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Issue 124-125 December 2015/January 2016 A NEWSLETTER OF THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY Culture Corner WHAT’S INSIDE Film and the Tyranny of the Repeating Day: Edge of Tomorrow and Groundhog Day NOBEL PRIZE: B ERNIE L ANGS George E. Palade “Carpe Diem” or “Seize the Day” is the ba- BY josePH luna nal, clichéd rallying war cry that commence- ment speakers send off the graduating classes PAGE 3 of universities into the world. Yet once in the rhythm of the work day, we very quickly learn NYC MARATHON that it is the day that seizes us, with its unvary- BY NAN PANG ing and very precise routines. In truth, college PAGE 4 too is broadly scheduled, and I’m reminded of a school pal who would meet me in the cafeteria DIWALI and while dressing his lunch would glumly an- BY SARALA KAL nounce “12:16, time to put the ketchup on my PAGE 5 hamburger” for weeks on end. I now marvel that as I leave work, I turn a street corner and MEAT & HEALTH see local construction workers descending a BY Alyssa LuonG ladder each day, and within four minutes, the same two women will pass me by on the street. PAGE 6 It’s like clockwork. Civilization’s intellect and spirituality can NYSOM: Isaiah Curry be said to have been based on relentless repeti- BY Melvin White tion and what that meant in the past for every- thing from growing of crops to preparing for PAGE 7 bitter cold or sweltering heat. Early religions HENRY IV responded with homage to these cycles and © 1993 COLUMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC. BY Alyssa LuonG Nature for its seasonal brutalities which they You Babe” accompanied by the inane banter would try to appease by offerings of sacrifices of local disc jockeys, as the viewer ponders his PAGE 7 and wine, the fluid of life. own morning routines. Murray even goes to the FOR YOUR As inevitable as the characteristics of the extreme of a multitude of ludicrously planned CONSIDERATION four seasons, our daily routines can be unvary- suicides to escape his woe. There is an eventual BY JIM KELLER ing for years and years. In the brilliant film epiphany, beautifully beginning with Bill Mur- “Groundhog Day”, directed by Harold Ramis ray reading a book in the local diner and just PAGE 8 and starring the comically sublime Bill Mur- looking up to marvel at his surroundings. ray, an acerbic, sarcastic, basically miserable In contrast, Tom Cruise, in the science fic- CROSSWORDS weatherman becomes subject to living Febru- tion adventure “Edge of Tomorrow” directed BY GeorGE Barany ary 2nd over and over again. Each day he wakes by Doug Liman, faces a repeating day of violent up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the death in a battle with an army of machine or PAGE10 quaint local Groundhog Day ceremony with its insect-like aliens on a beach resembling the D- LIFE ON A ROLL famous ritual of pulling a groundhog from a Day scene in Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private BY QIONG WANG cage to determine the length of the remaining Ryan.” Cruise’s character is trying from the winter. The movie is often hilarious, but many get-go to escape his death and is taught that if PAGE12 deeper meanings and philosophical under- he does win out, it will mean a victory for the tones slowly reveal a struggle by its protagonist armies of Earth against the aliens and the re- Natural Selections that can resonate with all of us. demption of the whole world. wants your art! At first, Bill Murry will go to any lengths When “Edge of Tomorrow” was released in to escape waking up again to the sound of his See page 2 for more info! clock radio playing Sonny and Cher’s “I Got CONTINUED TO P. 2 - 1 CONTINUED FROM P. 1 - 2014, I laughed off any thought of seeing the Editorial Board movie, since in the promotions Cruise and his EDITORIAL BOARD co-star the fabulous Emily Blunt bandy about Jim Keller in large, super-hero armor as they fight this Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor computer-generated enemy. The film is cur- Aileen Marshall Assistant Copy Editing Manager rently available on cable movie channels and Susan Russo I’ve now watched it three times. Cruise’s mis- Copy Editor, Distribution sion to escape his repeating day sails far above Qiong Wang any comic book notions. He and Blunt’s rug- Copy Editor, Webmaster, Public Relations Manager ged determination to win this war is a tale of Nan Pang ferocious pursuit in the name of “The Good.” Production Designer So if Bill Murry and Tom Cruise, the lat- Peng Kate Gao ter who’s killing of a rare alien-type makes Copy Editor him the one whose life “resets the day”, battle selections.rockefeller.edu a mind-numbing repeating theme in their [email protected] lives, how can we fight back against our of- ten tiring routines that roll around each day? As we grow older and time accelerates, how events, we are still free to move our pieces and do we accept that we are still a prisoner of the if not gain a difficult win, play to an extremely seasons, which bring us such things as snow © 2014 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. satisfying “draw.” each year without mercy or the banal jingles the eternity of a moment in time and if there Perhaps some invisible Creator did set this time and time again at Christmas season? is truly a concept of “free will” we would not cyclical world in motion, and the last thing After laughing off “Seize the Day” how do we be bound by the repeating parameters, but He/She/It (or whatever it is) did was to give regroup and actually grab life by the throat? could choose a different path and response the creatures that would eventually be shaped While I was at college, I took an introduc- within a moment that is essentially “timeless.” in the system the power of free will before, tory course in philosophy where one of our I believe that one must seek the adventure like Elvis, it “left the building” and moved on. first assignments was to muse on an essay in life, that we must pursue what is extraor- We still own the power to “reset the day” and by Schopenhauer that asked that if we had a dinary within the shackles and constraints it is our responsibility to run with it and rise chance to do an action again in life, would we of numbing routine. Adventure is what you to the occasion as the heroes and heroines of be able to do it differently. The argument be- choose to find and rather than deferring to our own stories. ing that since all the forces that bring us to the the constraint of Shakespeare’s idea that all Each morning as I approach my train sta- moment would repeat, we too would have no the worlds’ a stage and people we see are its tion and I see the same people, standing in the choice but to repeat our action, that our re- players, it is more an elaborate chess game very same spots they have stood every day for sponse is completely set. I recall noting that in set on a Cartesian grid, where although there months on end, I’m tempted to smile and ask the end of Schopenhauer’s study, he gets into are many factors in individuals, places and one of them “Going to see the groundhog?” n ART WORK BY LUIS DE NAVAS NATURAL SELECTIONS wants youR ART! Whether you can’t stop drawing while waiting for the bus, or taking a walk around the city; if photography is your passion, or if you’re more of a painter, this is your chance to share your art. Beginning in 2016, Natural Selections will publish a picture of the art we receive every month. To take advantage of this opportunity, email us your work with a title, a brief description, and your name. We’ll make sure to include it in a future issue. We hope to receive several images to create an open space for art! We’ll be delighted to receive your artwork, please email hi-res image or vector files to : [email protected] 2 Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes Part XIV: George E. Palade, 1974 Prize in Physiology or Medicine. JOSEPH L UNA Nestled in the 3rd sub-basement of Smith that could be accounted for by fractionation Porter and Palade next made a concerted Hall, around 1953, an electron microscope or using new EM methods to see what the effort to describe, in intact cells and tissues, (EM) is briefly idle. The machine, an RCA ultrastructure looked like. Claude and his the ultrastructure of the mitochondria and a model EMU-2A, resembles a spare part co-workers were able to break cells apart subcellular structure found in the microsom- from some future space station: a long verti- into roughly four fractions that could be al fraction that Porter named the endoplas- cal steel tube adorned with studs and knobs, subjected to biochemical tests: nuclei, a large mic reticulum (ER). While Porter working with a viewfinder at the base. To the casual fraction that appeared to contain mitochon- with Joseph Blum, devised a new microtome viewer, there’s little to indicate the purpose dria, microsomes, and free cytoplasm. The to make thin slices of tissue for EM, Palade of this strange contraption.