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Daniel Dunaief

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Stony Brook, NY; Stony Brook University: Judith Brown Clarke, Vice President for Equity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer

Judith Brown Clarke, a silver medal winner in the 400 meter hurdles at the 1984 Olympics, is taking a prominent role at the National Fitness Foundation.

Clarke, who is vice president for Equity & Inclusion and chief diversity officer at Stony Brook University, will become the chair from 2022 to 2024 of the only non-profit organization established by Congress to support youth sport, health and fitness initiatives. She will serve on the board until 2028.

The White House held a Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health on Sept. 28. Clarke said her goal after that conference as chair is to “take that call to action, look at what our role is in lifting some or those things off the page, and improving nutrition and physical activity, food insecurity and ending hunger.”

Tackling a number of challenges, such as the obesity epidemic, access and affordability of healthier foods, the lower rate of participation in youth sports among girls, and a need to increase physical activity will involve working with numerous partners and taking a multi dimensional approach.

“Some of the things that complement what happens at home” such as the expectations in gym class and the overall approach to health and nutrition “need to be strengthened,” Clarke said.

Lower levels of activity among some children stem from concerns about safety. Children may not play in the park, ride a bike, jump rope or go outside because areas where they might engage in these activities could involve some risk.

The foundation will partner with parents, teachers and corporations.

“How often do you find within the ingredients [of popular foods and condiments] where there’s sugar and salt?” she asked rhetorically. Numerous foods have supplemental ingredients that may be for taste, but that are above the daily allowance. People start to crave foods with high levels of salt and sugar.

Working with companies that manufacture food products, the foundation hopes to encourage the kind of decision making that helps their customers and their workers.

“Unhealthy people” who have eating habits that include high levels of carbohydrates, sugar and salt have “higher levels of absenteeism” within a corporation, Clarke said. “It actually is a financial model for organizations and corporations to lean into this. There’s a return on investment as it relates to their organization’s enterprise model.”

Conference pillars

The foundation plans to use the five White House Conference Pillars to guide their efforts and assessment of their effectiveness.

The White House conference is focused on improving food access and affordability. This includes expanding eligibility for an increase participation in food assistance programs and improving transportation to places where food is available.

Another pillar is to integrate nutrition and health. By prioritizing the role of nutrition and food security in overall health, the conference hopes to address the nutrition needs of all people.

The third pillar is to empower consumers to make and have access to healthy choices.

Fourth, officials would like to support physical activity for people, in part by ensuring that people have access to safe places to be active. The conference also hopes to increase the awareness of the benefits of physical activity.

Fifth, the conference plans to improve nutrition metrics, data collection and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly regarding issues of equity, access and disparities.

Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services secretary, expressed confidence in the ability of the board to reach their goals. “This experienced group of advisors will enable the National Fitness Foundation to take the next steps in advancing the health of our nation through fitness and nutrition,” Becerra said in a statement. 

In addition to serving as a role model through her success as an athlete, during which Clarke was a four-time national collegiate champion and 1987 Sports Illustrated Woman of the Year, she also hopes to encourage girls and their families to learn about the benefit of ongoing participation in athletics.

According to the National Fitness Foundation website, 30% of girls aged six to 12 participate in sports, compared with 39% of their male peers.

The foundation supports organizations committed to providing equal opportunity for girls to play sports.

In addition to leading healthy lives, women who participate in sports are often successful in the workplace, taking their disciplined approach to training, their ability to work together, and their recognition for how to handle fluid situations into a wide range of professional settings, Clarke said.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of some of these efforts may depend on the ability of people in communities to access these programs.

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Facebook photo/New York Yankees

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

If I were pitching to Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, I would probably take a long pause before throwing my first pitch.

I know it’s absurd to think of this older man who never threw a ball much harder than low high school level pitching to a generational legend, but let’s play out the fantasy for a laugh or two.

I wouldn’t pause so I could figure out how to get him out. Sure, it’d be nice to do my job well and my teammates might appreciate it if I gave us a better chance to win a game.

Instead, I would need to ponder the moment that history might be calling. I’d be thinking about the best choreographed reaction to him hitting a home run. I mean, after all, the pitchers who surrender his long home runs are, in their own way, famous.

They share the moment between when they release the ball, and he obliterates it into the night sky, sending thousands of people screaming out of their seats, arms in the air, sharing in the majesty that wouldn’t be possible without my meatball pitch sputtering, laughably, towards his powerful bat.

If he sent a ball out of the stadium, I would be joining select company, with so many pitchers around the majors surrendering home runs in a historic year.

I’d be thinking about how I’d look in newsreels or newscasts or digital versions of the Aaron Judge year to remember.

I could imagine ways to overreact. I could throw my glove on the mound, gesture wildly by putting my hands in the air, or shake my head so violently that my manager and the trainer would have to waddle out to the mound to put me in a neck brace.

Or, maybe I’d hold my glove up to my face and appear to yell a stream of expletives into my mitt, as if, somehow, I knew I should have thrown a different pitch in a different spot.

Then again, I could rub my fingers in some dirt and write a capital “AJ” on my uniform, like scarlet letters, except it wouldn’t be anything puritanical, and I would be acknowledging my inferiority.

None of that seems like me, even in my fantasy world.

Being stoic would make me too much of a personality-less pitcher. Let’s face it: even in my imaginary moment of being an above average starter or relief pitcher, the time to focus on me would be incredibly short.

Let’s say I didn’t blink after he hit the home run. Or, maybe, I tracked the flight of the ball carefully, like a zebra eyeing a lion suspiciously in the Serengeti. That might get me on TV and make me more than just another guy who gave up a home run to Aaron Judge.

Maybe I’d wait at home plate and give him a high five or a fist bump to acknowledge a full season worth of greatness. While kids do that in Little League, professional players generally don’t acknowledge the remarkable achievements of their opponents.

When he reached second base, I could put down my glove and clap from the mound, ever so briefly. Then, perhaps, I’d take off my hat and salute him.

Or, maybe I could take a page out of the more subtle but celebrated Mona Lisa textbook. I could give just a hint of a smile as if I were saying, “you beat me and you’re a pretty spectacular hitter. There’s no shame in losing this battle and now we’re weirdly connected, like we’re kind of twins, except that you’re great and going to be remembered forever and I’m just going to be remembered for starting the ball on its magical journey into the history books.”

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Babak Andi holds a 3-D model of the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

For close to two and a half years, the world has had a microbial enemy. The SARS-CoV2 virus, which causes Covid-19, has resulted in close to 6.5 million deaths, caused lockdowns, restricted travel, closed businesses, and sickened millions. The key to fighting such a dangerous enemy lies in learning more about it and defeating its battle plan.

Working with principal investigator Daniel Keedy, Assistant Professor at the City University of New York and Diamond Light Source in the United Kingdom, Babak Andi, who is a beamline scientist from the structural biology group at Brookhaven National Laboratory, spent over two years studying a key viral enzyme.

Recently, the researchers revealed the structure at five temperatures of an enzyme called Mpro, for main protease. This enzyme, which separates proteins the virus makes, is critical for the maturation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus particles. They published their work in the Journal of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCrJ).

Using the Frontier Macromolecular Crystallography (FMX) beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II at BNL, Andi collected data on the structure of the enzyme at temperatures ranging from 100 degrees Kelvin, which is about negative 280 degrees Fahrenheit, all the way up to 310 degrees Kelvin, which is normal body temperature. “Nobody had done that, specifically for this protein,” said Andi.

Keedy, who guided the data collection, processed the information and wrote most of the paper, described the effort as a “great collaboration.” The gradual change in the conformation of the enzyme helped the scientists learn how it may move or shape-shift in general, he explained.

Keedy had worked with BNL in the past and pursued research at the FMX beamline because the scientists at BNL had “been working with Mpro on site, and were very approachable and open to the idea.”

Finding the specific structure of important proteins like Mpro can help researchers, pharmaceutical companies and doctors search for inhibitors or small molecules that could be specific to these proteins and that might interfere with their function.

Andi and other scientists at this beamline worked through the pandemic shutdown because of the potential practical application of what they were doing.

“We almost had all the infrastructures in place to allow other scientists to connect and operate the beamlines remotely, enabling them to collect data on Covid-19 virus proteins,” said Andi. “In my opinion, being able to support all the academic and industrial scientists to collect data for Covid-19 research was our greatest achievement during the worst period of the pandemic.”

While coming into the lab in those early months raised concerns about their own health, Andi and his colleagues, who developed safety protocols, felt an urgency to conduct this research.

“When Covid hit, we had a sense that this is our duty, this is our job to contribute to this field, to make sure that every scientist who works on Covid-19 had easy access to our beamlines, facilities and all the tools [necessary] to make new drugs,” said Andi. 

How they solved the structure

The technology for the beamline enables Andi and other scientists to collect data quickly and even remotely. Speed helps because the longer x-rays hit a protein, the more likely they are to cause the kind of damage that makes determining the structure difficult, particularly at higher temperatures.

The first step in this research was in producing this protein, which Andi’s collaborators at BNL in the biology department provided. The biology department also helped with crystallization.

Andi prepared the beamline and aligned the x-ray beam, which are necessary to collect data.

The scientists rotated and moved the crystal through the x-ray, distributing the beam over the length of the crystal to minimize radiation damage.

The small size of the x-ray beam made it possible to keep the beam focused on the smallest dimension of the structure. The researchers studied the crystal at five different temperatures, starting at cryogenic all the way up to physiological.

Of the 195,000 structures listed in the Protein Data Bank, or PDB, only five had been determined at body temperature. That includes two from the group of collaborators who participated in this study.

Andi collected three or four data sets at each temperature.

“The different conformations we saw may inspire a new twist on antiviral drug development that targets a different place in the protein, but with a similar or better effect,” Keedy explained.

The researchers did not include other factors that might affect the conformation of the protein, such as pH, pressure, the number of ions or salts in the environment, among others. For the Mpro protease to work, it has to bond to another similar protein, forming a dimer.

Andi said the Pfizer treatment Paxlovid binds to the active site of this enzyme, inactivating it.

The drugs he is looking for are similar, although he is also searching for other places on the enzyme besides its active site.

Keedy hopes to try to make a monomeric form of the enzyme through a mutation. He could then find drug-like small molecules that target the exposed interface between the two copies.

BNL origins

After he completed his PhD and post doctoral work at the University of Oklahoma, Andi started his career at BNL 11 years ago as a post doctoral researcher.

During his childhood, Andi was initially interested in astronomy. When he enrolled at a university outside the United States, he took an entrance exam.

“Based on your score, it tells you which discipline of science you can go into,” he said. His score directed him to the field of cell and molecular biology.

“I’m happy this happened,” he said. “I find that I’m actually more interested in molecular biology than in astronomy.”

Outside of work, Andi enjoys do-it-yourself projects. Astronomy also continues to appeal to him, as he is fascinated with astrophotography and reads astronomy articles.

As for the work with a Covid enzyme, Andi hopes he has other opportunities to contribute. 

“I am interested [in continuing] the research in this field,” he explained. “That depends on time, resources and current or future priorities.”

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Twilight Zone. Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Conversations with friends, relatives and neighbors have taken a turn into “The Twilight Zone” episodes recently.

Decades ago, when I spoke with my friends, we discussed our activities, ambitions and plans. We might have complained about our bosses, described a business trip, shared an encounter with a stranger on a plane or train, or described our frustrations with our favorite sports teams.

Sure, we still do that, but, as the years pass, the discussions drift. This is where I’d cue the music.

In Episode One, we have two college friends who shared a room for several years, who sweated through a spectacularly hot summer in Boston with no air conditioning, and who, over the decades, visited each other’s homes with and without our wives and children.

So, these two friends recently started catching up.

“I can’t stand the hair that’s coming out of my ears,” I offered. “It makes it harder to hear and to be taken seriously by anyone looking at me.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty unwelcome,” my friend laughed. “My back is killing me. I wake up every morning and it takes me a while to feel comfortable enough to stand and shuffle to the bathroom.”

“My hip has been a problem,” I reply.

“I also don’t see particularly well. I don’t like driving when it’s dark,” he added.

“My knee is sore,” I added, “but I think that’s from compensating for my hip.”

And so it went, for about 10 minutes, until we broke the description of all that ails us and transitioned to a discussion of all that inspires, and worries, us about our college-age children.

“I hope you feel better soon,” I offered as we got off the phone.

“At this point, I’d just take not feeling worse,” he said.

Okay, so that wasn’t too terrifying, right? Two 50-ish guys chatted and shared personal details about the aging vessels that carry us through life.

That takes us to Episode Two. Imagine, if you will, a group of older adults, representing the 50ish and the 80ish generation, chatting in person together.

“Have you been to the doctor recently?” one of the people asked.

“Which one? For what?” a second one replied.

“How many doctors do you have?” a third one asked.

And that is where the conversation became a competition. Each person, slowly and deliberately, shared the number of doctors he or she visits.

“I’ve had kidney stones, so I have a urologist,” I offered, as if I were recounting trophies on a shelf or comparing the number of friends I have with someone else in fourth grade rather than recalling a specialist who helped me deal with excruciating agony.

“Do you have an ENT doctor? I have one,” someone else said.

My competitive spirit again got the best of me.

“I have the best GI guy, who gave me a great colonoscopy. I had such a nice rest while I was under anesthesia,” I said.

I pictured a younger version of me, sitting with the group, staring, open-mouthed at the enthusiasm with which all of us, me included, counted our doctors and the reason we needed them.

In Episode Three, a man in his 30s walked his dog, limping along with a supportive black boot on his leg. Another man (me) appeared, pulled along by his oversized dog.

“Not to get too personal,” I said, “but your shoes don’t match.”

The good-natured man smiled and said he thought he had shin splints from running, but discovered he had a hairline fracture that required several weeks of rest in a boot.

“I went to my parents’ house in New Hampshire and ran over five miles on an uneven road. The next day, I could barely move. I have to rest it for six weeks,” he said.

I nodded and wished him a speedy recovery.

“Well, maybe it hurts just because I’m older,” he offered.

You have no idea, I thought, as I could feel the urge to hold back a clock that pushes each of us forward through time. 

Cue the music.

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From left, Chang Kee Jung, Barry Barish and Carl Lejuez. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves existed, but figured interference on the Earth would make them impossible to observe. He was right on the first count. On the second, it took close to a century to create an instrument capable of detecting gravitational waves. The first confirmed detection, which was generated 1.3 billion light years away when two black holes collided, occurred in September of 2015.

For his pioneering work with gravitational waves, which now include numerous other such observations, Barry Barish shared the Nobel Prize in 2017 with physicists Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne.

In the fall of 2023, Barish is bringing his physics background and knowledge to Stony Brook University, where he will be the inaugural President’s Distinguished Endowed Chair in Physics. Barish will teach graduate students and serve as an advisor to Chang Kee Jung, Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Distinguished Professor.

From left, Barry Barish and Chang Kee Jung. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

“I’m really happy,” said Jung in an interview. “Nobel Prize winning work is not all the same. This work [Barish] has done with LIGO [the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] is incredible.”

Jung suggested the discovery of these two merging black holes “opened up a completely new field of astronomy using gravitational waves.” The finding is a “once-in-a-generation discovery.”

Gravitational waves disrupt the fabric of spacetime, a four-dimensional concept Einstein envisioned that combines the three dimensions of space with time. These waves are created when a neutron star with an imperfect spherical shape spins, and during the merger of two black holes, the merger of two neutron stars, or the merger of a neutron star and a black hole.

Jung suggested a way to picture a gravitational wave. “Imagine you have a bathtub with a little rubber ducky,” he said. In the corner of the bathtub, “you slam your hand into the water” which will create a ripple that will move the duck. In the case of the gravitational wave Barish helped detect, two black holes slamming into each other over 1.2 billion light years ago, when life on Earth was transitioning from single celled to multi celled organisms, started that ripple.

While Barish, 86, retired after a lengthy and distinguished career at CalTech in 2005, Stony Brook has no plans to create a team of physicists who specialize in this area. “The most important thing is that people together exchange ideas and figure out what to do next that’s interesting,” Barish said in an interview. “I’ll keep doing gravitational waves.”

Instead of encouraging graduate students and even undergraduates to follow in his footsteps, Barish hopes to “help stimulate the future here and help educate students,” he said.

An important call

Jung, who became chair of the department in the fall of 2021, has known Barish for over three decades. On a periodic informal zoom call, Jung reached out to Barish to tell him Stony Brook had offered Jung the opportunity to become chair. Barish suggested he turn it down. As Jung recalled, Barish said, “Why do you want to do that?”

On another informal call later on, Jung told Barish he decided to become chair, explaining that he wanted to serve the university and the department. Barish asked him what he would do as chair. Jung replied, “‘I would like guys like you to come to Stony Brook. It took [Barish] about 10 seconds to think about it and then he said, ‘That’s possible.’”

That, Jung said, is how a Nobel Prize winning scientist took the first steps towards joining Stony Brook.

Last week, Barish came to Stony Brook to deliver an inaugural lecture as a part of the newly created C.N. Yang Colloquium series in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Stony Brook officials were thrilled with Barish’s appointment and the opportunity to learn from his well-attended on-site lecture.

In remarks before Barish’s packed talk at the Simons Center Della Pietra Family Auditorium, Carl Lejuez, Executive Vice President and Provost, said he hears the name C.N. Yang “all the time,” which reflects Yang’s foundational contribution to Stony Brook University. “It’s fitting that we honor his legacy with a speaker of Dr. Barish’s character who, like Yang, is also a Nobel Prize winner. It’s a really nice synergy.”

Indeed, Yang, who won his Nobel Prize in 1957, coming to Stony Brook “instantaneously raised the university profile,” said Jung, whose department is the largest on campus with 75 faculty.

Surrounded by a dedicated team of scientists, and with the addition of another Nobel Prize winner to the fold, Jung believes the team will continue to thrive. 

“If you put together great minds, great things will happen,” he said.

Seeing the bigger picture

Barish is eager to encourage undergraduates and graduate students to consider the bigger picture in the realm of physics.

“[In general] we train graduate students to do something really important by making them narrower and narrower and narrower, so they can concentrate on doing something that’s worthy of getting a thesis and is as important as possible,” Barish said. “That works against creating a scientist who can look beyond something narrow. That’s bothered me for a long time.”

The problem, Barish continued, is that once researchers earn their degree, they continue on the same path. “Why should you happen to have had a supervisor in graduate school determine what you do for the rest of your life?” he asked.

Once students have the tools of physics, whether they are experimental or theoretical, they shouldn’t be so locked in, he urged. “It’s possible to use these same tools to do almost any problem in physics,” Barish added.

His goal in a course he plans to teach to advanced graduate students (that’s also open to undergraduates) is to provide exposure to the frontiers of science.

A few years ago, Barish recalled how the New York Times ran a picture of a black hole above the fold. He taught a class how scientists from around the world combined radio telescopes to make it act like one radio telescope the size of the Earth.

Helping students understand how that happened “pays off in the long run in making our physics students that we turn out be broader and more interesting and more interested in physics,” Barish said.

When Barish arrives next September, Jung said he plans to have some assignments for interactions with undergraduates. “Undergraduate research is critically important,” Jung said. Barish will also interact with various student groups, as well as the community outside the university.

“We will create those opportunities,” Jung said.

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Queen Elizabeth II. Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

During the Platinum Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate the monarch’s 70 years on the throne, Clary Evans, a radiation oncologist who works at Northwell Health, her husband Tobias Janowitz, a scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and their families got together with another English family to mark the occasion.

They made a cake and had tea, “aware that this was probably the last time” they would celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s lengthy legacy, Evans recalled in an email.

Residents of Suffolk, England, Evans’s parents Philip and Gillian shared memories and thoughts on Queen Elizabeth II, who died last week at the age of 96.

Before Elizabeth’s coronation at the age of 27, Philip Evans, who was a teenager, traveled with his brother Anthony to Trafalgar Square, where they camped out near the fountain.

After a night filled with an early June rain in 1953, Evans and his brother awaited the moment to see the queen, whose coronation occurred 16 months after she became queen.

Gillian and Philip Evans with their Patterdale terrier puppy in Mettingham, Suffolk, UK in August of this year. Photo from Clary Evans

The next morning, as crowds continued to grow, the police pushed the newer arrivals in front of the group, which meant Phillip was in the third tier of onlookers.

Through the crowd, he caught a glimpse of the young queen, offering a stiff wave to her subjects.

“It was a marvelous thing to do,” Evans said by phone from his home. The travel and waiting in the rain meant it “wasn’t easy.”

Gillian Evans, meanwhile, traveled with her family to visit her aunt, who, at the time, was the only one in her family who owned a television.

“It was lovely to see what a beautiful spectacle it was,” Gillian Evans said.

The queen executed her duties admirably under an intense spotlight that never dimmed during her over 70 years of service, she added.

“What a remarkable lady she had been,” Gillian Evans added. “She said she would give herself to the nation for as long as she lived, and she did. Right up to the very, very last, which is wonderful.”

While Gillian Evans thought such conditions were akin to being in  prison, with all the limitations and the constant responsibilities, she believed the queen “loved it. It showed in her face.” Being a part of a “love match” with her husband Prince Philip “must have helped enormously.”

The Evans matriarch, 83, who is a retired diagnostic radiographer, is amazed at the effect the queen’s death is having on residents.

Philip Evans, who said the queen did “jolly well,” recognized that the queen made mistakes, one of which arose during her muted reaction to the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in 1997.

“She had a really bad time when Princess Diana was killed,” said Philip Evans, who retired in 2000 as a general surgeon. “She was just pulled down by the power of the press. In legalese, ‘she was badly advised.’”

During a recent visit to the ophthalmologist, Evans chatted with three people about the queen and her son Charles, who has now become King Charles III.

People were saying “the queen had done a good job” and that they believed her son was “well suited” for his new role.

Philip Evans has noticed that the church bells ringing in the aftermath of her death don’t have their typical sound.

The sound alternates between loud and muted. The churches are using a so-called half-muffled peal, which creates a somber echo. The bells rang the same way last year after Prince Philip’s death.

“It’s very alarming and tells you that something is odd,” Evans said.

As the country prepares for the funeral of a queen born eight years after the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 and who died two years after COVID-19, Clary Evans recognized that Queen Elizabeth II was a “link to those values of duty and service that were strong in those war and post-war years.”

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Aleida Perez during BNL's virtual teaching sessions this summer

By Daniel Dunaief

For well over two years, herd immunity, vaccination status, social distancing, masking and airborne particles became regular topics of conversation. 

People have a range of understanding of these terms and how to apply them to understanding the fluid conditions that are an evolving part of the pandemic.

Aleida Perez

This summer, with funding from the National Science Foundation, a group of scientists and doctors from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, New York University and MoMath, the National Museum of Mathematics, worked together with middle school and high school teachers around Long Island to prepare lesson plans on how to use and understand the application of statistics to the pandemic.

“It was a wildly successful summer,” said Dr. Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “We spent hours and hours of time” working with teachers who developed lessons that addressed a host of issues related to COVID-19.

It was “an amazing experience” and the teachers “were the best part,” said Dr. Nachman.

Allen Mincer, Professor of Physics at New York University, has been working on and off with BNL for over two decades on various educational programs. He has been more actively engaged in the last four years.

As he and his collaborators were discussing possible educational outreach topics, they focused on the disruptive disease that changed the world over the last few years.

“This year, we were talking about it and, instead of doing random applications of statistics, we figured, why not do something that’s very practical in everyone’s mind,” Mincer said.

The projects and discussions, which were all conducted virtually, centered on numerous misconceptions people have about the pandemic. Teachers focused on questions including: what is the “efficiency” of a vaccine and how is it determined, what does a positive virus test result mean, if I am vaccinated, why do I care if others are, why take a vaccine when there are side effects, and I have to go to school and mix with people, so why shouldn’t I also let down my guard in other ways, among others.

“The challenges that this virus brings concerning topics like herd immunity was very interesting,” said Scott Bronson, manager of outreach to K-12 teachers and student for BNL’s Office of Educational Programs.

Scott Bronson during the BNL virtual teaching sessions this summer.

For teachers and their students, the realities of the pandemic were the backdrop against which these teachers were seeking to provide guidance. “It was happening live,” said Bronson. “What is herd immunity? That’s where the work of [Dr. Nachman and Mincer] came together beautifully.”

Bronson added that students will have a chance to explore the kinds of questions pharmaceutical companies are addressing, such as “What would you want the next vaccine to do” and “What would you do to make the vaccine better at preventing infection.”

The organizers put together teams of three to four high school and middle school teachers who created statistics lessons plans for the group.

“The way we worked it out, we put teachers in groups,” said Aleida Perez, supervisor of student research and citizen science programs for Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Office of Educational Programs. “We wanted to have different teachers with different courses and different perspectives on how to do things.”

One of the overarching goals was to help students understand such lessons as what it means to have a negative result on a virus test or what it meant when scientists and pharmaceutical companies described a vaccine’s efficacy.

The teachers explored the probability of side effects like myocarditis and whether the “benefit outweighs the risk of taking the vaccine,” Perez said.

For many of the teachers, the discussion expanded beyond COVID to an analysis of any infectious agent. Indeed, one of the groups of teachers described a zombie apocalypse.

The teachers provided a “nice overview to look at the education of public students,” said Perez.

The group hopes to make these lessons available for other teachers, although they haven’t determined where or how to post them.

The scientific team also hasn’t determined yet how to measure the long term impact or effectiveness of these lessons.

ATLAS project

As a part of the team involved in the ATLAS physics program at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, Mincer uses statistics to design, test and implement the tools to pick and choose from numerous reactions and then to study the data collected.

“We actually keep about a billion events out of the 100 trillion or so interactions the LHC produces in a year,” Mincer explained.

In previous years, Mincer has taught about statistics in general and its use in ATLAS. This year, he focused on statistics and its application to pandemic questions.

Several years ago, Mincer taught a freshman seminar called “Great science, fabulous science and voodoo science,” in which he described what students could learn from statistics, how the media covers science, science and government policy and how lawyers use science in the courtroom.

“After explaining statistics [and sharing] why we can only say we have evidence down to this level, I had a student tell me he’s dropping out of science as a major because he wanted certainty and I disillusioned him,” Mincer said.

As for the work with the high school teachers, Mincer said it was “great what they have been able to do” in preparing lessons for their students and sharing information about statistics.

Mincer has received some additional funds from the NSF to support two more such educational outreach programs, one of which will tentatively cover climate change.

“Statistics can be used to quantify the likelihood of events in the absence of climate change,” he explained.

Statistics provide a tool to document subtle but potentially significant changes in climate.

While Bronson wouldn’t commit to a discussion of climate change for the next group of teachers, he said he “wouldn’t be surprised if we look at climate change” and that “there’s a lot of interesting areas to explore in this field.”

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Glass of water. METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

For decades, my wife and I have had one of those five-gallon water dispensers in our house. We enjoy the taste of ice cold water, and we recycle the empty containers when we’re done.

We have a regular water delivery service. Our monthly order varies depending on how many of our children, and their friends, are in the house. Typically, the best, and only way to connect with our water delivery service, is through an online interaction. Reaching an agent has been close to impossible.

Recently, we had one of those surreal technological moments with our company.

I received our usual email message, reminding me that the next day was my delivery day and I should leave out my empty bottles.

I did as I was told, because it’s so comforting to take instructions from an automated system. That night, on my last walk with our dog, I noticed that the empty bottles were still where I put them.

Okay, I thought. Maybe they’ll bring them the next day.

When I checked my emails, I received a notification indicating that the bottles were delivered and asking if I’d like to tip the driver. Realizing that my powers of observation could have been faulty, I went back outside, where the reality of the empty bottles defied the assertion of the automated email.

I tried to reach the water company through a chat service, but the automated system explained that agents were busy and couldn’t handle my request.

I found an old email from the company and wrote to them, explaining that they thought they had delivered a product, for which I would likely be charged.

On my second try the next morning, I reached a live person. Tempted as I was to exclaim my glee at speaking with a real person, I remained focused on the mission. I explained that I hadn’t received the water and would like them to bring it as soon as possible.

“You’re not scheduled for another delivery for a month,” she explained.

“Right, but I didn’t get the water yesterday,” I replied. “Can you send a truck with water?”

“Well, it says you did get the water,” she said.

“Who is saying I received the water? I’m telling you no one delivered the water,” I answered. “Can I please get the water I’m paying for?”

“Hold on,” she said, putting me on hold for several minutes.

“No, sir, I’m sorry, but we have a new computer system and I can’t reschedule the water delivery for you. I can credit you for this month.”

“Well,” I sighed. “I appreciate the gesture, but you’re not proving all that reliable. I pay for you to provide water. Maybe I’ll switch companies.”

“I can give you $5 off the water for next month,” she said.

“That’s assuming you deliver the water,” I replied.

“Let us know what you’d like to do. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Tempted as I was to answer that she hadn’t done anything for me, I said I appreciated her effort.

That night, I brought the empty bottles back into the house and discussed the situation with my wife.

The next evening, five water bottles appeared in the usual spot. I brought them in and was pleased I hadn’t shopped for more at the supermarket.

By the next evening, I could barely contain my laughter when I found five more bottles in the usual spot. I quickly canceled the delivery for October and lugged the next five bottles into the house.

Concerned that these deliveries might become daily, I approached the usual spot with trepidation the next evening. I was relieved to see that the deliveries stopped.

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Photo from Deposit Photos

Now available at a doctor’s office or pharmacy near you: the latest COVID-19 booster.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration gave Pfizer and Moderna Emergency Use Authorization to start distributing their newest COVID booster, which includes protection against the highly infectious Ba.4 and Ba.5 strains of omicron.

A few days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the administration of the booster.

Area doctors welcomed the news and suggested the newest booster would be helpful for certain groups.

“I suspect that, at a minimum, those who needed to get a fourth booster (elderly, comorbidity, immune issues) should get” it, explained Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, in an email. “I believe that its approval will include all individuals over age 12.”

Dr. Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital/ Northwell Health, agreed that senior citizens and immunocompromised people should consider the latest booster.

With other shots available until now, residents may need to consider how much time to wait between boosters.

People are eligible for another booster two months after a previous COVID vaccine, according to the FDA website.

The FDA authorized single doses of Moderna’s booster for people 18 and over and Pfizer’s booster for those 12 and older.

The incidence of hospitalizations among people who have COVID at area hospitals has remained fairly stable during the summer. Stony Brook University Hospital has about 50 COVID inpatients each day, while Huntington Hospital has about 11.

Doctors cautioned, however, that those numbers include people who are hospitalized for other procedures or treatments and who test positive as a part of the hospital’s effort to monitor the pandemic.

“The vaccines, to a large extent (primary series plus a booster-protection) are working quite well” at preventing the need for hospitalizations, Nachman wrote.

Doctors urged people to take steps to protect themselves, their families, and their communities against contracting the virus.

“With the virus changing, it’s even more important to keep yourself and your family safe from getting COVID again and remain vigilant about taking precautions, i.e. hand washing, social distancing, mask wearing,” Nachman added.

A minority of residents treated with Pfizer’s antiviral therapy Paxlovid have experienced a rebound, testing positive days or even a week or more after receiving the antiviral treatment.

“Viral rebound occurs in about 10%” for those who have taken Paxlovid, with the majority in the older age groups, Nachman wrote. Having said that, the rebound we are seeing has not led to Emergency Department visits or hospitalizations.” 

As for mental health issues, residents of Suffolk County, as with other communities, have generally seen an improvement amid a relaxation of restrictions that limited social contact and kept people from their routines.

“Mental health issues were mostly related to the isolation mandates that were required to slow the spread of COVID,” Popp explained. “The reduction in restrictions has improved the mental health issues for many people.”

Monkeypox vigilance

Area hospitals continue to remain on the lookout for potential outbreaks of monkeypox.

“We are aggressively evaluating all suspected cases of monkeypox and have protocols in place for testing as well as treatment,” Nachman wrote. “We will be rolling out a [National institutes of Health] funded clinical trial for treating individuals across the ages with TPOXX.”

Huntington Hospital has had two confirmed cases of monkeypox. Popp expects the virus will “likely continue to spread.”

Several medical facilities continue to administer the limited monkeypox vaccines.

SBUH is working with the Suffolk County Department of Health to provide vaccinations at the Edie Windsor Healthcare Center in Hampton Bays.

On the official Suffolk County website, eligible residents can schedule monkeypox vaccinations through Northwell Health at the Bayshore Mall on Sunrise Highway.

As for the flu, Nachman urged residents to get their vaccines prior to the start of the seasonal flu season, sometime between now and November.

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Coach Ashley Langford. Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Parents, coaches and teachers offer words of wisdom, guidance and advice.

At the same time, however, they also have opportunities to learn, particularly after the end of one year and the start of another.

And so it is for Stony Brook University women’s basketball coach Ashley Langford.

A year after she took her first head coaching job at Stony Brook, Langford took stock of her experience, while contemplating the next steps.

“I’m still high energy and enthusiastic,” Langford said at 3 p.m. .on the first day of school from her car as she headed to a late lunch. “I’m still excited to be head coach.”

A self-described “high achiever” who “wants to be the best,” Langford acknowledges that she may be an over achiever as well.

“Even when I reach my goal, for me, you’re supposed to,” she said. “There were times [last year] when we would win and I wouldn’t be happy. I want us to be our best.”

Langford, however, recognizes that emphasizing ways to improve, even after winning a game, was not ideal for her players.

“They are 18- to 23-year-olds,” she said. “They need to enjoy that win, regardless of how it looked. They need to be praised right in the moment.”

That doesn’t mean teaching and improving ends after a win. The next day, she said she felt more comfortable talking about how to avoid the possibility of letting a game slip away.

In her second year, Langford hopes she, her coaches and the team become more visible to the community, particularly because the team plays a “fun brand of basketball.”

Her debut season involved ongoing restrictions related to the pandemic, preventing her from connecting with the community.

“I need to be more visible,” Langford said. “It’s important that Long Island knows who we are.”

She is eager to go into schools and engage with members of the community.

“Community service is a huge piece of that,” Langford said. “It’s us going to schools and reading” or interacting in other ways with residents.

This summer, the basketball program ran an elite camp for players who were not at a recruitable age. Participants in the camp can come back to games for free, which, Langford hopes, can encourage other spectators to join them.

“Maybe they’ll bring a friend or two,” she said.

The Seawolves coach is excited for the opportunity to compete in the Colonial Athletic Conference. After participating in the America East conference since 2001, the Stony Brook Athletic Department decided to move to the CAA starting this season.

Langford will rely on some of her knowledge of her competition. Prior to arriving at SBU, Langford spent four years at James Madison University, which is a member of the CAA.

“I know the DNA of certain teams,” Langford said. She recognizes, however, that teams change, which means that the Seawolves have to be “ready to pivot.”

As she prepares the team, which includes four transfer students, for the upcoming season, she believes Stony Brook will be competitive in a demanding conference.

“We’re not in a league where you can have an off night and think you’re gong to win,” she said. “We’ve got to be ready to give our best.”

Thoughts from a former player and her father

Former fifth-year player India Pagan, who is preparing to play professional basketball in Germany this winter (see story in Arts and Lifestyles), remains connected to her former team.

“I’m really proud that we made it to another league,” she said. “We have to elevate our level, our intensity. I say, ‘We,’ like I’m still on the team.” Pagan said she still feels committed to a team she helped lead to consecutive conference championships.

Thinking back to the beginning of his daughter’s college basketball experience, India’s father Moises Pagan cited Stony Brook’s eagerness to recruit her.

“The fact that they put this powerpoint together, it blew us away,” Pagan said. “We walked away saying, ‘Stony Brook really wants our daughter.’”

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