YSM Issue 89.1

Yale Scientific 

Established in 1894 

THE NATION’S OLDEST COLLEGE SCIENCE PUBLICATION 

DECEMBER 2015 VOL. 89 NO. 1 

BATTLING 

IN REAL TIME 

Live brain imaging helps patients 

attack anxiety at the source

q a 

& 

►BY SURYABRATA DUTTA 

How Is Dust Affecting the California Drought? 

The future of the drought crisis in 

California may depend on an unlikely factor 

— dust. 

The impact of dust on precipitation and 

water retention in the ground is mixed, 

which leaves scientists largely uncertain of 

whether it will benefit or worsen conditions 

in the torrid land. Unpacking the effects 

of dust could prove vital as California 

confronts its current drought conditions. 

Some researchers fear that the state’s 

accumulating dust will only escalate the 

drought problem. Most of California’s 

water supply begins as snow in the Sierra 

Nevada Mountains before it melts and seeps 

into reservoirs. As the state gets drier, dust 

accumulates on the snow, darkening its 

surface and accelerating the melting process 

— dark surfaces more effectively capture 

heat energy from the sun. By the estimates of 

Thomas Painter, a NASA snow hydrologist, 

this discoloration could cause the snow 

to melt as many as 25 days earlier than it 

IMAGE COURTESY OF FLICKR 

►Discolored and darkened snow absorbs 

thermal radiation more effectively than clean 

snow, which causes faster melting. This is one 

of many ways that dust factors into drought. 

normally would. Instead of replenishing 

California’s dwindling water supply in the 

hot summer months, Painter has found 

that this earlier snowmelt causes runoff to 

occur in the spring, when the reservoirs are 

already mostly full from winter rains. 

Other scientists hope that the dust will 

increase precipitation. Kim Prather, an 

atmospheric climatologist at the University 

of California, San Diego, has found that 

dust induces water vapor to condense, form 

clouds, and increase rainfall or snowfall. 

This process, known as cloud seeding, 

increases rain and snowfall by up to 40 

percent. 

Although it is not yet clear whether dust 

is improving or devastating California’s 

drought crisis, researchers know that the 

situation is getting more urgent every day. 

Understanding the dual effects of dust on 

drought are important in working towards 

these solutions to restore the parched and 

drying land. 

►BY ERIN WANG 

That late night coffee could be throwing 

your circadian clock out of sync. A study 

led by researchers from the University 

of Colorado Boulder and Cambridge 

University shows that caffeine in the 

evening causes a delay in the human 

biological clock — rhythms that coordinate 

a healthy sleep-wake cycle. Scientists have 

provided empirical evidence for the notion 

that caffeine and sleep do not mix well. 

Circadian rhythms are not trivial. They 

respond to light and darkness in a 24- 

hour cycle. They regulate hundreds of vital 

physiological and biological processes. 

And according to Yale School of Public 

Health professor Yong Zhu, disruptions in 

circadian rhythms can increase the risks of 

depression and hormone-related cancers. 

To determine how caffeine impacts circadian 

rhythms, subjects in the present 

study received one of three treatments: 

How Does Caffeine Impact Your Internal Clock? 

PHOTO BY ERIN WANG 

►A double espresso shot delays the human 

biological clock by 40 minutes. Research on 

caffeine and circadian rhythms could improve our 

understanding of sleep disorders. 

a caffeine dose equivalent to a double 

espresso shot, a placebo pill, or exposure 

to bright or dim light three hours before 

bedtime. Caffeine delayed subjects’ circadian 

clocks by an average of 40 minutes. 

This was about half the shift induced by 

bright light, a well-known time cue for our 

natural circadian rhythms. 

The researchers also discovered that 

caffeine directly affects an intercellular 

messenger molecule called cyclic AMP, 

which plays a key role in maintaining 

circadian rhythms. According to paper 

author Kenneth Wright, the results of this 

study suggest that caffeine may delay sleep 

timing through circadian mechanisms. 

Night owls and late risers can learn from 

the study’s findings: To get out of bed 

earlier in the morning, skip your evening 

coffee. Your reset circadian clock will 

thank you.


Established 1894 

CONTENTS 

DECEMBER 2015 VOL. 89 ISSUE NO. 1 

ON THE COVER 

Battling OCD in 

Real Time 

Neuroscientists are using real time 

fMRI to show people how to control 

their own brain activity. Armed with 

neurofeedback, OCD patients might 

regain control of their anxiety. 

5 

6 

6 

7 

7 

NEWS 

Letter From the Editor 

The Global Burden of Leptospirosis 

Yale Radiobiologist Wins Nobel Prize 

Dylan Gee Receives NIH Award 

Linguists Illuminate Number Systems 

ART BY STEPHANIE MAO 

12 

Predator vs. Prey: 

Who’s Changing Whom? 

Predators may not deserve all the credit 

for driving evolution. In isolated lakes, 

fish prey have a profound impact on their 

larger fish predators. 

14 

17 

Ice in Action: Sea Ice 

and Climate Change 

Arctic sea ice is known to predict climate 

change effects around the globe. A new 

mathematical model makes sense of the 

forecast. 

8 

9 

10 

11 

25 

The Significance of Swine in Society 

Textbook Explores Real World Math 

Development and Bridges to Peace 

HIV: Last Barrier to a Cure 

FEATURES 

Electrical Engineering 

Portobello Mushrooms Power Batteries 

ART BY CHRISTINA ZHANG 

Foresting from 

20 the Ground Up 

Private woodland owners in 

Connecticut have found their 

niche in modern forestry. 

Environmental programs like 

the Quiet Corner Initiative 

offer resources and support, 

but ultimately, it is up to 

the individual landowner to 

conserve and preserve the 

forest. 

26 

27 

28 

30 

32 

34 

Nanotechnology 

Modeling Nanocrystals for Real World Use 

Medicine 

Self-propelled Particles Halt Hemorrhage 

Microbiology 

You Have a Microbial Cloud! 

Evolution 

Bugs and Bees: How Viruses Bridged the Gap 

Materials Science 

Magnetic Materials and Faster Computers 

Debunking Science 

The Martian 

To Rebuild a Lung, 

23 First Strip it Down 

35 

Science or Science Fiction? 

Making Virtual Reality a Reality 

Researchers are fine-tuning a 

method of decellularizing pig 

lungs to obtain an intact lung 

scaffold. This scaffold could then 

be populated by human stem cells. 

The final product: a custom-made 

lung, the dream for many who 

wait on a long list for a viable lung 

transplant. 

ART BY CHRISTINA ZHANG 

36 

37 

38 

Undergraduate Profile: 

Samantha Lichtin ES ‘16 

Alumni Profile: 

Richard Lethin YC ‘85 

Science in the Spotlight 

“The Infinite Monkey Cage” 

“Science Vs” 

More articles available online at www.yalescientific.org 

www.yalescientific.org 

December 2015 

Yale Scientific Magazine 

3

FEATURE 

cartoon 

RELAXED STATE 

►BY CELINA CHIODO AND ANDREW SUNG 

advertisement

Science can be intimidating. It is fast-paced and unyielding. We are only 

human. It’s natural to feel vulnerable to science when it takes the form of 

a massive hurricane or appears as a microscopic virus hiding in your cells, 

plotting to strike (pg. 11). But science can also give us agency, putting us back 

in charge of our health and our planet. Our cover story for this issue of the Yale 

Scientific (pg. 17) explores how developments in brain imaging technology 

are allowing people to watch their minds at work. No longer are fMRI scans 

only interpretable by doctors — with real time fMRI, OCD patients see their 

own brains in action and can learn to regulate their own brain activity. With 

science on their side, they regain control of neural networks that have been 

hijacked by anxiety. 

This is one of many stories you’ll read here that features people taking science 

into their own hands. When two professors were unsatisfied by available 

math textbooks, they published their own (pg. 9). Forest preservation in 

Connecticut largely depends on individual woodland owners caring for their 

property (pg. 20). Doctors are realizing the power of personalized medicine, 

devising treatment strategies catered to the individual. In one step of this 

movement, researchers in tissue engineering are working towards customized 

lung transplants (pg. 23). 

A couple years ago, this magazine released an issue themed “Science 

and the Individual.” Remarkably, in less than 24 months time, we notice 

tremendous progress in personalized medicine, citizen science, grassroots 

campaigns for conservation and sustainability, and other scientific arenas 

where individuals stand at the forefront. As science accelerates, we also see 

new efforts to communicate it, to keep up. The pages that follow include the 

Yale Scientific’s first ever reviews of science podcasts (pg. 38) and a debunking 

of The Martian (pg. 34), a fictional film that still makes an effort to present 

nuanced scientific insight. 

Indeed, one of our goals as a publication is to adapt to the changing scene of 

science and science journalism. To this end, in the past year we’ve established 

a stronger online presence, launching a redesigned website, more social 

media content, and a prolific science blog. Vol. 89, Issue No. 1 is the last 

that we’ll publish as the 2015 masthead. We wish the best of luck to the new 

editors of the magazine. We can’t wait to see what further change brings. 



THE NATION’S OLDEST COLLEGE SCIENCE PUBLICATION 

DECEMBER 2015 VOL. 89 NO. 1 

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

BATTLING 

IN REAL TIME 

Live brain imaging helps patients 

attack anxiety at the source 

A B O U T T H E A R T 

Payal Marathe 

Editor-in-Chief 

The cover, designed by arts editor Christina Zhang, 

depicts how neurofeedback therapy can help patients 

with OCD regulate their anxieties. In the foreground 

is a rendering of a patient undergoing an fMRI 

scan. The vividly illuminated regions of the brain 

represent the real time fMRI signals that researchers 

are using to correlate brain activity with strategies to 

lower anxiety. The arrows in the background indicate 

decreases in orbitofrontal cortex activity that occur 

when patients are able to successfully control their 

OCD-related fears. 


M A G A Z I N E 


December 2015 VOL. 89 NO. 1 

Editor-in-Chief 

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Staff 

Alex Allen 

Clio Byrne-Gudding 

Celina Chiodo 

Tracy Chung 

Chunyang Ding 

Marguerite Epstein-Martin 

Emma Healy 

Sarah Healy 

Lakshmi Iyengar 

Advisory Board 

Kurt Zilm, Chair 

Priyamvada Natarajan 

Fred Volkmar 

Stanley Eisenstat 

James Duncan 

Stephen Stearns 

Jakub Szefer 

Werner Wolf 

John Wettlaufer 

William Summers 

Scott Strobel 

Robert Bazell 

Ayaska Fernando 

Ivan Galea 

Newlyn Joseph 

Cheryl Mai 

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Ashlyn Oakes 

Andrea Ouyang 

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Stephanie Smelyansky 

Zach Smithline 

Andrew Sung 

Payal Marathe 

Adam Pissaris 

Nicole Tsai 

Christina de Fontnouvelle 

Theresa Steinmeyer 

Kevin Wang 

Grace Cao 

Jacob Marks 

Zachary Gardner 

Genevieve Sertic 

Julia Rothchild 

Allison Cheung 

Jenna DiRito 

Aviva Abusch 

Sofia Braunstein 

Suryabrata Dutta 

Amanda Mei 

Christina Zhang 

Stephen Le Breton 

Katherine Lin 

Peter Wang 

Jason Young 

Lionel Jin 

Sonia Wang 

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Patrick Demkowicz 

Kevin Hwang 

Ruiyi Gao 

Sarah Ludwin-Peery 

Milana Bochkur Dratver 

Aaron Tannenbaum 

Rain Tsong 

Kendrick Umstattd 

Erin Wang 

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Isabel Wolfe 

Kat Wyatt 

Christine Xu 

Cindy Yang 

Chemistry 

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Child Study Center 

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Yale Science & Engineering Association 

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NEWS 

in brief 

Leptospirosis: An Unexpected Global Disease Burden 

By Ruiyi Gao 

PHOTO BY CHERYL MAI 

►Albert Ko, professor of epidemiology 

at the Yale School of Public Health, has 

demonstrated that leptospirosis has a 

higher disease burden than expected. 

According to the research of Albert Ko at 

the Yale School of Medicine, leptospirosis 

makes a surprisingly high and previously unmeasured 

contribution to the global burden 

of disease. Ko’s team found that the tropical 

disease results in more than 60,000 deaths per 

year globally, and thus poses a burden comparable 

to that of cholera. 

Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection transmitted 

from animals to humans via soil and 

water. It often impacts subsistence farmers 

and slums in countries such as Brazil and India. 

Early symptoms of leptospirosis resemble 

those of malaria or the flu, but further progression 

often results in conditions such as 

pulmonary hemorrhaging — bleeding from 

the lung — which can be fatal. The exact 

mechanism by which the bacteria cause disease 

remains unknown. 

In 1996, Ko began working in Brazilian 

communities to prevent leptospirosis after a 

large outbreak among urban slums. In 2010, 

he was approached by the World Health Organization 

to conduct a more formal study of 

the disease burden. Ko’s group determined 

the disease burden using hospital data to estimate 

the morbidity and mortality of leptospirosis. 

Despite Ko’s recent quantification of the 

leptospirosis burden, future studies are still 

needed for more precise approximations. 

“Rapid urbanization and global expansion 

of slum settlements, as well as future climate 

change, will further increase disease transmission 

and thus disease burden,” Ko said. 

Ko emphasizes the importance of his team’s 

estimates in working towards alleviating the 

problem of leptospirosis in the developing 

world. “Though these estimates are only the 

first step in addressing the disease burden of 

leptospirosis, they are critical for establishing 

a baseline for future research and building 

the investment case for public policy interventions,” 

he said. 

Former Yale Radiobiologist Co-awarded Nobel Prize 

By Sarah Healy 

IMAGE COURTESY OF UT DALLAS 

►Aziz Sancar was awarded the 

2015 Nobel Prize in chemistry for 

elucidating a precise mechanism of 

DNA repair. 

Forty years after transitioning from 

medical practice to biochemistry research, 

Aziz Sancar has received the highest 

honor in his field: the 2015 Nobel Prize in 

chemistry. 

Sancar shared this award with Tomas 

Lindahl and Paul Modrich for their wideranging 

“mechanistic studies of DNA 

repair.” Specifically, Sancar was recognized 

for his discovery of how multiple enzymes 

work together during a process called 

nucleotide excision repair to fix DNA 

damaged by ultraviolet radiation in human 

and bacteria cells. 

From 1977 to 1982, Sancar worked as a 

postdoctoral fellow in professor W. Dean 

Rupp’s radiobiology lab at Yale. During 

this period, the researchers studied UVsensitive 

bacteria strains and discovered 

that certain enzymes make two incisions 

surrounding the UV-damaged region to 

eventually release it. A previous model for 

excision repair purported that only a single 

cut was made. 

“Up until that point, the method that 

everyone believed was that [these enzymes] 

only made a nick in the DNA, and then 

other enzymes came along and removed 

it,” Rupp said. Sancar’s revolutionary dual 

incision discovery in bacteria allowed him 

to later elucidate the more complex repair 

mechanism in human DNA. 

Regarding Sancar’s Nobel Prize, Rupp 

explained that the primary significance 

is the discovery of the bimodal incision, 

which Sancar determined in Rupp’s lab. 

Sancar’s findings expand upon the DNA 

repair research that has been conducted 

at Yale for decades. Now, he continues this 

work as a professor at the University of 

North Carolina. 

Rupp described Sancar’s work ethic as 

nothing short of outstanding: “He was a 

combination of very bright, very original, 

and very focused,” Rupp said. “He had 

complete dedication.” 

6 Yale Scientific Magazine December 2015 www.yalescientific.org

in brief 

NEWS 

Professor Dylan Gee Receives NIH Research Award 

By Cindy Yang 

Dylan Gee, who will begin at Yale in July 

2016 as an assistant professor in psychology, has 

received an NIH Director’s Early Independence 

Award. The award, which allows scientists to skip 

postdoctoral training and move immediately 

into independent research positions, supports 

“exceptional students that have the intellect, 

innovation, drive, and maturity to flourish 

independently,” said NIH Director Francis 

Collins. 

Gee’s research investigates the efficacy of 

safety signal learning, a method to treat anxiety 

disorders in children and adolescents. The 

approach involves training individuals to identify 

a safety cue to help reduce fear and anxiety. 

Her research bridges neuroscience and clinical 

approaches. Gee is interested in examining how 

disruptions in the normal development of the 

brain may contribute to anxiety disorders. She 

also focuses on how safety signal learning might 

help reduce anxiety during periods of increased 

neuroplasticity early in life. The brain’s circuitry 

is still forming in these early years, which makes 

it more malleable. 

“It is a tremendous honor to be selected, and 

I think it really speaks to how excited people 

are about the potential to target mental illness 

through early identification and intervention,” 

Gee said. With developmental neuroscience 

looking at the brain as it grows, Gee believes researchers 

can optimize mental health treatments 

for children and adolescents. 

Her decision to pursue this research was 

influenced by her passion for neuroscience 

and her experiences as an undergraduate at 

Dartmouth College, where she mentored youth 

who had experienced early adversity or trauma. 

“I was inspired to help improve mental health 

outcomes and to figure out how we can promote 

resilience and enhance treatment,” Gee said. 

The five-year grant from the NIH provides up 

to $1.25 million for research, and affords Gee 

the opportunity to launch immediately into her 

career. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF DYLAN GEE 

►Professor Dylan Gee received the NIH 

Director’s Early Independence Award 

for research on anxiety disorders in 

children and adolescents. 

Linguists Illuminate Evolution of Number Systems 

By Clio Byrne-Gudding 

Associate professor of linguistics Claire 

Bowern and Kevin Zhou YC’15 have published 

a paper on the evolution of number systems 

in Australian languages in Proceedings of 

the Royal Society B. Studying the Pama- 

Nyungan language family, Bowern and Zhou 

used statistical methods to investigate how 

the finite upper limits of those systems have 

changed over the last 5,000 years. 

The duo found that most numerical systems 

in the Pama-Nyungan family are low-limit, 

meaning their maximum values ranged 

between three and five. An amount greater 

than this, like six apples, would instead be 

considered “many” apples. Bowern and 

Zhou showed that these limits fluctuated 

over evolutionary time, but when systems 

reached numerals beyond five, they began to 

grow rapidly, and would thus no longer be 

categorized as low-limit. When examining 

the numerals’ compositionality — how bigger 

numerals are constructed from smaller 

numerals — they also found that languages 

tend to gain numerals primarily by building 

them from existing numerals. 

Bowern received a PhD in linguistics from 

Harvard in 2004. She and Zhou, a biomedical 

engineering major, made a unique team. “I just 

approached her and explained my background 

in statistics and we agreed that analyzing the 

Australian numeral dataset using Bayesian 

statistics would be interesting,” Zhou said. 

Since joining Yale’s linguistics department 

in 2008, Bowern has been running a project 

on the history and structure of Australian 

languages. This paper was a piece of that 

overall project. While Bowern will not 

continue numeral research, her work with 

Zhou has shed much-needed light on lowlimit 

numeral systems. “Previous work has 

assumed that [low-limit numeral systems] 

couldn’t be easily studied, or that they didn’t 

change very much,” Bowern said. “We show 

how diverse these systems are, even though 

previous work had assumed that they are all 

rather similar.” 

IMAGE COURTESY OF PARKS AUSTRALIA 

►Women of the Warlpiri tribe in 

Australia’s Northern Territory likely 

speak a language evolved from the 

Pama-Nyungan family. 


December 2015 


7

NEWS 

agriculture 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SWINE 

Yale conference examines pigs in human society 

►BY KATHRYN WARD 

Mark Essig lights up when he tells the unlikely story of how 

19th century hog drives in the Blue Ridge Mountains created a 

complex infrastructure of taverns, roads, and pig statues across 

North Carolina. This story fascinated Essig and led to his 2015 

book Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig, 

an account of the changing human relationship with pigs over 

time. It starts with humans raising hogs along the Nile, and takes 

readers all the way up to the modern U.S. pork industry. 

This past October, Essig was a speaker at the “Pig Out” 

conference at Yale, where he and other porcine academics 

gathered to discuss all things swine. 

Fully titled “Pig Out: Hogs and Humans in Global and Historical 

Context,” the conference drew academics from far-reaching fields 

— from religious studies, to agriculture, to sociology, to genetic 

engineering. These experts gathered in New Haven to discuss 

how we can better understand human society — both today and 

in historical context — by focusing on the pig. 

Diverse issues are affected by the pig in a social, cultural, and 

scientific context. Debates over vegetarianism and ethical animal 

slaughter, for example, would benefit from an interdisciplinary 

conversation, which is exactly what the Yale Pig Out conference 

hoped to achieve. 

One subject Essig touched upon was environmental issues, and 

the fact that they cannot escape the porcine narrative, especially 

as the industrial age has changed the role of pigs. Wooden fences 

were replaced with concrete boxes that more effectively contain 

hogs. The very definition of livestock as food was abstracted as 

big agriculture herded animals into factories not unlike the car 

factories that were springing up around the same time. The rise 

of big agriculture had ramifications for our relationship with pigs 

— generally speaking, we think of pigs today more as food and 

less as sentient creatures. Essig argues that this mirrors our altered 

interaction with the environment as a whole, which is one way 

that the pig story sheds light on changes in human society. 

“Culture plays a role in decisions about what to eat and the way 

we use meat,” Essig said. “There are a lot of ways to get sustenance. 

The particular decisions we make about the meats we eat say a lot 

about how we organize ourselves as society.” 

No aspect of modern American agriculture, which is 

increasingly becoming industrialized, is “terribly pretty,” Essig 

added. “Pork is the worst.” 

Pigs are the smartest creatures that humans eat on a large scale. 

They are unique livestock in several key ways — less mobile, yet 

far more self-sufficient than any other livestock, and capable of 

foraging and surviving on their own in almost any environment, 

urban or rural. Understandably, humanitarian concerns have 

been raised as companies capture pigs in tight cages and dose 

them with antibiotics, effectively eliminating their self-sufficiency. 

Furthermore, factory farming sometimes releases environmental 

toxins. Methane from livestock is a major contributor to global 

greenhouse gas emissions. 

Essig describes the role of government regulation of the meat 

industry as “a lack of regulation.” If anything, the U.S. government 

has been a promoter of the meat industry, and authorities have 

been known to turn a blind eye to environmental damage in 

favor of higher profit, he said. In this way, the fate of the pig in the 

industrial age reflects the key environmental and humanitarian 

concerns of our time. 

The pork industry through the ages is a case study of 

industrialization and the environment. If these issues go 

unaddressed, future consequences may be dire. The future of the 

pig mirrors the future of our societal decision on how to interact 

with our environment. As Essig put it, “food is about identity,” 

and the human relationship with the pig shows how much that 

identity has evolved. 

The October conference looked to history as much as it 

discussed modern day controversies related to the pig. “The 

number of pig bones found at historical sites correlates with 

political changes; there were more pig bones when the political 

structure was weaker,” Essig said. Observations like this further 

demonstrate how pigs might illuminate secrets of humans’ 

historical past. Pigs were a calculated choice by ancient social 

systems, as they were animals that could be more easily organized 

than other livestock, such as cattle, sheep, or goats. Subsistence 

villages on the margins of empires benefited greatly from the pig. 

Once again, pigs paint a picture of the political, economic, and 

environmental climate at any given time. 

Other key speakers at the Yale conference included renowned 

food journalist Colman Andres, animal warfare advocate Bob 

Comis, and Greger Larson, director of the paleogenomics 

department at the Oxford School of Archaeology. The event was 

sponsored by the Yale agrarian studies program. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF MARK ESSIG 

►Mark Essig relaxes with a pig. Industrial pigs today can reach 

a weight of more than 300 pounds in less than a year after birth, 

due to modern methods of raising the livestock. 


mathematics 

NEWS 

BEAUTIFUL, SIMPLE, EXACT, CRAZY 

Textbook explores real world applications of math 

►BY ZACH MILLER 

Mathematics lies behind the circuitry of every computer, 

the operation of every business, and even the composition of 

every hit song. But millions of students struggle with math 

every day, and many will never grasp the intricacies of algebra 

and calculus. Indeed, mathematics is frequently pilloried 

as tedious, convoluted, and ugly. In the hopes of making 

math more widely accessible and enjoyable, two former Yale 

University lecturers, Anna Lachowska and Apoorva Khare, 

have authored a new textbook on mathematics that uses a 

novel multidisciplinary approach to teaching the subject. 

Lachowska and Khare, now at École Polytechnique Fédérale 

de Lausanne and Stanford University, respectively, titled 

their book Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy and published it 

with the Yale University Press. In the book, they showcase 

the elegance and ubiquity of math. As its title suggests, the 

textbook aims to convince its readers that mathematics is 

worth learning — because it is a powerful tool, and because 

it is beautiful. 

The authors were inspired to write the book while teaching 

a lecture course at Yale called “Mathematics in the Real 

World.” When the two were selecting a textbook for their 

class, they had trouble finding one that fit their needs. 

“Despite the large number of entry-level math textbooks 

available in print, we were unable to find a book that suited 

our goals,” Lachowska said. “We wanted to have a concise 

exposition of a wide range of accessible mathematical ideas 

with the right level of rigor and a large variety of applications.” 

The natural solution, of course, was to write this dream 

book themselves. 

And so Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy was born. It is a 

textbook intended for introductory college math courses 

for non-majors. The book includes lessons, examples, and 


IMAGE COURTESY OF ANNA LACHOWKSA 

►Anna Lachowska is a former Yale lecturer and coauthor of 

Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy. She now teaches at a university 

in Switzerland. 

practice problems, but Lachowska and Khare focused on 

making it more readable and enjoyable than a standard 

math instruction text. Where most textbooks highlight 

specialized, technical applications of mathematics — largely 

in the physical sciences such as engineering, physics, and 

chemistry — Lachowska and Khare show math at work in 

more diverse areas of the real world. 

“‘Mathematics in the Real World’ was designed to be a new 

entry-level math course for non-science oriented students 

and would cover a wide range of topics without going into 

the technicalities, but instead emphasizing practical or 

amusing applications,” Lachowska said. She and Khare kept 

this in mind when writing Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy. 

Non-science-oriented students often struggle the most 

with mathematics, but as this book shows, no field can 

entirely escape math. Lachowska and Khare chose examples 

to illustrate this fact. 

Unlike a traditional math textbook, Beautiful, Simple, 

Exact, Crazy touches on subjects as diverse as art and music 

theory. “We went out of our way to include amusing, artsy, and 

philosophical topics,” Lachowska said. “Most importantly, 

we tried to discuss how mathematics can be used and what 

it means for the humanities — not in the obvious ways, as 

statistical methods in social sciences, but in some surprising 

and unexpected ways.” 

For example, the textbook discusses the fundamental 

connection between logarithms and the 12-tone equal 

temperament tuning common in music. The book also looks 

at applications of math in archeology and linguistics. It even 

delves into an analysis of motion in a short story by the 

Italian author Dino Buzzati. 

While instructors have many textbooks to choose from 

when teaching introductory mathematics, Lachowska and 

Khare hope that theirs will have a special appeal. In addition 

to its non-traditional content and focus, Beautiful, Simple, 

Exact, Crazy also departs from most textbooks when it 

comes to structure. “The sections of the book are only loosely 

connected to allow the reader or the teacher to choose topics 

they want to read about,” Lachowska said. And at 480 pages, 

it is a slim volume compared to many mathematics texts. 

“One of my main sources of inspiration was the interest 

and curiosity about mathematics expressed by many of my 

non-mathematical friends,” Lachowska said. “They wanted 

to know what mathematics is, and how it is relevant to the 

real world and to other domains of thought, and we hope our 

book provides some of the answers.” 

Beautiful, Simple, Exact, Crazy is currently in print. Its 

authors hope that the book will accomplish their goal of 

convincing readers why math matters. 

December 2015 


9

NEWS 

psychology 

BRIDGES TO PEACE 

Interventions targeted to children show best results 

►BY ANDREA OUYANG 

To many, world peace might seem like a childlike concept 

entrenched in innocence. But maybe a focus on childhood is 

exactly what we need to work towards peace within communities. 

Yale researchers have combined findings from multiple fields 

— including psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology — to 

champion early child development programs as pathways to 

peace. The researchers focused specifically on the potentially 

causal link between early childhood development and a culture 

of peace within families, communities, or even nations. The team 

found that providing group-based family support programs and 

engaging with fathers are both effective strategies to promote a 

peaceful disposition in children. But the positive impact of these 

interventions goes beyond a single generation. Encouraging 

peace during childhood could reduce violence and bring forth 

peace for future generations as well. 

“Child development is a huge and fascinating field of science,” 

said Catherine Panter-Brick, Yale professor of anthropology, 

health, and global affairs. “Another important and fascinating 

field is peace-building. Usually, these two fields barely intersect.” 

Panter-Brick and her team wanted to bridge this gap. 

Over the past two years, both Panter-Brick and professor James 

Leckman of the Yale Child Study Center, have participated in a 

number of forums on promoting peace. These discussions and 

conferences are a part of the United Nation’s Early Childhood 

Peace Consortium, for which Panter-Brick and Leckman serve 

as lead members. 

In these forums, Panter-Brick and Leckman have discussed 

the interventions that they believe will be most effective in 

promoting peace. Some strategies target parenting behavior, 

teaching parents skills on how to be sensitive towards their 

children’s needs and how to raise them without a violent 

disposition. Other initiatives harness the media and community 

leadership, as was done in northern Ireland to help end many 

decades of civil strife. 

Panter-Brick emphasizes that the timing of interventions 

matters. “Acting early in the child’s life to promote health, 

competence, and empathy is far more effective than acting later 

to persuade young adults to turn away from violence,” she said. 

At other UN events, Leckman has highlighted the biology of 

caregiving, pointing to the significance of hormonal changes as a 

way to explain the efficacy of early nurture in reducing violence 

over the course of a lifetime. 

According to Leckman, epigenetics — the study of external 

effects on gene transcription and expression — has been shown 

to shape parental behavior in animals. Studies of Norwegian rats 

show that the amount of pup grooming behavior from mother 

rats corresponds to the amount of grooming they themselves 

had received as pups. Researchers are now confirming that in 

humans, a disposition to peace or to violence may also transcend 

IMAGE COURTESY OF CATHERINE PANTER-BRICK 

►Panter-Brick and Leckman found that including fathers 

as well as mothers in intervention programs increased the 

efficacy in terms of promoting peaceful dispositions. 

across generations. 

The team further highlights that group-based interventions are 

preferable to family-based ones because they promote empathy 

across ethnic, religious, and social divides. These strategies bring 

together groups of parents in the same place and time, rather 

than relying on solo families to access specific services. 

One illustration of group-based parenting interventions is the 

Mother Child Education Foundation, or AÇEV, an organization 

based in Turkey that offers programs for early childhood 

development. The programs were first designed for groups 

of mothers, and then at the request of women, were designed 

for groups of fathers and run as gender-specific Mother 

Support and Father Support Programs. After participating in 

the intervention, which aims to develop communication skills 

and positive parenting behaviors, many of the fathers involved 

became friends, despite coming from different religious 

and socioeconomic backgrounds. These friendships led to 

supportive communities that persisted to aid all parents with 

their responsibilities. 

“There’s something transformative about people coming 

together to talk about their life experiences, sharing that 

information with others, and going through a curriculum where 

they report what they learned and how their interaction with 

their children changed,” Leckman said. 

Now that these results have been established, future steps 

include translating these findings into effective programs in 

different social, economic, and cultural contexts, and scaling 

them up to reach more people. “The new message is that it takes 

political leadership to reach peace, but it also requires good 

science,” Panter-Brick said. 


medicine 

NEWS 

LAST BARRIER TO A CURE 

HIV researchers study reactivation of hidden viruses 

►BY CHRISTINE XU 

In 1984, when human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was 

discovered as the cause of AIDS, researchers were optimistic 

that a cure was on the horizon. Now, more than 30 years later, 35 

million individuals around the world are infected with HIV. And 

the cure is still elusive. Why has HIV proven so difficult to treat? 

The answer lies partly in its ability to remain latent in the human 

body, staying hidden until it unpredictably reactivates to become 

deadly once again. 

A team at the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, 

led by professor Kathryn Miller-Jensen, is interested in the 

reactivation of latent HIV. These hidden viruses pose a major 

hurdle for HIV treatments — even the most potent drugs cannot 

eliminate the virus until it resurfaces. Current treatments for the 

disease involve a drug cocktail that patients must take for their 

entire lives, since latent HIV could reactivate at any time. But 

what if researchers found a way to force latent HIV back into 

action in our immune system cells? By drawing these viruses 

out of hiding, treatments could theoretically destroy nearly all 

viruses in the body, effectively curing the patient. There is a long 

road ahead in developing a cure, but projects at Miller-Jensen’s 

lab might eliminate barriers by illuminating the details of HIV 

reactivation. 

The lab has several ongoing projects working to address the 


PHOTO BY CHRISTINE XU 

►Kathryn Miller-Jensen and her team study the reactivation 

of latent HIV at the Yale School of Engineering and Applied 

Science. 

mystery. The team is investigating, for example, how T-cells in 

the human immune system respond to HIV infection. When 

HIV invades a T-cell, it inserts its genome into the host genome. 

Most of the time, the host cell transcribes the HIV genome, the 

first step to gene expression that then produces more viruses. 

However, in some cases, HIV instead enters a latent state where 

it is hidden in the host genome until changes in the T-cells cause 

reactivation. As such, the lethal virus remains tucked away in a 

small percentage of the body’s cells. 

What kinds of changes to host cells predict reactivation? 

A component of Miller-Jensen’s research examines latencyreversing 

agents (LRAs), or small proteins that stimulate HIV 

back into action. 

LRAs can be manufactured into small molecule drugs, which 

could prove useful in HIV treatments — namely, in the “shock 

and kill” method. This approach to combatting HIV forces 

reactivation from the latent state, making all viruses in the body 

vulnerable to drug action. Other medications then work to 

eliminate infected cells. 

“If we could get all the latent HIV to reactivate, that would allow 

us to flush out the virus,” Miller-Jensen said. “Basically, there are 

two parts to the method: First, LRAs are used to reactivate the 

HIV, and then the immune system or the replicating virus kills 

off the cells that are now producing HIV.” 

Still, like so many promising solutions in science, the “shock and 

kill” technique has its limitations. Sometimes, significant levels of 

latent HIV remain in cells even after drugging with LRAs. One 

possible reason for this is that fluctuations in the levels of gene 

transcription between cells can cause some cells to respond less 

strongly to the drugs. “Even if our cells are genetically identical, 

they don’t always respond the same way,” Miller-Jensen said. 

“That’s a very interesting question in the field of HIV.” 

The group is further is interested in discovering the markers 

that differentiate infected from uninfected T-cells, which would 

facilitate identification of cells that are carrying latent HIV. Once 

again, this could inform more successful therapies for the disease. 

Is a cure for HIV a possibility in the near future, or are we still 

as naïve as in 1984? Will an effective cure remain out of reach 

despite our improved understanding of the disease? Miller- 

Jensen is realistic. She does not claim that a cure will be developed 

anytime soon. “It feels like we’re still pretty far from this goal,” she 

said. 

However, she believes that researchers will continue to make 

progress by collaborating across fields. “We’re much closer 

than we were 10 years ago. With many researchers working on 

different aspects of the problem — finding new LRAs, mobilizing 

the immune system to kill reactivated T-cells, developing new 

methods to track the size of the latent reservoir — we might get 

some kind of combination that solves the problem,” she said. 

December 2015 


11

FOCUS 

evolution 

PREDATOR 

vs. 

PREY 

Who’s changing 

whom? 

by Sonia Wang 

art by Ashlyn Oakes 

Late October, twilight, Gorton Pond. The 

water lies still, reflecting the pitch-black 

night sky and the outlines of the fiery 

orange autumnal trees bordering the shore. 

The pond’s alewife juveniles are preparing for 

their migration to sea as their six-month stay 

in the freshwater pond comes to an end. 

Four miles north of Gorton Pond, Pattagansett 

Lake has a similar environment and 

population of fishy residents, including alewife 

and their predators, the chain pickerels. 

But unlike Gorton Pond’s inhabitants, Pattagansett’s 

cannot migrate; Pattagansett is a 

landlocked lake. 

These two bodies of water would have had 

almost identical ecologies and fauna a few 

hundred years ago. But European colonists in 

southern Connecticut built permanent dams, 

disconnecting lakes like Pattagansett from the 

sea. Within these dammed lakes, landlocked 

fish populations have since evolved in 

ways that spark the interest of ecologists 

and biologists alike. Among these curious 

scientists is Yale’s David Post, a professor of 

ecology and evolutionary biology. 

Over the past decade, Post’s team of 

researchers has studied the alewife and chain 

pickerel populations in 12 lakes including 

Gorton and Pattagansett. The group’s most 

recent paper, published in the journal 

Nature, showed that changes in the alewife 

population can drive diversification and 

adaptation in the pickerel population. This is 

a departure from ecology’s traditional focus 

on the trickle-down impact that predators 

have on prey. Rapid predator evolution, 

occurring over a short time span, can be 

difficult to observe. But the Connecticut 

lakes conveniently exhibit isolated predatorprey 

systems, enabling the recent Post lab 

study and others like it. Research on alewife 

and pickerel fish is providing revolutionary 

insight into the predator-prey relationship in 

reverse. 

A split history 

Post first began studying alewife in 2004 

after he recognized that there are two forms of 

alewife that are quite literally defined by their 

ecologies: The anadromous form migrates 

to the sea, and the landlocked form cannot 

migrate and is restricted to its home lake. 

The anadromous fish of Gorton Pond 

and the landlocked fish of Pattagansett Lake 

were at one point the same population of 

migrating, anadromous alewife. Anadromous 

fish are born in freshwater areas and migrate 

to saltwater environments, returning to 

freshwater lakes and rivers only later in life 

to spawn a new cycle of migration. It was 

not until after the construction of manmade 

dams that alewife trapped inside Pattagansett 

began to evolve in isolation while Gorton 

Pond’s anadromous alewife continued to 

migrate. The ecological isolation affected a 

trend of increasing divergence between the 

two populations. Distinctions between the 

two types of fish would become apparent 

across New England over the next 300 years. 

One component of this divergence is 

habitat. Any body of water — marine or fresh 

— is divided into distinct regions such as the 

littoral and pelagic zones, which differ in their 

chemical makeup and species composition. 

The near-shore littoral zone rings the lake and 

contains many unique habitats because of its 

numerous distinct species of rooted plants 

and animals. Meanwhile, the pelagic zone 

is what is considered open water, in which 

structure is defined by the thermocline, or the 

temperature gradient across varying depths. 

Because temperature drastically affects the 

amount of oxygen and nutrients dissolved 

in the water, the thermocline can impact the 

biology of the organisms living in the various 

layers of a pelagic habitat. 

In every lake observed by Post and his 

colleagues, anadromous alewife lived in 

both the littoral and pelagic zones during 

their freshwater phase, whereas landlocked 

alewife lived exclusively in the pelagic zone. 

Although the reason for this choice of 


evolution 

FOCUS 

habitat remains unknown, the effects of this 

pelagic lifestyle are apparent in the alewife’s 

physical characteristics. The landlocked fish 

have comparatively smaller heads and more 

fusiform body shapes, such that their bodies 

are widest in the middle but taper off at the 

ends. This streamlined, tuna-shaped body 

allows them to swim faster in the pelagic 

zone, where speedy hunting and escape skills 

are necessary for survival. 

Such landlocked populations are gold 

mines for evolutionary biologists, since 

isolation offers insight into a species’ rapid 

evolution as well as the effect of this evolution 

on other populations in the environment. 

After showing that alewives drove evolution 

in their prey, a plankton species, and in one 

of their niche competitors, the bluegill, Post 

decided to study the trickle-up impact of 

these divergent fish populations on their 

predator, the chain pickerel. 

Nice to eat you 

In the lakes that Post’s team was studying, 

the chain pickerel is the native top predator, 

or the keystone predator. Keystone predators 

play a crucial role in the food chain and 

ecology of their local habitat. In the lakes 

examined, pickerel prey not only on alewife, 

but also on yellow perch and sunfish — larger 

fish native to the littoral habitat. 

Traditionally, the chain pickerel stays in the 

littoral habitat, where it hovers camouflaged 

among the plants, waiting for the opportune 

moment to lunge at its prey. Its body structure 

is long and arrow-like, making it especially 

advantageous for the pickerel to strike from 

a hiding place, but not at all for it to swim at 

length in open water. 

It was thus surprising when the team found 

pickerel in the pelagic zone of several lakes 

home to landlocked alewives. Furthermore, 

the pelagic pickerel ate pelagic alewife 

almost exclusively, as discovered from stable 

isotope signature studies. These studies 

showed that the carbon isotope ratios in the 

pelagic pickerels were far more similar to the 

ratios found in pelagic alewife than those of 

any other prey species, indicating that the 

pickerel’s long-term diet had changed to 

include a higher proportion of alewife. 

On the other hand, in lakes with 

anadromous alewife or no alewife, the team 

found no pelagic pickerel. Since anadromous 

alewife is only available a few months of the 

year, it is not worth it for the pickerel in these 

well-connected lakes to shift its habitat for 


a few extra temporary alewife. However, in 

lakes with a consistent landlocked alewife 

population, the pickerel adapts to eat more 

of the landlocked alewife. “They’ve made this 

novel niche shift because there are alewife in 

the middle of the lake, all the time,” Post said. 

At an average of only 10 inches long, the 

alewife is a much more appealing meal than 

the jumbo-sized sunfish. 

Keystone to success 

Of course, it is not only the pickerel’s diet 

that has changed. When Post’s researchers 

studied the morphology of the species, they 

found that pelagic pickerel had deeper, more 

fusiform body shapes compared to their 

littoral counterparts — the same adaptation 

that they noticed in landlocked alewives, 

which also adapted to open-water lifestyles. 

Lipid composition, or fattiness, in fish 

tissue also illustrated a striking difference 

between littoral and pelagic pickerel. Openwater 

pickerel had much higher lipid content 

than did near-shore pickerel. Post offered 

two reasons for this observation: First, the 

alewife has higher lipid content relative to the 

pickerel’s other prey. Eating more alewife thus 

causes greater lipid content for pickerel as 

well. Second, a landlocked alewife population 

offers a much more stable source of food than 

would a nomadic population of the same 

species. As a result, the pelagic pickerel eats 

more of its prey. 

Lipid content is a significant measure 

of evolutionary adaptation. A higher lipid 

content can boost a fish’s health in several 

ways. More lipids allow a fish to survive fasting 

or invest more in growth and reproduction, 

improving the evolutionary fitness of the 

organism. Come wintertime when lakes 

freeze, lipid reserves can substantially reduce 

mortality by allowing fish to store energy and 

brave the cold. 

Feeding back to ecology 

For the next 10 to 20 years, Post intends to 

carry out a subsequent stage of the alewife 

project: combining the landlocked and 

anadromous alewife populations to see how 

such a disruption affects the evolution of 

the fish. In fact, the researchers have already 

installed fish ladders on many dams, allowing 

anadromous alewife to cross over into 

landlocked lakes. 

Post believes that his lab’s work demonstrates 

the idea of feedback in evolution. “Our 

work is suggesting that the way in which 

organisms structure their environment 

can create a feedback that then drives their 

own evolution, which then changes the way 

they structure their environments. We call 

that an eco-evolutionary feedback between 

ecology and evolution,” he said. “The pickerel 

work, along with the work on bluegill and 

[plankton], shows that this kind of feedback 

can propagate throughout the food web.” 

Notably, this study also provides insight 

into rapid evolutionary relationships between 

predator and prey. Classic rapid evolution 

research claims that mortality is the driving 

force of evolution: fishing and predatory 

pressure are both methods of selection. But 

the Post lab study is among the first to show 

the powerful bottom-up influence that prey 

species can have on keystone predators. Quite 

literally, this work is upturning the way we 

understand eco-evolutionary interactions 

between predators and prey. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

SONIA WANG 

SONIA WANG is a sophomore molecular biophysics & biochemistry and 

economics double major in Jonathan Edwards College. She is the advertising 

manager for this magazine and spent her summer researching tsetse fly 

olfaction in the John Carlson lab. 

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK David Post for taking the time to 

talk about his research. 

FURTHER READING 

Brooks, J. L., and S. I. Dodson. “Predation, Body Size, and Composition of 

Plankton.” Science 150.3692 (1965): 28-35. doi: 10.1126/science.150.3692.28 

December 2015 


13

FOCUS 

environment 

ICE IN 

ACTION 

by Zach Smithline 

art by Ashlyn Oakes 

Sea ice at the North 

Pole has something to say 

about climate change. 

Talk of climate change in the news 

is ubiquitous. Everywhere we look, 

headlines are popping up, from deadly 

record-breaking heat waves in Pakistan and 

India to the notoriously cold and rainy 

London reaching a record high of 98 degrees 

Fahrenheit this past July. Earth’s climate 

cycle is becoming increasingly erratic, which 

has two conflicting effects — mapping these 

patterns is simultaneously more important 

than ever, and more difficult than ever. 

In many ways, climate change is a complicated 

beast. In a single season, we might see 

intense spikes in temperature in one area of 

the world and colder than normal weather 

elsewhere. It is a problem fueled largely by 

human activity, and so motivating environmentally 

friendly behavior is important. But 

change takes time: The climate concerns we 

are experiencing now are the result of hundreds, 

if not thousands, of years of change. 

Similarly, the positive lifestyle choices we 

might implement in service of our planet 

will not fix climate disruption overnight. 

These positive changes in human activity 

are crucial, but the sobering truth is that 

the planet does not respond immediately to 

change. 

These complex issues are exacerbated by the 

fact that measuring climate change is equally 

complicated. Reliable, hard and fast data on 

climate change patterns would perhaps be 

universally convincing and motivating, but 

is extremely hard to come by. Scientists use 

diverse parameters in quantifying climate 

change: They might measure sea surface 

temperatures or precipitation. Maybe they 

track volcanic eruptions. One method 

stands out as particularly effective, and that 

is measuring the thickness of Arctic sea ice. 

The existing tactic to understand the 

distribution of sea ice thickness up by the 

North Pole is centered on a partial differential 

equation. This formula depends on three 

14 Yale Scientific Magazine December 2015

environment 

FOCUS 

variables, one of which is particularly 

problematic. A Yale duo has found a way 

to circumvent this problem, updating 

the partial differential equation so 

that it can more accurately convey 

information about Arctic sea ice, and 

about global climate change. 

The team consists of John Wettlaufer, 

a professor of geophysics, 

mathematics, and physics at Yale, 

and Srikanth Toppaladoddi, a graduate 

student. Their new model for 

calculating Arctic sea ice thickness 

could make a big splash in the field 

of climate science. 

All eyes on the Arctic 

Wettlaufer and Toppaladoddi’s model 

is significant not only because it is a more 

accurate measure of sea ice thickness, but 

because Arctic sea ice thickness is a highly 

sensitive indicator of the Arctic climate 

as a whole. And changes in Arctic climate 

have long been understood as a harbinger 

for what is to come farther south. 

An important reflection of Earth’s 

climate regulation is the hydrologic cycle, 

more commonly known as the water 

cycle — a staple of elementary school 

education. At lower latitudes, this cycle is 

regulated by the flux between evaporation 

and precipitation. But in the polar regions, 

the processes of freezing and melting 

are extremely important, as they create 

density differences that drive global water 

circulation. Earth’s cryosphere — its frozen 

water — has a global impact on climate, 

and disruptions can cause temperatures to 

plunge in some regions and skyrocket in 

others. 

Not all Arctic ice is created equally. The 

Greenland ice sheet sits three kilometers 

thick upon a landmass and influences 

global sea levels. This is one way to facilitate 

the effects of global warming, namely a rise 

in sea level. In contrast to Greenland, sea 

ice is only a few meters thick and does not 

alter sea level at all. Instead, sea ice affects 

global climate because it rejects salt when 

it forms, making it uniquely responsible 

for patterns in global ocean circulation. 

Large ocean currents, in turn, move warm 

and cold water around the globe, and thus 

impact weather events. 

In addition, small changes in climate 

at lower latitudes are amplified up in the 

Arctic, a phenomenon known as polar 

amplification. Thus, sea ice thickness 

up north is a strong signal for the global 

climate condition. 

In 1969, Russian climatologist Mikhail 

Budyko developed a simple energybalance 

theory of climate that captured 

a key feature of polar amplification. We 

know from common experience that the 

bright light reflected from a snow-covered 

field in the winter is far more glaring than 

that reflected from grass in the summer. 

The reflectivity of a material, called albedo, 

underlies Budyko’s theory of ice-albedo 

feedback: Floating white ice has a much 

higher albedo, or greater reflectivity, than 

the adjacent blue ocean. Since the latter 

absorbs more of the sun’s radiant energy 

than does ice, the ocean warms and melts 

the ice. This in turn exposes more ocean, 

which absorbs more energy, which again 

melts more ice. The cycle causes a runaway 

effect, and the Arctic shoulders much of 

the burden. 

Budyko’s theory only emphasizes the 

need for a reliable means of tracking 

Arctic sea ice, which is likely to be in 

flux as the planet warms. Prior methods 

were insufficient. Enter Wettlaufer and 

Toppaladoddi — and a new, tractable 

equation. 

The microscopic and the macroscopic 

Geophysicists in 1975 developed a partial 

differential equation that would in principle 

allow for the calculation of the distribution 

of Arctic ice thickness. The equation 

has three terms that describe the dynamics 

of sea ice. The terms that characterize 

how wind and heat affect ice thickness 

have a firm grounding. But the term that 

describes the mechanical redistribution of 

ice floes, or floating ice sheets, is difficult 

to characterize mathematically. Without 

a sound mathematical model, there is no 

way to test the partial differential equation 

observationally. Until recently, this intransigent 

term has been a roadblock, getting 

in the way of our complete understanding 

of Arctic sea ice and global climate change 

patterns. 

Yale’s Wettlaufer and Toppaladoddi 

have devised a different approach to the 

problem of Arctic ice thickness. The duo 

December 2015 


15

FOCUS 

environment 

►Left: Sea ice in the Arctic is 

not only picturesque. It also 

holds the secrets of climate 

change. A new study from 

Yale scientists advances our 

understanding of Arctic ice 

thickness. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF NORBERT UNTERSTEINER 

IMAGE COURTESY OF JOHN WETTLAUFER 

►Right: Professor John 

Wettlaufer (left) works in the 

departments of geophysics, 

mathematics, and physics at 

Yale. Graduate student Srikanth 

Toppaladoddi (right) 

studies geology and geophysics 

in the School of Arts & Sciences. 

brought a new piece of information to the 

table, and in doing so, made a fascinating 

connection between the physics of the 

microscopic and macroscopic worlds. 

The concept the team evoked is known 

as Brownian motion, first observed in 

1827 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown 

as he was watching the random motions 

of pollen grains in water. When Brown 

made his observations, atoms and molecules 

were only abstract concepts. It was 

not until 1905 that Brown’s observations 

were quantified by Albert Einstein. A 

synthesis of Brown’s and Einstein’s ideas 

has led to a crucial conclusion: It was the 

thermally induced motion of water molecules 

colliding with Brown’s pollen grains 

that produced an overall motion in the 

fluid. 

Wettlaufer and Toppaladoddi used 

the analogy of Brownian motion to deal 

with the partial differential equation’s 

40-year-old uncompromising term. They 

recognized that mechanical events such 

as ice rafting, or the movement of objects 

via ice rafts, occur in seconds or less, 

whereas a system of many rafts changes 

ice thickness distribution only slowly. By 

drawing from Einstein and Brown’s theory 

of microscopic change and applying it to 

a macroscopic environmental problem, 

they were able to separate these two time 

scales and convert the unsolvable partial 

differential equation into a tractable one. 

To test their modified equation, the 

researchers used it to back predict ice 

thickness between the years 2003 and 

2010. They compared their theoretical 

results to real Arctic data collected by 

NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation 

Satellite. Wettlaufer and Toppaladoddi 

found that their solution curve accurately 

predicted the observed distribution of 

Arctic sea ice. With this verifying result in 

hand, the two hope to soon extend their 

equation to the task of predicting future 

changes in ice thickness distribution. 

The updated technique has huge 

implications for understanding climate 

dynamics, both in historical hindsight and 

in preparation for the future. Eventually, 

we may be able to track our own impact 

on Earth’s climate using this revamped 

equation. Such control over the future is 

encouraging as we continue to change our 

behaviors in small, positive ways while 

recognizing that our planet’s response to 

these changes will not be immediate. Over 

time, the sum total of our positive actions 

could amount to noticeable change for 

the better. Wettlaufer and Toppaladoddi’s 

method for studying Arctic sea ice and 

climate dynamics may provide just the 

tool for us to notice that change. 

The team’s recent research was published 

in the October edition of Physical Review 

Letters. It quickly sparked conversation 

among climate scientists everywhere, as 

people search for better ways to predict 

and understand our climate. Arguably, 

this goal is now more important than 

ever, as climate change becomes ever 

more pressing. 

Films like the 2004 hit The Day 

After Tomorrow shock viewers with a 

spine chilling — albeit unrealistic — 

dramatization of extreme weather events 

spurred by frightening climate change. 

With any luck, researchers like Wettlaufer 

and Toppaladoddi will prevent us from 

reaching this point, by elucidating the 

intricacies of climate and how it is 

changing around the globe. 


ZACH SMITHLINE 

ZACH SMITHLINE is a member of the Saybrook College Class of 2018, and 

is double majoring in molecular biophysics & biochemistry and the history of 

art. In addition to working as a gallery guide at the Yale University Art Gallery, 

he studies the structure and function of the ribosome in professor Thomas 

Steitz’s lab. 

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK John Wettlaufer and Srikanth 

Toppaladoddi for their helpful input, excitement, and stimulating discussions 

about their work. 


Letcher, Trevor M. Climate Change: Observed Impacts on Planet Earth. 1st 

ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2009. 


neuroscience 

FOCUS 

BATTLING 

OCD 

IN REAL 

TIME 

Live brain 

imaging helps 

patients attack 

anxiety at the source 

by Marguerite Epstein-Martin 

art by Stephanie Mao 


December 2015 


17

FOCUS 

neuroscience 

We all, occasionally, 

feel anxious. 

For most people, anxiety strikes at 

specific moments — when turbulence 

rocks the plane or when your 

professor says, “we need to talk.” But imagine 

if even in the most ordinary of moments, 

every thought and experience you had was 

challenged by crippling anxiety — anxiety 

that has minimal basis in reality. 

In fact, 3.3 million Americans suffer from 

obsessive compulsive disorder, commonly 

abbreviated as OCD. The disease is characterized 

by unsubstantiated fear that leads 

to time-consuming, distressing repeated 

rituals. Someone with OCD might have to 

wash her hands in a perfectly timed routine 

for fear of her own death, or the death of a 

loved one, or the destruction of her home 

and possessions. Despite ongoing research 

into the disorder, OCD continues to puzzle 

psychiatrists and agonize patients. 

But new treatments may be on the horizon, 

thanks in part to a study by researchers at 

Yale University. A collaboration between 

the department of radiology and biomedical 

imaging and the Yale OCD Research Clinic, 

the study utilizes brain imaging to provide 

neural feedback to OCD patients in real 

time. The recently developed technology, 

known as real time functional magnetic 

imaging (rt-fMRI), presents an effective 

therapy for OCD symptoms. In the new 

era of personalized medicine, it seems the 

answer to treating OCD is to show patients 

their own brain. 

Exposing true compulsion 

The most recognizable symptom of OCD 

is the obsessive conduct of apparently irrational 

actions. This might include repetitive 

hand washing (think Leonardo DiCaprio in 

The Aviator) or hoarding (think the psychiatric 

patient whose stash of chicken bones is 

discovered by Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted). 

Many people experience so-called 

“compulsive” behaviors. Without rhyme or 

reason, we may prefer our books alphabetically 

organized or our notes color-coded, 

or we may have pre-game rituals that we 

follow religiously in preparation for athletic 

competitions, dates, or job interviews. But 

quirky habits do not a disorder make. 

Yes, OCD patients exhibit an unyielding 

compulsion to move through specific 

routines. But these rituals are prompted 

by a relentless, obsessive, and irrational 

internal message that terrible consequences 

will follow unless certain behaviors are 

performed in a precise sequence. A ritual 

like hand washing can temporarily silence 

the obsessive message, something along the 

lines of “my grandmother will die unless 

I wash my hands the proper way.” These 

actions are not rational reactions to real fear, 

but rather, are attempts to stave off an allconsuming 

and often debilitating anxiety. 

Surprisingly, individuals with OCD 

can — when prompted — admit that such 

beliefs are irrational. Yet they cannot help 

but feel, often urgently, that their fears, 

random rituals, and potential consequences 

are all linked. The connection between 

unrelated events is cemented in their brain 

circuitry. Without targeted effort, the brain 

is impossible to rewire. 

A malleable brain 

The good news: our brains are not actually 

static. One of the key features of the human 

brain is neuroplasticity: Our brains consist 

of infinitely interconnected neurons that are 

interwoven into an extraordinarily complex 

system. But with each new experience, these 

neural connections can be dissolved and 

made anew. 

This exciting premise of plasticity gives 

hope to neurofeedback, or the idea that 

people can learn by watching their brain 

in action. The treatment tested by the 

Yale team relies on real time fMRI, which 

unlike traditional fMRI gives patients 

on-line feedback regarding their neural 

activity while they are in the scanner. With 

this feedback information, patients can 

potentially train their brains to correct 

exaggerated and unfounded responses to 

particular stimuli. The Yale researchers 

were inspired by the possibility that rt-fMRI 

could help the millions of people afflicted by 

OCD. 

Anxiety-heavy disorders are particularly 

well suited to treatment by neurofeedback. 

“Anxiety is partly induced by environmental 

experiences,” said Michelle Hampson, 

assistant professor and director of rt-fMRI 

at the Yale School of Medicine. “The brain is 

obviously plastic in that circuitry can learn 

to become more anxious or less anxious,” 

she said. 

In other words, if anxiety can be learned, 

perhaps it can also be unlearned. 

The power of real time feedback 

OCD manifests in many ways, but the Yale 

study led by Hampson focused on the type of 

OCD that is characterized by contamination 

anxiety, or a fear of coming into contact 

with dirt or germs. This anxiety is linked to 

a particular area of the brain known as the 

orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) — hyperactivity 

in this region is consistently correlated with 

the severity of OCD symptoms. 

Flashing certain images to subjects while 

scanning their brains, the researchers were 

able to locate a specific anxiety-related region 

within the OFC, where activity levels 

rose and fell in response to dirty and clean 

images, respectively. Before treatment began, 

subjects met with a clinical psychologist 

who helped them create an individualized 

strategy for controlling contamination 

anxiety and activation of the OFC. Armed 

with these mind control techniques, subjects 

were then asked to mentally raise or 

lower OFC activity depending on the image 

shown. Because subjects were given fMRI 


neuroscience 

FOCUS 

feedback while trying to regulate this brain 

area, they were able to see the effect of their 

intended anxiety control in real time. 

Half of the subjects in this study underwent 

neurofeedback treatment, while 

the other half received a placebo, or sham 

treatment. The sham biofeedback treatment 

mimics neurofeedback in almost every way, 

but instead of viewing their own OFC activity, 

people were shown activity from another 

subject of the same age and gender. 

Before and approximately half a week after 

their neurofeedback sessions, each subject’s 

anxiety responses were assessed. The 

neurofeedback group showed a lessening of 

anxiety, but the sham group did not. Following 

the treatment, neurofeedback subjects 

also demonstrated an improved ability to 

control their OFCs compared to the sham 

group. 

These results are of course exciting, 

but more work is needed to tell if anxiety 

regulation and changes in brain circuitry 

can be maintained over longer time spans. 

In order for rt-fMRI to be a truly promising, 

long-term treatment for OCD, patients 

must be able to carry what they learn from 

the lab into the real world. 

Subjects in the Yale study also underwent 

an assessment before and after training by 

resting state, or rs-fMRI, which examines 

brain connectivity by detecting areas of the 

brain that activate synchronously. Connectivity, 

which is exhibited even in a resting 

brain, indicates that two brain areas have a 

tendency to work in tandem. This phenomenon 

is an active area of study for neurobiologists 

today. 

Between the initial and final rs-fMRI tests, 

researchers noted several startling changes in 

their subjects’ brain connectivity. First, in all 

subjects who underwent real neurofeedback 

therapy, there was a significant decrease 

in the connectivity of regions in the brain 

associated with emotional generation and 

processing, but an increase in connectivity 

of regions in charge of the regulation and 

control of emotion. These people, once 

victims of exaggerated emotional reactivity, 

were now better able to regulate their 

emotions with the help of an experimental 

neurofeedback intervention. 

Secondly, subjects who saw a marked 

decrease in anxiety symptoms also showed 

a global decrease in connectivity between 

the OFC and the rest of the brain. Strong 

coupling between the OFC and other brain 

regions has long been associated with OCD. 

According to Hampson, perhaps too much 

coupling causes overstimulation of the OFC, 

increasing anxiety to unbearable heights. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE YALE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE 

►Michelle Hampson is the director of real 

time fMRI at the Yale OCD Research Clinic. 

“Anxiety levels could be higher because 

you’re always tapping into this anxiety 

circuitry, which is triggered by and linked 

to a lot of different things,” Hampson said. 

Neurofeedback treatment offers an escape 

from this cycle, a way for patients to rewire 

their own brain circuitry. 

A less anxious future 

Though strides have certainly been 

made in understanding OCD, a complete 

model of its causes and symptoms has 

yet to be formalized. Without a strong 

consensus from the medical and research 

communities, effective treatments for 

OCD will remain out of reach. Most 

patients currently diagnosed with the 

anxiety disorder rely on a system of trial 

and error for treatment, experimenting 

with psychiatric drugs and other therapies 

that offer only limited relief for many 

individuals. Many patients still await a 

reliable treatment for their disorder. With 

strong supporting results from the recent 

Yale study, rt-fMRI neurofeedback may be 

part of the long sought-after breakthrough 

in combatting OCD. 

Nevertheless, Hampson’s study is — more 

than anything — a stepping off point. The 

results show great promise for rt-fMRI neurofeedback 

treatment, but further research 

must be done on a larger subject pool with 

a greater number of OCD patients before 

any definitive conclusions are made. 

Still, Hampson is hopeful that neurofeedback 

will help sufferers of OCD, and that it 

will perhaps help patients with other anxiety 

disorders as well. She is collaborating 

with researchers at the Veterans Administration 

to investigate the application of 

rt-fMRI feedback for treating post traumatic 

stress disorder, or PTSD. 

Neurofeedback is an exciting avenue 

for personalized medicine — what better 

way to take charge of your own treatment 

than to peer into your own brain? The 

intervention at the center of Hampson’s 

study serves as a scaffold on which patients 

can practice individualized strategies for 

unlearning anxiety. The same plasticity that 

allows for the onset of an anxiety disorder 

may afford the perfect opportunity for a 

lasting OCD treatment. 


MARGUERITE EPSTEIN-MARTIN 

MARGUERITE EPSTEIN-MARTIN is a junior physics major in Saybrook 

College. 

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK professor Hampson for her time, 

energy, and unabated enthusiasm throughout the writing process. 


Hampson, Michelle, Teodora Stoica, John Saksa, Dustin Scheinost, Maolin 

Qiu, Jitendra Bhawnani, Christopher Pittenger, Xenophon Papademetris, and 

Todd Constable. “Real-time fMRI biofeedback targeting the orbitofrontal cortex 

for contamination anxiety.” Journal of visualized experiments: JoVE 59 (2012). 


December 2015 


19

FORESTING 

from the 

GROUND 

art by Christina Zhang 

UPby Rain Tsong 

It is a late October day, and I am parked 

in front of a house painted the color of 

the woods. WIthin a few minutes, I hear 

a friendly shout, and I turn to see two warm 

faces — Guy Estell and his wife, owners of 

the 90 acres of land that we are standing on 

in northeastern Connecticut. They show 

me around a small part of their property. 

It is mostly wooded, and I cannot help but 

notice how the two seem perfectly at home. 

Guy inherited this property from his 

parents. Ever since he was born down the 

street, the woods have been an integral part 

of his life. Formal forest management has 

never been a top priority for him, but Guy 

sees great value in the beauty and wildlife 

habitats of his woodland. 

Mary Tyrrell, the director of the Global 

Institute of Sustainable Forestry, sees people 

like Guy as the most important factor in 

catalyzing change in service of the forests. 

Guy and many others like him have a 

strong stewardship ethic, even without an 

active goal related to land management. 

Environmental scientists must work with 

woodland owners in confronting forest 

preservation, and policies will only be 

effective if they understand the motivations 

of people like Guy, whose actions will 

have the biggest impact on the health of 

Connecticut forests. 

The preservationist’s view 

About 60 percent of Connecticut’s land 

is covered by forest, according to 2006 

data from the state’s Center for Land 

Use Education and Research. Acreage of 

core forest has been partly diminished 

by ongoing development, leaving a 

more fragmented forest across the state. 

Fragmentation means smaller separated 

blocks of forest, which threatens wildlife 

habitats and water resource quality. 

Preserving the essential ecological features 

of the forest is possible, but challenging, 

especially since many Connecticut 

woodlands are privately owned. Forests extend 

through private pieces of land, where 

individual landowners have jurisdiction. 

The land depends on landowners, and each 

landowner’s decisions conversely affect the 

forest as a whole. 

In a recent report, Tyrrell found that 34

forestry 

FOCUS 

PHOTO BY RAIN TSONG 

►Counting and measuring trees is a slow process. From left to right: Guy Estell, a private 

woodland owner, and Bob Kuchta and Nicole Wooten, two spirited forestry students. 

percent of Connecticut forest is spread out 

among private family-owned properties 

larger than 10 acres, most of which are upstate. 

More than four-fifths of these larger 

wooded properties are primary residences. 

About a quarter have been passed down at 

least one generation. The typical Connecticut 

woodland owner is older than 50 and 

has retired with a spouse. Typically, both 

are highly educated. Tyrrell’s report emphasizes 

the core values of these landowners 

— scenery, privacy, and some concern 

for woodland conservation. But in addressing 

this last goal, few go looking for help 

or even know where to start. Only a small 

subset of woodland owners is aware of the 

programs and organizations ready to aid in 

forest preservation. 

Part of the problem is a lack of sufficient 

resources. The Connecticut Department 

of Energy and Environmental Protection 

provides free professional and technical 

forestry planning services, as does Yale 

University. Tyrrell sees a future in partnerships 

between the government and other 

organizations like Yale and the grassroots 

Audubon Connecticut. She points out that 

landowners sometimes take issue with direct 

government involvement within the 

bounds of their private property. “Once the 

government finds something like a vernal 

pool on your land,” Tyrell said, “they’ll tell 

you what you can and can’t do.” 

As a private institution, Yale does not 

have to maintain the same rigid policies. Julius 

Pasay is the manager for the Yale-Myers 

Forest, an 8,000-acre expanse woodland. 

Part of Pasay’s job is coordinating the Quiet 

Corner Initiative (QCI), a 10 year-old program 

that employs a variety of means to get 

locals engaged in forestry. Named after the 

conspicuous lack of urban disturbance and 

development in northeastern Connecticut, 

QCI encompasses both Guy’s woodland 

and the Yale-Myers Forest. “Most people 

[here] are interested in their forests for either 

preservation or conservation,” Pasay 

said. According to Pasay, the number of 

people participating in the QCI has risen 

from 30 to about 80 since its founding. 

Most of these people, like Guy, own land 

nearby. 

At the Yale Forest, Pasay tries to connect 

these people with each other. Through the 

QCI, he organizes workshops and speaker 

events that vary in topic from shiitake 

mushroom inoculation to animal-powered 

logging. “People get together several times 

a year for these events in the Forest, and 

they see familiar faces,” Pasay said. “We’re 

really trying to create a community of 

conservation.” 

But what does it mean to conserve a forest, 

to keep a forest healthy? One mentality — 

perhaps the obvious one — is to let nature 

take its course. But sometimes well-calculated 

human intervention can help us manage 

our forests. A small amount of logging, 

for example, is necessary for long-term 

conservation. As old trees are cut down, new 

ones grow, and the trees become diverse in 

age. The importance of age diversity is clear. 

After the 1850s, the forest began to recover 

large swaths of abandoned agricultural land 

across Connecticut. As a result, the state’s 

entire forest with its many same-aged trees 

was uniformly susceptible to a massive 

hurricane in 1938. Most of Connecticut’s 

woodlands were knocked down that year. 

The memory of the hurricane’s destruction is 

a reminder that we can engage in preemptive 

and protective initiatives. 

It is concepts like this that the Yale 

School of Forestry and Environmental 

Studies (F&ES) wants to bring to the 

community. The F&ES course titled 

“Management Plans for Protected Areas” 

requires students to get involved in real 

world forest management. Landowners 

like Guy know the property and the forest, 

though different landowners focus on 

different issues — from fighting invasive 

species, to bird-watching, to general 

environmentalism. Students in forest 

management work with these landowners 

free of charge, brainstorming how to best 

approach their forest related goals. 


December 2015 


21

FOCUS 

forestry 

The woodlander’s perspective 

Guy can see the tree line of the Yale- 

Myers Forest from his yard. He has been 

going to workshops and seminars hosted 

by the QCI ever since it began. Guy never 

received formal forestry training, yet he is 

familiar with these woods, having grown up 

on this property. For a while he maintained 

the forest by thinning the trees and selling 

firewood, though ever since selling his saw 

mill 30 years ago, he has not been able to put 

as much time into the land. So when Pasay 

reached out this past year about sending 

some students to help Guy manage his forest, 

he was happy to entertain the idea. “They 

need to study the land, and I’ve got land for 

them,” he said. “It works for both of us.” 

We find the two forestry students, Bob 

Kuchta and Nicole Wooten, counting and 

measuring tree species just a quarter mile 

north of us. Bob is an older Connecticut 

local with a master’s degree in environmental 

education. Nicole is a second-year F&ES 

student who is working towards a master’s in 

environmental management. Both of them 

are here for the F&ES management plans 

class. The two are energetic, knowledgeable, 

friendly. 

Bob is the local inland wetlands officer and 

tree warden in Madison, CT. This semester, 

he is auditing the management plans class at 

Yale to learn more about forest dynamics. In 

Connecticut forests, there are a fair number 

of wetlands, including where rivers trace 

through the woods. “If you protect the 

wetlands, you protect the water quality,” Bob 

reminds us as he tallies some more trees. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF QUIET CORNER INITIATIVE AND YALE F&ES 

►The Yale-Myers Forest (pale green) is surrounded by many smaller family-owned properties. 

Taking a break from measuring, he picks up 

a leaf from the ground. “It’s a Red Maple,” 

he shows us, and adds a tally for the species 

on his chart. “It’s got three main lobes, a red 

stem, and red seeds too.” The Red Maple tree 

is bare, but Bob can tell by the bark alone 

if need be — he has been doing this for 40 

years. 

In Bob’s town, he represents the local government. 

About 60 percent of Connecticut 

landowners prefer to receive information 

from the local government. There is something 

different about the people at this local 

level — they seem to care. Bob is deeply 

invested in the wetlands and forests of Connecticut. 

For him, being on Guy’s property 

is not about the class; his goal is to learn as 

much as possible about how to approach environmental 

management in his home state. 

At some point, Bob points to a tree with 

scaly bark. “Do you see this? It’s like burnt 

potato chips. This is the bark of a black cherry. 

Veneer wood, Guy!” He turns towards Guy 

with a grin. “You’ll be able to really retire!” 

Guy chuckles in return. “But I’ve got to 

have something to do.” 

Guy is not the type to sit still. For decades 

he has been cutting down trees here and 

there and selling firewood. In the early 1970s, 

he built a new house, exterior and interior 

both, all using wood from his property. After 

Guy retired as a University of Connecticut 

supervisor, he started working with a local 

forest products company. “I ain’t quitting 

work, not just yet. That’s when you get old 

quick,” he said, and laughed. 

Guy and his wife live off the land. During 

the summers they plant a sizeable vegetable 

garden and Guy does occasional hunting on 

the property. The two of them are happy with 

what they have. Forest management for Guy 

and for many landowners is about a form of 

practical environmentalism. His purpose is 

not to save the world, one preserved forest 

at a time, but to keep forests beautiful, and 

to protect resources on the local scale. To 

policymakers, it is important to save forests 

as a whole. But they must realize that 

landowners are not focused on the big, global 

picture. For Guy, the woodlands are about the 

individual and the family — a lifestyle that 

revolves around simple self-sustainability. 


RAIN TSONG 

RAIN TSONG is a senior at Yale studying geology and geophysics with a 

deep interest in the environment. He is interested in how Yale engages with 

the community and he volunteers through DEMOS. After he graduates, he 

hopes to pursue geochemistry through teaching and research. 

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK Guy and Andrea Estell for their 

warm welcome and support. He would also like to thank Mary Tyrrell, Julius 

Pasay, and everyone else at Yale F&ES for helping to shape this article’s 

direction. 


Tyrrell, Mary L. 2015. Understanding Connecticut Woodland Owners: A 

Report on the Attitudes, Values, and Challenges of Connecticut’s Family 

Woodland Owners. Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. 


TO 

Strip a donor lung of its cells so only a translucent 

white scaffold remains, lay on some of 

your own stem cells, and watch a brand new 

lung grow — a lung tailored just for you. This is 

the dream for thousands who wait in line each 

year for a lung transplant. More often than not, 

these organ donations never come. 

Researchers at the Niklason lab at Yale have 

made progress in a crucial step towards improved 

lung transplants — stripping donor lungs of their 

cells without damaging the delicate scaffold below. 

By using milder reagents and systematically honing 

down the detergent requirement for donor 

cell removal, scientists were able to dramatically 

reduce the amount of scaffold loss even while 

achieving better decellularization efficiencies than 

previously reported. The result: a scaffold more 

amenable to repopulation by lung cells and a step 

towards successful regeneration of fully functional 

lungs. 

The problem with lung transplants 

By Lionel Jin 

Art By Christina Zhang 

REBUILD 

A LUNG, 

FIRST 

STRIP IT 

DOWN 

Each year, more than 200,000 Americans die of 

lung disease and more than 24 million show signs 

of impaired lung function. Of these, a mere 2,000 

get a fresh breath of life. Lung transplants are rare 

because viable donor lungs are hard to come by. 

Even those fortunate enough to receive 

a lung transplant find the odds stacked 

against them. They face a steep 

post-transplantation mortality rate 

— 53 percent die within 5 years. 

“Lungs are fragile organs,” 

the present study’s first author 

Jenna Balestrini said. “They 

often aren’t in as good a condition 

as we would like by 

the time we get them from 

donor to recipient.” 

Patients receiving a 

new set of lungs are put 

on immunosuppressants 

so that their bodies do 

not reject the transplant. 

However, this treatment 

makes patients vulnerable 

to serious infections 

because the weakened 

immune system is no longer 

able to launch a robust 

attack against opportunistic 

pathogens. 

Patients receiving any kind of organ transplant 

must confront this challenge, but the problem 

is especially vexing in the world of lungs. With 

each breath we take, we inhale millions of bacteria, 

fungi, and viruses. Immune cells patrolling 

the body typically keep these microscopic threats 

under control, but a depressed immune system 

may not be able to do the job. Hence, the staggering 

mortality rate for lung transplant recipients. 

“You are taking something that is not sterile to 

begin with and putting it into the patient. And 

what’s more, you need to tune down the patient’s 

immune system,” Balestrini said. “All that doesn’t 

make for a happy outcome.” 

Betting on regenerative medicine 

Perhaps a customized lung would lead to better 

outcomes. This is the promise of regenerative 

medicine, which creates lungs for patients using 

their own cells. 

One critical ingredient is the scaffold, an intricate 

matrix of fibrous and elastic proteins on 

which lung cells organize themselves. Scientists 

are optimistic that they will eventually be able to 

transform patient cells into stem cells that can be 

coaxed to differentiate into each of the 50 or so 

cell types that make up the lung. Such an organ 

would not only be pathogen-free, but also rejection-free. 

When the introduced cells are derived 

from the patient’s own, the immune system is less 

likely to reject them. Patients would be spared a 

painful course of immunosuppressants and the 

accompanying side effects such as cardiovascular 

disease. 

Looking for a source for these scaffolds, the Yale 

team turned to pig lungs. The ready availability of 

these organs made them a feasible research focus 

— scientists could optimize a protocol on the 

more plentiful pig lungs, and this protocol could 

be subsequently applied to donated human lungs. 

Moreover, because pig and human lungs are fairly 

similar in size and composition, it may well 

be possible to repopulate scaffolds derived from 

porcine lungs with human cells. These newly built 

organs would then be transplanted directly into 

humans. 

Of course, transplanting donor tissue derived 

from another animal into a human recipient can 

be tricky. The human body immediately recognizes 

the animal tissue as foreign, said Stuart Campbell, 

assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine 

and a co-author on Balestrini’s paper. Animal 

lung scaffolds, however, are less likely to trigger an 

immune response because they are composed of 

a relatively limited assortment of proteins. Equally 

important, pig lungs have dimensions generally 

similar to that of human lungs, which makes 

it possible to pick out a set of lungs that closely 

matches the size of each patient’s own. 

“You already see collagen implants from bovines 

going into humans. Some are FDA-approved 

and several show promising outcomes,” 

Balestrini said. Pig lungs could be the next suc- 


December 2015 


23

cessful xenograft, or organ transplant coming 

from a different species. According to Balestrini, 

some companies are already exploring the 

prospect. 

The extraordinary scaffold 

Researchers walk a tightrope when pulling 

cells off a donor lung. Apply conditions that are 

too mild and DNA remnants cling to the scaffold, 

inducing inflammation that renders the lung unusable. 

Subject the lung to too harsh a treatment 

and the scaffold is eroded. 

Faced with this dilemma, researchers tend to 

prioritize DNA removal at the risk of damaging 

the scaffold. The Yale team found that one of the 

most popular methods used to decellularize the 

lung causes a major loss of matrix proteins, resulting 

in a stiffer and more brittle structure that 

no longer expands and contracts as effectively as 

it did before. 

Scientists are also beginning to realize that the 

scaffold provides biological and mechanical cues 

that play an essential role in helping cells organize 

into the proper tissues. “We used to imagine the 

scaffold as a biologically inert matrix that cells 

simply sit on,” Balestrini said. “Now we are coming 

to terms with how cells make use of the biological 

code in this matrix to arrange themselves 

in the right way.” The scaffold is no longer understood 

as a mere platform, but as a dynamic system 

that is essential in correctly organizing lung cells. 

The Yale team’s goal was to develop a 

protocol that minimizes matrix loss 

even as it removes donor cells and 

DNA from a pig lung scaffold. 

Departing from existing methods 

that involve incubating the 

donor lungs under high pressure 

in a mixture of harsh 

detergents, the researchers 

opted for milder reagents 

at normal pressure. They 

were also meticulous 

in making volume and 

weight measurements of 

each lung and determining 

the minimal amount 

of detergent required. To 

achieve efficient DNA removal, 

the researchers set 

up the lungs in bioreactors 

so that a constant stream 

of detergent solution flowed 

through the chamber. 

The protocol showed positive results, 

besting existing protocols with its 96 

percent DNA removal rate while also achieving 

unprecedented levels of matrix retention and no 

significant loss of key matrix proteins. “We weren’t 

expecting this result, but it seems we really can 

have the best of both worlds” Balestrini said. 

The process also took less time — only 24 

hours, whereas prior methods required two to 

three days for decellularization. The integrity of 

the scaffold translated into a structure that retained 

better elasticity and was also more extensively 

repopulated by introduced cells. 

Campbell said the team’s improved protocol 

harnesses one major advantage of decellularized 

scaffolds: getting cells to organize into the right 

tissues and ultimately into functional organs with 

minimal researcher intervention. 

The lung comprises dozens of different kinds 

of cells, Campbell said, making it incredibly difficult 

for researchers to induce each and every cell 

to differentiate into the correct cell type and form 

the appropriate connections with other cells. But 

if the scaffold itself can direct the differentiation 

process, researchers can theoretically sit back and 

marvel as cells self-organize into the incredibly 

intricate organ that is the lung. 

An audacious effort 

But Laura Niklason, professor of biomedical 

engineering and senior author of the paper, is 

quick to put the group’s achievement in perspective. 

“Decellularization is really just an initial step 

in the process. It will be decades before human 

lungs are available for clinical testing,” she said. 

An audacious effort indeed, taking an organ as 

structurally complex as the lung and attempting 

to strip it down and build it back up. Researchers 

have pulled out every tool they have in their kit, 

including using synthetic scaffolds and even trying 

to adapt 3D printers to build complex organs. 

Each of these methods encounters significant 

challenges, but lung disease is such an important 

problem right now that every approach is worth 

pursuing, Campbell said. 

“This is a field that needs the best and brightest 

minds to get to the point where we can actually 

create artificial lungs and hearts and organs,” he 

said. “There’s still a lot to be done, but I’m optimistic 

that we’ll get there.” 

This lab work may still have a ways to go before 

it reaches hospitals, but the team’s successful 

decellularization of pig lungs is an exciting step 

forward — for researchers, for doctors, and eventually, 

for patients who find themselves on a lung 

transplant list. 


LIONEL JIN 

LIONEL JIN is a sophomore double majoring in biology and computer 

science. He is operations manager for this magazine and spent the summer 

engineering non-model organisms. 

THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK Jenna Balestrini, Stuart Campbell, 

and Laura Niklason for their enthusiasm in sharing their research. 


Balestrini, Jenna. “Production of Decellularized Porcine Lung Scaffolds for 

Use in Tissue Engineering.” Integr. Biol, 2015. doi:10.1039/C5IB00063G. 


electrical engineering 

FEATURE 

PORTOBELLO POWER 

Mushrooms make for environmentally friendly batteries 

►BY GENEVIEVE SERTIC 

IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

►The material of a portobello mushroom skin can be used 

in battery anodes, yielding a more environmentally friendly 

battery design. 

It is no secret that manmade technology can cause 

environmental harm. We see, for example, manufacturing 

that leaches toxic waste into soil and water. Battery 

production is no exception: To create the batteries used 

in electronics and electric vehicles, companies use hard 

chemicals that damage the environment. To respond to 

this problem, researchers at the University of California 

Riverside built a more environmentally friendly battery 

using a surprising material — the portobello mushroom. 

To build their battery, the researchers focused on the 

anode, towards which negative charges flow. In order to 

store energy, anodes need a sufficiently large surface area. 

A standard lithium ion battery has a graphite anode — 

the material is functional, but purifying and preparing it 

requires hard chemicals that are both environmentally and 

financially costly. 

To lessen these costs, the researchers at UC Riverside 

replaced the graphite anode with a low-cost, environmentally 

friendly material from nature itself: the skin of a portobello 

mushroom. Physically, the portobello version of a battery 

looks just like a regular lithium ion one. However, the 

mushroom material does not do the same environmental 

damage, nor is it as expensive as graphite. The researchers 

observed that the skin on the portobello’s cap contains 

many pores in a ribbon-like structure that afford a vast 

surface area. By heating the skin to temperatures as high as 

1,100 degrees Celsius, they could dramatically increase the 

amount of empty space, or porosity, in the structure. With 

this, the energy capacity of the battery also grew. 

And these bio-derived batteries do more than just 

mitigate environmental and economic costs of production. 

Compared to their graphite counterparts, they offer better 

performances and longer lifetimes. Portobello mushrooms 

contain high levels of potassium salt, which activates pores 

and increases the structure’s surface area as the battery 

repeatedly charges and discharges. As a result, run times 

for devices running on portobello batteries may actually 

increase with repeated use. In contrast, the run times for 

devices reliant on graphite anode batteries decrease with 

use. 

With these improvements, portobello batteries have 

significant implications for the future, especially given 

the increased prevalence of electronics and electric 

vehicles. For example, cell phone batteries may be able to 

better withstand frequent charging, according to Brennan 

Campbell, a graduate student in the materials science 

and engineering program at UC Riverside. “With battery 

materials like this, future cell phones may see an increase in 

run time after many uses, rather than a decrease,” Campbell 

said to UCR Today. 

Portobello batteries are also promising for the future of 

electronic vehicles. By 2020, an estimated seven million 

of these vehicles will be in operation in India alone. If 

traditional graphite anode batteries were used for all of 

these vehicles, the raw graphite needed would weigh around 

one million metric tons, and would require a proportional 

amount of hard chemicals. Utilizing portobello mushrooms 

for the anode material could eliminate the use of these hard 

chemicals. 

Portobello batteries would decrease the risk of 

environmental damage associated with improper disposal 

of chemicals used in the manufacturing process. Chemicals 

used to produce lithium ion batteries include hydrofluoric 

acid, which can cause severe respiratory damage in 

organisms, as well as sulfuric acid, which is toxic to 

aquatic life and contributes to acid rain. Using batteries 

that integrate mushroom material would mitigate much of 

the damage caused when these chemicals are accidentally 

released into ecological systems. 

As researchers develop new battery technologies, it is 

just as important to focus on quality as environmental 

impact. Portobello batteries address both these goals 

simultaneously. The technology still needs to be optimized, 

but this new design for a battery presents an exciting 

direction for future research and development. Batteries 

have countless applications today, and the scale of their use 

will only increase in the future. So, the next time you sit 

down with portobello mushrooms in your salad, know that 

you might be eating the anode of a future battery. 


December 2015 


25

FEATURE 

nanotechnology 

PREDICTING MATERIAL PROPERTIES 

Modeling cellulose nanocrystals for success in the real world 

►BY KAT WYATT 

Nanoengineering is often limited by the divide that separates 

concept from reality, with promising theoretical designs falling 

short in application. However, a Northwestern University research 

team led by Sinan Keten is working to bridge this gap as it 

concerns one particular nanomaterial — cellulose nanocrystals, 

often termed CNCs. 

Capturing CNCs is not the problem. They are nothing new to 

nature, found naturally within trees. CNCs currently on the market 

— mostly for research purposes — are extracted directly from 

wood pulp, a byproduct of the paper industry. They are accessible 

and relatively easy to extract, nontoxic and biodegradable. 

The challenge comes in what is lost in translation between the 

nanoscale and the bulk scale — as these tiny components are 

fabricated into macroscopic technology such as glass or body 

armor, their properties might change. A recent paper describes the 

modeling framework that the Keten lab has been developing. The 

framework could allow us to design better functional materials 

from cellulose nanocrystals, by predicting how physical and 

chemical properties might change in the process. 

A cellulose nanocrystal’s mechanical properties, including 

strength and transparency, make it an ideal replacement for 

synthetic products. As a promising alternative to the Kevlar used 

in bulletproof glass and body armor, CNCs have already received 

significant federal research funding. While CNCs can be used 

alone as thin coatings and flexible films (in food packaging, 

for instance), they really shine when they are integrated into 

composite materials. 

More broadly speaking, CNCs could be used in any product 

employing polymer composites — materials made of multiple 

chemical components with differing chemical or physical 

properties, such as those used in car and airplane frames. 

Unfortunately, CNC use up to this point has been limited to 

academic research because accurately predicting the properties 

of nanocomposite materials is challenging. While scientists are 

currently capable of producing composites and materials that 

show promising mechanical properties, research unraveling these 

properties is scarce. 

This is where Keten’s lab enters the scene. “The key bottleneck is 

that the properties they’re exhibiting fall short of what we would 

predict to be the optimal performance,” said Robert Sinko, a PhD 

candidate in the Keten lab. “That’s where our research comes in.” 

To better produce materials from CNCs, Keten, Sinko, and other 

colleagues are developing frameworks to foreshadow a composite’s 

properties at the bulk scale, factoring in the chemical and physical 

characteristics that particles exhibit at the nanoscale. Thus far, 

their model has made significant breakthroughs in accurately 

predicting glass transition temperatures, where CNC materials 

transition from a hard, glassy state to a rubbery, soft one. 

ART BY ALEX ALLEN 

The model has also helped determine the ideal molecule size for 

CNC composites. In fact, when the researchers used the model to 

predict the size at which cellulose nanocrystals best resist fracturing 

under pressure, they found that the strongest CNCs were between 

4.8 and 5.6 nanometers thick and between 6.2 and 7.3 nanometers 

wide, the dimensions most commonly found in nature. In effect, 

though the model was intended to improve CNC development for 

industrial materials, it has also managed to explain why the crystals 

naturally tend towards certain characteristic dimensions. 

While the work of the Keten lab is exclusively computational, 

partnerships with other research groups have enabled the lab 

to test the model’s real world accuracy. “It’s really important to 

connect with experimentalists that actually confirm some of our 

hypotheses and help us design better tools,” Keten said. These 

partnerships will help troubleshoot the model by establishing 

where computed, theoretical outputs differ from characteristics of 

real CNC materials. 

The Keten lab plans to branch out from a specific focus 

on a subset of CNC characteristics, namely glass transition 

temperature, to a wider variety of properties. The team hopes to 

overcome a challenge in describing the bulk mechanical behavior 

of composite systems, especially fracture strength and toughness. 

In addition, the group aims to better understand the relationship 

between chemical and physical properties of the nanocomposite. 

The recent study, published in Nano Letters, and the development 

of a working model for nanocomposites has poised us to further 

close the gap between theory and reality in engineering. 


medicine 

FEATURE 

►BY EMMA HEALY 

HALTING HEMORRHAGE 

Self-propelled microparticles with healing potential 

Hemorrhage describes the escape of blood from a ruptured 

blood vessel. It is a life threatening condition, associated with 

roughly 25 percent of worldwide maternal deaths from childbirth 

complications. Recognizing the severity of hemorrhagic shock, 

researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have 

developed an innovative mechanism to stop severe blood loss. 

To prevent hemorrhaging at the site of injury, the team designed 

self-propelled particles that travel through the bloodstream 

to halt bleeding in hard-to-reach places. These particles are a 

promising treatment for wounds that cannot be adequately 

treated superficially or with injections — the common procedures 

in use today. The team’s findings have immense implications not 

only for medicine, but for global health, as these self-propelled 

particles could be an effective treatment for bleeding in regions of 

the world lacking sufficient surgeons and other trained medical 

personnel. 

Only a couple of microns in size, the UBC particles propel 

themselves through the bloodstream to injury sites, bearing 

cargoes of blood-clotting agents called coagulants. In the study, 

the microparticles carried thrombin, a coagulant that initiates 

aggregation of platelets at the site of a wound to prevent blood loss. 

In addition to encouraging platelets to clump together, thrombin 

produces fibrin, a protein that forms a lattice to strengthen the 

platelet clot. 

While self-propelled particles could theoretically transport 

various types of medications within the body, Christian Kastrup 

ART BY ALEX ALLEN 

— paper author and assistant professor at UBC — explained 

that his research team is most excited about treating bleeding 

specifically. “Hemorrhage is one of the leading killers of young 

people worldwide, and it is particularly devastating in certain 

types of bleeding, such as post-partum hemorrhage,” he said. 

Uncontrolled blood loss, whether from internal complications 

or external trauma, can have severe consequences. Extreme 

bleeding eventually reduces blood pressure and hinders oxygen 

transportation to the point where a patient experiences fatigue, 

confusion, loss of consciousness, and even organ failure. 

The newly designed microparticles are expected to be most 

effective in situations where surgeons cannot access the blood 

vessel directly. In these situations, which include injuries within 

the sinus, uterus, and gastrointestinal tract, a piece of gauze with 

coagulant is unable to stop blood loss. The superficial application 

of coagulants is often unsuccessful in preventing bleeding from 

severe wounds. In areas of the world where access to blood 

transfusions is minimal, mortality rates due to hemorrhaging 

are especially high. By providing new methods for delivering 

coagulants, this recent research aims to treat a wider variety of 

wounds and to increase treatment options available at locations 

without adequate medical care. 

According to Kastrup, self-propelling particles have been 

extensively researched in the past, but prior studies failed to 

identify a successful mechanism for propulsion within blood. His 

team was the first to test microparticle transportation upstream 

against blood flow. His engineered microparticles contain two 

substances that react with each other to produce bubbles of 

carbon dioxide. When the microparticles expel these bubbles, 

they can push themselves through a solution. Thus, when used 

in vivo, the microparticles can be transported against the flow of 

blood and deeper into a wound. 

Kastrup’s group showed the efficacy of coagulant-carrying selfpropelled 

particles in animal models. The next step, not so far in 

the future, is to test this technique on human wounds. 

The transition from the discovery phase of research to the 

clinical trial phase is often a challenge, but Kastrup is confident. 

In fact, he believes that the timeline for preclinical experiments 

of UBC’s self-propelled particles will be accelerated, since several 

components of these microparticles are already in use within 

clinics. For example, one ingredient of these particles is calcium 

carbonate, which is also found in antacid tablets. Thrombin is 

already used to prevent blood loss during surgery. 

By reimagining the method of delivery for a known therapeutic 

— the coagulant — these researchers present a thrilling new 

treatment option. Hemorrhaging is a pressing medical concern 

in all countries, and these self-propelled microparticles have 

tremendous potential to advance trauma care around the globe. 


December 2015 


27

FEATURE 

microbiology 

YOU HAVE A 

MICROBIAL CLOUD! 

By Lakshmi Iyengar // Art by Marguerite Epstein-Martin 

Forget your ID — there’s a 

better way to show who 

you are.

microbiology 

FEATURE 

When a forensic analyst steps onto a crime scene, she scans the 

ground for any biological evidence that can be used to identify 

the culprit — a strand of hair, a pool of blood, a fingerprint. But 

if these telling items are nowhere to be found, what is a detective 

to do? 

Thanks to a recent study conducted by a University of Oregon 

team, our forensic analyst might simply sample the air. These 

researchers found that the human microbiome emits trace 

biological particles collectively comprising a microbial cloud. 

The human microbiome is vast, consisting of microbes in 

and on the human body. Each hour, it emits upwards of one 

million biological particles through a variety of mechanisms: 

direct contact with surfaces, aerosol emissions from the body, 

and dust shed through skin cells and hair. These mechanisms 

produce personal clouds of invisible bacteria that hover around 

individuals. 

Although scientists have been studying human interaction with 

airborne microbes for more than a century, most of the research 

up until now has focused on disease causing microbes. Scientists 

have only recently realized that interaction with other sorts 

of airborne microbes is integral to our health. This discovery 

prompted further research, which will have applications in 

solving crimes through forensics and better understanding 

human health through medical research. 

The University of Oregon team set out to study microbial 

clouds and the information they reveal. First, the researchers 

placed volunteers in sterile climate chambers and sampled the air 

inside, comparing the microbial makeup of an occupied chamber 

to a sterile one. 

Then, they performed a second experiment to explore 

differences among the compositions of individual microbial 

clouds. Using a set-up similar to that of their first experiment, 

the scientists sequenced and compared microbial emissions from 

eight volunteers. Analyzing the two experiments in conjunction, 

the group determined that individuals shed detectable microbial 

clouds that differ from person to person. 

Microbial clouds offer a variety of possibilities for forensic and 

medical research. Like fingerprints or leftover biological materials, 

these clouds can be used to link people to geographic locations. 


IMAGE COURTESY OF JAMES GATHANY, BRIAN JUDD, CDC 

► Airborne microbes have traditionally been studied for their potential to 

cause disease, but scientists are now interested in other possible values. 

Since each individual sheds a distinct combination of microbes, 

each microbial cloud is unique, with the potential to reveal a 

person’s gender, age, and much more. A microbial cloud is also 

much harder to hide than leftover biological materials — blood 

can be cleaned up, fingerprints can be swiped. Understandably, 

microbial clouds are incredibly exciting for forensic analysts. 

The clouds could also prove useful to researchers studying 

disease transmission through airborne pathogens, since they 

offer clues as to how people emit bacteria into the air. Whether a 

microbe is emitted via aerosols from the mouth or from the skin 

can influence how epidemiologists attempt to manage the spread 

of disease. Some outbreaks can be controlled by ensuring that the 

infected wear surgical masks, while others require quarantine. 

While the research done by the scientists at the University of 

Oregon is promising, it is also preliminary. The composition 

of an individual’s microbial cloud is variable — her emitted 

bacteria may differ based on the time of day or changes in her 

eating habits. Further research is necessary to unveil the intricate 

correlations between the compositions of microbial clouds and 

the characteristics they indicate, such as age and gender. We 

know the microbial cloud can betray certain secrets, but our 

scientific understanding of this link is still shaky, and definitely 

incomplete. 

Testing up until this point has been conducted in sterile 

chambers, but normal air contains numerous microbes. Scientists 

will thus have to learn to distinguish natural air microbes from 

microbes emitted by humans. Finally, these clouds require a lot of 

time, money, and effort to analyze. For microbial cloud testing to 

be a feasible method in forensics and medical research, the DNA 

sequencing machinery used to determine cloud compositions 

will need to be made cheaper and more efficient. 

Recent studies have shown that microbial clouds have a lot of 

potential, but also that research has a long way to go. Perhaps, 

sometime in the future, forensic analysts will be able to bring 

decisive evidence to criminal court cases by taking quick and 

easy samples of the air. In the meantime, scientists are left to 

ponder the mysterious clues housed within our microbial clouds. 

► Current forensic analysts rely on trace biological evidence such as 

hair, fingerprints, and blood to relate suspects to crime scenes. The 

microbial cloud is much harder to erase than these others clues, and 

as such could improve forensic analysis. 

December 2015 

IMAGE COURTESY OF CAFE SCIENCE 


29

FEATURE 

evolution 

and the 

the 

BUGS 

BEES 

art by 

Stephanie Mao 

How viruses bridged the gap 

between wasps and butterflies 

by Aviva Abusch 

Getting scientists started on whether or not we should 

genetically modify organisms is a bit like starting a discussion 

with New Yorkers about the Mets and the Yankees: Both sides 

are extremely opinionated, and everyone is quite certain they can 

convince the other side to see things their way. GMO supporters 

may not realize that they have a significant piece of evidence on 

their side that could sway their rivals. The truth of the matter is 

that GMOs are not exclusive to labs — rather, nature produces 

them every day. 

Recent research from a University of Valencia team explores 

one example of a natural GMO, one that arises from the 

relationship between wasps and caterpillars. Their insect orders, 

Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera, have not shared a genome since 

the pre-dinosaur days, 300 million years ago. That is, until now. 

To explain the return of genetic overlap, and to clarify why 

caterpillars worldwide are developing immunity to a deadly 

virus, Laila Gasmi and her team of researchers uncovered a littleknown 

evolutionary drama. 

The wasp and the caterpillar have had a gory relationship 

throughout evolutionary history. Usually, the caterpillar suffers 

at the expense of the wasp’s reproductive success. When the 

wasp is ready to lay its eggs, it injects the eggs along with a 

malignant bracovirus into the body of a caterpillar host. The eggs 

become larvae, which proceed to feast on the host’s inner fluids. 

Meanwhile, the viral DNA from the wasp’s bracovirus inhibits 

the caterpillar’s immune response, allowing the wasp larvae to 

have free reign inside the host body. The larvae do take care to 

avoid the vital organs so that the caterpillar will live — after all, 

they need their host to stay alive until they are ready to hatch. 

When the fateful day arrives, the larvae, which have by now 

matured into pupae, use their razor-sharp teeth to burrow their 

way out of the caterpillar’s thick skin. Up to 80 wasp pupae 

emerge at once, timing their exits perfectly so that their final 

molt happens on their way out. As they swarm through the holes 

they drilled in the caterpillar’s skin, the pupae leave behind the 

top layer of their exoskeleton — a slapdash surgery that keeps 

the caterpillar alive just long enough for the pupae to manipulate 

it into helping them build cocoons. In its final moments, the 

caterpillar fights to defend its tiny trespassers before it eventually 

dies of starvation. 

This lovely mental picture is a testament to the extraordinary 

effect that organisms can have on each other in an ecosystem, and 

to the enormous power of the virus. When the small bracovirus 

invades the caterpillar genome, it alters its gene expression, not 

only by suppressing the caterpillar’s immune response but also by 

rearranging its cytoskeleton, disrupting the structural integrity 

of its cells. The bracovirus completely takes over the caterpillar’s 

cell machinery, enslaving it to the will of the wasp larvae. 

Still, the invasion of the wasp bracovirus is not a total loss for 

the caterpillar. Instead, it is a perfect example of the multifaceted 

nature of genes. While the bracovirus disrupts the caterpillar’s 

immune system and cell physiology, it also provides the 

caterpillar with immunity to another dangerous virus that affects 

many types of bugs: the baculovirus. 

If the bracovirus is ultimately going to assist in killing the 

caterpillar, why does this secondary immunity benefit the ill- 


evolution 

FEATURE 

fated insect? Imagine for a moment that a parasitized caterpillar 

has just suffered through the evacuation of its wasp pupae. It 

lies there as a mostly hollow shell, drained of its strength and 

energy. However, since the wasp pupae have not touched a single 

of the caterpillar’s vital organs, there is a slim chance that the 

caterpillar could regain its strength and recover from the attack. 

If it does make it through, it can go about its regular caterpillar 

days, munching on leaves, turning into a moth or butterfly, and 

hopefully avoiding future encounters with parasitoid wasps. 

And the wasp bracovirus remains integrated into the heroic 

caterpillar’s genome — the modification becomes a permanent 

part of its genetic material. So, when it reaches adulthood and 

has offspring of its own, it will pass some of its altered genes onto 

its baby caterpillars. Over the course of future generations, the 

evolutionarily useful trait from these viral genes — immunity 

to the baculovirus — will spread across the caterpillar species, 

converting the species into a population of natural GMOs. 

When the University of Valencia team stumbled upon this 

feat of natural genetic engineering in September, they realized 

that this perseverant caterpillar’s life story could indeed be what 

happened in the species’ evolutionary history. In their research, 

the scientists found that pieces of the wasp bracovirus have been 

incorporated into the caterpillar genome through a process called 

horizontal gene transfer. Their observations spanned moth and 

butterfly species around the world, from Canada to Australia, and 

found widespread evidence of bracovirus insertion, suggesting 

that elements of the virus are now fixed in the species. 

While this finding is good news for caterpillars, it also gives 

researchers a glimpse into just how much complexity there can 

be in one species’ evolutionary history. These variations have 

captivated scholars. According to Larry Gall, an entomology 

specialist at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, 

evolutionary history research has risen dramatically in recent 

years. “What’s been happening in the last 15 to 20 years or 

so, particularly in the last 10, is people have been grinding up 

samples of anything they possibly can and subjecting them 

to mitochondrial and nuclear DNA analysis,” Gall said. Using 

modern DNA technology, researchers are looking to explore 

genetic relationships like that between the wasp and the caterpillar 

to resolve age-old questions about the evolution of species. 

Natural history museums like the Peabody play no small 

role in furthering this research. The Peabody’s entomology 

department constantly sends out insect samples for analysis at 

laboratories worldwide, as do its other departments for different 

species. As Gall can attest, even a well-known species can hold 

genetic surprises. Researchers may begin with preconceptions 

about a species’ evolutionary past, only to find that its genetic 

narrative reveals that there are actually two or three separate 

species involved. “There are so many questions to ask, and the 

techniques just keep getting better and better,” Gall said. “With 

modern molecular technology, these collections have become a 

genetic treasure trove.” 

While manmade GMOs have been controversial since 

their conception, this research on natural GMOs offers a new 

perspective on the debate. Leaving evolution to its own devices 

does not actually produce the unadulterated path one might 

expect, and the results of natural genetic modification are often 

no less twisted — or beneficial — than what humans engineer. 

The tale of the wasp and the caterpillar finds that nature’s 

evolutionary course may be more complex than it seems. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 

►Scientists at the University of Valencia looked at the genomes of several species, including the monarch butterfly. Their research reveals a 

fascinating evolutionary relationship between wasps and caterpillars. 


December 2015 


31

FEATURE 

materials science 

A NEW STATE 

OF MIND 

Magnetic metamaterials could 

lead to faster computers 

By Chunyang Ding 

Art by Marguerite Epstein-Martin 

Steam, water, and ice are familiar to us — in the vapor rising 

from a hot kettle, a healthy spring rainfall, and the smooth surface 

of a skating rink. But to some materials scientists, these states 

of matter are more than mere changes in physical properties. 

They pave a path to new frontiers of computer science and data 

retrieval. 

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute recently discovered a 

method of organizing magnetic metamaterials so that they have 

phase transitions — walking the line between solid and liquid. 

This significant technological development, which draws on an 

elementary understanding of solid, liquid, and gas, could lead to 

better information storage. 

The team, led by Laura Heyderman, examined phase shifts in 

magnetic metamaterials — composite materials not found in 

nature that can be created to interact with magnetic fields. In their 

research, Heyderman and her colleagues tirelessly assembled 

one billion tiny magnets to create a honeycomb structure only 

five by five millimeters in size. This structure is unique in how 

it transfers magnetic information across the entire honeycomb. 

Then, the scientists subjected this layer of magnetic metamaterial 

to different temperatures, observing how it reacted by arranging 

its magnetic poles in different ways. As temperature decreased, 

the poles adopted formations that were more efficient in moving 

magnetic signals through the material. This phenomenon is not 

so different from the way that water molecules bind more tightly 

together when frozen into ice. 

Phase shifting magnetic metamaterials like the ones produced 

by Heyderman’s team are becoming more important as scientists 

reach the limits of what conventional materials are able to 

accomplish in electronics. Recently, metamaterials became a hot 

topic in popular physics, when buzz surfaced over the creation 

of “invisibility cloaks.” Of course, there is some discrepancy 

between what is happening in the labs and what goes on at 

Hogwarts. The real world invisibility cloak carefully manipulates 

magnetic properties so that light can deflect around the hidden 

object instead of reflecting back to the viewer. Metamaterials 

have a variety of other potential applications, from photography 

color filters that actually alter light wavelengths to more powerful 

telescopes. 

A huge potential market for metamaterials is nested in Silicon 

Valley, where researchers at microprocessor corporations 

are quickly running into difficulties as they try to build 

smaller computers. In the 1970s, researchers predicted that 

computational power would double every 18 months onward, 

an observation known as Moore’s law. To achieve this progress, 

the law actually anticipated that engineers would be able to 

make computer components smaller by a factor of two every 18 

months. If transistors, for example, could be built small enough 

that twice as many would fit into the same computer, the machine 

would run twice as fast. However, there is a practical limit to how 

far scientists can shrink the size of computer pieces. As current 

technology stands, within a few generations, Moore’s law could 


materials science 

FEATURE 

be a dream from the past. 

Magnetic metamaterials could help resolve the Moore’s 

law dilemma, especially as these materials relate to engineers’ 

current efforts to store information using the spin of an electron 

rather than its charge. This field of science is called spintronics. 

Modern electronics rely on the movement of electrons to store 

and retrieve information: As electrons move, their charges are 

measured and translated into computer bits. Billions of these bits 

are then used to load up websites and applications. Spintronics 

takes a different approach, measuring the electron’s spin instead 

of its charge. An electron’s spin, associated with magnetism, 

takes only one of two directions — up or down. If scientists can 

learn to manipulate electron spins, then this information could 

be translated into a more efficient computer bit. 

Heyderman’s research could help scientists master the art of 

spintronics because it improves upon current understanding of 

how electrons share magnetic information. Her team’s primary 

discovery is that nanomagnets communicate more quickly with 

one another at low temperatures than at higher temperatures. 

To visualize nanomagnets’ increased efficiency at lower 

temperatures, you can think of how much harder it is to push 

liquid water than it is to push a block of ice. When you push 

the ice, the entire block moves forward immediately. However, 

when you try to push on a pool of water, it does not simply move 

forward. Instead, you send ripples through the liquid, and it 

takes a much longer time for your push to reach the other end 

of the pool. 

Magnetic metamaterials behave in a similar fashion, but 

rely on a magnetic signal instead of a physical push. At higher 

temperatures, the honeycomb of nanomagnets allows the signal 

to slowly ripple through the entire grid. In contrast, at lower 

temperatures, the magnetic metamaterials react more like ice, 

and even nanomagnets far away from the signal’s initial push 

respond almost instantaneously. If utilized in a computer chip, 

these magnetic metamaterials and signals could speed up 

information transmission. 

Even with these accomplishments, Heyderman’s work is not 

complete. Her group still needs to experiment with metamaterials 

of different magnet arrangements and sizes, as small changes in 

arrangement could have big influences on large-scale magnetic 

IMAGES COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA 

►Left: Modern transistors are no larger than a few electrons, so 

engineers are having trouble shrinking them even further. Without 

smaller transistors, computers and smartphones will not be getting 

any smaller or faster. Right: Trying to push water around is much 

more difficult than pushing a solid block of ice. This principle applies 

to nanomagnets, and to the design of efficient computers for the 

modern age. 

and spin effects. So far, the experimenters have tested the 

effect with two different configurations of nanomagnets, each 

with different magnetic properties. For the weakly interacting 

sample of nanomagnets, the phase transition effect was almost 

non-existent until temperatures reached approximately 10 

Kelvin. However, for the strongly interacting sample, the first 

signs of phase transition began at almost 145 Kelvin, a much 

higher temperature. The group will continue to test different 

arrangements of magnetic metamaterials, hoping to exercise 

even greater control over these phase transitions. 

It is likely that we will see improved spintronics in the 

computer world within the next few decades, and consequently, 

faster computers. And yet, magnetic metamaterials retain an 

exciting similarity to nature’s own phase-changing products. The 

ancient ideas of phase transitions, from simple ice, water, and 

vapor, continue to spark scientists’ imaginations and promise 

new technologies to enrich our world. 

www.yalescientific.org December 2015 Yale Scientific Magazine 

33

THE 

>I 

DEBUNK NG 

SC ENCE 

MARTIAN 

►BY SOPHIA SANCHEZ- MAES 

When astronaut Mark Watney is left for dead following a Red 

Planet dust storm in The Martian, he struggles to survive, establish 

communication with NASA, and get back home. The 2015 film, 

based on Andy Weir’s book of the same title, draws on the 50 years 

of research that have followed man’s first glimpse of the Martian 

surface via the Mariner orbiter. Given the story’s engagement with 

this scientific legacy, it is no surprise that despite a few glaring 

errors, the film is mostly commendable in its accuracy. 

As Watney puts it after he is abandoned on Mars, he intends 

to “science the shit out of this place” — and it is easy to imagine 

the film’s producers saying the same. To ensure that The Martian’s 

science would be sound, filmmakers consulted with experts from 

NASA and the European Space Agency. They confirmed details 

from the burning of hydrazine fuel to the possibility of gardening 

on Martian soil. Many of the technologies used in the movie 

already exist or are in development, such as the computer Watney 

uses to communicate while aboard the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft 

and the chemical propulsion method that helps him travel safely 

back to Earth. 

While plotting his original novel, Weir enjoyed designing the 

survival strategies and technologies that would later be imagined 

on screen. “As the writer, I could always make sure he had whatever 

was necessary to have a clever solution on tap,” Weir said. 

Still, while technology can change, scientific laws cannot. The 

film makes a few key scientific errors, most notably the dust storm 

that strands Watney in the first place. 

Since Mars’ atmosphere is only one percent the density of 

Earth’s, storms on the Red Planet are far less intense. A storm that 

would wreak havoc on Earth would not have the force to knock 

Watney off his feet or to whip rocks and metal spikes through the 

air. Weir admits that this sandstorm is the plot’s greatest scientific 

inaccuracy. Given that wind force is a function of velocity and 

atmospheric density, a 120 mile per hour Martian storm would 

only have a dynamic force of approximately 12 miles per hour — 

great for Martian kite-flying, but not much more than that. 

Gravity, too, is an Achilles heel of the film’s scientific accuracy. In 

The Martian, astronauts appear to exert themselves while walking 

in their spacesuits, which in line with the filmmakers’ aesthetic 

were built to the minimum girth at which they could support life. 

Since Martian gravity is only about one-third of Earth’s, astronauts 

would require spacesuits at least equal to their masses in order 

to experience their Earth weights on Mars. With less gravity to 

anchor them to the ground, their gaits would also be modified into 

long, bouncing strides. None of this comes across on screen with 

total accuracy. 

The method of Watney’s rescue is also scientifically implausible. 

To intercept the ship coming to rescue him, he cuts a hole in his 

spacesuit so that the escaping pressure will propel him towards 

the waiting crew. In reality, this maneuver could not possibly have 

gone as shown. Instead, the vacuum of space would have pulled on 

Watney’s hand to plug the hole. Or, as is likely, the suit would have 

been so depressurized by the release of gas that Watney would have 

been deprived of oxygen. Left to face the harsh vacuum, he would 

have had only 10 seconds of consciousness and around a minute 

left to live. 

But Watney does not die. During his time unshielded — 

plummeting through the thin Martian atmosphere and through 

space, largely unprotected under the virtually non-existent 

Martian geomagnetic field — Watney would have been exposed 

to dangerous levels of radiation. As a result, he and his fellow 

astronauts would be extremely susceptible to cancer. Nevertheless, 

he survives his rescue, and the story flashes years forward to a 

scene where he is teaching a future class of astronauts the hardknock 

lessons that enabled his survival. 

At the end of a film filled with so much strife, perhaps the plot 

is best left on such a positive note. “I wanted to write a story 

for people like me — people who know a fair amount about the 

realities of space travel and still want to enjoy a good story that 

doesn’t take too many liberties with reality,” Weir said. Mixing 

solid science with a healthy dose of fiction, it seems that Weir and 

The Martian have done just that. 

IMAGE COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX 

► The Martian, starring Matt Damon, is a surprisingly accurate hypothetical 

rendition of what would happen if a man were left on Mars. Of course, for 

the sake of drama, Hollywood sensationalizes some of the science. 


Science or Science Fiction? 

Making Virtual Reality a Reality 

►BY STEPHANIE SMELYANSKY 

How do you define reality? For Neo in The Matrix, this 

is a hard question. Born into a virtual reality system so 

realistic that robots use it to ensnare human society, Neo 

struggles to come to terms with the fact that his world 

is no more than a computer simulation. While Neo’s 

virtual reality is fictional, similar realities do in fact exist 

in our world — and they have a lot of potential for good. 

Virtual realities, or virtual environments, are 

simulated, 3D worlds that immerse users in sensory 

experiences that mimic reality. In The Matrix and 

other popular science fiction films, these realities are 

controlled by a user’s brainwaves alone. Other films, like 

Ender’s Game, feature virtual reality combat simulators, 

in which actions in a virtual simulation translate to 

real life actions. All of these fictional systems seem 

relatively simple, appearing more like video games than 

cumbersome programs. 

Real world virtual reality systems are much more 

interactive, relying on both software components to 

simulate virtual realities as well as physical components 

that users wear to enable simulations. Virtual reality 

software is like that of a video game: each character 

and environment correlates with a specific code that, 

when processed, dictates how it interacts with other 

characters and environments. To manipulate these 

codes in a video game, users might press buttons on a 

controller. Similarly, in virtual reality, users manipulate 

environments and characters through input devices 

in the physical gear that they wear or hold, such as 

headgear, motion-tracking gloves, or joysticks. These 

devices convert user movements into signals that can be 

processed by the virtual reality software. 

While the most obvious use for virtual environments 

is in video gaming, this technology has a myriad of 

other capabilities. First conceptualized for use in 

military flight and combat simulations, virtual reality is 

compelling enough that the military and NASA rely on 

it for training exercises. Engineers and architects use the 

technology to simulate safety tests for cars and buildings 

as an alternative to constructing physical models. 

Medicine is perhaps one of the most unique 

applications for virtual environments. In these simulated 

realities, doctors can conduct surgeries remotely by 

manipulating robots. Virtual environments can also 

be used in behavioral therapy to project various social 

IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA 

situations, opening up a whole new range of treatments 

for cognitive and psychiatric disorders. So far, they have 

been effective in treating anxiety disorders by exposing 

patients to a series of virtual realities that simulate their 

anxiety triggers. 

In his research, Daniel Yang of the Yale Child Study 

Center tests the efficacy of virtual reality treatment on 

autism using neuroimaging. His findings show that 

after virtual reality therapy, the brains of individuals 

with autism conform more closely to neural images of 

typical brain development. “Virtual reality therapy is 

very flexible in simulating all kinds of social situations 

and can overcome several barriers, including reducing 

stress during face-to-face interaction, and increasing 

motivation,” Yang said. “Based on my findings, I believe 

it’s quite useful.” 

Still, current virtual environment technologies have a 

few kinks. Users may experience lag time between the 

output and input of signals employed by their virtual 

environment gear. In video games, this problem is only a 

minor nuisance that delays characters’ actions on screen. 

However, in virtual environments, this delay prevents 

the brain from interacting with simulated settings as if 

they were real, sometimes causing intense nausea. 

Furthermore, researchers in a recent study conducted 

at the University of California in Los Angeles discovered 

that our brains are not as easily fooled by virtual realities 

as The Matrix might lead you to believe. When exploring 

a true landscape, the brain activates specific patterns 

of neural pathways — but when the brain navigates a 

virtual landscape, neurons fire off at random. Unlike 

the high-level virtual realities of science fiction, current 

virtual reality systems fall short of reality. 

While virtual reality technology is still a work in 

progress, the unveiling of one such technology in early 

2016, Oculus Rift, demonstrates improvements in 

real world virtual environments. The producers of the 

commercial Oculus Rift expect to see it become a common 

facet in many video games, a potential educational tool, 

and a more accessible form of behavioral therapy. 

Virtual reality has progressed a long way, from 

a concept exclusive to science fiction to an actual 

consumer product. Let us hope that — unlike the virtual 

realities dramatized by Hollywood — ours will not lead 

to the apocalypse. 


December 2015 


35

UNDERGRADUATE PROFILE 

SAMANTHA LICHTIN (ES ‘16) 

VIEWING THE WORLD THROUGH THE LENS OF GEOLOGY 

►BY ISABEL WOLFE 

If you are looking for Samantha Lichtin at 2:00 AM on a Friday, 

you may find her peering through a microscope at tiny, obscure 

organisms as she works on a research project. When speaking about 

science, her eyes light up and her voice crescendos. A double major 

passionate about geology and evolutionary biology, Lichtin not 

only craves learning and discovery, but also finds joy in sharing her 

enthusiasm for science with others. 

When Lichtin applied to college, she assumed she would study 

environmental engineering and international relations. However, 

by the spring of her senior year of high school, she realized that she 

wanted more freedom to explore a variety of subjects. As a freshman 

at Yale, Lichtin took a smattering of introductory science classes. One 

stood out: “History of Life,” taught by professor Derek Briggs. This 

introductory paleontology class focused mainly on morphological 

diversity and evolution over the course of Earth’s history. The course 

drew her to the idea that the world could be better understood 

through the perspective of geology. 

After receiving a Freshman Summer Research Fellowship from Yale, 

Lichtin took part in a summer paleontology dig in northeast Arizona, 

her first experience studying geology off campus. Lichtin and the Yale 

Peabody Museum team collected fossils called archosaurs from the 

Triassic period — 200 to 250 million years ago. The following summer, 

Lichtin researched forams, tiny single-celled organisms with calcium 

carbonate shells, at the University of Southampton in England. These 

two adventures helped her make a final decision to major in geology 

at Yale. “People in the [field] are pushing so many frontiers,” Lichtin 

IMAGE COURTESY OF SAMANTHA LICHTIN 

►Samantha Lichtin ‘16 is president of Yale’s Club Geo. 

said. The constant sense of exploration and discovery she found in 

geology and the field’s interdisciplinary nature were both powerful 

incentives for Lichtin to forge ahead. 

She has since delved deep into Yale’s geology scene. In her 

sophomore year, she built herself a strong foundation by taking 

classes in genetics, microbiology, and geology. As a junior, she 

made the definitive decision to take on two majors — geology 

and geophysics in addition to ecology and evolutionary biology. 

Now a senior, Lichtin is head of Yale’s Club Geo, which provides a 

support network for undergraduates studying geology, disseminates 

information about geology related opportunities on and off campus, 

and generally promotes interest in geoscience. This semester, 

Lichtin is also conducting her senior thesis research, which involves 

understanding the biological underpinnings behind ancient seasurface 

temperatures. To this end, she is examining the biochemical 

remains of unicellular microorganisms. 

A variety of non-scientific extracurricular activities have enriched 

Lichtin’s research life at Yale. As a freshman, she performed in the play 

“Into the Woods.” Her love for playing the viola has been satisfied by 

the Yale Symphony Orchestra and the Berkeley College Orchestra. In 

addition, she regularly takes ballet classes and rock climbs, and she 

has been a committed member of the Ezra Stiles College Council. 

Since her freshman year, Lichtin has volunteered with VITA 

(Volunteer Income Tax Association), a nationwide program that 

provides free tax preparation to low-income taxpayers. “VITA 

has been an amazing way to directly give back to the New Haven 

community,” Lichtin said. Her desire and capacity to share knowledge 

is reflected in her passion for teaching. Through VITA, she has led 

courses on how to certify with the IRS. 

Lichtin has also spent time tutoring general chemistry at Yale, and 

she is the first to offer help to confused freshmen struggling with 

biology homework in the library. 

After graduation, Lichtin hopes to teach English in Argentina, a 

country filled with fossils and frequented by geologists visiting its 

important paleontological sites. To Lichtin, Argentina is a place 

where she could expand her boundaries as both a scientist and 

person. She hopes to become a better, more informed citizen of 

the world through this next adventure abroad. Lichtin can also see 

herself eventually working in a natural history museum or even in 

the Department of Education. 

Regardless of whether she travels across the world or stays right 

here in New Haven, Lichtin will undoubtedly choose a path that 

continues to spread her infectious sense of wonder. 


ALUMNI PROFILE 

RICHARD LETHIN (YC ‘85) 

THE CHANGING ROLES OF AN ENGINEERING ENTHUSIAST 

►BY KENDRICK MOSS UMSTATTD 

A group of students listens intently as Yale professor Richard Lethin 

gives a lecture on computer architecture. His course, which covers the 

integration of software and hardware to produce computer systems, 

intrigues students — just as similar lectures fascinated Lethin during his 

undergraduate career at Yale. 

By showing how far computer design has come — from simple 

computer architectures of the past to artificially intelligent systems of 

the present — Lethin inspires students to write the code for the next 

chapter of computer science. As the current president of Reservoir 

Labs, Lethin is helping to write the current chapter, by developing more 

efficient computer systems and improved cyber security technologies. 

His path from curious child to president of Reservoir Labs shows his 

ever-expanding passion for computer science, regardless of the role he 

plays — whether a student, an engineer, or a professor. 

Long before Lethin was standing up at the front of a classroom, 

encouraging students to pursue computer engineering, he was 

motivated by his father’s work to study programming. His father — 

also a Yale engineering graduate — helped design the radar used in 

the Berlin airlifts, and often brought home early digital calculators that 

captivated Lethin as a child. “[His] was a very glamorous job, and, as a 

son, I admired him,” Lethin said. His fascination with engineering was 

only heightened by the Apollo space program. The exciting environment 

in which Lethin grew up, coupled with his early access to programming, 

fueled his interest in engineering and computer science. 

Lethin’s early passion for engineering pushed him to study the subject 

at Yale. As an undergraduate, he not only dedicated himself to his 

studies but also to extracurricular pursuits. He joined a number of Yale’s 

music groups, and played the trombone in jazz band, concert band, and 

marching band. Reflecting on his classes, he recalls his political science 

and African art courses as fondly as his engineering ones. “I think Yale 

engineering students have a unique advantage in their access to a broad 

range of resources and courses,” Lethin said. 

After four fulfilling years at Yale, Lethin — like many other engineers 

— took time to work in the field before attending graduate school. 

Between his time as a Yale undergraduate and his years in graduate 

school at MIT, Lethin worked at Multiflow Computer, a company 

founded by his computer architecture professor Josh Fisher. There, 

Lethin got involved in a variety of tasks, from working on computer 

circuitry and architecture to improving the efficiency of computer 

systems. “I learned a lot about what it takes to build something real, and 

that proved to be really useful in getting into graduate school,” he said. 

Lethin added that his experience in research and development, when 

he investigated the best ways to improve the speed and reliability of 

IMAGE COURTESY OF RICHARD LETHIN 

►Lethin sits with the computer he was working on at the Yaliefounded 

startup Multiflow Computer. 

computer systems, further set him apart from those without research 

experience when he applied to graduate school. When he arrived at 

MIT, Lethin channeled his experience building special computers into 

his work as a research assistant in the artificial intelligence lab. 

Today, Lethin’s role as president of Reservoir Labs occupies most of 

his time. The company works to develop security and communications 

computer technologies for commercial and government customers. 

When asked about the differences between being president — a 

position he has held for more than 18 years — and being an engineer, 

Lethin compared working at a company to eating from a plate of food. 

Engineers with different specialties eat only one course, whereas the 

president has some of everything, ensuring that the different dishes 

complement each other. 

Lethin can also provide an insider opinion about the current state 

of progress in artificial intelligence and software engineering. Even 

since he began teaching 15 years ago, Lethin has observed artificial 

intelligence evolve from a topic viewed as a controversial subject to a 

valuable, mainstream idea. Not only are companies now investing in the 

development of artificial intelligence, but popular culture is capitalizing 

on the public’s interest in intelligent machines. “I don’t really have an 

opinion on transcendence or when it’s going to happen, but it sure is 

interesting. Even if machines don’t achieve intelligence equal to humans 

soon, they’re getting smarter every day,” Lethin said. 

If an eager student in Lethin’s class were to ask him which of his roles 

is his favorite, he might answer that his favorite is being a father. But if 

you were to ask his favorite area within computer science, he would be 

unable to choose. “There are so many interesting things going on right 

now,” he said, “so there are just not enough hours in the day.” 


December 2015 


37

FEATURE 

podcast reviews 

“THE INFINITE MONKEY CAGE” Proves Delightful for a Wide Audience 

►BY TRACY CHUNG 

“When is a strawberry dead?” This quirky question is one of many that 

have sparked debates on BBC Radio 4’s science-meets-entertainment 

podcast, “The Infinite Monkey Cage.” It is indicative of the show’s 

character — nonsensical musings intertwined with surprising scientific 

curiosity. 

The infinite monkey theorem (supposedly the show’s namesake) 

stipulates that a monkey sitting at a typewriter for an infinite amount 

of time will eventually type any given literary text. In this case, merit 

is just a matter of probability. The podcast has far less than an infinite 

amount of time — episodes typically run for half an hour. Nevertheless, 

the program leaves listeners with a practical level of understanding. 

Since beginning in 2009, the program has produced 12 series, a U.S. 

tour, and extended podcast versions of many episodes. The program 

is led by University of Manchester particle physicist Brian Cox and 

comedic writer Robin Ince. The seemingly mismatched pair bring a 

certain whimsy to the podcast. 

Each episode begins with a theme, such as forensic science, pandas, 

death, or parallel universes. Cox and Ince are joined by a panel of three 

guests — usually experts in the given field or entertainers. As the show 

has garnered popularity, the guests have been more well known. Evolutionary 

biologist Richard Dawkins, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, 

and a handful of famous British actors have all served on a Monkey 

Cage panel. Questions like “when is a strawberry dead?” spur lively 

“SCIENCE VS” Pits Fact Against Fiction with a Humorous Twist 

►BY AARON TANNENBAUM 

Have you been told that the Paleo diet is the way to go if you want 

to lose weight? Or that you can boost your happiness by keeping a 

gratitude journal? These popular science sensations have proliferated 

quickly, thanks to the internet and viral media. To find out whether 

the latest craze is actually grounded in scientific evidence, look no 

further than the new podcast “Science Vs.” Hosted by Australian 

science journalist Wendy Zukerman, the program launches humorous, 

informative, and sometimes snarky investigations into whether recent 

trends are fabricated or factual. 

Zukerman begins each podcast 

by presenting a fad. Though she 

has only recorded 10 installments 

of her show to date, she has already 

covered a wide range of topics, from 

the differences between men’s and 

women’s brain functions to the 

efficacy of medical marijuana. After 

a brief, often mocking overview of 

the trend or belief and how it came 

IMAGE COURTESY OF ABC 

►“Science Vs” tackles fads 

framed as scientific fact. 

to be public knowledge, Zukerman 

drops her trademark line — “There’s 

YouTube,” she might say, “and then 

there’s science.” Cue the angelic 

SPOTLIGHT 

SCIENCE IN THE SPOTLIGHT 

discussion. Is a strawberry 

still alive as photosynthesis 

continues? How do we define 

death? Is it dependent 

on the definition of life? 

The conversations progress 

with an impressive and natural 

flow, a credit to Cox, 

Ince, and the show’s tone. 

However, the podcast’s 

effort to bring scientific inquiry 

and humor together 

is less smooth. Either the 

PHOTO BY TRACY CHUNG 

►“The Infinite Monkey Cage” brings 

science and entertainment together for 

a fun listening experience. 

humor is buried beneath data and concepts, or the science is oversimplified 

for the sake of amusement and accessibility. Perhaps this is less the 

podcast’s fault than it is the nature of its goal to make science humorous 

and appealing to a general audience. Still, what the podcast lacks in 

scientific detail, it makes up for in charm. Listeners will find episodes 

amusing and thought-provoking, but they should not expect to become 

experts on the scientific specifics. 

So, when is a strawberry dead? There is no definite answer. But, with 

some rumination (and jest), “The Infinite Monkey Cage” opens up a 

new line of thought for its listeners. 

sound effect. 

Zukerman dissects trends with her own scientific knowledge and 

the counsel of her many guest researchers, but she is also careful to 

maintain a vocabulary that is accessible to non-scientists. Try not be 

too embarrassed when you realize that you had also jumped on the 

bandwagon before checking the facts — listening to “Science Vs” can 

be humbling. 

As a science enthusiast, Zukerman speaks with a bias for scientific 

fact over popular fad. You can hear the smug satisfaction in her voice as 

she debunks each myth. However, she does not hesitate to acknowledge 

when scientists do not yet know enough to definitely disprove certain 

widely-held beliefs. In one episode, when Zukerman tackles the belief 

that pornography addiction negatively impacts our sexual behaviors, 

she readily admits that scientific studies have neither sufficiently 

affirmed nor disproved this idea. Although Zukerman seems to enjoy 

subtly making fun of the more gullible among us, she never does so at 

the expense of scientific integrity. 

Despite its name, this podcast is not only for the scientificallyoriented. 

“Science Vs” is a terrific choice for all who are curious about 

the world and who would like to train their minds not to believe 

everything they hear. Not to mention, it is perfect for anyone who 

would now-and-again enjoy calling out their less-discerning friends for 

confusing fact with fad. 


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