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Scientist
Departments Feature Articles
Volume 109 • Number 5 • September–October 2021

258 From the Editors


259 Letters to the Editors
262 Spotlight
296
Fixing broken biological clocks •
Economics and public health during
a pandemic • Baseball spin doctors
• The wild heart of the Milky Way •
Briefings
270 Sightings
Giants in traffic
274 Perspective
Tunnel vision
Dean J. Tantillo
278 Engineering
What lessons will be learned from the
Florida condo collapse?
288
Henry Petroski
288 The Shift to a Bird’s-Eye View
282 Arts Lab Remote sensing technologies allow
Etching the landscapes within researchers to track small changes
Kim Moss on a large scale and enable studies of
far-flung places from the comfort and
Scientists’ safety of home.
Nightstand Elizabeth M. P. Madin and
312 Book Reviews Catherine M. Foley
Finding hope in community-based
conservation • Addressing global 296 How Endocrine Disruptors Affect
pollution in a capitalistic world • Menstruation
Chalkophilia The ubiquity of phthalates and other
substances known to interfere with
From Sigma Xi hormonal pathways disproportionately
harms people with periods.
317 Sigma Xi Today
Kate Clancy
Of roots and fruits • Sigma
Xi installs two new chapters •
304 Designed for Change
Distinguished Lecturers • Student
Active products that adapt to fit users’
Research Showcase award winners •
needs can be stronger, cheaper, and
Conference breakout sessions
more comfortable than traditional,
static objects.
Skylar Tibbits
304
The Cov er
Bora Bora in French Polynesia has the reputation of being a pristine paradise, but tourism has altered the island’s ecosystem. A coral atoll encir-
cles the island group, creating a gentle lagoon in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Luxury hotels have built villas directly over the water, and one
resort even created an artificial island to accommodate more guests. Snorkeling tourists might not recognize the signs of an unhealthy ecosystem,
but remote sensing technologies such as satellites provide ecologists with an overview of the changes. This view from above can help research-
ers identify areas in distress so that they can develop intervention strategies before it is too late. In “The Shift to a Bird’s-Eye View” (pages
288–295), ecologists Elizabeth M. P. Madin and Catherine M. Foley detail how remote sensing technologies have changed their approaches to
researching isolated coral reefs and inaccessible penguin populations. The techniques they describe are not limited to ecological projects; remote
sensing tools have also helped document humanitarian crises, and they are fundamental to the transition that many researchers have made from
the field to their homes in order to maintain social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Cover image from GeoEye/Science Source.)
From the Editors AMERICAN

Beautiful Data
Scientist
www.americanscientist.org

VOLUME 109, NUMBER 5

I n this issue’s Sightings column (“Giants in Traf-


fic,” pages 270–271), I spoke to a group of Chilean
researchers about their study that tracks blue whales
Editor-in-Chief Fenella Saunders
Managing Editor Stacey Lutkoski
Senior Consulting Editor Corey S. Powell
and ships. The team used multiple types of data to Digital Features Editor Katie L. Burke
create detailed maps for their peer-reviewed paper, Senior Contributing Editors Efraín E. Rivera-
but for social media, they created a GIF of a week Serrano and Sarah Webb
in the life of one whale, showing how it had to con- Contributing Editors Sandra J. Ackerman,
stantly duck and dodge around boats. The GIF raised Carolyn Beans, Emily Buehler, Christa Evans,
Jeremy Hawkins
questions from other scientists about the scale, the
Editorial Associate Mia Evans
speed of the display, whether it was real data or an
animation, and whether the whale’s position was at Art Director Barbara J. Aulicino
the surface or at depths below the boats—points that
were all addressed in the researchers’ paper. But for SCIENTISTS’ NIGHTSTAND
most of the people who viewed the GIF, which was Book Review Editor Flora Taylor
widely shared, the whale’s plight simply evoked sympathy and awareness. As a
AMERICAN SCIENTIST ONLINE
member of the research team, Luis Bedriñana-Romano, said to me, “You can put up
Digital Managing Editor Robert Frederick
a lovely chart with graphics and it’s going to only reach the scientific community. But
if you have a nice data visualization, it can reach everyone.” Publisher Jamie L. Vernon
Data scientist Kurt D. Bollacker, who wrote in our pages in 2010, has become
his own internet meme for having said, “Data that is loved tends to survive.” Bol- EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE
lacker’s quote sticks with people, because it clearly expresses the idea that data American Scientist
only become useful if they are seen and understood. The theme of how to express P.O. Box 13975
data so it is immediately accessible runs across many articles in this issue. Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-549-4691 • editors@amscionline.org
Tracking whales with satellites and tags comes up again in “The Shift to a
Bird’s-Eye View” (pages 288–295), by Elizabeth M. P. Madin and Catherine M. CIRCULATION AND MARKETING
Foley. These researchers discuss the many ways that remote sensing technologies NPS Media Group • Beth Ulman, account director
have changed the data that are available to scientists, from studies of coral reefs
and penguin colonies, to refugee displacement and pollutant monitoring. ADVERTISING SALES
Making health data approachable is also the goal of Kim Moss in this issue’s advertising@amsci.org • 800-243-6534
Arts Lab, “Etching the Landscapes Within” (pages 282–287). Moss uses a differ-
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ent path to data visualization by etching microscopic body processes onto glass
American Scientist
plates and illuminating them with colored lights, a beautiful and memorable way
P.O. Box 193
to consider tissue damage and repair processes. And in this issue’s Q&A (pages Congers, NY 10920
266–267), economist Micah Pollak describes his efforts to take complicated data 800-282-0444 • custservice@amsci.org
sets related to the pandemic and create visualizations that he can share on social
media, both to make the data understandable and to spark discussion and itera- PUBLISHED BY SIGMA XI, THE SCIENTIFIC
tive revision of graphics to address public questions. RESEARCH HONOR SOCIETY
Understanding processes on scales too small to be seen is a central idea in President Robert T. Pennock
Perspective (“Tunnel Vision,” pages 274–278) in which Dean J. Tantillo uses the Treasurer David Baker
President-Elect Nicholas A. Peppas
metaphor of tunneling through hills to make a quantum mechanical phenom-
Immediate Past President Sonya T. Smith
enon more relatable. And on a metabolic level, in “How Endocrine Disruptors
Executive Director Jamie L. Vernon
Affect Menstruation” Kate Clancy displays how chemicals such as phthalates
can alter the function of endometrial cells. In Spotlight (“Fixing Broken Biologi- American Scientist gratefully acknowledges
cal Clocks,” pages 262–264), Katie L. Burke details how biological clock cycles are support for “Engineering” through the Leroy
Record Fund.
tied into a particular cell receptor pathway.
In our July–August issue, the data visualization that went into space as a mes-
Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor
sage to potential aliens on a plaques carried by the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft was
Society is a society of scientists and engineers,
a point in “Who Should Speak for the Earth?,” by John W. Traphagan. In the print founded in 1886 to recognize scientific
version of the article, the caption about Pioneer 10 contained an error that was intro- achievement. A diverse organization of
duced in editing, which is corrected in this issue’s errata section as well as online. In members and chapters, the Society fosters
the interest of correct data transmission to our readers, we apologize for the error. interaction among science, technology, and
Data can take us from the smallest to the largest phenomena, and we return society; encourages appreciation and support
to space in this issue’s Infographic (“The Wild Heart of the Milky Way,” page of original work in science and technology; and
272). A breathtaking new image of our galaxy’s center has been impressing sci- promotes ethics and excellence in scientific and
entists, and our senior consulting editor Corey S. Powell breaks down just what engineering research.
the new image shows. We hope you’ll join us on this issue’s tour of remarkable Printed in USA
data at all scales. —Fenella Saunders (@Fenella Saunders)

258 American Scientist, Volume 109


Letters

Special Issue Feedback I hope the future issues will be more about science, not read rants about
scientific and less political or I will re- someone’s opinions about ethical issues.
To the Editors: gretfully cancel my membership.
Stephen Hepp
The special issue on Trustworthy Sci-
Maria Stacewicz-Sapuntzakis Montesano, WA
ence (July–August) was the best of
Sterling, VA
many outstanding editions of Ameri-
can Scientist. I was astounded at the To the Editors: Editors’ note: During the COVID-19 pan-
honesty, intelligence, insight, and deep Your July–August issue was very dis- demic, the hypotheses, conclusions, and
understanding of the complexity of appointing; very little science and a lot best practices for dealing with the disease
the relationship between science, sci- of fluff about ethics! were revised (and revised again) in light
entists, and society. Maybe your magazine just isn’t for of new data and circumstances. Some ma-
Every article brought clarity and fo- me. I want to learn something new licious groups jumped on these revisions
cus to issues of deep importance. It’s WHISTLEBLOWERS • ETHICAL AI • PUBLIC HEALTH
to cast doubt on mask wearing, vaccines,
as if subjects such as whistleblowers SPECIAL ISSUE ALIEN RIGHTS • INCLUSIVE STEM • GENOMICS
and science in general. Many researchers
and trust in science are examined and AMERICAN responded that this iterative process is how
American Scientist

presented for the first time, because


no one before has treated them with
such care and humanity. The beau-
Scientist
July–August 2021 www.americanscientist.org
science works: You reconsider your hypoth-
eses and reevaluate your conclusions when
new evidence becomes available. The evolv-
tiful quote from Chanda Prescod- ing approach to the pandemic shows that
Weinstein’s book The Disordered Cosmos TRUST science and peer review are working, not
(Nightstand) could describe much of
WORTHY that science is unreliable or “wrong.”
Science itself must be held to the same
Volume 109 Number 4

what is contained in this issue: “What


goes undiscussed is that it is not the
only way to understand the origins of
SCIENCE standards of rigor and honesty. When it
becomes clear that large parts of society
the world.” have been excluded from involvement in
science, or that some data have been gath-
Judith Stribling
ered in a biased manner, or that some con-
Salisbury, MD
clusions have been based on assumptions
July–August 2021

To the Editors: rather than on empirical findings, scien-


I had just renewed my membership to tists should be eager to reconsider past
Sigma Xi when I received the July–Au- work and present practices, no matter how
gust special issue of American Scientist. established they might be. The processes of

American Scientist (ISSN 0003-0996) is published bimonthly by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 (919-549-0097). Newsstand single
copy $5.95. Back issues $7.95 per copy for 1st class mailing. U.S. subscriptions: one year print or digital $30, print and digital $36. Canadian subscriptions: one year print $38, digital $30; other foreign
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ditional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send change of address form 3579 to American Scientist, P.O. Box 193, Congers, NY 10920. Canadian publications mail agreement no. 40040263.

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www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 259


Online | @americanscientist.org doing science and communicating about
science are now their own fields of study
with their own deep literature. They are
as worthy of discussion as any other new
discovery or result, especially because find-
An Antidote to Climate Despair ings in these fields have important impli-
The book All We Can Save is an cations for every other discipline.
anthology of essays and poems by Ethical research practices should be of
a diverse group of feminist climate concern to anyone who wants to be certain
experts and activists. A project has that their medicine, infrastructure, food,
grown out of the book that aims and water are safe; that science is acces-
to nurture a climate community sible to the widest range of minds; and that
“rooted in the work and wisdom there are mechanisms for speaking up effec-
Venus Tectonics Look Like Pack Ice of women.” tively if something goes awry. There is no
Earth’s nearby neighbor seemed www.amsci.org/node/4815 partisan implication to the goals of health,
inactive, but new maps and models safety, and opportunity.
have exposed its complex volcanic
and crustal deformation surface Trees of Life
features.
www.amsci.org/node/4826 To the Editors:
After reading “Plants as Teachers and
Data Communication Witnesses” by Beronda Montgomery
The second episode of “D&I (January–February), I could feel the
ComSci,” American Scientist’s author’s love for the beauty and com-
science-for-all podcast, examines plexity of trees. The article was beau-
how scientists can visualize data tifully written, which made it fun to
inclusively—speaking to audiences Art and Environmental Education read as well as informative. I will now
of different cultures, visual abilities, Jennifer Landin, an associate forever look at a tree not just for its
and scientific experience levels. professor at North Carolina State aesthetics, but with an understanding
www.amsci.org/node/4804 University in the Department of of the complexities of its life. I would
Biological Sciences, explores how like to thank the author for such an
Bettering the Lives of Animals art and science can work together interesting perspective.
In her book Animals’ Best Friends, to help humanity tackle seemingly Donald Leonhardt
Barbara J. King, an expert on overwhelming problems, such as Bay Shore, NY
animal cognition and emotion, climate change.
suggests steps we can take to begin www.amsci.org/node/4802
living more harmoniously with our
fellow creatures. Erratum
www.amsci.org/node/4821 In “Who Should Speak for the
Check out AmSci Blogs
http://www.amsci.org/blog/ Earth?” by John W. Traphagan
(July–August), the last sentence
of the caption on page 211
Find American Scientist should read as follows: “When
on Facebook message-carrying spacecraft
facebook.com/AmericanScientist such as Pioneer 10 are launched,
they establish a precedent and
Follow us on Twitter set a challenge to do better with
twitter.com/AmSciMag future communications.” We
have corrected the digital and
Preparing for Tomorrow’s online versions of the article.
Pandemics, Today Join us on LinkedIn
linkedin.com/company
Timothy P. Sheahan, an assistant
/american-scientist
professor of epidemiology at the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill Gillings School of Find us on Instagram How to Write to American Scientist
Global Public Health, discusses instagram.com/american_scientist/ Brief letters commenting on articles
how the generation of robust appearing in the magazine are wel-
in vitro and in vivo models of Read American Scientist comed. The editors reserve the right
coronavirus diseases is essential using the iPad app to edit submissions. Please include
to accelerating the development of Available through Apple’s App Store an email address if possible. Address:
drugs and vaccines. (digital subscription required) Letters to the Editors, P.O. Box 13975,
www.amsci.org/node/4825 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 or
editors@amscionline.org.

260 American Scientist, Volume 109


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www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 261


Spotlight | Circadian biology, sleep research, and neuropharmacology

fluence how the clock responds,” says


Michael Antle, a psychologist at the
Fixing Broken Biological Clocks University of Calgary who has also
studied circadian clocks and adenos-
ine and who was not involved with
Scientists are looking for pharmaceutical ways to mimic the effects of the study. “You respond one way
light on the brain’s clockwork. when you’re tired, and in a different
way when you’re not tired.”
Jagannath and Foster first teamed
At one point or another, we’ve all hit sensitive retinal ganglion cells, which up as they tried to figure out the mo-
the wall of sleep: the point when you were first identified in 2002, setting off lecular pathways by which light in-
are so exhausted that you cannot stay a flurry of research on light entrain- fluences circadian rhythms. They later
awake, no matter how bright it is out- ment over the following two decades. brought Vasudevan into the collabora-
side or how much caffeine you have These nerve cells send signals to turn tion to explore drugs that could act on
consumed. Until recently, though, no on key genes called Per1 and Per2 in the same pathways. The team started
one understood the exact molecular the brain’s “master clock,” the supra- off by looking at compounds that shift
mechanisms responsible for this ubiq- chiasmatic nuclei. This master clock in the clock in cells in culture. They no-
uitous experience. Circadian biologists turn regulates through molecular sig- ticed that drugs that disrupt the bind-
have long been aware that exposure to naling many aspects of the clock system ing of adenosine to its receptors had
light can shift a mammal’s sleep-wake in various tissues throughout the body. big effects on the cells’ expression of
cycle, but they haven’t been able to Animals are particularly sensitive to biological clock genes. “This was
work out why light exposure becomes light at dawn and dusk, when expo- around the time when these studies
ineffectual when an animal is sleep- sure to light can delay or advance our on caffeine were coming out, show-
deprived. Sleep researchers have also sleep-wake cycle—a trait that we can ing that caffeine could affect circadian
known that caffeine delays sleep by use to help alleviate jetlag (see “Adapt- rhythms in humans, and also in mice,”
blocking the action of a molecule called ing Your Body Clock to a 24-Hour Society,” Jagannath says. Because caffeine is an
adenosine. As an animal uses energy November–December 2017). Diurnal spe- adenosine receptor antagonist (that is,
while it is awake, adenosine builds up cies experience big delays in our sleep- it inhibits adenosine from binding to its
in the body—for example, through the wake cycles when exposed to light at receptors), she and her team wanted to
breakdown of a key metabolic mol- dawn, and small advances at dusk. figure out how adenosine and the clock
ecule, adenosine triphosphate (ATP)— Nocturnal species such as mice are the system were talking to each other.
and induces a sense of sleepiness. But opposite: Light exposure at dusk delays They found that adenosine signaling
until recently, no one had determined wakefulness substantially, whereas at is a fundamental part of the machinery
how adenosine made that happen. dawn it brings on sleep a bit sooner that regulates the body’s sense of time.
A study published in Nature Com- (see the phase response curve on the facing
munications in April, led by neuro- page, top panel). “A mechanistic explana- Light can advance (+) or delay (–) sleep on-
scientist Aarti Jagannath, circadian tion for that wasn’t appreciated before,” set in a mouse depending on its day-night
biologist Russell Foster, and pharma- Foster says. “But we can explain that and sleep-wake cycle (top, phase response
cologist Sridhar Vasudevan, all at phenomenon almost exclusively within curve). During the time the mouse is awake
Oxford University, marks a major ad- the context of adenosine.” at night, adenosine builds up, inducing a
vance in untangling the roles of ad- What the research team found was sense of sleepiness. Light and adenosine
enosine and light in sleep. In the that as adenosine builds up during the both act on a two-pronged signaling path-
way (shown in the purple expansion box)
process, the researchers discovered time one is awake, it triggers a sig-
affecting the expression of the genes Per1
a drug that may mimic the effects of naling pathway that results in feeling
and Per2—adenosine inhibits the pathway,
light exposure, with potential applica- sleepy—the same signaling pathway, whereas light or adenosine receptor antago-
tions to health problems ranging from indeed, that light acts upon. Light nists activate it (bottom panel). On one prong
sleep dysfunction after eye injuries to turns on this pathway (though it has of the pathway, light or adenosine receptor
schizophrenia. This interdisciplinary a mechanism for turning itself off, so antagonists activate a cellular messenger
realm of research spanning the team that the clock’s sensitivity remains molecule called cyclic adenosine monophos-
members’ careers has led them to the heightened for a short period); adenos- phate (cAMP), which is a derivative of ATP,
realization that the sleep-wake system ine inhibits this pathway. Adenosine and a transcription factor that regulates gene
draws from all the key neurotransmit- receptor antagonists such as caffeine expression called cAMP response element
binding (CREB). On the other prong, they ac-
ter systems, and that the sleep-wake or the drug Jagannath’s team tested
tivate calcium (Ca2+) signaling, followed by a
cycle is a global brain event. disrupt this pathway, so that the feel- master regulator of DNA transcription called
We all have a built-in clock system ing of sleepiness is delayed. extracellular regulated kinase (ERK), as well
that keeps our sense of time and deter- “One of the interesting outcomes of as another transcription factor called activa-
mines when we are active and when this paper is that they show how the tor protein 1 (AP-1). These two prongs, cAMP
we are sleepy. Light entrains this clock chemical adenosine is able to code for and AP-1, come together to result in the full
system when it is detected by special- how tired you are, and that can then expression of clock genes Per1 and Per2,
ized nerves in the eye, called photo- feed back to the circadian clock to in- which are responsible for shifting the clock.

262 American Scientist, Volume 109


night dawn
+ day

phase
response curve
0

sleeping
active mouse
mouse
l
ve
le
ne
osi
en
ad

awake asleep

adenosine
light Adding adenosine antagonists
reverses this inhibitory signaling and
photosensitive mimics the effects of light, adding to
retinal the light sensitivity of the clock.
ganglion cells

master clock adenosine receptors in SCN


suprachiasmatic
nuclei
adenosine receptors
phase response shift

Ca2+ and cAMP pathway


inhibited. Per1 and Per2
production stops. light and
Ca2+ cAMP adenosine
+ antagonist

cAMP
Ca2+
0
light


P
produce CREB
P
Per1 and Per2 Per1
ERK
CRE
P
FOS JUN
Per2
AP-1
phase shift
Barbara Aulicino

clock sensitivity high

mouse stays awake longer

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 263


“This space of adenosine receptor an- ecology and evolution, has yielded excit- for those disorders, the drug failed in
tagonists is fairly well explored in terms ing returns. “This paper shows how you phase 3. But what we knew was that
of the pharmacology,” Jagannath ex- can consider advances from both fields, the drug was safe for human use. That’s
plains. “There are drugs out there that put them together, and make the bigger basically saved us 5 to 10 years in the
are in the clinic, or at least in clinical picture much clearer,” Jagannath says. process and a lot of money as well.”
trials, in this space. We said, ‘Can we The team is now working with Blind Although caffeine is also an adenos-
try any of them, and see if they have Veterans UK to find clinical trial partici- ine antagonist, the authors say it doesn’t
an effect on shifting rhythms in mice?’” pants who have lost the ability to main- work well for treating dysfunction in the
What Jagannath’s team worked out tain a consistent internal clock. “The regularity of the sleep-wake cycle. “Caf-
is that light and adenosine both act on a consequences of losing the eyes com- feine has some other effects than just
two-pronged signaling pathway affect- pletely is getting up a bit later and later engaging with adenosine receptors,”
ing the expression of Per1 and Per2: Ade- and later, about 10 or 15 minutes each Vasudevan says. “Its half-life is between
nosine inhibits the pathway, and light or day,” Foster explains. “Can we give the four and six hours. With our drug, you
adenosine receptor antagonists activate hit the receptor, make the change you
it (see infographic on previous page). These want, and then it’s out of the system.”
two prongs (cAMP and AP-1) come to- The authors plan to explore treat-
gether to result in the full expression of The circadian rhythm ments for not only those who have
clock genes Per1 and Per2, which are re- lost their eyes, but also other health
sponsible for shifting the clock. Once the affects not just sleep problems that include issues with sleep
team worked out the pathway in cell regularity as a symptom. Foster’s lab
culture, they moved to testing how an but such things as and colleagues have made strides in
adenosine antagonist drug affected the the past 10 years showing that disrupt-
sleep-wake cycle of mice. metabolism, mood, ed circadian rhythms are an aspect of
Just as would be expected with light many mental health disorders, such
exposure at different times of day, and alertness. as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
giving the drug to mice at early dusk “There’s a genuine mechanistic overlap
caused their clock to shift later, whereas drug to those drifting individuals and between the pathways that generate
giving it in the middle of the day (when fool their clock into thinking it’s seen normal sleep and the pathways that
mice are usually asleep) caused their light?” Although many people who are generate normal mental health,” Foster
clock to shift earlier. “Importantly, if born blind have photosensitive retinal says. “Daniel Freeman [a psychiatrist
you antagonize the A1 and A2A recep- ganglion cells and can entrain their bio- at University of Oxford] was able to
tors [two adenosine receptors] in com- logical clocks even though they cannot partially stabilize sleep-wake in schizo-
bination with the light pulse, the light see, people who sustain eye injuries, phrenia [patients] and reduce levels of
pulse will have a much bigger effect on such as blinded veterans, often have delusional paranoia by 50 percent. That
the clock,” Jagannath says. (See graph on these nerve cells damaged as well. suggests that the sleep-wake systems
the bottom right of the infographic.) Antle notes that differences between represent a new therapeutic target.”
It took about five years to work out mice and humans need to be consid- What these researchers have come to
the molecular pathway by which ad- ered when interpreting this study’s re- appreciate is that if you have a neuro-
enosine and the biological clock inter- sults. “Adenosine levels in a mouse will transmitter defect that predisposes you
act. “The signaling pathways that we be highest in the later part of the night, to mental illness, it almost certainly af-
decoded turned out to be not as simple when they are exposed to dawn light, fects sleep. Exactly how the underlying
as we thought,” Jagannath says. “For ex- whereas for us, our adenosine levels causes of such disorders are related to
ample, we needed to do a transcription will probably be highest around dusk,” the sleep systems is not yet known, but
factor binding assay, and that involved he says. “So the responses they’re see- is an exciting area of research. “When-
assaying 3,000 different transcription ing [in mice] can be different than what ever there’s a circadian rhythm disor-
factors with a high-throughput screen, you might expect in a person.” He also der, often it manifests as sleep distur-
which Ueli Schibler at the University of points out that “adenosine pharmacol- bance,” Vasudevan says. “When you
Geneva had developed. The actual delin- ogy is really complex,” and that more go to your GP and say, this is a prob-
eation of that pathway was a monumen- work is needed to fully understand lem, you get a hypnotic or a sedative
tal amount of work. Part of what’s been how this system works in mice and that puts you to sleep. The circadian
holding this field back is that people people, and where in the body the drug rhythm extends far beyond sleep. It
would have tried smaller experiments is acting to result in the outcomes the controls metabolism, your mood, how
on different sides and seen conflicting Oxford team has observed. sharp you are at what time of the day,
things that they couldn’t quite put to- The team is planning to begin clini- your alertness, all kinds of things. But
gether. We needed to hammer at it for cal trials in blind veterans in the fall your existing medication doesn’t fix
a long time before we managed to un- through their spinout company, Circa- any of that. The fact that we can make
derstand what was going on at the full dian Therapeutics, because the drug a fundamental drug that can treat the
scale.” The work also brings together they tested in mice has already been underlying cause of the disorder is ex-
two disciplines that, as Foster puts it, shown to be safe in humans when test- citing, because it’s a whole new treat-
“simply didn’t go to the same meetings.” ed for another purpose. “The adenos- ment paradigm.” —Katie L. Burke
But finally bringing together sleep re- ine A1 and A2A antagonist has a rich
search, which has a medical history, and history of evaluation for Parkinson’s A companion podcast is available
Am
circadian biology, which has focused on disease,” Vasudevan says. “However, Sci online at americanscientist.org.

264 American Scientist, Volume 109


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www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 265


| Micah Pollak

Economics and Public Health During a Pandemic


An issue that has loomed large in public discourse about the COVID-19 pandemic is the
question of how the various shutdowns and stay-at-home orders have affected the economy.
Micah Pollak has been trying to answer that question through research and the creation
of data visualizations that put the pandemic in context. Pollak is an associate professor
of economics and the director of the Center for Economic Education and Research in the
School of Business and Economics at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana. His
research interests cover a wide range of topics, including data analytics, health economics,
financial economics, and regional economics. Pollak says that the rich data available in
nearly real time throughout the pandemic have created an unprecedented opportunity for
social scientists to study changing trends. He has been applying his teaching experience
toward communicating his findings to the public using graphs and other visualizations on
social media. Pollak spoke with Scott Knowles, a historian of risk and disaster at the Korean
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, on his daily podcast, COVIDCalls. On the
podcast, Knowles speaks to guests about their research and the far-reaching effects of the
pandemic. This interview is part of an ongoing collaboration between American Scientist
and COVIDCalls. It has been edited for length and clarity.

What can be said at this point about What forms of conventional wisdom we’re not just talking about food service
the effect of this pandemic on the na- have been provoked and pushed dur- jobs, we’re also talking about manufac-
tional economy? ing the pandemic? turing jobs and higher-paying jobs.
In some ways we’re surging back Early on, whenever a region or a nation
much faster than we would have shut down, there was this automatic How have you approached taking
expected, because nothing was per- reaction, “That’s going to kill the econ- complicated data sets and rendering
manently altered. But in other areas, omy.” A lot of economists, including them into something that a nonexpert
in particular labor, we’re seeing big myself, felt that wasn’t the case. Our can understand?
consequences. I don’t think it’s a coin- economy was hurting because of the My goal has been to create visualiza-
cidence that national headlines have pandemic. The way that you address tions that help people understand the
focused on labor—such as unemploy- that economic problem is by dealing data. One of the first visualizations I
ment insurance and extensions of with the pandemic. You need to lower made, which created lots of contro-
benefits—because that’s where I think the spread to the point where people versy, was comparing flu deaths in
we’ll see the most long-term changes feel comfortable again. Indiana by week with COVID deaths,
as a result of the pandemic. just putting them side by side. Objec-
How has the economy of Indiana, tions people raised online included: We
How do you think about the discourse where you work, been affected by the don’t test flu and COVID in the same
last year around the relief payments in pandemic? way. And: We don’t have a vaccine for
the United States? Northwest Indiana is an industrial COVID, but we do for flu, so you have
The relief payments were an equal- region: a lot of steel mills and manufac- to adjust for whether people are vacci-
izer, in the sense that there was a turing. The steel mills remained open as nated or not. So I refined my visualiza-
minimum amount of money that you much as possible. There were instances tion and said, “Okay, if you don’t like
could count on. There is pretty strong where there was an outbreak and sec- this part of the assumptions, we can
evidence that they had a significant ef- tions would have to be closed down. change them a bit and make it more
fect on people’s livelihoods. They kept Before COVID, we were in a trade compelling.” It’s an iterative process.
many people out of poverty and prob- war, which created challenges in North- The objections fit with what I was try-
ably saved lives as well. west Indiana, because we export a lot of ing to do perfectly fine, because I’m try-
I’m sure the payments will be the steel and soybeans [which were subject ing to distill the information. The first
focus of research in years to come. In a to international tariffs]. The trade war graph I made used last year’s flu data.
sense, we had a miniexperiment with is still going on. Certainly, in terms of Then, someone pointed out that last
universal basic income. And I think employment, we don’t see jobs coming year was an unusually light year. So I
that changed people’s perspectives on back rapidly here. We’re still well below said, “Let me go back and find the dead-
what income is and how the govern- the prepandemic level. I think that sur- liest flu season in the past 20 years in
ment could help people. prises a lot of people, especially because Indiana, and use that instead.” And then

266 American Scientist, Volume 109


I slowly whittled away at the objections. everything under the Sun was happen- lection. Schools had an incentive not to
Some people you’ll never convince, but ing. Some places were sticking with encourage parents to test their kids as
if you can preemptively deal with as 100 percent e-learning the whole year; much, and parents sometimes didn’t
many objections as possible, then that other places were in-person full time. want to get their kids tested, because
makes the visualization more effective. We saw this as a natural experiment at the time the test was invasive.
Social media can be somewhat of an We came up with a study idea look-
echo chamber, but I do think that it’s ing at school districts and counties
hard to disassemble something that to see how they reopened, and then
has gone through multiple iterations,
has had feedback from lots of different
“One well-designed at the community spread. If there’s
spread that’s happening in the class-
people, has been improved upon, and
has sources listed.
visualization has room, then we’ll see a rise in cases in
the community as well.
One well-designed visualization has
the potential to demolish a lot of mis-
the potential to We found that during the 90-day
period after schools opened, the ad-
information. It does take more work to
make one good visualization, but once
demolish a lot of ditional students would have added
about 1 percent more cases. I think the
it’s created, it’s hard to argue with, be-
cause everything is laid out clearly.
misinformation.” true value of the study was that it put a
numerical value on the risk of opening
schools in person. And then it’s up to
You and an interdisciplinary team of where we can see whether districts that the individuals to decide whether that’s
colleagues published a paper in Clinical were mostly in-person had a lot of cas- a risk they’re willing to take or not.
Infectious Diseases on the effect school es, and whether those that were doing We’re hoping that the study will be
reopenings had on the spread of SARS- e-learning reduced spread. [For a sum- helpful for policy decisions, but the
CoV-2 in Indiana. This local study has mary of research on this topic, see “Does In- circumstances have changed. We did
broad implications regarding the return Person Schooling Contribute to COVID-19 this study before the Delta variant,
to school in the middle of a pandemic. Spread?” at amsci.org/node/4753] and we have more variants coming.
What did you learn? There had been studies about in- We also have a large percentage of the
Indiana didn’t standardize how schools person instruction, but they mostly population vaccinated.
were going to reopen—it was left up to focused on the classroom itself. Those
the local school district and the county studies are problematic because there A companion podcast is available
Am
Sci online at americanscientist.org.
health department, which meant that were all sorts of issues with data col-

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 267


Spotlight | Grasping for more torque

surface before reaching the back of


the ball. Think of water flowing along
Baseball Spin Doctors the sides of a moving boat. The wa-
ter doesn’t smoothly wrap around the
back of the boat—there is a wake of
Sticky substances can improve a pitcher’s grip and enable throws with turbulent water flowing out behind it.
greater spin, leaving batters at a disadvantage. But when a rudder turns the boat, the
wake moves off to one side. Newton’s
third law states that for every action,
there is an equal and opposite reac-
Cheating in baseball is as old as the advertisements show someone using tion. So if the boat pushes water in one
game itself, and pitchers’ modifica- it to lift a cinder block with his palm.” direction, water has to push the boat
tion of the ball’s surface is part of that The article noted two instances of in the opposite direction, causing the
long history. Adding to the lore of these doctored balls making their way boat to turn.
cheating is a new scandal involving into a dugout: One was so sticky that The same idea applies to a spinning
pitchers who may be applying sticky players could see fingerprints on it, baseball. If the baseball is spinning,
substances—what players refer to as and the other would stick to the down- the wake of air behind the ball will be
“sticky stuff”—to baseballs. ward-facing palm of an open hand. asymmetric. So the spin force pushes
Major League hitters are striking out All of these sticky substances increase the ball in the opposite direction from
this season nearly one in every four friction and thus give pitchers a better which the wake of air is pushed.
times they step to the plate, compared grip on the ball. Consider an overhand curveball.
with one in six times in 2005. In this pitch, a Major League Base-
As a sports physicist and longtime ball pitcher pulls down on the front of
baseball fan, I’ve been intrigued by the ball when he releases it, generat-
news reports that applying sticky sub- ing topspin. A topspinning curveball
stances to balls can make pitches spin
faster. And if pitchers can throw their
A batter swings pushes air upward off the back of the
ball, just like a wake coming off one
fastballs, curveballs, and sliders with
more spin than in previous years, their
where he thinks he’ll side of a boat. Because the ball pushes
the wake of air upward, the air’s force
pitches will be tougher to hit. How
does science explain all this?
make great contact, on a curveball is downward. Curve-
balls thus experience a push down-

Increased Friction and Torque


but because of the ward on their way to the plate, all
thanks to the spin force.
If you want to understand what all the
sticky fuss is about, you need to know
sticky stuff and How Effective Is Sticky Stuff?
some friction basics.
You’ve surely tried to unscrew a
extra spin, the ball Here is where the alleged cheating
comes in to the story.
lid from a stubborn jar. If there isn’t
enough friction between your fingers
crosses the plate As with pitchers in the past, a Ma-
jor League pitcher today could poten-
and the lid, you may not be able to
exert enough torque—the rotational
lower than expected. tially put sticky stuff on his fingers
in the locker room, stick some to his
analog of force—to get the lid to turn. uniform, or even get some from a
One way to get more torque on the lid teammate. The substances starring in
is to increase the frictional force. In my More Spin Equals More Strikes the current scandal would help create
home, we use a circular piece of rub- Today’s sticky fingers are the latest more spin. A good pitcher can throw
ber to increase friction and help open attempts by players to gain an unfair a curveball at 137 kilometers per hour
tough jars. advantage. But how does sticky stuff (85 miles per hour) and with a spin
Pitchers want more friction between make a pitch harder to hit? It helps in- rate of 2,400 revolutions per minute
their fingers and the baseball, and they crease spin rate. with about 89 newtons of friction
are supposedly using some interesting Unless the pitcher is throwing a force between the pitcher’s fingers
substances to accomplish this. Accord- knuckleball, which has very little spin, and the ball. Freely available pitch
ing to a June 4, 2021, article in Sports a baseball leaves a pitcher’s hand spin- data show that some pitchers have
Illustrated by Stephanie Apstein and ning at well over 1,000 revolutions per increased their spin rate by about 400
Alex Prewitt, substances that pitch- minute. That spin creates a force—let’s revolutions per minute on curveballs
ers have experimented with include call it the spin force—that causes base- compared with previous seasons.
drumstick resin, surfboard wax, Tyrus balls to move and curve in ways that That’s a 17 percent increase in spin
Sticky Grip, Firm Grip spray, Pelican can throw off hitters. rate and requires a 17 percent increase
Grip Dip stick, and Spider Tack—”a As air smashes into a moving in—or more than 13 additional new-
glue intended for use in World’s Stron- baseball, it doesn’t wrap completely tons of—friction force, which could be
gest Man competitions and whose around the ball—it separates off the the result of sticky substances.

268 American Scientist, Volume 109


might swing where he thinks he’ll
make great contact, but because of
the sticky stuff and extra spin, the ball
will cross the plate 5 centimeters lower
than the batter expects. He’ll either
miss the pitch or hit a weak grounder.
Strikeouts are happening at an all-
time high rate, and sticky stuff may
be one of the culprits. Major League
Baseball has been contemplating what
to do about all the reports of sticky
fingers and as a result it announced
in June that umpires will be periodi-
cally checking pitchers during games.
Preliminary data released in early July
showed that the prospect of increased
enforcement of the rules against sticky
stuff had already caused average spin
rates to drop.
But the cat-and-mouse game be-
Associated Press/AP Images
tween players seeking enhanced per-
A substance can be seen on the throwing hand of New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda formance and the league trying to
in this April 10, 2014, photo of him delivering a pitch in a game against the Boston Red Sox.
catch them will no doubt continue,
Two weeks later, in another game against the Red Sox, an umpire found pine tar on Pineda’s
neck, which he was presumably applying to his hand to improve his grip on the ball. Pineda
adding to the rich lore of cheating in
received a 10-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s rules against pitchers baseball. —John Eric Goff
doctoring baseballs.

For an overhand curveball, an extra just happens to be the thickness of the John Eric Goff is a professor of physics at the Uni-
400 revolutions per minute of topspin sweet spot of a baseball bat. In other versity of Lynchburg. This article is adapted from
can lead to more than 5 centimeters words, a Major League Baseball bat- The Conversation (www.theconversation.com).
of additional vertical drop—which ter familiar with a pitcher’s curveball Email: goff@lynchburg.edu

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www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 269


Sightings

Giants in Traffic
A data visualization quantifies the stresses that boats put on blue whales.

lue whales are always on the The researchers used their whale data aquaculture vessels (red dots with

B go. These marine giants feed


mostly on tiny krill, consum-
ing 2 to 8 tons a day. “They
need areas where krill congregate, to
find big swarms for it to be profitable
obtained from tags and visual sur-
veys, and combined it with marine
data (such as sea surface temperature,
thermal fronts, and chlorophyll levels)
of conditions favorable to krill. They
streaks showing movement).
“It’s not only about the possibility of
ship strikes, but exposure to noise, and
just annoyance to the whales,” says
Bedriñana-Romano. “If whales need
to engage in a dive,” explains Rodri- overlaid vessel location data, which to spend a lot of time trying to feed to
go Hucke-Gaete, a marine biologist Chile requires fisheries, aquaculture, get the energy required for migration,
at Universidad Austral de Chile and and transport boats to provide. The and they have to waste energy dodging
Centro Ballena Azul, a nongovernmen- resulting maps showed the relative boats all day, even if the boats don’t
tal organization. About 20 years ago, probability of a vessel encountering a strike the whales, that’s a huge deal for
Hucke-Gaete and his colleagues identi- blue whale (RPVEW); the map at right a population that is recovering.“
fied a particular area of Northern Chil- is specifically for aquaculture vessels, Hucke-Gaete explains that whales
ean Patagonia as a rich feeding area which make up 80 percent of the boat don’t simply dive to avoid boats be-
for blue whales, and they have been traffic in this area. cause whales travel at the surface when
working to get protected status for the But in addition to the maps, team moving between feeding areas, which
area ever since. But the same area is member Luis Bedriñana-Romano cre- is faster and uses less energy. Also, krill
also attractive for aquaculture, not to ated a data visualization of the life of go to the surface at night, so at dawn
mention boats for fishing, tourism, and one whale during one week. (Stills and dusk the whales feed there. “When
transport. The region is thus pretty con- are below; see our website for video.) you see a blue whale feeding at the sur-
gested, and whales are competing for The animation (which does not de- face, it’s like someone who hasn’t eaten
space in which to move around. pict the boats or whale to scale) dem- for a week,” he says. “You don’t care
In a February 1 paper in Scientific onstrates how much time and energy what’s happening around you when
Reports, the team showcased a new a whale (blue dot with streak show- you’re a 30-meter animal feeding on
analysis of the whales’ predicament. ing movement) must expend avoiding very small crustaceans.”

0 10 20 N 0 10 20 N
kilometers kilometers

270 American Scientist, Volume 109


RPVEW
The study has raised awareness 0 20 40
about boat traffic and whales, says
Bedriñana-Romano: “Chile has a lot kilometers
of environmental issues, but traffic
was not on the list so far, and in Chile 0.005
– 42
there is no regulation on the speed of
boats. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, but
a concrete, specific thing that we can do
now is requiring vessels navigating in
a blue whale area to reduce speed.”
The animation caused a stir on so-
cial media about the whale’s apparent 0.00375
stress. “We’ve gotten a lot of sympathy
– 43
for what was happening to that whale,”
says Hucke-Gaete. “Science needs to
flow and to cross blockages that scien-
tists ourselves sometimes provoke by
talking about complicated stuff, and
this video had so much impact.” 0.0025
The group next plans to incorporate
more detailed data from international
ships, satellites, and upgraded whale – 44
tags. The team is also looking to bet-
ter quantify the migration routes and
breeding grounds of the whales.
“It’s very important that we now
0.00125

L Bedriñana-Romano, et al. Scientific Reports 11:2709.


have the ability to congregate this kind
of data, because the application for
conservation is huge,” says Bedriñana-
Romano. “Data visualization is provid- – 45
ing an aid that we didn’t have before.
In terms of outreach or communicating
something that is sensible for conserva-
tion, it’s the best, because it makes ev- 0
erything clear, you can reach everyone,
and that’s cool.” —Fenella Saunders

A companion video is available online


–75 –74 –73
at americanscientist.org.

Centro Ballena Azul

0 10 20 N 0 10 20 N
kilometers kilometers

www.americanscientist.org
www.americanscientist. 2021 September–October 271
Infographic | Corey S. Powell

The Wild Heart of the Milky Way


“The center of our galaxy is complex, extreme, and violent,” says Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst. To make sense of it, Wang combined radio imagery (purple-gray) from the MeerKAT observatory in South
Africa with x-ray data (orange and blue-green) from the Chandra space telescope into an unprecedented panorama.

1. Sagittarius A* is the
supermassive black hole at the
heart of our galaxy, 4 million
times as hefty as the Sun. It is
calm compared with the black
holes in many active galaxies,
but it may have been much
more active in the past.

2. The Arches Cluster is the


4 densest star cluster in the
galaxy. Winds blowing from
hot, newborn stars collide at
high speeds here, creating the
observed x-rays.

3. Bright blobs are x-ray


binaries: an ordinary star
orbiting a dense neutron star

2 1 or a black hole. Radiation


from matter sucked in by the
neutron star or the black hole
reflects off intervening dust,
producing a halo.

3 4. Filaments are mysterious radio


5 structures that trace the lines
of the galactic magnetic field.
At fine scales, they display
complex structures, indicative
of turbulent interstellar
gas. The filaments may
be energized by electrons
from pulsars or supernova
explosions.

5. G0.17-0.41 is a new kind of


X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT

filament identified by Wang


that is powered by magnetic
reconnection—opposing
magnetic fields that combine,
releasing tremendous energy.
It glows in both radio waves
and x-rays (inset). The x-rays

6
should fade in a century or so,
leaving behind a long-lived
radio filament. This structure
is about 20 light-years long.

6. Plumes of hot gas flow from


the galactic center. Over
millions of years, such plumes
may have blown out enormous
lobe-shaped structures, called
Fermi bubbles.
272 American Scientist, Volume 109
Briefings
of the strap fronds they studied were
Noninvasive Cancer Diagnosis

I
n this roundup, managing editor reproductively active, whereas the re-
Stacey Lutkoski summarizes Medical engineers have created a maining strap fronds and all nest fronds
notable recent developments nanoparticle that can help oncologists were reproductively inactive; this divi-
in scientific research, selected from detect cancer through a simple urine test; sion of reproductive labor is a hallmark
reports compiled in the free electronic the test can also identify the organs af- of eusociality. The outer nest fronds are
newsletter Sigma Xi SmartBrief: fected. The key to this development is a
www.smartbrief.com/sigmaxi/index.jsp nanosensor that is delivered to a patient
intravenously. As it passes through the

CC-BY-SA 4.0/Krzysztof Ziarnek


body, the nanosensor reacts to proteases
(enzymes that break down proteins) in
Exoplanet Moon Creation malignant tumors, and biomarkers from
For the first time, astronomers have that interaction are evident in the pa-
found convincing evidence of a moon tient’s urine. The particle is attracted to
forming in a disc of dust around a the acidic environment common among
newborn planet. Astronomers have cancerous tumors, and it contains radio-
theorized that moons originate in active copper-64, which shows up in posi-
such discs, much as planets form in the tron emission tomography (PET) imaging. large and waxy, and they shunt water
larger discs around young stars, but If a urine test indicates that the nano- to smaller, hydrophilic nest fronds in the
nobody had seen the process in action. sensor has encountered cancer in the interior. A root system then distributes
Researchers using the European South- body, a subsequent PET scan can locate the collected water throughout the
ern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope where the nanoparticles are collecting to colony. The identification of a eusocial
in Chile had previously detected two pinpoint the tumor’s location. In mouse plant challenges previous assumptions
protoplanets (planets in the process of models, these tests successfully identified that this type of behavioral coordination
formation) in the PDS 70 star system, metastatic colon cancer and were able to requires a brain, and it raises the pos-
which is 370 light-years away and just track how the mice responded to chemo- sibility of convergent evolution of that
5 million years old—a stellar infant. therapy treatments. This method would characteristic in plants and animals.
Both protoplanets are gas giants sev- provide a less invasive way to diagnose
eral times more massive than Jupiter. A cancer and could help with early detec- Burns, K. C., I. Hutton, and L. Shepherd.
tion of the disease. Primitive eusociality in a land plant? Ecology
doi:10.1002/ecy.3373 (May 14).
ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Benisty et al.

Hao, L., et al. Microenvironment-triggered


multimodal precision diagnostics. Nature Reviving Pleistocene Life
Materials doi:10.1038/s41563-021 A multicellular organism that was
-01042-y (July 15). trapped in permafrost for approxi-
mately 24,000 years is still alive. Lyubov
Cooperative Plants Shmakova of the Soil Cryology Labora-
An Australasian fern species may en- tory at the Pushchino Scientific Center
gage in division of labor in much the for Biological Research in Russia and her
same way that some insects, such as colleagues thawed a bdelloid rotifer—a
ants and bees, separate tasks within ubiquitous microscopic creature known
team led by Myriam Benisty of the Uni- their colonies. This type of division of to withstand extreme cold—from a sam-
versity of Grenoble used the Atacama labor by caste within a species is called ple collected in northeastern Siberia. The
Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array eusociality. In addition to insects, it has researchers radiocarbon-dated microbes
(ALMA, a collection of radio dishes in been documented in crustaceans and that were frozen alongside the rotifer,
Chile) to zero in on the star system and two mole rat species, but until now which allowed them to estimate its age.
found a dusty disc surrounding one the behavior had not been observed in Once it had been defrosted, the rotifer
of the protoplanets, PDS 70c; such a plants. The fern, Platycerium bifurcatum, was able to reproduce asexually, which
protoplanetary disc had never been ob- is an epiphyte, which means it grows means that its DNA and other critical bio-
served clearly before. Some moons may on other plants but derives its nutrients markers remained intact after all those
have already begun forming around from the air and rain (unlike a parasite, years. In 2018, another team successfully
PDS 70c, but if so, they are too small for which draws nutrients from its host). revived a 30,000-year-old nematode.
us to see. Observing the development Biologist Kevin Burns of Victoria Uni- These resilient multicellular organisms
of this young star system and its planets versity in New Zealand noticed that the provide opportunities to study the bio-
will help astronomers understand how plant grows in colonies of about 25 indi- mechanics necessary to survive in low
our Solar System—in particular, the viduals and that they produce two types temperatures, which could lead to ad-
moon systems of Jupiter, Saturn, and of fronds, which he calls strap fronds vances in cryobiology and biotechnology.
Uranus—was formed. and nest fronds. The green strap fronds
grow like long, thin leaves outward from Shmakova, L., et al. A living bdelloid rotifer
Benisty, M., et al. A circumplanetary disk the nest fronds, which are brown and from 24,000-year-old Arctic permafrost.
around PDS70c. Astrophysical Journal Letters anchored to the plant host. Burns and Current Biology doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.04
doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac0f83 (July 22). colleagues found that about 60 percent .077 (June 7).

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 273


Perspective

Tunnel Vision
In outer space and within living cells, quantum mechanics allows molecules to take
mind-bending journeys that would be impossible by the rules of classical physics.

Dean J. Tantillo

I
f you’re out for a stroll and reach peratures might be too cold. Alterna- equation connects wave functions to
a hill, the most obvious paths tive pathways can also be blocked or molecules’ internal energies, allow-
to the other side are over or might not exist. ing theoretical chemists to predict the
around. But under the right set of Chemists have done many elegant energy-versus-structure curves you
circumstances—such as when there’s a experiments to show that reactions oc- see in the diagram on page 276.
convenient tunnel—sauntering through cur through tunneling and to determine This is where our hill climber/
can be the simplest path forward. how frequently molecules use this re- molecule analogy begins to break
Chemical reactions must traverse action path compared with over-the- down. In the example on page 276,
hill-like barriers, too—in this case, en- barrier processes. Theoretical chemistry there is a very small but greater than
ergy penalties for reaching products. The has been indispensable in interpreting zero percent chance that a reactant
path over requires enough energy to the results of such laboratory experi- molecule has a product-like structure,
reach the hill’s peak or transition state. It ments, because understanding tunnel- because the tail of the wave function
takes a certain amount of energy, usual- ing requires quantum mechanics. resides in the product region. And
ly from heat, for a chemical reaction to Chemists map how reactions occur the narrower the hill, the greater that
happen. Normally, that allows the mol- using diagrams that show both the possibility is. When tunneling occurs,
ecule to wiggle enough to climb over heights of these hills (on the y-axis) no actual hole has opened in the hill,
the energy hill. But the counterintuitive and how much the molecule’s structure but rather the hill does not eradicate
rules of quantum mechanics sometimes changes (x-axis). To understand how re- the probability that the reactant is just
offer a tunnellike third option, so that actions happen, chemists mostly focus the product. By contrast, in the macro-
the reaction can happen even without on the pathway over the hill. But quan- scopic world, there is no chance that
the added energy. tum mechanics tells us that the width a human climber, when standing in
Tunneling reactions are forbidden by of the hill—the difference between the front of the hill, could be inside the
classical reactivity rules, but by study- reactant and the product—matters, too, hill or on its far side. That’s because
ing reaction rates, chemists can discov- for tunneling to occur. people don’t behave much like waves.
er instances in which these prohibited Quantum mechanics comes in be- Tunneling is always one possible
reactions occur. That insight allows us cause molecules are small enough to be reaction path, but it’s an unlikely
to understand the nature of some bio- influenced by both their particle-like one when temperatures are high and
chemical reactions, the complex chem- and wavelike properties. This charac- molecular hills are relatively easy to
istry in interstellar clouds, and the prac- teristic is captured in the Heisenberg climb. But at very low temperatures,
tical chemistry of molecule synthesis. uncertainty principle, which states that such as those close to absolute zero,
Because most reactions involve sur- one cannot accurately determine the any reactions that occur must result
mounting energy barriers the way hik- momentum and position of a particle from tunneling. Tunneling is also more
ers do when they climb over hills, re- simultaneously. likely under circumstances where a
actions with lower barriers have faster To account for quantum mechanical chemical reaction produces a small
rates than those with higher ones. But behavior, theoretical chemists express structural change, which means the
sometimes there isn’t enough energy a particle’s position as a probability, reaction has a narrow barrier—such as
available. For molecules, that means which is related to the square of a so- the movement of a single small atom
the barrier might be too high or tem- called wave function. The Schrödinger within a large, complex molecule.

QUICK TAKE
In tunneling reactions, molecules follow Molecules use heat energy to vibrate, which Tunneling probability increases for reac-
quantum mechanical rules rather than clas- allows them to travel over energy barriers. tions that involve small structural changes,
sical ones to travel through energy barriers Therefore, tunneling reactions are more likely such as moving a tiny hydrogen atom within
rather than climbing over them. to dominate under extremely cold conditions. a large complex molecule.

274 American Scientist, Volume 109


Courtesy of Alexey Sergeev

Most chemical reactions require a molecule to climb an energy hill to transform into a product. among the two hydrogen atoms and
But quantum mechanics provides another option, through a process called tunneling, which is a the carbon atom in a three-center, two-
bit like the tunneling done through actual hills that are difficult to scale, such as Gull Rock Tunnel electron bonding array. In addition, the
(pictured here) in Newport, Rhode Island. five hydrogen atoms of CH5+ constantly
scramble their bonding roles, intercon-
Outer Space observed a reaction rate that was much verting between two-center and three-
Outer space, where baseline tem- faster than expected for an over-the- center arrangements. This constant
peratures hover below −270 degrees barrier reaction in such extreme cold, shifting involves swapping equivalent
Celsius, is so cold that molecules can leaving tunneling as the only viable op- structures and uses tunneling, too.
barely vibrate. With almost no thermal tion. Radio telescopes have observed
energy available to propel chemical re- these molecules, offering evidence that Inner Space
actions over traditional barriers, most tunneling shapes astrochemistry. In the frigid depths of space with al-
reactions can’t occur under classical Interstellar chemistry is wonderfully most no thermal energy, it’s clear why
conditions. But despite frigid tempera- complex and produces complex organic reactions might predominantly occur
tures, many chemical reactions do oc- molecules that we associate with life. via tunneling: Often, there simply is no
cur in space. And laboratory experi- Another unusual interstellar organic other way over the energy barrier. But
ments suggest that tunneling plays a molecule is CH5+, which has challenged tunneling is also a significant factor in
key role in determining which chemi- the very notions of molecular structure much warmer environs, such as living
cal reactions predominate in giant in- because, unlike most molecules, its cells, where tunneling pathways facili-
terstellar clouds of gas and dust. geometry can’t be pinned down. This tate important biochemical reactions.
Dwayne Heard and his coworkers molecule seems to violate a cardinal In these situations, molecules are tak-
from the University of Leeds wanted rule of earthbound organic chemistry— ing advantage of the small change in
to understand more about which reac- that a carbon atom can only make up structure between the reactant and
tions occur and why within dense mo- to four bonds at a time. But the real product. In such situations, the width
lecular clouds, which are hydrogen-rich constraint is not four atoms bonded to of the reaction barrier is narrow, which
clouds, up to hundreds of light-years carbon but the total number of elec- makes passing through easier.
wide, where new stars can form. For trons involved: no more than eight. For decades, chemist Judith Klinman
example, hydroxyl radical (HO•) can CH5+ includes three two-electron co- of the University of California, Berkeley,
steal a hydrogen atom from methanol valent bonds within a CH3+ unit, but and her coworkers have used a range of
(HOCH3) to form water via tunneling. that group interacts with an H2 unit elegant experiments to show how tun-
Under space-like laboratory condi- that brings two more electrons to the neling pathways can contribute to the
tions (very low temperatures), the team party. Those two electrons are shared overall rates of some hydrogen transfer

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 275


transition state
structure

energy lower
reactant barrier barrier
tail of reactant
wave wave wave
function function function
relative energy

relative energy
in product higher
region probability
of forming
product via
tunneling

reactant reactant
structure
product
product favored by product
structure over-the-barrier favored by
reaction tunneling

structural change during reaction structural change during reaction


(reaction coordinate) (reaction coordinate)

Chemists use these types of diagrams to map how reactions occur. Most In this more complex diagram, a chemical reaction can lead to two
often, a molecule follows the classical pathway (black line), taking different products depending on reaction conditions. Traditionally,
advantage of heat energy to vibrate over the energy barrier (red arrow). chemists have predicted which product is preferred based on the en-
Quantum mechanics provides an alternative, competitive route (green ergy barriers (red arrows) or the energy of the products (location of the
line). The bell-shaped curve shows the range of probable structures that black curve’s troughs). But tunneling (green line) can also help deter-
can exist. When the red barrier is high and the width of the barrier is mine which product forms. Chemists can change reaction conditions
thin, the range of probable structures can span from reactant to product. to favor or restrict tunneling and thus influence which reaction occurs.

reactions—frequent, important, and gen transfer, swapping in deuterium Many of Klinman’s studies of tun-
subtle reactions that shuttle these small- can slow reactions down far more than neling in enzymes have been done by
est atoms from one carbon atom to a that—by a factor of nearly 100 in some studying kinetic isotope effects in a
near neighbor—facilitated by enzymes. cases, based on Klinman’s work. Tunnel- common family of enzymes known as
These types of reactions are involved in ing can explain these extreme slowing lipoxygenases. These enzymes are found
metabolism, for example converting fats effects. Deuterium’s greater mass lowers in organisms ranging from protists and
into oxygenated molecules involved in the energy of its vibrational states com- fungi to animals, including humans, and
cell-to-cell signaling. Estimates of how pared with those of hydrogen. Reacting these enzymes can show very large ki-
often tunneling occurs in biology vary netic isotope effects. Lipoxygenases add
widely. Some chemists think enzymatic oxygen atoms to polyunsaturated fatty
tunneling is a rare phenomenon. But acids, opening up pathways for these
in a 2018 article in Chemistry World, Tunneling is always molecules to fragment into smaller ones.
Klinman estimated that up to a third These enzymes are important in cell sig-
of enzyme-promoted hydrogen trans- one possible reaction naling and are linked with some cancers,
fers occur via tunneling. After all these cardiovascular disease, inflammation,
years, we are still learning how much path, but it’s an and metabolic diseases. Some lipoxy-
of our own life processes depend on the genases are also used commercially, in
subtleties of quantum mechanics. unlikely one when fragrance production for instance.
A key tool for studying and under- Although tunneling has been docu-
standing these tunneling pathways is temperatures are mented most thoroughly in reactions
the kinetic isotope effect approach. (For a that involve making and breaking bonds
detailed dive into kinetic isotope effects, see high and molecular to hydrogens, thin-barrier reactions—
"Hacking Hydrogen," January–February those in which bonds are made to and
2020.) Chemists can replace a critical hills are relatively broken from heavier atoms—can also
atom in a molecule with a heavier iso- occur via tunneling. For example, mol-
tope, such as trading a hydrogen atom easy to climb. ecules with systems of alternating short
for its twice-as-heavy isotope, deuteri- and long carbon–carbon bonds can un-
um. If a reaction pathway involves tra- dergo a reaction that exchanges their
versing a traditional energy hill through via a lower vibrational state means fac- bonding patterns. Because the lengths
a transition state, the deuterium transfer ing a lower part of the barrier, and the of the short and long bonds are often
can be up to a factor of 10 slower than a barrier is always wider where it is lower. only 10 percent different, the barriers
hydrogen transfer because of its greater Consequently, tunneling with a deute- between reactants and products are thin,
mass. However, with some enzyme- rium atom is much more difficult than which makes tunneling viable. This area
catalyzed reactions that involve hydro- tunneling with a hydrogen atom. of research is ongoing, and chemists

276 American Scientist, Volume 109


NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team
In interstellar clouds such as the Orion Neb-
ula, interesting chemical reactions take place
but there is little thermal energy to fuel them.
Tunneling provides an avenue for these reac-
tions to occur even at the very low tempera-
tures found in interstellar space.

of barriers, they can use that information


to steer reactions toward the products
they want, and exclude others, based on
differences in tunneling contributions.
Until recently, synthetic chemists gener-
ally exerted this control by considering
the relative height of the barriers—how
fast the products form—or the ener-
gies of the molecules at the end point of
each pathway, the relative stability. Sch-
reiner’s work adds tunneling as a third
factor to consider, a so-called third para-
digm of selectivity control.
The doors have now been thrown
open, and many chemists will no doubt
walk through them to design new
chemical processes. Some researchers
are refining models of tunneling to bet-
countered unexpected results. That ap- ter capture the fundamental physics
proach can get one pretty far, but such involved, whereas others are applying
blinders can lead to missed opportuni- the working models of tunneling to
ties, particularly for reactions in which problems in reaction design. Quantum
changing conditions such as tempera- chemical phenomena steer many im-
ture or the time of reaction can change portant chemical reactions—ones that
the mix of products. For example, with- are occurring in you, in the organisms
in the past several years Peter Schreiner and atmosphere that touch and sur-
from Justus Liebig University Giessen round you, and in exotic realms light-
in Germany and his colleagues have years above your head. Something to
Protein Data Bank/Scouras, A.D., Carr, C.A.M., Hu, S., Klinman, J.P.

shown that one can design reactions think about while out for a stroll.
in which particular products can be se-
lected for by tunneling. Bibliography
Up to this point, we haven’t consid- Castro, C., and W. L. Karney. 2020. Heavy-
ered situations in which a single reactant atom tunneling in organic reactions.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition
can travel two wildly different chemical
59:8355–8366.
pathways to distinct products (see facing
Klinman, J. P., and A. R. Offenbacher. 2018.
page, diagram on right). In some cases, the Understanding biological hydrogen trans-
barrier to one product is comparatively fer through the lens of temperature de-
Chemist Judith Klinman and her colleagues
have studied tunneling extensively in the
low but wide, whereas the barrier to the pendent kinetic isotope effects. Accounts of
other product is high but thin. In such a Chemical Research 51:1966–1974.
pictured enzyme, soybean lipoxygenase.
scenario, the preferred product will de- McMahon, R. J. 2003. Chemical reactions
Their studies of reaction rates show that involving quantum tunneling. Science
the enzyme takes advantage of tunneling to pend on whether tunneling dominates. 299:833–834.
transfer hydrogen atoms, and Klinman esti- At relatively high temperatures, energy Schreiner, P. R. 2020. Quantum mechanical
mates that this process occurs in many other barriers can be surmounted, so the reac- tunneling is essential to understanding
similar enzyme-catalyzed reactions. tion with the lower barrier will be pre- chemical reactivity. Trends in Chemistry
ferred. But when temperatures are too 2:980–989.
have described examples of so-called low to surmount the barriers, products Shannon, R. J., M. A. Blitz, A. Goddard, and D.
E. Heard. 2013. Accelerated chemistry in the
heavy-atom tunneling that involve oxy- will be formed by tunneling through
reaction between the hydroxyl radical and
gen, nitrogen, and fluorine atoms, too. barriers. Under those conditions, the methanol at interstellar temperatures facilitat-
pathway with the thinner barrier—a ed by tunnelling. Nature Chemistry 5:745–749.
Tuning In to Tunneling smaller structural difference between
The vast majority of chemical reactions reactant and product—will prevail. So,
have rates that are not dominated by by controlling the temperature, one can Dean J. Tantillo loves to study the complexity associ-
tunneling, but tunneling always con- select for either product. ated with his young children and with the mecha-
tributes, at least a little bit. But in the Schreiner and his colleagues have nisms of chemical reactions. He does both in Northern
past, most chemists only considered shown that when chemists understand California, as a professor of chemistry at the Universi-
the effects of tunneling when they en- both the relative “heights” and “widths” ty of California, Davis. Email: djtantillo@ucdavis.edu

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 277


Engineering

What Lessons Will Be Learned from


the Florida Condo Collapse?
The deadly catastrophic failure has put a lens on building maintenance.

Henry Petroski

T
he condominium complex stable and do further harm to any sur- 10 million Americans—1.5 million in
known as Champlain Tow- vivors buried within it. There was also Florida alone—live in such units. Gover-
ers is located in the town of concern that the part of the building that nance—including matters of local code
Surfside, Florida, just north of remained standing could fall at any time compliance, capital improvements, and
Miami Beach and about 10 miles north- and harm the rescuers. To minimize this repairs—is overseen mainly by owner
northeast of downtown Miami. Until risk, the remaining structure was moni- associations, whose representatives usu-
recently, it consisted of three 12-story tored carefully for any movement that ally have little or no experience in oper-
buildings containing collectively a total would signal imminent collapse. ating and maintaining a large structure.
of 342 apartments, ranging in size from In the meantime, Tropical Storm Elsa Champlain Towers South was built
one to four bedrooms. The building had developed in the Atlantic and was in 1981, and as such was subject to a
designated Champlain Towers South threatening to strike south Florida with Miami-Dade County requirement that it
occupied prime oceanfront real estate high winds, which could trigger anoth- had to be recertified when it reached 40
and contained 135 condo apartments. er collapse. To obviate further disaster, years of age. The rule was established in
In the very early hours of June 24, Surfside, Miami-Dade County, and oth- the wake of the collapse in 1974 of a fed-
2021, a wing of the Towers South build- er government officials, in consultation eral building in downtown Miami. An
ing, which contained 55 condos, col- with engineers, decided to demolish the investigation traced that spontaneous
lapsed suddenly into a pile of rubble. section of the building that loomed over failure to the presence of chemical salts
Virtually all of the occupants, most of the pile of rubble. Demolition experts in the concrete, which accelerated cor-
whom were presumably asleep at the assured the decision makers that care- rosion in the reinforcing steel known as
time, were crushed to death. Exactly ful placement and detonation of explo- rebar. The pervasive hot and humid sea-
how many victims there were remained sives could bring the building down in side environment in which Champlain
uncertain for weeks, because there ex- a controlled manner so that it would fall Towers South sat for decades was also
isted no accounting of which residents away from the area of active search-and- not favorable to the rebar that had been
had been at home or what guests might rescue operations. The demolition on used to tie its floor slabs to columns and
have been staying over at the time. The the evening of July 4th, 11 days after the form the building’s structural skeleton.
confirmed death toll rose slowly as bod- initial building collapse, went exactly As the recertification deadline was ap-
ies were recovered from the pancaked as planned, and the search for human proaching, the Champlain condo board
floors. For a while, it looked as though remains resumed within hours. engaged consulting engineer Frank
the death toll might surpass that in the Morabito, of Maryland-based family-
1981 collapse of elevated walkways in Condo Rules run Morabito Consultants, to evaluate
the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel, Champlain Towers South was only one the building’s structure. According to
whose 114 victims had marked the most among a seemingly countless number a July 5 Washington Post article, profes-
lost in any American structural failure. of high-rise condominium buildings sionals familiar with Morabito’s work
But at the time of this writing, the Surf- in the area, almost all of which are no describe him as “careful and thorough.”
side death toll stands at 98. more than 40 or 50 years old. Individual In his 2018 report to the board, Morabito
The search-and-rescue operations that ownership of apartments in multiunit described finding, among other prob-
began within hours of the condo collapse buildings in the United States was en- lems, “major structural damage” in the
had to proceed slowly, lest the pile of bro- couraged by the National Housing Act concrete slab that formed the pool deck
ken and crushed concrete and exposed of 1961 and quickly endorsed by ev- and the columns that supported it. Fur-
and twisted reinforcing steel become un- ery U.S. state. This act led to a building thermore, because this slab was perfectly
boom during the 1970s and 1980s, when horizontal, water did not drain properly,
Henry Petroski is the Distinguished Professor condominium and co-op apartment thus affecting the waterproofing and fur-
Emeritus of Civil Engineering at Duke University. units were built (or converted) at a rate ther aggravating the corrosion problem.
Email: petroski@duke.edu of 100,000 per year. Today, more than Morabito’s estimate that it would cost

278 American Scientist, Volume 109


Gerald Herbert/AP Images

Champlain Towers South was one of the many high-rise apartment buildings that line the Newspapers such as the Miami Her-
coast of the Atlantic Ocean in Surfside, Florida. At about 1:30 a.m. on June 24, 2021, a large part ald and New York Times, with reputa-
of the condominium collapsed suddenly, burying 98 occupants beneath a pile of rubble. Many tions for doing in-depth investigative
theories have been proposed to explain the massive structural failure, but a final determina- reporting, can be counted on to dissem-
tion of the cause of the collapse will not be arrived at for some time. inate thoroughly and quickly as much
information about a tragedy as they
$9 million to correct the problems un- Answers in the Rubble can find. But a news story about a fail-
derstandably shocked the condo board. As is the case following any structural ure with implications for construction
Deciding what to do was complicated failure, there arose—in Surfside, seem- around the world conveys more cred-
by the fact that Morabito’s recommenda- ingly even before the concrete dust had ibility when it quotes authoritative ex-
tion that the repairs be done “in a timely settled—the question of what caused perts. A story about a building collapse
manner” was contradicted by a separate the tragedy. Everyone—condo owners, that quotes only unnamed experts can
assessment in November 2018 from Surf- victims’ families, government officials, be as suspect in its completeness and
side’s chief building official, who assured regulators, members of the news me- reliability as a political story that relies
Champlain Towers South owners their dia, lawyers—wondered exactly what solely on anonymous sources.
building was “in very good shape.” caused the condo wing to collapse and Although engineers in general have
During two years of haggling, prog- who was to blame. The rubble was a reputation for not seeking to aggran-
ress was made only in the deterioration expected to hold physical clues, and dize themselves, most are not shy about
of the structure, and the estimated cost paper documents—in the files of ar- opining about a topic that falls within
of repairs needed to deal with corrosion, chitects, engineers, contractors, inspec- their specialty. Structural engineers are
waterproofing, and drainage problems tors, and others who had a hand in the naturally the most obvious choices to
rose by several million dollars. Owners construction and maintenance of the interview for background on and inter-
of larger units in the building were facing building—promised to provide intel- pretation of any type of structural fail-
a six-figure special reassessment. When lectual clues to help interpret the phys- ure. However, codes of ethics caution
there finally was agreement that the ical ones. Such documents include con- engineers not to comment on projects
work had to be done, and done urgently, struction contracts, design calculations, with which they are not familiar. This
the condo association engaged Morabito blueprints, and related correspondence mandate keeps some engineers from
as supervising engineer to prepare the among the parties involved. Parties commenting altogether. But many
necessary documents relating to the re- whose culpability might be implicated whose expertise is so closely related to
pairs, to help select a contractor, and to in such papers are not always forth- the circumstances of a particular recent
monitor the work. Shortly before the col- coming with them, but pressure from failure do feel comfortable likening it to
lapse, repair work had begun on the roof; the news media can often force their historical examples and elaborating on
shortly after the collapse, lawsuits were release, if not voluntarily then by order their causes. They may also feel quali-
filed claiming that Morabito, the condo of the courts. The State of Florida has fied to hypothesize about what appears
association, and city building officials especially strong “sunshine laws” that to be an analogous failure. And these
should have warned owners that the require the release of many such docu- engineers attest to their confidence in
building was in danger of falling down. ments to the public. their speculations and interpretations by

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 279


three or four things have to happen for a
collapse to occur that is so catastrophic.”
In the days following the tragedy, the
views and theories of structural engi-
neers named and unnamed were quoted
both directly and indirectly in news me-
dia of all kinds. A comprehensive article
on the Surfside condo failure appeared
on June 28 in Engineering News-Record,
a construction industry magazine with
a long and distinguished history of re-
porting on failures, and quoted 80-year-
old Allyn Kilsheimer, founder of the
Washington, D.C., firm KCE Structural
Engineers, whose experience includes
involvement in structural investigations
following the September 11, 2001, ter-
rorist attacks on the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center. He was retained
by the City of Surfside to investigate the
condo collapse. In talking about it on the
record, he was careful not to speculate
Town of Surfside Public Records
on a failure regarding which “there are
Part of the building collapse was captured by a surveillance camera, which provided professional
and amateur engineers alike with evidence of how the failure proceeded. In this drawing, the
lots of questions.” He acknowledged the
footprint of the intact building is outlined. The color overlays indicate sections of the building that helpfulness of video from a surveillance
appear in the video to have fallen in sequence (red, orange, green, blue), and the subsequent debris camera mounted nearby that captured
fields, but the exact details and root cause of the failure remain open to discussion. all but the first few seconds of the event
as it occurred, but he laments that the
their willingness to be quoted by name seeing on the ground here? Or is that recording did not begin the moment the
in newspaper and magazine articles, pile not consistent with your theory?” If collapse began and provides only a sin-
which are the sources of the following. not, a different theory must be found. To gle point of view. He expressed the hope
One engineer who was willing to be Bell, a pile of debris such as that on the that other videos might emerge to allow
named is Glenn Bell, a retired senior Champlain Towers site is evidence to be engineers to gain a three-dimensional
principal and former chief executive sifted through for clues that could help understanding of the exact manner in
officer of the Waltham, Massachusetts– confirm or refute a working hypothesis. which the building fell.
based consulting firm Simpson, According to Bell, forensic engineers like As the collapse occurred in the early
Gumpertz & Heger, which has a strong to say that “to the trained eye, the struc- morning hours, it was not likely that
reputation in failure analysis. Bell is a ture will talk to you.” anyone was standing on a nearby bal-
former president of the Structural Engi- cony with a video camera running.
neering Institute of the American Soci- The building likely However, one resident did report that
ety of Civil Engineers and is currently a just before the catastrophe, she saw that
director of Collaborative Reporting for did not collapse for “a section of the pool deck and a street-
Safer Structures US, which is modeled
after a successful program established
one reason. Often level parking area had collapsed into
the parking garage below.” (She had left
in the United Kingdom. In the imme- three or four things her apartment to complain about the
diate wake of the condo collapse, Bell noise, and so survived the subsequent
cautioned engineers “not to speculate too have to happen for a collapse.) A later victim, Cassie Stratton,
much on the potential causes.” He noted
that “most catastrophic collapses happen
collapse to occur that who was looking out the window of her
fourth-floor apartment while talking on
either during construction or early in the is so catastrophic. the phone with her husband, described
life of the structure, indicating there were to him what she was seeing in real time.
systemic, inherent structural problems.” One thing that was clear to Bell was According to a June 27 story in the New
The fact that the Champlain tower stood that “the investigation will take time.” York Times, he reported her saying she
for 40 years strongly suggests that some- This familiar sentiment of experienced saw “a hole of sorts opening near the
thing else may have caused it to fall. forensic engineers was echoed by Ro- pool” before the call was dropped.
Bell, who was involved in the investi- berto Leon, a professor of construction Indeed, on July 5 the Times published
gation of the Hyatt Regency walkways engineering at Virginia Tech, who the photographs and diagrams showing
collapse, is a proponent of putting forth day after the collapse also stated the fa- the pool deck, complete with vehicles
testable hypotheses by imagining “a vid- miliar thought that “it is way too early that had been parked on it, lying atop
eo of the structure collapsing in a certain to tell” what caused the failure. He did the basement floor. It had clearly fallen
sequence that’s along a certain failure not think “the building collapsed just almost intact, leaving the columns by
hypothesis that you have” and asking, because of one reason. What we tend which it had been supported now pok-
“Would it wind up in a pile that you’re to find in forensic investigations is that ing through it. These images were strong

280 American Scientist, Volume 109


evidence of what is termed a punching
shear failure, and it is usually attributed
to insufficient reinforcing steel having
been used to connect a concrete slab to
its supporting columns. A close-up pho-
to of one column showed bent strands
of rebar emanating from it as if the slab
had pulled away from the rebar as it fell.
Engineers who compared these strands
with design drawings strongly suspect-
ed that a less-than-adequate quantity of
reinforcing steel had been used in the
column-floor system. Closer inspection
under controlled conditions of samples
of the concrete, steel, and subassemblies
retrieved from the wreckage should con-
firm or refute such an interpretation. But
even if confirmed, this evidence alone
would not rule out other factors having
played a role in the overall failure. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue
Clues as to what may have triggered the collapse and how it proceeded have been found in the rub-
Many Theories ble. Engineers have focused on such details as the column numbered 72 in this photo, taken before
Once experienced engineers have ac- a controlled demolition of the remaining structure. The photo strongly suggests that this section of
cess to design and construction docu- parking deck, along with the vehicles on it, fell intact onto the floor of the underground parking
ments, including building plans, they garage. The bent and twisted steel reinforcing rods sticking out of the damaged column (red circle)
are evidence that so-called punching shear was the mode of failure at this location.
can test their theories and more reli-
ably imagine how a structure might
fail. But just as a person whose only over five years. Had such settlement which provided the kind of salty and hu-
tool is a hammer sees every problem been other than uniform, cracks would mid environment that is highly corrosive
as a nail, so an engineer’s area of spe- have been expected to open up in the to steel. However, as long as the concrete
cialization can narrow his or her focus building’s floors and walls. Although protected the steel reinforcing bars from
to look within it for failure scenarios. one condo owner did complain about the moist air, the structure should have
Structures are, of course, built from rain entering her unit through a cracked performed as designed. But concrete is
the bottom up. The need to build on a outside wall, there did not appear to be prone to cracking, which can expose its
firm foundation is, indeed, a virtual cli- widespread cracking in the condo units. rebar to the elements. When this hap-
ché. The nature of the ground on which Engineering News-Record on July 5 cred- pens, the steel begins to corrode and the
Champlain Tower South was founded ited an unnamed engineer with imagin- accumulating rust expands against the
naturally became one place to look for a ing that a sinkhole may have opened up concrete, which causes it to crack more,
culprit. Sandy beachfronts do not make beneath the building, allowing one or and chunks of it fall off, in a process
for good foundations, and so to build more concrete piles to drop into the hole known as spalling. This process is well
tall beside the ocean requires digging and so cease to carry their share of the known, and if allowed to proceed un-
down into the underlying ground to load, thereby initiating the progressive checked, it can be responsible for bring-
reach some solid resistance. If it can’t be collapse of the entire building. ing a whole structure down. Morabito
found, then an array of long columns Another theory was put forth by the appears to have observed such damage.
or piles can be cast or driven into the founder and president of S. K. Ghosh At the time this issue is going to press,
sand until the resistance encountered Associates, a Chicago-area consulting it is too early to tell with full certainty
in driving them further down is consid- firm with expertise in building codes which of the many theories proffered
ered sufficient to support a structure of and the seismic behavior of structures. is the most probable. It is unlikely that
considerable weight, such as one of the Although there was no suspicion that any one of them alone will fully explain
Champlain Towers or its neighboring the Surfside collapse had anything to what actually happened. Jack Moehle,
high rises along the beachfront. do with an earthquake, an engineer a professor at the University of Califor-
If a foundation is not firm, whatever such as Ghosh could imagine that if nia, Berkeley, a school with a historically
rests upon it can sink or settle over time. a sizable portion of the concrete deck strong structural engineering program,
If such subsidence occurs slowly and slab fell virtually intact onto the floor has said of the collapse, “It will be a long
uniformly, it may only amount to the in- slab of the underground parking ga- time before this has been thoroughly
convenience of having to alter the tran- rage, the impact might have sent out studied and thoughtfully considered.”
sition from sidewalk to building from a shock wave that could have broken Only after that has happened will engi-
time to time. According to Shimon Wdo- some weakened columns, which in neers be able to draw definitive conclu-
winski of the earth and environment turn would overload nearby columns sions about the collapse’s most probable
department of Florida International Uni- and cause them to fail, leading to a pro- cause and to outline the lessons that may
versity, Champlain Towers South was gressive collapse of the entire structure. be learned from the tragedy.
sinking in the late 1990s by about 2 milli- The reinforced-concrete building was
meters per year, or about a centimeter located just 100 yards from the ocean, (References are available online.)

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 281


Arts Lab

Etching the Landscapes Within


Visual depictions of healing can encourage positive change.

Kim Moss

R
esiliency. If 2020 has tested noticed as they protect us around the In this piece, the panels show normal
anything, it is how well we clock. Sometimes, however, these “do esophageal cells, gastric acid, and ab-
can stand up to hard times. Of good” cells are also part of the compli- normal tissue. The piece can be viewed
course, as we look forward, we cations of disease. They have been tied both ways through the glass, showing
will continue to navigate how to bounce to issues of a hyperresponsive immune the layering from normal to abnormal
back from recent and new challenges. system. Additionally, pollutants such or the opposite. This design reflects the
Our health and well-being are enfolded as tobacco smoke, ozone, and aerosols reversibility of negative effects; abnor-
into the concept of resiliency, and I be- diminish the power of alveolar mac- mal cells can differentiate to normal
lieve that being resilient requires mental rophages to engulf and destroy un- again. Regular monitoring of the esoph-
fortitude in combination with a strong wanted elements. Understanding how agus and healthy lifestyle choices, such
physical base. This mind–body connec- these cells respond to infection and as a good diet and avoiding overeating
tion is something that informs my art the reversibility of their positive and and smoking, bolsters this tissue’s re-
practice and is the basis for my installa- negative responses can help viewers re- sponse to damage, and healthy tissue
tion, The Landscapes Within. Although I can be restored. It is my hope that view-
created the work before the pandemic, ers will look at these panels and con-
COVID-19 has given me reason to refo-
Visualizing microscopic sider how resilient these tissues are and
cus on this theme. I have been reminded processes points to the how it’s often not too late for people to
of how our actions and outlook, in con- engage in healthy lifestyle choices that
junction with quiet time for contempla- interconnected will make a difference in their lives.
tion, can help us face difficulties.
The work, comprising three stacked
systems at work, as The hippocampus, a critical structure
found within the human brain’s tem-
series of hand-etched glass panels (ap- though they are an poral lobe, is the topic of the third panel
proximately 0.5 meter by 1 meter each), series, Response to Stimulus (see page
addresses resilience and plasticity in ecosystem in the body. 285). This part of the brain is connect-
the body—a theme of damage and re- ed to learning, memory, and emotion.
pair. Frequently, we aren’t aware of the flect on their own ability to support this Prolonged stress, as in post-traumatic
agents that attack us because our de- defense system through actions such as stress disorder (PTSD), has been shown
fenses work well. With knowledge of mask wearing and promoting clean air. to damage the hippocampus and af-
these incredible internal defenses and The second panel series, Cells in Tran- fect memory retention. My work in-
repair processes, we can augment and sition, conveys the plasticity of the cells vites viewers to consider how their
connect their efficacy to our actions lining the esophagus (see facing page). own positive actions can support hip-
and lifestyle habits. We can bolster our Esophageal cells form one type of epi- pocampus function. Research suggests
own resiliency and empower positive thelial tissue, which lines the surfaces of that exercise and positive affirmation
change. Therefore, the three pieces in our bodies. These lining tissues include can counter damage to the hippocam-
The Landscapes Within highlight differ- layers that specialize in response and pus and improve memory. A positive
ent examples of how the body responds repair. Acid reflux is a common condi- outlook can enhance clear thinking
to health issues in positive ways when tion and presents as the well-known and promote curiosity and problem-
coupled with beneficial lifestyle choices. symptom of heartburn. Time and again, solving. The hippocampus is also an
The first panel series, The Innate Im- the esophagus recovers from damage area researchers are investigating for
mune Response, shows alveolar macro- caused by gastric acid that splashes up adult neurogenesis—the ability to
phages, or white blood cells of the lungs, above the diaphragm into the esoph-
fighting against inhaled infectious agus. If acid reflux becomes chronic, Layers of glass etchings set aglow with colored
agents (see page 286). These industri- however, normal cells can transition to lights celebrate the body’s resilience in Cells
ous cells, which are part of the defense abnormal metaplastic cells, which can in Transition, and in other works from the au-
system we are born with, often go un- be a precursor to esophageal cancer. thor’s art installation The Landscapes Within.

282 American Scientist, Volume 109


www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 283
In the The Landscapes Within, viewers can approach each piece from many directions (below) making sense of complex health issues
in a contemplative space that the author hopes will spark curiosity and self-reflection (above). like the COVID-19 pandemic requires
picturing the problem. Visualizing mi-
croscopic processes points to the inter-
generate neurons later in life, improv- panels stacked vertically to convey cel- connected systems at work, as though
ing cognitive function. Stem cells rep- lular elements in a three-dimensional they are an ecosystem in the body. I
resenting this potential are shown as space, or layers and depth of overlap- want to draw out the innate systems
structures imbedded in a diverse ar- ping tissues. The works are illuminated of defense that we rely on daily and
ray of neuron types within the curved by colored lights at the perimeter, which visualize the key characters at work. I
etched area in the panels. The density are refracted at different angles and am also now researching how to create
of cells and the colors in this work do change as the viewer moves across and a similar etched panel on coronavi-
not come close to capturing the real around the piece, creating a dynamic ruses and vaccines that might distill
density and complexity of cells within and shifting effect. The colors and light some of the complex science behind
the brain, but it is my hope that the quality also look different depending on the disease and offer a nonconfronta-
viewer starts to see how this network the light quality of the room. tional way for viewers to consider the
enhances the brain’s resilience. I wanted these panel series to coun- efficacy of vaccination.
Each of the three pieces in this instal- ter the anxiety that often accompanies With all of my etched glass works, I
lation is composed of multiple glass complex or negative topics. For me, aim to engage viewers in learning and

284 American Scientist, Volume 109


introspection from a backdoor approach. tanical, entomological, and other scien- topography while looking closely at the
The key mechanism here is to spark cu- tific content. I often feature micro-macro small organisms at foot level.
riosity and draw viewers into topics connections in the environment, or the In creating The Landscapes Within, I
concerning their health and wellness, fascinating complexity of a particular drew upon a visual and scientific theme
uninhibited and with an open mind. The organism. Some of my work is didactic that never fails to fascinate and resonate
framework for this experience is best with a very specific intention to inform with me: “Form fits function.” I am cap-
when it includes an environment that the viewer, whereas other pieces are tivated by processes within the human
is devoid of distractions and encour- more open to interpretation. I also have body that serve as models of resiliency,
ages slowing down, or slow learning. a background in fine art, and love to ex- and sometimes even reversibility. As
I am interested in creating an immer- plore the ways different disciplines and I consider cellular mechanisms, the
sive experience that provides a medium types of visual work intersect to reap forms make sense and provide a stimu-
for self-reflection, contemplation, hon- unique depictions, new ways of under- lating springboard for creating art, both
est assessment, and an open format for standing, and unexpected benefits. For abstract and representational. When
flexible thinking and decision-making. example, in another body of work called viewed on a microscopic level, indi-
With this approach, rather than a clear Backbone Unearthed, I blend cartography, vidual cells are visually striking, pre-
didactic presentation, it is okay if some fine art, and science illustration to con- senting a diversity of forms, and tissue
viewers struggle at first with what the nect the macro and micro elements of layers resemble a dynamic landscape.
content is or means. Iowa’s Backbone State Park. The result Many biological processes are mech-
simulated my experience of walking in anisms of healing and disease that are
s a biomedical artist, I work in

A
the park—how I could get a sense of the tied to how we engage in self-care,
many art forms. I am trained
as a medical illustrator, which
entails translating and communicating
medical content visually through me-
dia such as textbook illustrations, ani-
mations, interactive web content, aug-
mented and virtual reality, instructional
design, and more. I also work as a scien-
tific illustrator, depicting an array of bo-

Response to Stimulus depicts the hippocam-


pus, a region of the brain that can be damaged
by prolonged stress, affecting memory. The
author aims to draw attention to how exercise
and positive affirmation can counter that ef-
fect. In the detail (right), excitatory neurons,
which promote signal transmission, are prom-
inent. In a view of the panel’s reverse side
(below), astrocytes—which help in memory
formation—and stem cells are more visible.

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 285


In The Innate Immune Response, white blood
cells in the lungs use tentacle-like projections
to engulf bacteria, pollen, and other foreign
bodies. By helping viewers better understand
these cells that protect us daily, the author
wants to inspire positive changes such as
mask wearing and promoting clean air.

help others wrestling with their own


health-literacy issues. It’s difficult, even
terrifying, to process information about
life-threatening disease. It is common
to have heightened anxiety, and to not
fully process what is going on because
it is happening within our bodies at a
level we cannot see with the naked eye.
In other words, stress about our health
affects our health literacy, our ability to
decision-making, treatment plans, and and actions for themselves and others.” heal, and our resilience.
a positive outlook. Resiliency is pre- Trained as a medical illustrator, I knew For some people, confronting infor-
mised on connecting what we do on how to delve into treatment options mation on complex issues and chal-
the outside to microscopic functional- and research on the disease. Yet I found lenges shifts them into a problem-
ity on the inside. I was not immune to challenges of solving mode. They become focused
My attention to understanding dis- health literacy; cycles of concern inter- on information gathering, analysis,
ease processes and treatments snapped rupted my focus and made it hard for decision-making, and strategic think-
into focus a decade ago when my father me to help my father. I also discovered ing. For others, the same issues and
was diagnosed with esophageal can- that I longed for visual material that information initiate a closed circuit of
cer. I understood that navigating his went beyond literal illustrations of bio- worry. Upon hearing bad news, they
treatment and recovery would require logical structures—art that encouraged plunge into a vortex of questions, con-
personal health literacy, which the Cen- self-reflection or a quiet contemplation cerns, and hypothetical outcomes—a
ters for Disease Control and Preven- of the complexity of the matters affect- process that overshadows the ability
tion defines as “the degree to which ing and related to disease and healing. to make sense of a situation in difficult
individuals have the ability to find, un- I created The Landscapes Within to de- times. This response can inhibit flex-
derstand, and use information and ser- velop this visual space for self-reflection ible thinking and the ability to identify
vices to inform health-related decisions and to test a new type of art that could a pathway to viable solutions.

286 American Scientist, Volume 109


Art can play a productive role in From this angle, Cells in Transition shows normal esophageal cells (blue-violet) transitioning
the above scenarios. But various types to metaplastic cells (red-orange), a precursor to cancer, in response to chronic acid reflux (solid
of artwork could inhibit or promote red-orange in background). Viewed from the opposite side, the same work displays the process
either response. For example, ap- of healing as metaplastic cells differentiate to normal ones.
proaching a realistic surgical illustra-
tion versus a less literal artwork may among inspiring pieces by other artists With works like The Landscapes
elicit different frames of mind in differ- combining science and art at the Sigma Within, I aim to show people that they
ent people depending on how anxious Xi STEM Art and Film Festival in Madi- can take a step back from their daily
it makes one feel. But the renowned son, Wisconsin, in 2019. worries. I want to offer viewers an op-
work of engineer and psychologist I hope to continue exhibiting this portunity to hold a sustained focus,
installation in public health settings, slow down to think, and open them-
offering people at clinics, hospitals, or
Stress about our health elsewhere an opportunity to de-stress,
selves up to positive actions that make
the body more resilient.
affects our health learn, and reflect. The work will be
on display this summer and into the References
literacy, our ability to fall at the William R. Bliss Cancer Cen- Brand, S., T. Reimer, and K. Opwis. 2007. How
do we learn in a negative mood? Effects
heal, and our resilience. ter and the Cancer Resource Center at
Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames,
of a negative mood on transfer and learn-
ing. Learning and Instruction 17:1–16.
Iowa. There, I plan to conduct a study Fredrickson,  B. L. 2000.  Cultivating positive
Don Norman has shown that being into the work’s efficacy for providing emotions to optimize health and well-
attracted to something we find aes- an opportunity for self-reflection and being. Prevention & Treatment 3:1–25.
Migliaccio, C. T., and A. Holian. 2010. Inflam-
thetically pleasing promotes a positive combating health literacy issues. I will matory cells of the lung: Macrophages.
mindset and opens the door to com- collect quantitative and qualitative in- In  Comprehensive Toxicology, vol.  8, second
prehension. It is my hope that view- formation from those visiting the cen- edition, eds. C. A. McQueen and G. S. Yost,
ers are drawn to The Landscapes Within ter through a survey that will inquire pp. 93–113. Elsevier Science. 
Norman,  D. A.  2004.  Emotional Design: Why
because it piques their curiosity and into viewers’ stress levels, reasons for
We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.  New
leads to positive change while reduc- being there, and comprehension of the York: Basic Books. 
ing anxiety. subject matter, as well as any action- Suzuki, W. 2015. Happy Brain, Happy Life. New
For all these reasons, it was impor- able outcomes. For example, I’m curi- York: HarperCollins Publishers. 
tant to me that The Landscapes Within ous to see if the work motivates any-
be in a public setting and accessible. I one to adopt new habits, such as using Kim Moss teaches at Iowa State University in the
appreciate the feedback I have received a positive outlook more frequently to Biological/Pre-Medical Illustration Program and
thus far from presenting the work in improve memory. I am also interested the Department of Art and Visual Culture. View
museums such as the Science Center of in finding a permanent home for the more of her work at www.kimmossart.com. Email:
Iowa, and I greatly valued its inclusion installation after my study is complete. moss@iastate.edu

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 287


The Shift to a Bird’s-Eye View
Remote sensing technologies allow researchers to track small changes on a large
scale and enable studies of far-flung places from the comfort and safety of home.

Elizabeth M. P. Madin and Catherine M. Foley

T
here was a period in my life worldwide who depend on coral reefs The huge, sandy rings surrounding
when my job title might as for food and jobs. coral reefs, where small fishes have
well have been professional But one can only be a professional eaten away all the seaweed, are vis-
fish watcher. Every day, I fish watcher for so long. The time, ex- ible in satellite imagery. The rings are
(Madin) would wake up, head out to pense, and logistics of traveling to these created by interactions among pred-
a coral reef, and watch fish. Endless remote coral islands proved particular- ators and their prey and are indica-
numbers of fish. Traveling halfway ly difficult once my first child was born tive of healthy, well-functioning reef
across the world to the remote Line in 2009. Luckily, a chance conversation ecosystems. These rings are too big to
Islands archipelago in the middle of with fellow graduate student Thomas be observed in their entirety under-
the Pacific Ocean, I would spend days Adam (now an assistant research bi- water, so I had been—unknowingly—
and weeks floating in the clear waters ologist at the Marine Science Institute documenting them piecemeal.
above the reef, recording details such at the University of California, Santa A space-based view opened up new
as the exact number of bites a tiny fish opportunities to apply my research to
takes. Imagine counting how many the real-world question of how fish-
times a chicken pecks at the ground; it ing affects coral reefs. It also presented
was a bit like that. new possibilities for studying Earth’s
These close observations of fish ocean ecosystems more broadly, which
were a central part of my doctoral re- triggered a paradigm shift for my re-
search on marine ecosystems. My goal search. The broad perspective of satel-
was to understand whether humans, lite imagery allowed me to identify
by harvesting the large, predatory fish, larger trends by observing changes
led the smaller, normally timid fish to on a global scale and comparing eco-
become more daring in their nibbling systems over time and across space.
of seaweed and foraging on coral reefs.
The larger purpose was to understand View from Afar
a disturbing transition: Human activi- Remote sensing is the process of detect-
ties have been transforming coral reefs ing and measuring phenomena without
from pristine, predator-filled oases being physically present. Common re-
bursting with colorful marine life into mote sensing technologies include satel-
Courtesy of Elizabeth M. P. Madin
seemingly inert brown seascapes cov- lites and drones that observe the Earth
At the beginning of her career, ecologist
ered in seaweed and slime. from above, as well as radar, sonar, and
Elizabeth M. P. Madin (pictured in Palmyra
This pattern has been observed lidar, which measure characteristics of
Atoll, Line Islands) counted the nibbles of
on reefs throughout the world in re- individual fish to calculate their effect on far-away objects. Other forms of remote
cent decades, but the nuances of why coral reefs. Now, she uses satellite images to sensing include infrared camera traps
and how this happens are not always study changes on a larger scale. that monitor nighttime wildlife without
clear. It was my hope that by inves- human interference, and tags that al-
tigating the mechanisms of change, Barbara) led me to a dramatic shift in low researchers to track animals; those
my research would help guide wise perspective. I discovered that the collec- methods let researchers get up close
decision-making and conservation tive result of the fish behavior patterns and personal with their subjects, but the
policies, which in turn would help to that I had spent countless hours docu- monitoring occurs remotely.
ensure a sustainable supply of seafood menting underwater could also be seen Although one of us (Madin) discov-
for the hundreds of millions of people . . . from space. ered the possibilities of remote sensing

QUICK TAKE
Satellite images and other remote sensing These methods enable researchers to vir- During the COVID-19 pandemic, remote
technologies can provide information about tually visit regions that would otherwise be sensing and monitoring technologies allowed
global shifts and tiny phenomena—both the inaccessible, either because of the difficulty of researchers to continue their work while
proverbial forest and the trees. travel or because of potential danger. maintaining a safe social distance.

288 American Scientist, Volume 109


Catherine Foley

Drone video footage captured this turtle swimming above a coral patch reef in Kāneʻohe Bay, guin populations in near-real time from
Hawaiʻi. Overhead images give ecologists a wider perspective on changes to coral reef eco- anywhere in the world. Problem solved.
systems than can be obtained through close examination alone. Our (the authors’) paths up to that
point had set us on a trajectory to collab-
relatively late in her research career, I land, time is of the essence; spending orate. In 2020, one of us (Madin) realized
(Foley) relied on the technology from weeks observing penguin colonies is that she wanted to tap into the power of
the start. My doctoral research applied simply not an option due to tricky lo- remote sensing in a way that went be-
remote sensing technologies to the for- gistics and tight research budgets. yond her own skill set. She wrote an ad
midable problem of counting seals and To circumvent these limitations, re- to recruit a postdoc with remote sensing
penguins in the subantarctic. searchers use time-lapse camera traps chops who shared her interest in apply-
In the early 2010s, many research- to study changes in penguin colonies ing those skills toward conservation of
ers assumed that penguin and seal that occur over weeks or months. ocean wildlife; the other of us (Foley)
populations were recovering from the However, this approach does not an- replied. Today, we are combining our
extensive harvesting of the 18th and swer the question of how large the to- vastly different skill sets to tackle new
19th centuries, but nobody knew for tal penguin populations are, or how ecological questions that would be im-
sure (and the answer is still somewhat those populations change over time. possible to address separately.
unclear). There was a good reason for Although it was impossible for our re- Our projects range from using sat-
that uncertainty: Subantarctic travel is search team to live at these penguin col- ellites and drones to quantify how
no small undertaking. South Georgia onies for years at a time, we discovered seagrass meadows recovered from a
Island in the Southern Ocean, for ex- that we could “visit” them frequently reduction in recreational boat use dur-
ample, is accessible only by ship; there via satellite images and observe how ing the COVID-19 lockdown, to us-
are no permanent residents or airstrips, colonies were changing in size, shape, ing head cams mounted on Hawaiian
and the weather is extremely inhos- and composition over time. Because sat- monk seals to understand how the ac-
pitable. The obstacles to accessing the ellites have been continuously orbiting tivities of this threatened species affect
region make its animal populations in- the Earth for decades, we could even go the behavior of its prey. We are finding
credibly difficult to study. And if you back in time to start our observations that the more we look, the more our
do manage to get to South Georgia Is- and then continue to monitor these pen- eyes open to the seemingly limitless

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 289


also using remote sensing to monitor
species that are not readily apparent to
humans even when we are nearby.
For example, in 2019 a research
group from ecologist Heather Lynch’s
lab at Stony Brook University dem-
onstrated that machine learning algo-
rithms are capable of detecting large
whales in satellite imagery. The al-
gorithms search satellite imagery for
signs of whales at the surface of the
water—large, dark, shiny bodies in the
middle of the ocean—and can provide
researchers with a relative number of
whales in an area. When this type of
information is paired with behavioral
data collected in the field, it provides
an incredibly powerful tool for moni-
toring massive spatial areas.
Remote sensing technologies have
revolutionized whale research in
other ways as well. These mysterious
creatures of the deep have long puz-
zled scientists, who only grasp brief
penguinmap.com/NASA
glimpses of their lives at the sea sur-
Cuverville Island off the coast of Antarctica is inaccessible to humans for much of the year, but face. Now, researchers use satellite tags
satellite images allow researchers to study the island’s penguin populations regardless of season.
to track where they migrate and move.
Although the individual birds are not visible, reddish-brown splotches of guano on the white
Three-dimensional motion sensors and
snow indicate gentoo penguin colonies. Remote sensing techniques that groups such as Penguin
Watch have relied upon for years were used more broadly during the pandemic because they al- accelerometers can recognize how the
lowed researchers to visit field sites virtually while adhering to stay-at-home orders. animals are oriented in the water and
how fast they are moving, allowing
researchers to identify specific behav-
possibilities for applying the rapidly power, provided more opportunities iors, such as lunge feeding, even when
evolving suite of remote sensing tools. to monitor animal populations via re- they can’t see the whales.
mote methods. The resolution of sat- These data are especially useful
Hidden in Plain Sight ellite images is now so sharp that we when paired with video from animal-
The first satellite images were cap- can sometimes even identify individual borne cameras. By mounting small
tured in 1959. They were compara- large animals. We can detect the migra- video cameras (often referred to as
tively low in quality and resolution, tion of caribou and musk oxen across crittercams) directly onto animals, re-
but technology developed quickly, and Alaska and the Arctic via publicly searchers can observe how they hunt
and move through environments that
would otherwise be invisible to us.
Many other species have proved
Motion sensors and accelerometers can equally challenging to observe, but
for different reasons. Polar bears are
recognize how animals are oriented in important to monitor as they face the
threat of a changing climate and melt-
the water and how fast they are moving, ing ice. These large predators cannot
be studied up close because they are
allowing researchers to identify specific too dangerous to approach, but their
camouflaged pelts make them difficult
to observe from afar. In 2015, conser-
behaviors even when they can’t see them. vation biologist Michelle LaRue (now
at the University of Canterbury in
Christchurch, New Zealand) and her
soon the images provided enough de- available images from Landsat—a colleagues found a way to assess the
tail to detect the presence of animals. joint program of NASA and the U.S. population of polar bears on Rowley Is-
In 1980, for example, scientists used Geological Survey—which maintains land, Canada, entirely with satellite im-
satellite imagery to detect areas of bare the longest-running continuous space- agery. The team used a technique called
ground in South Australia, a telltale based record of the Earth. Newer, automated image differencing, which com-
sign of wombat burrows. higher-resolution satellite imagery can pares images at the pixel level to iden-
Advances in satellite imagery, as also identify animal migrations over tify minute changes, to pinpoint polar
well as improvements in computing the African savannah. Researchers are bear locations and population density.

290 American Scientist, Volume 109


Zooniverse Penguin Watch

Cameras mounted in Antarctica during the austral summer enable year-round monitoring breeding activity among subantarctic
of various penguin populations. Zoologist Tom Hart and his Penguin Watch team install seals. The Seal Watch team uses this
standard trail cameras on semipermanent stands (left, with a colony of gentoo penguins). The data to monitor the timing of breeding
images from these cameras are made available on the Zooniverse platform to citizen scientists,
events and establish relative estimates
who help track the location and movements of different groups of penguins. In the photo-
graph of chinstrap penguins (right), colored dots represent individual clicks from volunteers.
of breeding success across rookeries.
This information is critical to our un-
derstanding of population dynamics
The creative use of satellite imagery cess called photogrammetry to create 3D and recovery in species that were once
for tracking animal populations doesn’t reconstructions of the islands. Imag- hunted to the brink of extinction.
stop there. In 2014, Lynch and LaRue ine a mown lawn where each pass of The same tools and techniques used
teamed up to tackle a much smaller the lawn mower had about 90 percent to observe whales, polar bears, and
problem: Adélie penguins. Although overlap with the one before. The pho- penguins can also monitor some of the
individual Adélies are too small to tos that Lynch collected overlapped in smallest animals on Earth. Corals are
identify in satellite images, it turns out a similar manner, and variations in the marine invertebrates, each typically
that when they group together, they angle of the images brought out the fea- only a few millimeters long, which col-
produce a lot of guano. And Adélie tures in the landscape. Photogramme- lectively can form large, reef-building
excrement is particularly festive—it try uses matching points on multiple colonies. Currently facing the menac-
is bright pink, making it easily iden- images and applies the rules of geom- ing and synergistic effects of increases
tifiable in satellite imagery. Lynch etry to reconstruct a 3D surface. By us- in sea temperature, stronger and more
and LaRue conducted the first global ing this method, Lynch’s team was able frequent storms, and ocean acidifica-
census of Adélie penguins and based to recreate a 3D model of the Danger tion, corals have gained increased at-
their findings entirely on the presence Islands and identify them as critically tention and concern for their precari-
of guano stains in satellite imagery. In important habitat for seabirds. ous state on a rapidly changing planet.
their analysis, Lynch and LaRue discov- Aerial surveys are not the only tech- One of our current projects uses
ered 17 Adélie penguin colonies that nology on the leading edge of remote drones to create 3D maps of reefs dur-
were previously unknown to scientists, sensing in ecology research. Oxford ing and after coral bleaching events,
and 13 that appear to have disappeared University zoologist Tom Hart leads the when hotter-than-normal water tem-
from the Antarctic continent. Penguin Watch research project, using peratures cause corals to turn a ghostly
Penguin science has been a hotspot time-lapse cameras to monitor breeding white before either dying or, if lucky,
for innovation in the use of remote activity in hundreds of penguin colo- recovering. The maps allow us to vir-
sensing methods. While working in nies around Antarctica and the South- tually revisit and remeasure with great
the Lynch lab, one of us (Foley) ex- ern Ocean, all from the comfort of his precision the exact same coral colonies
tended the team’s area of interest to sofa. Hart uses trail cameras—similar year after year and track their demise
include king penguins on subantarc- to ones you might set up in your back- or recovery. (Even for most coral ex-
tic South Georgia Island. In 2018, the yard—mounted on semipermanent perts, trying to re-find an individual
lab began supplementing satellite data stands. Currently, Penguin Watch has coral colony on a reef is a bit like trying
with images collected by uncrewed 92 cameras mounted across the region, to relocate a particular tree in a rainfor-
aerial vehicles (also known as drones) with an additional 40 cameras installed est.) We’re in the process of developing
from a remote region of Antarctica and maintained by collaborators. an artificial intelligence algorithm to
called the Danger Islands. As implied With Hart’s help, several more automatically identify bleached corals
by their ominous name, these islands “Watch” projects have launched on the from drone imagery, which will enable
are difficult to reach and are therefore Zooniverse citizen science platform, in- faster, cheaper, and easier detection of
rarely visited by scientists. cluding my (Foley’s) own project, Seal coral bleaching in near-real time.
Lynch’s lab used highly overlapped Watch, which applies the methods Hart Our work dovetails with the Allen
photo transects from drones and a pro- developed to the task of identifying Coral Atlas, a collaborative project that

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 291


Engine to show that between 1985 and
2015, 2,900 square kilometers—an area
larger than Rhode Island—had been
newly mined in Central Appalachia.
Cumulatively, the mining footprint
within the region was 5,900 square ki-
lometers, meaning that nearly half of
that area was mined in a 30-year pe-
riod. The researchers have made their
algorithm and data publicly available
to the scientific community, fostering
a collaborative environment to docu-
ment changes. With increases in tech-
nological innovation and computing
power, we may soon have the ability
to monitor landscapes in real-time and
use the technology to target inter-
ventions and raise public awareness,
441 kilometers perhaps sparking policy changes that
could halt the destruction.
Remote sensing is also providing a
clearer picture of the ways that farm-
ing, overgrazing, rising temperatures,
and diversion of water resources can
lead to drought events and desertifica-
tion. Climatologist Arden Burrell of the
Woods Hole Research Center and his
colleagues constructed a time series of
satellite images to study global land use
data between 1982 and 2015. They found
that during this time, human-induced
climate change degraded nearly 13 per-
cent of the world’s drylands—a region
equivalent to half the area of Europe. In
a paper in Nature Communications, they
estimate that these ecosystem changes
affect 213 million people, the vast major-
ity (93 percent) of whom live in develop-
ing economies. Continued desertifica-
tion poses a serious threat to roughly
441 kilometers 40 percent of terrestrial habitats—an
area populated by approximately 1 bil-
Map data: Google, USGS, USDA, ESA lion people. (See “Dying for a Drink,”
Satellite images from Google Earth demonstrate the dramatic change to Kayford Mountain in September–October 2019.)
West Virginia between December 2008 (top) and September 2015 (bottom). Mountaintop removal A less direct effect of anthropogenic
mining exposes coal seams from above, making it unnecessary to tunnel underground. Because
climate change is the way it is changing
satellites such as Landsat have been surveying the Earth for decades, researchers can compare
images of landscapes over time and see the long-term effects of human actions on ecosystems.
fire patterns across the world. Imagery
from satellites and drones has proved
invaluable at predicting, detecting, mon-
includes the University of Arizona ties on the planet. Unregulated mining itoring, responding to, and recovering
and the University of Queensland in can cause complete ecosystem loss, rap- from wildfires globally. Using remotely
Australia. The project is using satellite id degradation of air and water quality, sensed environmental data on wetness,
imagery paired with machine learning and the pervasive release of pollutants. wind, rainfall, and vegetation, research-
algorithms and in situ survey data from Advances in remote sensing methods ers are able to create risk maps for wild-
around the world to build the world’s have allowed for the rapid identification fire outbreak in near-real time, provid-
first high-resolution global coral atlas. of harmful mining operations as well as ing local authorities with the necessary
Both efforts will help document how monitoring of their direct and indirect information to prepare and potentially
coral reefs around the world are chang- effects on surrounding ecosystems. prevent loss of life and property.
ing in response to human activities. A 2018 study led by Andrew Pericak When fires break out, it becomes es-
(now a geographic information sys- sential for firefighters and residents to
Surveying Changing Landscapes tems analyst at the Tennessee Depart- know where active fires are burning
Mining operations are among the most ment of Transportation) used Landsat and where smoke and ash could po-
ecologically devastating human activi- satellite imagery and the Google Earth tentially threaten human health. When

292 American Scientist, Volume 109


rampant wildfires ravaged the Pacific
Northwest in the autumn of 2020, the
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospher-
ic Administration (NOAA) satellites
played a pivotal role in pinpointing ac-
tive fires and understanding how the
resulting smoke was affecting regional
and national air quality.
Satellites are also used in the af-
termath of devastating fire events to
monitor and manage damaged lands.
In 2017, the grasslands of the U.S.
Great Plains faced a devastating wild-
fire that burned thousands of acres of
grazing lands. Scientists monitored
satellite imagery to assess the region’s
NOAA
recovery and to guide land manage-
ment policies that would prevent over- Real-time images from Landsat of wildfires showed the spread of smoke in California in
October 2020. This type of information can alert emergency workers to new or growing prob-
grazing of recovering areas.
lems and inform residents of threats to air quality that are heading their way. (The white line
As anthropogenic climate change indicates the boundary between California and the Pacific Ocean.)
intensifies, the frequency and severity
of wildfires is predicted to increase as
well. In a 2020 study published in Re- and that regional declines in nighttime lages that had been burned, clusters
mote Sensing, environmental scientist light were correlated with the estimated of displaced persons, and the resultant
Jingjing Li of California State Univer- number of refugees departing. refugee camps.
sity, Los Angeles, and her colleagues A 2008 study published in the same Despite the many benefits of remote
used Landsat imagery to evaluate wild- journal documented the genocide oc- sensing, the technologies have the po-
fires occurring between 1984 and 2017. curring in the Darfur region of Sudan by tential to be used for nefarious purpos-
Their results validated the predictions surveying 352 villages using NOAA’s es. How might bad actors make use of
of climate models, showing that both publicly accessible Landsat data. The democratized remote sensing infor-
fire frequency and the area affected are satellite images showed that from 2003 mation that was intended for good?
increasing at a statistically significant through 2004, half of the villages in Dar- The approximately 25 million closed-
rate in every region of the United States fur had been burned and razed, as iden- circuit television (CCTV) cameras in
with the exception of the Northeast. tified by a sharp drop in albedo (reflected operation worldwide are one form of
light) in the affected areas. remote sensing technology that has
Bird’s-Eye View of Displacement Some humanitarian efforts are now provoked controversy.
Remote sensing technologies have ap- pairing remote-sensing information On the one hand, in the United
plications well beyond monitoring the with mass outreach to spur public Kingdom there is roughly one CCTV
natural world; they can also be used awareness. An early example came in camera installed for every 14 people.
to track humanitarian crises and geo-
political issues. Using satellite imagery
and other remote data, researchers can
identify violence, estimate displaced Without remote sensing technologies,
populations, and track the movement
of refugees. we would have lost an entire year’s worth
Often, the first step in solving hu-
manitarian crises is to gain widespread
recognition of the problem. Doing so
of critical penguin population data.
can be especially challenging when
they occur in remote areas. Images
from remote sensing technologies can the form of the “Crisis in Darfur” proj- Although there has been some dispute
bring attention to these events, which ect, in which the U.S. Holocaust Me- over the widespread use of domestic
might otherwise go unnoticed by the morial Museum Genocide Prevention surveillance, the approach has gener-
wider world, and in turn galvanize as- Mapping Initiative teamed up with ally received support. A 2014 survey
sistance or even intervention. Google Earth to shine a spotlight on found that 86 percent of British citizens
The authors of a 2014 study in the the Darfur genocide. Remotely sensed approved of the use of CCTV cameras
International Journal of Remote Sensing, data, on-the-ground information, pho- in public places to increase safety. The
for example, used satellite images of to and video imagery, and eyewitness March 2021 death in South London of
nighttime light pollution to estimate de- accounts were compiled to enable us- Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing
struction and displacement associated ers (including policy makers) world- executive, seems to have heightened
with the Syrian civil war. They found wide to locate and visualize instances the call for increased surveillance as a
that from 2011 through 2014, nighttime of past, emerging, and potential geno- means to protect women and girls. That
light declined in Syria by 74 percent, cides geographically, including vil- same month, the British government

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 293


N N
100 100
kilometers kilometers

Aleppo Aleppo

Homs Homs

Damascus Damascus

Courtesy of Xi Li

Two satellite images showing nighttime light in Syria in March 2011 (left) and February 2014 sually stunning and demonstrate just
(right) indicate that the country’s population decreased sharply over that period. Despite how vast the cascading effects of the
widespread news coverage of the Syrian civil war, it can be difficult to understand the effect tiny SARS-CoV-2 pathogen really are.
of the drawn-out conflict. The dramatic reduction in nighttime light in Damascus, Homs, The myriad effects of this an-
and Aleppo provides a stark illustration of the drop in population in those cities during the
thropause on biodiversity are also
humanitarian crisis.
evident through the “eyes in the
sky” that satellites provide. For ex-
pledged £25 million to increase lighting peratures of large numbers of people ample, we can track the number
and CCTV coverage in public spaces. simultaneously—for example, in Wu- and movement of fishing vessels
On the other hand, CCTV cameras han, China, where thermal cameras over the global oceans via satellite-
and other remote monitoring systems were mounted on drones. At the popu- derived data from transponders origi-
could be used for surveillance and to lation level, monitoring of mobile phone nally designed to prevent at-sea colli-
combat democratic efforts. Since pro- networks in Turkey was used in the first sions. These transponders are installed
tests began in Hong Kong in the spring wave of the pandemic to gauge how on large, oceangoing vessels and regu-
of 2019, CCTV footage has helped the well physical distancing measures were larly broadcast the geographic location
government identify thousands of peo- working. Likewise, mobile phone apps, of each vessel to a satellite, resulting
ple, who were subsequently arrested such as the COVIDSafe app implement- in a publicly available database. By
under colonial-era public assembly laws ed by the Australian government, use continuously collecting the nearly half-
and may face up to 10 years in prison. Bluetooth to track people with whom million vessel tracks, data scientists are
In a country dominated by government a user may have had close contact and now able to create a map of global fish-
surveillance, protesters are facing an up- then alert the user if any of those people ing effort across the world’s oceans,
hill battle to maintain anonymity. tests positive for COVID-19. something that would have been im-
This deep divide will only be ex- Globally, a dramatic reduction in possible even 10 years ago.
acerbated as technologies advance. greenhouse gas and other emissions as Remote sensing has also offered so-
In 2020 the Moscow government de- a result of widespread human confine- lutions for scientists and others whose
ployed newly available facial recog- ment—the “COVID anthropause”— ability to do their job has been com-
nition software on the city’s 160,000 and their subsequent return to prepan- promised by the pandemic lockdowns.
CCTV cameras. But these facial recog- demic levels are clearly observable via Many ecologists, for example, cannot
nition algorithms are highly contested, satellite images. For example, when conduct field work while stay-at-home
and studies have demonstrated that nitrogen dioxide levels in various cit- orders and social distancing measures
they often have an alarming gender ies in China before, during, and af- are in place. This problem is particular-
and racial bias. (See “The Dark Past of ter COVID-19 lockdowns on human ly acute for marine scientists who trav-
Algorithms That Associate Appearance movement and factory work are com- el to their study sites on boats where
and Criminality,” January–February.) pared, a striking correlation emerg- social distancing is often impossible.
es: There is a dip in nitrogen dioxide Many scientists have had to get creative
Monitoring the Pandemic levels when the lockdowns occurred, and pivot to the use of remote sensing
During the COVID-19 pandemic, vari- and a rebound after they were eased. approaches to keep their work going.
ous remote sensing technologies have The dip gave a brief respite to hu- In our own experience, whereas pre-
been deployed to track the disease and man health and to the climate, both of viously we would have gone out on
its cascading effects. On the scale of which are negatively affected by ex- the water in boats to count the number
individual humans, thermal scanning cess levels of this and other trace gases of recreational fishing vessels visiting
has been used to monitor the body tem- in the atmosphere. These data are vi- our seagrass-recovery study sites in

294 American Scientist, Volume 109


February 2019 February 2020 February 2021

Copernicus Sentinel data (2019–2021, modified), processed by KNMI/ESA


nitrogen dioxide tropospheric column

20 µmol/m2 250
Kāneʻohe Bay, Hawaiʻi, we are now European Space Agency satellite images captured levels of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide
completing these tasks using frequent, (NO2, a gas that has been linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses) over China in
very-high-resolution satellite imagery. February of 2019, 2020, and 2021. As governments issued stay-at-home orders during the
Planet, Inc.’s PlanetScope satellites COVID-19 pandemic, many people speculated about possible environmental benefits from
now provide on a daily basis high-res- reduced travel. These images demonstrate that there was a pandemic-related reduction in NO2
levels, but that the change was temporary.
olution images in which each pixel is
equivalent to 3 meters on Earth; these
images allow us to measure the extent mounted with a selection of sensors) monitor polar bear abundance and distri-
of changes in seagrass beds, which are exclusively for scientific endeavors bution. Wildlife Society Bulletin 39:772–779.
frequently damaged by recreational and disaster management in remote Li, X., and D. Li. 2014. Can night-time light
images play a role in evaluating the Syrian
boats and visitors. Similarly, most na- corners of the globe, allowing scien- Crisis? International Journal of Remote Sens-
tional Antarctic programs and univer- tists the ability to completely control ing 18:6648–6661.
sities did not participate in the most the timing and acquisition of data for Lynch, H. J., and M. A. LaRue. 2014. First
recent Antarctic field season. Whereas specific projects. global census of the Adélie Penguin.  The
in a normal year, one of us (Foley) We will no doubt face future pan- Auk 131:457–466.
would have voyaged south to set up demics and episodes of massive social Madin, E. M. P., E. S. Darling, and M. J. Hardt.
experiments and to change cameras, unrest, while also continuing to confront 2019. Emerging technologies and coral reef
conservation: Opportunities, challenges,
this year the team watched the pen- issues related to climate change, the al- and moving forward. Frontiers in Marine
guins from space. Without remote teration of landscapes and seascapes, Science 6:727.
sensing technologies, we would have the dwindling of resources and space, Pericak, A. A., et al. 2018. Mapping the yearly ex-
lost an entire year’s worth of critical geopolitical tensions, and humanitar- tent of surface coal mining in Central Appala-
penguin population data. These neces- ian crises. Documenting the scale of the chia using Landsat and Google Earth Engine.
PLOS One doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0197758.
sary changes to the way research was many resulting problems will, in many
Prins, E. 2008. Use of low cost Landsat ETM+ to
conducted during the pandemic may cases, require a “macroscope” of the sort spot burnt villages in Darfur, Sudan. Interna-
have lasting effects on fieldwork, just that remote sensing can offer. tional Journal of Remote Sensing 29:1207–1214.
as some companies are adjusting their Salguero, J., J. Li, A. Farahmand, and J. T.
policies and procedures to allow re- Bibliography Reager. 2020. Wildfire trend analysis over
mote work for their employees over Borowicz, A., et al. 2019. Aerial-trained deep the contiguous United States using re-
the long term. learning networks for surveying ceta- mote sensing observations. Remote Sensing
ceans from satellite imagery. PLOS One doi:10.3390/rs12162565.
Our current ability to monitor
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0212532.
changes in biodiversity and land-
Burrell, A. L., J. P. Evans, and M. G. De Kauwe.
scapes, and to identify and respond
2020. Anthropogenic climate change has Elizabeth M. P. Madin is an assistant professor at
to humanitarian and geopolitical ten- driven over 5 million km2 of drylands to-
sions, is far-reaching. However, as new the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology, University
wards desertification. Nature Communica-
of Hawaiʻi. She researches how the intersection of
technologies continue to develop, our tions 11:3853.
human activities and animal behaviors can lead
ability to use remotely sensed data will Dornelas, M., et al. 2019. Towards a macro-
to cascading effects through food webs. Catherine
likely be limited only by our imagi- scope: Leveraging technology to transform
the breadth, scale and resolution of macro- M. Foley is a postdoc at the Hawaiʻi Institute of
nations. Academics have already pro- ecological data. Global Ecology and Biogeog- Marine Biology. Her research is concerned with
posed the deployment of dedicated raphy 28:1937–1948. developing the use of emerging technologies for ma-
constellations of small, relatively in- LaRue, M. A., et al. 2015. Testing methods for rine conservation and management in a variety of
expensive CubeSats (which can be using high-resolution satellite imagery to ecosystems. Email for Madin: emadin@hawaii.edu

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 295


How Endocrine Disruptors
Affect Menstruation
The ubiquity of phthalates and other substances known to interfere with
hormonal pathways disproportionately harms people with periods.

Kate Clancy

I
n 2017, a Korean media outlet de- strual pads, because certain phthalates intergenerational effects on the health
cided to investigate the chemicals (there are many of them) can help a of our children and grandchildren.
found in commercial menstrual substance dissolve or can make plas- Whenever I find myself discussing
pads, based on the advocacy and tics harder to break. Women, femme- this issue with others, I tend to encoun-
awareness-raising efforts of the Kore- identified gender minorities, and chil- ter two main reactions: Either people
an Women’s Environmental Network, dren are most vulnerable to exposure immediately want to know what they
who had pointed out that menstruat- because phthalates are so often found should throw out (and what they
ing people seemed to be developing in the products they are more likely should use as replacements), or people
rashes, discomfort, and even infertility to use: cleaning products, cosmetics, throw up their hands at the futility of
from the pads. This group sent sam- baby toys, and more. (To be clear, this avoiding endocrine disruptors. I un-
ples to reproductive toxicologists Jodi is a general statement based on how derstand and have harbored both of
Flaws and Jay Ko at the University of gender roles inform and even con- these viewpoints at times. However, I
Illinois, where I am also employed. strain choices.) Additionally, people think a third reaction is possible, one
Flaws and Ko found volatile organic who experience incontinence, from where we step back and recognize the
compounds and phthalates in every babies and toddlers to postpartum broader structural problems that have
single sample of sanitary pads and people to elders, are going to be ex- brought us here. We must consider our
disposable diapers they received, and posed to diapers, and menstruating varying responsibility and power with-
published their results in Reproductive people (including nonbinary people in those structures that have put all of
Toxicology. The products they sampled and transmen) to menstrual pads. us at risk, but some of us especially so
were made in 2017 and came from Ko- These put phthalates right up against based on sexism, racism, and ableism,
rea, the United States, Japan, Finland, our thin genital skin. and sometimes just based on physiol-
France, and Greece; the researchers Endocrine-disruptor exposure also ogy. This approach means sitting with
were kept ignorant as to the sources of comes from the food we eat: Foods this knowledge for a minute, rather
their samples as they were conducting that are encased in plastic (wrapped than immediately reacting. After all,
their analyses, to avoid bias. Although produce, plastic water bottles) are these endocrine disruptors are not go-
the quantities of volatile organic com- likely to have absorbed the chemicals ing anywhere soon; we have the time.
pounds were not too alarming—they used to give that plastic its structure
weren’t too different than what we are or softness. Some prescription and Periods on Phthalates
already exposed to, and you can re- over-the-counter medicines are even Krakow, Poland, is one of my favorite
duce them by letting these products coated in phthalates. When we re- cities on the planet. It is one of the first
air out a bit before using them—the ceive intravenous fluids in the hos- places I ever visited on my own, and is
phthalates were another story. pital, those fluids have been sitting the closest city to the rural mountain-
Phthalates, a class of endocrine- in plastic made with phthalates, and ous region where I have conducted
disrupting chemicals, are widely although these injections do not seem much of my fieldwork on menstrual
known to be harmful to human health. to have significant short-term effects, cycles. I remember being picked up
Phthalates are very common in plas- rodent studies suggest that those lit- at the airport on my first visit in 2002
tics, cosmetics, and apparently men- eral injections of phthalates can have by my mentor and collaborator, public

QUICK TAKE
Women, gender minorities, and children People are exposed to many different The solution is not as simple as deciding on
are most likely to be exposed to endocrine types of endocrine disruptors, from phthal- acceptable thresholds of chemicals or replac-
disruptors because of the products they are ates to lead. Many are known to be harmful ing ingredients. The key question is: How were
more likely to use. to human health. these materials permitted in the first place?

296 American Scientist, Volume 109


Portia Munson

Portia Munson’s art installation Pink Project (1994–ongoing) displays the overwhelming num- together produce cumulative effects on
ber of pink plastic products marketed to girls. Women, gender minorities, and children are the menstrual cycle.
particularly vulnerable to exposure to endocrine disruptors, such as phthalates, because these The sampling period was 2001 to
chemicals are found in the products they are more likely to use, including plastics, cosmetics, 2003, right around the time of my first
menstrual pads, cleaning products, diapers, and baby toys.
visit to Poland. My colleagues looked at
the air pollution measures in Krakow at
health researcher and anthropologist booths of traditional souvenirs such that time, based on municipal ecologi-
Grazyna Jasienska of Jagiellonian Uni- as amber jewelry and embroidered cal monitoring data by the state, and
versity, in part because of where she blouses. Air pollutants are bad for the menstrual cycle characteristics from 133
had parked in the city. Jasienska lived buildings, bad for the inhabitants, and research participants living in the city.
in a lovely apartment in the Old Town, bad for tourism. In this study, there were no effects on
and as a resident, she had a special The air pollution from traffic, par- the menstrual cycle when considering
permit to drive and park in the cen- ticularly from higher-emission cars, any one pollutant on its own. How-
tral part of the city. Although some comes from particulate matter (bits of ever, the authors found that particulate
of the initial decisions to limit traffic dust, soot, and smoke of varying ori- matter and sulfur dioxide exposure to-
in Krakow were about tourism and gins), sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, gether were associated with a short-
support for local residents, one of the and nitrogen oxides. (See “Air Pollution ened luteal phase (the second half of
by-products of these driving and park- and Sunlight Q&A,” January–February the menstrual cycle, starting at ovula-
ing restrictions has been that it may 2016.) A 2017 paper in the International tion and ending at menses). These pol-
reduce some local pollution. Because Journal of Environmental Research and lutants derive mostly from fossil fuel
Krakow sits in a valley, air pollutants Public Health by Anna Merklinger- emissions—the kind that come from
can drift in from surrounding indus- Gruchala of Krakow University, Jasien- older heating units and factories. The
try and linger, and traffic emissions ska, and Maria Kapiszewska, also of effects on the menstrual cycle of the
can stagnate there as well. The Old Krakow University, looked at these dif- other pollutants studied—carbon mon-
Town area is gorgeously preserved, ferent types of air pollution together, oxide and nitrogen oxides—were not
with stone buildings that are many to try and understand whether fossil statistically significant in this sample.
hundreds of years old and a city cen- fuel combustion from industry and The authors mathematically esti-
ter with churches, flower sellers, and heating, traffic fuel emissions, or both mated that exposure to air pollution

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 297


Benny Mazur. (CC BY 2.0)

In the late 1970s, artist Jay Critchley began finding tampon applicators on his
local beaches around Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and making art out of them. At
first, he didn’t know what the items were (locals called them “beach whistles”).
When he found out, he began to bring awareness to the issues surrounding men-
strual product waste by dressing up as Miss Tampon Liberty (right), as described
in a recent piece on the waste-focused research website Discard Studies. Men-
strual products made with plastic not only expose menstruators to endocrine dis-
ruptors, they also play a major role in the ubiquity of modern plastic pollution.
Jay Critchley

at the level found in this study led to more, the volatile organic compounds “First Person: Mona Hanna-Attisha,”
a shortening of the luteal phase by a emitted from salons are probably con- September–October 2019; and “Moving
third of a day. Given that nearly all tributing to volatile pollution more Forward After Flint,” May–June 2016.)
embryo implantations occur within a broadly, according to a 2019 paper in In many parts of the country, these
three-day window in the middle of the Indoor Air. Traffic police are exposed to exposures are considered to be under
luteal phase, a disruption by a third particulate matter and other airborne an acceptable threshold by, say, the
of a day could represent a significant pollutants; these subjects have been U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
biological event. A shorter luteal phase found to have lower estradiol concen- Prevention (CDC), but not necessar-
also means a shorter menstrual cycle, trations (a type of estrogen), and high- ily by the members of those commu-
which means in the long run more er follicle stimulating hormone con- nities. The CDC’s reference value for
ovulations and more periods. Some re- centrations (a hormone important to the acceptable quantity of lead in the
search has suggested that a higher fre- ovulation) than controls who are less blood, for instance, is 5 micrograms
quency of ovulation may be associated exposed. Another study, published in per deciliter and under. This is a recent
with an increased risk of reproductive, 2017 in Human Reproduction, looked shift from 10 micrograms per deciliter
particularly ovarian, cancer. at mostly middle class white women and under, and other experts recom-
A number of other papers have from Michigan and Texas, and even mend moving down this value even
looked at the effects of air pollution with their relatively low exposure to further to 2 micrograms per deciliter.
on fecundability (the probability of air pollution compared to other peo- Experts at the CDC and elsewhere are
conception in a given cycle), fertil- ple, the authors found some weak as- clear that there is no actual acceptable
ity (number of offspring), and fetal sociations between acute exposure to amount of lead or any other endocrine
and infant health, and they have all some pollutants and how many cycles disruptor in the body: The tightrope
reached similar conclusions. Several it took for couples to conceive. Similar they are walking is one of risk assess-
studies looked at people who are oc- research, published in 2018 in Human ment (more on that later).
cupationally exposed to certain pol- Reproduction, has shown reduced in I found examples in Korea, Mexico,
lutants. Nail salon workers experience vitro fertilization rates with increased Canada, and the United States where
occupational exposure to phthalates, exposure to certain air pollutants. lead exposure that led to a blood con-
phthalate alternatives, and volatile or- Then there are the endocrine dis- centration of less than 5 micrograms
ganic compounds; recent work pub- ruptors in our water. Many communi- per deciliter still had a negative effect
lished in Environmental Science and ties in the United States are exposed on children’s cognition, growth, and
Technology found the problem may lie to lead, cadmium, arsenic, and other development. And despite the known
not only in nail product formulations heavy metals in the water they drink. risks, much higher exposures are ex-
but also in nail salons not adhering to (See “Arsenic, the ‘King of Poisons,’ in perienced by kids in Nigeria whose
proper ventilation guidelines. What’s Food and Water,” January–February 2015; cough syrups are often contaminated

298 American Scientist, Volume 109


4

3
residual luteal phase length

–1

–2

–3

–4
–2 –1 0 1 2 3 4
residual PC2 (fossil fuel combustion-related) score
Panther Media GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo
In a study based in Krakow, Poland, exposure to particulate matter and sulfur dioxide, which prenatally exposed generation, but also
are mostly derived from fossil fuel combustion, was associated with a shortened luteal phase, in the unexposed offspring of the fol-
the second half of the menstrual cycle from ovulation to menses. A shortened luteal phase can lowing generation: the grandchildren
decrease the time during which egg fertilization can occur and, in the long run, can mean more of the originally exposed parents. Expo-
periods over a person’s lifetime. A higher frequency of ovulation may also be associated with
sure to endocrine disruptors, then, can
an increased risk of reproductive cancers. (Figure from A. Merklinger-Gruchala, G. Jasienska,
and M. Kapiszewska, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14:816.)
affect generations of children who are
completely unexposed, which means
that even with tighter regulation today,
with lead, or by child laborers in Pak- in the body and therefore encourage some populations may continue to ex-
istan who work in battery recycling extra growth of uterine tissue. Phthal- perience disruptions of development,
plants, an occupation with significant ates, even at lower doses, influence puberty, menstrual cycle function, and
exposure to lead. These kinds of effects, adult reproduction in mice. Most of us reproduction for years to come.
from learning disabilities to shorter are exposed to many different types of Many of us in the United States, with
stature to delayed growth or menarche endocrine disruptors that may all ex- our individualistic culture, continue to
(age at first period), have downstream ert slightly different and even oppos- think of these problems as ones that af-
effects. Although lead is discussed ing effects, so it is hard to say for sure fect individuals, and therefore as hav-
most frequently in terms of the signifi- which ones cause the most harm, or, ing individual solutions. In addition
cant harm it causes to child develop- if you are a company relying on these to the fact that I now vent my dispos-
ment, this endocrine disruptor can also chemicals, whether they really cause able menstrual pads in my bathroom
influence the reproductive systems of any harm at all. to let them release volatile organic
adults. Lead exposure does not seem Endocrine disruptors even have ef- compounds before I place them against
to lower the concentrations of estro- fects across generations. In the case my body, I have switched my toddler
gens in the body; instead, it interferes of lead, much of it is stored in bone. to a combination of reusable and dis-
with estrogen receptors in a way that Because bone turnover increases in posable bamboo pullups, and my kids
can block ovarian follicle development
or embryo implantation, and suppress
hormone secretion during puberty.
From here, we could find ourselves Phthalates and bisphenols are implicated
going back to where we started: the
endless endocrine disruptors found in
plastics, cleaners, cosmetics, and food.
in endometriosis and endometrial cancer.
Bisphenols and phthalates, parabens,
polychlorinated biphenyls, heavy met-
als, and all sorts of other chemicals are pregnancy and because lead can pass now eat off stainless steel instead of us-
in our pesticides, packaging, and pore- through the placenta, fetuses can ex- ing plastic plates and utensils. But you
refining serums. (See “Plastics, Plastics perience significant lead exposure if might also have noticed that although
Everywhere,” September–October 2019.) their mothers were previously exposed. many of these exposures come from
Exposure to some endocrine disrup- Researchers have just started measur- household objects we are bringing into
tors seems to delay menarche, yet ex- ing the epigenetic effects of phthalates our homes, other exposures are not up
posure to others largely accelerates it. across the generations—that is, the ways to us. Air and water pollution get into
Phthalates and bisphenols in partic- in which the expression of genes can our homes and can be found not only
ular are implicated in endometriosis be modified, and those modifications in our food and water but also in the
and endometrial cancer because both, passed down, even without changes to dust under our beds. There are ways
as weak estrogens, can disrupt the the DNA itself. Epigenetic effects have our built environment, landscape, and
natural estrogen-to-progesterone ratio the potential to occur not only in, say, a neighborhoods can protect us, but even

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 299


her in a crosswalk. And sexism is not
the only factor that can put you at risk
when you try to enjoy the outdoors.
Tamir Rice was playing in a park. Ah-
maud Arbery was going for a run.
Green spaces are supposed to
be places for people to reduce their
psychosocial stress and improve their
mental health, but people who are not
men don’t necessarily experience them
Cultura Creative RF/Alamy Stock Photo

that way. In one study, published in


2014 in Landscape and Urban Planning,
researchers had participants go through
a classic stress test, and then exposed
them to realistic, three-dimensional
videos of neighborhoods with vary-
ing amounts of greenery to measure
whether greenery exposure had any
effect on participant recovery from the
stress test. The researchers found that
the men who participated had mild im-
50
pre-shift urine post-shift urine NHANES females urine provements in recovery, but the women
did not. In another paper, published in
40 2014 in the Journal of Epidemiology and
urinary [GMean] (̀g/g)

Community Health, researchers looked


30 at green space availability within neigh-
borhoods as well as a number of men-
20
tal health indicators: Again, there were
different relationships between men-
tal health and green space by gender.
10 For men, the relationship was linear,
meaning the more green space in their
0 neighborhoods, the better their men-
MBzP
MHBP
MBP
MiBP
MHiBP
MEP
MEHP
MEHHP
MEOHP
MECPP
MCNP
MCOP
MONP
MECPTP
MEHHTP
BCIPP
BCEP
BDCIPP
DBuP
DPHP

tal health. For women, however, the


relationship was U-shaped, where bet-
ter mental health was associated with
moderate rather than low or high green
Nail salon workers experience occupational exposure to phthalates, phthalate alternatives, and space. The greatest benefit of green
volatile organic compounds. A study of 10 nail salon workers compared concentrations before space for mental health in men was
and after their shifts (green and orange, respectively) with females in the general U.S. population
seen starting in their early thirties and
(blue). Most compounds were similar or higher in the general population. But metabolites of
the phthalate alternative di-2-ethylhexyl terephthalate (DEHTP), MECPTP (mono-2-ethyl-5-
remained fairly stable throughout their
carboxypentyl terephthalate) and MEHHTP (mono-2-ethyl-5-hydrohexyl terephthalate), showed lives; for women, there was no benefit
the greatest change in concentration in nail salon workers. The problem may lie not only in of green space until their mid-forties,
nail product formulations, but also in nail salons not adhering to proper ventilation guidelines. and the benefit then increased with age.
(Graph adapted from J. A. Craig et al., Environmental Science and Technology 53:14630.) As a woman in my forties, I can say
that my experience with street harass-
ment has dropped off considerably, and
here we can see that gender and race the nearby high school track instead I can’t help but wonder if that helps
continue to play a role in who can ac- of going to the park. Green spaces explain the gender difference.
cess risk-reducing resources. are supposed to be good for us: They When it comes to endocrine disrup-
provide ways to reduce air and noise tors, one of the main things a green
Going Green pollution, avoid indoor pollution, space should do is serve as a literal
When I was in graduate school, the and get some physical activity. These buffer between a person and these pol-
nearest park with running paths was are all good for menstrual health. But lutants. And this buffering has been
eight blocks from my apartment. Be- who can use them? Women, gender supported in two recent studies pub-
tween union organizing, teaching, and diverse, and gender nonconforming lished in Environmental Research, one
lab work, I had a lot of long days and runners do not feel comfortable run- out of the United States and one out
so I often wanted to work out early. ning alone in many settings, for good of Iran. These papers have shown that
But the nearby East Rock Park in New reason: They have both legitimate and exposure to air pollutants is associated
Haven, Connecticut, was a bit creepy acculturated fears for personal safety. with lower anti-Müllerian hormone
to run in alone, so I tended to go to the I’ve had cars pull over and men yell at levels—this hormone is often used as a
gym or run with a friend; even with a me to smile; an acquaintance recently rough estimate of one’s “ovarian age,”
friend along, we often opted to run at shared a time a driver pretended to hit and a lower value of anti-Müllerian

300 American Scientist, Volume 109


hormone generally corresponds to helps to look back to a time when plas- for the Society's annual conference re-
fewer eggs. This finding matches the tics were not widely disposable or a flecting on that talk and where plastics
aforementioned literature that many major source of pollution. had gone. “It is a measure of your prog-
endocrine-disrupting pollutants can In 1956, Lloyd Stouffer, then-editor of ress in packaging in the last seven years
compromise menstrual health. the magazine Modern Packaging, encour- that this remark will no longer raise any
Both studies have also shown that aged a room full of attendees at a con- eyebrows. You are filling the trash cans,
green space in one’s neighborhood is ference of the Society of the Plastics In- the rubbish dumps and the incinerators
associated with an increase in anti- dustry to start thinking about one-time with literally billions of plastics bottles,
Müllerian hormone; in the U.S. sample,
the green space effect was only true if
the air pollutants were also low. Air
pollution and green space are differen- The temptation so often when dealing
tially distributed in the United States
by socioeconomic status and race. So, with pollutants is to imagine an “away”
not all communities with access to
green space are able to reap their health
benefits (which extend far beyond
where they do no harm.
buffering from pollution exposure), be-
cause of the ways air pollution or safe-
ty concerns nullify any of the effects. use plastics as the key to get continuing plastics jugs, plastics tubes, blisters and
customers. “The future of plastics is in skin packs, plastics bags and films and
Is Resisting Phthalates Futile? the trash can,” he said, meaning that sheet packages—and now, even plastics
If any of you are like me, you’ve hit disposable plastics would gain more cans.” He continued, “The happy day
this portion of the article and wanted consumers and make more money than has arrived when nobody any longer
to go on a shopping spree to replace all multiuse plastics that one buys only considers the plastics package too good
the plastic in your home. A menstrual once. In 1963, Stouffer wrote a review to throw away.”
cup might reduce one’s exposure to
some endocrine disruptors—but only
when one buys the most expensive
cups, because medical-grade silicone
is not a strongly regulated material and
in some cases could still contain endo-
crine disruptors. These cups can still
leak, so a heavier bleeder will need a
backup, but most disposable and many
reusable backups also contain plas-
tic. Green space will help—but only if
one is rich enough to live in a lower-
pollution area, and if one’s body (usu-
ally white, usually male) is not threat-
ened regularly. Maybe some of these
things will reduce your exposure.
But this framing around individual
product replacement is a scam for two
reasons. First, this idea of personal
responsibility tends to be gendered,
falling in particular on women and
gender-diverse people. Women often
perform the labor of minding risks
and trying to reduce them, and many
studies of intergenerational harms are
framed in ways that blame mothers for
their own exposures.
The second reason is that this in-
dividual framing misses out on the
chance to notice the structural one. To
see the structural problem clearly, it
The Wasted Reality Arts Collaborative cre-
ates wearable trash art out of single-use plas-
Wasted Reality

tics collected over one week in a person’s


household. Single-use plastics were not the
norm until the plastics industry began pro-
moting them in 1956.

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 301


Barbara Aulicino
Effects of Exposing Endometrial Cells
to Phthalates
• inflammation
end

• oxidative stress
• immune system molecules
oc

Phthalates and bisphenols, which are found in products and con- called cytokines
rin

texts such as those shown above, are implicated in endometriosis


e

• cell invasion and migration


di

and endometrial cancer because both, as weak estrogens, can disrupt


sr

the natural estrogen-to-progesterone ratio in the body and therefore pt • cell viability and proliferation
u

encourage extra growth of uterine tissue. A 2021 review in Reproductive or


s
Medicine and Biology found that exposing endometrial cells to phthalates
causes inflammation, invasion, changes in cytokines, increased oxidative
stress, cell viability, resistance to hydrogen peroxide, and proliferation.

Because that’s just it, isn’t it? The (and supposedly out
temptation so often when dealing with of) our water more
pollutants is to imagine an “away” broadly. They de-
where they do no harm. But as Max veloped a threshold
Liboiron of Memorial University model, where there is a quantity of all people, places, and beings), under-
in Canada says in their recent book pollution you can pump into a river, girds the entire mitigation strategy of
Pollution Is Colonialism, there is no under which the river can still recover. the United States. In other words, the
“away.” (For more on Liboiron’s work, As Liboiron points out, both the eager disposable model from the plastics in-
see “How Climate Science Could Lead to corporate development of disposable dustry and the threshold model from
Action,” January–February 2020.) Peo- plastics and the well-meaning conser- conservationists are both permission-
ple live near landfills; people rely on vationists’ threshold model assume to-pollute models that never really
polluted waterways for food and in- one has access to Indigenous Land to asked permission.
come. Pollutants from landfills leach put pollutants. Here, Liboiron does Pollution, then, is an ongoing and
into groundwater. We are at the point not just mean current tribal lands and essential component of colonialism.
where we have polluted our planet, reservations, but rather the land that “Colonialism is more than the intent,
affecting not just our species but entire was originally occupied by Indigenous identities, heritages, and values of set-
ecosystems. peoples, and that settlers took from tlers and their ancestors,” Liboiron
In the early days of conservation ef- them. The assumption that this land writes. “It’s about genocide and ac-
forts by settler scientists in the United is available to take and use as settlers cess.” And although endocrine disrup-
States, researchers applied locational wish, and that they consider some tors are everywhere, they are unevenly
data on the Ohio River to our under- parts of the land acceptable for stor- distributed, causing additional vio-
standing of how pollution gets into ing pollutants (to protect some but not lence toward Indigenous communities.

302 American Scientist, Volume 109


Max Liboiron
Max Liboiron’s 2008 interactive art installation The Dawson City Trash Project is a miniature Hernández-Díaz, S., et al. 2013. Medications as
diorama of the garbage sites in Dawson City, Canada, built from material found at those a potential source of exposure to phthalates
dumps. Because the garbage came from the community, people were allowed to take away among women of childbearing age. Repro-
any piece of it, symbolizing how a landfill disperses into people’s lives. People were generous ductive Toxicology 37:1–5.
in how they took pieces—for example, taking only one thing or taking something plentiful Iavicoli, I., L. Fontana, and A. Bergamaschi.
rather than a unique piece. Liboiron says people’s responses demonstrate alternative social 2009. The effects of metals as endocrine dis-
ruptors. Journal of Toxicology and Environ-
economies outside of a market-driven system, ones where people are “generous, creative, and
mental Health, Part B 12:206–223.
even daring in their relationship to each other and trash.”
Kim, S. H., et al. 2015. Possible role of phthal-
ate in the pathogenesis of endometriosis:
In vitro, animal, and human data. The Jour-
When scientists participate in pol- takes time to find the right one), and nal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
lution science, or in a discussion, say, also teaching others to use them, be- 100:E1502–E1511.
about phthalate exposure, we enable cause there is a significant learning Meeker, J. D., S. Sathyanarayana, and S. H. Swan.
2009. Phthalates and other additives in plas-
a process of what Patricia O’Brien, in curve. Maybe get a water filter if you
tics: Human exposure and associated health
her classic 1993 Professional Biologist can afford one (the ones that filter lead outcomes. Philosophical Transactions of the Roy-
article “Being a Scientist Means Tak- can be expensive), and also discuss al Society B: Biological Sciences 364:2097–2113.
ing Sides,” called assimilative capacity with your local politicians about al- Rattan, S., and J. A. Flaws. 2019. The epigenetic
assessments rather than alternatives as- locating more funds to your communi- impacts of endocrine disruptors on female
sessments. An assimilative capacity as- ty’s infrastructure. Changing the frame reproduction across generations. Biology of
Reproduction. 101:635–644.
sessment would ask how much pollu- allows us to see and act in solidarity
Richardson, S. S., et al. 2014. Society: Don’t
tion scientists have decided the planet across many communities and con- blame the mothers. Nature 512(7513):131–132.
can tolerate, whereas an alternatives stituencies affected by the production, Shadaan, R., and M. Murphy. 2020. EDC’s as
assessment would entail imagining a distribution, and dumping of pollut- industrial chemicals and settler colonial
path where scientists and nonscien- ing substances. What do you see when structures. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Tech-
tists together decide that no harm to you change yours? noscience 6:1–36.
people, other beings, or land is accept- Wolff, M. S., et al. 2017. Associations of uri-
nary phthalate and phenol biomarkers with
able. As of now, most of the replace- Bibliography menarche in a multiethnic cohort of young
ments for phenols and phthalates ap- girls. Reproductive Toxicology 67:56–64.
Clark, L. P., D. B. Millet, and J. D. Marshall.
pear to be as bad, if not worse, than the 2017. Changes in transportation-related
originals. An alternatives assessment air pollution exposures by race-ethnicity
Kate Clancy is an associate professor of anthro-
here is not as simple as replacing an and socioeconomic status: Outdoor nitro-
gen dioxide in the United States in 2000 pology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
ingredient. We need to reconsider the
and 2010. Environmental Health Perspectives Champaign. She studies how environmental stress-
ubiquity of endocrine disruptors in 125:097012. ors influence menstrual cycle functioning, and is
our society as a whole. writing a book on periods for Princeton Univer-
Eveleth, R. 2020. The best menstrual cup.
Taking this broader view, you could Wirecutter. New York Times. (Updated sity Press called Life Blood: How the World
consider getting a menstrual cup (not December 11, 2020) www.nytimes.com Changed Menstruation. Twitter: @KateClancy,
everyone can tolerate them and it /wirecutter/reviews/best-menstrual-cup Website: kateclancy.com

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 303


Designed for Change
Active products that adapt to fit users’ needs can be stronger, cheaper, and more
comfortable than traditional, static objects.

Skylar Tibbits

M
ost products, just like destruction—in other words, designing most of this principle. The challenge is
pieces of infrastructure for robustness in the traditional sense. to figure out how to design for error cor-
and much of the human- The result is that systems tend to be rection in the products around us.
made world around us, overengineered, and intentionally so. We can start by looking for time-
have one thing in common: They are For example, various safety factors exist less design and material functional-
designed to be stable and static. They in buildings, bridges, cars, or planes to ities. Think of classic furniture, vintage
are engineered to fight against all the ensure that structures will withstand cameras, or classic cars: The designs
forces around them—gravity, vibra- more than the weight we anticipate they of these products have lasted through
tion, temperature, moisture, and so will bear. Of course, this principle is ex- time and often still look as radical yet
on. They are designed to be robust. tremely important for safety. But from a elegant today as they once did. Materi-
They are generally not designed to be materials perspective, it’s wasteful. als and functionality can last as well—
lean and adaptive, or flexible, or re- Perhaps it’s time that we rethink or and even get better. Concrete, counter-
configurable. Today’s products often expand what we mean by robust—and intuitively, is a material that can grow
don’t take advantage of their material redefine smart in the process, too. A stronger with age due to the hydration
properties and aren’t programmed to structure that is robust could also be process and interaction of the material
have any of the lifelike qualities that active, lean, adaptable, and error cor- elements. We can imagine designing
are possible with active matter. recting. A number of researchers have systems of all sorts—manufacturing,
We compensate for the lack of built morphing, self-adapting bridges products, or environments—where we
adaptability or lifelike qualities in our and slab structures that can change impart energy and just the right condi-
products by creating so-called smart dynamically as load is applied. These tions to promote error correction and
versions of them: smart thermostats, structures, although currently built elec- overall improvement over time.
smart clothing, smart shoes, smart tromechanically, demonstrate extremely Natural systems exhibit characteris-
cars, and even smart bassinets that lightweight and more materially effi- tics of robustness and resilience—they
sense babies’ sleep patterns and adapt cient structures that can span and can- are lean, soft, and agile, and can adapt
the sounds or motion accordingly. tilever significant distances. They are to changes in their environment. These
These smart products are often more one step closer to this dream of higher- systems resist failure very differently
expensive, heavier, and more compli- performing structures with minimal compared with the ways we typically
cated to build. They become easier to materials while adapting to complex engineer systems. For example, bone
break and more difficult to use, and dynamic situations—without more grows with variable density and stiff-
they consume more power. components, more material, or more ness depending on its location in the
Our goal should be to make active rigidity. In the end, less is smart: The body and the weight an individual car-
products, by which I mean products, more we can do with less, the smarter ries. An astronaut’s bones will adapt
objects, or materials that can move, re- our systems will become. and reduce their mass, and then regrow
configure, transform, assemble them- when they get back to Earth. Many nat-
selves, or adapt to their surroundings. Built-In Flexibility ural systems, including our bodies, can
To achieve active products, we need to The principle of error correction is criti- regrow, adapt, and correct errors when
reconsider the way we think and talk cal to creating active products and struc- needed. In other words, error correction
about our (statically designed) world. tures. It allows us to ensure that accurate itself is a form of robustness.
One of the fundamental principles of products are assembled in the factory, To understand how error correction
engineering has always been that any and it can also inspire us to design struc- can work in everyday objects, let’s look
product or system ought to be designed tures that improve over time. We can at the simple example of building a cir-
to resist the forces that may lead to its actively engage, enhance, and make the cle. One manufacturing approach is to

QUICK TAKE
Smart products don’t need to be high- Products made with active materials and Active textiles transform mass-produced
tech. Objects made with basic materials, such techniques can adjust to changing circum- clothes into custom garments that can adjust
as rocks and string, can be more robust and stances, giving them the potential to be more to different conditions to keep the wearer
adaptable than technology-heavy versions. reliable than their static counterparts. comfortable in various climates.

304 American Scientist, Volume 109


This zigzag wall was built out of loose rocks
and coconut husks using a technique called
Self-Assembly Lab, MIT/Google

granular jamming, which allows disordered


particles to transition from a liquid-like
state into a solid-like state. This fast, effi-
cient, and reversible method produces struc-
tures that grow stronger with use as the ma-
terials pack closer together, yet are flexible
enough to adapt to changing conditions.

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 305


Self-Assembly Lab, MIT/Mechanics of Slender Structures Lab, Boston University

Granular jamming creates structures that are strong, flexible, and reversible. Two members tightened evenly and are well aligned.
of the MIT Self-Assembly Lab construct a wall by evenly distributing loose rocks and string Or when bolting a tire onto a car, it is
inside a wooden mold (above left). Structures made by this method are stable enough to be ro- recommended to follow a star pattern
tated flat, as demonstrated by the column-turned-beam (above right). Tightening the wooden of tightening to ensure that the tire sits
boards at either end compresses the beam into an arch strong enough to walk across (opposite
perfectly snug. If you overtighten one
page, left). When no longer needed, the structure can be “switched off,” and the materials will
side substantially more than the other,
fall back into their original forms: loose rock and string (opposite page, right).
then the initial side will be tightened
off-axis. These simple techniques allow
make the components with extreme pre- A second approach is to build each structures to have some flexibility and to
cision, with the exact angle needed for part so it can pivot or flex where it self-align, falling perfectly in place with-
the exact number of parts. If you start to meets the neighboring part—building out measurement or precise machines.
connect the parts with rigid and strong error correction into the system. With
connections, you will need to build in flexible connections, as the parts of the Fast, Strong, and Reversible
some error tolerance. If the weather circle come together, they adjust to one In my role as the founder and codirector
changes, or the moisture or tempera- another. As the last part goes into the of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
ture increases, the parts may become circle, all of the others can adjust their nology’s Self-Assembly Lab, I often
slightly larger or smaller than originally angles to create perfection. Adding strive for less material and less com-
designed. The machine that was used to simple flexibility in the connections plexity in our designs, but there is also a
case for material redundancy if we view
the term in a different light. If you have
more material than necessary, you can
The jammed rocks and string behaved like sometimes create a very simple system
that may be fast, inexpensive, and easy
a solid structure, but once we removed to build. Think of a bird’s nest—it can be
expediently assembled, often with a lack
the top and bottom plates, it instantly of precision. The geometric intricacy of
the nest can be robust and create breath-
dissolved, which meant that we could ability and flexibility—features that a
more rigid structure may not achieve.
switch the structure on or off at any time. So we can sometimes counteract a lack
of efficiency in material usage if we can
increase speed, improve material place-
ment, and decrease cost by using simple
fabricate them and the materials them- allows the circle to find its own equi- and imprecise components to create a
selves all have some amount of error librium. When the environment fluctu- robust and adaptable structure.
tolerance. If you have just a few compo- ates, these units will adapt and adjust, The Self-Assembly Lab in collabora-
nents, it might work. But as you increase always maintaining the perfect circle. tion with Gramazio Kohler Research
the number of parts, tolerance propa- Flexibility serves as a form of error at ETH Zurich developed a project that
gates, and it is likely that the last part correction that provides us with more highlights this principle of material re-
won’t fit perfectly. Even if the parts fit robust structures without adding more dundancy and adaptability: a system
or can be forced together, fluctuations in material or complexity to the design. of granular jamming that uses rocks and
the environment may create differential Similarly, when we are assembling string to create load-bearing columns or
expansion or contraction, causing the something with bolts, we are often told walls. Granular jamming is a material
circle to buckle or bulge. Every piece has not to overtighten the first bolt. Rather, phenomenon that allows disordered
only one place in the finished circle, and we hand-tighten all of the bolts and then particles to transition from a liquid-like
each one needs to be made with 100 per- go back around and tighten the rest. This state into a solid-like state and back
cent precision to create the perfect circle. process ensures that all of the bolts are again. Think of coffee in a vacuum-

306 American Scientist, Volume 109


sealed package: That package is typi- poured the rocks and unspooled the location of the fiber is perfect. We can,
cally very stiff and feels like a rock. But string to make columns and walls. however, employ rock and fiber in just
when you open the package, the coffee Through granular jamming, struc- the right amounts to ensure the stabil-
easily flows out. We took advantage of tures can actually become stronger with ity of the structure. This type of redun-
this principle; however, we developed load because the rock and string increas- dancy can also make a robust system,
a granular jamming system that doesn’t ingly act more like a solid. We realized even though we have very little con-
require a vacuum or a membrane. Giv- that if we used a top and bottom plate trol over the precision or the details.
en that membranes are susceptible to and compressed the structure with So rather than robustness being
puncturing and vacuums are energy in- a threaded rod, we could jam it into about more control and attempting to
tensive, we wanted to find a new tech- solid structural components and move fight the forces of failure, as is the typi-
nique for granular jamming that could them around. We built a column and cal case with a structural beam or com-
be used as a construction method. then rotated it into a beam or a bridge, ponent, robustness can also be achieved
In order to build the jammed struc- as well as a wall that we rotated into through expedience of construction,
ture, we created an elegant balance a slab, and then we walked across the and more materials yet less control over
of forces by depositing the right mix beam and slab structures. The jammed their placement. In this way, the system
of loose rock and continuous string, rocks and string behaved like a solid is working in harmony with the forc-
layer by layer, within a bounding box. structure, but once we removed the top es of compression and tension to get
After a layer of rock was poured into and bottom plates, it instantly dissolved, stronger. We are certainly using more
the box, a robot unspooled a series of which meant that we could switch the material than necessary, but the con-
loops of string, then another layer of structure on or off at any time. We struction process is far faster than if it
rocks, then string, and so on. When could build these structures extremely involved manual placement or poured
we removed the bounding box, only fast, make them load bearing, and then concrete. In other words, we can some-
the rocks that were near the string got instantly switch them off, so they fall times gain speed or performance by
stuck, while the rest of the rocks fell away into a pile of rocks and string. letting go of control in the process.
away. The rocks couldn’t go anywhere Going one step further, we realized
when the bounding box was removed that if we continuously compressed Active Products
because the rocks took the compres- the horizontal beam, it would start to With material capabilities and fabrica-
sive forces, and the string took the ten- morph, like a semisolid material, into tion processes advancing rapidly, re-
sile forces, which made the structure an arch, which we walked across and search teams are increasingly demon-
jam into a solid object. This technique loaded at various points. This explo- strating a new class of products that
creates a load-bearing structure with- ration showed us the fascinating and are no longer static and passive. At the
out using structural members, connec- strange ways that simple materials like Self-Assembly Lab, we have created a
tors, adhesives, or other binders. rocks and string can behave: They can number of examples of active products,
Our most recent approach to this act like solids, semisolids, liquids, and such as a flat wooden sheet that jumps
research advanced our goal of letting even switchable devices with revers- into a table, assembling itself from its
the material do the work, making it as ible properties. We can make extreme- flat-packed box; a shoe that forms itself,
easy and fast as possible to build. In ly strong structures with minimal con- eliminating molding or manual form-
this latest version, we used a simple struction time, or soft structures that ing in the factory; and a knit garment
unspooling technique whereby a spool can be sculpted into shape. that adapts to the shape of the body and
of string uncoils itself into perfect cir- Each of these granular jamming changes porosity and thickness to keep
cles, the size of which depend on the techniques works only because of the you comfortable in any environment.
spool and its height above the ground. redundancy of the material system. Underlying many of these examples is
This method uses off-the-shelf spools Because it’s not feasible to place and a technique we developed for transform-
of string and replaces the precise robot position every single rock (there were ing flat sheets into three-dimensional
deposition with a simple principle of hundreds of thousands of rocks in shapes. To do this, a piece of stretchable
physics: Let the string make precise the experiment), we can’t be certain textile, such as Lycra, is initially pulled
patterns on its own. We then simply that the connection of the rocks or the tight and wrapped around a plate. The

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 307


Christophe Guberan/Carlo Clopath/Self-Assembly Lab, MIT
Active shoes spring from a single, two-dimensional sheet into func-
tional footwear. A piece of fabric is stretched taut and then printed
with material of various thicknesses (above left) in a specific pattern
(above right). When the fabric is released, it folds and curls into a shoe
(bottom right). This process eliminates the many pieces and special-
ized skills normally required to make shoes.

prestretching process embeds and stores into a saddle-like


energy in the material, to be released lat- shape called a hy-
er on. The pattern of stretch can also bias perbolic surface. The
the final transformation. For example, if pattern of the material can be used as means that the various components of
the textile is stretched in a uniform man- a geometric code to promote complex the shoe require a skilled hand for pre-
ner, it will shrink uniformly when re- surface transformations. This technique cise placement in order to meet all of
leased. If the textile is stretched more in triggers the precise self-forming process, the stretch requirements.
one direction, however, it will undergo a transforming an ordinary flat sheet of After carefully cutting the compo-
greater shrinkage force in that direction textile into a useful shape. nents, someone needs to form, sew,
when it is released. After stretching the We recently applied this technique glue, and assemble them. This process
textile, we add rigid or flexible material to developing active shoes. Traditional can take many people, many machines,
layers, such as nylon, on top of it. These shoe manufacturing is an example of and many minutes, depending on the
layers embed the geometric information an industry that produces static objects complexity of the material and the shoe.
and pattern that will direct the precise by manually assembling different parts: The manufacturing of shoes is still today
transformation of the shape. the uppers, insoles, outsoles, and other mostly a manual process even for the
largest and most technologically sophis-
ticated companies. Similarly, the design
The textile instantly jumped into its 3D process is traditionally separate from the
fabrication and manufacturing process.
shape, encoded with the shoe’s curvature Even in the most recent advances of 3D
industrial knitting for shoe uppers, such
to self-form into a foot-like shape. as Nike’s Flyknits, the final product is
designed to be static, it is not customized
to the user, and it requires manual bond-
The type of material, the thickness components. If we consider just the ing or assembly for the sole of the shoe.
of the layer, and the 2D or 3D pattern uppers, for example, there are usually Only recently have design and manufac-
placed onto the textile all influence how quite a few components, such as the turing started to inform one another and
it behaves next. If the material is rigid or vamp, the outside quarter, the inside blur the lines between conception and
thick, the layer will likely have greater quarter, the strap, and more. Each of creation with active materials.
force than the shrinkage of the stretch these components requires a significant The process of manually forming
textile, and it will significantly constrain amount of manual labor to assemble. shoes is precisely what we targeted in
the material from transforming. To take The components need to be die-cut or a collaboration between our lab and
advantage of the stretch textile force, laser-cut from leather or other materials. product designers Christophe Guberan
the deposited layer can be flexible or This cutting is one of the most complex and Carlo Clopath. We wanted to see
thin in certain areas to add flexibility and labor-intensive aspects throughout how we could simplify the assembly
and allow for the 3D transformation. the entire process. If the shoe is going to process by taking advantage of material
The 2D and 3D shape of the deposited be made out of leather, the parts need to transformations. To design an actively
layer also influences the pattern of trans- be arranged on a piece of leather, keep- self-forming shoe, we had to identify
formation. For example, if you deposit a ing in mind that the right and left shoe the geometric code that we would print
circle onto the textile and stretch the tex- need to go together. Natural leather has onto the stretched textile that would
tile in a uniform way, then when you re- a different amount of stretch across the allow it to transform into a shoe. First,
lease it from the rigid plate, it will jump different regions of the piece, which we stretched the elastic textile around a

308 American Scientist, Volume 109


rigid plate in a uniform manner. We then
printed a polymer onto the stretched tex-
tile in a specific pattern. The textile was
stretched in a uniform manner, and the
material properties were kept constant
while the design variable that we adjust-
ed was the printed pattern. The printing
process allows for custom patterns and
complete control over the shape while
testing it out; once a shape is defined,
it can be laminated, bonded, sewn, or
otherwise combined with the textile.
We designed the printed pattern to
create all of the curvature of today’s
shoes with a single piece of textile
wrapping the foot from the toe to the

Self-Assembly Lab, MIT/Ministry of Supply/Hills Inc./Mechanosynthesis Group, MIT/Iowa State University


heel. We went through many iterations
and tested patterns to promote the
precise transformation. Ultimately, we
identified a pattern, printed it onto the
textile, and released it from the plate.
The textile instantly jumped into its 3D
shape, encoded with the shoe’s curva-
ture to self-form into a foot-like shape.
As an extension of this process, we also
created the sole of the shoe by promot-
ing further curvature and wrapping
from the bottom up around the sides.

Mass-Produced Tailoring
Recently, we looked at the adaptabil-
ity of our textiles to address changing
functionality or comfort requirements
while the product is in use. We wanted
to go beyond just the shape change of
a textile and create porosity change,
with new functionality built directly
into the textile from the filaments, fi-
bers, and yarns all the way up to the
garment. To accomplish this goal we
worked in collaboration with the cloth-
ing company Ministry of Supply and
other researchers on a project through Active textile tailoring can give mass-produced garments a bespoke look and feel. Clothes
an organization called Advanced made in factories come in standard sizes (such as small, medium, and large) that fit a range
Functional Fabrics of America. of people, but are not tailored to individual bodies. Active textiles use yarns with specific
The first development was focused material combinations knit into geometric structures that contract when exposed to heat or
on a single-direction transformation, moisture (bottom). Strategic application of heat transforms a loose sweater (top left) into a
where the textile could transform only custom-fit garment (top right).
once and never again. This type of
transformation was geared toward tai- even the same product and same size can go from a 3D body scan of the cus-
loring and creating customized prod- can be completely different depending tomer, and then directly manufacture a
ucts that fit an individual’s body. Typi- on what factory it came from. With our unique garment and ship it to the cus-
cally, tailoring is only possible either research, we showed that we could still tomer’s door. This process is extremely
by manufacturing a custom garment, mass-produce garments, taking advan- challenging logistically, however, be-
which is often logistically complicated, tage of the speed, scale, and efficiency cause the custom program to run the
expensive, and slow, or by manually of industrial knit textile manufacturing, knitting machine is not automated and
cutting and sewing in a traditional tai- yet we could activate garments to self- because of the lack of dimensional pre-
loring process, which is often labor in- transform around the customer. cision in textile manufacturing, which
tensive and expensive. For these two There are a number of examples makes this an unsolved problem.
reasons, mass-produced garments use where companies are trying to mass Our approach was to avoid the cus-
standard sizes—such as small, medi- customize textile products using indus- tom program and custom manufacturing
um, large, and extra-large—that don’t trial knitting, either flatbed knitting or challenges and focus on embedding the
fit any individual perfectly. Similarly, circular knitting. The dream is that you customization intelligence directly into

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 309


Self-Assembly Lab, MIT/Ministry of Supply
Climate-active textiles respond to external temperature and moisture levels so that the wearer they are in a cool air-conditioned office
is comfortable in a variety of environments. In an air-conditioned office, the fabric contracts to and they walk outside on a hot sum-
become dense and warm (left), but in a hot car it loosens to become lighter and cooler (right). mer day, their garment should be able
to open up and become more breathable
the textile, not the machine. This shift al- printing, we can change materials at and thinner, more lightweight, to help
lows us to mass-produce standard-sized every “pixel” (which in this case is a cool their body and keep them comfort-
garments, but when they arrive at the stitch in the textile) in a 3D garment. able in both temperature extremes. This
store, the garment can be activated By changing the materials in relation type of active, self-transforming textile
with heat or moisture and will then to one another, we can finely tune the garment is bidirectional and can contin-
transform itself, adjusting directly to various material properties, design- uously adapt, going back and forth, ad-
the customer’s body. In this way, the ing them to expand or contract based justing to the ever-changing temperature
customer receives a uniquely tailored on external temperature or moisture dynamics that we experience every day.
garment that fits perfectly, without the changes. Natural materials such as
complexity and cost of custom manu- wool or various polymer fibers will Moving Out of the Lab
facturing or cut-and-sew tailoring. This shrink with a certain temperature or Self-forming footwear and active tex-
tiles offer new perspectives on the
agency of our materials, arguing for a
more dynamic and ever-changing per-
By changing the materials in relation formance relationship with our prod-
ucts. Although some of these products
to one another, we can finely tune their currently exist only in the lab, not on
the market, that is likely not because
various properties, designing them to they are more difficult to produce or
more expensive or less durable. Their
expand or contract based on external scope is limited today mainly because
manufacturers and consumer cultures
temperature or moisture changes. haven’t yet made room for thinking
about active products in this new way.
But that will eventually change.
These materials, unlike the static
type of single-direction transformation moisture activation. We can then vary products of our everyday world, do not
will happen only once; the garment the knit structure, stitch by stitch, across resist all forces; instead, they become
will not return to the original shape and the garment to change the way that the highly active, take advantage of the forc-
won’t transform accidentally when the textile will move. A contracting zone es around them, and make use of their
customer wears or washes it. It is only can pull open certain pores, or lift a inherent material properties. Products
designed to adapt for their perfect fit. vent flap to adjust breathability. Some shouldn’t sit around passively—they
In the more recent developments of fibers will shrink, while others will bulk should adapt to our needs, react to the
this research, however, we have been and expand in cross section. We can use environment, and push us to perform
able to demonstrate reversible, bidirec- these behaviors to transform the global better and live healthier lives together.
tional transformations of textiles that shape of the garment, creating zones
are designed more for climate adapt- that are thicker or thinner for insula- Skylar Tibbits is a designer and computer scientist
ability, allowing the textile to trans- tion, comfort, breathability, or better fit. whose research focuses on developing self-assembly
form based on fluctuations in the ex- With this development, we can cre- and programmable materials within the built envi-
ternal environment or the customer’s ate knit textile garments that adapt for ronment. Tibbits is the founder and codirector of the
Self-Assembly Lab and associate professor of design
body temperature. These approaches thermal comfort: If someone walks from
research in the architecture department at the Mas-
also utilize industrial knitting tech- their warm and cozy house into the sachusetts Institute of Technology. This article is
nologies where we can swap the fiber, brisk, cold outdoors, their lightweight adapted from Things Fall Together: A Guide to the
filament, or yarns, on a stitch-by-stitch and breathable sweater can close its New Materials Revolution by Skylar Tibbits, copy-
basis, across the entire garment. That pores and get thicker to help insulate right 2021 by Skylar Tibbits. Reprinted by permission
means, much like multimaterial 3D and warm their body. Or vice versa, if of Princeton University Press. Email: sjet@mit.edu

310 American Scientist, Volume 109


Flashback, 1890
First Women Members
A major accomplishment in the early 1890’s
was the Society’s induction of five women
scientists—a truly remarkable breakthrough
during a period when women studying and
working in science and technology was
extremely rare. The five pioneering women
inducted into the Society included entomologist
and illustrator Anna Botsford Comstock,
zoologist and neurologist Susanna Phelps Gage,
Harriet Groteclass Marx, botanist Julie Warner Snow, and mathematician Mary
Margaretta Wardwell. (Photos left to right: Anna Botsford Comstock, Susanna
Phelps Gage, and Julia Warner Snow.)

A few noteworthy women members include Getty Cori, 1947 Nobel Prize winner
in Medicine; Barbara McClintock, 1983 Nobel Prize winner in Medicine; Maria
Goeppert-Mayer, 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics; Sally Ride, physicist and
1st American woman astronaut; and Jennifer Doudna, 2020 Nobel Prize winner
in Chemistry.

Today, 52% of Sigma Xi members are women.

“Nominate a woman of inspiration for membership who is


making an impact on scientific research or engineering to continue
the tradition of great Sigma Xi members.”

Email: membership@sigmaxi.org

www.sigmaxi.org
Robert R. Morris. 2011. Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society 1886–2011. Marengo, Illinois: Walsworth Publishing Company.

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 311


S c i e n t i s t s’
Nightstand

We Alone is divided into three parts.


Part I, “The Roots of Our Success,”
The Scientists’ Nightstand, Finding Hope in takes as its primary purpose an exami-
American Scientist’s books
section, offers reviews, review
Community-Based nation of how, over the past several
hundred thousand years, the human
essays, brief excerpts, and more. Conservation species evolved, grew in number so
successfully, spread across the globe,
For additional books coverage,
please see our Science Culture and came to dominate the planet. The
blog channel, which explores Paul S. Sutter exploration of this question is peripa-
how science intersects with other tetic, a bit too evolutionary in its ori-
WE ALONE: How Humans Have Con- entation, and, in the end, not entirely
areas of knowledge, entertain-
quered the Planet and Can Also Save It. convincing. Central to this section,
ment, and society: however, and ramifying throughout
David Western. 310 pp. Yale University
americanscientist.org/blogs subsequent sections, is the defining
Press, 2020. $30.
/science-culture. question of the book, a much more

A
s an environmental historian interesting one to my mind: “Why,
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
with a deep interest in the his- at the pinnacle of our ecological suc-
tory of conservation, I greeted cess, did we begin to conserve some of
THE CONTAMINATION OF THE David Western’s new book, We Alone: the very species we had conquered?”
EARTH: A History of Pollu- How Humans Conquered the Planet and Western recognizes that this impulse is
tions in the Industrial Age. By Can Also Save It, with enthusiasm, hop- a product of a certain moment in his-
François Jarrige and Thomas Le ing to learn cutting-edge lessons from a tory, and of a certain privileged place
Roux. conservationist whose career has been in that moment, and he freely admits
page 313 marked by taking African peoples and that his Maasai friends and informants,
communities as seriously as the ani- though conservation-minded in their
DO NOT ERASE: Mathemati- mals with whom they share the land- own ways, do not share his modern
cians and Their Chalkboards. scape. Western is a renowned wildlife conservation sensibility. In this way,
By Jessica Wynne. scientist and a pioneer in community- he thoughtfully interrogates his own
page 315 based conservation who has worked for evolving conservation commitments,
more than half a century in East Africa, questioning the role they ought to play
ONLINE
with a particular focus on Amboseli in responding to human domination
National Park and the Maasai lands of of the planet, and he clearly recognizes
On our Science Culture blog: the Kenya-Tanzania border region. At that the Maasai have other interests
americanscientist.org/blogs its core, We Alone is a deeply personal and struggles.
/science-culture book that traces the arc of his intellectu- Part II, “The Human Age,” is the
Plastic Pollution and al evolution from a hunter to a wildlife shortest section and purports to chart
Land Relations ecologist and conservationist, and it ex- the more recent history of the epoch
Katie L. Burke reviews a new amines the lessons that he has learned that some now call the Anthropocene
book by Max Liboiron, Pollution from Maasai herders and other African and the forces of globalization that are
Is Colonialism, which urges peoples who have made a living from driving it. Western explains many of
that scientific practice take an the land while also conserving its re- the disturbing trends of this era, dur-
anticolonial approach in order sources. The book is at its best when it ing which humans are diverting huge
to become better aligned with springs from Western’s own experience amounts of biological productivity to
Indigenous concepts of land, and expertise, his thoughtful positions, their ends and fouling their own nest
water, and ethics. and his own learning across time. But (to use one of his favored metaphors).
grafted onto that story is another book, However, his discussion here is often
much more sweeping in its ambitions quite derivative (he is overly fond of
and less successfully realized—a book summarizing the many books he has
that hopes to explain, as its subtitle read), and a bit too selective and su-
suggests, how humans conquered the perficial. He is also surprisingly fa-
planet and can also save it. talistic about these trends and at the

312 American Scientist, Volume 109


the world of species conservation, and
in his recognition that social justice
and human well-being are essential Addressing Global
to success in conserving other species.
Aware of the desires that many Maasai
Pollution in a
have for more comfortable and mod-
ern lives, he poignantly notes that “the
Capitalistic World
rich world is expanding the meaning
of conservation to include biodiversity J. R. McNeill
and cultural heritage as the poor world
is struggling to escape them.” THE CONTAMINATION OF THE EARTH: A
But the solutions Western proffers History of Pollutions in the Industrial Age.
often seem naively optimistic. They François Jarrige and Thomas Le Roux.
partake too much of species thinking Translated by Janice Egan and Michael
(the “We” in his title) rather than con- Egan. 459 pp. MIT Press, 2020. $39.95.
tending with social conflict and divi-

T
sion, and they often ignore the politi- he value of this idiosyncratic
cal and economic channels of power book rests primarily on three
that have most profoundly contrib- things, the first two of which
uted to the problem. Capitalism, for are at odds with each other. First, it at-
instance, as a powerful historical force tempts to be synoptic and global in cov-
and the engine of globalization, is all ering its topic—an admirable ambition,
but ignored in this book. but one very imperfectly realized here.
In the end, We Alone tries to do Second, it contains a wealth of specific
David Western, who grew up in Tanzania, too much. It wants to be both a book information about French pollution
started out in life as a hunter, but at age 14 he about the history and prospects of history, most of which was previously
traded his gun for a camera, and as an adult ecological conservation in a radically unavailable to those who don’t read
he began studying and saving wildlife in the changing world, and one that grap- French. Third, it focuses particularly on
Amboseli game reserve on Kenya’s border ples with a set of sweeping histori- the role of chemical industries, which
with Tanzania. He is shown here holding
cal problems that have led us into the deserves more attention from historians
a cheetah orphan. Photo courtesy of David
Western. From We Alone.
Anthropocene and for which species than it has received.
conservation is only a small part of The Contamination of the Earth: A His-
the solution. I wish Western had stuck tory of Pollutions in the Industrial Age is
same time sanguine that they may with what he knows best, community- a translation of a French edition pub-
be our salvation. “Despite its level- based conservation and its future, for lished in 2017, authored by French his-
ing force,” he writes, “globalization those are the most insightful and satis- torians who specialize in the environ-
is both inevitable and our best hope fying parts of We Alone. mental and social history of industrial
for bettering our lives and sustaining Western is admirably aware that France. Although one might harp on
planetary health.” modern wildlife conservation makes the fact that the book does not live up
Part III, “Our Once and Future most sense to those in positions of mod- to its stated goal of providing a global
Planet,” turns to ostensible solutions— ern material affluence. However, his view of modern pollution, I think it
ways of managing the Human Age solution seems to consist in bringing more appropriate to appreciate the au-
for greater human and environmen- that level of material affluence to the thors’ attention to their home country.
tal well-being. As with the previous entirety of the world’s population; he Most of what the book has to say about
two sections, this one is most satisfy- is confident that people’s values will pollution history in Britain, Germany,
ing when Western is talking about his then pivot to his form of conservation. and the United States has already been
own rich experience and wisdom as He is to be applauded for linking con- said in publications familiar to anglo-
a practicing conservationist and the servation to development in this way, phone environmental historians. The
many challenges that we now face but in my estimation he has too much attention given here to Russia, Japan,
in conserving other species. Western faith that development can solve the South Africa, Mexico, and other lands
founded and chairs the African Con- problems of global inequality and ease with significant pollution history is
servation Centre in Nairobi, and his pressures on the global environment. thin. But Jarrige and Le Roux—with
other career milestones have included the help of their translators, Janice
heading the international programs of Egan and Michael Egan—illuminate
the Wildlife Conservation Society, es- Paul S. Sutter is a professor of history at the Uni- the history of French pollution more
tablishing Kenya’s Wildlife Planning versity of Colorado Boulder. His current book proj- fully, and more insightfully, than any-
ect is an environmental and public health history
Unit and directing Kenya’s Wildlife one has done before in English.
of the construction of the Panama Canal. His other
Service, and serving as founding presi- books include Let Us Now Praise Famous Gul-
The translation has rendered the
dent of the International Ecotourism lies: Providence Canyon and the Soils of the French text into smooth English. The
Society. His leadership in community- South (University of Georgia Press, 2015) and authors, and their translators, insist on
based conservation really shows in his Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automo- using the awkward-sounding plural
complex understanding of the social biles Launched the Modern Wilderness Move- pollutions to emphasize the diversity
and cultural challenges to be met in ment (University of Washington Press, 2002). of substances and processes involved.

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 313


here is the asbestos industry, which
from the 1940s through the 1970s
funded scientists and publications
willing to deny, or at least cast doubt
on, the fiber’s role in undermining
human health. The authors excel at
showing the degree to which such ex-
perts were, and are, creatures of their
cultural and political contexts.
Jarrige and Le Roux recognize
how important military industry has
been to the history of pollution. Early
chapters show how entwined certain
industries, especially chemical and
metallurgical ones, were with mili-
tary procurement in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Governments frequently ex-
empted the relevant industries from
whatever limits to pollution did ex-
ist. During the protracted warfare be-
tween France and Britain, 1793–1815,
This photograph by Olya Koto shows a mural by street artist Pasha Cas on the side of an governments did their best to liber-
apartment building in the industrial city of Temirtau in Kazakhstan (see art by @Pashacas on ate iron, chemical, leather, and other
Instagram). The project, which was curated by Rash X, has a Russian title that translates as industries from any constraints, on
Dancing (2016); it is reminiscent of Henri Matisse’s famous painting Danse and warns against
the grounds that acidified rivers and
idolizing the wealth derived from oil. In the background, the smokestacks of metallurgical
plants emit lead pollution that reaches levels five times the authorized amount. The photo is
toxic air were a small price to pay for
reproduced in black and white in The Contamination of the Earth. a better chance at victory. Indeed, the
political atmosphere of these wartime
decades helped to “normalize” in-
That usage has merit and deserves to worked to disarm critics of pollution, dustrial pollution in these countries.
catch on. Some references that perhaps again mostly in France and Britain. These broad patterns continued into
needed no explanation in the French Part III deals with what the authors the 20th century, as shown in detail in
edition will probably be obscure to call “The Toxic Age,” 1914–1973, a cre- the chapter on warfare since 1914. En-
most readers of this one: for instance, scendo of contamination. It includes vironmental histories and histories of
the Leblanc process (for the manufac- strong chapters on warfare, energy industry sometimes fail to take proper
ture of soda ash) and the Second Em- systems, and consumption as they re- note of military institutions and the
pire (which refers to the reign of Na- late to pollution. Nuclear contamina- pressures they impose, but that is not
poleon III, 1852–1870). Few readers tion, oil spills, and air pollution from the case here. The authors note, for ex-
outside the south of France are likely to coal combustion come in for particular ample, that with 1967’s Six-Day War,
know that Gardanne is a town of 20,000 attention, as do the accumulation of the Israel Defense Forces became ex-
people just north of Marseille. But with plastic debris and the chemical wastes empt from many environmental regu-
few exceptions, the translators have from mining and agriculture. Part III is lations. On a global scale, peacetime
produced a readable, accessible text. less focused on northwestern Europe operation and maintenance of military
The authors’ research, reflected in than are the earlier parts. The epilogue, machinery accounted for 6–10 percent
83 pages of endnotes (but no bibliog- which amounts to a full-scale chapter, of air pollution during the Cold War.
raphy), emphasizes both French- and brings the story up to 2017 and at last The book also contains numerous
English-language secondary sources. realizes the authors’ aim of a genuinely details that I found educational and
This is not an archivally based book global approach to their subject. fascinating. I would not have guessed,
that brings fresh information to light. Merits of the book include its atten- for example, that in 1966 petroleum
Instead it organizes masses of infor- tion to changing and contrasting le- alone accounted for 53 percent of the
mation, reveals broad patterns, and gal regimes. By and large, the authors total value of world trade, nor that
provides access to those who do not contend, polluters have managed to today 10 percent of France’s electric-
read French to the findings and in- get rules that allow them to avoid seri- ity production goes to maintaining
sights of the estimable francophone ous consequences for the damage they data storage centers, and especially
literature on pollution history. do. They have done so in different not that, as of a few years ago, the en-
The structure of the book is broadly ways in different countries, but their ergy consumed by one hour of hu-
chronological. Part I treats early indus- success usually has involved finding mankind’s email traffic equals that of
trialization, 1700–1830, and is strong and supporting scientists and other 4,000 round-trip airplane flights from
on the legal and regulatory respons- experts who were seeking to refute Paris to New York.
es to pollution in France and Britain. claims of ecological or health impair- As far as I can tell, the authors made
Part II covers the period from 1830 to ment, or at least to muddy the waters very few errors. Most are trivial. The
1914 and shows, among other things, so no clear judgments could result. least so (that I noticed) is that they mis-
how scientists, physicians, and the law The example treated in greatest detail takenly place Henry Ford’s develop-

314 American Scientist, Volume 109


ment of the Model T Ford and assembly- Conspicuously absent from the im-
line methods of production in the 1920s.
(Production of the Model T on a moving
Chalkophilia ages are the mathematicians who made
all those white-on-black squiggles. No
assembly line actually began in 1913, faces or hands stray into the frame.
five years after the car’s debut.) Brian Hayes This austere aesthetic can be frustrating
The final message of the book is at times; we would like to see the artist
gloomy. The authors adhere consis- DO NOT ERASE: Mathematicians and behind the work, or better yet the artist
tently to what environmental histo- Their Chalkboards. Jessica Wynne. With at work. Nevertheless, I think Wynne
rians call declensionism, meaning nar- an afterword by Alec Wilkinson. 227 pp. chose the right strategy. She forces us
ratives in which things are always Princeton University Press, 2021. $35. to look at the chalkboards themselves,
getting worse—and not just in the bad to see them as documents or artifacts,

C
old days. In their view, the environ- halk is the fossil fuel of modern without the irresistible distraction of
mentalism of the past 50 years has met mathematics. It was formed in human presence.
with minimal success. They maintain the Cretaceous period, roughly Among the unseen mathematicians
that when environmental movements 100 million years ago, when the seas are many celebrities, including five re-
seeking to reduce pollution demand swarmed with foraminifera and other cipients of the Fields Medal, which is
that “economic decisions should be planktonic organisms whose calcium- typically described as the mathemati-
constrained by the planet’s ecological rich skeletons accumulated in thick beds cal equivalent of a Nobel Prize. But I
rhythms,” those movements are “in- of the soft, white stone. Now the chalk am delighted to report that there are
variably marginalized and ignored.” is quarried, refined, and pressed into also lots of grad students and post-
The root cause of enduring pollution, crayon-size sticks that mathematicians docs and junior faculty, whose black-
and the failure of efforts to check it is, delight in stroking across smooth slate. board scribblings are every bit as in-
in a word, capitalism. “Entrepreneurs A chalkboard is the preferred medium teresting as those of the illuminati.
insist on small individual gestures and of expression for many kinds of mathe- Wynne came to this subject not as an
good practices without ever calling matical discourse: solitary ruminations, adept or an aficionado of mathematics,
into question the global organization teaching, presenting work to colleagues, but through an accident of geography:
of the world and its productive and collaborative research sessions. Her summertime neighbors on Cape
consumerist model,” complain Jarrige Do Not Erase presents more than 100 Cod are Amie Wilkinson and Benson
and Le Roux. “While pollutions accen- specimens of the mathematical chalk- Farb, mathematicians at the University
tuate inequalities and global injustices, board, in color photographs made by of Chicago. One day she found it in-
their regulation requires a radical re- Jessica Wynne, who is on the faculty of triguing to watch Farb work for hours
shaping of power and expertise.” the Fashion Institute of Technology in in his notebook on a complex problem.
I, however, would like to believe that
replacing a fossil fuel–based energy
regime with something more benign,
and radically reducing industrial pol-
Are we now living through the last great
lution in the process, can be achieved
without the bloodshed and mayhem
days of chalkboard culture?
that the overthrow of capitalism might
entail. Capitalism has proved durable, New York. Each photograph occupies Later she visited Jaipur, India, where
and the most successful efforts at coun- a full page. The facing page holds a she photographed elementary school
tering it gave birth to the Soviet Union capsule biography of the mathemati- blackboards filled with lessons in the
and Mao Zedong’s China, neither of cian whose work is on exhibit, and Hindi language. Looking at the photos
which, as the authors recognize, did a few paragraphs of commentary or on her return, she was reminded of the
much of anything to check pollution. explanation. mathematical symbols in Farb’s note-
So if it is indeed true that large-scale Some of the chalkboards were clearly book. What the Hindi and the mathe-
reduction in industrial pollutions will produced specifically for the occasion matics had in common was their inscru-
require the abolition of capitalism, the of the photographer’s visit, but most tability to someone from outside the
odds appear sharply unfavorable— of them are candid records of recent or culture. She was excited by these pat-
both because capitalism is hard to abol- ongoing work. The photographs gen- terns that both drew her in and pushed
ish, and because abolishing it would erally show the entire board and little her away, and thus was launched a
not guarantee a better result. else—perhaps a chalk tray, an eraser, project. She set up her tripod in depart-
or the “Do Not Erase” placard that ments of mathematics at two dozen
gives the book its title. For each pho- American universities as well as a few
J. R. McNeill is an environmental historian and tograph, the camera has been placed institutions farther afield—in Paris and
University Professor at Georgetown University, squarely in front of the chalkboard, ac- its suburbs, and in Brazil.
and a former president of the American Historical
centuating its rectilinear geometry. As “Inscrutability” is a word that may
Association. He is the author of several books, the
most recent of which is The Webs of Humankind:
Wynne herself puts it, “I photograph well cross the reader’s mind when
A World History (W. W. Norton, 2020, 2 vol- in a literal, objective, straightforward looking at some of these images, where
umes), and is coauthor with Peter Engelke of The way—showing the chalkboards as real dense thickets of Greek and Roman let-
Great Acceleration: An Environmental History objects—capturing their texture, erasure ters sprout superscripts and subscripts.
of the Anthropocene since 1945 (The Belknap marks, layers of work, and all forms of Often, however, there’s at least a hint
Press of Harvard University Press, 2014). light reflecting off their surfaces.” of sense and substance, something for

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 315


The art of writing and drawing with chalk and the art of doing mathematics seem to be closely City University of New York. Benson
linked. In Do Not Erase, Jessica Wynne presents photographs of chalkboards created by more Farb declares, “Chalkboards are a ma-
than 100 mathematicians. Many of them resist all interpretation, but this one, by Benson Farb of jor part of my life. I couldn’t live with-
the University of Chicago, invites the viewer to try reconstructing what’s going on in the math- out them.” In these statements I hear a
ematician’s mind. A series of drawings all show three dots, enveloped in loops of pink or yellow
note of anticipatory nostalgia, born of
chalk. Repeated transformations (labeled a and b at the upper left) twist the loop like taffy, but
the fear that we are now living through
even in the final, intricate maze of folded loops, two dots are inside and the third remains outside.
the last great days of chalkboard cul-
the viewer to grab hold of—a reveal- There is no pressure to get it perfect ture. And it may be true. Natural slate
ing diagram, or perhaps a few lines the first time, or even to get it right, boards are hard to come by, and the
of explanatory text amid the bristling since it’s going to be erased in an hour mathematicians’ favorite brand of
equations. or two anyway.” chalk, called Hagoromo Fulltouch, was
Blackboards were once standard On the subject of erasure there’s this unavailable for a while a few years ago.
equipment in all kinds of classrooms further comment from Virginia Urban The writing is on the wall, so to speak.
and academic environments. Chem- of the Fashion Institute of Technology: Peter Woit of Columbia University
ists drew their molecules with chalk, “A blackboard has a special quality— takes an optimistic stand: “I’m will-
and grammarians diagrammed their while incorrect or discarded ideas are ing to bet that a hundred years from
sentences. But most fields have moved easily erased, the haze is still visible as now, mathematicians will still be us-
on, willingly or not, to whiteboards or a reminder of the work that went into ing chalk and chalkboards.” I don’t
to PowerPoint. The mathematics com- arriving at the solution.” share his confidence, but I do have
munity is the last holdout, clinging Chalk is even praised for slowing the faith that a hundred years from now
stubbornly to their dusty, distinctly pace of mathematical work. When giv- mathematicians will have an effective
old-fashioned chalkboards. ing a “chalk talk,” a mathematician can way to communicate and collaborate,
The mathematicians quoted in this go no faster than he or she can write whether or not it involves fossilized
volume are proud of that recalcitrance. equations on the board. Paul Apisa foraminifera. Whatever the medium
They praise chalk in terms of “tactile of Yale University explains: “A virtue might be, I hope it can also provide
experience” and “sensual pleasure.” of chalk, and talks that use it, is that it those sensual and tactile satisfactions
The chalkboard is a fluid and informal checks the Icarian desire of a speaker to enjoyed by ardent chalkophiles. Per-
medium of expression, they say. If you communicate too much, heedless of the haps it will even lend itself to a sump-
change your mind about something, capacity of the listeners to comprehend.” tuous book of fine photographs—
you can smudge out a symbol with A few of the comments even suggest assuming that medium survives.
the heel of your hand. Impermanence that without chalk, mathematics itself
becomes a virtue. Nathan Dowlin of might be in jeopardy. “The chalkboard Brian Hayes is a former editor and columnist for
Columbia University writes that “on a is the glue that holds together this com- American Scientist. His most recent book is Fool-
chalkboard the idea can evolve grad- munity and its rituals,” writes Nicho- proof, and Other Mathematical Meditations
ually, the way it does in your mind. las G. Vlamis of Queens College of the (MIT Press, 2017).

316 American Scientist, Volume 109


September–October 2021 Volume 30 Number 05

Sigma Xi Today A NEWSLETTER OF SIGMA XI, THE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH HONOR SOCIETY

New Term Begins From the President


for Distinguished
Lecturers Of Roots and Fruits
With the start of the fiscal year in July, Sigma Xi has deep roots. The 2021 Annual Meeting
Sigma Xi welcomes in the 2021–2022 and Student Research Conference, scheduled for
cohort of its Distinguished Lecturers. November 4–7, will take place in conjunction with
The 12 new and returning speak- the Assembly of Delegates, which dates back to
ers were selected by the Committee 1893. The long, rich history of the Society’s promo-
on Lectureships to connect Sigma Xi tion of research excellence is well known, but the
chapters and members with science roots I have in mind run deeper still—the scientific
and engineering thought leaders. This virtues that ground the integrity of research prac-
year’s cohort of Distinguished tice. This year’s conference theme, Roots to Fruits:
Lecturers includes: Responsible Research for a Flourishing Humanity,
highlights these values and how they serve society.
Julie Demuth Deliberations about ethics and science are a regular part of Sigma Xi
National Center for Atmospheric Research
meetings and have stimulated my own participation. In Vancouver in
Andrew Fisher 1998, I attended my first Sigma Xi Annual Meeting and gave a talk about
University of California, Santa Cruz
justice and attribution of credit in research publications. In 2000, at the
Agustín Fuentes Albuquerque meeting, I organized a session on bioethics and gave a
Princeton University
paper about how the virtuous scientist should address ethical concerns
Sir Christopher Lange about human cloning. It was a small part of that year’s conference theme
State University of New York, Downstate
Medical Center of New Ethical Challenges in Science and Technology. Such discussions
help us make science better.
Kristie Macrakis
Georgia Institute of Technology Often the phrase “ethical challenges” in this context is used to sug-
gest areas in which research or its applications may need to be curtailed
Oge Marques
Florida Atlantic University or adjusted to avoid something that is morally problematic. This is
important, but not doing harm is only part of the challenge. Ethics also
Heather McKillop
Louisiana State University challenges us to do good. This year’s theme of Roots to Fruits provides
an opportunity to consider how to grow efforts toward the ideal. How
David Pfennig
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can cultivation of the deep scientific virtues contribute not only to a flour-
ishing research culture but also to the larger goal of human betterment?
Luisa Rebull
California Institute of Technology Conference tracks will focus on our responsibility as scientists in research
and discovery, technology innovation, and STEM education.
Federico Rosei
Institut national de la recherche scientifique The lovely poster created for the conference (see inside back
cover) illustrates the theme with the image of a tree. The fruits of
Corinna Ross
Texas A&M University–San Antonio science—discovery and innovation—are fed by the virtues that root the
tree—curiosity, honesty, objectivity, and others. These values provide
Danielle Wood
Massachusetts Institute of Technology the integrity that gives the tree trunk its strength. The image also depicts
some of the tasks that we must share as caretakers of the tree—watering
Chapters and potential event hosts its roots and pruning dead branches to maintain its vigor. The annual
can book individual lecturers at meeting is one venue where the scientific community gathers to contrib-
sigmaxi.org/lecturers. ute to this vital work. Registration for the conference is now open. I hope
to see you there to help Sigma Xi continue to nurture the tree of science
and its valuable fruits.
Sigma Xi Today is managed by
Jason Papagan and designed by
Chao Hui Tu. Robert T. Pennock

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 317


MEMBERS AND CHAPTERS

Sigma Xi Installs New Chapters at Whitworth University and


Midwestern University
On May 5th, a virtual ceremony was held to install the
new Sigma Xi chapter at Whitworth University in Spo-
kane, Washington. The ceremony was presided over by
Sigma Xi’s Immediate Past-President, Sonya Smith. It was a
celebration of the new chapter’s officers, members, and com-
mitment to growth and advancement of the university’s On May 18th, Sigma Xi installed its newest chapter at
research enterprise. Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona. The in-
Aaron Putzke, a professor in the biology department person ceremony was presided over by Sigma Xi’s President
at Whitworth, leads the 10 founding members of the new Robert Pennock. John C. Mitchell, professor and associate
chapter—faculty hailing from disciplines that include biology, dean for research at Midwestern, spearheaded the efforts
chemistry, computer science, mathematics, psychology, com- of the university in its petition to form the new chapter. He
munications, English, and education. In establishing the new will lead a group of 19 founding members through the ini-
chapter, the founders presented a three-year plan that includes tial years of the chapter’s development.
recurring meetings, sponsorship initiatives, outreach, promo- As a medical and health sciences institution, Midwest-
tional events, and a STEAM Café lecture series. ern has a strong record of student-faculty collaborative
“The opportunity to expand our network, bring high- research. The university is also well known for its public
profile speakers to our campus, and present students outreach programs. Mitchell anticipates that the new Sigma
with new grant opportunities, will strengthen and enhance Xi chapter will enhance and support collaborative research,
our undergraduate promote collegiality among fellow scientists, and provide a
research program,” prestigious venue for presentation of science topics to both
said Putzke. “We the institution and the public.
look forward to The founding members presented a three-year plan that
growing our chap- includes recurring meetings, sponsorship initiatives, lec-
ter and contributing tures, and promotional events. The in-person ceremony
to the outstand- included election of officers, a networking dinner, and a
ing reputation of presentation of the official charter upon installation of the
Sigma Xi.” new chapter.

Grants in Aid of Research Recipient Profile: Nirmalya Thakur


Homes). There are about 285 million Pervasive Activity Logging (PAL)—
visually impaired people worldwide, that was presented in a paper at the 4th
and they often need assistance in car- International Conference on Data Sci-
rying out ADLs. Technology-based ence and Information Technology in
intelligent solutions are needed to assist July 2021. PAL methodology can mine,
living and improve quality of life. The study, track, analyze, and interpret
project has aimed to explore and inte- the dynamic and diversified nature of
grate the latest technologies from the both macro and micro components of
fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, user interactions during different and
human-computer interaction, machine dynamic activities performed within
learning, pervasive computing, and the confines of a pervasive environ-
related disciplines. It is expected to ment. PAL is expected to have multiple
Grant: $2,500 in Fall 2020 advance and contribute new knowl- applications and use-cases to advance
Education level at time of the grant: edge to the research domains of activity knowledge in the above-mentioned
PhD Student recognition, human behavior, indoor research fields in the next few years.
localization, indoor navigation, and
assisted living technologies. Where are you now? I am currently
Project Description: This project has working as an instructor in the Depart-
aimed to develop a sensible and intel- What is the most significant outcome ment of Electrical Engineering and
ligent assistant (SIA) to help visually of the project? The funding through Computer Science at the University of
impaired people navigate and per- the Grants in Aid of Research (GIAR) Cincinnati. I serve on the review board
form activities of daily living (ADLs) program helped support my ongo- of many conferences and journals and
in an independent manner in pervasive ing research significantly. I developed have been the recent recipient of sev-
living environments (such as Smart a new computing methodology— eral research excellence awards.

318 Sigma Xi Today


PROGRAMS

Congratulations to the 2021 Student


Research Showcase Award Winners
Sigma Xi presented 10 monetary awards and 13 honorable mentions across three
divisions in this year’s Student Research Showcase, an annual science communi-
cation competition. The virtual event included 274 student participants and more
than 250 total presentations. First and second prizes were awarded in the high
school, undergraduate, and graduate divisions, and top presenters were named
in 13 disciplines. Additional prizes were given for the top overall winner of the
competition and a people’s choice award, determined by public vote outside of the
judges’ evaluations.
The Student Research Showcase aims to build students’ science communication
skills so they can convey the impact of their research to technical and nontechnical
audiences. Participants submitted abstracts for entry into the competition in early
spring. During a monthlong evaluation period, students built websites, videos,
and slideshows to present their research to a panel of judges and public audiences.
Judges’ evaluations were based on how well the students communicated enthusi-
asm for their projects; explained the significance of their research; used text, charts, Overall Winner – Harrison Ngue
and diagrams; and responded to questions.

Overall Winner ($500)


sponsored by HappiLabs, Inc. High School Division Undergraduate Division
First Place – Undergraduate Division First Place ($500) Second Place ($250)
($500) Chloe Sow — The Downtown School Julie Lee — University of North
Harrison Ngue — Harvard University Physiology and Immunology Carolina at Chapel Hill
Cell Biology and Biochemistry Microbiology and Molecular Biology
Post-Transcriptional Regulation of Second Place – Tie ($250)
Graduate Division
Mitochondrial Ribosomal Proteins Joseph Lee — Monta Vista High School
Confers Chemoresistance in Quiescent Physiology and Immunology First Place ($500)
Cancer Cells Sonia Patel — The University of Texas
Ashwin Sivakumar — Flintridge MD Anderson Cancer Center
People’s Choice Award ($250) Preparatory School Physiology and Immunology
Shrey Joshi and Ishaan Javali — Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Plano East Senior High School Second Place ($250)
Geosciences Amith Vasantha — Basis Independent Cori Fain — Mayo Clinic Graduate
GLAS: A Global Landslide Silicon Valley School of Biomedical Sciences
Analytics System Microbiology and Molecular Biology Physiology and Immunology

Top Presenters by Discipline (Honorable Mentions)

Selin Kocalar and Aylin Salahifar — Leigh High School Vanessa Swenton — Portland State University
and Carlmont High School Geosciences
Agricultural, Soil, and Natural Resources Emilin Mathew — American Heritage School, Plantation
Harrison Ngue — Harvard University Human Behavioral and Social Sciences
Cell Biology and Biochemistry Isaac Singer — Pine Crest School
Tyler Shern, Jessica Guo, Emily Zhou, and Varun Human Behavioral and Social Sciences
Nimmigadda — Mission San Jose High School, Ward Mihir Rao — Chatham High School
Melville High School, The Harker School, Novi High School Math and Computer Science
Chemistry Julie Lee — University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ashwin Sivakumar — Flintridge Preparatory School Microbiology and Molecular Biology
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Amanda Hao and Justin Hou — Aragon High School and
Irfan Nafi, Eugene Choi, and Raffu Khondaker — Thomas Henry Gunn High School
Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Physics and Astronomy
Engineering Sonia Patel — The University of Texas MD Anderson
Sonja Michaluk — Carnegie Mellon University Cancer Center
Environmental Sciences Physiology and Immunology

www.americanscientist.org 2021 September–October 319


EVENTS

Sessions on Ethics and Scientific Integrity at Annual Meeting


and Student Research Conference
The theme of this year’s conference is Roots to Fruits: Responsible Research for a
Flourishing Humanity. When we convene this November in Niagara Falls, New York,
for the hybrid event, attendees will take part in compelling sessions that address scien-
tific virtues, contemporary ethical challenges facing the research community, and social
responsibility associated with scientific expertise. The following is a preliminary list of
breakout sessions based on the conference’s theme, as well as other topics included in the
professional development track. More sessions will be posted at sigmaxi.org/amsrc21.

General Research Ethics Track Science Communication, Education, and Public


Oral Presentation: Ethical Concerns with Advances in Medical Engagement Track
Technology and Genetics — Subrata Saha, University of Workshop: Responsibility: Where Science and Communication
Washington Collide — Allison Coffin, Washington State University and
Kirsten (Kiki) Sanford, Science Talk
Responsible Research and Discovery Track
Virtual Workshop: Cultures of Excellence — CK Gunsalus, Workshop: Paths to Science Policy Engagement in Your Local
National Center for Professional & Research Ethics and Community — Christopher Jackson, Engineers & Scientists
Dena Plemmons, University of California, Riverside Acting Locally

Responsible STEM Education Research Enterprise and Professional Development Track


Oral Presentation: Using Human Rights Issues to Engage Workshop: Thriving When Facing Academic Politics —
Students in STEM Courses — Brian Shmaefsky, Lone Star Noah Weisleder, The Ohio State University
College–Kingwood

College and
Graduate
School Fair
Are you an academic institu-
Pursuing Solutions to Pressing Global Issues tion looking for a great way
to connect with prospective
This year’s Student Research Conference will feature new interdisciplinary research STEM students? Register to
categories focused on developing solutions for national and global challenges. be an exhibitor at the Sigma Xi
Crucial issues such as climate change, cybersecurity, and vaccine advance- College and Graduate School
ment cannot be surmounted without engaging the innovative minds of today’s Fair! Held on November 6
young researchers. Special Interdisciplinary Research Awards will be given to as part of the 2021 Annual
the top five students who have designated their presentations under one of the Meeting and Student Research
following categories: Conference, this event invites
colleges and graduate schools
• Understanding the Universe (Astronomy and Space Sciences) to showcase their programs
• Biology and Biotechnology (Understanding the Brain, Origins of Life, to the best and brightest stu-
Understanding Biological Systems) dents interested in pursuing
• Environmental Challenges (Providing Access to Clean Water, Mitigating Climate undergraduate or graduate
Change, Food Security, Sustaining Clean Air, Preserving Biodiversity) degrees in science, technol-
• Human Health (Advancing Drug Design and Limiting Drug Resistance, ogy, engineering, math, or
Advancing Health Informatics, Advancing Vaccines, Preventing Pandemics, health professions.
Cancer Detection & Therapy)
• Advances in Computation (Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence) 50% discount for institutions
• Design, Construction, and Manufacturing (Improving Urban Infrastructure, with Sigma Xi chapters.
Advanced Materials, Making Solar Energy Affordable)
• Critical Breakthroughs (Energy from Fusion) Visit sigmaxi.org/cgsf21 to
• Tools for Science, Education, and Personalized Learning learn more and register today!
• Human Sciences and Policy

320 Sigma Xi Today


November 4–7, 2021
sigmaxi.org/amsrc21

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