV, Frozza RL, de Freitas GB, et al.

Exercise-linked FNDC5/irisin rescues synaptic plasticity and memory defects in Alzheimer’s models. Nature Medicine. 2019;25(1):165.

Lee P, Linderman JD, Smith S, et al. Irisin and FGF21 are cold-induced endocrine activators of brown fat function in humans. Cell Metabolism. 2014;19(2):302-309.

Sapolsky RM. Depression, antidepressants, and the shrinking hippocampus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2001;98(22):12320-2.

Does the World’s Second Case of HIV Clearing Bring Hope to End AIDS? About HIV/AIDS. (n.d.). retrieved from https:// www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/whatishiv.html Kelland, K. (2019, Mar 5). London HIV patient becomes world’s second AIDS cure hope.

The New York Times. Retrieved from https:// www.nytimes.com/ Kelland, K. (2019, Mar 6). World’s second man cleared of AIDS virus invigorates quest for cure. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/ Opportunity, Lost Griffin, Andrew. “The Heartbreaking Final Message Nasa Sent to Its Mars Rover.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 18 Feb. 2019, www.independent. co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/nasa-mars-opportunity-rover-final-message-billie-holiday-song-dead-a8784266.html.

“Six Things to Know About NASA’s Opportunity Mars Rover.” NASA, NASA, 13 Feb. 2019, www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7333.

Wall, Mike. “Mars Rover Opportunity Is Dead After Record-Breaking 15 Years on Red Planet.” Space.com, Space Created with Sketch.

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Technology Biometrics Kottasova, Ivana. “Amazon Wants to Replace ‘Awkward Passwords’ with Smiling Selfies.”

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Health & Wellness

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Your Area is Your Air: Air Pollution, Asthma, and Environmental Justice Asthma Surveillance Data. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/asthmadata.htm Butini, C., & Butini, C. (2018, March 11). In the

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Chronic Wasting Disease: Are Humans the Next Victims?

Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

(2019). Chronic Wasting Disease. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index. html Czub, S., Schulz-Schaeffer, W., Stahl-Hennig, C., Beekes, M., Schaetzl, H., & Motzkus, D. First evidence of intracranial and peroral transmission of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) into Cynomolgus macaques: a work in progress.

[PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from https:// www.cste2.org/Webinars/files/CWD_Slides_FINAL.pdf Herbst, A., Velasquez, C.D., Triscott, E., Aiken, J.M., & McKenzie D. (2017). Chronic Wasting Disease Prion Strain Emergence and Host Range Expansion. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23(9), 1598-1600. doi: 10.3201/ eid2309.161474 Robertson, S. (August 23, 2018). What is a Prion?

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