Parents, coaches and teachers offer words of wisdom, guidance and advice.
At the same time, however, they also have opportunities to learn, particularly after the end of one year and the start of another.
And so it is for Stony Brook University women’s basketball coach Ashley Langford.
A year after she took her first head coaching job at Stony Brook, Langford took stock of her experience, while contemplating the next steps.
“I’m still high energy and enthusiastic,” Langford said at 3 p.m. .on the first day of school from her car as she headed to a late lunch. “I’m still excited to be head coach.”
A self-described “high achiever” who “wants to be the best,” Langford acknowledges that she may be an over achiever as well.
“Even when I reach my goal, for me, you’re supposed to,” she said. “There were times [last year] when we would win and I wouldn’t be happy. I want us to be our best.”
Langford, however, recognizes that emphasizing ways to improve, even after winning a game, was not ideal for her players.
“They are 18- to 23-year-olds,” she said. “They need to enjoy that win, regardless of how it looked. They need to be praised right in the moment.”
That doesn’t mean teaching and improving ends after a win. The next day, she said she felt more comfortable talking about how to avoid the possibility of letting a game slip away.
In her second year, Langford hopes she, her coaches and the team become more visible to the community, particularly because the team plays a “fun brand of basketball.”
Her debut season involved ongoing restrictions related to the pandemic, preventing her from connecting with the community.
“I need to be more visible,” Langford said. “It’s important that Long Island knows who we are.”
She is eager to go into schools and engage with members of the community.
“Community service is a huge piece of that,” Langford said. “It’s us going to schools and reading” or interacting in other ways with residents.
This summer, the basketball program ran an elite camp for players who were not at a recruitable age. Participants in the camp can come back to games for free, which, Langford hopes, can encourage other spectators to join them.
“Maybe they’ll bring a friend or two,” she said.
The Seawolves coach is excited for the opportunity to compete in the Colonial Athletic Conference. After participating in the America East conference since 2001, the Stony Brook Athletic Department decided to move to the CAA starting this season.
Langford will rely on some of her knowledge of her competition. Prior to arriving at SBU, Langford spent four years at James Madison University, which is a member of the CAA.
“I know the DNA of certain teams,” Langford said. She recognizes, however, that teams change, which means that the Seawolves have to be “ready to pivot.”
As she prepares the team, which includes four transfer students, for the upcoming season, she believes Stony Brook will be competitive in a demanding conference.
“We’re not in a league where you can have an off night and think you’re gong to win,” she said. “We’ve got to be ready to give our best.”
Thoughts from a former player and her father
Former fifth-year player India Pagan, who is preparing to play professional basketball in Germany this winter (see story in Arts and Lifestyles), remains connected to her former team.
“I’m really proud that we made it to another league,” she said. “We have to elevate our level, our intensity. I say, ‘We,’ like I’m still on the team.” Pagan said she still feels committed to a team she helped lead to consecutive conference championships.
Thinking back to the beginning of his daughter’s college basketball experience, India’s father Moises Pagan cited Stony Brook’s eagerness to recruit her.
“The fact that they put this powerpoint together, it blew us away,” Pagan said. “We walked away saying, ‘Stony Brook really wants our daughter.’”
Busloads of immigrants are arriving in New York City regularly, sent from the border by the Texas governor. He doesn’t know what to do with so many, but we do. We up here in the northeast can use a lot of help, to judge from the omnipresent “Help Wanted” signs.
Of course, the newcomers cannot fit into communities seamlessly, functioning in any and every job. First, they need food, housing and perhaps medical care. Their children need to be registered for school. The parents have to be interviewed to determine their skills and preferences for work. To us, it would seem there are a number of jobs that they might fill fairly quickly even if they come with no special training, and especially if they have the benefit of a translator on the work premises or on the phone.
Restaurants in particular seem to be in need of additional help. Some positions there need energy and elbow grease, like busing tables, washing dishes and keeping the rooms clean. The same might be said for other parts of the hospitality and entertainment industries, like hotels and theaters. Hospitals need additional hands for cleaning and helping patients. Businesses and offices must be kept clean and neat. The same for private homes.
Of great need is childcare, which in effect is a universal job but one for which applicants would have to be carefully screened. There is $7 billion of public funding available for childcare from New York State, but only some 12% of those who might qualify are aware of the program. An intense information campaign has been proposed to get the word out, and once there is a greater response, more caretakers will need to be retained and trained. The money is there to pay them.
New York City has long been the gateway to America for immigrants. And America has long been the promised land for those fleeing persecution, political chaos or even war at home, or those hoping to better themselves and especially their children in a country that offers opportunity.
We are a nation peopled by immigrants. While some families can brag about their long lineage here in America, the point is that at some time, ancestors came here from somewhere else, unless they are Native Americans. And the striving of immigrants to succeed and fit in has helped our country to succeed. Imagine what it must take to pull up roots, leave behind everything you know and those you love, and travel, in some instances great distances along perhaps dangerous routes, to come to America. Many don’t speak English. Others never make it here.
To do so must take great courage, determination and ambition. These are skills we need. And we need people. In addition to the evidence of Help Wanted signs, we know that our birth rate is dropping. More and more couples are opting not to have children, whether because of the expense, (some $300,000 per child today), the challenge of climate change or any other reasons.
We have a checkered history at best when it comes to welcoming immigrants. When I was growing up in New York City, for example, Puerto Ricans were arriving in substantial numbers. They were generally disparaged, accused of taking “American” jobs and causing crime. Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” is a fairly accurate depiction set to music. Newcomers have had to elbow their way into the country, largely because they start out being culturally different, and differences are often feared.
My neighborhood as I was growing up, Yorkville, was largely populated by Germans. Restaurants advertised various krauts and wiener schnitzel. Beer halls lined East 86th Street, with polka music spilling onto the sidewalk, luring in passersby. Some residents, who had arrived generations earlier, made fun of them and their accents. Then in my teen years, the Germans moved up and out to the suburbs and elsewhere and were replaced by Hungarians, and the restaurant “specials” signs now offered “veal paprikash.” Again the same cycle.
New York City renews itself with its immigrants. So does America. We need them to remain us.
Victoria Bautch on right with graduate student Danielle Buglak. Photo from UNC McAllister Heart Institute
By Daniel Dunaief
This is part two of a two-part series featuring Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory alums Joanna Wysocka, Robert Tjian, Victoria Bautch, Rasika Harshey and Eileen White.
Often working seven days a week as they build their careers, scientists plan, conduct and interpret experiments that don’t always work or provide clear cut results.
Driven by their passion for discovery, they tap into a reservoir of ambition and persistence, eager for that moment when they might find something no one else has discovered, adding information that may lead to a new technology, that could possibly save lives, or that leads to a basic understanding of how or why something works.
Nestled between the shoreline of an inner harbor along the Long Island Sound and deciduous trees that celebrate the passage of seasons with technicolor fall foliage, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been a career-defining training ground for future award-winning scientists.
Last week two alumni of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Joanna Wysocka and Robert Tjian, shared their thoughts, experiences, and reflections on the private lab that was founded in 1890. This week the article continues with reflections from alumni Rasika Harshey, Victoria Bautch and Eileen White.
Confidence builder
Lunch time presented no break from science for Rasika Harshey, and that was just as she’d hoped.
Rasika Harshey
When she was at Blackford Hall between 1979 and 1983, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a staff investigator in the lab of Ahmad Bukhari, Harshey said conversations frequently included discussions about research. “It was wonderful,” she said. “It was just science, 24/7.”
Bukhari was studying a virus that infects bacteria, called mu, for mutator. The viral particle genome was jumping into the host genome. “At that point, transposable elements” of DNA were “entering into our consciousness,” Harshey explained.
In her research, Harshey would induce the virus and, 30 minutes later, get 100 phage particles. Looking in the cytoplasm, however, she didn’t find any of this viral DNA until phage progeny appeared about 50 minutes later. “How is that possible?” she asked. “I wanted to solve this mystery.”
Harshey spent countless hours in the electron microscope room, isolating DNA. She knew mu was replicating, or copying itself, but she couldn’t figure out how or what it was doing. She and Bukhari proposed a model about transposable elements at a meeting called “Movable Genetic Elements” in 1979 at CSHL that generated considerable discussion.
“It was thrilling at the time for me to develop as a scientist,” Harshey said. “It seemed to me that I was saying something and people were listening. I gained a lot of confidence in myself.” The work she did turned out to be only partially correct, but it gave her the sense that she could solve problems.
With CSHL as a backdrop, Harshey enjoyed the opportunity to attend meetings and to interact with other visitors and other scientists on campus. “It was a total immersion” she said. “Summers were magical, with so many meetings one could just walk into.”
Harshey visited Barbara McClintock’s lab, which was down the hall from hers. McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in Harshey’s final year at CSHL, showed her the maize cells.
McClintock also invited her to her cottage, where she served what Harshey recalled was a “delicious” poppyseed cake.
She described McClintock as “quiet” and a “tough cookie.”
Rasika Harshey at CSHL.Courtesy of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives, NY.
Harshey thought it was inspiring to be with McClintock, Watson and Richard Roberts, who also won a Nobel Prize. She also appreciated the opportunity to visit with Guenter Albrecht-Buehler and Joseph Sambrook. “I was in and out of Richard Roberts’s lab all the time,” she said.
For her work, Harshey needed restriction enzymes, which Phyllis Myers produced. She had to “beg” Myers for these valuable enzymes that were in short supply.
Harshey felt an urgency to commit herself to her work. When she and her husband Makkuni Jayaram were expecting a baby, she didn’t share the news until it had become obvious. She worked until the last moment before the baby was born in 1982, “but I came back,” she said.
Harshey, who also calls CSHL “home,” described it as a “place time forgot. It’s quiet and beautiful and you can do and think and talk science.” Professor in Molecular Biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin in the College of Natural Sciences, Harshey is grateful for the career and the life she’s led. “A series of accidents got me here,” she said. “I can’t believe my good fortune, that I get to do what I get to do every day.”
As a part of the history of CSHL, Harshey appreciates a culture that she has carried forward in her career. The “deep joy, commitment, excitement for biology, particularly for designing experiments, and looking at a problem from all angles” was embedded into the approach scientists took to the work they did at the lab.
She also believes the tradition at CSHL includes an “appreciation for how easy it is to get things wrong and to continually challenge your own ideas.”
Intense culture
Victoria Bautch came to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the 1983 knowing that she was interested in studying aspects of developmental biology. When she saw the power of the new technology, she started working on genetically modified animals.
She was trying to figure out whether viral genes previously only linked to cancer by association could cause cancer when part of the genome was put into animals. When she inserted genes into a mouse’s DNA, some of these mice developed tumors in their blood vessels. She “didn’t know this was going to happen,” she said. “The type of tumor was a complete surprise.”
Bautch needed to know more about how blood vessels formed and functioned to understand these tumors. That’s what got her excited about studying these blood vessels. These blood vessel tumors “weren’t on my radar,” she said.
While working in the lab of Doug Hanahan, Bautch had the opportunity to interact with Judah Folkman, a Professor at Harvard University. Folkman was excited about the way these blood vessels were developing and encouraged Bautch to continue to work in this field. Folkman championed the idea that new blood vessel formation contributes to the progression of many types of tumors. He was eager to bring new people and technologies into the field.
Bautch also met mouse geneticists Nancy Jenkins and Neal Copeland who were at Jackson Labs at the time and were instrumental in her career progression. She started asking basic questions about how blood vessels forms and how they function.
Folkman was looking to “bring people into the field that had more of a basic science and molecular biology background,” Bautch said. He was hoping to add researchers who would use the new tools to understand blood vessel basics and how they are involved in tumors.
The tumor Bautch worked on was an “entree into the bigger field of blood vessels and vascular biology,” she said.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory provided a constructive backdrop for the work Bautch did that proved important in her career. “I was looking for an intense and very high caliber scientific environment and I feel like I found it,” she said.
Indeed, Bautch often worked seven days a week, starting at 10 or 11 in the morning and ending around 1 or 2 in the morning. During the later hours, she had an easier time accessing machines and equipment that others in the lab also needed.
Like Harshey, Bautch has her own McClintock story. “She always would say, ‘Look at your organism very carefully.’ You could learn so much from observing.”
At the time, McClintock’s advice seemed “antiquated” to Bautch, especially with researchers doing molecular biology that was more of a technological breakthrough, but now appreciates the guidance. “A really important piece of being a scientist is being observant,” sheexplained.
Bautch said other scientists were prepared to offer their responses to her work. “People were always telling you what they thought, whether you wanted it or not,” she recalled.
Now a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Co-Director of the McAlister Heart Institute at UNC Chapel Hill, Bautch recalls her time at CSHL as a combination of a “very intense life experience as well as science experience.” As for her hopes for the current crop of scientists at CSHL, Dr. Bautch hopes this generation is “more inclusive.”
An alternateexplanation of cancer
Around the same time that actress Heather Locklear was telling TV audiences about Faberge Organics Shampoo about how people can tell two friends about the shampoo who then tell two friends, researchers knew that a type of gene that promoted cancer did essentially the same thing.
Eileen White. Photo courtesy of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey
Called an oncogene, these genes caused cells to continue to divide and, as the shampoo commercial suggested “and so on and so on and so on.” Back then, scientists focused on the role oncogenes played in cell proliferation, which, with cancer, involved the runaway copying of itself.
A graduate of Smithtown High School who earned her PhD at Stony Brook University, Eileen White joined Bruce Stillman’s lab as a post doctoral fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1983. After three years, White became a staff investigator, making the beginning of career-defining discoveries about the development of cancer.
“We knew that certain viruses cause cancer, and we knew that these viruses encoded oncogenes,” said Dr. White. “The whole idea was to understand how.”
Indeed, viral oncogenes, which are small and less complicated than tumor genomes, presented the opportunity to find a shortcut to understand how cancers developed in humans. Even if the human oncogene is small, the genome it sits in is huge, which is not the case of a viral oncogene that sits I a very small viral genome, she explained.
Using a DNA tumor virus that promoted cancer, White discovered that this gene prevented apoptosis, or programmed cell death. After this discovery, which she said she could “see with her own eyes” when she studied the effect of the genes on cells, she asked herself what she’d need to do to push the idea forward for this paradigm shift in thinking about cancer.
As she continued to discover more details about the viral oncogene over the years, she said other researchers discovered that the Bcl-2 human oncogene may function similarly.“I thought, ‘Well, if this is a theme that viral oncogenes and potentially cancer oncogenes are blocking apoptosis, they should be functionally interchangeable,’” White recalled, which is what she showed and published.
She substituted human Bcl2 oncogene of the viral E1B 19K oncogene and showed that they both functioned to block apoptosis interchangeably.
Courtesy of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives, NY.
These discoveries, which started at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, among others, helped pave the way for Dr. White’s career, where she is now professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Deputy Director at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. She is also Associate Director of the Ludwig Princeton Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Princeton University.
The discovery also led to some anti cancer treatments. Abbott developed the first FDA approved Bcl-2 inhibitor, which others followed.
These kinds of discoveries, which lead to treatments, are why she and others “work so hard, to make a difference for patients,” she said.
Dr. White describes her time at CSHL as an “enormously enriching experience” in which she was surrounded by people who were of “exceptional scientific caliber,” including some who won the Nobel Prize while she was there.
“I had a fertile environment with people that had similar ways of thinking that was very synergistic in terms of propelling the science forward,” she said.
She appreciated the numerous meetings held at CSHL at which she felt like she could learn about anything from the depth and breadth of the material presented and discussed. During these meetings, which she still attends regularly, she has recruited post doctoral researchers to her lab whom she’s met at poster sessions.
As with other alumni of CSHL, Dr. White was particularly pleased with the robust and valuable feedback she and others received. “Critical and productive insights from the scientific community is important to the process of scientific discovery from beginning to the end,” she explained.
White suggested that the layout of the campus and the proximity of so many families created a unique and tight knit community. She recalled how the lab had Santa Claus at Christmas, hay rides to the pumpkin patch and special dinners for people who lived there.
“That very much builds camaraderie and long term friendships and long term relationships,” she said.
Despite a few job openings, local school districts are ready for the new school year. Stock photo
With schools across the nation facing issues filling positions, including vital teaching jobs, local school districts, for the most part, are looking toward the new academic year in a good position with staffing.
While COVID-19 created severe obstacles for schools in the last couple of years, local districts are moving past them.
Some difficulties
Kevin Scanlon, the new Three Village Central School District superintendent, said the district is among those well staffed regarding teachers. Slight shortages involve jobs such as teaching assistants and monitor positions. Substitutes for teaching and various openings, including custodial, are also hard to find. Scanlon said that with more than 500 teachers in the district, 30 to 50 of them could be out on any given day.
Neil Katz, Smithtown Central School District assistant superintendent for personnel; Jim Polansky, Huntington school district superintendent; and Roberta Gerold, Middle Country Central School District superintendent, all said their districts are in the same position with permanent teaching positions being filled, but there are small issues finding noncertified employees.
Routinely, it can be challenging also to find candidates in the fields of English as a New Language, family and consumer sciences, technology and language classes. Scanlon added that it’s difficult to find certified American Sign Language educators.
“Also, business teachers, which is unusual because 25 years ago you probably had your choice of teachers,” he said. “Some of the local colleges in New York also used to produce 120 candidates a year in tech teachers, now they’re producing maybe 12 to18. So, the numbers are quite short of where they were years ago in those specialized areas.”
Scanlon added finding such teachers is even more difficult than finding math and science teachers.
“We are all competing against each other trying to find them,” he said.
Polansky said, from time to time, there can be last-minute resignations at the end of the summer.
“Those can present issues, but those are few and far between, and sometimes if you have an added aide position that comes up due to class formation, that doesn’t take place until late in the summer,” he said.
Gerold said, “One of the many byproducts of the pandemic has been a smaller pool of applicants, which has impacted the Middle Country school district’s ability — as it has school districts across Long Island and the country — to hire talented educators.”
Like other districts, Middle Country found ways to ensure it was properly staffed.
“While the hiring process has been particularly challenging heading into this school year, our human resources and personnel teams have worked hard to creatively find new solutions to attract the next generation of educators to lead our community into the future,” she said.
There has also been a need to stay proactive regarding teacher retirements. While student enrollment has declined in some local districts, the number of teachers retiring has increased.
Katz said the number of employees currently retiring makes sense as the population was growing in the area 25 to 30 years ago and schools were expanding, which led to the need to hire more teachers at the time. Those employees are now meeting their retirement requirements.
“We’re hitting that point that there’s this balloon of the number of teachers that are eligible for retirement,” Katz said, adding COVID-19 exacerbated the problem in recent years.
Polansky agreed.
“You’re going to see more in the next couple of years because it is kind of generational,” he said. “That’s another thing that we need to take into account.”
According to New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, 33% of active members could potentially retire in the next few years.
Solutions
Some news outlets have reported states such as Florida dropping the requirements for people to secure a teaching position such as having a bachelor’s degree. Polansky said, “There’s a fine line between helping your teacher availability and compromising quality. You don’t want to be in a situation where actions are being taken that actually lessen the quality of the educator that’s in front of your children in the classroom.”
He added that such a move could cause more problems in the long run.
“We have to make teaching a desirable profession,” he said. “There are a couple of ways to do that, and it’s incumbent upon states and local school districts to make that happen.”
Administrators said their districts always start the hiring process early in the calendar year to prepare for the first day of school, attending recruitment events at colleges in New York state, hosting their own career fairs and placing ads in papers.
Scanlon said the Three Village school district will run an ad in The New York Times at the end of January or early February. He added that advertising in the paper is something many high-caliber schools do. Looking toward the future, the superintendent said there are talks about bringing back a Future Teachers of America club to the high school to encourage students to choose teaching as a career.
Gerold said one of the Middle Country school district’s “initiatives has been our successful partnership with Stony Brook University to fortify our roster of substitute teachers. During the pandemic, the district partnered with Stony Brook University to place student-teacher substitutes in schools. Through this, we’ve been able to satisfy the substitute teacher needs throughout the district and identify strong educators who are poised to excel in leading classrooms.”
Katz said the Smithtown Central school district tries to reach out to different associations and offer more competitive salaries. However, even using various hiring methods and starting early, sometimes a new hire will get a better offer right before the academic year begins.
“We’re getting into bidding wars,” he said. “Candidates are pushing one district against the other in bidding wars. Kind of like the housing market.”
Despite a few job openings, local school districts are ready for the new school year. Stock photo
EveryAmerican can learn from what’s going on in Brookhaven.
Congratulations to the its residents who for weeks have turned out to participate in the ongoing redistricting process for the Brookhaven Town Council.
Those on opposite ends of the political spectrum have found common ground, united in resistance to the two draft maps that first appeared on the redistricting committee’s website. During a virtual meeting on Thursday, Aug. 18, the committee demonstrated that it could listen to the public, approving three proposals that return Council Districts 1 and 2 to their current form, notably involving Port Jefferson Station/Terryville and Mount Sinai. Congratulations to the committee for its democratic response.
Despite this progress, residents in Brookhaven must understand that their work is unfinished. Beware of an incoming map that holds together the spirit and intention of the original draft maps while restoring the boundaries of Council Districts 1 and 2. This map, which passed the committee 5-2 on Thursday, has troubling implications.
The prospects of partisan gerrymandering are real for Council District 4. Any attempt to move Ridge into that district will blunt the voting power of historically disenfranchised and underrepresented communities, likely barring these voters from a representative voice on the Town Council for another decade.
Council districts do not operate on an island. We cannot stand by idly while the committee gerrymanders CD4. If the proposed cracking of Port Jeff Station/Terryville was an offense to that community of interest, then the transfer of Ridge into CD4 is a moral affront to the entire process.
The Brookhaven Landfill has been a blemish in the town history since 1974. This historical injustice is reflected by the area’s lowest life expectancy rates on Long Island, revealing the fatal consequences of a lack of political representation.
It is time for the Brookhaven powerbrokers to release their 50-year stranglehold on the people of that area since the landfill was started. With a fair redistricting of CD4, the people there can for once have an equal stake in town government and a champion at Town Hall.
To those who have fought valiantly for their own communities, redirect your energies to CD4. To the civic and business leaders, local organizers and every Brookhaven resident who demands better government, turn your focus to CD4. The people cannot rest until the committee puts forth a map that serves all communities of interest.
To the redistricting committee and the Brookhaven Town Council: Put an end to this long and regrettable chapter of local history. Do not silence the people of that district for another 10 years.
Upon prompting from tour boat operator Reggie Domangue, a 10-foot alligator approaches the covered boat amid a steady drizzle. Photo by Daniel Dunaief
Inches from its unsuspecting processed prey, an alligator closes in on a marshmallow. Photo by Daniel Dunaief
A self professed walker of the fine line between crazy and stupid, Reggie hand feeds an alligator marshmallows. Photo by Daniel Dunaief
Capable of swimming 10 miles an hour on the surface of the water, an alligator swims alongside the boat. Photo by Daniel Dunaief
A tug boat pushes a barge through floating plants along the Intracoastal Canal in Louisiana. Photo by Daniel Dunaief
By Daniel Dunaief
Daniel Dunaief
The drive to the Louisiana swamps took over half an hour and was a world away from the incredible jazz, po’ boys and other sites, sounds and tastes of New Orleans.
Once we left the highway, the road curled so dramatically that 15-mile-per-hour speed limit signs seemed unnecessary.
Homes along the way provided a snapshot into the sobering reality of the lives of people who live along the path. The roof of a dilapidated front porch looked like a crushed soda can, blocking the entrance to a house. Across from another home, a white hearse with a rusted roof was parked feet from the intracoastal canal. In a steady drizzle, the driver’s side window remained open.
Once we parked at the Louisiana Tour company’s parking lot, we waited on a small dock, watching a tug boat push an enormous ship about 50 feet from us through floating plants.
Our tour guide and driver Reggie Domangue provided a compelling commentary.
Passing a cemetery along the water’s edge, Reggie described how flood waters pushed a friend’s grandmother above ground twice, forcing his friend to bury his grandmother three times.
Downstream from the cemetery, a fishing boat called Perfect Coup rested on its side, its decaying carcass a testament to the destructive force of an earlier hurricane.
Reggie didn’t let several missing teeth slow him down. Sharing a narrative that mirrored the winding path through the water, he offered a few verbal gems. When talking about edible parts of the alligator, he suggested, “You fry it, we’ll eat it.”
Warning passengers about the dangers in the water, Reggie cautioned some clothing was more problematic than others. “You go swimmin’ out here, you don’t want to wear no white.” Moving slowly along the canal, he pointed out the ubiquitous Spanish moss. Years ago, Reggie said, people stuffed it in their pillows until they realized the dried-out moss was flammable.
Heading toward a highlight of the trip, Reggie described the territorial alligators. Noticeable from the ripples atop the water and its v-shaped wake, a 10-foot alligator approached, as Reggie yelled in French, “ici,” for “here.”
Reggie tossed marshmallows to the alligators. He hand-fed one of the alligators, whose mouth closed so rapidly its teeth snapped. As we coasted slowly through the bayou, alligators swam up to the boat. Two raced toward the same marshmallow. After colliding, the only thing left temporarily unscathed was the floating marshmallow.
Reggie said alligators swim on top of the water at 10 miles per hour and below the water at 15. On land, they can move as quickly as 25, although they can’t make quick turns.
Alligators eat small animals and birds. If they catch deer, they can’t eat them because the meat is too tough. Instead, they trap them under a branch, marinating them for two weeks.
The gender of newborn alligators depends on the temperature of the water. Below 86 degrees, the alligators are female. Above that, they’re male.
Female alligators maintain a territory of half a mile, while males have one-mile territories. A male in search of a mate can travel 10 miles a day.
Louisiana has strict poaching rules. Anyone caught poaching an alligator can receive a mandatory 10 years in prison. “People have done less time for murder,” Reggie said.
If you think Reggie sounds like he’s straight out of central casting, you’re not alone. The writers of Disney’s “Princess and the Frog” movie agreed. According to Reggie, Disney executives came on one of his boat rides and modeled the character Raymond, the firefly who’s also missing teeth, after Reggie.
Disney thanked Reggie in the credits. His passengers, including my wife and me, felt the same way after a memorable journey.
Nick LaLota, above, who won the Republican nomination on Tuesday for New York’s 1st Congressional District, will face Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac) in the general election this November.
Photo from LaLota’s campaign website
After a contentious primary contest for New York’s 1st Congressional District, Nick LaLota won the Republican nomination on Tuesday, Aug. 23.
LaLota, chief of staff to presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, Kevin McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst), has also served as a commissioner on the Suffolk County Board of Elections and a trustee of Amityville Village. He will face Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac) in November in a race to fill the seat of U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY-01), who is running for governor.
With over 95% of precincts reporting as of 9 a.m. Aug. 24, LaLota received just over 47% of the total vote count. Responding to the election result, LaLota put out a statement on social media.
“Thank you, the voters of Suffolk County, for placing your trust in me,” he said. “Tonight, we celebrate a primary win against $3 million in outside special interests. Tomorrow, we fight for our community and country against a liberal rubber stamp for [the] Biden-Pelosi agenda.” He added, “Together, we’ll stand up for hardworking Long Island families, hit so hard by their tax-and-spend agenda, and always put #LongIslandFirst.”
Michelle Bond and Anthony Figliola received 28% and 25% of the vote, respectively. Left photo from Bond’s campaign website, right courtesy of the candidate
Although he received the endorsements of the Suffolk GOP and the Suffolk County Conservative Party, LaLota faced two primary challengers before receiving his party’s nomination.
Michelle Bond, chief executive officer of a cryptocurrency trade organization, and Anthony Figliola, a former Brookhaven Town deputy supervisor, received roughly 28% and 25% of the vote, respectively. Neither candidate could not be reached for comment for this story.
Following the primary election result, the Fleming campaign also put out a statement. The Democratic nominee condemned LaLota for running on what she considers an extremist platform, arguing that his views are detrimental to the political process.
“Nick LaLota wants to govern from the extremes,” she said in a press release. “He has proven time and time again that he doesn’t know what’s right for our district. From trying to defund the police, to weakening gun safety laws, to disenfranchising Suffolk County voters and supporting efforts to strip women of their fundamental freedoms, LaLota is only committed to exploiting division and advancing his own dangerous agenda.”
Voters will have the final say on Tuesday, Nov. 8, when LaLota and Fleming face off in a general election showdown.
The following incidents have been reported by Suffolk County Police:
Centereach
■ Walmart on Middle Country Road in Centereach reported that a known male shoplifter allegedly stole two Splatterball toy guns valued at $192 and a Magma hoverboard worth $144.
■ CVS on Middle Country Road in Centereach reported two shoplifters on Aug. 9. A man and a woman allegedly loaded a shopping cart with Tide detergent, diapers and paper towels before fleeing the store. The items were valued at approximately $300.
■ Walmart on Middle Country Road in Centereach called the police on Aug. 12 to report that a man allegedly stole $563 worth of assorted groceries along with a Roku Express valued at $145.
Commack
■ A resident on Wheatfield Lane in Commack reported that someone broke the window of his vehicle parked in his driveway and stole a wallet on Aug. 13. On the same day a resident on the same street reported that someone entered his unlocked vehicle and removed items and credit cards.
■ Scam alert! A woman loading groceries in her car in the parking lot of Costco Wholesale on Garet Place in Commack on Aug. 10 reported that she was approached by two men asking for directions and later realized her wallet had been stolen from her pocketbook.
■ Target on Veterans Memorial Highway in Commack reported a shoplifter on Aug. 8. A man allegedly stole three Razor scooters valued at $135 each.
■ Target on Veterans Memorial Highway in Commack reported that a man entered the store on Aug. 11, selected JBL earbuds, Heyday headphones and Tide Pods. He then picked out a backpack to conceal the items and allegedly walked out of the store without paying. The items were valued at approximately $240.
■ North Shore Paving on Townline Road in Commack reported that an unknown man stole a 2000 Ford F350 from the property on Aug. 12. The vehicle, valued at $12,000, had been left unlocked with the keys inside.
East Setauket
■ Walmart on Nesconset Highway in East Setauket reported two shoplifters on Aug. 11. Two women allegedly stole cleaning supplies, jewelry and clothing valued around $300.
Greenlawn
■ Greenlawn Fine Wines and Liquor on Broadway in Greenlawn reported two shoplifters on Aug. 12. A man and a woman allegedly stole five various bottles of liquor totally $854.
Hauppauge
■ A catalytic converter was stolen from a 2006 Honda Accord parked in the driveway of a residence on Helen Avenue in Hauppauge on Aug. 11. The part was valued at $800.
Lake Grove
■ Macy’s at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove reported a petit larceny on Aug. 13. A man and a woman allegedly stole miscellaneous clothing items worth approximately $930.
Melville
■ A guest checking out of the Melville Marriot Long Island on Walt Whitman Road in Melville on Aug. 10 discovered that all four tires and rims had been stolen from his 2019 BMW X2. The vehicle was found sitting on two cobblestone blocks.
Port Jefferson Station
■ A resident on Jayne Blvd. in Port Jefferson Station reported that someone entered her vehicle on Aug. 8 and stole cash, a cellphone, license and credit cards.
■ A vehicle parked in the driveway of a residence on Joline Road in Port Jefferson Station was broken into on Aug. 8. Two wallets containing driver’s licenses were stolen.
■ Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace on Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station reported that a man allegedly filled a shopping cart with $250 worth of assorted beer and fled the store without paying on Aug. 12.
Rocky Point
■ A resident on University Drive in Rocky Point reported that his car was broken into on Aug. 9. Assorted tools, karate apparel, headphones and cash were stolen.
■ Over 50 bags of used clothing were stolen from the PAL clothing donation bin in the Stop & Shop parking lot on Route 25A in Rocky Point on Aug. 2. The items were estimated to be worth $900.
■ A resident on Magnolia Drive in Rocky Point reported that someone entered his vehicle on Aug. 9 and stole power tools, hand tools and backpack.
St. James
■ Bruno’s Garage on Middle Country Road in St. James called the police on Aug. 10 to report that someone had stolen catalytic converters from two cars parked in the lot.
■ A resident on Washington Avenue in St. James reported that a catalytic converter was stolen from his 2006 Honda Accord on Aug. 10. Three men were seen exiting a silver Mercedes sedan, lifting the vehicle with a car jack and cutting the converter out before fleeing.
■ A resident on Alo Court in St. James reported that someone entered his backyard on Aug. 12 and stole a Dolphin Premier robotic pool cleaner. The equipment was valued at $800.
Selden
■ Rite Aid on Middle Country Road in Selden reported two shoplifters on Aug. 9. A man and a woman allegedly loaded a shopping cart with paper towels, diapers and baby formula valued at approximately $300 before fleeing the store.
■ Two motorcycles, a Suzuki DR200 and a KTM Duke 200, were stolen from a parking lot at Suffolk County Community College on College Road in Selden on Aug. 7.
Setauket
■ A woman dining at Mario’s Restaurant on Route 25A in Setauket on Aug. 12 discovered that someone had removed a cellphone, wallet and phone charger from her vehicle.
Smithtown
■ A purple 2016 Dodge Charger SRT 392 was stolen from the driveway of a residence on Nissequogue River Road in Smithtown on Aug. 12. The spare keys had been left inside the vehicle which was valued at $60,000.
■ A muffler was damaged and a catalytic converter was stolen from a 2008 Honda Elementparked in the street in front of a residence on Blydenburg Avenue and a catalytic converter was reported stolen from a 2008 Honda Element parked in the driveway of a residence on Estate Road in Smithtown on Aug. 11.
■ A resident on Brook Court in Smithtown reported that a catalytic converter was stolen from his 2005 Honda Accord and a catalytic converter was stolen from a 2002 Honda Accord parked on New Mill Road in Smithtown on Aug. 12.
Sound Beach
■ Catalytic converters were stolen from a 2001 Honda Accord on Mahogany Road, a 2001 Honda Accord on Rock Hall Lane and a 2002 Honda Accord on Soundway Drive in Sound Beach on Aug. 7.
■ Catalytic converters were stolen from a 2004 Acura TSX parked on Mitchell Drive and a 2005 Honda Accord parked in the driveway of a residence on Sound Beach Blvd. in Sound Beach on Aug. 8.
Stony Brook
■ A resident on Sanford Lane in Stony Brook reported that someone entered his unlocked car on Aug. 9 and stole a wallet from the center console.
■ A 2021 Toyota Corolla was reported stolen from the driveway of a residence on Sheppard Lane in Stony Brook on Aug. 8. The owner was not sure if the car, which was valued at $15,000, had been locked.
Suffolk County Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information about these incidents can contact Suffolk County Crime Stoppers to submit an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-220-TIPS.
This is part one of a two-part series featuring Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory alums Joanna Wysocka, Robert Tjian, Victoria Bautch, Rasika Harshey and Eileen White. Part two will be in the issue of Aug. 25.
Often working seven days a week as they build their careers, scientists plan, conduct and interpret experiments that don’t always work or provide clear cut results.
Driven by their passion for discovery, they tap into a reservoir of ambition and persistence, eager for that moment when they might find something no one else has discovered, adding information that may lead to a new technology, that could possibly save lives, or that leads to a basic understanding of how or why something works.
Nestled between the shoreline of an inner harbor along the Long Island Sound and deciduous trees that celebrate the passage of seasons with technicolor fall foliage, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has been a career-defining training ground for future award-winning scientists.
Five alumni of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory recently shared their thoughts, experiences, and reflections on the private lab that was founded in 1890.
While they shared their enthusiasm, positive experiences and amusing anecdotes, they are not, to borrow from scientific terminology, a statistically significant sample size. They are also a self-selecting group who responded to email requests for interviews. Still, despite their excitement about an important time in their lives and their glowing description of the opportunities they had to hone their craft, they acknowledged that this shining lab on the Sound may not be paradise for everyone.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is considerably smaller than some of the research universities around the country. Additionally, scientists with a thin skin — read on for more about this — may find their peers’ readiness to offer a range of feedback challenging. Still, the lab can and has been a launching pad.
A suitcase and a dream
Joanna Wysocka’s story mirrors that of other immigrants who came to the United States from their home countries. Wysocka arrived from Poland in 1998 with one suitcase that included mementos from her family, a Polish edition of her favorite book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and a dream of developing her scientific career.
She was also chasing something else: her boyfriend Tomek Swigut, who had come to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. “I was fresh off the boat without any fancy resume or anything,” Wysocka recalls. “They really took a chance on me.”
Joanna Wysocka
While she learned how to conduct scientific experiments, she also recognized early on that she was a part of something bigger than herself. Early on, she found that people didn’t hold back in their thoughts on her work. “You always got critical feedback,” she said. “People felt very comfortable picking apart each other’s data.”
The positive and negative feedback were all a part of doing the best science, she explained.
Wysocka felt the inspiration and exhilaration that comes from a novel discovery several times during her five-year PhD program.
“It’s 11 p.m. in the evening, you’re in the dark room, developing a film, you get this result and you realize you’re a person who knows a little secret that nobody else in the world knows just yet,” she recalled. “That is really wonderful.”
For special occasions, the lab celebrated such moments with margaritas. Winship Herr, her advisor, made particularly strongest ones.
In one of her biggest projects, Wysocka was working with a viral host cell factor, or HCF. This factor is critical for transcription for the Herpes simplex virus. What wasn’t clear, however, was what the factor was doing. She discovered that this factor worked with proteins including chromatin modifiers. “From this moment, it set me up for a lifetime passion of working on gene regulation and chromatin,” she said.
As for the scientific process, Wysocka said Herr offered her critical lessons about science. When she started, Herr expected two things: that she’d work hard and that she’d learn from her mistakes. During the course of her work, she also realized that any work she did that depended on the result of earlier experiments required her own validation, no matter who did the work or where it was published. “You need to repeat the results in your own hands, before you move on,” she explained.
Despite the distance from the lab to New York City and the smaller size of the lab compared with large universities, Wysocka never felt isolated. “Because of all the conferences and courses, the saying goes that ‘if you want to meet somebody in science, go to a Cold Spring Harbor bar and sit and wait.’” That, however, is not something she took literally, as she put considerable hours into her research. While she wishes she had this incredible foresight about choosing Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, she acknowledges that she was following in Swigut’s footsteps.
The choice of CSHL worked out well for her, as her research has won numerous awards, including the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, which recognizes immigrant scientists who have made a contribution to U.S. society. She now works as Professor at Stanford University and is married to Swigut.
Swinging for the fences
In 1976, Robert Tjian had several choices for the next step in his developing scientific career after he completed his PhD at Harvard University. James Watson, who had shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the double helix molecular structure of DNA with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins and was director at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, convinced him to conduct his postdoctoral research at CSHL.
Robert Tjian
The contact with Watson didn’t end with his recruitment. Tjian, who most people know as “Tij,” talked about science on almost a daily basis with Watson, which he considered an ‘incredible privilege.”
Although he only worked at CSHL for two years, Tjian suggested the experience had a profound impact on a career that has spanned six decades.
Learning about gene discovery was the main driver of his time at CSHL. An important discovery during his work at CSHL was to “purify a protein that binds to the origin of replication of a tumor virus, which was what [Watson] wanted me to do when he recruited me,” he said. That launched his career in a “positive way.”
Tjian feels fortunate that things worked out and suggested that it’s rare for postdoctoral students to achieve a transformative career experiment in such a short period of time either back then or now. He attributes that to a combination of “being in the right place at the right time,” luck and hard work.
At Berkeley, where he is Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology and has been running a lab since 1979, he has observed that the most successful researchers are the ones who are “swinging for the fences. If you don’t swing for the fences and get lucky, you sure as hell aren’t going to hit a home run.”
Tjian learned how to run a lab from his experience at CSHL. He selects for risk takers who are independent and feels the only way to motivate people is to ensure that the work they are pursuing involves questions they want to solve.
One of the most important and hardest lessons he learned during his research career was to “fail quickly and move on.” He tells his student that about 85 percent of their experiments are going to fail, so “get used to it and learn from it.”
Despite his short and effective stay at CSHL, Tjian suggested he made “more than his fair share” of mistakes. Terri Grodzicker, who is currently Dean of Academic Affairs at CSHL, taught Tjian to do cell culture, which he had never done before. He contaminated nearly all the cultures for about a month.
While Tjian described the lab as a “competitive place,” he felt like his colleagues “helped each other.”
When he wasn’t conducting his experiments or contaminating cultures, he spent time on the tennis court, playing regularly with Watson. Watson wasn’t “exactly the most coordinated athlete in the world,” although Tjian respected his “remarkably good, natural forehand.” He was also one of the few people who was able to use the lab boat, which he used to fish for striped bass and bluefish early in the morning. “I would try to drag all kinds of people out there,” he said.
While his CSHL experience was “the best thing” for him, Tjian explained that the lab might not be the ideal fit for everyone, in part because it’s considerably smaller than larger universities. At Berkeley, he has 40 to 55 PhD students in molecular biology and he can interact with 40,000 undergraduates, which is a “very different scale.”
Tjian has returned many times to CSHL and is planning to visit the lab at the end of August for a meeting he’s organizing on single molecule microscopy.
Each time he comes back, he “always felt like I was coming home,” he said.
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