First the skills. Doctors learn to apply scientifically based knowledge to human beings who live, behave and act in wholly unscientific ways. Biology intersects with culture and politics and geography and much more. Cultural values and social systems may impact our health and well-being as much as or more than our biology in some cases. Think about the violence in some communities that takes the lives of innocent people. A doctor can treat the wound and maybe save a life, but only society and culture can control the behavior.

All doctors do not need the same set of skills. So there is no one “doctor type.” There are doctors who spend most of their day in their offices seeing patients, talking, looking at lab tests and doing what most people think doctors do. It made for a great TV series 30 years ago when Marcus Welby was popular. And there are some doctors who spend all their time seeing patients for a few minutes in a hospital emergency room and then move on to the next (do you any of you remember ER?)

Other doctors never (or hardly ever) talk to or directly see a patient. Those doctors still can play an extraordinarily important role in a patient’s care. Take the pathologist. A pathologist is a medical doctor who is responsible for looking at samples of tissue or body fluids that are removed from a patient in order to determine a diagnosis. They may be given very little information about the patient. Sometimes they just know the age, sex, and where the tissue sample came from. And yet their assessment, based on the different types of tests that might be done on that tissue, will determine everything that happens to the patient after that. They have an awesome responsibility in the patient’s care.

Their participation is more likely to rely on knowledge in the “science” of medicine (and physics and chemistry and imagery) than in how they interact with patients, which they rarely do. They need sometimes interact with other doctors. But their skills are more like those of a detective who has to take all the clues scientific testing of parts of the body (or in the case of an autopsy, a dead body) and try to figure out what has or is happening to that patient.

The radiologist is a doctor who interprets “films.” He or she is presented with images made from x-rays (radiation), MRIs (magnetic waves creating images), ultrasounds (sound echoes against tissue interfaces), PET (positron emission) scans and other types of imaging taken to determine the problem a patient might face. Radiologists need to have an in-depth understanding of physics (not my best subject for sure!) than might another type of doctor. Being able to imagine 3-D anatomy and computer savvy skills are also helpful.

Or take a doctor such as the pediatric surgeon. That doctor has to develop skills in caring for children, listening to families, and manual dexterity in working on small, fragile patients. Fixing very small delicate people who are fiercely protected by their families requires a completely different set of skills.

So you see, Rosalee, science, while very important, is not the only area of study that helps you to become a doctor. To become a doctor you have to be determined to become one. Learn your science, but study anything else that might interest you. Whatever you learn, you will find useful in whatever type of doctor you want to be.

BUT, they have never defined my path. Exams will never predict who I will become or how well I will do at it. And that will be true for you. No one exam can measure the value of your personal experiences, the way you see the world, or how you interact with it. They can only measure certain ways of thinking, certain types of knowledge, and given ways of organizing this complex world we live in.

The Boards don’t test for so many things: how will I interact and form relationships with patients? How will I think beyond algorithms and formulas to treat people individually and creatively? How will my non-linear way of thinking allow me to become an anthropologist and see the world in unique and more complex ways?

Daunting? Imprecise? Frustrating? Necessary evils? Yes. Impossible enough to deter us? Definitely not.

What else can keep these monstrous exams in perspective?

I’ve passed so many tests and have so many to come. But the number of tests in my life are nothing compared to the number I’ll run on patients. From the more mundane (cholesterol and sugar checks) to the more profound (prenatal and genetic screenings). Those are the results that matter. Those are the tests that change lives.

So while I’m sweating about the Boards, I remind myself that in comparison to the test results for cystic fibrosis, lupus, metastatic cancers, ALS, Huntington disease, and the thousands of other challenges patients may face, my tests pale in comparison.

So, yes, Step 1 is one of the most important exams I’ve ever taken. But it’s just another test. Just 8 hours of narrowly focused medical knowledge. And with so much uncertainty in life, in medicine, and in our own health, I welcome the reliability of these exams. So far, they’ve been one of the only constants in an uncertain (but exciting!) life.

Wish me luck on March 31st.

Thomas H. Poppleton, Plan of the City of New York, 1817. NYPL, Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division

In honor of the 400^th anniversary of Henry Hudson sailing into New York’s waters, the New York Public Library presents a beautiful selection of maps spanning the 17^th through 21^st centuries – ranging from maps that Hudson would have used, to a dynamic satellite map supported by Google.  The collection offers an overview of the region’s earliest exploration and how maps of the region have changed through the years.

The NYPL is home to one of the largest and most well used map collections in the world, according to my enthusiastic and knowledgeable docent. The exhibit includes unique images of the five boroughs, with views of Manhattan and Brooklyn seen from intriguing angles. These illustrations force you to think differently about the history of development in context of the river named after its most famous European explorer. The exhibit frames the development of New York in terms of its waterways – from the trade encouraged by sheltering harbors and the river extending north, to the fresh drinking water that allows so many people to live here.

A few highlights:

John Bachmann. New York & Environs. New York, 1859. NYPL, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection, Eno Collection

• At the very beginning of the exhibit, take a look at the four circular views of New York that center on Manhattan. My favorite is an image drawn by John Bachman (1859) which focuses on the very tip of Manhattan and Governor’s Island, as if seen through a fisheye lens.
• Walk along the Hudson all the way to Albany by following an impressive floor-appliqué in the middle of the exhibit.
• Keep an eye out for some of the more beautiful maps, such as The Hudson River and Its Watershed, from the Beacon Institute (2007). Its detailed decorative frame illustrates topics in the river’s history such as exploration, recreation, and industry.

Connie Brown. The Hudson River and Its Watershed, 2007. The Beacon Institute. NYPL, Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division.

• Also keep an eye out for Interpretive Cartography, a fun 1947 map of Long Island that is full of cultural iconography (such as fishermen, lighthouses and lobsters) drawn in the familiar style of Richard Scarry. (You may remember his books from your childhood – a worm wearing a single sneaker, and cats in lederhosen.)

The exhibit also looks at the revitalization of the waterways that carried the burden of pollution from intense industrial activity that made New York a center of trade.  Look at the brightly colored 1922 map of New York City’s myriad industries: leather goods, printing and publishing, women’s wear, and many others, proudly highlighted by city block. Factories dumped great volumes of chemical waste into the waterways for decades, damaging the ecosystems and restricting the general public from accessing the waterfront. The effort to bring the public back to the water has involved legislation to limit or stop pollution, actively cleaning up the river, and increasing public access to waterfront property, including the beach. Take a look at the cheerful 1941 map of NYC-area beaches, with little flags to note their quality as Good, Bad, or Fair. This refers to the cleanliness of the beach, and the intensity of overflow from sewage treatment plants during storm surges, which continue polluting certain areas today.

Industrial map of New York City showing Manufacturing industries concentration. 1922. NYPL, Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division.

I recommend taking advantage of the free guided-tours of the exhibit. Besides learning a lot about New York’s history, you may also enjoy some bizarre questions from other visitors. I was lucky to overhear the docent politely handling heated accusations from an older gentleman who was convinced that Brooklyn is “not attached” to Long Island. Thankfully the docent had a wide selection of evidence supporting his argument.

The NYPL gives visitors a glimpse into how Henry Hudson and the earliest European traders coming to the New World saw the region. It was fascinating to see the changes in map design and style over time, and watch the shorelines come into focus from the earliest, imprecise first impressions of Hudson, to highly accurate English maps from the 18^th century. The exhibit gives New Yorkers and visitors from all over a chance to see the city in a new way, with views of Manhattan before the skyscrapers, and a better appreciation for the city’s visual history.

Visit Mapping New York’s Shoreline: 1609-2009 in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 5th Avenue at 42nd Street, at the New York Public Library, through June 26, 2010.

Exhibit is open Monday, Thursday-Saturday, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Tuesday-Wednesday 10 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m.

Free public tours are offered Monday through Saturday at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m., and Sunday at 3:30 p.m.

Images included here at the courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Well, I should qualify that: it’s the last test of my pre-clinical years. (The first two years are called pre-clinical because we don’t see much of the clinical side, because we don’t really know too much.) So, for two years we sit mostly in lectures, labs, small groups, and the library, learning the basics of human biology and illness. The cycle is predictable: three weeks of cramming, test, repeat. In our last block Life Cycle (our curriculum is organized by topic or organ system), we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But it turns out, that light is an illusion. It’s just another train heading full-speed towards us. We can’t we continue on to clinical training until we’ve passed the boards. What are the boards, you ask?

Well, “the boards”—or ‘the big quiz’ as one of my neurology professors calls it—are the first in a series of exams you take to become a doctor. Also called the USMLE, which stands for the United States Medical Licensing Exam. There are 3 Steps:

Step 1 encompasses all of general physiology (how the body works), anatomy, pharmacology (medications), microbiology (germs), biochemistry (proteins and that kind of stuff), and pathology (how disease happens and what it looks like). This is the stuff we learn during the first 1 ½ to 2 years of med school. In most schools passing step 1 is required in order to continue onto the clinical training of the second half of med school. Your step 1 score is important when you apply for the training after medical school, i.e. your residency.

Step 2 is usually taken in the 4th year of medical school. This next step tests your application of medical knowledge you have learned in diagnosing and treating patients. This is another 8 hour exam.

Step 3 is a 16 hour exam, taken over two days after the completion of the first year of residency (a.k.a. ‘internship’). Then you are finally a doctor.

More knowledge. More questions. More pressure.

So how is this supposed to be encouraging? How will this litany of obstacles keep you excited about becoming a doctor?

Well, it’s about perception. How you choose to see this path ahead. Stay tuned!

If you live anywhere within continental United States, you are no doubt informed of the rippling snowstorm spreading across the country. Some citizens even experiencing snow for the first time, like many Texas residents who had the pleasure of receiving a whole foot of the stuff dumped on to their unsuspecting roads and houses. In Washington, DC, where I live the majority of the year, we experienced the worst snowstorm in 200 years. A storm powerful enough to shut down the roads, metro, schools and even the United States government for a whole week. A storm so intense, the district could not start plowing until four days in, making navigation and travel excruciatingly difficult. At American University, where I attend, not only were classes canceled for a week, but part of our dining hall collapsed. Luckily no one was hurt.

So from a crop freeze in Florida, to record high snowfalls across the country, to the crippling of our government, people, and by people I mean several conservative talk pundits and the sheep that blindly follow them, are starting to doubt climate change. Well not so much doubt, they’ve been doubting climate change ever since the airing of the first trailer of Inconvenient Truth. It is more accurate to say that they are delivering the rest of world, the demographic that is more in touch with reality, a very snowy and unwarranted “I told you so.”

At first glance, this is puzzling. Certainly an abrupt spike in weather phenomenon that is unprecedented in recent history bares some evidence that our climate is in fact changing. Scientists have stated over and over again that the shift in the Earth’s atmosphere will result in a higher frequency of storms that will become increasingly more severe. But unfortunately we made a colossal mistake. Just as our movement started to gain momentum beyond a few local farmers and recycling freaks, and evidence of our planets transformation began to take real form and reach broad consensus, Al Gore coined the term Global Warming.

Environmentalists have a lot to thank Al Gore for. An Inconvenient Truth rallied and educated millions of people and forced scientists and politicians to come out and address problems facing the environment. The film lifted the cause of a few commune living hippies and dismally funded lobby groups up onto its shoulders and into the national stage of conversation. In those respects, the film did its job flawlessly. Al Gore got people talking about the environment, and when people talk, they get interested and want to know more. Now the Environmental Protection Agency is operating on a budget larger than ever before, companies all over the world are spending millions of dollars investing in fuel-efficient cars and green technology. Mayor Bloomberg’s Plan NYC is going to plant a million new trees, sort through New York’s trash to find recyclables, require all schools to launch recycling programs and greenify building codes. Environmental Science is slowly becoming part of the core curriculum across the country. Environmental Filmmaking is now a major in universities everywhere. Even the set of 24 has gone green with digital scripts and carbon offsets.

A lot is being done, and the efforts of millions upon millions of people who are working as hard as they can to leave the Earth better than they found it are quite often overlooked. However, as much as we are indebted to Al Gore for legitimizing our movement, he also made a crucial mistake. You see Al Gore is a democrat and unfortunately being a democrat he is cursed with the inability to name things well. Lets look at some of the names Republicans have come up with, The Patriot Act, a law that limited civil liberties. The Internet Freedom Act, a bill that would allow companies to control the speed and content of the Internet based on how much you pay them. The Pro Life movement has a great name, hell, even the Tea Party is kind of cleverly dubbed in its own way.

Democrats have Cap and Trade, Gas Tax, and Single Payer Healthcare System to name a few. Doesn’t have quite the same ring. Al Gore decided to call the shift in Earth’s climate global warming. And although there is legitimacy in that name. Sunlight is being trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere by fossil fuels, which are heating it up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the weather we experience on the ground is warmer. In fact a melting ice cap will result in colder ocean temperatures. And even though the last two winters were some of the warmest on record, the fact that global warming and not climate change is the common terminology, every time Sean Hannity has to ware a coat to get to work he can later go on TV and call Al Gore’s theory “hysterical.” The frightening thing about that is people believe him, a lot of people, and now every time the weather is colder than usual or snow falls in areas where it shouldn’t be falling, the entire green movement is undermined.

The environmental movement is asking for our civilization to sacrifice a lot. The way we get around, the way we eat, our entertainment, one could say a whole culture is being called into question. We sometimes forget the scope of what we demand from our fellow citizens to save this Earth. That is why there really is no room for error. We cannot afford to have our statements taken out of context, we cannot afford to be dishonest, and we have to always remember the more disorganized we look, the more we falter, the less legitimized we appear to be and the less people are willing to take us seriously and perform the sacrifices the world desperately needs them to do.

Be Skeptical, Be Critical, Take Nothing On Faith.

All the best,
Jesse M. S.

Now, I understand given this is talkingscience.org, so there is an argument to be made that this blog post could be deemed “inappropriate” or “off topic.”  However,  recent events in the circus that is the American political world have injected me with what can only be described as an adrenaline rush equivalent of ridiculousness. So, given the thousands of universities that now offer political science as a major as my justification, as well as the fact that the Democrats are pro-science, I will now analyze for you the ridiculousness that is the most recent Massachusetts Senatorial election.

Now, Massachusetts is traditionally an extremely liberal state.  The late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy held his seat for generations, and he accidentally killed a woman.  Massachusetts has the most progressive health care system in all the United States, which a Republican governor was forced to implement. Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage. How is it possible to screw all this up? Well, not surprisingly, the Democrats have found a way. Not only did the Democratic Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, basically stop campaigning after winning the primary, but she insulted the Red Sox. How can you run for any office in Massachusetts and insult the Red Sox?! Additionally, at a time when health care is so critical nationally, Coakley proved her political brilliance by flying to Washington to attend a fundraiser hosted by multiple health insurers. Even Obama, who carried the state by over 60%, couldn’t lift this woman onto his shoulders. In fact, his last-minute campaign contribution came off as pathetic and desperate.

Now since I’m a science journalist, the results of this election worry me greatly, especially if this upset is a precursor for election disasters to come in November. Let me explain why. For eight years I have witnessed, along with the rest of the United States, the systematic dismantling of the role scientific research and argument play in society. For the last eight years, there has been an undeniable full frontal siege on the intellectual fortress of reason and rationality. A siege that has been led by religious right-wing fundamentalists, a neo conservative administration, and the oligopolies they were in bed with. Before you write me off as a looney leftist extremist, I ask you to allow me to explain my thesis in a rational and factual manner.

Firstly, and most alarmingly,  the Bush administration attempted to perpetrate a fraud of global proportions against the American people and their future well being. It is a fact, let me repeat this, a fact that the oil conglomerates of the world worked with White House officials in altering scientific data in order to propagate a version of reality for the United States in which climate change does not exist. This was done under the banner of greed and justified under the Social Darwinist ideology that is American capitalism. Like the cigarette companies, who launched a widespread cover-up campaign in order to hide their highly addictive product’s relation to a plethora of deadly conditions, mainly lung cancer, the oil companies sought to cloak the stranglehold they have on the Earth’s health in a veil of deception, propped up by the credibility of a pPesidential seal.

Secondly, let’s take a gander at the religious right. It is impossible to deny their relationship with the Republican Party. Just look at polling results in the Bible Belt. We can thank  this constituency for the Bush Administration’s push for federally mandated abstinence-only sex education, which denies students the very relevant information they need to protect themselves from STDs.  Ironically enough, abstinence-only sex education increases the chances of teen pregnancies.

If the religious right had their way, the Bible would play a major role in science education. For example, in a recent story in The New York Times, an Ohio science teacher named John Freshwater was quoted as saying that because according to the Bible homosexuality is a sin, scientists must be wrong in their claim to have isolated a gene that causes homosexuality. In fact, there exists a substantial proportion of the Republican party, including top Republican officials such as former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who have stated that creationism should be taught alongside evolution as an alternative scientific theory. This idea conveniently overlooks the fact that creationism isn’t a scientific theory. There are no scientific proponents or consensus backing creationism, nor was it proposed originally by scientists. Creationism is a theological theory, and should be taught, if at all, in an objectively-taught theological studies class.

Then there is my personal favorite. There was a group of Christian Republicans who demanded that the Hubbell Space Telescope be taken down. Their rationality: the photographs it was producing contradicted the Bible. Let me reiterate the key word in that sentence: photographs.

But the greatest crime of all is how a Republican majority altered language connotation. As we saw during Palin’s book tour, they have an engrained bias against anyone who is  liberal and educated. The truth is, public education is a liberal idea, and chances are that under Republican leadership, we would see somewhat less of it. Over the past eight years, we have reached the point where Obama literally had to say “We will restore science to its rightful place.”

Your vote is sacred.  Use it wisely. And when you do, I ask you to consider the long term well being of this country. Science and math scores are at an all time low, budgets are being cut across the country, and the debate over creationism is actually growing. If we are to restore science to its rightful place, we need to make sure we have elected officials who are willing to give the subject the time and credence it deserves. And for all those candidates campaigning for Congressional seats in 2012, bear in mind that in this political landscape, no district is “safe.”  Don’t win your primary and go on vacation.  Campaign your heart out to the end.

Be Skeptical, Be Critical, Take Nothing on Faith.

All the Best,
Jesse M. S.

I asked other students at my high school to weigh in. According to many of my peers, this is the fault of high schools and colleges. Students attest that schools put too much pressure on students to be successful, which leads to a very high level of stress. One student told me that her friends often call her up at 12 midnight or 1:00 AM complaining that they are unable to finish all of their work, or they are suffering from insomnia, or just plain stress.

However, my peers did not place the blame on the shoulders of academics alone. They believe that this increase in teen mental illness is partially the fault of parents, and the increased pressure that they put on their children. Although many if not most parents pressure their children to be successful in order to benefit the children, it still produces anxiety and stress. Now there is pressure not only to succeed in A.P classes, but also to be captain of a sports team or president of a club, and to accumulate community service hours. To the modern teen, these parental expectations are just a part of life, but they do put a strain on the psyches of many adolescents.

More surprisingly, the numbers of certain mental illnesses went up even more than five times. There has been a steep rise in hypomania, a disorder that produces anxiety and unrealistic optimism, depression, and psychopathic deviation, which means having problems accepting authority and feeling exempt from the rules. According to my peers, they have not seen a prevalence of these disorders among teens that they know; however teenagers are often experts at deception.

Perhaps this rise in mental illness is not the fault of one single institution, or even a group of them. Maybe it is just the byproduct of a changing society. In the age of the Internet adults and teenagers alike want all the information, and all the success, right now. They will settle for nothing less than instant gratification, and sometimes this is a good thing. It prompts healthy ambition and self-confidence. However, when teens fall behind, or feel that they can’t measure up to the standards of this changing world, the effects are detrimental.

Please write in and tell me what you think!

One of the more interesting conclusions is that the standard lecture format of undergraduate courses is poorly matched to the way people actually learn and retain scientific understanding – in fact, often students come out of these classes thinking more like a “novice” scientist than when they started. By novice, I mean the following: there are certain ways that an expert in a scientific field thinks about that field that are very different from the way a novice thinks about that field. For example, a novice believes that scientific content consists of isolated pieces of information that have been handed down by some authority and require memorization. An expert believes that scientific content consists of a coherent structure of concepts that build on each other, being accurate descriptions of nature and established by experiment. Sad to say, but students coming out of intro science classes are even more likely to believe that science is bits of memorization based on nothing more than faith, as opposed to a coherent argument based on reality.

These results resonated with me, because in this blog, I’ve tried to emphasize how one builds to a conclusion (like “dark matter exists”) from a variety of physical observations and theories (like the 20 posts that followed my original three). I’m sure that sometimes (often?) I fail in communicating this key point about the way I look at physics, but that is ultimately the goal of this blog. And when I start writing it again regularly, I’ll try not to forget that.

Finally, Wieman and his group have developed a series of simulations for students to play with that really demonstrate key concepts of physics. One example that caught my eye is something that I tried to explain in a post a few months ago, the photoelectric effect. If a reader really wants to understand what I was trying to say in that post, I highly recommend trying out Wieman’s simulation, located here. Especially you, mom (although she’s currently in India right now, and therefore not reading this blog at all. By the time she gets back, I’ll be writing more regularly…)

Eventually the universe began expanding and cooling.* As it did so, the ions and free electrons “recombined” (during the time romantically referred to as the era or epoch of recombination) to form neutral atoms, after which photons no longer scattered (romantically referred to as the “surface of last scattering,” a phrase that always puts me in mind [for whatever reason] of the “Last Homely House” in the Lord of the Rings [yes, I am a physicist and I love Tolkein and I write a blog for my mom]). Those photons remain unmolested since that time.

*Aside: my mom asks in a comment “why did the universe cool?” The short answer to that is because it expanded. Temperature is in some sense a measure of how many collisions occur in a space [recall my analogy about money in the last post] – at high temperature, there are lots of collisions. Suppose we expanded the space, but kept the number of particles the same. All of a sudden, the number of collisions would go down, because the particles wouldn’t be able to find each other to collide. Therefore the temperature drops. Many [if not all] refrigerators operate this way, by allowing a compressed gas to expand rapidly and thereby drop in temperature. A follow-up question is then “why did the universe expand?” and I have a less satisfactory answer to that. My best explanation is that there was a lot of energy released in the big bang, and it was that energy that drove the expansion. We may have more to say on this subject at later times).

In the mid 1960s, a group at Princeton led by Robert Dicke began building a radiometer to detect the CMB. At the same time, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs observed some noise in a sensitive antenna they were planning to use for radio observation. After careful work, they decided that this noise had to be external and coming from all directions in the sky. Eventually they made contact with the Princeton group, and this background noise was interpreted as being the CMB (after first talking to Penzias and Wilson, Dicke supposedly got off the phone and told his collaborators, “Boys, we’ve been scooped”). The two groups published companion papers on the observation and the interpretation, and in 1978 Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize.

Although important, that first observation is not on its face all that exciting. The CMB is remarkably smooth or isotropic (meaning it looks the same in all directions). The picture below shows what Penzias and Wilson might have seen if they’d been able to observe the CMB in all directions (courtesy www.map.gsfc.nasa.gov), and it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about. But I’ll leave that for the next post.

No one likes taking tests. Unless you are really well prepared and know the answers to all of the questions. And then it can be fun as an affirmation of your hard work, perseverance, and mastery of the material.

My first big, important, life-changing test occurred in the 8th grade. The DATs—tests to help you figure out what career you might be good at. Don’t remember what the “D” stood for. On this 6 part test, I scored in the 99th percentile in spatial relationships, mechanical thinking, scientific reasoning and mathematical concepts. But I only scored 80th percentile on transcription and memorization. When the test results came out, the guidance counselor met with my parents to tell them what line of work I would best be suited for.

Based on my scores, my counselor told my father I would be a very good secretary! To his credit, my father told the counselor that his honor student daughter could be other things beyond a secretary. And then he told me to ignore her the same way she ignored those tests.

Why do I tell you this? Because tests, while important in helping someone else determine your strengths and weaknesses, are only one part of what you are and what you are going to become. They are simply not a complete picture of you.

Having said that, it is important to know that test taking is a fact of life if you are going to become a doctor. The tests start early and they seem to never end. In fact, every time you take on the care of a patient, in some way, you are being tested as to how good you are as a doctor.

But let’s leave that particular philosophical debate aside for the moment. Practically speaking: What kind of tests will you encounter? How important are they in becoming a doctor? When do you take your last test?

First, it is very important you know how to take tests. The subject matter is important, and preparation is the key to success. There are the tests you take for classes. Teachers are usually pretty generous in letting you know what to study. But then there are those dreaded standardized tests that colleges require for your application to their school. Unfortunately, many times these tests are used as cut offs to separate out students who will be considered for admission and those who won’t.

The last time I looked, the pre-SATs (scholastic aptitude tests) are taken early in the junior year of high school. These tests help determine who will receive national merit scholarships. They also give the student a taste for what’s to come.

Then comes the big sister test. The SATs. They have three parts—math, English and writing sample. These scores are weighted more or less heavily towards admission depending on the college. Their results are also provided to colleges which then begin the process of sending you material encouraging you to apply to their school.

Prep courses abound. Is Kaplan better than Princeton Review? Don’t know. But they can be expensive, and I do not think there is financial aid for the near $1000 fee charged for college preparatory tests. (I sent an inquiry to each last month, but have yet to receive and answer). But they also can help boost your scores and even guarantee it or your money back.

Even without test prep courses, you can find used test prep books on-line. And then: Practice. Practice. Practice. The discipline is not only useful for these first tests, but also will help you learn how to learn to take tests for the rest of your life. Alas, a painfully necessary skill.

Hey, Dana, now that you are back from the Big Sur, what do you think of my take on tests?

Until April 2009, most of my hands-on experience with marine life had been limited to scrubbing algae from the walls of my freshwater aquarium. Then one day I found myself onboard a NOAA ship, dissecting Atlantic cod, winter skates, and yellowtail flounder, and up to my elbows in fish slime – and I could not have been happier.

The Fisheries and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division (FEMAD), of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, has conducted bottom trawl surveys as part of NOAA since the 1960s. These surveys collect valuable information each fall and spring on fish populations, as well as meteorological and oceanographic data. I participated in April 2009 as a volunteer scientist on a 10-day cruise, just one leg of the 10-week survey.

To survey the populations of marine species, research vessels tow large fishing nets in specific locations off the northeast coast; the catch is dumped into a large bin (a hopper), and everything is sorted into buckets and baskets by species. Eventually, anything pulled aboard is weighed and measured individually. This quickly becomes a vast and thorough data set, because hundreds of fish and other marine species may be brought aboard in a single tow. In a 12-hour shift, the ship’s Chief Scientist will aim to complete between 5 to 10 tows. After only a 10-day cruise, that’s a lot of fish.

Although called a cruise, these trips are anything but a vacation. Survey ships are active twenty-four hours a day, with two teams of scientists working in 12-hour shifts. I was on the day shift, which means I worked from noon to midnight. Coordinating as a team to be efficient, the scientists must immediately identify each fish species carried along on a small conveyor belt, grab the slimy creatures, and separate them into buckets. It is both physically and intellectually demanding labor. The challenge is to think and move fast, and especially to take care when picking up the spinier species, with the conveyor belt continuously carrying more fish down the line, all the while standing on a rocking boat – for a long shift. After the fish were sorted, we weighed and measured each one at computer workstations in the wet lab. Depending on the research being conducted on each species, we also gathered additional information, including the individual’s sex, maturity, stomach contents, and the weight of some internal organs.

The information collected on these voyages contributes to an enormous data set on fish populations off the Northeast coast. NOAA scientists use this data to study a wide range of topics in regards to the sustainable management of marine resources, which I will discuss in a future post. Thanks for reading!

So while Dana is off with younger sister Becca exploring the beauty of Big Sur, CA, during their winter break, I will tackle the first of the many great questions Rosie asked.

“How long is it to the step where you can finally say that you are a doctor?” Hard question. The answer starts with “it depends.” When is someone really a doctor?

Becoming a doctor is a process. A long process, which doesn’t really ever end until you stop caring for patients.

It can begin in high school, college or even later on. There is no one route to get there. But for the purposes of answering this one question, let’s look at the straight and narrow path to becoming a doctor.

Start with graduating high school. Take challenging courses. Get good grades. Learn to study and take tests. Find other interests. Take care of yourself and the important relationships in life. Takes about 4 years.

Go to college. The best one for you. Sometimes people don’t want to leave their family to go to a “top-rated” school or they don’t have the money, or the grades. Don’t let that stop you! Find the best fit and do your very best. Find your academic interests (may not be science, but you still have your pre-meds). Take challenging courses. Get good grades. Learn to study and to write well. Learn to take tests. Build on your outside interests. And take good care of yourself, your family and your friends. (College is usually four years, but there are some programs which combine college and medical school in 6 years.)

Go to medical school. There is no one “best” school. Medical school is almost always 4 years in length, unless you pursue a PhD in the biological sciences or, more often now, in the social sciences (like Dana who is also getting a PhD in medical anthropology).

At the end of medical school you are allowed to call yourself a doctor. The title of MD (medical doctor) or DO (doctor of osteopathy) is appended to your name. Does that make you a doctor? Well, it depends on what you want to do.

If you want to go into related fields where an MD or DO is helpful and your primary job is not one-on-one patient contact, then you have become a doctor. One of my medical school classmates works in research designing clinical trials. He never “touches” a patient but his valuable work truly touches the lives of many patients by providing information helpful to thousands of people.

But if you are like most people who travel the first 12 years, you want to take care of patients. How long? It depends on your field of medicine.

The day I graduated medical school, Dr. David Wagner, pediatric surgeon and director of emergency medicine, “hooded” our class. As I accepted the white fur cowl bestowed on one who earns the MD degree, he said to me, “You will live, eat and breathe medicine for the next 5 years. Learn everything you can about diseases and everything you can about the people who will suffer from those diseases.” Great advice that I took very much to heart.

Now you become a resident. You make the most of every patient encounter. You learn all kinds of skills, study hard and work long hours. The patients become your teachers while you are closely supervised by more experienced doctors.

Your formal training is over. It is 3 or 5 or sometimes even 9 years later. You can finally go out into the world and show people that you have learned and earned what it takes to be called a doctor, a healer. Sound daunting. It is. But it goes very fast. Be propelled by how exciting and important your life’s work is to you and for everyone who will help.

“What is love?” asked the singer Haddaway in 1993, as well as plenty of people before and since then. Recently I heard Dr. Helen Fisher, Rutgers University anthropologist and the brains behind dating site chemistry.com, speak at the New York Academy of Sciences. She shed some light on the complex issue of why we humans fall in love with one person rather than another. (Dr. Fisher’s latest book is called Why Him? Why Her?) Despite the common belief that true love is simply made from magic, Dr. Fisher showed us that there is a tentative formula for this essential aspect of the human experience.

Fisher’s research has found that romantic love can be broken down into three parts, lust or sex drive, romantic attraction, and attachment. Each plays an important role in falling, and staying, in love. Dr. Fisher realized, through data gathered from personality tests completed at chemistry.com, that there are four different human personality types, each indicating higher levels of a specific chemical in the brain. The Explorer type, having a high level of dopamine, is adventurous, spontaneous, and creative, while the Builder type, having a high level of serotonin, is traditional, rule-driven, and cautious. The Director type, having a high level of testosterone, is logical, aggressive, and tough-minded, while the Negotiator type, having a high level of estrogen, is empathetic, big-picture focused, and idealistic. According to Fisher, there is a mix of all of these personality traits within each person; however, two types are dominant. For example, it is possible to be an Explorer/Negotiator, as Fisher herself says she is.

Fisher has found that depending on a person’s personality type, it is possible to predict with whom he or she will most likely fall in love. Explorers are generally attracted to Explorers, and Builders to Builders. However, Negotiators are attracted to Directors, and Directors are likewise attracted to Negotiators. This is a perfect example of opposites attracting, a concept famously used in romantic movies, books, and plays ranging over the centuries. It happens, says Fisher, because the personality traits associated with each type are perfectly balanced by those of the other type.

For example, Negotiators are often bad decision makers who easily change their minds, while Directors are quick, logical decision makers who don’t let emotion get in their way. A perfect example is the relationship between the Director Hillary Clinton, and her Negotiator husband, Bill. This can be a formula for the success of a complementary relationship, or the disaster of constant disagreement. I found the entire phenomenon that love can be boiled down to chemistry (in the scientific sense) extremely interesting. With that in mind, I decided to commission some of my friends to complete Fisher’s personality test, in order to find out if her research truly holds up in our day-to-day lives.

Go to chemistry.com to take Dr. Fisher’s personality test for yourself, and learn who you are, and whom your best match might be!

I write to you from the tight confine that is the window seat of a Bolt Bus. My legs, holding in place a duffel bag filled with clothes, are practically stuck for the next four hours, a torture barely offset by the fact that Bolt offers Wi-Fi. As the sky slowly begins to grow darker and the driver steers the bus south down the highway, I can feel my much-needed winter break slowly draw to a close and the pressure and anticipation of the start of a new semester loom over me, like an overarching shade that grows darker as the bus continues to progress towards its destination.

Now, for all those reading this, currently going through the ridiculousness of epic proportions that is the college process (and most likely the subject of a future blog post), what your various guides tell you is true:   when you go to college, you will be meeting all different kinds of people. For example, growing up in New York City and attending a highly liberal high school, I was always under the impression that I needed to fly all the way to America’s heartland and venture to some cabin on the outskirts of a forest in Idaho, to find someone who still doesn’t believe in climate change. Yet despite the urban and strong academic environment that is American University and the overwhelming scientific consensus, I’ve been shocked that the fact that Earth’s climate is changing just doesn’t seem to resonate with a great portion of the student populace.

Considering that when it comes to climate change, civilization as we know it is at stake, it is absolutely ridiculous, nay, disturbing that there is an ever-expanding distrust of the scientific community within the United States. How can bright young people, educated people, men and women of ambition, looking to further their worldly studies through a university, hold such high disregard for such crushing evidence. I’ve literally had conversations with students living in my dormitory who have said, in a manner that suggested they knew better than thousands of experts who have dedicated their lives to this area of research, that human beings have  no effect on the Earth’s climate. That after more than a hundred years of industrialization, a population that is growing exponentially and rapidly, and the past century of devastating warfare, we have placed no burden on our planet. That the thick, disgusting smog over Los Angeles, a city where there are more automobiles than people, would have been there regardless of anything we have done. When I point out these facts,  my peers’ answer is always the same:   “Scientists can be wrong.” I understand that in the past, individual scientists have made mistakes and have drawn the wrong conclusions based on collected data, but when you have an entire field of experts working independently of one another drawing the same conclusions, plus satellite photographic evidence of the polar ice caps dwindling away, I think it’s safe to say the Earth is changing.  But unfortunately for America,  it’s easier to say those satellite photos were photoshoped in a massive scientist conspiracy to get more grant money.

This attitude that a large majority of our population has embraced is not only defeatist, but suicidal. If people convince themselves that a problem doesn’t exist, then they will do nothing to solve or prevent it.  At the rate we are going, by the time our country wakes up, the people in my home town, the sunken borough of Manhattan, will be living in refugee camps in Canada. Every once in a while, a generation gets a necessary call to act and sacrifice. The last time this happened, a nation mobilized to defeat the armies of fascism. The most powerful force on Earth is a mobilized democracy calling for action, and that is what we need to be. Right now, we have been granted a very small and rare window to change our ways to save this planet for our children. A new decade means a clean slate.  Unlike now in 2010, when 2020 rolls around, let’s be able to say truthfully we left the decade with the Earth better than we found it.

Be Skeptical, Be Critical, Take Nothing On Faith.

All the best,
Jesse M. S.

To close off this supportive round-up, we go around the circle each saying a positive word: ‘love’, ‘peace’, ‘home’, ‘turkey’, ‘mom’. I usually say ‘compassion’. When I first started, I felt awkward in this environment. Prayer circles weren’t really my thing, but having a go-to word made it easier. But that not so little word is also a very large reminder to myself of why I sing with this choir, why I’m in medicine, and what I hope not to lose through the rigors of my medical training.

Mom, in your last post, you commented on the importance of balance, and a difference that you see in my generation of future docs-to-be. The shift in the culture of medical education is reflected in institutional changes, such as the curbing of residency work rules and the shifting values in medical school admissions. Having high scores may be important, but they don’t mean everything. UCSF happens to be one of those schools that values diverse life experiences and personal qualities—all that can be read between the numbers. (One reason why I chose it!)

While UCSF’s standards are quite high, the admissions process is designed to look beyond MCAT scores and GPAs. Diversity is one of their greatest priorities. Diversity doesn’t just mean ethnicity, gender, or religion. I’m always amazed at the variety of talents, skills, passions, majors, languages, and activities that can be found amongst my classmates.

We pursue music, advocacy, activism, run marathons and run non-profits, serve actively in the air force, nanny, and even write novels (my roommate, another 2nd year med student, just signed with a literary agent). This all means that I belong to a vibrant community not just smart and fascinating people, but happy and fulfilled individuals.

We can do this because our classes are completely pass/fail, there are no rankings, lecture hours are strictly limited with a very flexible schedule, and the deans give us a lot of freedom to shape the curriculum, create electives, and use the abundant resources the university has to offer.

But I think it’s more than balance. It’s about enriching our abilities to care for and work with people.

Yes, it’s about holding on to who we are, without being swallowed up by the white coat. But really, what I see in myself and my generation is more of a paradigm shift: we believe that juggling all of our many interests will make us better physicians not just because we’re happier, but because of what those pursuits teach us about life, compassion, and about caring for others.

Medicine is still a calling. We still devote ourselves to it. But now we’ve just expanded what it means and what it takes to be accomplished and compassionate physicians. Singing has kept me sane, but what’s more is that being a part of a caring community has taught me more about healing than any lecture ever could.

Greetings, Dear Readers.

If you are lucky enough to catch this post, then you will have stumbled upon the first of many entries in my new weekly blog: Jesse Battles Ridiculousness. Herein will lie one of the few places left in this vast world of ours where TalkingScience and Science Friday lovers alike can seek refuge and enjoy the sanctuary of a land (or Web page) where only facts, evidence and logic reign supreme and are the necessary cornerstones to every argument presented.

That is not to say that this is an environment safe from the ridiculousness and blatant fallacies that plague our very society. On the contrary, here they will have a very present place and an extremely important role to play, for their mere existence makes this blog possible.

The only difference is this: here, and only here, all the ridiculousness in the world cannot come to harm you.  Instead, it will instead be exposed for your own entertainment and enlightment. I ask you to think of this blog as a zoo for the wacky and irrational notions we face every day as we go through life.

Here you will laugh and relate, as I use the power of science and the written word to showcase and defeat the ridiculousness I encounter, as you all do, over the course of our many travels. Here I will tackle the issues that face our civilization every day and explain in the most scientific of ways exactly how, what should otherwise be benign, problems are holding back our very society in the most ludicrous and absurd ways.

Ridiculousness comes in many forms: conversations, bumper stickers, mainstream news.  So you must be prepared at all times to face it.  For the first exposure I will relate to you, ridiculousness comes in the form of a very large and public sign.

This sign, the size of the average billboard, is hung alongside of a building, located on the very block I grew up on, on New York City’s Upper West Side. The building belongs to an organization that for the most part champions an ideology based on ignoring the insurmountable evidence of the physical world and replacing it with their own version of the truth based on a storybook written over two thousand years ago. Now I promise you, you have heard of this organization; in fact, statistically speaking, you are most likely a member yourself. If you haven’t figured it out already, the quote on the sign ought to jog your deductive skills.  It reads “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

Let’s think about this for a moment. Read the quote aloud; let it roll off your tongue; grant yourself a whiff of the ridiculous aroma emitting from those seven words.  “We walk by faith, not by sight.” There is now no longer any need for me to write down the identity of this organization, it is more than implied.

I have chosen to analyze this particular passage for my first blog entry because  I believe it sums up rather nicely the source of most of my crossing paths with the ridiculous. Think about what it is basically telling you to do:  forget about sight, forget about truth or reason,  and trust blindly in something intangible, unprovable and supposedly infallible. That phrase is the ultimate tool of the brainwasher. It is a command to ignore logic and evidence, to shun challenging and thought-provoking sources and to simply have faith in an artificial truth. It is the root cause of the mind numbing epidemic of selective exposure that is spreading throughout an ever more partisan nation, which is precisely why it is one of the main origins of ridiculousness found all around us.

Science and religion are both quests for answers. I have had conversations where people have argued that there is no real difference in which one you believe; they both can’t be 100% proven.  While that argument may be valid to some extremely minor extent, there is a difference–a major one. Although science has proven very fallible in the past and still is today, it is the first to admit it. Religion requires you to sacrifice all you know about the world you live in order to conform your life to a series of rituals and ancient beliefs for reasons that are “just beyond man’s comprehension.”   The scientist takes nothing on faith and will derive his/her truth from data collected through a strenuous method of trial and error. To “walk by faith, not by sight,” is to ignore the valuable knowledge reaped from that method, and to embrace a life where you walk with a kaleidoscope attached to your head, forcing you to see reality in distorted fragments, condemning you to never truly viewing what lies before your eyes. This creates a situation where there is nothing to prevent you from jumping off a cliff, if you believe that will lead to your salvation. So in order to avoid a population running around outside my apartment, more or less blindfolded, I ask you, please for the good of mankind, walk by sight.

Be Skeptical, Be Critical, Take Nothing On Faith.

All the best,
Jesse M. S.

Let’s say you’re the parent/mentor/teacher/tutor/friend of a kid super-excited about some aspect of science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). You want to nurture that interest and keep that child engaged, especially during the dull times of school breaks, after-school and perhaps even for school-related projects. Whether you’re an educator or not, sometimes an adult needs reinforcements to help a child or teen find his/her own interest path.

Fostering science, math, and engineering interests in young people is the goal of several organizations, including many of our nation’s publicly funded agencies like NASA and NSF. Informal science education programs and institutions run the range. Some supplement traditional K-12 education lessons. Some provide opportunities for families to spend time together, learning, exploring, and having fun. And still there are some that specifically target under-served audiences to introduce them to pioneers and exciting career opportunities.

STEM Outreach Programs that rock!

2009 was definitely the year science initiatives! It was hailed as
* The Year of Science – with each month focusing on a different science topic;
* The Year of the Gorilla – to raise awareness of the threat of extinction to this beautiful primate;
* The Year of Darwin – to celebrate the 200th year of Charles Darwin’s birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of his book; and
* The Year of Astronomy – to celebrate one of the oldest fields of science

To help spread the word of these science initiatives, Science Cafes really took off, especially here in the United States. Often hosted at fun meeting places like restaurants where pizza and beverages are served, people can meet local scientists and learn about interesting topics. Since local communities organize these events, the topics might be related to science initiatives or any other hot topic in the news like sports, herbal medicine, love or health.

But my absolute favorite science outreach efforts are the hands-on organically-grown science and nature outreach programs in individual communities. Here in St. Louis, Missouri, I’ve been involved in a few. My most recent experience was this past summer in the Forest Park Summer Youth Program with Boys & Girls Club kids.

Ocean Discovery Institute of San Diego, California, (formerly Aquatic Adventures) is an awesome program! Diverse young people from this very urban community are engaged in science exploration marine research, and environmental conservation education. This happens to be one of my dream jobs.

Plus, the 2010 San Diego Science Festival sounds like it will be the most anticipated science showcase of greater San Diego. Offering a wide variety of programs and events inspire all ages, “with a special focus on building a pipeline of future scientists and STEM thought-leaders” – festivities include supplemental K-12 Programs, Scientist Speakers series at local schools, a science Exposition, and Scientists in Residence Program. College student scientists represented from disciplines such as Biomedicine, Pharmacology, Engineering, Green Technology, Oceanography, and Astrophysics will work in partnership with San Diego county schools for 6 weeks and create joint project that will be showcased in the 2010 Festival.

The Harris Foundation Summer Science Camp is a free, academic program offered in over 20 different cities in the United Sates. Middle school students participate in a variety of recreational, social, and STEM educational activities at local college campuses. Founded by Dr. Bernard Harris, it is designed to support historically underserved and underrepresented students with limited opportunities.

Before going forward, I’ll just mention the methodology at work here. With some notable exceptions (like DAMA, for example), most dark matter experiments work by pushing down the backgrounds as much as possible to reveal the dark matter signal that may or may not be there. Therefore, the majority of work goes into understanding exactly how much background might be left over, with the goal to have “zero” background during the time the experiment is looking for WIMPs. It is generally impossible to have “zero” background – what is possible is a very small fractional expectation of a background. For example, CDMS expected 0.6 background events in their data set. What that means is they studied all possible sources of background using calibration sources and simulations and estimated that in the amount of time they looked for dark matter, on average they would see 0.6 background events.

When they looked at their data, they found 2 events. One can calculate the probability of having 2 background events given an expectation of 0.6, and CDMS has done this; they determined that there was about a 25% chance that the two events could be a fluctuation on the background, leaving a 75% chance that the 2 events were something new, like a dark matter interaction. This is not enough significance to claim a discovery (most physics experiments require a measurement with over a 99.999% chance of being something new before a discovery can be claimed), but it is exciting. Up until now, most experiments have never claimed to see something over background, so these results are a sign that there might actually be something to the last five years of my life. Of course, it’s always possible CDMS underestimated their backgrounds.

As mentioned in the NYTimes article, we’ll now wait with bated breath for the results from XENON100 in Italy, which should be the next experiment to get results. If the 2 events in the CDMS data are real dark matter events, XENON100 should be able to find out. And then my experiment should follow that up with our own search in a year or two. It’s a good time to be involved in dark matter – who knows, maybe we’ll figure out one of the biggest mysteries in physics from the last 70 years before the next presidential election.

First, I’m going to define “ionization” by referring briefly to the Bohr model I described here. Ionization is the process by which an atom loses (or gains) an electron and becomes charged. In the old post, I compared an atom to a building with an elevator which could transfer people (or electrons) between discrete levels. Using that image, ionization would occur if the elevator dropped you off on the roof, at which point you could leave the building entirely. As long as you were within the building, you remained trapped, just as an electron remains trapped by the electric field of the protons at the center of the atom (or as the Earth is trapped by the gravitational field of the Sun). On the roof, however, you have gained enough energy that you can leave the building; if an electron gains enough energy, it can escape from the electric field and be free, leaving the atom positively charged. This positively (or negatively, if it picks up an electron) charged nucleus is referred to as an ion.

One more thing that we should keep in mind about charged particles is that they interact rather strongly with light (or photons, as faithful readers will remember that light is a particle called a photon). A photon traveling through a cloud of charged particles will scatter many times, so that the photon that appears on the other side of the cloud will have very little to do with the one that entered it.

I’ll now switch gears completely to describe the relationship between temperature and money. Suppose my mother in her younger days was living in a rather small apartment in London. My mom is a rather accomplished amateur interior decorator, and we’ll assume she had those skills in her flat in London. I’m going to go one step further and ascribe a fickle nature to my mother which I would like to emphasize for posterity that she does not in actuality possess; in my hypothetical situation, this invented nature of hers combined with her penchant for interior design led her to continually change her mind on how she wanted to decorate her small house.

Ok, now we’ll add money. If my mom had a lot of money, she could indulge her ever-changing whims. One week she could go for ultra modern and the next for antiques. Basically, the furniture would be coming and going, styles would be in and out, her little flat would be in a constant state of flux. Suppose, however, that she suddenly lost all her money; my mother would be forced to pick the cheapest option with which to decorate her house and stick with it. While she may still desire a change, she would have to settle for the most practical option.

In the physics of chemical reactions, temperature is like money. If my mom has money, she can change her flat at will – she can bring in new stuff, get rid of the old stuff easily whenever she wants. If the temperature is very high, a chemical reaction can occur easily and can go in both directions. Specifically for the purposes of the CMB, at high temperatures atoms can easily lose electrons and become ionized, before quickly finding other electrons freed from other atoms to become neutral again. In the early universe, the temperature was very hot and this was happening all the time; the universe was a soup of charged particles and photons bouncing off each other constantly. In particular, the photons never went very far before hitting another charged particle.

However, when my mom no longer had any money, she was forced to pick the cheapest option and stick with it. Similarly, after the big bang the universe began expanding and cooling. As the temperature dropped, it was no longer so easy to ionize atoms. Eventually, the universe cooled enough that it dropped out of thermal equilibrium. That meant that all the atoms had to neutralize, because a neutral atom requires less energy than an ionized atom and free electron, and nature prefers to minimize the amount of energy in any system (just as my mom had to settle for the cheapest decor). Once the atoms were all neutral, any photons that were bouncing around no longer had to travel through a soup of charged particles. In effect, the photons that were produced just as the universe become neutral did not scatter again. These photons are still traveling through the universe and we can detect them now; they are the CMB. They still contain information from the last time they interacted with matter, which was 13 billion years ago, right when the universe became neutral.

Therefore, my next topic will be another argument for the existence of dark matter, and in my opinion one of the cooler phenomena in physics (I understand that my stating something is “cool” is not necessarily sufficient evidence, but I will try to explain) – the Cosmic Microwave Background or CMB for short (another good name, by the way).

In very broad strokes, the CMB is an echo or an image of the universe as it was 13 billion years ago (when it was only four hundred thousand years old – relative to the human lifespan, it’s like we have a baby picture from when the universe was 1 day old). Much as archaeologists can learn about prehistoric epochs from fossils (or mosquitos trapped in amber) and geologists can infer the climate from ice cores that have been frozen for thousands of years, physicists can discover information about the contemporary contents and future evolution of the universe by studying the CMB.

So what is the CMB? It’s a sea of light streaming across the universe in all directions that was produced 13 billion years ago and has not touched anything since that time. This light isn’t visible to us, because its wavelength (remember these posts) is in the microwave band (i.e. too long to be visible by our eyes, but with enough intensity [thankfully not present in the actual CMB or else we'd all be in trouble], perfect for heating up instant hot chocolate [too quaint?]). It’s always there though, and like a photograph, each individual photon contains an image of the universe shortly after the big bang.

The illustration (click for a bigger view) shows the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the present. The CMB is produced at the green and blue ellipse during the very early universe and detected in the present by the satellite labeled “WMAP.”

I’ll stop there for now, but hopefully the reader will want to know more. I’ll probably refer to two web sites a great deal in the coming posts. The best existing CMB experiment is the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, and they have a great resource at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/ from which I’ve taken the illustration. The second web site is where I learned most of what I’ll be talking about, the homepage of Professor Wayne Hu of the University of Chicago. He’s done a great job explaining all the details and implications of the CMB in simple terms, and I hope to do half as good a job.

Yes, my daughter the doctor-to be, if it were only our career choices that created confusion and uncertainty! How your words (and your angst) resonated with me and my own daily struggles in caring for patients. Even after a lifetime of practice (nearly 30 years), not a day goes by that I don’t feel humbled by a problem I cannot solve or a patient I cannot heal.

Learning to deal with the confusion created by the rapidly changing science of medicine which needs to be practiced on the ever changing cultural, social and economic playing field has placed enormous demands on today’s physicians. How will this new generation of healers handle this explosion of information and the ever increasing societal expectations for perfection and performance?

“Medicine is a calling; it is not just a career. It is a way of life.” How many times I have heard and repeated the mantra of medicine of my generation? But as I watch you go through medical school and see how you lovingly and thoughtfully embrace your future, without losing your love (or time) for other parts of and people in your life, I have begun to reconsider my position.

Perhaps the attitudes emerging from the upcoming generation of physicians are their protective reaction that is not only necessary but also good. This talk of balance and lifestyle. To have time with our families. To have time to restore ourselves. To have time to have and be friends. To us, who have spent decades in the trenches, this sounds so foreign. We believed that these times were denied to us so we could prepare and become and remain really fine physicians.

But the practice of medicine has become so demanding, that in order that we “first of all, do no harm,” perhaps we have to be mindful of our need to more regularly replenish our minds, our bodies and our souls. This may be essential if we are to be more than the mechanics for the human biological machine.

Medicine is unique in the sciences because it is not just a science. The intersections of culture, social, political, economic, and biologic is no more apparent than in the one-on-one critical encounter between someone in need of caring and curing and the someone who not only has the competence, but also the compassion to make that happen.

One can learn competence in a lab, on a cadaver, from a lecture or the hundreds of supervised hours of seeing virtual or real patients in the emergency room, in the hospitals, and in the clinics. But compassion is learned from nurturing the feelings that sometimes are buried deep, deep inside, which allows you to respect and receive someone else’s needs.

So if we are tired or worn, as so often we physicians can become, maybe we will be less to our patients than they really need. Less able to both care and cure.

Yes, Dana, I am sure you will continue to experience periods of confusion and uncertainty all the days of your medical life. Finding people to lean on and places to retreat to may give you, and the people for whom you care, fresh and essential energy to be that physician we all want for our own.

I know in my last post I expounded following one’s own interests, without any particular roadmap. This approach definitely has its positives. But sometimes confusion and uncertainty appear, and choices can be difficult to make. Solution? Mentors as my guideposts: While I may not be sure what might lay ahead, for the immediate future, they have helped me to know that at least I was in the right place.

Times have changed. And so have the kinds of advice and guidance that young people need. Maybe back in the 50s and 60s when you (mom) were growing up, mentorship of young women was up against much more narrow and stifling gender stereotypes. Mentors were needed to open the door, make more things possible for more girls.

For me, mentorship has served a very different function. I grew up in very different circumstances. The 80s and 90s were more liberated times. I was raised by two surgeons, and never were we allowed to believe that less was expected of girl. But even with such strong role models that didn’t mean that I didn’t need help.

Today’s world is so much more complex. The opportunities may have exploded, but learning to navigate these opportunities has never been more difficult.

Mom, you needed permission to pursue your dreams. I needed focus. My life was and still is marked by too many overwhelming possibilities. And my mentors have always been there to refocus my limitless vision.

I have so many questions that can have so many answers: What kind of doctor do I want to be? Where do I want to practice? What kind of anthropology do I want to do? Where should I do my fieldwork? How does it all fit together into a nice neat package of a career?

Even the more immediate, smaller concerns gnaw at me: Which clinical rotations should I do this summer? Am I doing enough reading, writing, research, extra-curriculars, etc? When should I start studying for the board exams? How do I compare to every other second year med student?

My advisors at Barnard, my research mentors all over the world, the many physicians and researchers who teach me at UCSF everyday, and, of course, my family have all done (and do) two crucial things: 1. they gave me a chance at my dreams and 2. they helped me stay on track amidst all the chaos and uncertainty.

My meetings with my PhD advisor: I am worried what I’ll write my dissertation on, how I’ll pick a topic, a place or a community, or how I compare to my more entrepreneurial and innovative colleagues. With a knowing smile she reminds me of my strengths, my ideas, and gently nudges me to stay on track and keep my eyes, ears, and mind open all at the same time. And bam! I’m a new person and life makes sense again.

I guess it doesn’t seem so impressive on paper, but these sorts of interactions have an intangible magic all of their own.

Maybe it’s just me. Or perhaps I’m too insecure or just too willing to admit it. But I need these guideposts at regular intervals, checking in along my way.

So if, like me, you’re prone to flurries of ideas, abundant curiosity and a little (well, ok, a lot) of angst, look for mentors who can help you harness the energy of uncertainty to take you in positive, yet uncharted directions.

Though the Diversity Scholars Award has ended, AIBS continues to administer the AIBS Diversity Leadership Awards Program which recognizes institutional programs that recruit and retain underrepresented minorities in the biological sciences. This is a bigger bang for the buck recognition. Both of these programs are examples of STEM Diversity initiatives done right. Long before the NSF mandates of Broader Impact – another important STEM Diversity Initiative – AIBS always carried the banner of broader impact. Through professional development opportunities, it’s journals and public programs, AIBS serves those interested in sharing science – K-12 educators, general public and informal science institutions, and college professors and researchers.

AIBS Education resources – lesson plans, activities, activities and career info.
ActionBioscience.org – a free-access bilingual Web site that focuses on topical issues in biodiversity, the environment, evolution, biotechnology, genomics, new frontiers, and education.
BioScience – peer-review journalproviding overviews of current biological research and education.

The Year of Science is a 12 monthe celebration of how science works, why science matters, and who scientists are. Led by participants in the COPUS network, learn more about the process of science at Understanding Science.org.

Though a short-lived program, the AIBS Diversity Scholars Award is an awesome achievement for a junior scientist. Our scientific achievements, as well as our work to broaden participation in science to others, are recognized very early in our careers. I was, and still am, quite honored to have been nominated by my professional science society – the Animal Behavior Society – for my service to the organization and to the discipline and then later selected among a pool of equally qualified candidates across the biological science spectrum.

Receiving my award from Susan Musante, AIBS Education Office Staff, at the 2009 AIBS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

Press release announcing me winning the award: FirstScience News AIBS recognizes diversity in the biological sciences

Blue Monkeys are not noticeably blue, although the lack of fur on their faces can often give them a bluish appearance. They have a “unimale” social system, which means that usually Blue Monkey communities consist of numerous females and a single male. During breeding season, however, the number of males in a community is more variable, since several males may enter a group and compete for mating opportunities. In the course of competition, the resident male may be ousted, while a new, incoming male may go so far as to rip an infant sired by another male from the nursing female, and kill it. Some effort is made by surrounding females to protect both mother and child from their attacker, but in the end, the new male, both bigger and stronger, wins. When the mother’s reproductive ability “kicks in,” said Dr. Cords, she mates with the male that killed her child. What prompts this aggression on the part of the incoming male? Dr. Cords sees it as a reproductive strategy to “open up the resource base” for the male’s offspring, reinforcing Darwin’s notion of evolution through sexual selection. How does Dr. Cords explain the occasional consumption of the infant by the male? “Seen through cold-blooded biological lenses,” said Dr. Cords, “you’re getting a big packet of protein.” Blue Monkey females may have a counter- strategy against infanticide, Dr. Cords, explained, by mating with multiple males, even at times when conception isn’t possible. This practice casts into question the paternity of an infant, making less likely the risk of a male attacking and killing what may be his own offspring.

Reports of infanticide in various species, such as primates and rodents, are relatively recent, said Dr. Cords, dating back only about thirty years. Initially, many scientists viewed such behavior as aberrant and maladaptive, (Darwin himself refused to believe that the instincts of the lower animals were sufficiently perverse to lead to the regular practice of infanticide) but it is in fact widespread, said Dr. Cords, and jives with Darwin’s theory of adaptation.
Dr. Cords’ presentation was part of Columbia University’s Café Science series, which lately has been commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of Darwin’s birth, and the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” We were given a remarkable- and yes, pretty unsavory glimpse of the goings on of our closest living relatives.

Does anyone remember the scene in the movie Bye, Bye, Birdie, when the MacAfee family learns that Kim is going to be on that really big show, The Ed Sullivan Show? Does anyone remember how, transported to a scene in heaven, likely cloud nine, they sang, in four part harmony, “We’re Gonna Be On Ed Sullivan!”

Not a totally unbelievable scene for a family in the 1960’s. It was exciting to have a TV, much less to be on it. Back then the media consisted of print newspapers, magazines, radio, and the nascent, still black and white, television.

But here, almost 50 years later, in the first decade of the 21st century, I am on my own cloud nine. I am getting ready with my video camera to produce my own song to be distributed on YouTube. And what will I sing? “We’re Gonna Blog for Ira Flatow!”

Some of you reading this blog don’t know Ira Flatow (and probably not Ed Sullivan either). Ira started his radio career in Buffalo and rose to the national scene with his unique radio brand of popular science—Science Friday. Aired every Friday afternoon, Ira talks, educates and interviews to bring science into the everyday life of everyday people. That includes me and you. Whenever I am in the car on Friday afternoon, I forgo my book on tape, and turn the dial to SciFri. I love this program. Ira loves doing it—you can tell. I love Ira.

Problem is, I am told, that the demographic of his show is somewhere north of 50 years. A fact I find hard to believe. But I also learned that Ira Flatow is trying to change this in a big way.

This summer I received an email (almost as exciting as a call) from SciFri executive director, Ann Marie Cunningham. It informed me that their teenage summer intern, Rosalee Washington, had chosen me as a blogger, from all the other bloggers in the blogosphere, to be a blogger for SciFri’s website for the next generation, Talking Science. They wanted a blogger who would talk about being a woman in medicine and science. How does a girl get into medical school? What do you have to do in college to become a doctor? What are the barriers? What is life like for a woman in medicine? Can you combine medicine and a family? As you might imagine, many women could write this blog. But they chose me!

Next came a conference call. Ann Marie introduced me to Rosalee who shared with me her immediate concerns (presumably those of other young women) about how to get from high school to college to medical school. I could do this! How fortunate that I was really close to that phase, as my daughter Dana had just finished her first year as a medical student. She could be a resource.

And then, there in a flash, I thought, why not do a mother/daughter blog? Would Dana agree? Would she have time? (She was the first real blogger in our family (www.danainnz.blogspot.com), so I knew she could do it well.)

You cannot imagine my excitement when Dana agreed. So now, the two of us have begun a joint venture for the newly designed Talking Science website, aimed at the 15-35 year old demographic. We branded our blog, “Like Mother, Like Doctor.” Catchy, no?

Hope you will read it regularly, share it with your families and friends, and add your own comments and questions as we try to serve as a resource for the next generation of women physicians, new age style, on our blog, on the web. From the black and white TV screen to the color, flat panel computer screen. Science Friday, Talking Science, Ira Flatow, here we come!

The first mentor ever mentioned is found in Greek mythology. When Odysseus begins his journey, his son, Telemachus, is left in the care of Mentor, for guidance and protection. The story unfolds with the goddess Athena intervening and assuming the form of Mentor in than she could encourage Telemachus to assert himself and take charge of his role in the lives of his mother Penelope and father Odysseus.

Is it an accident that the very first mentor in literature is both a mortal man and a female god? I think not. The moral of this mythological story is that the role of protector and guide is complex and can be filled by many different types of people (and to those who they help can even take on god-like qualities!)

So, who and what is a mentor? On the most basic level, a mentor is anyone who will influence your growth and development in a positive manner so that you can determine and then achieve your life’s goals. Mentors are role models, teachers, cheerleaders, and trusted friends. Mentors are experienced and willing to open doors to opportunities. Mentors help you develop skills, both practical and personal.

And mentors help keep you out of trouble. And when the deed is done and you are already stuck in the mud, mentors help lift you up, clean you off, and get you going in the right direction again. Mentors help you believe in yourself, especially when the going gets tough, as it is bound to from time to time. Being a mentor is not an easy job.

And mentors are sometimes found in the most unlikely places, teaching you the most unlikely things. Sometimes you don’t know that person is a mentor. When I think about it, first mentor (except for my parents) was my Aunt Marilyn. She is my mother’s youngest sister by 17 years, and a mere 5 years older than I. At our present ages, the age difference doesn’t mean a lot, but way back in my early childhood, it was a huge difference. She knew all the new dance steps, the new rope jumping steps and new ball games girls would play with the pink hued Pensy Pinky ball or the sturdier Spaulding. (I preferred the latter).

As we tossed the ball against the side of our house, bounced it over and under our legs and arms, and threw it “like a girl” to and at each other, I discovered my rather decent hand-eye coordination, my love for games which morphed into my love of sports, and revealed to me the satisfaction gained from my competitive spirit. These early self-revelations were all critical to my life’s path.

My next important early childhood mentor was my fifth grade teacher, Rita Braver. She had been warned that I was “challenging” by my fourth grade nemesis, Miss Z. Miss Z. ranked me at the bottom of the class for hygiene because I bit my other-wise clean nails, could not control my unruly hair, and always had rumpled clothing from being slightly chunky and preferring to play with the boys. This not so subtle form of gender stereotyping plagued many ambitious girls of my generation who spent more time on our books than on our looks. Despite this not-so-rave review, when I reached the fifth grade, Mrs. Braver chose me, out of all the girls in our class, to help with kindergarten set up when school began. I could join my class 10 minutes late every day! Someone important believed in me! She knew I could make up the work load. She new I could be reliable. She recognized me for important characteristics and gave me an opportunity that set me apart from the rest. I never have forgotten how much she changed my life.

So you can see that mentors are all around. They can be found in unexpected places and can be unexpected people. While letting people help you in life, you can learn about yourself, develop skills, and move towards your goals. If you look around you will find these people and you will learn to develop these increasingly important (and as you go along increasingly more complex) relationships.

As my life went on, I gathered up mentors wherever I went. And when I got into high school, these critical guides became increasingly more important. Shaping my education, the foundation for giving me the choices I needed to follow my dreams, was one of the most important gifts I received from my next level of mentors.

I participate in a few Carnivals (see my bottom side bar). It helps me share my work with larger audiences. It’s also a great way for non-bloggers to get into blogs and see how informative and entertaining they could be. So if you new to reading blogs or not sure what it’s all about, that’s fine. Carnivals may be just the right for you. Check out great posts on interesting topics – all in one place for you to read at your leisure.

Here are some great carnivals in which I have submitted my Urban Science Adventures! © posts.

Book Review Blog Carnival #26: A collection of book review blog posts. Check out the books bloggers are reading, including the children’s books about nature and animals I recommend.

Scientia Pro Publica 13: Nobel Prize Edition: A collection of blog posts about science, nature, and medicine for the masses. It’s a perfect way to get your dose of science without all of the headaches of heavy language.

Festival of the Trees #40, the benefits of trees:A collection of blog posts all about trees – in words and pictures.

Diversity in Science Carnival #3: Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: This carnival is my personal project. Here is my related blog post on George Melendez Wright. It is a collection of blog posts that introduce and discuss issues (the celebrations and the obstacles) of diversifying Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines. It was born out of a similar discussion at the ScienceOnline09 (Science Blogging) Conference.

.

The upcoming editions of the carnival will discuss Broader Impact programs in STEM in preparation of a follow-up panel on Diversity in Science at ScienceOnline 2010 in Research Triangle, North Carolina. The discussion session is titled “Casting a wider net: Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in STEM” moderated by me and Anne Jefferson.

This is an official call for submissions for the upcoming carnivals and an initiation to the discussion to be held in January.

November DiS Carnival: STEM Diversity and Broad Impacts I: Highlights of successful, ambitious STEM diversity programs such as REUs, mentoring programs and scholarships for college under-graduates, graduate students, post-doctoral associates and early career scientists and engineers.
Submission Deadline: November 15th
Carnival Post date: November 20th
Hosted by: Yours truly at Urban Science Adventures! ©

December DiS Carnival: STEM Broader Impacts II: Highlights of successful, ambitious and inspiring diversity programs for youth and general audiences such as after-school programs, summer institutes, and citizen science programs sponsored by museums and universities.
Submission Deadline: December 15th
Carnival Post date: December 20th
Hosted by: (insert your blog here)

Stay tuned for more carnival announcements, but we’re already looking forward to February – Black History Month, and March – Women’s History Month and accepting carnival hosts for those editions, too.

This is the goal of this blog – to try and describe all the pieces that go into a physics argument in a way that’s understandable. My hope is that interested readers will see that while specific parts of physics may be esoteric or complicated (i.e. high level math), in a general sense we’re making deductions in a way that is very similar to those made in almost any other field of study.

We know the equation of circular motion, F=mv²/r. And by hypothesis, the only force acting on the object in orbit is the force of gravity, F=G*m₁*m₂/r². In this case, m₁ is the mass of the galaxy, and m₂ is the mass of the object. We equate the forces, so mv2/r = G*m₁*m₂/r². Now, the mass from the circular motion equation is just the mass of the object in orbit, so m₂ will cancel. All that remains is to solve for the velocity, since that’s what we measure using the Doppler effect and red shift.

m₂*v²/r = G*m₁*m₂/r²

First, divide both sides by m₂

v²/r = G*m₁/r²

Next, multiply through by r

v² = G*m₁/r

Now, take the square root of both sides

v = Sqrt(G*m₁/r)

And that’s it. We have derived that the velocity of an object in orbit about a galaxy should be proportional to the square root of the mass of the galaxy divided by the orbital radius. There is one more thing we should be aware of, which is that I haven’t made any assumptions yet about the size of the mass of the galaxy. A galaxy is a very large thing, and what happens if you’re inside part of it? For example, the Sun and the Earth are somewhere inside the Milky Way galaxy. We do orbit the Milky Way center, but part of the Milky Way is outside our orbit. The answer is that in this case, m₁ refers the total mass inside the orbit. It doesn’t matter how spatially extended it is in space, as long as the object in which we’re interested is outside of the galaxy, the equations are fine. And since I’m particularly interested in the mass of the bright part of the galaxy, it’s easy to know when we’re outside that part, so everything holds.

Now, let’s look at a plot. If all the mass were in the bright part of the galaxy, then outside the bright part (say a radius of 100, just to make the plot look right), from the last equation, we would expect the velocity to fall like 1/Sqrt(r) (G and m₁ would be constant). That would look like this:

Instead, we measure a flat line, like this:

Therefore, by deduction, we know that either Newtonian gravity is wrong (a possibility, I’ll admit), or that there is more mass than we thought, mass that is not contained in the bright part of the galaxy. In fact, we know the distribution of that mass, as it has to increase like 1/Sqrt(r) or else the the velocity would not be flat.

This is what some of the actual data looks like:

These are measurements of galaxy rotation curves (Begeman, Broeils and Sanders, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc., 1991, 249, 523). I apologize for the image quality, but velocity is on the y-axis and radius is on the x-axis, and all the black points are actual measurements. You can see at small radius the velocity increases. This is where the bright part of the galaxy is, and as the radius increases, we are containing more mass in the orbit. At larger radius, we would expect to see the velocity drop. But instead, it stays constant. The dashed and dotted lines are the the components of the mass, the bright part and the dark part. This data provides evidence that there is matter that we are not seeing, that is not interacting with light, but is dark matter.

No, I didn’t always want to be a doctor. For a while—I’d say from age 6 to 12–I wanted to be a pop singer or a Broadway star. School was never my strong suit, but singing was. I was pretty convinced that I would very soon be discovered. (I’m still holding out for my big break!)

Maybe it was the self-consciousness of pre-adolescence or the hard-nosed practicality of my family, but at some point I slowly abandoned my dreams of stardom and started thinking about a more realistic future.

Unlike my mom, I struggled quite a bit in grade school keeping organized and focusing on even the most basic assignments. But no matter how well I did in my classes (or not), I managed to stay focused on what interested me most. And that was science. Using my interests to guide me became a theme throughout rest of my academic career. At times it was super difficult to be a straggler with two very high-achieving parents. But I was lucky. My parents helped me through my struggles as a student. They always made me believe that whatever I wanted to do was possible.

My growing interest in science coincided with a whole lot of orthodonture—beginning about age 8. Unlike most kids, I loved having my braces tuned up. I loved talking to my orthodontist. Dr. Bochacki. I loved knowing all the details. I soaked it all up.

The plan: I would go to dental school and spend my life helping other unfortunate kids (like myself) have a presentable smile.

But by high school, I had a really hard time imagining looking down people’s mouths every day for the rest of my life. I also realized that I wanted to care for people as a whole, beyond their smiles. This turn to medicine seemed pretty natural, too. A life of taking care of people and families, being ”on call’, and surgery were really all that I knew from my parents. In that way, medicine felt comfortable, maybe even safe.

I also started to think more critically about the world. About societies and culture. I began to have a vague idea about people and health, and about the social complexities of illness and wellness.

So off I went to Barnard. I mainly set out to study science, but I also wanted social science in my academic life there—at that point I wasn’t sure what kind. I was hardly a stereotypical “pre-med”. I took the biology, chemistry and physics coursework for granted, but, like my mom, I really dove into a less typical path for future physicians with a double major in biology and cultural anthropology. Throughout college, I struggled with my true allegiance. Sometimes I wanted to defect to the hard sciences, continuing the plant biology laboratory work that I had started, and at other times, to abandon science altogether for a life as a cultural anthropologist.

Part of my waffling definitely had to do with wanting to explore careers other than what I grew up with. I felt a little self-conscious with how ‘safe’ med school was and how unimaginative I felt going into the ‘family biz’.

In the end (which was really only the beginning), I did what I always did, and what worked for me. I just followed my interests. Just like when I was younger, feeling overwhelmed and confused by so much around me, I just stuck with what I liked and followed what sparked my curiosity. I discovered medicine not as alternative to my other interests but as way to explore all of them on my own terms.

Mom, when I was at Barnard, my many mentors were so key to my experience there. Who were your mentors in college? How did you get to know them? How did they contribute to you becoming a doctor?

To begin our blog, “Like Mother, Like Doctor”, we, Linda and Dana, decided to interview each other about our experiences with becoming and being a woman in medicine. After all, between the two of us there’s a lot of firsthand experiences of what it means to be a woman in medicine—as seasoned practitioner, newly minted medical student, and for both, as patients.

So here we go! To begin, we offer a series of discussions, in which both of us weigh in with our perspectives and insights at times generated by your questions and comments. Others post will feature “A Day In the Life”, “Ask the Doctor”, and random, interesting observations and stories that will make you think, laugh, and maybe even cry.

DG: Hmmm. Where to start? Well, for this first blog, how about at the beginning? The question I want to ask, is “Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor?”

LB: No, I don’t think so. When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, your Grandma Zelda wished for me the college education she never had. “Be a teacher,” she told me again and again. “Teaching is a good profession for a woman.” For a long time I thought teaching would be my path, but when I reached high school I realized it was her dream, not mine.

And so my “non-specific” dreams loomed large over my early life. I was always very driven to achieve. Whether it was a pick-up kick ball game on Jackson Place where I grew up in Bellmore, NY, or the fifth grade spelling bee, or being editor of the Buccaneer, my high school newspaper, I always gave it all that I had. I totally immersed myself to be the best I could be. I liked a challenge.

I finished my first year of college still without a clear direction, and still without a plan. Admiration for my Aunt Roberta, a clinical nurse specialist and author, led me to discuss my plans with her as I thought I could become a nurse just like her. Her response startled me into a new mindset. “Why don’t you become a doctor like your Uncle Murray (her husband and my mother’s brother)?” I hadn’t thought about that possibility. My Uncle Murray was a family icon—first and only in his family to go to college. Medical school was beyond the family’s imagination. If my aunt and uncle believed that I could become a doctor, well then, maybe I could. And so I decided I would try to become a doctor.

I returned as a sophomore to Bryn Mawr College. Pre-med courses intermingled with my History of Religion major and Chemistry minor, kept me really busy and really challenged. Not the typical science pathway for anyone who wanted to become a doctor in the 1970s, especially a woman. But as I have learned through these many decades, there doesn’t have to be a typical pathway.

What I also learned was that having someone believe in me really helped me to believe in myself. And as I am writing this blog, I just now realized my aunt and uncle were my first mentors, but thankfully not my last. I knew I could make this difficult journey. And now, 35 years later, my mentors, my drive, the intellectual stimulation and the deeply felt need to make a difference in the lives of others has pushed me on this long and winding road.

And you? Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor?Di

I think I would like to know what the consequences are of discovering or measuring dark matter. Also, does what you are doing have any relation whatsoever to things like the Hubble telescope or general space travel that people seem to be doing more and more of? Might your discoveries, for instance, give us an idea of the future of the universe as we know it?
xox MOM

These are good questions. What would be the consequences of discovering dark matter? When people ask me this question, one of the first things that I have to emphasize is that there are no foreseeable applications to my research. Nothing obviously useful will come out of it, unlike, for example, research in quantum computing or more applied fields. Now, there’s always the chance that something we develop in trying to detect dark matter could be useful to society (for example, there are a number of ideas to use technologies developed in this field for detecting nuclear weapons at border crossings), but I believe that justifying this research by appealing to possible applications is dishonest.

The only reason I have for searching for dark matter is to increase our (“Mankind’s” with a capital M) understanding of the universe. 23% of the universe is dark matter, and 85% of all the matter is dark. There are two aspects to this. The first is humanity’s standard musings over “why are we here? how did we get here?” Dark matter is a key component to the evolution of the universe, influencing the expansion rate of the universe and the way matter first clustered to form stars and then planets. If it didn’t exist in the way that it does, the Earth would probably not exist and neither would this blog. I’m touching up on religion again, here, which interestingly enough seems to happen quite a lot in this blog.

The second aspect that interests me is that I just think it’s cool to know more about the way the universe works. Why is there more matter than antimatter in the universe (another great physics question, as naively we might expect identical amounts in which case we would have all disappeared in a puff of energy a long long time ago)? What was the big bang? Does dark matter really take the form we think it does (I sort of like the fact that we can predict the existence of a particle and then go out and find it, which has happened many times in the past)?

To answer my mom’s other questions, this is very closely related to the Hubble telescope in the sense that a lot of the evidence for dark matter comes from telescopes like Hubble, and that telescopes have a chance to detect dark matter in a completely different way from us. Not so much space travel, which in my mind isn’t so interesting.

The picture is a simulation of structure formation in the universe. All the filaments and bright sports are made of dark matter (Courtesy http://www.casca.ca/ecass/issues/1997-DS/West/ and interestingly enough titled “hugh.gif”)

I have been working up in Sudbury, Ontario for the past two and a half weeks at the underground lab I mentioned in the overview posts (linked from the right of this blog). What is it like? Well, it’s pretty cool, I have to admit. Life at the lab is in many ways defined by the cage schedule of the mine, as I’ll explain. I get up before 7, because I have to catch the 7:30 cage underground. If I miss that cage, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to go under on that day. So, I’m up at 7 (I don’t have to shower, as you’ll soon see), drive to the mine, go to my locker. I take off the civvies, and put on a mining jumpsuit (lots of reflective tape), hardhat, glasses, wellington boots. I get my head lamp (there’s a slot on the hard hat for the head lamp to slide into), tag in (the mine has a lot of safety rules, but the main one is the tag-in and tag-out system. If you go underground, you have to be tagged in, and then when you come back up you tag out. That way, when the company wants to do some blasting, they can make sure no one is underground. If you forget to tag out, or tag out the wrong person, they are not allowed to blast. People do get calls at 4 in the morning about being tagged in, you do not want to be the person who forgets) and wait for the cage. When it arrives, we all pile in. The cage is very cage-like. It’s maybe 5 ft wide and 15 ft deep, made all of beat-up metal, and the miners and lab workers pile in in rows of 4. Sometimes, when it’s full, we’ll be squeezed all the way in, and I hear stories that “in the old days, we used to put 5 in a row.” Then we drop. A couple of people will put their lights on at this point, otherwise we’d just be going down in the dark. We stop at a few places along the way for people to get off at various levels (if we stop too many times, that’s known as a “milk run”), and then finally, we arrive at the 6800 ft level.

Next, we have to hike about 1.5 km down a drift. The drift is 10 ft wide maybe, with screen or “shotcrete” helping to support the walls. We’ll hike half the way down, and then we call ahead to the lab where someone has advanced ahead of us with an air monitor (the modern version of a canary) to make sure it’s safe to proceed. Sometimes there will be water on the ground to tramp through, and there’s evidence of mining all over the place. Eventually we arrive at the lab. At this point, we take off our clothes, and take the garbage bags off anything we’ve brought down with us. We shower (there’s a built in shower every morning, which is nice when you’re getting up so early [at least for a grad student]) and put on a clean jumpsuit and hair net, etc. The entire lab is a “clean room,” which means that considerable effort has gone into making sure that all the dirt and dust picked up on the walk through the drift is cleaned off before we enter the lab. Hence the cleaning precautions.

So now we’re in the lab. The walls are all whitewashed (but not straight, since it’s a cave, essentially), and most of the ventilation and wiring is visible. It looks like the set of a sci-fi movie. So off I go to my experiment where I do the day’s work (fiddling with high voltage power supplies, making sure the detector stays cold, that there is enough liquid nitrogen, doing various radioactive source calibrations, etc). Then, 45 minutes before the cage up time (again, there’s a fixed schedule. I can’t just come in and out whenever I want), we go through the reverse process, take off the lab clothes, put back on the mining gear, hike back out through the drift, etc. And you’d better make that cage.

So up we go back to the surface (there’s a signal system for the cage, and you always know that when they signal 2 short pulses twice, the next stop is the surface), take off the mining gear, shower again (I love that the day is bracketed by showers), and voila, life underground at the lab.

It’s a good thing I’m done this little summary, because a liquid nitrogen fill just completed so today’s tasks are all done and the detector will survive the weekend, and I have to start cleaning up to catch the next cage out (I’m taking the early cage today).

I think that over the course of our day-to-day lives we tend to forget just how big and just how small the universe really gets. We interact with objects and people who are all just about our size in the grand scheme of things. But then we talk about things like atoms and galaxies, and we don’t fully comprehend how big and small some of these things are.

Nikon’s Universcale flash application(direct link) aims to show us our place in the universe with a flowing chart which shows the measurements of and allows you to zoom onto the smallest electron, up through cells and bacteria, then humans and buildings, and eventually to planets and solar systems, and then even more outward towards galaxies, nebulas, and even the entire universe. The measurements start out in femtometers (one quadrillionth of a meter) and ends in billions of lightyears. Every object has a description associated with it, describing its size and purpose in the universe. It’s a fascinating journey and makes us appreciate the beauty of life and our very existence. It shows us how advanced and important we are, but then also how insignificant and simple.

For those of you interested in science fiction, Merzo.net provides similar graphs comparing airplanes to Star Destroyers to the USS Enterprise and more.

Dr. Melnick addressed two critical and related issues, namely, the decline in species populations, and the decline of genetic diversity within those species as a result of habitat fragmentation and inbreeding. A key focus of Conservation Biologists, Dr. Melnick explained, must be to help species maintain their ability to evolve under rapidly changing environmental conditions. This may mean using management strategies that “fool mother nature,” for example, planting forested corridors between forest fragments, or cross breeding vertebrates from two separate communities. We must bring, he said, “the best science to bear”, in creating environmentally sustainable management strategies that preserve genetic diversity at the highest possible level.

Dr. Melnick is more than a scientist; he is a master storyteller, who regaled his audience with engaging stories of scientific study, and survival in some less than welcoming places-countries where political and economic turmoil often made it difficult to carry out his conservation goals. We learned, for example of his three year stint studying Rhesus monkeys in the Himalayan foothills of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, and the ordeal of traveling from one military check point to the next, the day after the 1977 military coup that ousted then President Ali Bhutto. We heard how his wife, along on the study and also a scientist, saved her husband from hyperthermia while trekking in the mountains. Somewhat closer to home, we learned of Dr. Melnick’s work in the Dominican Republic (a biodiversity hot spot) building latrines and water filtration systems in fishing communities, as well as his friendship and working relationship with President Leonel Fernandez Reyna.

Dr. Melnick and his colleagues are about to launch a huge sustainable fisheries program in that country. On a lighter note, and moving on to his work in conservation genetics in Indonesia, he described how if you rub the inside of a Sumatran rhino’s thigh it will most definitely roll over for a blood sample, and if you happen to rub the inside of the thigh of a Malayan tapir (we’re speaking here, in genetic terms, of the next closest species), it will gladly do the same.

Underpinning each of Dr. Melnick’s conservation goals is his firm belief that ecological restoration, in order to be successful, must be linked to the economic, educational and social well being of local populations. Conservations projects, that is, must revolve around relationships with community leaders, and local citizens must be the beneficiaries of such projects.

Dr. Melnick’s talk was part of Columbia University’s “Café Science” series, while also a celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”, and the two hundredth anniversary of Darwin’s birth. This inspiring hour ended too quickly, and an eager band of audience members spilled onto the sidewalk and surrounded Dr. Melnick, hoping to ask him just a few more lingering questions.

Here are the details….digestive enzymes break down ingested asparagus and produce methanethiol (or methyl mercaptan), which is believed to be the aromatic culprit in stinky asparagus urine. (However, some scientists believe that a different family of thioesters that are the byproducts of acid reacting with sulfur-containing alcohol are responsible.) The methanethiol waste product is then (somewhat mysteriously) transmitted through the kidney to the urine. Ironically, asparagus is a diuretic, which contributes to the rapidity with which the scented urine exits the body. The aromatic nature of the methanethiol is due to the fact that it is released as a gas when you urinate.

Interestingly, a similar process is employed by skunks when they make their musk. The difference with skunks is that they have specific glands for storing and concentrating sulfur-containing chemicals, which they can create from more products than asparagus. Methanethiol is also released from decaying organic matter. It is truly a wonderful aroma.

There has been some controversy as to whether everyone has stinky urine after eating asparagus. I am aware of no recent, controlled clinical study on this topic, but there is an alternative hypothesis. It is quite possible that, while we all conduct this digestive process, we do not all have smell receptors that are sensitive tor methanethiol. We all have a very unique array of olfactory receptors and it turns out that the ability to smell asparagus is a dominant genetic trait and is therefore not universal. We are born with about 400 olfactory receptors out of a possible 1000. This does not mean that we can only smell 400 different aromas; a single odorant binds with varying affinities to different olfactory receptors, creating a distinct pattern of nerve impulses to the brain that define the scent. Another odorant may bind similar olfactory receptors with different affinities, creating a unique pattern of nerve impulses to the brain and a completely unique sensory representation. The brain then interprets that scent and associates it with the object. We can smell thousands of different smells, based on the unique combination of smell receptors rendered active by a particular odorant.

Our olfactory systems are a very primitive part of our brain and tightly linked with the hippocampus and our memories. This is why certain smells evoke strong memories. Perhaps you can conduct a controlled trial of the genetic patterns of methanethiol sensing in your family at the next family gathering. That will certainly create some smell-associated memories!

The film focuses on three Zaballeen boys who have big dreams about their futures: Adham, Nabil, and Osama. The boys in Garbage Dreams are alike and yet so different. Osama is viewed as the trouble- maker who can’t keep a job. In reality, he is misunderstood and longs for somebody who won’t make fun of him. At the end of the film he gets a job working with a foreign trash company. His friends call him a traitor but he is happy to be working where people appreciate him.

Adham’s father has been imprisoned, so Adham has had to assume all the responsibility of being the family breadwinner. This is a burden he never wanted. His real desire is to travel to Europe or America and create a business of his own. Even though his family wants him to marry, that is not on his mind

Nabil is very family orientated. He wants to marry and hopes for the best for his family and the rest of the Zaballeen. At one point in the film, Nabil travels to the Netherlands to study Western recycling methods. He is shocked that the Dutch can recycle only 20 percent because of lack of labor. At the end of the film Nabil is working at the Zaballeen’s recycling school.

The Zaballeen are very inspirational people. There is nothing wrong with their old-fashioned methods because they get the job done. Everybody works in garbage and the film shows how crowded the Zaballeen’s neighborhood is with trash. But it doesn’t bother them because this is how they support themselves. They are precise and recycle everything that a machine would leave behind. When the foreign companies invade, the Zaballeen are forced to make a decision, modernize their ways or get left behind. They choose modernization but only to a slight extent. They adopt a separation system for trash and try to work out a compromise with the companies. They even send their youth to Europe to learn about modern recycling. Two years later, when the film ends, their situation still isn’t progressing.

The sad reality is that the Zaballeen are very underappreciated. We have people in this world who are actually doing something for the planet and others are willing to replace them so easily. Then we turn around and claim that we care about climate change and the environment. This is hypocritical. Profit should not be put ahead of the welfare of others. Osama, Nabil, and Adham are young and so desperately want to succeed. For Osama this means working with the “enemies” and for Adham this means traveling away from his home. It isn’t their fault and they shouldn’t have to be put in a situation where they must make these choices. Garbage Dreams shows just how much we need to get our priorities straight and give more attention to the things that really matter.

Most people find the virtual surgeries the best feature of Edheads. The surgeries you can perform are knee, hip resurfacing, hip replacement, and brain surgery. It allows kids to enjoy performing the operations without feeling grossed out. It is very interactive; the narrator tells you everything you should do, step by step. To make sure kids are absorbing the educational aspects of the activity, the surgery stops at intervals to ask you questions. It’s perfectly fine to get a question wrong. You get chances to try again and kids will learn so much in the process. How many people can say, “Today I surgically repaired someone’s knee”?

Edheads is a fun, interactive Web site. They partner with various schools in the United States to design their activities, and have been recognized for their amazing educational content. There is even a section on the Web site that allows you to read about the people who work in the fields of science and engineering. If you’re ever in need of something interesting to do, visit Edheads- -activate your mind!