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Stony Brook Vets Home Honors Soldiers on 75th Anniversary of Battle of the Bulge

by Kyle Barr - December 19, 2019

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John Tsunis and Fred Sganga along with Suffolk County and New York State officials, stand by vets who were at the Battle of the Bulge. Photos by Kyle Barr

At the Long Island State Veterans Home, John Tsunis, the owner of the Holiday Inn Express at Stony Brook and board member of the vets home, briefly choke up when speaking of his father, Charles, a World War II veteran and soldier during the Battle of the Bulge, consisting of over a month of fighting from December 1944 to January 1945.

The Long Island State Veterans Home honored four Battle of the Bulge veterans Dec. 16. Photos by Kyle Barr.

His father called the Battle of the Bulge “a hell on ice,” and Tsunis described when his father had been forced behind enemy lines where he and two of his fellow soldiers were pinned down by an enemy machine gun, helping to save several men, which earned him the Bronze Star.

“My dad took the lead and they were crawling around, keeping their heads low because there was a machine gun shooting over their heads,” he said. “He kept on crawling, not knowing what to do, until he came over some dead Germans, and under their bodies was a German bazooka. He told one of his buddies to load him up, took aim at the machine gun nest and knocked it out.”

In what was one of the bloodiest battles Americans fought in World War II, the last major German offensive on the Western Front saw 19,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 captured. The pocket created by the Germans’ push into American lines gave the battle its name. The day’s ferocious fighting was displayed in a video of historic footage shown to the gathered local officials, staff and veterans.

The veterans home honored four veterans who experienced the battle up close and personal, James Lynam, Philip DiMarco, Frank DePergola and Thomas Struminski. Each was given a plaque, while both state and county officials presented proclamations to each in turn. Tsunis accepted the honor in place of his father who died nearly 20 years ago. He also helped name and hand out plaques honoring four men at the home who fought in one of the most consequential battles of the war.

DePergola, DiMarco, Lynam and Struminski were all there during the battle, and now that each is over 90 years old, they are some of the only people in the U.S. who can remember firsthand what happened.

Lynam’s children Kathy Corrado and William Lynam said their father didn’t speak much about the battle as they were growing up. However, once they were older, their father, a Brooklyn native, would emotionally relate snippets of the ferocious fighting.

“A Tiger tank almost ran over him, and he said they just couldn’t get the gun down low enough to get him,” Corrado, a Stony Brook resident, recalled.

William Lynam said such stories put graphic imagery in his head.

“[My father] said [that] when the panzer division was coming, and these guys were trying to dig into ground that was frozen … he remembers so distinctly the sound of the panzers, the Tiger tanks rolling over a field of cabbage, crushing the heads of cabbage and they were all imagining skulls of men were being crushed as they were coming through,” he said.

Others in the audience remembered the horrors of that day up close. Alfred Kempski, a World War II veteran living in the vets home, pointed to a black-and-white image of the Battle of the Bulge, of American soldiers in long greatcoats, M3 submachine guns and M1 Garands clutched in gloved fists, the soldiers peering forward in snow up to their knees.

“25,000 GIs were killed at night, the Germans came in at 2 o’clock in the morning and shot them all, they were sleeping,” he said. “The snow was so deep, we had a hell of a time finding the bodies. I was only 19 then, and when I think of it now …”

Patriot fencers best Brentwood, 24-3

by Bill Landon - December 19, 2019

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Despite being a shorthanded team, the Ward Melville girls fencers bested Brentwood, 24-3, in a League II match play Dec. 16 to remain undefeated at 4-0.

In the best of 27 bouts the magic number is 14 wins, to take the match and the Patriots managed this by fielding just nine fencers, augumented by one from Comsewogue.

Ward Melville senior Tori Obedin swept all three of her matches in saber as did Comsewogue 12th-grader Diana Nielsen who allowed just four touches. Foilists Samara Silverman, a junior, clinched all three of her matches as did sophomore Claire Becchina who denied her three opponents a single touch. Also perfect on the night were sophomores Olivia Becchina in epee and foilist Alexa Horan winning 3-0.

The Patriots are back out on the strip Dec. 19 where they’ll host Lindenhurst at 4 p.m.

Between You and Me: Praying for peace

by Leah Dunaief - December 18, 2019

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

The year is rapidly coming to a close, and it is leaving us with impassioned thoughts. At this time, probably more than any other in the year, we pray for peace: “on earth peace, good will toward men.” Never in the history of the world were people more united than in this wish. And yet, we are so far from the reality.

Tessa Majors, only 18 years old and on the threshold of adult life, bright with promise, is stabbed to death in Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan. A Barnard College freshman from Virginia, an out-of-towner, was in the park after dark, although it was only 7 o’clock on a Wednesday evening, Dec. 11. Ostensibly the cause was a robbery gone bad. Her death is a personal tragedy for her family, her friends, the neighborhood, the Barnard and Columbia communities and all New York City. I know. I’m a Barnard alumna and my roots are in New York. The murder tugs at my heart. I lived on the Columbia campus for two years, only a short block from the park. One thing I understood: Don’t go into the park at night.

So I have lots of thoughts, lots of questions. Why was she there? Was she not told that simple fact? At the first assembly of my entering class, the president of the college cautioned us about safety in the neighborhood, warned us where to walk and how to be safe. That was a different time, I acknowledge, over a half-century ago, when the city was a more dangerous place. But dark places in any city can be dangerous anywhere in the world. The president was trying to teach us urban smarts. Are the new students still getting that important message on many college campuses? New Haven is not any different, neither is the University of Chicago and wherever there are universities adjacent to neighborhoods that are prone to crime.

“As of Dec.8, there had been 20 robberies inside Morningside Park or on its perimeter this year, compared to seven in the same period last year,” wrote The New York Times. The article continued, “Since June, five people reported being robbed on or near the staircase at 116th Street and Morningside Drive, near the spot where Ms. Majors was killed.”

Why, then, was the park not better patrolled by the New York City Police Department? That’s what compiling those statistics is for, yes? To send help where help is most needed? This is an issue the NYPD will have to deal with in coming days.

The other metropolitan area tragedy at the top of the news at the moment is the slaughter of four innocent people in Jersey City Dec. 10 by, according to reports, a couple of heavily armed drifters. While those investigating the murders are not saying much while they work on the case, there seems little doubt that this was a hate crime directed specifically against both the police and one segment of the population: Jews. Why do people hate? Particularly why do they hate strangers, people they don’t even know? It’s a question as puzzling as why people would ever want to kill each other. For bigotry to be so strong as to result in violence is unfathomable. For that matter, why conclude that just because people are different, they should therefore be despised? In fact, they might be thought of as more interesting for their differences.

Which brings me back to my original thought. If everyone is praying for peace, why is there war? Why is there violence? Why is there bigotry? Why is peace so elusive? Is peace, real peace, impossible because of the makeup of humans? Will there always be a Hitler and a Stalin, a Napoleon, Vikings and an Attila the Hun?

Still, let us pray for peace, however hard to imagine. Let us keep this idea alive before us as a goal someday to be realized. Let us work to make our world less violent, less filled with hate, less bigoted. Maybe the operative word is “less?” That we surely can do.

Three Village BOE Votes for a School Start Time Committee

by TBR Staff - December 18, 2019

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ItsAboutTime_3VBOE_9-4-19_Paldy-1-700x357 — Three Village Parents in the last few months have talked to the Three Village board of ed about the benefits of teenagers starting school later in the day. Photo by Andrea Paldy

By Andrea Paldy

What began as a lone parental voice during a Three Village school board meeting has blossomed into a movement.

Six months ago, Barbara Rosati, mother of a P.J. Gelinas Jr. High student, asked the board and district administration to consider changing the secondary school start times.

“We also would like to thank deeply our board of education for recognizing our concerns and listening to us and being the leaders that we were hoping you would be.”

— Barbara Rosati

Last week, following a presentation for a path toward meeting parents’ requests, the Three Village school board voted to institute a school start time committee to further investigate the viability of a later start time at the district’s high school.

Rosati, founder of It’s About Time: Three Village Parents for a Later Start Time, was grateful.

“I’d like to thank the administration,” she said. “We really appreciate it. We also would like to thank deeply our board of education for recognizing our concerns and listening to us and being the leaders that we were hoping you would be.”

Rosati, a research assistant professor in Stony Brook University’s Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the Renaissance School of Medicine, had organized parents and held information sessions about sleep deprivation in adolescents. In the months that followed her initial appeal, other parents, students, Ward Melville High School graduates and medical experts all appeared before the school board to express concern about early start times. More than 1,600 signatures were collected, letters were written to the school board and some advocates even traveled to a Start School Later workshop in Pennsylvania.

Chief among the concerns was the pervading sleep deprivation among teens. Research has shown that adolescent circadian rhythms make it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11 p.m. This results in a later sleep cycle interrupted by having to wake up for early classes. Not only does it prevent them from getting the required eight to 10 hours of sleep their growing bodies need, research indicates that it also means difficulty concentrating and puts them at risk for depression, injuries during sports and drowsiness while driving — among other issues.

These concerns prompted district Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich to form a working group of administrators to conduct a preliminary investigation into later start times. Pedisich also pointed to improved academic performance, higher test scores, better focus and self-regulation as additional reasons to look into the change.

The group began its preliminary investigation with certain assumptions in place, the superintendent said.

There would be no redistricting or closing of schools; no students would be at a bus stop earlier than 7 a.m.; and there would be no negative impact to athletics, which means that the high school could not end later than 3 p.m. The final assumption was that the district would continue to support and maintain cocurricular activities while also maintaining the required number of hours of instruction at all grade levels.

“I see the value in looking at this with open eyes.”

— Cheryl Pedisich

Pedisich and Jeff Carlson, deputy superintendent for business services, presented 10 possible scenarios that would move the Ward Melville start time from 7:05 a.m. to 8:20 a.m. with an ending time of 2:55 p.m. Additionally, in half of the configurations, start times at the two junior high schools, P.J. Gelinas and R. C. Murphy, would change to 9:10 a.m., with the day ending at 3:46 p.m.

To make a later start for Ward Melville possible, each period at the high school would be decreased from 41 minutes to 40, and the periods at the junior high would fall from 42 minutes to 41 — decreases that the deputy superintendent said would not “adversely impact the educational program,” but would assist with logistics.

The greater effect could be on student after-school activities or employment, since the school day would end later. The committee found that the time shift could affect students who take afternoon BOCES classes and possibly affect child care needs for staff. The preliminary investigation also found that some athletes might sometimes need to leave ninth period early.

The district currently has four bus runs — high school, followed by junior high, two elementary schools and then, finally, the last three elementary schools. The proposed scenarios would move the district from a four-tiered bus system to a three-tiered one and could affect the start times for the other schools.

The biggest variation in the scenarios was in start times at elementary schools and junior highs. In some projections, the elementary school day starts earlier and runs from 7:40 a.m. to 1:55 p.m. In others, the day runs from 9:25 a.m. to 3:40 p.m., which is the current schedule for the district’s late elementary schools.

When the elementary day starts early, the junior high day starts at 9:10 a.m., and in the scenarios where the elementary day starts after 9 a.m., the junior high schools start earlier, keeping their current start time of 7:35 a.m.

The most expensive transportation scenario moved the sixth grade up to junior high and ninth-graders to the high school. It required eight additional buses and 11 additional minibuses that could run the district about $1.5 million, Carlson said.

The projected cost of the proposed scenarios considered only transportation costs and did not take into account savings from staffing within the schools, Carlson said.

There could, however, be savings in other areas due to the restructuring of the junior and high schools, he added.

Carlson reiterated that these scenarios are just “a starting point to get people thinking and talking” and are not the only possibilities. It would be up to the new committee to further investigate and look into other solutions. The committee, which will meet in January, will be chaired by Pedisich and Carlson. It will be comprised of administrators, staff, parents and high school students and will determine a timeline once it gets underway, Pedisich said.

“I have to say that I see a lot of viability to this,” the superintendent said. “I see the value in looking at this with open eyes. I look forward to working with the committee and with Mr. Carlson as we begin to look at what the options are for our students, so that we can do the best that we can for them.”

Local Students Band to Gather Fresh Food for Needy

by TBR Staff - December 18, 2019

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From left to right, Joshua Young, Abby Morrongiello and Zach Young work at Chocolate & Honey to raise money for their home-grown group Don8tions. Photo from Anna Morrongiello

By Leah Chiappino

A group of local teenagers have come together to form a local charity, which they have named Don8tions, in hopes of providing soups to families in need.

The group’s founding members consist of freshman twins Joshua and Zach Young, who both go to P.J. Gelinas Jr. High School, sisters Anna and Abby Morrongiello of Sachem and Meena Tommasino-Storz of Ward Mellville. Meena and Anna are sophomores, and Abby is in seventh grade.

Having been family friends for years, they had been volunteering at Bethel Hobbs Community Farm in Centereach throughout their childhood, which donates food to local shelters.

Yet, the group wanted to do more. They visited The Children’s Community Head Start Birth-to-Five Program in Port Jefferson and said they realized poverty and child hunger are not things to which our local area is immune.

“It was a really enlightening experience,” Zach said. “The kids often don’t get breakfast on the weekends because they don’t go to the program then. It’s not something that’s happening in some far-off country. It’s happening right here in our communities.”

The teens soon realized some homeless do not have the opportunity to cook vegetables, even if they’ve been donated to them. On top of that, they wanted to provide healthy food to families who often can only afford less healthy food.

“We didn’t want them to have an idea that was our idea,” Josh and Zach’s mother Michelle Young said. “We gave them the tools and let them brainstorm. When you give kids a purpose, it’s so empowering. They really believe in what they’re doing.”

While the organization’s founding members originally wanted to prepare the soups themselves, it proved to be too complicated, so they have partnered with Centereach-based HeartBeet Farms to donate soups to Head Start. The teens hope to inspire other kids to get involved in community service as well as to eventually open their own plot of land to grow the vegetables needed to make soups.

“Our goal is to feed as many families as we can for as long as we can through the winter,” Zach said. Since the summer, they have been donating every week.

“Our goal is to feed as many families as we can for as long as we can through the winter.”

– Zach Young

Chrissy Reilly, the health and nutrition manager at Children’s Community Head Start, said the kids were doing good work.

“The families gave great feedback. they really enjoyed all the soups and this allowed them to try new healthy options,” she said. “We were able to give them advice on how to make the soups full meals, such as pairing tomato soup with grilled cheese.”

Each member of their small organization seems to have found their role.

“I’m more of a social person, so I love to talk to people and get the word out,” Anna said.

Josh loves to cook, and it was his idea to make the soups.

“If I can make it, at least I know I’m giving someone a nice meal,” he said.

Josh also designed the logo. Though Abby is only in seventh grade, she acts as the recording secretary for the group and writes down all of the statistics

“My sister doesn’t like to talk a lot, so she writes,” Anna said.

Meena said she started volunteering with HeartBeet around two years ago, and after becoming affiliated with Don8tions, she and her small group have been looking to grow.

“The whole idea of Don8tions is to provide less fortunate kids and families in our communities with healthy, filling soups,” she said. “I really hope Don8tions can achieve this and help many more people.”

The kids currently work at Chocolate & Honey, a holiday concession stand in the Smith Haven Mall, and donate half of their profits to the cause. They aim to raise additional funds through distributing a flyer at Minnesauke Elementary School, R.C. Murphy and P.J. Gelinas junior high schools and Ward Melville and Sachem high schools until Dec. 24. If customers present the flyer at the stand, they get free honey sticks, and a portion of the sales goes to the organization. For more information or to access the flyer, visit www.don8tions.com.

Northport Tigers Maul Newfield Wolverines, 69-33

by Bill Landon - December 16, 2019

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On the road, Northport was too much for Newfield as the Tigers powered their way to a 69-33 League III victory over the Wolverines Dec. 13.

Northport’s Sophia Yearwood stood atop the scoring charts draining five treys, two field goals and a free throw for a team high 20 points. Kerry Dennin netted 13 points and Danielle Pavinelli banked 10.

Raiyah Reid led the way for the Wolverines with six field goals, a triple and two free throws for 17 points. Teammates Megan Spina and Madison Roman tacked on 6 points apiece.

The win lifts Northport to 3-0 and deals the Wolverines their first loss of the season dropping them to 4-1.

Annual Holiday Parade Delights Three Village Residents

by Rita J. Egan - December 16, 2019

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Despite the cold winds, students, business owners and elected officials took to East Setauket’s streets Dec. 15 to participate in the annual Three Village Electric Holiday Parade.

Floats and banners were decorated with holiday lights to brighten up the holiday season.

This year’s grand marshal was Michael Ardolino, a longtime past sponsor of the parade, of Realty Connect USA.

Along the route, spectators could be found bundled up and sporting lights themselves to show some holiday spirit. After the parade, Santa greeted visitors at the East Setauket Pond Park, and hot chocolate and cookies were served.

BNL, CSHL, SBU address gender imbalance in STEM

by Daniel Dunaief - December 14, 2019

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BNLwomeninstem — Interns Nylette Lopez (rear) and Stephanie Taboada characterize catalysts as they attempt to convert carbon dioxide and methane into synthesis gas this past summer at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Photo from BNL.

By Daniel Dunaief

This article is part two in a two-part series.

Local medical and research institutions are aware of the challenges women face in science and are taking steps to ensure that women receive equal opportunities for success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM). Times Beacon Record News Media reached out to members of each institution and received an overview of some initiatives.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Department of Energy-funded research facility has created a number of opportunities for women, including Brookhaven Women in Science. This effort has been active for over four decades and its mission, according to Peter Genzer, a BNL spokesman, is to support the development of models, policies and practices that enhance the quality of life for BNL employees and emphasize the recruitment, hiring, promotion and retention of women.

BWIS offers annual awards, outreach events and various networking opportunities in the lab and community, while the lab’s Talent Management Group partners with BWIS to bring classes and speakers to discuss issues specific to women.

In October, the group hosted Kimberly Jackson, a vice chair and associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Spelman College, who gave a talk titled “Realigning the Crooked Room in STEM.”

The Leona Woods Distinguished Postdoctoral Lectureship Award at BNL, meanwhile, celebrates the scientific accomplishments of female physicists, physicists from under-represented minority groups and LGBTQ physicists and to promote diversity and inclusion. BNL awarded the lectureship this year to Kirsty Duffy, a fellow at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

For the past five years, BNL has also partnered with a local chapter of Girls Inc., which helps to “encourage young women towards careers” in STEM, Genzer explained in an email.

BNL has also collaborated with the Girl Scouts of Suffolk County to organize a new patch program that encourages Girl Scouts to work in scientific fields. As of September, county Girl Scouts can earn three new Brookhaven Lab patches, and the lab hopes to extend the program nationwide across the Department of Energy complex.

BNL also provides six weeks of paid time off at 100 percent of base pay for a primary caregiver after birth or adoption and one week of full pay for a secondary caregiver. BNL is exploring plans to enhance support for primary and secondary caregivers, Genzer said.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has taken several recent steps as part of an ongoing effort to encourage gender diversity.

In October, a group of four CSHL administrators traveled to the University of Wisconsin in Madison to discuss mentoring. The goal was to train them on how to design and deliver mentoring training regularly to the faculty, postdocs and graduate students on campus, said Charla Lambert, the diversity, equity and inclusion officer for research at CSHL. The first version of the training will occur next spring. The ultimate goal is to ensure the research environment at CSHL emphasizes good mentoring practices and is more inclusive for all mentees.

CSHL has also hosted a three-day workshop in leadership practices for postdoctoral researchers and junior faculty since 2011. The workshop, which is run through the Meetings & Courses Program, trains about 25 postdoctoral researchers and junior faculty each year and has about one per year from CSHL, addresses how to hire and motivate people, while providing constructive feedback.

Lambert said family-friendly policies were already a part of CSHL policies, which include a child care facility. Members of the faculty receive extra funding when they travel to conferences to provide additional child care.

Lambert, who is a program manager for extramural Meetings & Courses overseeing diversity initiatives, has worked to get the demographic data for participants centralized, analyzed and used in developing policies. She believes this kind of data centralization is an area for potential improvement in the research division, where she is working to ensure an equitable distribution of resources among CSHL scientists.

Throughout her nine-year career at CSHL, Lambert said she has worked with the meetings and courses division to make sure the 9,000 scientists who visit the facility each year include women as invited speakers. She also works to reach course applicants from a wide range of institutions, including outside of prestigious research schools.

Ultimately, Lambert is hoping to help change the culture of science among the researchers with whom she interacts from a wide range of institutions. She feels that those people who leave the STEM fields because something about the culture of science didn’t work for them represent a “huge loss” to the field and creates a “survivorship bias.”

Stony Brook University

For Stony Brook, gender diversity is “very important,” said Latha Chandran, the vice dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at the Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine.

Chandran said more men entered the field of medicine 14 years ago. That has completely changed, as women have outnumbered their male counterparts in medicine for the last three or four years.

Chandran cited a number of statistics to indicate changes at the medical school. For starters, women faculty constituted 38 percent of the total in 2011. This April, that number climbed to 48.1 percent. That puts Stony Brook in the top 79th percentile of medical schools in terms of female representation.

While the overall numbers are higher, women are still underrepresented in the top tiers of the medical school, as 18 percent of the department chairs are women. She hopes more women can lead departments and that they can serve as role models that others can aspire to follow.

As for harassment, Chandran said Stony Brook was above the national mean in 2011. For almost all categories, Stony Brook is now below the national mean.

In 2011, Stony Brook created We Smile, which stands for We can Eradicate Student Mistreatment in the Learning Environment. The goal of this program is to educate people about harassment and to ensure that any mistreatment is reported. Through this effort, Stony Brook medical students are aware of the policies and procedures surrounding reporting.

Stony Brook is also addressing any bias in admission procedures by prospective applicants, who receive a standardized scenario to address with an admissions officer. In 2025, admissions officers will not have any information about the qualifications of the individual and will evaluate his or her response during interviews only based on response to scenarios.

Stony Brook University has almost finalized its search for a chief diversity candidate. Chandran expects that the medical school will “continue to make progress.”

Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine Center Opens New Center

by TBR Staff - December 14, 2019

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3D Printing CIDT — Students Joseph Masseli and Nicole Bittlingmaier remove custom trays from a 3D printer. Photo from Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine

Recently, the Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, which offers treatment to more than 15,000 patients a year, officially opened a state-of-the-art center for digital dentistry on the SBU campus, the Center for Implant and Digital Technology.

While computer-aided design and manufacturing technologies have existed for some years, these advances in dentistry can still be out of reach for many patients. The cost of CAD/CAM equipment remains a barrier for many dentists, limiting the accessibility for those interested in offering these services.

Jasmine Sze and Mojtaba Wali begin the milling process for a crown within the Center for Implant and Digital Technology. Photo from Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine

Traditionally crowns and bridges were made using uncomfortable impression trays. The entire process can now be done digitally and quickly within the CIDT. From start to finish, the creation of a dental restoration can be completed entirely onsite and in less than 24-hours.

Non-invasive, high-tech scanners are used to electronically capture images of a patient’s teeth and gums in real-time. This information is then immediately transferred to sophisticated software used by dental practitioners to design crowns and bridges three-dimensionally. Finally, designs are translated to in-house 3-D printers or milling machines for the production of the final restoration to be delivered to the patient.

The School of Dental Medicine has continuously been at the forefront of the adoption of digital dentistry technology and education and was chosen in 2017 to be one of five academic institutions nationally to implement a digital dentistry curriculum by the American College of Prosthodontists.

“The Center for Implant and Digital Technology is not only a means of providing invaluable educational opportunities for the next generation of dental professionals, but also an example of Stony Brook School of Dental Medicine’s role as a pioneer and innovator in the digital dentistry space,” said Dr. Mary Truhlar, Dean. “This Center allows us to provide excellent, state-of-the-art care to the Long Island community.”

According to Dr. Ann Nasti, Associate Dean for Clinical Education, “the addition of the CIDT is mutually beneficial for the education of future dental professionals, and for the quality of care provided to patients.”

“Our patients will quickly receive high-quality, precise dental appliances to enhance function, guide surgeries, and restore their smiles,” explained Dr. Truhlar. “Simultaneously, our students are educated using the latest technology and are well-prepared to enter a dynamic and changing profession.”

CAD/CAM technology can make dental care more accessible to many patients. The high-precision of scanning and design eliminates the need for multiple impressions, saving on materials and time spent at appointments to the dentist. Replicating restorations in the event of a chipped crown or lost appliance is also simple thanks to digitally stored records.

While the latest advances in treatment are significant improvements in patient care, the School of Dental Medicine will use the center for translational research.

“I believe that through digital dentistry, I can make a difference in treating patients with craniofacial anomalies,” said student-researcher Shradha Duggal. Duggal is currently studying 3-D printed prosthetic devices used to correct the defects of the lip and palate in terms of more efficiently and comfortable treating patients.

Other research projects underway at the School of Dental Medicine include the generation of data that will be used to improve the design and performance of dental implants.

Your Turn: A blue jay isn’t blue

by John Turner - December 13, 2019

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Blue Jay with Nuts — Photo by Luke Ormand

By John L. Turner

Like any avocation or hobby, nature study provides the opportunity to learn as much or as little as you like. For example, a natural place to start, and where many nature enthusiasts limit their level of learning, is to learn the name of a plant or animal − oh, that’s an eastern chipmunk, red-tailed hawk or “chicken-of-the-woods” mushroom. We feel we know something about the species if we know its name, right?

But a person’s name − Heidi or John or Georgia or Carl or Patricia − provides you with the bare minimum about that person. Similarly, knowing what a plant or animal is called merely scratches the surface of what there is to know about it.

Many naturalists take a deeper dive, yearning to learn details of an organism’s “life history.” What does a red-tailed hawk’s nest look like and what is it made of? What types of animals does it prey upon? How many young are raised in a typical year? How many eggs does a female lay to make up a typical clutch and what do they look like? Does it migrate? If so, where to? Do male and female hawks look different? and so on.

These questions are straightforward and obvious, but the deepest dive for a naturalist is to explore much less obvious aspects of a plant or animal that reveal deeper, broader and more profound ideas, principles or phenomena.

As an example let’s take the blue jay, a bird just about everybody knows since it’s a common species in suburbia, often frequenting backyard feeders and making jay! jay! sounds as pairs and packs fly about the neighborhood. Blue jays are wonderful examples in better understanding bird coloration and the character of the forests of eastern North America, especially after the last Ice Age ended approximately 20,000 years ago.

Let’s take bird coloration first. You may want to sit down for this since you’ll be shocked to know: Blue jay feathers aren’t blue! Bird feathers derive their colors in one of two basic ways − from pigments embedded in their feathers and from the microstructure in feathers that scatter certain color wavelengths.

Most birds, those that are brown, black, yellow, orange and red (like a cardinal) owe their colors from the pigments embued in their feathers. In contrast, birds that are colored purple, and especially blue, appear the color they do because their feathers absorb all the other colors of the visible light spectrum except the color you’re seeing, which is reflected off the feathers to your eyes.

So what color is a blue jay feather? Actually a mousy grayish-brown that can be revealed by a simple experiment. If you find a blue jay feather (usually common in late summer after they have molted) hold it in your hand.

At first hold it so you are between the feather and the sun with the sun illuminating it; the feather will look blue, as all the shorter wavelength blue light reflects back to you. Now, slowly move your arm in a half circle so the feather is between you and the sun. No blue will reflect at all given the angle, and the actual color of the blue jay’s feathers pigments is revealed: gray brown in color. If the blue in a blue jay were derived from pigments, holding it in that position would reveal a pale or washed out blue, but blue nonetheless.

(It should be mentioned that green-colored birds and iridescence like the male mallard’s head or the ruby-colored throat patch of the ruby-throated hummingbird are caused by more complex interactions between light reflection and feather pigments.)

Now on to the contribution blue jays have made to the forests of eastern North America. After the last Ice Age event, some 18,000-20,000 years ago, all of New York, New England and much of the Upper Midwest were devoid of trees; the forests that once existed there destroyed by the bulldozing activities of the advancing glaciers. Yet, today there are extensive oak forests many hundred miles north of the southernmost location to which the glaciers advanced.

Now, acorns are generally round and they’ll roll after falling from a tree but what’s the maximum distance − 25 feet? maybe 50 feet in extraordinary instances? Well, clearly mere gravity can’t explain the forests rebounding. Maybe we credit squirrels or chipmunks for dispersing the acorns? Given their modest home ranges of several acres each, they couldn’t be the agents of dispersal. So how to explain the reestablishment of these critically important forests? In large part we need to thank blue jays.

In the fall blue jays cache scores to hundreds of acorns, a staple of their diet through the winter, by carrying several at a time in their crop, a storage organ in the throat reminiscent of the pouches of a chipmunk. (We could discuss another fascinating aspect of blue jays and their relatives − crows, ravens and nutcrackers − their incomparable memory skills, being able to remember countless locations where they’ve cached seeds, acorns and pine nuts.) They’ll fly up to several miles to store their prized acorns so imagine the acorn that’s forgotten or never retrieved because a hawk killed the jay that stored it − it has the chance to become a mighty oak tree. And so miles at a time through nearly 200 centuries the oak forests returned.

Ever since I took the “deeper dive” and learned these two things − that blue jay looks are deceiving and their role as ecological engineers − I look at them with a new-found appreciation.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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