Vol. III Issue No. 2

DickinsonScienceMagazine

24 April 2017 - Vol. 3 Issue No. 2

1

INTERESTED IN STUDYING SCIENCE ABROAD?

CONSIDER THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA IN NORWICH, ENGLAND! FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT PROFESSOR KUSHNER AT KUSHNER@DICKINSON.EDU OR THE CENTER FOR GLOBAL STUDY AT GLOBAL@DICKINSON.EDU 2

CONTENTS

24 April 2017 - Volume 3, Issue Number 2

RESEARCH

EDITOR’S CHOICE 5

Beyond the Limestone and into the Ordovician

6

An Era of Distrust

8

Do You Love Science? Become an Activist

9

Breaking the Wave

NEWS 10

In Brief

12

World News

14 A Sweet Spot for

Super-resolution Microscopy 16 A Cure for Blindness?

26

Evolution of the Environmental Stress Response in Ascomycete Fungi

27 Isoprenoid

depression on

inflammatory gene expression 28

Dancing with Artificial Neurons

30

The Evolution of Bryozoan Epibiosis

31

Why Don’t Adolescents with Asthma Symptoms Seek Treatment?

32 Mental Illness Stigma

TECHNOLOGY 34 An Automated Future 35 Wearable Technology 36

Science and Technology in a “Post-Truth” World

OPINION 38 Impacts of Climate

Change on National Parks 38 A Fear of Mushrooms 39 The Creative Side of Science

ENTERTAINMENT

17 The Human-Pig Chimera

40 Hidden Figures Review

18 Environmental

Policy Change

Under Trump

41 The Social

Archaeology of Food Review

FEATURES 20 Was Scientific

Objectivity Always Objective?

42

Under the Microscope with Marcus M. Key, Jr.

43 Crossword

24 More Confident Conclusions

3

Letter from the Editor Hello, Dickinsonians!

This is Vol 3, Issue 2 of the Dickinson Science Magazine, and the theme this semester is Objectivity in Science. This is intentionally vague and I chose to let the staff editors and the writers interpret it for themselves. The aim was to let magazine contributors come to their own conclusions on the subject without coloring them with my own.

A discussion of objectivity in science will inevitably be wide-ranging and ask questions with no comfortable answer like, “Can scientists ever completely divorce their unconscious biases and expectations from their experiments?” and “How much proof does a theory need to become a fact?” This second question serves to introduce the concept I think about most when considering objectivity in science, which is the idea of objective facts.

I think of these as facts about the world that are true for everyone. A simple example of this would be gravity. Everyone has to agree that if something is dropped from a height on Earth, it will fall to the ground (ultimately, towards the center of the earth). This is a fact that cannot be denied and can be supported with data. (My proposed experiment involves a low roof and cantaloupes for dramatic effect.) The more complicated examples of objective truth are the ones that make the news.

Sadie Signorella (’18) discusses one of these in depth on page 6 in her piece on vaccines.

The objectivity of facts has become more and more relevant because an increasing amount of political discourse centers on whether or not something

4

DSM Dickinson Science Magazine

is true, and not what the best course of action is. This dramatically slows progress at a legislative level, particularly evident in the fight against climate change. It is difficult to make arguments and pass bills regulating the release of greenhouse gases if congressmen cannot first agree that the regulations are necessary.

This is why I think objectivity in science is so important. If controversial facts like these must derive their support from scientific data, this data must be carefully collected and evaluated and take into consideration the effects of preconceptions and biases by the researcher. Even so, airtight science is no match for those who willfully misinterpret or deny its results, and if those denials are loud enough (broadcast on the radio, TV, or internet), they can minimize or negate the conclusions of researchers. At this point, it is the responsibility of the reader to confirm the reliability of their sources, which is why in this issue, citations are included in every article in which outside sources are used so you, the readers, can evaluate their reliability.

I hope the featured articles in this issue provide some food for thought on this subject, and that you find the other pieces interesting and well-sourced.

This is my last semester as Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, and I would like to thank my executive board, Hannah Hartman (’18) and Courtney Gamache (’18) for their hard work and support for the past three semesters. I couldn’t have done this without them.

— Zoe Irons ’18

Editor-in-Chief Zoe Irons ’18 Managing Editor Hannah Hartman ’18 Executive Layout Editor Courtney Gamache ’18 Associate Layout Editor Nidhi Charan ’17 News Editor Alexis Scott ’19 Features Editor Leah Wachsmuth ’19 Research Editor Jacqueline Hwang ’19 Science & Technology Editor Tom Wegman ’19 Science & Entertainment Editor Zach Benalayat ’19 Opinion Editor Sarah Dembling ’19 Photography Editors Maddie Underhill ’19 Duanduan Hsieh ’19 Executive Copy Editor Bridget Jones ’17 Copy Editors Simona Bajga ’20 Marissa Ruschil ’19 Nancy Gomez ’18 Allison Curley ’19 Event Coordinator Janice Wiss Faculty Advisor Missy Niblock Email: scinews@dickinson.edu Facebook: https://facebook.com/ DsonScienceMagazine Issuu: http://issuu.com/dickinsonsciencemagazine

“THE GOOD THING ABOUT SCIENCE IS THAT IT’S TRUE WHETHER OR NOT YOU BELIEVE IN IT.” — NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON

Editor’s Choice

BEYOND THE LIMESTONE AND INTO THE ORDOVICIAN

By Ivy Gilbert, ’18

I have grown up in the halls of museums touching, playing with, and reading everything that was at eye level. A love for the sciences grew the more my five-year-old self was allowed hands on experience. It quickly became apparent to my parents that of all the sciences, paleontology was the field most attractive to me, as it allowed for the most physical exploration. To ensure that I always was able to get dirty, my parents cleared a circle in the backyard and exposed the Devonian sandstone beneath. The pit was affectionately named the Dino-Pit and allowed me to travel back in time and into the Devonian Ocean that used to cover most of Ohio. Within the sandstone I would find crinoids (Sea Lilies), brachiopods (Lamp Shells), and a plethora of ancient sea life. Having the chance to go in my backyard to find fossils gave me a space to grow into the scientist that I am today.

In the fall of 2016 I participated in the Natural History Mosaic, a unique experience that combined classes in Paleontology, Natural History, and Writing about Natural History to create an engaging course load that would immerse students in the topic. The Natural History Mosaic gave students the opportunity to go outside and get hands on with the subject matter. As a group we went crabbing in the Chesapeake, hawk counting in Kiptopeke, and museum hopping in Pittsburgh.

Along with the aforementioned courses and experiential learning opportunities, students were also required to conduct an independent study. In my independent study, I discovered how to turn Dickinson’s beloved limestone walls into a learning laboratory for budding scientists in the same way that the Mosaic helped give Natural History students field experience and space for educational exploration.

It all started when I was walking across campus with my advisor and Dickinson College’s own paleontologist, Marcus Key.

We stopped at the walls of Althouse after Marcus told me that there were fossils hidden in the stone. There, located at eye level, were the weathered out remains of Trilobites (ancient roly-poly), gastropods, crinoids, brachiopods, and squids. Marcus and I spent the rest of our meeting exploring the walls for more evidence of ancient sea life.

After seeing the abundance of fossils across the Dickinson campus and having experienced first-hand how powerful finding fossils can be for young people, I set out to make a Fossil Hunt for children. This Fossil Guide gets children outside and interacting with creatures from the Ordovician period within the very walls of the Dickinson campus.

The Guide is currently with Admissions and is given out to families with children ages 4-15. This way, when their siblings get a tour of Dickinson College, they can go on their own special tour. The guide includes interactive elements so children can scribble, color, and count the different species that can be found in the rocks. Pictures of the fossils, alongside a penny for scale, give the locations of the fossils on Althouse in particular. Gabby the Gastropod helps the reader understand what they are seeing on the pages, giving context and encouragement to young paleontologists. After exploring the walls of Althouse, the reader will have learned about six different species of Ordovician creatures, how fossils are formed, and some geological features that appear in the limestone. Dickinson always prides itself in immersive education programs. sing the foundations built through the Mosaic, this Fossil Guide acts as a bridge for children to get outside and learn.

5

AN ERA OF DISTRUST: Misconceptions of Vaccines and the Fallacy of Wakefield

By Sadie Signorella, ’18

A child in school picks up a building block and sneezes. Another child meanders over to play with the blocks too and touches the same block. The first child snatches the block back. The other child begins to cry placing the hand that picked up the block in their mouth. A virus enters the body. This is a simple and relatively normal occurrence, two children playing together at school and sticking things in their mouths, yet this small action has the potential to spread a viral disease.

A virus enters the body and attacks its specific host target cell to multiply before moving on to invade other cells. The body has mechanisms to counter this invasion. Antibodies, tiny proteins, recognize the virus as foreign and latch on, calling in the second round of defense, the B cells. B cells call in macrophages and other immune cells and the virus is engulfed. The disease is cleared. This defense occurs almost every time a foreign substance enters the body. However, the body does not always recognize a new virus immediately because it takes time to recognize the material as foreign. This time is valuable. If the body has to fight hard and long to clear the invader, the host can experience the unpleasant symptoms of disease. If left alone there is the potential for the virus to overwhelm the body’s immune system, leading to death. This is where vaccines come in.

Vaccines imitate an infection without causing disease (CDC, “Understanding”, 2013). They can be made of weakened or dead viruses as well as viral particles.

6

The viral material from the vaccine floats around until the body recognizes it as foreign and clears it. Now the body has primed a response to this virus. If the then person is exposed to the real, live, strong virus, the body is able to recognize it more quickly and is ready to fight.

Vaccines make use of a natural biological immune response to prime the body to combat foreign invaders.

Recently, an anti-vaccination movement has taken root in our society that can be traced back to one scientific paper. In 1998, The Lancet published an article

by Wakefield et al. entitled “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children.” The paper suggested a relationship between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine (Wakefield et al., 1998).

Despite the small sample size and the disjoined claims, a distrust of vaccination developed. Parents fearing that the vaccine would cause autism in their children refused vaccination. In 2010, The Lancet retracted the paper after an investigation that held Wakefield et al. guilty of scientific misinterpretation and ethical violations (Rao & Andrade, 2011). Articles published in the British Medical Journal also exposed Wakefield et al. of purposefully choosing data that supported their case (Godlee, Smith, & Marcovitch, 2011), therefore reducing their scientific accurateness and validity by skewing their findings. However, the damage was done and ever since then doctors and researchers have spent a lot of time and money to refute the claims made by Wakefield et al. (Rao & Andrade, 2011). Three spe-

Editor’s Choice

cific studies (Taylor et al., 1999; Makela, Nvorti, & Peltola, 2002; Madsen et al., 2002) addressed these claims using sample sizes of hundreds if not thousands. None of them could find a correlation between MMR vaccination and autism.

In 2000, the prevalence of measles was so low that the disease was declared eliminated from the United States. Yet in January of 2015 there was an outbreak of measles at Disney theme parks in California that affected 125 people. Of 110 California patients, 45% were unvaccinated and 43% had unknown vaccination statuses. It is unknown where the outbreak began. To compare, in 2013 only 187 cases of measles in the entire country were reported to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). This outbreak was probably preventable if the patients that could be vaccinated had chosen to be vaccinated against measles. This outbreak also highlights another important facet of this topic, the idea of herd vaccination and the protection of those unable to receive vaccinations. Twelve of the unvaccinated Californian patients were infants too young to be vaccinated. Some people cannot receive vaccines due to their immature, weak, or dysfunctional immune systems, which can include the very young, the elderly, those receiving immunosuppressant treatment, those with abnormal immune systems, and those fighting serious illness.

When the rest of the population becomes vaccinated they serve as dead ends to the spread of the virus. The transmission of disease is greatly reduced and those that are immunodeficient run less risk of exposure to disease because it is not as prevalent around them.

When susceptible people remain unvaccinated they may contract the disease and serve as a host, spreading it unwittingly to those around them, including those who are immunocompromised.

It would be false to say that that there are never any complications due to vaccines. Individuals can have different responses to vaccines, and sometimes as immunity is developed patients can experience fever, injection site soreness, or allergic reactions.

Vaccine safety is monitored by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where scientists and doctors rigorously evaluate research data concerning safety of vaccines before their approval for public use. Furthermore, the FDA and CDC use the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to monitor and link any possible adverse effects of vaccines to insure safety and continued monitoring. Anyone may submit a report to VAERS. Vaccines are a product of scientific innovation that utilize natural biological systems to prevent disease. Not so long ago, it was common for young children to become paralyzed after exposure to polio, a disease for which there are no treatments.

Vaccination has eliminated 99% of cases of polio across the world since 1988 according to the World Health Organization (3).

I believe that we have forgotten the immense benefit vaccination has offered by greatly reducing childhood disease and death.

Everyone is entitled to decisions concerning their health and their child’s heath, but these decisions need to be informed by objective research and scientific information. I invite you to reference the works cited below, as well as many others, as you make these importance choices for yourself and your family.

(1) A J Wakefield, S H Murch, A Anthony, J Linnell, D M Casson, M Malik, M Berelowitz, A P Dhillon, M A Thomson, P Harvey, A Valentine, S E Davies, J A Walker-Smith. (1998). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet. [RETRACTED] (2) Sathyanaraya Rao, T. S., Andrade, C. (2011) Indian J Psychiatry.

Vol 53.2: 95–96. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.82529 (3) World Health Organization. (2015) Does polio still exist? Is it curable?” http://www.who.int/features/qa/07/en/ (4) Center for Disease Control. (2013) Understanding How Vaccines Work. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/conversations/ downloads/vacsafe-understand-color-office.pdf (5) Center for Disease Control. (2016) For Parents: Making the Vaccine Decision. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/ (6) Center for Disease Control. (2015) Measles Outbreak- California, December 2014-Febrary 2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ mm6406a5.htm (7) Taylor, B., Miller, E. Farrrington, C., Petropoulos, M., Favot-Mayaud, I., Li, J., Waight, P. (1999) Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. The Lancet. Vol. 353. 9169:2026 – 2029 (8) Makela, A., Nuorti, JP., Peltola, H. (2002) Neurological disorders after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. Pediatrics. Vol. 110.

5: 957-63 (9) Madsen, K. M., Hviid, A., Vestergaard, M., Schendel, D., Wohlfahrt, J., Thorsen, P., Olsen, J., Melbye, M. (2002) A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism.” The New England Journal of Medicine. Vol. 347. 19.

1477-1482. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa021134 (10) Godlee, F., Smith, J., Marcovitch, H. (2011) Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccination and autism was fraudulent. BMJ. Vol 342 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c7452 (11) The Center for Disease Control. (2017) Measles Cases and Outbreaks. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html

7

Editor’s Choice

DO YOU LOVE SCIENCE?

BECOME AN ACTIVIST

By Justine Hayward, ’18

There are few things that 97% of earth and climate scientists agree on, but the one concept on which they agree is that global climate change is legitimate. 70% of Americans believe that global warming exists in some form. Vaccines, which were once seen as the simplest way to prevent common communicable diseases, are no longer respected and have an entire movement doubting their effects. Public health problems such as water quality are being dealt with by people who have never taken science courses and never will. Governmental science organizations such as the Center for Disease Control are not allowed to study the cultural psychology behind mass shootings and gun violence due to Congressional oversight. Science is being intensely scrutinized for the first time in many of our lifetimes.

This is representative of a larger problem in science and the communication of

science. Scientists seek funding from both governmental and private organizations, but large corporations and governments lack substantial knowledge or interest in science and are not making fact-based decisions.

Their money and resources decide the future of the scientific community. If this persists, both the scientific community and the world will suffer. Additionally, a broad misunderstanding of the scientific process and the results of research remains. We are rapidly approaching an era where scientific research will not be used to inform governments to better the world in which we live.

As a community of scientists, we can no longer hand over data to politicians, lobbyists, and other world leaders and expect them to read the results to make informed decisions. We must hold people in public office and in the private sector accountable to make these decisions. We cannot afford

HERE ARE A FEW TIPS TO BECOME A SCIENTIST-ACTIVIST: 1) Find your issue. This can be anything you are passionate about, no matter how big or small.Your issue is an important issue. Once you find your passion, you can make a difference.

2) Do the research AND the counter-position research. You need to be able not only to speak to your position, but also defend it from phony science and manufactured research.

3) Find your group. See if there are any local non-profit organizations you can work with to improve the issue you are passionate about.

4) Let your voice be heard. Go to a protest. Post on social media. Email, text, call, and bother your local Congressperson. You never 8

to hide behind our lab coats and degrees.

Those days are long over and will not return.

We should and must act.

This is a call to action for all potential scientist-activists who are reading. Science at its core is innovative and forward thinking. As scientists, we are at the forefront of a lot of the world’s brilliance, but we have let the rest of the world and ourselves forget that. We can and we must do better at communicating the importance of our work.

Activism in science is no longer a choice for the few, but a requirement for the survival of our field.

To borrow some wisdom from the humanities, the great author and critical thinker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said succinctly, “We should all be feminists”.

It is our turn. Our moment is here. We should all be scientist-activists.

know when decisions affecting your issue are being made.

5) Run for office. If you are of age and eligible, you can run for local office, whether that be district, town, or county wide.

6) Vote for scientists and science supporters. If you are eligible to vote and cannot run for office, vote for candidates who support your issues.

7) Support science education. Whether that is volunteering at your local public school, mentoring youths, or supporting science educational companies, you can help. Strong science programs can help prevent lack of trust in science for future generations.

8) Stay woke. Continue to fight for the issues you think are important despite the broader backlash and/or lack of support. What you believe in matters and you have the right to voice your opinions.

Breaking the Wave RESEARCHER PROPOSES NEW SYSTEM TO STOP TSUNAMIS IN THEIR TRACKS

By Joseph Detrano, ’19 On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck with a tsunami that killed thousands of people and damaged several nuclear reactors in the area. Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency confirmed over 22,000 deaths as a result and over 25 trillion yen ($300 Billion USD) in damages. Worse still, this is not an isolated event: in 2004, a magnitude 9 earthquake generated a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that was responsible for over 200,000 deaths in 14 countries. Efforts to prevent tsunamis have proven unreliable at best: Japan had at least 88,000 miles of protective seawall around its borders to help defend its people from the massive waves, but the walls failed spectacularly, buckling and failing under the force of the tsunami.

However, almost all of today’s methods for dealing with or handling tsunamis attempt to contend with the wave after it has already reached the shoreline. While this may seem like the obvious course of action, one researcher has uncovered a method that could strike down tsunami waves before they even pose a threat.

Dr. Usama Kadri is a professor of Fluid Mechanics and Civil Engineering from Cardiff University’s School of Mathematics.

Kadri has begun to investigate the possibil-

ity of using acoustic gravity waves (AGWs) to stop tsunamis that are caused by earthquakes or other natural disasters. AGWs are sound waves that occur naturally in the deep ocean and are capable of traveling thousands of meters below the surface. In an academic journal published on January 25, 2017, Dr. Kadri wrote an article proposing the use of these waves against incoming tsunamis.

He proposes that if we can find a way to engineer these gravity waves, then it is possible for us to launch them at incoming tsunamis. The waves would lower the height of the tsunami and deplete its energy over a large area. Kadri goes on to say that the continued application of these waves could completely disperse a tsunami before it even reaches the shoreline. If it could not be completely dispersed in time, Kadri states that the application of the waves would still have a significant effect, and would minimize the impact of the tsunami after breaking.

Kadri also proposes an effective “worldwide tsunami detection system,” which would consist of 18 tsunami detection stations set up to cover the highest risk areas all over the world. He explains that

such a system would be able to detect tsunamis far off shore, allowing plenty of time for the construction of AGWs to combat the threat.

However, Kadri admits that this solution would not come without its own set of difficulties: “...the mitigation of tsunamis requires the design of highly accurate AGW frequency transmitters or modulators, which is a rather challenging and ongoing engineering problem” (Kadri, 2017).

Despite the massive benefits of the completed project, manufacturing and outputting AGW transmitters may prove time-consuming and difficult. Still, for the prevention of a type of natural disaster that has been the cause of over half a million deaths and billions of dollars in damages over the last 20 years, Kadri pushes the benefits of his proposed system, and strongly believes this minor engineering hurdle to be well worth the final payoff. http://www.fdma.go.jp/bn/higaihou/pdf/jishin/154.pdf “Researcher Proposes Novel Mechanism to Stop Tsunamis in Their Tracks.” Physics.org, Science X Network, 25 Jan. 2017, phys.org/news/2017-01-mechanism-tsunamis-tracks. html. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.

Kadri, Usama. “Tsunami mitigation by resonant triad interaction with acoustic–gravity waves.” Heliyon, vol. 3, no. 1, 25 Jan. 2017.

9

A Cure for Blindness?

“What used to be untreatable blindness is now becoming treatable.”

Dancing with Artifical Neurons “What if we could build an artificial neuron in the lab, using only off-the-shelf electronic components?”

10

Was Scientific Objectivity Always Objective?

“The battle between objectivity and bias is on-going.”

An Automated Future “The future is coming, and along with it are autonomous cars.”

In Brief

an overview of this issue’s content

11

World News Alex Meyers ’19

Fish Sex Imbalance Restored

Coral Burned by Sunscreen

A wastewater plant on the Grand River in Ontario, Canada recently received some upgrades. As a result, the river’s male rainbow darter population was restored to normal levels. Seemingly due to contaminants from the plant, hormones or endocrine-disrupting chemicals made their way into the river, and for years these compounds caused the male fish to develop female sex characteristics such as egg-laying. In some places, there were no truly male fish left in the river. Now, the population’s sex ratio is correcting, and the male rainbow darters are on the path to restoration.

Sunscreen containing two UV-filtering chemicals are the subject of a new ban that may be passed in Hawaii.

Recent research indicated that oxybenzone and octinoxate can be quite damaging to reef systems. They may lead to coral growth-stunting or bleaching, and can even hurt other organisms in the reefs such as shrimp. Opponents of the bill take issue with the fact that the bill is based solely on one research study; they are not unsympathetic with the reef ’s plight, but believe more data must be collected before a conclusion can be drawn.

Coles, T. (2017, February 3). Wastewater plant upgrade fixes fish feminization problem. Chemistry World.

Retrieved from https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/ wastewater-plant-upgrade-fixes-fish-feminisation-problem/2500357.article

12

A Whisper of Hope Scientists in Massachusetts have given hearing back to deaf mice. Mice that used to be completely deaf can now hear even a whisper. The mice had a condition called Usher Syndrome, causing the genes that direct the growth of the tiny hairs in the ear used to detect sounds to be malfunctional. Scientists infected the ear cells with an engineered virus carrying correct copies of the gene.

The scientists have hope that this treatment could be used in humans soon, but there are still various hurdles, due to the much greater complexity of human ear and hearing development.

Gallagher, J. (2017, February 7). Gene therapy: Deaf to hearing a whisper. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38881369

Vesper, I. (2017, February 3). Hawaii seeks to ban ‘reef-unfriendly’ sunscreen. Nature. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/news/hawaii-seeks-to-banreef-unfriendly-sunscreen-1.21332

News

Ceres’ Bounty?

A NASA spacecraft that has been orbiting Ceres, a dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter, recently discovered organic compounds on the Texas-sized planet. While scientists are certainly keeping their expectations in check when it comes to finding life on Ceres, they think that it could be a possibility.

Ceres may also have an ocean below its surface. With organic compounds, the building blocks of life, and the potential for water too, Ceres has interested scientists enough that it will surely be researched more in the coming years.

Klotz, I. (2017, February 16). Dwarf planet Ceres boasts organic compounds, raising prospect of life. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-ceres-idUSKBN15V2LI

Gecko or Raw Chicken?

A new species of Madagascan gecko was recently named. The gecko, small and colorful, has large fish-like scales that it can shed to escape predation. Pink and slimy, the gecko looks like a piece of raw chicken when its scales are shed.

The gecko was actually discovered in 2004, but was mistaken with a similarly-related species until more advanced skeletal imaging tools recently allowed scientists to see its differences.

Donahue, M.Z. (2017, February 6). New gecko sheds skin on demand, looks like raw chicken. National Geographic. Retrieved fromhttp://news.nationalgeographic. com/2017/02/geckos-new-species-tear-away-scales/

13

News

A Sweet Spot for Super-resolution Microscopy

By John Henson, Senior Associate Provost for Academic Affairs; Charles A. Dana Professor of Biology Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy made a big splash a couple of years ago when Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The basic idea of super-resolution is that it allows visualization of things that are smaller than the ~250 nanometer (nm) resolving power of the conventional light microscope. However, like many new technologies, the best applications of super-resolution microscopy often depend on the scientific question that is being asked. In other words, the technology requires a “sweet spot” in which to demonstrate its usefulness. One such sweet spot is determining the orientation of the protein myosin II that makes up filaments in cells that are approximately 250 nm long. Myosin II filaments serve as motor proteins that interact with actin filaments to generate the contractive forces needed for cell division, motility, and adhesion. Different color fluorescent tags on the ends and the middle of a myosin II filament would not yield useful information via conventional microscopy given that the end and middle tags would be less than 250 nm apart, and would therefore appear as a superimposed blur.

However, imaging with a form of super-resolution termed Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM) with 100 nm resolution allows for discrimination of the end and middle tags and the ability to determine the orientation of the filaments. John Hammer’s lab at the NIH, Dylan Burnette’s lab at Vanderbilt, and my lab at Dickinson have all recently used 3D SIM to determine the orientation of myosin II filaments in moving and dividing cells. My National Science Foundation-supported work on myosin

14

II filaments in the contractile ring that drives cell division in sea urchin embryos was just published (2017. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 28: 613-623) with five Dickinson student co-authors: Casey Ditzler (’16), Aphnie Germain (’17), Partick Irwin (’17), Eric Vogt (’17), and Shucheng Yang (’16). What we showed with SIM imaging and corroborated using Transmission Electron Microscopy was that myosin II filaments in the contractile ring align in end to end chains of filaments oriented parallel to the plane of embryonic cell division. This structural organization for myosin II filaments was part of a long-standing hypothesis in the cell division research field, however our work was one of the first to clearly demonstrate that this hypothesis was accurate. We also made the surprising finding that myosin II first assembles in the contractile ring region as a series of nodes, something that has been reported before for dividing yeast cells but not in animal cells. This story reinforces the idea that scientists can often correctly infer the fundamental nature of a process – in this case the organization of contractile proteins during cell division – but that it frequently requires new technology to definitively test classical hypotheses. For example, the existence of gravitational waves was predicted by Einstein over 100 years ago, but these waves were only detected in 2015 due to the recent construction of large scale and highly sophisticated gravitational wave observatories.

So in the end new technologies in science not only drive new discoveries but also can confirm or refute some of the major untested hypotheses in a research field.

15

News

A Cure for Blindness?

By Brigette Stickney, ’20

What used to be untreatable blindness is now becoming treatable. About 39 million humans were reported being legally blind this year, and another 246 million people have other limitations in their vision. Scientists have been researching ways to improve eyesight for these people for decades. Researchers have managed to provide increasingly beneficial tools to better eyesight in the form of glasses, contact lenses, and laser eye surgery. Now, scientists are doing more than just clearing blurry vision, they are curing blindness. Through bionic retinas that fix failing eyes, stem cells that reproduce damaged tissue structures, and gene therapy that corrects problematic genes, researchers are able to develop ways to bring sight to those who cannot see. The insertion of a bionic retina is an extremely complex surgery that results in better vision. The process involves placing a small, complex microchip in between the intricate layers of the human retina.

This microchip contains 1,600 photodiodes designed to replace the dead photoreceptors by receiving light and transforming it into various electronic bursts that are sent to the brain. Though bionic vision does not give the blind perfect sight, it gives them awareness of their surroundings. Many people with bionic eyes still require large amounts of assistance in basic daily activities, such as dressing and cooking. The use of bionic retinas inspired the use of stem cell research in regard to curing blindness. This insertion of stem cells into a failing eye involves the use of a needle to inject half a million to three million progeni-

16

tor cells into the retina of the eye. These stem cells rebuild and correct the failing tissues of the eye that cause illness and lack of eyesight.

This provides an even better image than a bionic retina by causing the person who underwent the surgery to see a significantly large improvement in recognition of various shades of light and shapes in their surroundings. Though stem cell injections lead to large improvements in sight, the most powerful method of curing blindness is gene therapy.

This involves the insertion of genes into viruses that are then injected into eyes to replace the faulty genes that are causing blindness.

This method has resulted in almost perfect vision in previously blind patients. However, different genes trigger different issues in sight, and it is necessary for gene therapy to be personalized for each specific case of blindness. Unfortunately, it takes about twenty years to successfully personalize a gene and a virus to fit the needs of the patient. With the combination of bionic retinas, stem cells, and gene therapy, blindness could no longer be an issue in the future. Huge advancements are being made in all three of these fields, and there is much potential in them. Thanks to large donations provided by various charity organizations, research has been conducted to successfully find cures for previously incurable blindness.

Dobbs, David. [September 2016]. Why There’s New Hope About Ending Blindness?.

Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

News

The Human-Pig Chimera: A GRO UND B RE AK I NG C H A N G E TO B I O LO G Y A N D E THICS

By Eric Palermo, ‘20 Earlier this year on January 26, scientists from the Salk Institute in California achieved the unprecedented feat of successfully combining human stem cells with a non-human organism. After implanting human stem cells into a pig embryo, Jun Wu and her team have grown a 4-month old embryo that is part pig and part human. The result of combining the stem cells of one species into the embryo of another is known as a chimera, a name which alludes to the creature in Greek mythology that possesses a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail (Blakemore, 2017).

Such a breakthrough simultaneously opens a whole new realm of possibilities and controversies. The most obvious implication of this successful procedure is its potential for medical advancements, including insights into how species evolve, the process of embryogenesis, disease modeling, and drug testing, with the ultimate goal being the ability to successfully implant a chimeric organ into a human (Wu, Aida, & Sakurai, 2017).

The implications do not stop here however, as policy-making organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are now scrambling to take an ethical stance on such a new technology. The NIH “Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research” have explicitly prohibited the introduction of human stem cells into non-human primate blastocysts (the cellular structure that forms in the stage preceding embryo formation) and the breeding of such blastocysts. In 2015, the NIH tightened these restrictions even further by enacting a moratorium on all funds towards research that involved creating chimera organisms, meaning that only privately funded organizations like the Salk Institute are able to perform this type of research (Wolinetz, 2016).

Recent findings have caused the NIH to reconsider its stance towards research involving chimeric organisms, and in 2016, the NIH created a steering committee tasked with monitoring research into these organisms and

making policy change suggestions accordingly. In light of research into chimeras created between rats and mice, the NIH steering committee has proposed a lessening of restrictions on chimeras. Now, the NIH is interested in receiving public comment on chimera research in order to help clarify this obscure ethical debate (Wolinetz, 2016). The reaction of the NIH towards the successful creation of a human pig chimera is still unknown and it is unclear how the NIH will revise its policies to reflect such a momentous achievement in medicine. Even so, it is known that the work of Wu and her colleagues will have just as much of an impact on the field of ethics as on the field of biology.

Blakemore, E. (2017, January 6). Human-Pig Hybrid Created in the Lab— Here Are the Facts . Retrieved from National Geographic: http://news. nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/human-pig-hybrid-embryo-chimera-organs-health-science/ Wolinetz, C. D. (2016, August 4). Next Steps on Resarch Using Animal Embryos Containing Human Cells. Retrieved from National Institutes of Health: Office of Science Policy: http://osp.od.nih.gov/under-the-poliscope/2016/08/ next-steps-research-using-animal-embryos-containing-human-cells Wu, J., Aida, P.-L., & Sakurai, M. (2017). Interspecies Chimerism with Mammalian Pluripotent Stem Cells. Cell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. cell.2016.12.036

17

News

Environmental Policy Change Under Trump

By Alice Kuklina, ’20

18

News

Using the Congressional Review Act, President Trump and his transition team are working towards cancelling some of the orders executed by Barack Obama from July 2016 through the end of his presidency. Many of these orders had to do with reducing water pollution as well as carbon and methane emissions. Trump promised in his campaign to increase jobs and decrease dependence on foreign energy. In order to achieve both at once, Trump’s team focused on facilitating the coal industry, while knowing that using fossils for energy results in more carbon emissions in the atmosphere. The New Energy Plan was created by his team to decrease the carbon footprint while continuing to pursue the coal industries.

Barack Obama has forwarded much progress towards reduction of pollution and gas emissions. His Climate Action Plan had many promises including cutting carbon pollution by at least 3 billion metric tons and 45% methane reduction by 2030. The main method of achieving such results was to raise prices on coal related energy use and adding more regulations on oil, methane, and natural gas use on non-private lands, which would be an inconvenience to companies who relied on such energy. He was also working towards a cooperation with Paris Climate agreement, the agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to start adaptation and finance in the year of 2020. To keep track and spread such information to the public, he created climate change webpages.

President Trump, however, has already signed legislation that limits coal mining regulations. He believes that there is $50 trillion in untapped oil in fossil fuels and therefore in February he was working towards lifting

a moratorium on federal coal leasing, which would result in coal exploration and production across 570 million publicly owned acres.

The Bureau of Land Management’s recent rule on fracking may also be eliminated, resulting in increased release of methane. The greenhouse-gas emission limiting regulation of 2015 is also now being rewritten in order to ensure it promotes economic growth and minimizes uncertainty when it comes to regulation. Additionally, during the month of February 2017, a legislation negating regulations on dumping in waterways was signed, meaning that local lakes are no longer protected from factory oil dumps. Finally, the Paris Climate Agreement is under consideration of being withdrawn.

While there is a New Energy Plan that Trump’s team is working on, it focuses on creating “clean coal,” which refers to types of coal that are less polluting than others. Some types of coal have a lower sulfur content, meaning they create less pollution. However, it does not make up for the fact that pollution is still occurring, and that carbon gases are known to persist in the atmosphere. This term is also used for power plants that are outfitted with “scrubbers” that ideally reduce pollution and power plants that are built to capture and store their carbon emissions. Unfortunately, most plants are not equipped with scrubbers.

Obama plan: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/25/fact-sheet-president-obama-s-climate-action-plan Trump: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/decoding-trumps-white-house-energyplan-21097 https://www.westernenergyalliance.org/why-western-oil-natural-gas/what-fracking/blm-fracking-rule https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/15/epaissues-large-upward-revision-to-u-s-methane-emissions/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/11/thisis-the-other-way-that-trump-could-worsen-global-warming/?utm_term=.6a716eecd146 http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politics/donald-trump-water-epa/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/20/ trump-to-roll-back-obamas-climate-water-rules-through-executive-action/ http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/scott-pruitt-donald-trump-white-houseregulations/

19

News

20

News

WAS SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY ALWAYS OBJECTIVE?

BY EMILY GOODMAN, ’17

21

News

Objectivity is defined as the quality

of being impartial, fair, neutral, and having an overall absence or lack of bias (Dear, Hacking, Jones, Daston, & Galison, 2012). Science on the other hand is described as the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment (Dear, Hacking, Jones, Daston, & Galison, 2012). Therefore, objectivity is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are discovered where scientists aspire to eliminate personal biases and emotional involvement. This definition of objectivity in science, which is now pretty universally accepted, has had different implications throughout history. It has evolved over the centuries from the naturalist philosophy “truth to nature” to utilizing trained judgement to be mechanically objective in empirical data collection.

In the early 18th century during the Enlightenment, science was a discipline mainly employed by people who were considered natural philosophers, or naturalists and early scientific atlas-makers (Rehbock, 1985). Naturalists, focused on the idea that nature is the governing force of all natural life. In scientific experiments and observations, naturalists did not necessarily want to depict exactly what was being observed (Rehbock, 1985). Instead the naturalists strived for logical and rational images, in the form of composite drawings, of what was being observed in nature or in an experiment (Rehbock, 1985). This concept is called “truth to nature” (Strong, 2008). “Truth to nature” involves attempting to remove biases from any observations and representations of nature in order to create images

that best represent the natural world (Strong, 2008). At this point scientific objectivity was solely based off of how the naturalists deemed nature should be represented through their own drawings, which was not necessarily the most accurate representation of the natural world. However, this naturalist idea of transforming observations of the natural world into representative images was the beginning of objectivity in science.

Objectivity in science progressed from “truth to nature” into mechanical objectivity in the latter half of the 19th century (Polanyi, 2015). Mechanical objectivity placed more of an emphasis on “letting nature speak for itself ” and less on interpretation and value judgments (Polanyi, 2015). Therefore, the idealized representations of nature with the “truth to nature” theory were then seen as a weakness in objectively observing the natural world. Through mechanical objectivity, scientists took it upon themselves to actively refrain from imposing their own judgements onto observations of nature. The ultimate goal of mechanical objectivity was to liberate the representation of nature from subjective human intervention (Polanyi, 2015). This was accomplished through the use of self-registering instruments, cameras, wax molds, and other technological devices (Polanyi, 2015).

In the 20th century mechanical objectivity was improved through the idea of trained judgment.

Trained judgment organized interpreted images and data according to professional classification, instead of just depicting the images and data through mechanical devices.

At this time, critics of scientific objectivity emerged. Thomas Kuhn is an example of one such critic. In his novel, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn argues that when observational data contradicts

OBJECTIVITY IS A VALUE THAT INFORMS HOW SCIENCE IS PRACTICED AND HOW SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS ARE DISCOVERED

22

News

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD HAS BEEN DESIGNED AS AN ACTIVE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE SCIENTIFIC BIASES AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

an established scientific paradigm, there tends to not be an immediate rejection of the paradigm in question (Kuhn, 1970). Instead, the scientists go to significant lengths to try and resolve the apparent conflict without rejecting the paradigm (Kuhn, 1970). In Kuhn’s argument, the lack of rejection in paradigms is not necessarily due to “failure of a scientific revolution,” but more based on the “contingent shift in social order” (Kuhn, 1970). In other words, the social order in the level of knowledge and culture will always affect peer to peer relationships in academic settings, which prohibits people from being fully objective in scientific observations and experiments.

Another outspoken critic of scientific objectivity was Donna Haraway, who formulated the theory of “situated knowledges” (Haraway, 1988). In her article “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Haraway explains that “situated knowledge” is explicitly acknowledging the individual perspective that accompanies scientific observation and experimentation. Since each scientific observation and experimentation is supplemented with a subjective point of view, objectivity is impossible to achieve. Haraway asserts that scientific objectivity will continue to be impossible to achieve until there are alterations to the method we currently use to approach attaining information scientifically. The approach to knowledge through scientific observation and experimentation should embody countless perspectives. Then the observations and data can be objective from the perspective in which they were collected from, allowing for an overall greater range of objectivity (Haraway, 1988).

The battle between objectivity and bias is on-going. The main sources of scientific bias include experimenter bias, publication bias, politicization of science, and fraud (Dear, Hacking, Jones, Daston, & Galison, 2012). The idea of objectivity in science has evolved over time, and now scientific objectivity is vastly different from where it began with the concept of “truth to nature,” especially with advancements in technology. Today, the development of the scientific method has been designed as an active attempt to eliminate scientific biases as much as possible. The scientific method reduces these biases by incorporating a falsifiable hypothesis, control groups, double-blind and randomization studies, peer reviews, data availability, and replicating previous results (Dear, Hacking, Jones, Daston, & Galison, 2012). However, even with these precautions, there will always be form of bias within experiments and observations, due to human nature. Therefore, it can be concluded that although scientific objectivity is a goal to strive for, complete objectivity can never be attained because of its unrealistic nature.

Daston, L. (1992). Objectivity and the Escape from Perspective. Social studies of science, 22(4), 597-618.

Dear, P., Hacking, I., Jones, M. L., Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2012). Objectivity in historical perspective. Metascience, 21(1), 11-39.

Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist studies, 14(3), 575-599.

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). BOOK AND FILM REVIEWS: Revolutionary View of the History of Science: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The Physics Teacher, 8(2), 96-98.

Polanyi, M. (2015). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. University of Chicago Press.

Rehbock, P. F. (1985). The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Nineteenth-Century British Biology.

Strong, T. (2008). A review of Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison’s Objectivity. The Qualitative Report, 13(3), 62-66.

23

News

MORE CONFIDENT CONCLUSIONS

By Alexis Haynie, ’17

It is typical for most students to learn the steps of the scientific method sometime in middle school. There are variations, of course, but it usually includes five steps. According to the site Understanding Science, these steps include asking a question, formulating a hypothesis, performing an experiment, collecting data, and drawing conclusions. However, in reality the process that scientists actually carry out is much more complex. Understanding Science suggests that the actual process is an interconnected system including exploration and discovery, testing, community analysis and feedback, benefits and outcome. The website emphasizes that the scientific process is not like a linear cooking recipe, but more like a fluid process that loops back on itself over and over again. When you begin to think of the scientific process in this way, it becomes easier to see how accomplishing goals in science and coming to reliable conclusions is a rather difficult, lengthy process. Scientists face many challenges from formulating novel questions, to obtaining funding, to structuring doable methods, to repeating experiments. It is rather impressive, then, that despite this complicated, frustrating process, professional scientists across disciplines continue to work through research in a careful, decisive way. One of the most difficult challenges of scientific enquiry and experimentation is maintaining objectivity.

Wikipedia defines objectivity as a “value” or an “idea” for which scientists can aim. The web-

24

page discusses how scientists need to “aspire” to remove their personal feelings and biases from their endeavors. A post on the Scientific American Blog Network proposes that objectivity in science is about “values” or “ethics” and is an “ideal” towards which to work. From these two definitions, objectivity is a value that scientists should have in order to stay true to a higher ethic that is somehow agreed upon by all scientists. In contrast one of the Merriam-Webster definitions for objective is “expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.” This definition gives a much more concrete idea of what objectivity means in a practical sense. There are real ways to stay objective when carrying out scientific research. Objectivity is not simply a vague ideal for which each scientist strives in their own way, as is suggested by Wikipedia. Rather, the scientist can and must accomplish objectivity by following a set of protocols at each step of the scientific process. According to Ziman, in order to define science, you must include respect for the scientific community and an ability to share openly, withhold bias, be unique, and question everything (Ziman, 1996). All of these facets contribute to an accessible network of objective information.

One of the first steps in the scientific method is formulating a question and conducting background research. In framing research ques-

News

tions, the scientist should avoid subjective or vague wording. The question should not be leading, meaning that it should not direct the investigator toward a specific answer. Additionally, the question should equally invoke research from all perspectives. Using reliable sources helps reduce the possibility of bias in the material the scientist is using to inform their audience.

Utilizing many different sources corroborates information. This process also prevents the scientist from collecting sources that only support their expectation of an answer to their question. For example, the source originally used to define objectivity, Wikipedia, is not reliable as it is not peer reviewed, cited properly, or written by professionals.

After investigating and learning, the next large endeavor for the striving scientist is to design and carry out an experiment based on this research. They must formulate a hypothesis that is testable and create a process for testing it that is repeatable. Then they perform the actual experimental process, likely with some revisions and re-do’s along the way.

Data collection is done and conclusions are made. At each of these mile markers, there is an opportunity to exit the objective highway of experimentation and enter into bias and personal interest. The scientist typically develops a hypothesis that proposes one possible result of their experiment and a null hypothesis that proposes the opposite result. Phrasing the results in both ways ensures the scientist has considered multiple outcomes and is not just prepared to find a single one. In carrying out the experiment, the scientist must include controls against which to compare the experimental variables.

A positive or negative control provides an impartial baseline against which to measure the results in which a scientist is most interested. It is important that scientists record data exactly and then perform an analysis to track specific trends. Conclusions are then drawn from the raw data obtained and not from expected or desired data. The scientist again brainstorms and performs research and ultimately suggests future studies that flow naturally from their conclusions.

Finally, for a scientist’s study to be incorporated into the literature and become part of the bank of research of their field, they must submit a write-up of their background research, experiment, results, and conclusions to an appropriate scientific journal. The write-up will then go through a process of peer review and revision that ensures the study is accurate, truthful, and unbiased. This step in the scientific process is

of paramount importance because it ensures that the steps a scientist has employed have been as objective as possible. If an article is reviewed, revised (sometimes several times), and approved, it then becomes part of the network of research available for other scientists to use in their own background research, bringing the process full circle.

Within the complex system of scientific inquiry and experimentation there are many challenges that scientists face. Due to the lengthy processes and multiple steps, there is a vast potential for bias and a loss of objectivity. Sometimes there is malicious intent behind these blunders and sometimes they result from a scientist’s desire to have their hard work come to fruition. In other instances, the loss of objectivity is unintended as every scientist is a human, capable of an array of human errors. Whatever the cause, scientists

THE SCIENTIST CAN AND MUST ACCOMPLISH OBJECTIVITY BY FOLLOWING A SET OF PROTOCOLS AT EACH STEP OF THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS. must be aware of the definite steps they can take to help accomplish their goals in an honest, objective way so that the body of reliable scientific knowledge can continue to grow. While no one study can make any absolute claim, when considered together collections of studies can inform and lead scientists towards more confident conclusions.

Merriam-Webster (2017). Objectivity. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ objectivity Stemwedel, J.D. (2013). Doing good science: the ideal of objectivity. Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/doing-good-science/the-ideal-of-objectivity/ Understanding Science. The real process of science. Retrieved from http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/ howscienceworks_02 Understanding Science. How science works. Retrieved from http://undscberkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/howscienceworks_03 Wikipedia (2016). Objectivity (science). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivity_(science) Ziman, J. (1996). Is science losing its objectivity? Commentary. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/ nature/journal/v382/n6594/pdf/382751a0.pdf

25

Research

Evolution of the Environmental Stress Response in Ascomycete Fungi

By Amanda Jimcosky, ’17

The Ascomycete phylum is the largest, most diverse fungi group and that for which the most genomes have been sequenced. The evolution of the Ascomycete fungi has been complex, including various segmental duplications, a whole genome duplication, gene losses, and gene rearrangements.

The diversity within the phylum allows the fungi to occupy a multitude of niches as free-living, symbiotic, and pathogenic organisms. However, the resources in most fungal niches, which are often shared with other microbes, fluctuate frequently and rapidly. Therefore, Ascomycete fungi have evolved a mechanism to sense and react to environmental stresses through a pattern of inducing and repressing several hundred genes to change their expression profile. The response to stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) includes ~300 induced and ~600 repressed genes and has been termed the Environmental Stress Response (ESR). The induced genes typically activate metabolism and cellular signaling pathways whereas the repressed genes downregulate protein synthesis and growth-related pathways. An orthologous response, termed the Core Environmental Stress Response, has been identified in Schizosaccharomyces pombe (Sz. pombe) while the response in other species has been analyzed to a lesser extent.

Due to the complex evolution of this group, the response to stress, and the regulation thereof, is not universally conserved within the Ascomycete phylum. S. cerevisiae and Sz. pombe are two of the most well-studied Ascomycetes species regarding the environmental stress response. Despite having diverged ~500 million years ago, there is a considerable amount of conservation in their stress responses; however, the mechanisms of regulation have evolved. The regulation of stress responses in S. cerevisiae, Sz. pombe,

26

and Candida albicans (C. albicans) is understood to a degree, but further analysis of these and additional species is necessary to understand the evolution of ESR regulatory mechanisms within the Ascomycete phylogeny.

With Professor Wohlbach, I am exploring the evolution of the ESR and its regulation throughout the Ascomycete fungal lineage. Using data from published studies on individual species’ gene expression responses to various stresses, we are working to determine the presence or absence of an ESR in each species, define the genes that comprise individual species’ ESRs, and determine whether there are orthologous regulatory motifs present between species. Using orthologous gene lists created by Professor Wohlbach, we will be determining whether the ESRs in different species are orthologous (composed of orthologous genes between species) or just functionally equivalent (having the same effect through non-orthologous genes).

Then, we will be using a program called MEME to search for transcription factor binding sites in the regions 1000 base pairs upstream of each gene we have determined to be part of each ESR. Comparing the motifs identified in each species will allow us to define orthologous binding sites that are conserved between species and analyze the evolution of regulatory mechanisms throughout the Ascomycete phylum.

The regulatory evolution of the ESR is interesting because its understanding can aid our knowledge of the phenotypic evolution in these diverse organisms, which are able to thrive in highly diverse environments. Additionally, the principles of this project can be applied beyond the scope of the Ascomycete lineage to comprehend the role of regulatory evolution in a variety of organisms.

Research

Isoprenoid depression on inflammatory gene expression

By Lindsey Zwecker, ’17 and Tyler Llewellyn, ’17

In Professor Frey’s lab we are currently studying Mevalonate Kinase Deficiency (MKD). MKD is a systemic autoinflammatory disease (SAID) characterized by episodes of increased inflammation with related symptoms such as fever, rash, and joint pain. SAIDs are caused by mutations in genes that control the innate immune system.

MKD is an interesting disease since the genetic mutation is located in the mevalonate kinase gene. The mevalonate pathway (the body’s cholesterol pathway) is responsible for the production of both sterol and non-sterol isoprenoids, which play a role in many cellular processes including signal transduction, membrane fluidity and trafficking, and cytoskeletal structure.

In order to understand the role of isoprenoids in inflammation, we modeled this disease by treating healthy donor peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with drugs that block isoprenoid production or function.

PBMCs are a mixture of white blood cells including T-cells, B-cells, monocytes, and dendritic cells. We then added Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to the cells to induce an inflammatory response and ran real time polymerase chain reactions to measure inflammatory cytokine mRNA levels.

We measured six different cytokines in order to measure the inflammatory response in this MKD model. We found significant changes in TNF-α, IL-6, and IFN-γ mRNA levels in the PBMCs following isoprenoid depletion, which is similar to the changes in circulating cytokine levels that have been reported in MKD patients.

We then began to look at specific cell lines by isolating monocytes from the PBMCs and performed the same measurements. We saw increased levels of TNF-α and IL-6 following isoprenoid depletion, but not in IFN-α. This tells us that the monocytes alone are not responsible for the increased cytokine levels for all of the measured cytokines. Our current and future projects are to examine T-cells by using JURKAT cells.

We plan to examine how the release of cytokine as well as other cellular signaling molecules from the PBMCs affect the JURKAT cells in order to examine what T-cells do in our cell population.

We currently have four students in our lab, Marissa Ruschil, Devlin Chen, Tyler Lewellyn, and Lindsey Zwecker. Tyler and Lindsey have been working on this project for the past two years, while Devlin and Marissa have been recently added to the lab.

27

Research

Dancing with Artificial Neurons

By Lars Q. English, Associate Professor of Physics

Biology is full of examples of individual cells acting in coordination, thereby fashioning a functional unit that acts as a whole. Think of the roughly 10,000 pacemaker cells in the sinoatrial node of the heart. When one of them dies, it is no big deal - the pacemaker keeps on pulsing, the heart keeps beating. The synchronization of the entire cluster is what makes the system robust. Similarly, groups of synchronized neurons are called “central pattern generators” in neuroscience and perform many vital neuro-physiological functions. We also know that thoughts are not held by single neurons in the brain, but that they manifest as a correlated responses of entire networks of neurons. Nature plays out the e pluribus unum theme in endless variations.

What if we could build an artificial neuron in the lab, using only off-the-shelf electronic components? The idea is not as farfetched as it sounds. Even in the early days of neuroscience, cells were beginning to be modeled as electrical circuits, comprised of resistors, capacitors, and batteries. The famous Hodgkin-Huxley model, for instance, consists only of these parts but is remarkably successful at reproducing the shape of the action potential.

At Dickinson, we have recently built a whole bunch of such “artificial neurons,” also called auto-oscillators in electronics. At their heart is a component called an

28

operational amplifier (or op-amp), and when you hook it up to resistors, diodes and capacitors, it starts “beating” spontaneously at a frequency that is precisely tunable.

The individual circuit components making up the “neuron” cost maybe a total of 50 cents, and on a standard circuit-board it occupies about the space of a dime (see picture).

Fig.1: The image shows four Wien-bridge auto-oscillators on a “breadboard.” Each oscillator occupies about the space of a dime. The blue squares are potentiometers, which we can turn with a screwdriver to adjust the pulsing frequency of that oscillator.

Research

Furthermore, we can make the intrinsic frequencies of the individual “neurons” a little different from one to the next – that variability seems to be biologically sensible. The interesting questions now have to do with the collective behavior within networks of such “neurons.” So, it is clear that we have to connect them somehow to one another. This can be implemented in different ways, but the simplest possibility is what we might call global, or all-to-all, coupling with resistors.

In this scheme, we electronically add up all the individual responses, we multiply that sum by some coupling constant, and then we feed that combined signal back into the individual inputs. What happens in that case? Figure 2(a) shows a typical measurement result when the coupling constant is large.

Fig. 2(a): The x-axis is time and the y-axis plots the individual “neuron” frequencies. We turn on the coupling at t=0 sec, and we observe the dynamic synchronization of the oscillator system. From Ref. [1].

More recently, we have followed up this experimental study with a systematic theoretical investigation [2]. We were able to show mathematically that this experimental system maps to the well-known Sakaguchi-Kuramoto model of interacting phase-oscillators. This is fortunate, as a lot of theoretical work in the literature has examined various aspects of this model. At present, we are looking at the next logical extension, namely to go away from the global connectivity architecture and to hook up the “neurons” in different ways. The first new coupling topology we tried was the ring lattice. Here we see mainly propagating waves of synchronization. Instead of every oscillator beating in lock-step, we observe spatio-temporal patterns in the collective response. An example is shown in Fig.3, where the color indicates the oscillator phase. This is an example of the so-called “chimera state,” where domains of different synchronization patterns can coexist within the same lattice.

The upshot is that even the simple ring of identical “neurons” can already give rise to some fairly complex dynamical behavior. It will be fun to explore more intricate oscillator networks in the near future. One question we might want to explore is: how does the ability of a system to synchronize (in a particular pattern) depend on the way it is connected? Or more succinctly, how does the system’s structure determine its dynamics? Another set of interesting questions has to do with “susceptibility” and “entrainment.” We might ask: how easy is it for an external signal to influence, or even dictate, the system’s dynamics? This experimental system of “artificial neurons” has the advantage of being so easy to modify, augment, control, and measure that it holds the promise of yielding quantitative answers to such central questions.

The individual oscillators quickly negotiate a common frequency when the coupling is suddenly turned on. When the overall coupling constant is lowered, it gets harder for the system to come into perfect sync, as illustrated in Fig. 2(b).

If the coupling is reduced even further, the synchronization phenomenon disappears altogether, and all you get is de-coherence and randomness.

Fig. 3: Ring lattice of identical oscillators: propagating waves of synchronization are seen for a central cluster of oscillators, but this cluster is flanked by decoherent oscillators.

[1] L.Q. English, Zhuwei Zheng, D. Mertens, “Experimental study of synchronization of coupled electrical self-oscillators and comparison to the Sakaguchi-Kuramoto model,” Phys. Rev. E 92, 052912 (2015).

[2] L.Q. English, D. Mertens, S. Aboulkary, C.B. Fritz, K. Skowronski, P.G. Kevrekidis, “Emergence and Analysis of the Kuramoto-Sakaguchi-like models as an effective description for the dynamics of coupled Wien-bridge oscillators”, Phys. Rev. E 94, 062212 (2016).

Fig. 2(b): We again turn on the coupling at t=0 sec, but now it is weaker, and we observe partial synchronization of the oscillators. A cluster forms, but other oscillators, while affected by the cluster, never join it.

29

Research

THE EVOLUTION OF BRYOZOAN EPIBIOSIS

by Marcus M. Key, Jr., Joseph Priestley Professor of Natural Philosophy, Department of Earth Sciences

Bryozoans are a phylum of aquatic colonial invertebrate lophophorate animals that are ecologically similar to corals. There are ~6,000 extant species and ~15,000 fossil species. The vast majority of these are sessile marine species that require a hard substrate for their larvae to settle upon, metamorphose, and asexually replicate into colonies up to two meters in size. As a paleontologist, I am interested in their evolution, and specifically how they have responded to increased competition for substrate space over the last 475 million years. Today’s species are usually found as cryptic residents on reefs due to their general inability to overgrow other hard substrate competitors such as corals, sponges, and barnacles. Over time, bryozoans have evolved the ability to exploit less “conventional” hard substrates, such as the surfaces of mobile animals, that are less “fouled” than “conventional” abiotic hard substrates. This symbiotic lifestyle of living on another animal is called epibiosis, and a well know example is the growth of barnacles on the heads of whales. My students and colleagues from nine different

30

countries have documented this history from 450-million-year-old trilobites and nautiloids from the Cincinnati, Ohio area to 15-million-year-old crabs from Iran. To understand these paleoecologic relationships, we spend a lot of time studying bryozoans that encrust living mobile hosts.

These have included blue crabs from the east coast of the U.S., horseshoe crabs from Singapore, sea snakes from the South China Sea, sea spiders and isopods from Antarctica, and currently sea urchins from New Zealand. This summer, I hope to do some research on bryozoans growing on lobsters from Maine. Please pass the lemon butter.

From all these studies, we have documented a variety of evolutionary costs and benefits for both the bryozoans and their mobile hosts. Costs to the bryozoans include loss of substrate due to host molting (e.g., arthropod hosts) or shedding (e.g., sea snakes), exposure to stressful conditions (e.g., dehydration from sea snakes basking and abrasion from crabs burrowing), and accidental predation of bryozoans when host is preyed upon. Benefits to

the bryozoans include reduced substrate competition, increased gene dispersal by living on a mobile host, escape from their usual predators (e.g., sea slugs and sea spiders), avoidance of stressful conditions (e.g., iceberg scouring of sea floor in Antarctica), and exposure to increased food supply.

Costs to the hosts include, decreased buoyancy due to increased weight, decreased mobility due to increased drag, decreased flexibility due to bryozoan colonies growing over leg joints (e.g., sea spiders), and decreased vision due to overgrowth of eyes (e.g., trilobites, blue crabs, and horseshoe crabs). Benefits to the hosts include camouflage from predators. In most of the cases we have documented, the benefits that accrue to the bryozoans outweigh those of the hosts. In many cases, the epibiosis is more like accidental hitchhiking (a.k.a., phoresis) where the bryozoan benefits while the host is oblivious. As boat owners know all too well today, bryozoans are exploiting more unconventional substrates today than anytime over the last 475 million years.

Research

Why Don’t Adolescents with Asthma Symptoms Seek Treatment?

by Sharon Kingston, Associate Professor of Psychology

Adolescents are more likely than children to avoid seeking medical care (Bloom, Jones, & Freeman, 2013; Akinbami & Schoendorf , 2002; Akinbami et al., 2009). This poses a particular problem for the many adolescents with undiagnosed asthma.

Almost half of children and adolescents with asthma symptoms remain undiagnosed (Coker, Kaplan, & Chung, 2012). In order to understand the reasons why an adolescent with asthma symptoms would not seek a medical evaluation of their symptoms, my colleagues and I analyzed data from the initial assessment of 349 adolescents attending 9th to 11th grade in New York City public high schools who had been identified as having moderate to severe persistent asthma through a screening form distributed to all students in their high schools (Bruzzese et al., 2016). The adolescents included in this study reported that they had never been diagnosed with asthma despite their symptoms.

The majority of adolescents were girls (83%) and most were Latinx (46%) or African American (37%).

The adolescents were asked if they had received a medical evaluation of their asthma symptoms within the last two months. Adolescents were then presented with 12 reasons why someone would not seek a medical evaluation for asthma symptoms, described as “breathing problems”, and asked to rate how much they agreed with each reason. Adolescents also completed measures of general anxiety symptoms, asthma-related anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, stress and asthma severity.

Only 17% of the adolescents reported receiving a medical evaluation for their symptoms in the prior two months. On average adolescents reported a total of four reasons not to seek a medical evaluation. The most frequently endorsed reasons for not seeking a medical evaluation were: “my breathing problems are not serious” endorsed by 63%; “I saw a medical provider for my breathing problems and he/she did not tell me I have asthma,” 50%, “I do not want to be told by a medical provider that I have asthma,” 46%; My parent/caregiver does not think I need to see a doctor for my breathing problems,” 43%; “I am busy with other things in my life right now,” 42% and “I do not want to take medication for my breathing problems,” 41%. These reasons appear to be related to denial of the seriousness of symptoms by adolescents and their parents and reluctance to being diagnosed and treated for a chronic medical condition. Interestingly, reasons related to a lack of access to care, namely not having insurance (endorsed by 12%) and not having a medical provider or clinic (endorsed by 10%) were the least frequent reasons for not seeking a medical evaluation. Neither general anxiety symptoms nor perceived stress were related to seeking a medical evaluation but adolescents with higher levels of depressive symptoms and asthma related-anxiety symptoms were more likely to report that they had sought a medical evaluation for their symptoms.

The findings of this study highlight the importance of attitudes related to asthma diagnosis and treatment

and psychological functioning in predicting whether adolescents with asthma symptoms will obtain appropriate medical evaluation and treatment for their symptoms. The most commonly endorsed reasons for not seeking a medical evaluation suggest that urban adolescents and their caregivers would benefit from interventions designed to help them accurately understand the seriousness of asthma symptoms, decrease fear or stigma related to asthma diagnoses and treatment and establish a trusting relationship with a medical provider that can provide diagnosis and treatment.

The somewhat surprising result that lack of access to care was not commonly endorsed in this study might be explained by the fact that the New York City, the location of the study, may provide more generous insurance coverage and more access to free medical services than other areas of the United States.

Akinbami LJ, Moorman JE, Garbe PL, et al. (2009). Status of childhood asthma in the United States, 1980-2007. Pediatrics, 123(Suppl. 3), S131e45.

Akinbami LJ & Schoendorf KC. (2002). Trends in childhood asthma: prevalence, health care utilization, and mortality. Pediatrics, 110, 315e22.

Bloom B, Jones LI & Freeman G. (2013). Summary health statistics for U.S. children: National Health Interview Survey. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Statistics, 10, 258:1e81.

Bruzzese J-M, Kingston S, Zhao Y, DiMeglio J, Cespedes A, George M. (2016).

Psychological factors influencing the decision of urban adolescents with undiagnosed asthma to obtain medical care. Journal of Adolescent Health, 59, 543-548. DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.06.010 Coker TR, Kaplan RM & Chung PJ. (2012). The association of health insurance and disease impairment with repored asthma prevalence in U.S. children.

Health Service Research. 47, 431e45.

31

Research

MENTAL ILLNESS

STIGMA THE EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL VIGNETTES ON PERCEPTIONS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

By Jacob Band, ’17, Chris Jones, ’17, and Katie Wenger, ’16

32

Research

Despite revolutionary advances in modern science and medicine, individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses are still vulnerable to the detrimental effects of social stigmatization.

Studies have shown that stigmatized individuals often display increases in symptoms and stress (Markowitz, 1998), reduced self-esteem (Link, Struening, Neese-Todd, Asmussen, & Phelan, 2001), and reduced willingness to seek treatment (Corrigan, 2004). The diagnosis of a mental illness also interferes with individuals’ access to housing (Page, 1996), employment (Baldwin & Marcus, 2006), and adequate health care (Druss & Rosenheck, 1998).

In an effort to reduce the stigma surrounding schizophrenia, our study employs the use of counterstereotypical information. This educational strategy aims to eliminate public misconceptions by exposing individuals to members of a stigmatized group that do not exhibit traits associated with mental illness stigmas. In our study, we present this counterstereotypical information through the use of mental imagery in order to reduce three major stigmatic attitudes people have towards individuals suffering from schizophrenia. These three attitudes are social distance, dangerousness, and etiology. Social distance refers to the public’s unwillingness to actively engage with a person that suffers from schizophrenia. Dangerousness refers to the public’s belief that individuals suffering from schizophrenia are dangerous and unpredictable.

Negative etiological perceptions refer to the belief that individuals suffering from schizophrenia are to blame for their illness. We hypothesize that exposure to counterstereotypical information about schizophrenia will cause participants to report fewer negative social distance perceptions, negative dangerousness perceptions, and negative etiological perceptions about those affected by schizophrenia compared to others exposed to stereotype-consistent information.

In order to test our hypothesis, we randomly assigned subjects to receive either stereotype-consistent or counterstereotypical vignettes. The vignettes present a short story of the same fictional man who suffers from schizophrenia based on DSM-V criteria and commonly known symptoms (Marshinger & Angermeyer, 2004). The stereotype-consistent vignette described certain aspects

of his life consistent with these common stereotypes, whereas the counterstereotype vignette described aspects of his life inconsistent with common stereotypes. Each of these vignettes was adapted from ones presented in a study by Link, Cullen, Frank, and Wozniak (1987).

After reading the assigned vignette, participants completed a questionnaire to determine their attitudes of the fictional schizophrenic man. Responses were collected to assess social distance, dangerousness, levels of sympathy, and participants’ perceptions of controllability of the character’s illness. After completing statistical analyses of each participant’s responses (N=62), it was found that only social distance was affected by the counterstereotypical information.

Based on this finding, counterstereotypical information may be a useful tool to reduce stigmas and increase an individual’s willingness to interact with those suffering from mental illness.

Since there was no significant difference between groups in perceptions of etiology and dangerousness, we hypothesize that these stereotypical beliefs are deeply ingrained in our society through media and other mediums and brief exposure to conflicting information may only change surface level attitudes.

Future research on this topic should focus on the presentation of different forms of counterstereotypical information. Different mediums of conveying these messages may be found to be more effective as our understanding of technology and media are developing exponentially.

Efforts should be taken to attempt to mitigate the seriously damaging issue of mental illness stigma by attempting to discover the most effective way of implementing these interventions.

Angermeyer, M. C., & Matschinger, H. (2004). The stereotype of schizophrenia and its impact on discrimination against people with schizophrenia: Results from a representative survey in Germany.

Schizophrenia Bulletin, 30(4), 1049–1061. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.schbul.a007120 Baldwin, M. L., & Marcus, S. C. (2006). Perceived and measured stigma among workers with serious mental illness. Psychiatric Services, 57(3), 388–392. doi:10.1176/appi.ps.57.3.388 Corrigan, P. (2004). How stigma interferes with mental health care. American Psychologist, 59(7), 614–625. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.59.7.614 Druss, B. G., & Rosenheck, R. A. (1998). Mental disorders and access to medical care in the United States. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(12), 1775–1777. doi:10.1176/ajp.155.12.1775 Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma notes on the management of spoiled identity. United States: Prentice Hall.

Link, B. G., Struening, E. L., Neese-Todd, S., Asmussen, S., & Phelan, J. C. (2001). Stigma as a barrier to recovery: The consequences of stigma for the self-esteem of people with mental illnesses.

Psychiatric Services, 52(12), 1621–1626. doi:10.1176/appi.ps.52.12.1621 Markowitz, F. E. (1998). The effects of stigma on the psychological well-being and life satisfaction of persons with mental illness. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 39(4), 335. doi:10.2307/2676342 Page, S. (1996). Effects of the mental illness label in 1993: Journal of Health & Social Policy, 7(2), 61–68. doi:10.1300/j045v07n02_05

33

Technology

An Automated Future

By Garrett Filippini, ’19

t. There has been testing of automated cars since the early 1920s, but it wasn’t until 2016 that the idea of autonomous cars could soon become a reality. The release of Tesla’s Model S has come to us with a feature that they call Full Self-Driving Hardware. Using this technology, with the key placement of eight cameras that help to provide a 360 degree range of visibility around the car up to distances of 250 meters, the car is able to function completely on its own. The Model S has the capability to drive you in urban areas as long as you have a destination programed in the on board map. On top of that, if you arrive at a destination that is not your home, you can step out of the car at the front of any mall, supermarket, or business and the car will go into a search mode for an available parking spot! Tesla is not the only company working on these features; in fact, BMW has partnered with Intel and Mobileye, and are working hard to get 40 autonomous cars on the road by the end of 2017 using Intel’s new 5G technology. This technology gives developers more power when writing complex programs and algorithms to help aid in the journey towards fully automated cars. This is not the only partnership that is working towards autonomous cars: Audi has partnered up with a large graphics card com-

pany known as NVidia. Using NVidia’s technology and integrating it into Audi’s computer system, Audi is also getting close to creating automated cars. One more big partnership that is working hard to push us into a more automated future is Google, Uber, Lyft, Ford, and Volvo.

All of these companies are working hard to get us to a more futuristic society, but unfortunately, society has not caught up with these advancements. The following states have enacted some sort of law allowing the operation of autonomous cars: Virginia, Tennessee, Nevada, Michigan, Florida, and California as of now. With the research that these large companies are conducting, there is a bright future for the world of autonomy. There are over a dozen other states that have some sort of legislation preparing to enact the use of automated cars on public roads, but can you blame them for not rushing into this new technology? The proper safety regulations need to be in place, but these cars are the future, and are about to be a reality.

The future is coming, and along with it are autonomous cars.

34

“Are Self-Driving Cars Legal?.” Hg.org. HG.org, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. <https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=31687>.

“Autonomous Vehicles.” Http://www.ncsl.org. National Conference of State Legislation, 21 Feb. 2017. Web. 1 Mar. 2017. <http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/ autonomous-vehicles-self-driving-vehicles-enacted-legislation.aspx>.

“Autopilot.” Tesla. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. <https:// www.tesla.com/autopilot>.

Mercer, Christina. “11 Companies Making Driverless Cars You Should Know About.” Techworld. Techworld, 05 Jan. 2017. Web. 02 Mar. 2017. <http://www.techworld. com/picture-gallery/big-data/-companies-working-on-driverless-

Technology

WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

By Daniel Ngo, ’19

With rapid advancement of technology, everyday life has vastly changed. The demand for new products to be faster, lighter, and more comfortable has put wearable technology into the spotlight as a field waiting for groundbreaking development.

Wearable technology started off humbly with HP’s 1997 calculator watch. Since then, technology has taken a pivot in design. The “wearable” part became more important as tech companies shifted focus to make their products fuse seamlessly with the user’s outfit.

From a clunky minimized version of a smartphone, wearable technology, especially smart watches like the Apple Watch

and Samsung Gear, have started to resemble their regular counterparts at a glance. Companies like Misfit even go as far as treating their devices like jewelry that users can choose and wear every day.

When it comes to functionality, wearable technology has become more specialized.

As people care more about their overall health, fitness trackers like Fitbit or Moov Now are used casually and by athletes.

While still struggling to catch up with the development pace of other wearables, smart glasses and visual-based wearables have opened up a new horizon of potential innovations. Products like Oculus Rift are daring technology enthusiasts to look

more into integrated Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), in which the users can fully immerse in and control the 3D environment.

While some scientists have spoken up about the ineffectiveness or inaccuracy of wearable technology, it still remains a fascinating field of study. With the way wearables have been changing how people interact, life would be isolated and unimaginative without them.

Schroeder, J. L. (2016). Wearables: Tech/Fashion; Masculine/ Feminine. Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 7(1), 41-67. doi:10.1386/csfb.7.1.41_1 History of LEDs. (n.d). In Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute website. Retrieved from https://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~schubert/ Light-Emitting-Diodes-dot-org/chap01/chap01.htm Miltiadis, C. (2016). Project anywhere: An interface for virtual architecture. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 14(4), 386-397. doi:10.1177/1478077116670746

35

Technology

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN A “POST-TRUTH” WORLD

By Lars Q. English, Professor of Physics

A peculiar dichotomy has developed in recent years: everyone loves tech, but science – not so much. On the one hand, people seem increasingly enamored with tech gadgets: smart phones, tablets, wearable tech, apps of all kinds, wireless headphones – the list goes on. Society as a whole also seems increasingly reliant on all sorts of tech support and infrastructure. When a huge flare erupted on the sun in the year 1859, the resulting coronal mass ejection struck our planet head-on, but the damage was relatively minor. Yes, some telegraph lines were knocked out, but for most people it was simply a wonderous spectacle to behold: bright auroras could be seen in the

36

night’s sky at our latitude. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that if a similar event were to strike Earth today, the disruption would be many orders of magnitude worse. It would almost certainly shut down the global electrical grid and the communication network. Think about the ripple effects: no internet, no computers, no refrigeration, no traffic lights, no ATMs, no cell phones, limited indoor lighting. It would disrupt society on virtually every level.

While the world has grown much more dependent on technology, we have simultaneously witnessed a distinct surge of science skepticism and outright science denial. Of course, science denial is nothing new.

Its intellectual promotion arguably first emanated from corners of the academic left. Postmodern thought relegated science to popular opinion rooted in the socio-cultural circumstances of the times in which it arose.

It was seen as a commentary of the times and not a description of natural law. Science could not be taken on face-value, but always needed to be contextualized first. As the thinking went, cold fusion was rejected by the scientific community not because of the energy scales involved in the problem, but because a majority of influential physicists and/or powerful physics institutions had simply decreed that it was wrong. All notions of objective scientific fact were

Technology

deemed suspect. I had a colleague in the humanities once tell me that she did not take much stock in scientific theories because they change all the time anyway. What is up now may be down tomorrow. More recently, the political right seems to have co-opted that position for their own ideological objectives. Both sides of the political spectrum now freely grant themselves the right to pick and choose their “favorite” science. The attitude seems to be that scientific truth is, if not socially constructed, at least whatever one wants it to be. If global climate change is denied just vigorously enough, then perhaps it will not come to pass. For one political camp, scientific predictions are nothing more than personal opinion

or subjective wish, and for the other, they are more or less sociologically fabricated.

I do not expect people to know that quantum field theory makes precise predictions that are later verified by measurement to an accuracy of one part in 100 million. But I do sometimes wonder how people so hostile to science make sense of the enduring success of technology that is all around them. When a scientific theory gets amended or supplanted, why does the technology that relied on that theory not stop working?

Why did the grandfather clock with its intricate escapement mechanism keep working when special relativity arrived on the scene and supplanted Newtonian physics? Perhaps science is not that fragile after all.

There is no doubt that most everything we use today relies on scientific principles and very likely came out of basic science research. The iPod was only possible because, a decade earlier, the giant magneto-resistance effect had been discovered – a phenomenon that is itself embedded within modern condensed-matter physics.

Touch-screens rely on capacitive coupling, which in turn can be quantified using electromagnetic theory. Computer chips

TECHNOLOGY IS SCIENCE IN ACTION

have billions of transistors built into integrated circuits. The transistor was invented by physicists at Bell Labs and exploits quantum mechanical principles for its operation. GPS works because it accounts for gravitational influences on the passage of time demanded by the general theory of relativity. If you do not believe in the theory of relativity as describing an element of physical reality, then do you also stop relying on Google Maps?

It is patently obvious that technology is science in action.

Technological advances are often by-products of fundamental scientific research and cannot be separated from the mainstay of science. But science’s impact extends far beyond the technological realm into the social, cultural, and political. And I would argue that the habits of mind cultivated in the sciences are now more needed than ever to counter the threat posed by our “post-truth” culture. It is not an overstatement to consider the rising appeal of “post-truth cultre”a threat to our democratic values. Once we give up on evidenced-based reasoning, on framing arguments so that they can be tested against observation, what is there left to debate? What value does freedom of speech have in an environment where truth does not matter and nothing must hold up to empirical scrutiny? Vigorous debate that is informed by facts, evidence, and reason lies at the heart of our democracy. In the sciences there is a deeply ingrained culture of valuing evidence over ideology, of placing our trust not in authority but in models that have proven themselves in their predictive power. This is an attitude we now need more broadly if we want to have any chance of solving our most urgent challenges.

37

Opinion

Impacts of Climate Change on National Parks

By Connor Liu, ’18

The National Parks were once called “America’s Best Idea,” coined by writer and historian Wallace Stegner in 1983 (nps.gov). Today, our National Parks are in danger.

The combination of an environmentally-hostile political administration and the increasing momentum of climate change will cause many problems for the National Park Service in the coming decades.

A serious issue that coastal nations will soon have to deal with is rising sea levels. In the next century, sea level is expected to rise as high as three ft. (Cole, 2015). This will have catastrophic consequences, one being its impact on coastal National Parks. However, National Parks

A Fear of Mushrooms

By Arden Staples, ‘19

Mycoremediation is a process that significantly benefits soil without creating a substantial environmental or economic impact. Nonetheless, little to no one uses it. A form of bioremediation, mycoremediation utilizes different species of mushrooms to clean pollution out of the earth. Mycoremediation can take only months to fully clean hazardous soil, while the standard means of bioremediation takes up to years (Stamets). Alright, so it’s faster, thus it must be more expensive, right? Nope! Mycoremediation is actually cheaper than other methods of bioremediation. On top of that, it is natural, safe, flexible,

38

can utilize certain techniques to withstand the effects of rising sea levels.

In the summer of 2015, I served as an Interpretation Intern in the Interpretation Division at Assateague Island National Seashore. A 37-mile barrier island located in southern Maryland, Assateague is at the front lines in combatting climate change. During my time there, I learned some of their techniques for preparing for sea level rise and increasing storm severity.

First, the park does not put anything on the island that cannot be quickly removed by trucks. This mainly includes recreational service trailers. Additionally, all Assateague park buildings on the mainland have their foundations built on large wooden pillars. This gives buildings enough height to be protected during bad storms or flash floods. Utilizing easily adapted methods like these, National Parks across the world can endure some of the major impacts of climate change.

Cole, S., Northon, K. (2015, August 26). NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise: How Much? How Soon?

Retrieved March, from https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-science-zeros-in-on-ocean-rise-how-muchhow-soon

and recyclable (Sykes). By the power of a mushroom, even the toughest plastics can be broken down and turned into safe, plant-loving elements. This is beginning to sound too good to be true, isn’t it? There has to be a reason why people use bioremediation or some other form of soil cleansing over mycoremediation, right?

Well, dear reader, as far as I can tell, mycoremediation is avoided simply because mushrooms are scary. There are many types of mushrooms that can kill you, and we don’t really know as much about them as we know about other plants. That tiny little fungus might just be the answer to a lot of pollution problems, though, so I say we get over this fear and give mycoremediation a go.

Stamets, Paul (2005). Mycelium Running.

Sykes, Caryn (26 Feb 2002). Magival Mushrooms: Mycoremediation. http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/market-insight-print.pag?docid=SSAI-57QV3

Opinon

The Creative Side of Science

By Kirsten A. Guss, Associate Professor of Biology

It may seem as if science is all about rules. The scientific method consists of a series of specific steps to guide how one makes observations, articulates hypotheses, performs experiments, and makes conclusions. Experiments are controlled.

The format of written communication is regulated, down to the use of passive versus active voice. Journals even stipulate the font, size, and placement of letters on figure panels.

You may be surprised to consider that science is an incredibly creative endeavor. How so? Science is about generating novel information. It is about having access to the same information as everyone else, but being able to use that common information as the foundation for something original that advances our understanding of how the physical and natural world works.

High profile prizes to scientists reference creativity as an awarding characteristic. The MacArthur Fellows Program and The Ted Prize celebrate creative potential, and often include scientists as recipients. The Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine recognize achievement in these disciplines. The innovations celebrated by these prizes

are the fruits that grow from the roots of individual creativity.

What about the established scientists you encounter daily in Rectorâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;your professors? They are incredibly creative people. One of your professors plans to supplement their retirement fund by selling homemade soap. Another has created the warmest, most welcoming home Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever entered. Still another could probably live off the grid, and enjoy it. Your professors knit with self-spun yarn, sew their own clothes, make music, and woodwork to build all kinds of things.

And these examples show the tangible fruits.

In the classroom, your professors demonstrate their creativity with the interesting lab protocol, the well-designed PowerPoint slides, the clever sketch on the board. They also demonstrate their creativity in research with their publications of novel work.

What about you? My advice to you is to feed the roots of your creativity. Are you stuck in a sentence? Having trouble putting together a pathway? Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to master that mechanism? Go craft something. It just might help your science. It helps mine.

Crossword Answer Key

39

Sci & Entertainment

HIDDEN FIGURES REVIEW

by Pamela Lohmuller, ’17

★★★★★ Hidden Figures relates the stories of Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji Henson), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer), three women of color working as mathematicians at NASA in the early 1960s. These women worked as computers in various departments preparing for Project Mercury, the 1962 mission where John Glenn first orbited the earth. The film successfully illustrates that without these women, the mission would not have been possible in the desired time frame.

This film explores the intersectionality of race and gender in the recent history of mathematics most poignantly with the character of Katherine Johnson. Johnson was a revolutionary mathematician for both the work she did at NASA to pave the way for women to be respected as serious mathematicians.

Early in the film she is reassigned to the Guidance and Control Division where she is surrounded by white male colleagues who make it clear she is neither welcome nor respected. The head engineer believes in the revision of his white male peers over hers, despite the head of the department assigning her to check his work. Despite their opposition, she pushes to have the value of her work recognized. When writing reports for the department head she includes her name as well, stating that the calculations are hers and she deserves to be credited. As she further integrates herself into the daily operations of the department, Johnson regularly stands up in front of a room full of men and performs calculations they were not able to

40

complete. Watching Johnson distinguish herself as not only good enough to be in a room of brilliant male mathematicians and scientists, but also as more brilliant than them, is empowering and doubly so for young women in pursuit of careers in STEM fields.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the film is the clear sidelining of the romance plot. Johnson’s romance with Jim Johnson has a significant presence in the film, but it never overshadows the importance of her work. Instead, the film shows the slow integration of Jim into Johnson’s home life despite her spending an increasing amount of time at work. These scenes offer a view of Johnson as a mother to balance the image of mathematical genius we see in the office. Johnson often arrives home late, missing family dinners or tucking her children into bed, but eventually finds a balance that shows her to be a dedicated parent while succeeding in a demanding and stressful job.

Hidden Figures has earned a full five out of five stars. It is a film that empowers women to pursue the career of their dreams and overcome the obstacles that stand in their way. Mary Jackson’s and Dorothy Vaughn’s stories are just as powerful as Katherine Johnson’s. Hidden Figures does justice to a compelling story of the lives of women who deserve to be recognized for their important role in the history of STEM, women’s rights, civil rights, and our country as a whole.

Sci & Entertainment

The Social Archaeology of Food Review

by Maria Bruno, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology

★★★★☆ Archaeologists have long studied the “subsistence strategies” of past societies. Archaeologists often interpreted the significance and variations of these “subsistence strategies” in terms of how they allowed human groups to adapt to their local environments and procure enough calories to support their populations. While human groups do need to meet basic caloric needs, human experiences, understanding, and relationships with food are rarely defined in these terms. With her new book, The Social Archaeology of Food, Christine A. Hastorf shows how archaeologists can explore the dynamic economic, political, and social dimensions of past human consumption by looking beyond “subsistence.”

In order to do this, she brings to bear the rich literature in food studies that has emerged from anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines.

The first part aims to re-orient how archaeologists think about and interpret archaeological food remains. Archaeologists tend to write about and discuss foods in terms of species and calories, but through an excellent review of major works within food studies literature, particularly from anthropology, she illustrates how food is understood by people through perceptions of edibility and taste, and are experienced as whole meals and cuisines. She challenges archaeologists to re-examine their datasets in these terms, which can then permit them to explore various economic, political, and social dimensions of food While there are numerous publications on the archaeological record of food remains, Hastorf discusses them in relation to the full spectrum of food-related activities from procurement through preparation, presentation, and consumption. She then turns to how material patterns in past food activities can be examined to

explore two aspects of past societies: economics and politics. She explores how access to exotic foods such as spices and sweets created economies of desire, distinguishing those who could access these special goods from those who could not. She examines how ruling classes used large-scale production, storage, and redistribution of staple foods to maintain at least the perception that they were providing food security to the general population. Using ethnographic and archeological examples, Hastorf discusses how culturally-defined gender roles are often reified in daily meals through rules dictating food etiquette and taboos.

Hastorf also turns towards the ways in which food shapes identity at the group level and for the individual. Hastorf encourages archaeologists to explore how food marks community and state identities through cuisines and food practices, such as the “food pyramids” produced by national governments.

She explores the themes of state and community identities of food through the incredibly well-preserved patterns of food practices in Mayan households at the unique site of El Cerén in El Salvador. She also examines the ways in which different societies perceive the individual as an integral part of the whole or as individual entities and the ways these ideas are enacted through food practices.

The study of food is not new in archaeology but Hastorf ’s book makes an excellent case that there is much more to be learned about past societies by considering these dynamic social, political, and economic dimensions of food. It explores complex theoretical ideas and concepts, is data-rich, and is very heavy on citations.

While this might be daunting and too dense for a lay-reader, it is a treasure trove of information for students and researchers who are interested in not just the archaeology of food, but food studies more broadly.

41

Sci & Entertainment

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

with Marcus M. Key, Jr.

PROFESSOR OF EARTH SCIENCES & JOSEPH PRIESTLEY PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

Dr. Marcus Key began teaching at Dickinson College in 1989. He received his BS from the University of Texas in geology and geophysics, and earned both his MPh and PhD from Yale University. He is currently teaching paleontology.

Gardner: What is the basis of your current research at Dickinson?

Key: I work on a group of marine invertebrate animals called bryozoans. They are colonial animals, and every individual in the colony is genetically identical. The variations we see between individuals are due to the environment and we can separate out nature and nurture. That separation is very powerful for studying evolution and environmental change. Bryozoans grow by accretion; producing an invisible record like chemical tree rings, we get a record of changes in the chemistry over time. A particular isotopic ratio of oxygen-16 to oxygen-18 is a function of temperature, so we can determine the temperature of the environment when it was alive, and I use that to look at changes in climate and ocean circulation. My second research focus is the evolution of epibiosis. Bryozoans are not very good competitors for substrate space in the ocean, so they’ve evolved the ability to grow on mobile animals like sea snakes, crabs, trilobites, and sea turtles. My research in that area involves asking when did the epibiotic relationship evolve and how has it changed over time? Right now, I am working on a project in the Miocene period (16 mya), looking at bryozoans that grow on crabs in Iran.

G: How are students playing a role in your research?

Key: When I first came to Dickinson, all my publications were written by just myself, and then I started to co-author as I got established in my career. Now I rarely publish without students. I am supervising two seniors’ research this semester.

42

One senior project is a lab analytical project to refine a technique. Traditionally, before you analyze the carbon-oxygen stable isotopic ratios in a mass spectrometer, you need to get rid of the organic matter in the skeleton of the animal. Most people either cook it off, use hydrogen peroxide, or use bleach.

We are doing a controlled experiment to evaluate if any of those are affecting the results. We are using living animals from New Zealand: clams, snails, barnacles, and bryozoans, and exposing them to nothing, as the control group, to two different kinds of roasting, two different kinds of bleaching, and two different kinds of hydrogen peroxide treatment. Then, we are going to analyze the carbon-oxygen stable isotopes.

G: In your field, how do you ensure that results and data are objective?

Key: The benefit of working on colonial animals is that there are tens of thousands of individuals, so our data sets are huge and we can do robust statistical analysis on them.

In the case of extinct creatures, you typically find the skeleton as mineralized bones or shells. From that you can see muscle attachment scars. The size of the scars indicates how big the muscle was. Then you use what skin looks like in their living descendants to drape that over the muscle on the skeleton. This is where it becomes art. The color is taken by the artist from modern living descendants. In the primary literature, these pictures don’t ever show up. All you show are the skeletons, but the public usually wants to know more. Images are created for the museums, and for magazines, not for the peer-reviewed literature.

— Madeleine Gardner, ’18

Sci & Entertainment

ACROSS 1. impartial, with lack of bias 5. 1962 mission, Project 9. asteroid belt dwarf planet 11. location of Prof. Kingston’s study 13. theory explaining capacitive coupling of touch-screens 15. species that sheds its scales to escape predation 16. individual perspective, to Haraway 17. growth by accumulation of layers 18. step #1 in the scientific method 21. professor of earth science at Dickinson 22. southern Maryland barrier island 23. body’s cholesterol pathway

DOWN 2. marine, colonial invertebrates 3. “America’s Best Idea” 4. invention by physicists at Bell Labs 6. 16 million years ago 7. Dickinson’s artificial neurons 8. advice from Prof. Guss 10. Tesla’s autonomous car 11. opposite result hypothesis 12. multiorganismal embryo 14. pre-embryonic cellular structure 19. recent three foot rise in __ 20. dysfunctional hair cell, syndrome

43

44