Issue 22

ELEMENTS A MAGAZINE FOR SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND

ISSUE 22 - SPRING 2018

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

TURING MACHINES - CEDARS

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.�

-CARL SAGAN, 1996

FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to the Spring 2018 issue of Elements! I am sure that many of you flipped past it, but I want to take a moment to ponder the Carl Sagan quote selected for the first page of this magazine. A master science educator and astrophysicist, Sagan truly embodies the goals of modern science, noting in 1996 that “science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility”. Sagan hits on something quite profound here - science is not a subject just reserved for the classroom, but it is instead a way of life. As the foundation of everything, science seeks to interrogate truth itself. I am constantly inspired by the inquisitive nature shared both by our generation and scientists who believe that there is no future in ignorance. Society’s success hinges on interrogating the very systems which that we take for granted.

As I hope you will see in this magazine, Puget Sound students embody this spirit of inquisition, which makes me both hopeful and excited for the future. I see a willingness to understand our world and learn from our predecessors, but also a readiness to question our perceived truth and an acceptance that what we initially think is not always correct. By questioning all truths, whether scientific or social, we can tear down broken systems of thought and rebuild them into ones that promote a more accurate and just world.

Understanding the deeply intertwined nature of science, technology, and society is of the utmost importance in this quest for improvement. As such, I am very excited to share this edition of the magazine with you. We have a wide range of disciplines covered this semester, many of which grapple with real-world implications of science, particularly in the realms of conservation and environmentalism. From wildlife photography to Turing machines, and from chemical techniques that solve sexual assault cases to the LNG plant construction on Tacoma’s tide flats, I am proud of my peers’ engagement with science. This magazine would not be possible without the dedication of student writers, the Elements staff team, Media Board, and of course ASUPS. It has been a wonderful opportunity to be able to work for Elements this year, and I cannot wait to see the future of the magazine as it gets passed on to future generations of students.

Again, the interest and passion that my fellow students show for science cannot come at a more critical time. As always, email elements@pugetsound.edu for information of how to get involved with the magazine. I sincerely hope you will enjoy reading the magazine!

- Tina Chapman

STAFF

Tina Chapman

Carly Baxter

Shreeti Patel

EDITOR IN CHIEF

COPY EDITOR

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Melody Saysana

Megan Tegman

Erin Stewart

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Millie Lasky

Annelise Phelps

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Cover illustration by Kathryn White

The production of Elements Magazine is possible due to the funding and support of the Associated Students of the University of Puget Sound (ASUPS). We thank Media Board, ASUPS and, by extension, the student body for making this publication a reality. This magazine was printed by Print NW (Lakewood, WA).

In this issue 6

Conservation in New Zealand

11

Polar Health and Climate Change Pedagogy

14

What is STS?

16

Adventures in Wildlife Photography

23

Justice and Liquified Natural Gas in Tacoma

26

Genetic Engineering Saving the US Citrus Industry

28

LC-MS/MS in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Detection

30

Turing Machines

34

Are Artificial Sweeteners a Healthy Alternative?

36

Measuring Cannabis Usage with Wastewater

38

Tree of Life: History of the Western Redcedar

40

The Allium

41

Cosmonerd

42

High-Quality Salamander Jokes

43

Which Member of the Immune System are YOU?

44

Advice from Senior Science Majors

Conservation in New Zealand

BY ERIN STEWART Kiwis, kiwis, and conservation New Zealand is notable for a number of reasons: it’s the setting for the Lord of the Rings movie, it’s the only country in which the human inhabitants and the national bird share their name with a fuzzy green fruit, and, barring inhospitable locations such as Antarctica, it was the final large land mass to be colonized by humans. Prior to the arrival of people, the island’s plant and animal life evolved in relative isolation for millions of years, giving rise to a unique but fragile ecosystem. The initial landing of Polynesians and the subsequent arrival of Europeans brought with it habitat destruction and invasive species, wreaking havoc on New Zealand’s environment. Recently, numerous efforts have been made to halt the process of extinction and preserve what remains of the island’s original flora and fauna.

Evolution in Isolation Millions of years ago, New Zealand was a part of the supercontinent known as Gondwana. However, around 85 million years ago, the continental fragment Zealandia broke off from what is now Australia. Then, around 45 million years ago, rising sea levels separated the islands of New Zealand from New Caledonia. Over the ensuing millenia, New Zealand remained extremely isolated, with new species only occasionally brought over by winds, currents, or birds (1).

During this time period, New Zealand’s mammalian population consisted of only three species of bats. As a result, birds adapted to fill the ecological niches that elsewhere were filled by arboreal and ground-dwelling mammals. In place of wolves, coyotes, or big cats, raptors served as the primary apex predators. One of these apex predators was the Haast’s eagle, which possessed a wingspan of 3 meters, making it the world’s largest eagle (2). It’s primary source of prey was another massive bird: the moa.

Moas, of which there were nine species, were massive flightless birds that could weigh in at well over 400 pounds (3). While flightless birds are fairly uncommon in most parts of the world, they were quite numerous in New Zealand. A range of smaller birds, including the kiwi, weka, kakapo (a nocturnal parrot), and takahe also resided exclusively on the forest floor, feeding upon insects and fulfilling an ecological role similar to that of a badger. Other birds, while retaining

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their ability to fly, also adapted to an environment free of ground-dwelling predators. For example, the saddleback will often travel on foot, hopping across the forest floor in a vaguely kangaroo-like fashion. While these birds were well-suited to their New Zealand ecosystem, many were ill-equipped to handle the encroachment of humans the invasive species they brought along.

Vertebrate Invasion The first humans to arrive in New Zealand were Polynesians. Making landfall sometime between 1250 and 1300 AD, these individuals, the ancestors of the modern Maori, inadvertently brought along stowaway rats in their boats (3). Then, in the late 1700s, Europeans began colonizing New Zealand. In addition to rats, Europeans intentionally introduced many other species to the islands.

In the 1830s and 1850s, respectively, rabbits and red deer were released to provide game for hunters, while possums were released in 1858 with the goal of establishing a fur industry (these possums are different than the North American variety and have softer pelts). However, these animals rapidly reproduced and their populations exploded.

Rabbits overgrazed pastures used for sheep farming; deer, capable of eating up to 90% of seedlings, decimated new

ABOVE: Artist’s rendition of a

Haast’s eagle attacking two moa Image: Wikimedia Commons

ABOVE LEFT: North Island saddleback on Tiritiri Matangi ABOVE RIGHT: Banded stitchbird (hihi) on Tiritiri Matangi LEFT: Stoat, introduced to New Zealand in 1879 to control the rabbit population

Image: Wikimedia Commons

growth; and possums, which consume an estimated 21,000 tons of foliage per night, killed off many canopy-forming trees through selective browsing (4, 5).

In response to the rabbit plague, humans introduced stoats, weasels, and ferrets in 1879. This attempt at biological control proved wildly unsuccessful: instead of preying exclusively upon rabbits, these predators fed upon many native species as well. Among these three introduced species, stoats are particularly lethal. Extremely fecund, female stoats are able to be impregnated before they leave the nest, and litter sizes are large. When fully grown, stoats are lethal hunters, able to kill takahe (approximately the size of a chicken), kakapo, and young kiwi. Because stoats are easily able to scale trees, the eggs and chicks of other birds are also vulnerable to predation (6).

As a result of this human and mammalian invasion, New Zealand’s ecosystem changed drastically. Dense forest, originally covering 80% of the landscape, was reduced by 75% as Maori and Europeans burned and logged regions to convert into pasture (7). In the forested areas that remained, native species were hunted for food and decoration. Unaccustomed to the human threat, moas were an easy target for Maori hunters, and all nine species were extinct by the time Europeans arrived. Without its

primary source of food, the Haast’s eagle was also driven to extinction. In addition, Maori hunted huia, using their long, curved beaks and white-tipped black tail feathers as adornments. Like the moa, these birds weren’t afraid of humans, and the encroachment of European hunters pushed them to extinction (3). Invasive species also played a role in the obliteration of many native animals. Over the approximately 750 years since humans first set foot in New Zealand, 59 of the 277 recognized species of native resident birds have gone extinct, including the Laughing owl and the North Island takahe (8).

Many species that have thus far escaped extinction are currently critically endangered. Of the remaining bird species, 71 are listed as threatened by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC), 107 are considered “at risk,” and only 38 are not threatened. Among those considered threatened are the kakapo, Eastern rockhopper penguin, stitchbird, South Island kaka, and great spotted kiwi. At risk species include the North Island brown kiwi, little spotted kiwi, North Island kokako, and saddleback (8). To prevent these species from going extinct, the New Zealand government has initiated a number of conservation efforts.

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ABOVE: Artist’s rendition of huia, now extinct

Image: Wikimedia Commons Eradication and Restoration These conservation efforts have two primary avenues, the first of which is made explicit by New Zealand’s “Predator Free 2050” initiative. Essentially, the goal of this initiative is to eradicate possums, rats, and stoats from the country by 2050. Given the massive populations of these pests there are an estimated 50 million possums in New Zealand - and their ability to quickly reproduce, this goal seems wildly optimistic. As the DOC admits, the technology to reach this goal doesn’t yet exist, and the development of “breakthrough predator control tools and techniques” will be necessary (9). Still, a number of strategies have already been deployed to eradicate or reduce invasive predator populations in localized areas.

Poison and traps are the primary means of pest eradication. One of the most widely used poisons, a mammal-specific toxin called 1080, is distributed via helicopters over large areas. Although the DOC assures the public that 1080 “breaks down quickly in the environment and doesn’t leave a permanent residue in water, soil, plants, or animals,” its use has proven controversial. Non-target species, including birds, amphibians, insects, and pets, can sometimes die from ingesting the toxin directly or via contaminated carcasses, and some argue that it doesn’t lead to a humane death even for pests (11). Traps are used on a smaller scale, but these often involve poisons as well, creating the potential for environmental contamination.

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Traps must also be reset in between each capture, reducing their efficiency. However, a new variety of trap, called the “A24 self-resetting multi-species kill trap,” alleviates some of these concerns. Rather than relying on poison, the trap attracts pests with a lure, then kills them using a piston powered by pressurized carbon dioxide. According the Goodnature, the New Zealand-based manufacturer of the trap, the device can be triggered up to 24 times before the gas canister needs to be replaced (12).

Another novel pest eradication strategy that has been proposed is the use of gene drives to reduce fertility within a population. As described in a paper recently published by Dearden et al., CRISPR/Cas-9 technology could potentially be used to spread mutant genes related to fecundity or sex determination throughout populations of invasive wasps or possums (13). Because these genes would need to be inherited by offspring in order to spread, they couldn’t render their carriers completely infertile; rather, they would need to reduce the population’s fitness in some way so that it gradually died out. This approach is promising, but, as the paper outlines, there are a number of significant technical and social hurdles would need to be overcome before it could be implemented.

On the technical side, the methodology to genetically modify many of the pest species has not yet been developed, and the genomes of some have not been sequenced or functionally characterized. Once these barriers have been overcome and researchers know which genes to modify and how, there still remains the issue of how the gene drive can be contained. For example, a gene drive that completely wiped out possums in New Zealand would be largely welcome, but if a genetically modified possum was accidentally brought to Australia, where the species is native, the gene drive could impact that population as well.

On the social side, New Zealanders are somewhat wary of genetic modification, and genetically modified plants are currently restricted to research labs. Therefore, the paper

by Dearden et al. stresses the need for scientists to obtain a “social license to operate” before introducing a gene drive into any wild pest populations.

For the time being, complete pest eradication remains possible only on limited geographic scales. In most cases, these efforts have taken place on offshore islands, where the ocean presents a natural barrier to pest repopulation.

According to former DOC worker Malcolm Wylie, pests have been eradicated on over 100 of New Zealand’s islands, representing 10% of the total offshore island area (14).

Nest Egg monitors breeding pairs in the wild and collects One of these predator-free sites is Tiritiri Matangi, a their eggs, incubates the eggs until they hatch, and then small island north of Auckland. In 1993, the only invasive raises the chicks in captivity. After two weeks, kiwis are predators on the island were rats, so an air drop of the moved to predator-free locations known as creches, and rodenticide brodifacoum was used to completely eradicate once they are large enough to defend themselves against their population (10). Nowadays, a system of baited traps stoats they are released back into the wild (16). is distributed throughout the island to ensure that any Another proposed mechanism of species restoration rats that might swim over from the mainland are quickly revolves around the idea of “evolutionary rescue.” This is caught. Furthermore, visitors to the island are required to defined in a recent paper on the subject as “a resurgence of thoroughly clean their shoes and check their bags for any a declining population, due to sufficiently rapid adaptation stowaways before setting foot on the island. in response to a sudden and ongoing environmental While most predator-free sites are islands, Wellington change”(17). This paper examines the potential application possesses a unique wildlife sanctuary in the heart of the city of evolutionary rescue in the preservation of New Zealand’s known as Zealandia. Rather than making use of a natural endemic bird species, proposing that conservation barrier to keep out predators, Zealandia is surrounded by management techniques could adjusted to facilitate a 8.6-kilometer long, 2.2-meter tall pest-proof fence. The the evolution of traits that protect these species against height of the fence prevents even the highest-jumping predation. Specifically, the authors propose that transition predators, specifically feral cats, from clearing the fence; zones could be set up between predator-free zones and a “top hat” running along the length of the fence deters unmanaged areas. These transition zones would be subjected climbing animals like possums; a metal skirt blocks to regular predator culling in order to keep predation burrowing animals such as rabbits; and the small gap size pressure low but not non-existent. The expectation is of the mesh keeps out small animals like weasels. As on that this lower predation pressure would provide certain Tiritiri Matangi, visitors are obliged to check their packs for species with enough time to evolve traits that reduce pests, and traps are placed throughout the refuge in case their chances of predation, such as increased skittishness any invaders do manage to sneak in. and the adoption of new nesting sites and behaviors. As The second prong of New Zealand’s conservation efforts the paper describes, an example of this has already been is habitat and species restoration. On Tiritiri Matangi, an observed in bellbirds, whereby the birds in unmanaged ambitious decade-long reforestation program resulted in the sites reduced their visits to their nests but increased the planting of 280,000 trees by thousands of volunteers known length of their stays, making nest sites less conspicuous as the “spade brigade.” In tandem with this reforestation, to predators. While this is multiple species of birds, a much more long-term including the little spotted strategy than the use of kiwi, takahe, stitchbird, poisoning and trapping saddleback, and kakariki, on pest populations, were reintroduced to it may be effective in the island, a practice places where complete known as translocation pest elimination is a (15).

Operation Nest distant prospect; namely, Egg is another program mainland locations that aims to reestablish lacking predator-proof kiwi populations using fences. more intensive, hands So far, contemporary on methods. In the wild, conservation efforts have kiwi chicks experience been fairly successful. high mortality due to stoat Operation Nest Egg has predation, and only 5% ABOVE: Trap in Zealandia. Such traps succeeded in raising the survive to maturity. To are commonly used in conservation survival rate of kiwi chicks counteract this, Operation

areas to control pest populations.

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from 5% to 65%, while at Tiritiri Matangi and Zealandia, populations of birds and reptiles that are scarce elsewhere flourish. While it may be a long time before native species are present on the mainland in significant numbers, the existence of these predator-free zones provides a refuge for vulnerable species to recover from population loss.

Furthermore, the use of these sites as tourist destinations serves to raise awareness about conservation nationally and internationally. Although a predator-free New Zealand

may not be achieved by 2050, the existence of this audacious initiative serves as a promising sign of the government’s dedication to conservation, and the use of gene drives to shrink predator populations and management techniques to promote evolutionary rescue offer promising new avenues through which to effect biological conservation.

After losing so many species to extinction, New Zealand has made significant progress in protecting and restoring what remains of its unique ecological diversity.

LEFT: View over the treetops on Tiritiri Matangi. The mainland is visible in the background.

BELOW: Lake in Zealandia. Although nestled in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, the park is forested and feels remote.

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POLAR HEALTH AND CLIMATE CHANGE PEDAGOGY

BY MAX COLEMAN AND AEDIN WRIGHT Polar health and climate change In the face of difficult decisions regarding how best to respond to anthropogenic climate change, the question arises: how do we increase and optimize participation in public discourse about climate change? Unfortunately, there is a minimal level of climate literacy necessary to begin this conversation, and it is often challenging to include climate research in traditional undergraduate courses as curricula are already stretched to cover necessary topics. Recent research by Unsworth and Fielding at the University of Leeds indicates that the most decisive factor in an individual’s climate change beliefs is their identity [1]. Specifically, their research examined how political identity determines one’s “belief ” in climate change, which potentially indicates why information campaigns are not effective in changing public opinion on environmental issues. Further research by political psychologist Dan Kahan demonstrates that the beliefs individuals have aren’t necessarily swayed by scientific knowledge, and further, that one can hold and believe true scientific knowledge while simultaneously holding beliefs that are contrary

to that scientific knowledge [2]. These pieces of research show the relative futility of communicating climate facts and statistics in changing people’s behavior in response to climate change, and the need for other research into what is effective besides facts and statistics.

Bringing polar data to undergraduate classrooms This research explores the potential of utilizing polar research and providing an active learning tool to improve climate literacy while also meeting existing course objectives for a variety of undergraduate classes. The use of polar data has the potential to enhance climate literacy in several ways. First, the handling of real world data allows students to engage in “authentic investigations of open-ended questions” [3]. Second, as exemplified in Fig. 1, the earth’s poles are of major importance to climate change because they both influence global climate and are extremely sensitive to and therefore essential for illuminating climate change [4]. However, the potential of using polar data sets must be realized in the appropriate classroom context.

FIGURE 1: Satellite picture of record low sea ice extent of September 2012 (nasa.gov)

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FIGURE 2: An Excel CGI module of economic costs and benefits of rising sea levels

Pedagogical model Once we established our goal of bringing polar data to undergraduate classrooms, we wanted to find a way to ensure that students would really learn from the real-world data they were interacting with. UPS chemistry professor Steven Neshyba had been using two of the techniques we applied, namely the flipped classroom and computer guided inquiry, which were incorporated into the project.

Flipped classroom The flipped classroom model is a pedagogical model that has students undertake the lecture portion at home (i.e. watching online videos or reading papers) and allocates class time to collaborative problem solving. Because flipped classrooms facilitate more instructor-student time, there is additional opportunity for misconceptions or learning gaps to be identified and addressed. Research shows flipping increases both test scores and student understanding [5,6]. However, since flipped classroom activities in the actual classroom are usually pen and paper tasks that don’t utilize computers, it is unclear how large data sets could be integrated into the flipped model. Bottom line, the flipped

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classroom alone isn’t appropriate (in a pedagogically useful way) to bring in large and complex data sets that arise in polar research.

CGI Computational Guided Inquiry (CGI) exploits the power of computing in classrooms while maximizing engagement.

In Guided Inquiry, students work through an active process of learning by directly engaging with the subject [7]. This approach has been shown to improve test scores, retention, and engagement in a variety of inquiry mediums such as peer-led-inquiry [8] or computation inquiry [9]. CGI is a process in which a student uses a computational tool (e.g. excel) to manage, analyze, and visualize data (Fig. 2). Thus, CGIs have the advantages of computational pedagogy while engaging with students to elicit sophisticated questions that arise from looking at data. It is precisely these kinds of high level questions that serious researchers ask. A fundamental assumption of this research is that this kind of inquiry should be encouraged in undergraduate science classes to produce the most successful and effective scientists.

Flipped classroom and CGI together Student climate literacy can be enhanced with the intersection of the flipped classroom, use of CGI, and integration of polar data. The flipped classroom and CGIs complement each other, both logistically and pedagogically.

CGIs provide a hands-on, scaffolded, inquiry-based pathway for students to develop the problem-solving skills and climate literacy needed to interpret polar research and data. If a student has retrieved, processed, and plotted the data themselves, they are more likely to be invested in the outcome. Further, working with real data is more contextual as students know the geographical source of the data and understand the real-world relation to said tangible data. The flipped classroom creates the time needed for teachers and students to acquire computational literacy, while meeting the existing curricular goals.

Scope of the Project Our research ventures were part of a larger project led by UPS chemistry professor Steven Neshyba, UPS economics professor Lea Fortmann, and Penny Rowe of Northwest Research Associates. The project was funded by a National Science Foundation grant as a part of the NSF Year of Polar Programming. Because addressing climate change is inherently interdisciplinary, we strove to make our project similarly broad with different participating institutions, areas of study, and professors. In that vein, we collaborated with each professor to build a CGI for their class. Using their syllabus as a guide, we created CGI modules which not only incorporated polar data, but also retained the class content they had previously taught. Through this approach, we were able to include all of the participants below, who will reach as many as 200 students within the next year.

• Haiyun Cheng - Willamette University, Computer Science • Lea Fortmann - Puget Sound, Economics • Justin Beaudoin - UW Tacoma, Economics • Tim Guasco - Millikin University, Chemistry • Amanda Mifflin - Puget Sound, Chemistry • Danny Miles - Mount St. Mary’s University, Chemistry • Steven Neshyba - Puget Sound, Chemistry • Grace Stokes - Santa Clara University, Chemistry • Rachel Wade - Edmonds Community College, Physics • Van Walden - Washington State University, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Workshops The NSF grant funds the first two years of this research and each year we planned a workshop where all participating professors come to UPS for a three-day workshop where they are orientated with their module, work out any kinks, and customize it to their specific classroom needs. In August 2017 we had the first workshop where Max and I presented our summer research and facilitated group collaboration of evaluation methodology.

Evaluation In order to evaluate the success of our CGIs in improving climate change literacy and undergraduate learning, our team created measures of student learning. One of the primary methods, developed with Amy Ryken, Dean and Professor in the UPS M.A.T program, was to have students take a questionnaire before beginning the CGI. This questionnaire presents a visual representation of data and asks students to ask questions, make claims, and interpret the data presented. Following the completion of the CGI, the students are given another questionnaire, and asked to repeat the same tasks from the pre-module questionnaire.

To evaluate the students’ progress, we then code the level of sophistication for questions, claims, and interpretations, then measure the questionnaires against each other. This addresses student learning and investigates climate change knowledge through additional questions on the survey. One of the primary benefits of this approach is that it allows us to identify students who had difficulty with the specific content.

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What is “STS”?

Exploring the Science, Technology, and Society Program

BY ANNELISE PHELPS

In 2003, University of Puget Sound established its Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program. This interdisciplinary contract major explores the connections between STEM and the humanities. As described by STS professor Kristin Johnson, the goal of the STS perspective is to “place science in a broader context.” It challenges students to understand how and why scientific concepts have developed throughout history. Additionally, students are often asked to question the validity of the way history regards scientific heroes. STS allows students to study scientists and their ideas in a more in-depth way than is possible in a traditional science class.

STS classes and regular natural science courses complement each other. A biology or chemistry class helps students learn about the small-scale elements of life and understand the mechanics of the natural world. However, courses like Evolution and Ethics or History of Medicine help explain why we see the world this way and what led up to our modern scientific understandings of the universe.

Professor Johnson explains that STS studies give students the opportunity to “ask questions that you don’t have time to ask” in the average science course. Some of these questions might explore how ideas were discovered and established, how scientists were viewed by non-scientists of their time, or how different societies perceive certain scientific ideas today.

Many students have heard of the STS program only because many of its courses fulfill the university’s Connections core requirement. As Professor Johnson points out, “People don’t have to major or minor to benefit from STS classes.”

They are a great way to explore topics outside of your major, or, for science majors, an opportunity to learn about the topics you already love in a new way. When asked about

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STS classes that could be recommended for students of all majors, Johnson suggested the following courses: • STS 314: Cosmological Thought • STS 378: Weapons of Mass Destruction • STS 375: Science and Politics • STS 302: Cancer and Society

The big question that people like to ask about any major is: “How will this field of study prepare students for a career after college?” The truth is that STS does not prepare students for one career in particular. STS is a contract major, which means that students can customize their coursework to suit their personal career goals. Each student creates a contract that includes introductory courses, STS electives, and ancillary courses which are selected based on the interests of the student. Of the four required ancillary courses, at least two must be natural sciences, but the others can be history, philosophy, or any other genre of course that would contribute to a well-rounded understanding of the student’s field of study. This major is especially helpful for students pursuing a career in the medical field because it helps students explore science in a less clinical, more humanistic way. Many STS majors and minors go on to work in areas like medicine, public health, environmental advocacy, science writing/communication, Peace Corps, food banks, and education. The career choices for this major are flexible and diverse.

The future goals for the STS program involve branching out to make more connections within the university and build ties with the other science programs. The program has already begun this process by offering courses that are taught jointly by an STS professor and a professor of a traditional scientific discipline. For example, STS offers a freshman seminar course called Evolution for Everyone,

Images: Wikimedia Commons (top)

which is co-taught by Professor Kristin Johnson from the STS department and Professor Peter Wimberger from the Biology department. The STS program also wants to get on the radar of more science and humanities students who want to explore the connection between these two fields or just become more informed citizens. Another of the department’s goals is to make itself more known to prospective students. It is unique for a university to have so many non-traditional science programs, such as STS, Bioethics, and Environmental Policy and Decision Making, and UPS prides itself on having all three of these.

STS classes are a great way to supplement scientific coursework and understand science in a broader social and intellectual context. This program bridges the gap between fields of study, offering STEM students the opportunity to explore the humanistic aspects of science, as well as giving students who feel more comfortable in humanities classes the chance to explore their scientific interests. STS courses are perfect for all students with an interest in science.

“Blood on the floor” by Jo Naylor on Flickr under CC by 2.0 (bottom)

New STS course coming to UPS in spring 2019: “Murder and Mayhem Under the Microscope!”

Professor Amy Fisher, the STS faculty member teaching this course, provides the following description:

“The new course is still in the design stage. It is tentatively called ‘Murder and Mayhem under the Microscope.’ It focuses on the history, science, and ethics of crime scene investigation, a relatively new area of scholarly interest within STS. Although forensic science has its roots in the nineteenth century with works like Hans Gross’s Criminal Investigations: A Practical Textbook (1893), historians and philosophers of science have just started to analyze the theory and methods of crime scene investigation, criminal psychology, and criminal justice.

Students have expressed an interest in learning more about various kinds of applied science, and forensic science struck me as something inherently interesting and important for students to learn about. I envision the course to include a discussion of the history of forensic medicine and psychology, fingerprinting, toxicology, blood typing, DNA evidence, and the role of expert witnesses, as well as a discussion of the legal issues surrounding what constitutes admissible evidence and how that has changed over time.”

Professor Fisher is still developing the curriculum for this new course. She hopes to invite guest speakers to the class, which might include members of the Tacoma Police Department. For all the students out there who are interested in forensic science, it’s no mystery why you should take this course!

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ADVENTURES IN WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY 16 | ELEMENTS

ADVENTURES IN WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURING THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF NICO HEYNING Nico Heyning ‘20 was first inspired to pursue photography in the 6th grade because of his sister - as he puts it, “I took up photography to beat her.” Although he describes his first attempts as “utter garbage,” his more recent work has been featured in the LA Times. While his subject matter is quite variable, Nico has always had a love for marine mammals, and many of his pictures are taken off the coast of Southern California, either on whale-watching tours or on the boats of friends. Nico’s connection with the director of the Gray Whale Census at Point Vicente also means that he always gets tips on unusual cetacean sightings. Having participated in an educational program about cetaceans, Nico is well versed in commonly sighted species and is qualified to lead whale-watching expeditions. When taking pictures of marine mammals, Nico emphasizes the importance of patience: on one recent expedition in the San Juan Island, he had no sighting over a span of 5 hours, while other times he has spotted dolphins or whales within minutes.

In high school, Nico’s interest in photography and marine mammals led him to an internship in Namibia with the Namibian Dolphin Project, a non-profit which monitors cetacean populations in Walvis Bay, and studies how eco-tourism and the development of the port affect dolphin activity. Because Walvis Bay houses one of the largest ports along the west coast of Africa, this research is extremely valuable. During his six weeks in the program (the timing of which required him to miss high school graduation), Nico was able to snap shots of many marine mammals, including Bottlenose and Heaviside’s dolphins. In addition, a trip to the Etosha National Park brought him into close proximity with lions, zebras, springbok, hyenas, and porcupines.

While in foreign countries, Nico speaks to the importance of taking special precautions keep camera gear clean - when sand got into his lens he was unable to use it for two weeks.

Back in Tacoma, Nico has recently become interested in bird photography. Birds present their own special challenges - as Nico jokes, “birds are terrible.” He considers birds to be “one of the most difficult animals to photograph” due to their small size, skittishness, and camouflage. In order to experience success while birding, he points to the necessity of being quiet, giving the animals their space, and dressing inconspicuously.

For Nico, this meant switching out his bright red winter jacket for a more subtle outer layer. Many of Nico’s bird photos have been taken on campus during biweekly bird walks. These walks are led by fellow student and Slater Museum docent Will Brooks, and the number of unique species sighted during these hour-long forays frequently tops 20.

In terms of what he enjoys most about photography, Nico describes it as “very calming.” While out photographing wildlife, Nico says “I want to be in my own realm, I want to enjoy what’s in front of me.” Doing so allows his to disconnect from the urban environment and enjoy the wonders of nature. The photos on the next few pages highlight some of these wonders. -ERIN STEWART

PREVIOUS PAGE: If you have seen the recent “Mummy” or the new “Mad Max” movies, then you would recognize the orange desert that has made Namibia famous. The sand dunes can ascend miles into the sky and can be just as long too! They are some of the largest sand dunes in the whole continent of Africa, and a magnificent sight to behold.

Captions by Nico Heyning UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 17

ABOVE: Gray Whales have one of the longest migrations in the world, starting in the Bering Sea in Alaska, and working down the coast all the way to the lagoons of Baja California. There, females raise their young while males try to find love. For this baby Gray Whale, a boat is a foreign object, so its curiosity might have encouraged it to take a look above the surface.

BELOW: Boo, a Cape Fur Seal, enjoying a free ride on board the Mola Mola. Animals acclimating to human interaction is bad for the health and safety of both the animals and humans. If you observe wildlife, make sure that you keep a respectable distance that allows the animal to feel safe and you to enjoy the moment.

ABOVE: Orcas can be found all along the coast of Washington, the San Juan Islands, and Canada. The Southern Resident Killer Whales are an incredibly endangered population of orcas that live in the San Juan Islands and the surrounding areas.

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SKY ABOVE: Pelicans in Walvis Bay have learned that humans may throw away free food, and have been able to get away with it. This particular bird decided to land on my boat, and, acknowledging my presence, looked at me while I took this photo.

BELOW LEFT: During the breeding season, both Osprey parents will participate in caring for the young. This particular one decided that its nest needed more material, and that gathering seaweed was the best solution.

BELOW RIGHT: Anna’s Hummingbirds live year-round in Tacoma and on the UPS campus. These birds are unique in that they start to nest/mate in the winter. As a result, the males are very active during this time, singing to females and displaying their beautiful fluorescence. Keep an eye on the edge of branches or the tops of trees, because that is where they like to hang out.

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LAND

TOP LEFT: This Black-backed jackal decided to see if it could munch on a Fur Seal Pup out on Pelican Point. Taken in Walvis Bay, Namibia, jackals are a common predator to Fur Seals, whether they actively hunt them or scavenge their carcasses.

BOTTOM LEFT: Long distance traveling or hunting is done primarily at night to conserve energy and not get overwhelmed by heat. As a result, animals are not as active during the day. This was the case for this lioness, which decided to take a mid-afternoon nap under a tree.

TOP RIGHT: Springbok are a member of the antelope family.

Smaller in stature, they are incredibly agile, which is probably why South Africa’s National Rugby team is named after them.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Zebras are incredibly cute. Zebras are abundant in the whole continent, but with some species doing better than others.

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TERRAIN

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TOP PREVIOUS PAGE: When there is no major city within hundreds of miles, the stars and moon can light up the sky in ways that make you feel small. Looking up, seeing shooting stars, the full moon, and billions of other stars illuminate the earth and sky, you are taken aback at the beauty that hovers above you yet you rarely see. Going to places in the middle of nowhere, with no service, no city, and no lights, you can see galaxies and stars billions of light years away. Taken in Baja California in March 2017.

BOTTOM PREVIOUS PAGE: San Juan Island and Victoria are separated by a thin body of water, yet passage from the United States and Canada can take as long as 5 hours. Taken on San Juan Island, the southern end of Vancouver Island is visible in the sunset haze.

ABOVE: Named after a British Officer, Rainer dominates the landscape in the Tacoma/Seattle area. It is still an active

volcano, and although it could erupt, it is not likely to happen. Taken just before finals week during the Fall 2017 semester.

Nico primarily shoots using a Canon 70 Mark II with a 70-300mm lens. If you would like to see more of his work, visit his website at http://nicopedia.smugmug.com.

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Transforming Tacoma from a Fossil Fuel Magnet to a Sustainable and Just Community Liquefied Natural Gas and the Future of Tacoma’s People ABOVE: The Tacoma Tideflats

Image: “Aerial Photo of Port of Tacoma” by D Coetzee is licensed under CC by 2.0

BY ANNA FRYXELL

The Pacific Northwest has a history as a site for fossil fuel refineries and exports. Natural gas is a type of fossil fuel composed mostly of methane, and a liquified natural gas (LNG) plant is a facility that cools natural gas, converting it into liquid form so that it can be transported around the world. In February 2018, the City of Tacoma had scheduled a public hearing about interim regulations regarding environmental and industrial concerns in the Tacoma Tideflats. However, following the cancellation of the hearing, a large number of determined Tacoma residents and Puget Sound students attended guest speaker Tarika Powell’s presentation about environmental injustice and the LNG plant. Powell is a local environmental activist and a researcher who studies the effects of fracked gas on the environment. She is determined to share her knowledge and passion for this issue and has inspired locals to unite against the plant. Operated by Puget Sound Energy (PSE), Tacoma’s LNG plant would store up to 8 million gallons and produce approximately 250,000 gallons of liquified natural gas per day (1). It would be built in the Port of Tacoma, which is frequently referred to as the Puyallup Estuary to acknowledge that the Salish Sea is tribal land and is an ecosystem that is not meant for commerce. Public opposition to the facility is crucial right now because the plant does not have all of its permits, and if built, it would have significantly detrimental environmental and social consequences.

Despite the common belief that natural gas is a clean alternative to coal, natural gas is actually one of the dirtiest forms of energy. 85% of natural gas is composed of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 times more potent

than carbon dioxide. Natural gas accounts for an estimated 30% of global warming (2)! The process by which this gas is extracted, refined, and distributed is especially dangerous.

67% of natural gas is obtained through fracking, a highly controversial practice that forever disrupts the landscape by vibrating the land (3). Fracking can trigger earthquakes if positioned near a fault line, and it uses chemicals that produce toxic wastewater and cause harm to the environment. As natural gas travels through pipelines, as many fossil fuels do, it is prone to leakage, which contaminates land and waterways. Furthermore, there have been LNG plant explosions, like the one in eastern Washington in 2014 (4). Additionally, the LNG plant is projected to consume a significant portion of the city’s water and electricity. Therefore, “natural” gas is not a clean alternative to coal; renewable energy is the real clean alternative.

As it stands, environmental racism and classism accounts for the disproportionate effects of climate change on frontline communities. These communities include indigenous peoples, people of color, and low-income neighborhoods. For example, about a year ago, construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) was planned to be in a predominantly middle-class, white area in North Dakota until residents complained. Due to complaints from these white, middle-class Americans, the government rerouted the pipeline to pass through the Standing Rock Nation, despite the fact that opposition involved the largest gathering of indigenous peoples in over a century.

Similarly, the LNG plant would be located on Puyallup land which is protected by the Treaty of Medicine Creek of 1854,

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construction until the full environmental review of the and resulting pollution would penetrate tribal waters and project is completed and all permit requirements are air. Also on Tacoma’s Tideflats sits the Northwest Detention satisfied” (1).

Center, one of the largest immigration prisons in the It is required that governments inform their people about country, holding up to 1,575 detainees (5), most of whom any project that would impact the public; therefore, the are people of color. The LNG plant has a blast zone, or zone City of Tacoma has denied its people a democratic right by in danger of potential explosions, of a 0.3-mile to 3-mile providing minimal information about the LNG plant and radius (depending on whether you ask PSE or environmental falling short on its SEPA process. SEPA, disaster specialists), endangering “We have made it clear which stands for State Environmental those approximately 1,500 Policy Act, is an environmental review detainees who would be unable from the beginning that required for any project proposal that to evacuate. These disparities are of imminent concern, and this project has not been involves government action. Out of approximately 40 SEPA processes are causing many people to rise fully evaluated and poses she has witnessed, Tarika Powell to action. One such local activist described the one for Tacoma’s LNG is Bill Sterud, chairman of the significant safety and facility as “the worst SEPA review Puyallup Tribe and prominent environmental risks to our I have ever seen.” This particular advocate for environmentalism and indigenous rights. Sterud tribal members and local SEPA makes it extremely difficult for people to find information about the states that, “We have made it residents.” plant, and some of the statements clear from the beginning that from various groups were nearly this project has not been fully -Bill Sterud identical, indicating that the city may evaluated and poses significant have copied and pasted statements rather than reaching safety and environmental risks to our tribal members and out to all groups who were supposed to be represented local residents. We are demanding that the city of Tacoma, in the review. Also, the environmental impact statement Department of Ecology, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, (EIS) was filed by the City of Tacoma rather than the and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency demand PSE cease

ABOVE: Construction on the LNG plant in January

Image: The News Tribune, Peter Haley 24 | ELEMENTS

Washington Department of Ecology, which is an expert on environmental impacts. After reviewing the astounding environmental consequences as described in the EIS, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency declared that an SEIS (supplemental EIS) be required for the LNG plant to have all of its permits. Currently, an SEIS remains to be completed.

Many advocates in favor of the LNG plant and similar projects argue that these facilities would improve the economy by providing jobs; however, Tacoma’s economy would likely be harmed due to the net consequences. In reality, more jobs exist in the field of renewable energy than in fossil fuels. Jobs in the fossil fuel industry also have a poor long-term outlook because they can only last until this nonrenewable resource runs out. Additionally, the intrusive presence of such a facility could make people less attracted to the city, causing property values to decrease.

Also, any potential environmental disasters caused by the LNG plant would be costly to clean up. PSE is an Australianowned company, and fossil fuel facilities in the Pacific Northwest are typically owned by national or international companies, which means that much of the profit does not benefit local economies and that these companies are taking advantage of the Northwest as a convenient place to export their goods. A proposal for the world’s largest methanol refinery, for instance, was a Chinese company that would ship methanol to Tacoma where the methanol would be refined, ship it back to China to be molded into plastics, and ship the plastics to the United States to be sold.

Such a refinery would not only encourage the consumption of plastic and use an unnecessary amount of energy for transportation; it would also be of greatest benefit to a place other than the location of the facility.

Even though Tacoma’s LNG plant is in the process of being built, there is still room for public opposition. The facility is not completed, and PSE has not received all of the permits necessary to carry out the project. Due to the overwhelming amount of public opposition to the proposed methanol refinery, that project was shut down.

This provides hope that the LNG construction can be shut down too. Amanda Diaz, ASUPS president, initiated an ASUPS Senate vote asking to oppose the LNG plant, and it unanimously passed. The Associated Students of Pacific Lutheran University have also passed this resolution, and University of Washington Tacoma is working on it as well. Hopefully, presenting a large amount of opposition from local young adults will inspire the city to operate in a more democratic manner. Lastly, shutting down a plant

ABOVE: LNG plants are just one part of the fossil fuel industry. Don’t be a fossil fool! Support divestment! in Tacoma does not necessarily mean that the plant would be built elsewhere instead; companies are drawn to the convenience of Tacoma as a port city, so they would make less profit if the plant were far away from a port.

I hope that by the time this article is published, things will have changed for the better, and the LNG plant will have been cancelled. In the meantime, we can work together to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry as a whole. One idea for this approach is for our school to divest from fossil fuels.

While investing in fossil fuels has been highly profitable for the past few decades, as a nonrenewable resource, it is likely to become an unstable investment very soon.

This February, Lewis and Clark became the first liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest to commit to full divestment from fossil fuels, which is encouraging because it suggests that Puget Sound is capable of following suit.

Our goal should be to expand divestment to a campus-wide, national, and even international movement. Individuals can make their votes and their voices heard by working together, from protesting facilities such as the LNG plant and the (cancelled) methanol refinery to campaigning for divestment. Tacoma’s “port” is an estuary, and it is time to acknowledge that our Earth is a place to be respected. To ensure the equity and sustainability of Tacoma and beyond for generations to come, it is important to challenge traditional political ideologies and listen to all voices -- the time for action is now!

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

—Nelson Mandela UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 25

Genetic Engineering to the Rescue: Saving the U.S. Citrus Industry

BY GRACE SULLIVAN

The valuable U.S. citrus industry is currently threatened with massive financial losses due to citrus tree infection by several pathogens, including viruses and bacteria. The most pressing of these infections is citrus greening disease, or huanglongbing (HLB), caused by bacteria carried by the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri Kuwayama (1). Citrus greening affects fruit production by disabling plant vasculature and causing trees to grow small, bitter, useless fruit, and is considered the single greatest threat to worldwide citrus production (2). The bacteria themselves are a group of fastidious phloem-limited gram-negative bacteria in the Candidatus Liberibacter genus (1, 3). A common treatment for citrus greening is heavy insecticide use, but this is not always effective enough to prevent catastrophic fruit loss, and also presents the unintended effects of destroying beneficial insects (4). The citrus plant family has no known innate defenses to this invader, so selective breeding for heartier plants is also not an option. Instead, researchers in the agricultural industry have turned to genetic modification to provide lasting defense against this devastating disease. Trees grown with

Image: Wikimedia Commons 26 | ELEMENTS

genetically altered genomes provide promising resistance to infection and offer a lifeline to this $9 billion industry (3, 5).

While several promising genes from other organisms, such as fish and pigs, were identified as potential transforming agents for the citrus trees, widespread public distrust and misunderstanding of the genetic transformation process caused researchers to shy away from their use (6). They feared that consumers would balk at eating fruit containing fish or pig genes, even if the flavor and nature of the fruit itself were not impacted by the selected genes (6). Researchers instead chose to stick to the plant world in their hunt for the perfect resistance gene. Numerous plant genes have been identified that infer general defense by contributing antimicrobial properties, anti-insect properties, and systematic acquired resistance (SAR), among other methods (7, 3). These general, nonspecific defense routes are currently necessary because the exact nature of the HLB-causing bacterium’s pathology is not fully known at this time [Stover].

Dr. T. Erik Mirkov, a researcher at Texas A & M University, searched and landed on a pair of candidate genes found in spinach, SoD2 and SoD7, (7). These genes, which code for spinach defensin 2, provide resistance to the citrus greening disease by producing antimicrobial peptides that inhibit bacterial growth or cause cell death (7). Spinach is a plant that is already regularly consumed as food and thus the potential stigma surrounding the use of its genetic material is greatly reduced. It also presents no unusual ethical or environmental concerns.

Mirkov used the natural gene-transforming capabilities of Agrobacterium tumefaciens to LEFT: Citrus insert the SoD2 and SoD7 genes into greening disease grapefruit and sweet orange seedlings, threatens the and produced viable trees that were citrus industry in confirmed to be innately resistant the United States to citrus greening (7). This process

Illustration by Kiri Bolles

inserted powerful antibacterial genes that were not previously present in the genomes of these citrus plants, but it did not alter or remove any existing citrus genes. Southern blots were performed to test for successful insertion of the spinach genes, and Northern blots were used to test for expression of mRNA consistent with the antibacterial gene product (7).

Mirkov pioneered the genetic engineering of citrus trees using these spinach genes and is a leading figure in the effort to develop genetic resistance to citrus greening via Agrobacterium-mediated transformations.

His work, combined with that of other scientists who are working to produce genetically modified citrus trees, offers a route for preserving the citrus industry via a method that is better for the environment than heavy pesticide use and is safe to consume.

taking dramatic steps to combat citrus greening, their livelihoods will almost certainly be wiped out by this disease.

Genetic transformation of citrus trees is time-consuming because it takes years for the seedlings to develop into mature, fruit-producing trees, but it still offers the best option for protecting this industry. The hope is that by carefully managing the fears of the consumers and selecting a gene from an organism that does not raise ethical concerns, the citrus industry will survive the onslaught of this devastating pathogen. The discovery process of genetically modifying citrus trees arms scientists with the genetic tools for dealing with future pathogens as well.

While some people still have reservations about eating any type of genetically altered organism, farmers in the citrus industry are faced with the stark reality that without

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LC-MS/MS:

Extending the Timeframe of Detection in Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault Cases

BY JENNA MOBLEY

Drug facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) is characterized by the voluntary or involuntary consumption of substances, like drugs or alcohol, which hinder one’s ability to consent. In addition, they can also hinder a victim/ survivor’ ability resist sexual assault and/or prevent them from remembering the assault, to the point that they may not even know if they have experienced DFSA. The most common legal substance to facilitate DFSA is alcohol, however prescription and street drugs, like cannabis, Rohypnol (Roofies), or cocaine, are also used in DFSA. Often these substances are mixed with each other or mixed with alcohol. Drugs chosen for DFSA are chosen because they are absorbed and metabolized rapidly. Substances used for DFSA typically exit the body after 72 hours, which can pose a problem for the detection and quantification of these drugs.

The department of justice reports that 19.8% of female and 38.3% of male victim/survivors reported being under the influence of drugs or alcohol during the sexual assault to the police.2, However, due to memory recall and reporting difficulties, this is also likely a low estimate. Beyond the low reporting numbers, only 10-12% of victim/survivors of sexual assault who come in to emergency rooms are suspected DFSA victims and thus undergo a drug test.1 Of those, only 60% test positive. 40% tested negative. However,

this does not necessarily mean that DFSA did not occur.

There are many difficulties identifying DFSA, including the timeliness of the sampling and inability to screen for some drugs and the constantly changing drugs used in DFSA. Given the level of uncertainty of whether or not a DFSA may have taken place, coupled with the stigma and shame associated with reporting of sexual assault, especially DFSA, the likelihood that a victim/survivor would have blood or urine samples within 72 hours is very small. Does this mean that evidence of DFSA is nonexistent after 72 hours? Not necessarily. Modern instrumental analyses techniques have been adopted within forensic toxicology that now make hair analysis possible. Hair analysis allows for extended screening for DFSA and ultra high performance liquid chromatography, coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) has been successfully used to quantify drugs in hair in DFSA cases.

Beyond Urine and Blood: Hair as a tool for DFSA cases Blood and urine analysis are common in detecting drug exposure in and still the standard in detecting in drugfacilitated sexual assault; however, both analyses require timely sampling before the elimination of the drug. Luckily, hair analysis, can also be used to quantify drug use or exposure after much time has passed since the assault.

Hair is not only useful in extending the window in which drug exposure can be detected, but also determining how often drug exposure/use has occurred.

Segmental hair analysis, which entails cutting hair into 1-2 cm chunks, in particular, is useful as it allows for the differentiation

LEFT: A basic LC-MS/MS scheme, used in finding proof in sexual-assault cases.

Image: Wikimedia Commons 28 | ELEMENTS

between regular use and one-time exposure based on concentrations detected and location within the segments of hair. Hair grows anywhere from 0.6-3.0 cm/month, so relatively simple calculations can be done to determine which sections of hair should have detectable concentrations of drugs after a DFSA. Hair analysis has been shown to compliment blood and urine analysis in DFSA cases.

While hair has been used as a biological matrix for over 150 years, it has not been well documented as a sample in DFSA cases. However instruments with lower limits of detection have made the detection of DFSA drugs in hair possible.

LC-MS/MS for Segmental Hair Analysis In 2013, a method for the analysis of 96 drugs in hair samples, often used in DFSA, by UPLC-MS/MS was validated

by Montesano, et al. This method allows for the detection and quantification of many different classes of drugs, including: “opiates, amphetamines, hallucinogens, benzodiazepines, antihistamines, antidepressants, antipsychotics, barbiturates and other sedatives, muscle relaxants, etc.” This method will detect quantities that are consistent with just a single exposure, but also has a wide enough range of detection to determine if concentrations are consistent with chronic use.

In this method, hair samples are cut into 1 cm segments and prepared for sampling by extracting the potential drugs and adding internal standard solution. UPLC was performed.

Ammonium formate was the mobile phase used in the first phase and formic acid in acetonitrile was the mobile phase used in the second phase. A gradient elution was used in both phases. The total run time was 19.5 minutes and compounds eluted between 1.4 and 16.1 minutes. Tandem mass spectrometry, in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode, was used as the detector.

At the time of publication in 2014, this method was the most comprehensive method for drug analysis in hair. In general, GC-MS is used as the reference for unknown screening of drugs in hair; however, this requires derivitzation, which takes sample analysis even longer. TOF-MS and hybrid-ion trap experiments have been reported, but the sensitivity of the instrument is often insufficient to detect drugs in a single exposure case.

One case study out of Denmark used this method to analyze the antipsychotic drug quetiapine in the blood, urine, and hair.

Quetiapine is approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. While recreational use is not well know, it does have sedative effects, so it has been used for DFSA. In this case, the victim/survivor went in for a medical exam 43 hours after the suspected DFSA and blood and urine samples were taken. Six months after the sexual assault, hair samples were taken in hopes of corroborating the evidence from the blood and urine samples.

[LC-MS/MS] is the best tool that victims and survivors have in obtaining evidence of the crime.

UPLC-MS/MS was used in the quantification of blood, urine, and hair.5 UHPLC-MS-TOF was used for screening initially. 0.007 ppm of quetiapine was detected in blood, 0.19 ppm was detected in urine and 0.011 ppm was detected in hair, six months after the DFSA using just a single dose of quetiapine.

This study has some difficulty was the sampling of hair. By the nature of segmental analysis, hair strands must be aligned in order to be analyzed. This was not the case and the sample size was quite small, so removing irregularly aligned hair strands was a problem and alignment also proved challenging. While this method has shown to be successful, it is not being used in place of blood or urine analysis, for a variety of reasons.

Hair analysis as an alternative to blood or urine analysis?

In addition to difficulties sampling, hair brings about other sampling complications. Drugs bind melanin well, so darker hair, would potentially be bind at higher rates to dark hair. This is more of a concern when using hair as a tool for drug testing for employment, but it could also mean that lighter hair samples may prove to be more challenging in drug detection in DFSA cases. There is conflicting statistical evidence about the presence of a “color effect”, but nonetheless it is something to be mindful of when using hair as a matrix.

Additionally, due to the fact that hair growth is variable, the use of segmental analysis to date drug exposure is not necessarily reliable. Presumably, this could also be used as grounds for dismissal within a court case.

Forensic science is unique in that “it must somehow simultaneously satisfy the scientific demands of the natural sciences, the judicial demands of the courts, the sensationalistic demands of the public, and the practical demands of the evidence.” This combined with the lack of “research culture” present in forensic sciences makes the adoption of new bestpractice technique in to the field particularly challenging. While hair analysis is legally accepted and court-room admissible in many states, this does not necessarily mean that it is accepted as a stand-alone technique, at least for now. UPLC-MS/MS has been validated as an appropriate scientific technique for the quantification of drugs in hair. There are certainly a few obstacles to mitigate, mostly related to hair as a matrix, but in the meantime, it is the best tool that victims and survivors have in obtaining evidence of the crime more than 3 days after it has happened.

Hopefully, at some point in the near future, UPLC-MS/MS can be a stand alone analytical tool for DFSA cases. Meanwhile, it can be used as additional evidence to strengthen the cases are going through the court system.

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Alan’s Machines: The Theory Behind Alan Turing’s Universal Turing Machine

BY JESSE JENKS

Alan Turing is often called the ‘father of computer science’. He was an undeniable genius, who died at a tragically young age, and helped the Allies crack the German Enigma codes while working at Bletchley park. In fact, if you watch just about any documentary about Turing, they discuss all of this in great detail. But what part of that had to do with the foundations of computer science? Surprisingly, Turing did not initially come up with his machines with the hopes of ever building one. Instead, he had much loftier goals. He was trying to answer the question which problems can be solved at all? In this article I will try to shed some light on what Turing accomplished, and how his work touched on the limits If we have of human knowledge.

system, that is, if your system is inconsistent, you can prove anything, and the whole thing becomes useless. But people weren’t ready to give up yet.

was about to publish his work on formalized arithmetic, he received a letter from a young Bertrand Russell, describing what is now called Russell’s paradox. In Frege’s own formalization, if you can derive a paradox in your

This is where we find a young Alan Turing, working as a fellow at King’s College in Cambridge. One of Turing’s great achievements was his solution to Hilbert’s problem in his 1936 paper On Computable Numbers, with an application

In 1900, the highly influential mathematician David Hilbert posed his 23 problems.1 His second problem was to prove the “consistency of arithmetic”. In other words, show that the newer formalizations of arithmetic would not have the same problem that Frege did. Unfortunately for Hilbert, Gödel’s famous Incompleteness Theorems showed that his second problem is effectively impossible. If your formal system includes arithmetic and is consistent, it is possible to find formulas, or formalized the right set mathematical statements which are not provable or disprovable!2 This was of instructions, we have a major blow to Hilbert’s program, and Beginning in the mid 1800s, mathematics as a whole. After all, the mathematicians and philosophers a Turing Machine which to main job of a mathematician is to prove became increasingly interested in the logical foundations of mathematics. carries out an algorithm! things! Hilbert later posed another list of problems, one of which was to come Frege had introduced the first Or as Turing might up with a way to decide whether or not formalization of logic since Aristotle, given formula is provable in a given Cantor began his work in set theory, have put it, a “general aformal system. Since Gödel showed and it seemed that all of the wildly that not every formula can be proven different areas of mathematics done procedure” or disproven, is there a way to tell over the past several thousand years which ones can be proven?

This problem became known as could be spoken about in a common language. This was a the Entscheidungsproblem, or the “decision problem”. very popular idea, but there was a problem. Just as Frege

1

You can still win a million dollars for solving the 8th problem!

This is an extremely deep result which certainly deserves an article of its own. Goodstein, Kirby, Paris, and others were able to come up with concrete examples of formulas which are not provable or disprovable in the standard “Peano” arithmetic.

2

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to the Entscheidungsproblem. It was in this paper that the world was introduced to Turing Machines.

A Turing Machine is an idealized machine which is usually drawn as a little box which can glide along a “tape”.

The tape is an infinitely long ribbon broken up into cells, like a film strip, and each cell is either blank or has some symbol written on it. The box, or “head” can move one cell to the left or right at a time, and decides what to do by reading the symbol written on the cell it is currently above. It can also erase the symbol it reads, and write a new one. It doesn’t just do this arbitrarily though. Instead it has a fixed set of instructions, each of which says something like “If you read the ‘b’ symbol at the current cell, then erase it and write a ‘c’. Then move left”. So how is this like a computer? Well if we have the right set of instructions, we have a Turing machine which carries out an algorithm! Or as Turing might have put it, a “general procedure”.

A Turing machine represents a set of rules, which a person could in principle carry out. For example long division is an algorithm where, given two numbers you can figure out what the digits of the first number divided by the second is. It allows you to compute that value. In fact, it is a very general way of doing this, since it works for any pair of numbers (except when dividing by 0). Notice that your answer, or the result of carrying out this algorithm may be unending. For example ⅓ = 0.3333333… with 3s all the way down. In this case we say that the division algorithm does not halt on input 1,3. But the actual set of rules you have to remember is finite. The difference with Turing machines is that they never get tired and never forget. So if no Turing machine can solve a particular problem, then no person could either.

One of the brilliant ideas in Gödel’s proof of the Incompleteness theorems is what we now call Gödel numbering. He came up with an ingenious way to encode formulas as numbers. In fact, this is why arithmetic is crucial to his proof. This meant that formulas about numbers could be turned into numbers. Much like Gödel numbering, we can encode Turing machines as well.

This means that it is possible to come up with a Turing machine which, given the encoding of any other machine can “simulate” that machine! A Turing machine like this is called a Universal Turing Machine (UTM). This was the first inklings of a modern programmable computer.3 This idea is really what made Turing the father of computer science, and it’s not even the most brilliant part of this paper!

ABOVE: Alan Turing, the “Father of Computer

Science”, age 16. Photo: Wikimedia Commons With this new idea in hand, Turing could turn his attention to Hilbert’s problem. Since a formal system is also essentially just a set of rules, is there a Turing machine which follows these rules and always answer yes or no to answer Hilbert’s problem? In other words, can we find a Turing machine which tells me exactly which formulas are provable?

First, let’s take a small digression into a puzzle about fleas.4 Suppose there is a flea jumping along the number line. We know that the flea starts at 0, and jumps to the right the same distance each second, but we don’t know how far the flea jumps every second. For example it might jump 3 units each second. So the path of the flea would look like 0 → 3 → 6 → 9 → … and so on, but it might just as easily be jumping 1000 units. Checking one position each second, is there some strategy (a general procedure) we can employ to be guaranteed that we catch the flea? (Of course, we can’t just check 0 at the beginning or this would be no

3 Others had thought about and built programmable computing machines. For example Ada Lovelace is widely credited as having written the first “program”. However, Turing was the first to consider the theoretical basis for computing machines.

4

Although he says these are ‘folklore’, I first heard of the flea puzzles from Professor Lajos Soukup in Hungary.

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LEFT: Is there a general procedure that can be used to always catch a jumping flea?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Robert Hooke, 1665

this program (which is thousands of lines of code and uses the latest and most advanced techniques in flea catching) will eventually catch the flea, no matter how clever the flea’s program is. But the flea follows the philosophy of “play smart, not hard”. The night before your big showdown, it breaks into your computer, and copies your entire program into its own, with one small tweak. Wherever your program tells you to look, the flea jumps just one position above that.

With this trick, the flea can always escape! Now think about this. No matter what program you wrote, the flea can always write another program which will allow it to escape. So any program has at least one other that avoids it. Thus there cannot be any program which will always catch the flea!

fun.) In fact there is.

Try to find one yourself!

Suppose the flea is in fact jumping by 3s. Then we know that at the 3rd second, the flea is in the 3 × 3 = 9th position. But what if the flea jumps by 4s?

Then by the 4th second the flea must be in the 4 × 4 = 16th Let’s bring this back to the context of Turing Machines. position. So while it’s not obvious at first, we actually have Notice that the flea puzzle boiled down to asking about the a fairly simple decision procedure. At time t, check the t × existence of a particular program or a Turing Machine that t -th position. Since the flea is moving some distance to the has some property we are interested right each second, we will eventually in. We were able to show that no such catch the flea. In some sense, we No matter what program could exist by supposing are checking the ‘diagonal’ positions there is one, and constructing another program you wrote, the the flea could be in. There are many machine which would cause it to fail. increasingly difficult variations flea can always write This idea is exactly what Turing needed of this puzzle, but they all share a similar idea. But now you are facing a another program which to deal the final blow to Hilbert’s decision problem. very clever flea. You and the flea are

will allow it to escape. allowed to write computer programs What Turing managed to do was which takes in the current time, and to show that solving the very complex So, any program has outputs a position. In the case of the decision problem boiled down to fleas program, it tells the flea where at least one other that the existence of a particular Turing to jump next, while your program tells machine. The exact details of how avoids it. you where to check. Now we ask the Turing managed to do this are, as you same question. Checking one position can imagine, quite a bit more complex each second, is there some strategy (a general procedure) than the flea puzzle5. But the idea is the same: we can now we can employ to be guaranteed that we catch the flea? This show that the decision problem is not solvable by showing time, the answer is no. that a certain kind of Turing machine cannot exist! In Suppose you write some program with the hopes that

particular, we will do this by looking at the famous Halting Problem.

LEFT: The path of a flea jumping three units each second

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5 Details of Turing’s original proof with explanation are in The Annotated Turing by George Petzold.

The Halting Problem is this: Given the description of a Turing Machine and some input for that machine, is there a general procedure which will decide if that machine will halt on that input? In other words, will it act like the division algorithm on 1, 3? The proof that there is no machine which can do this will follow the proof we used in the flea puzzle very closely. Suppose we come up with a Turing machine H which solves the Halting Problem. Then we can throw any machine at it, and any input for that machine, and it will output a ‘yes’ if that machine halts on that input, and a ‘no’ if it doesn’t. Notice that H itself must always halt, otherwise it couldn’t answer the question. But here’s the key. Just as the flea used an altered version of our program to evade capture, we will create our own altered version of H.

H gets it wrong. Just as in the flea puzzle, we have found a machine which evades any program which might have solved the halting problem. So there cannot be any such program!

By constructing these theoretical machines, Turing was finally able to show that the decision problem has no solution. The implications of work done by Turing and others is fascinating. As powerful as computers are, there are fundamentally unsolvable problems. It isn’t all bad though. In the decades since his paper, lots of work has been put into exploring the limits of unsolvable problems, and it eventually gave rise to the computers and smartphones we use every day. So the next time you use a computer, just remember how amazing it really is!

Consider a new machine G which takes in a description of a machine M as its input. We write <M> to denote the description of M. G uses H to check if M will halt when given <M> as its input.

If H says ‘yes’ G runs the division algorithm with 1,3 (so G will not halt).

If H says ‘no’, then G stops running.

So what happens when we run G with its own description as its input?

G first uses H to check if G halts on input <G>. Suppose H says yes. Then G will halt on input <G>. But then G will write 0.3333… to the tape forever, so it never halt! So H should never have said yes. So suppose H said no instead.

Then G stops running and halts.

But then it halts! So H should have said yes!

In either case,

ABOVE: A recent reconstruction of a Turing Machine, created by Mike Davey and displayed at Harvard University Photo: Wikimedia Commons

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 33

Is Artifical Sweetener Being Disguised as a Healthy Alternative?

BY ANJALEE RAMAN

It seems as if everyone in today’s society is on some sort of health kick, whether that be cutting out gluten or dairy, or switching to artificial sweeteners in order to live a healthier lifestyle. Companies are broadcasting that their products are zero calories and sugar free, but in reality they are filled with artificial sugars. With this new substitution for sugar, shouldn’t we expect the rate of obesity and cardiovascular diseases to rapidly decline? An astonishing 16.9% of children and 35% of adults in the United States are considered to be obese. (1) Therefore, we must ask, what is causing our bodies to put on so much excess weight if we aren’t eating real sugar?

of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood into skeletal muscle, fat, and liver cells. Once taken up, skeletal muscle cells convert glucose into glycogen for stored energy; fat cells transform glucose into triglycerides and store them away for later use, and liver cells are able to do both. When enough energy has been obtained, insulin decreases the release of ghrelin and increases the release of leptin.

Ghrelin is responsible for signaling hunger to the brain, while leptin signals satiation. Evolutionarily speaking, this system was incredibly beneficial because nutrient food sources weren’t always accessible to our ancestors so when we did find food it was important that we stocked up on energy.

“We no longer have to hunt and gather for food, instead we can simply walk into a grocery store and pick any item off the shelf”

Before we tackle this question, we must first know what happens within our bodies when we consume sugar. It all begins with one hormone, insulin. Our bodies have to regulate our blood sugar so that it falls within a narrow range, otherwise large fluctuations in blood glucose levels can be harmful to our health. (2) Hence, when we consume a large plate of pasta and garlic bread or a slice of chocolate cake, beta-cells in our pancreas release large amounts of insulin. Insulin is responsible for regulating the metabolism

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However, we no longer have to hunt and gather for food, instead we can simply walk into a grocery store and pick any item off the shelf or drive up to a fast food restaurant and order a premade meal. Yet, this does not necessarily mean we are choosing, or even have the resources, to select for the healthier options; thus, we settle for products that may contain artificial sweeteners. A study conducted by the neuroscience division at the University of Sydney, Australia looked into a number of different explanations as to why artificial sweeteners may be causing significant weight gain and the development of diseases. (3)

Wang and his colleagues began by analyzing the side effects of consuming an artificial sweetener called sucralose. They placed fruit flies on a diet of either sucrose or sucralose for 24 hours and found that those who were fed sucralose consumed more food than those fed sucrose.

They extended the experiment for 4 more days and noticed that flies became less tolerant to glucose, were hyperactive and suffered from disoriented sleep patterns.

Taking this information into account, they wanted to understand what caused these symptoms and whether insulin played a role. Therefore, they simply manipulated the genes responsible for producing insulin and insulin receptors so that they either turned on partially or not at all. In either case, it was discovered that without insulin, the fruit flies had little to no appetite, suggesting that sucralose affects insulin in a way that promotes hunger.

Consequently, it is also known that our perception of sweetness plays a critical part in realizing how full we may be. (3) For instance, when we consume a decadent chocolate cake, our brain notifies us when to stop eating by signaling that enough sugar has been absorbed and that our sweet taste buds have been satisfied. Wang and his fellow neuroscientist recognized this when they knocked out neuropeptide F (NPF) within the NPF/NPY system of fruit flies. They identified NPF to be an important communicator between insulin and dopamine; and although artificial sweeteners may taste sweet, they are simply tricking our minds into thinking we have consumed enough sugar.

However, our bodies are not receiving enough nutrients from the artificial sugars; therefore, our brains are signaling our stomachs to keep eating.

“Although artificial sweeteners may taste sweet, they are simply tricking our minds

The last part of their into thinking we have experiment revealed that the consumed enough sugar.” promotion of hunger caused by

To follow this study up, researchers were interested in finding a specific pathway or mechanism that involves sucralose, insulin, and an increase in food consumption. After a thorough investigation, they found that octopamine and dopamine are two crucial neurotransmitters needed to activate the gustatory reward pathway. Insulin normally targets octopamine and dopamine to inform the brain that delicious and nutritious food is being consumed, but when sucralose is eaten this reward pathway is not being fully satisfied ergo increasing hunger. Interestingly, Susan Swithers at Purdue University reported that imaging of the human brain has also shown that sucrose elicits specific responses from dopaminergic midbrain areas related to reward and pleasantness, whereas artificial sugars like sucralose do not. (4) Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that sucralose does not elicit the same hormones or concentration of hormones from the stomach and intestines that are required for digestion as sucrose does. (5) For example, glucose and insulin levels were found to be higher in participants who consumed a sucrose-sweetened meal compared to participants who consumed an artificial sweetener. Overall, this was thought to occur because the sucrose sweetened meal was richer in carbohydrates and thus, greater in energy.

sucralose pressures the body to enter a fasting state. This in turn, increases the body’s energy expenditure by activating a specific protein called AMP-activated protein kinase, which must be utilized to regulate cellular energy homeostasis.

To summarize, a prolonged consumption of sucralose tricks the brain into thinking that we are receiving highly nutritious foods when in reality, our bodies aren’t acquiring the nutrients they need, forcing the body into a fast. Wow, no wonder why we can eat a whole bag of M&Ms and still be hungry 30 minutes later! Next time, make sure you think twice about what types of artificial sweeteners you are introducing to your body and how they may affect numerous biological processes.

Illustrations by Tina Chapman UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 35

The “Tree of Life” A History of the Western Redcedar

BY ERIN MCMILLIN

The Western Redcedar is not the most abundant tree species in the Pacific Northwest, but it is arguably the most culturally and economically significant. The wide, buttressed trunks of the Redcedar grow up to 230 feet and are covered in peeling strips of papery red bark (1). The flat green needles hang down in large lacey mats and emit a distinctively sweet, piney aroma. Linguistically, the Western Redcedar is an imposter. It is not a true cedar, but rather an “arborvitae”, which is Latin for “tree of life.” This Latin name is not only more poetic, but also a more appropriate name for the tree’s enormous significance in the Pacific Northwest.

years old (1). People built shelters from long, rot-resistant cedar planks, and the fibrous inner-bark was woven into clothing, ropes, watertight baskets, fishing lines, masks, and mats. Native tribes developed methods to carefully remove bark and split thin planks without killing the tree. Harvesters removed bark in long narrow strips by making small incisions at the base of the tree and climbing up to ten meters while gently pulling the strip. Bark was only removed from one side of the tree and the stripped tree was then considered an untouchable, spiritual tree (3). Bark harvesting and weaving was a crucial and respected skill, and several Native artisans still practice this tradition today. Whole Redcedars were felled to create intricate totem poles and carve long canoes. Redcedar wood is soft, lightweight, and carvable, but also remarkably strong and durable against rot, making it a versatile and sacred resource.

The wide, buttressed trunks of the Redcedar [...] are covered in peeling strips of papery red bark. The flat green needles hang down in large lacey mats and emit a distinctively sweet, piney aroma.

The Western Redcedar has been referred to as the “cornerstone of northwest coastal [Native American] culture” and some tribes even call themselves the “People of the Cedar” (2). Recent archeological extractions have uncovered carved Redcedar planks estimated to be 6,000 to 10,000

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The Western Redcedar’s most unique and important

quality is its incredible tolerance against fungus and decay. This comes from thujaplicin, a chemical compound found in the heartwood. Thujaplicin is a monoterpene that has proven antifungal and anti-bacterial properties, which help living Redcedars stave off pests and disease and preserves Redcedar products from decay (4).

Native populations recognized the anti-bacterial properties and used Redcedar bark to treat nausea, infections, and fevers (5). Redcedar bark also contains thujone, which is a powerful ketone that is a common active ingredient in cough medicine as well as a strong neurotoxin if consumed in excess (1). The medicinal properties of Redcedars are also crucial to the history of European uses of the tree. In the 16th century, members of the First Nations gave Redcedar branches to sailors in the Jacques Carter expedition as a cure for scurvy (5).

Years later, colonizers returned and sought the many uses “l’arbre de vie”, or “the tree of life,” described by earlier voyagers.

Commercially, Redcedar wood is used for planks, shingles, and paper-pulp. The lightweight density makes it a powerful thermal insulator, but long planks have low shock absorbance and poor nail and screw holding capacity (1). These qualities make Redcedar unpopular for timber framing, but very attractive for high end furniture crafting.

Just as the Redcedar shaped the cultures of Native populations, it was crucial for the logging industry that built the economy of Tacoma and Seattle. Early logging settlements in Tacoma were small, lawless logging camps where settlers would freely cut trees for personal construction. Settlers favored Redcedars because of their durability, and 19th century loggers felled most of the Redcedars growing in the North End to build their cabins (6).

The first Euro-American settlement in Tacoma was a waterpowered sawmill constructed by Swedish entrepreneur Nicholas Delin at the mouth of the Puyallup River where the Port of Tacoma now operates (7). This first sawmill was abandoned in the Indian War of 1855-56, but a larger,

steam-powered sawmill was constructed in the same site in 1868 by Charles Hanson.

The first international trade from the Port of Tacoma was a load of lumber from the Hanson & Company Mill headed to Callou, Peru (8). When Tacoma was chosen as the northern terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1873, the Port of Tacoma was already a booming center for international lumber and coal trade (9). Just as the people of the Salish tribes crossed the Sound in Redcedar canoes, Redcedar planks were shipped across the world from the Port of Tacoma.

LEFT: Needles from a Western Redcedar.

Illustration: Mary Vaux Walcott, Wikimedia Commons OPPOSITE: A Western Redcedar near Goat

Lake in Snohomish, WA. Photo: “Western Redcedar” by Miguel Vieira on Flickr under CC By 2.0 In the mid-1900s, loggers realized that they were harvesting Redcedars faster than they could regenerate, so timber companies began to favor faster growing species like the Douglass Fir for mass-harvesting. In the past 20 years, Redcedar harvesting has declined 12% in British Columbia and Washington and foresters are replacing clearcutting with “variable retention”, a technique that does not harvest large, intact trees to speed up forest regeneration (10). Redcedars face no threat of extinction, but the early logging popularity of these trees has significantly reduced the abundance of old growth Redcedars, especially in the North End where giant Redcedars were the most desired lumbering trees for early settlers.

So, the next time you wander through the noble Western Redcedars that frame Commencement Walk near Weyerhaeuser, take a moment to see, touch, and smell these gentle giants. They have been the fabric and literal building blocks of society around Tacoma for almost 10,000 years.

These trees are commercially renowned for their unique chemical properties, but people have always understood their powerful majesty.

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 37

Estimating Changes in Cannabis Consumption Since Legalization Using WastewaterBased Epidemiology

BY ROSIE RUSHING While using wastewater, or sewage, to estimate drug consumption, a process known as wastewater-based epidemiology, may seem far-fetched, it has been proven to be an immensely useful tool for public health officials. On campus in Professor Dan Burgard’s research lab, wastewater is used to determine trends in drug use, specifically with cannabis. When recreational cannabis was legalized for the first time in the United States in 2012 in Washington, not much was known about how consumption trends of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, would change. The goal of this study was to determine if cannabis usage changed after the legalization of marijuana. The primary method for determining drug use is to send out a community survey and hope that people do not lie, misestimate, or misreport their own usage. However, wastewater-based epidemiology could provide a solution to these problems because it can provide unbiased drug use trends much closer to real time – Dan’s study took three years, but theoretically you could grab a wastewater sample and analyze it on the same day.

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Okay, so now that we know wastewater-based epidemiology is great, one might wonder where cannabis comes into the equation. Basically, our lab went looking for the metabolite of TCH, THC-COOH (affectionately referred to as “carboxy-THC”) in the wastewater. A problem with carboxy-THC is that it is often found at levels below ten parts per billion in wastewater from the North End Treatment plant (community near campus), meaning that the instrumentation had to be highly sensitive, sophisticated, and costly, taking the form of a triple quadrupole LC-MS/ MS. Two wastewater treatment plants were sampled: North Treatment Plant and Central Treatment Plant. North Treatment Plant serves about 50,000 people in a mostly residential community, while Central serves about 150,000 people in a mixed residential, commercial, and industrial setting. Sampling started in December 2013 and ended in January 2017, which gave us several months of wastewater as a baseline for cannabis use before recreational stores opened in October 2014.

Initially, I thought wastewater seemed pretty nasty – and smells bad – but it really just looks like grey water (Figure 1). Once a sample arrived, it was prepared for analysis using solid phase extraction (SPE), a technique that extracts compounds from a liquid solution by partitioning them to a stationary solid phase. The compounds are then eluted off of the stationary phase followed by a nitrogen dry-down and reconstitution to concentrate the sample.

FIGURE 1 (BELOW): Wastewater samples

and setup for extraction of THC-COOH.

FIGURE 2 (LEFT): Two

chromatograms of the 12/05/2016 sample quantified with the 245 ion (bottom) or the 299 ion (top).

The sample is then analyzed through the triple quadrupole, which is a Liquid Chromatography tandem Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometer (LC-MS/MS). The LC-MS/MS is a fancy mass spectrometer instrument that can really focus in on the metaboliteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s specific ions when generated in the LC-MS/MS. When a molecule is analyzed

by LC-MS/MS, it is first run through a packed column, and, depending on polarity, mobile phase, and column type, it is eluted from the column at a specific retention time. It is then ionized, magnetically filtered, and broken into its unique pieces. Each molecule has specific fragmentation patterns that allow for characterization. For example, THCCOOH (343 m/z) breaks into a 299 m/z ion and a 245 m/z ion (m/z stands for mass to charge).

One finding of my research was realizing that while the 299 m/z ion gave a larger peak (easier to quantify), it also resulted in more noise. However, the 245 m/z ion was smaller, yet had a larger signal to noise ratio (Figure 2). Because of this reason, the 245 m/z ion was chosen to quantify the three years of samples. After three years of wastewater data and compared with the recreational cannabis sales data, no significant change in cannabis consumption trends were observed since legalization in Tacoma.

According to CNBC, opponents of marijuana legalization warn that cannabis use might increase as access became easier (1). According to our data, this assumption does not appear to be the case. In addition to our findings, Business Insider and the Washington Department of Health also found no increase in cannabis consumption among teens since recreational legalization (2, 3). While no conclusions can be drawn about why, exactly, there has been no measurable change in cannabis usage since the legalization of marijuana, we speculate that people may be choosing to buy from a recreational source vs their previous, perhaps illicit, market. Ultimately, it comes down to how easily people can get cannabis.

No significant change in cannabis consumption trends were observed since legalization in Tacoma.

Acknowledgements: Center for Urban Waters, Caputo Scholarship, Jackson Clarke, Jane Sadetsky, Riley Carpenter, and Danielle Westerman for method development and data.

Research reported in this article was supported by the National Institute On Drug Abuse of the National Institutes for Health under award number R03DA038806.

Note: The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Ultimately, it comes down to how easily people can get cannabis.

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 39

Entering the Allium:

A “Lighter Side” of Science

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COSMOPOLITAN d r e n Where

to find the BEST drone congregation areas in your town

VIRGIN QUEENS IN COSMO!

(we never thought this day would come)

50

summer pollinating tips!

WHAT TO DO:

when the endophallus falls off

LOVE YOUR LADY STINGER

what you need to conquer low self-esteem down there

Doctors say THIS Royal Jelly will keep you going ALL night long

More Nectar...

Less Stress Keep your venom sac

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 41

healthy!

SALAMANDERS! BAD JOKES BY STAFF ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATHRYN WHITE

Why was the salamander feeling lonely?

He was newt to the area.

A guy walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder. The man tells the bartender that his newt’s name is Tiny.

“Why Tiny?”, the bartender asks.

“Because he’s my-newt”

What did one salamander say to his classmate?

You sure axolotl questions!

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Two salamanders were sitting in a tank.

One looks at the other and says “Hey, do you know how to drive this thing?”

Which Member of the Immune System Are YOU?

BY MEGAN TEGMAN

Martha the Macrophage - Gives the best hugs - Will eat everything in your fridge - Smothers friends with affection but sometimes accidentally consumes and degrades them - Constantly giving life advice to prevent others from being stricken by the same mistakes Todd the T-cell - The caregiver of the group; is always on friends’ doorsteps with hot soup and tissues - Social justice warrior who stands up for the community - Ignores nice guys and always falls for toxic players - Twitter feed is a mix of conspiracy theories and savage comebacks

Betty the B-cell - Wary of outsiders and very protective of her friends - Knows how to adapt to any situation - Works harder than people give her credit for - Can be overly self-deprecating and sometimes attacks non-existent flaws

Albert the Antibody - Type-A personality - Locks onto friends he fits well with - A good listener who recognizes everyone’s unique qualities - Strangers find him clingy, but true friends know he’s always looking out for them Linda the Lymphokine - The most attractive of the group - Keeps everyone on track to get shiz done - Helps mediate conflict by convincing everyone to communicate with each other - Can be a lil bossy, but everyone knows she’s right

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 43

ADVICE FROM SENIOR SCIENCE MAJORS

BY ELISE PHILLIPS As my final semester at UPS draws to a close, I, like many before me, have become introspective and begun to reflect on my time in college. I decided to be a science major towards the end of my first year, before taking a single science class in college. I understand what it’s like to feel swamped by labs and problem sets and to be convinced that the goggle lines etched onto my face will never disappear. I also speak from experience saying that you can gain some pretty weird skills as a budding scientist, especially if you do research. Like any member of an aging population, it is also my job to offer unsolicited advice. In this article I have compiled advice from physics, MCB, biochemistry and chemistry majors that I hope you will find helpful.

h c a o pr e p A m i o T t How es and ss a l C

√√ When you procrastinate, find a way to do so productively!

√√ Go to office hours. They are a great way to get your questions answered and chat with some really interesting and smart people. √√ Find time to relax. If you add too much tension to a rubber band it snaps. √√ Take classes outside of science (and not just your cores!); after all, you are at a liberal arts school. You’ll be surprised by the ways your science education overlaps with other disciplines and gives you perspectives on other topics √√ Similarly, get involved in activities besides science. You will have many leadership opportunities and it’s important to have a breadth of experience. √√ Watch the sunrise from Oppenheimer Cafe. √√ Work in Thompson on Friday or Saturday night.

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RES EAR CH ADV ICE

√√ Do research as soon as possible so that you

can decide if you want to pursue it as a career. √√ Do summer research on campus; it gives you the opportunity to build relationships with professors and students with shared interests.

Remember that other larger schools don’t have as big of an emphasis on undergraduate research, so take advantage!

Reframing the Definition of Science √√

Science is not devoid of politics.

√√ Science is inseparable from the humans that do it, despite our hopes for objectivity. √√ Do the science you love. You are putting a significant amount of time into your chosen field; make sure this is because you want to be doing it. Otherwise, do something else.

Thanks to Gabby Chang, Matt Fergoda, Kyle Miller, Jenna Mobley and Nic Rothbacher for their sagely advice

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND | 45

CITATIONS Trasforming Tacoma (Fryxell) (1) Ruud C. Tacoma LNG plant faces delay as clean air agency orders extra scrutiny [Internet]. Tacoma (WA): News Tribune; 2018 Jan 25 [cited 2018 Apr 13]. Available from http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article19650 2779.html (2) Kelly M. A more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, methane emissions will leap as Earth warms [Internet].

Princeton (NJ): Princeton University; 2014 Mar 26 [cited 2018 Apr 11]. Available from https://blogs.princeton.edu/ research/2014/03/26/a-more-potent-greenhouse-gas-thanco2-methane-emissions-will-leap-as-earth-warms-nature/ (3) Powell T. Is your “natural”gas actually fracked?

[Internet]. Sightline Institute; 2017 Oct 30 [cited 2018 Apr 13]. Available from http://www.sightline.org/2017/10/30/isyour-natural-gas-actually-fracked/ (4) Powell T, de Place E. Tacoma’s proposed LNG plant raises safety concerns [Internet]. Sightline Institute; 2016 May 17 [cited 2018 Apr 13]. Available from http://www. sightline.org/2016/05/17/tacomas-proposed-lng-plantraises-safety-concerns/ (5) Who is held at the Northwest Detention Center?

[Internet]. Tacoma (WA): NWDC Resistance [cited 2018 Apr 11]. Available from http://www.nwdcresistance.org/aboutus/ Photo of LNG plant construction: Haley, P. Published in source (1).

Conservation in New Zealand (Stewart) (1) Walrond, Carl. “Natural environment.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/ en/natural-environment. Published 8 Feb 2005.

(2) Hutching, Gerard. “Birds of prey.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/ en/birds-of-prey. Updated 17 Feb 2015.

(3) Holdaway, Richard. “Extinctions.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/ en/extinctions. Published 24 Sep 2007.

(4) Brockie, Bob. “Introduced animal pests.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/ en/introduced-animal-pests. Updated 1 July 2015.

(5) Hutching, Gerard. “Possums.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/possums.

Updated 1 July 2015.

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(6) “Stoats.” New Zealand Department of Conservation, http://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/animalpests/stoats/. Accessed 12 March 2018.

(7) Wilmshurst, Janet. “Human effects on the environment.” Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/human-effects-on-theenvironment. Published 24 Sep 2007.

(8) Robertson, H. A., K. Baird, J. E. Dowding, G. P. Elliott, R. A. Hitchmough, C. M. Miskelly, N. McArthur, C. F.J. O’Donnell, P. M. Sagar, R. P. Scofield and G. A. Taylor.

“Conservation status of New Zealand birds, 2016.” New Zealand Department of Conservation, ISBN 978-1-98851423-9. Published May 2017.

(9) “How PF2050 will be achieved.” New Zealand Department of Conservation, http://www.doc.govt.nz/ nature/pests-and-threats/predator-free-2050/how-pf2050will-be-achieved/. Accessed 12 March 2018.

(10) “Pests.” Tiritiri Matangi Open Sanctuary, http://www. tiritirimatangi.org.nz/pests. Accessed 12 March 2018.

(11) Nathan, Simon. “Conservation – a history.” Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt. nz/en/conservation-a-history. Updated 3 Aug 2015.

(12) “About the A24 rat & stoat trap.” Goodnature, https:// www.goodnature.co.nz/products/rat-stoat/. Accessed 22 March 2018.

(13) Dearden, P. K., N. J. Gemmell, O. R. Mercier, P. J. Lester, M. J. Scott, R. D. Newcomb, T. R. Buckley, J. M. E. Jacobs, S. G. Goldson, D. R. Penman. “The potential for the use of gene drives for pest control in New Zealand: a perspective.” Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, DOI 10.1080/03036758.2017.1385030. Published 25 Oct 2017.

(14) Wylie, Malcolm. “An introduction to kiwi and bird conservation in New Zealand.” Presented 21 March 2018 at University of Puget Sound.

(15) “History.” Tiritiri Matangi Open Sanctuary, http:// www.tiritirimatangi.org.nz/history. Accessed 12 March 2018.

(16) “How Operation Nest Egg Works.” Kiwis for kiwi, https://www.kiwisforkiwi.org/what-we-do/how-weresaving-kiwi/learn-more-about-operation-nest-egg/how-itworks/. Accessed 12 March 2018.

(17) Urlich, Stephen C. “What’s the end-game for biodiversity: is it time for conservation evolution?” New Zealand Journal of Ecology 39: 133-142. Published 28 July 2014.

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Back Cover Bolles, Kiri. 2018.