The eclipse has come and gone, and for me it lived up to its advanced billing. It was awesome. I can’t say I was prepared to be awed. In fact, since most “great” shows tend to be overhyped, especially with all the different platforms we now communicate on, from radio and TV to blogs, websites, mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter and the rest, they are over previewed and inevitably a letdown.
Not so last Monday’s eclipse. I happened to be taking a vacation day, and my family was visiting, so there were a number of us getting ready for the event. We weren’t particularly excited about what was predicted to happen. I think curious was a better description. None of us had secured the appropriate glasses in advance but fortunately a good friend put a pair in my hands at the last minute, and that made all the difference.
Without the glasses, we were told not to look at the sun for fear of damaging our retinas. The day dawned pleasantly enough, with blue sky and bright sun but, as the morning wore on, the light breeze that started the day disappeared altogether. We noted that fact because we have a little Hobie Cat that we use to get out on the water, and there wasn’t even enough wind to move that slender craft. As we sat around the patio, there was an air of expectancy around noon, although maybe I was just projecting. We heard no birdsong, saw no squirrels and thought the yard unusually quiet. By then the bright sun had yielded to what seemed like overhanging clouds, but there weren’t low clouds in the sky. By 1:30 p.m., there was perceptibly less light.
By 2:30, one by one we looked up at the sun through the protective glasses, and each of us emitted an involuntary noise. The moon, essentially a black disc, was moving west to east across the lower three-quarters of the sun. We could see it clearly, with no clouds in the way. The feeling was of watching something happening that was profoundly greater than any human activity. In fact, I had a similar sensation when I stood at the top of a mountain in Alaska and looked out over the hundreds of miles of landscape with not a human or a human structure in sight. I felt the utter insignificance of humans in the cosmos.
Just as predicted for the New York region, around 2:40 we saw the maximum area of sun occluded by the moon, and just around that time there was a fierce gust of wind that came from nowhere and shook the surrounding trees, with their lush summer leaves, into a frenzy. It was almost spooky. After a few minutes, the wind diminished and turned into a summer breeze.
We sat in a circle, passing the cardboard glasses from hand to hand, and continued to marvel at the sight of the moon blocking most of the sun. But the surface of the moon did not seem uniformly dense, rather appearing to let patches of light through parts of the disc — or so it appeared to me. Then, as the minutes ticked by and the moon moved off, it was almost with regret that we saw it leave. For those all-too-brief moments, we had witnessed what only the gods can see: the movement of the inner parts of the universe as some sort of well-regulated Swiss watch. It was a stately dance of the planets, predictable for its steps but thrilling on its cosmic scale.
Then it was over and, as one, we rose to take advantage of the newfound breeze and get in some late afternoon sailing. But somehow we weren’t quite the same. Yes, we know the basics: That the Earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the Earth, a kind of merry-go-round within a merry-go-round. But to witness a tiny part of that movement, for even the shortest time, can only be described as leaving us in awe.
Marijuana has now become much more of a mainstay in the United States. Starting in 1937 marijuana was illegal throughout the United States. This lasted until the Compassionate Use Act was passed in California in 1996. There are now eight states (and the District of Columbia) that legally allow the use of recreational marijuana and 20 states that allow the use of medical marijuana.
There are also advertisements on the internet that sell a variety of cannabis products for pets that include capsules, oils, butters, tinctures, infused chews and dog treats. Now, before you start asking your veterinarian to become Dr. “Cheech and Chong” or Dr. “Method Man,” I must print this disclaimer: The law does not approve the use of medical marijuana for pets in any of these 50 United States or the District of Columbia.
The chemical substances derived from marijuana products are called cannabinoids. There are actually over 80 cannabinoids derived from the Cannabis plant but, only two are of real importance for our purposes: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is found in the marijuana plant, while CBD is found in hemp. THC has a psychotropic effect (what gets people “high”) but CBD is the nonpsychotropic compound found primarily in hemp.
What, historically, are the uses of marijuana and hemp? Human studies have shown that marijuana helps with glaucoma, nausea related to chemotherapy, neuropathy (nerve associated pain) and spasticity. There are also anecdotal studies that marijuana products can help with seizures. Both THC-based and CBD-based cannabinoids have an effect on cognition, immunity, inflammation, preventing cell death and cancer, pain, emotional memory, nausea and appetite stimulation. There are studies that state that cannabinoids have potent antibacterial effects against MERSA.
There are (as mentioned above) a large number of these products available without a prescription (many of them hemp based). In order to ship these products without a prescription, they have to contain less than 1 percent of CBD and 0.3 percent of THC. Unfortunately, this has opened the door to some unscrupulous entrepreneurs. Many of the hemp-based products sold on the internet are derived from industrial-grade hemp and only used for fiber.
If one remembers from previous articles on supplements that the supplement industry was able to get Congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994. This act, in a nutshell, stated that no supplement (human or veterinary) can claim to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure a particular disease. However, general claims that link a particular supplement to the prevention of particular diseases are allowed.
There are many benefits to the use of cannabis products. Unfortunately, medical marijuana is unavailable for pets, and “let the buyer beware” when choosing cannabis products. I’ll keep you updated to any changes as I find out.
Dr. Kearns practices veterinary medicine from his Port Jefferson office and is pictured with his son Matthew and his dog Jasmine.
It seems like everyone has heard of hypothyroidism. But do we really know what it is and why it is important? The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped organ responsible for maintaining our metabolism. It sits at the base of the neck, just below the laryngeal prominence, or Adam’s apple. The prefix “hypo,” derived from Greek, means “under” (1). Therefore, hypothyroidism indicates an underactive thyroid and results in slowing of the metabolism.
Many people get hypo- and hyperthyroidism confused, but they are really complete opposites. Blood tests determine if a person has hypothyroidism. Items that are tested include thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which is usually increased, thyroxine (free T4) and triiodothyronine (free T3 or T3 uptake). Both of these last two may be suppressed (2).
The thyroid sits at the base of the neck, just below the Adam’s apple and is responsible for maintaining metabolism.
There are two types of primary hypothyroidism: subclinical and overt. In the overt (more obvious) type, classic symptoms include weight gain, fatigue, thinning hair, cold intolerance, dry skin and depression, as well as the changes in all three thyroid hormones on blood tests mentioned above. In the subclinical, there may be less obvious or vague symptoms and only changes in the TSH. The subclinical can progress to the overt stage rapidly in some cases (3). Subclinical is substantially more common than overt; its prevalence may be as high as 10 percent of the U.S. population (4).
What are potential causes or risk factors for hypothyroidism? There are numerous factors, such as medications, including lithium; autoimmune diseases, whether personal or in the family history; pregnancy, though it tends to be transient; and treatments for hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid), including surgery and radiation.
The most common type of hypothyroidism is Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (5). This is where antibodies attack thyroid gland tissues. Several blood tests are useful to determine if a patient has Hashimoto’s: thyroid peroxidase (TPO) antibodies and antithyroglobulin antibodies.
Myths versus realities
I would like to separate the myths from the realities with hypothyroidism. Does treating hypothyroidism help with weight loss? Not necessarily. Is soy potentially bad for the thyroid? Yes. Does coffee affect thyroid medication? Maybe. And finally, do vegetables, specifically cruciferous vegetables, negatively impact the thyroid? Probably not. Let’s look at the evidence.
Treatments: medications and supplements
When it comes to hypothyroidism, there are two main medications: levothyroxine and Armour Thyroid. The difference is that Armour Thyroid converts T4 into T3, while levothyroxine does not. Therefore, one medication may be more appropriate than the other, depending on the circumstance. However, T3 can be given with levothyroxine, which is similar to using Armour Thyroid.
What about supplements?
A recent study tested 10 different thyroid support supplements; the results were downright disappointing, if not a bit scary (6). Of the supplements tested, 90 percent contained actual medication, some to levels higher than what are found in prescription medications. This means that the supplements could cause toxic effects on the thyroid, called thyrotoxicosis. Supplements are not FDA-regulated, therefore, they are not held to the same standards as medications. There is a narrow therapeutic window when it comes to the appropriate medication dosage for treating hypothyroidism, and it is sensitive. Therefore, if you are going to consider using supplements, check with your doctor and tread very lightly.
Soy impact
What role does soy play with the thyroid? In a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard of studies, the treatment group that received higher amounts of soy supplementation had a threefold greater risk of conversion from subclinical hypothyroidism to overt hypothyroidism than those who received considerably less supplementation (7). Thus, it seems that in this small, yet well-designed, study, soy has a negative impact on the thyroid. Therefore, those with hypothyroidism may want to minimize or avoid soy. Interestingly, those who received more soy supplementation did see improvements in blood pressure and inflammation and a reduction in insulin resistance, but, ultimately, a negative impact on the thyroid.
The reason that soy may have this negative impact was illustrated in a study involving rat thyrocytes (thyroid cells) (8). Researchers found that soy isoflavones, especially genistein, which are usually beneficial, may contribute to autoimmune thyroid disease, such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. They also found that soy may inhibit the absorption of iodide in the thyroid.
Weight loss
Since being overweight and obese is a growing epidemic, wouldn’t it be nice if the silver lining of hypothyroidism is that, with medication to treat the disease, we were guaranteed to lose weight? In a recent retrospective (looking in the past) study, results showed that only about half of those treated with medication for hypothyroidism lost weight (9). This has to be disappointing to patients. However, this was a small study, and we need a large randomized controlled trial to test it further.
WARNING: The FDA has a black box warning on thyroid medications — they should never be used as weight loss drugs (10). They could put a patient in a hyperthyroid state or worse, having potentially catastrophic results.
Coffee
I am not allowed to take away my wife’s coffee; she draws the line here with lifestyle modifications. So I don’t even attempt to with my patients, since coffee may have some beneficial effects. But when it comes to hypothyroidism, taking levothyroxine and coffee together may decrease the absorption of levothyroxine significantly, according to one study (11). It did not seem to matter whether they were taken together or an hour apart. This was a very small study involving only eight patients. Still, I recommend avoiding coffee for several hours after taking the medication. This should be okay, since the medication must be taken on an empty stomach.
Vegetables
There is a theory that vegetables, specifically cruciferous ones such as cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli, may exacerbate hypothyroidism. In one animal study, results suggested that very high intake of these vegetables reduces thyroid functioning (12). This study was done over 30 years ago, and it has not been replicated.
Importantly, this may not be the case in humans. In the recently published Adventist Health Study-2, results showed that those who had a vegan-based diet were less likely to develop hypothyroidism than those who ate an omnivore diet (13). And those who added lactose and eggs to the vegan diet also had a small increased risk of developing hypothyroidism. However, this trial did not focus on raw cruciferous vegetables, where additional study is much needed.
There are two take-home points, if you have hypothyroid issues: Try to avoid soy products, and don’t think supplements that claim to be thyroid support and good for you are harmless because they are over the counter and “natural.” In my clinical experience, an anti-inflammatory, vegetable-rich diet helps improve quality of life issues, especially fatigue and weight gain, for those with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
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.
Make sure your attorney includes a 'common disaster' provision in your will.
By Linda Toga
THE FACTS: My father and sister perished in a plane crash under circumstances making it impossible to determine the order of death. My sister is survived by her spouse, Joe, and two children. My father’s will leaves his entire estate in equal shares to me and my sister, per stirpes. He was under the impression that his assets would pass to his grandchildren if anything happened to my sister. He was quite adamant that he did not want his assets to pass to Joe. My father’s will also includes a provision stating that if he and a beneficiary die in a common disaster, he would be deemed to have predeceased the beneficiary. My sister’s will leaves everything to Joe.
THE QUESTION: Joe claims that one-half of my father’s estate now passes to him through my sister’s estate and not to my sister’s children because my sister is deemed to have survived my father. Is that correct?
THE ANSWER: Unfortunately with respect to your father’s wishes, the answer is “yes.” As much as your father may have wanted his assets to pass to his grandchildren, as a result of the inclusion of the common disaster provision in his will, Joe will effectively inherit half of your father’s estate along with any assets your sister owned at the time of her death.
HOW IT WORKS: The provision in your father’s will concerning dying in a common disaster with a beneficiary controls here even though it appears to undermine your father’s wishes. Pursuant to that provision, your sister is deemed to have survived your father. That means that half of his assets will pass to your sister’s estate as if she were alive. The assets will then be distributed in accordance with her will. Since your sister’s will leaves everything to Joe, Joe will, in fact, be the beneficiary of the assets passing from your father’s estate to your sister’s estate.
The common disaster provision is one that is often ignored or misunderstood by clients. However, not giving the possible impact of the provision serious consideration when engaging in estate planning is a mistake that can clearly lead to unintended consequences.
If your father wanted to be sure that his assets would not end up in Joe’s hands, the order of death set forth in the common disaster provision of his will should have been reversed. In other words, the common disaster provision in his will should have stated that in the event he died along with a beneficiary under circumstances that made it impossible to determine the order of death, he would be deemed to have survived the beneficiary.
Under that scenario, your sister would be deemed to have predeceased your father. This, in turn, would trigger the per stirpes language in the will that basically provides that if a named beneficiary predeceases the testator, the share of the estate allocated to the predeceased beneficiary will pass to that beneficiary’s children.
The end result of having your father survive your sister would be that the share of your father’s estate allocated to your sister would not be distributed to her estate but would have passed directly to her children.
Since your father’s assets would not have been included in your sister’s estate, they would not be distributed to Joe. Your sister’s wishes as to the distribution of her estate to Joe would be honored since he would still inherit the assets that were owned by your sister at the time of her death. At the same time, your father’s wish that his grandchildren be the beneficiaries of his estate would have been fulfilled.
Issues like the one created by the competing provisions in your father’s will highlight the need to work with an experienced estate planning attorney and illustrate the importance of asking questions to ensure that you understand fully the implications and consequences of every provision in your will.
Linda M. Toga, Esq. provides legal services in the areas of estate planning, probate, estate administration, litigation, wills, trusts, small business services and real estate from her East Setauket office.
From left, scientist Lin Yang at the LiX beamline demonstrates how the beam hits the sample to high school teachers James Ripka, Mary Kroll, Fred Feraco, Janet Kaczmarek and Jocelyn Handley-Pendleton. Photo from BNL
By Daniel Dunaief
He helped build it and now a range of researchers are coming.
Lin Yang helped create the LiX beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven National Laboratory, which is attracting researchers eager to study the fine structure and function of everything from proteins to steel.
The lead scientist for the LiX beamline at the NSLS-II at BNL, Yang was the control account manager for the construction of the beamline and was the spokesperson for a team that wrote the original beamline development proposal.
“In our case, the scattering from the sample is sensitive to the underlying structure” of materials, Yang said. “That’s why people want to use scattering to study their samples.”
Like the other beamlines at the NSLS-II, the LiX enables scientists to use sophisticated equipment to search for links between structures and function. Each beamline has a three-letter acronym. In the case of LiX, the “Li” stands for life sciences, while the “X” represents X-ray scattering.
When they designed the beamline, LiX researchers were seeking optics that were capable of producing a beam to conform to the specifications required for different types of measurements. They then designed an experimental station that is suitable for handling biological samples. Specifically, that involved developing an automated sample handler for measurements on protein molecules in solution.
“With atomic resolution structures and functional assays, we do get new insights [about] important ions such as calcium,” which are involved in signaling and physiology, Qun Liu, a principal investigator in the Biology Department at BNL, described in an email. “LiX will be essential to allow us [to see] the transport process in real time and space.” Liu wrote that Yang is an “outstanding X-ray beamline scientist” who is also well known for his pioneering work on membrane diffraction.
The ability to perform measurements using a beam of a few microns is “pretty unique right now,” which also attracted researchers working with steel samples, Yang said. “When we designed the instrument, our focus [was] on the biological structure” but the beamline is “versatile enough” that it has found other uses, Yang said.
Researchers working with steel realized that the same diffraction-based approach to finding underlying structures in living tissue could also shed light on the structures of their samples.
In everyday life, diffraction is visible from the wavelengths of light that form the hologram on a credit card. Scientists working with steel have been applying for time on the LiX beamline, too, creating a competitive environment for researchers working in both fields.
Lynne Ecker, the deputy department chair in the Nuclear Science and Technology Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has used the beamline to study the effect of neutrons and ions on steel.
“Ions will only damage steel so far,” Ecker said. The LiX is “perfect” to study the degree of the damage. Ecker said she’s tried this kind of analysis in other places, but the LiX provides better spatial resolution. The LiX scientists are working on improving the degree of automation for sample handling and data processing.
“We are about to install a six-axis robot, which is typically seen in industrial automation, to help realize unattended overnight measurements on protein solution samples,” Yang said. The robot is already at the facility and Yang and his team will be installing the support structure to mount the robot in the experimental station this month. “The more challenging task is to put the software in place so that the beamline can control the robot,” he explained in an email.
The LiX beamline uses lenses made from beryllium, which are transparent to X-rays. For X-rays at the wavelength of about one angstrom, about 93 percent can pass through about a millimeter of beryllium. That compares favorably to aluminum, which allows about 2 percent to pass through at the same thickness.
The LiX beamline can run at 500 frames per second, which produces a wealth of data. In practice, it may take up to a second for the detector to accumulate enough signal from the sample. Still, the beamline can generate enough data that the experimenter may not be able to examine it frame by frame, which makes automated data processing more important.
Scientists have used the beamline to explore the structure of plants. These researchers mainly want to understand how materials like cellulose are organized within different parts of the plant and in different plants.
In bones, researchers can differentiate between organic matter like collagen and inorganic matter. Not only can they determine where they are, but they can also explore their orientation in a sample. Bones are easy samples since collagen and minerals in bone have distinctive scattering and diffraction patterns, Yang said. Researchers “like to look at how biological molecules change their shape as they interact with their functional partners,” Yang said.
A resident of East Setauket, Yang lives with his wife Mian Wang, who is an architect in Farmingdale, and their two daughters. A fan of tennis, Yang plays as often as he can during the summer at the Three Village Tennis Club.
Yang grew up in Yunnan province in the southwest of China. Trained as a physicist, Yang picked up knowledge of molecular biology from his years of working with other scientists. In his work, he gets to combine his talents in engineering, programming and molecular biology.
“We learn new things when we interact with our users/guest researchers since we first need to learn about their problems before we can help solve them,” he described in an email. Yang hopes the research he and the team at the LiX support will result in high-impact publications. “As more researchers know about us and our capabilities, I expect more people will want to perform experiments at our beamline,” he said.
Say hello to Yarmouth, a handsome 8-month-old Shepherd mix who hails from the Bahamas. Sure the weather was nice, but he would much rather have a loving home of his own. Yarmouth is sweet, playful and very affectionate. So hurry down and meet him today! Yarmouth comes neutered, microchipped and up to date on all his vaccines. Kent Animal Shelter is located at 2259 River Road in Calverton. For more information on Yarmouth and other adoptable pets at Kent, please call 631-727-5731 or visit www.kentanimalshelter.com.
If you only attend one gallery exhibit this summer, make it the stunning collection of new paintings by Christian White showing at The Atelier at Flowerfield in St. James this month. White is a multitalented artist creating works in stone, watercolor, graphite, gouache, trompe l’oeil, egg tempera and, of course, his ever popular luscious color-saturated oils paintings.
Your exhibit of new paintings has been described as ‘breathtaking.’ Do you have a favorite piece?
These paintings are an attempt to find something new in subjects that I have painted often over my career. I never really have a favorite piece, I am more interested in how the paintings look together, and I am very happy with how these look as a group.
You refer to yourself as a colorist. What is your secret to creating such pure, clean color that exudes light and atmosphere so well? How do you prepare for painting large pieces?
I believe that if one uses color, it should have a purpose, that is, a decorative, thematic and expressive function in the picture. I have no real secrets to my color ideas, except that I have studied the subject a great deal. I do have certain ways of preparing colors in advance when working on large pieces, which are partly influenced by certain modernist and abstract painters.
You have such a remarkable heritage with five generations of famous painters, architects, poets, sculptors, etc. Who do you admire and learn from most in your family line?
I learned a great deal from everyone in my family who I knew personally. It is hard to say which part of one’s education is most important; I believe everything one learns contributes to who you are. I admired my father, Robert White, a great deal and spent much of my youth learning from him by example. I also admired my maternal grandfather, Joep Nicolas, a lot. I studied with him briefly in Holland, as well as with my aunt, Sylvia Nicolas, and a Japanese sculptor named Shinkichi Tajiri. Joep had a facility and imagination that I never felt I would attain, so yes, I admired that very much, but all of them had important lessons to give.
Is there a present-day artist who you hold in esteem and would like to meet?
I think I would say the South African artist, William Kentridge. He has an originality which I find engrossing and magical, and although he uses some modern technology, most of his work is just charcoal on paper, I love that he creates such original work with such a simple medium.
‘Japanese Maple #2’ by Christian White
Which is your favorite art museum? Is there an art museum that you would like to visit but haven’t yet?
For most of my life I would have said: The Frick. But now I probably spend more of my time at MoMA. I would love to see the Prado some day.
Japanese Maple #2 appears to be a joyfully abstract painting that exudes the wonder and brilliance of autumn. Can you explain a bit about your abstract paintings vs. your more traditional approach?
That is one of several paintings where I have tried to bring exterior space and structure forward into the room, like a window moved forward perhaps. I do not exactly consider these paintings abstract, although I have borrowed some ideas from abstract painters, and I suppose there is a certain feeling akin to “action painting” in its execution.
‘Harbor, March’ by Christian White
The painting ‘Harbor, March’ created quite a stir. What do you think makes it so universally inviting?
That painting was based on a smaller study that I did on a very warm, still day in March last year. I was trying to describe the unusual color of the air that day. I am often trying to capture a familiar subject in a new light. I think the scale of this one gives it a more specific mood, perhaps.
It’s hard to surpass your superb draftsmanship. Would you consider an exhibit with just your graphite drawings? Do you draw with your brush while painting in oils?
I consider drawing to be the basic skill and language that artists use to communicate. In recent years I have become more interested in producing drawings as objects of art, so yes, someday I may have an exhibit of just drawings. Am I drawing with the brush when I paint? Absolutely.
‘A Clutch of Daffodils’ by Christian White
You are presently teaching at The Atelier. Can you tell us why you were drawn to teach and exhibit there?
I was intrigued by the idea of a school that would give students solid foundational skills, in an organized studio setting. I think an emphasis on teaching drawing skills (not just copying from two dimensions) is crucial, though difficult, toward making better artists.
You’ve said that you were influenced by the Southampton artist, Fairfield Porter, a friend of your father. What did you learn from him?
He was also very close to my mother (they were both art critics). Mostly I was influenced by his work, his ability to make realism look so much like modernism, his insistence on making every color a design decision and the way he simplified the subject, without making it any less immediate. Those were things I wanted to do as well.
The Atelier at Flowerfield, 2 Flowerfield, Suite 15, St. James will present the exhibition Christian White: Recent Works through Aug. 31. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Sundays. For more information, please call 631-250-9009 or visit www.atelierflowerfield.org.
ACORN TIME! Wendy Brown captured this image on July 20. She writes, ‘In case you’re wondering where all the squirrels are, they’re in my back yard in Stony Brook. They come every day for lunch and dinner!’
We tend to generalize in making judgments about ourselves and others. Some claim they are self-made and promote their work ethic as the reason for their success. Some claim they are victims of circumstances over which they had limited control. Examples exist of people who have moved from rags to riches, and no one would blame victims of racial prejudice or the Holocaust for the misery they or their family members experienced.
In my own life I can think of many such events that have either made my life possible or significantly influenced it. My father told my brother and me that when his father was on a business trip from Stockholm, Sweden, to Hamburg, Germany, he was walking down a street when a German officer was walking directly toward him.
It was the custom there to step in the gutter to let a military officer have the right of way. My grandfather felt no such sense of obligation and felt his side of the road was appropriate for continuing his walk. The officer pulled out his sword and slapped my father’s face with it. The insult made him a pacifist, and that outlook was passed on to my father and to me. It also made him shorten his trip, and he went to Normandy to visit friends and relatives who had a summer house near the Baltic Sea.
There he met the young woman he eventually married, my grandmother, Amanda, who lived near Göteborg. I can say that I owe my existence to a slap in the face. My parents, too, met in a strange circumstance.
My mother was selling key rings on Broadway in Manhattan on a cold winter day. She entered a hotel entrance on 75th street to warm up, and the doorman told her to go downstairs to warm up in the employee’s room. There she met a Swedish elevator operator who was changing out of his uniform to go home. He took her to dinner and that began the courtship of my parents. I could say I owe my existence to a sympathetic doorman who felt compassion on a woman down on her luck.
When I was a graduate student at Indiana University, I met my wife Nedra, also by a curious circumstance. I had written letters to my parents and friends and lacked 3-cent stamps to mail them. I asked around and was told there was a girl who may have stamps who was usually working in a laboratory the floor above me. I knocked on the door and met a nervous undergraduate who did have stamps and I invited her to tea. When she did not come, I brought the tea to her. That was our first day of courtship. I could say that I owe my marriage to Nedra to a 3-cent stamp.
I do not doubt that such chance events play major roles in our lives. But most of our lives are under our control and shaped by habits and circumstances. We do not choose our partners randomly. Assortative mating is influenced by religion, race, ethnicity, social class, education, looks, personality and many other features that steer us toward or away from possible partners. Before the 20th century most marriages were arranged or required parental approval.
But it is not just social factors that determine how we come into this world. Each act of intercourse involves tens of millions of sperm. The odds of the one that made you on a particular day were not predictable when that sperm was in a testis or when it made its initial way to the cervix of the uterus and eventually to the oviduct where it would meet the egg that formed you.
That is quite a contrast to the injection of single sperm into an egg during a form of in vitro fertilization (IVF) used by infertile couples where the sperm has problems wiggling its tail or having the right surface proteins to recognize it is encountering an egg. In that case we get the paradoxical conclusion that the child born by the IVF procedure owes its existence to the father being sterile!
Life is filled with rare events, the overwhelming number of them not even being recognized as significant in our lives. At the same time society is so organized that much of what we do is planned and anticipated and goes essentially as we hoped it would.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
The Word Play Masters Invitational is based on the Washington Post’s Style Invitational column, in which readers are invited to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Past winners include:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an a–hole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
5. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
10. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s, like, a serious bummer.
11. Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
13. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at 3 a.m. and cannot be cast out.
16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.
The winners of another competition seeking alternative meanings for common words are:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Marijuana has now become much more of a mainstay in the United States. Starting in 1937 marijuana was illegal throughout the United States. This lasted until the Compassionate Use Act was passed in California in 1996. There are now eight states (and the District of Columbia) that legally allow the use of recreational marijuana and 20 states that allow the use of medical marijuana.
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