Friday Poem

Environmental & Science Education
Poetry
Art and Environment
Edward Hessler

Today's poem is by Robin Becker.

I like this open letter from one Robin Becker to Robin Becker "the better," as one Robin Becker calls Robin Becker "the better,: so I choose to send it instead of a traditional biography.

Adelie Penguin Supercolony

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Biodiversity
Wildlife
Edward Hessler

It is still winter at one end of the planet and here on the northern end summer is slowly fading from view. As good a time as ever to think about penguins.

The following is an excerpt from an article published at Quartz by Lila MacLellan. Please read the full article for photographs and more information.  This is a journey to Planet Earth to learn what is there.

March 3, qz.com: The story of how scientists discovered a massive “supercolony” of Adélie penguins in Antarctica—which they detailed in a study published Friday (March 2)—begins in 2014, with NASA satellite imagery.

Heather Lynch, a professor of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University, in New York, and Mathew Schwaller from NASA, spotted guano stains in images of the Danger Islands, off the northern tip of the continent. Where there are penguin droppings, there are most certainly penguins, and the stains, visible from space, suggested there were a large number of them. But only a trip to the rocky, remote chain of islands could confirm the suspicion.

The duo teamed with ecologists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and other universities in the US and UK for an expedition in 2015. They found penguins nesting at the landing site, and beyond that a colony of an estimated 1.5 million Adélie penguins, a “hidden metropolis,” writes Science Alert. This meant there were more Adélie penguins in the Danger Islands than in the rest of the Antartica Peninsula combined, as the researchers report in the study, which was published in Scientific Reports. They called the area “a major hotspot of Adélie penguin abundance.”
 

What's Up?

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Astronomy
Edward Hessler

Two aides to viewing what's overhead at night.

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) highlights the summer sky for its June 27, 2018 entry.  If, when you click on the link, it doesn't take you there, go to the archive (bottom of the page) where you can find it for this date.

And NPR's Skunkbear provides a tutorial on finding the constellations.

Wikiversity provides all kinds of information on stargazing.

The Next Big Thing: Theranos

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Society
Culture
Medicine
Health
Edward Hessler

60 Minutes recently did a story on the quick rise of the Silicon Valley company Theranos and its fall.

The company was the idea of Elizabeth Holmes who dropped out of the Stanford University biology program to found a company that would revolutionize blood testing. It would use a fingerstick sample of blood and from that dozens of blood tests could be accurately performed. Well this was the idea.

Theranos resulted from research Ms. Holmes did while an undergraduate at Stanford University. The Wiki entry on Theranos describes it as follows: (She) created a wearable patch to adjust the dosage of drug delivery and notify doctors wirelessly of variables in patient's blood. She started developing lab-on-a-chip technology for blood tests and the idea for a company that would make testing cheaper, more convenient and accessible to consumers  Holmes used the education trust from her parents for Stanford to found the company that would later be called Theranos, which is a combination of the words "therapy" and "diagnosis".

Holmes was able to attract the imagination and the money of venture capitalists as well as very distinguished board members, real heavy hitters, among them, former United States Secretary of State (1982-1989) George Schultz. Walgreen's, for example, bought into Theranos. She became the youngest female, self-made billionaire in the world with many of the trappings, e.g., bullet-proof glass for her office and traveling with a security detail.

Norah O'Donnell reported the story of this deception (and greed)--I'm tempted to say a story of several deceptions. For additional perspective here is the New Yorker article on the rise of Theranos written only three years ago.

Silicon Valley investors are routinely described as extremely cautious and bright.  The Theranos story is an exception. I think scientific publications and peer-reviewed data were missing from the beginning.

Whenever I see Ms. Holmes I notice a similarity in dress between her and the late Steve Jobs: black. Did she think she was the next Steve Jobs? Maybe a blond Steve Jobs. It is clear that she is bright and charismatic.

Holmes and the former president of the company have been indicted for wire fraud.  Here is a video of an interview with Wall Street Journal reporter John Careyrou whose painstaking detective work fully exposed the deception.

Free as a Bird

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Paleontology
Earth Science
Behavior
Edward Hessler

This short video of a Pterosaur in flight is from the Natural History Museum, London.

See here for information about this pterosaur known as Anhanguera. The name means "Old Devil."

It is NOT a pterodactyl.

h/t Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution is True

Hansen's Claim 30 Years Later

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Climate Change
Society
History of Science
Edward Hessler

Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.'It is already happening now.--James Hansen, 23 June 1988, Senate Testimony.

So, how has his claim held up?

He got it right according to climate scientists. If you are interested in the technical response of climate scientists see RealClimate. Definitely worth scanning because of the insights it provides into their thinking.

Friday Poem

Environmental & Science Education
Poetry
Art and Environment
Edward Hessler

Friday's poem and information about its author Stephen Kuuisto.

Koko Has Died

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Biodiversity
Behavior
Edward Hessler

Koko has died at age 46.

One memory I will always have of her is when she and her friend All Ball were playing or when she was holding All Ball.  What a friendship.

If you need your memory refreshed and would like to know more about her, NPR posted an essay by Bill Chappell.

Scholastic's Koko's Kitten may be seen here where you can take a look inside.

And this essay, added later, from the NYT which includes a clip with Mr. Rogers.

Grief in Dolphins

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Behavior
Death
Brain
Edward Hessler

Evidence from Jane Goodall supports the hypothesis that chimpanzees experience grief. Behavior that scientists describe as grief-like has been known in dolphins for years.


Virginia Morell, writing for Science, reports on an analysis of 78 scientific reports on grief-like behavior in dolphins published between 1970 and 2016. She provides a link to the study as well as to a film showing a striped dolphin in the Mediterranean Sea "pushing, nudging, and circling the carcass of its dead female companion for more than an hour," which stilled a nearby boat of scientists to silence as they watched.

The question remains open on whether dolphins experience the feeling of grief.

Facing Mortality

Environmental & Science Education
Death
Medicine
Health
STEM
Edward Hessler

In March 2016, Stanford University Paul Kalanithi, MD, an eloquent writer about facing mortality died of lung cancer. He was 37 years old.

Kalanithi had only recently completed his neurosurgery residency at the Stanford University of Medicine. He was also a first-time father.

Kalanithi did his undergraduate work in English and biology at Stanford, graduating in 2000 with three degrees: a bachelor's in biology, and a bachelor's and a master's in English literature. While still in high school his career goal was to be a writer.

The Stanford School of Medicine announcement of his death has several links, one  to a short video (roughly 8 minutes) where Dr. Kalanithi reflects on being a physician and a patient. The film is titled Days are Long Long, Years are Short. Kalanithi is the author of the widely acclaimed memoir When Breath Becomes Air, published posthumously.

Nora Krug reporting in the Washington Post (January 5, 2018) writes about what has happened since his death.. Lisa Kalanithi, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Stanford Medical School, has fallen in love with Nina Rigg's widower, lawyer John Duberstein. His wife, Nina Rigg died of breast cancer.

It was Nina Rigg who first put the two in contact. As she was facing death, she was concerned with how her husband John Duberstein was going to deal with the focus. She suggested that he contact Dr. Kalanithi. The reason, as reported by Nora Krug, was that "She (Lisa Kalanithi) has experience with this, she told him; she’ll know what to do." She did. Nina and Lisa became fast friends and John found someone to help him safely to the other shore.

Nora Krug's column also links to the video mentioned above. No guarantees on this link but I think an infrequent user will be granted permission to read it, otherwise it may be available only by subsciption.

Bicycles: The Early Years

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Engineering
Society
Edward Hessler

A short and delightful film on the evolution of the bicycle.

CRISPR

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
History of Science
Nature of Science
Medicine.
Edward Hessler

CRISPR is a powerful gene-editing technique.

Analogies are often used to help in understanding the impact and potential power of this technique. Among the most used are these, ranked from worst to best: a knock-out punch (#10), the hand of Gog, a bomb removal squad, a handyman at work, an eraser, a surgeon's scalpel, a pair of scissors, "search and replace" in MSWord, photoshop, and a Swiss army knife (#1).

These are from a critical essay in STAT by Rebecca Robbins (December 8 2017). She and Sharon Begley, the senior science writer at STAT, evaluated each analogy based on three criteria: creativity, clarity, and accuracy. You may read the results here.

STAT's Jeffrey Del Viscio and Dominic Smith recently published a visual attempt to show the genetic complexities involved in making the invisible visible and they hope understandable. Take two minutes to view their animation.

CRISPR is short-hand for Clustered Regularly Interspersed Short Palindrome Repeats. There is a history of CRISPR at the Broad Institute website.

Friday Poem

Environmental & Science Education
Poetry
Art and Environment
Edward Hessler

Today's poem is by Wendell Berry.

U. S. Department of State Science Envoy Program

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Society
Culture
Medicine
Health
Edward Hessler

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm is director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP).  He is also a Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota.

On June 11, Dr. Osterholm was one of five scientists chosen by the U. S. Department of State to serve as a science envoy, a year-long appointment.

The other four scientists are chemical engineer Robert Langer (MIT), bioengineer Rebecca Richards-Kortum (Rice University), environmental engineer James Schauer (University of Wisconsin) and NASA Administrator (retired) Charles Bolden.

There is a short interview with Professor Osterholm in Science by Jon Cohen which includes a link to the science envoy program.

Congratulations, Dr. Osterholm.

Reading a Dog's Mind

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Behavior
Edward Hessler

This video on animal consciousness comes from the point-of-view of a neuroscientist. The project is known as the "Dog Project."

It is from Science Friday's The Macroscope (May).

What I like about this website is that it includes the video as well as some still shots and text.

Leeches: Beyond Fishing

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Medicine
Health
Edward Hessler

This video from KQED Science describes the use of leeches in medical treatment. The accompanying essay by Emma Hiolski notes that "the humble leech is making a comeback. Contrary to the typical derogatory definition of a human 'leech,' this critter is increasingly playing a key role as a sidekick to scientists and doctors, simply by being its bloodthirsty self."

I hadn't known that leeches can be used--a low tech method--for assessing local biodiversty. Leeches retain the blood they remove while feeding and that blood can be used through the analysis of the DNA to identify the donor.

Some basic biological research on leech behavior and neurobiology is also described.  An advantage of studying such a small nervous system is that it is easier to understand basic mechanisms on how information from the environment is used in decision-making.

The video shows a bandaged hand after reconstructive surgery and here is where leeches enter the treatment regimen. They remove stale blood from damaged veins that are too small to repair. There is another benefit, too. The enzymes found in leech saliva prevents blood clotting.

Friday Poem

Environmental & Science Education
Poetry
Art and Environment
Edward Hessler

Today's poem is by Tony Hoagland.

I add a thoughtful essay about children's poetry by Imogen Russell Williams that I've long intended to include.  She writes about the narrowing of education in an examination based system, referring to the "GCSE behemoth" grinding "over the horizon," which often has the effect for many students "that poetry exists for one purpose alone: to be broken down into techniques and terminology for the optimal acquisition of marks."

The GCSE is the acronym for the General Certificate of Secondary Education, a set of examinations taken by students aged 15-16 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The poems Williams discusses put paid to the analytic, not that analysis is unimportant but the joy or poetry and nourishment poetry provides are not to be lost. To give you a taste of her aim in this essay about liking poetry, she includes a few lines from Roger McGough's Apostrophe.

'twould be nice to be
an apostrophe
floating
above an s
hovering
like a paper kite
in between the its ... 

There is more and you may read her comments here.

The Apgar Score

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Medicine
Health
Edward Hessler

Today's Google Doodle honors Dr. Virginia Apgar, who invented what became the standard test for assessing the health of a newborn infant within a few minutes of birth. She would have been 109 years old.

This quick diagnostic measures infant health using five dimensions: Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration.

Dr. Apgar's career also included work in genetics. She became a public health advocate for congenital birth defects.

You may read about her and see the Google Doodle at Quartz.

When it Is Brain Surgery

Environmental & Science Education

STEM

Medicine

Health

Edward Hessler

After reading Joshua Rothman's essay in the New Yorker on the eminent London neurosurgeon Dr. Henry Marsh, I put the Marsh's memoir on my "want to read" list. One reason was this searing quote from Marsh's memoir. "'As I approach the end of my career I feel an increasing obligation to bear witness to past mistakes I have made.'"

Rothman noted that "Marsh isn't interested in the usefulness of error. He is the Knausgaard of neurosurgery: he writes about his errors because he wants to confess them, and because he's interested in his inner life and how it's been changed, over time, by the making of mistakes."

Long after reading Rothman's essay I found Marsh's memoir Do No Harm: Studies of Life, Death and Brain Surgery, in the new books section of Hamline University's Bush Memorial Library. The title is from the Latin, Primum non nocere, "first, do no harm," one of medicine's most fundamental and difficult precepts. It means that attending physicians are first to weigh uncertainties regarding risks and benefits with their patients before proceeding. It does not mean or imply that the way forward is clear or without risk or without the possibility of a mistake but it means that these have been considered and that the treatment chosen is the best in the physician's and patient's judgment.

The memoir is organized by compelling and brutally honest case studies, 25 total. The cases consist of neurological disorders, strokes, spinal cord problems and, of course, cancers. Marsh was among the pioneers of anesthesia free brain surgeries. He also worked for years with neurosurgeons in Ukraine, after the fall of the Soviet Union who had at best second-hand and antiquated equipment. This work was funded by a charity Marsh established. And, of course, he trained residents, including some from the United States who came to study and practice with him for a year. 

Marsh is also a fierce and relentless critic of the British National Health Service. His comments will make you both laugh (first) and cry/wince (second). You are likely to recall similar experiences from your own life experiences --"trainings," as they are called.

A fragment from the BBC documentary, The English Surgeon, shows Marsh's work in the Ukraine. You may want to bark, "Henry, wear a helmet!" when you see him riding to work without any head protection, his standard almost daily practice. There is a lovely scene of Marsh and a Ukrainian colleague sliding, just like kids, across an icy pond using their shoes as skates.

In his memoir Marsh comments on the use of technology in brain surgery, e.g., infrared cameras which allow him to "see" where his instruments are on a brain scan taken shortly before the surgery but neurosurgery remains fraught with danger, measured in a millimeter or two.  

Dominic Smith, who writes for STAT describes a new technology being developed by neurosurgeon Dr. Alexendra Golby and her colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston which uses magnetic resonance imaging technology coupled with powerful computing technology to create personalized 3-D models of the brain in near real-time so that the surgeon can know where s/he is throughout the surgery.

Smith's essay includes a short video explaining the new technology. If you'd like to see a day in the life of Henry Marsh, the BBC produced a film (~10 minutes) is about the problems Dr. Marsh finds with the British National Health Service.

Marsh is the author of Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon which is on my reading list.

Year of the Bird: June

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Biodiversity
Pollution
Edward Hessler

June's focus in the Year of the Bird is on some of the R's of using plastics: reducing, refusing, reusing.

The website reviews past actions for January, February, March, April and May.

A Commencement Address by Dr. Atul Gawande

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Medicine
Health
Society
Edward Hessler

Atul Gawande is a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He probably needs no introduction but if he is new to you, Gawande writes relatively frequently about the practice of medicine generally for the New Yorker and is the author of best-selling book on the end-of-life, Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End.

Gawande delivered the commencement address at the U.C.L.A. Medical School, June 1, 2018. It is a thoughtful reflection on what he learned while he "sewed and listened," to a patient he didn't much like or understand. He worries about the relatively recent attack on curiosity--scientific, journalistic, artistic, cultural--which he says is the beginning of empathy.

Below is a sample of Gawande's remarks which follow directly from a story he told about an experience he had on his surgery rotation when he was in medical school.

Graduates, wherever you go from here, and whatever you do, you will be tested. And the test will be about your ability to hold onto your principles. The foundational principle of medicine, going back centuries, is that all lives are of equal worth.

This is a radical idea, one ultimately inscribed in our nation’s founding documents: we are all created equal and should be respected as such. I do not think it a mere coincidence that among the fifty-six founding fathers who signed the declaration of our independence was a physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush. He was a committed revolutionary and abolitionist precisely because of his belief in the principle. 

We in medicine do not always live up to that principle. History has been about the struggle to close the gap between the aspiration and the reality. But when that gap is exposed—when it turns out that some people get worse or no treatment because of their lack of money, lack of connections, background, darker skin pigment, or additional X chromosome—we are at least ashamed about it. We believe a C.E.O. and a cabbie with the same heart disease deserve the same chance at survival.

Hospitals are one of the very few places left where you encounter the whole span of society. Walking the halls, you begin to understand that the average American is someone who has a high-school education and thirty thousand dollars a year in per-capita earnings, out of which thirty per cent goes to taxes and another thirty per cent to housing and health-care costs. (These Americans are also told, by the way, that people like them, the majority of the population, have no future in a knowledge economy, because, hey, what can anyone do about it, anyway?) Working in health care, you also know, more than most, that we incarcerate more people than any other economically developed country; that thirty per cent of adults carry a criminal arrest record; that seven million people are currently incarcerated, on parole, or on probation; and that a massive and troubling proportion of all of them are mentally ill or black.

Here is the talk and here is additional information about Gawande.

America's Birds: The Early Years

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Biodiversity
Art and Environment
History of Science
Edward Hessler

I spent nearly the whole of Saturday in Newark, where my book attracted as many starers as a bear or a mammoth would have done.-- Alexander Wilson, Letter to a Friend, October 10, 1818

"Before Audubon: Alexander Wilson's Birds of the United States" an exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art calls attention to the nine-volume, now classic "American Ornithology; or The Natural History of the Birds of the United States"(1801-1814). The exhibition opened on April 21 2018 and closes July 15 2018.

The website notes that "In 1808, Scottish-born poet and amateur naturalist Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) began publishing American Ornithology: or The Natural History of the Birds of the United States.  Wilson's impressive achievement inspired John James Audubon to publish his much better-known Birds of America (1827-1838). Though Wilson had not backgroung as an artist, he taught himself drawing and illustrated his nine volumes of careful observations of the birds of the northeastern U. S. with 76 hand-colored and engraved and etched  plates of 314 species--26 of which he was the first to describe."

Some of the illustrations on exhibition may be viewed here.

Wilson has five North American birds named after him: Wilson's Warbler, Wilson's Snipe, Wilson's Storm Petrel, Wilson's Phalarope, and Wilson's Plover.

h/t: Edward Rothstein, "Ornithology Takes Flight," Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2018

Friday Poem

Environmental & Science Education
Poetry
Art and Environment
Edward Hessler

Batter up!

Tis' the season of baseball about which May Swenson wrote a brilliant analysis.