Save the date! The Smithtown Historical Society will host an Irish Night at the Frank Brush Barn, 211 E. Main St., Smithtown on Monday, March 13 at 7 p.m. Enjoy a delicious meal of corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots, courtesy of Faraday’s of Smithtown.
Enjoy traditional Irish music by John Corr, a performance by the Mulvihill-Lynch Studio of Irish Dance, raffles, a limerick contest and merriment for all ages. Admission is $30, $25 members. For further info, call 631-265-6768.
Just after the start of the Civil War in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Fernando Wood, then mayor of New York City, that is part of William K. Vanderbilt II’s extensive archives. Visitors to the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport can see a facsimile of the letter on display in the Memorial Wing, outside the Sudan Trophy Room through Feb. 26 from noon to 4 p.m. They also can view an oil portrait of George Washington, originally thought to have been created by the renowned American portraitist Gilbert Stuart. It will be displayed in the Portuguese Sitting Room.
President Lincoln wrote the letter to Mayor Wood on May 4, 1861 — two months to the day following his inauguration as president and less than one month after the start of the Civil War, which began on April 12 with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Wood (1812-1881), who built a successful shipping enterprise in New York City, served several terms in Congress and was mayor of New York for two terms. (Wood’s brother, Benjamin Wood, publisher and editor of the New York Daily News, also served three terms in Congress.) Fernando Wood sent a letter to Lincoln shortly after the Fort Sumter attack, offering him whatever military services he, as mayor, could provide. Lincoln’s reply to Wood was in gratitude for his offer of assistance.
Excerpt:
In the midst of my various and numerous other duties I shall consider in what way I can make your services at once available to the country, and agreeable to you – Your Obt. [Obedient] Servant A. Lincoln
Stephanie Gress, the Vanderbilt Museum’s director of curatorial affairs, said, “We do not know how this letter came to be in Mr. Vanderbilt’s possession. Perhaps it was originally the property of his great-grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was an acquaintance of Mayor Wood, and it was passed down through the Vanderbilt family.” The value of the letter is unknown, Gress said.
In 2008, a representative of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a grant-funded project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, visited the Vanderbilt archives to scan the letter for inclusion in its database. At the time, the representative noted that few letters have the original envelope in Lincoln’s hand, which makes the Vanderbilt’s document an exceptional Lincoln artifact. The Vanderbilt Museum is listed as a repository on the project’s website, www.papersofabrahamlincoln.org.
The Vanderbilt’s framed oil portrait of George Washington is believed to have been painted by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), widely considered to be one of America’s foremost portrait artists. He produced portraits of more than 1,000 people, including the first six presidents of the United States. Stuart painted a number of Washington portraits. The most celebrated is known as the “Lansdowne” portrait (1796), and one large-scale version of it hangs in the East Room of the White House.
Stuart’s best-known work is an unfinished portrait of Washington begun in 1796 and sometimes called “The Athenaeum.” This image of Washington’s head and shoulders is a familiar one to Americans — it has appeared for more than a century on the U.S. one-dollar bill.
The Vanderbilt’s Washington portrait, found in the basement of the Suffolk County Welfare Department Home in Yaphank, was restored and presented to the Vanderbilt Museum in 1951. While the artist did not sign the work, a specialist reported that year that the painting was an authentic Gilbert Stuart.
In 1981, however, two curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art studied the portrait and advised the Board of Trustees that the work was not created by Stuart. As a result, the portrait, oil on panel and measuring 21.25 by 33.5 inches, is described in the archival records as “After Gilbert Stuart.”
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum is located at 180 Little Neck Road in Centerport. The museum and planetarium are open for Presidents’ Week daily from noon to 4 p.m. Guided tours of the mansion are conducted at 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m. General admission is $7 adults, $6 students with ID and seniors (62 and older) and $3 for children 12 and under. For further information, call 631-854-5579 or visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.
The Greater Port Jefferson-Northern Brookhaven Arts Council in conjunction with Temple Isaiah in Stony Brook recently announced its line-up for the fifth season of the Triad Concert Series.
The classical music series opens with a performance by the Washington Square Winds, a woodwind quintet from New York City, on Sunday, March 5. Formed in 2009, the group will perform chamber music by Shostakovich, Reicha, Taffanel and more.
On Sunday, March 19, (date corrected from print version) Christina McGann, Jingwen Tu and Hsin Chiao Liao will be performing works by Beethoven, Bloch and Brahms on violin and piano. The series will conclude on Sunday, April 30 with a performance by Misuzu Tanaka. The pianist will perform works by Mozart, Prokofiev, Bach and Rachmaninoff.
“I am very proud and excited to share what is in store for our community with Season 5 of the Triad Concert Series,” said Paula Plotkin, chair of the series and GPJAC board member. “When you come to one or all of our classical concerts, you leave behind your worries and stressors of the day and are transported to a wonderful world of music and culture,” she added.
All concerts begin at 3 p.m. at Temple Isaiah at 1404 Stony Brook Road in Stony Brook. A reception with light refreshments and a “meet and greet” follow each performance. CDs will be available for purchase. Tickets for adults are $15 in advance, $18 at the door; $10 seniors 65 and older and students high school age and older, children ages 15 and younger are free. A $40 series ticket for all three shows is also available.
To purchase tickets in advance, send a check to GPJAC c/o Plotkin 15 Oxford Drive, Port Jefferson Station, NY 11776 or visit www.gpjac.org and click on PayPal. While on the Triad page of the website, click on the link next to each concert description to hear the musicians perform. Questions? Please call Paula at 631-902-1584.
By L. Reuven Pasternak, M.D.
Injury is the leading cause of death for all Americans under age 45. When an injury or trauma occurs, having fast access to comprehensive care can be the difference between life and death. Stony Brook Trauma Center was officially verified by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and designated by the New York State Department of Health as Suffolk County’s only Adult and Pediatric Level 1 Trauma Center earlier this month.
Level 1 Trauma Centers are the highest level centers, capable of providing a full range of services to the most severely injured patients. Stony Brook Trauma Center is also designated by New York State as the Regional Trauma Center (the highest level) for adults and children and serves as Suffolk’s only regional burn center through the Suffolk County Volunteer Firefighters Burn Center at Stony Brook Medicine.
Meeting the strict quality and safety requirements established by the ACS further proves Stony Brook’s standing in the community as a center of excellence, able to offer a full range of medical services and world-class patient care. Patients who are seriously injured by major trauma require immediate attention from a team of medical professionals who are specially trained to recognize and treat immediate threats to life.
Led by Dr. James Vosswinkel, trauma medical director, and Dr. Richard Scriven, pediatric medical director, Stony Brook Trauma Center cares for close to 2,000 patients annually — adults and children, who have sustained blunt, penetrating or thermal traumatic injury. Ninety-five percent of these patients have sustained blunt injuries — the majority from falls or from motor vehicle crashes. Twenty-five percent of the center’s patients are transferred in from one of the county’s 10 other hospitals and every day Stony Brook flight paramedics are on board Suffolk County Police Department helicopters, providing timely and advanced care directly at the scene of an injury.
As a Level I Trauma Center, Stony Brook participates in a national quality program called TQIP (Trauma Quality Improvement Program). In the most recent TQIP report, it was found that patients who were seriously injured and then treated at Stony Brook Trauma Center were much less likely to die or to develop a major complication than patients treated at other TQIP trauma centers.
Stony Brook Trauma Center is committed to not only treating injury but to preventing injury from occurring. The trauma center regularly conducts many community prevention programs in partnership with other local agencies. They include:
Teddy Bear Clinics: These school-based safety programs target the use of booster seats, rear-facing car seats and use of helmets for sports.
Senior Fall Prevention: These community-based programs educate older adults and their families on how to remain independent and safe. Evidenced-based programs, such as Tai Chi, that are designed to build core strength and prevent fall injury are taught.
Traffic Violators: A bimonthly program with the Suffolk County Traffic Court teaches the consequences of risky driving and offers techniques for behavior change.
Bleeding Control for the Injured (B-Con): To help community members cope with public emergency situations, this important program, which is provided at no charge to universities, community groups and schools, teaches key lifesaving skills, including hands-only CPR, tourniquet making and wound treatment.
To learn more about Stony Brook Trauma Center, visit www.trauma.stonybrookmedicine.edu.
L. Reuven Pasternak, M.D., is the chief executive officer at Stony Brook University Hospital and the vice president for health systems at Stony Brook Medicine.
Attention Long Island students! Can you carry a tune? Is a musical instrument your specialty? If so, get your audition DVD or YouTube video submitted now for Long Island’s Got Talent 2017, hosted by the Ward Melville Heritage Organization (WMHO).
Created by WMHO’s Youth Corps, the event gives Long Island students the opportunity to show off their talents this spring. It’s open to students 10-17 years of age in Nassau or Suffolk County who must still be in high school at the time awards are given in November 2017. Talent must be nonprofessional vocal or musical instrument performances. The entry deadline is March 17 and there is a $25 entry fee. Those who are contacted after submitting their audition will be asked to perform at the first-round performance on April 7 at 6:30 p.m. at WMHO’s Educational & Cultural Center, 97P Main Street in the Stony Brook Village Center.
Finalists chosen will also have the opportunity to perform at WMHO’s Sunday Summer Concerts series in July and August, and finals will take place on Nov. 3, 2017 when the winners will be chosen. For full details and Official Entry Form, call 631-751-2244 or visit www.stonybrookvillage.com.
Deaths due to heroin and other opiates are increasing exponentially on Long Island, especially on the North Shore. Join the Port Jefferson Free Library, 100 Thompson St., Port Jefferson for a Narcan Training workshop on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 2 p.m. and help save a life.
Learn about the signs and symptoms of opiate overdose and what to do from health and safety education expert, Erik Zalewski. This 45-minute class also includes a free naloxone (Narcan) emergency kit. A 20-minute “hands-only” CPR class will follow. All are welcome. Questions? Call 631-473-0022.
By David Dunaief, M.D.
When asked what was more important, longevity or healthy aging (quality of life), more people choose the latter. Why would you want to live a long life but be miserable? Well, it turns out the two components are not mutually exclusive. I would like you to ponder the possibility of a third choice, “all of the above.” Would you change your answer and, instead of making a difficult choice between the first two, choose the third?
I frequently use the example of Jack LaLanne, a man best known for popularizing fitness. He followed and preached a healthy lifestyle, which included diet and exercise. He was quite a motivator for many and ahead of his time. He died at the ripe old age of 96.
This brings me to my next point, which is that the number of 90-year-olds is growing by leaps and bounds. According to the National Institutes of Health, those who were more than 90 years old increased by 2.5 times over a 30-year period from 1980 to 2010 (1). This group is among what researchers refer to as the “oldest-old,” which includes those aged 85 and older.
What do these people have in common? According to one study, they tend to have fewer chronic morbidities or diseases. Thus, they tend to have a better quality of life with a greater physical functioning and mental acuity (2).
In a study of centenarians, genetics played a significant role. Characteristics of this group were that they tended to be healthy and then die rapidly, without prolonged suffering (3). Another benchmark is the amount of health care dollars spent in their last few years. Statistics show that the amount spent for those who were in their 60s and 70s was significantly higher, three times as much, as for centenarians in their last two years (4).
Factors that predict one’s ability to reach this exclusive club may involve both genetics and lifestyle choices. One group of people in the U.S. that lives longer lives on average than most is Seventh-day Adventists. We will explore why this might be the case and what lifestyle factors could increase our potential to maximize our healthy longevity. Exercise and diet may be key components of this answer. Now that we have set the tone, let’s look at the research.
Exercise
For all those who don’t have time to exercise or don’t want to spend the time, this next study is for you. We are told time and time again to exercise. But how much do we need, and how can we get the best quality? In a 2014 study, the results showed that 5 to 10 minutes of daily running, regardless of the pace, can have a significant impact on life span by decreasing cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality (5).
Amazingly, even if participants ran fewer than six miles per week at a pace slower than 10-minute miles, and even if they ran only one to two days a week, there was still a decrease in mortality compared to nonrunners. Here is the kicker: Those who ran for this very short amount of time potentially added three years to their life span. There were 55,137 participants ranging in age from 18 to 100 years old.
An accompanying editorial to this study noted that more than 50 percent of people in the United States do not meet the current recommendation of at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day (6). Thus, this recent study suggests an easier target that may still provide significant benefits.
Diet
A long-standing paradigm is that we need to eat sufficient animal protein. However, there have been cracks developing in this façade of late, especially as it relates to longevity. In an observational study using NHANES III data, results show that those who ate a high-protein diet (greater than 20 percent from protein) had a twofold increased risk of all-cause mortality, a four times increased risk of cancer mortality and a four times increased risk of dying from diabetes (7). This was over a considerable duration of 18 years and involved almost 7,000 participants ranging in age at the start of the study from 50 to 65.
However, this did not hold true if the protein source was from plants. In fact, a high-protein plant diet may reduce the risks, not increase them. The reason for this effect, according to the authors, is that animal protein may increase insulin growth factor-1 and growth hormones that have detrimental effects on the body.
Interestingly, those who are over the age of 65 may benefit from more animal protein in reducing the risk of cancer. However, there was a significantly increased risk of diabetes mortality across all age groups eating a high animal protein diet. The researchers therefore concluded that lower animal protein may be wise at least during middle age.
The Adventists Health Study 2 trial reinforced this data. It looked at Seventh-day Adventists, a group whose emphasis is on a plant-based diet, and found that those who ate animal protein up to once a week had a significantly reduced risk of dying over the next six years compared to those who were more frequent meat eaters (8). This was an observational trial with over 73,000 participants and a median age of 57 years old.
Inflammation
You may have heard the phrase that inflammation is the basis for more than 80 percent of chronic disease. But how can we quantify this into something tangible?
In the Whitehall II study, a specific marker for inflammation was measured, interleukin-6. The study showed that higher levels did not bode well for participants’ longevity (9). In fact, if participants had elevated IL-6 (>2.0 ng/L) at both baseline and at the end of the 10-year follow-up period, their probability of healthy aging decreased by almost half.
The takeaway from this study is that IL-6 is a relatively common biomarker for inflammation that can be measured with a simple blood test offered by most major laboratories. This study involved 3,044 participants over the age of 35 who did not have a stroke, heart attack or cancer at the beginning of the study.
The bottom line is that, although genetics are important for longevity, so too are lifestyle choices. A small amount of exercise, specifically running, can lead to a substantial increase in healthy life span. While calories are not equal, protein from plants may trump protein from animal sources in reducing the risk of mortality from all causes, from diabetes and from heart disease. This does not necessarily mean that one needs to be a vegetarian to see the benefits. IL-6 may be a useful marker for inflammation, which could help predict healthy or unhealthy outcomes. Therefore, why not have a discussion with your doctor about testing to see if you have an elevated IL-6? Lifestyle modifications may be able to reduce these levels.
References: (1) nia.nih.gov. (2) J Am Geriatr Soc. 2009;57:432-440. (3) Future of Genomic Medicine (FoGM) VII. Presented March 7, 2014. (4) CDC.gov. (5) J Am Coll Cardiol. 2014;64:472-481. (6) J Am Coll Cardiol. 2014;64:482-484. (7) Cell Metab. 2014;19:407-417. (8) JAMA Intern Med. 2013;173:1230-1238. (9) CMAJ. 2013;185:E763-E770.
Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.
By Elof Axel Carlson
An intellectual pedigree traces the power of mentoring across many generations. I got my Ph.D. in genetics with Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller at Indiana University. Muller got his Ph.D. in genetics with Thomas H. Morgan also a Nobel laureate at Columbia University. Morgan got his Ph.D. in embryology with William K. Brooks at Johns Hopkins University.
Brooks got his Ph.D. in comparative anatomy with Louis Agassiz at Harvard. Agassiz came from Europe. He got his Ph.D. in ichthyology (fossil and live fishes) with Georges Cuvier in Paris. Cuvier got his doctorate in comparative anatomy from Ignaz Döllinger in Germany. Döllinger got his Ph.D. at Padua in Italy studying embryonic development. He was mentored by Antonio Scarpa at Modena in Italy.
Scarpa was mentored by Giovanni Morgagni at Padua. Morgagni was mentored by Antonio Valsalva who named the Eustachian tube, and he was mentored by Marcello Malpighi an early microscopic anatomist. Malpighi was mentored by Giovanni Borelli who first used physics to describe animal motion relating bones and muscles to function. Borelli was mentored, in turn, by Benedetto Castelli a mathematician and astronomer who studied sun spots. Castelli was mentored by Galileo Galilei.
I followed the history two more generations. Galileo was mentored by Ostillio Ricci. Ricci was mentored by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, another mathematician whose text on applied mathematics was a best seller in Renaissance Italy. From my Ph.D. in 1958 to Tartaglia’s years of birth and death (1499-1557) is a span of about 450 years.
If I number Tartaglia as 1, I am generation 16. Not all had a Ph.D. as their highest degree. Some had the M.D. The modern university as a research and teaching institution dates to the late 1700s in Germany. The Medieval and Renaissance university was based on the seven liberal arts leading to the B.A degree. Students could then choose law, medicine, theology,. or philosophy as a specialty leading to a M.A., M.D. or Ph.D. Nicolaus Copernicus got degrees in canon law (laws applied to and by the church), medicine and philosophy.
The M.D. degree until the late 1890s used to require a book-length dissertation as did the Ph.D. Note that German science was influenced by the Italian universities that took an interest in observational and experimental science in the Renaissance. It was Döllinger who brought this tradition back from Padua.
There was no scientific tradition at the university or college level in the United States until the 1870s when Cornell, Yale and Johns Hopkins stressed the Ph.D. as a scholar’s degree. Prior to that most American colleges stressed training for the ministry. Agassiz brought that scholarly tradition to Harvard to bolster American science.
I have done intellectual pedigrees for William Castle, Ralph Cleland, Seymour Benzer, Theodosius Dobzhansky, J.B.S. Haldane, Barbara McClintock and a few other geneticists. They usually differ. That means not all roads lead to Galileo. A few plug in to Agassiz or Döllinger. I was pleased to trace McClintock back to Carl Linnaeus. They are fun to do and you can use Wikipedia for the biography of a scholar you wish to follow. It will give (most of the time) the person who supervised a thesis or the names of that person’s best known students.
I also learned that sometimes there is more than one major mentor in a scholar’s life. Morgan was mentored by Brooks, but he was also mentored by H. Newell Martin who was a student of Michael Foster who was a student of Thomas H. Huxley, who was mentored by Charles Darwin. That means, I too, have a branch that leads to Darwin.
I learned from these pedigrees that we are shaped by what we experience. We are shaped by our parents and their community. We are shaped by mentors in high school or college. Sometimes it is through a course we take. Sometimes it is in our volunteer or extracurricular activities. Also, we have influence on more students than those who come for a Ph.D. research experience. In my career, this can be through the courses I taught, the office visits I had or the chance encounters with students while eating lunch, serving on committees that brought me in contact with them or serving as an academic advisor for my department.
Life gives us opportunities to be thankful. I thank the 15 generations that preceded me in my life as a scientist and teacher. What each generation gave was an opportunity to discover and to learn, to relate and to communicate, to lecture and to write.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
The Brick Studio and Gallery at Rocky Point invites the community for a free screening of Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece, “Modern Times,” at the VFW Hall, 109 King Road, Rocky Point on Monday, March 6 at 7 p.m. Stay after the movie, enjoy light refreshments and learn about special events and art exhibitions that will happen when the Brick Studio and Gallery opens its doors. For info, call 631-335-2293 or visit www.thebrickstudio.org.
Theatre Three, 412 Main St., Port Jefferson is seeking singer-actor-dancers (ages 16 and up; must appear 19 or older) for various roles in its upcoming Mainstage production of “Saturday Night Fever: The Musical.” Open auditions will be held on Saturday, March 4 at 3 p.m.
Prepare 16 bars from the song of your choice; bring sheet music in the proper key; accompanist provided. You may sing from the score. Be prepared to dance. Readings will be from the script. Please bring picture/resume. Rehearsals to begin in April. Performances will take place from May 20 to June 24.
For full details, call 631-928-9202 or visit www.theatrethree.com/auditions.html.
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