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Daniel Dunaief

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Coach Ken Eriksen during practice with Team USA Softball. Photo by Jade Hewitt from USA Softball

Some days, you win a close race against the best in the world by a fingernail, the way Michael Phelps did in 2008 in the 100-meter butterfly.

Coach Ken Eriksen with members of Team USA softball team. Photo by Jade Hewitt from USA Softball

Other days, your team, after thousands of hours of practice, working hard, watching video and dancing on a bus — more on this later — you lose by that same margin.

That’s how Team USA Softball’s coach Ken Eriksen, who contributed his last volunteer hour to traveling around the world on behalf of the country, felt after losing 2-0 to Japan in the gold medal game at the Tokyo Olympics.

“The difference between gold or silver is almost microscopic,” Eriksen said. “Japan had a good day.”

A turning point in the gold medal game came in the bottom of the sixth inning when American third-basemen Amanda Chidester lined a ball that hit off her counterpart at third base and into the shortstop’s mitt, who threw to second base to get a double play, ending a potential American rally from a 2-0 deficit.

“When that play occurred, that’s the first time in the game that I said, ‘This may not be our day,’” Eriksen, a 1979 graduate of Ward Melville High School said.

The head coach was pleased with the preparation and effort from a team of 15 players, including pitching legends Cat Osterman and Monica Abbott, who returned for one more chance at an Olympic medal.

“I thought we played a very good tournament,” Eriksen said from Tampa, Florida, where he has been the University of South Florida head softball coach for the last 24 years.

Outside the lines, the Olympics presented numerous challenges. Even on their way to the Olympics, it was clear this would be a unique experience, as the only people on the flight to Japan were either athletes or the military.

Once in the country, they had numerous restrictions as a result of the Delta variant.

“The Japanese wouldn’t let you do much,” Eriksen said.

The team and coaches went to the ballpark and spent much of their time at the hotel. They couldn’t go outside and socialize with other athletes. Inside the village, they had to put on their masks everywhere.

Each morning, the players and coaches had a COVID saliva test, which built anxiety as the team waited for results in the afternoon.

“There was no release of stress to go out and just relax,” Eriksen said. “Elite athletes need that pressure release and coaches need it.”

Indeed, in addition to restrictions placed on the team, the athletes regularly heard from Japanese citizens who were upset that the Olympics even took place.

“Everywhere we went, we heard protests,” Eriksen said. “It’s unnerving. You’re there in allegedly the greatest athletic event in the world and in the host country, they don’t want you. When you’re hearing voices coming over megaphones behind a police line, it’s not normal.”

To counterbalance the stress and help the team, Eriksen said he slackened the reins, giving his players the green light to get “goofy.”

“People think of athletes as having ice in their veins. They are human beings.”

— Ken Eriksen

Led by infielder Valerie Arioto, 32, the team danced on the bus. Arioto did the “greatest rendition of Cher” and Kelly Clarkson, Eriksen said. The head coach also allowed the team to listen to music while practicing, giving them a chance to blow off steam while preparing for upcoming games.

Mental health

Eriksen said the softball team had already focused on the mental health aspects of the game, which gymnast Simone Biles brought to the world’s attention when she withdrew from the team and several individual events.

“We’ve been ahead of the curve on this for three or four years,” Eriksen said.

While people talk about softball and baseball as games of failure because a batter is considered successful if he or she gets on base once in three tries, Eriksen said the softball team describes the experience as a “game of opportunity,” by defining successes in ways other than batting averages.

Eriksen is grateful to Biles and Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from Wimbledon rather than face questions from the media, for raising the issue of mental health for athletes.

“People think of athletes as having ice in their veins,” he said. “They are human beings. The pressure on anybody that wears a U.S. uniform … is almost unfair.”

The rest of the world has improved in numerous sports, including softball, in part because American coaches have helped train them, Eriksen added. Through the Olympics, American players compete against their college roommates or coaches who worked with them earlier in their careers.

After the gold medal game ended in heartbreak for players who put everything they had into the game, Eriksen said he shared a few words with the team.

“This game will not be the toughest they’ll ever play,” he recalled. “The toughest game will start tomorrow: the rest of their life.”

He encouraged players to call him for any future support.

Having been an assistant coach with the gold-medal winning team in Athens in 2004, Eriksen recognized that the game fades quickly.

“Within five minutes, you have the realization that it’s over and the climb is the most exhilarating part,” he said.

Eriksen was pleased to have the support and leadership of 38-year-old Osterman and 36-year-old Abbott, who served as inspirations to their teammates. He described the two pitchers as the Nolan Ryans of their era.

“What God gave these people is absolutely rare,” Eriksen said, as they have maintained their athleticism well into their 30s.

Accumulated wisdom

After all his years on the diamond, first as a baseball player at Ward Melville and in college at USF, and then as a coach, Eriksen shared a few thoughts.

When he was hired, his athletic director at USF told him never to get in a conversation with parents because he’ll always lose. Twice in his career, he removed players from the team because their parents questioned him about playing time.

As for being around men’s and women’s teams, he suggested a difference among athletes of each gender.

“Women have to feel good to play good, men have to play good to feel good,” he said.

In his coaching career, he recalled one moment that mirrored a scene from the Kurt Russell movie “Miracle,” in which the actor played Coach Herb Brooks from the 1980 ice hockey team that defeated the Russians amid the Cold War in Lake Placid.

Before tryouts ended, Russell gave a stunned Olympic hockey league director his list of players.

In 2019, Eriksen said he, too, handed the Olympic softball league director a list of the 15 players who would be on the team before tryouts ended.

Eriksen said he is comforted by his decision to retire from coaching Team USA.

“If I never get on an airplane again, I’ll be okay,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s good to wake up in your own bed, drink coffee on the back porch and listen to the birds.

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Attendees at a conference at CSHL, an in-person tradition started in 1933. These conferences were suspended from 1943 to 1945 during WWII and were virtual during the pandemic in 2020 and for most of 2021. Photo by Miriam Chuai/CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

For scientists, meetings and conferences aren’t just a chance to catch up on the latest research, gossip and see old friends: they can also provide an intellectual spark that enhances their careers and leads to new collaborations.

Amid the pandemic, almost all of those in-person conferences stopped, including the annual courses and meetings that Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory hosts. The internationally renowned lab has run meetings since 1933, with a few years off between 1943 and 1945 during World War II.

CSHL’s David Stewart. Photo by Gina Motisi/CSHL

While scientists made progress on everything from basic to translational research, including in laboratories that pivoted towards work on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, they missed out on the kinds of opportunities that come from in-person interactions.

Assuming COVID infection rates are low enough this fall, CSHL is hoping to restart in-person conferences and courses, with the first conference that will address fifty years of the enzyme reverse transcriptase scheduled for Oct. 20th through the 23rd. That event was originally scheduled for October of 2020.

One of the planned guest speakers for that conference, David Baltimore, who discovered the enzyme that enables RNA to transfer information to DNA and is involved in retroviruses like HIV, won the Nobel Prize.

“I am hoping that there will be significant participation by many eminent scientists, so that is in itself somewhat [of] a ceremonial start,” wrote David Stewart, Executive Director of meetings and courses at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

To attend any of the seven in-person meetings on the calendar before the end of the year, participants need to have vaccinations from either Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca.

Attendees will have to complete an online form and bring a vaccination card or certificate. Scientists who don’t provide that information “will not be admitted and will not get a key to their room or be able to attend the event,” Stewart said.

CSHL also plans to maintain the thorough and deep cleaning procedures the lab developed. 

Stewart hopes that 75 to 80 percent or more of the talks presented will be live, with a virtual audience that could be larger than the in-person attendance.

“It is important to have a critical mass of presenters and audience in-person, but there’s no real limit on how large the virtual audience could be,” he explained.

Typically, the courses attract participants from over 50 countries. Even this year, especially with travel restrictions for some countries still in place, Stewart expects that the majority of participants will travel from locations within the United States.

The Executive Director explained that CSHL was planning to introduce a carbon offset program for all travel to conferences and courses that the facility reimburses starting in 2020. After evaluating several options, they plan to purchase carbon offsets from Cool Effect and will encourage participants paying their own way to do the same or through a similar program.

The courses, meanwhile, will begin on October 4th, with macromolecular crystallography and programming for biology. CSHL hopes to run six of these courses before the end of the year, including a scientific writing retreat.

“We are looking to 100 percent enrollment for our courses, so likely this year that will largely be domestic,” Stewart explained.

The courses, which normally have 16 participants, may have 12 students, as the lab tries to run these training opportunities safely without masks or social distancing.

From March of 2020 through the end of last year, the lab had planned 25 meetings and 25 courses. As the pandemic spread, the lab pivoted to virtual meetings. “I felt like a car salesman trying to sell virtual conferences,” Stewart recalled. For the most part, the lab was able to keep to its original schedule of conferences, albeit through a virtual format.

In addition to the scheduled meetings, CSHL decided to add meetings to discuss the latest scientific information related to COVID research. 

Stewart approached Hung Fan, a retired virologist at the University of California at Irvine, to help put together these COVID exchanges. Those meetings occurred in June, July, August, October, and January. The sixth one recently concluded.

The meetings addressed “everything around the science of the virus,” Stewart said, which included the biology, the origin, the genomics, the immune response, vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, among other scientific issues.

“There was a lot of excellent work being done around SARS-CoV-2,” Stewart said. “We were trying to identify that early on. It was helpful to have people who knew the field well.”

Fan said he combed through preprints like the CSHL-based bioRxiv and related medRxiv every day for important updates on the disease.

Fan described the scientific focus and effort of the research community as being akin to the Manhattan Project which built the atomic bomb during World War II, where “everybody said, ‘We have a common enemy and we want to apply all our capabilities to combating that.”

While Fan is pleased with the productive and valuable exchanges that occurred amid the virtual conferences, he recognized the benefit of sharing a room and a drink with scientific colleagues.

“A lot of the productive interactions at meetings take place in a social setting, at the bar, over dinner” and in other unstructured gatherings, he said. “People are relaxed and can share their scientific thoughts.”

After presentations, Fan described how researchers discuss the work presented and compare that to their own efforts. It’s easier to talk with people in person “as opposed to making a formalized approach through letters and emails.”

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

One day, you wake up and your kids who called noodles “noonies” are getting ready for college.

No, not exactly. It’s a long journey filled with skinned knees, ripped tee shirts — don’t ask — eye rolling and muttering between clenched teeth. Still, here we are, as our kids prepare to move on from the educational minor leagues. Along the way, we went through numerous milestones. Please find below a few of the phases in our journey.

— Deer in the headlights. I’ve seen deer in my headlights. The only difference between them and us when we first brought our children home is that the deer’s eyes are open much wider. We almost instantly became sleep-deprived. Other than that, we had that frozen not-sure-where-to-move feeling, knowing we had to do something, but not exactly sure what or in what order to take care of those needs.

— Hating everyone. People meant well back in the days when our children were young and cried. Numerous people, who didn’t live with or even know our needy infants, offered unsolicited advice about what this scream or that scream meant. Strangers would tell us how our daughter’s cry meant she had gas, was hungry, needed her diaper changed, or was hot or cold. Yes, thanks, those are the options. Thanks for the help!

— Cooking the plastics. Yup, back in the early days, I was so sleep deprived that I put plastic bottles in a pot of boiling water to sterilize them and fell asleep. It wasn’t until I smelled the burning plastic that I realized how long I’d been out.

— Carrying everything: We couldn’t go four blocks without a diaper bag filled with everything, including the special toy each of them needed, diapers, wipes, ointment, sunscreen, bug spray, rain jackets, boots, and extra clothing.

— Straining our backs: Picking the kids up and playing with them was fun when they were under 20 pounds. When they reached 50 and above, holding them the entire length of a ski slope became impossible.

— Crazy sports parents: This phase lasted much longer than it should have. It was only when the kids reached late middle school that I appreciated the fresh air, the sparkling sunlight and the excitement of the moment. Exercise and making friends are the goal. Everything else, including winning, is gravy.

— Giving them space (aka, it’s not about us). As they reached adolescence, our children needed to make their own decisions. Tempting as it was to jump in and redirect them or even to kiss them before they left the car for middle school, we bit our tongues as often as we could, leaving us feeling lonely and nostalgic in our cars as they joined their friends.

— Beautiful naps: Giving them space allowed us to do what we wanted. After years of living our lives while monitoring and helping theirs, we had a chance to do exactly what we wanted, which started with restorative naps.

— Sending them into space. We aren’t putting them in a Jeff Bezos rocket ship or sending them to the International Space Station, but we are preparing to give them an opportunity to explore the world outside our house.

— Looking at the calendar differently. With both of them on the way to their futures, we can choose places to visit that didn’t interest them. We can visit these places when school is in session, which should mean lower costs for us.

— Telling other people how to take care of their kids: With our free time, we see parents struggling with young children. We, of course, know better. Or maybe not.

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Coach Ken Eriksen with members of Team USA softball team. Photo by Jade Hewitt from USA Softball

Coached by 1979 Ward Melville High School graduate Ken Eriksen, Team USA softball team ran out of walk-off magic in the gold medal game Tuesday.

After coming from behind to beat Australia, 2-1, and then Japan by the same score in the last two games before the final, Team USA couldn’t rally to beat Japan in the gold medal game, falling 2-0.

Coach Ken Eriksen during practice with Team USA. Photo by Jade Hewitt from USA Softball

Eriksen, who had a successful college baseball career, has extensive softball coaching and playing experience, including as the current head coach of the University of South Florida for over 24 years. He has had several roles with the national team over the years, including as an assistant on the 2004 Olympic team that won gold in Athens. He became head coach of Team USA in 2011.

Members of the local athletic community expressed their admiration for the coach and his involvement at the Olympic games.

“For one of our former student athletes to be coaching on the highest stage possible in the world is something we’re so proud of,” said Kevin Finnerty, athletic director of the Three Village Central School District. Eriksen’s role shows “that our students, through hard work, effort and time can” reach their goals.

Joseph Burger, who has been coaching softball at Ward Melville for seven years, appreciated the connection between Eriksen and the high school.

“When you have a Ward Melville graduate coaching the Olympic team, that sheds a great light on the sport and what we’re trying to do here,” Burger said. “This is very positive for the program.”

Burger appreciated how Team USA showed sportsmanship at the end of the loss, which, he said, reflects well on the coach.

Burger, who posted the Team USA softball schedule on the high school softball team’s Instagram page, said the games set a great example for his players.

The Olympians are “aggressive toward the ball,” he said.

Rising Ward Melville junior third baseman and team captain Alicea Pepitone watched the gold medal game.

“They played their hearts out this whole series in the Olympics,” said Pepitone, who would like to play in college. “They should be proud, even though it didn’t go down the way they wanted it to.”

Pepitone thought it was “awesome” that Coach Eriksen attended Ward Melville. She recalls watching softball in the Olympics in 2008.

“I want to be one of those girls on that field and wearing that jersey,” she said.

Reached by email before the final game, Eriksen responded to TBR’s questions from Tokyo.

TBR: Who were some of your softball mentors growing up in Setauket?

Eriksen: My coaching mentors from Long Island were Russ Cain at Gelinas Junior High School and Coach Everett Hart. They were both tremendous teachers. They both taught the game, and you would never know you were up by 10 or down by 10. They treated and respected the game as it should be … a teaching platform for life.

TBR: Have you emulated any of the coaching patterns you observed as a player?

Eriksen: Most definitely. It’s all about the players’ ability to be prepared for any situation and trust them to react to the situations.

TBR: What is the best advice you received as a player?

Eriksen: Trust your preparation. Less is more.

TBR: Do you use that advice with the players on USA softball? 

Eriksen: Every day.

TBR: Is the sport of softball any different than it was during the age of Jennie Finch?

Eriksen: It’s more competitive worldwide now than it was prior to 2008. You can see that by the competition in the last four World Championships and the 2021 games.

TBR: Does the sport require any different skill sets?

Eriksen: Absolutely as it does comparatively to baseball.

TBR: How is USA softball any different from softball in the rest of the world?

Eriksen: The expectations sometimes are unrealistic in respect of not thinking it’s a global game.

TBR: Does your team or does the program emphasize specific skills that differentiate it from softball in the rest of the world?

Eriksen: Not really. Everyone spends an inordinate amount of time trying to be flawless.

TBR: What is different about coaching and playing?

Eriksen: It was easier to play! Only had to worry about me!

TBR: Have you had to learn different skill sets as a coach than you had as a player?

Eriksen: Obviously when you are dealing as a manager in any organization there is a “human hierarchy of needs” that each player presents to you as a coach. When you have a unit that is together for years, you better understand the people first.

TBR: Was it challenging to coach and play softball without anyone in the stands?

Eriksen: Not really. When you are locked into the moment, all noise is irrelevant in the heads of elite athletes.

TBR: Was the team able to provide the energy and excitement that the crowd might normally offer in the context of a more typical softball game or season?

Eriksen: We bring it every day regardless. That happens when you wear U-S-A on the front of your jersey.

TBR: What’s next after the Olympics?

Eriksen: For me … getting away from the spotlight. Won’t be hard. I love the “game,” but it’s a game. It’s not my whole life. The old saying … “gone fishing.”

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A group of gelada monkeys in Ethiopia. Photo from Jacob Feder

By Daniel Dunaief

Timing can mean the difference between life and death for young geladas (an Old World monkey species). Geladas whose fathers remain leaders of a social group for as much as a year or more have a better chance of survival than those whose fathers are displaced by new males under a year after they’re born. 

New males who enter a social group can, and often do, kill the young of other males, giving the new male leaders a chance to impregnate the female members of their social group who might otherwise be unable to conceive.

Jacob Feder

 

The odds of a new male leader killing a young gelada are about 60 percent at birth, compared to closer to 15 percent at around a year of age, according to researchers at Stony Brook University (SBU).

Additionally, pregnant gelada monkeys often spontaneously abort their unborn fetuses once a new male enters the group, as the mother’s hormones cause a miscarriage that enables them to dedicate their resources to the future progeny of the next dominant male.

At the same time, the survival of females depends on becoming a part of a group that is just the right size.

Jacob Feder, a graduate student at SBU, and Amy Lu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook, recently published a paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B that explores the ideal group size that optimizes the longevity of females and the number of their offspring.

The researchers discovered a Goldilocks effect. By studying the behavioral and group data for over 200 wild geladas over the course of 14 years, they determined that a mid-size group with five to seven females has the greatest benefit for their own fitness and for the survival of their offspring.

“There tends to be a trade off” in the dynamics that affect female geladas in different groups, Feder said. Females in the biggest groups face a higher risk of takeovers and takeover-related infanticide, since males are more likely to try to dominate a part of larger social groups where they have greater reproductive opportunities.

By contrast, individuals in the smaller groups may live on the periphery of a multi-group dynamic. These females are less protected against predators.

In their native Ethiopia, geladas are vulnerable to leopards, hyenas, and jackals, among others.

For the females, the survival of their offspring depends on the ability of males to remain in the group long enough.

“The male turnover is one of the major drivers of their reproductive success,” explained Feder.

Researchers have seen new males enter a group and kill infants born from another father. The infants, for their part, don’t often recognize the need to avoid new males, Lu said.

When males enter big groups, females often have to reset their reproduction.

Groups with about nine to 11 females often split into units of four to seven, Feder said. A new male might become the leader for half of the females, leaving the remaining male with the other half. Alternatively, new males may take over each group.

The pregnant females who are part of a group with a new male will spontaneously abort their offspring about 80 percent of the time, as females “cut their losses,” Feder said

About 38 percent of females live in a mid-sized group that is close to optimum size.

Gelada charm

According to Feder and Wu, geladas are a compelling species to research, Feder and Wu said.

Feder found his visits to the East African nation rewarding, especially when he had the opportunity to watch a small female named Crimson.

An important part of daily life for these primates involves grooming, where primates comb through each other’s hair, remove insects and, in many cases, eat them.

Crimson, who was a younger member of the group when Feder started observing geladas, didn’t have much grooming experience with this activity. Instead of running her hands over the body of her grooming partner, she focused on her mouth. Her partner’s wide eyes reflected surprise at the unusual grooming choice.

One of the favorites for Lu was a monkey who has since passed away named Vampire. A part of the V group, Vampire was taller and bigger than most adult females. She displaced male geladas, some of whom were larger than she, almost as often as they displaced her.

“If you go out in the field enough, you know the individuals pretty well,” Lu said. “They all have their own personalities. Some of them walk in a different way and react to situations differently.”

A resident of Centereach, Feder grew up in northern Connecticut, attending Wesleyan University as an undergraduate, where he majored in music and biology. A bass guitar player, Feder said he “dabbles in anything with strings.”

In fourth grade, Feder read a biography of Dian Fossey, which sparked his interest in biology.

While he has yet to combine his musical and science interests with geladas, Feder said these monkeys have a large vocabulary that is almost as big as chimpanzees.

Lu, meanwhile, started studying geladas as a postdoctoral researcher. They’re a great study species that allow scientists to ask compelling questions about reproductive strategies. “At any point, you can follow 20 social groups,” Lu said.

Lu, whose two children are four years old and 16 months old, said she has observed the similarities between human and non-human primate young.

“Babies throw tantrums, whether it is my child or a gelada infant protesting being put on the ground,” she described in an email. Gelada infants use a sad “cooing” sound. Sometimes, the sad cooing sound is real and sometimes “they just get what they want.”

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India Pagan playing basketball for Stony Brook University. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

India Pagan has a tattoo of the outline of Puerto Rico on her right arm. The image has two stars on it, where Hatillo and Mayagüez are located.

India Pagan practices with Puerto Rico’s Olympic team. Photo from the Pagan family

The connection to Puerto Rico for Pagan, a graduate of Stony Brook University who is now in a master’s program, runs much more than skin deep.

The 6-foot, 1-inch basketball star, who helped Stony Brook win back-to-back America East conference championships, is representing the island at the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, joining the first women’s basketball team from Puerto Rico to compete at the games.

A talented forward who plays in the low post area near the basket, Pagan, who became one of only 18 Seawolves to score over 1,000 points in her career and set a school record last year for the highest shooting percentage for a season, is the second-youngest member on a team Puerto Ricans are calling “the 12 warriors.”

When she saw pictures of herself on the main Puerto Rican Olympic pages on Instagram and Facebook confirming she’d made the team, Pagan took screenshots and called her parents Moises, who was born in Mayagüez, and Carmen, born in Hatillo.

The excitement was palpable over the phone, as her parents “were both yelling” with delight, she said.

“I’m so thankful to be Puerto Rican,” Pagan said. “I say that every day.”

Indeed, Pagan, who spoke Spanish in her house growing up, traveled regularly to Puerto Rico to see her large and supportive extended family.

Her mother Carmen, who was a competitive runner when she was younger, wanted to give her daughter an opportunity to compete on a larger stage she herself didn’t have growing up as the 17th of 18 children.

A runner whose floor-length braided hair was so long that she had to pin it inside her shirt to prevent false starts, Carmen Pagan didn’t have the chance to compete against other athletes from around the world in her specialty, the 400- and 800-meter races.

“That’s why we went the extra mile with India,” mother said.

India Pagan playing for SBU. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

“We are accomplishing our dreams through her,” Moises Pagan added. “She exceeded our expectations when it came to basketball.”

Soon after learning of her opportunity to represent Puerto Rico, India Pagan found out that the athletes would attend the Olympics under strict restrictions and would play in empty stadiums, to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.

Her family, who has already seen Pagan play in Italy among other places, canceled their travel plans.

India Pagan still feels fortunate to be at the games and to have the long-distance support of people she considers family in Puerto Rico; New London, Connecticut, where she was born and raised; and on Long Island.

Stony Brook “is my family and the girls are my sisters,” she said. That includes two of her close friends on the Stony Brook team, Courtney Furr and Leighah-Amori Wool, who cried when Pagan left and are staying in touch across the world.

Moises Pagan, who is 6 feet, 5 inches tall and played one year of semiprofessional basketball in Puerto Rico, recalls how his daughter kept his size-15-feet shoebox filled with acceptances from colleges. India Pagan visited Stony Brook last and decided within moments of her arrival that she wanted to be a Seawolf.

Her parents made her wait a day to decide. A day later, she took the final women’s basketball scholarship.

Her parents felt the same connection to the team, often traveling with home-cooked food for the players, who called them “Ma” and “Pa.”

Moises cooked around 40 empanadas for the team, while Carmen contributed a chicken-and-rice dish and meatballs.

“We like to give back to the team and the coaching staff,” Moises Pagan said. “They’re our extended family.”

Despite the connection India Pagan felt at Stony Brook, she wasn’t initially prepared to stay for the extra year of eligibility granted to athletes amid the pandemic.

Speaking to her new coach Ashley Langford, Pagan changed her mind.

Langford is thrilled for the experience Pagan will have at the Olympics. She told her new coach how much more physical the Olympic players are than the collegiate competitors.

For Pagan, various women have served as inspirations and role models.

She admires plus-size model Ashley Graham’s confidence and appreciates her ability to represent a group of women often excluded in modeling.

India Pagan at 13 years old. Photo from the Pagan family

Pagan also literally and physically looks up to American basketball star Brittney Griner. At 6 feet, 8 inches tall, Griner is also not the typical woman in society.

While Pagan said COVID remains in the back of her mind, she expressed confidence in the health protocols designed to protect athletes and area residents.

Even before reaching the Olympic Village, Pagan described how each floor has security. The team isn’t allowed to leave the hotel unless they are attending practice.

“We wake up, eat breakfast, go to practice and come back,” she said. “The protocols are extreme. They want to protect the athletes.”

Pagan’s parents said they remain concerned for their daughter’s health, although they feel reassured by safety measures that include seeing the sights of Tokyo without getting off the bus.

While the flights to Tokyo took over 23 hours, which makes the limited travel and other opportunities disappointing, Carmen Pagan said her daughter and the rest of the team are focused on making the most of their Olympic opportunity. The team “is there to play their hearts out for Puerto Rico,” the mother said.

Langford sees India Pagan as a winner, as she is “representing our university and women’s basketball. Regardless of the outcome, she’s already won. This is an amazing accomplishment.”

In addition to the memories from her Olympic experience, Pagan is looking forward to getting a tattoo of the five Olympic rings on her body.

The historic Puerto Rico opener is against China July 27.

While the Pagans won’t be able to watch their daughter compete in Tokyo in person, they are likely to gather with extended family, where everyone will “bring a dish,” Moises Pagan said. “Let the games begin!”

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Ashley Langford. Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

She hasn’t scored a point or dished out an assist in a college basketball game since 2009. That hasn’t stopped Ashley Langford, Stony Brook University’s first-year women’s basketball coach, from mixing it up with the players.

A point guard who graduated from Tulane University and who holds the school record for the most assists, scored over 1,000 points, and, despite being five feet, five inches tall, brought down 403 rebounds for 25th in school history, Langford plans to tap into her playing experience at Stony Brook.

“I’m a hands-on head coach,” said Langford, who most recently was associate head coach at James Madison University in Virginia. “I’m a demonstrator.”

Langford, who took over for Caroline McCombs this year when the former coach joined George Washington University, believes she can help a team that won back-to-back America East Championships by stepping onto the floor during practices and drills.

When she’s guarding them, she wants to “see them do a move,” she said. “At a certain point, they get too good” for her skills, which is when she pats herself on the back, especially after she sees her players exuding increased confidence.

Langford is pleased with the start of her time at Stony Brook, where she has felt welcomed and supported by Athletic Director Shawn Heilbron and President Maurie McInnis.

“This is a big reason why I chose to come here,” Langford said. “The administration is great and the president has been awesome.”

Langford appreciates how Heilbron knows the names of so many student-athletes, which is consistent with her approach to coaching.

Langford believes her players and the coach should have similar expectations.

“I need to be connected to my players, and I want them to be connected to me,” Langford said. “I want players to come into my office and talk. I want that relationship.”

Langford has been working within the limitations of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules during the summer. She hopes to use this time to build a rapport with her team and help them learn her terminology and the drills she runs.

“I want to give them a preview” about her and the program, Langford said.

In making the transition from playing to coaching, Langford said she has tried to improve and grow. She believes she and her team should constantly strive to improve.

Coaching is “less about basketball and more about how you connect with your players,” Langford said.

To be sure, that connection doesn’t mean she coddles the team. She strives to be honest without sugarcoating the message. 

“When they’re doing well, I’m going to tell them,” she said. “When we need to be better, I’m going to tell them that, too.”

Langford explained that basketball has changed considerably since her playing days, as players have more resources available to them. She sang the praises of Elizabeth Zanolli, assistant athletic director for Sports Medicine, who supports the basketball and other teams.

Players also have nutritionists, dietitians, and strength and conditioning support, which improve the overall health and endurance of the athletes.

On the court, the men’s and women’s games have increasingly emphasized the value of the three-point shot, which means that most of the points in a game come from in the paint close to the basket or outside the three-point line, where long-range shooters can rack up points quickly.

Langford doesn’t see much of a difference between the men’s and women’s games.

“I want players to pass, dribble and shoot,” she said. “It’s that simple.”

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Rebecca Smith at the Sólheimajökull glacier in Iceland, where the scientist did field work during the 2015 Astrobiology Summer School. Photo from Rebecca Smith

By Daniel Dunaief

Rocks may not speak, move or eat, but they can and do tell stories.

Recognizing the value and importance of the ancient narrative rocks on Earth and on other planets provide, NASA sent vehicles to Mars, including the rover Perseverance, which landed on February 18 of this year.

Perseverance brought seven instruments, most of them identified by the acronym-loving teams at NASA, that carry out various investigations, such as searching for clues about a water-rich environment that may have sustained life about 3.5 billion years ago.

Several instrument teams developed and monitor these pieces of equipment, including Joel Hurowitz, Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University and Deputy Principal Investigator on the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, or PiXL.

In addition to the instrument leads, NASA chose participating scientists who can contribute to several teams, providing scientific support for a host of questions that might arise as the rover explores the terrain of the Red Planet 128 million miles from Earth.

Rebecca Smith, a post-doctoral researcher at Stony Brook in Geosciences Professor Scott McLennan’s lab, is one such participating scientist.

“I get to move around between all these different groups, which is fun,” said Smith, whose appointment will last for three years. While the Mars2020 program takes up about 20 percent of Smith’s time, the remainder is focused on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Smith is likely to spend almost all of her time on Mars2020 starting this September.

Smith has helped make the science plans for the rover. The scientist and other researchers help select targets for the instruments that will help answer specific science questions. For this work, they collaborate with different science teams. Smith plans to get more involved with specific instrument teams soon, including SuperCam, PiXL and Sherloc.

For Smith’s own research, the scientist has a suite of rock samples that include lacustrine carbonates and hydrothermally altered volcanic rocks. The volcanic rocks formed under conditions that might be analogous to those once present in Jezero crater, where the rover landed and is currently maneuvering. The crater is just north of the Martian equator and has a delta that once long ago contained water and, potentially, life.

On Earth, Smith is using versions of the SuperCam, PiXL, and Sherloc to understand how these rocks would look to different instruments and determine what baseline measurements they need to tell the different types of rocks apart using the instruments aboard the rover.

Smith has studied rocks on Earth located in Hawaii, Iceland and the glaciers in the Three Sisters Volcanic Complex in Oregon.

Many planetary geologists use Earth as an analog to understand geologic processes on other planets. It is still uncertain if the climate of early Mars was warn and wet or cold and icy and wet, Smith explained in an email, adding, “It is possible the minerals we see with the rovers and from orbit can help us answer this question.” 

Most of the work the scientist been involved with is trying to understand how Mars-like volcanic rocks chemically weather under different climates.

Through previous research on Mars, scientists discovered that large regions had poorly crystalline materials. The poorly crystalline nature of the materials makes them difficult to identify using rover-based or orbiter-based instruments.

“The fact that they could have formed in the presence of water makes them important to understand,” Smith explained.

Part of the work Smith is doing is to understand if poorly crystalline material formed by water have specific properties that relate to the environment or climate in which they formed.

Smith said the bigger picture question of the work the teams are doing is, “was there life on Mars? If not, why not? We think that Mars, for the first billion years or so, was pretty similar to Earth around the same time and Earth developed life.”

Indeed, Earth had liquid water on its surface, which provided a habitat for microbial life about 3.5 billion years ago.

The ancient rock record on Mars provides a better-preserved history because the Red Planet doesn’t have plate tectonics.

“Based on what we know about Earth, if life ever developed on early Mars, it would likely have been microbial,” Smith wrote.

Other goals of Mars2020 include characterizing the climate and the geology. Both goals focus on looking for evidence of ancient habitable environments and characterizing those to understand a host of details, such as the pH of the water, the temperature and details about how long the water was on the surface.

Part of the reason NASA put out a call for participating scientists is to “bridge instrument data” from different pieces of equipment, Smith explained.

“I love the collaborative nature of working on a team like this,” Smith offered. “Everybody is interested in getting the most important information and doing the best job that we can.”

Smith enjoys the opportunity to study potentially conflicting signals in rocks to determine what they indicate about the past.“Geology is just so complex. It’s a big puzzle. Forces have been acting over a very long period of time and forces change over time. We are trying to tease apart what happened and when.”

While Smith works at Stony Brook, the post-doctoral scientist returned to California during the pandemic to live closer to her family. After finishing the current research program, Smith plans to remain open to various options, including teaching.

Smith appreciates the opportunity to work on the Mars 2020 mission, adding, “I’m really grateful for that during this past year in particular.”

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Stock photo

Starting on July 23, Tokyo will host the Summer Olympic Games with athletes from around the world without any spectators.

Medical director of Healthcare Epidemiology at Stony Brook University Hospital

Already postponed a year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the games will look much more like the National Basketball Association bubble games and Major League Baseball’s empty stadiums than the current version of professional American sports.

“There is tremendous vaccination disparity throughout the globe,” said Susan Donelan, medical director of Healthcare Epidemiology at Stony Brook University Hospital, in an email. “Despite what many Americans believe, the global pandemic is very much alive and problematic. Superimpose this on the fact that another state of emergency has just been declared in Tokyo due to rising COVID-19 cases, and it is not difficult to understand how this decision was arrived at.”

Indeed, the Olympics draw athletes from close to 200 countries and territories, with thousands of competitors representing themselves, their families and their countries.

In Japan, just over 15% of the population is fully vaccinated, which is still “low compared with 47.4% in the United States and almost 50% in Britain, according to Sunil Dhuper, chief medical officer at St. Charles Hospital. “That greatly increases the probability of an explosion in the number of Covid infection cases especially if the Olympic stadiums are packed or even at 50% capacity.”

While people in the United States are increasingly relaxing restrictions after the increasing availability of vaccines, health officials throughout the world have not only had to contend with the uneven availability of the vaccine in different countries, but also with the spread of the more infectious delta variant.

The original virus, or so-called wild type, came from Wuhan, China. Over time, viruses mutate, typically during replication, when they incorrectly copy one or more of the base pairs in their genes.

Sunil Dhuper, chief medical officer at St. Charles Hospital

While most mutations are harmless, some can make a virus more problematic. Termed variants, viruses that differ from the original can produce different symptoms or have different qualities.

The delta variant, which started in India in December of 2020, has become the dominant strain in the United States and, likely in Suffolk County, in part because an infected person can transmit it much more easily.

The delta variant “concentrates in the upper respiratory cells, which is one of the reasons why it transmits so much easier among people and why it’s a concern,” said Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital/Northwell Health and associate professor of medicine at Hofstra School of Medicine.

Indeed, the delta variant is 50% more transmissible than the alpha, or UK variant, which was about 50% more transmissible than the original, Donelan wrote.

Boosters

Amid the spread of the delta variant, companies like Pfizer have been meeting with federal health officials to discuss the potential need for a booster shot.

Pfizer’s rationale for a booster is that the vaccine’s ability to prevent infection and symptomatic disease seems to wane six months after vaccination, citing data from the Israel Ministry of Health, according to Dhuper.

The World Health Organization, however, indicates that “more data are needed before reaching the same conclusion,” Dhuper explained in an email. A recent study in the journal Nature found evidence that the immune response to vaccines is “strong and potentially long lasting,” which is based on the data that the germinal centers in the lymph nodes are producing immune cells directed at COVID-19.

At this point, officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are unwilling to provide an emergency use authorization for a booster.

These government agencies believe people who have been vaccinated are protected from severe disease and death, including variants like delta, Dhuper wrote.

Adrian Popp, chair of Infection Control at Huntington Hospital/Northwell Health

Popp expressed confidence in the CDC to determine when a booster might be necessary, as the national health organization reviews data for the entire country.

Someone who is vaccinated in the United States should have “decent immunity” against this altered virus, according to Popp. The immunity will vary from person to person depending on the underlying health and immunity.

Indeed, Popp said several vaccinated people who have come to Huntington Hospital recently have tested positive for the virus.

The hospital discovered the cases, all but two of which were asymptomatic, because they tested for the virus for people who were coming to the hospital for other reasons, such as a broken hip. Two of the cases had mild symptoms, while the others were asymptomatic.

“The effectiveness of the current COVID vaccines is quite high,” Dhuper wrote. “In fact, it is much higher than some other vaccines we commonly receive.”

He contrasted this with the annual flu vaccine, which has an effectiveness of around 40 to 60% from year to year.

Dhuper also explained that antibodies are only part of the immune response that makes vaccines effective. T-cells and memory B cells are also involved. Some researchers have found that T cells in the blood of people who recovered from the original version of COVID-19 recognized the three mutant strains of the virus, which could reduce the severity of any subsequent infection.

Based on the available data and current information in Japan, Popp said he would likely participate in the Olympics in Tokyo if he were a member of an Olympic team.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a conversation I imagined having with an alien who I  envisioned landing in my backyard. Here’s how I figure a conversation between an alien who speaks the language of my dog and our beloved pet would go:

Alien: Tell me about those humans?

Dog: They talk to each other constantly.

Alien: Does the noise bother you?

Dog: It’s not particularly problematic, but it is hypocritical.

Alien: What do you mean?

Dog: When we’re in the backyard or out for a walk, they tell us to be quiet or something much meaner when we speak to other dogs. They don’t want us to bark with other dogs, and yet they talk nonstop like they have so much to say. 

Alien: What else is different about humans?

Dog: They never smell each other’s butts. By the way, do you mind if I hump your tentacle?

Alien: That’s fine. So, why is smelling each other’s butts important?

Dog: We get all kinds of information, about where the dog has been, what grass it’s eaten. Speaking of which, are you planning to feed me sometime soon? I’ve been making those cute eyes at you during our entire ride and you haven’t felt the need to toss me food.

Alien: So, what do humans do all day?

Dog: They seem to be slaves to some small object they hold. Every time it buzzes or beeps, they immediately look at it, as if they will get in trouble if they don’t. Sometimes, they say something, like “Oh my gosh, I forgot,” or “Oh no, you don’t,” and then they run somewhere. I think that object gives them directions.

Alien: Are they pleasant?

Dog: Sometimes. They seem incredibly happy when they scratch our bodies and we move our legs. Once in a while, I do it if I think one of them is having a tough day.

Alien: Do they seem intelligent?

Dog: Hard to say. They don’t understand the value of sleep. They spend hours each day with the things in their hands or staring at a flickering screen. At night, they look at another screen on the wall in their bedroom.

Alien: What’s your favorite game to play with them?

Dog: There’s a big difference between my favorite and their favorite game. They love to play something they call “fetch.” They can be pretty simple and easy to please. When they like something, they keep doing it.

Alien: And your favorite game?

Dog: I call it the “mud game.” When everyone is wearing something fancy, nice or white, I go into the backyard and find the darkest mud. I come in and jump on them or spread mud on the floor.

Alien: Any other observations?

Dog: Just as they start to bring compelling smells into a room, they spray or roll on the scent of flowers over their bodies. I tried to copy them by rolling in the flowers outside, but they didn’t like that.

Alien: What do they say to you?

Dog: They seem especially fond of the word “sit.” Whenever someone comes into the house and they don’t know what to say to the other person, they tell me to “sit” and the other person laughs and nods. 

Alien: Do you like humans?

Dog: Humans, in general, are fine. I am not all that fond of those people who make unhappy faces and say they are not a “dog person” but a “cat person.” Who could possibly find those hissing creatures more appealing than dogs?

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