BERKELEY Science Review Spring 2006 Issue 10

BERKELEY science review Spring 2006 Issue 10

Berkeley vs. Intelligent Design The Dawn of Multicellularity Ethical Technology Licensing

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 1 Plus: BSR turns 10 & Origins of Chocolate & A Star is Born & Congress 101 & Pennies from Hell

BERKELEY DEAR READERS, science It is my pleasure to introduce you to this, the 10th issue of the Berkeley Science Review. Beginning with our ﬁrst issue published ﬁve years ago this spring, the BSR has time and again brought you the best of Berkeley’s research in areas as diverse as astronomy, ethnobotany and immunology. For review me, this is the 4th issue I have taken part in–and it really does keep getting better and better!

Editor in Chief In this issue we take a look back at some of the BSR’s memorable stories and give you updates on the latest progress (p. 6). Jessica Porter New this spring, Michelangelo D’Agostino takes a hard look at UC Berkeley’s role in the Managing Editor controversy surrounding teaching evolution in public schools (p.31). Former BSR editors Temina Madon and Heidi Ledford tell us about how scientists can talk to policy makers (p.43), Wes Marner and what to expect from the world of intellectual property licensing (p.36) respectively. Jesse Dill Art Director and Harish Agarwal report on a possible resolution to a long-standing debate over star formation (p.12). Returning “Who Knew” columnist Louis Desroches debunks another science myth–the Jack Lin legend of the lethal penny (back cover). Copy Editor Also new to the BSR, starting this fall we will be oﬀering paid subscriptions to the magazine. Tai Po Ping So if you want to guarantee delivery of each BSR right to your door, or if you want to read our Editors submission guidelines, peruse past issues, or check our upcoming events page, visit our website at Meredith Carpenter sciencereview.berkeley.edu.

Michelangelo D’Agostino In the spirit of reflection brought on by this anniversary issue, I want to thank all of the editors, Charlie Emrich writers, layout staff, illustrators, donors and, of course, readers who have contributed to the success of the Berkeley Science Review these past five years. Many of our ranks have gone on to Wendy Hansen exciting careers in science journalism, public policy, and academia–and we continue to rely on Jacqueline Chretien incoming Berkeley students of all types to keep the magazine running. Charlie Koven In looking back on our first Editor in Chief’s opening letter, I realized that his comments were just as true, and possibly more chilling today than ever. To quote Eran: “If my advisor knew how Chief Layout Editor much time I’ve spent on this…he’d boot me out the door. I’d be working at Andersen Consulting as fast as you can say ‘creative business solutions’.” Andrew DeMond Layout Editors Enjoy the issue, Charlie Emrich Wendy Hansen Jessica Porter Kathryn Quanstrom Printer Jessica Porter Sundance Press

© 2006 Berkeley Science Review. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without express permission of the publishers. Financial assistance for the 2005-2006 academic year was provided by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab; the UC Berkeley Office of eth Vice Chancellor of Research; the College of Natural Resources; the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly; the Space Sciences Laboratory; the UC Berkeley Office of Research and Development; and the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). Berkeley Science Review is not an official publication of the University of California, Berkeley, or the ASUC. The content in this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the University or the ASUC.Letters to the editor and story proposals are encouraged and should be e-mailed to [email protected] or posted to the Berkeley Science Review, 10 Eshelman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720. Advertisers: contact [email protected] or visit http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu

COVER: S INGLE-CELLED ORGANISMS SUCH AS THOSE IN THE DRAWINGS ON THE FRONT AND BACK COVERS

BY W. S AVILLE KENT MAY REVEAL HOW ANIMALS EVOLVED TO BE MULTICELLULAR. S TORY ON PAGE 16. BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 3 review

Categories Current Briefs

06 We Just Turned 10 10 Like Beer for Chocolate

08 Labscopes 12 A Star is Born

12 Current Briefs 14 Mammoth Rocks

26 Main Features 16 United We Stand

48 Outreach 18 H2YDROPOWER

50 Book Review 20 Earthquake Prediction

51 Who Knew 22 Seeing Chemistry

24 Faster, Better, Smaller Main Features Others

26 Getting Back To Nature 43 Congress 101

31 In The Matter of Berkeley 48 Field Trip v. Berkeley

50 Slow Food 36 IP: Ideas for Purchase

51 Who Knew 40 Science And Sustainable Development Our 10th Issue We’ve just turned 10! The BSR has covered a lot of ground since we (issues, that is) began, but since we’re always looking forward, we never get a chance to look back. Here, we

SPECIAL follow up on a story from each of our issues...

ne of NASA’s many recent science successes, ur second issue found Jessica Palmer exploring the Othe RHESSI satellite is still taking pictures of Olighthearted world of fruit fly gene names like cheapdate solar flares, four years after its 2002 launch. Designed (flies carrying the mutation get drunk easily) and the Monty and built at the Berkeley Space Science Lab, RHESSI Python-inspired I’m not dead yet (for longevity). But one gene, was profiled in our first issue. It has been instrumental Pokemon, has really been in the news recently. An acronym

in studying solar ﬂares—huge bursts of energy Image Courtesy of NASA for POK Erythroid Myeloid ONtogenic, the Pokemon gene releasedr from the sun was found to be associated with some human cancers. This thatt can wreak havoc on electronics here on ddiscovery prompted headlines like earth.e Despite having an original mission life ““Pokemon Causes Cancer,” leading ofo only 2–3 years, RHESSI is still going, and has PPokémon USA to exert its legal evene trained its sights on Earth, imaging the rright to the trademark over the gammag rays let off by lightning strikes. Pictures ccartoon character. The gene is SU IS E area downloaded to a dish in the Berkeley hills nnow called Zbtb7, but geneticists

SU duringd its six daily passes. Who knows, it might IS E aare undaunted—2006 has already

F 1 A 0 beb above you right now. —CE wwitnessed the christening of enigma, L L 0 ɱ2 S

P 2 R 0 sserpentine, and big bang. —MC I 0 ɲN G 2

anomachines! The word doesn’t roll off the tongue like n our Spring 2003 issue, Julie Waters N“micromachines”, but they are coming nonetheless. They’ll be Ireported on the successes that Geoff replacing microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, which now Marcy and colleagues have had in spotting operate air bags and high-def TVs. Temina Madon explained planets orbiting distant stars. At the

how the Maboudian lab was advancing SUE time, they had discovered over 100 SU IS IS E the “MEMS“ revolution” by studying the extrasolar planets orbiting 10 stars.

S F materialmate properties of these devices and Marcy and his band of planet hunters P 3 A 2 R 0 L 0 0 ɳL 2 0 I N 2 improving their fabrication. Now were optimistic about the upcoming ɴG MEMS have shrunk into NEMS, and mission of NASA’s Terrestrial Planet a nano-electromechanical revolution has begun. Today, the Finder, a satellite designed specifically to identify new planets. Maboudian lab is trying to make synthetic nanohairs that Since then, the news on planet finding has been mixed: While mimic the surface of the ultra-sticky gecko foot to generate Marcy and colleagues have brought the list of known extrasolar adhesives that stick to any surface, finally affording Lionel planets to 172, the orbiting Planet Finder mission has been, in Richie his dream of dancing on the ceiling. —WM NASA-speak, “deferred indefinitely” due to budget cuts. —CK Photo courtesy of Kellar Autumn STAFF AUTHORS

Aaron Golub Jessica Palmer Aaron Pierce Heidi Anderson Michelangelo D’agostino Ainsley Seago Jinjer Larson Adam Schindler Heidi Ledford Mike Daub Amber Wise Joel Kamnitzer Ainsley Seago Jane McGonigal Nathan Bramall Andy DeMond Josephine Lee Alan Moses Janes Endres Howell Nathanael Johnson ur ﬁrst 9 issues were a lot of work and a lot of fun. Just yesterday, it seems, the BSR was merely an idea. Since Angie Morey Kaspar Mossman Allison Drew Janet Fang Noah Rolff Anna Ross Kira O’Day Alysia Marino Jeffrey Natchtigal Noam Sagiv Antoinette Chevalier Kristen DeAngelis Aman Singh Gill Jennie Rose Padraig Murphy Bryan Jackson Letty Brown Angie Morey Jennifer Skeene Prayana Khadye then, grad students from all over the Berkeley campus have been slaving away to bring you what’s now the top C. Ric Mose Lisa Green Angie Morey Jennifer Skene Rachel Shreter O Carol Hunter Merek Siu Annaliese Beery Jess Porter Rachel Teukolsky Carol Hunter Michaelangelo D’agostino April Mo Jessica Marshall Rebecca Sutton Charlie Emrich Padraig Murphy Ariana Reguizzoni Jessica Palmer Robert C. Froemke pop-sci student journal in the country. (our opinion) Chris Weber Paul Chang Aubrey Lau Jimmer Endres Roger O’Brient Christopher Weber Sarita Shaevitz Audrey Huang Josephine Lee Russell Fletcher Colin McCormick Sherry Seethaler Ben Gutman Joshua Garret Ruth Murray-Clay Dan Handwerker Tania Haddad Bill Monahan Julie Walters Sahelt S. R. Datta Huge thanks go to everyone who helped along the way: the authors, editors, and layout people; the artists and Delphine Farmer Teddy Varno Brendan Borrell Karen Levy Sarita Shaevitz Donna Sy Temina Madon Carol Hunter Karen Marcus Shefa Gordon Dula Parkinson Thomas Thomaidis Chad Heeter Kaspar Mossman Shena Gifford Elissa Preston Tony Le Charlie Emrich Kira O’Day Sherry Seethaler photographers; all the faculty members we’ve badgered for stories; all of our advisors for “not minding” that we Eran Karmon Tony Wilson Charlie Koven Kristen DeAngelis Sheyna Gifford Heidi Ledford Tracy Powell Cheryl Hackworth Letty Brown Shirley Dang Jane McGonigal Una Ren Chris Weber Lisa R. Girard Sneha Desai Jess Porter Wendy Hansen Colin McCormick Loraine Lundquist Stephanie Ewing weren’t in the lab; and most of all, YOU, for reading. Jesse Dill Wes Marner Daisy James Loren Bentley Steve Bodzin Jessica Marshall Dan Roche Lorraine Sadler Steven Bodzin Delphine Farmer Louis-Benoit Desroches Teddy Varno Eliane Trepagnier Marjorie James Temina Madon Elizabeth Read Mark Abel Theresa Ho The totals: 428 pages, 183,971 words, 53 staffers, 96 authors. (not quite Conde Nast, but we’re getting there) Emily Singer Melissa Fabros Tracy Powell Eran Karmon Merek Siu Una Ren Giovanna Guerrero Michael Downes Will Grover

6 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 Our 10th Issue

Photo courtesy of LBL Photo courtesy of David Presti SPECIAL

hen banks compete, you win, or so goes the slogan—but what about Mind over body. Wcontracts for nuclear labs? 2004 marked the ﬁrst time that the This is what meditation University of California, which has managed Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence is supposed to achieve, and Livermore, and Los Alamos National Labs since their formation in research by David Presti and the 1940s and 50s, was forced to compete for their contracts. In colleagues into the physiological April of 2005, UC received a 5-year contract to continue running effects of deep meditation in Buddhist Lawrence Berkeley, the lab closest to home. Last December, monks seems to conﬁrm it. When we caught UC teamed up with industry to win a 7-year contract for Los up with Presti this spring, he had just returned Alamos, out-competing the University of Texas ffrom another trip to the monasteries aand Lockheed Martin. UC’s recent contract oof northern India. This time, Presti was ssuccesses are helping to quiet rumors of lab tthere to teach, rather than to study, as mmismanagement and bode well for the ppart of the 7th annual Science for Monks LLivermore contract, up for competitive wworkshop. Each December since 2000, a rrenewal in 2007. —WH ggroup of 50 Tibetan monk scholars have

SU SU IS E IS E ggathered at the Dehra Dun monastery to llearn physics, mathematics, and neuroscience S

P 4 F R 0 A 4 I 0 L 0 ffrom leading western experts. —JP ɶN G 2 ɷL 2 0

t’s been a busy year for BOINC—the Berkley Open he missile defense program won’t work. This IInfrastructure for Network Computing (boinc. Twas the gist of a review by the American berkeley.edu). BOINC, which is based at the Physical Society reported last issue, pitting scientists Space Sciences Laboratory, has been trying to make against policy makers. Responding to the conﬂict, it easier for scientists to harness the massive over 60 researchers last year signed a statement SU SSUE S E computing resources that often lie dormant in I by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) I

people’s homes and offices. Harness it has: over 5 criticizing the Bush administration’s “distortion F P R 0 A 5 0 L 0 I N 2 ɹL 2 0 800,000 computers are now crunching away ɸG of scientific knowledge for partisan political on fifteen BOINC-based projects. Its success has ends.” They charge the administration with propelled it onto the cover of Science and into the suppressing and manipulating the results of studies on global climate change pages of Nature. Now BOINC and climateprediction.net and environmental hazards, as well as systematically removing voices of have teamed up with the BBC on a new climate change simulation dissent from scientific advisory boards. The administration released a point- that will be followed and televised on Britain’s BBC-4. —MD by-point rebuttal of the statement, but the UCS statement has continued to gather signatures—over 8,000 at last count.—JHC

t’s hard to start a new journal, especially if you want to make it freely accessible to the Iworld. Ben Gutman reported the 2003 launch of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) co-founded by Berkeley’s Michael Eisen. Less than two and half years later, the ‘library’ has grown by four: PLoS Medicine, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics and PLoS Pathogens, with a ﬁfth, PLoS Clinical Trials, set to launch later this year. In June SU IS E of 2005, PLoS was ranked #1 among general biology journals—with an impact factor of 13.9—placing it among the most highly cited journals in the life sciences. Not bad for a F A 3 L 0 ɵL 2 0 publication that is barely older than the Schwarzenegger administration. —JP

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 7 labscopes LABSCOPES Bull’s-Eye! he archery range isn’t the only place you see a bull’s-eye. Another striking example—one million times smaller—occurs at the immune Tsynapse, a complex junction that forms between an immune system T cell and an infected or infection-detecting cell. The structure consists of a variety of molecules which signal to each other, activating T cells and leading to a large-scale immune response. Among these molecules are T cell receptors, which initially cluster at the periphery of the synapse. Eventually, the receptors move towards the inside of the bull’s-eye and stop signaling. What happens if you block inward movement of these molecules? Researchers in Jay Groves’s lab at UC Berkeley have done just this, using patterns of 100nm thick chromium particles as roadblocks to restrict the mobility of receptor clusters. One pattern blocked inward transport of the receptors, forcing them to stay corralled on the periphery of the synapse. The peripheral receptors continued to signal, a result that established a direct link between the spatial position of T cell receptors in the synapse and the duration of signaling. Apparently, hitting the bull’s-eye of the immune synapse doesn’t score you any points, at least as far as signaling is concerned. - Hari Shroff Firewalk With Me hen did humans first enter the Americas? Most textbooks would say 11,500 years ago, so history was thrown for a loop in 2005 when Wa team from the UK claimed to find 40,000 year old human footprints in Puebla, Mexico. Many archaeologists were skeptical of the results because the footprints were found in carbon-poor volcanic ash, making the group’s radiocarbon dating methods questionable. More troublesome, “the prints in Mexico were not arranged in [a right foot-left foot pattern]. There may have been two right footprints in a row and then another print,” said Paul Renne, adjunct Professor of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley. A team led by Renne re-dated the rock at 1.3 million years using argon dating—more reliable for material older than 50,000 years. Later, measurements of the latent magnetism of the rock showed that the ash had to have cooled more than 790,000 years ago. With recent genetic studies suggesting Homo sapiens is at most 200,000 years old and data indicating the ash fell while still hot, it seems likely that the “footprints” are just dents in the ground. Despite the initial buzz, a rewrite of human history is unlikely to star our 1.3 million-year-old, firewalking American ancestors. - Angie Morey Richter Scale mm ... fuzzy dots ... Or so you might think to yourself upon entering the lobby of the de Young Museum in San Francisco as you gaze at the Hgiant mural on the west wall. But this is no piece of abstract art. Rather, it’s an image of gritty realism. You are looking at the crystal lattice of the material strontium titanate (SrTiO3) as seen by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. As a commission for the de Young’s October 2005 reopening, German artist Gerhard Richter (one of the most expensive living artists in the world) created Strontium by manipulating micro- graphs from researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metal Research and then applying his signature blurring of images. In the mural we see this material’s “perovskite” structure as horizontal lines of bright Sr-O columns separated by lines of more closely-spaced, alternating Ti and O columns.

Perovskites aren’t just pretty to look at though. Berkeley physicist Marvin Cohen’s theoretical studies of SrTiO3 in the 1960s played a role in the discovery of the high-temperature superconductors, and materials scientist Ramamoorthy Ramesh is working on perovskites for nonvolatile RAM that won’t lose your data when the power goes off. Strontium may be a glimpse inside your next computer. - David Strubbe Outbreak nyone who has ever had the flu knows just how tempting it is to briefly sneak out of the house during those first few incredibly boring, A albeit highly contagious, days. “How many people could really be at the Tuesday matinee of ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’?” you may have thought to yourself. This type of reasoning can lead to a superspreading event in which an infected individual, dubbed a “superspreader,” prolifically transmits a disease. Historically, models of disease propagation have ignored these events and treated all individuals as having the same infectiousness. However James Lloyd-Smith, a recent graduate of the Getz lab at UC Berkeley, has confirmed that individual variability is a key factor in the spread of many diseases. Measles, for example, was introduced to Greenland by a superspreading sailor who infected an aston- ishing 250 people at a dance party. Lloyd-Smith’s work also demonstrated that these diseases exhibit a qualitatively different mode of spreading. They are the high risk venture capitalists of the disease world: Prone to early extinction, they do exceedingly well only if they are lucky enough to infect a superspreader. Therefore, intensive disease control (e.g., quarantine) of randomly selected individuals is more effective than uniform but moderate treatment of the entire population in suppressing diseases that spread in this manner. Moreover, if we can learn how to identify superspreaders during an outbreak, treatment of these individuals would be an effective method of preventing an epidemic. Unfortunately, this makes a pretty strong argument for waiting to see Harry Potter on DVD. - David Richmond

8 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 LABSCOPES

1IPUPDPVSUTFZPG-JWFSQPPM+PIO .PPSFT6OJWFSTJUZ

1IPUPDPVSUTFZPG,BTQBS.PTTNBO

1IPUPDPVSUTFZPG+BNFT-MPZE4NJUI 1IPUPCZ$IBSMJF,PWFO

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 9 Current Briefs The Origins of Cacao A Star is Born Like Beer for Chocolate

BRIEF Page 12 The Origins of Cacao Earthquake Prediction othing satisfies a craving like the subtle Nflavors of fine chocolate. Every year, over Page 20 three million tons of cacao, the raw material for chocolate, are produced worldwide. For a food loved by so many though, the origins of cacao H2ydropower remain a mystery. UC Berkeley anthropologist Page 18 Rosemary Joyce now thinks she may have found the answer: beer. Like Beer for Chocolate Cacao is produced from the almond-shaped seeds of the quirky rainforest tree Theobroma cacao, Page 10 a native of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins (cacao is the name of the tree and its seeds while Mammoth Rocks cocoa is the name of the defatted powder made Page 14 from the finely ground seeds). The seeds grow in pods hanging from the trunk of the tree. Monkeys and other forest animals split these pods open Seeing Chemistry to reach the sweet, juicy pulp that surrounds the Page 22 30–40 seeds inside. Raw, the seeds are bitter and inedible. To produce the raw material for chocolate, they must be fermented, dried, and roasted. UC Berkeley anthropologist Rosemary Joyce has United We Stand No one knows when humans first began discovered evidence of chocolate residues on Meso- Page 16 to consume cacao. We do know that in the early american pottery from as early as 1100 BCE. 1500s, Columbus, Cortez, and other Spaniards noted the widespread use of cacao throughout and southern Mexico that nurtured the Olmec, Mesoamerica—the region of Central America Mayan, and Aztec civilizations. Joyce has recently discovered chemical residues of cacao beverages The Mayas and Aztecs believed that a feathered ser- on pottery shards dating to 1100 BCE, but the use pent god discovered cacao and gave it to humans. of cacao could have begun even earlier.

All images courtesy of Michael Barnes

10 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 The Origins of Cacao

For both the Mayas and Aztecs, cacao had lation peak from 1000–1500 CE, the valley floor divine origins—according to their mythology, a was home to extensive cacao plantations covering feathered serpent god discovered cacao and gave it thousands of acres. Radiocarbon dating has placed BRIEF to humans. The Aztecs reserved cacao beverages for the earliest settlements in the Ulua valley at 1650 priests, high government officials, important military BCE, among the earliest settlements discovered leaders, and occasionally for sacrificial victims. in Mesoamerica. Joyce, currently the chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology, has been traveling to the valley since 1977 to docu- A cacao pod, broken open to reveal the fleshy pulp ment these settlements. surrounding the hard seeds. Joyce can trace the transition of Scharffen Berger Chocolate here in Berkeley. from chicha to chocolate to 900 Steinberg believes that proper fermentation of ca- BCE, plus or minus a century. Her cao beans is key to developing their flavor, and he estimate is based on the changing supports Joyce’s hypothesis that making chicha may shape of bottles that contain resi- have been the reason humans began to ferment ca- dues of theobromine, a chemical cao. Steinberg points out that chocolate bars and that is found only in cacao and its candy are relatively recent additions to the ways South American relatives. Work- humans have used cacao throughout history. “We ing with Patrick E. McGovern of tend to forget that chocolate as we know it today Human consumption of chocolate may have had its the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum Applied is a product of the industrial revolution,” he says. roots in the Ulua River Valley on the Atlantic Coast of Science Center for Archaeology, an expert on “Grinding cacao beans into very fine pieces and Honduras. Professor Joyce studies the remains left by chemical analysis of ancient fermented beverages, mixing in extra cacao butter pressed from other these ancient settlements, including pottery that may have held chocolate or cacao beverages. she has identified theobromine in round bottles as beans to enhance smoothness requires an amount early as 1100 BCE These bottles were traditionally of force that only machines can produce.” The Mayas and Aztecs ground cacao beans used for holding liquids like chichas. If Joyce’s theory is correct, humanity’s love using the metate, a flat stone table with a stone “Anthropologists had blinders on about cacao,” affair with chocolate has spanned three overlap- rolling pin. Nuts, seeds, herbs, and roasted corn says Joyce. “Ancient Mesoamericans were doing far ping phases. First there was beer (chicha), followed were sometimes added for flavor, and the mixture more with cacao than we first imagined.” She cites as by a frothy suspension of ground fermented beans was whipped or poured between vessels to create another example the existence of Aztec court docu- sometime around 900 BCE, and finally, the ma- a froth that kept the solids in suspension. Com- ments that describe an intoxicating “green cacao” chine-made chocolate bar. pared to the modern melt-in-your-mouth choco- beverage made from unripe cacao pods. Joyce returns to the Ulua valley almost every late bar, cacao consumption for several centuries The importance of fermentation is not lost year to continue her research. “We have found was a gritty, foamy experience. on chocolate maker Robert Steinberg, co-founder evidence that people were consuming cacao 2600 Joyce has also found evidence that before years before the arrival of the Spanish,” says Joyce. making chocolate beverages, the early peoples of “Who were these people? Did they have patron Mesoamerica used cacao to produce a cacao chi- gods for cacao? Was cacao chicha consumed as cha (pronounced “chee-cha”), from the pulp sur- part of elaborate social rituals? These are myster- rounding the seeds. Cacao chicha is one of many ies and may always be, but these are mysteries I’d fruit beers still common in Central America. like to learn more about.” “Anthropologists like me have always as- sumed that the chocolate beverages were the MICHAEL BARNES is a freelance science writer. basis for cultivation of cacao,” says Joyce, “but this conventional argument puts the cart before the Want to know more? horse.” She explains that the process of ferment- Check out cocoatree.org ing and roasting cacao beans to produce chocolate is so complex and the changes in flavor are so dramatic that no one could have known the result beforehand. But where did humans first begin to ex- periment with cacao and when did they make the transition from chicha to chocolate? A good Cacao seeds must be fermented, dried, and roasted, candidate is the Ulua River Valley on the Atlantic like those seen here, to produce the raw material for coast of Honduras. During its pre-European popu- chocolate.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 11 A Star is Born BRIEF

A Star is Born

he night sky is an awe-inspiring sight. From the the theory of “gravitational collapse,” which Don- lowed them to simulate star-forming regions with Tancients who sat around fires telling creation ald Rumsfeld might describe as “you form a star unparalleled precision. While the image of a small stories about the constellations to modern day with the mass you have, not the mass you wish star growing in a placid cloud of gas is attractive astrophysicists, the question has always been “how you had.” Imagine that, in the heat of a snowball for its simplicity, the reality is much more complex. did that get there?” With the advent of orbiting fight, you grab a handful of snow and compress it. Therefore, modeling star formation requires calcu- space telescopes, we’ve finally been able to begin The snowball’s final weight is determined as soon lating interactions between swirling clouds of gas answering this question. as you pick up the snow to form it. Similarly, a star which change dramatically over time—calculations The basics of star birth are now well under- formed by gravitational collapse has already col- which are far too complicated to solve without stood. Enormous regions of gas, sometimes light- lected most of its mass by the time it undergoes such serious computational resources. years wide, swirl around and occasionally develop its initial compression. The results of the team’s simulations pinpoint clumps. Over the course of a few million years, the The competitive accretion theory was the failure of competitive accretion theory to one clumps grow as their gravity sucks in nearby gas. originally developed in response to some of the crucial phenomenon: turbulence. Turbulence mani- These “protostars” eventually collapse under their shortcomings of gravitational collapse. Early mod- fests itself in everyday life—open a water faucet own weight, turning their now-dense interiors into els of star forming regions suggested that the rush too far, and a smooth flow turns into a chaotic infernos. Soon the star is hot enough that hydrogen of escaping light from a young star would gener- mess. It’s no surprise, then, that turbulence also atoms begin to collide and fuse together to create ate extreme outward pressures. This would keep makes itself known in the chaos and flowing new elements—fusion—liberating the energy that more gas from falling in and would prevent large gases present in star formation. While competi- powers the star, some of which eventually escapes stars, more than five to ten times the mass of the tive accretion theorists had included some initial as starlight. Sun, from forming in a single initial compression turbulence in their simulations, they let it artifi- This straightforward story of star forma- event. A quick telescopic survey of the sky, how- cially decay over time (as turbulence usually does tion still holds secrets and big questions. Even ever, reveals many stars this heavy. To reconcile unless there’s energy to sustain it). In the Berkeley medium-sized stars like our Sun are heavy beasts, theory with such observations, astronomers researchers’ simulations, the light and gas flowing needing millions of times the mass of the Earth to proposed that these stars formed in the gradual out from the protostar itself fuels even more tur- sustain fusion. So how do protostars manage to manner suggested by competitive accretion theory. bulence, maintaining it long after the initial tumult collect such a huge quantity of matter? In the No- While further work has since resolved these early would die down. The proof, as they say, is in the vember 17, 2005 issue of Nature, three Berkeley problems with the theory of gravitational collapse, telescopic pudding; According to McKee, “no one astrophysicists—professors Chris McKee, Richard competitive accretion still hung around as a viable has ever seen a region where the turbulence has Klein, and Mark Krumholz (once their graduate alternative model of star formation. decayed.” student and now a post-doctoral researcher at Through computer simulations, Krumholz, Although it seems that Krumholz, McKee, Princeton)—think they’ve answered this question McKee, and Klein now think they’ve put the last and Klein have firmly kicked competitive accretion for good. nail in the coffin for the theory of competitive to the curb, the controversy may burn on as other Two dueling theories have been proposed to accretion. Their work suggests that, though com- theorists respond to these claims. In the meantime, describe the manner by which protostars collect petitive accretion might work in certain types of stargazers rest assured: the next time you look all their matter. The first, known as “competitive star-forming regions, nobody has actually observed at the stars and wonder where they came from, accretion,” likens building a star to building the any. In addition to observations of seven star-form- someone is assiduously working on an answer. head of a snowman. A small, dense clump, only a ing regions, a key player in the team’s success was fraction of its final weight, gradually accumulates the incredible computing power available to them JESSE DILL and HARISH A GARWAL are graduate students nearby matter, suggesting that a star can start small at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and in biophysics and physics, respectively. and grow huge over time. In the other corner sits Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which al-

12 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 A Star is Born BRIEF

Photo courtesy of NASA Stars are born in nurseries of hot, dense, swirling gas. The one shown above was caught in the act by the Hubble Space Telescope.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 13 Mammoth Rocks

BRIEF MAMMOTH ROCKS #FSLFMFZSFTFBSDIFSTàOEFWJEFODFPGBODJFOUTDSBUDIJOHQPTUTPOUIF4POPNBDPBTU

long the precipitous Sonoma coastline seemingly intentional location along the rock demonstrate that Pleistocene landscape features A just south of the Russian River lie two edges and overhangs—led the two to suspect like Mammoth Rocks might still persist and be behemoth seastacks and a smattering of boulders. that these were once “rubbing rocks.” Through identifiable today. These fixtures of the landscape are increasingly a process of elimination, they settled on a likely “What we’ve done is disprove all the oth- popular with local free-climbers, who clamber culprit: 10- to 125-thousand-year-old Pleistocene er theories,” explains Parkman, referring to the from crack to crevice as they strive for the 60- megaherbivore species such as the Columbian battery of alternative scenarios he’s entertained foot summits and their breathtaking views of mammoth, American mastodon, and Harlan’s over the last few years. “You might not see what the Pacific Ocean. The lower reaches of these ground sloth. Parkman dubbed these stacks the it is, but you can see what it isn’t.” The most intui- Mammoth Rocks. tive of theories—weathering by rain and wind— More than ten would be expected to polish the rocks indiscrimi- thousand years ago dur- nately, not in the strategic locations the rubbing ing the late Pleistocene, patterns suggest. the present-day Sonoma In 2003, a team of researchers at Sonoma Coast lay at the eastern State University led by Stephen Norwick ana- end of a broad coastal lyzed samples of the rubbed rocks using high- terrace some seven to powered microscopes. The results of their analy- nine miles wide. This sis confirmed that the polished surfaces didn’t grassland savanna (now coincide with elemental weathering. Instead, the below sea-level) would signature scratches worn into the stone—by grit have attracted grazing an- left in fur after a mud-bath, if Parkman’s theory imals such as mammoths holds true—bear more resemblance to those on and mastodons from in- wooden rubbing posts used by zoo elephants.

All Photos by Sarah Anne Bettelheim terior pastures during Parkman has also unearthed blade-like tools Above: The prominent Mammoth Rocks outcrops the summer months. Mammoth Rocks lie below a at the base of these and neighboring rubbing (left), known to local climbers as Sunset Rocks, sit pass in the hills that might well have been a natu- rocks that bolster the archaeological component prominently along the Sonoma coastline where they might once have attracted prehistoric mam- ral terminus for migrant megaherbivores moving of his theory, including a chert flake with traces moths as rubbing rocks. Below: Archaeologist Breck west along the Russian River Valley. As Parkman of an as-yet unidentified blood that might prove Parkman points to an overhanging edge that shows envisions it, mammoths and other megaherbi- to be mammoths’. evidence of rubbings. vores would have been inclined to take advantage At present, Parkman is working with re- stacks—known to climbers as Sunset Rocks— of such an obvious and opportune landmark to searchers at Texas A&M University to analyze have been worn smooth over untold years and shelter from the wind, bathe nearby in the present another obstacle to overcome, another mud of what Parkman suspects is a prehis- three inches before a rough depression offers toric wallow, and rub themselves clean on purchase. Now, climbers are learning that as they neighboring outcrops. brush against these ancient stones, they just might Such scratching posts are a relatively be rubbing shoulders with giants. common feature of California’s landscape One blustery September afternoon five today. Domestic cattle, horses, and sheep years ago, California State Parks Senior State have grazed here for some hundred-odd Archaeologist and UC Berkeley Associate years, polishing fence posts and rock out- Researcher E. Breck Parkman, together with crops to an oily sheen. While Parkman con- paleontologist Raj Naidu, took shelter from cedes that livestock might be responsible the wind behind these seastacks. Over the for the more recent (and more polished) next two hours, they noticed something they rubbings along the lower reaches of Mammoth samples of the rubbings to determine whether had overlooked in years past. All over the bulk Rocks, a cow can’t account for rubbings fourteen carbon-containing organic material from hairs, of the stacks, from ground level to as high as feet high. oils, or blood is present in the rocks. If they can fourteen feet, they observed polished swaths of As part of what he calls “The Rancholabrean confirm the presence of carbon, the next step will Franciscan chert and blueschist stone. The nature Hypothesis,” Parkman is working with a be a needle-in-a-haystack search for ancient DNA. of these features—specifically their strategic and multidisciplinary network of scientists to While some have criticized Parkman for

14 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 Mammoth Rocks BRIEF

drawing attention to the rubbings because of the unavoidable vandalism and foot-trafﬁc that will follow, he contends Mammoth Rocks can’t be saved if he doesn’t publicize them. In an effort to raise awareness, Parkman regularly leads trips to the park for school children and has recently taken steps toward organizing a volunteer group of site stewards with the climbing contingent of Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods to make sure park visi- tors leave the rocks as they ﬁnd them. Still, each time Parkman runs his hands over the glassy rocks, he notices another callous chip—a rock-hound’s souvenir—which serves as a reminder that if we don’t tread lightly in the footsteps of giants, our tenuous link to the rich history of the Sonoma Coast may vanish forever. O

MATTHEW BETTELHEIM is a freelance science writer, wildlife biologist, and natural historian. Want to know more? Check out Mammoth Rocks at www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_ id=23566

Interested in research or volunteering? Contact Parkman at [email protected]

The rubbing rocks vary from smooth-worn ridges to large sweeps of polished stone like the rock face pictured here.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 15 Though paleontologists can dig through pits UNITED WE STAND full of clues to the past, researchers of animal origins lack anything like fossils to aid their search. The Origins of Multicellular Animals Instead, King focuses on choanoflagellates, a United We Stand United We or most of us, our common ancestry with sition to multicellularity are to the story of life, group of single-celled organisms (protozoa) that Fchimps is not hard to grasp. The idea of our they are also poorly understood. UC Berkeley swim, powered by a whip-like flagellum, through common heritage with other mammals is also not Molecular and Cell Biology and Integrative Biol- many of today’s marine and fresh waters. But BRIEF a stretch—rat or monkey, we all share mammalian ogy professor Nicole King and her lab want to how exactly do these simple cells offer a window faces, sets of limbs, live births, and fur. But go back find out more. more than half a billion years into the ancient further along the animal lineage and things start The search starts with the genetic tools re- past, when the first animals appeared? to get blurry. What’s the story of the first four- quired to be multicellular: genes that control cell The key is knowledge of the tree of life. Re- limbed beings to walk the land? Go further back. adhesion (the glue that binds cells), cell signaling cent studies have established that choanoflagel- What creature gave rise to the first bilaterally sym- (allowing cell-to-cell communication), and cell lates are the single-celled organisms most closely metrical organisms, ancestors of everything from differentiation (establishing multiple cell types to related to multicellular animals. In fact, choanoflagellates even resemble the specialized feeding cells found in sponges (the most basic multicellular animal). Thus, it was probably descendents of an early choanoflagellate ancestor—close cousins of the choanoflagellate lineage—who participated in the evolution of multicellularity, and today’s choanoflagellates likely remain comparable to these pioneers in many ways. Research from other groups indicates that every animal species evolved from this single evolutionary step—though multicellularity evolved multiple times elsewhere on the tree of life (among plants, fungi, slime molds, and others), it happened just once for animals. So, for insight into animal origins, the choanoflagellate genetic code is required reading. And thanks to recent advances in genome sequencing (decoding the entire genetic contents of organisms), King can employ the powerful tool of comparative genomics to make sense of this code. Images courtesy of Melissa Motts/Current Biology (left) and Susan Young (right). By stacking the choanoflagellate genome Choanoflagellates stained to show their flagella (green), collars (red), and DNA (blue). (Left) individual cells; (right) up against animals and more distantly related a colony of cells. groups like plants and fungi, King can determine which gene families are shared only by animals flatworms and beetles to sharks and wolves? Or allow for division of labor). Understanding the and choanoflagellates. Already, King’s group has even further back in time, down near the base of evolution of these essential functions likely holds identified choanoflagellate versions of cell signal- the tree of life, to that clichéd primordial ooze the key to understanding how animals appeared ing and adhesion gene families previously consid- that spawned the first animals. and flourished. ered unique to animals. These are two parts of a It was at that time, some 600 million years ago, that one of the most pivotal evolutionary leaps in the history of life took place. In a largely unicellular world far different from ours, a group choanos sponges jellyfish arthropods mollusks starfish vertebrates of single-celled organisms joined together and became one multicellular organism, opening the door to a novel range of evolutionary possibili- ties. This was the birth of a new way of life, the founding event of the storied animal kingdom. But as important as these early events in the tran- time

According to the animal family tree (not to scale), choanoﬂagellates diverged from the animal lineage right before the emergence of multicellularity. This means that choanoﬂagellates are more closely related to multicellular animals than any other emergence of non-animal we know of so far. Study of these organisms may help us understand multicellularity which characteristics of multicellularity the single-celled ancestor of animals already possessed and which had to evolve during the transition to multicellularity.

16 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 choanoflagellate genetic toolkit for multicellular life that King believes may hold the key to the story of animal origins. United We Stand United We Discovering animal-style genes in single-celled organisms is exciting, but it also raises a paradox— how and why did the machinery of multicellular BRIEF organisms evolve in a lineage that continues to live the single-celled way of life? What is the pre-history of the most basic animal gene groups? The evolutionary role of genes has everything to do with their functions, and it is the function of these key gene groups in unicellular organisms that King wants to uncover. For example, hungry choanoflagellates attach to and engulf unsuspecting bacteria, a process King argues could be the single- cell antecedent to cellular adhesion. And protozoa are known in some instances to respond both to other organisms and their environment based on secreted proteins, a potential precursor to the kind of cell-to-cell signaling essential in animals. Some species of choanoflagellates even form colonies, though the function of the colony in the life cycle of the organism is still unclear. The function of the gene groups later co- opted for animal multicellularity is only part of the picture. King is also interested in other aspects of that lost unicellular world, such as the external factors that shaped the development of multicellularity. Here too are ideas to be tested. A multicellular body is more than any unicellular predator could swallow, so perhaps multicellularity evolved as a defense strategy. Also, choanoflagellates use the same cell parts to power their flagella and to divide into new daughter cells. Because of this constraint, the first multicellular animals (and perhaps choanoflagellate colonies) may have benefited from a division of labor between swimming cells and dividing cells—the world had not yet seen organisms that could simultaneously grow and move. Many details in the story of animal origins remain mysterious. But King’s work has established that further study of the evolution and biology of choanoflagellates will shed more light on this 600- million-year-old story. As King says, “let protozoa show the way.” N

AMAN SINGH GILL is a UC Berkeley graduate in environmental science and policy management.

Want to know more? Check out: An 1880 drawing by W. Saville Kent of a choanoﬂagellate, a single-celled marine organism whose name comes from the collar surrounding a whip-like ﬂagellum used for swimming. The red dots represent bacteria, which are engulfed The King lab homepage: by the cell in vesicles. In the center is the cell’s nucleus. The King lab studies these organisms because they are mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/king the closest single-celled relatives to multicellular animals, and therefore may help us to understand more about the Tree of Life: tolweb.org transition to multicellularity.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 17 ydropower 2 H H2YDROPOWER Getting a grip on hydrogen to fuel tomorrow’s cars BRIEF

hether it’s air quality, a desire to protect of testing the Daimler-Chrysler F-Cell, a fuel cell infrastructure development. Hydrogen can be Wpristine Alaskan wilderness, political vehicle that runs on compressed hydrogen gas. stored and dispensed in a variety of forms—as instability in the Middle East, or dwindling supply Daimler-Chrysler wants to get its car out a liquid, as compressed gas at a number of in the face of increasing global demand, there are for some real road experience to expose any different pressures, and as a metal hydride. Most many reasons to move away from our current problems. Tim Lipman and Susan Shaheen, Berkeley cars available now, including the F-Cell, require petroleum-based economy. While a number of researchers and co-managers of the project, compressed gas at 5000 psi, and most fueling alternative fuel options are under investigation, plan to put the car through its paces by using it stations are being built to accommodate this type when it comes to cars, these days hydrogen is all as a company vehicle for business-related trips. of vehicle. In an effort to support the hydrogen the rage. Each night, the F-Cell is parked in a special spot economy, Governor Schwarzenegger plans to Hydrogen is appealing because it reacts very where it wirelessly relays the day’s performance increase the number of hydrogen fueling stations cleanly and efficiently with oxygen to release data back to Daimler-Chrysler in Germany. This in California from the 16 currently in place to at energy inside a fuel cell, producing water as the approach will also allow Lipman and Shaheen to least 50 by the year 2010. only byproduct. However, a number of practical and investigate an interest of their own: the role of However, current hydrogen storage techniques technical potholes lie in the road to the hydrogen hydrogen-powered cars as fleet vehicles. One have serious shortcomings. Compressed hydrogen future. From issues of infrastructure to hydrogen of the major obstacles facing the development gas requires extremely high pressures and a heavy storage, Berkeley researchers are working to of any new fuel is the lack of refueling stations. storage cylinder, reducing its efficiency. For example, smooth that road and to help hydrogen realize its In a fleet setting though, companies can make just compressing hydrogen to 3000 psi costs promise as the ultimate fuel. arrangements for fueling and for repair that would about 20% of its potential energy. Furthermore, The future of the hydrogen economy looks likely inconvenience individual owners. The PATH compressed gas vehicles have very limited range bright at Partners for Advanced Transit and F-Cell gets its hydrogen fix from a special station due to the size and weight of the storage cylinder Highways (PATH), a branch of Berkeley’s Institute in Richmond. required. Liquid hydrogen is another option used in of Transportation Studies. Headquartered in Outside of a fleet setting, ease of use is a top some cars, but its storage requires a heavy cooling an old converted home down a dusty road off priority for private vehicle owners, so without system to maintain temperatures of around -250o Highway 580, the weathered building belies the the appropriate infrastructure, even the most Celsius (20 Kelvin). innovative work being done inside. This past promising technology is likely to fail. In the case of In contrast, the ideal storage system is December, PATH researchers began two years hydrogen, the variety of fueling options complicates lightweight and able to store a lot of hydrogen

Photo by Charlie Emrich

18 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 ydropower 2 H BRIEF near ambient conditions. Furthermore,e, it must be sayssays Jeff Long,Lon a chemistry professor involved in efficient enough to offset the energy consumptionconsumption thethe project. and pollution that result from usingng water oror LLongong hopeshop to use synthetically-produced hydrocarbons for producing the hydrogenydrogen in pporousorous sosolidslid as hydrogen storage devices. He the first place. The Department of Energynergy has iiss currentcurrently investigating the synthesis and proposed hydrogen storage system hydrogen-bindingh characteristics targets for the year 2010 that of a number of metal-organic include 6% hydrogen by weight, frameworks. All of these lattice 0.045 kilograms hydrogen per liter, structures have very high surface an operating temperature between area to volume ratios, creating -30o and 50o Celsius, a maximum many potential hydrogen binding operating pressure of 1500 psi, andd limits on ssites.ites. LonLong’sg ideal material is lightweight, easy refueling time and cost. to pproduce,roduce, and able to reversibly bind hydrogen In an effort to help meet thesee ambitious fforor the lifetilifetimem of the car. Furthermore, it will targets, nine UC Berkeley faculty members,members, in rreleaseelease hhydrogenydro from the storage lattice to the departments ranging from chemistryy to physics fuel cell uponupon small changes in pressure. He sees to materials science, came together in 2004 to “a lot of ppromise”rom in porous materials, but he also form the Hydrogen Storage Program. None of the notes that rerefiningfi the solids so they are viable for groups involved in the program had beenbeen directlydirectly use is ggoingoing ttoo be a challenge. involved in hydrogen storage researchch precedingpreceding The next few years will likely determine the the program’s establishment, but theyy all thought future for tthe hydrogen economy. Whether they might have new ideas to contribute to the Image courtesy of the Long lab hydrogen’s potential can be fully realized is still an field. The team hopes that one of these new open question. Great strides have been made in approaches will result in a hydrogen storage system Hydrogen is much trickier than gasoline to store, the past 15 years to put fuel cell vehicles on the that is lightweight, reusable, clean, and efficient. prompting researchers to develop porous solids as an road, something that many people never thought Although all the researchers have very different alternative. Jeff Long’s group develops hydrogen sponges possible. Perhaps in another 15 the dream of like the one shown above which uses magnesium atoms approaches, “it’s intended to be very synergistic,” (green) to bind hydrogen atoms (red). hydrogen power will truly become a reality.

RACHEL BERNSTEIN is a graduate student in chemistry.

Want to know more? This is not your father’s Oldsmobile. The Daimler- CA Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways: Chrysler F-Cell car (facing) gets its power from a path.berkeley.edu hydrogen fuel cell, runs a Linux-powered center console, and wirelessly communicates its driving Long research group: data to headquarters back in Germany. Pop the gas cap (below) and you’ll ﬁnd an odd ﬁtting for alchemy.cchem.berkeley.edu hydrogen refueling. Driving around the Richmond Field Station, CCIT scientist Tim Lipman (center) points to the console where the F-Cell displays its energy use. Electricity is produced by the fuel cell and a regenerative braking system, and can go from there either to the car’s rechargable battery or the electric motor.

All photos by Charlie Emrich

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 19 Earthquake Prediction BRIEF

San Francisco in ruins, April 1906

Shake, Rattle, and Roll EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION What if you could see 30 seconds into the future...

In the north entrance hall of UC Berkeley’s to have revived both the expectations, and the down power plants before their pipes rupture, or Doe Library, a large memorial poster hangs on the skepticism, surrounding earthquake warning. even initiate a public alarm system. wall recapping “The History of a Disaster.” With a There has always been debate in the black-and-white photo showing foot-wide cracks seismological community over whether the first in the ground, the poster charts the devastating, P-wave actually provides useful information about 260-mile, minute-long tear through San Francisco an earthquake’s ultimate magnitude before it ends. of the Great Quake of 1906. On the quake’s 100th The dominant theory, the “cascade model” of fault anniversary, the banner commemorates the Uni- versity’s contribution to search and rescue efforts and to the medical care and temporary sheltering of refugees. “On April 18, 1906 at 5:12 am,” the memorial poster’s subtitle reads, “the San Andreas Fault ruptured in a magnitude 7.9 earthquake...” When an earthquake occurs, two types of But rewind 100 years to the first few seismic waves are created. The first, called the “P” seconds of that minute-long rupturing, shaking, or primary wave, is a burst of pressure, like a really and jolting. While people were just beginning loud sound. The second, called the “S” or secondary to feel the earth’s movement, the quake’s full wave, consists of violent back-and-forth shaking, magnitude would remain unknown until well after what seismologists call shear. Allen and Olson its calamitous completion. What if, instead, one hope to exploit the basic fact that the P-wave could predict the magnitude of an earthquake just travels faster than the S-wave (hence it’s name), All Photos courtesy of the Bancroft Library as it is beginning to occur? Furthermore, what if while the S-wave is responsible for most of the rupture, argues that rupture spreads from one such knowledge could allow for precious seconds quake’s damage. So, the thinking goes, if detectors patch of the fault to another neighboring one like of warning? Such a task has stymied generations can interpret the strength of the impending S-wave falling dominos. All activity terminates when the of researchers, and the feasibility—let alone the the instant they detect the first P-wave, they gain a rupture energy falls below a certain threshold accuracy—of such prediction still remains conten- few seconds—up to 70 seconds depending on how necessary to move the next patch. This theory tious. Now, a paper, published in the November far they are from where the earth ruptures—to do predicts that small and large earthquakes both 10 issue of Nature by UC Berkeley seismologist things like warn emergency personnel before their start out identically; the ultimate size of the Richard Allen and colleague Erik Olson seems communications networks are interrupted, shut earthquake is only determined as the earthquake

20 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 On the other hand, after examining the Allen admits, however, that the correlations are waveforms of 71 earthquakes from Japan, Taiwan, reduced for earthquakes with magnitude 5.7 or Timeline for an ideal California, and Alaska, Allen and Olson now believe greater. But, he says, overall “the correlations are earthquake warning: they have finally identified a way to determine an pretty strong.” earthquake’s strength from those first instants of Others dispute the team’s conclusions. shaking. They suggest that the key to predicting the “If you look at their figures, the correlation 0 sec. Earthquake begins. Epicenter is Earthquake Prediction ultimate magnitude of an earthquake is information is not that strong,” says William Ellsworth, former located near Mendocino triple-junction, contained in the frequency of shaking that occurs chief scientist with the US Geological Survey around 200 km NW of the Bay Area. in the P-wave. In contrast to the cascade model, (USGS) in Menlo Park, California. Ellsworth also Fast-moving P-waves and slower but BRIEF their model predicts that there is a deterministic urges caution, warning that, even if researchers more destructive S-waves begin relationship between the initial shaking and the find a correlation, there is a large step from radiating outward from epicenter. final earthquake energy. A key difference between demonstrating a correlation to developing a the two schools of thought is what signal to look reliable early warning system that operates on the 3 sec. P-waves reach the nearest detec- for. “They look at the amplitude of the initial finding. Ten years ago, he and Stanford University’s tors, which begin analyzing the frequency rupture, which is how much it shakes,” Allen says Gregory Beroza examined the relation between content of the seismic waves. of his colleagues in the cascade model camp, “while initial amplitude and final earthquake magnitude. we look at the frequency, that is how quickly While their results were consistent with Allen’s 7 sec. The ElarmS analysis requires 4 it shakes.” they did not go on to design a warning system, seconds of P-wave data to make an partly because of the high cost such a system initial prediction of earthquake intensity. would require. The algorithm decides the earthquake is likely to be powerful and initiates the warning system.

10 sec. Alarms transmitted to Bay Area cities. Schoolchildren warned to get under desks, BART trains automatically brake to avoid derailing, voltage is reduced along power transmission lines, etc.

In a 2003 study, Allen and Professor Hiroo 30 sec. S-waves reach the Bay Area. Kanamori, a Caltech colleague, found such a Shaking begins in earnest... relationship between the frequency content of the quake’s first four seconds and its ultimate magnitude. Their sample consisted of southern would use real-time data fed from monitoring California earthquakes with magnitudes 3.0 to stations to predict a final quake magnitude. 7.3 (only 3 of which had a magnitude greater than Michael Blanpied, associate coordinator of the 6.0). In Allen’s latest study of 71 quakes—24 of agency’s Earthquake Hazards Program in Reston, which were 6.0 or greater—they examined both Virginia, said in an interview that his agency the velocity and acceleration caused by the P Allen is continuing his work. While he admits has received three different proposed testing wave. They found a high correlation between the that it will most likely take several years to make techniques, including Allen’s. The algorithms show frequency content of the P wave’s first few sec- certain how accurate the method is, he is seeking some promise, Blanpied said. “But there is an onds and the final magnitude, further reinforcing funding, primarily from the USGS, to begin testing open question whether it is possible to distinguish the deterministic theory of earthquake rupture. the system, which he calls ElarmS. The test system between magnitude 5 and 7 earthquakes in a very short amount of time, although it’s quite possible to use only a few seconds to tell magnitudes of up to 5.” With a two-year initial investment of $100,000 per year, Blanpied says, the USGS expects to get a sense of how much improvement would be needed to make the algorithms work. These funds are being channeled to Berkeley and to Caltech to start the necessary computer programming and to provide grants to researchers and graduate students for the current feasibility testing. “A lot of us hope that this would work well,” Blanpied said. “Great things could be done. This has very exciting prospects.” N

MICHAEL ZHAO is a graduate student in journalism.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 21 Seeing Chemistry Seeing Chemistry Berkeley scientists peek into the ultra-fast world of chemical reactions and discover

BRIEF why the human eye works so damn well

ne of the things I learned in high-school leads to vision. This much Ochemistry class is that you can’t see atoms. has been known for the Wrong. Decades ago, researchers at IBM invented better part of the last cen- a microscope powerful enough to both see atoms tury—it led to a Nobel and to move them around one at a time. Being able prize in 1967—but many to see individual atoms ushered in a sea change of the specifics of this re- in the understanding of materials like metals and action remained elusive. ceramics. Recently, researchers at Berkeley have In particular, knowing the upped the ante, inventing a technique that allows exact details of how retinal them to see atoms as they move in the fastest of twists when exposed to chemical reactions. light is key to understand- The work, published in the November 11 ing how remarkably effi- edition of the journal Science, sheds new light on cient the visual process is. a very old question: How do our eyes “see”? The Retinal by itself is retina lining the insides of our eyes brims with nowhere near as efficient rod and cone cells that convert light into a signal at capturing light as when that our brains interpret as vision. What makes it’s embedded in the rho- these cells sensitive to light is the protein rhodopsin protein. A group of dopsin. Rod cells are packed with thousands of Berkeley researchers, led molecules of rhodopsin, each of which contains by professor Richard Ma- a small molecule called retinal that absorbs light. thies, found that the rho- (Retinal, incidentally, is made from beta-carotene, dopsin protein pre-twists lending credence to the conventional wisdom that retinal a bit, priming it to Photo by Charlie Emrich beta-carotene-rich carrots are good for your eyes.) undergo the full twist when Graduate student Phil Kukura stands over part of the complicated optical system When retinal absorbs light, it twists, forc- it absorbs light. As gradu- that can watch atoms move during a chemical reaction. ing the surrounding rhodopsin protein to change ate student Phil Kukura, shape and kicking off a long chain of events that lead author on the study,

retina iris “cis” light

lens

rod cells cornea optic nerve “trans”

Eye diagram courtesy of the National Eye Institute/National Institutes of Health Retinal diagram by Dan Wandschneider (Left) The human eye senses light on its back surface—the retina, which is made up of hundreds of millions of rod and cone cells. The cone cells are responsible for color vision and the rod cells (middle) handle low-light vision. Each rod cell is packed with the protein rhodopsin, which actually absorbs and senses light. The ﬁrst step in vision occurs in the molecule retinal that’s buried within each rhodopsin protein. When exposed to light, retinal undergoes a reaction that twists the molecule (as shown above right) from the “cis” to “trans” conﬁguration. Each of the atoms in retinal is represented as a ball and bonds between those atoms are drawn as sticks. The motion of two hydrogen atoms (shown in green) was key to understanding why our eyes are such good light detectors.

22 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 explains, absorbing light is like “pulling the trigger” ticated array of lasers capable of producing the ul- part of the work. The hard part was “convincing for the reaction. tra-short bursts of light needed to take snapshots ourselves that we weren’t full of [it].” The meat of the discovery is that the first step of the retinal/rhodopsin reaction as it happens. “As I started to read the literature and as I in this twist involves the swinging of two hydrogen According to Kukura, this wasn’t the most difficult started to understand the basic laws behind it, I Seeing Chemistry atoms around the length of the realized it’s never going to work, because there’s a retinal. The seemingly insignifi- million reasons why this [shouldn’t] work… It was

cant swing of these hydrogen completely accidental that we saw what we did and BRIEF atoms kicks off all the events interpreted it the way we did.” Indeed, it took over leading to vision, like a snow- a year for analysis and double-checking between ball starting an avalanche. But the time the measurements were made and when hydrogen—the lightest of all at- the paper was written. oms—moves extremely fast in Despite the huge amount that’s already chemical reactions, making it al- known about vision, these results may have long most impossible to track using legs. Rhodopsin belongs to a class of proteins called standard measuring techniques. G-protein coupled receptors that are responsible How fast? A few femtoseconds. for many kinds of communication and signaling A femtosecond is a millionth of within the body. In fact, more than 70% of drugs a billionth of a second, or as Ku- on the market target G-protein coupled recep- kura puts it, “There are as many tors. Understanding how these receptors work is femtoseconds in a minute as fundamental to drug development. Kukura sums it there are minutes in the exis- up with an unintended pun, saying, “This technique tence of the universe.” certainly has a bright future.” N One of the fundamental reasons that this reaction occurs so CHARLIE EMRICH is a graduate student in biophysics. fast is that speed is inexorably linked to efficiency: All efficient reactions happen Want to know more? quickly, and the eye is a very efficient light Check out: “Structural Observation of the Pri- detector. To detect these ultra-fast chang- mary Isomerization in Vision with Femtosecond- es in molecules, Kukura and colleagues Stimulated Raman”: Kukura, P. et al, Science 310, pp. developed a technique called femtosecond 1006–1009 (2005). stimulated resonance Raman spectrosco- py. In essence, they fire extremely short pulses of laser light at the rhodopsin and look at the changes in the color of light that bounces off of it. Photos by Charlie Emrich This brings me to another thing that (Top) Kukura points to the small piece of glass that I learned in high-school chemistry: All molecules makes ultra-fast pulses of laser light needed to study fast and atoms are constantly vibrating, as if they’ve chemical reactions. Laser light that goes in a single color been put together with springs. This much was comes out as a spectrum of colors—an odd consequence of how short the pulses are. right, but what the teachers left out was that each type of molecule has its own signature vibrations (Bottom) These lasers got bling. A green laser shines at a that can tell scientists a wealth about what the mol- large sapphire, whose red glow becomes the pulsing heart ecule is, how it is arranged, how it bumps up against of the system producing femto-second laser pulses. its neighbors, and even about tiny shifts in the posi- tions of the atoms that make it up. As Kukura puts it, “If you wanted to stretch a human being [to] twice his size, it takes a couple of horses. To stretch a molecule to twice its length also takes a certain amount of energy, and you can actually measure those energies.” The wiggling atoms in a molecule can absorb small, characteristic amounts of energy from light as it hits the molecule. By deciphering subtle changes in the color of reflected light, scientists can infer which wavelengths of light were absorbed and use this information to draw a picture of a molecule like retinal—hydrogens and all. Measuring these energies requires a sophis-

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 23 Hard Drives FASTER, BETTER, SMALLER One of the last moving parts in your computer is the hard drive BRIEF

magine flying a Boeing 747 half an inch above surface of the slider so that when the disk spins, Ithe ground, all the while counting blades of the wind it creates pushes on the slider, causing it grass. Most pilots would balk at this mission, but to both take off and to fly. David Bogy and his colleagues at the Computer To increase the storage capacity of a hard Mechanics Laboratory (CML), an industrial drive, engineers cram more data into less space. consortium composed of five research labs at Advances in storage capacity require the solution Berkeley and twelve industrial partners, tackle a of tough mechanical problems. For one, the slider similar problem with aplomb. They engineer the has to fly ever closer to the disk—nowadays about mechanics of one of the last moving parts in a 100 angstroms, the equivalent of 100 atoms end- computer—the inner workings of a hard drive. to-end, is all that separates the disk and slider. Over the 1990s, the data storage density of The CML engineers face a Goldilocks hard drives doubled every year. That feat surpasses problem: If the heads are too far away from the the oft-cited Moore’s law, which claims that the disk surface, data can neither be read nor written. The business end of a hard disk drive is the millimeter- doubling time for the number of transistors in a But if the heads get too close to the surface, Bogy long slider seen above. The surface that faces the disk computer chip is eighteen months. Now we have says, the head “will slap the disk,” crashing into the (above) is terraced aerodynamically to ﬂy extremely close to the disk surface. HD Tivos and video iPods with huge data storage disk surface. The flying height must be just right, capacity within a small space—a testament to the and the lower it has to be, the less room there new ubiquity of hard drives. How did the capacity is for error. Bogy’s lab carries out simulations of of these data storage workhorses increase at the aerodynamics of the slider to figure out how such an astounding rate? One key factor has been to make it fly at the right height throughout the piloting the 747 with ever increasing precision. working lifetime of the hard drive. The 747 in this case is the hard drive’s Maintaining the correct flying height is “slider”, the tiny object that actually flies less than not the end of the story; horizontal precision is a thousandth of a hair’s width above the spinning important as well. The problem is like following disk. On the end of the slider lie a miniature “a curving road,” says mechanical engineering electromagnet (for writing data) and an ultra- professor Roberto Horowitz. Since data is stored thin, perfect magnetic crystal (for reading data). as circular tracks on the disk, the read/write head Aerodynamic foils are machined into the lower must follow the track exactly or risk reading the

End-on view of the slider above. Data is written by the tiny electromagnet—look close and you can see its mirofabricated coils of wire. There’s also a heater that helps control the distance between slider and disk, zabout 10 nanometers for this drive.

An experimental slider designed by graduate student Jia-yang Juang. The central tab containing the read/write heads can be actively lowered to ﬂy 2 nanometers above the disk.

A typical computer hard disk drive made by Seagate, sans cover. The slider is at the end of the metal arm that’s touching the disk. All photos courtesy of Jia-Yang Juang

24 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 wrong data. To increase storage capacity, the consequence, says Bogy, is when these zones get Industry Consortium (InSIC) have set themselves tracks must become narrower and closer together, “too small and too close they won’t be stable.” a goal of reaching a tenfold greater density by the

and precision of horizontal control becomes even This is because the bits are constantly being kicked end of 2008. Hard Drives more important. by the wiggling of surrounding molecules—that is, To meet this challenge, engineers are If the concentric tracks were perfectly circular thermal energy. The amount of energy required to exploring new approaches to saving space by and centered around the axis of the spinning disk, flip the orientation of one of these magnetic zones reorienting bits so that they stand up vertically. BRIEF the task would be relatively easy. But real life is decreases as the size of the zone shrinks. Once the Another approach is to use more stable magnetic not so simple. In practice the tracks are slightly magnetic zones are small enough, ambient thermal materials that require a laser to heat small areas off center (like the grooves on many records), energy alone will be enough to flip a bit of data. of the disk while data is written. The mechanical and any movement of the disk—knocking your The smallest a bit can get without spontaneously advances being developed at Berkeley’s CML laptop, dropping your iPod, or just vibration from flipping is the superparamagnetic limit. may well prove critical to appeasing the world’s the cooling fans—can bump the slider off its flight Until recently, “magneticians” predicted insatiable appetite for data storage. path. This means that the head’s position has to be that this limit would be reached at a density of actively controlled on the sub-millisecond scale. 100 billion bits/square inch. But the folks at the MEREK SIU is a graduate student in biophysics. Horowitz and fellow mechanical engineering CML along with the national Information Storage professor Masayoshi Tomizuka are working on the problem of keeping the read/write head over Want to know more? the data tracks as the disk spins and is jarred by Check out the external vibrations. Berkeley Computer Mechanics Lab: Even if Bogy and his colleagues at the CML cml.berkeley.edu can meet these mechanical demands, the magnetic hard drive industry must confront another looming problem: the superparamagnetic limit. Data is This little dynamo has a 1-inch disk that stored on a hard disk by writing tiny magnetic holds 4-GB of data, enough for about 1,000 zones, each having a North and a South pole. songs. Drives this small are made speciﬁally for portable devices like iPods. To guard But just like bar magnets that repel each other if against bumps, the head assembly retracts you put North pole to North pole, the magnetic automatically to a white ramp (it’s there zones on a disk can repel their neighbors. One now) when not in use.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 25 GETTING BACKTO REVISITING THE 1914 SURVEY OF CALIFORNIA WILDLIFE by Erica Spotswood NATURE

In the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), director Craig Moritz walks to a row of cabinets and pulls out a shelf. Inside lie rows of chipmunks, carefully stuffed and labeled, with a tiny skull sealed in a glass jar next to each. To the untrained observer, they look like replicas of the same species. To Moritz, they tell a story that crosses the boundaries of both space and time. These specimens are part of a unique biological survey project launched by Joseph Grinnell, the museum’s ﬁrst director, in 1908. The Grinnell survey, which lasted over 30 years, covered over 700 locations spanning the state of California. The resulting database, encompassing over 20,000 specimens, 13,000 pages of ﬁeld notes, and 2,000 photographs, represents one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in the world.

Photo by AdamAdam LeachéLeaché

26 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 Moritz must have known he was stepping distribution of vertebrates to the impacts of cli- those of the biologists of the 1940s, who developed onto the shoulders of giants when he began his mate change to the developing patterns of genetic the notion that differences between species are position as director in April 2001. Looking for diversity. Because the original database is so com- driven by ecological and geographical barriers. background information on the history of the plete, it is providing a rare opportunity for mod- The result of this philosophy was a one- museum, he was given Grinnell’s Philosophy of ern researchers to get a glimpse into the past, to of-a-kind collection. “There are lots of specimen Nature, a compilation of writings published by his examine the present, and to predict the future. collections in the world, but what is missing from predecessor in the late 1940s. In the book, Grin- them is the Grinnell philosophy and the meth- nell predicts that the real value of his field work Remembrance of Things Past ods he used,” Patton explains. “He went out and “will not be realized until the lapse of many years, On October 28, 1907, benefactor and avid looked at organisms in a controlled way rather possibly a century.” Excited by the idea of using naturalist Annie Montague Alexander wrote a than haphazardly saying ‘we don’t have any speci- the museum centennial to complete Grinnell’s letter to the UC Berkeley president proposing mens from location X so let’s go out and get prophecy, Moritz began to think about returning $7,000 towards the running of a museum dedi- some.’ There is an ecological and conceptual to the original sites to see how the ecological cated exclusively to the mammals, birds, and rep- framework that underlies all of the localities that communities had changed over the years. tiles of the west coast. All the University had to were visited.” Grinnell also developed a method for do was come up with the means to construct a recording information (the Grinnell field note sys- building complete with electric light and heat. And tem) that is still used around the world to this day. Because the original database so the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology was born. The resurvey team is attempting to adhere is so complete, it is providing a rare opportuinity for modern Joseph Grinnell, who was its first director as closely as possible to Grinnell’s original meth- researchers to get a glimpse from 1908 until his death in 1939, was not sim- odology. First, they must find the exact location into the past. ply concerned about collecting specimens for the where a given survey was conducted. In some museum. His goal was to understand how spe- cases, this is easy. A description of the site plus What followed was the development of the cies and communities were distributed across a point on a topographic map was sufficient for Grinnell resurvey project, begun in 2002 in Yo- space and across ecological gradients within the Jim Patton to find the exact slope in Lyell canyon semite. After three summers of intensive field- state. According to Jim Patton, Professor Emeri- where Grinnell set his traps. Where precise infor- work and collaboration between the National tus and curator of mammals, “He was looking at mation is missing, or where changes in land use Park Service, the MVZ, and the U.S. Geological geographic variation and change of characters in have rendered a resurvey at a location irrelevant, Survey, the resurvey team has revisited all of the space and time. He wanted to understand the things are more complicated. For example, the original 42 sites. Armed with the detailed infor- kinds of factors that might influence local ad- original trapping location at one site now sits in mation from the past provided by the original aptation and … variation among individuals and the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. Instead of trapping survey and the newly collected data from the re- within populations.” These ideas were unique at next to the dumpster, a comparable site nearby survey, a diverse group of contemporary Berkeley the time because they called into question the ac- with similar vegetation in a similar habitat was scientists is using the Grinnell collection to study cepted notion that species are static and unchang- chosen in its place. a series of interrelated issues—from the changing ing. Grinnell’s ideas were more contemporary with Once the location is determined, a camp-

The Grinnell resurvey project began in 2002 here in Chipmunks enjoy some of the benefits of acupunc- Each mouse specimen is carefully labeled with in- picturesque Yosemite. Researchers have spent the ture while awaiting transfer to the Museum of Ver- formation on where and when it was collected. past three summers collecting specimens and re- tebrate Zoology where they will join the rest of the Skulls, useful to taxonomists for identifying closely canvassing the original Grinnell sites. Grinnell collection. related species, are preserved in small glass jars.

Photo byAdam Adam Leaché Leaché Photo by Erica Spotswood

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 27 28 FEATURE Back to Nature B there andnotsimply becauseitwasnotfound. absence ofthatspecieswasbecauseitnot (or viceversa), onemust beabletoshow thatthe a speciesispresent where itdidnotexistbefore order toprove beyond allreasonable doubtthat verifying thesechangesisnosmallfeat though. In between thetwo timeperiods. Documentingand catalog thedifferences invertebratecommunities ated withtheMVZisnow working toanalyze and surveys of Yosemite, asmallarmy ofpeopleassoci- seen over aseven minute periodare recorded. locations, calledpointcounts, allbirds heard or only atspecificpointsalongtheway. At these path, asGrinnelldid, butnow birds are surveyed modified slightly. The surveyors stillwalkalonga cies. Current bird survey methodshave alsobeen the skullisusedinidentifyingclosely related spe- of hittingitonthehead. Valuable totaxonomists, ed theskullby breaking ananimal’s neckinstead vey. Namedfor itsnichemarket, thetrap protect- for mostofthesmallmammalsinoriginalsur- lethal trap calledthe “museum special”wasused traps are usedintheresurvey, whereas asmall current distributions. data collectedby theparktoinform themabout shooting them), thoughthey have madeuseof larger, rarer, andmore difficulttotrap without does notsurvey for carnivores (whichare usually best, outsideofit. As aresult, theresurvey team impossible insidethepark, andimpractical, at Grinnell’s teamshotanimals—somethingthat’s cisely themethodsGrinnellused. For onething, four days. Here, too, itisimpossibletomimicpre- site ischosencloseby andtraps are setoutfor Survey Says… ERKELEY Equipped withvolumes ofdatafrom thetwo The traps they useare different aswell. Live S CIENCE R EVIEW S PRING 2006 the fieldnotes. swered by hiringsomeonetopore through allof now though, eachquestionasked canonly bean- field notesortoconvert themallintotext. For develop software torecognize key words inthe to make thissimpler, andthey are working to looking through eachentry. The museum wants to search thisdatabase, otherthan, ofcourse, by MVZ webpage, butthere iscurrently noeasyway and available for anyone toview onlineviathe specimen collection. The fieldnotesare scanned information existsinthefieldnotesthan difficult thanexpected. Roughly three timesmore during theoriginalsurvey hasalsoproved more isn’t there andthatyou didn’t justmissit.” trap it, you canbemore confidentthatittruly trapped animal. Ifyou thengo toaplaceanddon’t line, every night, you getanideathatitiseasily “If ananimalwasalways trapped onevery trap Chris Conroy explainsthatby usingthismethod, ateachsite.animals observed Mammalcurator by lookingatthetotalnumber ofsitesandthe build modelsofhow “trappable” eachspeciesis ronmental Science, Policy, andManagementto Steve Beissingerfrom ofEnvi- theDepartment really notthere ifyou can’t findit? it wasthere. Buthow doyou prove somethingis identify it(andaspecimentoprove it), you know cies isfound andyou have agood taxonomistto The presences are more straightforward. Ifaspe- In somecases, thishasbeenworththeef- Determining whatwastrapped andwhen Moritz isworking withpopulationbiologist Photo byAdamLeaché something isreally notthere But how doyouprove if you can’t findit? you can’t if shadow chipmunk ( common have contractedtheirranges. One, the species ofsmallmammalswhichwere formerly ranges upward inelevation intothepark. Four originally found intheparkhave expandedtheir ranges ofupto2,000meters. Four speciesnot species have shown ashiftintheiraltitudinal moving around insomesurprisingways. Several database shows thatsmallmammalshave been on every trap linebetween 1910and1925. The of fieldnotesrecording every mammalcaught ology, spentayear siftingthrough 13,000pages fort. Juan Para, aPhDstudentinintegrative bi- been found below 9,500feet. as 7,800feet. Farlessnumerous today, neitherhas pika were formerly commonatelevations aslow Likewise, thealpinechipmunk andthe American est preferred habitatofpiñonpinesandjunipers. mouse hasbeentrapped milesfrom theitsnear- elevation atlocationsashigh10,200feet, the into thepark?Now found 2,000metershigherin example, hasthepiñonmouseexpandeditsrange which nosuchexplanationcanbefound. Why, for canopy density. Butthere are otherspeciesin plain whenoneconsiderstheincrease inforest Golden MantledGround Squirrel, are easytoex- that are openwithdappled sunlight, suchasthe dance ofsmallmammalsthatprefer forest floors meadows. Corresponding decreases intheabun- encroachment oftrees intowhatwere once marked increases intree density, aswell assome taken duringtheoriginalGrinnellsurvey show Comparing current photographs withthose has aggressively suppressed fires insidethepark. the mid20thcentury, theNationalParkService es inspeciesdistributionare related tofire. Since non-existent. commontovirtually being very In somecases, thereasons for thesechang- Photo byAdamLeaché Tamias senex

), hasgone from Photo b b y JimPatton Morgan Tingley have beentakingtheopportunity PhD candidatesBillMonahan, Juan Parra, and climate changeover timeinsteadofacross space. tunity todotheopposite—lookateffects of practice, nature isnever sosimple. the locationsdiffer inclimate, andnothingelse. In the sameperiodoftime. The assumptionisthat must lookatchangesacross many locationsduring the climatehaswarmed. To getaround this, models cannot directly testhow specieshave moved as tion datafrom multiple timeperiodsandtherefore tologists donothave accesstospeciesdistribu- develop speciesdistributionmodels. Mostclima- been usingclimatedatafrom theearly 1900sto change onthesurvey species, researchers have declines inabund change may factorinfluencingthe beanimportant different bird numbers. Thus similarevidence across thevery ally, several highelevation speciesare decliningin al warmingcouldbetheexplanation. Addition- land in. Earlierice-outdatesassociatedwithglob- These birds lookfor lakes thatare free oficeto now found breeding inthehighlakes of Yosemite. the park. Birds suchasthebluewingedtealare ing, bird diversity appears tobeincreasing inside to whatthemammalresearchers have beenfind- thisidea.line ofevidence thatsupports Contrary linked toglobalclimatechange. There isanother ers fear thatthesechangesinelevation couldbe specimens from thesurvey. AmapofLyell Canyon of Vertebrate Zoology, makes anewfriend. Field emeritus andcurator ofmammals attheMuseum Facing page, toright:JimPatton, from left professor Movin’ OnUp The Grinnellproject offers arare oppor- To exploretheimpactsofclimate further Moritz, Patton, andtheircrew ofresearch- and mammal taxa suggest that climate and mammaltaxasuggestthatclimate ance ofhighelevation species. Photo byAdamLeaché mate changecantherefore beisolatedandinves- change inthepast100years. The effects ofcli- to have experiencedtheleastamountoflanduse areas are thoseinCalifornia that are mostlikely interest for several reasons. First, highelevation nal shift. Itisimpressively clear.” its distributionnow, you actually seethisaltitudi- Grinnell climateanddistributionthenpredict accurate. “If you modelitsdistributionbasedon tions for thealpinechipmunk, whathe saw was adds. ButwhenJimPattonlooked atthepredic- while for others, themodeldidahorrible job,” he “For somespecies, themodeldidreally well future. What they have donesofarispreliminary. precisely predict how specieswillchangeinthe their accuracy, whichcanthenbeusedtomore totrainthemodelsandincreasean opportunity original Grinnellsurvey findings. past climate, whichcanthenbecompared tothe used topredict pastspeciesdistributionbasedon ally finds. Likewise, current climatemodelscanbe tions matchupwithwhatthesurvey teamactu- Then, thecurrent survey willshow iftheirpredic- era topredict speciesdistributioninthepresent. to useclimatemodelscreated from theGrinnell- policy management, sifts through management,sifts pagesofjournal policy bige, aPh.D. studentinenvironmental science and Patton sexes EmilyRu- Right: ashadow chipmunk. from Grinnell’s originalnotes. Thispage, Jim left: nothing else. In practice, nature Inpractice, nothing else. and inclimate, locations differ The assumptionisthatthe The highelevation speciesare ofparticular As Monahanexplains, theproject provides is never sosimple. of these observed trends.of theseobserved hope toshedmore lightonthepotentialcauses completion ofthecurrent resurvey project can an explanation. research Only further andthe of thestudyspeciestorulecompetitionoutas has notlooked closely enoughatthebehavior difficult tomeasure. The Grinnellresurvey team population—a good hypothesis, butonethatis es like food couldbethecauseofshiftsin competition between speciesfor similarresourc- worldwide phenomenon. It’s alsopossiblethat known nottochange—sinceclimatechangeisa of agood control—a placewhere theclimateis to blame. Onehurdle inthisresearch isthelack be abletosay ifclimatechangeis withcertainty needs tobedonebefore theGrinnellteamwill in mammaldistributionsdoexist, andmore work because they move around somuch faster. be visiblemuch soonerinanimalsthanplants leading totheirextinction. These patternsshould these speciesare predicted toshrink, eventually begin with, astheclimatewarms, thehabitatsof climate change. Restrictedtohighelevations to to containspeciesthatare more vulnerableto predicted bothtoexperiencemore warmingand tigated alone. Second, thehighelevation areas are photographs. of over 13,000pagesoffieldnotesand over 2,000 TheoriginalGrinnelldatabaseconsists articles. California,northern easttotheNevada border. of theproject, whichextendsfrom RedBluffin team’s list. Work willbeginthisspringonpart completed, LassenNationalParkisnextonthe What theFuture Holds Other explanationsfor thealtitudinalshifts With theresurvey of Yosemite largely B ERKELEY S CIENCE R EVIEW S Photo byEricaSpotswood PRING 2006 29 FEATURE Back to Nature 30 FEATURE Back to Nature B E world inthefuture. ties are changing, andwillcontinue tochange, that be abletosneakapeekintohow humanactivi- Grinnell dataandtheresurvey team’s effort, we’ll emerging. It’s abigworld outthere, andwiththe or disproving thepatternsthey have beguntosee build onwhatthey learnedin Yosemite, verifying in theprocess. More importantly, they hopeto will go, theteamwilllearnalotabouthistory is any indicationofhow therest oftheproject precise locationswere never defined. Ifhiswork ish rancheros thatnolongerexistandwhose tle ranchesowned through landgrantsby Span- across rivers thatnow have bridges, andgiantcat- abandoned, ferriespeople thatusedtotransport changed, railroads thathave beenbuiltandthen towns thathave disappeared, namesthathave has hadtocontendwithquiteafew obstacles: managed tolocatemany ofthesites, thoughhe historical landtenure documents, Perrine has historical sleuthing. it wasin Yosemite andhastaken agreat dealof surveyed hasproved much more difficultthan stages. Findingthesiteswhere Grinnelloriginally working for thelastfive monthsintheplanning Post-doctoral fellow John Perrine hasbeen html mvz.berkeley.edu/Grinnell/index. Check out: Want toknow more? policy, andmanagement. RICA ERKELEY S Digging through oldmaps, taxrecords, and POTSWOOD S CIENCE is agraduate studentinenvironmental science, R EVIEW S PRING 2006 tions 100years ago.” ask populationgeneticquestionsaboutpopula- use toisexciting lookatchanges. to It beableto tered inthe1900s, itisabaselinethatwe can though theenvironment obviously wasn’t unal- we don’t whatthingswere know likebefore. Al- biologists facebig problems isthat conservation latter hypothesis. As sheexplains, “One ofthe munk haslostgeneticdiversity, suggestingthe results suggestthatthealpinechip- preliminary genetically diverse thantheoriginal. Rubidge’s thecurrentwould populationto expect beless onelower elevationpopulationwent extinct, Alternatively, whenthe iftherangecontracted range.of geneticdiversity withinthecontracted they would have maintainedthesamedegree moved that upinelevation,onemightexpect anentirepool. populationofalpinechipmunks If to bereflectedis expected inthepresent gene diversity between thetwo timeperiods. has beenanoverall changeinthetotal genetic variability, shewillbeableto determine ifthere atasetofgeneticmarkerstoLooking determine compare themto theresurveyed collection. to DNA from oldmuseumskins for extracting icy, isusingnewtechniques andManagement, ofEnvironmental Science,the Department Pol- ern populations. EmilyRubidge, PhDstudentin tribution have influenced thegeneticsofmod- to studyhow changesindis- a rare opportunity wherethe locality theywere provides collected from 100years agowithprecise information on changing aswell. Access to museumspecimens netic diversity ofmammalpopulationsmay be Genes from Drawers: The way inwhichaspecieshasdeclined indistribution,thege- additionto shifts In Photo byChrisConroy some oftheoriginals backintheMuseum. the campsites. Below right:EmilyRubigeworks with Researchers prepare specimensatoneof collected original team shown here inthefield. Below left: Above Bottom: Brokeback Survey. Grinnellandhis be stored here intheMuseumof Vertebrate Zoology. Above: Boththeoriginal andthenewspecimenswill Photos byEricaSpotswood Photo byEricaSpotswood In the matter of

Berkeley v. Berkeley Berkeley vs.

by Michelangelo D’Agostino FEATURE Stepping into the Valley Life Sciences Building can be like taking a the library along with other resources for students who might be inter- walk back in geological time. Archaeopteryx—one of the pit stops on ested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually the evolutionary road from birds to dinosaurs—greets the visitor from involves.” a large glass case, its death throes immortalized in a limestone block. That December, eleven Dover parents filed a lawsuit in federal Further on, Pteranodon swoops in low over T. Rex, majestically holding court against the school board, alleging that the statement amounted to sway over the entrance to the UC Museum of Paleontology. an unconstitutional state sanctioning of religion. For six weeks last fall, A quick trip up three flights of stairs and a more familiar realm Judge John E. Jones III patiently presided over the scientific, philo- again emerges: long, austere hallways filled with offices and labs and sophical, and legal arguments in what came to be known as Kitzmiller et research posters. But while the evolutionary trip from the Jurassic to the al. v. Dover Area School District. present day may have been just as quick and easy from the perspective But while quiet Dover is several time-zones and several states of of Mother Nature, it only takes a glance at the clippings on the office mind away from “ultra-liberal” Berkeley, the case hit much closer to door of Kevin Padian, Professor of Integrative Biology and Curator home than many would have expected. Padian wasn’t the only Berkeley of the Museum of Paleontology, for a reminder that, from the human figure in the trial. Arrayed on the other side were an emeritus Profes- perspective, the journey has been littered with endless controversy, sor of Law and a former Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory post-doctoral politicking, and rancor. Articles on the “merits” of teaching different researcher. Though not physically present in Dover or formally involved viewpoints in science. A Bruce Springsteen quote from the pages of in the trial, their words and actions cast long shadows in its tran- Esquire: “Dover, PA—they’re not sure about evolution. Here in New scripts. In the cultural landscape of intelligent design, the fault lines Jersey, we’re countin’ on it.” run through some unexpected places. Like Escher’s drawing of a hand And perhaps most significant, a small sticker with a drawing sketching a second hand which, in turn, reaches around and sketches of Charles Darwin that reads “Charles Darwin, 5’11”, 163 lb., has a the first, Berkeley both shapes the culture around it and is a reflection posse.” Padian, a staunch defender of evolution and president of the of that same culture. National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a public interest group that supports the teaching of evolution in public schools, is surely part Darwin’s Golden Bear of that posse. It was in this capacity that he testified as one of the two Padian is tall and lanky and, from a distance, where his shock scientific expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in the landmark trial over of grayish hair is less visible, easily mistakable for a graduate student the teaching of intelligent design that took place this past autumn in half his age. Soft-spoken and deliberate, he weighs his words carefully. Dover, Pennsylvania. Perhaps he’s learned from experience. He points to countless examples In October 2004, the Dover Area School Board voted to have of the anti-evolutionist strategy of “quote-mining”: using the out-of- ninth-grade biology teachers read their students a now infamous one- context words of scientists against them. This soft-spokenness, though, minute statement. Its intent was to make students “aware of gaps/prob- masks an intensity about science and how it’s presented in the public lems in Darwin’s theory and of other theories of evolution, including, sphere. but not limited to, intelligent design.” “Intelligent design,” the students Padian found himself traveling to Dover at the invitation of the would be told, “is an explanation of the origins of life that differs from plaintiffs’ lawyers. The NCSE and the legal team, consisting of repre- Darwin’s view. The reference bookOf Pandas and People is available in sentatives from Philadelphia firm Pepper Hamilton and the American

Photo by Charlie Emrich

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 31 ExaptExapt or DieDie OneOne ofof the most ppowerfulowerful scientificscientific weaweaponspons in the arsenal ofof evevo-o- lutionarylutionary biolobiologistsgists is the conceconceptpt ooff ““exaptation.”exaptation.” As Padian exexplainsplains iinn his trial brief, exaptation is the idea that “a structure that initially Berkeley vs. iiss developed in the service of one function may be modified to sserveerve a completely different function.” So it is that the bones which held the upper and lower jaws together in reptiles were later used to ttransmitransmit sousoundnd in tthehe mammalian middle earear.. FeaFeathersthers ininsulatedsulated certain small theropod dinosaurs and shaded their eggs before thetheyy

FEATURE became vital for the ﬂight of the birds that evolved from them. In this way, many of the features that the proponents of intelligent design claim are ““irreduciblyirreducibly comcomplex”plex” can be shown to have evolved in a sstep-by-steptep-by-step fashion.

Of Pandas and Professors Ironically enough, Padian wouldn’t have been called upon to de- liver impassioned defenses of evolution on a national stage without the work of another Berkeleyan—Philip Johnson, Professor of Law Emeritus at Boalt Hall and the widely recognized father of the intelligent design movement. Professor Johnson also serves as an advisor to the Discovery Illustration by Colin Purrington Institute, the Seattle based think-tank that has been the driving force behind intelligent design. Civil Liberties Union, crafted a two-pronged legal strategy. First, they set Johnson’s publication of the 1991 book Darwin on Trial is as out to show that the Dover school board, specifically, and the intelligent close to a birthday as the intelligent design cause has. “I approach the design movement, in general, acted with a particular religious intent in creation-evolution dispute not as a scientist but as a professor of law,” he mind: in speaking of a “designer,” they were really speaking of the Chris- writes in its first chapter, “which means among other things that I know tian God. Second, they wanted to show that the theory of intelligent something about the ways that words are used in arguments.” Johnson’s design has no standing at all within the scientific community. As a pale- intent was to bring his lawyerly skills to bear on the task of analyzing ontologist specializing in major adaptations in the history of vertebrates, the logic of and the assumptions behind Darwinism. The essence of his including the origins of flight and the evolution of birds from dinosaurs, argument was that the logical structure of the evolution debate is framed Padian was well-placed to show the successes of Darwinian evolution. in such a way as to favor evolution from the outset; scientists “have to Far from being the dry and clinical expert, Padian peppered his rely on a definition of science that does not permit an alternative to day-long testimony with af- naturalistic evolution.” Further- fectionate references to “crit- “ I think it makes people stupid.” more, he maintained that the ters” and “guys” and “Paleozoic evidence for the creative power of roadkill.” All kidding aside, much of Padian’s testimony was dedicated the Darwinian mechanism is scant at best. to a detailed, point-by-point criticism of Of Pandas and People, the intel- Two years later, Johnson organized a meeting at Pajaro Dunes near ligent design textbook that was to be made available to Dover students. Monterey to bring like-minded thinkers together. Its participants would He attacked its notion of “adaptational packages”—that species appear become the major public figures in intelligent design: Scott Minnich abruptly and intact in the fossil record, fish with fins and scales and and Michael Behe, who would testify on behalf of ID in Dover, Steven birds with wings and beaks—by showing that complex features can arise Meyer, who would direct the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science in a step-by-step fashion. And he pointed to examples from the fossil and Culture, and Jonathan Wells, who pursued a PhD in molecular and record where such transitions from one form to the other can actually be cell biology at Berkeley after becoming convinced that he “should devote observed. Overall, the effect of Pandas would be to mislead students, he [his] life to destroying Darwinism.” told the court. “What is a kid supposed to think when you tell him you Pandas, too, had its origins much closer to home. Dean Kenyon, can’t get from Point A to Point B and then evidence is uncovered that one of its two authors and another fellow at the Discovery Institute (and shows that, well, in fact, it looks pretty conceivable that you can?” a Pajaro Dunes participant), spent his career as a Professor of Biology at Padian ended his testimony with an impassioned plea. Asked why, San Francisco State University. His pedigree includes a stint on this side as a scientist, he has a problem with reading the one-minute statement of the Bay as well, though. After receiving his PhD in biophysics from to students, he replied: Stanford, Kenyon worked as an NSF post-doctoral fellow under Melvin Calvin at the Lawrence Radiation Lab (as Lawrence Berkeley National I think it makes people stupid. I think essentially it makes Laboratory was known in its early days). Calvin, one of Berkeley’s them ignorant. It confuses them unnecessarily about things that most renowned chemistry professors, was awarded the 1961 Nobel in are well understood in science, about which there is no controversy…I can do paleontology with people in Morocco, in Zim- chemistry for his work elucidating the chemical processes involved in babwe, in South Africa, in China, in India, any place around the photosynthesis. world…We don’t all share the same religious faith. We don’t share So while evolution was being taught to introductory biology classes the same philosophical outlook, but one thing is clear, and that and was guiding the research of countless professors in diverse depart- is when we sit down at the table and do science, we put the rest of the stuff behind. [see page 34 for more of the BSR’s interview ments around campus, up the hill at Boalt and across the Bay, the intel- with Padian] ligent design movement was taking shape.

32 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 SURVIVAL OF THE LITIGIOUS The university finds itself embroiled in legal battles over evolution and intelligent design on its own turf as well. In August, the Association of Christian Schools International and the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California filed suit against the UC, alleging religious bias in its high school course certification policies. All public and private schools in the state must apply to the UC for certification in order to have their courses counted as college-prep credits in the admissions process. While 43 courses from Calvary were approved, a handful were rejected because of their content or text book selection. The UC says it will not certify science Berkeley vs. classes that use overtly religious texts such as those from Bob Jones University Press. The introduction of one such biology text states that “the people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second.” The University is fighting the suit, maintaining that it has a right to set such standards and that the standards apply to everyone equally.

In October, a California couple brought another suit against the UC over “Understanding Evolution” FEATURE (evolution.berkeley.edu), a web site meant to serve as a resource for high school biology teachers on the topic of evolution. Jeanne and Larry Caldwell maintained that the site violates the separation of church and state by making the statement that religion and science are very different things and that one need not make a “choice” between the two (the site features a cartoon of a labcoat-clad, fossil-hugging scientist shaking hands with a Bible- toting priest). By linking to an NCSE site that features quotes from particular religions that state that evolution is not incompatible with religion, the public UC is also using federal money to promote these particular religious views over others. The suit was dismissed in March when a federal judge ruled that the couple lacked legal standing to sue in federal court. Reprinted by permission of evolution.berkeley.edu

Boalt From Above the Santorum Amendment, a “teach the controversy” amendment to No Nothing about Johnson’s white hair and grandfatherly demeanor Child Left Behind proposed by Republican Senator Rick Santorum of suggest that he would spark a national controversy. He sits in his third- Pennsylvania but ultimately dropped in the final bill. Johnson told the floor Boalt Hall office surrounded by books and papers, the very picture Washington Times that he himself “helped frame the language” of that of a welcoming, open-minded intellectual. A stuffed gorilla wearing a suit and smoking a cigar sits on his desk (a gift from some students, While supernatural explanations he laughs). He smiles and quips that he wouldn’t mind being related may be important, and have merit, to gorillas; after all, a handful of dust is not necessarily a more noble they are not a part of science. beginning. “I considered [Dover] a loser from the start,” Johnson begins. amendment. In addition, Johnson was one of the main architects of the “Where you have a board writing a statement and telling the teachers to Discovery Institute’s Wedge Document. In that document, he outlined repeat it to the class, I thought that was a very bad idea.” The jaw drops a strategy that would act as a wedge to split the tree of cultural and further when he continues: scientific materialism. Perhaps he’s had a change of heart, and his position truly has I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent evolved in a more apolitical direction. It’s clear that Johnson genuinely design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might believes what he writes and espouses. And it’s hard to doubt that he contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design has a burning intellectual interest in the fundamentals of evolution and theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job design. But it’s also hard to doubt that he’s helped to further intelligent of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for design in the public realm, whether through his writing, his organiza- them to prove…No product is ready for competition in the edu- tional skills, or his work with the Discovery Institute. His attitude has cational world. the flavor of the old Billy Joel tune: “We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world’s been turning.” But surely Philip Johnson Throughout the interview, Johnson maintains that his interest in helped to start the fire. Darwinism is purely intellectual rather than political: “The key question to me is not what happens in a particular federal district court, but whether or not that claim is correct.” Politics only hurts this search for the truth. When President Bush came out in favor of teaching both sides of the debate, Johnson had mixed feelings. “I’m glad to see the idea that there’s something to discuss here get further off the ground, but the fact that it was Bush who said it put the issue into the red state blue state political mix…I was more dismayed than elated to see the thing surface in the context of our political divide.” [see page 34 for more of the BSR’s interview with Johnson] It’s difficult to tell if Johnson is being completely forthright about Photo by Charlie Emrich wanting to stay out of politics and the public schools. In the past, It Ain’t Over ‘Til… Johnson has certainly put considerable effort towards injecting intel- And so the stage was set for Dover. After six weeks of delib- ligent design into the public realm. In 2002, he told the Berkeley Science eration, Judge Jones delivered a strongly-worded decision, ruling for the Review that “where controversial subjects like biological evolution are plaintiffs and holding that the Board’s actions had clearly violated the taught, educators should teach the controversy, preparing students to be separation of church and state. Padian’s testimony featured prominently informed participants in public debates.” As an example, he pointed to in the decision, as did the words and actions of Johnson and Kenyon,

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 33 THE BSR SITS DOWN WITH PHILIP JOHNSON AND KEVIN PADIAN Professor of Integrative Biology Kevin Padian testiﬁed in defense of evolution in Dover. Philip Johnson, Professor of Law Emeritus at Boalt Hall, is the widely-recognized father of intelligent design.

Berkeley vs. In the aftermath of the Dover decision, they both sat down to talk with the Berkeley Science Review.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW: BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW: What was your reaction to the After the Dover decision, do

FEATURE Dover decision? you think there will still be momentum for changing curricula PHILIP JOHNSON: The key to “teach the controversy” question to me is not what without insisting on a particular happens in a particular federal alternative, as the Dover school district court, but whether or board tried to do? not that claim is correct. So, if it’s not correct, if random KEVIN PADIAN: Yes. That will mutations and differential sur- continue to be well-funded, vival really can take a bacterium whether it’s through the Dis-

through all the changes that are necessary upward through the tree of life to covery Institute’s “Center for Science Illustrations by Rachel Eachus end in you and me, then we certainly…ought to vanish from the scene. But and Culture,” or whatever they’re calling it this week. There will always be what really convinced me that there’s something here was the need that the money around to fund people like this. There will always be a place for it in Darwinist’s have to rely on a definition of science that does not permit an the fundamentalist community. But their influence on mainstream culture is alternative to naturalistic evolution. That seems to me a very unsatisfactory done. way of resolving the issue. My own contribution to the movement, seminal though it may have been, BSR: Do you think in the past that the mainstream media has had a role in in Darwin on Trial, was simply to argue that the Darwinian mechanism has no the success the intelligent design movement had, that they took their claims demonstrable creative power, much less the creative power needed to do all more seriously than they should have been taken? the innovation that has appeared in the history of life. So that’s my position. KP: Yes and no. In this country when someone talks about fairness, we all BSR: So you think that Dover was the wrong battle to try to fight? put down our guns and listen. Because to the American people fairness is one of the cardinal virtues, and we do think that people have a right to their PJ: Oh yes it was. And my friends and I argued that they shouldn’t have done opinions. We do believe very strongly in religious freedom. But there are times that, and that having done that, they should have withdrawn the policy to moot when certain people take advantage of this by warping what is actually going on. the case. interviewsinterviews continuedcontinued on page 

though they were not physically present in the courtroom. “The decision made a lot of things easier for the American public,” he evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny continues. “He drew the line that scholars and educators asked him of creationism,” Judge Jones wrote. But he went even further. Asked by to draw. He didn’t muddy the line like the fundamentalists asked him both sides to address the fundamental question of whether or not intel- to do. For Phil Johnson and the Discovery Institute, the fat lady has ligent design is science, he wrote: sung…No one who can fog a mirror intellectually can have any more illusions that this drivel should be taken seriously as science, or even as While supernatural explanations may be important and social studies.” have merit, they are not part of science…While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by For his part, Johnson agrees: “I think the fat lady has sung for any scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scien- efforts to change the approach in the public schools…the courts are tific process or as a scientific theory…ID is not science and can- just not going to allow it. They never have. The efforts to change things not be judged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, in the public schools generate more powerful opposition than accom- and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is plish anything…I don’t think that means the end of the issue at all.” grounded in theology, not science. “In some respects,” he later goes on, “I’m almost relieved, and Science cannot be defined differently for Dover students than it is defined in the scientific community as an affirmative ac- glad. I think the issue is properly settled. It’s clear to me now that the tion program…for a view that has been unable to gain a foothold public schools are not going to change their line in my lifetime. That in the scientific establishment. isn’t to me where the action really is and ought to be.” Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their pre- Whether Dover really was the swan song of intelligent design supposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in remains to be seen. Either way, the decision has dealt a serious blow to the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. the cause. The movement that Phil Johnson started may just have run aground on the rocks of Padian’s testimony. Or rather on the fossils in For Padian, the decision represents an incredible victory: “Not a the rocks of Padian’s testimony. single sentence of the judge’s decision would give comfort to the ID crowd. We don’t see how it could have been any better.” “The judge’s Michelangelo D’Agostino is a graduate student in physics.

34 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 Johnson interview cont’d: Padian interview cont’d:

BSR: Where do you think things thing.” There were specific things And these guys are warping their more about God and less about will go from here? in the record…that convinced me presentation of science in both the materialism, as long as they don’t that it was a loser and that made it actually have to give anything up. evidence and the methods and the Berkeley vs. PJ: I think that the issue will con- quite easy for him to give judgment You can always demonize someone tinue to be debated in the public for the plaintiffs. I’m not at all com- philosophy of science… who is not you, and that’s ex- forum. In the United States, it’s no plaining that he did that. When you And this is something that it takes actly what the Discovery Institute secret that the overwhelming ma- have members of the school board ordinary people a while to find out, people have done. They’ve demon- jority of people are unconvinced by saying things like we ought to stand and for good reason, because sci- ized scientists, they’ve demonized the Darwinian claims. Only about up for Jesus because he died for us, ence is a world of jargon and very the practice of science, they’ve FEATURE 10 percent of the American pubic that’s really asking for it. Even so, arcane and abstruse knowledge deliberately tried to create a big is convinced of the fundamental the thing is not what anybody’s mo- that scientists make very little tent of people who disagree with Darwinian claim that mankind and tive is, but how good the evidence attempt to make palatable and each other on nearly everything, all other living things on the earth is. The issue over Darwinism in the interesting to ordinary people. We the other creationists, older cre- were produced by a process of ran- public and university world does could do it, we just don’t place a ationists, fundamentalists, moderate dom mutation and natural selection not hinge on what the motives are premium on it, and that’s our fault. evangelicals. as the textbooks say in which God for anybody proposing or oppos- played no part, the creator played ing the claims of the Darwinian BSR: Why do you think it is that BSR: What’s your personal opin- no part. The other 90 percent mechanism. evolution gets such a visceral reac- ion on the co-existence of science would be divided between outright tion from people? A lot of things and religion in general? It seems creationists…and then those who BSR: Do you think that you scien- about cosmology and astrophysics like there must be another group say there was a process of evolu- tists and philosophers are going to seem like they could similarly shake of religious people in this country tion…which was God-guided. keep trying to work on this issue? people’s worldviews. who wouldn’t call themselves fundamentalists who don’t have a KP: Because they don’t under- problem with science… When you have members of the school stand it. They don’t understand board saying things like we ought to stand the first thing about relativity. If KP Fundamentalists can’t co-exist up for Jesus because he died for us, that’s you tell them that the universe is with anyone. I mean that’s just it. 15 billion years old they go “Oh” They can’t coexist with anyone. really asking for it. - Johnson and they don’t have to deal with it Particularly not other fundamental- anymore. And in fact there are a lot ists. To them, everyone is an enemy. of physicists who as you know are BSR: What do you think about the PJ: Yes. They do. In fact, I get email very much engaged in cosmological BSR: It seems like on both sides organizations and think tanks that every week from graduate students. metaphysical questions, many of there’s a little bit of demonizing are pushing this as a political issue which have completely non-scien- of the other side. Do you think rather than as an intellectual issue? BSR: Would you say that Berkeley tific dimensions that they take very scientists share some of the blame Do you think the debate should has been an open and hospitable seriously. But the problem here is at all? just stay within universities and the place in your experience? that once we start talking about academe? how life changes through time KP: Well, scientists really don’t go PJ:: They put up with me all these it’s getting closer to everybody’s out in the world talking about how PJ:: Well that’s always the way I had years. I would say Berkeley has backyard. And people don’t want stupid religion is. It isn’t that they thought of it. Now, I have to confess been open in my experience, as a to hear that they are animals, that couldn’t, it’s just that they don’t. to some guilt here myself, because I whole. Some people at Berkeley are they are mammals. They don’t want When pressed, you’ll get people have talked about the moral conse- not. People whose livelihood is all to hear what they share with a like Richard Dawkins, who’ll say quences or cultural consequences mixed up in conventional evolution gorilla. that it’s just superstition and all of of Darwinism, and I mean that as a or biology tend to get quite angry the claims it makes for its good reason for saying, well this is impor- and don’t want anything heard BSR: What does it say about us works and uplifting effects are just tant, so we have to really be sure about it. I would say the Berkeley as a country that ID has made this balderdash, and he can point to that what we’re saying is science is campus on the whole…it would headway? evidence for this. This is nothing really backed by powerful evidence. surprise many people how open it new. And no, I don’t think it’s the And I would say that the claims for is and has been. Even people who KP: That’s a good question. I think scientists’ fault about that. I think the creative powers of mutation are quite conventional in their Dar- it’s made this headway because it the scientists are at fault for not and selection are not backed by winist beliefs themselves will often was carefully crafted as a socio- explaining our disciplines more powerful evidence. think that it’s a good idea for the political movement. A cultural clearly to the public so that they students to hear something that movement that wanted to get a can’t be misconstrued. If our level BSR: Do you think Judge Jones contradicts the official story. So yes, materialist view of life replaced of scientific literacy were higher overstepped his judicial role? I’m quite approving of Berkeley on by a particular Christian theistic in this country we might not have the whole. worldview. This is exactly what this problem. But you see, these PJ:: I would say so, yes. I wouldn’t the Discovery Institute says in people have been working for 85 say that that necessarily means the its wedge document, its mission years so that we don’t even get to judgement’s going to be reversed. It statement. teach this. probably doesn’t. He plainly decided to join the cultural war, the cultural BSR: But in some sense there battle, and say, “I’m gonna settle this must have been fertile ground for it…

KP: Well, you never go broke in this country asking people to think

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 35 IP: Ideas for Purchase? by Heidi Ledford

1965: Touchdown for the Gators The Myth of the Cash Cow Once upon a time, a college football team sweated their way through practice in the searing heat of central Florida. Their coach was For a dry piece of intellectual property legislation, the Bayh-Dole Act has been the subject of a surprising number of barnyard metaphors. Whether worried. His team, the University of Florida’s “Fighting Gators,” lost pro- a “cash cow” or a “golden goose”, the meaning is clear: royalty revenue from digious amounts of weight during practice. Trips to the hospital for heat university patent licenses is a gift that keeps on giving. exhaustion were common. The coach consulted a couple of university But in reality, most technology transfer offices are hardly raking in kidney specialists who performed the necessary tests, enlightened the money. Although there are the occasional blockbuster patents such as UC San coach about perspiration, and concocted a beverage that could both re- Francisco’s hepatitis B vaccine (worth $20 million yearly) or even UC Davis’s hydrate and restore electrolytic harmony. Gatorade was born. Camarosa strawberry hybrid ($3 million per year), those moneymakers lie well outside of the norm, according to a survey conducted by the Association of University Technology Managers. Of the 27,322 cumulative active licenses in 2004, only 167, or 0.6%, generated more than $1 million in royalty income. Furthermore, universities and federal research institutions reported an average licensing income of just over $7 million per institution in 2004, with half of the 196 university respondents pulling in less than $1 million. An individual million-dollar paycheck seems great, but overhead expenses and salaries for the average four licensing experts and four administrative support staffers per technology transfer office reduce net revenue considerably. “The cost of these offices is high,” says Haas Business School Professor David Mowery, who adds that many universities are actually losing money. So why bother? Because these collaborations between academia and industry have rewards that go beyond direct royalty revenue. Mowery believes it’s important to keep this in mind during Proposition 71 discussions. Rather than demanding large royalties for their patents, the state should do what it ttakesakes to stimulatestimulate industryindustry investment, hehe says. “Net“Net licensinglicensing revenues fromfrom PProprop 71 patentspatents are likelylikely to bebe very modest,”modest,” says Mowery. “By comparison,comparison, ththee economic effectseffects ofof juicing thethe biotechbiotech industryindustry farfar outweighoutweigh income Over forty years later, Gatorade-drinking athletes now exert them-hem- ffromrom licensing.”licensing.” selves freely without fear of collapse. The University of Florida receivesves $9

million a year in trademark royalties from PepsiCo, Inc. According ttoo the

university, royalty money is reinvested in a wide range of research.h. As for those brave ﬁghting gators, the Gatorade-fueled team went on too win the Orange Bowl for the ﬁrst time in school history in 1967.

“It’s okay to make money.” On a clear day, the view from Dr. Carol Mimura’s tidy corner oofficeffice on the fifth floor of the PowerBar building in downtown Berkeley is sspec-pec- tacular. Mimura, UC Berkeley’s technology transfer guru, is pleasantt and

professional, laughing quietly at all the right moments and just occasion-asion-

ally letting frustration nudge the pitch of her voice a touch higher. WWhichhich

is what happens when she says the following: “There’s a perceptionn ththatat

we’re just out there to try to maximize revenue, which is just wrong wwe’ree’re a university.” The confusion is understandable. Mimura negotiates the shiftingg lilinene between university and industry, and she excels at maximizing revenue.enue. The profound bureaucracy that she tackles is implicit in her absurdlysurdly Illustration by Jennifer Bensadoun long official title, Assistant Vice Chancellor of the Office of Intellectualectual But Mimura says that her obligation to the university goes beyond mere Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA), which means thatat shshee moneymaking, and she’s backed that upup byby leading UC Berkeley’s“Berkeley’s“ brokers the licensing of patented technologies developed at UC Berkeley. socially responsible licensing program.” The idea behind the program is to In these deals, licensees often agree to pay royalties to the university in create licenses that encourage the development of technology that will exchange for access to a patented technology. Berkeley currently brings benefit developing nations. In some cases, that encouragement takes in $8-13 million a year in licensing revenues, and during Mimura’s two the form of royalty-free licenses; sometimes the licensee also agrees to years as Director of the Office of Technology Licensing, revenues have provide any resulting technology—for example, a malaria drug to increased by 150%. developing nations at the lowest possible cost.

36 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 The three-year-old program is currently the only one of its kind, but Mimura has recently been in discussions with other universities to explore ways of expanding UC Berkeley’s socially responsible licensing efforts. And in 2005, she was called before the state senate Subcommittee on Stem Cell Research Oversight to explain how such licensing policies could be extended to the transfer of technology resulting from California’s Proposition 71 stem cell research initiative. This outside interest indicates a general trend toward expanding the scope of technology licensing to incorporate the social mission of universities. “It’s okay to make money,” says Mimura, “It just shouldn’t be your main goal. We think there’s a role for the university to change the whole public dynamic of intellectual property.” At present, the public dynamic of university intellectual property is somewhat messy. Until 1980, the legend of Gatorade was the exception Photo courtesy of Yale University that proved the rule—discoveries made in academia rarely found their Yale Medical School administrators and Bristol-Myers Squibb officials way to the private sector, partly due to the bureaucratic labyrinth that at a ceremony celebrating their ongoing partnership. federally-funded researchers faced when trying to patent their inventions. The Bayh-Dole Act, penned in 1980 by Senators Birch Bayh (D-Indiana) sion of Bristol-Myers Squibb for permission to import generic forms of d4T. and Robert Dole (R-Kansas), aimed to facilitate technology transfer from Bristol-Myers Squibb told Doctors Without Borders to consult Yale, academia to industry by explicitly granting universities the right to patent which held the patent on d4T. Yale told Doctors Without Borders that inventions made with federal funding. The reasoning was clear—industry they would have to consult Bristol-Myers Squibb, which had an exclusive would benefit from the infusion of technology, universities would benefit license for the d4T patent. The terms of that license, said Yale, dictated from the royalties of their patents, and the public would benefit from the that only Bristol-Myers Squibb could decide whether generic forms of many fruits of marketable innovation. d4T could be imported. At that time, Yale was making $40 million a year The Bayh-Dole act has generally been credited with achieving each from d4T royalties. of those goals. As technology transfer offices sprouted in universities As the finger pointing continued, Yale students petitioned Yale to across the country, Google, nicotine patches, the chemotherapy drug relinquish its hold on the d4T patent in South Africa. They collected 600 Taxol, and others climbed down out of the ivory tower and into the signatures from the Yale community, and received an endorsement marketplace. The number of patent licenses originating from universities from Professor William Prusoff, d4T’s original inventor. Soon after the increased nearly ten-fold between 1979 and 1997, significantly higher mainstream press got hold of the story, Yale and Bristol-Myers Squibb than the two-fold increase in non-university patent applications during announced that they would not enforce their patent rights in South the same period. Attributing all of those achievements only to Bayh-Dole Africa, in effect allowing importation of generic d4T. is a common oversimplification, and the Bayh-Dole Act has consequently come to symbolize the economic power of university-industry collabora- Checks and Balances tions. “I have to be clear about this,” says M. A. Basit Khan, quickly lean- Unfortunately, the newfound collaboration between industry and ing forward in his seat at a table outside the Free Speech Movement Cafe. academia also ushered in an era of competing interest statements and “Our group is not entirely anti-pharma. We don’t think that’s a realistic material transfer agreements. Scientists began to complain about increased stance to take.” secrecy among colleagues trying to protect patent rights. Increased Khan, a second-year Berkeley undergraduate, is a member of Univer- alliances between industry and academia brought increased scrutiny sities for Access to Essential Medicines (UAEM), a multi-campus organiza- and skepticism from the press, and nowhere is that skepticism more tion born from the d4T student protests at Yale. UAEM has since grown intense than in the licensing of biomedical technology. One question bobs to include groups at over 25 universities in the United States and Canada. persistently to the surface: How is a university serving the public good Among the aspirations listed in UAEM’s Statement of Principles is to when it demands large royalties for promising pharmaceuticals? Even persuade universities to construct licensing agreements that will “facili- though much of that royalty money is funneled back into research, it is tate access in low- and middle-income countries to medicines and health always hard to justify a profit when lives are on the line. Gatorade was technologies originating in university research.” UAEM is understandably easy—no one is likely to accuse PepsiCo or the University of Florida of interested in UC Berkeley’s socially responsible licensing program, and harming public health by inflating the cost of Gatorade. Pharmaceuticals word of the program has passed from the Berkeley chapter of UAEM to are an entirely different story. other member organizations, some of which have brought the program to the attention of their local technology transfer offices. 2001: The Ties that Bind Although a socially responsible licensing program is clearly an op- With 20% of its population HIV positive, South Africa, like much portunity to give UC Berkeley a public relations boost, Khan believes that of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, was in the throes of a crisis. The most Mimura’s support of the program is not just a PR ploy. “She supports frequently prescribed AIDS drug on the market, a reverse transcriptase access as much as we do,” says Khan of Mimura. “She’s totally behind it. inhibitor called “d4T”, was produced by the pharmaceutical giant She’s taking a big risk.” Mimura’s liberal use of the phrase “moral impera- Bristol-Myers Squibb at a cost of $10 per day, per patient. With 50% of tive” supports Khan’s assessment of her sincerity. the country living below the poverty line, the price was simply too high. In Eva Harris, an associate professor at the School of Public Health, didn’t December of 2000, Doctors Without Borders asked the South African divi- expect such firm support when she approached Mimura at a picnic one

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 37 spring day in 2002. Harris wanted to warn Mimura: she had just sent he says. “UC and Carol Mimura are making significant progress in the technology licensing office a proposal that they were not likely to thinking more clearly about the rewards and the costs of technology approve. Harris had just collaborated with a few electrical engineering licensing.” But while he supports the royalty-free licensing approach, students to develop a tool that could be used to rapidly diagnose dengue limitations on drug prices worry him. Cheap drugs in Africa could fever in the field. Now she had a problem. She wanted to be able to travel via the black market into more lucrative developed countries, he provide the technology to developing nations at the lowest possible cost, points out. but on the other hand she needed to patent the technology so that no Pharmaceutical companies share Mowery’s concerns. Giving up reve- one else would patent it and drive up the cost. In short, she needed a nue in developing nations is one thing, but possible intrusion into domestic royalty-free license. market revenue is another matter entirely. While that would not be likely Harris had a great idea, in the case of artiminisin, what about potential AIDS treatments? Mimura thought Mimura. UC Berkeley had and Mowery both cite the National Institute of Health’s past failed struggled in the past to license po- attempts to work “reasonable pricing” clauses into licensing agreements, tential malaria therapies, and she and both say those clauses drove away industry investment. saw Harris’s proposal as a way of Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science Project at the Center enticing industry interest in tech- for Science in the Public Interest, agrees that intellectual property nology that benefits developing discussions get a lot more heated when domestic markets are involved. In nations. Mimura was also troubled developing nations, he says, “the problem isn’t so much that intellectual by the recent Yale/d4T debacle. property stands in the way, it’s that the market for development just isn’t She had expected that the pros- there. Where intellectual property is much more interesting is in drugs pect of negative publicity would that go to the first world.” have prompted any corporation IPIRA does not have a lot of leverage—generating private invest- to act before landing on the front ment in university inventions is often an uphill struggle. “We rarely have page of the New York Times. “But anything that’s truly commercial,” says Mimura. Unlike Gatorade, most for some reason, they didn’t,” says inventions that come out of a university require a great deal of further in- Mimura. “The checks and balanc vestment before producing a marketable product. In particular, the phar- es we were counting on just maceutical industry points to the staggering expense of clinical trials and Associate Professor Eva Harris, whose royalty-free weren’t there. That caused us to the equally stunning failure rate of their candidate drugs. licensing proposal on a dengue think—if we had that deal, how Mimura says that IPIRA is currently testing the waters with potential fever diagnostic device kick- could we have prevented that partners in industry to find out what they are willing to accept. “We started UC Berkeley’s socially situation?” are looking for more carrots because the stick approach is hard and can responsible IP licensing Prompted by Harris’s propos- damage corporate relationships,” says Mimura. “It’s definitely going to be program. al, UC Berkeley brokered a deal a hard sell, but definitely worth the effort.” And while Mimura searches with the non-profit Sustainable Sciences Institute to provide the dengue for ways to ensure that developing nations can access vital medicines, diagnosis technology to developing nations without royalties, while re- one California state senator recently posed the question: Can we use serving the right to earn royalties from derivative technologies marketed to licensing to help the poor within our own country access the fruits of developed countries. Since that inaugural agreement, fifteen more socially university research as well? responsible deals have followed. One deal concerns a potential new AIDS drug; another aims to improve the nutritional content of sorghum, a staple 2006: Promises, Promises crop in Africa. No two contracts are identical—for example, definitions of As State Senator Deborah Ortiz nears her term limit, oversight of “developing nation” change from agreement to agreement. stem cell research ranks high on her list of priorities. In November of 2004, UC Berkeley isn’t giving up much revenue by offering royalty-free li- Californians passed Proposition 71, a measure that allots three billion censes on technologies to detect dengue fever or to treat malaria—both of dollars to stem cell research, after scientists and politicians promised that these diseases strike developing nations that lack the economic power to the money would come back to them in the form of a flourishing biotech generate large royalty payments. In the meantime, incorporating equal industry, patent royalties, and therapies that would save them from a access clauses into some licensing agreements has attracted research myriad of diseases. Eager to ensure that Californian taxpayers will get the money from charitable organizations. The most lucrative example of this promised returns on their investment, Ortiz called a hearing to discuss the is the recent research agreement between Jay Keasling’s lab in the Depart- best way to license technologies derived from Prop 71 money. “We would ment of Chemical Engineering, the nonprofit pharmaceutical company be remiss if we didn’t attempt to ensure that the issue of the ultimate Institute for OneWorld Health, and Amyris Biotechnologies, a for-profit accessibility and affordability of stem cell therapies and treatments rely- biotechnology start-up. The deal drew the interest of the Bill and Melinda ing on Prop 71-funded research is addressed,” she said. “That goal has Gates Foundation, which then contributed $42.6 million dollars to fund a not been addressed very well by the Bayh-Dole Act.” cheaper method for producing the anti-malaria drug artiminisin. Ensuring On October 31, 2005, assembled experts gave opinions that were that artiminisin would be provided to developing nations at the cost of all over the map. James Pooley, representing the Intellectual Property production and distribution was the key to getting that research money. Study Group of the California Council on Science and Technology, “Gates would not fund until we could guarantee access,” says Mimura. warned against straying too far from the Bayh-Dole model. Mimura pre- “I like to say that Eva Harris gave us the moral compass,” says Mimura, sented the details of her socially responsible licensing program. Goozner “and then Jay Keasling provided the muscle.” told the panel that California should revolutionize technology licensing, David Mowery, a professor in UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, toss out the old Bayh-Dole model, and take an open-source technology generally approves of the new program. “I think it makes a lot of sense,” approach.

38 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 In addition to her interest in technology licensing, Ortiz wants pro- WHO WANTS SAMOA? tections for egg donors and audits of funding distribution. For her ef- An enticing air of adventure and romance surrounds the ethnobotanists forts, Ortiz, one of the original sponsors of Prop 71, has been accused who travel to the remote corners of the world, harvesting indigenous of hindering stem cell research, with some going so far as to say that she knowledge about medicinal plants. Unfortunately, that image has been has realigned herself with right-wing opponents of the program. Ortiz tarnished in many countries by abusive bioprospectors who took information defends herself, saying, “We have an obligation to the voters that goes and plants without regard for the dignity or natural resources of the culture beyond mere science.” that had led them to the horticultural treasure in the first place. And so, when it came time to construct a research agreement with the The Big Boys on the Block country of Samoa to allow UC Berkeley Chemical Engineering Professor Jay Scrunched down in his chair, his feet propped up on his desk, Mow- Keasling access to the mamala tree, Samoa had a few special requests. ery rolls his eyes and winces when discussing the Prop 71 licensing hearings. “They primarily wanted attribution,” says Carol Mimura, head of UC “One of the problems is that the Prop 71 work is way upstream,” Berkeley’s technology transfer office. In the 1980s, renowned ethnobotanist Paul Cox of Brigham Young says Mowery. “We don’t have a therapy. We don’t have anything. It’s all University learned about the mamala tree from Samoan tribal healers Epenesa surrounded by layers and layers of uncertainty. And as you layer more Mauigoa and Pela Lilo. Mauigoa and Lilo used mamala bark extract to treat and more uncertainties on top of what is a fairly elastic agreement, it gets viral hepatitis, but later research showed that a compound produced by the more difficult to negotiate.” tree, prostratin, had potential anti-AIDS properties. Keasling’s lab is now Nevertheless, Goozner, who vehemently believes that Bayh-Dole era looking into ways to produce prostratin in bacteria. patent licensing inhibits innovation and adds to the already inflated The research agreement between UC Berkeley and Samoa, a Pacific cost of pharmaceuticals, saw in the Prop 71 hearings an opportunity to island nation roughly the size of the San Francisco Bay with no AIDS overthrow the old system. “The Feds have always been the big boys on crisis of its own, stipulates that Keasling must get permission from villages or the block,” says Goozner. “And now you have a case where one state is landowners prior to collecting material for his work. When work concerning stepping up to plate. California, because of its size, has the capacity to the mamala tree is published or presented, attribution to Samoa must be show a new direction in this area.” given. Furthermore, the agreement states that “researchers must name any new gene, gene sequence, or gene product such that the connection to Samoa and In the end, the licensing proposal included Mimura’s recommenda- Samoa’s national sovereignty will be clear to other researchers.” tions, including a few clauses that resemble those in UC Berkeley’s socially In addition to that, Samoa will receive 50% of the royalties derived responsible licenses. For example, the proposal requires licensees to from the licensing of technologies resulting from this work. The country’s provide therapies derived from these discoveries to state health programs share of the royalties will be divided up: 50% of net revenue to the national at the lowest available commercial cost—already a common practice government, 33% to Falealupo Village, 2% to Saipipi village, 2% to Tafua among pharmaceutical companies. Licensees must also provide “a plan” village, 8% to other villages, 2% to the lineal descendants of Epenesa Mauigoa, by which uninsured Californians may access those therapies. “My guess 2% to the lineal descendants of Pela Lilo, and 1% to Seacology, a Bay Area is those plans will be pretty fuzzy because nobody knows what will come nonprofit that will administer the funds to Samoa. of this research,” Mowery says. Ortiz has clearly stated that she views the current proposal as a mini- mal compromise, calling it “a floor for negotiation of proposed intellectual property agreements.” “You are using the taxpayer dollars of poor people, working class people that overwhelmingly lack access to care and overwhelmingly carry heavy disease burdens,” said Ortiz at a recent meeting on stem cell policy at UC Berkeley’s Law School. If there are errors to be made, she added, “I think we err on the side of society and the taxpayers who are paying for it.” Oritz’s argument carries a lot of weight in the emotionally-charged environment of Prop 71 discussions, but so does the counterargument: that high licensing royalties and price limits on resulting therapies could drive away industry investment and slow the race to find the cures those same taxpayers were promised during the campaign. The current proposal seems to represent a compromise between Ortiz’s vision of accessibility and industry’s demand for flexibility. It is in essence a miniature, state-level Bayh-Dole layered with a few socially responsible licensing clauses. “Bayh-Dole is not the end of the world,” says Mowery, “nor do I think it’s transformative. But that’s what’s on the ground and people have Photo courtesy of Jay Keasling Jay Keasling examines a Samoan mamala tree, the source of a developed some expertise with it.” For stem cell technology, California possible new AIDS treatment. will likely stick to the tried-and-true licensing model rather than embrace Goozner’s vision of a California-grown patenting revolution. But the research to the economy and quality of life in the Bay Area, the State of inclusion of socially responsible language in licensing discussions—in both California, the nation, and the world.” academia and state politics—is already an unprecedented step. More tweaks to the technology licensing status quo may yet be on the horizon as UC Berkeley cautiously expands the scope of technology licensing to Heidi Ledford is a recent graduate in plant and microbial biology. fully embrace IPIRA’s stated goal: “ to maximize the benefits of Berkeley’s

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 39 Sustainable Development

FEATURE Science And Sustainable Development

by Kevin Moore

40 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 Sustainable Development FEATURE

Of the many excuses used by students at Berkeley for not turning in their homework, “it was too dark to study” would certainly rank as one of the least believable. Globally, however, two billion people live without access to electricity, meaning the academic lives of roughly a third of the world’s students end around 7:00 pm. Not surprisingly, access to electricity is strongly correlated to every measurable indicator of human development, including life expectancy, GDP per capita and, of course, adult literacy.

The problems facing developing nations are often considered to be purely governmental or policy issues with no connection to scientiﬁc pursuits. But some scientists, including UC Berkeley physicist Marvin Cohen, hope to change this attitude.

Leading with Physics – the World Conference on Physics and Sustainable Development

Last November, the American Physical Society (APS) and other international organizations convened the ﬁrst-ever World Conference on Physics and Sustainable Development. The meeting, held in Durban, South Africa, brought together 500 researchers from all over the world to discuss the role of the international physics community in the sustainable development of the world’s poorest areas.

Cohen served as the president of the APS during 2005 and played a central role at the Durban meeting. “All the physics societies that I’ve had anything to do with over the last few years have been concerned about developing nations,” Cohen said. “We [the APS] have tried to take a leadership role.”

The goals of the Durban meeting were two-fold. One objective was to clarify the relationship between the hard sciences and public policy; the other to establish well-deﬁned initiatives to address challenges in sustainable development. The plan for future action was laid out in a set of resolutions, approved by conference attendees at the end of the meeting.

It is too soon to tell how or even whether the proposed initiatives will be implemented. “I’m concerned that there won’t be any action,” Cohen said after the meeting. “What we need is some motivated people to do something, and I’d hate to see this momentum lost.” Meeting organizers hope that the prominence and visibility of the meeting will serve as an archetype for other scientiﬁc disciplines to consider their role in sustainable development.

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 41 Science Education and Sustainable Development The world of development funding agencies is unfamiliar territory One set of goals within the Durban meeting resolution deals with for scientists who are used to dealing with more traditional improvement of physics education in underdeveloped countries. research funding sources, but efforts are underway to make this While worldwide access to basic education has improved greatly process easier. Sara Farley, a Science and Technology Strategist and over the last few decades, quality science education remains World Bank/Rockefeller Foundation consultant, addressed the topic

Sustainable Development largely elusive in much of the world. Resources for experiments of funding at the Durban meeting. and demonstrations are scarce, and there is a severe shortage of qualified science teachers. Too few individuals receive sufficient “A discernable increase in support to science, technology and training in the sciences, and those who have adequate schooling innovation for development is occurring,” Farley said, citing sources often emigrate to industrialized countries. including the World Bank, USAID, and the Gates, Rockefeller and FEATURE Ford foundations. “The trick is guiding willing scientists and their The general failure of science education in underdeveloped institutions toward global efforts.” countries is all the more apparent when gifted students are given the resources they need. The Abdus Salam International Centre for While there is no one clear path to getting involved, there are models Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, another major sponsor of the for contribution at many levels. Horner’s online science textbook Durban meeting, recruits and trains students from all over the world with project is an example of a relatively small-scale project, with part-time the hope that they will take their knowledge home and put it to use. volunteers and a low materials cost. Large-scale projects, like the ICTP, incur substantial operational and personnel expenses, but also “[Relative to] students from Egypt or Pakistan ... the [sub-Saharan] have the benefits of more established funding and defined programs. African students coming in were way behind [in scientific knowledge].” Cohen said after a visit to the ICTP. “At the end, the African students Occasionally, an invention can motivate its own project. University were on par with the students from the other countries, and they of Calgary engineering professor David Irvine-Halliday was struck by were so highly motivated. It was a thrill to see how well they had the need for “simple, affordable, and rugged lighting” in underdevel- done.” As scientific communities are built up in more nations around oped nations. His solution was a white LED lighting unit that runs on a the world, institutions like the ICTP may no longer be necessary. For fraction of the electricity of an incandescent light bulb, ideally electricity now, the ICTP serves a desperately-needed role in the education of produced by renewable energy sources. The white LED units became scientists from developing nations and could serve as a model for the basis of the Light Up the World Foundation, which distributes the similar endeavors in other industrialized nations like the U.S., where no units for use in unelectrified schools and homes around the world. The similar institution exists. foundation involves only a handful of people and has a potentially large impact, but the cost to donor agencies (or recipient communities) is more There is also hope that access to knowledge will be improved as significant: each white LED system costs approximately $60. the use of the Internet increases. Mark Horner, a post-doctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has used his The problem-solving style of scientists and engineers is a mindset spare time to shape one major online resource. Horner has helped sorely needed for the sustainable development challenges facing assemble free online textbooks in physics, chemistry, biology, and developing countries and an ever-increasingly globalized world. mathematics for use by high school students whose schools lack Surely Angelina Jolie’s advocacy is greatly appreciated, but at adequate textbooks. The online texts are made up of contributions what level should we expect her and Bono to contribute to Africa’s from over 40 experts from a dozen countries (eight from UC scientific infrastructure? The appeal of development work for the Berkeley), and more texts are on the way. scientific community is strong—not only is there an opportunity to do great good, but there is also the promise of never again being “I feel that education really is the key to any sort of sustainable, confounded by the question: “So, what’s your research worth peaceful future for any country,” Horner said. “The project ... isn’t to society?” competing with other educational initiatives. I like to think we are fulfilling a useful and fundamental niche.” KEVIN MOORE is a graduate student in physics.

Between projects like Horner’s, the promise of widespread access to Want to know more? wi-fi, and the prospect of the MIT $100 computer, it is conceivable that a significant reduction of the vast resource gap between the world’s Check out: educational systems is within reach. The American Physical Society: www.aps.org Resolutions from the Durban Meeting: www.wcpsd.org/outcomes.cfm Model Systems The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics: www.ictp.it The Free High School Science Textbook www.nongnu.org/fhsst The Light Up the World Foundation: www.lutw.org One major barrier for scientists wishing to tackle sustainable development issues has been the absence of a defined avenue for getting involved. While the path from graduate school to post-doc to faculty post is well-trodden, there are few resources outlining the key steps towards joining or initiating sustainable development efforts.

42 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 concerned by nationalsecuritypolicy, nuclearization, andwar. Healsobecame discoverer ofsome13elements. At Berkeley, Ehlersmetmany researchers GlennSeaborg,friends withthelegendary and father ofradiochemistry at theLawrence Berkeley NationalLaboratory, andeventually becameclose he spentmuch ofhistime engaged innuclear andatomicphysics research doctorate andlatertaughtinthephysics department. While atUCBerkeley, He beganhiscareer atUCBerkeley inthe1960s, where hereceived his W many people have managedtoprosper inbothworlds. society’s largerquestions. While thelinksbetween academic scienceandactualpolicymay sometimesbedifficulttoperceive, Teaching scientiststhelanguageofpolicymakers Take, for example, Vernon Ehlers, thefirstphysicist inCongress. toserve Congress 101 used pejoratively by themedia?Itdoesn’t have tobethisway; much ofwhatgoes onhere isinfactrelevant to the politicalconversations taking place inthenation’s capitol? Orfrustratedatonly hearingtheword “academic” Berkeleyhat studenthasn’t atsomepointfelt exiledouthere onthewestern edgeofthecountry, isolatedfrom 1859 drawing by architect Thomas U. Walter oftheelevation oftheCapitoldome. science, technology, engineering, andmath. been marked by an unwavering commitment toeducationandresearch in and Standards oftheHouseScienceCommittee. Histenure inCongress has tives (R-MI), where hechairstheSubcommitteeonEnvironment, Technology ids, Michigan. Today, heisasixth-termmemberofthe HouseofRepresenta- local level, addressing environmental issuesin hishometown ofGrandRap- aware ofthelackscientificinputintonationalpolicymaking process. Over time, Ehlersbegan toventure intopoliticshimself, initially atthe B ERKELEY by TeminaMadon S CIENCE R EVIEW S PRING 2006 43 POLICY Congress 101 44 POLICY Congress 101 the Lawrence Berkeley NationalLabSteven Chuin2005. Congressman Vernon (R-MI), Ehlers left, meetswithNobellaureate thedirector of by ideology, rhetoric, andthedesire tosatisfysmallbutvocal orinfluentialin- diplomacy, policy, energy orsocialpolicy. Rather, thesedecisions canbedriven is lesslikely todominatedecisionsaboutfundamentalissueslike civilrights, trump personalvalues. determined by consensus. Becausetheprocess istransparent, data tendto regulation andprofessional norms, withrulesofconduct, ethics, andsafety After all, academicresearch communities are typically governed through self- may quitenormal, findthisobservation itcansurprise theuninitiatedscientist. alsoinfluenceoutcomes.sibility andideology Although the average politician unexpected, becausepolicydoesn’t always reflect reason alone—politicalfea- on scienceandresearch, theresults of thedecision-makingprocess canbe regulation, andhealthinformation technology. While theseissuesdraw heavily explore legislative issuesthatinclude internationalhealth, healthinsurance and the Agency for InternationalDevelopment. tional ScienceFoundation, andlessexpectedplaceslike theStateDepartment executive branchagencies—includingtheNationalInstitutesofHealth, Na- places early- andmid-career scientistsinCongressional officesandinvarious istered by the American Association for the Advancement ofScience(AAAS), environment, health, foreign affairs, andresearch. Onesuchprogram, admin- toadvisegovernmentacademia andindustry onissuesrelated totechnology, based approaches intheirwork. the goal ofinfluencinglawmakers andconvincing themtoembraceevidence- fellowship programs thatbringscientistsandengineerstoCapitol Hill, with of scienceinpolicy. Duringhistenure atthe Academies hehelpedestablish President oftheNational Academies, hasbeenastrong advocate for therole Bruce Alberts, professor abiochemistry atUCSanFranciscoandformer numbers ofresearchers shouldbeinvolved inthedecision-makingprocess. Why Washington NeedsMore Scientists B ERKELEY However, infederal government, inrecent particularly years, evidence This year, asan Iamserving AAAS fellow intheUSSenate, where I Today, there are several organizationsthatencourageresearchers from Many scientistsdrawn intotheworld ofpolicyshare asensethatgreater S CIENCE R EVIEW S PRING 2006 over technicalinformation anddata. brought“expertise” totheHillmay bedistorted, reflecting businessinterests struggle withlimitedexperiencein scienceandtechnology. As aresult, the selection ofwitnessesfor hearings iscarried outby thosesamestaffers who sional hearingsandprovide inputintothe complexpolicy-makingprocess, the tion’s purse-strings. are routinelyWhile experts brought totestifyatCongres- are thepeoplewithmajordecision-makingpower andcontrol over thena- managing new technologiesordefiningresearch priorities. Nonetheless, these these staffers have sophisticatedlegalbackgrounds butlimited experience uted systemsbefore makingpivotal decisionsoninternetregulation. Many of learn aboutthefundamentalunderpinningsofnetwork structures anddistrib- significant barriers. For example, Congressional staffers may betoobusyto context ofvaluesandmorals. based policyprescription withinaframework thatmakes sense, even inthe driven data. As ascientist, itbecomesagreat crafttopresent anevidence- must oftencountervaluejudgmentsandbeliefswithevidence andhypothesis- face ofirrational arguments, whatscientistorlegislatorwould wanttofight? dence-based argumentsfor barring over-the-counter useofthisdrug. Inthe cannot reasonably becountered by facts. There are nosound, scientific, evi- integrity, thevalues-driven argumentsposedby opponentsofthismedication to restore thescientificintegrityofFDA. While lawmakers prizescientific the review process obscured scientificevidence infavor ofideology. Yet theadministrationhassofarnotresponded toscientists’concernsthat cluding theeditorialboard oftheJournal ofthe American Medical Association. staff, haselicitedprotest from somesectorsofthescientificcommunity, in- Women’s Health, Susan Wood, toresign from theFDA’s professional scientific of asmallminority Americans withreligiouscontrol. biasagainstbirth been delayed for nearly three years—largely becauseofthemoralobjections panels,advice ofitsscientificadvisory yet thefinalapproval for thisdrughas tion salesintheUnitedStates. Inthepast, theFDA hasgenerally followed the Even afterscientistsfindanentréeintoCongress, they continue toface This isoneofthegreat ironies oftherole ofscienceinpolicy: scientists Many organizationsandprofessional societieshave calledonCongress This outcome, whichultimately prompted Assistant Commissionerfor photo courtesyBerkeleyLab ed itsapproval for non-prescrip- nearly unanimously recommend- drug’s safety andefficacy viewed available dataonthe FDA committeesre- advisory cal studies. established by many careful clini- ers—have beenunambiguously and utility—even for teenag- countries since2000. Itssafety prescription insomeEuropean it hasbeenavailable withouta States withaprescription, and currently available in theUnited ing after”pill. The medicationis control known asthe “morn- to PlanB, apotentform ofbirth to delay over-the-counter access Commissioner LesterCrawford and Drug Administration (FDA) is thedecisionby former Food terest groups. A recent example In 2003, scientistsontwo are scholarly journalswithpolicyandnews sections. Someofthebestexamples wider rangeofissues. A good way todothisisperusethefront sectionsof but toberelevant tothelargercommunity onemust keep upwithamuch Scientists are only expectedtostay up-to-dateinanarrow fieldofdiscipline, to frametheargumentspresented andinfluencethepolicymakingprocess. of new findingsfromthe importance theNational Academies, gives you achance litical discussion. An emailtokey representatives andsenators, communicating their contentandrecommendations, you have toinfluencepo- anopportunity ing ways, have notbeengreeted withmuch enthusiasminthe White House. reports, suchasthe Academies’ recommendations tochangeourclimate-alter- health care crisisindeveloping countries, andchildhoodobesity. However, other competitiveness andthescienceworkforce, terrorism andbioterrorism, the that are likely totriggerCongressional legislationincludethoseoneconomic health, economic, andforeign policy isdriven by thesereports. Recentreports mendations are oftenacteduponby Congress. Indeed, much ofthenation’s Because ofthe Academies’ intellectualintegrityandindependence, theirrecom- the nation’s mostrespected andestablishedscientists, engineers, andphysicians. tise tobeheard in Washington. Berkeley onthe serve Academies, providing ameansfor localscientificexper- and foreign policy, andinternational relations. More than 100 professors at examines theinterfacesbetween academicresearch, humanwelfare, domestic in providing research guidelinesinthisburgeoningfield. Oftentheirwork forstemcellresearch, embryonic support theNAShastriedtofillvoid science andtechnology. For example, withthecurrent limitationsonfederal the government onsomeofthemostcontroversial andcutting-edgeissuesin Congressional mandatein1863, theNational Academies studyandreportto Berkeley to Washington istheNational Academies (NAS). Establishedby Bridging theGap which are available for free ontheweb. NPRprovides comprehensive cover- front ofthecomputer, listentoaudiofilesfrom NationalPublicRadio(NPR), World HealthOrganization’s website. For thosewithsomedown timein world (whichiswhere mosthumanslive), read research topic. For news andopinionsonhow scienceimpactsthedeveloping lishers of your average American newspaper. EurekAlert!, provided aservice by thepub- research andgive aswell more asindustry timetointernationalnews than recognized asoneofthemosteffective for interventions IVdrugusersatriskofHIV. but alsodirecting policymakers tousesoundscientificjudgment in mattersofpublichealth. Hepioneered theexpansionofneed Dr. Novick becameavoice for peoplewith AIDS intheearliestdays oftheepidemic, notonly speakingagainstuninformed discr year ago, remembered iscertainly for hiscontributionstoscienceandmedical research; yet itishisleadershipasan AIDS ad Physicists aren’t theonly scientiststohave played arole infederal policy-making. Alvin Novick, adistinguishedprofessor o government officialstoembracenuclear armscontrol, resulting inthesigningof Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of1963. weaponization. Through aseriesofinfluentialscientificgatheringsknown asthePugwashconferences, Roblatwould ultimately le learning oftheGerman’s failednuclear bombproject, hereturned toLondonwork oncivilianresearch andtoraisehumanitar later cametotheUnitedStateswork ontheManhattan Project, believing the couldpreventAmericans’ effort anout-and-out nuclear armscontrol. RoblatwasaPolish-born Jew wholeftfor Great Britainonaphysics fellowship justasNaziGermany bega Another scientistrevered for hisrole inpublicpolicy isJoseph Roblat, anuclear physicist whowon theNobelPeace Prizein Profiles inSciencePolicy Science One difference between academic scienceandpolicyisspecialization. By staying abreast ofthe Academies’ latestreleases, andby understanding The Academies functionthrough committeesandboards, comprisedof One organizationindependentofthefederal government thatties Science , Nature , news offers organizedby onlinescienceandtechnology , and Chemical & Engineering News Chemical &Engineering www.scidev.net , whichcover academic orthe T day you, too, may enduprunningfor office. cure thefuture offederally fundedscienceresearch. And whoknows—one politicians tomake bettersciencepolicydecisions, you may alsohelptose- tise touseadvisinglocalornationalpolicymakers? Intheprocess ofhelping popularscienceblog.a particularly Chris Mooney, book authorofthepartisan interesting sciencenews feeds; onblogsandthrough RSS(RichSiteSummary) and legislative news ofinterest toresearchers. Ofcourse, you canalsofind andthe Biology American ChemicalSociety, now sendout “action alerts” policy). Many professional societies, includingthe American Societyfor Cell Foundation (for news onHIV/AIDS, publichealth, andotherhealth-related Union ofConcernedScientists, andthink-tankgroups like theKaiserFamily newsletters from scholarly journals, non-governmental organizationslike the climate change, andpoverty. age ofscienceandtechnology, ofteninthecontextofpublichealth, global Berkeley in2004. EMINA Once you’ve becomefamiliarwiththeissues, why notputyour exper- Easier thanhuntingdown theinformation yourself, signingupfor e- try M ADON American American Association for the Advancement ofScience. asaCongressional ScienceFellowscience policy withthe The author, Temina Madon, with experience gets first-hand

is a fellow policy AAAS scienceandtechnology graduated from Photo courtesyofTeminaMadon B ERKELEY The Republican War onScience vocate thatwillremain hislegacy. f biology at f biology Yale whodiedjusta imination andstigmatization, nuclear war. However, upon le exchangeprograms, now n itsinvasion ofPoland. He ian concernsaboutnuclear 2005 for hisleadershipin S ad Britishand American CIENCE R EVIEW S PRING , runs 2006

45 POLICY Congress 101 46 POLICY Congress 101 B ERKELEY health, andschoolsofpublicpolicy, buthere’s aquicklisttogetyou started. for popularconsumption. are Goodplacestofindsome oftheseefforts professional schools—includinglaw schools, medicalschoo thatexistontheedgesofyourCheck outsomeofthepublic-privatepartnerships research field, where findingsfrom academia ar goingonoutsidetheivoryKnow tower what’s a remarkably successfulexampleat resources.to usefullaboratory Encouragefaculty, postdocs, andfellow studentstocommentandparticipate. Checkoutthesynt asciencepolicy blogorweeklyStart digestfor colleaguesinyourorfieldofresearch, department postingrelevant news items Be creative intelligent designinscienceclassrooms. for increasing theNationalScienceFoundation’s fundingatthelocalschoolboard meeting—they would probably ratherhearyour Keep your letters, emails, tothepointandaimedatappropriate andsolicitedcommentary audience. For example, don’t brin Focus, focus Express yourself newspaper sciencesectionslike thatinthe In addition totheresources listedabove, read sciencepolicypublicationslike “Science andGovernment and Report” “Issues in Get informed Get your feet wetafew by oftheideasbelow trying todeterminewhichaspectsofsciencepolicyare mostinteresting toyou. intothefray Jump interests ofopensource advocates like LessigorRichard Stallman? Larry Security andCooperation, andtheCenterfor Strategic andInternationalStudiesin Washington, DC. ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ work by limitinginternationalscholars’accesstovisas. write alettertotheeditororanop-edpieceexplaining, for example, how arecent news itemsuchasthePatriot Act impacts in sub-Saharan Africa? viral pathogensare available inthedeveloping world? What istheGatesFoundation doingtohelpalleviate theburdens ofinfe powerful evidence for policy-makers. not just “form letters.” Encouragecolleaguesfrom otherinstitutionstosignonaletterthatyou distributeby email—conse the studyofanthraxgenome(which, inprinciple, couldwreak havoc inthehandsofbioterrorists). include thecumbersomerestrictions placedonfederal fundingofstemcellresearch, orthecostly regulations required for “du grants orNIHstudysectionstoissuesofethicsandacademichonesty, orbansonentire fieldsofresearch. Barriers toresearc parts ofthedevelopingparts world? Speak withdeansandchairsinyourabouttheissuesfacedby researchers department atyour university—from problems with Depa Write letterstoscientificjournalsexpressing policyviews onnews items, recent research articles, oracademicpolitics. For If you’re amicrobiologist, findoutwhatthebio-securitythinktanksare talkingabout—examples includeStanford’s CISAC, the If you work indatabasearchitecture, whatistheElectronic Frontier Foundation, anon-profit digitalrightsgroup, working on, If you’re abiophysicist working onviralreplication andtranslation, whatare theG8countriesdoingtoensure thatmedicines If you work inoperationsresearch, beingapplied from tosocialproblems, how isthe expertise industry like off thedelivery Email orwriteletterstomembersofCongress aboutfederal andlegislative issuesthatimpactscientists—theselettersactuall S CIENCE R EVIEW S PRING 2006 syntheticbiology.org New YorkTimes . . , grantopportunities, andlinks Scienceand Technology” or local magazinesandpapers, ctious diseaseandpoverty g upyour great arguments hetic biology wiki pageforhetic biology e translatedintoproducts andwhatare thecurrent ood anddrugstoremote researchers oryour own for HIV/AIDSandother al use”research, suchas ls, ofpublic departments nsus amongscientistsis Center for International h atUCBerkeley might y dogetread ifthey’re opinionofteaching rtment ofDefensertment Science and technology policyfellowshipsScience andtechnology sabbaticalprograms canbemore difficulttolocate, buthere isasample: A completelistingofhealthpolicyfellowships, for doctoralstudentsaswell assenior researchers, isavailable atkaiseredu Policy fellowships way asthecommitteesofNational Academies, theNIH, andtheCongress. at Berkeley. There are alsoUC-widepolicycommitteesthatdraw studentmembersfrom allUCcampuses. These committeesfunction One oftherichestexperiencesforonapolicy-makingcommitteefacult thescientistinterested inpolicycanbeserving Policy athome to learnhow littletimeandinformation membersofCongress actually have whenmakingdecisionswithfar-reaching consequences inprofessionalParticipate societies’lobbying days—whether inDCorSacramento. While you may hate your firsttriptotheC Day trip while pursuingtheirown research andtakingadvantageofresources inthecapitol. tospeak,portunities research, andteachin Washington. Oneortwo advanceddoctoralstudentswork intheprogram asteaching Graduatestudentsengagedindoctoralresearch andBerkeley facultymembersare encouragedtocontacttheUCprogram in Washin UCDC for asciencepolicyorwritingfellowship. There aretoconsiderateachstageofascientist’s lotsofopportunities Senator’s officeorfederal agencygives you ahands-onfeeling for how policyisdeveloped, negotiated, andimplemented. Start It may soundstrangefor astudenttospendsummerormonthinthenation’s Capitol, butmedicalstudentsandresidents do Could sciencepolicybeinyourfuture? state.gov/p/io/unesco/programs pmf.opm.gov ospp.od.nih.gov/fellowships globalsciencecorps.org Global ScienceCorps nationalacademies.org/fellowships Jefferson ScienceFellows andotherfellowship programs nationalacademies.org/policyfellows Fellowship The ChristineMirzayan Scienceand Technology Policy Graduate fellowships.aaas.org Science and Technology Policy Fellowships U.S. NationalCommissionfor UNESCO Presidential ManagementFellowship: National InstitutesofHealth, OfficeofSciencePolicy andPlanning: Princeton University, Institutefor Advance Studies: National Academies: American Association for the Advancement ofScience: Photo courtesyoftheElectronic Frontier Foundation B career. ERKELEY .org/policy_index.asp y, deans, heads ordepartment thinking early aboutapplying apitol (asIdid), you’re likely it allthetime. Interningina S assistants eachsemester, CIENCE . inmuch thesame R gton DCfor op- EVIEW S PRING 2006 47 POLICY Congress 101 48 OUTREACH Field Trip! B and stipendare provided through theproject. Bay Area. Graduatestudentfellows’ tuition, fees, one middle schoolandthree highschoolsinthe Museumsandsendsgraduatestudentsto History the project isrunthrough the Berkeley Natural grade aboutscience. The UCBerkeley chapter of students from through kindergarten the12 the labandintoschoolyard, teachingyoung students allover are steppingoutof thecountry Foundation’s GK-12Program, sciencegraduate Biodiversity Project, oftheNationalScience part butterfly nets. Thanks totheExploringCalifornia surrounded by 37giddy seventh graderswielding ian rainforest, c)anovergrown fieldinRichmond doing theirresearch in: a)Borneo, b)anEcuador- dent conductingabiodiversity survey shouldbe Middle Schoolerslearnaboutbiodiversity inthefieldsofRichmondandbeyond. FIELD TRIP! nifer Skene) work withstudentson theirsciencearticles. GK12 mentors(above, Joel Abrahom, below Becky ChongandJen- BSR staff(above, Jess Porter, below left,Charlie Koven) andthe Editors talksciencewritingandreporting with Adams Middle Schoolstudents BSR ERKELEY about theworldisascientist. Anyone whoasksaquestion Multiple choice: A Berkeley graduatestu- S CIENCE GETSSCHOOLED R EVIEW S PRING 2006

PHOTOS BY WENDY HANSEN th mammals. And we taughtkidsabouthow humans review thedifferences between birds, reptiles and California’s mountains. We played “Jeopardy!” to and learnedthatgrizzly bearsusedtoroam in of toothpicks, madecactifrom pipecleaners, by buildingdioramas. They builtseaurchins out kids learnedaboutCalifornia’s diverse habitats So, we’ve triedafew creative thingsthisyear. The few kidswhotake totuneout. thisopportunity are always a few kidswithalltheanswers, anda Holding aclassdiscussionishard becausethere lessons interactive andtoinvolve every student. cia andBeckyChong. We’ve learnedtomake our Abraham, andtwo undergraduates, Natalie Valen- the classroom withanothergraduatestudent, Joel Middle SchoolinRichmond. Eachweek Igo into class andJohn Eby’s eighthgradeclassat Adams fellows, Iwork withPeg Dabel’s seventh grade California. three-day fieldtripstonaturalreserves around week, graduatestudentfellows take studentson In addition tovisitingtheclassroom oncea of aresearch project studyingthemechanismsof Lewis &ClarkCollegeinOregon, Wendy waspart editor Wendy Hansen. As anundergraduateat ence ofhow geckos climbwalls, delivered by into how asciencemagazineisputtogether. scientific discoveries andtogive themaglimpse students excitedabouttheideaofreportingon writing andreporting. Ourgoal wastogetthe ams classesfor aone-day workshop onscience joined Jennifer, Joel, Natalie, andBeckyintheir Ad- We beganwithabrief ‘press release’ on thesci- This springseveral membersofthe As oneofthisyear’s graduatestudent of hertimeatLewis &Clark turns outthat Wendy spentmuch sticky feet getdirty, aquestionit the science. many ofthequestions got rightto between agecko andascorpion; are, andwhowould wininafight about how poisonousgeckos topic butpredictable questions view. While there were some off- zine, like theBerkeley ScienceRe- discoveries for asciencemaga- write a100-word onthe article to interview Wendy, andthen gravity defyingclimbingprowess. adhesion underlying thegecko’s One studentasked ifagecko’s The students’assignmentwas BSR staff BSR J later thisspring. ate mentors, whichwillbepublishedby the about theirexperienceswithGK-12gradu- run for thestudents—they willwriteanewsletter spread completewithcolorpictures andcaptions. their finaldraft, whichwe pastedintoamagazine fromscience articles the scientific results, andshowing themexamplesof sentence, helpingthemdecidehow toexplainthe getting thestudentstothinkaboutanexcitinglead Koven andJess Porter worked withthegroups, articles. Wendy,fellow and class broke upintosmallgroups towritetheir toanswertrying (apparently they don’t). took thestudentstoHastingsReservation, a plants intheyard at Adams Middle School, we diversity isoutside. After collectinginsectsand classroom for thekidstolookat. to bringlive reptiles andinvertebrates intothe ent-day questions. Laterthissemester, we plan often collectedmany years ago, toanswer pres- can seehow scientistsusemuseum specimens, the museums ontheBerkeley campussostudents enough. We follow uptheselessons withtripsto mammals, whichthey cantouchifthey are brave preserved inglassjars, andtaxidermiedbirds and get acloselookatdiverse collectionofreptiles bringing themintotheclassroom. Studentscan from theMuseumof Vertebrate and Zoology wing, andasealflipperby borrowing specimens similarities amongthebonesinabatwing, abird Museums meanswe canshow studentsthe affiliation withtheBerkeley NaturalHistory lution andglobalwarmingby playing bingo. can impactbiodiversity through urbanization, pol- ESS The workshop wasfun, anditwasalsoadry At theendofanhour, eachgroup turnedin sessionwascompleted,After theinterview the P ORTER Of course, thebestplacetoexplore bio- But we’re notjustgameshow hosts. Our BbSsRr isagraduate studentinbiophysics. BSR . BSR editorsCharlie BSR next assignment: they hadtoclimbthe lone they learned toread themap todiscover their topographic map, hidden inthetallgrass. Next, to useacompassandtransecttape tofinda teams for ascavenger hunt. First, they learned flashlights, andkept walking. lion!” We gave uponsilence, switched onthe “Yeah, Ibetitwas!” “We justheard amountain “Man, Icould’ve sworn thatwasamountainlion.” No. Pleasekeep quietsoeveryone canhear. was windinthetrees. “What aboutthatone?” good ears. “Was thatamountainlion?”No. It that amountainlion?”No, itwasanowl, but tried tobequiet, tolistennightnoises. “Was city kidshadnever seensomany stars. Everyone turn offtheflashlightsandlookatsky. These road,along thedirt we convinced everyone to the studentsfor anighthike. Inatreeless spot experiences. expose studentstoscience, andtototally new using themethodsthey’d learnedat Adams. We days, thestudentscollectedplantsandinsects inCarmel UC NaturalReserve Valley. For three

The nextday, thestudentswere splitinto On thefirstnightoffieldtrip, we took Photos by Jennifer Skene Jennifer by Photos biodiversity survey. ofa crickets aspart Students catch Reservation. (Left) ing attheHastings (Above) Birdwatch- J issues accessibleandinteresting toeveryone. the classroom, we learnhow tomake scientific challenging audience. Through ourweekly tripsto middle-school studentsprovide anappropriately research willimpactandinvolve thepublic—and grant proposals tocommentonhow proposed denced by themany fundingagenciesthatrequire component ofthescientificprocess—as evi- ence. Communicating withthepublicisacritical learn how totalkanew audienceaboutsci- long afterwe leave theirclassroom. they’ll continue toseethemselves asscientists their confidenceandcuriositywillpersist, and they are notafraidtoaskquestions. Hopefully but now theircuriosityismore evident because the classroom. The studentswere always curious, became more confidentabouttheirabilitiesin maps andclimbsteephills, certainly, butthey also became more confidentintheirabilitiestoread self-assurance. Duringthefieldtrips, thestudents ifyou’veis notintimidatingorscary got alittle www.crscience.org of sciencetopics. County andgive hands-onpresentations aboutavariety school classrooms in can visitelementary Alameda Through Community Resources for Science, scientists gk12calbio.berkeley.edu The ExploringCalifornia Biodiversity project. Check out: Want toknow more? ENNIFER As for us, asgraduatestudent fellows we S KENE is agraduate studentinintegrative biology. students learnthatscience middle andhighschool the GK-12program, the is ascientist. Through a questionabouttheworld plishment. proud oftheiraccom- oak woodlands andfeel all lookdown onthe top, where they could student madeittothe encouragement, every little scary. Butwithour hard work, anditwasa the ascent—itrequired were about nervous elevation. Students feet above theircurrent oak tree onRedHill, 500 Anyone whoasks w o y t h world the r r c a t d en b , every cou n t it wasa tot ho a equire and cco with ou Hill out ts urr he m fee ld sks h , ent 5 e - d 0 l r 0 theory, 5, March 2006 some ofhisideaswere incorporated intostring -Sir Roger Penrose how describing hefelt when coming straighttowards you.” ing havoc, andthenrealizing they’re binoculars and seeingsomewaterbuffalowreak- of pair a through looking throughlooking apairofbinoculars “It’s like beingonanbein African safari development, 24, January 2006 plicability ofmodelstudiesfor pharmaceutical -George Whitesides speakingabouttheap- white mouse.” contrary, Iamnota large, furless, “No matterwhatyou thinktothe 2,March 2006 gels,Light Sourcecolloquiumonliquidcrystal Birgeneau,-Chancellor Robert at Advanced nanoparticles.” you’re drinking, butactually it’s silica McDonald’s, you thinkthat’s cream “When you getathickmilkshake from B ERKELEY g onan African safari S CIENCE R EVIEW S PRING 2006 49 OUTREACHOUTREACH FieldField Trip!Trip! 50 BOOK REVIEW Slow Food the first generation of Americans whose life life whose ofAmericans generation first the be will today’s children ofobesity, epidemic resulting and food fast calorie ofhigh ubiquity dueto the fact: achilling hecites example, For chain. food modern of the consequences industry. other any morethan automobiles, morethan States; United the in consumed petroleum the ofall afifth nearly burns industry food the plate.” fact, In American an to energy offood one calorie todeliver energy whereof food industrial the chain, dysfunctional “it takes consumers. confuse and todistract industries ten by invented fads food similar and lipophobia, calories ofcarbophobia, assortment disorder,” an eating “national our is heposits, reason, ofthe Part of fossil menu?” dinner the todetermine nutritionists to fuel tell journalists investigative weneed us where a point where our food transaction. nocash kitchen—but the in comes day afull gathering, of preparation—hunting, from and months took that ameal food, ofslow slowest is sustainable other the while guidelines) organic government organic. (aorganic possible oxymoron born of modern industrial butone is organic, He both are meals finishes third and second The car. at 65 his mphin with theMcDonald’s meal consumed weeat. food the transporting and in ten preparing, minutes producing, environmental—of and social, economic, cost—personal, true ofthe adiscussion tostructure meals Journalism at UC Berkeley, uses four Environmental and Science in Program ofBotany Desire Four Meals of History ANatural Dilemma: Omnivore’s with in gusto his latesttackles book, Pollan Michael one that and implications, anticipation as well as complex global B W Reviewed by KristenDeAngelis Penguin Press: by Michael Pollan ofFourHistory Meals The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural Slow Food ERKELEY Pollan explores also the social construction the details narrative The to get weever “How did wonders, Pollan a food: fastest the is meal first The a question fraught with gastronomic gastronomic with fraught a question is This dinner? for weeat should hat S CIENCE (April 2006). Pollan, author of author Pollan, 2006). (April 2006. 464pp.$26.95 R and director of the Knight Knight ofthe director and EVIEW S PRING 2006 The The Americans look like corn chips with legs.” with chips corn like look Americans weNorth ratios, isotope atthe youlook “when that finds and consumes American average the ofcorn amount the totrace spectrometer amass Todd uses professor Dawson Biology Integrative book: tothe expertise their adventures. author’s food the in roles cameo the as well as Ashby, play on Telegraph and Foods spots, Whole collecting mushroom their and mycophiles Local ofexploration. type this for point starting ideal an farmland—provide richest toAmerica’s proximity toour thanks choices— food myriad Berkeley’s thing, one For author. ofthe attentions local to the due book particular this reading in pleasure food. ofour origins the about message from thebe ultimately distracting important can which overlydramatic, be occasionally also can style visceral his Unfortunately, hour. per cattle 400 jobofslaughtering of the description vivid his particularly powerful, is industry meat the of Pollan’s demystification chain. food modern ofthe costs human the as well as rights, animal and of vegetarianism parents. of their expectancy will actually be shorter than that In exploring the sources of our food, food, ofour sources the exploring In UC Berkeley contribute scientists also unique take will reader Area Bay The The book containsthoughtful explorations COVER REPRINTEDBYPERMISSIONOF PENGUIN PRESS Want toknow more? microbiology. Kristen DeAngelis knowing.” by deepened only are that of pleasures kind the ofeating, pleasures the about a book is this end the “in says, himself Pollan As meal. ofany price true the understanding but eating, notjust in interested anyone behavior. theirchanging food purchasing and eating readers it’s toimagine and factor, notastretch impact ahigh reader—have serious the for gratifying is which bibliography, annotated the revelations—especially and facts The numerous food. towards attitudes public changing in succeed well may book but this corn. from derived 13 are at least aMcNugget, tomake it takes 38 ingredients ofthe and corn, from made are McDonald’s 45 menu at items different grain: versatile ofthis uses multiple the enumerating while States, United arable ofthe it overhalf plant to humans inducing for corn congratulates Pollan For example, created. wehave chain ofBotany Desire book, previous his in articulated was that ofevolution view eye species’ the between shifts table. one tothe each bring that people of each meal description the peppers and fluid, and logical with is that away in personal thoughts his organizes Pollan accountsOmnivore’s Dilemma of the parts. these toskim simply choose may and meticulous, too discussions these find may readers other But intervals. atregular repeated helpfully some orfoodie, vegan, veggie, any arming an abundance of facts and figures suitable for includes book The long. very and detailed, is account the toinform, is intention the Because our health or the health of the food chain. affect actually can choice asingle whether and plethora of our ofwhether food questions the addresses Pollan choices is real or perceived, Check out This is a book that should be read by be read should that book is a This inform, to solely is agenda stated Pollan’s Throughoutthe book,the perspective In addition to being informative, michaelpollan.com , and that of the industrial food food industrial ofthe that , and is also a compelling read. read. compelling a also is is agraduate student in The A Who Knew? It’s Raining Yen

It’s Raining Yen WHO KNEW

veryone has heard this one. This concept shouldn’t be a penny’s terminal veloc- EThrow a penny off a tall building all that foreign to us, given the ity to be approximately and watch in awe as it gains enough plethora of everyday examples 45 mph, roughly similar to momentum to punch through that incorporate it. Skydivers Muller’s estimate. At these speeds, a car on the street below. With certainly enjoy the bene- a penny doesn’t have nearly enough good enough aim you might even fits of terminal velocity. kinetic energy to do any serious dam- hit a hapless pedestrian below. If you’ve ever dropped age—you can probably throw a penny that Pennies, therefore, are supremely a heavy object in water, fast. It might nick a small scratch dangerous. At least, that’s what I such as a ring or a camera, on a car. It will probably sting if it was told as an innocent young you surely noticed it sink- hits you. But Armageddon child, and there are certainly a few ing at a constant pace (I from the skies in the form references in popular culture to certainly did—unfortunately of pennies? Unlikely. So this myth. Fortunately for us, we it was also the last time I saw much for those danger- have an eternal guardian protect- my camera). ous penny showers. ing us from these devastating penny At this point, you may de- showers: terminal velocity. viously be wondering what would LOUIS-BENOIT DESROCHES “Terminal velocity” might happen if you dropped that penny is a graduate student in sound like a bad sci-fi action on its edge. Surely the astronomy. thriller, but in the real world smaller cross-sectional it’s a very important physical area would make the concept. Cracking open a penny slice through the freshman physics textbook air and go faster. The will tell you that when an problem here is that a object moves through a penny falling through the viscous medium, it en- air on its side is not stable. counters a resistive force Given the mass and size of that slows it down. This is the penny and the viscosity of true whether the object moves air, the motion of the penny will through air, water, or a vat of eventually become chaotic, con- maple syrup. They all have vary- tinuously turning end over end. The ing degrees of viscosity. tumbling penny now has a much These resistive forces are greater “effective” area, similar to somewhat complicated math- dropping a flat penny (which will also eventually ematically, but for objects in free- tumble). fall through air, the force usually So how fast is a penny’s terminal veloc- depends on the square of the ity? Richard Muller, Professor of Physics here at speed, the area of the object, and Berkeley and instruc- the density of air. At some point tor of the popular A view from the Coit Tower: the during free-fall, the force of grav- course Physics for secret fear of all ity accelerating you downward Future Presidents, sidewalk-bound will equal the resistive force, estimates it to be pedestrians, but and without any external forces, roughly 30 mph. The perhaps not so lethal after all. you cruise at a constant speed, Discovery Channel’s known as the terminal velocity. “Mythbusters” inves- If an object starts off faster than tigated this myth in its terminal velocity, it will slow an early episode and down. empirically verified

BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 51 It’s Raining Yen WHO KNEW

BERKELEY science

52 BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW SPRING 2006 review