Category: Uncategorized

This talk provided yet another link between the arts and the sciences, something that has become something of a theme in this seminar series. Professor Carlin Berkowitz discussed how the field of anatomy and art have been strongly connected throughout history, citing a prominent scientist as an example. Charles Bell was a professor in anatomy before it was officially recognized as a field, so he used a variety of different teaching techniques to get his message across to students. Some of these learning styles included wax models, sketches, and models, which made room for art to enter the classroom.  When looking at a field such as anatomy, it is virtually impossible to teach a course in anatomy without using visual aids. And in order for these visual aids to be lifelike and to be viable teaching models, biologists need artists to recreate accurate human bodies for study. This way of learning can be applied to not just fields like anatomy, but to many different scientific fields of study.

While art and the humanities may not play a role in necessarily enhancing the knowledge base available to scientists, it can assist scientific learning in other ways than simply the pursuit of new knowledge. Some fields of study favor a specific learning style over others, and in the case of scientific study, oftentimes it is very helpful to learn new material visually. As a biology major, I can certainly attest to this, as gaining a better knowledge of the various biological systems that are studied is made much easier by having a visual basis that accompanies them. In my classes at Colby, I have had to learn about the inner workings of a cell, the relationship between various organisms, as well as life cycles of both plants and animals. This information is incredibly difficult to be relayed through only text or written information. Additionally, topic such as chemistry need a solid visual basis when looking at models of molecules, and diagramming reactions. While these are less based in reality or lifelike, they serve valuable purposes in the classroom.

Overall, this talk hit on points that I agree with as a visual learner, and as someone who can now see that the art behind many scientific models and diagrams goes unnoticed. Many classes I have taken in science have involved art in some way, and in one of my biology classes, we spent a class in the art museum and were taught how to sketch various organisms scientifically. To conclude, art is found all over science, and helps create a solid learning base for students, anywhere from textbooks to museums.

The Professor of American Studies at Yale, Ms. Greta LaFleur came to speak to us about the relationship between sexuality that we experience early in life to the environment. Professor LaFleur structured her talk through a few different “narratives” that she believes best illustrates this connection.

Ms. LaFleur began her talk by detailing about a narrative of an execution. This kickstarted the discussion/talk with a vivid account that I thought did well to hook the audience by presenting an intense scene. She then went on to detail the narrative of captivity. Captivity refers to the Catholic sailors that were enslaved by the islamic slave trade market towards the end of the 20th century. Professor LaFleur went on to talk about sodomy which confused me because she then was able to relate this to her initial assertion that our environment relating to early sexuality. The first two accounts that LaFleur gave did not necessarily pertain to our environment or the environment of the narrations that she provided. This is where I had a little trouble bridging the gap between her talk theme and her examples. Later on, Professor LaFleur went on to read a quote that highlighted the connection: the relationship and actions that humans embark upon are all a part of history and the earth through the change we have experienced.

The quote that LaFleur provided as the reason of connection between the environment and people relies to the theory of climate. This is understood as the shaping/adapting of peoples bodies and lives to the climate that they live in. This is a fairly simple idea but when applied to the narratives that LaFleur provides, it provides compelling evidence of her claim. She further elucidated her point by talking about cuffing. This is understood as the idea that generally, when the weather gets colder outside, people tend to want to come together and share their body heat. This can be seen through hugging and snuggling that is quite prevalent. This example provided evidence that people inherently do change their behavior around the climate whether this is conscious or subconscious.

LaFleur continued her talk by introducing Samuel Smith and detailing an essay  of his. This essay was on the causes of a variety of complexion and figure in the human species and it looked at the variation in humans caused by just about anything. These differences play together with the environment to influence how people act and live their lives. The main argument that LaFleur posed was that humans are inherently connected to the environment whether that is consciously done or not. We have all adapted to our natural environment, climate, weather and we may not necessarily be aware of it but it has shaped our behavior and the way we live our lives. Overall, I enjoyed Professor LaFleur’s talk and found it to be very compelling. If you think about what she was talking about it makes quite simple sense. We are all a product of our environment and the climate/natural environment that we live in is going to ultimately affect the way that we live and act with the environment itself but also with others.

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Peterson from Colby gave an intriguing talk on the relationship between German philosophy and the environmental change that we have observed over the last several decades. Most environmentally driven talks that we have held at Colby have all addressed important aspect about specific environments and their larger role within the global ecosystem. However, Professor Peterson decided to change the form of speech and talk more directly on the issue between German philosophy and environmental change.

During the talk, Professor Peterson alluded to some of the great philosophers such as Emmanuel Kant. Peterson focused on the idea surrounding priori, the feeling held before one experiences something, to better understand the dynamic relationship between the anthropogenic effects on the environment. He postulates that the idea of priori is why our human nature has gone against us in terms of making real environmental progress. The analysis that Peterson discussed was both in-depth and intriguing because of the angle he took to approach the topic of change. Peterson went on to talk about analyses done on the brain and how this correlates to his stance on the topic. This was especially interesting because of the compelling evidence that he presented. The idea that humans will not necessarily act under risk is something that I support. This is always obviously seen through how most people treat the environment that they live in. Humans will essentially wait until the last minute to change – we are naturally averse to change.

There remains a plethora of examples that can be used as a case study for this assertion. The whole idea of the Tragedy of the Commons would attest to this position. The fact that we have organizations, people and even nations that will commit to releasing hazardous waste without regulation is a perfect example of this. Instead of incurring the cost to properly dispose of waste, companies and people will side step the process and dispose waste for free in unregulated areas. This in-turn will negatively effect our community and environment, which we all have to pay for. This issue is not only engrained in the idea of greed but it is also institutionalized in many places. The global conscious movement has only been around for several decades and has only made real change within the last few decades. The idea of changing old habits disturbs many people and businesses that do not understand the risk that is being placed on our planet.

If you applied this idea to the overarching idea of climate change, it can easily be seen. We now, due to technical advancements, have been able to understand our brain and the way it operates at a much deeper level. Taking this fact, we can see the people are actually against the idea of change and would rather maintain with the status quo. The only real way to get out of this mindset is to push against our natural inclinations and realize that we have an issue that is putting us and frankly humanity at risk. Further, the issue presented needs to be scaled to entire populations who believe and understand this. One person is able to make a change but together, we can accomplish much more and much faster. I believe that this talk was very productive and gave a lot of insight on the issue of change. I would like to hear more talks like this and highly recommend including this in the lecture circuit in the future.

The Food Shortage

The lecture discussed the evolutionary path of living organisms and how those organisms are shaped by the interactions of the species with other species and also species of a different kind. Therefore, I will like to focus on this particular concept. In addition, I would like to show how the social amoeba follow this interesting path. One of the many changes that shape the amoeba is when there is a scarcity in food. When there is a food scarcity, the amoeba quickly changes to account for this.

 

Social amoeba are impacted rather easily depending on what is going on around them. One of these examples is when the food is not in abundance. In  a normal setting, the amoeba are a a single cell organism. However, under this time of distress, the amoeba changes into a multicellular organism. Under this change, the amoeba now consist of many individual cells. This is the first step of the amoeba to counter the shortage of food.

 

The next step in this change for the amoeba is for some of the cells to give up their relative function. They become non-reproductive cells. From there, they are mainly used just for support and they help transportation. They are able to transport the cells to a more prosperous part of the body. Hence, they end their search for food once they are transported to an area that has an adequate amount of food to support the cells.

 

After this whole process is undergone, the cells no longer need to be multicellular because they do not need to transport anymore cells because they are at a place with food . They realized that they have met their needs and no longer need to alter their genetic figuration for food, they begin to convert back to single cell organisms. This is done while they are in their new location. This is the finishing product of the social amoeba response to a shortage in food.

 

    The way the social amoeba reacts is a prime example of how they are changed by social interactions. The catalyst for the change undergone here is due to a lack of food. We then see how the cell goes from singular to multicellular. This is so it has the ability to transport to a area with more food available. After the amoeba completely change to meet their needs they see that their food need is satisfied and they then go back to multicellular cells. This is a clear indictication on how the amoeba are able to shift depending on their environment. They are highly sensitive to their surroundings and will respond to a need such as food in this case by adapting to find a suitable way to obtain more food. Social amoeba are not the only ones they can change their path, other organisms can also find a way to evolve in other meet certain needs or because other species interact with them in a way that may cause them to have to adapt to a different way of survival.

Professor Suegene Noh’s lecture on “How Current Genomes are Shaped by Evolutionary Past” explored how the lives of microorganisms are impacted by their social interactions both of the same and differing species. These interactions often result in the evolution of cells and genes. Professor Suegene Noh focused primarily on the social amoeba and its microbial symbiont as an example for this lecture.

Personally, beyond my single course in Microorganisms and Society, this talk presented a lot of information that I was not very familiar with. It was heavily technical and included a lot of jargon which made it difficult for me to truly understand the concept. But Professor Suegene Noh did a great job of breaking some concepts down. She started the lecture off with this idea of the Central Dogma. The Central Dogma of molecular biology describes the two-step process, transcription and translation, by which the information in genes flows into proteins. DNA first goes through transcription. Transcription is the synthesis of an RNA copy of a segment of DNA. After that, the DNA is converted into RNA which is then translated into a protein. The Central Dogma provides the basic framework for how genetic information flows from a DNA sequence to a protein production inside cells. Using this framework, Professor Suegene Noh was able to use next-generation sequencing to read millions of DNA sequences on specialized instruments to analyze her dicty strains. During her experiment she found that competitive interactions among amoebas have caused certain genes to evolve more rapidly and how associating with an amoeba host may have caused symbiont genomes to shrink in size.

Relating this concept of conflict and evolution back to the theme of this series: Presence of the Past, we can see how this manifest on a much larger scale. Throughout time, humans have gone through countless conflicts and have thus evolved from it. Examples of this include the evolution of sciences. Before when we were plagued with diseases and sickness, there were no remedies, but we as a society evolved and created things like modern medicine and vaccines. Conflict forces life to either adapt and grow or to fall back and die. But our society today, wouldn’t be where it is if it was not for people using conflict and competition and creating something new and start changing. Biologically see can easily see how our cells and DNA have changed from the prehistoric times but looking more sociologically and historically we can see how our civilization has been built on social conflict and how we have evolved because of it.

During the questions and answers portion of the discussion, someone in the audience as a question about why Professor Noh used dicty from the wild as opposed from dicty grown in a lab. Her response was that there are only three lab strains and because of that, the work from that would not be applicable to that of the real world. She also wanted to find a natural response and natural variation. I enjoyed her response because we can easily translate this to a social scale and explore how facilitated conflict as opposed to natural conflict breed different results.

Professor Suegene Noh’s speech last Monday centered around the interactions of singled celled organisms, the competition that goes on around them, changes that these single celled organisms undergo due to this conflict, and the banding together of these microscopic creatures that is reflective of all other living creatures regardless of shape and size.  This topic was unique compared to the other speeches we’ve listened to, because it was more about scientific research and less about literary analysis.  Nonetheless, both ways of studying about our world are able to use the past to tell us about our present and vise versa.  Professor Noh uses her observations on current social interactions between organisms to tell us about evolutionary processes of the past.  Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed this speech.  While the subject matter was complex and dare I say beyond me, I really enjoyed looking at the idea of “The Presence of the past” through the lens of science.

Professor Noh showed that when it is necessary, the amoeba that she was studying, known as Dictystelium Discoideum, which she refers to as simply “Dicty” will form an aggregate band of themselves or a slug.  This slug allows the amoebas to protect themselves during periods of cold temperatures.  Furthermore, Professor Noh was able to study how the amoebas choose which other amoebas are welcome into the slug so that it is better suited to survive times of conflict and change that could be hurtful to the greater aggregate.  Professor Noh tested mRNA abundance in these organisms by looking at the actions of chimeric organisms, or organisms made up of cells with different genetic make ups and comparing that to clonal samples.  What was evident was that the chimeric organisms were far more likely to take part in positive selection, or the action of adding and subtracting cells with genetics that would make it easier or harder to survive respectively.  Some of the genes that this slug will “look for” in other cells are genes that are conducive to high levels of reproduction, motility, and adhesion.  Genes like these will be copied and present in younger iterations of these Dicties.

I found this interesting because even at the microscopic level, organisms look to be surrounded by other organisms that will help them survive, but will not be afraid to make additions and subtractions as current conditions dictate.

I think one of the most apt comparisons to what we see with these amoebas is what humans do when maintaining a company.  A company, big or small, acts as one to make sure that not only it can survive, but that it can be prosperous at the same time.  As markets change and demand for different services becomes prevalent, certain people or whole divisions can be cut and others will be added in their place.  This is similar to the idea that as a Dicty slug’s environement changes around it, it must cut and add cells that make it able to better adapt to these changes.  Just like in the Dicty, there is competition to be at different parts of the company that will make an individual a better asset or better able to remain a part of the organization.

Greta LaFleur, professor of American studies at Yale University, began her talk on the environment and its relation to early sexuality with a variety of different narratives that she proposed. Initially she spoke of the execution narratives in which the details of a crime and the moments leading up to it were described. Secondly, she spoke of the barbary captivity narratives, when Christian sailors were captured were sold on the Islamic slave market from the 17^th to the 19^th century. In these narratives the slaves rejected the sodomy laws. I am still unsure of these and how they relate to the idea of environmental theory influencing early sexuality as both of these are accounts of humans and not how the environment has changed sexuality. However, later in the lecture, Professor LaFleur showed a quote by William Cronon from A Place for Stories. I felt that this quote helped me to understand the relation between the Barbary captivity narratives and the execution narratives. In essence the quote describes all human relationships actions and feelings as both a notion of history but also of the earth and how it has changed over the years.

This statement relates to the climate theory, one that LaFleur brought up later on in her discussion. This theory is that differences amongst people, their bodies and beings, are a result of the climate where they reside. An example she gave was one that the class could understand, in cuffing season. Cuffing season describes the idea that when the weather gets colder, people want to couple up and have someone to “snuggle” with as opposed to when it is hotter, people are less likely to display this phenomenon. This example shows that people can change their behaviors when it the climate changes regardless of whether or not they realize what they are doing.

Another author, Samuel Stanhope Smith, describes the effects of climate on humans in An Essay on the causes of variety of complexion and figure in the human species. He believes that variation in humans is caused by not only differences in beliefs, actions, looks and many more combined with the environment are what causes all variations amongst humans. Professor LaFLeur, gave many good reasons for the environment to influence human beings, but perhaps she could have organized it in a better manner. I felt that the second part of the lecture made much more sense in the context of what she was arguing, and I was slightly unsure of how it all connected to the first part in which she discussed the different types of narrative. Perhaps that is due to my lack of knowledge on the subject, however, I feel she could have connected the different parts of the lecture to help the audience understand its purpose. In the Q & A portion of the talk someone mentioned how climate determines how people act and feel. I think that this is one takeaway from the talk that could have been simplified. It is easy to understand how where one lives could influence the food that is available to them and work from their towards sexuality.

Professor Greta LeFleur’s talk on sexuality and place of origin was another talk that once again opened my eyes to phenomenons that have always been in front of me and visible, but that I have never given much thought too.  The part that I found most interesting was when she talked about how people, specifically women, are characterized based on where they are from and what they look like.

Carl Linnaeus’s designations and classification of people, which examined today would be classified as extremely racist, are still prevalent in much of pop culture.  I decided to read more about Linnaeus and his classification of beings.  He states that, “europaeus was, of course, ‘governed by laws’, americanus was governed ‘by customs’, asiaticus ‘by opinions’, and the African subspecies afer ‘by impulse’*.”  Obviously, Carl Linnaeus, a white, European male would assert that “Europaeus” or Europeans were a people who were governed by laws rather than opinions, customs, or impulse.  This seems to imply that this is a more dignified way of living and that only Europeans seemed to live in that dignified manner.  This is reminiscent of much of the reasoning used by imperialist in their campaigns to “civilize” indigenous peoples.

While almost everyone can agree that Carl Linnaeus’s findings are very out of date and inherently false, the stereotypes that he created almost three hundred years ago are still being perpetuated today albeit in a much subtler manner.  Women of certain races are shown to be more buttoned up and obedient than women of other races.  Some women are often shown to be more modest than others while some are portrayed as overtly sexual.  Much of this is based on the color of a person’s skin and where they or their family came from.  This all relates back to the governing forces Linnaeus prescribes to each classification of people.  As I said earlier in this blog post, this part of the talk was eye opening to me.  The fact that so much of today’s society is still thinking in ways that we as a species thought three hundred years ago is such an odd realization to make yet not surprising.

On a lighter note, I also found it amusing, yet interesting that Professor LeFleur brought up the idea of “Cuffing Season.”  Around the beginning of fall, social media is often flooded with posts and memes about the start of Cuffing Season in which people joke about the fact that this is when many people start relationships.  It is interesting that just a simple change in temperature and climate leads to people feeling pressured to settle down with a partner and start a relationship.  I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing but that it is an act of human nature to designate socially appropriate times to do a a certain thing.  I also don’t necessarily think that there is any compelling reasoning for why this is the case, I just find it to be an interesting wrinkle of the human condition.

 

*David Notton and Chris Stringer

http://iczn.org/content/who-type-homo-sapiens

Societal Climate
I took a lot of new things from monday’s lecture about sex and its relationship to the environment. One of the things that I decided to focus on was the terms that were introduced in the lecture. The terms that I learned was humoral theory and climate theory. Humoral theory is described as the human form as a “porous envelope,” deeply vulnerable while climate theory is the idea that particular bodily arrangements and types, particular characters, and particular qualities were endemic to (and perhaps produced by) the relative heat or cool of different regions. I found both of these terms interesting but I want to look more closely into the climate theory and how it is exemplified in today’s society . I believe that the climate theory is most related to ideas such as cuffing season and hookup culture which are vernaculars produced from this generation.

The climate theory is most closely related to cuffing season. Cuffing season is the idea that people seek out relationships during the winter time more than the summer. The theory is based on the idea that during the winter you are in the house most of the time so you would like someone to be inside with. However, during the summer months, you are most likely to be outside enjoying the weather so you do not want to be in a relationship because it would constrict a lot of your freedom. I think that this connection between the climate and our willingness to be in a relationship is true and it makes me wonder how does global warming altering the climate also impact relationships or the lack thereof.

In addition to cuffing season, there is also a term called hookup culture. Hookup culture refers to places that breeds an environment that makes it socially acceptable to participate in platonic sex. A location that foster such as an environment is that of a college campus. With all of the options, academic commitments and freedom, one is less likely to be involved in a serious relationship. Therefore, geographically, hookup culture is a societal phenomenon that can be connected to the theory of climate also.

The two terms climate theory and humoral theory are closely related to each other. However, I want to focus my attention on that of the climate theory. I believe that the climate theory is the explanation for a lot of today’s societal phenomenons. Two of these aspects that I would like to speak of is that of hookup culture and cuffing season. Cuffing season relates mainly to the climate part of the theory as it is an idea that serious relationship begin during the cold season. While hookup culture is more connected to the geographical part of the theory as it is based off the idea that there are certain locations that helps cultivate an environment that encourages sexual relations without commitment. Climate theory expresses the scientific logic behind certain societal behaviors today such as hookup culture, cuffing season, and many others that are not mentioned .

The Assistant Professor of Biology, Professor Suegene Noh, gave us a talk on the evolution of genome shape through the observance of the social amoeba dicoideum. Professor Noh referred to them as “dicty” for short and explained them as unicellular organisms. These amoebas have the ability to aggregate and form mounds, this process allows the amoeba to then take form and eat bacteria. The organisms that have singular and muticellular life stages have the ability to bond together with other singular organisms to become stronger and more resilient. The bonding just described can also have some detriments to the organisms. When two genetically different cells inhabit the same body, the interest of each cell is inherently different and thus causes a conflict of sorts. Unlike Human cells, which are identical, these cells behave differently then the normally developed cells. The fruiting bodies that Professor Noh describes all contain multiple types of dicty, all of which she used in her research.

Professor Noh talked about the work that she did in her lab like comparing the dicty genes to those of fruiting bodies made up of one strain of dicty, also known as clonal genes. Noh was able to use an Illumina Cell machine to sequence the entire genome of dicty mounds by pairing wild dicty strains. She used 4 different pairs to conduct this sequence and found that in the chimeric samples, they would produce more or less of a gene compared to the clonal samples. There were a few regulated genes within the chimera samples that were involved in the creation of the fruiting body and larger, the AMP response, which is vital to the life of the dicty. The changes that were observed during the study show that the chimeric genes ultimately helped the fruiting body to survive due to its higher fitness when compared tot he clonal samples.

The next example that Professor Noh used to observe the effects of social conflicts between the dicty and their evolution. In this observation, Noh discussed three different types of microbes that infect the dicty. Once infected, the dicty can no longer form into the fruiting bodies that are crucial for their survival. The three microbes, agricolaris, bonniea, and hayleyella all interact and affect the dicty in different ways. However, over time, the dicty have been able to evolve through social conflict with these microbes. I thought that this talk was very interesting and really dove into the depths of cellular research. Because this is quite a complex topic, I found it difficult to follow along with everything going on but nonetheless enjoyed the things that I did understand. If I could provide some constructive criticism, I would try to simplify a topic like dicty and microbe interaction to the most basic form ever. If the audience isn’t able to grasp what is being talked about from the beginning, it becomes increasingly harder to understand the intricacies and inner-workings of the topics being described. I wished I understood the talk more but I did enjoy the parts that I understood.