Admiration: today’s images of polar bears taking over an abandoned weather station have gone viral in the last few weeks. Wildlife photographer Dmitry Kokh traveled by boat to Kolyuchin Island, Chukotka, Russia, last year and photographed the giants (gentle they are not,) likely with drones. There was something that captured me on so many levels
– the beauty of the photographs themselves.
– the underlying disquietude that bears are driven ever further into human habitat due to melting ice from climate change.
– the spirited approach to photography that involves traveling along hazardous routes.
I went to his website and saw stern requests not to publish without permission. Sent him an email and had a positive response within 48 hours. Grateful! Спасибо!
Here is a short video of the bears moving about. I urge you to look also at Kokh’s grey heron images which he took in Russia during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. They are stunning.
Amusement: As with all things that deservedly go viral on the Internet, there is a spirited approach to creating memes that mark the occasion. In the case of the polar bear house invasion, you now find AirBnB ratings that pretend to have traveled to this remote spot in the Chukchi Sea.
Awe: and talking about spirited approaches – few are more mind-boggling than those of Joel Berger, a scientist at the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University. Berger’s goal is “problem solving to achieve actionable conservation.” In his own words:
“Science is but one of many avenues to achieve this. Although policy change can be a goal, so can be altering attitudes, inspiring others, or solving mysteries. My own work tends to be with species larger than a bread box, and thematically on issues concerning population ecology, thermal ecology, effects of people on species as landscapes change, migration, and climate stressors. Understanding how we’ve altered food webs is also important. Much of my efforts continue to be in remote ecosystems, although there are clear advantages to work on biodiversity issues in the mountains and deserts of the Intermountain West.”
Cold-adapted species have held a special place in his research, and here the polar bear theme re-emerges. The scientist, in his quest to understand the impact of stressors like climate degradation and extreme icing events on muskoxen, the largest Arctic mammal, actually donned a polar bear costume to approach the herds in the wild. The 7-year longitudinal study with observations in both the Western and Eastern Arctic revealed, as expected, not exactly good news. Here is a video of Berger in action as a polar bear.
If I were, say, 40 years younger, I’d apply to be a research assistant. Why? Just look at the locations where he is involved: Northern Rocky Mountains and deserts to the west, the Arctic in both Asia (Wrangel Island, Chukotka, Russia) and Alaska, and some areas within central or high elevation Asia – Mongolia, China (Tibet), and Bhutan. And the questions he and his teams are asking:
In the meantime, I’ll read scientific news on polar bears….
Instead of music today here are the sounds of the arctic, and an Inuit poem contemplating the everlasting ice and scientific research affecting the region. It is a video (28 minutes) best watched when in a meditative space.
Two billion people across the world celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year tomorrow, 2/1/2022, the Year of the Tiger. Last week I went down to Lan Su, Portland’s Chinese Garden, on a cold, sunny day to marvel at the decorations as I do every year. If you expect me to write exclusively about tigers, though, you should know better by now!
It has to be about hippopotamuses as well. I could stretch to find a connection, hippos being fierce (like the Chinese Zodiac sign of the tiger,) or semi-aquatic, linking to the fact that 2022 is a Water year for the Chinese Zodiac.
But in truth, even the hippos are just a part of today’s topic: how science approaches the (re)introduction of species to places from which they have vanished, or never lived before.
I was alerted to the issues when hearing about the hippos who were left to fend for themselves when Drug Lord and all-around-evil-guy Pablo Escobar was killed by Columbian police in 1993. He had a private zoo next to his mansion that hosted 4 hippos which escaped into the wild when the estate was left to itself. Here we are now, 30 years later, with an estimated 80-100 hippos congregating along the neighboring Magdalena River. That number might swell to another 800-5000 hippos in the next 30 years, depending on who is doing the estimating (Ref.) Hippos have no natural predators in Columbia, nor are their numbers culled by droughts as they would be in their native countries in Africa. They happily procreate.
Well, not much longer. Since it is legally forbidden to kill them, after a public outcry when the first of these escaped beasts was shot, the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Negro and Nare River Basins (CORNARE) is now culling the herd by sterilizing the animals. They deliver doses of a contraceptive vaccine to the hippos which works on both males and females, via dart guns. The reason for a comprehensive sterilization program lies with multiple threats to the environment if the hippo numbers increase unchecked. Their grazing for food is intense and prevents other herbivores to get to the nourishment they need (a single adult hippo consumes about 88 pounds (40 kg) of grass per day.) The amount of poop deposited in the river is a threat to some aquatic plant and fish populations. And hippos can be quite aggressive if too close to human contact, with inevitable violent encounters in shared space with the fishermen.
It is easy to visualize how a foreign species hurts the balance of an ecosystem. Or what re-introduced species do to environments that have changed so much over the millennia as to not be recognizable given the landscape fragmentation. But scientists have started to look not just for the negative aspects of rewilding or new (if unintended) introductions, but to catalogue the positive trends associated with animals in new places. It looks like they just might serve some ecological functions that were earlier offered by now extinct species. New folks picking up the slack!
Here are the principles that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) established:
Take the hippos. Their daytime grazing habits are similar to those of now extinct giant llamas that lived in Columbia in the Pleistocene. Their defecations bring nutrients to rivers that extinct semi-aquatic creatures of yore provided. But the numbers need to be monitored and if necessary, constrained.
Northern Australia lost its giant marsupials. They are in some ways replaced by grazing water buffalos, the largest herbivores since the extinction, whose feeding habits reduce the frequency and severity of wildfires, mitigating the effects of climate change.
Feral hogs, whose rooting in soil increases tree growth and attracts bird flocks, are replacing ecological work done by extinct giant peccaries in North America. The original American horses, which died out about 12,000 years ago, are now replaced by feral mustangs and burros in the American West who engage in well-digging behavior like their forbears, protecting water resources.
These are just a few examples. More details can be found here.
And guess who is rewilded in China? Yup, South China tigers. They are taken from Chinese zoos, the only place where they exist now, and reintroduced to open terrain in wild life preserves in South Africa. Once they have learned to live outside of captivity they will be released back in China. May the Year of the Tiger see an improved coexistence of humans and nature!
Here is some traditional Chinese pipa music. Happy New Year to those who celebrate!
A young German historian, Annika Brockschmidt, recently published a book about America’sHoly Warriors(so far available in German only as Amerikas Gotteskrieger,) detailing the evolution of Trumpism, the general turn to an authoritarian, evangelical, cult-like movement within the GOP and the resulting danger to democracy. It met with acclaim, moved up the ranks in bestseller lists, until last week a sudden shitstorm unfolded, led by Politico’s chief Europe correspondent and echoed by representatives from the right-wing German press. She had not visited America! She had not interviewed Republicans in person! She was just echoing propaganda from leftwing US sources! Independent of the fact that the pandemic made travel impossible, the criticism conveniently overlooked that the contents were not claims by an investigative journalist (although she sure has an incredible breadth of source information as well as journalistic experience) but source analyses by a trained historian. The book, by the way, is smart, concise and perfectly reflective of what we here in the U.S. are experiencing.
I am bringing this up partly because I have been wrestling with the fact that my current reviews of visual artists are confined to a virtual experience of their art, or reading about their art. I am forced to look at their work on-line, if that is even possible. I can describe none of the emotional reactions that come with a real-life encounter, in situ, or thoughts that are spontaneously elicited when you meet face to face with something extraordinary. Maybe that is why universally available poetry has taken over so much of the recent musings. Does that mean I cannot, for now, review visual art? No. Just like it was for Brockschmidt, I still have access to the ideas, the concepts and insights that drive visual artists to their creations and can describe how those affect me or what they imply for the likely standing of the work.
Today, then, I want to introduce the ideas of a gifted young Palestinian artist, Jumana Manna, a film maker and sculptor, who was born in the U.S., grew up in Israel, and now spends her time between Berlin and Jerusalem. She recently received one of Germany’s more coveted awards for up and coming young artists, the bi-annual Max Pechstein Prize. It is the latest in a string of accomplishments that include stints at the 2017 Venice Biennale, and solo shows in major European and American institutions.
Let me trace the evolution of Manna’s ideas that have clearly marked her thinking for much of her career. As always, I am impressed when someone is able to have a continuous body of work that pursues different aspects of a general question.
Or questions. Who gets to decide what gets preserved when power hierarchies determine access and interpretation in situations defined by conflict? Who gets to determine how memories are shaped and transmitted? Who gets to choose what artifacts or living organisms get preserved or extinguished? Who gets to fix a value hierarchy that often serves indirectly political purposes? Manna looks at these question in the domains of botanical and agricultural preservation and opens the door to new ways of thinking about everything from the way religious botanists shaped the description and preservation of a region’s flora, to the insidious side effects of the Green Revolution in Middle Eastern countries torn by war, to Israeli laws and punishments imposed on foragers for traditional Palestinian foods.
An early body of work, Post Herbarium, looked at the American missionary, botanist and surgeon George E. Post (1838–1909) who in the late 19th century traveled to the Levant to collect botanical specimens. He believed they would be a key to understanding Christian theology. A depiction of the inherent tension between biblical beliefs and assumed scientific rationality was focal to Manna’s installations that used information gathered at the Post Herbarium at the American University of Beirut, where the specimens collected in Syria, Palestine and Sinai are archived.
Next came the film Wild Relatives (2017). (The link to Manna’s website includes a short trailer. The whole thing can be watched on True Story, but needs subscription.) The film is a marvel. It follows the journey of seeds between Syria, Lebanon and Norway, seeds collected and crossbred by scientists at local seed banks, then lost due to war, recouped from the Global Seed Deposit in Svalbarg and eventually sent back there again. (I had introduced that Seed Bank in the blog in 2017, when melting permafrost frost threatened it with flooding. Here is a more recent description of their work. )
I cannot begin to describe how the dry and often horrifying facts are told in lyrical fashion and with a sensitivity to human suffering that makes you cling to the story while absorbing scientific detail. I can, however, describe what we learn from the film. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, known as ICARDA, a center that focuses on seed collection, cultivation and research, was moved from Lebanon (during that war) to Syria, back to Lebanon (during this war.) Scientists were lucky to escape Aleppo and much of their stock was lost. They requested their original seeds back from the Svalbard Seed Bank which had housed earlier deposits. Refugees from Syria are now working the fields in Lebanon to continue the local seed collection, cultivation and cross breeding with wild relatives of the species, and, once established, packages of these seeds are returned to Svalbard for further safe keeping. The film follows the journey and the humans involved in both Lebanon and Norway, their dreams and their nightmares shaped by both science and religion.
A detailed description of ICARDA’s work and struggle can be found here. What the film offers, though, is a question of the impact of Western agricultural practices and developments on the lives of small holding farmers in poor countries. What we know about the Green Revolution, the production of more food due to genetic manipulations that increased yields, is that it was a double edged sword. With increased food security (good), you also had increased use of pesticides, increased agricultural water consumption, increased areas of land needed for efficient farming, driving small holders out of the business (all bad.) Monocultures depleted the soil, and indigenous varieties of crops got extinct (really bad.)
The loss in biodiversity is real – and a problem. In the U.S. alone, 95 percent of cabbage, 91 percent of corn, 94 percent of pea, and 81 percent of tomato varieties were lost between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. More importantly, in countries that are more exposed to current assault from climate change, like Middle Eastern countries are regarding droughts, the industry-produced seeds have not adapted to the shift and thus deplete water resources ever more. Seed preservation in vaults, theoretically a good thing, stores genetic material from times past, just like you keep animals in a zoo. The genes, however, do not adapt if they are not exposed to changing environmental conditions, yet it is exactly those adaptations that are needed to feed a world that grows drier and hotter. And hungrier.
The film makes clear that on the one hand questions of scale – who has the means, economically and scientifically, to run preservation projects for humanity’s safe keeping – favor organized institutions. But those who have the means also make the choices about genetic varieties in breeding and are able to monopolize world markets. Small breeders and preservationists who have still access to wild varieties of plant species contribute an enormously valuable part in fighting declining agrobiodiveristy, but they are an endangered species themselves. What will be preserved, what will be developed all rests on who is in power to make decisions that affect much of the world.
Here are some additional considerations how the interaction of climate crisis, monopolized agricultural decision making and urbanization contributed to the revolution turned war in Syria.
Fast forward to 2022 for Manna’s most recent video installation. Here at the West Coast we can currently see her newest work,Foragers, at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA.) The video installation was co-commissioned by BAMPFA, BAK Utrecht, and the Toronto Biennial of Art and filmed primarily in occupied Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem. (Full disclosure: I have not seen Foragers yet, but have been deeply moved by Manna’s essay on the issues exposed by the film – highly recommended reading, an insightful contemplation of many interrelated historical and political topics as well as an autobiographical testament: Where nature ends and settlements begin, translated into German by Fabian Wolff.) The text about the genesis of this work and her own personal experiences is a powerful reminder of what it means to live in occupied territories. Culture and tradition can be drawn into the struggle between opposing forces, and that extends even to what is allowed to be picked and eaten as per centuries-old customs.
In this specific case wild thyme and wild thistle, central to the Palestinian cuisine, known respectively as za’atar and ‘akkoub, were put on a protected species list by the Israelis, even though harvesting actually encourages the growth of these plants year after year. Individuals caught by the Nature Authority are put on trial with significant punishments, all the while many more of these plants are destroyed when the ground is prepared for the construction of new Israeli settlements. Here is a detailed description of the video installation.
If you remember, I have recently written about foraging here in the U.S. and its relationship to slavery and the impact of historical change on the African-American traditions. Traditions and knowledge were cut off with the hardships and legal (or customary) exclusion from nature following emancipation. Proprietary rights of White landowners were harshly enforced, once they had no gain from people’s survival through foraging, a survival that depended on supplementing the meager scraps of food they received on plantations. I have also discussed the effects of the Bonneville Power Act on the destruction of traditional food sources for Pacific Northwest tribes, by destroying fishing sites and generally endangering the salmon runs in order to regulate and increase water needed for aluminum production.
The interplay between nature, its products, competition for resources and power hierarchies are not an isolated phenomenon, but something found throughout history. An artist’s rendering of these complex and often rather dry topics (Seed propagation? Genetic engineering?) can open a space for us to think through the issues. Work done that reflects not just some distant past but the actual situation of growing food, lacking food, monopolizing food seems incredibly timely, given that we can expect food production to suffer in a world hit by pandemics, changing weather patterns and armed conflict. To do all this without wagging fingers, but with grace and inclusivity as Manna’s work does, is quite an achievement.
And I haven’t even talked about her work as a sculptor yet which happened in parallel to her video explorations.
I believe in the great discovery. I believe in the man who will make the discovery. I believe in the fear of the man who will make the …. discovery.
I believe in his face going white, his queasiness, his upper lip drenched in cold sweat.
I believe in the burning of his notes, burning them into ashes, burning them to the last scrap.
I believe in the scattering of numbers, scattering them without regret.
I believe in the man’s haste, in the precision of his movements, in his free will.
I believe in the shattering of tablets, the pouring out of liquids, the extinguishing of rays.
I am convinced this will end well, that it will not be too late, that it will take place without witnesses.
I’m sure no one will find out what happened, not the wife, not the wall, not even the bird that might squeal in its song.
I believe in the refusal to take part. I believe in the ruined career. I believe in the wasted years of work. I believe in the secret taken to the grave.
These words soar for me beyond all rules without seeking support from actual examples. My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.
by Wistlawa Szymborska from View With a Grain of Sand Harcourt Brace 1993 translation: Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
I wonder if this poem seeded the idea of a book, a remarkable book that looks at the consequences – intended and unintended- of scientific discoveries. Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease To Understand The World is a small volume describing mathematical and scientific research, ruminating about the psychological states of those engaged in the work, and weaving fact and fiction in ways that meander between horror story and lyric poetry.
The last time I felt like this when reading a novel grounded in history, was decades ago when I couldn’t put Pat Barker’s Regenerationtrilogy down, never mind babies screaming for attention, house wanting to be cleaned, lectures needing to be written and exams to be graded. Both authors share the skill of sending readers on two parallel paths, leaving it to us to drop and pick up the strands where truth ends and imagination begins, where facts are overshadowed by psychological analysis or feelings discarded in the light of facts. Both also excel in alternations of intensity and subtlety, in itself a weird combination.
Barker succeeds in sustaining our attention to history, social structures, identity (before that became a political concept) across three complex volumes, never letting up tangential brilliant confabulation,. She thinly veils her portraits of historical people behind pseudonyms and graphically imparting on us the horrors of World War I and what they did to the soul of artists.
Labatut, in contrast, keeps it short – perhaps aware of contemporary attention spans. His subjects are famous scientists, although the pages are sprinkled with some names less familiar, and some characters are completely made up. He has a knack to impart scientific facts in ways that do not frighten even the math- or physics-phobic reader, partly because the narrative swings endlessly back to the human interest story at the heart of the tales – how do you accept the fact that your discovery brings suffering and ruin to the world? Do you continue to proceed?
Both authors do not shy away from delving into details of horrors, yet the texts themselves have a certain serenity as if we are watching our own history unfold from the safe location of a distant star. That in itself is, of course, a trick, since it indirectly suggests that our own responsibilities need not be considered when focused on those who wreaked the actual havoc, or do they? The wishful thinking of Szymborska’s lines (admitted to be without justification in fact,) should it not be headed by us, in the ways we should be willing to obstruct, to risk, to endanger our standing by unpopular but necessary actions?
Szymborska’s “I believe in the refusal to take part” is less wish than command. One that is faintly echoed in the last chapter of Labatut’s work which introduces us to a night gardener, a former mathematician who has given up on the world, too clear-eyed about the catastrophes awaiting us, in a society that uses the principles of quantum mechanics without ever truly understanding them. The very last parable of the book describes the final demise of lemon trees cut down by their own excess riches. It somehow all came together, and I felt humbled by it.
Szymborska, again, sarcastically:
“I am convinced this will end well, that it will not be too late,”
How many more reminders do we need by brilliant writers that clinging to this belief simply won’t do?
On a more upbeat note, here is a fun compilation of unintended, positive consequences of scientific discoveries.
Music today by Bartok who was enchanted with mathematical principles and symmetry, particularly the Golden Mean. The ratio appears in this piece. Give it a chance, it grows on you.
It was infectious. The laughter of a tiny Russian grandmother, loud, unabashed, unceasing, first made me smile, then laugh as well. I was standing next to her and her family, all of us marveling at the antics of an Orangutan who was trying on various blankets to protect himself from the rain, finally settling on a tartan throw. I so miss laughter. I so miss regular interaction with strangers, if only via glances or smiles or a kind word. That whole social scenario when you take the bus, or stand in line, flirt with the waiter or encounter people in museums.
In any case, I had made it to the zoo, now requiring on-line tickets for a particular time-slot to be reserved in advance, and I happened to be standing at the primate enclosure outside when the family with young kids and grandma in tow arrived. I relished the laughter. I also admired how the dad was reading and sometimes translating for the kids the signs that describe scientific information about the animals, their habitat, their characteristics and so on.
Here is a question: why do people unfailingly accept scientific knowledge presented to us by some experts, zoologists for example, learn about it with pleasure and expose our kids to it? Yet invariably reject other scientific information that happens to be in domains equally unfamiliar as the mating rituals of the rhinoceros, but could save our lives if we only listened? Virologists’ insights, for example?
This question looms particularly large when scientists are thrown into the middle of political conflict, unable to avoid their unfortunate position because their knowledge is required to make administrative decisions. How do scientists not loose the public trust, how do they avoid becoming targets of aggression because their claims collide with vested interests or different world views? Issues in which these conflicts have become quite visible concern everything from the danger of tobacco consumption, the safety of nuclear power, the long term predictions for the climate crisis if fossil fuel use is not reduced, and, of course, the approach to handling the current pandemic.
For every you and I who think scientific input should shape policies, there are two others out there (if not more) who do not believe scientists, or assume they have nefarious motives, or believe in a different “scientific” truth. Public opposition to science-based governing can come in one of two versions. There are those who are motivated by disinformation or plain old conspiracy theories, disseminated by crack pots or those who have a political ax to grind (or both…) There are, however, also those who offer justified opposition on the basis of legitimate value judgments. The trick is to know the difference and react, as a scientist, accordingly. (I am summarizing today a longish article by a group of scientists that is in press Ref.)
The tobacco- and fossil fuel industries aside, we have individuals in, for example, the U.S. Senate who are torpedoing household resolutions to protest against scientifically recommended mask or vaccination mandates by the administration. Do they have vested interests, signaling to their constituencies who have been blasted by misinformation from partisan media sources that they are on their side, or signaling to their (former) leader that they still toe the line? Are they correct in claiming that scientific proscriptions created policies that limit individual liberties and impair economic activities in unprecedented ways, without proof that public health required it?
Isn’t it also true (spoiler, science agrees it is) that social restrictions like lock-downs have also negatively impacted mental health at scale and have disproportionately impacted women, single parents, young people, minority groups, refugees and migrants, and poor people who cannot afford to buy basic personal protective equipment? (Not that said senators would care.)
“Frustration with, and opposition to, social restrictions are therefore potentially legitimate grievances that deserve to be heard in democratic public discourse.”
The problem is how to distinguish between science denial due to politically motivated misinformation, and legitimate disagreement with governmental policies. One way is to spot how people diverge from a scientific consensus. Here are some pointers of what is usually present for those motivated by ideology:
Fake experts: Using doubtful/questionable/discredited/fake experts.
Logical fallacies: patterns of reasoning that are invalid due to their logical structure.
Impossible expectations: The act of demanding undeniable proof beyond what is scientifically feasible.
Cherry-picking: Regarding and disregarding pieces of evidence such as to advance one’s point.
Conspiracy theories: Explaining evidence by means of an evil conspirator, while consecutively expanding the theory to defend against challenging evidence.
A FLICC of the tongue, and you have your misinformation….
Contrast this with people whose lived experiences might make them averse to accepting scientific insight. If the history of your people was one where scientists harmed you or lied to you (see experimentation on POCs,) why should you trust science? If “denial” of the severity of Covid outcomes helps you not to lose your mind, but remain optimistic, shouldn’t scientists take that into account? Denying the effectiveness of social distancing might be an adaptive strategy if isolation would increase your sense of loneliness and depression. Denial can also be a protective mechanism against fear. If you HAVE to use public transportation and work surrounded by sick people, denial of Covid facts might be the only move you have not to break down in fright for what might happen to you.
In short, before we condemn any and all people who question science and scientists’ motives, let’s look a bit closer and figure out how to help those who are not conspiracy theorists to overcome their hesitation to accept scientific knowledge. If it could just be as easy as outlining the dietary habits of the Rocky Mountain goats….
Accosting scientists is, of course, not new under this sun.
Music reminds us. Some clips from the Galileo project concert.
The phrase Ghost in the Machine was coined by British philosopher Gilbert Ryle to describe the mind/body dualism of Descartes and later philosophers. Ryle picked apart the notion, held since Descartes’ time, that the mind is separable from the body (the ghost and the machine, respectively.) I’m not going to detail the philosophical debate here. I was just reminded of this when thinking about how the mind’s deterioration is based on the body’s (f)ailing in cases like dementia. They are inextricably linked, although we are not yet able to pinpoint the exact mechanism that cause Alzheimers or other forms of dementia. The thoughts were triggered by a work of sound art that has had me reeling over the last week, in all its ghostliness – and its compassion, a musical rendering of the stages of dementia.
What do we know about illnesses like Alzheimer, a specific form of dementia? It is a disease that affects memory, cognition and behavior, eventually interfering with crucial functions in everyday life. It gets progressively worse, with people sometimes living up to 20 years with the condition. There are genetic predispositions (assumed to be present in about 70% of all cases,) but also environmental factors that increase the risk of developing the disease. They include inorganic and organic hazards, long-term exposure to toxic metals (aluminium, copper), pesticides (organochlorine and organophosphate insecticides), industrial chemicals (flame retardants) and air pollutants like the smoke we inhale these days from the fires (particulate matter.)
Brain neurons are killed off, leading to irreversible loss in a process that we have not yet fully understood. We do know, however, that certain changes in the brain are associated with the disease, signs of it. These include two abnormal structures, plaques that are deposits of beta-amyloid protein fragments, and tangles that are twisted fibers of the tau protein. Scientists speculate that these two somehow block communication between neurons and disrupt processes that are needed to keep neurons from withering.
Also on the scene are inflammatory processes, as destructive here as anywhere else in the aging body. It is assumed that neuro-inflammation – the activation of the brain’s resident immune cells – is not merely a consequence of disease progression; rather, it is a cause that actively spreads the pathologically misfolded proteins in the brain.
Treatment options to date are limited and not particularly effective, despite the noise in the news that celebrate every new option as a break through – until it isn’t. Drugs target the plaques and tangles, trying to prevent them from being formed or to destroy them when present. Vaccines are tested to protect against the fiber twisting associated with Tau. Reduction of inflammation is a target, as is the way the brain is vulnerable to shifts in insulin or hormones during menopause (so far, proposed drugs in both categories turned out to be duds.) There is a lot riding on new approaches to heart health. It might be that drugs that combat high blood pressure may reduce the risk of developing dementia. Life style choices – steady exercise and healthy food, living in clean environments, a choice many poor people don’t have – here as everywhere can make a difference, but are no guarantee to resist this scourge.
We can read all this, recognize it intellectually, shudder. Try to forget about it because it is so frightening, no pun intended. We can read stories of individual defiance and positive attitude, and still be overwhelmed by the thoughts of what dementia implies – particularly if we are in an age group where every misplaced key, forgotten shopping list, inability to recall the name of a beloved authors, gives rise to anxiety if something more dire is lurking in our brains.
Yet we can also find a deeper, more empathetic understanding when listening to (some of) the sound scape I want to introduce today. Everywhere at the end of time has generated a lot of attention since its final release, including complaints about psychological upheaval, which I get. But it is also a thing of beauty, on many levels. Created and produced by British electronic musician Leyland Kirby, under the alias the Caretaker, it was released from 2016-2019 in 6 installments meant to reflect the specific stages of the disease. The young composer delved deep into research about the progression of the disease and found ways to represent the process that seem plausible to this listener.
I suggest that the curious listener tap into the segments that designate the stages in which the disease progresses. Spoiler alert: it gets progressively more disjointed, upsetting, and challenging across its 6.5 hour duration. It ends in the very last segment with a strange rendition of a Bach’s chorale (BWV 246, Lasst mich ihn nur noch einmal küssen,) that highlights the centrality of human connection and, when severed, ultimate loss. The subsequent silence and release somehow provides intense comfort.
It cannot have been an easy task for the composer, across so many years, and surely required courage to face the details, since none of us is exempt from the potential to develop dementia, the musician included. As it turns out, the work was not just successful with professional music critics but had a large following, spiking last year, among truly young listeners who engaged with it and each other in emotional, empathetic reactions during a challenge on TikTok.
A full description of the music with analysis can be found here. It is a thoughtful essay by Luka Vukos on Headstuff, a collaborative of creative souls who sift the internet for interesting art content and put it all in one bucket for us to sample. The author points out a parallel to our own experience outside the realm of disease:
“With instant reproducibility and the digital recall of information, it can often feel like we are extricating ourselves from things which might linger for longer than we’d like.We conceive of memories, and of life, as information units, rather than as living things within our heads. Things get deleted with almost no trace, and it’s almost like we’re giving ourselves dementia in a way. But, in this regard, the great paradox of The Caretaker’s body of work rests in his marrying of the earliest form of musical reproduction (the vinyl record) with the most contemporary modes of digital recall and manipulation.
I have listed the title of the tracks below that gives you a thematic progression. The music is characterized by manipulation of old ball room tunes that Kirby found in the record bins of junk stores, then manipulating them with particularized computer programs. The ball room orchestras are first displayed in full, if scratchy with record player needles, but then morph into very different forms. The manipulations are as representative as the mood coloring of classical music of yore, if unfamiliar to those of us not used to listening to experimental music. Any refusal to be dragged into fear or sadness by listening to this marathon is perfectly understandable. But if this work of art has reached just one soul to be more willing or able to change their approach to Alzheimer patients in their current state of being shunned and neglected, has created true empathy, it has made the world a better place. Art, again, as a mediator.
I intend to keep my promise to write this week about nothing but uplifting, constructive or beautiful things that I find right under my nose. Here is the second installment, triggered by the beauty of thistles that are in full thistle-down stage in the meadows around me. The fluff formations always remind me of neuronal networks and so it was no coincidence that I ended up looking at neuroscience art. What I settled on, though, were not images, but a truly fun experience with language that you all can have as well.
Among the contestants of the 2021 Art of Neuroscience Contest was an entry by Simon Demeule and Pauline Palma from the University of Montreal/McGill University, an interactive program called
If you click the link it will bring up a few words of explanation and then the invitation to start writing – just type in your first line (no need to click anywhere) and you will see what unfolds. The program is an interactive poetic experience that explores themes of artificial intelligence, language, psychology, and intent. Here is their explanation:
Through a simple text-based interface, this piece creates a game of exquisite corpse between the participant and a text-generating AI, an altered version of GPT-2 trained on the vast Gutenberg English literature corpus. As the synthetic responses unfold, words cascade through all configurations considered by the algorithm, partly unveiling the black box process within. The human tendencies captured by the algorithm resurface, produced by a machine that fundamentally lacks intent.
As the participant is presented with ambiguity and absurdity, their cognitive ability to bridge gaps and construct meaning becomes the guiding force that steers the evolution of the piece. In turn, participant’s input feeds the algorithm, thereby prompting interpretation again. Through this cyclical, almost conversational process, a unique poem emerges.
This project was created through the Convergence Initiative, an organisation dedicated to encouraging interdisciplinary work between the arts and sciences.
I tried it out immediately and realized it would not give me the whole poem at the end. I then took screenshots of the evolution of the next “poem”. Here is what AI and I came up with, our combined brilliance now preserved for all posterity …(Their text on white background):
It is really a fun process if a little disjointed, so I tried once again. Note it is an AI program that was trained on literary Greats, randomly sampling and weighing and spitting out these words.
And here is a poem when a gifted, emotional, no-holds barred wordsmith attacks the thistle theme:
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men Thistles spike the summer air And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst Of resurrection, a grasped fistful Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking. They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects. Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men. Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
Can we all agree we should leave poetry to actual human beings on their own???
If you still have time and inclination, go back to the art of neuroscience site and look at the other entries – there is so much ingenuity to explore, photography and sculpture included. 175 contestants from over 20 countries submitted nearly 300 submissions, of which one winner and several honorable mentions and staff picks were published.
Album today is Robert Burn’s poetry set to music. The thistle is Scotland’s national flower.
Some nights ago at the dinner table we once again joked about how utterly different we are from each other (you can do that safely after some 40 years of marriage.) These differences are nowhere more pronounced than in our approach to dealing with lurking disaster. Where my beloved tries to keep it out of mind until it HAS to be tackled, I like to stare the dragon in the eye well in advance, if only to communicate that he’s found a foe at eye-level… but really to prepare myself for all that might be in the wings. This attitude – rather than morbidity – is the reason why I read everything about cancer that I can get my hands on, curious about both the nature of the beast, and the nature of the medical system bent on fighting the scourge. (I’ve previously written about it from a cancer patient’s perspective here.)
Some of the most interesting writing comes from scientists who work in the field and share both of these questions; some comes from perceptive novelists who cloak their knowledge in tapestries of stories easier to comprehend. I’ve come across both types recently and thought I’d offer a summary of what I’ve learned.
Here is the good news: People live longer. Here is the bad news: geriatric populations are increasingly susceptible to cancer, and are often only diagnosed when the cancer has spread (metastatic cancer.)
Here is the good news: cancer research is laser-like focused on developing drugs that deal with this problem. Here is the bad news: we will have a market demand to the tune of 111.16 billion dollars by 2027 to treat global metastatic cancer, because the incidence of cancer, particularly breast cancer, is generally on the rise, independent of an aging population.
Here is the good news: there are more and more specialized tools aimed at spread and/or recurrence of cancer. In addition to traditional chemotherapy we have targeted chemo therapy with far fewer side effects, hormone therapy and immunotherapy. Here is the bad news: almost all of these new approaches cannot cure metastatic disease and extend life expectancy by, if you are lucky, a few years, but usually more in the ball park of months. We have not been able to eradicate the disease any more than we did over the last century, with minor exceptions, facing 10 million cancer deaths around the world each year.
It is, of course, nothing to scoff at to have more time to live – I am the last person to be casual about that. And maybe the advances in metastatic cancer research will lead to the realization of permanent remissions or even prevention, eventually. It is also understandable that a for-profit industry focusses on where the demand lies: in desperate patients’ plea for help, to the tune of $ 10.000 a month which these medications now cost in the majority of targeted approaches. Why explore ways to prevent cancer in the first place when that will affect the bottomline of an industry treating it? I guess, theoretically, you could make a fortune on selling preventative medications as well, should you be able to develop them, – never mind the favor to mankind to eradicate the scourge – but then again, people might have very different thresholds to spend money on a potential threat compared to spending money when the threat is actually consuming their bodies.
The good news: some determined scientists are nonetheless pursuing the holy grail: understanding the history of the first cell that eventually morphs into the disease. Here is a thought-provoking compilation of essays that help laypeople like me understand how the science proceeds. Azra Raza, the Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine and Director of the MDS Center at Columbia University in New York, lays out what we know about carcinogenesis, and reports on the obstacles faced by research into the way cancer comes into existence.
She describes in clear language (and delightfully poignant literary references) what cognitive biases drive medical research (independent of potent economic forces like grant money or market demands.) She explains why we are seemingly stuck in a rut, continuing to look for answers in places where we have not found them, late in the game of spreading cells. (I have been told that big pharma is now on to this, pouring a lot of money into curative or pre-causative research, contrary to her claims.)
Her suggestion is to focus instead on the pathways that first cells take before they morph into the beast that precedes the body’s breakdown, describing an “organized decay, consecutive and slow, sometimes taking years, slipping—slipping, until the crash comes,” located in one of the body’s immune cells.
“Cancer can be perceived as an independent life-form. It is not a parasite because it originates in the host tissue. It is not a “normal” tissue culture cell line that has been induced to grow in vitro, already half-way to transformation. And it is not like jellyfish and other lower order species that can revert to an earlier stage of their lifecycle under stress and restart as newborns. It behaves like a new animal that arises within an animal...I propose that the fertilization step involves the fusion of a blood cell with a stressed tissue cell that initiates the murderous journey. A Giant cell is born containing opposing, conflicting, paradoxical “multitudes” within it.“
Researchers who look into these cells found that they unexpectedly appeared when cells are under stress, for cancer cells brought on by chemotherapy, for example. More precisely, these giant cells are a state of cancer cell, one where cell division is paused during external attack; instead, the cell doubles or fuses its genome, protecting its DNA. When the stressor is gone, the cell reignites division and sends now more resilient progeny on their way to distant sites, more aggressively growing and invasive cancer cells – treatment-resistant metastases.
These giant cells happen under normal circumstances to protect us in times of stress and are benign. So what turns them into a malignant state? That is where research must be done – and incentivized – exploring that moment of transition and the causes that come before. (Or so it is suggested – I am not trained in oncology, so can just report what I read. )
I am not trained as a scholar of literature, either, but I do know what I like to read. And Margaret Drabble’s The Dark Flood Rising is among the best recent books capturing aging, disease and dying in not at all morose ways. In fact, it is witty, as is her wont, but also genuinely humane, and precisely observed. It had me laugh and cry in alternation. It also had me grateful for making me think about cancer not as some dire, biologically hard to understand, scientifically mysterious thing (as the medical literature does) but as a condition that requires an appropriate human response, be that determination, or patience, or courage, or humor, or tears, or …. I’ll won’t be able to list the whole repertoire. The point is, there are humanistic aspects of dealing with or learning to deal with illness that go beyond the understanding that would allow us to synthesize some miracle medication. These aspects are somewhat in our control which is the most comforting thought of all.
Photographs of jellyfish today, reminding me of giant cells, emphasize that blobs can contain beauty, too, not just destructive potential.
Music today is derived from a literature overview of how music affects cell growth, cell migration, proliferation, colony formation, and differentiation ability or death of cancer cells. Folks, I have no clue if these experiments are viable (although they are published in respectable medical journals.) It was just strange to read that different music has different effects. Note, these are done with cell cultures in the lab, under carefully controlled conditions, not in humans who listen to music, so it is unclear how much we can transfer anything of this to actually listening to music.
The first movement from Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, KV. 488 seems not to affect some type of human breast cancer cells (MCF-7) but caused cell death (apoptosis) in another one (MDA-MD-231.)
Ligeti’s first movement of Atmospheres, on the other hand, caused significant cell death in MCF-7 cells that had ignored Mozart….
Riddle me that.
PS: Just so you know how things work around here – this is the response I got across the breakfast table to today’s musings:
So here’s part of my view of upcoming disasters or threats….
You’ve heard this stanza from me before.
From Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.
Might as well continue where we left off Monday – free associating under the butterfly bush.
Today’s photographic subject are the butterflies feeding on the blossoms. My mind, though, is preoccupied with water. Or, more precisely, with the fact that I try to water as sparingly as I can because of the drought, leaving whole swaths of the yard completely un-watered, but feel guilty even then. Which led to thoughts about sources of water and, I knew I’d get there eventually, dowsing.
Dowsing, the assumed discovery of hidden water sources by specially abled people holding a forked stick, defies, of course, the laws of physics. It is a myth that has never held up to scientific scrutiny. Note, I am willing to get into (not so hidden) hot water, in contrast to Adam Savage from Myth Busters who always declined to test the subject for fear of having to shame millions of people who believe in the myth. Why do I want to go there?
The recent up-tick in reports on and discussions of dowsing, like this NYT article, for example, can be explained by our preoccupation with the horrendous effects of droughts. The reporting is, however, completely irresponsible when it describes perspectives from both sides, believers and critics, as if there was not one valid, scientific truth. “Both sides” being given equal voice, unchallenged, is a huge problem. Below is the summary of the actual data in a nicely detailed historical write-up.
It bugs me to no end. Why do I get so irked when the media provide a platform to both sides of a “so-called dispute?” Let me count the ways: this is about facts, not about political disagreement. If you provide a soap box for people who deny or falsify the facts you potentially allow those misapprehensions to spread. If it is not outspokenly challenged in a reputable, national newspaper (if you are willing to call the NYT that) it signals legitimacy of these claims, however hedgingly you provide short glimpses of the opposing side (the scientists.) And last but not least, in an age and political environment where science denial has become a flag for tribal membership, it supports the wrong conclusion – that hunches and scientific method are on equal footing.
How far spread this both-sidesim for dowsing goes can be found here. It is the general politicization of science, though, which is the bigger problem. A Gallup Poll published 4 days ago found that trust in science has considerably declined, and large partisan gap has emerged, with Republicans becoming much less confident at the same time that Democrats are becoming more so. It is far less correlated with educational levels, and much more with party membership. The step from mistrusting science regarding water witches (who cares) to mistrusting science about climate change or Covid-19 vaccine safety is a small one. One with huge implications, however, as we all know. That’s where we DO care, and are direly dependent on the media to present the factual picture to combat mistaken beliefs. If you have a few minutes, read this Scientific American essay on why there is a war on against science and why the media play such crucial role in it.
In the meantime, I’ll go back to watching butterflies, although they disappear too, just like the truth…
Todays’ blog is brought to you by my garden’s hummingbirds. Now that the Buddleia is in bloom they are regular visitors. It takes some patience to stand under the bush (while cursing under my breath because my camera’s focus function has decided to be uncooperative, another spendy repair in the offing) and wait for the birds to appear. Of course they do not defy the laws of gravity, but it looks as if they do when they arrive and seemingly hang still in the air, sucking nectar.
Thoughts of physics reminded me of a photographer, Berenice Abbott (1889 – 1991) who excelled at photographing principles of physics. Her interest in documenting scientific principles and teaching the role of science in photography came late in her life, after she had already a stellar career excelling in all kinds of subject areas within the domaine of photography. Early in life she gained renown by her portrait photography of European artists and intellectuals of the Paris of the 1920s. In the 1930s she turned to documentary photography of the city of New York (funded by the FAP) and rural America in the aftermath of the Depression. Eventually she focussed on science, becoming the photography editor for Science Illustrated and producing scientific images for the textbook American High School Biology. The Physical Science Study Committee of Educational Services published a new physics book in the 1950s with all of the images almost exclusively by Abbott.
Circular Wave System Photograph MIT Museum
My kind of woman, always willing to take a risk to pursue her passion, never narrowly focussed on one single domain, and open to acknowledging the giants who paved the way (she had an absolute crush on the work of Eugene Atget, one of the pioneers of documentary photography.) In fact, she managed to rescue his collection of plates after his death and promoted his work throughout her lifetime.
I first saw her work at the MIT museum. One of the reviews of a solo exhibition claimed:
“Berenice Abbott’s science photographs invite us to contemplate the wonder of creation. As photographs utilizing the latest technology to illustrate scientific principles they are quintessentially modern, but the principles they illustrate came into being simultaneously with the Big Bang, so the images are also timeless, taking us both backward and forward throughout eternity. By making manifest the invisible forces that act upon the material world, they do for physics what the mandala does for Hindu theogony, or Kabbalistic diagrams of the sefirot try to do for the Ineffable.”
Hmm. Do we have to reach into the religious accomplishment-drawers to establish the value of photographic images? I’m certain she would have scoffed at that kind of comparison, seeing the wonder of creation too often subdued or undermined by a different kind of invisible hand – the economic and political forces that ruthlessly ignored the distress of the poor. As the photo-historian Terri Weisman explains, Abbott was interested in “how the things in the world reveal the world.” Abbot was labeled a communist by the McCarthy administration. Her life-long distrust of politics and economic institutions led to a catastrophe in late life: she had put her considerable life’s earnings converted to gold coins in a home safe and boxes stored in her house, all lost during a burglary in 1984. A great biography of Abbot can be found here.
The chain of associations while sitting under my butterfly bush eventually hit on the talents of a younger generation explicitly inspired by Abbott’s work and interests. Here are some ingenious images of the base quantities of physics generated by Greg White. As defined by the International System of Quantities (ISQ), these are time (second, s); mass (kilogram, kg); length (metre, m); temperature (kelvin, K); amount of substance (mole, mol); electric current (ampere, A); and luminous intensity (candela, cd). White captured all with props, ingeniously arranged and camera, no other manipulations. (Photos from his website, linked above.)
Electric CurrentLengthLuminous IntensityMassAmount of SubstanceTemperatureTime
I’ll stick to capturing my little birds, wondrous in their own ways, and reading about all these interesting minds coming up with ways to depict the rest of the world. Not least because I always struggled with physics.
