SCIENCE NOTES 36 contents2003 SCIENCE NOTES 2003

4 Along Came a Spider By KATE RAMSAYER / ILLUSTRATION by EVAN BARBOUR 7 The Light of Dr. Jean Brodie By ERNIE TRETKOFF / ILLUSTRATION by NADIA STRASSER 10 A Battered Mollusk (Also Steamed, Stir-Fried, and Eaten Raw) By HELEN FIELDS / ILLUSTRATION by RACHEL ROGGE 14 The Creativity Conundrum By GRETA LORGE / ILLUSTRATION by CHRIS FIELD 14 19 Recipe for Life By SHAWNA WILLIAMS / ILLUSTRATION by NICOLLE RAGER 7 22 Fish Tales By NICOLE STRICKER / ILLUSTRATION by ANDREW RECHER 25 Global Fever By ELISABETH NADIN / ILLUSTRATION by HOLLY GRAY 29 Mind Over Stomach By EMILY SINGER / ILLUSTRATION by KATHERINE RIZZO 32 Staring at the Sun By JYLLIAN KEMSLEY / ILLUSTRATION by MEGAN O’DEA 36 Teaching an Old Owl New Tricks By RACHEL EHRENBERG / ILLUSTRATION by LUCY READING

a publication of the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz about the artists about the writers

Evan Barbour (“Along Came a Spider”) graduated from Reed College Rachel Ehrenberg(“Teaching Old Owls New Tricks”) has new respect for the term “bird brain.” in 1999 with a B.A. in psychology. Since then he has worked as an She majored in botany at the University of Vermont and graduated with a master’s degree in environmental educator. Spending much of his time outdoors, Evan biology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Ehrenberg worked for the Dallas Morning has developed interests in ornithology and entomology and hopes these News during her summer internship. interests will develop into areas of professional expertise. He drew birds at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, after which he hoped to return to the West After graduating from Carleton College with a B.A. in biology, Coast to intern at the Oakland Museum of California and illustrate a book Helen Fields(“A Battered on California owls. Mollusk”) wandered the world for a few years, then studied the behavior of harvester ants for her master’s thesis at Stanford University. She has interned at National Public Radio, U.S. News & World Report, the Monterey County Herald, Science magazine’s ScienceNOW, and the Stanford University Medical Center. Much as she loves being an intern, she dreams of fi nding a real job Christine Field (“The Creativity Conundrum”) has a B.A. in music fromLucy Reading (“Teaching an Old Owl New Tricks”) received her B.A. in someday. U.C. Berkeley and a certifi cate in graphic design and visual communicationAmerican studies from the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. She from U.C. Santa Cruz extension. She has run a successful graphic designspecialized in American literature. In 2002, Lucy made a dramatic move business in Los Gatos for the past eight years, and is now ready to embarkfrom the U.K. to California, to study scientifi c illustration at Santa Cruz. It Jyllian Kemsley (“Staring at the Sun”) earned her B.A. and Ph.D. in chemistry from Amherst on a wildly successful illustration career. This summer, Chris worked withwas not a surprise for family and friends, as Lucy had always shown that College and Stanford University, respectively. After interning at the Santa Cruz Sentinel and an animator getting ever closer to her goal of making science animationher prime passion was for drawing. This summer Lucy found herself lucky Chemical & Engineering News, she is now a freelance writer concentrating on the physical her livelihood. In her spare time, Chris frolics with her husband and newenough to intern at Scientifi c American magazine in Manhattan, where she sciences. daughter, hiking whenever possible. soaked up some scientifi c American literature!

Art and illustration have been the focus of Greta Lorge(“The Creativity Conundrum”) has a B.A. in human biology from Stanford Holly Gray (“Global Fever”) graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz in 1999 with Andrew Recher (“Fish Tales”) University and a M.S. in neuroscience from the University of Michigan. She has written for a bachelor’s degree in biology/environmental studies. She has movedfor many to years. He started private art classes at the age of eleven, and his Stanford Report, Stanford Medicine, the Salinas Californian, and California Wild. She spent her Alaska to pursue unemployment in tree climbing and raindrop dodging,undergraduate work includes an A.A. in illustration, and a B.A. in scientifi c summer working at the Atlanta Constitution-Journal as a 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation health and she also hopes to refi ne her rock painting skills. illustration. Andrew would enjoy a staff position at a museum, aquarium or reporting intern. zoo, but also looks forward to freelance illustration work. Romanian-born Megan O’Dea (“Staring at the Sun”) earned her undergraduate degree Elisabeth Nadin (“Global Fever”) can tell you all about the power of extreme from Iowa State University in biological/pre-medical illustration. She Katherine Oliveri Rizzo (“Mind Over Stomach”) graduated from St. Mary’s heat, having survived a summer writing internship at Earthscope in Tucson, Arizona. She then worked for a year as a graphic artist in a small printing companyCollege of Maryland with B.A. degrees in biology and studio art. Scientifi c studied geology as a college student at the University of Rhode Island, and earned a master’s in her home state of Nebraska before coming to University of California,illustration just seemed to be a natural fi eld to go into. Her mediums of degree in the subject from the California Institute of Technology. Nadin can be reached at Santa Cruz. She spent her summer interning at the Bermuda Naturalchoice are color pencil and watercolor and she is mainly interested in [email protected]. History Museum, Aquarium and Zoo. So far her career path has takenillustrating her zoological subjects. Outside of illustration, Katherine enjoys places she didn’t fathom, and she hopes that continues as she pursueshorseback riding and equestrian sports. She hopes to establish herself as a a freelance career in illustration. Megan’s ultimate dream is to spendfreelance her illustrator and riding trainer in the Washington, D.C. area. Kate Ramsayer (“Along Came A Spider”) graduated from Williams College with a degree in mornings on the golf course and her days in the studio! biology. After two years of honing her pipetting skills at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, she opted for a career in science writing. She is spending the fall of 2003 as an intern at Science News. Although she enjoys Washington, D.C., she would jump at the chance to Rachel Rogge graduated from Humboldt State University in Northern investigate Hawaii’s fl ora and fauna—even if it involves bugs. Nicolle Rager (“Recipe for Life”) received a bachelor’s in biochemistryCalifornia in 2002 with a B.A. in art history and a B.S. in science from Lewis and Clark College in Portland. Working in a biochemistry illustration. As an undergraduate, she worked as an illustrator/display artist at the H.S.U. Natural History Museum. As a science illustrator, Rachel laboratory for three years, she found the overall hypotheses and rationales Emily Singer’s(“Mind Over Stomach”) fascination with pioneering women scientists dates hopes to continue to share information about the world with whoever is inspiring, but the day-to-day bench work left her lost in details, without back to a high school paper she wrote on Madame Curie. She studied biology at the University willing to look. the time or energy to explore other aspects of science and beyond. She of California, Santa Cruz, and completed an M.S. in neuroscience at the University of California, considered forgoing her science education for fi ne art, but feared that by San Diego. For her summer internship, she worked at New Scientist in London. commercializing her art she risked spoiling her reprieve from the stresses of the world. Scientifi c illustration seemed the perfect avenue to exploreNadia Strasser (“The Light of Dr. Jean Brodie”) graduated from the subjects in the broader biological and scientifi c spectrum, while allowingUniversity of California, San Diego in 1998 with an independent composite Nicole Stricker (“Fish Tales”) has a B.A. in biochemistry from the University of Colorado, her to focus on shaping her artistic skills into a new set of tools. Her goaldegree in biology (behavior, ecology, and evolution) and studio art, and a Boulder, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University. Although she is is to create visually engaging, accurate illustrations that help explain thingsminor in psychology. Before attending the program at U.C. Santa Cruz, living the rootless life of an aspiring newspaper reporter, she can always be reached at that are diffi cult to visualize, whether they be microscopic or grand in she worked in jobs ranging from research to architecture. She completed [email protected]. scale. Her internship was at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. two internships this summer and fall: the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and Scientifi c American magazine in New York. Ernie Tretkoff (“The Light of Dr. Jean Brodie”) majored in physics at Princeton University. She spent her summer internship writing for the media relations offi ce at the California Institute of Technology.

Shawna Williams (“Recipe for Life”) has been pondering the mysteries of the universe as a writer intern in Geneva, Switzerland, at CERN, Europe’s most important center for particle physics research. She is essentially a nomadic science writer with family roots in Colorado. Williams majored in biochemistry at Colorado College. the same species sport completely diff erent SLANDS HAVE BEEN the choice Maui, the yellow form is most common, but ders would have migrated to the new en- markings—any combination of red, black, destination for evolutionary biologists if a yellow spider mates with a multicolored vironment. Because there’s such an exten- or white patches on a yellow background. ever since the days of Darwin, who in spider, half of their off spring will be yellow sive range of patterns in Maui, and because In fact, around 70 percent of these spiders the 1830s began to formulate his sem- and half will be patterned. colonization is so rare between islands, Gil- are plain yellow, with a few black spots. inal theories on evolution by studying Straightforward enough. But the scien- lespie and Oxford assume that representa-  ese color patterns decorating the backs Ithe diff erences in beak shape and body siz- tists then looked at the same species of spi- tives of every color variation didn’t make of many spiders gave Gillespie and her col- es among fi nches of the Galapagos Islands. ders on the big island of Hawaii. Here, the it to Hawaii. For the few specimens that leagues insight into the incredible power of Such isolated pockets of land provide a de- overall ratios of yellow to patterned happy- did complete the trek, however, once they evolution on the Hawaiian Islands. fi ned habitat where organisms gradually face spiders were the same as on Maui, with reached the newer island they were subject- Gillespie is on a quest to uncover all she evolve to adapt to a specifi c environment. similar color variations. But surprisingly, ed to similar pressures of natural selection can about the happy-face spider and anoth- When separated from the population of some of the patterns could be found only from the same species of birds. Over time, er group of Hawaiian arachnids, the Tetrag- their founding ancestors over many genera- on the female spiders, while others were that threat coaxed the Hawaiian popula- natha spiny-legged spiders, as well as new tions, critters acquire genetic diff erences— unique to males.  is fi nding implies that tion to evolve the same color patterns that species from the remote French Polynesian random mutations that may prove advan- genes on a sex chromosome play a role in had surfaced in Maui—but with diff erent Islands. She has been collecting and char- tageous to survival in their habitat, be it an determining the color design for the Hawaii genes. “[ e Hawaiian group] basically put acterizing all the specimens that she can open grassy area or a wide-leafed tree—and spider that isn’t found in its Maui cousin. together another genetic way of achieving scoop up, investigating how they colonize eventually diverge from their kin into new the same end product,” says Gillespie. “At an island and adapt to its diff erent niches. species. In a large landmass, such adapta- When it comes to least over evolutionary time, there would By studying how varying coloration patterns tion could be squelched if two or more close- have been strong selection to get back the have evolved in these Pacifi c island spider ly-related animals invade and compete for the family tree of diversity they had originally.” species, she and her colleagues have uncov- the same habitat; the losers never have the While the happy-face spiders exemplify ered intriguing new examples of “parallel” chance to populate and adapt to that par- species, appearances evolution within a single species, Gillespie evolution—the tendency of nature to come ticular locale. But in islands these coloni- also studies the gradual adaptations that up with the same solutions over and over zation events are so rare that species have can be deceiving. cause members of one group to branch off again, albeit via diff erent routes. time to evolve without interruption. into an entirely new species. She is able  e evolutionary patterns she has discov- Because colonization in islands was rare While the variations in color seem iden- to conduct studies now that wouldn’t have ered confi rm the general theory of specia- before people started moving goods from tical on each island, at a molecular level the been possible during her graduate school tion, in which one group of critters branch- place to place, island animals provide prime patterns are “actually supported by a dif- days—the tool kit for studying evolution has es off from their relatives to form a sepa- opportunities for evolutionary biologists to ferent genetic architecture,” says Oxford. changed dramatically since Gillespie made Along Came a Spider rate species. Gillespie and her colleagues study scenarios of evolution uncomplicated “We’ve demonstrated a shi in the genet- her fi rst fi eld trip to Hawaii in 1987. also hope to track the evolution and move- by the infl uences of invading species.  e ics of this color variation.” In other words, Now, by studying minute changes in ment of spider species between regions, Hawaiian island chain, for example, is an the researchers found that nature had de- DNA, the genetic blueprint for life, re-  e colors of Pacifi c island spiders and shed light on the incredible biodiver- optimal location to study spider evolution vised the same color patterns for the two searchers can determine how closely re- sity that is unique to each small tropical is- and the relationships between species.  e groups of happy-face spiders, but through lated diff erent spider species are to each tell a story of evolution in action. land—information important to future con- islands were formed sequentially, starting separate genetic mechanisms—an example other. Each species is placed on a branch servation eff orts. around fi ve million years ago with Kauai, of convergent evolution. of a “phylogenetic” family tree, illustrat- By KATE RAMSAYER / ILLUSTRATION by EVAN BARBOUR Gillespie has no fear of spiders, although and progressing to the big island, Hawaii, How could this happen? Gillespie and ing when one type of spider separated she was not always an afi cionado of the bugs which is still forming. And for the most Oxford have a theory: Maui is the older is- from the crowd, and who its closest rela- OSEMARY GILLESPIE’S desk cases along the wall are little vials, shaped herself. As a zoology major at the Universi- part, the oldest spider species exist on the land, so when it formed around 800,000 to 2 tives are, based on their genetic similari- at the University of California in like perfume samples but a bit bigger. Float- ty of Edinburgh in her native Scotland dur- most ancient islands. million years ago, color patterning evolved ties. “You collect spiders, extract and se- Berkeley is dwarfed by a gigan- ing in each one are multiple spiders, legs en- ing the late 1970s, she wanted to study sea- To investigate the roots of diversity in in the happy-face spiders as a backup cam- quence a section of DNA, and you build a tic spider web—made from an in- twined to form big arachnid clumps. birds with a behavioral ecologist.  e year the color patterns of the happy-face spider, oufl age method. Yellow spiders are the most phylogenetic tree based on who’s related to tricately woven string of Christ- “ e problem with these things is that she signed up to work with him, though, his Gillespie and her collaborator Geoff Ox- common, apparently because they can hide whom, so you get a whole pattern of rela- Rmas lights. A large model of a yellow and in alcohol they really don’t look very good,” research focused on spiders, so she ended ford, a geneticist at the University of York under leaves and blend in as the sun shines tionships,” says Gillespie. black spider lurks beside her computer on says Gillespie, a slight woman with short up investigating how these arachnids de- in England, collected and interbred Maui through, making the critters all but invis- Gillespie used these methods to deduce the desk. curly hair. “Insects you can pin, but spiders cide where to put their webs. spiders with diff erent markings.  ey de- ible to predatory birds peeking under the the relationships between the brown, green, Her bookcase is lined with texts on in- you just have to dump in alcohol, so it’s re-  is led to graduate work on spider ecol- termined a basic pattern of inheritance to foliage. But when the yellow spiders be- and maroon spiny-legged spiders she had sects and arachnids—a class of creepy crawl- ally hard to preserve anything good look- ogy at the University of Tennessee, and ulti- explain how the happy faces might have come too numerous, the birds begin to see fi rst noticed when she arrived in Hawaii. At ers that includes not just spiders but also ing about them.” mately to a postdoctoral stint studying the originally developed. through the arachnids’ disguise and start fi rst glance, one might assume that spiders ticks and mites—and Lonely Planet guides Still, the intricate red and gold color- feeding habits of the Hawaiian happy-face “You get this tremendous diversity of eating more of them. Now, the multicol- of the same color are most closely related to to exotic locales. Few professors would post ations stand out on a spider with a body no spiders. While doing her fi eld research, she color forms on each of these islands, and ored spiders then have an advantage; the each other, irrespective of which island they a fl yer of the David Arquette movie Eight- bigger than an eraser head. noticed various species of the spiny-leg Tet- it’s all inherited in that very straightfor- further away from plain yellow they are, call home. But a er collecting specimens Legged Freaks on their offi ce door. But Gil-  is little creature belongs to an arach- ragnatha spiders. ward way,” says Gillespie as she searches the better their chances of surviving and of each type from each island, sequencing lespie is an arachnologist, and her interest nid species from the Hawaiian Islands “ e more I looked, the more I found for a pen and scrap paper on her desk. She thriving. Consequently, over generations, their DNA, and constructing a family tree, in her research subjects extends even to called eridion grallator, or happy-face that basically everything there, all the whole sketches out the genetic crosses, diagram- the ratios of yellow to multicolored mem- Gillespie discovered yet again the hand of campy horror fl icks. spider, which is aptly named:  e two diverse spider fauna, was all this one ge- ming the diff erent combinations of genes bers of the species remain virtually con- convergent evolution at work: She found Real-life versions of those research sub- black dots and red smudge on its yellow nus,” says Gillespie. “So I became very in- that baby spiders could inherit from their stant, Gillespie says. that the three diff erent species on each is- jects are everywhere in her offi ce: Blanket- back can resemble a “Have a Nice Day” terested in that group and how it diversi- parents. “So we got it all fi gured out,” she Later, when the big island of Hawaii land were more similar to each other than ing a desk and the bottom shelves of book- smiley face sticker. But other arachnids of fi ed.” says, her excitement shining through. In was forming, some happy-face Maui spi- they were to their color-matched counter-

4 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 5 parts on other islands. She concluded that days late, but it got us there,” says Gillespie. of their sheer number, spiders are some of esis of her own. when a spider of one color originally colo- “ e boat ride to Rapa was wretched, it was the most important natural predators, says Previous theories of galaxy formation, nized a new island, it adapted to the varied just awful.” Gillespie, and if they start disappearing it developed over the past few decades, were ecologies in the same way every time—by Once she arrived, she went hunting could aff ect the whole community. based mainly on older, less-detailed tele- evolving the two other colors. for spiders. Other colleagues from Paris “We’ve got this wealth of diversity in the scope observations and computer simula- “Basically you get communities evolving searched for snails, a scientist from Ha- world, and it all plays a role in how ecosys- tions. Each hypothesis has its own advan- and just throwing up the same kinds of eco- waii collected insects, and a French Poly- tems operate. Exactly what role we don’t tages and problems.  e scenario that most logical forms over and over again on each nesian colleague sought out plants. Because know, and exactly what the impact will be if cosmologists prefer is known as the hierar- island,” says Gillespie, “so this tells you how the islands aren’t well characterized, Gil- it were lost we don’t know,” says Gillespie. chical model, which proposes that most gal- speciation happens.” lespie doesn’t yet know where the best plac- “Basically, what’s happening in the world axies formed early in the history of the uni- Gillespie’s work is “clearly the best ex- es to fi nd spiders are.  e most promising at the moment is that we’re mowing over verse, over a period of a few billion years, ample of ecological divergence driving the spots are on the tops of mountains, where all of the diversity that has taken millions through the clumping together of larger speciation of spiders,” says arachnologist native spiders don’t have to compete with of years to evolve.” and larger gas clouds. According to some Marshal Hedin of San Diego State Uni- new invasive species. Mountains pose their She hopes that her work in French Poly- scientists, galaxies are still being formed versity in California. “We don’t have that own problems, though. “ ey’re volcanic nesia will help to bring attention to the na- today by this method. many solid empirical examples, but I think tive species on the island that are vulner- Another model posits that while spiral Rosie’s is certainly some of the nicest in the Gillespie hopes to able to extinction. Graduate student Clar- galaxies arose through the hierarchical sce- invertebrate world.” idge fears that some of the species she de- nario, the majority of elliptical, or football- Her research also demonstrates what collect — and protect — scribed on previous expeditions could be shaped, galaxies form when spiral galax- Gillespie calls a “race between coloni- already wiped out. Claridge is document- ies crash into each other.  is “mergers” zation and evolution.” If a green spider, undiscovered insects ing the forests of French Polynesia as she model has the clear advantage that astron- which blends in well with leaves, moves hunts for beetles, in the hopes that it will The Light of Dr. Jean Brodie omers actually do observe spiral galaxies into an area formerly inhabited only with before they go extinct. inspire the French government to acceler- in the process of colliding to form ellipti- brown spiders, the new neighbors will fi ll ate its conservation programs.  e state of Dense clusters of stars might illuminate cals. But such mergers are rare, and in or- the green-spider ecological niche.  ere will and they’ve eroded away, so you get lots of many of the islands hasn’t been described der for mergers to have played a dominant be no time, and no need, for the brown spi- knife-edged ridges, and that’s how you have since the 1930s, and with the advent of tour- how the galaxies of the universe were born. role in galaxy formation, they would have der to adapt and evolve into a green spider, to get to the top of the mountain,” says Gil- ism, much has changed since then. had to occur much more frequently in the so colonization trumps evolution. lespie. “ ey’re not the most fun things to To Gillespie, conservation and evolution By ERNIE TRETKOFF / ILLUSTRATION by NADIA STRASSER past than they do now, which researchers climb.” are intertwined topics. It’s not enough to agree is unlikely. EFORE ALL THE evolutionary Gillespie is in the fi rst stages of her re- only preserve habitats for spiders and other EAN BRODIE COLLECTS light from some of the old- Until recently, there hasn’t been enough data to test either of work and genetics can be done, search on the spiders of French Polyne- creatures that exist now; it’s also necessary est objects in the universe. An astronomer at the Univer- these theories. Part of the diffi culty stems from the fact that galax- however, the spiders and other crit- sia, collecting, identifying, and sequenc- to accommodate species that might exist in sity of California in Santa Cruz, Brodie recently spent a ies are complex mixes of stars of diff erent ages and chemistries, as ters need to be collected. “Getting ing the DNA of the specimens she has the future, she and other researchers say. week of evenings in Hawaii peering through the enormous well as all kinds of dust and gas. Trying to study such a disorderly Bout in the fi eld and fi nding the ani- brought back. She’s gradually fi tting them “A lot of conservation is aimed at pro- JKeck telescope at globular clusters—dense clumps of stars that mess from billions of miles away is an extremely tough task, even mals is the most challenging, and the most into their proper place on family trees, and tecting a particular species, but I think [it’s] hang out in just about every galaxy in the universe, like blueber- for scientists armed with the biggest telescopes and most powerful fun too,” says Elin Claridge, a graduate stu- will look for patterns similar to those that far more important … to be able to preserve ries in a pancake. computers in the world. Further complicating matters, the new- dent in Gillespie’s lab who is studying the she described in Hawaii. the ability of plants and animals to respond For astronomers, globular clusters are like the fossils that pa- est, brightest—and thus most visible—stars tend to dominate the evolution of beetles. Scientists have long theorized that the to changes in the future,” says entomologist leontologists use to track the evolution of life.  e star-clumps light streaming out from a galaxy. But they make up only a small In recent years, Gillespie has expanded Hawaiian spider species could be traced to Dave Kavanaugh of the California Academy provide Brodie and her colleagues with a window through which fraction of its mass, so these young stars are useless for looking at her research to the French Polynesian Is- ancestors that originated in Southeast Asia of Sciences in San Francisco. “Extinction they can watch galaxies evolve.  ey believe that the stars in a the galaxy’s formation. lands—2600 miles south of Hawaii—where and skipped across the Pacifi c island chain is a fact of life, [but] there are succeeding given cluster formed at the same time as their host galaxy bil- Scientists therefore needed a less complicated object that would she’s searching for new species and begin- to Hawaii, populating French Polynesia organisms that fi ll in behind things. One of lions of years ago, making them among the oldest radiant objects still tell them something useful about the galaxy. Globular clus- ning to describe the relationships between along the way. But Gillespie’s latest obser- the dangers is we’re eliminating the ability in the universe. ters fi t the bill. Although up close, they look like a confusing jum- them. Whereas the Hawaiian Islands have vations, along with studies by others, hint of other things to do that.”  e universe contains billions of galaxies, yet scientists don’t ble of stars fl ying every which way, compared with galaxies, they been mapped out and are easy to reach, otherwise.  e French Polynesian spiders By studying how species evolve, scien- know much about when and how they form, grow, and break apart. are simple. Because all stars in a given globular cluster formed her new collecting grounds are full of ob- that she has found are considerably diff er- tists hope to gain a sense of the environmen- Astronomers have determined that most galaxies formed within a from the same gas cloud at about the same time—give or take a stacles. ent from the Hawaiian breeds, which sug- tal factors that are necessary to maintain couple of billion years a er the Big Bang, the explosion that gave few million years—they tend to be composed of the same chemi- “Getting to some of these islands is ex- gests that the groups of species in the two healthy ecosystems where future life forms birth to the universe around 14 billion years ago. “A er the Big cal elements.  is uniformity makes the clusters relatively easy to traordinarily hard,” says Gillespie, who regions don’t share a common ancestor af- can bloom. Toward that goal, Gillespie con- Bang, the universe was a uniform soup. Now we see all kinds of study. For Brodie’s kind of research, “they’re better than galaxies went to a tiny island in the Southern Aus- ter all. In fact, the spiders from the 50 th tinues to juggle the trio of fi eldwork, lab structure,” says Brodie. themselves,” she says. trals called Rapa before Christmas. To get U.S. state instead seem to be most closely work, and descriptions of new species. She Indeed, the universe today bubbles with galaxies of all types: Globular clusters typically contain between 100,000 and a mil- there, Gillespie fl ew to Tahiti, took the to related to species from the lower 48, or surveys her offi ce, looking at the boxes and beautiful spirals, with their central bulge of stars surrounded by a lion stars in a glob extending 60 to 150 light-years across, with one once-a-week fl ight to Raivavae, an island at least from North America. Tupperware containers fi lled with vials or disk with long, curved arms; blobby, football-shaped ellipticals; and light-year—the distance light travels in one year—equal to about 6 450 miles to the south, and then waited for In all, Gillespie has discovered more suspended spiders. “I haven’t looked at a amorphous irregulars that don’t fi t into either category.  ere are trillion miles. From a distance, the clusters appear as tiny specks a day-long boat ride to Rapa. than 50 species of spiders throughout her lot of those yet—it’s kind of daunting,” she also stars, clumps of gas and dust, and groups of galaxies. in galaxies, which usually are made up of 100 billion stars and run “ ey put out a special boat for us. Usu- 17-year career, and has described 19 of says. “I could retire from everything I’m do- Astronomers have been baffl ed for decades as to how all these 100,000 light-years in diameter. Because they are so densely packed, ally you have to stay for a month, and even them in depth. Identifying all of these var- ing and spend the rest of my life just look- celestial structures took form out of the uniform soup.  ey have the stars in a globular cluster are infl uenced by the pull of each then it’s not exactly clear—it might be short- ied arachnids gives a sense of what’s out ing at these samples, and keep myself per- some theories, and now they have a telescope powerful enough to other’s gravity and zoom about in complicated patterns, in all di- er or longer.  e boat ended up being four there that needs to be protected. Because fectly occupied forever.” test them. Indeed, Brodie has developed a promising new hypoth- rections. Occasionally, stars are even expelled from the clump.

6 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 7 Globular clusters live almost everywhere in the universe, in All stars, like our sun, emit a continuous rainbow of light, from  e answer depends on how galaxies formed. every type of galaxy, from the elegant fl at spirals like our own short-wavelength blue light to longer-wavelength red light. In gen-  e two distinct populations of globular clusters recently Milky Way to the footballish ellipticals.  e Milky Way is home eral, bluer stars tend to be hotter and more massive than redder prompted Brodie to help develop a new theory of galaxy forma- to 150 clusters, while some elliptical galaxies are known to har- stars, and they tend to burn out more quickly. So if all the stars in tion.  is model holds that galaxies formed in two distinct stages bor over 10,000 of them. A few clusters can even be found in the a globular cluster were born at about the same time, a cluster will within a few billion years a er the big bang. First, dust and gas tiniest dwarf galaxies. start to look redder as its blue stars die off . All else being equal, coalesced to form galaxies.  is initial collapse was followed by  e amateur German astronomer Abraham Ihle observed the this would mean that a globular cluster dominated by blue stars a quiet period of about a couple of billion years, during which a fi rst globular cluster in 1665, but he mistook it for a nebula.  e is younger than one dominated by red stars. few stars generated some of the heavy metals.  en all of a sud- fi rst scientist to correctly identify one of the star-clumps was the But all else is not equal. Diff erent stars contain diff erent chemi- den, the galaxy exploded, Brodie conjectures, shooting out all its British astronomer William Herschel, who coined the term “glob- cal elements, which can change their colors. Each element can ab- material, including those metals. Much of this material fell back ular cluster” in 1789. But only in the last decade have these enti- sorb light of certain precise wavelengths, creating a sort of chem- towards the center of the galaxy, pulled in by the strong gravity ties become an area of intensive research, as more powerful tele- ical signature that astronomers can read to identify which ele- of the galaxy. scopes have come on line to study them in great detail. ments a star contains. In Brodie’s two-stage collapse model, the red population of  is information is important, because chemical composition is globular clusters was born with the galaxy, whereas the popula- RODIE IS ONE of the leading researchers in the U.S. also a clue to age. In the early days of the universe, only the light- tion of blue globular clusters formed during this second collapse. in using globular clusters to study galaxy formation. est elements, hydrogen and helium, made up all the gas that ul-  is model gives a neat and easy way to explain why every galaxy She works on a project called SAGES, Study of As- timately became stars. All stars begin their life cycle by burning has precisely two populations of globular clusters. But the hypoth- trophysics of Globular clusters in Extragalactic Sys- hydrogen into helium; when they use up all their hydrogen, most esis has its shortcomings. Btems, which uses images from the Hubble Space Telescope and of them die out, but a few are large and hot enough to burn heli- For starters, Zepf raises a note of caution over the two popu- the huge 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii—the largest in the um into heavier metal elements. When these stars fi nally die, they lations Brodie’s group has identifi ed: “One thing to remember— world—to learn more about these celestial objects and the galax- eject those metals out into space, where they can be incorporated it’s sort of like dividing up people.  ere’s two diff erent kinds of ies they inhabit. into any new stars that form. people, men and women, but that doesn’t mean everyone in each  e SAGES group looks at three or four galaxies and around Because heavier elements are better at absorbing short-wave- group is identical.” 50 globular clusters per year. It can take several hours of telescope length blue light, stars containing metals will appear redder than Moreover, no one understands exactly what physical mecha- This cluster, M80, is located about 28,000 light-years from Earth and with time to look at a single cluster. To fi nd out exactly what each one can metal-poor stars. So in general, based on chemical composition, nism would cause a two-stage collapse—and no one has ever ob- hundreds of thousands of stars, it is among the densest of the 147 known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. tell us about its parent galaxy, Brodie carefully analyzes the light older stars—which formed before there were many heavy elements served a galaxy undergoing this process.  is is one reason Zepf, (Space Telescope Science Institute) emanating from its stars to determine its age and composition. in the universe—look bluer than younger ones. who favors the mergers model, says that though he admires Bro-  e question is: How do you tell whether a cluster is blue be- die’s observations, he is skeptical about her theory. Admits Bro- in age from galaxy to galaxy, depending on each one’s exact merg- cause it is young and hot, or because it is old and metal-poor? Steve die, “It’s not at all clear why that would have happened. We don’t er history. In this model, the fi rst, blue population came with the Zepf, an astronomer at Michigan State University, explains the know what triggers formation.” She is also searching to explain spiral galaxies.  e second, red population is created when shock question with this analogy: “You gain weight if you eat candy or if what could cause a galaxy to suddenly explode. waves caused by the colliding galaxies produce bursts of star for- you eat potato chips. How do you tell why you got fat?” mation.  e question is whether mergers happen o en enough to Brodie thinks she has found a way to sort things out. When a O GATHER MORE support for her theory, Brodie create all the elliptical galaxies we see.  ese crashes would have star is hot enough, the electrons in its hydrogen atoms can jump is now collecting additional data. In particular, she is been more likely in the fi rst half of age of the universe, when it to higher energy levels, emitting light of a particular wavelength, focusing on measuring the ages of a large sample of was much denser and its structures were closer together. known as a Balmer line. Strong Balmer lines indicate hotter stars, clusters—a diffi cult task. Zepf says that the best dating But Brodie isn’t convinced by this model, pointing out that if and therefore can identify younger clusters.  is dating method Tmethods today are accurate only to within 30 percent of the cor- mergers were more common billions of years ago, then many gal- is somewhat like looking at the cluster’s color, but it’s much more rect age, although other scientists think they are achieving better axies would have undergone more than one merger, leading to precise because it doesn’t depend on chemical content. “You can’t estimates than that. But obtaining reliable ages for many globular more than two distinct populations of globular clusters. And of do better than Balmer lines,” says Jay Strader, a graduate student clusters could be the key to the galaxy formation puzzle, since the course, the merger model leaves open the question of how the spi- who works on SAGES with Brodie. Still, the UCSC researchers diff erent theories predict diff erent ages for the clusters. rals formed in the fi rst place. Nonetheless, says Zepf, “My opin- admit getting an exact age is extremely diffi cult. Whereas Brodie’s two-stage collapse model calls for two dis- ion is that mergers are dominant, just because we actually see it A er carefully analyzing spectra from dozens of clusters, Brodie tinct cluster populations, both very old and nearly the same age, happen.” and others found that all galaxies seem to have exactly two popula- the hierarchical model predicts this alternate scenario: Since most  e mergers model is the only one that predicts a signifi cant tions of globular clusters: one redder, younger, and metal-rich, and galaxies formed early, most globular clusters should be very old; number of clusters younger than about ten billion years.  is as- the other bluer, older, and metal-poor. “It’s a clear distinction you but each galaxy should have clusters with a range of ages, rather pect was a strike against it until recently, when the small number can see by taking out telescope and looking,” says Strader. than two distinct populations. “It’s hard to get two distinct pop- of 3-billion- to 7-billion-year-old red clusters was found.  ese are So far, Brodie’s team has found the two populations in about ulations of globular clusters from this model—but it’s been pro- young enough to have formed during mergers, though astronomers 50 galaxies. In almost all cases, spectral analysis indicates that the posed that you can,” says Zepf. don’t know yet how common these younger clusters are. red and blue clusters diff er in age by about 2 billion years, though One way to do so, according to Brodie, is if the blue popula- All in all, the data off ers support for each theory. Current evi- both are at least 10 billion years old, supporting the widely accept- tion developed from the original gas clouds, while the red clusters dence points to some mix of these hypotheses being correct, says ed notion that most galaxies formed very early in the history of the were born when some of those clouds merged, assuming that most Brodie. “My real feeling is it’s a hybrid thing,” she says. But how universe. Recently, however, researchers have found a few galax- of the activity happened in the fi rst few billion years a er the Big many of the billions of galaxies in the universe formed by merg- ies that have younger red clusters that are between 3 billion and 7 Bang.  is would put the red population about two billion years ers? How many by two-stage collapse, or through the hierarchical billion years old, Zepf says.  ese “teenagers,” as Zepf calls them, younger than blue, which matches real-life observations well. Un- model? Which model is the dominant method?  ough each the- have further confused the galaxy formation picture. fortunately, this scenario is hard to distinguish from the two-stage ory has promise, in order to fi nally sort out how galaxies formed, The brightest stars in globular cluster M15 are the orange-hued red giants,Regardless of when galaxies formed, astronomers need to fi gure collapse theory on the basis of globular clusters alone. astronomers will need to look at many more of them and those about 12 billion years old. The dimmer stars are hotter with a blue-whiteout why there would be two distinct eras of globular cluster for-  e mergers model suggests, on the other hand, that the globu- fossils of their evolution, globular clusters. And that means Bro- color. The cluster is 40,000 light-years away. (Space Telescope Science Institute) mation, rather than one, or ten, or a continuous history of them. lar clusters should have just a few age brackets, which would vary die will be making trips to Hawaii for years to come.

8 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 9 “It’s like coming onto an accident scene. The fi rst order of business is to prevent extinction.” — Gary Davis, Channel Islands National Park

Tom McCormick is passionate about white abalone, but he has of their endangered status, they are also being managed by a spe- never eaten one and doesn’t want to. An aquaculturist who has cial federal recovery team. “Abalone recovery will probably take been breeding abalone in captivity for 20 years, he sees personality many decades,” managers wrote in the report. in the snails. “ ey’re a beautiful animal,” he says. “If they don’t “It’s triage,” says Gary Davis, a marine biologist at Channel Is- want to be some place they just pick up and they take off .  ey lands National Park, of the abalone rescue eff orts. “It’s like com- just start walking, and they kind of waddle back and forth as they ing onto an accident scene.  e fi rst order of business is to pre- walk,” he says. Eating an abalone is a waste of the snail’s life, he vent extinction.” says. “ at took 10 years to get to that [size], and you’re going to have it for one dinner?” WO DECADES AGO, when Davis strolled at low tide In 2001, the white abalone made the federal endangered species along the shores of the Channel Islands, he saw hordes list, the victim of overfi shing. Whereas the deep waters near the of black, oval shells everywhere. “ ere were probably Channel Islands, located off the California coast near Santa Bar- more than ten million black abalone in the park in the bara, teemed with thousands of white abalone per acre of ocean Tearly 1980s,” he says. But today, it takes him up to 45 minutes of fl oor in the 1970s, the most recent state survey uncovered only a looking under rocks to fi nd a single black abalone in the pools handful of the snails per acre. where the creatures used to fl ourish.  e culprit—which Fish and McCormick, who founded the Channel Islands Marine Re- Game marine biologist Carolyn Friedman identifi ed in the late source Institute in Port Hueneme, California, to study the white ’90s—is withering syndrome, a bacterial disease that has made mil- abalone, has been working to restore their population. Two years lions of abalone shrivel up and die. ago, he and his coworkers managed to get a few adult white ab-  e abundance of abalone off California in the 20th century alone to spawn, and the scientists are now raising 16,000 young came about, indirectly, because of people. In addition to wither- snails from that union. Several thousand snails are growing now ing syndrome, the shellfi sh have an age-old foe. Sea otters, which from a second spawning this January. Some day, McCormick may used to live in great numbers along the Pacifi c coast, from Baja be able to release the whites into the wild. California to Alaska and Japan, are voracious abalone eaters. In A century ago, white, black, red, pink, and green abalone fl our- the early 19th century, when otters were thriving, they kept the aba- ished along the California coast. Hundreds of fi shermen made lone populations small; the shellfi sh could only be found in cracks their living fi shing the abundant snails. But by the 1990s, the fi sh- and crevices of underwater rocks, or above the low-tide line—plac- eries in California were closed because the abalone population had es where otters couldn’t get them. A Battered Mollusk been decimated by fi shing and disease. Now, black abalone could By the late 1800s, however, people had hunted the sea otters soon join the whites on the endangered species list and the out- to near-extinction for their luxurious pelts, and abalone popula- look is dim for the green and pink as well. Other species of abalo- tions exploded, taking over rocky surfaces underwater and along (Also Steamed, Stir-Fried, and Eaten Raw) ne around the world have suff ered similar problems, as have many the shores. But about 50 sea otters survived off the isolated, steep other marine animals. Big Sur region of the central California coast. By the middle of Alarmed by the decline, researchers such as McCormick and the 20th century, under federal protection, they were spreading Overfi shing and disease drove California’s abalone biologists with the California State Fish and Game Department up and down the coast again and competing for abalone with a are working to bring abalone back, not just to save the snails with new rival—the fi shing industry. to near extinction. Science may bring them back. the opalescent shells, but also to someday revive the fi sheries. Like Native Californians harvested the snails for food, but Chinese- most conservation measures, the eff orts to save the tasty abalo- Americans in Monterey, just north of Big Sur, had been the fi rst By HELEN FIELDS / ILLUSTRATION by RACHEL ROGGE ne from extinction are part nursery, part dating service and part to catch and export abalone, a delicacy in Asia, in the mid-1800s. hospital care. A er World War II new diving equipment, which let fi shermen N THE LATE 1960s and early 1970s, white abalone became a popular Fish and Game scientists recently dra ed a recovery and man- breathe air from the surface, had made abalone easier to catch, target for fi shermen diving into the deep waters off southern California. agement plan. Goals are fi rst to restore enough of the shellfi sh in driving a boom in the fi shing industry. With the rebound of the the ocean so that they can reproduce, then eventually to grow the otter population, though, the situation began to change. Inside each fl attish, dome-shaped shell, nestled in an opalescent lining, populations large enough to support fi shing again.  e depart- “ e otters would move in and the fi shery [catches] would drop,” was a snail that spent its life eating dri ing pieces of kelp.  e white is ment will survey the existing numbers of each abalone species at says Peter Haaker, a senior marine biologist for the California De- sites off the California coast, look into culturing and planting the partment of Fish and Game who has been studying abalone since Isaid to be one of the most tender, delicious abalone. Its muscular orange foot, de- shellfi sh in the ocean, and continue researching abalone genetics the 1960s. Fishermen were permitted by law to only take larger lectable raw or fried, was selling for about a hundred dollars apiece by the 1990s, and disease.  e department also recommends setting up zones abalone, but the otters were gobbling those down. So the abalone where abalone will never be fi shed. industry shi ed its center to Southern California. Fishermen kept when the whites had become so rare that the state made it illegal to fi sh for them.  e rescue plan covers red, green, pink and black abalone and moving ahead of the otters, and the abalone catch boomed, with two rarer species; white abalone are included as well, but because hundreds of people collecting abalone by the late 1960s.

10 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 11 But suddenly, in the late 1980s, disaster struck:  e industry was abalone poachers take every year. reporting that the shellfi sh had all but disappeared, Haaker recalls. Despite the political confl ict between Fish and Game and the By the end of the 1990s, California law prohibited all commercial abalone fi shery, Haaker says that fi shermen were not to blame for abalone fi shing to protect the few remaining animals. the serial depletion of the shellfi sh. “ ey were only doing what Scientists now recognize that what happened to the abalone is society, the Fish and Game commission, all of us let them do,” he an all-too common tale in modern fi sheries. When catching aba- says. Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacifi c Coast Feder- lone was still legal, commercial fi shermen had to report how many ation of Fishermen’s Associations, says that the industry was just abalone they caught, with state Fish and Game employees checking following the regulations set by Fish and Game. Fishermen can the numbers each year. About the same harvest numbers came in invest tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in a new fi shery, year a er year, so the abalone population looked as though it was and they don’t want to see it collapse in a few years. “It’s not just holding steady. But the constant catch data masked what was re- an investment in money; it’s an investment in their lives,” Grader ally going, Haaker says. When he and his colleagues looked back says. Recently, California fi shermen have even argued for strict- at the data in the late 1990s, they saw a diff erent picture. er state regulations on squid fi shing. “We weren’t going to sit What the fi shermen were doing, the researchers realized, was back and let what happened to the abalone fi shery happen to the moving from place to place and species to species, clearing out squid,” he says. all the abalone and moving on. Fishermen had originally started out hunting red abalone, the world’s largest kind, and expanded IOLOGISTS ARE NOW STUDYING a number of to the pink variety. By the early 1970s, the red and pink abalone strategies to rescue the abalone. One way is to help the Scientists hope to develop captive catch were down to about half of what they’d been in the good animals reproduce. Like many marine invertebrates, breeding techniques for white years in the ’50s and ’60s. So the industry started going a er the male and female abalone mate by spitting out clouds of abalone in hopes of replenishing the declining populations in the green abalone in their blue-green shells, then the black, then the Bsperm and eggs—through a string of small, volcano-shaped vents wild. tastiest of them all—the white, which had escaped fi shing for de- in their shells. Once ejected into the water, the eggs from a fe- (Kevin Lafferty/USGS) cades because they live farther from shore, in deeper water than male have to bump into the sperm from a male to achieve suc- the other species. Each species and fi shing ground was knocked cess. “If there aren’t a fairly large number of individuals within a researchers have been donating time, equipment, and snail feed fi sh pathologist Jim Moore, one of Robbins’ colleagues, because out in turn. meter of each other when they spawn, the probability of success- to help the white abalone.  ey also have funding from founda- they could create antibiotic resistance. “We’re hoping the indus-  e abalone’s story is an example of what biologists call seri- ful fertilization is nearly zero,” says Gary Davis. Scientists used to tions and corporations, such as a local power company. “I’m al- try will use it as a tool to get through El Ninos or periods when al depletion, and it has been repeated countless times with dif- think that because abalone are “broadcast” spawners, the shellfi sh ways working on grants,” he says. the water is warm,” Moore says. ferent marine creatures. In parts of the Atlantic Ocean, fi sher- would never go extinct from fi shing because there would always Even if eff orts at replanting abalone in the ocean succeed, an- men fi shed one cod sub-species a er another, clearing each one be enough le to breed. But the experts guessed wrong: Fishing other menace lurks. Withering syndrome, caused by a kind of bac- IGHT NOW, I don’t foresee having any kind of an out.  ey caught the same number of cod each year, so no one no- thinned out the snails until it was impossible for the few survivors teria referred to as Rickettsia-like prokaryote, is now endemic in abalone fi shery in Southern California in, probably, ticed a problem until, suddenly, there were no more cod to catch. in many areas to reproduce. Southern California.  e bacteria fl ourish in warm weather, so “ any of our lifetimes,” Fish and Game’s Haaker says.  e same thing has happened with species of Alaskan crabs and Given the logistics of abalone mating, one solution is to col- in warm El Nino years, the disease can break out farther north. “Probably all of them, greens, pinks, blacks, and whales. When the tastiest or easiest-to-fi nd animals run out, fi sh- lect a few thousand abalone and plop them down in the equiva- No one knows where the disease came from. It hits black abalo- whites—butR not reds—could be very close to a situation where they ermen move on to the next best species. Better technology and bet- lent of a big dating pool. In the early 1980s, scientists collected ne worst, but it can make reds and whites sick, too, says Fish and would be extirpated from California or literally go extinct.” ter boats let them go farther and farther out, reaching areas that 4,500 mature green abalone and seeded them in waters off Palos Game biologist  ea Robbins, who studies withering syndrome Along with black abalone, the green and pink varieties may were once refuges where animals could reproduce and replenish Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles.  e transplant worked for at Bodega Marine Laboratory, in Bodega Bay, 60 miles north of eventually be listed as an endangered species, Haaker says. In the the near-shore populations. a while. In 1985, juvenile green abalones were a common sight. But San Francisco. Operated by the University of California, the lab’s Channel Islands, according to Davis, so little information cur- Currently, serial depletion could also be happening with sea the plan had a key fl aw: poaching. By 1989, a survey by the Fish low, angular modern building sits out at the end of a spit of land rently exists on the green abalone, it’s hard to know if it, too, is in urchins, another lucrative California fi shery, and sea cucumbers, and Game department found no adults; poachers had taken every forming one side of Bodega Bay. trouble. In the last few years, there haven’t been enough greens which people only started fi shing a few years ago, Haaker says. one, Haaker says.  is method might work better today—since all Sick abalone live there in hospital-green tubs, with seawater in the park to keep track of their numbers. Now, people can go out and start fi shing anything, whether or not abalone fi shing is illegal in southern California, wardens know continuously cycling through, in a dim concrete room. Robbins But even Haaker admits to some moments of optimism. For the state managers know anything about it, Haaker says.  eir data that anyone toting around a bag of the snails has broken the law. uses a kitchen spatula to pry a green abalone off the side of a large whites, the outlook actually might not be as bad as it once was. “Af- comes from asking commercial fi shermen how much they catch, Another conservation tactic is to grow abalone in captivity, then bucket so that she can show off its frilly epipodium, the rim of tis- ter our surveys in July, I feel a lot better about the future expecta- not from going out and counting the number of animals in the release them in the wild. A few commercial abalone farms in Cal- sue that edges its shell.  e disease is caused by bacteria that in- tions for white abalone than I do about the other species,” he says. ocean. “If you’re just operating your fi shery from the commercial ifornia raise red abalone to sell to restaurants Near the Channel fect a snail’s gut, changing the structure of its digestive organ so  e surveys found the white shellfi sh clumped in deeper water, landings, you’re going to be surprised some day,” Haaker says. Islands, marine biologist McCormick has worked with other sci- that the host wastes away. “It’s a bummer to be a snail,” Robbins probably close enough together to reproduce, yet out of the reach But even when managers realized that the abalone were in trou- entists in planting red, green, and pink abalone out in the ocean says.  e disease doesn’t hurt people, so infected animals are safe of otters. Haaker sees some signs of hope for the black abalone as ble, there was little they could do, Haaker says. Until a few years before as part of his work as president of Proteus SeaFarms, an to eat, but they look shriveled and unappetizing. On the way out well. On San Nicolas Island, one of the smaller Channel Islands, ago, the state legislature had to approve any fi shery closings. Ab- aquaculture company near Santa Barbara. Raising abalone takes of the disease lab, Robbins brushes the soles of her shoes over a he and others found all sizes of black abalone last February, which alone fi shermen lobbied hard against shutdowns, the state Fish considerable time and patience. For instance, McCormick is wait- tub of disinfectant to keep the disease from the rest of the lab. Af- suggests that the snails are reproducing and growing. and Game managers worked to make the snails off -limits, and it ing for the thousands of white abalone in his nurseries to grow to ter seawater passes through the abalone tanks, it gets treated with  e good news is, of course, tenuous. If the sea otter popula- wasn’t until 1993 that the fi rst of the fi sheries, the black, was com- about 4 inches long before he releases them.  ey’re growing at chlorine before being piped back into the ocean. tion, which has been facing troubles of its own, were to come back pletely closed—but by then, disease and fi shing had killed most of about one-half to three-quarters of an inch a year, so it could be Robbins and her colleagues are studying drugs that could treat and recolonize Southern California now, Haaker says, it would the black abalone. another three or four years until they’re ready for the ocean. sick abalone in collaboration with an abalone farm in central Cal- wipe out any white abalone gains and probably drive a few other Commercial catches of all abalone species were prohibited in Babysitting thousands of abalone is neither cost-free nor well ifornia.  e drugs couldn’t be used in the wild—there’s no way to species of the snail to extinction. And Haaker can only hope that 1996 and 1997. Now the only abalone fi shing allowed is for sport funded. “A lot of people assume that if a species has endangered convince a wild abalone it wants to eat some tasty medicated kelp, the black shellfi sh on San Nicolas are resistant to withering syn- in Northern California, with no scuba gear and strict daily and species status, then the heavens open up and money issues forth or to keep the drugs from getting to other animals. But antibiot- drome.  e odds are undoubtedly stacked against California’s ab- annual limits on the number of abalone people can take. Manag- from some federal agency,” McCormick says. In fact, research ics could help scientists raise healthy abalone for transplanting alone. Nonetheless, in the fi ght to save them, every single survi- ers know poaching is still a problem, but have no idea how many money for abalone conservation is scarce. McCormick and other to the ocean. Farmers shouldn’t use the drugs continuously, says vor counts.

12 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 13 The Creativity Conundrum Research hints that crankiness stokes artistic inspiration. By GRETA LORGE / ILLUSTRATION by CHRIS FIELD

of great art, music, and literature have arisen from tormented The creative mind can be minds? It’s a question that captures the imagination: Creative people excite our curiosity and envy. Perhaps we hope that by un- a chaotic place. History off ers nu- derstanding what makes them diff erent, we can fi nd a way to tap merous examples of writers, artists, and musicians who danced at into our own inventiveness. the edge of sanity.  e list reads like a Who’s Who of the world of Connie Strong, a psychologist at Stanford University, has an literature and the arts: from wordsmiths Plath and Poe to painters additional reason for being fascinated with this question. Men- Gauguin and van Gogh to composers Berlioz and Berlin. tal illness wreaks havoc in peoples’ lives and touches everyone British novelist Virginia Woolf’s journals and correspondence close to them. Strong has experienced this fi rsthand. Around the bear witness to her lifelong struggle with mental illness. Woolf time when she began her research at the Stanford Bipolar Disor- suff ered her fi rst breakdown at age 13, following the death of her ders Clinic three years ago, Strong had to hospitalize one of her mother. Years later, she wrote of the “terrifi c high waves, and closest friends.  e friend had disappeared without a word, and the infernal deep gulfs, on which I mount and toss.”  e ups and when she resurfaced three weeks later—wearing a fur coat, bed- downs Woolf described are hallmarks of manic depression, or room slippers, and living in her car—Strong recognized the signs bipolar disorder, an illness characterized by dramatic, periodic of bipolar disorder. mood swings alternating between euphoria and the debilitating According to the National Institutes of Health, at least 1 per- gloom of depression. cent of Americans over the age of 18 experience bipolar symp- Woolf could scarcely write at all when she was either depressed toms in any given year—more than 2 million adults in this coun- or manic, but she grew convinced that the ideas for most of her try alone. “ ere is so much pain and suff ering and social cost to books came to her at times when she was ill. Woolf once wrote to this illness,” Strong says. “I feel it’s compelling to look at all as- a friend, “as an experience, madness is terrifi c I can assure you… pects of it.” Society stigmatizes bipolar disorder, yet a fl air for in its lava I still fi nd most of the things I write about. It shoots creativity might well be a positive facet of the illness, she says. “If out of one everything shaped, fi nal, not in mere driblets as san- there’s something good about bipolar disorder, we want to under- ity does.” stand that too.”  e idea that artistic talent and mental instability are linked is Strong and a colleague, Stanford psychiatrist Terence Ketter, not new. Ancient Greeks believed that Muses possessed the artist, have been probing the creativity connection.  ey don’t believe stoking the creative fi res. Aristotle quoted his teacher Socrates as that the highs and lows of bipolar disorder in themselves fuel in- saying, “If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the novative thinking; the picture just isn’t that simple. Instead, they madness of the Muses, he and his sane compositions never reach propose a new, and more subtle, explanation of how certain aspects perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performance of the in- of temperament—the basic operating principles that shape our at- spired madman.” titudes and behavior—that underlie the bipolar personality might Today, centuries later, the synergy between genius and mad- enhance creativity. In a recent study, Strong and Ketter compared ness remains a tantalizing mystery. Why is it that so many works the temperament traits of creative graduate students with those

14 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 15 of patients at the Stanford Bipolar Disorders Clinic.  e results Ludwig scanned the books for clues that their subjects suff ered uals who society deemed creative, such as Nobel laureates. Com- suggest that one peculiarity shared by artistic types and manic-de- from mental illness. He found that those in creative vocations, more negative emotions menting upon Strong and Ketter’s new study, Waddell says: “It’s pressive individuals is irritability. And that quirk, the investigators such as literary and visual arts, were two to three times more like- unclear how ‘creative’ people were defi ned or selected,…[which say, might be an important factor in fostering ingenuity. ly to have psychiatric symptoms than those in non-creative pro- — they were more melan- leaves] the possibility of bias from the outset.” fessions such as business, science and politics. However, critics of Ketter concedes that there is an advantage to studying the “em- the study have pointed out that trying to diagnose mental illness cholic, neurotic, and inent” creativity of celebrated artists: “ ere is wide agreement People suffering from posthumously is tricky at best. based on obvious success in the arts.  ese are people who have In other work, over a period of 15 years during the 1970s and irritable — than the pictures hanging in the National Gallery of Art.” Although he depression have de- 1980s, psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen of the University of Iowa in- agrees that everyday creativity is indeed harder to defi ne, Ketter terviewed 30 faculty members appointed to teach at the universi- healthy group. And cre- says the advantage of his and Strong’s approach is the potential to scribed it as a mental ty’s prestigious creative writing workshop. All were distinguished apply the insights to real-life situations.  e researchers say their authors; many were household names. She assessed the frequency ative and bipolar peo- study is one of the better attempts to date at taking the question ice age in which the world goes cold and grey; they of mood disorders in the literary group versus a comparison group into the realm of everyday creativity. “We looked for people who become trapped inside themselves. Depression strips away plea- of 30 faculty members in non-creative disciplines. She found that ple tended to be more are bright, innovative, and not only have interesting ideas but ac- sure and purpose. Everyday tasks, even getting out of bed, become 80 percent of the writers showed signs of either depression or bi- tually produce something,” he says. insurmountable. By contrast, mania unleashes a fl ood of energy polar disorder, whereas only 30 percent of the non-creative con- open to new experiences  e Stanford investigators walked into their research “with and banishes the need for sleep. Sometimes mania brings intense trols experienced any symptoms. But Andreasen’s study has come than either depressed or healthy individuals. Overall, Strong says open eyes,” Ketter says—fully aware of the methodological chal- focus and concentration; at other times the mind veers haphaz- under fi re because it didn’t include an independent verifi cation of their study showed that the creative graduate students shared more lenges. As diffi cult as it is to defi ne, creativity is even more diffi - ardly from one thought to another. the psychiatric diagnoses, throwing the results into question. traits with bipolar patients than with the healthy controls. cult to quantify.  ere are literally hundreds of creativity tests, Mania or depression alone is more than enough to disrupt work In 1988, psychiatrist Ruth Richards of Harvard University took Strong says certain features of temperament, such as having a measuring diff erent aspects of the complex intellectual and emo- and interfere with relationships. But in bipolar disorder, mood os- a diff erent approach; she attempted to quantify inventiveness in melancholy outlook or a cranky disposition, seem to dominate in tional concept of creativity. Some, like the Torrence Tests of Cre- cillates between the two extremes. Psychiatrist Kay Jamison, of patients with mental illnesses using a scale she developed, the bipolar people long before they are diagnosed—and persist even af- ative  inking, or the Guilford Battery, purport to assess “pure” the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who has written ex- Lifetime Creativity Scale.  e scale, based on lengthy structured ter they recover with medical care. And those traits, the research- creativity.  ese tests identify styles of thinking—like the ability to tensively about mental illness and art—and her own struggle with interviews, is designed to capture originality in the accomplish- ers theorize, might enhance creativity. “Our sense is that there is produce novel ideas and unusual responses to questions—that are bipolar disorder—explained in a 1995 Scientifi c American article: ments of everyday people over their lifetime. Richards found that something about bipolar disorder that confers an advantage in judged to be important to the creative process. “In a sense, depression is a view of the world through a dark glass, bipolar and depressed patients were more creative than healthy people who are creative already,” Strong says.  e Barron-Welsh scale captures some facets of creativity, but and mania is that seen through a kaleidoscope—o en brilliant, but individuals. But the interview process is time-intensive, and scor-  e creativity portion of the study seemed to bear out that hy- not the whole picture, Strong says. Still, in the Stanford study, the fractured.” Each phase may last several weeks to several months. ing the scale requires expert training, so other researchers have pothesis, particularly the results from one well-established mea- scale was able to distinguish their creative graduate students from  e disorder is incapacitating, and frequently destructive: One in shied away from using the Lifetime Creativity Scale. As a result, sure called the Barron-Welsh Art Scale.  is scale consists of 86 the other groups, which gives the fi ndings more credibility. And fi ve bipolar patients commits suicide, a rate around 20 times the Richards’ results have never been replicated. black-and-white drawings that range from simple shapes, such as Barbara Kerr, a psychologist at Arizona State University who has frequency in the general population. Compared to the earlier research, Ketter and Strong’s work a circle or an arrow, to others that look like chicken scratchings or reviewed many of the standard creativity tests, says that the Bar- At the Stanford Bipolar Disorders Clinic, standard drug thera- at Stanford diff ers in a number of respects.  eirs is the fi rst at- notebook doodlings. “It’s just all these ugly little pictures,” Strong ron-Welsh scale “is probably one of the best measures of artistic py—such as lithium and other mood-stabilizing medications—per- tempt, within a single study, to converge on the creativity conun- explains. All the subjects have to do, she says, is indicate whether ability, and to some degree artistic originality.” mits most manic-depressive patients to function well at their jobs drum from two complementary vantage points: assessing artistic they like them or not.  e test doesn’t require any degree of artis- Strong and Ketter’s results suggest that the Barron-Welsh scale or their studies. Ketter estimates that a quarter of the clinic’s pa- ability in manic-depressives, and screening healthy creative indi- tic sophistication; all it takes is a gut-level reaction. is picking up on aff ective, or “feeling” aspects of creativity rath- tients—many of them university students—are exceptionally cre- viduals for temperament traits associated with bipolar disorder. Bipolar patients and creative individuals tested similarly on the er than cognitive, or “thinking” components. In both bipolar pa- ative; they are studio artists, authors, and architects. However, And whereas previous studies focused primarily on famously in- scale, scoring almost 50 percent higher than did the depressed or tients and healthy creative individuals, their emotions are closer he notes that his patients are not representative of bipolar disor- novative personalities, Strong and Ketter were more interested healthy study volunteers. A high score is supposed to refl ect a pref- to the surface, giving them readier access, and in some cases fa- der in general and probably represent the “best possible outcome in regular people who are creative in their day-to-day lives, even erence for complexity and asymmetry. But Strong noticed that the cilitating inventiveness. But, Ketter adds, “there are many path- scenario” for living with the illness.  at’s because the Stanford if they aren’t well-known. high scorers disliked more pictures than they liked. Both bipolar ways to creativity.” clinic serves a particular population that is generally well-off , ed-  e researchers recruited four groups of people for their study: patients and creative individuals were more apt to say, “I don’t like ucated, and insured. 48 patients whose bipolar illness was stabilized with medication; that,” she says. And that ability to summon negative emotions, Because the popular as- About three years ago Ketter and Strong recognized that their 47 healthy volunteers; 32 creative individuals from three Stan- she hypothesizes, may help the creative process. “ e advantage clinic provided an ideal laboratory for exploring the intersection ford graduate programs in fi ction writing, fi ne arts, and product doesn’t seem to be from a selective liking of complexity or asym- sociation of manic-de- of creativity and mood disorders. Not only did they have a group design; and 25 depressed patients, who were also medicated and metry; it seems to be more related to an ability to dislike things of bipolar patients that they were closely tracking, but it also hap- in remission. Strong and Ketter put everyone through a battery and act on [that feeling],” Ketter says. If an artist is happy with pression with creativ- pened that the researchers were following a group of healthy peo- of tests consisting of questionnaires that identifi ed temperament the way things are, there’s really no impetus to make changes. Dis- ple as part of a separate study. “We thought, what an opportuni- traits and paper-and-pencil tests that assessed creativity. content, he reasons, may be the mother of invention. ity is so pervasive, ty to approach the question from the standpoint of the bipolar Five years ago, psychiatrist Charlotte Waddell of the University patients versus healthy controls, and ask, Are the patients really The temperament por- of British Columbia reviewed the results of 29 reports published many artistic bipolar more creative?” Strong says. between 1925 and 1995 that examined the link between creativ- Ketter and Strong knew that previous scientifi c explorations tion of the study re- ity and mental illness. She criticized many of the studies’ authors patients resist treat- in this area had turned up a number of intriguing results. For in- for “enthusiastically promoting an association…despite a lack of stance, in 1992 psychologist Arnold Ludwig of the University of vealed that creative, scientifi c evidence.” One major shortcoming, she found, was that ment, fearing that the mood-stabilizing drugs will rob Kentucky identifi ed 1,004 deceased individuals in a wide range of most of the early studies failed to use standard diagnostic criteria them of their inspiration. But Strong and Ketter say their study occupations who had been profi led in biographies that were re- bipolar and depressed for mental illness. But Waddell’s biggest beef is that the scientists indicates that these fears may be largely unfounded. Being suc- viewed in the New York Times Book Review—an indication, pre- couldn’t seem to agree on a defi nition of creativity. At least two- cessfully medicated, Ketter says, does not have to be an impedi- sumably, that these people were all at the top of their profession. subjects all expressed thirds of the modern investigations looked at well-known individ- ment to creativity.

16 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 17 ence can put a man on the moon and split nations of drugs. But the numbers were far too small to draw any the atom, the recipe for pond scum remains The underlying prob- conclusions, he says. Nonetheless, the fi nding suggests that some stubbornly elusive. medications may preserve productivity better than others.  e puzzle is made more intimidating lem in bipolar disor- And, even medicated, the bipolar patients in Strong and Ket- by the fact that, with no physical record of ter’s study were much more creative than the average person, as the fi rst organisms, there’s no way to defi ni- der seems to be a neu- measured by the Barron-Welsh scale. Yet one wonders how they tively test theories of how they came about. might have scored if they hadn’t been taking the drugs at all. In At best, says Deamer, scientists will be able rochemical imbalance. Dif- the early days of studying mental illness in creative people, re- to set up model systems to show how life ferent parts of the brain communicate with each other via chem- searchers proposed that the ability to produce art was tied to the might have arisen. ical messengers called neurotransmitters. In such a sensitive sys- ups and downs of manic depression’s emotional rollercoaster.  e Bernstein and Deamer are among the tem, things can easily go wrong: If there’s too much neurotrans- theory was that thoughts fl ow more freely in mildly manic states, scientists engaged in this quest. Rather mitter, or not enough, communication breaks down. Neurosci- and that a lack of the usual self-censorship allowed novel associa- than focusing on the planet’s early oceans entists have found that in bipolar patients, the parts of the brain tions to be made; and moderate depression could later play an ed- for answers, they have both looked to out- that regulate mood make too much of a class of neurotransmit- itorial role, tempering the excesses of mania. Certainly, that may er space for clues.  ey are exploring the ters called monoamines. be one path to creativity. But there’s a tradeoff . In severe mania, idea that we may owe our lives to crucial Lithium and other classic mood-stabilizing drugs for treating thoughts become disordered which can lead to dangerous behav- compounds that formed in tiny ice parti- bipolar disorder, such as the anticonvulsants Depakote and Tegre- ior and acute depression can paralyze thought processes. cles and rode down to the Earth on mete- tol, work by normalizing monoamine levels in the brain. While  e nexus between madness and genius is far too complicated orites or space dust. they level out the emotional highs and lows, keeping patients on to be explained by the idea that euphoria simply sets the stage for Recipe for Life  e tallest hurdle to tracing the origin an even keel, they don’t fi x the fundamental neurochemical prob- brilliant brainstorming. A er all, most bipolar patients don’t pos- of life is that even the most basic form of lem. Most patients have to be medicated for the rest of their lives. sess extraordinary artistic gi s, and most artists don’t suff er ex- self-sustaining life imaginable would have And these drugs have side eff ects, including sluggishness, weight treme mood swings.  e Stanford work suggests that underlying  e building blocks for life on Earth may had to perform many tasks at the same gain, and sexual dysfunction. temperament traits could either predispose a person to developing time, such as harvesting energy from sun- Strong says many of their patients, some of whom earn their bipolar disorder or incline them toward accomplishments in the have come from someplace far, far away. light, chemicals, or heat, and using that living as writers and artists, report that the medicines also blunt arts—or both. Temperament is something people are born with— energy to reproduce itself. emotion and stifl e their brainstorming abilities. “It’s a huge con- it may even be hardwired in the brain—and it doesn’t change over By SHAWNA WILLIAMS / ILLUSTRATION by NICOLLE RAGER It also must have had a genetic code to cern for people who are creative,” Strong says. “ ese folks can the course of a lifetime. Bipolar brains may be wired to be more outline the basics of these processes, and deal with sexual side eff ects and weight gain, but if they lose their emotionally volatile than normal. And while that may be painful IFTY YEARS AGO, a gradu- into place. “It’s maybe hard for us to really a way of passing that code on to its de- creativity they may lose their jobs” at the extremes of the emotional spectrum, manic-depressive pa- ate student named Stanley Mill- appreciate how big the [experiment’s] im- scendants that allowed for some genetic Ketter points out that while some medications may fl atten emo- tients who are stabilized may be able to harness those emotions er tried to create life—or some- pact was at the time,” says Max Bernstein, a change, but not too much. It must, in oth- tional range, ongoing depression has the same eff ect. Although and pour them into creative pursuits. thing like it—in a chemistry lab chemist at the NASA Ames Research Cen- er words, have been able to evolve—other- it’s important for doctors caring for bipolar artists or writers to  e key seems to be fi nding the right medication, in the right Fat the University of Chicago. To approxi- ter near San Jose, California. Miller and wise life could never have gotten past that be mindful of the eff ects of drugs, he says, the top priority has to dose, to control extreme mood swings while still allowing the pa- mate the ocean of primitive Earth, he fi lled his colleagues “were seeing what we think primitive fi rst step.  at’s a tall order for be getting patients healthy. When they are le untreated, their tients access to their emotions. Strong and Ketter believe that new a glass bulb with water, methane, ammo- of as the absolute basic components of life. something that came together by chance, manic and depressive episodes become more frequent and more se- and better treatments can alleviate psychic distress without snuff - nia, and hydrogen, the chemicals that sci- So it seemed like it would be a short time because it requires a melange of complex vere over time, and they also become less responsive to medication. ing the creative spark. In the meantime, the researchers say, pa- entists speculated had dominated the early before the origin of life would be under- chemicals. Ketter does note that patients taking the drug Depakote tended tients and their loved ones can take heart. Says Strong, “ ere is atmosphere.  en Miller hooked two elec- stood.” Instead, 50 years later, Bernstein  e organic chemicals needed for life to have higher creativity scores than patients taking other combi- something about the disorder that is a silver lining.” trodes to the bulb to simulate lightning, and says, “In a way we know more—but we think could not form from scratch in today’s fl ipped the switch. we know less.” oceans and ponds, because our atmosphere Miller let the mixture brew for a week. Researchers soon found that adenine, holds too much oxygen; oxygen reacts with Virginia Woolf’s note to her husband  e “ocean” bubbled, converting to vapor one of the bases of DNA, could form under organic molecules, ripping them apart be- that rose to the “atmosphere,” where a con- similar conditions. And in 1969, a meteorite fore they have a chance of doing anything On March 28, 1941, Vir- Dearest, tinuous current zapped the gas, imitating chock-full of amino acids fell near Murchi- interesting. Fi y years ago, scientists con- ginia Woolf put a large an electrical storm. Inside the glass bulb son, Australia, hinting that some of life’s in- jectured that primitive Earth had an atmo- I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible stone in her coat pocket was a condensing column that worked like gredients might have come from space. Yet sphere rich in hydrogen rather than oxygen, times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I and drowned herself in a cold soda can on a hot day: When vapor try as they might, scientists have been un- one that would have favored the formation am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happi- a river. hit the column, the gas turned into liquid. able to use these ingredients to create even of long organic molecules, like amino ac- ness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could  en it trickled back into the ocean to start the most lowly of organisms in the lab. ids, from carbon and hydrogen. have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am the process again. Half a century of exploration has called However, geologists now think that al- spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even While Miller didn’t fi nd a growling mon- into question Miller’s original premise that though the Earth’s atmosphere contained write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to ster bursting out of the fl ask at the end, life began in the oceans, and alternative ex- less oxygen during the planet’s early ex- you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — every- what he did fi nd was almost as exciting:  e planations remain unproven.  e idea that istence than it does today, it still had too body knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone fl ask contained amino acids, vital compo- the orchestrated complexity of life could much oxygen and too little hydrogen to fa- from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. nents of every living thing. have come out of random non-life is total- vor production of complex molecules.  us, I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.  e implications were huge: If biologi- ly counterintuitive. “Most scientists fi nd it large amounts of organic molecules could cal chemicals were so easy to make from too daunting a problem,” says Dave Deam- not have formed in the ocean, as Miller V. scratch, many researchers believed that the er, a biochemist at the University of Cali- thought, to form the rich “primordial soup” other steps to generating life would soon fall fornia at Santa Cruz.  ough modern sci- that he simulated in his experiment.

18 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 19 INCE 1953, a boggling cacopho- warm environment of the primordial soup a massive gas cloud infused with tiny grains ny of other hypotheses has arisen experiments, he creates a cold, harsh vac- of ice. To Bernstein, the diff erence between to explain life’s origins. Besides uum simulating conditions in outer space the two scenarios is crucial. It’s a question those who think we owe our lives to see what kinds of reactions might hap- of universality: All solar systems condensed Sto cosmic dust, some scientists subscribe to pen there. Common chemical sense dictates from interstellar gas clouds, so if biologi- a modifi ed version of the primordial soup that very little will happen in a frigid envi- cal chemicals formed within those gaseous theory, while others think life sprang from ronment (which is why food doesn’t spoil mixtures, then “your starting materials are biochemical reactions at heat vents deep in the freezer).  at’s because reactions there in all the solar systems in the whole in the sea. require some energy to get started, usual- galaxy,” he says. Biochemist A.G. Cairns-Smith, of the ly from heat. Still, molecules frozen in ice But even if meteorites provided the seeds University of Glasgow in Scotland, ar- crystals in space do get regularly zapped to the fi rst complex biomolecules, how did gues that the fi rst genetic material might by strong ultraviolet and other radiation those amino acids and quinones transform have been a self-replicating crystal. Gunt- from stars—much more than what we get into life? Assuming that early life did build er Wachtershauser, a German patent attor- on Earth, where our atmosphere protects itself from space chemicals, then some sci- ney who’s become a respected origin-of-life us. Such jolts might jar a molecule into re- entists have simply traded distant dust clouds for warm oceans.  e gap between non-life and life, a er 50 years of conjecture Mix water with amino acids from an asteroid and experiments, looms as large as ever. Stanley Miller’s Enter Dave Deamer’s research. Deam- 1953 paper in and some naturally occurring detergent molecules, er brings an unusual approach to the ori- Science. gin-of-life problem: Instead of focusing on and you might have the beginnings of a living cell. how the inner workings of the cell fell into place, he’s working from the outside in— starting with the cell’s housing, components theorist in his spare time, postulates that acting with its neighbor, prompting them of which he believes might have come from project: Put one drop of nononoic acid in this, but we simply haven’t discovered it be- ty of Illinois says that no origin of life the- life initially came about not in cells, but de- to stick together, Bernstein says.  is big- meteorites. a drop of water on a slide, then add one cause it no longer exists,” he says. ory will convince him unless it produces a veloped on the surfaces of special minerals ger new molecule may later bond with third “Life as we know it began when it be- drop fl uorescent dye. A glimpse at the mix- Deamer’s experiments have led him to system of self-replicating chemical cycles, that promoted crucial reactions. Francis molecule, and so on and so forth, until a came cellular,” he says. In other words, the ture under the microscope reveals round question the supposition that life originated such as those that make energy or copy Crick, one of the discoverers of the struc- complex molecule emerges. fi rst organisms had to have a barrier sep- hollow spheres of diff erent sizes, dri ing in the ocean. He has found that in saltwa- genetic material. “I don’t think we know ture of DNA, even suggested that intelli- Such a process could take up to tens of arating themselves from the chaotic out- around like bacterial ghosts. Under ultra- ter, detergents form clumps, not spheres, so enough to be sure of any of these sugges- gent beings elsewhere might have “seeded” millions of years in space, but Bernstein er world.  ey needed skin, a membrane. violet light, some of the spheres glow green he theorizes that a freshwater pond would tions,” he says. the Earth with extraterrestrial bacteria. compresses the timescale into less than an With this idea in mind, Deamer decided to because they contain the dye, while others have been a more hospitable environment.  e origin of life is a fascinating prob- Rather than crediting little green men hour in his studies.  e fi rst step is to look see whether membranes could spontaneous- loom darkly.  e black spheres are intact And from his RNA experiment, he surmises lem, one that A.G. Cairns-Smith, the Scot- with our existence, Bernstein has been at telescope scans of the distant dust cloud ly arise from the raw materials in meteor- membranes that have excluded the dye, De- that the pond where life originated would tish biochemist, has compared to a Sherlock studying a more prosaic breed of space in- whose conditions Bernstein wants to rec- ites—which isn’t as wacky as it seems. Cer- amer explains, while the glowing spheres probably have been cold, not warm. Holmes story. But this greatest of scientifi c vader: meteorites. On a recent a ernoon reate. Diff erent chemicals give off diff erent tain molecules, detergents, have one end have slight fl aws that allow some exchange As he sees it, meteorites could have fallen mysteries is far more complicated than any at NASA Ames, Bernstein pauses in front colors of light, providing him clues to the that likes to mingle with water and one end with the environment. Such fl aws would in or near a pond, bringing chemicals with murder. Fi y years a er Miller’s famous of a display case of meteorites in the lobby gases that make up the dust cloud. that, like grease, does not. When mixed have been needed to allow the fl ow of nutri- them. Evaporation might have concentrat- experiment, it’s impossible to say whether of the building where he works. Most of He then allows a similar mixture of gas- with water, these detergents assemble into ents into the very fi rst cells, he believes. ed the chemicals, making them more likely any of the detectives are on the right track. them look like ordinary rocks; a dime-sized es to slowly leak into the vacuum chamber, tiny spheres, lining themselves up into a Using membranes as a starting point, to react with each other. Detergent spheres Judging by the current state of the origin-of- square of Martian rock mounted on a piece where they freeze onto an extremely cold double-layer barrier with their water-solu- Deamer is now trying to create an artifi - and short RNA strands would have formed life fi eld, it seems unlikely that the year 2053 of wood resembles concrete. surface.  e temperature inside is about - ble ends facing out and their insoluble ends cial cell in the lab. Scientists have long the- separately, but over time, he thinks, a few will fi nd children using high-tech chemistry For Bernstein, meteorites are far more 445°F, cold enough that the ice doesn’t even protected on the inside.  ese self-organiz- orized that a molecule called RNA func- RNA molecules would have been enclosed sets to generate primitive organisms in ice than museum curiosities. He is particularly form crystals—just an amorphous blob.  en ing molecules are the main components of tioned in early cells as the carrier of genet- within some spheres by chance. And a er cube trays in their freezers. Perhaps the or- interested in those known as carbonaceous Bernstein bombards the frozen goo with cell membranes. ic information before DNA evolved, so he many false starts, a stretch of RNA that igin-of-life fi eld itself is stuck in a self-rep- chondrites, which bring organic chemicals UV radiation. A er allowing time for reac- Deamer theorized that if these kinds of did another experiment: He mixed build- could reproduce itself could have ended up licating cycle, a succession of red herrings with them to Earth. “When a meteorite tions to take place, Bernstein analyzes the spheres could form easily from extrater- ing blocks of RNA—called nucleotides—with inside a sphere.  at would leave one more and disappointments. falls to Earth, you can pick it up and ana- ice for substances such as the amino acids restrial molecules that fell into water, that water, and found that freezing the solution major hurdle to make Deamer’s hypothe- Or maybe not. If nothing else, over the lyze it, and be looking at perhaps a piece of that make up proteins, and quinones, mol- might be the kind of jump-start life needed. could actually bring the pieces together in sis viable: To replicate itself, this promis- decades biologists have gained a much the same asteroid or comet that fed the ear- ecules that harvest energy in the cell—and So he extracted organic molecules from a short chains.  ese chains could be coaxed ing sphere would have needed to produce greater understanding of—and apprecia- ly Earth.  ese are things, literally, that are has found that they’re there, though in van- carbonaceous chondrite, added them to wa- to grow only as long as eight nucleotides its own detergent molecules. tion for—life’s awesome complexity.  e 4.5 billion years old, and you can hold them ishingly small amounts. ter—and found that spheres about the size each—a promising result, although the Fellow origin-of-life scientists aren’t double-helix structure of DNA was discov- in your hand,” he says. By “fed,” he means Bernstein aims to fi nd out where the or- of bacteria formed. Here was proof that the smallest useful RNA chains are at least 50 holding their breath. Leslie Orgel, a Salk ered in 1953, and just 50 years later, sci- that organic molecules from carbonaceous ganic molecules in carbonaceous chondrites meteorite contained detergent molecules. to 100 nucleotides long. Institute biochemist, calls the idea that life’s entists have mapped the entire human ge- chondrites might have served as the starting come from.  ey may have formed in com- Deamer found that the most prevalent Deamer concedes that RNA probably building blocks came from space a “perfect- nome and possess a basic understanding of materials for Earth’s fi rst life forms. ets or meteorites with cores of ice, or even detergent molecule in the meteorite was did not arise ab initio, but instead evolved ly good theory,” but says, “at the moment how cells work. If life does not yield all its In his fi rst-fl oor lab down the hall, Ber- of water. Alternatively, the molecules could one called nononoic acid. His recipe for from a simpler molecule. “ ere must have there isn’t enough evidence to choose where secrets in the coming decades, we can be nstein runs a deep-space version of Miller’s have been spawned billions of years ago in bacteria-sized membranes has the simple been some scaff olding, we call it, that pro- molecules came from.” Similarly, evolution- sure that what we do learn will continue to famous experiment. Instead of the relatively the fl edgling solar system, when it was just elegance of a middle school science fair vided a kind of sequence information for ary biologist Carl Woese of the Universi- astound us.

20 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 21 e presence of the Baja peninsula is causing new species to form.

and other marine creatures. DNA analyses tic and Pacifi c varieties, yet it’s unknown species are sharply divided by the geogra- loop resides within the mitochondria, the of the specimens suggest that some types of whether the two groups can actually breed phy.  ose species reside in the cool water energy generators of the cell that harbor fi sh began forming new species when the with each other. around the northern portion of Baja Cali- their own miniature set of genes. But the Baja peninsula rose from the ocean mil- While such questions may have con- fornia, and two barriers fence them in: the D-loop itself doesn’t encode a gene—it in- lions of years ago, dividing a single popu- founded Darwin’s peers, modern scien- land itself and warm southern waters. stead serves as sort of genetic fi ller. So, in lation into two distinct groups, one on each tists have an advantage—they can scruti- Baja California represents one of the the same way that the upholstery inside a side of the wall formed by the peninsula. nize the molecular makeup of organisms rare regions where genetic surveys of dis- car doesn’t aff ect its performance, random  e research is a prime new example of for fresh insights.  e more genetic diff er- junct species are possible. “ ere are very mutations within this stretch don’t help or how geologic events can produce new spe- ences that exist between animals within a few places where you have all the good hinder the survival of a fi sh species through cies—and also underscores the fact that the species, the more likely it is that the popu- things to study—[where] you can sample the forces of natural selection. As a result, ocean harbors far more variety in its deni- lation has split into subspecies that can no the species, you know what they are, you D-loop DNA changes are less likely to sick- zens than anyone realized. longer interbreed. know what the currents are, you know the en or kill an animal (and thus more likely to Such subgroups are most likely to form geologic history of the place, you happen be passed to the next generation) than mu- ATALOGUING the planet’s within a “disjunct” species—a species whose to fi nd an abundance of individuals,” Ber- tations in sections that encode genes. An av- inhabitants is the mother of all populations have been geographically sep- nardi says. erage animal gene might accumulate eight census projects. Scientists have arated from each other into two discrete So Bernardi braved chilly waters at 19 mutations over a million years, whereas the so far documented nearly 2 mil- regions.  e human species experienced locations up and down both sides of Baja D-loop could chalk up as many as 40. lionC species of bacteria, plants, fungi, and small-scale disjunction, for instance, when California to gather his gilled guinea pigs. Sequences of D-loop DNA are similar animals. Yet the globe hosts 5 million to 30 the demilitarized zone of Germany’s Ber- Sometimes he used a snorkel and a hand- among animals that are breeding and ex- million species of organisms, biologists es- lin Wall divided families for three decades. held net, other times he speared his quarry changing genes with each other, but geneti- Fish Tales timate. Every time scientists discover new On the evolutionary scale, barriers such as while scuba diving. Occasionally he needed cally isolated populations rack up diff erenc- life forms, taxonomists toil to properly cat- mountains, oceans, or simply large distanc- only to wade in tide pools. Bernardi collect- es quickly on an evolutionary timescale. So Strange goings-on around Baja California. egorize the creatures. Part of the challenge es can suddenly split land-dwelling popu- ed fi sh representing nine disjunct species, this rapidly changing region serves as a sort lies in the defi nition of a species—there is lations. Such obstacles are so vast and per- including variations of sandbass, rockfi sh, of molecular clock:  e greater the number By NICOLE STRICKER / ILLUSTRATION by ANDREW RECHER no hard-and-fast rule. Looks and lifestyle manent that disjunct creatures sometimes perch, and grunion. He nabbed anywhere of DNA diff erences, the longer it has been can off er a clue; animals that generally look eventually evolve into diff erent subspe- from one to 44 fi sh at each site and hauled since the groups have diverged. HIS IS AN ANIMAL that comprise only one type of fi sh might actu- alike, live in a similar habitat, and prey on cies. more than 200 pickled specimens back to lives inside the anus of sea ally harbor several species. the same food source are typically classi- In the sea, land masses, water temper- his laboratory for genetic analysis. OR EACH of the nine disjunct “ cucumbers,” says Giaco- Bernardi is an evolutionary biologist fi ed together. But comparable appearanc- atures, or ecological niches such as reefs A er harvesting DNA from the fi sh he’d Baja species, Bernardi scruti- mo Bernardi, holding an who ponders marine creatures for the same es and lifestyles can be deceiving. For ex- or tide pools can corral marine life. One collected, Bernardi compared the genetic nized and compared the DNA oblongT bottle at eye level to examine the reason Darwin scrutinized fi nches: to learn ample, sharks and dolphins are both large, well-studied barrier is the Isthmus of Pan- sequences of individual fi sh within a single of at least fi ve fi sh from the Pa- white, 10-inch-long, snakelike specimen in- what drives the diversity of life. “ ere are fi nned swimmers that eat smaller fi sh, yet ama, connecting North and South Ameri- species. Although genetic makeup is bound Fcifi c side of the Baja peninsula and fi ve that side. Bernardi—a tanned, balding scientist 25,000 species of fi sh, which is more than sharks are a type of fi sh and dolphins are a ca. When this strip of land jutted out of the to vary among individuals of one species, had swum in the Sea of Cortez. A computer clad in a sweatshirt, shorts, and sneakers—is all the land vertebrates put together,” Ber- type of mammal.  e two groups have com- ocean 3.5 million years ago, it divided popu- more than 99 percent of their DNA is esti- analysis of their genetic diff erences helped showing off the fi sh he has collected around nardi says. “But people don’t exactly under- pletely separate ancestral lines. lations into Pacifi c and Caribbean groups. mated to be identical.  e amount of DNA him rank how closely related the fi sh in each the world, from the anal albino inhabitant stand how species of fi sh are created.” Gain- Among animals that are closely related, Today, several species are found on both variability among organisms is a little like species were to each other.  is informa- to colorful coral reef dwellers. ing insights into that process could help the task of categorizing species can be even sides of the divide. Yet biologists have de- the diff erences and similarities among au- tion then allowed Bernardi to build a kind Jars of pickled fi sh line the shelves in scientists estimate the variety of fi sh in the more daunting. Creatures that look and act tected molecular changes revealing that a tomobiles. Non-essentials such as color and of evolutionary family tree, which clusters Bernardi’s offi ce and the countertops in his sea.  ese estimates are important because similarly sometimes belong to diff erent clas- number of those disjunct species have began carpeting vary widely among cars, just as the fi sh into branches according to their lab at the University of California’s Long the number of species and the abundance sifi cation groups—consider the 450 species to diverge into distinct subgroups. genes for coloring or personality diff er in similarities. Marine Laboratory in Santa Cruz. Bernardi of each animal help scientists decide which of North American ladybugs. Conversely, individual animals. More fundamental as- His results show a genetic divergence moves to a refrigerator, opens the door, and ocean zones deserve protection. one group can comprise many creatures OPING TO DISCOVER pects such as engine and frame design will brewing within several of the groups. For produces a clear plastic tube. Inside, sever- By analyzing tiny diff erences in DNA, that seem very diff erent from one another. more emerging subspecies, be common to a particular class of car; like- example, the evolutionary tree he gener- al quarter-sized tropical damselfi sh fl oat in Bernardi can determine how closely related Rottweilers and poodles, for instance, are Bernardi recently headed wise, related species share many fundamen- ated for the grunion species showed a ri alcohol.  ese adult fi sh are black with a members of a given species are—and even members of the same species. Mating suc- to Baja California, a region tal genes, such as those dictating size and was forming between fi sh from the Pacifi c small white dot near the eye, the remnants detect when some members have begun to cess or failure can additionally help scien- Hchock-full of known disjunct species that shape. And essentials like pistons and tires Ocean and those from the Sea of Cortez: of a white streak that fades with maturity, split off into new subspecies. “Our tools al- tists to properly classify animals; a species have not yet been studied on a molecular vary little, just as certain genes are virtu-  e grunion living on one side of the penin- Bernardi explains. He then opens one of low us to uncover things you can’t really is o en defi ned by the ability of members to level.  e Baja peninsula is a narrow land ally identical from mice to men. To eff ec- sula were more closely related to each oth- many boxes to reveal rows of vials—each see,” he says. mate and produce fertile off spring. Yet biol- strip extending 800 miles south of Califor- tively study the diff erences between his dis- er than to grunion from the other side. He one encasing a miniature, M&M-sized ju- Indeed, Bernardi has recently captured ogists cannot always assess breeding feasi- nia.  e Pacifi c Ocean laps at its western junct fi sh, Bernardi needed to focus on a ge- saw a similar pattern in two-thirds of the venile damselfi sh, white stripe and all. Al- molecular snapshots of evolution in action bility, especially when diff erent populations shores, while on the east, the Sea of Cor- netic region known to foster just the right species overall. “ e population used to be though these critters look identical, a peek among fi sh swimming in the waters off the of the same species don’t normally encoun- tez separates the peninsula from mainland amount of variability. continuous, and then the geologic forma- at DNA harvested from their gills can re- Baja California peninsula. His laboratory ter each other in nature. For example, the Mexico.  e waters surrounding the pen- He chose a narrow segment of DNA tion of Baja California physically separat- veal a surprise: that a group appearing to trove includes a haul of sandbass, rockfi sh, bottlenose dolphin species contains Atlan- insula teem with fi sh, but only a handful of called the D-loop control region.  e D- ed them. And then they slowly diverged ge-

22 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 23 Fi y-fi ve million years ago, netically,” Bernardi explains. troublesome. Ideally, the DNA region cho- tations among fi sh separated by a fi rmly For some of these diverging species, the sen as a molecular clock (the D-loop, in closed door to calibrate the tickings of his the Earth heated up dramatically. number of DNA discrepancies suggests that Bernardi’s case) incurs random mutations molecular clock. It just so happens that one the animals have been accumulating dif- that don’t aff ect the animal’s survival. Any type of fi sh that’s forming subspecies across  at’s when the evolution of ferences for about 2.5 million years—dat- mutation that confers a detriment or ben- the Baja peninsula, the sargo, has cousins ing back to around the same period when efi t would skew the timepiece. that were separated by the Isthmus of Pan- modern mammals really got cooking. the Baja peninsula formed.  e data also But researchers disagree over which re- ama.  is rare fi nd—two closely related dis- hint that other species started branching gions of DNA, if any, accumulate harmless junct species—enables Bernardi to compare apart less than 1 million years ago, rough- mutations regularly over time. “One of the his estimates of mutation rates to two geo- ly the time when an inland seaway closed, problems is that people who use these mo- logic events. With his precisely calibrated preventing marine life from crossing the lecular data as clocks have to make a num- molecular clock, Bernardi is confi dent that peninsula. Bernardi’s fi ndings suggest that ber of assumptions,” says William Fink, an formation of the Baja peninsula triggered the presence of the Baja peninsula is in fact evolutionary biologist at the University of subspecies evolution. causing new species to form. Michigan in Ann Arbor. “What they’re as- Global Fever At the same time, Bernardi found that suming is that the molecules they’re look- UCH INVESTIGATIONS allow four of the species he studied are genetically ing at are basically evolving randomly… . scientists to peer beneath the sea’s By ELISABETH NADIN / ILLUSTRATION by HOLLY GRAY uniform across the Baja; those species don’t  at’s hard to be sure about.” surface and take stock of what’s seem to be splitting.  at fi nding suggests Also, DNA changes are not as predict- living there. “We have a system T’S HARD TO BELIEVE that crocodiles used to swim in What’s more, based on fossils recently unearthed in Asia, the that fi sh in those groups aren’t truly sepa- able as the ticks of a clock—mutations do Sthat allows us to understand how new spe- warm waters off Greenland, or that our primate ancestors researchers’ work has recently provided the fi rst substantive evi- rated and might be migrating around the not necessarily occur once every so-many cies are being created,” Bernardi says. “If once chattered among broad palm fronds in a tropical forest dence for a controversial theory of where modern mammals came southern tip of the peninsula. Alternative- years. “It doesn’t always change regularly you don’t understand that, it’s really diffi - within northern Wyoming. But scientists paint exactly this from: Animals living in the hot Eocene world took advantage of ly, the uniform distribution could simply with time,” says geneticist Carol Stepien of cult to understand how biodiversity is gen- Ipicture of the world circa 55 million years ago in the Eocene epoch, warming northern latitudes to make their way from Asia to North mean that those populations haven’t been Cleveland State University in Ohio. “ at erated in the ocean.” just 10 million years a er the demise of the dinosaurs. During this America and Europe.  ese dwarfed creatures went on to evolve separated long enough to accumulate DNA gives you slop in your clock.” But, she adds, Understanding aquatic diversity is criti- time, the planet heated up in one of the most rapid and extreme into the most common mammals on the planet today, Koch says. diff erences. the technique is widely accepted among evo- cal when scientists decide the boundaries of global warming events recorded in geologic history. Sea surface In light of such discoveries, many earth scientists believe that Bernardi wonders if recent glacial lutionary biologists, and she herself uses it. federally protected marine reserves. Con- temperatures on Earth rose almost 15 degrees Fahrenheit over a the state of the planet at the beginning of the Eocene era could events, which temporarily chilled the ocean “You can tell a very interesting story if you servation goals can change when scientists period of a few thousand years—a mere instant in the geologic tim- hold lessons for Earth’s future. With greenhouse gases locking about 10,000 years ago, could account for use a molecular clock.” learn that one species of, say, rockfi sh, is escale. And according to geologists Jim Zachos and Paul Koch of in the sun’s warmth and global temperatures rising, the planet is the consistency of these animals across the Fink and Stepien both agree, however, in fact two populations that no longer ex- the University of California in Santa Cruz, this temperature spike heating up at least as fast as it did 55 million years ago, say Zach- peninsula. A cooling of the seas surround- that scientists can bolster this kind of data change genes with each other. triggered a wholesale reshuffl ing of life on the planet. os and Koch. If global warming continues at its current rate, they ing the southern peninsula would allow mi- by verifying how fast their clock ticks. One “We use that [type of] info to try to de- Zachos and Koch study chemical clues in the ocean and land, speculate that future generations may well see a similar major im- gration of the cold-water fi sh, which would way to do that is to compare the estimated cide how we want to manage those areas,” searching for evidence of how past climate changes altered Earth’s pact on land and ocean ecosystems. be restricted again when the waters warmed dates of species-branching events with those says Steve Palumbi, a biologist at Stanford ecosystems. Zachos has connected the Eocene heat wave to drastic back up. Because separations occurring less of known geologic events, such as creation University’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pa- changes in ocean chemistry that caused a massive die-off of marine IXTY-FIVE million years ago, at the end of the Creta- than 150,000 years ago are virtually invisi- of the Isthmus of Panama. If the molecu- cifi c Grove, California. “If there’s plenty of microorganisms worldwide. On land, Koch and his colleagues dis- ceous period, an asteroid impact brought an end to the ble to the genetic technique, Bernardi can’t lar clock predicts that the branching hap- gene fl ow, we would manage in a diff erent covered that the global warming spike brought many newly evolved dinosaurs and the Age of Reptiles.  e fossil record indi- distinguish recent splits from ongoing mi- pened around the same time as the shi in way than if that gene fl ow were impossible.” mammals to North America. Oddly enough, the mammals were cates that mammals, which had lived in obscurity in the grations. geology, researchers can be more confi dent In a region such as the northern Baja Pen- strikingly smaller than both their ancestors and descendants.  e shadowsS of the dinosaurs, fl ourished soon a er the giant reptiles Whatever the explanation, Bernardi’s that their timepiece ticks accurately. “When insula, for instance, if biologists worked to- fi rst horse that whinnied in the subtropical forests of Wyoming, died out. With no large competition for resources, little critters work paints a clearer picture of the diversi- groups are separated on either side of the ward conserving critters on only one coast, for instance, was the size of a modern Siamese cat. suddenly had a fi ghting chance to dominate the world.  ese fi rst ty of fi sh around Baja California. Although isthmus, we know when the door closed,” they would be neglecting the closely related, he is not petitioning to reclassify the Baja’s says Stepien. “When we have a clear sep- yet distinct subspecies on the other side. eastern grunion in a diff erent species from aration of groups, we can calibrate a mo- Research such as Bernardi’s gives evo- its western grunion, he says it is important lecular clock.” lutionary biologists a glimpse into how and to realize that the two populations are not In the case of Bernardi’s disjunct Baja when new species begin to form. “It pro- homogeneous. “We have to acknowledge fi sh, one lucky fi nding enables an extra mea- vides a great road map into the past,” says the fact that we’re talking about two gen- sure of calibration. Unlike the Isthmus of Palumbi.  e study of animal species on a eral groups that are separated from each Panama, the Baja peninsula is more like molecular level off ers modern scientists a other—not only in space but also in time, a door le ajar—it formed a “leaky” bar- window into evolution that Darwin would by 1 million years,” he says. rier that did not completely separate ma- envy. Bernardi, for one, does not take this rine populations.  is leakiness makes it power lightly. ET IT IS THE DISTANCE more diffi cult for Bernardi to establish In fact, it sometimes leaves him feel- in time that worries some evo- a fi rm timeline when using DNA muta- ing like he’s discovering evolution all over lutionary biologists, who con- tions to estimate the years gone by. Ber- again. Says Bernardi with a wink, “I am Y sider molecular clock analyses nardi would need to compare D-loop mu- Darwin … reincarnated!” 24 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 25 mammals were strange shrewlike creatures with sharp, jagged HE TRICK TO tracking the chemistry of ocean water HILE MARINE SCIENTISTS were busy look- there are strange, small animals. Above it, you fi nd normal-sized teeth. But by 55 million years ago, some of these diminutive beasts lies in studying two forms of carbon, called isotopes, ing for the carbon isotope signal in ocean cores, animals again,” says Koch. “ ere’s this genealogical evolution had grown to 6 feet tall or greater.  ough bigger, these were still which have slightly diff erent weights. Most of the car- earth scientists searched for similar evidence in that’s dropping forms on the landscape.” Animals’ weights, esti- primitive mammals with short, thick limbs, clumsy feet and hands, bon in the carbon dioxide we breathe is dubbed 12C, the land fossil record. Back in 1991, Zachos met mated from fossil tooth size, were 60 percent lower. and simple teeth capable only of easy maneuvers, like tearing. At Tor “light” carbon. It is the most abundant carbon isotope in wa- WPaul Koch, then a new graduate student in Michigan, and the While paleontologists already knew that animals of the Eo- the beginning of the Eocene, however, several new mammal groups ter, air, and plants. A tiny portion of all carbon in nature is the two joined forces. “Paul and I came up with this idea to corre- cene substantially diff ered from those of the preceding epoch, arrived on the scene, bearing modern features like long, thin legs, slightly heavier isotope, 13C. Carbon dioxide dissolved in magma late the marine and terrestrial records using carbon isotopes,” no one had been able to pinpoint exactly when the transition oc- feet and hands capable of grasping, and advanced teeth adapted and fossil fuels like methane has a distinctively low amount of the recalls Zachos. curred, or why.  e discovery of the carbon isotope shi in Big- for chewing. We recognize these new animals’ direct descendants heavy isotope. Shi s in ocean chemistry directly impact the land because the horn Basin sediments is the fi rst evidence to unequivocally cor- today—in horses, camels, sheep, cows, and humans. Scientists examine ancient sediments and fossils for the relative atmosphere acts as a big conduit, shuttling carbon between ocean relate any stage of mammal evolution to climate change, accord- To zero in on how quickly this evolutionary transition occurred, amounts of heavy and light carbon they hold, in order to fi gure out and land habitats. On land, plants take up carbon from the air and ing to Gingerich. paleontologists in the early 1900s turned to layers of sediment in where gases in the air and the ocean came from at diff erent times. soil. Animals incorporate that carbon into their teeth and bones Why animal size shrank during the heat wave is anybody’s guess. northern Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin.  e basin hosts a dazzling Marine critters keep great carbon isotope records because they through the plants or other animals that they eat. Decay of ani- Koch and Gingerich, among others, speculate that body size is array of plant and animal remains from around 62 million to 52 build their shells from the carbon in the water they live in. When mals and plants returns the carbon to the soil. related to temperature or food supply. Koch says that animals in million years ago that were preserved as sediments slowly fi lled these organisms die, their shells settle on the ocean fl oor, accumu- To investigate the land record, Zachos and Koch went to the warm climates tend to have smaller bodies. “Look at white-tailed an ancient river valley. Over 150 years of fossil collection from the lating hundreds of feet of sand grain–sized skeletal remains —a si- Bighorn Basin of Wyoming, 100 miles east of Yellowstone National deer from one end of their geographic range to the other,” says site reveals evidence of a warm Eocene world with tropical ani- lent testimony to the environment the animals once lived in. Park. Fossilized plant parts tell us that 55 million years ago, Big- Koch. “ ere’s little tiny ones in Guatemala, there’s big honkin’ mal and plant life, like crocodiles and palm trees. Kennett and Stott found a sharp decrease in the amount of heavy horn Basin was a hot, humid subtropical forest with a river snak- ones in Michigan. And this happens in a lot of diff erent species.” carbon in 55-million-year-old marine fossils, a decline that caused ing through it. Elm-like trees related to species living today in Still, he says no one knows what the evolutionary mechanism be- But something changed in the the relative ratio of 13C to 12C to plunge. Most scientists agree that Panama, Texas, and Oklahoma shed pits on the ancient riverbed. hind the dwarfi ng is. Some have suggested lack of nutrition made in order to drop the ratio so sharply, a gas with very low amounts Dawn redwoods, large sequoia related to those now found mainly the animals smaller. Plants may have been to blame. Wyoming habitat, dramatically of 13C must have literally fl ooded the atmosphere. Some research- in central California, sprouted from the fertile fl oodplains. According to Scott Wing, curator of paleobotany at the Smith- ers theorize that numerous volcanoes spewed carbon dioxide di- Today, the Bighorn Basin is a maze of bare, red-striped gray sonian’s Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C., the fos- altering its inhabitants. e rectly into the atmosphere. mudstone hills as far as the eye can see. Each stripe represents an sil record shows that plants stayed put during the initial temper- But in 1995, Gerry Dickens, then a graduate student at the interval of time, composed of sediment that cemented millions of ature spike. He thinks they forsook the opportunity to spread to mystery of what caused the University of Michigan, instead argued that only methane gas had years ago. “You can just see time laid out in front of you,” says Gabe new habitats in favor of soaking up the abundant carbon dioxide enough light carbon to produce the early Eocene plunge. He pro- Bowen, a graduate student working with Koch in Santa Cruz. where they already lived. “It’s very odd that so little seems to have transition to modern mammals was posed that a belch of methane escaped from ice in seafl oor sedi- When Koch himself fi rst set to picking apart the sediment lay- happened to plants at that time,” says Wing. ments as the Earth warmed. ers ten years ago with Zachos and University of Michigan pale- Plant resilience during the climate shi may have been bad impenetrable—until pieces of the Zachos’ studies over the past dozen years support the methane- ontologist Phil Gingerich, they sampled the stripes at 5-meter in- news for animals, according to recent investigations by Wing and belch theory. Based on his own and colleagues’ recent work, Za- tervals.  ey collected preserved teeth and pieces of soil carbon- Gingerich. When plants take more carbon into their tissues, they puzzle were pulled out of the earth chos calculated that up to 2 trillion tons of methane bubbled out ate, in which Koch found the same drop in carbon isotope ratios produce less protein in their leaves, so their nutritional value for of the oceans. Zachos and Dickens say that methane combined recorded in marine fossils. animals drops. Plants also use the extra carbon to produce more in other parts of the world. with oxygen in the air and water, forming carbon dioxide and es- compounds that herbivores fi nd hard to digest. As a result, the re- sentially suff ocating marine life. But whether volcanic activity or “Organisms on land and in searchers speculate, animals grew more slowly.  e modern oceans hold one of the crucial keys to understand- a methane belch was the culprit, the greenhouse gas locked in the Not only were early Eocene mammals remarkably small, they ing what had happened long ago. Until the 1960s, little was known sun’s warmth, sending global temperatures soaring. the oceans were responding to were also extremely successful. “ ese animals are basically the about the record of Earth’s history stored in seafl oor sediments. Zachos and other experts of past climate change have studied, evolutionary roots of a huge radiation in the tree of life.  ey  en, scientists began probing ocean basins and studying the cores in excruciating detail, evidence of this heat spike, which they call this climate change, like, boom, started whole new branches,” says Koch.“What’s interesting is of sediment layers they pulled out. In 1990, a literally groundbreak- the Initial Eocene  ermal Maximum. A er the Kennett and Stott that not only are there lots of fi rst appearances [of mammals], ing analysis of marine sediments showed that the Antarctic Ocean paper was published, recalls Zachos, “that basically set off a fl urry dramatically,” remarks Koch. but they’re all fi rst appearances that are going to go on to do lots actually heated up, a lot and quickly, in the Eocene. of activity, with people running to all these existing outcrops and of business,” he says. In an article published in the journal Nature, marine scien- cores.”  ey found that the sharp drop in carbon isotopes is re-  e land record revealed a few new crucial pieces of informa-  e Bighorn Basin research documents the introduction of tists James Kennett and Lowell Stott, both then at the Universi- corded in every ocean sediment core that scientists have collected tion absent in the marine record. First, according to Koch’s data, three entirely new orders of mammals to North America—a ma- ty of California in Santa Barbara, reported that not only had the dating to 55 million years ago. Ocean cores from seafl oor locations a er heating up, the Earth remained warm for about 80,000 to jor development, considering that there are only 21 orders in to- surface of the Antarctic ocean heated up about 20 degrees, but as farfl ung as Blake’s Nose in the north Atlantic off Florida and 200,000 years. More importantly, digging within a 40-meter sed- tal today.  e trio includes artiodactyls, or hoofed mammals with the entire depth of the ocean had warmed, changing its chemis- the Kerguelen Plateau in the southern Indian Ocean all record- iment stripe that marked this interval of global warming, paleon- an even number of toes, whose direct descendants are cows, pigs, try.  e warming coincided with an extinction of almost 40 per- ed the event. “It was almost within a year or two that we pretty tologists found dramatic changes in the animals living in Bighorn sheep, deer, and camels; perissodactyls, or hoofed animals with an cent of microorganisms that lived in deep ocean waters, Kennett much knew that this was a global signal,” Zachos says. “ is was Basin at the dawn of the Eocene. Whole new orders of mammals— odd number of toes, which gave rise to modern horses, rhinos, and and Stott wrote. not something unique to one ocean.” groups of closely related families of animals—appeared, including tapirs; and perhaps most meaningful of all, because we are their Zachos, who was doing postdoctoral work at the University of With the isotope record in hand, paleoclimatologists could link many families never before seen in North America. direct descendants, the primates. Chris Beard, curator of paleon- Michigan at the time, reviewed the then-new Kennett and Stott the extinction of seafl oor-dwelling critters to increased tempera- Koch and Gingerich were astonished to fi nd that the chemical tology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, agrees with paper. He remembers his reaction: “It was unlike anything I’d seen tures in the ocean. “It was exciting:  ere was a connection that change recorded in land sediments coincided with one of the most Koch. “What happens right at the boundary, at least in North before.” Even a er the asteroid crash that wiped out the dinosaurs, we could attribute to this global warming event,” says Zachos. bizarre events in the fossil record: the dwarfi ng of early mammals. America, you get modern types of mammals.  ey’re still primi- says Zachos, the ocean responded less drastically; only surface wa- Later, in 1999, researchers from Bremen University in Germa- Based on fossil tooth size, paleontologists discovered that within tive, but at least they’re things we can place on a family tree: an- ter chemistry changed. But whatever caused the Eocene warming ny, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachu- the 40-meter layer representing the hottest temperatures of the cestral primates, horses and such.” altered the chemistry of the entire ocean, top to bottom. Zachos setts, showed that the sharp drop in the carbon ratio took place early Eocene, animals were half the size of both the mammals that  e standing theory is that these mammals were immigrants. decided to investigate, and he’s still at it 13 years later, puzzling in less than 10,000 years. On a geologic timescale, this shi is vir- came before them and those that followed. “Before it, there are Going into the early Eocene, the planet’s continents were arranged out the cause of the global warming. tually instantaneous. animals characteristic of the Paleocene. In the 40-meter [layer] diff erently than they currently are; although they sat at roughly

26 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 27 the same latitudes as today, continents were bunched closer to- Koch is now busy in Asia trying to fi nd more predecessors of the Cowings then uses a method called biofeed- gether.  e polar regions weren’t covered with ice, but they were North American Eocene mammals. He is also trying to link climate back to train people to control the autonom- still too cold for comfort for mammals. But as the globe warmed change to evolution during other time periods, using fossil teeth ic nervous system—the part of the body in during the heat pulse 55 million years ago, researchers specu- and soil minerals to fi gure out past rainfall and air temperature, charge of the fi ght or fl ight response. late, land animals that had been living in mid-latitudes migrated and animal diet and migration patterns. Meanwhile, Zachos just  e technique is a kind of physical work- northward in search of cooler haunts.  e poles warmed up too, returned from a two-month ocean expedition, sampling ancient out, but instead of doing weight-li ing reps enough to make them more inviting to wandering animals, who sediments off Venezuela from the JOIDES Resolution, an ocean to strengthen muscles, she says, “we’re ex- moved into northern latitudes. Europe was covered by a shallow drilling vessel. Zachos was looking not only for more evidence of ercising the control over heart rate.”  e sea, leaving only one link—the Bering land bridge—to fresh terri- the global impact of warming 55 millions years ago, but also for treatment could have earthbound applica- tory in North America. its cause. He and his shipboard colleagues believe they found more tions as well. Mae Jemison, a former as- Recently, Koch and his student Bowen, working with collabo- evidence of a giant methane burp at the start of the Eocene. tronaut, recently licensed the technology rators at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and plans to market it for common med- City and Louisiana State University, unearthed evidence support- HY LIFE ON EARTH would respond so dra- ical problems such as nausea and anxiety ing the controversial idea that creatures from Asia made their way matically to climate change remains unclear, disorders. across that bridge to North America, giving rise to the modern but the planet’s unique qualities provide some When the space shuttle program fi rst mammals.  at theory was fi rst proposed by 19th century paleon- clues. Earth, as far as we know, is the only place began in the ’70s, air sickness was a huge tologists Roy Chapman Andrews and Henry Fairfi eld Osbourne, Win the universe supporting complex life forms. Water may have problem for astronauts. Approximately 50 because they believed evolutionary innovation happened at high once fl owed on other planets, and some planets may even host percent of shuttle crews experience symp- latitudes and then spread southward.  e Eurasian continent, the simple organisms, but only Earth has been able to maintain the toms of motion sickness during space trav- biggest landmass positioned at such a high latitude during the Eo- delicate balance of air, mineral, and water chemistry vital to all el. Cowings fi rst began working on a cure cene, fi t the bill. living beings. When this balance is disturbed, the consequences when she landed a job at the space agency’s can be major. Ames center as a postdoctoral researcher in Andrews and Chapman failed Zachos and many of his colleagues theorize that the Earth’s 1973. Five years later, she joined the staff as temperature can change slowly, incrementally, with no visible im- Mind Over Stomach director of its psychophysiology lab. to fi nd evidence for their theory. pact—to a limit.  ey call that limit a climate threshold, and once By the mid-1980s, the agency began us- it is crossed there is no going back. “Several of us suspect that A NASA scientist believes astronauts can ing the drug promethazine to control air Beard, the Carnegie paleontologist, the … rapid release of methane was initiated by gradual warm- sickness, but Cowings continued the line ing that pushed the climate system across a physical threshold,” overcome space sickness through willpower. of work she had started. She collaborated remarks, “Some people have Zachos says. According to Zachos, crossing the threshold could with Russian scientists who were interest- mean facing a climate system gone haywire. With air and water By EMILY SINGER / ILLUSTRATION by KATHERINE RIZZO ed in fi nding an alternative to prometha- parodied it as a Sherwin Williams temperatures and pressures and ocean salinity all playing roles on zine, which could cause fatigue. Cowings the climate stage, it is hard to pinpoint when and where that line N THE WAKE of the Columbia trag- ly dangerous drop in blood pressure dur- had always approached the problem with model,” referring to the paint is crossed. But Zachos thinks the climate system begins to crum- edy, NASA and the public are keen- ing the rapid return to Earth and its high- a philosophy very diff erent from a pharma- ble when polar regions warm up. ly focused on getting astronauts into er gravity. ceutical fi x, partly because she had wanted company’s logo that shows paint  e ocean is much like air when it comes to circulation. As blow- space and back home again as safe- If humans are ever going to fully colo- to push the limits of human ability since ing winds stir up air, swirling water currents stir up the seas. Wa- Ily as possible. But scientists can’t ignore nize the International Space Station or fl y childhood. dripping down over a globe. ter on the surface of the North Atlantic warms, shimmies north what happens to the astronauts on even the a mission to Mars, scientists must fi nd a As the only girl among brothers in her and south to the poles, cools and sinks. But if polar waters warm, smoothest of space journeys—the extreme way to overcome these physiological chang- family, Cowings grew interested in human Although scientists agree that the same mammals appeared in too, the relocated water would fail to cool, and would remain on stress that space travel imposes upon the es. NASA researcher Patricia Cowings be- potential—the uniqueness inherent in each Asia and North America around the same time, there was no way the surface.  e pockets of water that once warmed and cooled, human body. lieves she has a solution. In fact, she would person and their individual promise. “With to know where the creatures had evolved fi rst. rose and sank, would stop fl owing. Ocean circulation would slow During launch, the space shuttle acceler- like to make life in space a routine reality. three brothers, I noticed at nine years old  e new fi ndings by Koch’s group and his collaborators shed down. ates by 33 miles per hour every second—25 Cowings, a psychologist at NASA Ames Re- that white men get all the jobs, she says. “I light on that question.  ey’ve detected the same initial Eocene Imagine stagnant, humid, unmoving air: It’s hard to breathe. times faster than an average race car. Grav- search Center in Northern California, has fi gured, I’m not a man and I’m brown.” But carbon isotope signature in fossil soils from China and Mongo-  at may be what oceans were like to their resident organisms once ity becomes magnifi ed to three times the spent the last 30 years designing a tech- her father, a grocery store clerk, told her lia. And from their excavations, they discovered that at least one the warming took hold. Zachos thinks that an extra-warm push at Earth’s pull, about the same degree of force nique to rid astronauts of their peskiest she could transcend her gender and skin dwarfed animal type—a creodont, a now-extinct carnivorous, hoofed the poles was enough to cross the climate threshold, which in turn that plasters riders to the wall inside spin- of problems—air sickness—as well as long- color. She recalls him saying, “You’re a hu- animal with an odd number of toes—that fi rst showed up 55 mil- triggered a bizarre response in land and sea creatures. ning carnival rides at amusement parks. term eff ects associated with extended stays man being—look at it from the point of what lion years ago in Bighorn Basin also appeared earlier in two dif- And it could well happen again, he warns. Up to 2 trillion tons Meanwhile, within the body, the “fi ght in space. “Our primary mission is to enable you can do.” He inspired her to study psy- ferent parts of Mongolia.  is work suggests that hoofed, odd- of greenhouse gas were released into the atmosphere 55 million or fl ight” response goes into hyperdrive. a permanent human presence in space—not chophysiology, the interaction between the number toed creatures existed in Asia at or before the beginning years ago. Today we pump 7 billion tons into the air each year Blood weighs more under the drag of grav- just to visit but to stay and to function and mind and the body, which Cowings views as of the Eocene, says Koch. from the burning of fossil fuels alone. As a result, Zachos points ity, so the heart must pump faster to push to thrive,” Cowings says. an exploration of human potential. For in- Beard says the fi ndings confi rm that Asia was the birthplace out, the carbon isotopic signature of ocean surfaces today has al- blood to the brain. Blood pressure and heart Cowings hopes to prepare astronauts for stance, she asks, “How can you make your- of modern mammals. “ e climate warmed, and that allowed all ready begun to shi . Since the same kind of shi was the precur- rate skyrocket, making those on board mis- these strange new environments by teach- self do better? What keeps you from get- these animals that had evolved in Asia … to leave Asia and basi- sor to upheavals in the planet’s ecosystems in the past, the cur- erably dizzy, nauseated, and prone to pass- ing them to control the physiological re- ting ahead? How do you fi x it?” cally take over the world,” he says. But other researchers urge cau- rent trend might foreshadow similar changes in the future. But ing out. sponses that lead to motion sickness and Cowings’ interest in psychology was tion. “I think the truth is we don’t exactly know where most of according to Gingerich, climate lessons from the past are not all And a er surviving the launch phase, blood pressure problems. In these training partnered with a fascination with outer these animals are coming from,” says Gingerich. “ e only thing doom and gloom. “ e good news coming from Wyoming is that astronauts face other major dangers: quick sessions, astronauts wear a specially de- space. “I discovered science fi ction in high we know for sure about them is that they are coming from some- the Earth’s biota worked its way out of it,” he says. “ e bad news losses in bone density and muscle mass from signed vest that measures physiological re- school and emptied the library,” she says. where else.” is that it took about 80,000 to 200,000 years.” long stays in outer space, and a potential- sponses like heart rate and blood pressure. Her role models were communications offi -

28 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 29 cer Uhura on TV’s Star Trek—and astronaut handle 4 or 5Gs. Under high-gravity condi- With only a few hours in the astro- their motion sickness, she says. And while their size, she says. “ at’s not the scien- Jemison says the outfi t could be useful Jemison, who was the fi rst African-Ameri- tions, blood is pushed out of the head, caus- naut’s busy schedule available for biofeed- most people learn to control their physio- tifi c method, that’s the shotgun approach.” even without the biofeedback training. Pro- can woman to fl y a space mission ing people to black out or faint. back training, Cowings had to make her logical responses to some degree, some truly Whereas the drug can cause drowsiness, fessional athletes could wear the garment Cowings went on to study psychology in Cowings wanted to know what causes technique quick to learn. She streamlined excel. It’s impossible to predict who will be the benefi t of the biofeedback technique is and have their vital signs monitored by graduate school at the University of Califor- the varied tolerances, so during the mara- the training to six half-hour sessions. “You the “autonomic athletes,” as Cowings calls there are no side eff ects and it can be tai- trainers, who could spot the early warning nia in Davis. She describes herself at that thon spin she measured skin temperature, only have 30 minutes, and you have to get them, but one in four people qualify, learn- lored to meet a person’s needs, she added. signs of, say, heat stroke, from overtrain- time as “a Star Trek woman and a para- blood fl ow, heart rate, and respiration rate. the astronaut to forget about the arguments ing to completely suppress motion sickness “One guy says he’s fi ne but faints, and an- ing in the summer. noid black child,” referring to her love of Subjects also took tests in typing and word he had with his wife, or the fact that he’s in just six hours.  e ability doesn’t cor- space and the lingering fear of how diffi cult comprehension to measure cognitive and launching on Tuesday,” Cowings says. So relate with age, athletic ability, or educa- it would be to succeed in the white male motor function. Cowings further tortured she fi gured out how to make those short tion, and like any physical conditioning, it world.  en in 1969, U.S. astronauts landed these spinning souls by asking them to lie spurts as productive as possible—she uses improves with practice. “It’s a talent—like on the moon. Inspired by such a landmark down, sit up, and stand up for a few seconds hypnosis throughout the sessions to focus playing music,” she says. And although as- achievement in human potential, Cowings at a time to see how their bodies would re- the subject’s attention. tronauts seem to be a little bit better than decided to bring her fascination with space act under high-gravity situations. When training, the astronaut wears a most people at almost everything, when it travel into her psychology studies. She talk- When you stand up, gravity draws blood special close-fi tting white vest made from comes to autonomic training, they are the ed her way into an aeronautics course in the to the feet.  e body compensates by in- a cotton polyester blend that Cowings and same as everyone else. “A high school kid school of engineering. creasing heart rate and blood pressure to her team designed. It’s loaded with wires could come in and perform better than an “ ey probably only let me in because pump more blood to the brain. Cowings and sensors that monitor everything from astronaut,” she says. Only one in 20 people I read so much science fi ction,” she says, found that the best “adaptors”—those who heart rate to skin tension.  e trainee sits are “autonomic duff ers,” those who can’t laughing.  e course objective was to pro- could withstand the highest gravitational in a modifi ed dentist’s chair, facing a series control their responses. The 20-g centrifuge at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View,(Photo Calif. courtesy of NASA) pose a new tool for the space shuttle. Cow- forces—were physiologically fl exible.  e of computers that will display the body’s ev- ings wrote a paper exploring 12 ways that most adaptable person in the experiment ery reaction. OWINGS’ TECHNIQUE is other guy who is a good adaptor throws up. Once the monitoring system is available, psychophysiology research could be applied had a heart rate that jumped from 60 to 120 Cowings then gets to indulge her sa- still experimental. Her research You can’t tell who is going to be suscepti- Jemison’s next step will be to conduct clini- in space fl ight. She got an A.  at class beats per minute when he stood, allowing distic side by yelling at the astronauts to is promising, but more in-fl ight ble to diff erent disorders,” Cowings says. cal trials testing whether a reliable and easy- would seal Cowings’ future at NASA. “We him to compensate for changes in the stress- get their heart rates pounding. In the fi rst research is necessary to deter- “We’re just now getting to agree that not to-use biofeedback protocol could help treat went on a class fi eld trip to NASA Ames, es of gravity—but also making him more sus- few training sessions, she determines how Cmine if her technique is practical, says Mal- one treatment works for everyone.” ailments that are tied to the autonomic ner- and I’ve been here ever since,” she says. ceptible to motion sickness. a person responds to stress and fi gures out colm Cohen, a branch supervisor at NASA Cowings sees a place for her biofeedback vous system, such as motion sickness and  e results from the G-test confi rmed which of the feedback displays work best for Ames who also studies adaptability to high vest beyond the astronaut world, in helping some anxiety disorders. S SHE TACKLED the challenge what Cowings suspected: that a successful them. “You’re like a director in a band,” she gravity. Extensive testing of her system in ordinary people handle anxiety or nausea. Whether or not the tool developed for of air sickness, Cowings fi gured solution would be one that works for ev- says. “ ere are 20 diff erent displays hap- space isn’t likely to happen soon; with limit- “ ere are lots of situations where your astronauts will fi nd a market on Earth is that since people adapt very dif- eryone, adaptors and non-adaptors alike. pening and you have to direct the person ed fl ight time and small crews, getting clear- heart rate goes up—[such as] before a test unclear. Biofeedback fi rst became popular ferently to stressful situations, During development, Cowings tried all the which one to pay attention to.”  e process ance to conduct an experiment in space can or a speech,” she says. We’ve only touched in the ’60s and ’70s, but later fell out of fa- Athe best cure would be one that was tailored tricks in her psychologist’s toolkit—yoga and is similar to learning to use a joystick in a take years. “When you do experiments in the tip of the iceberg in the number of med- vor partly because of a lack of research prov- to the individual. To devise such a remedy, transcendental meditation, hypnosis, and video game, where players get feedback by space, you get in line behind the rest of the ical applications,” Cowings says. ing its eff ectiveness. Compared with exist- she would fi rst need to know how a person most promising of all, biofeedback. watching their performance on the screen world,” Cowings says with a sigh. Cowings is working with Jemison, whose ing biofeedback systems, the new NASA responds to stress, and the most accurate Biofeedback might sound complicated, and then correct their movements to im- NASA also needs to determine if the Houston-based medical technology compa- technology off ers the important advan- way to measure that would be to mimic the but it’s a simple idea. People can elicit phys- prove their score. technique is something the astronauts ny, Biosentient, is developing a portable, tage of portability, but it still might come stressful event as closely as possible. iological responses in diff erent ways, says In the next session, trainees are sent want to learn. Cowings says she has en- commercial version of the monitoring vest up against the same roadblock that Cow- So Cowings headed to the lab, where David Shapiro, a psychologist at the Uni- on yet another carnival-like ride, this time countered some resistance against using and display system for mainstream medical ings had with pilots—a prejudice against space physiology researchers were devising versity of California in Los Angeles who in a rotating chair built to induce motion the vest from pilots and astronauts. “ ey use. Biosentient researchers have been tak- what is o en viewed as a “touchy-feely” ways to recreate the harsh stresses of space. has been researching biofeedback for the sickness. Blindfolded and strapped into the think it’s silly, and they don’t want to have ing advantage of advances in wireless com- treatment. One of the tests NASA uses to see how a last 40 years. Walking fast and thinking chair, each astronaut is then spun around anything to do with psychologists,” Cow- munication and power effi ciency “to make Although the technique is used in treat- person will respond to the conditions of out- about emotional memories can each drive to see how well he or she has learned to ings says. But when she portrays the tech- a truly portable garment,” says Jemison, ing a variety of conditions, from anxiety er space is called the “G-test”: A volunteer up heart rate and blood pressure, two in- control the changes in blood pressure and nique as just another type of physical train- who is a doctor and chemical engineer. “It’s disorders to tension headaches to temporo- spends hours inside a small, spinning room voluntary reactions. Biofeedback uses moni- heart rate without looking at the biofeed- ing, like a bench press, they seem to be more something people can wear over the course mandibular joint disorder, biofeedback has designed to create conditions mimicking tors to show people exactly what their body back monitors. accepting, she says. Interestingly, Russian of the day, under a suit.” never really moved into the medical main- the Earth’s gravity and 1.5 times Earth’s is doing, so they can learn to control the In the following sessions, trainees re- cosmonauts are more open to the biofeed-  ey now have a prototype which diff er- stream, says UCLA’s Shapiro. “It can be gravity.  e result is a sort of human cen- otherwise automatic responses. turn to the biofeedback monitors and work back technique, probably because they’re ent research groups will take for a test drive useful in cardiac arrhythmias and hyper- trifuge, like the contraption in the movie Cowings combines biofeedback with a on further honing their skills—to see how more familiar with behavioral condition- in the upcoming year. Scientists or doctors tension, but it’s not part of standard medi- e Right Stuff . tension-reducing technique called autogen- quickly they can, say, increase their heart ing, says Cowings, noting that Pavlov, the could use the future biofeedback outfi t—con- al practice.” As a result, clinical use is hold- Four hardy volunteers braved the cen- ic therapy, which is similar to self-hypno- rate, hold it steady, and bring it back down. psychiatrist who made dogs salivate at the sisting of both a shirt and shorts—to track ing steady rather than expanding. trifuge—which was outfi tted with a bed, a sis. She uses visualization exercises to show  e last stage of training is to introduce en- sound of a bell, was Russian. the activities of a person’s autonomic ner- For now, Cowings says her number-one TV, computer, and food—for 22 hours, act- the trainee how to focus their attention on vironmental distractions, and that means For Cowings, the roadblocks are frus- vous system for diff erent purposes. For in- clients are the astronauts. She’s trying to get ing as guinea pigs for Cowings and other diff erent muscle groups and learn to con- more shouting from Cowings. “It’s fi ne if trating. In a study published in the Journal stance, psychologists could use it during one of her vests up to a cosmonaut aboard researchers who wanted to study how long trol them. For example, she might ask the you can control physiological responses in of Clinical Pharmacology in 2000, she found therapy session to help patients learn to the space station, but can’t get through the periods of high gravity aff ect the body. Re- astronaut to focus on the fi ngertips of the a dark quiet room, but what about in the that her training exercise was much more manage their anger. Or patients with fear NASA bureaucracy. “I just keep working searchers knew from shorter spin tests that right hand. “ ink about your hand get- real world?” she says. eff ective at controlling motion sickness of fl ying or other phobias could wear the away in the basement,” she says. “I’ll keep tolerance to high gravity varies: Some peo- ting warmer, and it will increase blood A er training with Cowings for six to than promethazine. NASA gives the same garment in a plane or whatever environ- doing this until I die or we get to Mars, ple pass out at 1.5Gs, while others could fl ow,” she says. eight hours, 85 percent of people can reduce drug treatment to everyone, regardless of ment triggers their fears. which ever comes fi rst.”

30 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 31 By learning more about the sun, physicists hope to predict cell phone glitches and the next ice age. Your mother told you never to look at the sun, because if you did it would ruin your eyes. But even if you gazed direct-

ly into our star’s glare, odds are that all you’d see is the yellow surface of a big ball of burning hydrogen gas, 865,000 miles across. It’s what you can’t see that’s important: the 30,000-mile dark patches known as

sunspots, and solar storms that shoot gusts of charged particles toward

Earth at a million miles per hour. Such solar spectacles create a com-

bination of events that can knock out pagers and cell phones, and trig-

ger power outages for millions of us here on Earth. Since 1996, solar weather has caused nearly $2 billion worth of damage to satellites. Scientists have been studying sunspots for millennia—extremely large spots are sometimes visible to the naked eye, and were recorded by Chinese astronomers as far back as the year 301.  e invention of the telescope in the early 1600s allowed astronomers to observe the sun in more detail. In recent decades, investigators have turned to satellite technology to create three-dimensional pictures of the star. Since 1995, physicists at Stanford University, Lockheed Martin, and NASA have been using one satellite, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), to illuminate the sun’s inner workings. And they are preparing to launch a new satellite in 2007 that will give them even better insights. Currently, some of SOHO’s instruments analyze the spectrum of light ema- nating from the sun—from infrared to X-ray frequencies—to investigate its atmosphere. But an- other instrument, designed by Stanford physicist Phil Scherrer, allows him and his colleagues to fathom the depths of the fi ery ball by “listening” to sound waves generated from within. “Every time we look at the sun with a new instrument, we fi nd something surprising,” says Karel Schrijver, an astrophysicist at Lockheed Martin’s Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California. For instance, this year researchers unlocked the secret to how irregu- lar bright patches on the sun, called supergranules, appear to move across its face. Ultimate- ly their mission is to understand and predict the behavior of magnetic fi elds roiling below the sun’s surface that trigger the solar storms and wreak havoc for us at home.  e researchers also want to understand the intricacies of solar weather patterns over decades and centuries. Increases in sunspot activity have been linked to warm spells on earth, whereas quiet peri- A huge, handle-shaped ods may correlate with ice ages. Insight into solar cycles may therefore provide clues to plan- prominence emerged out of etary climate change. the sun on Sept. 14, 1999. Just as the Earth has layers—an iron core and molten mantle, topped by a rocky crust—so Prominences are huge does the sun.  e star has an inner core, a 15-million-degree sphere of gas.  ere, a nucle- clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended ar reaction converts hydrogen atoms into helium, producing the energy that makes life on in the sun’s hot, thin Earth possible. But Scherrer and his collaborators are more interested in the sun’s outermost corona. At times, they can layer, also composed of hydrogen and helium gas but at temperatures ranging from about 2 erupt, escaping the sun’s million degrees near the core to 6,000 degrees at the surface. Gas atoms at such searing tem- atmosphere. peratures become separated from their electrons, creating a collection of charged particles known as plasma. SOHO/NASA & ESA As a result of the temperature gradient, the outer layer “boils” like a pot of water: Bubbles of plasma called granules—which are about the size of Texas or California—rise up from the bottom. At the surface, the plasma cools and spreads to the sides, then it drops down again to the bottom of the layer. Such a cycle of movement driven by warming and cooling is called convection, which is why the outer solar layer is known as the convective zone. STARING AT THE SUN Granules and convection are the key to how the Stanford physicists “listen” to the sun. by Jyllian Kemsley  ink of placing your hand on the surface of the water in a swimming pool, and pulling down illustration by Megan O’Dea suddenly.  e water comes in over the top of your hand, and then waves go out from the sides. 32 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 33  e same thing happens when the cooled plasma drops back down Snapshots of a coronal mass ejection from the sun, observed over an eight-  e Space Environment Center (SEC), operated in Boulder, nonstop data from MDI for two months of the year. MDI’s view from the sun’s surface, except the downdra in this case creates hour period on August 5-6, 1999 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Colorado, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- of the sun is also not very detailed, off ering high magnifi cation sound waves.  e waves travel through the sun and are aff ected The dark disk blocks the sun so that instruments can observe the structures tion, tries to forecast such events, providing information to tele- of an area that’s only about a fi  h of the visible surface, allowing of the corona in visible light. The white circle represents the size and by whatever they encounter along the way. communications companies, the military, and NASA. Not only are them to observe a spot only for a day or so. “It gives us snapshots,” position of the sun. Millions of granules on the sun’s surface produce millions of (SOHO/NASA & ESA) power grids in danger of damage from ejected particles, but so says Scherrer. He’d much rather have a movie. sound waves. “It’s like a bell in a sandstorm,” Scherrer says.  e are telecommunications satellites cruising above the earth’s pro-  at movie is where a new satellite and new instrumentation waves start bouncing around inside the sphere, and some of them nifi cantly at the boundary where the inner and outer layers meet. tective atmosphere, says Joseph Kunches, chief of space weather come in. Four years from now, Lockheed and NASA are planning wind up back where they started and create repeating patterns, Because the speed of sound depends on the compactness of the operations at SEC. A 1998 storm caused a blackout of service for to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which will car- or resonance.  ese patterns are similar to what you hear when material it passes through, this means that the scientists’ origi- nearly 40 million pagers.  e government’s program to locate cell ry MDI’s successor, the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI). you pluck a guitar string—the sound reverberates for a while be- nal estimates of the sun’s internal density are incorrect. “ ere’s phones through global positioning satellites would also be vulner- HMI will download solar data 24 ⁄ 7 for all but a couple of days fore it dies off . As sound waves continue to form from new gran- something in the core that our model has wrong—some sort of able to solar storms, Kunches says. And airplanes and the Space of the year. It will also have high magnifi cation of the entire sun, ules, they overlap to reinforce and stabilize each other, so the mixing that our model doesn’t have” says Scherrer, who plans to Shuttle are susceptible to solar storm radiation.  e instruments roughly the equivalent of going from a 14-inch to a 56-inch tele- sound doesn’t die off . And the resonating waves cause the sun’s investigate further. on solar research satellites “have made us forecasters a lot smart- vision.  e new technology will allow the researchers to follow gaseous surface to actually pulse. As a result, the sun becomes a er,” Kunches says. He would like to see a better warning system, so sunspots throughout their typical 10-day journey across the solar huge pulsating ball. that power grids and satellites could be operated in “safe”—albeit face. Scherrer also wants to track sunspots over longer periods.  e SOHO satellite, launched in 1995, carries instruments de- In the meantime , Scherrer has also less profi table—modes and airplanes rerouted as necessary. When For reasons that aren’t understood, the number of sunspots reg- signed to measure those pulses. “People can make models all they been busy studying sunspots, which can produce eff ects felt 92 mil- a big solar storm struck in July 2000, he notes, it caused only mi- ularly waxes and wanes over an 11-year cycle. During periods of want, but there’s nothing like having data,” Scherrer says.  e lion miles away on Earth. A sunspot forms when a cluster of mag- nor damage partly because scientists had issued an advisory that maximal activity, sunspots are found closer to the sun’s equator, satellite moves in a “halo” orbit balanced 1 million miles from netic fi eld builds up at the bottom of the convective layer.  en, a major sunspot region could turn deadly. whereas they migrate to the poles as the cycle winds down into a the Earth and 92 million miles from the sun. Scherrer and col- because plasma is less dense in a strong fi eld, the cluster becomes Scherrer and Schrijver believe that better forecasting will come minimal period. Scherrer wants to know what’s in the convective leagues rely upon an instrument aboard SOHO called the Mi- buoyant and rises to the surface, forming a dark blotch on the face through deeper understanding of the magnetic fi elds and fl ows layer that leads to this behavior. chelson Doppler Imager (MDI), which monitors slight changes of the sun. Sunspots can last for days or weeks, and occur in pairs: that produce sunspots. Such knowledge could lead to predictions Another question scientists want to explore is the connection in wavelengths of light rays emitted from the sun as it pulses to- Like two ends of a bar magnet, one will have positive polarity and of when a second spot will rise to produce a fl are or ejection, and between sunspots and climate. From the 1100s to the 1500s, as- ward and away from Earth. the other will be negative. of just how big an ejection might be. Currently, however, the orbit tronomers observed a period of extremely intense sunspot activi- From those pulses, the scientists then use computers to calcu- Sunspots cause trouble on earth when two sets of them inter- of the SOHO satellite only allows Scherrer and colleagues to get ty, corresponding to a global warm spell. If you’ve ever wondered late information about the sun’s overall sound resonance and the act. Underneath one sunspot pair, another will eventually form how Greenland got its name, this is why: At the time it was discov- original sound waves making up that repeating pattern. In the and rise to meet the spots already at the surface.  e charged par- ered, it had grass.  is greening of the Arctic was followed, how- process they get details about the sun’s interior—information that ticles in the plasma within sunspots produce strong electric cur- ever, by the “little ice age” in Europe, a period marked by only a typical light-viewing telescopes can’t reveal. For example, they can rents. So when two spots meet, it’s like two crossed wires short- handful of sunspots instead of hundreds.  ese climate cycles ap- pinpoint areas of higher temperatures or stronger magnetic fi elds, circuiting to blow a fuse or start a fi re—but on a massive, violent pear to correlate with a 0.1 percent change in solar luminosity be- which are produced by the fl ow of charged particles in solar plas- scale.  e two spots actually annihilate each other, releasing large tween periods of intense and lackadaisical sunspot activity. Un- ma, because sound waves travel faster through such regions. And amounts of energy, charged particles, and magnetic fi eld into the derstanding—and predicting—these patterns may provide insight because sound waves also come from the back of the sun, they can sun’s atmosphere and beyond—a solar fl are. A very large fl are is into global climate change. get a picture of activity there as well. called a coronal mass ejection. In the long run, Scherrer’s goal is to put all of the pieces of the  e satellite data have shed light on several of the sun’s secrets. A coronal mass ejection is like a very strong gust of the solar puzzle together—the mysteries of magnetic fi elds in the convec- One mystery centered around bright, 20,000-mile-wide swaths of wind that regularly carries energy to Earth in the form of light tive layer, how sunspots form and interact, whether a solar fl are plasma—known as supergranules—that were thought to move hori- and charged particles. “Ejections to the side are fi ne, it’s those is imminent, and the secrets fueling the solar cycles. “We want zontally across the solar surface faster than the sun rotates. Scher- in your face that are a problem,” says astrophysicist Juri Toomre to understand the eff ects on a technological society due to a vari- rer and colleagues, analyzing data obtained from MDI, found that from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  e amount of energy able sun,” Scherrer says. “If we can understand how the materi- scientists had it all wrong:  e data demonstrated that supergran- released by a fl are can equal up to a billion million tons of TNT. al underneath drives the process, then maybe we can predict the ules don’t actually move; rather, the plasma is just rising up and Earth’s magnetic fi eld guides charged particles into the atmo- process better.” down, like sports fans doing the wave in a stadium.  e next chal- sphere, where they encounter gas particles and start to glow.  is Now and then, even those of us without access to NASA sat- lenge is to fi gure out what’s generating the supergranules in the is the source of the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. A super- ellites can witness one of the solar events that inspire his work. fi rst place. Scherrer thinks the cause is some sort of interaction size coronal mass ejection may wreak havoc on cities, because pow- Despite your mother’s admonitions, it actually is safe to look at between smaller granules and the sun’s rotation. er grids can act like antennas for the electrical currents generated the sun when it touches the horizon at sunset. Perhaps one day, Imager data has also revealed another surprise for solar physi- by the charged solar particles. A solar storm in 1989 knocked out you’ll manage to see a giant sunspot—as Scherrer himself did a few cists: Sound waves travel through the sun at speeds diff erent than Quebec’s power system and plunged six million people into dark- years ago—and get a fi rst-hand glimpse of the activity that forms expected—moving more slowly in the core, but accelerating sig- ness.  e damage took months to fi x. the heartbeat of our solar system.

34 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 35 search raised a question: “I wondered, is  e birds’ fi lamentous facial feathers are could we distort the sounds, and still have the earplugs very easily, and the adult owls the auditory system in terrestrial animals arranged in such a way that they form the the owl accurately reconstruct the world could not.” organized the same way?” Knudsen recalls. equivalent of satellite-receiving dishes on ei- in its head?” To fi nd out, the researchers Alfredo Kirkwood, who studies neural

“Does it separate out what a signal is from ther side of the beak.  ese facial discs col- took advantage of a quirk in barn owl anat- plasticity in rats at the Mind ⁄ Brain In- where it is located in space?” lect sound, focusing it towards the ears. omy.  e eyeballs of these creatures actu- stitute at Johns Hopkins University, says Sipping from a John Deere coff ee mug In the late 1970s, Knudsen and Koni- ally aren’t balls at all, but elongated, pis- the results make sense when cast in a de- in his Stanford offi ce, Knudsen explains shi began a series of experiments hoping ton-like tubes. velopmental light. “You want the plastic- how his research focus moved from cat- to pinpoint which neural networks in the Pulling a barn owl skull off a bookshelf, ity when the body is growing. When your fi sh to owls. Tall and blond, with piercing owl brain distinguish where a sound is lo- Knudsen explains how each empty eye sock- head and eyes and ears are growing, you blue eyes, he looks more like a Norwegian cated.  e researchers fi rst looked at the et has a cylindrical structure that gives the have to adjust all the time to keep the sen- bachelor farmer than a neuroscientist. He forebrain—the seat of higher, complex func- birds highly sensitive vision. But the eye’s sory system working with high precision,” gestures at a poster on the wall, a stunning tions in vertebrate animals—but soon moved mobility is relatively fi xed. To move its eyes says Kirkwood. time-lapse photograph in black and white: on to the midbrain, a region responsible to the le or right, the bird must turn its Much of the brain’s circuitry is estab- A barn owl, its wings and talons extend- for orienting the eyes and ears to impor- head. In fact, some species can rotate their lished before birth, guided by genetics. ed, appears against a midnight black back- tant events in the environment. A er con- heads 270 degrees and look behind them. Since many of the interactions between drop, swooping down towards an unseen necting tiny electrodes to the anesthetized Upon hearing a noise, an owl instinctive- body and surroundings are predictable— mouse. A colleague, neuroscientist Mike brain of a barn owl, they moved an audio pain is bad, for instance, whereas food is Konishi, took the picture with an infrared speaker around the bird’s head while play- Even with one ear good—the nervous system has evolved to Teaching an Old Owl New Tricks video camera. “It was basically a complete- ing a variety of noises, and tracked the neu- cope with an environment that is, in many ly dark room, and he just opened the shut- ron fi ring patterns. plugged, owls were ways, consistent. But many neural connec-  e barn owl shows how the brain works. ter and strobed an infrared light,” Knudsen To the investigators’ astonishment, tions remain malleable, allowing the brain explains. “He’s showing how the owl uses the pattern of fi ring changed dramatical- able to compensate and to adapt to the body’s environment. While By RACHEL EHRENBERG / ILLUSTRATION by LUCY READING hearing to fi nd its prey.” ly. “ e neurons were really sharply tuned that developmental window is open, experi- Knudsen was fi nishing his Ph.D. when for sound location,” recalls Knudsen. “ ey home in on a noise. ence dramatically shapes which neural con- VER THE COURSE of a Now, however, research is challeng- he fi rst heard about Konishi’s investiga- didn’t much care about how loud the sound nections are established in the brain, and year, according to one study, a ing that notion. Stanford University neu- tions of barn owl behavior. Konishi, who was or what kind of sound it was, but they ly looks for its cause. If the sound is com- the networks laid down during this period single barn owl eats approxi- roscientist Eric Knudsen is using the barn had video-recorded barn owls reacting to cared very much about where it was com- ing from anywhere but directly in front, are strong. mately 115 meadow voles, 226 owl’s exceptional aural ability to explore sound in a totally dark room, was struck ing from—it was pretty surprising.” the bird must swivel its head to see the As we age, however, those networks be- Opocket gophers, 167 white-footed mice, 83 how and when brains do their best learning. by the speed and accuracy with which the Scientists had known that the verte- source—and it does so as quickly as the hu- come much more diffi cult to adjust. For in- house mice, 3 kangaroo rats, and 101 roof For the past 30 years, he and his colleagues bird turned its head towards a noise—its re- brate brain builds a visual map with infor- man eye darts to an unexpected noise. Be- stance, the neural connections between the rats—along with occasional starlings, moths, have been untangling how the bird’s brain sponse was as swi as the fl ick of a human mation coming from the retina, but how it cause head movements are much easier to eye and the brain’s visual cortex normally crickets, and frogs. Not impressed? Consid- crunches incoming sensory data to create eye shi ing its gaze. Knudsen realized that interprets auditory information was large- see and count than the fl icker of an eye- grow stronger during early development. er this: Most of these critters were caught and synchronize mental maps of both the the owl’s auditory prowess would make it ly unexplored. Like a surveyor, the owl’s ball, Knudsen could test whether the owl’s Landmark experiments showed that kit- in total darkness. auditory and visual world.  e twists and an ideal study subject for investigating how brain was taking measurements of sounds audio and visual maps remained in sync tens with one eye blindfolded at birth nev- Barn owls can pinpoint the location of turns through the owl’s neural circuitry the brain processes sound and integrates it and crunching the numbers to map the when he exposed the animal to distorted er strengthened those networks—and when a noise with such precision that even on a have recently led Knudsen to a surprising with visual information. Not long a er the outside world of sounds depicting actual sensory cues. the patch was removed in adulthood, the moonless night, the rustle of leaves can be a discovery. He’s fi nding that even a er the two met at a conference, Knudsen began a space, Knudsen says. “ e auditory sys- He and his colleagues manipulated the eye was permanently blind. “As the brain scampering rodent’s death knell. Like most critical window of early learning closes, an postdoctoral fellowship working with Kon- tem was going to great lengths to create a auditory information reaching the bird’s matures you get specifi city and lose plastic- animals, soon a er birth, owls are able to old brain that is fed information in the right ishi at the California Institute of Technol- representation of space that was very like brain by stopping up one ear with a plug. ity,” says Kirkwood. recognize where a sound is coming from. As way can still learn new tricks. ogy in Pasadena. the visual representation, even though it  en the researchers compared neuron-fi r- they grow up and go through the motions  e key, it turns out, is in the packaging.  eir early experiments showed how the was starting with very diff erent informa- ing patterns in the hearing-impaired birds NUDSEN’S investigations of hearing and catching their prey, the net- When new information is received in small barn owl, like humans, merges the informa- tion. It was mapped topographically—very versus the normal birds. Initially, the birds of the barn owl noggin next works of neurons in their brains that inter- doses, or in an especially stimulating envi- tion from its two ears to locate a sound. By much like a regular map, and very much with an earplug misjudged the location of delved into fi guring out which pret sound becomes increasingly refi ned, ronment, the brain is much more likely to comparing diff erences in the timing and like the visual map.” a sound, repeatedly swiveling their heads to mental map the brain trusts reinforced by the experience of hunting. incorporate it.  ese fi ndings are consistent intensity of, say, a mouse squeak or rustle With his own graduate students at Stan- look for a noise source off to one side when Kwhen its audio and visual systems aren’t In the parlance of those who study how the with recent studies of how infants learn lan- of leaves reaching the two ears, the bird’s ford, in the late 1980s Knudsen found that it actually was straight ahead. But over a in sync. In a set of experiments in the ’90s, brain learns, this window of time when neu- guage, and suggest promising strategies for brain makes a rapid computation that pin- this auditory map is sent to a specifi c region period of weeks, something remarkable Knudsen again distorted the auditory sig- ral connections can still be calibrated by ex- enhancing learning ability in adults. points the source of noise—and calculates of the midbrain, the optic tectum, where it happened.  e owls’ auditory maps actu- nal with an earplug, and once the birds had perience is called the sensitive period. Knudsen has been investigating how the the precise fl ight trajectory that will land is aligned with the visual map. So when an ally compensated for the earplugs, so they adjusted to the situation, he put blinders Scientists have long investigated sensi- brain processes information since he was a it dinner. owl hears a mouse in a certain location, a accurately oriented to the sounds. over their eyes—little spectacles covered in tive periods in the context of research ques- graduate student at the University of Cal-  e diff erences in the auditory informa- cluster of neurons fi res in a specifi c area  ese behavioral experiments with the masking tape. tions ranging from how babies pick up a ifornia in San Diego in the late ’70s. His tion that reaches the two ears are amplifi ed of the optic tectum; and when it sees the earplugs provided the fi rst evidence that a Curiously, the results showed that once language to the development of binocular early studies focused on catfi sh, which have by the architecture of the barn owl’s head. mouse in the same place, neurons in that sensitive period might infl uence the birds’ the earplug was removed, the owls that were vision in young mammals. Until recently, inner ears that hear vibrations in the water  e bird’s face is asymmetrical: Its le ear, area are triggered again. ability to adjust the brain pathways from wearing spectacles couldn’t relearn the orig- conventional wisdom said that little could and also detect the electric fi elds of nearby which sits higher on the face than the right, noise to neuron. “We had no idea that there inal, correct map for sound. “ ey got stuck be done to extend the brain’s “plasticity” living things. Knudsen found that the cat- is surrounded by feathers that are oriented HE DISCOVERY of this com- would be a developmental component to with the altered map,” he recalls. once the sensitive period had passed.  e fi sh brain processes these two types of sen- downward, enhancing sounds from below. bined visual-auditory map led learning in the auditory pathway,” Knud- Somehow, the visual system was overrid- adage about old dogs actually has a basis in sory information—auditory and electric—in  e inverse is true for the right ear, which Knudsen to pursue another sen says. “But the young birds were able to ing and correcting the auditory system with neuroscience. separate, but parallel, pathways.  at re- is more sensitive to sounds from above. Tquestion, he says: “How much make sense of the altered cues caused by what Knudsen calls an “instructive signal.” 36 | SCIENCE NOTES 2003 scicom.ucsc.edu SCIENCE NOTES | 37 “ e only time the signal raises its head is dent in Knudsen’s lab, wondered if there been implicated in learning processes in when there is disagreement,” Knudsen says. wasn’t still some latent malleability in the other parts of the brain.  ese cells play an While very little is known about the instruc- adult birds brains, so she decided to try important role when the birds are active- tive signal, the fi ndings suggest that over teaching these older owls in small steps. ly learning a new mental map, and seem the course of evolution, sight has proved a Rather than shi ing their vision a full 23 to suppress the old map when it is no lon- more reliable indicator of spatial informa- degrees, Linkenhoker started the owls with ger useful. tion than sound.  e implications are pow- shi s of 6 degrees, then 11 degrees, and fi - Studies of how infants learn languages erful, he says, because this executive order nally 17 degrees. To her surprise, the incre- support the notion that the brain’s learning from the visual system seems to drive chang- mental learning made a big diff erence. Al- capacity depends not only on the amount of es in neural plasticity, telling the brain when though the mature birds still didn’t com- new information at hand, but also on how it’s got it right. “If we can fi gure that out, pensate by correcting their mental maps it’s packaged. Linguist Tobey Nelson and then we can exploit it,” he says. as much as the juveniles did, they were far her colleagues at the University of Washing- To fi nd out more, Knudsen tried a dif- more malleable than when faced with one ton in Seattle recently conducted a study in ferent experimental strategy. By manipu- big visual shi . which they exposed two groups of 9-month- lating only the birds’ visual information, Linkenhoker’s experiments off er a new old infants to Mandarin Chinese. he found he could shi their response to research regime for those studying how One group of babies listened to a CD sound. Knudsen fi tted his owls with gog- of someone speaking Mandarin, while the gles made of special prismatic lenses that Brains of babies can other group heard the language spoken in shi ed their visual world 20 degrees hori- person by four adults. Both groups were zontally to either the right or le . adapt more quickly, but then tested for their ability to distinguish In a dark room he exposed the birds to between two Mandarin sounds.  e chil- a sound stimulus, a burst of noise from a adults can still learn if dren who listened to the CD were no bet- loudspeaker positioned off to the side. Ini- ter at recognizing the sounds than a control tially, trying to look directly at the sound, they have a need to. group of kids who’d only listened to Eng- the spectacle-wearing birds relied upon lish. But the infants who heard the language their unaltered auditory map and turned adult brains learn.  e results also suggest live, and from diff erent speakers, fared sig- their heads to the same degree as they nor- that whatever the instructive signal from nifi cantly better on the test. mally would without the goggles. But a er the visual system is, it operates over a small “Even at very young ages, we are aware six to eight weeks, their brains recalibrat- range, yet could still be exploited. “We have of a connection between visual and audito- ed, adjusting to the visual distortion caused to ask, what is the relative practice step for ry information,” says Nelson, who works by the glasses. Now, when the birds heard [learning in] a given system, and then re- at the university’s Center for Mind, Brain the noise, they swiveled their heads even peat that step,” she says. “ e idea now is and Learning. “What you are doing while farther than before, because the new visu- repeat, repeat, repeat.” hearing—the social interaction, making eye al map had apparently instructed the audi- Within the barn owl system, the small contact—it makes a diff erence.” tory map to shi as well. step was easy to fi gure out: shorter, incre- Nelson’s work suggests that the brain While experimenting with the prismat- mental shi s in the visual fi eld. But Knud- pays attention to a lot more than just sound ic lenses, Knudsen again found that young sen says that if we can fi gure out the small when learning language. “ e brain real- birds had an easier time compensating for steps for absorbing other kinds of infor- ly is quite plastic,” she says, “But we have the distorted visual cues than older birds mation, adult brains might be able to to fi gure out how to package the informa- did. When they wore prisms that shi ed learn much more than scientists previous- tion, to tailor the training in the most ef- their fi eld of view 23 degrees, juvenile owls ly thought. He hopes that someday, that fective way.” adjusted to the distorted cues a er just a kind of knowledge could help improve the Preliminary data from the latest work Editor Ingfei Chen few months. By comparison, adult birds recovery of patients with brain injuries. in Knudsen’s lab lends further support to achieved at most only a quarter of the ad- Sascha du Lac, a former grad student that idea. Prism-wearing owls seem to ad- Graphic Designer Kenneth Chang justments that their younger counterparts of Knudsen’s who now works at the Salk just their mental maps more quickly if they Science Notes is a publication of the Science did. Electrodes recorded neural activity Institute in La Jolla, California, agrees. have to catch their dinner, rather than being Communication Program at the University of in two diff erent areas of the older birds’ “ e dogma is that synaptic connections fed—in other words, when it really matters California, Santa Cruz. brains—indicating that their maps weren’t between neurons change,” says du Lac, to their survival. “If you care about some- realigning. “But the change may be in the fi ring of thing, you learn more than if you don’t care The program consists of two separate graduate  e diffi culty adult birds face when try- the neurons.” about it,” he says. certifi cate tracks: science writing and science illustration. Each accepts 10 students a year for a ing to adapt to the lenses fi ts with the cur- If that’s the case, the neural architec- So in addition to packaging new infor- one-year curriculum. More information is available at rent understanding of critical periods. Lat- ture may still be present. If scientists could mation in small bites, the context within scicom.ucsc.edu. er in life, the brain is better at recalling fi nd the right stimulus to wake the latent which the learning occurs seems to be crit- learned information, rather than learning neurons, it would be possible to revive for- ical. Says Knudsen, “It’s a combination of Program Director John Wilkes itself. “Your brain becomes more commit- gotten or unused connections. Additional making the information graspable, and ted when you are older,” explains Knud- experiments by Knudsen suggest that in the amount of arousal—the amount of at- Coordinator, Science Illustration Program sen. “ ere is a tremendous advantage in barn owls, once the neural architecture is tention you engage the animal with—that Ann Caudle reliability.” laid down, it persists. He’s recently homed will determine how much information it But Brie Linkenhoker, a graduate stu- in on a type of a nerve cell that has already can gather.”

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