We are stuck in a headline and news cycle rut. Please find below some fantasy headlines, and the sources or unlikeliest of sources, for those news flashes.
— “Kardashian women decide not to show any more skin” – People Magazine. In the interests of encouraging people to dress appropriately for winter weather and to draw attention to their ideas rather than their bodies, the Kardashians decide that revealing less of their over-exposed bodies will aid society.
— “President Biden had a great day” –The New York Post. Granted, President Biden hasn’t exactly created a stellar track record in his first year in office – the withdrawal from Afghanistan clearly could have gone better – but the The New York Postseems intent on providing a steady stream of stories excoriating him for everything.
— “Former President Trump tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth” – The Washington Post. Fond of fact checking the former president, the Washington Post would certainly attract attention with a fact check that suggests the former leader of the free world was being honest.
— “Senator McConnell itching to approve Biden’s Supreme Court pick” – The New York Times. Using unnamed sources, of course, the Times could break one of the biggest stories of the decade if McConnell somehow signaled that he was eager to give a liberal Supreme Court nominee the benefit of the doubt and his full support.
— “Giants and Jets get A’s for effort” – New York Daily News. It seems obvious and easy to pick on losing sports teams, particularly those that haven’t delivered for rabid fans for years. Hometown papers could recognize the effort, even if the results aren’t there.
— “We don’t really know, but look out your window” – the Weather Channel. I give weather.com credit for calling last weekend’s nor’easter well. About five days before a single flake fell, they knew that a big storm had the potential to form and dump tons of snow in the area. They were right. Then again, all of that technology doesn’t always play out scenarios accurately. It’d be funny and fitting if they said on the air, “big storm could be coming our way. Or not.”
— “Inflation totally under control” – CNBC. Despite evidence to the contrary at the gas pump, in the supermarket and just about anywhere people have to pay for goods or services, wouldn’t it be great if inflation somehow, magically, came under control, giving the Fed the chance to stay on the sidelines for an economy still recovering from the pandemic?
— “Fauci appreciates the respect and support of Senator Rand Paul” — Reuters. Okay, so, this may be among the least likely of the headlines, but, wouldn’t it be nice/ shocking if the two doctors somehow were on the same page?
— “Spirit of bipartisanship sweeps through Washington” – Politico. Yeah, sure, we can dream. Dems and Repubs aren’t seeing eye to eye on anything. In fact, they seem to be energizing their bases by attacking the other side. Still, the day such a report came out would indeed be a chance to celebrate.
— “Children rediscover books” – Apple News Spotlight. Disenchanted with electronics, children around the world left social media for a day and enjoyed interacting with characters like Horton, Mr. Tumnus, Meg Murry, Alec Ramsey and Emma Woodhouse.
— “Hero scientists behind life saving vaccines” – Fox News. Despite some members of conservative media taking vaccines to protect themselves and their families, they and their guests sometimes praise those who resist vaccines and question the legitimacy of the vaccines for others.
Even when I’m squinting through a deluge that floods my front windshield, I can see sprinklers on timers, throwing water on lawns drenched with rain.
That image captures the sometimes feckless nature of the routine and periodic token efforts we engage in and that reflect our modern reality.
To that end, I thought I’d share similar similes and phrases to capture the moment.
Like a pencil on an airplane. Sure, pencils are helpful when doing crossword puzzles. On a plane on the way to another country, though, pencils serve no purpose in filling out the necessary paperwork to enter customs. When my family travels, I pack black and blue pens in my carry-on bag.
Like a mask worn around the chin. Exhausted from wearing masks, people have dropped these potentially protective pieces of equipment to their chins, even after they are done eating or drinking. These masks, while visible, are only effective at hiding double chins.
Like a concerned automated voice on a customer service line. I have been on far too many calls where it’s clear the company has no interest in allowing me to speak to an actual person. After pushing 18 buttons and waiting through music that makes Kenny G sound like a symphony, a sickly sweet voice tells me how important my call is to “us,” which sounds suspiciously like a corporate version of a dystopian leadership. If my call were truly important, I wouldn’t have to wait over an hour for someone to pick up the phone, tell me she can’t hear me, and suggest I call back later.
Like an expired coupon. Sometimes, I think the coupons I get in the mail have either expired before they arrive or, like a message to Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movie franchise, will self destruct in five seconds. That way, I’ll get the offer for something that piques my interest, like half off a turkey sandwich, and then I’ll have to pay full price as sympathetic store clerks tell me they’d be happy to throw the expired discount in the garbage, which is really the most they can do.
Like another set of incomprehensible instructions. Do you ever struggle with the directions to assemble something, staring at pictures of objects that often look nothing like the assortment of pieces assembled in front of you? These instructions use vocabulary that doesn’t make sense for objects that aren’t in the packaging.
Like someone else’s garbage when I’m carrying dog poop. My big dog makes huge poops that rival the stink of a train or airport bathroom amid extensive weather delays. While holding my nose, I pass my neighbors’ garbage cans on the street. Tempted as I might be to drop the double-knotted bag into their can, I carry the prized stink bomb back to my own garbage can.
Like a phone going off in a forest. Unlike the question of whether a proverbial tree makes a sound if no one in a forest hears it fall, I’m convinced I would hear a phone going off in a forest, especially if I were in the middle of a nap or about to write the best phrase of my life that the electroshock sound would delete from my rattled brain.
Like another chat with “Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings. Is it me or does Jennings seem anxious Amy Schneider may threaten to eclipse his record win streak on the show? His conversations with the contestants seem especially stilted and awkward. In an answer that borrows from the game’s format: the adjective Jennings most often uses when he doesn’t know what else to say and he’s run out of forced laughter. The answer: What is “fantastic?”
Pregnancy and lactation can alter genes in specific mammary cells, which may have implications in a defense against cancer.
In mouse models, mice that became pregnant at a young age have so-called epigenetic changes that survive for the animal life span and some of those are linked to a decrease in breast cancer.
In a recent study published in Cell Reports, Cold Spring Harbor Associate Professor Camila dos Santos and her graduate student Amritha Varshini Hanasoge Somasundara found that a protein involved in mammary cells in mice, called CD1d, boosts the immune system after a full pregnancy cycle, protecting it against breast cancer.
“Our research demonstrated that increased levels of CD1d in breast cells serve as a signal to recruit higher numbers of specialized immune cells” called natural killer T-cells, or NKT, “to come and reside within the breast tissue after pregnancy,” dos Santos explained in an email. These NKTs are part of mechanisms that reduce breast cancer risk after pregnancy.
Dos Santos would like to understand the molecular changes that occur from pregnancy and hopes one day to adapt them in the form of a vaccination or pill to decrease the risk of breast cancer.
To be sure, numerous questions about the process of using the immune system to prevent cancer remain, which means that the development of such a preventive pill requires considerable additional research.
Dos Santos has spent the last eight years developing model systems that allow her to discover pregnancy-induced changes that could lead to preventive strategies.
Enhancing the communication between epithelial and immune cells could represent a way to decrease breast cancer development and even treat cases of developed cancer.
To get to that point, dos Santos, the members of her lab, and her collaborators plan to make discoveries like this one to understand the dynamic interaction between the cascade of molecular interactions from pregnancy and the genetic and immunological reactions.
Humans have four CD1 genes, which all play a similar role in immunity. Additionally, there are several types of NKT cells, and each of them has a different immunological function, which means that any prevention or treatment that tapped into this system would need to bring the right CD1 molecule and the right NKT cells.
It is not yet clear whether enhancing CD1 signals protect women who might have a predisposition to breast cancer. Dos Santos is currently exploring this question in animals.
While dos Santos is focusing specifically on pregnancy-driven changes in the mammary gland, she acknowledged that altering CD1d levels in other organs might also decrease other types of cancer.
Dos Santos described pregnancy as being akin to turning on a light. First, during the course of gestation, pregnancy brightens that light to the top. After birth, the dimmer goes to the middle, leaving the system in a different state, which is not only more prepared for the next pregnancy but also to defend itself against alterations like cancer.
In most pregnancy mammary cells in mice, the scientists found a 10-fold increase in the abundance of NKT cells when compared to cells from an individual who had never been pregnant.
When the researchers removed the CD1d protein in mice, they found an association between the absence or low expression and the development of tumors in the breast.
Dos Santos and Hanasoge hypothesize that this protein is recruiting immune cells to monitor breast cells after pregnancy. If the epithelial cells develop cancer, the NKT cells may kill them, preventing the development and advancement of cancer.
In addition to working with mouse models of pregnancy, dos Santos is collaborating with Northwell Health to study cells from healthy women who are undergoing cosmetic surgery. They are analyzing that data, which wasn’t in this paper.
Dos Santos is investigating several questions, including how the age at pregnancy influences breast tissue. She is creating organoids, which are three-dimensional models of breast cells that react to change in their environment
Joining a family
From left, Amritha Varshini Hanasoge Somasundara and Camila dos Santos
Amritha Varshini Hanasoge Somasundara, who has been a part of dos Santos’s lab for over two years, explained that she felt comfortable and supported instantly when she arrived. She described the atmosphere as extremely collegial and felt as if she were included in a scientific family.
Joining dos Santos’s group was “possibly the best decision I’ve ever made,” said Hanasoge. Dos Santos’s lab is a “really special place” where lab members often have lunch together and support each other’s research.
Hanasoge was drawn to Dos Santos’s mentorship and the overall lab dynamic. Scientifically, she was also interested in the immunology project, exploring NKT cells. Her main project has involved trying to characterize NKT cells further.
Hanasoge sees plenty of opportunities to address additional questions in this field. “We don’t know if the process of lactation is causing more CD1d and increasing expression,” she said. “We are still trying to characterize what T-cell receptors are being expressed after pregnancy.”
A resident of Syosset, Hanasoge enjoys reading and said she was fascinated by science when she was growing up in Mysore, Kamataka in India. She asked her parents for a microscope when she was around seven and used it to looked at flower petals and leaves. That toy microscope, which her parents purchased from a science museum in Mumbai, is still in her parent’s house.
Hanasoge is eager to combine basic and translational work and hopes her research has a clinical benefit. She is looking forward to the next steps in her research in dos Santos’s lab.
“I learn from her every day by watching how she interacts with people she mentors, both inside the lab and out,” Hanasoge explained in an email. “Her passion and commitment to being a good mentor and her drive to ask the right questions in our research are inspiring.”
Richard Leakey at the Provost's Lecture Series: "Living Off the Grid with Good Access to Energy and Water". Paleoanthropologist, politician, explorer and environmentalist, Richard Erskine Frere Leakey is chairman of the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), and Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University.
Famed paleoanthropologist, conservationist and SBU professor Richard Leakey leaves a lasting legacy
By Daniel Dunaief
A revered scientist, conservationist, Kenyan, and faculty member at Stony Brook University, Richard Leakey died on Jan. 2 at the age of 77.
Leakey made several significant human fossil discoveries, wrote books and ground breaking journal articles, appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1977, and saved elephants and rhinoceros from poaching.
Leakey, who received honorary degrees from numerous institutions including Stony Brook, was also a professor in SBU’s Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences and the founder of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya.
“I considered him my brother,” said former Stony Brook President Shirley Kenny, who had helped recruit Leakey to join the university and developed a close relationship with him over the course of over two decades. When she learned of his death, she was “devastated.”
The Stony Brook connection
Leakey was visiting Manhattan in 2001 when he met with Kenny and Lawrence Martin, who is the director of the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI). Eager to make a good first impression and “nervous about asking this great, incredible man to come and give a lecture,” Kenny got a manicure before the meal. “He wouldn’t have noticed if I had nails,” she laughed.
When Kenny learned that Leakey was in town to find new leg prosthetics after he lost his legs in a 1993 plane crash, the Stony Brook President asked if he had health insurance, which he didn’t.
Richard Leakey examines fossils at the Turkana Basin Institute.
“Jewish mother that I am, I said, ‘Richard, you have to have medical insurance.’ We arranged for him to be this faculty member at Stony Brook, who came for a certain amount of time each year to give lectures and work with students, to have students work on his digs,” Kenny recalled.
Leakey, who didn’t graduate from college, was proud of his role at Stony Brook and relished the opportunity to teach, several friends and faculty members recalled. Audiences appreciated the opportunity to hear about the most recent discoveries into human origins, especially from someone with Leakey’s world-renowned reputation.
He was just a“spellbinding public speaker,” said Martin, who first met Leakey when Martin was a graduate student in 1979.
“When [Leakey] got an honorary degree, he had two to three minutes to make an acceptance speech,” Martin said. “There was not a sound from the moment he got up. It’s one of only two occasions when the entire student body rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation.” The other was when famed physicist C.N. Yang received an honorary degree.
Leakey was such a draw that he gave some of his bigger talks at the Staller Center for the Arts, which had to accommodate overflow space for the audience demand.
Patricia Wright, Distinguished Service Professor and founder of a research station Centre ValBio at Stony Brook, recalled how a primate conservation class responded to him.
In his provocative style, Leakey would come in and say something “totally outrageous,” she recalled. The students, who might have otherwise been starstruck and been inclined to write everything he said, felt compelled to speak and would respond, saying, “Wait a second, it shouldn’t be like that.” The class would then discuss a conservation issue with Leakey, which opened up an effective dialogue.
“They loved him because he was so charming and was able to turn their minds around,” Wright said. “I loved those classes and watching him with my students.”
In the world of conservation, Leakey took unconventional approaches that proved effective. In 1989, five years after the landmark discovery of Turkana Boy, a 1.5-million-year-old fossil of one of the most complete early human skeletons, Leakey arranged the burning of 12 tons of ivory tusks in Kenya, signaling that they belonged on live animals.
“We can absolutely say that there are elephants and rhinoceros that are alive today that wouldn’t have been alive if it weren’t for Richard Leakey,” Wright said.
Words of wisdom
In addition to leading by example, Leakey dispensed valuable advice, often over food he prepared specially (more about that in the None of the Above column in this issue).
Leakey “left me with a huge gift, the gift of being confident in what I’m doing, as long I’m doing it with principles,” said Sonia Harmand, Associate Professor in Anthropology at Stony Brook. Leakey urged Harmand not to be “scared of breaking boundaries” and trying something nobody else had tried, she said. “Have faith in what you think you want to do. Never be afraid of being judged.”
Richard Leakey and Joe Biden in 2017 at the Stars of Stony Brook gala at Chelsea Piers. Photo from SBU
Harmand made a significant archaeological discovery, for which she received some skeptical comments. Leakey suggested that she consider such questions a point of pride and a reflection of the value of the work.
“You start to have enemies when you start to be famous and important,” Harmand said Leakey told her. It made her think she should be pleased that people were scrutinizing and criticizing her work.
Wright, meanwhile, appreciated how Leakey gave her the strength to live life the way she wanted. He urged her to put in the time and effort to work on politics and networking.
Several people suggested that Leakey, who battled physical challenges throughout his life without complaint, also inspired them. “He really taught me about courage and strength,” Kenny said. “I had the kind of courage that let me take on paths I didn’t know if I could handle. He taught me physical courage.”
Indeed, Leakey displayed the kind of physical courage and belief in his convictions people typically associate with a character from a Tom Clancy novel.
In 1967, Leakey was on a Kenyan flight that had to divert because of a dust storm. Despite earlier reports that the land in the Lake Turkana region was volcanic, Leakey thought he saw sedimentary rock, which could contain fossils. He rented a helicopter and landed with only seven minutes of extra gas to spare for the return trip. When he got out of the helicopter, he found fossils. He quickly appeared at a National Geographic meeting, where he urged the group to fund the search on the east side of Turkana.
The chairman of the society told him “if you don’t find fossils, don’t bother to come back to National Geographic,” Martin said the chairman told Leakey. The findings were more than enough for the group to continue funding Leakey’s research, including on the west side of Lake Turkana, where he discovered Turkana Boy.
Life-altering contact
For several of those who knew Leakey, the interaction was life-altering.
When he was a high school student in Nairobi, Isaiah Nengo heard a talk Leakey gave about plate tectonics and evolution.
“I was completely blown away,” said Nengo, who is now Associate Director at the Turkana Basin Institute.
As a second-year student at the University of Nairobi, Nengo attended an evolution lecture by Leakey. At that point, he was hooked, deciding to become a paleoanthropologist.
Nengo, whose parents’ education stopped around fourth grade, wrote to Leakey after he graduated from college, not expecting to hear back.
“It goes to tell you what kind of person [Leakey] was,” Nengo said. “This kid from the University of Nairobi out of nowhere writing him a letter, and he wrote back.”
Nengo, who said he heard similar stories from others in Kenya, including some who are currently colleagues at TBI, volunteered for a few months, until he got a fellowship.
He said Leakey helped fund a post-baccalaureate one-year program in the United States.
“The best gift you could get is the gift of knowledge,” Nengo said. “From [Leakey], I got the gift of knowledge, which changed the trajectory of my life.”
Like others who were prepared to change their lives after interacting with Leakey, Harmand had been in a comfortable job at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France when Leakey suggested she join Stony Brook and the Turkana Basin Institute in 2011. “I’m not sure I would have taken” the job, but for Leakey. The work was only supposed to last a couple of years, but she never left.
“He marked my life forever and my career forever,” Harmand said. “We also had a very deep friendship” that extended to the next generation, as her nine-year-old daughter Scarlett has forged a connection with Leakey’s granddaughter Kika, whose mother Samira is the daughter of Richard and Meave Leakey.
With three daughters, including Louise Leakey, who conducts field research at Turkana Basin institute, Leakey was a strong advocate for women.
Women are “equally capable as men and for him, this was not even a question,” Harmand said.
A passion for Kenya
In addition to being pleased with his connection to Stony Brook University, Leakey, who accepted the ceremonial key to a French city in his first language of Swahili, was a proud Kenyan. He set out to employ, train, include and inspire Kenyans in research projects and encouraged the children of staff members to come see the fossils, Martin said.
Leakey also helped raise money from people who traveled to Kenya to support educational fellowships. He contributed to the construction of maternity clinics on either side of Lake Turkana so women could give birth in safe, sterile conditions with electric light, Martin added.
Kenyans recognized Leakey when he traveled and appreciated his contribution to the country.
“We were driving to his farm, when we got stopped,” Martin said. “Everybody knew him and wanted to shake his hand and say hello. He was a local hero who was seen as a Kenyan doing things for his fellow Kenyans,” Martin said.
Harmand recalled one of the last times she spoke with him; he reiterated his passion for his home country.
Leakey made it clear “how important it is to involve Kenyans in what we do,” Harmand said. “We are training the next generation of human origin scientists in Kenya. He is the son of Kenya.”
A passion for science
While Leakey had a genuine interest in a variety of fields, he was, at his core, a scientist. Nengo called him a “polymath” who knew a great deal about a wide range of scientific subjects.
In one of her final conversations with Leakey, Wright said he took her aside after a meal she described as “exquisite” and asked her about bones she’d found in Madagascar.
The conventional wisdom about human origins in the island nation was that humans had come from Borneo 2,000 years ago.
In the middle of Madagascar, however, Wright had found bones from hippos and birds that had cut marks from humans that dated back 10,000 years.
Leakey told her that she “had to find those people,” she recalled. “You will be letting down all of Madagascar if you don’t find their origins.”
Wright said that conversation, which had its intended effect, was “emblematic of his burning desire to know and to learn about hominid history and the burning desire to collect and assemble pieces of history.”
Birthday presents
Leakey, who gave so much of himself to so many people, didn’t like receiving gifts, Martin said, but he welcomed receiving cheese, wine or cooking tools, including pots and pans.
When Leakey reached his 70th birthday, Martin asked him what he planned to do to celebrate. He had scheduled a sailing trip, but he wasn’t sure if he could pull together a crew. Martin offered to be a part of his crew for a journey that lasted over a week aboard a 38-foot catamaran.
Leakey’s daughters Samira and Louise joined Martin as deck hands, giving Richard Leakey the opportunity to take the helm during his journey along the coast of Kenya near his home in Lamu.
“When he was steering the boat, it was the only time he wasn’t challenged by his disabilities,” Martin said. “He didn’t need his feet. Driving wasn’t particularly easy. When he was sitting in the catamaran, it didn’t heel; it went fast, and he could steer the boat. Watching him, I had the sense that he felt completely free.”
Isaiah Nengo recalled a day years ago when he was working in a field station in Kenya, searching for fossils.
A man who had a tremendous influence on his life was on the way to alter his horizons yet again, although this time the visit would have nothing to do with science.
Richard Leakey, the late founder of the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) and a famed paleoanthropologist and conservationist, was bringing food from his home on the coast of Kenya in Lamu to the field station.
Leakey “prepared this lobster meal,” said Nengo, who is native of Nairobi, Kenya, and is currently associate director of TBI. “It was my first seafood meal. It was fantastic. I was like, ‘I’m sitting almost 600 miles from the ocean, it’s hot as hell and I’m eating lobster.’ That always stuck in my mind.”
Leakey, who died on Jan. 2 (see a tribute to the Stony Brook legend in this week’s Arts & Lifestyles page B12), left behind a lasting scientific legacy that filled science textbooks of people around the world, while he left an enduring food legacy that filled the stomachs of family, friends, coworkers and colleagues.
People fortunate enough to dine with him shared tales of Leakey’s culinary prowess and refined tastes.
Sonia Harmand, associate professor in the Anthropology Department at Stony Brook, took a long flight with Leakey to Kenya. Leakey had a salmon meal on the plane that didn’t meet his standards.
“He called the staff, and even the pilot came by to say hi because everybody knows about him,” Harmand said. Amid the introductions, he expressed his displeasure with the salmon.
When he returned to Kenya, he wrote to the airline and complained about the food.
As a host, Leakey went out of his way to make sure all of his guests enjoyed the food he purchased, prepared and served.
Harmand said her daughter Scarlett, who will turn nine in February, enjoyed eating at Leakey’s house because he prepared mussels and oysters he knew appealed to her.
“Every time you had a meal with him, he kept on asking if you liked it,” Harmand said.
Harmand also appreciated the unexpected gifts of incongruous foods at TBI. One day, Leakey arrived with ice cream and fresh strawberries.
“We had to eat it quickly,” she recalled with a laugh.
Another long time friend and colleague, Lawrence Martin, the director of TBI, said Leakey had a fondness for some Long Island foods. He particularly enjoyed ducks, as well as oysters and mussels from Long Island’s waterways.
“He said mussels were never as good in the warm water as they were in Stony Brook,” Martin said.
When he first got to know Leakey, Martin said Leakey cooked all the meals they shared, whether they were in Stony Brook or Kenya.
Martin called Leakey a “great chef” and said his late colleague “loved good food and loved going food shopping.”
While Leakey shared important information with former Stony Brook President Shirley Kenny, he also dined on memorable meals.
When they were on their own on Long Island without their spouses, Kenny invited Leakey over to her home for a meal.
After the dinner, he thanked her and promised he would return, providing she allowed him to do the cooking.
Sharing food with Leakey often meant benefiting from his storytelling prowess and his sense of humor.
Kenny and her family went on a safari with Jim and Marilyn Simons, co-founders of the Simons Foundation and supporters of science throughout Long Island.
“At the end of the day, we would sit in a circle and have drinks and [Leakey] would regale us with stories that were absolutely wonderful,” Kenny said. “You can’t even imagine how they made these [incredible] meals when there’s nothing out there to do it with.”
With hyenas howling at night and hot showers created with water heated by the sun during the day, the entire experience was “so exotic and so elegant at the same time,” Kenny added.
Harmand said Leakey didn’t cook with the goal of winning over people, but, rather, to share a connection.
“I don’t think he needed to impress anyone,” Harmand said. “He wanted to please you through food.”
The same wind that powers sailboats, makes kites dart through the air, and causes flags to flutter can make being outdoors in a group safer, particularly during the pandemic.
While public health officials have suggested that being outdoors with others amid the pandemic is safer than remaining inside, the strength of the wind can affect the level of protection provided by wide open spaces.
That’s the conclusion Sean Clouston, Associate Professor in the Program in Public Health and the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, reached after studying public health data from 96,000 cases of COVID in Suffolk County from March 16, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
By combining public health data with the daily reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Clouston found that days in which the temperature was between 60 and 84 degrees Fahrenheit and in which the wind was about 5 miles per hour or less had higher COVID-19 transmission than those days in which the wind speed was faster.
This kind of study, which was recently published in the journal BMC Infectious Disease, might affect the guidance policy makers provide to reduce the risk of COVID transmission during outdoor gatherings.
“If you’re imaging yourself as a policy maker and you want to contain COVID, what do you do?” Clouston asked rhetorically. Vaccines and masks are established tools. Ensuring airflow is higher might also be important, he suggested.
Indeed, amid the early days of the pandemic in 2020, public officials closed parks in Suffolk County for a while and eventually reopened them.
An alternative could be to provide access to parks where wind speed is also protective, or to reduce the use of parks where social distancing is difficult and where wind speed is lower.
At the same time, residents might want to protect themselves by putting out fans in their backyard or some other airflow devices to keep the flow of air moving during a social gathering, reducing the chance of transmitting the virus. People might want to avoid using tents that reduce the flow of air around them.
Additionally, people could eat out at restaurants where the airflow is stronger.
Diners can search for places where the air “moves around, so the outdoor experience is as protective as possible,” Clouston said. He recognized that the data had some variability between when people who went outside might have contracted COVID. The air flow could increase and then decrease and the average length of time from exposure to symptoms and testing could differ between people.
“Any time we deal with humans, this is the problem,” Clouston said. Researchers can’t control for everything. Instead, they have to assume people make decisions in a consistent, but variable, way.
The larger data set, with close to 100,000 cases, enabled Clouston and his colleagues to average out the effects of the time when people reported their positive COVID tests.
For numerous cases, people had a good idea where and how they contracted COVID. Even when they were at outdoor events, such as a barbecue, some people had indoor parties where they ate together.
In addition, merely being outdoors didn’t reduce the risk if people were standing in the equivalent of stale air, where wind couldn’t reach them and help carry viral particles away from others who attended these events.
Being outside if the air isn’t moving is similar to being indoors in a space with a very large ceiling and a wide space between walls, he explained. It is safer than a small room, but it is not inherently safe on its own.
As for air circulation indoors, Clouston said people have suggested that moving air in buildings could reduce the spread of the virus.
Testing the effects of having HEPA filters or air filtration systems run continuously in hospitalscompared to areas that don’t have such units could reveal the benefit of having these air flow systems. Some studies have been done on this, although more work is ongoing, he said.
Clouston suggested that other environmental conditions could also impact the transmissibility of the virus. The heat index, for example, might explain why wind speed might be important.
The heat index “might diminish the effect or make it stronger,” Clouston said. “It can push people indoors.”
Clouston worked on this study with Stony Brook colleagues in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine Assistant Professor Olga Morozova and Professor Jaymie Meliker. The team has worked with the Suffolk County Department of Health since 2020 on different aspects of COVID modeling.
Clouston was surprised that the research revealed a threshold model wind speed. He was also surprised to see that the speed was so low. “You only need a little airflow,” he explained.
The Stony Brook scientist looked at where the positive cases were located by zip code. The summer distribution and the spatial distribution was somewhat unclear, he said.
The spread of COVID was distributed by population size and density. Population size and density are likely more important than alterations in microclimate in the summer.
The analysis is important for places when and where outdoor exposures are most common, he explained.
“This may be true in the summer on Long Island or in the winter in southern states like Louisiana when outdoor activities are more comfortable,” he wrote in an email.
Clouston has several ongoing projects. He has papers discussing the role of social inequalities and COVID, a paper looking at clinical risk factors for COVID at Stony Brook Hospital, and one describing the initial wave of COVID in World Trade Center responders.
He would like to look at the effect of outdoor protests during 2020 on the spread of COVID, which would require data on attendance at those events and at the ones in New York City.
I blame John McEnroe, Billy Martin, Lou Piniella, Pete Rose, and a host of politicians who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept defeat.
All of those people hated to lose. McEnroe had temper tantrums that were so epic that he’s spoofed himself many times, complaining in movies that “you can’t be serious” when things don’t go his way.
Frustrated with the umpiring in a game, Martin would kick dirt on home plate or have an epic meltdown in front of over 50,000 people.
I don’t ever remember any of those tirades or temper tantrums when they or their teams were winning.
Being American means winning. To borrow from the cliche, it means giving 110%.
I can’t tolerate losing, just as CEOs, politicians, athletes and sports coaches and managers can’t stand it, either. Many people hate losing as much if not more than they enjoy winning.
The fans who pay to see their teams win, not just to see them play, boo mercilessly when stars like the New York Knicks Julius Randle don’t live up to their contracts and don’t lead the team to more victories than defeats.
Randle recently expressed his frustration in response to the fans’ disappointment by giving them the thumbs down in a game.
Unconditioned positive regard, however, doesn’t come with having your name in lights or being a star on a celebrated team.
We get that from family members, sometimes, and from psychologists or psychiatrists.
As Americans, we have expectations of ourselves that have been set, in some cases, by role models like athletes, politicians and other popular icons.
At the end of the year, sports networks don’t focus on the best concessions speeches and the most gracious losers.
They are much more likely to replay the greatest rants and epic press conferences when athletes or coaches completely lose their composure in response to a question. We watch in rapt fascination as these superstars have a tantrum or glumly express disappointment.
Being a sore loser is also good business. The media empires on the left and the right long ago figured that out. During the Trump administration, nothing the former president said or did was good enough. The outrage factor over his thoughts, actions, gaffes and verbal inadequacies were attacked mercilessly.
Fox, which spent the last four years laughing at the liberal crying machine, has now turned its attention to attacking President Joe Biden (D) in a similar fashion, mocking everything he says or does or doesn’t do.
People in the sports world describe muscle memory. They train their bodies and minds to react to evolving situations instantly, so they know where to go, what to do, and how to advance their cause.
That preparation almost never includes lessons on what to do when you lose or are losing. No one plays to lose, and yet, every game has a loser.
Maybe this year, we should prepare ourselves better for the moment we lose. We don’t have to be miserable, stare out blankly at the field, the way baseball players always do after the last game of the World Series, wishing they could have been that team that’s dogpiling near the pitcher’s mound.
Maybe this year, when people are continuing to struggle with a third year of the pandemic, we can hope for a celebration of great competition from both teams.
We can take comfort and feel joy in the recognition that we brought out the best in each other.
Even when we lose, we can, to borrow from Lou Gehrig, still feel like the “luckiest people on the face of the Earth” for having been a part of something we know is special, regardless of the outcome.
Davuluri first arrived in the United States from his native India in 1999, when he worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. After numerous other jobs throughout the United States, including as Assistant Professor at Ohio State University and Associate Professor and Director of Computational Biology at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Davuluri has come back to Long Island.
As of the fall of 2020, he became a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Director of Bioinformatics Shared Resource at Stony Brook Cancer Center.
“After coming from India, this is where we landed and where we established our life. This feels like our home town,” said Davuluri, who purchased a home in East Setauket with his wife Lakshmi and their six-year-old daughter Roopavi.
Although Davuluri’s formal training in biology ended in high school, he has applied his foundations in statistics, computer programming and, more recently, the application of machine learning and deep algorithms to the problems of cancer data science, particularly for analyses of genomic and other molecular data.
Davuluri likens the process of the work he does to interpreting language based on the context and order in which the words appear.
The word “fly,” for example, could be a noun, as in an insect at a picnic, or a verb, as in to hop on an airplane and visit family for the first time in several years.
Interpreting the meaning of genetic sentences requires an understanding not only of the order of a genetic code, but also of the context in which that code builds the equivalent of molecular biological sentences.
A critical point for genetic sequences starts with a promoter, which is where genes become active. As it turns out, these areas have considerable variability, which affects the genetic information they produce.
“Most of the genetic variability we have so far observed in population-level genomic data is present near the promoter regions, with the highest density overlapping with the transcription start site,” he explained in an email.
Most of the work he does involves understanding the non-coding portion of genomes. The long-term goal is to understand the complex puzzle of gene-gene interactions at isoform levels, which means how the interactions change if one splice variant is replaced by another of the same gene.
“We are trying to prioritize variants by computational predictions so the experimentalists can focus on a few candidates rather than millions,” Davuluri added.
Most of Davuluri’s work depends on the novel application of machine learning. Recently, he has used deep learning methods on large volumes of data. A recent example includes building a classifier based on a set of transcripts’ expression to predict a subtype of brain cancer or ovarian cancer.
In his work on glioblastoma and high grade ovarian cancer subtyping, he has applied machine learning algorithms on isoform level gene expression data.
Davuluri hopes to turn his ability to interpret specific genetic coding regions into a better understanding not only of cancer, but also of the specific drugs researchers use to treat it.
He recently developed an informatics pipeline for evaluating the differences in interaction profiles between a drug and its target protein isoforms.
In research he recently published in Scientific Reports, he found that over three quarters of drugs either missed a potential target isoform or target other isoforms with varied expression in multiple normal tissues.
Research into drug discovery is often done “as if one gene is making one protein,” Davuluri said. He believes the biggest reason for the failure of early stage drug discovery resides in picking a candidate that is not specific enough.
Ramana Davuluri with his daughter Roopavi. Photo by Laskshmi Davuluri
Davuluri is trying to make an impact by searching more specifically for the type of protein or drug target, which could, prior to use in a clinical trial, enhance the specificity and effectiveness of any treatment.
Hiring Davuluri expands the bioinformatics department, in which Joel Saltz is chairman, as well as the overall cancer effort.
Davuluri had worked with Saltz years ago when both scientists conducted research at Ohio State University.
“I was impressed with him,” Saltz said. “I was delighted to hear that he was available and potentially interested. People who are senior and highly accomplished bioinfomaticians are rare and difficult to recruit.”
Saltz cited the “tremendous progress” Davuluri has made in the field of transcription factors and cancer.
Bioinformatic analysis generally doesn’t take into account the way genes can be interpreted in different ways in different kinds of cancer. Davuluri’s work, however, does, Saltz said.
Developing ways to understand how tumors interact with non-tumor areas, how metastases develop, and how immune cells interact with a tumor can provide key advances in the field of cancer research, Saltz said. “If you can look at how this plays out over space and time, you can get more insights as to how a cancer develops and the different part of cancer that interact,” he said.
When he was younger, Davuluri dreamt of being a doctor. In 10th grade, he went on a field trip to a nearby teaching hospital, which changed his mind after watching a doctor perform surgery on a patient.
Later in college, he realized he was better in mathematics than many other subjects.
Davuluri and Lakshmi are thrilled to be raising their daughter, whose name is a combination of the words for “beautiful” and “brave” in their native Telugu.
As for Davuluri’s work, within the next year he would like to understand variants.
“Genetic variants can explain not only how we are different from one another, but also our susceptibility to complex diseases,” he explained. With increasing population level genomic data, he hopes to uncover variants in different ethnic groups that might provide better biomarkers.
He was a part of my wife’s family’s inner circle for years. He appeared at summer gatherings and at significant family events and celebrations.
With his white hair, his signature smile and a Polish accent that seemed as fresh in each conversation as it likely was the first time he arrived in the United States, Carl wandered in and out of conversations and rooms, often smiling and always listening.
He seemed as comfortable in his own skin as anyone I’d ever met, paying close attention to his wife, interacting with his children and grandchildren and soaking up life the way everyone around him soaked up the warm rays of the sun.
Carl watched one day almost 20 years ago when my daughter got too close to the pool’s edge, falling in before she could swim. I immediately jumped off the diving board and brought her back up, where, as I dried her off, she protested that it took too long for me to get her.
When my daughter felt comfortable and confident enough to walk away from me, Carl waited for me to make eye contact.
“That’s what you do when you’re a father,” he smiled.
I nodded and sighed while my blood pressure and pulse returned to normal.
Several times over the years, Carl and I sat next to each other, sharing buffet-style meals of chicken kebobs, pasta, and filets.
Carl didn’t have the numbers tattooed on his arm, but I knew some of the story of his life. I didn’t want to bother him or upset him with a discussion of what was a painful and difficult period.
Once, when we were alone inside a screened-in area, I raised the topic.
“Hey, Carl, I understand you survived the holocaust,” I said.
When he looked me in the eyes, he narrowed his lids slightly, processing what I said and, likely, trying to figure out whether he wanted to talk.
“It’s okay,” I said, immediately backing off. As a journalist, I have a tendency to ask questions. I recognize, however, the boundaries that exist during social interactions and with family and friends. I wanted to speak with him to hear about what had been an unspoken part of his life.
“Yes, I survived,” I said.
“How? Where?”
“In the woods,” he said. “I lived in the woods when the Nazis came.”
He described how he was so hungry that he ate leaves, bugs and bark. That, however, was far preferable to being caught by the Nazis, who had murdered the rest of his family. Carl had been a teenager when he escaped to the woods, avoiding Nazi guards who were always searching for people they deemed enemies and who they readily killed.
Surrounded by a collection of other people who might, at any given time, vanish forever, Carl survived for several years, emerging at the end of the war to try to restart a life shattered by violence and cruelty.
After a brief description of his experience, he told me how important he felt it was that people study the specifics of World War II and understand what really happened to him, his family and people in so many other countries. It angered him that people tried to ignore a history that took so much from him.
All those years later, Carl seemed so easy going and relaxed, so prepared to laugh and smile and to enjoy another bite of lunch or dinner.
Carl recently died. I’m sorry for the loss to his family. I’m glad to have known him and to have shared a few meals, a few smiles and a few stories. All those days, months and years of life, like initials carved into a tree, showed that he was, indeed, here and, having seen his family react and interact with him, that his life had meaning.
While wind is nice and effective, moving water is even more promising, especially in the future of alternative energies.
Ali Khosronejad. Photo from SBU
That’s because water is almost 1,000 times more dense than air, which means that the movement of the wet stuff due to tides or storms could produce a considerable amount of energy.
Indeed, “if we can effectively harness the energy from moving waters in our national waterways alone, it could provide enough energy to power the whole country,” said Ali Khosronejad, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Stony Brook University.
Khosronejad recently received $2 million as part of a $9.7 million four-year Department of Energy grant to study and develop ways to turn the movement of water into usable energy.
“I’m very optimistic about the future of this” approach, he said.
The DOE funds, which will involve a collaboration with East Carolina University, the University of New Hampshire, and Lehigh University, is a part of the new Atlantic Marine Energy Center, for which Khosronejad is a co-director.
The funds at Stony Brook will support hiring researchers at numerous levels, from post doctoral scientists, to graduate students and undergraduates. The money will also support adding new computer modules and expanding storage at the supercomputer.
Stony Brook will also tap into these funds to enable travel for these new hires, to help them interact in person with their collaborators from other universities.
The combined effort at these academic centers will be dedicated to researching ocean energy technology, education and outreach.
Researchers will work in the field, the laboratory and with computers on these ocean energy projects. They will seek to use wave energy and tidal energy conversion through such efforts as wave energy converters and tidal turbine farms.
This image depicts simulated turbulence in a waterway where a virtual tidal farm can be installed. The Stony Brook research team will use such simulations to investigate potential renewable ocean energy options. Image from Ali Khosronejad
The wave-energy converter floats on the seawater surface and uses the energy from the up and down motion of the water surface to produce electrical energy.
Researchers around the world are working to improve the efficiency of tidal turbine farms. Khosronejad described the effort as being in its infancy.
A good portion of the current project involves finding ways to optimize the positioning and layout of turbines in tidal farms. In his team, Khosronejad will work on the development of new artificial intelligence approaches to optimize the positioning and layout of turbines in tidal farms.
Stony Brook’s role in this project will involve working with computers.
In his research group, Khosronejad will work with supercomputers. His effort involves working to develop high-fidelity mathematical models that can address sediment transport and sediment-laden flows in tidal farms.
Scientists at the University of New Hampshire and ECU are involved in addressing environmental concerns.
In the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stony Brook, co-principal investigators Fang Luo, Associate Professor and Peng Zhang, Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering will work with computers and laboratories for micro-grid software and hardware research, respectively.
Ali Khosronejad, right, with former graduate student Kevin Flora, who earned his PhD in 2021
Working with Lehigh University, Khosronejad is doing high fidelity simulations, to replicate what researchers in the field at the University of New Hampshire and the Coastal Studies Institute at ECU are studying.
“We validate and develop artificial intelligence for design optimization of these tidal farms,” Khosronejad explained. The goal is to optimize the design of hydrokinetic turbines in estuaries and coastal areas that can create tidal farms.
The collaboration will coordinate with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, European Marine Energy Centre and Old Dominion University.
The first year of the project involves hiring, training graduates and undergraduates, setting up the foundation, and beginning the infrastructure upgrade.
“The training part is important,” Khosronejad said. “This will be the next workforce. The infrastructure will stay there for the next 10 years” so the university can use it in a host of other projects.
Khosronejad is encouraged by the financial commitment from the Department of Energy. “They understand how important it is, which is why they are investing a lot in this,” he said. Some of these tidal farms are already working in the East River, between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.
Wind turbines
At the same time, Khosronejad is continuing a wind turbine project he started with Fotis Sotiropoulos, the former dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook who is now Provost at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Khosronejad is now the principal investigator on that $1.1 million project and is continuing to work with Sotiropoulos, who officially left the project but is still volunteering to participate in its research activities. The scientists are working on how to use artificial intelligence to enhance the design of wind turbines.
Computer programs can alter the angle of the blades for the offshore wind farms where they attempt to use a control system to pitch the blades automatically to reduce the wind load during highly turbulent wind flows.
Changing the angle of attack of the blade can lower the loads and save money that would otherwise go to repairing blades that cracked or developed weaknesses amid strong winds, Khosronejad said.
The researchers presented their results at the American Physical Society meeting in Phoenix just before Thanksgiving.
The researchers are trying to balance between using the turbine to generate energy and preventing the force of the winds from damaging the system.
When wind speeds are up to 25 miles per hour, the system uses the full power of the wind to maximize energy production. At speeds above that, the turbulent wind can damage the rotor and gearbox. The blades are pitched to reduce the angular velocity, which is known as self-preservation mode. At speeds over 55 miles per hour, the turbine stops working to produce no energy and avoid significant damage to the rotors and gearbox.
Generally, such federal research projects involve sharing results publicly and with the industry sector. The goal is to share science that enables the production of reliable energy.
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