Invaders Are Taking Over!

Last week, an article appeared on the site vtdigger.org, about the rise of a particular invasive species in Vermont - Japanese Knotweed.

We have Japanese Knotweed here on campus. The closest patch I know of is directly across the school entrance on Academy Road, just to the left to the entrance of the trail down to the woodlot (we passed it last week. Mr. Bugg also has noticed a lot of knotweed around his house). Alien plants are plants that come into new areas from other areas. Typically, their seeds or bits of plant are carried in by animals, boat ballast water, or people not careful about what's attaching to themselves (or their forest products - especially wood). Invasive plants are like alien plants, only they come into new areas and take over.

Invasives are particularly good at adapting to live in new habitats. And they multiple quickly. End result: they force native species out but conquering the habitat and depriving native species of much needed sunlight and/or nutrients. Or they simply multiply so quickly, that they literally smother native plants out. (There are also invasive animal species that operate in the same manner).

Some foks believe that climate change is making Vermont a more hospitable place for more and more invasive species. Tim Schmalz, a plant pathologist with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, says he isn't so usre. Schmalz remains skeptical of studies that say particular weeds will spread as the climate changes. "“There are a lot of things that may happen or may not happen,” said Schmalz. “It’s very hard to predict environmental change on that scale.”

Others belive that invasive plants and weeds will become much more acclimated to Vermont as our weather continues to change due to carbon dioxide build up. Invasives including Poison Parsnip, which secretes an oily substance that transfers easily to your skin. The substance (its sap) reacts with sunlight to give you a good (bad?) case of phytophotodermatitus (phyto = plant, photo = light, dermatitus, well, you know). The end result is that your skin feels like it's on fire. While it subsides over time, it never truly goes away.

Someimes there is no single cause. A bit of invasive comes in on manure. Or. farm equipment on loan. Or transport for intra-state commerce. There is so much change going on in our state. But maybe - just maybe - climate change is making Vermont a more hospitable place for these new invaders.

Take Japanese Knotweed for example. This hollow-stemmed plant spreads by underground stems. When it’s torn apart by floods, (or Hurricanes, as in "Irene") pieces of the stem wash into new areas. In a matter of weeks, it takes over - destroying gardens, natural habitats, and sometimes wreaking economic havoc.

Sometimes, invasives are good. Invasives have been known to speed up the re-forestation efforts in some areas devastation by flood or fire. They can also assist in re-establishing riparian growth, the shrubs or trees that grow along a riverbank and help maintain the strength and integrity of the soil that forms along the bank, preventing flooding.

But in truth, there is little saving grace in Japanese Knotweek. It's a nasty plant that is hard to get rid of, and takes over habitat. It deprives natural native plants of resrouces, and in so doing, deprives native animals of food from the plants that they replace. So what do you think? How can we - as a class - make a difference? How can we develop some kind of service learning project to clear our campus (and Mr. Bugg's yard?) from this invasive plant?

Please share your thought about invasive species and their eradication in your comments below! Thanks!

Let's jump right into the frying pan, shall we?

Figuratively speaking that is.

Just a few days ago, on August 19, the New York Times published an article previewing the work of the International Panel on Climate Change. This panel was made up of several hundred (!) scientists, working under the aegis of the United Nations, and includes some Nobel Prize winners. The upcoming report is the fifth time that the panel has published a report since 1988, and the news is not good. Basically, the panel rebukes those who doubt climate change, or speak of the process slowing down. The panel states that temperatures are continuing to rise in many areas. So are ocean levels. In fact, this huge committee reached consensus on stating that sea levels have the potential to rise more than three feet by the year 2100. This level of change would flood major cities across the globe, including Miami, New Orleans, New York, and Boston. Not to mention Shanghai, Venice, Sydney, and London.

 What's striking about this report is that for the first time, the panel members laid the blame on us. The report states that human activities, particularly those resulting in increased emissions, are the principle cause of the climate changes being observed and recorded.

What are those changes? Well, carbon dioxide levels, up 41% since the end of the 19th century, have increased at a faster rate in the past 20 years than has ever been seen in human history (at least as far as we can tell using ice core samples retrieved in the arctic and antarctic - I'll talk a bit more about this in class). And if you were born after April 1985, as all of you were, you have never experienced a single month of "below average" temperature.

Think about that for a second. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (our country's main weather and sea conditions information source) reports that 2012 was the warmest year - ever. (I'm assuming that they are referring to "ever" in the sense of human history. My guess is that the earth was a lot warming when the dinosaurs were roaming around the planet chomping on 30 foot tall ferns).

The main concern is that every increase, every single degree of temperature, adds a tremendous amount of heat energy to the planet. This energy has an exponential effect on other systems. This means that a 1X increase will cause a 10X increase in say, ocean temperatures, that would then cause a 100X increase in something else.  Looking at things exponentially, the possibility that human activities may lead to an increase in temperature of up to 5 degrees in the coming 200 years has the potential to be catastrophic. We may not be around to be effected by its full impact, but is that the type of environment we want to leave to our children's children?

 Every major scientific academy in the world, or at least 99.8% of them, agree that climate change is real and that it is happening now. Some scientists however question the role of mankind and human activities in creating this situation (or at least, in making it worse). There seems to be consensus that the panel has tried to be conservative in their predictions. In fact, they have even laid out some scenarios in which the temperature and sea level increases might be bad, though not nearly as catastrophic as many think.

What to do, what to do.

Well - what should we do? How should we react to this news?

I invite you to watch the video clip that I have embedded below, titled "The Most Terrifying Video You Will Ever See". It's a 9 1/2 minute long lectur-ette (not counting whatever ad YouTube as in front of it which I encourage you to skip!) and well worth seeing. After you watch the video, I'd like you to reflect on what I wrote, and what was presented in the video. After thinking about for several minutes, I'd like you to post a comment on the blog that reflects your personal response to the question: "What should we do?". One paragraph to relate your response to the video, and another with your top 3 choices about changes that you, or all of us, can make in our lifestyles right now to help things out a bit.

Because, the thought of doing nothing at all is, frankly, terrifying.

How Big is Big? How small is small?

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
(Augustus De Morgan: A Budget of Paradoxes)

There's so much we don't know, so much we don't understand. Sometimes we are like elephants, trying to understand the mosquitos that bite us. Other times we are the mosquitos, trying to make sense of the enormity of the elephant upon which we have landed.

Think about this: scientists have just discovered the largest structured formation in the universe. A group of quasars; primitive, pulsating centers of potential galaxies that stretch across a space of 3 billion light years. In other words, light emitted from one end of this structure would take three billion years traveling at light speed to reach the opposite end of the structure. It boggles the mind.

At the other end of the size spectrum lies the bacteriophages. A bacteriophage is a virus that attacks bacterial cell. Imagine how small a virus is compared to a single bacteria. You could fit 4000 or so of these phages inside of the width of a human hair. They're incredibly small! So cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze. You're ejecting tens of millions of these suckers each time you do.

The phage virus has a protein capsule head, a tail, and some legs that act like a tripod, allowing it to land/stand on the cell surface. It's a classic, instantly recognizable "bio shape" that sort of looks like a lunar (moon) lander:

Take a look at that sucker! It's a marvel of evolution! A sub-microscopic structure that has evolved for one purpose and one purpose only: to ensure its own survival. To reproduce. The head/capsule (capsid) is like a jiffy-pop popcorn pan. Except there's no popcorn inside of the phage capsid - what's inside? You got it - phage DNA. It's code of viral life. Or semi-life. Or, whatever a virus is, scientists aren't really sure. The phage lands on the bacteria, drills its way through the bacterial cell wall, and then injects its own DNA into the bacterial cell, forcing the bacteria to make copies - millions and millions of copies - of the phage DNA and new viruses.

These viral offspring fill the cell to the bursting point, at which time the cell releases millions of new viruses. It's quite similar to what's going on in many people who are combatting the influenza virus - "the flu" - right now. ("The Flu" - so named because Renaissance Italians believed that those who got sick fell under the influenza (influence) of unhealthy astrological alignments.)

The evolutionary precision of this design is magnificent, and has been known for decades. But something was recently discovered that blew me away. The virus's legs, those tripod-like things, are not merely a way for the virus to stand and attach to the bacteria. Recent electron micrographs reveal that they remain tucked away - folded up into the phage until they're needed. And then, the virus unfolds its "legs" and they do something amazing: they walk. They walk the virus along the surface of the cell looking for a good point of attachment. A suitable entry point for its own DNA.

Scientists have taken a series of electron microphotographs of this process and have recreated the series of events that occurs. Now, watch this CGI recreation of the process below. There's a blue protein capsule, and the yellow legs. And that DNA that has to be injected to infect the cell. The phrase "dynamic conformation" is used. It just means that the legs are capable of changing their shape.



How does this occur? Why does this occur? How does the virus - which obviously doesn't have a brain, or even the neural net of a starfish - "know" how to do this? Is the virus alive? And if the virus is alive, does this mechanism demonstrate a primitive kind of intelligence? Don't laugh - searching for, and locating the proper point of entry seems pretty intelligent to me. Luke Skywalkeer had a heck of a time trying to do it.

What are the lives of animals and plants ultimately about? Survival. Reproduction. Passing on their genetic material to the next generation. Some viruses, the phages, attach to bacterial cells in order to do this. And 90% of all of the cells in the human body, 90% of human mass, is composed of bacteria - not blood, heart, lung, skin etc. So what does that make us? Who, or what are we? Are we merely the containers, the environment, required by a more plentiful yet more primitive form of life? Who is really in charge? Is it humans, with their arsenal of antibiotics and vaccinations? Or is it this unbelievably small form of life that lives within us, benefitting us, yet also holding the potential to become lethal and harm us?

Are we the elephants? Or are we the mosquitos, gazing out at the vastness of the universe of which we are but a small part?

What are your thoughts on this?

Whose Genes Are They Anyway? A bioethical dilemma.

In this weekend's reading in The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks we read about the first legal fights over the control, and ownership, of human cellular material. Court battles like these that took place in the early 1970s must seem like old history to you. 1973? The Beatles had broken up, Richard Nixon was President, and Disco was just beginning to define the decade. These are old battles. Surely they must be over, decisions must have been made - legal precedents and business models must have been established. Don't you think?

How ironic then, to read about a case going before a federal courthouse in Washington D.C. tomorrow as in April 4, 2011 to settle the same fundamental questions as the ones we read of this weekend: are isolated human genes, and their respective sequences of bases - of As-Ts-Cs and Gs - patentable? More specifically, if a company analyzes and sequences two genes responsible for a percentage of the incidence of breast cancer in patients - and perform research to identify and analyze those genes in patients' cells - can they patent their product?

That is the central argument going before the court tomorrow in the case of Association of Molecular Pathology, et al. v United States Patent and Trademark Office. At stake is a profit potential of billions of dollars.

The company, Myriad Genetics, has sought a patent for a the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene (Breast Cancer Susceptibililty Gene 1 and 2). The BRCA genes only account for 10-15% of all instances of breast cancer, but 80-90% of those women who have this gene do go on to develop breast cancer. Myriad Genetics discovered and has patented the genes. Only now, an appeals court is asking the federal court to determine if these genes can be patently or not - based on the the argument we read about in TILOHL, that "products of nature" cannot be patented.

Now, what about a "molecular diagnostic product"? Myriad Genetics, claiming a patent on the genes, has developed a product to determine if a woman has either BRCA1 or 2. It's called BRACAnalysis. Clever, huh? Here's the pitch:

"BRACAnalysis® assesses a woman's risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer based on detection of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. This test has become the standard of care in identification of individuals with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and is reimbursed by insurance."

Having discovered these genes, Myriad Genetics was awarded a patent on BRCA1 and 2. In 2010, a judge ruled that the BRCA 1 & 2 genes were unpatentable products of nature - and that BRACAnalysis, an offshoot of that illegal patent, resulted from exclusive research that Myriad Genetics did based on that patent. So - the product should not be allowed to be brought to market based on Myriad's "exclusive" rights to research, and develop products from, the BRCA genes.

Confusing? It is confusing to me, too - legal arguments can get pretty dense. Here's some backround.

In late 2009 a group of physicians, patients, and the ACLU, filed a lawsuit against Myriad, claiming that their exclusive patent on genomic information kept knowledge, research, and testing from populations of patients who could possibly benefit from them. In the case of the new test, women who are at a higher genetic risk of having the BRCA genes would be prohibited from testing for it unless they used the Myriad BRACAnalysis product.

The US Patent and Trademark Office countered with an argument defending its decision to award the patent, stating that Myriad had invented something truly beyond anything found as a "product of nature", and as such, was worth protecting with a patent certifying ownership.

In 2010 a judged tossed out the decision, saying that isolated, individual segments (genes) of DNA were no different - just segments - of the whole molecule found in nature. Therefore, he ruled that the patent office was wrong in their decision to award Myriad a patent in the first place.

One analyst viewed this reasoned decision as a reflection of the increasing knowledge and awareness of DNA in our society - that an isolated part is not really different from the whole. It is still a "product of nature". Looking at genes in isolation is representative of our information age. We view things in bits and bytes. Genes are bytes of genetic information.

Monday's decision will determine the availability of this test (and perhaps billions of dollars in profits) to perhaps millions of people around the globe. What do you think? Can we - should we - be able to own/patent genetic information? If not - if we remove the incentive to make a profit from such research, why should companies bother to conduct the research? Is less knowledge, less technology, fewer diagnoses, fewer treatment - the price we ultimately pay for this? Or should we allow Myriad Genomic, and others like them, the right to patent the essence of what it means to be human?

(Don't worry about either side of the argument - chances are it will go to the Supreme Court!)

The Brain - Remixed

First week of the fourth quarter - your responses have been wonderful! Let's start with a brief post, and your brief response to it. The Brain - bits and pieces from famous neurologists, scientists, and Bill Nye The Science Guy - remixed and mashed to a beat.

Watch it, and then think about the excerpt from Andrew Sullivan's political blog, The Dish that follows.



The question I want to pose is this: Do we have "free will", the ability to think for ourselves? Or does our brain make our decisions before we are consciously aware of making the decision?

"Researchers implanted electrodes in patients to track their neurons. They asked them to look at a clock and press a button, and then to tell them the exact time they decided to press the button. Daniela Schiller and David Carmel report:

[A]bout a quarter of these neurons began to change their activity before the time patients declared as the moment they felt the urge to press the button. ... So it turns out that there are neurons in your brain that know you are about to make a movement the better part of a second before you know it yourself. What does that mean?

It might be tempting to conclude that free will is an illusion.

Some have believed this since the days of (the scientist), who recorded EEG (brain waves)and found it contained a specific pattern that predicted his subjects movements before they felt the conscious will to act. EEG measures electrical activity on the surface of the head, combining information from billions of neurons; Fried and his colleagues have gone further, by finding individual neurons that do this. But before reaching any sweeping conclusions, it is important to remember that this study looked at a very rudimentary kind of action. The decision to move a finger hardly ranks as the same kind of free will we exercise when we make moral choices or major life decisions."

So - what do you think? Is free will (the ability to make up our own minds and decide for ourselves) an illusion? Or is it real? Do we consciously decide to go to the doctors, or have that ice cream cone on a hot summer's day?

Or do our neurons fire up the decision before we're even aware of asking ourselves the question?

And if you really want to take it a step further - ponder the role of the epigenetic genome on the idea of free will. (I really hope someone does that... :)

Does it have to be a complete sentience -or- How about some news to make you smile? :)

I try to take a course at the College Of The Atlantic every two years. Why not? The courses are informative, interesting, and lots of fun. And they happen to be taught on a small, but pretty, campus that is located just minutes away from one of the hidden jewels of the national park system - Acadia National Park, in spectacularly beautiful Bar Harbor, Maine. I've taken courses in Tide Pool Ecology, Conservation Photography, Creative Writing in Botany, and several others. Without question, one of the most enjoyable courses was one on Biological Oceanography, taught by a fellow named Sean Todd - one of the foremost marine mammal biologists on the East coast. (I often kidded Sean, asking him if there was a family connection to Sweeney.) Come to think of it - I wrote a song about him - which I sang to the class at the end of the course - to the tune of Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid. Perhaps I'll share it with you guys and gals.

But I digress.

I learned a lot through that course with Sean. Sean is one of the biologists who is called upon to do a forensics pathology report when a marine mammal washes up on shore. (Marine mammals are protected by federal law - the Marine Mammals Act. Therefore a cause of death has to be reported for every marine mammal that appears on shore.) During one class, I asked Sean the inevitable questions: Are whales sentient creatures? Do they think? Are they self- aware? Sean, who had obviously been asked this question many times before, replied "No", and explained that he thinks of whales as "the cows of the ocean" - no smarter than livestock. They follow each other, emit sounds that allow them to locate each other, but as for true intelligence, in his estimation (which was considerable) the answer was an unequivicable "no".

I have to admit, it was a difficult answer to accept. I recognize that there was a lot of personal bias there. We want whales to be sentient, intelligent beings. We, as humans, want to believe that whales lord over the oceanic realms as we do, for better or for worse, on the terrestrial realm. We want to - if for no other reason - than to believe that on some primordial, spiritual level, we are not alone. Disney's Fantasia 2 may have been terrible (don't get me started) but no one, regardless of age, could fail to be moved at the final tableau where the whales were seen to fly balletically out from the ocean to meet their ultimate, predestined celestial destiny. Hmmm - digressing again. (I do say to you - let your mind dance, right? Well, I'm dancin', I'm dancin...)

Turns out that whales - at least sperm whales - may in fact be more than the "cows of the seas". About a week ago, biologists at Scotland's University of St. Andrew's - where golf was invented - discovered that sperm whales seem to announce their presence with "discrete personal identifiers". In other words, it appears that the whales announce their presence by stating their names.

This conclusion is preliminary - they've only studied three caribbean whales, but the data is intriguing, and in some ways, somewhat startling. The whales, which typically use clicking sounds to communicate across vast stretches of oceanic water. A kind of cetacean (whale) morse code. Whales will greet each other by attaching a distinct coda to their clicks. In music, a coda is a musical phrase that is attached to end of a piece. In this case, the coda is "created" by the individual whale to identify him or herself. Called 5R, it’s a distinct sound made up of five consecutive clicks, with varying pauses between the clicks. While it may sound identical in each whale to casual listeners, variations in click timing became apparent after careful data analysis. Each of the researchers’ whales had its own personal 5R coda. In other words, each whale had an identifier - a name.

Could this be a random occurrance? A meaningless exception without importance? Perhaps. But it has been noted that dolphins have individualized whistles. And like dolphins, sperm whales maintain complex inter-relationships and social groups over long distances. Individual identification would be something that would provide a distinct benefit to the social order.

Man's history with sperm whales is fraught with confrontation and adversity. Hunted with a vengeance for the substance that fills their head. This is the "melon" used for sonar/navigation, thought to be "spermaceti" - sperm - by the ancient marriners. "spermaceti" - a waxy substance that provided light to the world before the age of petroleum, and their blubber was "rendered" or boiled down to create fuel. Man hunted whale, and occasionally the sperm whale torpedoed itself in suicdal attacks against man in his whaling ships. Such an occurence happened to the whaling ship Essex in the mid-19th century. This incident influenced Herman Melville to write Moby Dick - arguably the greatest American novel, and one which virtually no one has read. It is tough reading.

But I digress.

Whaling has not disappeared, but it has certainly narrowed in its scope and intensity. All around the globe,countries gain more income from eco-tourism - whale watching - than from killing whales. Live whales are have become an economic asset, to be both protected and cherished. They are beautiful, magnificent creatures to behold. Once seen, never forgotten. And now it seems, they do not forget each other. It seems that whales do not merely communicate with each other, but also identify each other, and themselves, with names. We have so much more to learn. What more could they possibly teach us?

Some scientists argue that whales, like primates, should be considered "non-human person" - sentient, thinking, self-aware creatures that maintain complex societies and display evidence of sophisticated thought processes. On a physical/neurological level, their brains display many similarities to those of human beings. Yet we know that despite similarities in 99.5% of our DNA, no one would ever confuse a human with a chimpanzee. One half of one percent difference is profound. But it certainly suggests a strong familial relationship.

What are the criteria we should be looking for to determine a status of "non-human personhood"? How should humans interact with these sentient beings of land and sea? Are humans the "lord of the manor", or do we need to re-examine our relationship to the rest of the world - even further than we already may have done? And once we align ourselves to the rest of the world, what then?

Perhaps that is one other "ghost in the machine" - one other singularity that we will one day attain. And perhaps, at that moment, an unforeseen destiny will have been met. And the whales will be seen emerging out of the oceans, in silent flight, towards the celestial heavens above.

Japan

It's mind-boggling. Mind numbing. Beyond one's comprehension. And impossible not to think about this weekend.

An earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale. If a 1 on the scale represents a release of 1 unit of energy measured, the exponential nature of the scale means that a 9 represents 100,000,000 units of energy. Enough energy to shift the coast of Japan 8 feet. Enough energy to shift the earth's axis 4 inches (it did). And enough to create a wall of water 30 feet (10 meters) high along miles and miles of Japan's coastline.

We see the pictures, and video, shot from helicopters and planes. The water looks stream-like - a wide swath, flooding fields and streets, yet somehow benign and harmless - as if people could somehow walk through it to shelter and safety. Then we watch newly released video taken from those trapped in building and see the wall of water for what it is. A wall of death, washing away people, cars, houses, and in one case an entire train traveling up the Japanese coast.

The next day, we read of impending nuclear catastrophe. First at one reactor. Then two reactors in one plant. Then, possible, six reactors at multiple plants. Why? Why Japan? Why the only country in the world to have already suffered the devastation of nuclear devices, during World War II?

We search for meaning, we search for hope. We think of the embedded ironies - former enemies, we dropped the bomb on Japan. Now friends, and iron-bound partners in trade, we are the first to extend aid and the hand of friendship. And we warn our citizens not to travel there. In case of nuclear meltdown, the radiation released would cause a disaster on an unprecedented scale. Yet we have just read, in The Immortal Life... of radiation being used in hope of treating Henrietta Lacks all those years ago. Henrietta is long gone from this world, but her cells live on. Some of them, I would imagine, in laboratories in Japan. I suppose one of our citizens is, in some sense, already there. Would those HeLa cells survive this new calamity? Ironies.

Is there a reason? Was there a cause? It's our nature to try to make some sense out of this. Over zealous environmentalists have already claimed that climate change and global warming may have contributed to this disaster. The melting polar ice caps, they say, is shifting the weight on the earth's oceanic plates, causing an increase in tectonic (earthquake) and volcanic activity. Doubters of climate change have fired back: “This is not the first time earthquakes have been blamed by the Shamanistic, Magical-Thinking Left on the all-purpose Zeus-substitute of global warming” said one. The other side answers back: True, Japan sits on a subduction zone, where plates move past earth other, but climate change can be shown to lead to more tsunamis (although not on Friday's scale) that could impact the United States". The argument and the fight goes on.

Economists debate the disaster's impact on the Japanese economy, as well as our own ("There may be an increase in the sale of American cars if people question the availability of Japanese cars and parts".) Some pundits predict a decrease in the price of petroleum, as declining Japanese demand leads to an increase in supply. CNBC stock market commentator Larry Kudlow actually said that ""The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that". Others have noted concern for Tokyo Disney World's safety (Disney World!!) as it is built on landfill, while other worry about............

This is madness. Insanity. Why the need to fight about causes? Why the need to over-analyze things? Why the need to focus on the material loss and cost of the disaster? Why do commentators need to compare it in magnitude to disasters of the past? "This is the worst earthquake Japan has experienced, and the fifth strongest since records were started to be kept in the 1860s...."

Somehow in our interconnected, app-driven, 4G world, we have lost sight of humanity. I saw a picture on CNN.com of a young child, of maybe 6 or 7 years. Surrounded by a team of physicians in radiation protective gear, his hands were outstretched, over his head, reaching toward the ceiling, as the well protected scientist/physician scanned his little body for exposure to radiation.

For me, it was like the moment Mary, ever stoic, viewed Henrietta Lacks in her coffin and glanced momentarily at her red painted toe nails. It was the moment I focussed on, and saw, the individual effected. I thought of the individuals standing without their homes, without drinking water, and possibly, without family members.

And I cried for the people of Japan.

(In response to ML's comment: there's no question to respond to. Respond to Japan. Respond to the ironies. Respond to the post. Anything that gets your mind making connections.)

This is the graph that goes with the post below -

It's alarming, and it's happening

Look at that beast. Its magnificent, isn't it? Virtually all muscle, it has been known to swim 2,000 miles - non-stop - to return to mating grounds. Muscle is meat. And meat is food. And this fish is hunted all over the world. It's steaks are delicacies. And its less desirable parts are chopped up and put into cans. Not surprisingly, it is a top marine predator And it's disappearing at an alarming rate throughout the world's oceans.

It's a Yellow fin Tuna. And the one being hoisted over the head of the unseen fisherman is relatively small, and unremarkable average. Tuna grow can grow up to 2 meters long or so, and weigh up to 400-425 pounds. They reach sexual maturity at around 2 years. But few hit anywhere near 400 pounds now; clearly not the one lifted up in the photo. Few even reach the age of maturity needed in order to reproduce. Tuna, like most other top ocean predators are being hunted and caught at a rate faster than they can replenish their own populations. In other words, man is eating them at unsustainable levels.

The ocean's top predators are disappearing at an alarming rate. Not only the tasty ones like tuna (especially the Blue Fin Tuna, prized by Asian cuisine) and Swordfish (which I will no longer eat) but Sailfish, Marlin, and Sharks. Fish hunted for sport. For fun. For trophies. Trophy Fish? They are all disappearing.

When I taught Marine Biology at TA, I embedded a graph into the course syllabus that I distributed on the first day of school. The graph showed the actual decline of ocean fisheries from 1950 through the present, and the projected declines through to the middle of the 21st century. (I can't embed a second picture into this entry, but I'll post the graph in another entry that will precede this one) I think the last time I showed this graph to students was in 2007 - only four years ago. Students scoffed, they questioned, they expressed incredulity. Could this really happen Mr E? Could the oceans really die? Could oceans really turn into large "dead zones"?

It sure is looking that way. Current developments do not augur well for marine life. A week or so an article appeared in the Washington Post that was titled ""Predator Fish In Oceans On Alarming Decline, Experts Say" Basically, marine scientists gathered at the American Association For The Advancement of Science analyzed current data and titled their presentation with the startling title "2050: Will There Be Fish In The Ocean?". Their startling conclusion reflects the data in the graph from 2007: more than 54 percent of the decrease in large predator fish has taken place over the past 40 years.

Removing predators - especially sharks through sport hunting - has a profound effect on the oceanic food web. With the predators gone, new, smaller predators move in and re-set the balance of life. The former prey of sharks, tuna, etc. survive in large numbers, leading to starvation the quick collapse of populations. All that us left are the smaller scavenger fish. Scientists predict that there will in fact be ocean fish in 2050, but they will be smaller, less meaty, more "oily" populations: fish like anchovies, and species used for ground fish meal to feed to our farmed salmon. Salmon that will, no doubt, be genetically improved for more muscle, and greater size

Humans have always fished. We've just become much better at it: more efficient and mechanized. We now trawl - we drop and drag 2-mile long nets and capture anything and everything that gets in the net's path. How much fish is that? Well, in 2006 that was 76 million tons of fish. That is estimated to represent the capture of 70 trillion - that's TRILLION - fish. One million million, 10 to the 12th power, 10 followed by 12 zeros. Over the course of 1 year. And many of those fish were inedible. Garbage fish they're called. So they're thrown back, dead, into the ocean. Gotta feed those scavengers.

We've been hearing a lot about "peak oil", but it seems that we have also hit "peak fish". Fish populations are already getting smaller. Much smaller. At the same time, the populations are getting increasingly stressed out by the acidification of ocean water, and climate change raising ocean water temperature. As a result, marine plant life - the base of the ocean's food web - is also disappearing. And China is getting wealthier, and much hungrier. Affluence means having more than rice on your dinner plate. Especially in new restaurants. Chinese consumption of fish has risen dramatically during the past two decades, coinciding with their population's increasing wealth. I don't mean to criticize the Chinese. They only want what we have had for decades.

Several years ago when I went down to the Florida Keys, I entered a pub that had a huge blow up of the great American author Ernest Hemingway (a former patron) with a 900 pound Marlin that he had caught off The Keys. Marlin that size haven't really been seen for decades. Soon, they will be gone, as will all the great fish. The beasts that swim across the Atlantic and the Pacific. As well as the somewhat smaller ones of 2 - 3 years, the ones that are just starting their adult sexually maturity, and capable of replenishing the individuals lost to the hooks, and the harpoons, and the trawlers' nets.

And still we eat. We want to eat. We need to eat. And there are increasing numbers of "us" on the planet. Remember: took until the 1850s to reach the first billion humans on the planet. One hundred and sixty years later, we're pushing 7 billion. And by 2050 - the projected year of the oceans' "death" - 10 billion people.

I think you're all a bit too young to remember the Charlie The Tuna ads for Sunkist tuna. Charlie was an animated hipster tuna. He wanted to be chosen by Sunkist to be put into one of their cans. He was hip, so he had "good taste". The commercials tag line was "Sorry Charlie - Sunkist doesn't want tuna with good taste - it wants tuna that tastes good". Something tells me that Sunkist isn't going to be that choosy anymore. Maybe that's why they stopped running those ads.

Sorry Charlie. Your days are numbered. Say you were sitting at a table with representatives from countries around the world. What would you say to them? How would YOU present the problem, and more importantly, what solution (or solutions) would you propose?

It's your generation's world.......I know it's depressing, but what can we do? What should we do?

Wolves 2 Whales, and Foxes 2 Dogs

Before the break we had the opportunity to see Neil Shubin for the first time, in the Great Transformations DVD. Shubin, an "Evo/Devo" bio guy, spoke about the tinkering that evolution does as it plays, not with animals' bodies, but with the underlying machinery - their genes. As we learned, their are a few "master control" genes - that control the timing, and structural development of key body parts and segments (head, thorax, abdomen, legs, antennae, etc.). There is a universal body plan - but the details can change over time to allow for evolutionary adaptation to occur in organisms. In this was Philip Gringerich showed the world that modern whales evolved from ancient wolf-like creatures. (That is a picture of Lyudmila Trut and one of her foxy dogs on top of this entry)

A famous experiment took place about 50 years ago that attempted to condense millions of years of evolution into just a few years. Scientists took a pack of wolves and bred them for temperment, their goal being to "recreate" the transition from wild wolves to domesticated dogs. Their premise was simple: breed the dogs, isolate/raise the pups that seemed must comfortalbe around humans, and repeat for multiple generations. Interesting idea, but were they successful?

I'd like you to read this short article Taming The Wild on National Geographic's website: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2011/03/taming-wild-animals/ratliff-text


Once you read the article, I'd like you to share your thoughts - specifically citing at least two ideas directly from the article that you found interesting, enlightening, or just plain cool.

Then I'd like you to address the big idea that is implicit in this article: Is this a good (beneficial) thing? Does this type of research portend great advances? Or, like therapeutic cloning, is this opening a door that some will see as potentially benficial while others will view it as "playing God", and potentially dangerous? Or is it just good, solid scientific research?

Life Looks For Life

Last week, a student in one of my classes (I think it was Molly in advanced biology?) asked about the possibility of doing a "Science Night" project on astronomy. Unfortunately, I had to pt the kibosh on that idea. "Astronomy" I said, "is the study of space. Biology is the study of life, and living organisms".

Perhaps I was a bit rash in judgement in making that response. That thought continued to bug me during the course of the week. Thinking about the nascent field of exobiology - the study of the possible existance of extraterrestrial life - I soon remembered a public service announcement produced by NASA that I had seen recently on a website. (It's also on NASA's Facebook page, in case you would like to add a "like" to NASA). I liked this clip for several reasons, one of them being that the voiceover on the clip belonged to the great, late Cornell-based astronomer Carl Sagan.

Sagan helped fuel my love of astronomy as a younger adult (Mr. Whitaker's too) with a legendary series that aired on PBS in the 1970s called Cosmos. Starting with primitive man's quest for understanding the heavens, progressing from superstitious beliefs through scientific discoveries, Sagan presented a thoughtful, understandable, yet sophisticated way of making the unknown known. Scientific discoveries and concepts were presented in a clear and accessible manner. Sagan spoke at length about mankind's quest to gain deeper knowledge and understanding of the heavens. His narrative voice, and distinct verbal style, ("....there are mmmmmmillions and mmmmmmillions of galaxies...") became somewhat legendary - and ripe for satire on shows like Saturday Night Live.


NASA has used some of Sagan's soundtrack, and has superimposed it onto new footage to create a couple of advertisments for itself. This one is about 4 minutes long - take a look, and a listen. (Perhaps you should listen with a pencil in hand if you want to comment on a specific word or phrase used by Sagan):



As a nation we have retreated from our exploration of space. The demands here on earth seem so extreme. Poverty. Climate change. Sickness. Food shortages. And overall, the depths of a global economic recession. The needs are so many - the dollars available so few. Yet so much of the modern technology we take for granted in 2011 originated with the space program in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Our knowledge, and the tools we created to gain that knowledge, became vast and powerful. Our ability to see and better understand our universe increased exponentially. Still - the great question of all questions - "is there life out there? Or are we alone in the universe?" remains to be answered.

"Life looks for life." But the cost of looking for life is so great - and our needs on earth are so many - should we be spending the funds to search for life in the universe? Or should we be concentrating on taking care of our own - the people who inhabit this increasing crowded, and fragile, planet?

What do you think?

Humpty Dumpty & Ghosts In The Machine

Last week in class, as we viewed David Attenborough's marvelous introduction to Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, I found myself thinking about his simple - yet profound - idea of natural selection. Natural selection states that "more offspring are born to a mother than can survive. Those that do survive are somehow stronger; better suited and "fit" to their environment. As the stronger survivors have offspring of their own, species will evolve, or adapt to their environment - ensuring a better "fit", and improving their chances for long term survival. Species evolve together, weaving balanced predator/prey relationships, and establishing balanced ecosystems that evolve as well, in order to maintain the balance of life within them.

The modern world has offered mankind many opportunities to alter the process of natural selection within ecosystems. Human have "unnaturally" selected to import, or remove any number of animals or plants within specific habitats. We have allowed invasive species to move into new, exotic environments. And we have cleared land for cultivation of our crops, and construction of our homes. This not only alters the long term process of natural selection, but more immediately, the natural ecological balance that exists within ecosystems and their food webs.

Philosophers and psychologists have long spoken of the "ghosts in the machine" - the ancient, ancestral remnants of brain/mind that continue to play a role in our mind/body relationship. We may no longer think like our "inner reptile" (well, most of us...) but these ancient parts of our brain give rise to some of our deepest, immediate responses to stumulii from our environment. (Goosebumps anyone?) We may respond with immediate fear when we see movement in a darkened room, but our modern brain knows to relax the body when it realizes that the movement was only our shadow on a wall.

Biologists have also spoken of a "ghost in the machine". In the biological sense, the ghosts exist following the unsuccessful introduction of a new species into an existing ecosystem. While the unsuccessful organism may disappear (go extinct) it's disapearance may leave an unseen impact - a ghost - on the ecological balance within that community. The extinction may allow opportunistic predators to move in. Predation may increase on particularly vulnerable smaller prey. In turn their numbers may go down. The ghost may have a domino effect throughout the ecosystem.

Biologists have tried to re-introduce species that disappear, in valiant attempts to restore, what had previously been, a natural ecological balance. Alas - this is known as the "Humpty Dumpty" effect, for like the eponymous egg (good SAT word! Look it up!) from the Mother Goose rhyme, all the king's men cannot put the ecosystem back together again. It is difficult, if not well neigh impossible, to restore ecological balance once it's gone.

Ecosystem experiments have proven extremely difficult to do. There are just so many variables. Noted evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson has written the following:

"For instance, suppose you’re interested in the question of whether individuals of different species can live together. (This is an important question, for it bears on how ecosystems form.) To keep things simple, you decide to investigate a mere six species. You want to be thorough, so you’re going to consider all combinations, from each species living alone, to all six together.
But that’s already 63 combinations. Worse, in order to be more confident about the results, you can’t just do each one once, you need to replicate them. So you set up each combination six times. That’s 378 microcosms. Worse still, ecosystems — even small and simple ones — don’t stabilize in an afternoon. You have to wait for several months before you can be sure the system has settled into a “final” form."

Judson goes on to note that the experiment has actually been done, with a success rate of about 12% with the simplest of combinations: two different species.

Natural selection takes time. Decades. Centuries. Millenia. Yet ecosystems can be irreparably damaged in a moments time. It is hard for me to think of the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, melting glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic, deforestation in Africa, and population explosions in Asia, and development right here in the Upper Valley, wihtout thinking of their ecological impacts.

Ghosts and Humpty Dumpty. Sounds so childish, so innocent. Yet their very light names refer to very "heavy" ideas that govern the fragility of the world around us. I'll let Judson have the last word:

"How do ecosystems form? How much impact do invaders have? What are our chances of restoring damage done by fishing or farming? We are pushing our ecosystems to the brink. If we don’t understand how they work, we can’t hope to limit the damage. And we need to try: after all, this is our home."

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

"Which is worse? Closing two locks on a waterway that's used to ship millions of dollars' worth of goods from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin? Or allowing a voracious Asian carp to deplete the food supply of native fish sustaining a Midwestern fishing industry that nets $7 billion a year?"

I'd like you to read the article that asks this question, and then I'd like you to answer it in your response.

Which is worse? What would you do if you were in charge?

The Washington Post Article, Tough Choices Follow In The Wake Of Invasive Species can be found here:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013000939.html

(Note it looks like you will have to to cut and paste the address manually into your address bar in order to go to the article)

EVOLUTION AT WORK - THE HAWKMOTH & THE TOBACCO PLANT

A fascinating study was published last week in Current Biology about the relationship between the hawkmoth and the Coyote Tobacco plant, Nicotiana attenuata. N. attenuata is wild flowering plant found in the west, related but not the same as the cigarette tobacco plant grown in the south. (You may recognize it as a relative of the Nictiana plant that is a favorite perennial in New England gardens). The plant has developed - as many flowering plants have - a symbiotic relationship with its pollinator, the Hawkmoth. The moth picks up and disperses the plants pollen. The the benefit to the moth is that it frequently lays its eggs on the plant's leaves. When the eggs hatch, its larvae (the caterpillars) have their first meal - the plant itself.

This is obviously not a mutually beneficial relationship. Too many caterpillars and the tobacco plant population would begin to drop, and possibly disappear. The plant faces a choice: adapt or die.

Scientists has recently observed a startling adaptation taking place. The plant normally flowers in the evening hours during Hawkmoth high flight times. Recently, however, the tobacco plant has begun to flower during the morning, attracting a new and different pollinator: a hummingbird that has no interest in devouring its provider of nectar.

This is evolution at work. The plant has a choice in a figurative sense. It doesn't have a working brain capable of strategizing a plan for its own survival. There is something more primitive at work. Something elegant in its simplicity, and powerful in its determination: natural selection.

Natural selection, one of Darwin's main ideas in his theory of evolution is commonly thought of as "survival of the fittest". It refers to the fact that there is a great deal of variation within a population or organisms, in this case the tobacco plants. Most of the plants flowered at night and had a higher likelihood of being eaten by Hawkmoth larvae. A few plants, flowered earlier in the day. The earlier flowering plants survived, thrived, and passed their genetic code on to the subsequent generation of plants. They're the ones who had higher survival rates. The balance shifted between night flowering plants and morning flowering plants shifted towards to morning plants.

Interestingly though, the night flowering plants remain. Scientists hypothesize that the moths, which fly over a much larger territory, are superior pollinator and capable of spreading the plant's pollen to plants further away than the hummingbirds are able to.

Regardless - more and more of the tobacco plants began to flower in the early morning hours. This adaptation gave the population of tobacco plants the opportunity to recover and stablilize, ultimately strengthening this new trait that aids their survival. The species has changed. It has adapted to thwart a negative force in its environment.

It has evolved.

THE $177,000 TUNA FISH

This ties in perfectly with the ideas and themes we have recently been discussing: humans want what they want when they want it.

The New York Times reported yesterday that a large (513 pound) blue fin tuna was caught and sold in Japan recently. How rare is a catch like that in today's depleted ocean waters? Rare enough to be worth $177,000 to a couple of sushi restaurants.

Here's what was reported:

"TOKYO (AP) -- A giant bluefin tuna fetched 16.3 million yen ($177,000) in an auction Tuesday at the world's largest wholesale fish market in Japan.

The 513-pound (233-kilogram) fish was the priciest since 2001 when a 440-pound (200 kilogram) tuna sold for a record 20.2 million yen ($220,000) at Tokyo's Tsukiji market.

The gargantuan tuna was bought and shared by the owners of two Japanese sushi restaurants and one Hong Kong-based sushi establishment, said a market representative on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Caught off the coast of northern Japan, the big tuna was among 570 put up for auction Tuesday. About 40 percent of the auctioned fish came from abroad, including from Indonesia and Mexico, the representative said.

Japan is the world's biggest consumer of seafood with Japanese eating 80 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific bluefins caught. The two tuna species are the most sought after by sushi lovers.

However, tuna consumption in Japan has declined because of a prolonged economic slump as the world's second-largest economy struggles to shake off its worst recession since World War II.

''Consumers are shying away from eating tuna ... We are very worried about the trend,'' the market representative said.

Apart from falling demand for tuna, wholesalers are worried about growing calls for tighter fishing rules amid declining tuna stocks.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas in November slashed the quota for the 2010 catch by about one-third to 13,500 tons (12,250 metric tons) -- a move criticized by environmentalists as not going far enough."

What to you think? Is cutting the quota for 2010 by one-third enough? Or should we do more?

AMUR AMOUR

A baby Amur leopard was born last month in Serengeti Park in Hodenhagen, Germany. She made her first public appearance on Friday December 4.

Amurs, or Far East leopard have some very interesting characteristics. While their summer coats are about 2.5 inches long, their winter coats grow to 4 inches. A beautiful animal with widely spaced rosettes (“spots”) with thick border, Amurs have been reported to leap nearly 20 feet horizontally and 10 feet vertically in their pursuit of prey.

Unlike the better known African leopards, Amur leopards live in the temperate forests of Russia’s far eastern regions. Nearly 80% of their natural habitat has been destroyed during the past two decades. As a result, Amur leopards are critically endangered. It is estimated that less than 40 remain in the wild. At last count, there were 34.

Zoos may represent the last, and best hope, of preserving this magnificent species. This means that the final survivors will live in captivity.

Zoos often lead to conflicting thoughts and feelings in people. I know this is something some of us discussed during our visit to the Bronx Zoo. Given the critically endangered state of the Amur leopard – and other aniamals – what role do you think zoos should play in their preservation? Should the animals be placed on public display? Should they be maintained separately in more “respectful” environments?

Or should the last remaining members of the species be allowed to die in dignity in the last remaining vestiges of their natural environment?

BAD ECONOMY GOOD FOR GATORS

"Crocodile rockin' is something shocking, and your feet just can't keep still..." Elton John

Especially in those Crocs, made of real Croc. Get 'em while you can.

The New York Times reported that the downturn in the economy has had an unanticipated consequence on alligator farming. Sales of products that use alligator skin are down. Fashionistas who may have spend upwards of $12,000 on an alligator skin wristwatch strap in the past, are now hesitating. Times are tough all over I guess.

Alligator farming is tightly regulated by the US department of Wildlife to maintain a wild population of one to two million. Farmers must raise the alligators from birth, meaning that eggs have to be taken (stolen) from angry gator mommas in swampy areas who are fought off with long poles. The babies are expensive to raise, and as they get larger they frequently bite each other. Bites make their skin relatively worthless ("Yes madam, that is a scar on that handbag - hmm... perhaps I can let that one go for less, say, $5,000?"). Few make it past four feet in length before they are slaughtered.

Men enter the tanks and kill the gators with a quick, sharp stab through the head into the brain. The alligators are skinned, their meat is sent to restaurants and pet food manufacturers. For years, their skins were sent to one of about a dozen tanneries around the world that specialized in processing the leather of reptile "exotics" for fashion houses such as Hermes, Cartier, and of course, Gucci.

During the past decade, the fashion house Hermes has been buying many of the exotic tanneries. Hermes has fought for lower prices for the skin from farmers - often at prices below the cost of raising the alligators. At the same time, they have raised the market prices of tanned hides to ridiculously high levels. That "buy cheap, sell high" business strategy, in combination with the economic recession, has created a crash in the market for alligator goods. As one buyer for Neiman Marcus, the high end department store, is quoted as saying: "‘I’m not going to spend $4,000 for an alligator shoe.’ (Gee, and I thought I was the only one who thought such a thing.)

High prices, and the economic recession, have caused sales of alligator skin fashion accessories to fall dramatically. That's good for the gators, but not for the small farmers who raise them. Despite recent signs of an economic upturn, many alligator farms are closing do to losses of upwards of $15,000 a month. One farmer is opening up a tourist zoo along the highway. Others are leaving the industry altogether. It's hard to continue working on a farm that loses money while growing a crop that can bite your arm off.

I'm sure many of us wandered the dinosaur halls of the American Museum of Natural History thinking about how cool it would be if Jurassic Park were a reality. To be able to see the living, breathing bodies that brought movement to those fossilized bones we observed with wide eyes and slackened jaws. After reading this article, however I'm glad the big guys went extinct. It's both sad and demeaning to think how they too, would have wound up as fashion accessories.

"A T-Rex handbag, madame? Or perhaps I can interest the gentleman in a matched set of Stegosaurus luggage?"

We've had benefit concerts for farmers called "Farm Aid". Maybe its time for a benefit concert to help preserve the alligator population. We'll call it (pinky to mouth) - - - - Gator Aid.

PLASTIC GARBAGE PART 2

I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. I know I did. I went down to Boston to visit my son at school, and spent the night with my sister before we get together again this week for Thanksgiving.

I stopped for gas on the way out of Boston, on Boylston Street, right outside of Fenway Park. I took this photo while I was pumping my gas. The image of plants of questionable health surrounded by an island of plastic bottles was pretty disturbing. Particularly because some trash cans were readily available just to the left of the pump. Add to that the gasoline price chart hovering over it all - reminding us of the ugly side of fossil fuels, and the use of oil in the manufacturing of plastic. (In fact a study out of Sweden suggest that there is a strong link between the use of oil to manufacture plastic and global warming - everything is interconnected.)

I think we all felt a little overwhelmed last week when we discussed the floating island of trash in the Pacific. There was this sense of impotence; what could we, as individuals do about a problem so vast and so distant? This little mess made me realize - more that ever - that we truly can make a difference through small, individual actions. After taking the picture, I disposed of the trash in the container. On the drive home, I stopped along I89 to pick up some trash someone had thoughtlessly tossed out of their car. These are small actions all of us can do, to make our immediate environment a little nice, a little cleaner, and a little more beautiful.

Keep this in mind the next time you see a scrap of paper, or a wrapper of some kind lying on the ground somewhere around our beautiful campus. Don't take the beauty that surround us for granted. Be a part in maintaining the beauty of your immediate surroundings.

This action may not seem as dramatic as cleaning up the Pacific Ocean. But it will have an immediate, noticeable impact on our little community and environment. And who knows - if you spread the word, perhaps a new movement will be born.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN: THE WORLD'S GARBAGE DUMP

There is a stretch of "plastic-soup" that starts about 500 miles off the California coast, and continues west past Hawaii, extending nearly to Japan. Covering a length of ocean nearly twice the size of the United States, and in places nearly twice the size of Texas in width, this plastic island - not quite thick enough to walk on, but thick enough to serve as a raft of sorts - is made up of our plastic garbage. Gallon milk jugs, plastic wrappers, plastic shells that surround virtually every product we buy - millions of tons of plastic, held in place for the ever moving ocean currents.

For us, it's out of sight, out of mind. But not for the wild life.

Enter Chris Jordan. Jordan is a nature photographer "best known for his large-scale images of excess, rendering unimaginable statistics like the millions of pieces of plastic dumped into the ocean each hour". Pictured above is one image from Jordan's photo essay on the effects of the plastic dump on the birds of the Midway Atoll - an island located in the center of the Pacific garbage patch. I suggest you double click on the image to get a really good look at it.

The birds on the island eat the plastic, perhaps mistaking the fragments for the floating bells of ocean jellies ("Jellyfish"). Inevitably, the plastic clogs their esophagus, their gut, and digestive tract resulting in the birds' deaths.

Jordan's photo essay documents the decaying bodies of the birds, without moving a single feather - recording their final image just as he finds them on the island. Decaying flesh amidst a whorl of feather and hollow bone, and a body full of plastic.

To put this in some kind of perspective, you should know that this island is located in the middle of a remote marine sanctuary, dedicated to the preservation of marine life. It is located about halfway across the ocean. The closest continental land is approximately 2,000 miles away.

You can't get much further from human presence than this spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Yet there we are. The Human Stain. Our signature, found in the middle of a dead baby bird, on a remote island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Koyaanisqatsi.

LIVES OF A CELL

Sophomores read Lewis Thomas' classic essay Lives Of A Cell this weekend. In this essay, Thomas reflects on the precise mechanism of cell dynamics - how the structure of molecules and organelles relates to their specific functions.

At the end of the essay Thomas jolts the reader with a question that initially seems preposterous: Is our planet, the earth, most like a single self-contained cell?

Is it a question of proportion? Are the organisms that inhabit the biosphere analogous to the molecules and organelles that transport, communicate, package, send, receive, read, translate, tranmit, decode, and create new material within the cell?

Is it all merely a question of scale and frame of reference? Are we the fleas on the elephant - incapable of seeing the whole resulting from the sum of its parts?

Sophomores typically find it a difficult concept to fathom. The earth? A cell? How can that possibly be?

Watching this video, in which digital animation recreates some familiar structures and functions of a cell - reading the genetic code, building proteins at the ribosome, the Golgi packaging the proteins in vesicles, moving these proteins through the cell membrane, and transporting them throughout the body - made me think once again of Thomas' koan (mind puzzle). For if the earth is indeed a single "cell" in a macro-universe, what is the the entire "organism"?

What hope is there for us to see, let alone comprehend, the elephant as a whole? And if we do, will we understand it, or will it forever be a mystery?

I look forward to reading your reflections on this.