KOYAANISQATSI - (from the Hopi language), 1. Crazy life. 2. Life in turmoil 3. Life out of balance

Winter break is about to end, and we are about to get another snow storm. It has been a winter characterized by periods of extreme cold and lots of snow. Lots. My driveway plowing bill documents that for me in a quantitative manner.

All of this snow has also allowed a friend to play that perennial favorite game, "Gotcha!" with me. Summarizing our discussion, it went something like this: Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth, heh? Where's the global warming? Just a couple of years ago you showed me an article from the New York Times that discussed the lack of old time winters - they talked about warmer weather and decreasing amounts of snow. Look at our weather these past two months! What do you have to say about that? I mean, as a biology teacher? Do you still believe in global warming? (You can insert the "gotch" after any one of those sentences).

Taking a deep breath, I assured my friend that, unfortunately, I do continue to have major concerns about global warming, or as I prefer to say climate change. Weather patterns are extremely complex system and need to be observed at a variety of geographic and geologic locations over long periods of time to observe the potential changes scientists are discussing. Vermont's seasonal snowfall may change from year to year, but it's the long term (i.e., 50-100 year) change in regional climate that is of greatest concern to scientists. As well as the red flag alerts that are appearing in critically sensitive areas, like the poles.

Behold the picture at the heading of this post. A quick glance at the image, may suggest that some polar explorers are keeping warm around a campfire, but that is not what's happening. I took this screen shot from a news video about climate change at the poles. The image is far more ominous than it initially appears.

The frozen tundra just south of the circumpolar region is melting at an alarming rate. Aside from the obvious risks to migratory animals (ie caribou) that are having a harder time traveling in the watery mosquito infested muck, this melting land is also releasing the dead organic mulch-like material to bacterial decomposers. This is a newly released organic banquet for these critters. They're chowing down. And their excreting carbon based gases into our atmosphere at an accelerating rate.

In the picture at the top, a scientist lit a torch above the melting tundra and ignited the natural gas (methane) being released by the newly thawed land. As more of this carbon based gas is released into the atmosphere, the atmosphere will - hypothetically - retain more heat. This is turn will cause more permafrost to melt, releasing more carbon based gas, causing greater warming, causing more melting, etc. etc. etc. This is called a positive feedback loop. An increase in variable "A" leads to an increase in variable "B", which in turn leads to a further increase in variable "A" - and on and on it goes.

A couple of years ago, I attended a presentation at Dartmouth given by Aqaluk Lynge, the President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). The ICC represants the people who have lived around the north pole for centuries, eking out a survival - in fact thriving - without a designated country, or government. Lynge remarked that climate change is only being debated by the western countries. "My people" he said "have observed the effects of climate change, caused by your western nations, for decades". Migratory paths are altering. Animals hunted for survival are disappearing. Insects are increasing. Glaciers are cleaving. A way of life that has existed for thousands of years is disappearing in our lifetimes.

Koyaanisqatsi. The hopi word that refers to the disintegration of a life in turmoil, also has another clarion call in its definition: "a state of life that calls for another way of living". Indeed. It's time to return to lives that are more in tune with nature; lives in balance.

One Last Darwin Birthday Wish Before Vacation Week

As we celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday this week, just before we begin our winter break, it seems appropriate to quote his autobiography Recollections of the Development of My Mind and Character.


Darwin offers us good advice for the coming week:

"My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better constituted than mine, would not I suppose have thus suffered; & if I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry & to listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied could thus have been kept active through use."

While I would like to remind you all to read pages 116-147 in Your Inner Fish, I would also urge you to make some time to read some poetry and listen to some music. More often than once next week!

Or, perhaps, ski....snowshow.....hike.............and update any missing blog posts!

Have a great week! - Mr. E

Have A Heart

For years, I have been teaching biology students that individual cardiac (heart) cells beat. When placed on a petri dish, cardiac cells will seek each other out; actually slithering over to each other, seeking connection. Once they touch, they communicate. The cells begin to form cardiac tissue; beating together, in a primitive re-enactment of the complete, functional organ responsible for the circulation of life's most precious fluid.

As amazing as this is, the construction of tissue - cells operating together providing a single function - is a long way from the construction of a truly complete organ.

Recently, however, science has taken a giant step closer to achieving this goal.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have constructed synthetic hearts from living tissue. Check out this 1 1/2 minute news clip: (if the link doesn't appear, it's www.wimp.com/beatingheart/

As the scientists note in the clip, pigs hearts are amazingly similar to the human heart, and even now, are used as temporary replacements, or bridges, for patients awaiting hearts for transplantation. Its a question of size, functionality, structure, and similar proteins that allows acceptance by human immune systems.

Transplanting a synthetic heart, or a pig's heart into a person is a stupendous and genuinely valuable addition to cardiac medicine. Still - it does beg questions. I mean, for centuries the heart has been thought of as the seat of emotion, the source of love, and the essence of human soulfulness. When you miss someone you feel heartbroken. When you are wild about someone, you say that he or she "makes your heart beat faster". Despite the Wizard of Oz's admonishment to the Tin Man that he had "no idea how much better off he (was) without one", we measure our lives by the heartfelt joys and sorrows we all experience.

So, what happens when it's a synthetic pig's heart that's inside of us? Do we gain life, yet lose some essence of what it means to be human?

Or perhaps we just give our beloved bacon instead of chocolate on Valentine's Day?

Seriously - it's both amazing and valuable - but how do you feel about this development on an emotional level?

How would YOU feel about having a porcine pumper in your thoracic cavity?

SIGNS OF SPRING (?!?)

I was going to note the appearance of cedar waxwings on my crabapple trees this weekend, as well as two american robins. The first, the waxwing, is a migratory bird, a true harbinger of spring. (Though being migratory, they may well make a hasty retreat after snacking on the sweet fruit) (Carbs = energy, chapter 3!) The cedar waxwing is a heavy duty frugivorous bird - a real fruit hog. A principle benefit derived from the waxwings appearance is seed dispersion. Berries in, seeds out.

The American Robin, our cheerful little friend, alas, is not a true harbinger of spring. Robins don't winter far from their breeding grounds. Instead, they congregate in large flocks in deeper wooded areas where we typically do not see them. The early bird may get the annelid, but with two feet of snow on the ground, Robins too seek small berries to get them through the winter, but tend to drop the berries' seeds within their breeding grounds. Not that there's anything wrong with that........

It was nice to see these two species. Especially with this evenings prediction of -15 degree below zero temperatures. (I'm still awaiting a pair of cardinals that have appeared for several years now. I've heard that they have been making some local appearances)

Needless to say, the picture that accompanies this week's post is not a bird. (I really hope I didn't need to point that out!) Although this little fella was a big story this week too. Indeed until very recently Tapetails (top), Whalefish (middle) and Bignoses (bottom) were thought to be three different species of fish. Tapetails, named after their long streamer-like tail, live in shallow water while the latter two fish have only been found in deep water. Whalefish lack scales, and have those large bulbous jaws, while Bignoses have, well, big noses, and have immobile jaws. (If their jaws are immobile, how do they eat? Apparently, they don't. They live off of the fat stored in their very large livers. This does not sound like an attractive lifestyle)

(Edit 2/2- My hypothesis is that the smaller adult fish with the immobile jaw is the male. There are other deep water fish that fit this model. The male attaches to the female as a parasite, providing his genetic material and living off of his stored energy until he withers away like a spent vestigial organ. Remember, most animals release only a few eggs as opposed to millions of sperm. As much as I hate to say it, males seem to be somewhat dispensable in the Kingdom Animalia. With exceptions of course!)

Studies then showed remarkable similarities between mitochondrial DNA between tapetails and whalefish. Virtually identical. (mitochondrial DNA is a much smaller subset of code passed from mother to offspring). More DNA studies ensued, and as a result, scientists at the Smithsonian discovered preserved specimens of fish that appeared to be in transition from one form to another.

What we have here folks, are three stages in the life of a single fish, representing the larval stage and the fully mature adult male and female of the species. It's a remarkable metamorphosis, and one that helps us look anew at the lifecycles of organisms and cycles of life on the planet.

As for me, I'm still awaiting the metamorphosis that occurs with each spring. Until then, I watch for the arrival of my cardinals, I rejoice in the sun arcing higher into each day's afternoon sky, and prepare for the festive celebration we call Founders Day.

Each day brings its own beauty.

A SERENDIPITOUS MONOCHROMATIC IMAGE

What is this and why do all those dots look the same?

Why is it monochromatic - a single color?

And how can an image be serendipitous (to use Neil Shubin's favorite word)? Well, let me explain.

The image is serendipitous in that I found a magazine haphazardly laying about in Mr. Chabot's room last week (not to imply that Mr. Chabot's room is any less orderly than my own) and it opened itself to the article containing this image, and the one that follows. Doing a "quick read" of the article got me thinking about one of your student comments from last week. I realized I had struck gold.

As for the rest, read on, dear students, and comment on the FOLLOWING post.

FALSE-COLOR IMAGES; Why do they do that?

Thanks to all of you who jumped right in and wrote those great comments for last week's post! One of the most exciting things for me about writing this blog is that it allows us to establish a dialogue beyond the classroom on questions or topics provoked by a posting. There were many interesting comments and questions - some of them we worked into class discussions (e.g., phytoplankton blooms) but others, equally interesting, went unanswered. I'd like to use one of those questions as a jumping off point for this week's entry.

Mike asked about the need to create false-color images. Good question! It does seem odd to apply a false color to something that presumably has color. But not everything does emit energy that we can observe as "color".

Think about it. What is "color"? Color is visible light energy. You may remember from 9th grade science, or physics, that the visible light spectrum represents only a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum of wave energy that travels through our universe. Radio waves, microwaves, infra-red waves, ultra-violet waves, x-rays and gammas rays travel through the universe undetected by human eyes. Yet that energy does exist, and there are times when scientists require a means to "see it".

Probably the most common example of a picture that presents false color, or color not readily seen by the human eye, are those pictures that show different temperatures zones in a geographical area, or weather map. UV (ultra violet) photography allows us to "see" hot areas as red, warmer areas as orange, and cooler areas as blue. This technique is also used to assess houses for insulation efficiency, and heat loss.

A true "false-color image" shows color where no color exists, or applies color to selectively separate parts of an image for analysis. Basically, scientists create a color key. Take a look at the picture at the top of this post. This remarkable picture shows us the nuclei (plural of nucleus) of a zebrafish embryo during its initial 24 hours of development. The image has been falsely colored to provide a key to the activity thats taking place. The green nuclei have locked in place. The orange colored nuclei are in motion - swirling in an ever tightening vortex, hurtling towards the center of the embryo in this initial phase of development called gastrulation; the process of differentiating an outside layer (ectoderm) a middle layer (a mesoderm) and an inner layer (an ectoderm).

Its like rolling a ball of Play Dough in your hands, placing the ball on your desk, punching the ball down, and enclosing the resulting hollow space. It's how life develops from a ball of undifferentiated (unspecialized) cells to an embryo. (That's for all of you who clicked your primary interest in zoology!)

The above image was created with a new technology developed in 2008. By falsely coloring different nuclei, scientists are able to watch processes that had previously been invisible. The single color image appearing above this post shows the end result. Note the cluster of nuclei running longitudinally from the top to bottom poles of the embryo. The false-color image shows us the path the nuclei used to move into position. Pretty cool stuff. I can't think of a better image to illustrate the idea we discussed last week that life has order.

Similarly, by falsely coloring the changing UV energy, scientists can "watch" phytoplankton migrate in the oceans. And by falsely coloring the shift in unseen UV energy emitted by stars, scientists can color and observe the most distant objects in the universe. (Light shifting due to movement is similar to sound shifting due to movement. Think of the difference in a siren's pitch as a fire truck approaches and as it moves further away from you. This is called the Doppler Effect.)

Of course, some of this unseen energy (UV light) is unseen to us, but is in fact visible to other organisms. Birds use the UV light emitted by the sun to navigate along migratory routes. Bees use wavelengths of energy unseen humans to locate flowers for pollination. The need for false-color images is often just a human one. The wavelengths of energy that flow around us are often used, and sensed by a multitude of other organisms for their survival.

So - here's the question I pose to you this week. Look at the zebrafish embryo again. Can this 24hr cluster of cells truly be considered to be "alive"? If so, when did life begin for this embryo? Or has it not yet crossed some threshold over which you would consider it alive? (Boy - talk about provocative questions!) There's obviously no single answer, let alone a "correct" one. We've been talking about the characteristics of life this week, and while its very early in the semester, it's as good a time as any to consider the question of life itself - when do you think life begins?

I'm really interested to read your thoughts on this. Personally, I'm still trying to figure it out myself - so give it a shot!

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR HOME PLANET

Every once in awhile something appears on the magical world wide web that inspires awe. One would think that in this age of information overload such epiphanies would be easy to come by. Yet I find that my routine of surfing the web for political, scientific, literary, and musical news oftens results in a dulling, rather than heightening, of wonder.

Case in point: the other day the great political blogger Andrew Sullivan had this in his blog, The Daily Dish, at TheAtlantic.com".

Now, I admit that was pretty cool! Slow motion photography revealed the beauty of shooting a pomegranate and having its seeds showering over a classic still life arrangement of fruit. The resultant "slowing down of time" gives the viewer a new frame of reference for observing the process, and the literal framing of the still life encourages the observer to view this event in an artistic context, rather than a destructive one. Ah yes. Within a minute, I was onto the next blog entry, the next link, the next wonder. That's the nature of the internet.

But this morning I came across something that truly gave me pause. (I know one is not suppose to begin a sentence with "but". But this is my blog.) Boston.com has a post on their blog called The Big Picture that exhibits 25 images of Earth taken from satellites.

The image that heads this entry was taken from that series. While each image is fascinating, and awe inspiring, there was something about the scale of this image (number 5 in the series if I remember correctly) that made my jaw drop. (Figuratively, if not literally. It was about 6:30AM sunday morning, and I did have a mouth full of coffee).

The image resembles frost on a pane of glass. But it's not. (There's that but again.) You're looking at an image of the snow covered Himalayan mountains in Tibet. In 9th grade science we discuss the importance of having a frame of reference when we discuss motion. This image, provides us with a frame of reference for our place on this planet.

Compare this image with the images of development in Las Vegas or Khartoum - or any of the other images on the page - and share your thoughts and impressions. (I suggest the image of Las Vegas, because when I was growing up Las Vegas was a very small city in the middle of an arid desert. It's changed a bit since then. And no, that was not a hundred years ago.)