YSM Issue 87.4

Yale Scientific

Established in 1894

THE NATION’S OLDEST COLLEGE SCIENCE PUBLICATION

OCTOBER 2014 VOL. 87 NO. 4

WHY MIDGES MATTER

Computers model swarm behavior

FIGHTING OPIATE ADDICTION

The intersection of science and policy

women in science

building a vibrant community at Yale

q a

&

BY SIENNA LI

The 2014 Rio World Cup saw the

gathering of top soccer stars from around

the globe. There was one new player in

particular that caused quite a stir. His

name? The Brazuca. This soccer ball,

made especially by Adidas for the 2014

World Cup, proved to be a star performer

in the games, rehabilitating Adidas’ image

after the poorly-received Jabulani ball of

2010.

The Brazuca has been praised for its

predictability and consistency on the

field. Its design incorporates a number

of new features to improve the ball’s

performance. Most noticeably, the

new ball has only six panels, versus the

Jabulani’s eight and a standard ball’s thirtytwo.

Fewer panels means fewer stitches,

which cuts down on friction between the

air particles and the surface of the ball

What makes the World Cup ball special?

IMAGE COURTESY OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

The new Brazuca ball design, with six panels

and a rough surface, moves through the air

predictably and with astonishing accuracy.

when it is in motion. Less friction results

in decreased turbulence and makes the

ball’s movement more predictable.

However, smoother balls tend to

experience more drag, a force that

causes the ball to swerve unexpectedly.

The Jabulani’s practically uninterrupted,

8-paneled surface was too smooth, causing

it to dip randomly in the air. To counter

this effect, the Brazuca is covered with

little bumps that create a rough surface.

Players are thus able to get a better grip

on the ball, and there is reduced drag.

The Brazuca also features long, deep

seams along its panels that disrupt the

smoothness of the ball to enhance its

aerodynamic movement.

The Brazuca was well-received at the

2014 World Cup, garnering positive

reviews from players, coaches, and fans

alike. The question now is: what’s next for

soccer ball design?

What happens in the brain when we watch a movie?

BY AMANDA MEI

Next time you find yourself in a movie

theater, consider this: You are probably

sharing more than an armrest or a bag of

popcorn with the person next to you; you

are likely sharing brain activity, too.

In one fMRI study, moviegoers who

watched The Good, the Bad, and the

Ugly experienced increases and decreases

of neural activity in tandem. As much as

70 percent of their cerebral cortex was

synchronized at any given moment. This

synchronization happened especially in

brain regions responsible for processing

sights and sounds, but was also evident

in regions associated with emotion.

Researchers observed correlations in the

fusiform face area when subjects saw faces

on screen. They saw synchronized activity

in the limbic system’s cingulate gyrus, which

connects actions with emotional responses.

ART BY CHRISTINA ZHANG

Moviegoers may experience similar

increases and decreases in neural activity

when they watch visually-stimulating

movies together.

But why does this happen? Researchers

attribute these correlations to the fact

that people watching the same movies

experience the same stimuli.

Movies that direct audience attention

with structural devices are more likely

than unstructured videos to elicit brain

synchronization. Cuts and angle shifts

greatly influence viewers’ eye movements,

and information collected by retinal cells

passes through the thalamus into the visual

cortex at the back of the brain. Regions of

the visual cortex have functions ranging

from pattern recognition to motion

perception. As a result, movies that exert

more control over viewers’ perception have

a greater impact on their brain activity.

Unstructured videos like comedy shows, by

contrast, elicit only 5 to 20 percent cortical

synchronization among viewers.

Great films may not be mind control,

but they certainly come close.

5

NEWS

Letter from the editor

Yale Scientific

Established 1894

CONTENTS

OCTOBER 2014 VOL. 87 ISSUE NO. 4

ON THE COVER

6

6

7

7

8

9

10

11

25

26

27

28

30

32

34

35

36

37

38

Ancient arthropod unearthed

Mapping human perception

Robert Langer speaks at Yale

Microscopy advances

Students tackle design challenges

Ancient barley and drought

David Rand on cooperation

Immune system against herpes

FEATURES

Virology

Man-made meningitis

Geology

Death Valley’s sailing stones

Medicine

Hope for damaged hearts

Epidemiology

Mystery pandemic: Ebola

Microbiology

Reinventing the human embryo

Cryptography

Quantum computing

Undergraduate Profile

Yetunde Meroe MC ’16

Alumni Profile

David Spiegel YC ’67

Mythbusters

The not-so-simple weather

Unsolved Mysteries

The Mpemba Effect

Science in the Spotlight

Quack Echo, Wormholes

18

12

Deadly

21 Euphoria

Finding Equilibrium

Female scientists at Yale have been pushing tirelessly for decades to

promote the integration of women into Yale’s scientific community.

Advocates from undergrads to long-term faculty members to

administrators are working to overcome the remaining obstacles.

The Science of

Swarms

Nicholas Ouellette is one

of a growing number of

scientists studying the

science of swarms. These

researchers hope that by

understanding how animals

swarm, they can inform

such far-flung disciplines as

robotics, computer design,

and physics.

To help opioid addicts,

doctors are prescribing

buprenorphine, a drug that

eases painful withdrawal

symptoms. However, some

clinicians, policymakers,

and insurance companies

disagree on how available

buprenorphine should be,

and science is speaking up

with the facts.

IMAGE COURTESY OF FREE PRESS

15

IMAGE COURTESY OF NATURE

IMAGE COURTESY OF DAILY MAIL

A Smarter Way to Track Nutrition

IMAGE COURTESY OF SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK

Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health have

recently discovered a way to find out in only one minute

if you’ve been eating your fruits and vegetables. The

next time you visit your doctor, you might want to think

twice before sugarcoating your diet.

More articles available online at www.yalescientific.org

www.yalescientific.org

October 2014

Yale Scientific Magazine

3

CRIME

JUSTICE

& SCIENCE

there are approximately 12 million

crimes committed in the united

states every year. one out of

every five people is a victim of a

felony crime in the us. no other

nation on earth has a higher crime

rate. The Us has an estimated

backlog of 400,000 unprcoessed

rape kits, each representing a

rape victim who will be severely

handicapped in their fight for

justice. the us has seen a surge in

arrests over the last four decades.

forensic scientists can determine

a person’s sex, age, and race by

examining a single strand of hair.

crime is a

problem.

science is a

solution.

ART BY SURYABRATA DUTTA AND NICOLE TSAI

F R O M T H E E D I T O R

Crime, Justice, and Science

Welcome back to another semester with the Yale Scientific. The entire masthead is excited

to continue expanding its print and online coverage, and we are thrilled to begin working

with the Class of 2018.

To explain the story behind this issue, I should pull back the curtain on our usual editorial

process: in selecting the themes for each issue, we always pick a theme first and pitch articles

topics afterwards. But with the start of a new academic year, for this issue we decided to

take a different approach: we heard article pitches first and let a theme come to us.

And so, at a time not long after the execution of an American journalist and the Ferguson

shooting that sparked national outrage, several of our articles came to converge on one

central question, one that seemed to reflect a pressing issue on the minds of many Yalies—

crime and justice.

For many scientists, this theme represents volumes of questions that we can spend

lifetimes unraveling. How does changing technology redefine the law? What is science’s

role in tracking and analyzing crime? And how can scientists help citizens—not just victims

of crime, but also the perpetrators themselves—achieve justice?

Many research questions are devoted to technologies that deter or track down crime:

advances in forensic science that aid law enforcement, for example, or the use of quantum

cryptography as a new defense against cyber attacks. Other scientific solutions are less blackand-white:

In the wake of a New Haven “heroin epidemic” this year, Dr. David Fiellin at

the Yale School of Medicine recently co-authored a paper on a controversial drug that treats

opiate addiction (pg. 22). The drug mitigates withdrawal symptoms, but it’s also vulnerable

to abuse if improperly prescribed. And while there are no clear answers to combating opioid

addiction just yet, the numerous debates on the drug’s availability reveal that “justice” is a

loaded word. More often than not, finding the fairest scientific outcome depends on who

you ask to be the judge.

In their efforts to tackle crime and injustice, members of the scientific community have

also been creating change from within. With exclusive interviews from Drs. Joan Steitz and

Vivan Irish, this issue’s cover story on page 18 highlights the growing network of women

scientists at Yale.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue of the Yale Scientific on “Crime, Justice, and Science,”

and we thank you for your continued support.

A B O U T T H E A R T

Rebecca Su

Editor-in-Chief

The cover of this issue, photographed by Katherine Lin, features

a group of undergraduate women majoring in science and

engineering at Yale. The photo was taken at Kroon Hall, the

School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Pictured from

left to right are Nicole Tsai (SY ’16), Rachel Yost-Dubrow (ES

’16), Aurora Xu (MC ’16), Tessa Adler (ES ’17), Liz Vincent (MC

’15), Sara Torres (ES ’15), Marion Hirshberg (PC ’16), Genevieve

Sertic (PC ’18), and Myka Perusek (SM ’17).

Editorial apology: Issue 87.3 incorrectly attributed the photo of Professor Brian Scassellati on pg.

13 to Shuncong Gu. This photo was taken by Logan Stone (DC ’15).

Editor-in-Chief

Managing Editors

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Established in 1894

OCTOBER 2014 VOL. 87 NO. 4

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Tessa Adler

Milana Bochkur Dratver

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Suryabrata Dutta

Malini Gandhi

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Kurt Zilm, Chair

Priyamvada Natarajan

Fred Volkmar

Stanley Eisenstat

Melinda Smith

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Werner Wolf

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Rebecca Su

Chanthia Ma

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Claudia Shin

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Jessica Hahne

Danielle Stamer

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Andrew Sung

Jessica Tantavit

Laurie Wang

Kathryn Ward

Summer Wu

Rachel Yost-Dubrow

Christina Chi Zhang

Holly Zhou

Chemistry

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NEWS

in brief

paleontology

Ancient Thylacocephala fossil unearthed

IMAGE COURTESY OF DEREK BRIGGS

A color-marked image of the

Thylacares brandonensis fossil, which

allows the structures to be clearly

defined from surrounding rock.

A recent paper published in BMC

Evolutionary Biology, coauthored by former

Peabody Director and Professor of

Geology & Geophysics Derek Briggs,

reports the discovery of a novel ancient

arthropod Thylacares brandonensis. After

unearthing the creature in Wisconsin, the

research group came across a conundrum:

although their fossils resembled

thylacocephalans, an extinct class of

crustaceans (the group that includes living

crabs and lobsters), the rocks in which the

fossils were found dated from the Silurian

era (around 435 million years ago), which

is millions of years older than previous

discoveries of Thylacocephala.

Under technological probing by Joachim

and Carolin Haug, formerly in the Briggs

lab and now in Munich, the origins of

the fossil emerged from their dusty

surroundings into new light. The research

team used macro-lens cameras, crosspolarized

lighting, Adobe Photoshop,

Blender 3D modeling, and more to

produce an image of the fossil that could

be closely analyzed.

Critical features were revealed,

showing that the fossil belonged with the

Thylacocephala, extending the chronological

reach of the group millions of years

further back. Furthermore, using detailed

models alongside their own expertise, the

research team was able to describe the

creatures’ probable habits and lifestyle,

such as how the spiny front limbs were

used to capture its prey.

Every child played in a sandbox looking

for dinosaur bones, but as evidenced by

the discovery of Thylacares brandonensis,

paleontologists have more than shovels

in their toolboxes today. 3D printers,

microscopes, and manipulated light are

employed alongside more traditional

means to extend the scope of what can be

known about ancient life on Earth.

By Kathryn Ward

cognitive science

Mapping human perception of groups

PHOTO BY THERESA STEINMEYER

Yale Professor Joshua Knobe’s

most recent research attempts to

illuminate how we attribute mentalities

to groups of people in comparison to

individuals.

We are often warned to “stay off the

bandwagon,” or to avoid conforming with

a certain group mentaility.

The psychology of groups and how

individuals perceive groups has long been

a mystery, but recent research by Professor

of Cognitive Science and Philosophy

Joshua Knobe reveals another aspect of

human complexity.

Knobe’s study involved two experiments.

The first revealed that a designated group

of test subjects, referred to as perceivers,

attributed a particular mentality to an

entire group but did not ascribe that same

mindset to individuals within the group.

For example, these “people can think that

an organization knows how to build a

space shuttle even if no member of the

organization knows how to build a space

shuttle.”

The second experiment that Knobe’s

team conducted demonstrated that the

brain does not distinguish between a group

and an individual when assigning a certain

mentality—shown by the activation of the

right temporo-parietal junction, a region

typically associated with theory of mind—

when attributing thoughts to corporations.

Some psychologists argue that when

people say “the Catholic Church believes

capital punishment is morally wrong,”

they are not actually attributing a belief

to the Catholic Church, but rather they

are merely using the word “believe”; this

study, however, provides direct evidence

against this argument.

These findings could have major political

and economic implications as they relate

to how people perceive and interact with

governments and corporations. They set

the stage for future research, which will

further advance our understanding of the

human mind.

By Sofia Braunstein

6 Yale Scientific Magazine October 2014 www.yalescientific.org

biomedical engineering

Robert Langer touts entrepreneurship

in brief

NEWS

Dr. Robert Langer, the David H. Koch

Institute Professor at MIT, is the most

cited engineer in history; his contributions

to the fields of drug delivery and tissue

engineering have led to over 1,050 patents

and dozens of successful businesses.

On September 19 th , Langer delivered a

speech in the Cohen Auditorium outlining

some of the discoveries from his career.

Throughout his talk, he emphasized the

many contributions of the students and

collaborators whose ingenuity drove their

projects forward. Two of his former

students, Professors Mark Saltzman and

Laura Niklason, are now distinguished Yale

faculty members.

Langer began his speech by describing his

first major innovation, when he envisioned

injectable polymers that would slowly allow

a drug to diffuse into surrounding tissue.

He soon created a working polymer in the

lab and published his results in Nature in

1976.

However, most of Langer’s

contemporaries were not convinced; many

argued that the polymers’ slow diffusion

would render his invention irrelevant. It

took six years to get the procedure funded

and approved, but it was finally used to treat

a patient at Boston Children’s Hospital in

1982. He went on to found Enzytech to

continue this research.

This first project is one example of

Langer’s many successes, each of which

required incredible amounts of persistence

and healthy amounts of disregard for the

skepticism of pessimistic peers.

Some of Langer’s most successful

innovations took over a decade to produce,

adjust, and patent. To this end, Langer

noted that, “it’s all about perseverance in

the face of rejection.” Langer certainly

has persevered, forging breakthrough

technologies and encouraging the careers

of brilliant new researchers in the process.

By Rachel Yost-Dubrow

IMAGE COURTESY OF JOHN CURTIS

Robert Langer, the David H. Koch

Institute Professor at MIT, spoke

passionately about breakthrough

biomedical technologies.

cell biology

Microscopy innovation advances cell research

Microscopy has come a long way

throughout the career of Thomas Pollard,

Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular,

and Developmental Biology.

When he first started working as an

undergraduate student in the 1960s, the

only technique available to him was visible

light microscopy. Fifty years later, his

research team has developed a microscope

that goes far beyond just magnifying

organisms.

While regular microscopes yield only

qualitative data, Pollard’s calibrated

microscope shines light into a cell sample

and measures the amount of photons

emitted back, indicating the number of

molecules that accumulate and disappear

during endocytosis, the process by which

cells engulf extracellular molecules. Pollard

explained, “my colleague Julien Berro,

now Assistant Professor of Molecular

Biophysics and Biochemistry, improved the

time resolution of quantitative microscopy

by taking data from different endocytosis

events and lining them up precisely on

the same time scale to give much better

data than in any individual event.” This

“temporal super-resolution” method

allows researchers to follow endocytosis

with an unprecedented degree of precision.

Pollard’s team is also collaborating

with Professor of Cell Biology Joerg

Bewersdorf to use super-resolution

microscopy to distinguish the positions

of several different proteins at sites of

endocytosis and cytokinesis.

These advances in microscopy enable

greater understanding of cellular processes

and the structures involved in them.

Pollard’s work is applicable to biological

research on diverse cell types, and the next

step is to see calibrated microscopes used

to investigate live animal cells.

By Jessica Tantivit

PHOTO BY HOLLY ZHOU

Thomas Pollard, Sterling

Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and

Developmental Biology, studies the

molecular bases of cellular movement.


October 2014


7

NEWS

biomedical engineering

MENG 404 project wins design competition

BY MILANA BOCHKUR DRATVER

From concept to creation, learning at Yale

transcends the confines of a classroom.

Through their work in the Medical Device

Design Course (MENG 404), a team of Yale

students won the first place prize of $10,000

in the BMEStart competition. Natalie Pancer

(YC ’14), Andrew Crouch (YC ’14), Brian

Loeb (YC ’14), Raja Narayan (YSPH ’14),

and Kristi Oki (YC ’14) developed a novel

method of preserving and transporting the

small intestine during the transplant process.

The BMEStart Competition, sponsored

through VentureWell, aims to distinguish

excellent undergraduate feats in biomedical

engineering. The Intestine Perfusion,

Preservation, and Transportation Device

(IPPTD) is a revolutionary design expected

to improve the current standard of care in

intestinal transplants.

Currently, many intestinal transplants

do not remain functional after the transfer

Clever device tackles challenges in organ transplantation

process. Once the organ is collected, it is placed in a plastic bag

with a standard solution and moved using an ice cooler. Though

it typically works for other organs, this system cannot support the

many blood vessels throughout the small intestine, resulting in tissue

damage and death. With the support of Professor of Surgery and

Director of Surgical Research John

Geibel and others at the Yale School

of Medicine, the team of students

sought to improve the technique.

The team invented a pump

perfusion system to help the

carrying solution reach more blood

vessels. The IPPTD is composed of

two pumps that suffuse the small

intestine from the inside with a

specialized solution: a closed loop

for the lumen and an open system

for the vasculature. This approach

helps to remove cellular waste

product and harmful oxidizing

agents from the intestine, increasing

the viability of the transplanted

organ. In addition, the team developed a more stable container to

steady the intestine during transportation, preventing mechanical

damage.

After designing the device, the students ran experiments to prove

its potential. Collaborating with engineers, professors, and surgeons,

the students were able to build and test a prototype. Using pig

intestines, the team compared the traditional method with their new

device. Partnering with the Department of Pathology, they showed

that the intestine transported using the IPPTD

was more intact and had sustained less damage

after arriving at its destination than the control

intestine.

The team not only won the BMEStart

Competition, but also presented at the Society

for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract meeting

this past May. The product is in the process

of gaining a full patent and is being further

developed for clinical use.

The pilot course MENG 404 was a success.

Taught by Assistant Director of the Center

for Engineering Innovation and Design

Joseph Zinter and former School of Medicine

research scientist Richard Fan , the class was

intended to spur undergraduate innovation in

medicine. “[We] wanted to design a class that

could help Yale engineering students get a

better understanding of the practical aspects of

bridging engineering and medicine, and see if

[they] could find new interesting opportunities

for innovation,” Fan explained.

At the beginning of the semester, several doctors presented issues

they had observed in the clinic. Students then formed teams to focus

on specific cases. Pancer, Crouch, Loeb, Narayan, and Oki found

Geibel’s pitch on intestine transport to be the most interesting

and joined together to tackle the

challenge of increasing small

intestine transplant success.

The entire process proved to

be rewarding for instructors and

students alike. Loeb reflected on his

experience: “This was an incredible

view of the design process from

start to finish. I’ll now always be

able to look at products and have a

deeper appreciation for what goes

into them—or what can make

them better!”

IMAGE COURTESY OF RAJA NARAYAN

Brian Loeb (YC ‘14) poses with the

transport device.

IMAGE COURTESY OF NATALIE PANCER

Members of the student team. From left to right: Raja Narayan,

Kristi Oki, Andrew Crouch, Natalie Pancer, and Brian Loeb.

Pancer dubbed this project “the

most amazing experience of [her]

Yale career” because she was able

to work on a “hands-on project

that actually affects people.” “This was a course designed to take

real world problems, put engineering students on them, and see if

they could come up with a solution in a very short period of time,”

described Geibel. “I was very excited by how it worked out.”

Other teams last fall advanced home monitoring for epilepsy,

new tools for oral surgery, and mechanisms for subcutaneous drug

delivery. Now in its second year, the course will offer a new group

of students the opportunity to solve real-world medical challenges.


anthropology

Yale team explores social impact of drought

Carbon isotopes reveal link between climate, agriculture, and civilization

BY AMANDA BUCKINGHAM

NEWS

The fluctuations, proliferations, and collapses in ancient civilizations

have typically been viewed through cultural and political lenses. Yet,

just as climate change today is a hot-button issue, ancient man also

grappled with his environment. The extent to which local variations

in climate impact the agricultural production of ancient civilizations

has been little understood—until now. A team of scientists including

Frank Hole, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, published a paper

this past August on drought-stress patterns in ancient and modern

agricultural systems of the Fertile Crescent. By measuring the ratio

of carbon-13 to carbon-12 found in barley grains, the team was

able to make conclusions about local climate change over time—

providing a new angle with which to analyze history.

According to Hole, the seeds of the project were sown in the late

1980s, when he surveyed a climatically sensitive region of Syria.

Hole inferred that population increases at certain points in history

stemmed from wetter climes. Others, such as Yale Professor of

Near Eastern Archaeology Harvey Weiss, linked the collapse of the

Akkadian Empire to the 4200 BP (before present) aridification event,

a period of intense drought.

There was one problem: conventional methods of drought

analysis, such as analyzing lake cores, are only indirectly applicable

when looking at inland, dry regions. Simone Riehl, lead author on the

paper, decided to apply stable isotopic dating to barley grain in order

to directly link archaeological sites with climate for the first time.

“The challenge was being able to collect modern barley from

across the Fertile Crescent region. It’s unprecedented,” Hole said.

Starting in 2000, the team collected data—barley grains—from

hundreds of agricultural fields in the Fertile Crescent region.

Ultimately, the team also selected barley grain from 33 archaeological

sites, spanning roughly 9500 years from the Aceramic Neolithic

(10,000 BC) to the Iron Age (500 BC), to compare with the modern

samples. Sites were selected to reflect different climatic environments:

Coastal, Euphrates (further inland but with access to a river), Khabur,

and inland sites without river access.

PHOTO BY LIDIYA KUKOVA

Frank Hole, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale, and a team

of scientists were the first to link archaeological sites with climate

fluctuations in ancient regions using isotopic dating of barley grain.

Barley was chosen as the target grain because of its droughttolerance

and economic significance—properties that increased the

likelihood of its detection at target sites. Archaeological material

underwent a process called flotation—pioneered by Hole for plant

remains in the 1960s in his kitchen sink—in which water is used to

isolate charred materials such as seeds, which can be run through

several graduated sieves for collection. The team determined the

grains’ carbon-13 to carbon-12 ratio, which when high is an indicator

of drought stress. During drought, C3 plants such as barley close their

stomata to conserve water. This process increases the sequestration

of carbon, which in turn raises the ratio of carbon-13. This ratio

was calibrated to reflect changes in the concentration of atmospheric

carbon dioxide over time.

Data analysis showed that drought stress was not a major factor in

the lives of those in coastal regions. Even the most severe droughts,

such as the 4200 BP event, caused only moderate stress in most

coastal sites, in contrast with strong-to-moderate drought stress in

inland regions. One aspect

of note is the high local

variability of isotope ratio

between inland regions

compared to coastal ones.

The team concluded that

this phenomenon is a result

of differential irrigation

patterns. Further, some

crops in irrigated sites did

not receive irrigation water.

The data was ultimately

used to trace water

availability over time,

buttressing what was

already known about

climatic trends while

providing new insights.

Conditions during the

Middle Holocene (10,000-

4000 BC) were more


Samples of barley grains collected

from various sites in the Fertile

Crescent region, used to chronicle

climatic fluctuations in ancient times.

favorable than in any subsequent time. Ensuing periods of drought

can be linked to the fluctuations in settlements, particularly those

in arid regions. In around 2200 BC, a strong and persistent drought

led to the ‘collapse’ of the Akkadian Empire. This was followed by

further drought during the Middle Bronze Age and another dry spell

during the Late Bronze Age.

Overall, the mean past values for the calibrated carbon-13 to

carbon-12 ratio suggest lower drought stress than today, while the

minima values (reflecting higher levels of drought stress) are more

similar to modern climate values. Hole hopes this data will help create

an “integrated history,” incorporating climatic variations and their

impact on agriculture with known cultural and political factors—all

of which play a role in shaping civilizations.


October 2014


9

NEWS

psychology

Why bother getting along?

BY AMEYA MAHAJAN

David Rand explores what motivates human cooperation

Professor David Rand is a modern Renaissance man. An Assistant

Professor of Psychology, Economics and Management, with work

published in Nature, Science, the New York Times, and Wired, his

research on human cooperative behavior spans several disciplines

with applications in many more.

Rand’s research arises from the grand question of cooperation—

why does it exist? He defines cooperation as

“one agent paying a cost to benefit another,”

whether that cost is time, money or effort.

Because cooperation requires individuals to

bear costs from which they themselves do

not benefit, from an evolutionary perspective

(in which agents serve only themselves in

order to survive), cooperation should not

exist. Furthermore, standard economic

models assume that agents act selfishly and

rationally, again contradicting the existence

of cooperation.

To understand why cooperation does in fact

exist, Rand draws heavily from game theory,

sometimes combining it with evolutionary

biology using a set of mathematical

formalisms known as “evolutionary game

theory.” He is particularly interested in

why people (rather than other organisms)

cooperate, and aims to inform public policy

with his work. He is conducting field studies in collaboration with

energy and utilities companies to further this end, using the results of

cooperative behavior experiments to shape policy decisions.

Rand’s path toward studying cooperation was not always clearly

defined. As an undergraduate at Cornell, he began as a computer

science major, but soon switched to biology with a focus in

computational biology, which he describes as “a mix of applied

math, biology, and computer science.” After working at a startup

creating mathematical models of biological phenomena, he attended

graduate school at Harvard in Systems Biology; there, he took a

class in evolutionary game theory and thought, “This is awesome!”

Speaking from his own experience as an undergraduate, Rand

encourages students from economics, psychology, biology, and

IMAGE COURTESY OF DAVID RAND

Professor Rand and his team members comprise the Human

Cooperation Lab at Yale.

IMAGE COURTESY OF DAVID RAND

David Rand, Assistant Professor of

Psychology, Economics and Management

studies human cooperative behavior.

applied mathematics to learn more about cooperative behavior.

Part of what has made Rand so successful in his field is how he

picks projects to study. He emphasizes prioritizing, saying that “after

you’ve been [studying] this for a while, you can generate lots of

ideas... The challenge is cultivating a ‘sense of aesthetic taste’ for

which of those many ideas are actually worth pursuing.”

After selecting an intriguing project, he

employs one of two research methods: either

behavioral or computational. Regarding

behavioral methods, he highlights the

importance of designing an experiment well.

“You need to have a good idea of how

you’re going to analyze the data once you’ve

collected it... your experimental design can

become flawed if you don’t consider what

will give you the most insight until afterward,”

he warned.

On computational methods, Rand

underscores the idea that a very simple model

can produce complex phenomena. “We’re

not so much looking at what exact numerical

coefficients in an equation create these

phenomena, instead we’re saying, ‘look, this is

what’s possible based on certain fundamental

assumptions,’” he said.

Rand also points out the importance of

computer programming in sciences: “Everyone should take an

intro programming class... It’s a super useful skill, both in academic

and private sectors.” He is making good on his advice, teaching a

course next semester that teaches computational modeling of social

interactions to students majoring in social sciences that do not have

prior programming experience.

In addition to his academic work, Professor Rand is an avid

musician. He began playing in punk bands in high school, and

even earned a record deal before he started graduate school. With

a nostalgic smile, Rand calls his current situation a “sad story,” as he

has had less time to play music given the sheer quantity of academic

work he pursues. He points out the strong parallels between music

and academia—finding an idea that others have not pursued yet,

creating and capturing this idea, and then sharing it with other people

are all parts of both academic and musical processes.

Rand downplays his rise to fame, claiming that he was extremely

fortunate to have an advisor in graduate school who could get papers

into top journals, describing the process as “riding [my advisor’s]

coattails.” He also attributes some of his success to the field of

cooperative behavior itself: “This is what’s hot right now. I’m just

lucky to be studying it at the right time.”

Looking forward, Rand is excited to see the developments his

first crop of graduate students will create in the field of cooperative

behavior and the implementation of his research findings in public

policy.


Defending against herpes

BY PATRICK DEMKOWICZ

For two billion years, viruses have wreaked havoc on virtually all

forms of life. While the public’s attention has been focused on the

recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, common viruses like Herpes

Simplex Type II (HSV-2) pose

a greater threat of widespread

infection throughout the world.

According to the CDC, 16.2

percent of all Americans are

infected with HSV-2, a rate that

has remained steady during the

last decade. In August, associate

research scientist Norifumi Iijima,

Ph.D and Yale Professor of

Immunobiology Akiko Iwasaki

published a study providing

evidence that a network of

immune cells residing in the

mucosa of the mouse vagina is

required for full protection from lethal infection. These findings

offer key insights into developing the first HSV-2 vaccine for use in

humans.

Most vaccines against viral infection contain weakened or killed

viruses. The immune system makes quick business of these easy

targets. After this suppressed infection, the body is left with a pool

of proteins, known as antibodies, which fit lock-and-key with the

virus. When a real infection occurs, those antibodies quickly knock

out the intruders and alert a more comprehensive response. Herpes

has evolved to counter this

defense. Professor Iwasaki

explained the difficulties faced

in developing a herpes vaccine:

“In the case of herpes, because

neutralizing antibodies are

basically destroyed by the viral

coat protein, that strategy is

very difficult to implement.”

The Iwasaki group has long

recognized the old aphorism,

“Location, location, location.”

The key members of the

protective network described

in the study are known as CD4

tissue resident (T RM

) T cells.

They provide a similar sort of

“immunological memory” as

non-cellular antibodies in the

bloodstream, but issue a rapid

immune response at the very site of infection. Like the muscle reflex

retained in one’s hand after touching a hot stove, these cells react

before the rest of the body even recognizes the danger. “Ultimately,

we want to apply this to a vaccine,” said Professor Iwasaki. Her group

immunology

NEWS

New insights for vaccine development

PHOTO BY SURYABRATA DUTTA

Associate Research Scientist Noriformi Iijima, Ph.D, works in the

Iwasaki lab.

is well known for devising the “prime and pull” paradigm, which

recruits circulating CD8 T cells to the vagina to establish CD8 T RM

.

However, little was previously known about CD4 T RM

. This study

is critical in understanding how to

apply a method similar to “prime

and pull” to CD4 cells.

The study demonstrates that

CD4 cells converse chemically

with macrophages, cells that

engulf foreign materials and

invaders, in such a way that the

CD4 cells maintain a steadystate

population. Specifically, the

macrophages secrete CCL5, a

signaling molecule known as a

chemokine. The study indicates

that macrophages stimulate

CD4 cells to secrete an antiviral

cytokine that in turn stimulates the macrophages to produce more

CCL5. This sequence of events is referred to as a self-sustaining or

“positive feedback loop.” Understanding this maintenance process

is only half the battle in applying “prime and pull” to CD4 cells. “We

don’t have a good way to establish CD4 memory T cells, although

I don’t think it’s a big hurdle,” Iwasaki said. Furthermore, she cites

the challenge of balancing safety with efficacy.

Nevertheless, Iwasaki is used to simultaneously tackling a variety of

daunting challenges. She has much to owe to her hands-off style of

management, which in turn

encourages the creativity

of her lab members. “You

can’t focus on everything

at the same time,” said

Iwasaki. “The people in the

lab are very independent

and self-driven.” This style

has enabled her to maintain

an impressive record of

discovery, even while

raising a family. When asked

what she looks forward

to pursuing, she mentions

possibly partnering with a

vaccine company to bring

PHOTO BY SURYABRATA DUTTA

Associate Research Scientist Iijima, Ph.D, and Yale Professor of

Immunobiology Iwasaki published a recent study characterizing CD4 cells.

her work to the clinical

setting. She is also excited

about investigating the

immunological effects of

the “virome,” in particular, the endogenous retroviruses whose

precursors are the DNA in our genomes remaining from viral

infections during the course of primate evolution. In her own

words, “It’s really cool.”


October 2014


11

The Science of

How Physicists, Engineers,

and Computer Scientists

are Learning from Midges

As evening falls at Mason Laboratory, after students have shuffled out and most

labs have locked up for the night, a single fly takes off. Buzzing around erratically,

almost confusedly, it looks lost at first. Soon, though, it is joined by another fly,

and then a third. As more and more take flight, something strange happens. With seven or

eight flies in the air, the scene is still chaotic—a loose-knit flurry of individual flies.

But as a few more join—a ninth, tenth, and eleventh—the turmoil transforms. The ball of

flies becomes uniform, and individuals get lost in the whirling, bustling mass.

The flies have formed a swarm.

The Power of Ten

How such order can emerge from chaos

is the subject of recent research by Nicholas

Ouellette, Associate Professor of Mechanical

Engineering at Yale. Ouellette’s lab studies

the science of swarms—or, more generally,

the dynamics of collective animal behavior.

Using a colony of midges, a type of small

fly, as a model system, Ouellette and his

colleagues are trying to figure out answers to

questions like how many individuals it takes

to make a swarm. Their surprising answer

was published last month in the Journal of the

Royal Society Interface: just ten. And this is only

one of many surprising and enlightening

results emerging from the nascent science of

swarms.

But what exactly is a swarm? “That is a much

deeper question than you might expect,” says

Ouellette. While most of us have an intuitive

notion of what it means to swarm—think

bees—defining the notion precisely is much

trickier. Ouellette distinguishes between

swarms and other animal groupings like

flocks or schools, which tend to move as

units. “A swarm is a collective behavior

that doesn’t show net ordering,” he says.

But Ouellette acknowledges that many

other researchers would disagree. In fact,

defining “swarm” fruitfully is an active area

of Ouellette’s research, and a focus for other

swarm scientists as well.

Unanswered Questions

The appeal of swarming for scientists is the

rise of complex patterns and behavior from

the collective action of many individuals.

This phenomenon, known as emergence, is

a key feature of swarms. For Ouellette and

other researchers, connecting the emergent

properties with the underlying individual

behaviors is a consuming problem. “What

kind of local interactions do you need

to make a swarm?” Ouellette asks in his

research. “And how would you model that?”

With the right local interactions and

enough individuals, a swarm results. At this

point, the collection of animals exhibits

macroscopic properties that truly belong

to the group as a whole, rather than its

members. Ouellette makes the analogy to

thermodynamics, where thinking in terms

of macroscopic properties is more familiar.

Temperature and pressure are natural

examples. Similar measures can be used to

characterize swarms, except the individuals

are flies, bees, or birds rather than molecules.

But this is a very big difference, and

perhaps the most interesting research

questions focus on these contrasts between

swarms and chemical or physical systems.

While chemists can accurately think of

their particles as bouncing about at random,

swarm scientists cannot. Midges fly under

their own power; they are active agents

rather than passive particles. And while the

large-scale behaviors of chemical aggregates

are generally well understood, animal

swarms remain more mysterious. Ouellette

uses empirical approaches, like filming and

tracking the midges, to shed light on how

they form and behave. His lab has worked

to evaluate which models of swarming

match up best with biological reality.

They also ask questions like the one about

the size of swarms. To determine the

minimum number of midges in a swarm,

Ouellette and postdoctoral researcher

James Puckett, now an Assistant Professor


Swarms

by zachary miller

art by christopher paolini

of Physics at Gettysburg College, recorded

many swarms of midges of various sizes.

They measured characteristic properties of

these swarms, including the average distance

from one midge to another and the average

velocity of each midge. By plotting each

property against swarm size, they could

better understand how a group of midges

becomes a swarm. They found that every

property they examined leveled off rapidly,

having a consistent value for large swarms

of any size. Once the number of midges

reaches a sort of critical mass, a swarm

forms, and its characteristics remain similar

no matter how many more flies are added.

Somewhat surprisingly, in each case this

leveling off occurred for swarms of less

than ten individuals. Thus, they conclude, it

only takes ten midges to behave like a swarm

of many more.

The surprises, uncertainties, and hazy

definitions all reflect the novelty of swarm

science. Although humans have observed

and interacted with herds, flocks, and

swarms for millennia, only recently have

these phenomena—and the differences

between them—become accessible to


scientists. Ouellette believes that tools for

studying swarms have allowed the field to

grow rapidly in recent years. These tools

include inexpensive and easily accessible

digital imaging technologies for recording

swarming behaviors, and computer vision

programs that allow researchers to track

individuals within a swarm.

The Appeal of Swarms

Ouellette himself became interested in

swarming after developing computer vision

tools for the study of fluid mechanics.

Following particles in a swirling pool isn’t

so different from tracking midges flying

IMAGE COURTESY OF NICHOLAS OUELLETTE

The reconstructed flight paths of midges

in a single swarm. Each color represents a

different individual.

in a cloud. The parallels made it easy to

dip into biology. His progression isn’t

uncommon; Ouellette says that thanks to

technological advances, “physicists and

engineers have a lot of opportunities to look

at classically biological problems.” The mix

of backgrounds among swarm scientists

and the fertile intellectual ground they are

exploring make for a heady combination.

The explosion of interest among researchers

is mirrored by the popularity of books like

The Perfect Swarm by Len Fisher or Peter

Miller’s The Smart Swarm. “Any time you have

a problem with a real interdisciplinary focus,

scientists get excited,” Ouellette says.

Studying swarms isn’t only an intellectual

exercise, though. While the field is still

very young and focused on exploring

basic concepts, according to Ouellette,

the applications for its findings are

already exciting interest. The relevance of

swarms for robotics is possibly most clear.

Borrowing from the behavior of such

simple animals as midges, engineers could

build artificial swarms that exhibit complex

behaviors without complex programming.

Indeed, a number of researchers have

October 2014


13

FOCUS

entomology

already made forays into robot swarms. A

team of Hungarian engineers, for example,

recently conquered the challenge of building

drones that can form a self-organized swarm

in outdoor conditions. Ouellette says that

autonomous robotic systems like this are

the first real applications of swarm science.

It isn’t hard to imagine how robot swarms

could be put to use. Imagine small robocoptors

patrolling disaster areas, looking for

survivors, or agricultural robots swarming

through fields harvesting crops. It may

be telling that Ouellette’s own research

is supported by a grant from the U.S.

Army. Certainly, robot swarms could see

deployment on the battlefield. Part of the

appeal of robot swarms in such contexts is

their resilience.

If each individual robot contains the same

simple programming, and the more complex

behaviors are emergent, then individuals are

expendable. As long as enough individuals

(maybe ten, if Ouellette’s work applies

beyond midges) remain, the swarm will not

even notice the difference. Its behavior will

remain the same. Ouellette says that this

makes robot swarms “very fault-tolerant,”

a useful property for systems subjected to

harsh environments or for those with very

important functions.

This fault tolerance could make the

lessons of swarm science even more widely

applicable. Network control systems and

other computer applications seem especially

likely to incorporate them, Ouellette suspects.

But for now, his attention is turned to the

fundamentals of swarming behavior. Each

evening when his midges swarm, he will

turn on his cameras and computers—cutting

edge tools designed to tackle the toughest

problems in fluid dynamics—and hope to

glean a bit more insight into their remarkable

behavior. Perhaps that’s something to think

about the next time you bat away a cloud of

flies.

‘

Physicists

‘

IMAGE COURTESY OF NICHOLAS OUELLETTE

Nicholas Ouellette, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Yale,

uses computer modeling to simulate and examine swarm behavior.

and engineers have

a lot of opportunities to

look at classically biological

problems.

Nicholas Ouellette

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ZACHARY MILLER

ZACHARY MILLER is a sophomore in Saybrook College studying Ecology and

Evolutionary Biology and Applied Mathematics. He is currently researching the

ecology and evolution of Greek lizards with Professor Oswald Schmitz and

doctoral student Colin Donihue.

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK Professor Ouellette for his willingness

to give phone interviews while on sabbatical, and for the lucid explanations of

his research.

IMAGE COURTESY OF ARKIVE WEBSITE

An adult midge of the species Chironomus

riparius. Professor Ouellette’s lab maintains

a colony of these insects to study how they

swarm.

FURTHER READING

Kelley, Douglas H., and Nicholas T. Ouellette. “Emergent Dynamics of Laboratory

Insect Swarms.” Scientific Reports 3 (2013): 1073.


nutrition

FOCUS

A Smarter Way to Track

By Kevin Wang

Art by Laurie Wang

Nutrition

Staying loyal to a diet is challenging, but

keeping track of precisely what you

eat while you are dieting may be even

harder. Few people have time to stop in the

middle of the day to recall exactly how many

apple slices they had with breakfast, or how

many calories were in the Caesar salad they

ate for lunch. Fortunately, these questions

may soon be a thing of the past.

A Revealing Class of Molecules

Drs. Brenda Cartmel and Susan Mayne,

faculty members in the Chronic Disease

Epidemiology department at the Yale School

of Public Health, collaborated with scientists

from the University of Utah in a recent study

that establishes a novel way of finding out

the amount of fruits and vegetables people

have eaten. Their new method relies on

measuring the amount of a certain type of

pigment, called carotenoids, in a person’s

skin. Carotenoids give many modern birds

and fishes their colors. Beta-carotene and

alpha-carotene, which make carrots yelloworange,

have also been shown to produce

a yellow coloring in people’s palms when

ingested at high levels.

Humans cannot make their own

carotenoids, so we instead get them by

eating fruits and vegetables, which are the

best sources of these molecules. Because the

carotenoids we eat end up as deposits in our

tissues, they are prime biological markers of

vegetable and fruit intake.

Carotenoids have been a major area of

clinical study, but also of mystery. On the

one hand, carotenoids seem to be promoters

of good health: people who ingest them

also have a reduced risk of cardiovascular

disease. On the other hand, carotenoid

supplements have not been found to provide

the health benefits that fruits and vegetables

offer. It seems that there is something

about fruits and vegetables as a whole, not

just the carotenoids contained within them,

that delivers significant health benefits.

Carotenoid supplements—that is, those

not eaten as part of fruits or vegetables—

have been shown either to have no effect or

actually to increase the risk of lung cancer in

smokers, at least in the case of the carotenoid

beta carotene.

A Novel Approach

Since carotenoids have the potential to be

objective measures of fruit and vegetable

intake, scientists have been trying to find

reliable and efficient ways of measuring

them. Traditionally, carotenoid levels have

been measured by taking blood samples

and performing chemical analyses, but this


October 2014


15

FOCUS

nutrition

procedure is invasive, expensive, and often

requires long periods of time to analyze

results. The new procedure, which Cartmel

and Mayne have developed in conjunction

with physicists from the University of Utah,

is non-invasive. Whereas blood measurement

requires puncturing someone’s skin with a

needle, Cartmel and Mayne created a way to

measure carotenoid levels by simply placing a

beam of laser light on someone’s hand. They

used Raman Resonance Spectroscopy, which

works by directing a laser beam onto the skin

to excite carotenoid molecules. A detector in

the instrument registers the signals that these

excited molecules emit. In that way, it is able

to measure carotenoid levels.

With the help of one of Cartmel’s

colleagues, Yale School of Public Health

Research Associate Maura Harrigan, I

experienced Raman Resonance Spectroscopy

myself. I met with Harrigan at the Yale-

New Haven Hospital, where the apparatus

is housed. I was able to obtain my own

carotenoid reading, and perform a reading on

her as well. The laser is essentially a bulkier

version of the laser pointer you might see

your biology professor using during lecture,

‘

‘

We

can use this as a

method of assessing

the success of an

intervention.

Brenda Cartmel

but we took special precautions and wore

safety glasses just to be safe. The laser is

linked to a machine, which in turn is linked

to a computer that displays the readings.

First, Harrigan handed me a collection

of small skin tone plates, and I was allowed

to pick the skin color that I thought best

matched the color of the underside of my

forearm. Next, the bulky area of my palm,

which is called the thenar eminence, was

cleaned with an alcohol swab. The laser

was then placed on my palm. The machine

took it from there and subsequently spat the

data onto the computer screen. The whole

process took less than a minute.

In collaboration with colleagues from the

USDA, Cartmel and Mayne found that this

extremely fast laser scanning method was

effective in measuring carotenoid levels

and changes in fruit and vegetable intake.

To verify their findings, they correlated

carotenoid levels with manipulation of fruit

and vegetable intake, then compared those

results to the results of a conventional

blood test. From this comparison the team

concluded that skin carotenoids are a reliable

indicator of changes in fruit and vegetable

consumption.

Moreover, skin carotenoids are likely better

than blood carotenoids as a marker of usual

Dr. Brenda Cartmel

Dr. Susan T. Mayne

IMAGE COURTESY OF BRENDA CARTMEL

Dr. Brenda Cartmel is Senior Research Scientist and Lecturer

in Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health. Her research

focuses on cancer prevention and survivorship.

IMAGE COURTESY OF BRENDA CARTMEL

Dr. Susan T. Mayne is C.E.A. Winslow Professor of

Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, Associate Director

of Population Sciences at Yale Cancer Center, and Department

Chair of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Yale School of Public

Health.


The take-home message: “Eat more fruits and vegetables!”

fruit and vegetable ingestion. The explanation

for this observation is very simple: blood is a

transport medium and so changes with daily

diet fluctuations. In contrast, skin is a storage

medium, so carotenoids are more likely to

reflect a person’s usual intake.

These results are only the most recent

developments among years of research that

Cartmel and Mayne have carried out in this

area. In 2010, they established that the skin

test was as reliable, if not more reliable, an

indicator for carotenoid levels as the blood

test in the absence of dietary intervention.

This laid the groundwork for their 2012

study that showed that a correlation between

skin carotenoid levels and fruit and vegetable

intake also exists in preschool-age children.

IMAGE COURTESY OF TOP-NEWS.IN

drugs, disease treatment, and intensive

care, while there is far less emphasis on

disease prevention, nutrition therapy,

and lifestyle medicine. Part of the

reason that nutrition therapy has been

pushed to the sidelines by the medical

establishment is that tracking nutrition

and dietary habits is so challenging

for both physicians and patients. “We

can use this as a method of assessing

the success of an intervention. For

the most part, people have used

self-report, but this is a much more

objective measure,” Cartmel says.

Personalized medicine has been

emerging as one of the hottest areas in

medicine, and Cartmel’s findings will

nutrition

FOCUS

contribute to this field by enabling personalized

feedback from doctors. “You could say [to

patients], ‘Look, your skin carotenoid levels

have increased. You’ve done a great job with

your diet.’ It could be a way to provide positive

feedback,” Cartmel says.

At the most fundamental level, there is one

message that Cartmel says she wants to convey

to people after seeing the results of this study:

“Eat more vegetables and fruits!” The repeatedly

proven health benefits of vegetables and fruits

coupled together with this new objective and

reliable measure of vegetable and fruit intake

have made following a healthy diet easier than

ever.

Physicians also now have a foolproof,

objective way of finding out what patients are

eating or not eating. So watch out: it’s time to

eat up or fess up.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRENDA CARTMEL

The original laser used for Raman Resonance

Spectroscopy in Cartmel and Mayne’s 2010 study

to validate the reliability of skin tests.

Only the Beginning

From here, Cartmel hopes to test the

carotenoid-measuring procedure in various

ethnic groups. Her recent study was

conducted only on Caucasian subjects,

and people of other ethnicities differ from

Caucasians in the levels of a pigment called

melanin in their skin. Because the test

examines pigments in skin, varying levels of

melanin could affect the outcomes for nonwhite

people.

In addition to providing both doctors

and patients with an improved method

of tracking fruit and vegetable intake, the

results of this study have much broader

implications.

In the U.S. healthcare system, an

overwhelming amount of attention is given to

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KEVIN WANG

KEVIN WANG is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles. He is a prospective Molecular,

Cellular, and Developmental Biology major and the current copy editor of

the Yale Scientific Magazine. He has been writing for the magazine since his

freshman year.

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK Dr. Cartmel and Ms. Harrigan for

their time, enthusiasm, and generosity.

FURTHER READING

Mayne, Susan T. et al. “Resonance Raman spectroscopic evaluation of skin

carotenoids as a biomarker of carotenoid status for human studies.” Archives

of Biochemistry and Biophysics 539, no. 2 (2013): 163-170.


October 2014


17

FINDING

EQUILIBRIUM

expanding the network of

female scientists at Yale

By Tessa Adler // Art by Audrey Luo

As a young girl, Joan Steitz didn’t plan on becoming a

scientist. She didn’t imagine doing research. She didn’t

anticipate making a breakthrough that would illuminate

how RNA is processed in early stages. She didn’t foresee a

career in science because she had never seen a female scientist

before. But her effort and successes repeatedly earned the

respect of important figures in science.

These people included her lab

director, Dr. James Watson, who

earlier had discovered the doublehelical

structure of DNA. In 1970,

Steitz became a faculty member in

the Molecular Biochemistry and

Biophysics Department at Yale.

Within ten years, she had discovered

an entirely new kind of small RNA

and showed how it is involved in

cutting out the unused portions of

messenger RNA, and piecing back

together the parts that need to be

kept.

For decades, Steitz didn’t question

the disparity between men and women

in her field. “It was always men, and

few women, and that’s just the way it

was, and I didn’t think about it,” said

Steitz. That changed in 2005, when

she co-authored a report documenting

the gender bias in sciences.

Dr. Vivian Irish, a developmental

geneticist who researches flowering

plants, is another female scientist at

Yale who has witnessed changes in

the gender balance over time. For 21

years, she’s worked for the Molecular,

Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Department at Yale. She works

mostly with a white flower species

called Arabidopsis thaliana, and seeks

to discover the patterning events in

development that give rise to floral

organs. “When I was a graduate

student, there was a very different

perception of women in science,”

said Irish. But she got lucky: while

conducting her graduate work at

Harvard, Irish found herself working

in a lab that had an abnormally large

percentage of women. “Once a

number of very bright and capable

women started working there, it made

it more attractive for more women to

join the group,” she explained.

Every year, Steitz has made it a goal

to try to teach one of the three core

courses that undergraduates majoring

in MB&B are required to take. If she

didn’t, most MB&B undergraduates

would graduate from Yale without

having been taught by a single female

professor in their field of study. “For

decades, I’ve been the only woman

who teaches these undergrads, just

because that reflects the complexion

of our department,” she said.

Steitz has been at Yale for 44 years,

but she continues teaching. I asked her

FOCUS

women

DR.

VIVIAN

IRISH

Dr. Vivian Irish, developmental

geneticist in the Molecular,

Cellular, and Developmental

Biology Department at Yale.

PHOTO BY KAT LIN

DR.

JOAN

STEITZ

Dr. Joan Steitz, researcher

at the Yale School of Medicine

and Molecular Biochemistry

and Biophysics Department.

IMAGE COURTESY OF YALE MEDICINE

whether she had been deterred from retiring

by the lack of any other female professors to

take over for her. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “I

just felt so awful that my department, which

I think the world of, wasn’t setting itself up

to be as optimal as possible to train young

women.”

By Women, For Women

As the years have gone by, women have

improved the climate at Yale by building

groups that offer support and provide

resources to women scientists. These

communities have recognized the problem

of the early withdrawal of many young

women from the sciences, and are working to

keep their interest alive. These groups have

also advocated for higher representation of

women on the faculty.

While female faculty members are

constantly reminded of the unequal gender

ratios in their departments, the administration

may not be as overtly conscious of the

problem. The Women Faculty Forum (WFF)

works to change this. Established in 2001 to

recognize the presence of women at Yale,

WFF organizes a variety of workshops and

programs and reports annually on the status

of women at Yale. “They let Yale know

whether progress is actually being made,”

said Steitz.

There are increasing numbers of female

scientists at Yale, but progress has been slow.

According to the WFF report, from 1982 to

2012 the percentage of female term faculty

members in the physical sciences rose from

8 percent to 33 percent. In the biological

sciences, the increase over the same thirtyyear

period was from 17 percent to 37

percent. Irish has witnessed these changes

during her 21-year-long time with the MCDB

department. “Slowly, we’re increasing the

number of women,” she says, “but it’s really

not at a rapid rate. Certainly not 50-50.”

While WFF promotes the interests of

female faculty members, other groups

advocate for the aspiring female scientists

among us. Women in Science at Yale (WISAY)

focuses on community-building, networking,

career development, and mentoring.

Established by three female graduate

students in 1999, the group has grown to

encompass hundreds of women across the

scientific disciplines, from freshmen to postdocs

to professors. UWISAY, Undergraduate

Women in Science at Yale, was founded in

2009 as a sister organization to provide a

community specifically for undergraduates.

WISAY and UWISAY organize dinners,

speakers, panels, ice cream socials, and

conferences throughout the year, and work

to build mentorship bonds between women

at different stages in their scientific careers.

“At least once a year I talk to those groups,”

said Steitz. “And they’re good! They provide

networking opportunities for women who

feel lonesome otherwise in the sciences.”

The feeling of being lonesome or lacking

solidarity has been a major problem for

women in science. Although many women

at Yale are not directly involved in groups

like WISAY and UWISAY, the mere

existence of these organizations helps to

combat the feeling of isolation that many

women in the sciences still experience. Ivy

Wanta, a sophomore physics major who did

research at CERN last summer, is the Co-

Chair of Mentoring for UWISAY. She only

really started getting involved this year, but

somehow she felt like a part of it all along.

“Even when I wasn’t involved, I felt better

knowing that this group exists,” she said.

“That concept in itself was helpful to me.”

Cultivating Early Interest

Besides providing awareness, organizations

like WISAY are actively employing strategies

to keep girls in the sciences. As Wanta noted,

the number of girls intending to major in

physics drops off very early: a large number

of women decide to drop the science after

just one semester in college, or even after

shopping period. “That’s one of the good

things about the mentoring program, is

that you’re immediately reaching freshmen,

which I think is really important,” she said.

Another way to encourage young

freshman women in science is by providing

more female role models in the introductory

science courses. Of the seven professors I

have had in my introductory STEM courses,

Irish is the first woman. Her motivation to

teach the “Genes and Development” module

of the Introductory Biology sequence

was not to improve the representation of

IMAGE COURTESY OF SCILOGS

Rosie the Riveter, the symbol of the

WWII integration of women into the labor

force, framed on a technologically-oriented

background.


women

FOCUS

IMAGE COURTESY OF RACI.ORG

‘

Actively inviting and

welcoming women into the

sciences is key to continuing ‘the momentum.

women; she genuinely enjoys teaching at the

introductory level. “But as soon as I said I

was interested, everybody was saying, ‘That

will be great, we need women teaching

this,’” she recalled.

The Perspectives on Science and

Engineering program, a supplementary

course for freshmen seriously interested in

STEM fields, also endeavors to captivate

the interest of freshman women in science.

Last fall, three of the five speakers for

the program were women, and this fall,

all of them are women. William Segraves,

Associate Dean for Science Education at

Yale, said, “It’s been important for women

to be well-represented in the course—it’s

part of how we’re hoping to change what

our nation’s future STEM faculty looks

like.”

Faculty in this program have also

thrown their weight behind the cause. In

Perspectives on Science and Engineering

last year, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Professor Richard Prum—one of a minority

of men lecturing as part of PSE—gave the

first class. He diverged from the content of

his lecture, which was about the Evolution

of Beauty, at the end of his talk. His last

slide depicted three female scientists. One

woman posed with dinosaur fossils, another

kneeled to collect measurements, and a third

walked through the jungle

in full field attire. The title

of the slide was “Advice for

Young Women Scientists.”

Two unforgettable bullet

points read: “You belong

here,” and “Science needs

Women!”

Spreading the Word

Actively inviting and welcoming women

into the sciences is key to continuing the

momentum. “It’s really necessary to have

men talking about wanting more women in

science also,” said Wanta. “Not just women

saying, ‘We need more of us!’ But men

saying, ‘We need more of you!’”

Spreading the message to Yale’s entire

community is necessary for women to be

fully integrated in the sciences. “I think that

the university definitely could host more

events, in a way where it’s not obviously

targeted just at women,” said Wanta.

Sponsoring campus-wide symposia, panels,

reports, workshops, would be a way to

include everyone in the movement.

Steitz has spent decades as the only woman

teaching undergrads in MB&B, going out of

her way to ensure that the undergraduates

in her department see a female face. After

all these years, her stubborn persistence

might not be necessary for much longer. In

the past year, the department hired a new

female professor who could teach the class.

“Now I feel like I could retire, because there

would be at least one woman to take over,”

Steitz said.

I asked Steitz whether she believed that

the status of women in science would

continue to rise. “I think we’ll do better.

It’ll just take a long time,” she said. “If you

bring it to people’s attention, then things

change faster.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TESSA ADLER

TESSA ADLER is a sophomore Ecology & Evolutionary Biology major. She

works in Professor Jetz’s lab on the Map of Life project, researching the global

distribution of terrestrial species.

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK all of her interviewees for the work

they’ve done to advance the cause of women in science. She would also like

to personally thank her mentors Jessica Brown, Joan Steitz, and Wenqing Xu.

FURTHER READING

Reuben, Ernesto, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales. “How stereotypes impair

women’s careers in science.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

111, no. 12 (2014): 4403-4408.


October 2014


21

by theresa steinmeyer

art by carrie cao & katherine lin

DEADLY

EUPHORIA

For opioid addicts, it’s all too tempting to give the drug

one more try. A heroin euphoria— temporary warmth, dulled

senses, painlessness—slips away after 10 or 15 minutes,

abandoning the addict to several days of withdrawal symptoms

that could fade with the easy pleasure of one more dose.

It’s no surprise, then, that the odds of

relapse for those with opioid addiction

are grim: according to a 2010 study, nine

out of ten patients relapse. Over half of

those relapses occur within the first week.

Nationally, opioid addiction is on the rise—

the National Institute on Drug Abuse found

in 2012 that nearly 670,000 people had used

heroin, the most commonly abused opioid,

within the past year, with over 150,000 new

heroin users that same year alone.

To prevent death—and in the long-term, to

help patients recover from persistent opioid

use disorders—scientists are exploring

treatments that may ease opioid withdrawal

symptoms, including a medication called

buprenorphine. The research raises a host

of questions from policymakers, whose

decisions impact the medication’s availability,

and insurance companies, who decide

when to help patients pay for it. How

freely should drugs like buprenorphine be

available? To what extent should they merit

reimbursement? How can abuse of these

drugs be prevented?

In a recent review, a team of researchers set

out to give clinicians and policymakers the

facts on buprenorphine. With Wayne State

University professor Mark Greenwald and

Yale professor David Fiellin, this team aimed

to address concerns about the safety and

necessity of larger doses of buprenorphine

for clinicians and policymakers, and to

defend the availability of buprenorphine.

The Challenges of Fighting Addiction

In order to understand how buprenorphine

can help patients recover from opioid

addiction, one needs to understand why this

addiction is so difficult to manage. When

a patient develops an opioid addiction,

nerve receptors in the brain and other areas

of the body get used to receiving opioid

molecules. The body tries to adjust itself

to the presence of these molecules, and in

turn, it becomes physically dependent on the

opioid to maintain an internal status quo. As

the body adapts to the opioid, it craves more,

and more, and more.

“You’re resetting the thermostat on your

neurobiology,” said Mark Greenwald, a

professor at Wayne State University who has

done extensive research on substance abuse.

“Those adaptations have a price when all of

a sudden you stop using it.”

So what happens to the body when the

opioid supply is cut off? A host of withdrawal

symptoms hit: anxiety, insomnia, or muscle

aches, followed by dilated pupils or vomiting.

To ease the transition between addiction and

abstinence, patients are tapered gradually

off of medications to treat withdrawal


symptoms and receive therapy and assistance

from physicians—but recovery still isn’t easy.

It’s all too tempting for addicted patients to

put a stop to these symptoms by returning to

the illicit drugs.

The solution? Help the body stop those

withdrawal symptoms so that the patient can

recover without the temptation of returning

to illegal drugs. “To give the old analogy,

it’s sort of a lock and key,” Greenwald said.

The buprenorphine drug binds to the same

receptors that were previously filled by the

opioid particles. In doing so, buprenorphine

performs similarly to how an illegal opioid

would in the body. This reduces the severity

of the withdrawal symptoms that the patient

experiences. The more opioid-hungry

receptors the buprenorphine occupies, the

less craving the recovering addict has for the

illegal drugs.

“What we try and do with [buprenorphine]

is to reduce the availability of those

receptors,” Greenwald said. “It will provide a

safer replacement that helps start the person

on the right track.”

A Scientific Call to Action

Greenwald and his team found that in

order to be effective against withdrawal

symptoms, buprenorphine had to be able

to occupy at least half of the receptors that

would otherwise be craving opioids. “Higher

doses are generally demonstrated to produce

greater reductions in illegal opioid use,”

Greenwald said.

addiction

FOCUS

But here’s the problem: the question of

how much buprenorphine each patient

ought to receive doesn’t have a one-sizefits-all

answer. Individual patients may

require different amounts of buprenorphine

to block enough receptors in order to

adequately ease their withdrawal symptoms.

And buprenorphine is often used as just one

component of a multi-faceted treatment

approach, which may also include therapy

or treatment for other psychiatric problems.

Even patients’ environments—whether

their peers are using or encouraging them to

return to opioid use—can impact their odds

of successful recovery.

Clinicians have to toe a fine line in

deciding how much buprenorphine to

provide to patients. Recovering addicts need

ART BY ANNALISA LEINBACH

Buprenorphine provides a solution for recovering addicts by mitigating withdrawal symptoms so that the patient can

recover without the temptation of relapse. However, the question of how much buprenorphine to prescribe doesn’t

have a one-size-fits-all answer.


October 2014


23

FOCUS

addiction

enough buprenorphine to ease withdrawal

symptoms as they detoxify their bodies, or

to prevent opioid cravings and highs during

maintenance—but since buprenorphine

provides a sensation similar to other opioids,

it could become a source of recreational

abuse.

Safety is an issue. Since buprenorphine

is designed to make the body feel like it is

under the influence of opioids, there is a

risk that people might abuse it recreationally.

Richard Schottenfeld, professor of

psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine,

has worked with opioid addiction and

buprenorphine. He’s watched the debate

over the availability of the buprenorphine.

Like other medications used to treat opioid

addiction, buprenorphine “does have some

abuse potential on the street,” he said. “If

it’s not used as prescribed, it can cause some

problems.”

Policymakers and insurance companies are

wary of the costs and safety quandaries of

buprenorphine. Many insurance companies

are reluctant to cover an unlimited amount

of the medication, and policymakers are

concerned about making it too widely

available or endorsing high dosages. They’re

wondering where the limits ought to be

drawn on how much buprenorphine can be

provided and reimbursed.

Weighing the Risks

When Greenwald and his team

put together their review of recent

buprenorphine research, they did so with the

intention of injecting scientific data into the

controversy. “It had come to our attention

that some policymakers were limiting

the reimbursement for higher doses of

buprenorphine,” Greenwald said, referring

to Medicaid and some third-party insurance

companies. “If you’re paying for somebody

to receive treatments, your eye is on the

bottom line... [but] that should not be the

driving factor in our scientific decisions.”

“The impetus for doing this re-analysis

was to try to come to a clearer overall

understanding of what the data were telling

us,” he said. But that research was hard to

gather. The researchers faced an ethical

obstacle: although they wanted to work

with as large a sample size as possible, they

couldn’t research the behavior of patients

trying to recover from opioid addiction

at the risk of harming these patients’

recoveries. Instead, Greenwald and his fellow

9 out of10

opioid addicts relapse.

Over 50% of these

relapses occur in the

first week.

researchers could only study the behavior of

participants who were not currently seeking

treatment for opioid addiction. Their study

had to exclude patients for other reasons

as well—such as those dealing with other

psychiatric disorders that might affect their

receptor abilities and therefore distort the

research findings. Although there has been

substantial research to prove the usefulness

and relative safety of buprenorphine, there’s

still much left to discover.

So, how should policymakers and clinicians

weigh the risks of buprenorphine abuse

and the cost of its administration against

its potential benefits? Schottenfeld realizes

that buprenorphine needs to be widely

available enough that patients who need it

can access it. Weighing the potential benefits

of the medication as a means of decreasing

opioid addiction against the chance of

abuse, Schottenfeld believes that insurance

coverage ought to be considered separately

from how much buprenorphine a patient can

receive. “I wouldn’t personally come up and

say, ‘well, here’s a blanket way of giving it so

we can avoid abuse possibilities,’” he said.

Greenwald’s paper adopts a “use it or

lose it” attitude: either the patient uses the

drug appropriately to work toward opioid

abstinence, or clinicians might consider

cutting back on the amount of the drug that

should be made available to the patient.

But perhaps the best way to evaluate the

availability of buprenorphine is by weighing

the gravity of the consequences if it’s not

used.

“Opioid disorders are often chronic and

lifetime disorders,” Schottenfeld said. As

he puts it, if patients with hypertension,

diabetes, or other lasting medical problems

may need lifelong medication, then patients

struggling with opioid addiction ought to

be able to receive extended medications as

well if necessary. Over a 30-year period,

Schottenfeld said that half of patients with

untreated opioid use disorders ultimately die

from causes related to addiction.

“It’s important to keep that in mind,” he

said. “This really is a lethal disease that we’re

treating.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

THERESA STEINMEYER

THERESA STEINMEYER is in the Trumbull College Class of 2016. She is an

English major from Chicago, IL.

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK Dr. Mark Greenwald and Dr. Richard

Schottenfeld for their time and enthusiasm.

FURTHER READING

Greenwald, Mark K., Sandra D. Comer, and David A. Fiellin. 2014.

“Buprenorphine maintenance and mu-opioid receptor availability in the

treatment of opioid use disorder: Implications for clinical use and policy.” Drug

and Alcohol Dependence. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.07.035


The Vice and Virtue of Science

On September 14, Glenn

Adam Chin, a former head

pharmacist at the New England

Compounding Center (NECC),

was arrested and put under

criminal investigation. His

crime was related to a deadly

meningitis outbreak that

occurred across the country in

2012. This incident that killed 64

people and affected more than

680 others is a reminder of the

potential criminal use of science.

Chin has been accused of

several unsafe practices in

his lab, which likely sparked

the meningitis outbreak.

Using improperly sterilized

equipment and inaccurate

testing procedures, as well as

failing to maintain hygiene in

sterile clean rooms, caused

fungal contamination of the

drug methylprednisolone acetate (MPA), meant to be injected into

patients experiencing inflammation of the back. Chin has been

further accused of mislabeling the drug in an attempt to get more

physicians to use it on their patients. This incident has shed light on

faults in the current drug regulation system, and on science’s ability

to cause deathly large-scale outcomes.

MPA is an anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid that decreases the

patient’s immune response to diverse stimuli, which in turn increases

susceptibility to infections. When physicians injected MPA into

patients, the contaminating fungi were given direct access to the

bloodstream, and were thus

quickly able to invade the central

nervous system.

This exacerbated normal

meningitis

symptoms.

Contaminated MPA, then, was

a double hit for patients: A

weakened immune system on top

of direct injection of fungi caused

a sudden, drastic outbreak of

fungal meningitis. According to

the Center for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) and the Food

and Drug Administration (FDA), a

type of fungus called Exserohilum

rostratum was found in affected

meningitis patients associated with

this outbreak.

epidemiology

FEATURE

Man-Made Meningitis

the vice and virtue of science

BY YUKI HAYASHI

IMAGE COURTESY OFSPACE COAST DAILY

Improperly sterilized methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) was

mislabeled and shipped from the New England Compounding Center

to 23 different states.

Meningitis, which can be

viral, bacterial, or fungal, causes

inflammation of the meninges,

the protective membranes

covering the brain and spinal

cord. Functioning as protective

layers, the meninges allow the

brain to float in a liquid known

as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). The

inflammation of the meninges

causes abnormal circulation

and reabsorption of CSF. This

increases pressure inside the

skull, which compresses brain

structures and oftentimes

restricts blood flow, ultimately

damaging the brain and spinal

cord. Although the exact

mechanism is unclear, high

intracranial pressure is known

to cause painful headaches often

accompanied by blurred vision.

Other symptoms of meningitis

include high fever, stiff neck, vomiting, nausea, and confusion.

It is hard to imagine how a drug compounded at one center could

have had such a large affect across the country. The NEEC, located

in Massachusetts, acted as a mass manufacturer that shipped drugs to

hospitals across the country. In fact, the contaminated vials of MPA

were shipped to 23 states, thereby causing a countrywide outbreak.

Furthermore, NECC was classified as a compounding pharmacy, not

a drug manufacturer, and therefore was not subject to strict FDA

regulations. This reveals a potential blind spot in the FDA’s regulation

practices, and an open door for criminal uses of science.

There is no doubt that science

has advanced us in many ways,

but the fungal meningitis outbreak

demonstrates that when put in

the wrong hands, science can

be dangerous. Whether or not

Chin’s poor lab practices were

intentional, measures must be

taken to prevent similar outbreaks

from occurring in the future. For

instance, supervisorial pharmacists

should check all sterilization

of medications, both in the lab

and at hospitals as necessary. As

technology progresses, scientists

IMAGE COURTESY OF DAILYMAIL.CO.UK

Glenn Adam Chin has been implicated in the deaths of 64

people, all of whom died from fungal meningitis.

must be extra careful to maximize

the wonders of science and

minimize its vices.


October 2014


25

FEATURE

geology

d e at h

va l l e y’S

BY GENEVIEVE SERTIC


For nearly a century, scientists have struggled with the mystery of

the sailing stones of Death Valley. These massive rocks, weighing up

to 320 kilograms, scraped out tracks as long as 224 meters in parallel

formation, giving the valley its second name, “Racetrack Playa.”

What scientists did not understand was how these immense stones

managed to move, or “sail.” No forces powerful enough seemed to

exist in the environment.

Finally, at the end of August, a team of researchers from the

Scripps Institute of Oceanography published their surprising

findings from three years of observations in Death Valley, during

which they quite literally saw the process in motion. This discovery

finally emerged after years of debate within the scientific community

over conflicting theories about the sailing stones, and the answer is

of interest to scientists and tourists alike.

It is not pure force, but rather the right combination of conditions

that thrusts these massive stones along the lakebed. The Scripps

team found that the rocks only move when a thin layer of ice forms

overnight from rainwater runoff from the surrounding mountains.

The next day, when the sun shines down on Death Valley, the thin ice

sheet breaks up into panels, which flow steadily in the direction of

even a light wind. The panels push the massive rocks along with them

at about two to five meters per minute.

The rainwater runoff must be seven millimeters to form

“windowpane” ice three to six millimeters thick—thin enough to be

broken into panels, but still strong enough push the sailing stones

forward. The exact movement of the

sailing stones depends on the magnitude

and direction of the wind. Light, steady

breezes of four to five meters per second

help the rocks move along their path.

Some previous theories had predicted

ice and wind to play a role in the sailing

stones, but not in the same way that

the researchers discovered. Powerful

wind, thick ice sheets, and algal films

that reduce the friction between the

rocks and the lakebed were all previous

conjectures. However, the researchers

found that the wind that sweeps through

the dry lake does very little to move the

s a i l i n g sto n e s

rocks. The ice sheets that form are not thick enough to move the

rocks directly. And only winds of up to 80 meters per second—about

as fast as a NASCAR race car—could move the stones even with the

help of an algal film. Only thin, floating ice panels pushed with a

gentle breeze are able to move the stones.

Led by paleobiologist Richard Norris, the Scripps team started

their work on Racetrack Playa in 2011. To measure the movement of

the rocks, they monitored the stones and environmental conditions

with time-lapse cameras, GPS systems, and a weather station that

measured the velocity of gusts every second. Because the National

Park Service did not allow the researchers to use the native rocks in

the playa for their experiment, the team attached the GPS systems to

15 rocks similar to those in Racetrack Playa and placed them in the

dry lake. Dr. Norris and the other researchers were not expecting to

actually see any motion because the rocks seldom move—at most

once every decade. It was by pure chance that they were present

when the phenomenon occurred on December 21 last year. The

researchers heard the ice begin to crack around noon and saw the

spectacle firsthand.

The discovery has explained other phenomena surrounding the

sailing stones of Death Valley as well. In some areas, the ice panels

themselves scrape through the sand and leave tracks in their wake,

which explains why there are some trails with no stone marking the

end. Some pairs of rocks also lose synchronization with each other

along their trails, which is likely a result of splitting ice sheets that

maneuver around one stone but not the

other.

The sailing stones were a mystery

to the public as well as to scientists.

Visitors to Death Valley now have an

explanation for the tourist attraction,

and scientists now have a case study of

a surprising force of nature: thin panels

of ice floating on water that together

force massive rocks hundreds of meters

IMAGE COURTESY OF INQUISITR WEBSITE

The sailing stones of Death Valley have perplexed

scientists for decades. Now, researchers think they

have found an explanation for how a light breeze is

enough to move these massive rocks.

forward. The rocks look the same as

before—sitting motionlessly at the end of

the tracks streaking the playa—but now

we understand the story that these sailing

stones tell.


As children, we check for monsters under the bed, sharks in the

ocean, and snakes in the garden. Afraid of danger from the outside

world, we rarely consider the potential for destruction within our own

bodies. For 17.3 million people annually, this destruction occurs when

the very organ that pumps their blood fails. In fact, cardiovascular

disease is the world’s leading cause of death. Fortunately, modern

medicine is providing a new hope: a drug called LCZ696.

The drug began clinical trials five years ago, in December 2009.

The company Novartis created it to treat chronic heart failure.

Researchers were astounded by the success of

LCZ696: It performed better in early clinical

trials than any prior heart failure drug has

performed. LCZ696 is effective because

it uses an innovative biological

technique. Rather than relying on the

inhibition of a singular enzyme, it

combines two antihypertensives,

or chemical components that

reduce blood pressure.

Chronic heart failure

occurs when the heart

medicine

FEATURE

Hope for Damaged Hearts

revolutionizing heart failure medication

BY EMMA HEALY

cannot maintain

adequate blood flow,

which leads to fatigue,

shortness of breath,

and increased heart rate.

Long-term effects of the

condition are also serious,

sometimes even fatal. Ischemic

heart disease and cardiac arrest

are not uncommon. Given the

severity of the chronic heart failure

and its high prevalence around the

world, developing effective drugs is an

important medical goal.

The standard treatment for heart failure

right now is enalapril, an angiotensinconverting

enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. ACE is

an enzyme secreted by the lungs and kidneys

that causes the constriction of blood vessels,

thereby increasing blood pressure. By inhibiting ACE, enalapril

reduces constriction and decreases strain on failing hearts.

Up until the clinical trials of LCZ696, enalapril was the best

treatment option for heart failure, and its long-term use decreased

the relative risk of death for patients by about 16 percent. LCZ696

could potentially reduce relative risk of death by 20 percent. This

increase in survival rate is significant, especially considering the

number of people affected by heart failure.

LCZ696 differs from enalapril because it combines two

components: valsartan and sacubitril. Both of these substances

are antihypertensives, meaning that they lower blood pressure, but

each functions differently. Valsartan is similar to enalapril in that it

blocks the functioning of angiotensin. Where enalapril blocks ACE

from converting angiotensin into its active form, valsartan blocks

angiotensin from binding to its receptor. Both approaches reduce

blood pressure by acting on the same molecular pathway.

Sacubitril is entirely unlike valsartan and enalapril—it inhibits

another enzyme, neprilysin, which is normally responsible for

inactivating several peptide hormones in the body. Two of the

hormones that neprilysin inactivates are involved in the natural

reduction of blood volume. In response to

high blood pressure, heart muscle cells

secrete these peptides to reduce blood

volume, but neprilysin prevents this from

happening. By inhibiting neprilysin,

Sacubitril increases the blood level

of these hormones, thereby

decreasing blood pressure. On

their own, neither Valsartan

nor Sacubitril is sufficient

to treat heart failure. But

in combination, they

appear to be extremely

successful.

In trials, LCZ696

was more effective

than other medications,

better preventing

cardiovascular-related

deaths and hospitalizations.

This accomplishment is

monumental because heart failure

has a poor prognosis; even with

modern medications, approximately

50% of individuals with CHF will

die within 5 years of initial diagnosis.

Beyond living longer and undergoing fewer

hospitalizations, LCZ696 subjects were

better able to handle the medication’s side

effects. A common problem with enalapril is

that patients have to discontinue taking the

drug because of severe side effects.

Novartis may change these standards when it releases LCZ696

to the public. Based on the first clinical trial, the drug is extremely

promising and produces significantly better results than enalapril.

It might be too soon for heart failure patients to rejoice, however,

as LCZ696 is not projected to be released to the public until 2015.

Additionally, there are still hurdles to overcome. LCZ696 will

probably be expensive. Analysts have predicted that it might cost a

patient as much as $2,500 a year, as opposed to generic drugs that

could cost as little as $48 per year. Nevertheless, the development of

LCZ696 is a leap forward in the treatment of heart failure.

IMAGE COURTESY OF LIFESTYLES55 WEBSITE

LCZ696 treats heart failure by reducing

blood pressure. Heart failure is a serious

disease, killing millions of people annually.


October 2014


27

FEATURE

epidemiology

MYSTERY PANDEMIC:

Deadliest Ebola Outbreak to Date

BY THERESA OEI

INFOGRAPHIC BY NICOLE TSAI

The recent Ebola scare at Yale-New Haven Hospital has brought

the Ebola outbreak to the attention of the entire Yale community.

National hysteria has spread as three confirmed cases have been

reported in the US as of mid-October. But West Africa has borne

the brunt of this outbreak, starting with the first case in December

2013. As of October 15, the virus had killed more than 4,493 people

in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria. Reported

cases were at approximately 8,997, but underreporting was, and

still is, highly probable. Every day, Ebola-related morbidity and

mortality increases. The CDC predicts 10,000 new cases per week by

December. The outbreak has certainly reached pandemic proportions

and a serious global response is underway.

Frantic international efforts demonstrate how this outbreak has

blossomed into a modern pandemic. From its innocuous beginnings

in a bat reservoir to the infection of thousands throughout West

Africa and now, a few cases in the US and Europe, the virus has

proven its malignancy. However, Ebola is still a mystery to many

researchers and treatment for the disease is limited. It is now more

important than ever that the true science behind Ebola—what is

known and what remains a mystery—is clearly understood.

Most people are concerned, rightfully so, with how the virus is

transmitted. Ebola is a zoonotic virus that resides in bat reservoirs,

usually without any obvious symptoms. There are five identified

strains of Ebola, all in the family Flovidiae and the genus Ebolavirus.

All five cause disease in humans and nonhuman primates. Each

strain has a different level of virulence, or rate of death, among those

Statistics courtesy of the CDC

updated October 18, 2014

infected. The virus is transferred harmlessly among the primary host

population, comprised of migratory fruit bats. But when it invades

the secondary host, non-human primates or humans, it starts to show

pathological effects.

The incubation period ranges from a few days to three weeks,

and the virus remains alive and contagious even after the death

of the individual. This increases transmission of the virus during

funeral rituals for the deceased, which may involve cleansing of the

corpse. The disease is spread through bodily fluids, including blood,

feces, and vomit. Unlike some infectious diseases, the Ebola virus

is not transmitted through aerosols, meaning it is less likely to be

transmitted unknowingly than the flu or common cold.

Dr. James Childs, a zoonotic disease specialist at the Yale School

of Public Health, completed a four-week stint in Zaire (now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo) during the 1995 Ebola outbreak.

According to him, the 1995 virus was nearly identical to the virus

isolated in 1976 near the same location. Mutation of the virus is

possible, and would lead to greater viral diversity. Scientists stipulate

that it is unlikely that any mutations will lead to aerosol transmission

of the Ebola virus, which would alter its transmission route – and its

transmission rate.

Looking closely at the symptoms and potential treatments for

Ebola further demonstrates why so much of the disease remains a

mystery even to medical professionals. The symptoms in humans

include fever, vomiting, nausea, headache, sore throat, and internal

as well as external hemorrhaging. Although these symptoms may


epidemiology

FEATURE

not all occur simultaneously, their onset is quick and debilitating.

The disease typically begins with fever, headaches, and sore throat.

Gastrointestinal problems, including vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea,

are quick to follow. These GI issues have been particularly prominent

in this current outbreak. The virus’ access to the vascular system

can cause capillary leakage resulting in bleeding under the skin,

within internal organs, and from mucosal membranes. In early

stages, symptoms are difficult to distinguish from those of other

parasitic diseases or viral infections, such as malaria, typhoid fever,

or meningitis, which are all common in West Africa. This makes

identifying cases more challenging, and leads to misdiagnosis,

improper barrier techniques, and underreporting.

Once a case of Ebola is identified, basic treatment might include

providing fluids, stabilizing electrolytes, and maintaining blood

pressure. Of course in low-income areas, even these basic medical

supplies might not be available. Another major issue relating to

treatment is that infected patients are highly susceptible to other

infections. Managing opportunistic infections is a major obstacle in

Ebola treatment. There is no proven cure for Ebola. Vaccines are

currently under research and development. None of these vaccines

are commercially available even though one has been released for

emergency use in West Africa. Monoclonal antibody therapy is

another treatment that has been used experimentally, although the

patient sample size is small, which precludes concrete conclusions

on its effectiveness. Transfusion of plasma from recovered cases

to those clinically ill has shown promising results in past outbreaks.

Still, no treatment is altogether comforting for patients suffering the

horrendous symptoms of Ebola.

Scientists believe the 2014 outbreak began with a single infected

bat that bit a two-year-old toddler in the village Meliandoua in eastern

Guinea. In less than a week, the infected toddler and his mother had

died. The virus spread to mourners at their funeral.

Childs emphasized the importance of contact-trace history and

quarantine in controlling spread of the disease. This is traditional

strategy for managing Ebola outbreaks. Previously, outbreaks were

isolated to smaller rural communities and the trace history and

quarantining strategy was effective. However, the 2014 outbreak has

already reached major cities, even traveling internationally through

infected airplane passengers. As the number of cases grows, a trace

history becomes more difficult to establish. According to Childs,

the logistics of tracking individuals, quarantining, and providing

adequate care are extraordinary obstacles in areas that lack even basic

infrastructure. Additionally, poor health systems face a dearth of

facilities and financial resources compounded by a lack of trained

medical personnel. Untrained health workers may exacerbate the

problem by contributing to further spread of the disease because

of unsanitary or unsafe medical practices. The president of Sierra

Leone’s request for more hospital beds indicates that infected

individuals are turned away from overflowing hospitals and must

return to their local communities, where they will continue to spread

the disease.

Cultural issues also affect response to the disease: funeral rites for

the deceased, stigma of reporting, and mistrust of the healthcare

system all contribute to the problem. While the global response to

the Ebola outbreak has crawled along at a frustrating pace, picking

up speed only with international hysteria, the extraordinary potential

for human morbidity and mortality is now more broadly-recognized.

Hopefully, this will spark swift action.

Since the discovery of the Ebola virus in 1976 in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, there have been 25 outbreaks in Africa.

The most deadly of these was a 1976 outbreak, which claimed 280

lives. The current 2014 outbreak, however, has dwarfed all previous

outbreaks combined. The epidemiology of the Ebola virus, its deadly

symptoms, and lack of adequate treatment options have created a

perfect pandemic storm.

West Africa

2014 Outbreak

March 25 Initial outbreak

reported in Guinea

April 16 Suspected patient

Zero, two-year-old from Guinea,

published in NEJM

July 30 Peace Corps removes

workers from Sierra Leon,

Guinea, and Liberia

September 30 Thomas Duncan

is first diagnosed Ebola case in

United States

October 8 Duncan dies of Ebola

in Dallas, Texas

October 14 Two healthcare

workers at Texas Presbyterian

Hospital tested positive for Ebola


October 2014


29

REINVENTING

BY ISABELLE ROSSI DE LEON

the human embryo

Leigh syndrome is an incurable neurological disease caused

by mutations to mitochondrial DNA, the circular DNA that

governs mitochondria’s ability to power the cell. The disorder

disrupts cellular respiration and results in rapid loss of muscle

movement and mental capabilities, often leading to premature

death. Leigh syndrome is passed on from mother to child by

the diseased mitochondria present in the egg, making it nearly

impossible for affected mothers to have healthy children.

However, there may be hope for women suffering from Leigh

syndrome and other mitochondrial diseases. This hope comes

in the form of the three-parent embryo, a recent scientific

innovation currently awaiting governmental approval for

human trials. The advent of a technique called mitochondrial

replacement, which creates three-parent embryos, has brought

survivors of Leigh syndrome several steps closer to having

biological children without the mother’s diseased mitochondria.

Mitochondria possess a small amount of DNA separate from the

cell’s nuclear chromosomes, a remnant from when the organelles

were free-living cells in the primordial world. Mutations in the

mitochondrial DNA can result in severe, often fatal diseases—

Leigh syndrome is just one manifestation of that. Without a

functional way to produce cellular energy, entire organisms are

at risk. In addition, because these mitochondrial diseases are

passed from a mother to her offspring in the embryo, they are

impossible to prevent and treat without altering the embryo.

Mitochondrial replacement combines two parents’

nuclear DNA, as in a normal embryo, and the mitochondria

from a third, healthy donor egg. The embryo then grows

into a child completely free of mitochondrial disease.

Of course, there are a multitude of safety and ethical issues

preventing the immediate use of mitochondrial replacement.

It is illegal in many countries to alter inheritable human DNA,

though mitochondrial replacement would not result in any

changes to nuclear DNA. Likewise, there are a variety of safety

concerns for both mother and child, including catastrophic

birth defects. Despite these hurdles, scientists are working to

make the three-parent embryo a reality within the next two years.

The numerous functions of mitochondria make it apparent why this

new therapy is an exciting advancement for the medical community.

Mitochondria take in glucose and other nutrients and produce

adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that retains and conveys

chemical energy within cells. A constant supply of ATP is necessary for

eukaryotic cells to survive, and thus for organisms, including humans,

to function properly. Mitochondria can lose their ability to produce

ATP via cellular respiration from changes in mitochondrial DNA.

IMAGE COURTESY OF BIOTE 21 WEBSITE

Mitochondrial DNA encodes much more than the structures

necessary to create cellular energy. The circular DNA plays a

role in many other normal cell functions as well.

However, mitochondria are not solely energy producers. The

organelles play a major role in each cell’s metabolic pathways, and the

3,000 genes encoded in mitochondrial DNA regulate everything from

detoxification to hormone synthesis. Mutations to mitochondrial

DNA thus have far-reaching effects. It makes sense that Leigh

syndrome and other mitochondrial diseases display such varied,

serious symptoms; these conditions tend to negatively impact cells of

the heart, brain, liver, kidneys, and skeletal muscles, resulting in severe

symptoms ranging from developmental delay to cardiac disease.


IMAGE COURTESY OF ACCELERATING SCIENCE

Mitochondrial diseases are passed on from mother to child in the

embryo. Though sperm do have mitochodria (they need energy to

propel themselves to the egg), paternal mitochondria—along with all

mitochondrial DNA—is usually lost immediately after fertilization.

The mother’s egg, on the other hand, contains a multitude of

mitochondria that become an intrinsic part of the embryo, and

eventually a part of the mature organism. Mitochondria are matrilineal,

meaning that they pass from mother to daughter completely

unaltered for generations. This is unfortunate for women afflicted

with Leigh syndrome, because they cannot naturally conceive healthy

children. This is where mitochondrial replacement comes into play.

Scientists in the U.S. and abroad are testing several methods of

mitochondrial replacement to create three-parent embryos and allow

mothers with mitochondrial diseases to have their own biological

children. One procedure, pronuclear transfer (PNT), completes invitro

fertilization using the two primary parents’ gametes. At the

same time, the father’s sperm is used to fertilize a donor egg with

healthy mitochondria. Pronuclei, or the nuclei from the cells involved

in fertilization, are removed from the primary parents and deposited

into the second embryo. The embryo is eventually transferred to the

mitochondrial replacement

is legalized and is successful

‘‘If

in clinical trials, [it] will likely

come to the surface as the

safest and most effective way

to prevent mitochondrial

disease from passing through

successive generations.”

mother with the hope of a successful birth of a disease-free baby.

Two additional methods of mitochondrial replacement include

Maternal Spindle Transfer and Nuclear Genome Transfer, both

of which utilize the mother’s nuclear DNA directly from the egg.

The donor egg’s nuclear DNA is removed, and the mother’s nuclear

DNA replaces the discarded donor DNA. The new egg with healthy

mitochondria and the mother’s nuclear DNA is fertilized with sperm

from the father in-vitro, and the egg is then transferred to the mother.

If mitochondrial replacement is legalized and is successful

in clinical trials, one of these three methods—PNT, Maternal

Spindle Transfer, or Nuclear Genome Transfer—will likely come

to the surface as the safest and most effective way to prevent

mitochondrial disease from passing through successive generations.

Of course there are a multitude of risks for women receiving invitro

fertilization after mitochondrial replacement. First and foremost,

pregnancy and delivery of a child is not guaranteed. The general

in-vitro fertilization treatment is not entirely safe, and the addition

of chemicals used in mitochondrial manipulation is speculated

to increase the risk of harmful effects for the mother. Because

mitochondrial replacement has yet to be tested in humans, scientists

are unsure if the mother’s body will react negatively to the implanted

three-parent embryo. Moreover, the three-parent child may not be

perfectly healthy, and may instead be born with damaged physiology.

While it is true that three-parent children would avoid

inheriting Leigh syndrome, they could potentially face other lethal

complications. It is possible that birth defects and other negative

reactions to the reagents used in the procedure will occur. In fact,

mitochondrial replacement might even result in mitochondrial disease

as a result of incomplete mitochondrial transfer or incompatibility.

A variety of diseases can also be caused by epigenetic changes that

occur during mitochondrial replacement. These modifications do not

affect DNA directly, but instead modify DNA expression through

chemical reactions such as DNA methylation. Unfortunately, such

detrimental epigenetic changes can be passed on to future generations.

Governments around the globe prohibit genetic modifications in

humans for ethical reasons. Even the limited germ line modification

entailed by mitochondrial replacement has caused disputes. On

one side, opponents of the new therapy argue that if scientists

can modify DNA in the embryo, there is nothing stopping them

from creating “designer babies.” But in general, opposition to the

three-parent embryo remains relatively quiet for now; proponents

are looking ahead to the potential of mitochondrial replacement in

helping patients of mitochondrial diseases live more fulfilling lives.


October 2014


31

FEATURE

cryptography

Q

U A N T U M

C O M P U T I N G

An uncertain future for information security

BY JACOB MARKS

On September 10th, news broke that roughly five million Gmail

accounts had been hacked, and their passwords had been stolen .

This followed on the heels of a cyber attack against Community

Health System, Inc., in which personal data of more than four

million patients was compromised , and came soon after a credit card

theft that affected Home Depot locations all over the world, making

the home improvement store the largest retailer yet to succumb to

computerized security theft.

Every day, it seems,

governments and corporations

fall victim to data leaks caused by

anonymous online crusaders or

foreign terrorist organizations—

leaks which call into question the

efficacy of modern computer

security measures. But quantum

cryptography, the use of

quantum mechanical principles

to make and break codes,

could irrevocably alter the way

cyber crimes are committed

and defended against. If

recent advances in quantum

key distribution come to full

fruition, they could reconfigure

the cybercrime landscape,

and give renewed hope for

information security.

Deriving from the Greek

words kryptos, for ‘hidden’, and graphein, for ‘writing’, cryptography

is defined as the science of writing secret codes . For thousands

of years, the practice has been used to protect state secrets and to

transmit war strategies. The ancient Greeks wrote messages along

cloth wound around sticks of a specific diameter, and the Romans

developed the first substitution cipher, called the Caesar Shift, in

which each letter in a message was shifted forward a certain number

of places. Later ciphers, such as those produced by the Enigma

machines used by German forces in World War II, involved multiple

substitution schemes, or arrangements of the alphabet to encrypt

messages.

But the advent of the computer in the latter half of the twentieth

century spurred a cryptographic revolution couched in a new type of

security By allowing for the electronic transmission of large quantities

of data, the computer introduced the need to securely transmit

information at a distance. In the past, sender and receiver shared

special knowledge about how

the message was encrypted—

such as the diameter of

the stick. But computers

necessitated a cryptosystem

that could securely transmit

information between people

who did not share a previously

agreed upon key.

The solution, public-key

cryptography, makes use of a

one-way problem—something

that is easy to solve in one

direction, but hard to solve

in the other. RSA, one of the

IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA

D-wave: D-Wave Two, pictured above, is the world’s most complex

quantum computer. Created in 2013, D-Wave Two is comprised of 512

qubits, and performs an optimization algorithm orders of magnitude

faster than classical computers.

IMAGE COURTESY OF 33RD SQUARE

most widely-used public key

cryptosystems, is rooted in the

assumption that it is easy for a

computer to multiply two large

prime numbers, but much

harder for it to factor the result

into the two initial primes. However, public key systems like this rely

on the limited computing power of cryptanalysts, or code-breakers.

Although hard to solve, the problem of factorization is certainly

possible, and as computing power has increased, the key length

needed to ensure information security has increased as well. In 2009,

a 768 bit RSA key (an integer represented by a string of 768 0s and

1s), was successfully factored by Thorsten Kleinjung and colleagues

, and some people believe that the 1024 bit RSA keys now in use will


cryptography

FEATURE

be breakable in the near future using only classical computers.

Furthermore, quantum computing, a subset of quantum

cryptography, threatens to dissolve public-key cryptography

entirely. Quantum computers use qubits , the quantum analog of

classical bits, to perform operations on data. Whereas bits can take

the value of either 0 or 1, qubits exhibit the quantum property of

superposition. This means that they can simultaneously be 0 and

1, or any combination of the two. As a result, quantum computers

can theoretically use Shor’s algorithm , an algorithm developed by

Peter Shor in 1994 for the efficient factorization of prime numbers.

In short, quantum computers may be able to solve the one-way

problem that is the very foundation for public-key encryption.

Because of this, perceptions of quantum cryptography are often

skewed. “Most people think that quantum cryptography will limit

information privacy”, Yale Professor of Applied Physics Steven

Girvin acknowledges, “but the truth is that it will actually enhance

privacy.” Although quantum computing may one day be used to

break existing public key cryptosystems, quantum key distribution

‘

Most

people think that

quantum cryptography will

limit information privacy

but the truth is that it will

actually enhance privacy

Steven Girvin

could replace these flawed alternatives and pave the way for secure

communication, even over public channels.

Quantum key distribution, or QKD, is a subset of quantum

cryptography that allows two parties to produce a shared random

key , which they can then use to encrypt and decrypt private

messages. It is split into two main branches, superposition, and

quantum entanglement, the concept that particles are produced

whose states cannot be described independently, and respectively.

The most successful implementation of QKD, BB84 , falls into the

first category. Named after Bennett and Brassard, BB84 uses photon

polarization states to transmit information from sender to source.

The sender selects two complementary states, each described by two

bases. By the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that

it is impossible to measure two interdependent physical quantities

simultaneously, only one of the two states can be known.

For each photon, the sender chooses a random bit (0 or 1), and one

of the two bases that describe the state, and prepares the state of the

photon based on both of these random choices. The recipient must

also randomly choose a basis in which to measure the photon, and

when the sender and recipient use the same basis, they will observe

the same state. The resulting string of shared choices becomes their

key, and the rest of the photons are discarded.

One of the benefits of this system is that it is impervious to

eavesdroppers. Due to the no cloning theorem , the act of observing a

system changes its state, so if an eavesdropper intercepts transmitted

photons, the sender and receiver will know they are being spied on.

Dr. Girvin expounds, “there are no quantum Xerox machines; you

can’t copy quantum information.”

In the past few years, BB84 and protocols involving quantum

entanglement have been used to successfully distribute keys through

air, and via optical fibers, reaching distances of up to 148 kilometers.

QKD was used to secure the results of a 2007 Swiss election, and the

Chinese government uses QKD to protect state secrets.

Although companies such as ID Quantique offer quantum key

distribution services, the system has not been universally adopted

due to its lack of robustness, range, and reasonable price. But this

is bound to change. Battelle is working on building a 650 kilometer

optical fiber for QKD, and the Chinese government plans to

complete construction on a 2000 kilometer link between Beijing and

Shanghai by 2016. If researchers succeed in their goal of expanding

quantum key distribution to satellites, we will soon have a secure

communication network connecting disparate parts of the globe .

If quantum key distribution matures into a feasible cryptosystem,

and is adopted as the standard, then it will free us from the limitations of

existing public-key systems, and render the code-breaking capabilities

of quantum computers worthless. It is important to realize, however,

that cryptography is only one aspect of information security. “The

biggest security problem today is people”. Dr. Fischer, who teaches

a course at Yale on computer security cautions, “the easiest way to

break in is to trick or bribe someone into giving you the access to

the data. Even the most sophisticated technological measures can’t

prevent this” . Instead of breaking codes through brute force and

computational power, cyber criminals will turn to manipulation to gain

access to sensitive

information.

In theory, a

successful attack

against quantum

cryptography would

violate the laws

of physics. There

could, however, be

attacks based on

the physical objects

used to transmit

the data, such as

the detector used

IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA

The Caesar Shift Cipher, invented by the Romans, was the first

substitution cipher. Each letter in the alphabet was shifted forward a

pre-set number of places, with z looping back to a.

IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA

The Scytale is a type of transposition

cipher used in ancient Greece, which involved

wrapping cloth around a stick.

for observing the photons. Unless we are wrong about the laws of

physics, quantum key distribution has the potential to be both secure,

and feasible. Where humans are involved, cryptosystems can always

be broken. Nonetheless, quantum cryptography may reconfigure the

relationship between code-makers and code-breakers.

www.yalescientific.org October 2014 Yale Scientific Magazine 33

FEATURE

undergraduate profile

Yetunde Meroe (MC ’16)

AN EPICUREAN ENGINEER

BY MINA HIMWICH

Yetunde Meroe (MC ‘16) takes her food seriously.

As a chemical engineering major, Meroe ties her passion for

engineering and industry to a love for food and an interest in social

outreach. Her work as a Lazarus fellow at the Yale Farm this past

summer illustrates her desire to unite these diverse fields. “Food is

tied to everything in society – you can’t remove it from anything,” she

said. Meroe, who grew up in Ghana, plays a variety of different roles

at Yale, including Student Manager at the Afro-American Cultural

Center and President of the Yale Women’s Rugby Football Club. In

her scientific pursuits, she is set on using her engineering background

to make a positive contribution in communities similar to her home

community in Ghana.

The Lazarus internship, a fellowship that involves working at

the Yale Farm, gives students from a variety of backgrounds the

opportunity to experience different social, economic, culinary,

and scientific aspects of food. Meroe took her summer work very

seriously, and realized that she could use engineering to improve

conditions of food and agriculture back home. “You get a little bit

of everything [through the internship], and it really helped me look at

the importance of food in a different way,” Meroe said.

During the summer, Meroe participated in a wide variety of foodrelated

activities, including canvassing for free public school meals,

visiting public schools to see their food production process, working

in an industrial kitchen, and sailing on an oyster boat. She also took

classes on cultural economics and soil chemistry. The program was a

small group of only six students. “You get to know them very well,”

Meroe said.

Two components of her summer fellowship stood out to her in

particular. “I think the most enlightening part for me was the soil class,

and also going to a food depot, which serves Yale, up in Hartford,”

Meroe said. The food depot is a wholesale food seller, where large

amounts of food are sold in bulk. “In Ghana, we don’t have anything

like that. It was interesting trying to envision something like that back

home,” Meroe added.

In fact, home is never far from Meroe’s mind. In her conversations

at school, especially in her engineering courses, she pays attention

to how different systems or models might work in Ghana. When a

new idea is introduced, she always tries to envision it working back

home. Meroe’s summer research project focused on improving the

soil quality of semi-arid locations, specifically northern Ghana. This

gave her additional insight into the potential for new soil engineering

systems in her home country. “This gave me that connection more

than any other experience I’ve had at Yale. I was really appreciative

of that,” she said.

Building off of her soil research, Meroe is considering a thesis

involving soil science. “This summer has really made me start thinking

about a lot of things I would never have considered before,” Meroe

said. “I was so anti-grad school before this summer.” However, she

is now applying to the five-year Master’s program at the School of

Forestry, from which she would graduate with a master’s degree

in Environmental Management. Meroe is further considering a

concentration in either energy or industrial systems.

Meroe looks back on her internship at the Yale Farm with nothing

but positivity. “The best thing is to try different things,” Meroe said.

“I didn’t think this summer would be as transformative as it was. It

was getting in touch with your food, getting to know where your food

comes from. No matter what you think you’ll do in the future, that is

a transformative process in itself.” For her, of course, the experience

did lead to an ignited passion for using her academic background to

make a real difference in the world.

Meroe recommends getting involved in the community: “There are

so many opportunities, especially if you’re interested in food access,

food justice, and the social aspect of food. New Haven is a good

place to be to educate yourself on the issues of what’s being done,

and there are exciting things related to food activism – it’s a great

place to be.”

IMAGES COURTESY OF YETUNDE MEROE

LEFT: Meroe thoroughly enjoined her work at the Yale Farm this

past summer, and she loved getting to know the other Lazarus fellows.

RIGHT: Meroe tends to plants at the Yale Farm. The Lazarus

fellowship gave her the opportunity to learn about soil science and

the effects of soil variation on growing food.

34 Yale Scientific Magazine October 2014


David Spiegel (YC ’67)

BY SUMMER WU

In The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel, a 16-year-old girl diagnosed with

terminal cancer, falls in love with Gus, a philosophical 17-year-old

boy she meets at a cancer support group. Had it not been for Dr.

David Spiegel, a 1967 Yale graduate, Hazel and Gus would never

have met. Among his plethora of projects, Spiegel, alongside his

mentor, existential psychiatrist Irvin Yalom, started the first cancer

support group in 1976. This psychosocial approach to cancer care

was immensely successful, and it led to the ubiquity of cancer

support groups we see today.

Spiegel is currently a professor of psychiatry and behavioral

sciences at Stanford University. His fascination with the brain can be

traced back to his undergraduate years, when he fell in love with—

and decided to major in—philosophy. “Philosophy helped me better

think about how people are structured,” Spiegel said. Still, he knew

he wanted to enter a field with the potential to create new knowledge.

“Being a philosopher would be great—teaching freshmen Plato,

not so much,” Spiegel added. Ultimately, his desire to gain a deeper

understanding of human beings led him to the intersection of

medicine and philosophy.

After completing medical school and residency at Harvard in 1974,

Spiegel dove into the research of mind-body interactions at Stanford.

In his first cancer support group, specifically for women with breast

cancer, he observed the effects of group psychotherapy on cancer

outcomes. “Existence is fleeting—we don’t appreciate what it is to

exist until we contemplate the idea that we won’t,” Spiegel said. “We

work with people who are facing that and see if it can be a period

of growth.”

In the groups, Spiegel led discussions on detoxifying death, grieving

over losses, and living with the knowledge that death is inevitable.

The process is anything but easy: “It’s like looking into the Grand

Canyon when you’re afraid of heights,” Spiegel said. But he added

that “facing the worst” helps cancer patients gain strength. He soon

noticed a pattern in the support group: at first, the women tried to

guard their thoughts, but once they discovered that opening up made

IMAGE COURTESY OF DAVID SPIEGEL

In the 1960s, Spiegel (far right) was a member of Calhoun College.

alumni profile

FEATURE

FROM PHILOSOPHY TO MEDICINE

IMAGE COURTESY OF STANFORD SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Today, Spiegel conducts research in two primary areas:

psychotherapy for cancer patients and hypnosis.

them feel better, they began to communicate more with each other

and with their families. Being surrounded by a group of women with

advanced cancer fostered a sense of community for each woman.

In 1989, Spiegel published the results of his groundbreaking study

on support groups, which found that group psychotherapy extends

the lives of cancer patients by an average of 1.5 years. Since then,

his paper has been cited more than 2,600 times. In 2012, he was

inducted into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies

for the significance and influence of his research. “We found that

depression, social support, and sleep disruption all predict survival,”

Spiegel said, summarizing his major findings.

Spiegel also specializes in research on hypnosis. One of his current

projects uses fMRI to detect differences in the brain during high and

low hypnotic activity. “It’s lots of fun—we put students in a scanner,

then hypnotize them!” he said.

At Yale, Spiegel took Directed Studies, played guitar for Neck,

the Indian Folk Music Club, and was an active member of both

the debate team and the Yale Political Union. His most difficult

class was organic chemistry. He found the interaction between his

courses in medicine and his courses in philosophy fascinating. “I kept

wandering elsewhere and getting drawn back to human psychology,”

Spiegel said.

Spiegel intends to continue his passionate pursuit of understanding

how the mind affects the body. In addition, he would like to see

techniques such as hypnosis taken more seriously. According to

Spiegel, hypnosis is often portrayed as a “stupid stage show rather

than a therapeutic tool.” He hopes to harness the massive reach of

the Internet to disseminate tools that patients can use to deal with

trauma.

When asked whether he has any advice for current Yale students

hoping to follow in his footsteps, Spiegel replied: “Pose yourself a

question, and acquire the education.” From seeking an interdisciplinary

understanding of philosophy and medicine to spearheading a new

forefront of psychotherapy, Spiegel exemplifies his own counsel.


October 2014


35

FEATURE

meteorology

MYTHbusters

The Not-So-Simple

WEATHER

BY JENNA DIRITO

As much as people might try to deny it, winter is coming to the

northeast. And according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, it is going to

be brutal. There may be some hope, however, for those who despise

the cold: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA) is predicting a milder winter. Most importantly, what arises

from this discrepancy is the notion that predicting the weather is

much more complicated and nuanced than the public knows.

The almanac predicts “below-normal temperatures” for almost

75 percent of the country, with the Northern Plains and the Great

Lakes being hit the hardest. It also suggests that the eastern coastal

region has a snowy winter ahead. While NOAA is not set to release its

detailed winter forecast until mid-October, the patterns it is picking

up as of now do not seem to indicate a harsh winter. Historically,

The Old Farmer’s Almanac has been more accurate than NOAA, but

both of these systems are only predictions. The methods each uses

reveal the complex science of weather prediction.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac was first published by Robert B. Thomas

in 1972. Like other almanacs of its time, it predicted sunsets, sunrises,

tides, weather, and an abundance of other natural occurrences. This

particular almanac, however, was said to be accurate 80 percent

of the time, almost twice as often as any competing publication.

Thomas had devised a secretive weather forecasting formula based

on a complicated system of observed natural cycles. To this day, the

formula is hidden away in a black tin box.

NOAA prides itself on pursuing forecasts from a wholly scientific—

and entirely transparent—approach. Researchers use the North

Atlantic Oscillation index to predict winter weather and precipitation.

This index,

however, can

only predict

forecasts three

or four weeks

in advance, as

opposed to

predictions

months ahead

of time by the

Almanac. The

NOAA collects

data from a

series of 120

forecast centers

and relies on

information

gathered from

various weather

IMAGE COURTESY OF NOAA

NOAA uses advanced satellite technology to

receive the most up-to-date weather forecasts.

satellites located from Maryland to Hawaii. They gather information

on everything from cloud systems to city lights, fires, effects of

pollution, auroras, sand and dust storms, snow cover, ice mapping,

boundaries of ocean currents, and energy flows.

The NOAA also has Doppler weather radars to detect precipitation

velocity via application of the Doppler Effect. Atmospheric objects

that move

toward the

radar produce

a positive shift

in the frequency

of the radar

signal while

outbound

objects provide

a negative shift.

The changes

in frequency


effectively allow


meteorologists

NOAA’s advanced technology can receive to see motion in

updated, accurate pictures of developing weather,

the atmosphere,

like the storm system pictured here.

and to track

storms. At any

given time, NOAA is running advanced algorithms that are updating

the weather outcomes. This is part of the reason why a weatherman’s

prediction is always changing.

Weather satellites used by NOAA carry radiometers that

continuously scan the Earth to form images and create weather

models. Radiometers are usually comprised of infrared or microwave

radiation detectors, small telescopes, and scanning devices. The

satellites produce images in less than a minute. These images are

delivered in the form of electric voltages. Many of the satellites

that transmit images to the Internet or television stations are in a

geostationary orbit, rotating with the speed of the Earth to allow

a continuous view of the same geographic area. This complicated

technology reflects another reason why weather forecasts are

frequently updated.

Each of these technologies has its own advantages. While The

Old Farmer’s Almanac is more of a general speculation on a longterm

basis, it boasts a great deal of accuracy. Government scientists

working with NOAA maintain an image of reputability, but their

“long-term” predictions, really 90 days at max, have at most 60

percent accuracy. NOAA, however, is able to give an incredibly

detailed forecast in the short-term. Researchers there are making

tremendous advances in predicting the extent and timing of extreme

weather, which has become an increasing threat worldwide.

Overall, it is important to acknowledge that meteorology is by

no means an exact science, and to dispel the myth that any weather

forecast is simple. In reality, the science of weather prediction is

anything but straightforward. Weather patterns evolve. The algorithms

behind forecasting the weather are tremendously complicated,

and accordingly, weather forecasting technology is advancing at an

exponential rate. Still, uncertainty regarding the weather persists.



Unsolved Mysteries The Mpemba Effect

?

BY KEVIN SALINAS

Boiling water freezes more quickly than does water at This theory was one

room temperature. Discovered in 1969 and labeled the of the first proposed,

“Mpemba Effect,” this phenomenon remains a mystery to but it became one of

scientists. The Mpemba Effect went relatively unnoticed the first in a long chain

throughout early human history. References by Aristotle of theories to be tested

and René Descartes demonstrate a vague awareness of the since 1970. During initial

effect, but provide no explanation.

experiments conducted,

Since the Mpemba Effect caught the attention of a Mpemba, working with Dr.

Tanzanian high school student nearly 50 years ago, various Osborne, compared various

attempts have been made to understand the phenomenon. heated beakers of water to

Results from different experiments vary, and no single those that were not heated. They

theory has been substantial. Two major explanations found that evaporation causes only

involve the processes of evaporation and supercooling, slight changes in volume. No more than 30 percent of the

though neither has sufficient empirical support.

cooling could be attributed to this volume loss. There had

The discovery of the Mpemba Effect is a story of its to be other causes for the effect, they both concluded.

own, taking place before the great scientific debates that On the other hand, supercooling is a theory based on

this bizarre phenomenon has sparked. Erasto Mpemba was the fact that water temperature sometimes drops below

making ice cream one day in high school. He mixed boiled the freezing point before it turns into ice. Professor James

milk and sugar just as the rest of the class did, but rather Brownridge at Binghamton University found that water in

than waiting until the milk cooled, Mpemba put his hot sealed containers will almost always drop below the freezing

milk in the refrigerator right away. He later checked on his temperature before becoming ice. He also found that the

bag and realized that it became ice cream before any of the magnitude of supercooling is smaller for hot water than it

other bags. His teacher told him that this should not have is for cool water. In other words, hot water does not have to

happened, and dismissed the episode. But Mpemba would drop as far below the freezing point, and thus it will freeze

not take that as an answer.

more quickly than cold water. There are no explanations as

Soon after this incident Dr. Denis Osborne, a physics to why hot water supercools to a lesser extent than water at

professor, visited Mpemba’s school. He did not have an room temperature, which only adds more to this mystery.

answer when Mpemba asked why hot water freezes faster Despite many attempts and explorations, scientists have

than cold water. However, he was so intrigued by the fallen short of finding a definitive explanation for the

question that he began to work with Mpemba to solve the Mpemba Effect.

conundrum. This was more than 40 years ago.

Still, the Mpemba Effect remains a very real phenomenon

Since then, many scientists have searched for an with impacts outside of the lab. Besides Mpemba’s ice

explanation, but have failed to reach a consensus. One cream observation, this effect can be seen in other aspects

theory is based on the process of evaporation. Hot water of daily life. The recent fad of making “instant snow” on

will evaporate more quickly than cold water, with a greater chilly days by throwing boiling water up into the air is a

change in volume in a given time. Evaporation causes heat manifestation of the Mpemba Effect. Room temperature

loss, and lower mass also makes it easier to reduce the water thrown up into cold air results in nothing more than

temperature of water and to get the water to freeze. Thus, the water falling to the ground. Despite such interesting

some scientists theorized that rate of evaporation may be observations, the Mpemba Effect remains an unsolved

at the root of the Mpemba Effect.

mystery.

October 2014

ART BY RACHEL LAWRENCE


37

FEATURE

TV show review

SCIENCE IN THE

SPOTLIGHT

TV SHOW REVIEW : DUCK QUACKS DON’T ECHO

BY DANIELLE STAMER

“Duck Quacks Don’t Echo” promises to excite viewers with facts

that range from shocking to outrageous. The hosts, comedians Tom

Papa, Michael Ian Black, and Seth Herzog, compete

in this National Geographic program to present

the most interesting fact to the audience in order

to win the coveted “Golden Quack.” While “Duck

Quacks” presents fun facts in a highly entertaining

manner, it only occasionally addresses the scientific

basis of these facts. The hosts’ primary focus is on

the spirit and hilarity of competition, which forces

them to sacrifice scientific complexity. Still, the

program undoubtedly inspires curiosity, and every

episode is enjoyable in its own way.

The show draws facts from a variety of disciplines.

For surprising facts, like “redheads have a higher pain

tolerance than non-redheads,” the hosts interview

an expert (in this case, a geneticist from a research

university), who describes the science involved.

Then they conduct an experiment to demonstrate

the fact’s validity, and use a careful description of the procedure,

materials, controls, and results. The interview, too, introduces complex

concepts like genetics, evolutionary psychology, and chemistry in

TV SHOW REVIEW : THROUGH THE WORMHOLE

BY MALINI GANDHI

a clear – albeit oversimplified – manner. Other facts, such as “you

can scale a wall using vacuum cleaners,” may not be mind-blowing

findings, but are neat demonstrations of physics.

“Duck Quacks” commonly cuts the science to put

the hosts in silly situations, such as a hovercraft

race for the fact “you can make a hovercraft using

household items,” or a trivia competition in which

the hosts merely list facts. This is a shame because

the show has great potential to use science to

explain the unbelievable.

Despite its flaws, “Duck Quacks” is definitely

entertaining, especially with the laugh-out-loud

banter between the hosts, who lead each episode

with enthusiasm and energy. Although the show

may skimp on the science for broader appeal, it

remains exciting. Given that it premiered in January,

the program will hopefully continue to grow and

improve as it gains viewership. By showing the

simple “what,” the show at least encourages viewers

to discover the complex “why” on their own. “Duck Quacks Don’t

Echo” might just scratch the surface of science, but it definitely

meets any trivia-nut’s fill.

IMAGE COURTESY OF AMAZON

Morgan Freeman’s iconic voice announcing “space…time…life

itself ” echoes through the television series “Through the Wormhole.”

Filled with the dappled glow of galaxies and the spiraling of particle

collisions, the show is a vivid, mind-bending dance of physics and

philosophy.

The series, which premiered on Science Channel in 2010 and is

hosted by Freeman, draws on astrophysics and cosmology to tackle

the big questions of existence — questions about where we come

from, where we are going, and the elegant ways in which our universe

works. While the show

sometimes suffers

from an overblown

tone and wishy-washy

scientific explanations,

it excels in presenting

complex, abstract

topics in an accessible,

entertaining way.

IMAGE COURTESY OF GOOGLE PLAY Each episode

focuses on a mystery

of our universe. A more standard topic might be black holes, while

a funkier, less conventional topic might be whether or not aliens

worship gods. All the episodes emphasize the intersection of science

and philosophy. This tone is established in the premiere episode,

“Is there a Creator?” which uses science to examine the age-old

philosophical debate about God. The theme is also beautifully

rendered in the episode “Is Time Travel Possible?” which artfully

explains the theory of relativity and also explores philosophical

paradoxes of time travel.

One of the show’s notable strengths is its use of colorful analogies

to make tough concepts understandable. In the episode “Is There a

Shadow Universe?” which tackles dark matter, the self-interaction

of dark matter when galaxy clusters collide is illustrated by two

physicists having a spaghetti-and-meatball food fight. These quirky,

real-life comparisons add an engaging element of humor to the show.

Of course “Through the Wormhole” is not without its faults.

It tends towards the sensational, with Freeman melodramatically

introducing dark matter with “Could shadows threaten our world

of light?” The scientific explanations are often hand-wavy, which,

though appropriate for the show’s tone and audience, may frustrate

physics majors.

Regardless, “Through the Wormhole,” which wrapped up its

fifth season in July, succeeds at engaging audiences with beautiful,

elegant questions so often distanced from the public by high-level

mathematics. The show ultimately challenges us to think deeply

about the universe and our place in it.


Mysteries

of the Mind

BY ANDREW SUNG

cartoon

FEATURE

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