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Daniel Dunaief

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Christopher Gobler. Photo by Conor Harrigan

By Daniel Dunaief

When they can’t stand the heat, bay scallops can’t get out of the proverbial kitchen.

A key commercial shellfish with landings data putting them in the top five fisheries in New York, particularly in the Peconic Bay, bay scallops populations have declined precipitously during a combination of warmer waters and low oxygen.

In a study published in the journal Global Change Biology, Christopher Gobler, Stony Brook University Endowed Chair of Coastal Ecology and Conservation and Stephen Tomasetti, a former Stony Brook graduate student, along with several other researchers, showed through lab and field experiments as well as remote sensing and long-term monitoring data analysis how these environmental changes threaten the survival of bay scallops.

Stephen Tomasetti. Photo by Nancy L. Ford/ Hamilton College

Bay scallops are “quite sensitive to different stressors in the environment,” said Tomasetti, who completed his PhD last spring and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Of the regional shellfish, bay scallops are the most sensitive to environmental stress.

Indeed, since 2019, bay scallops have declined by between 95 and 99 percent amid overall warming temperatures and extended heat waves. These declines have led to the declaration of a federal fishery disaster in the Empire State.

Tomasetti used satellite data to characterize daily summer temperatures from 2003 to 2020, which showed significant warming across most of the bay scallop range from New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He monitored four sites with sensors in the water in addition to satellite data during a field deployment with scallops.

At the warmest site, which was in Flanders Bay, New York, the temperature was above the 90th percentile of its long term average during an eight-day period that overlapped with the scallop deployment. The bay scallops in Flanders Bay were “all dead by the end of the heat wave event,” Tomasetti said.

At the same time, low levels of oxygen hurt the bay scallops which, like numerous other shellfish, feed on phytoplankton. Oxygen levels are declining in some of these bays as nitrogen from fertilizers and septic systems enter these waterways. High nitrogen levels encourage the growth of algae. When the algae die, they decay, which uses up oxygen and releases carbon dioxide into the water.

Field and lab studies

In the field, Tomasetti measured the heartbeat of bay scallops in East Harbor, Massachusetts by putting optical infrared sensors on them that took heartbeat readings every 15 minutes for a month.

Stephen Tomasetti conducts field work in East Harbor during the summer of 2020.

When the average daily temperature increased, their average heart rate climbed, which the scientists used as a proxy for their respiration rate. A higher respiration rate meant that the scallop was expending energy more rapidly, potentially leading to reductions of energy reserves.

Additionally, Tomasetti measured how quickly the scallops fed on algae in the lab under warm temperatures and low oxygen.  These conditions caused the scallops to stop feeding or to feed slowly. Tomasetti interpreted this as a sign that they were waiting out the stress.

In the lab, bay scallops in the same conditions as the bays from Long Island to Massachusetts had the same reactions.

While a collection of fish and invertebrates feed on bay scallops, the effect of their die off on the food web wasn’t likely severe.

“I think there are other prey items that are likely redundant with scallops that cushion the impact,” Gobler explained in an email.

Solutions

Stephen Tomasetti with his wife Kate Rubenstein in East Harbor during the summer of 2020.

As for solutions, global warming, while an important effort for countries across the planet, requires coordination, cooperation and compliance to reduce greenhouse gases and lower the world’s carbon footprint.

On a more local and immediate scale, people on Long Island can help with the health of the local ecosystem and the shellfish population by reducing and controlling the chemicals that run off into local waters.

Waste management practices that limit nutrients are “super helpful,” Tomasetti said. “Supporting restoration (like the clam sanctuaries across Long Island that are increasing the filtration capacities of bays) is good.”

Gobler is encouraged by county, state and federal official responses to problems such as the decline in bay scallops, including the declaration of a federal disaster.

Long Island experience

A graduate student at Stony Brook for five years, Tomasetti was pleasantly surprised with the environment.

He had lived in New York City, where he taught high school biology for five years, before starting his PhD.

His perception was that Long Island was “a giant suburb” of New York. That perspective changed when he moved to Riverhead and enjoyed the pine forest, among other natural resources.

He and his wife Kate Rubenstein, whom he met while teaching, enjoyed sitting in their backyard and watching wild turkeys walking through their property, while deer grazed on their plant life.

Initially interested in literature at the University of Central Florida, Tomasetti took a biology course that was a prerequisite for another class he wanted to take. After completing these two biology classes, he changed his college and career plans.

Teaching high school brought him into contact with researchers, where he saw science in action and decided to contribute to the field.

At Hamilton College, Tomasetti has started teaching and is putting together his research plan, which will likely involve examining trends in water quality and temperature. He will move to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, MD this fall, where he will be an assistant professor in coastal environmental science.

As for his work with bay scallops and other shellfish on Long Island, Tomasetti looked at the dynamics of coastal systems and impacts of extreme events on economically important shellfish in the area.

Tomasetti is not just a scientist; he is also a consumer of shellfish.  His favorite is sea scallops, which he eats a host of ways, although he’s particularly fond of the pan seared option.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

[email protected]

The number of people battling significant symptoms from the flu and respiratory syncytial virus has been coming down since its peak in January, as these infections have run their course.

“This year, we experienced the most severe flu and RSV waves in decades, and our COVID wave wasn’t small either,” said Sean Clouston, associate professor of Public Health at Stony Brook University.

The number of these illnesses was high as people no longer wore masks in places like schools and after people experienced lower-than-usual illnesses in the months before the mask mandate was lifted, creating fertile ground for viruses to spread.

“The most likely reason that the current flu and RSV seasons have improved is that we have had such a bad season earlier on that we have hit a natural ceiling on the ability for these diseases to successfully infect more people,” Clouston said in an email.

As for COVID-19, the numbers of people who have developed significant illnesses has continued to decline as well, through a combination of the natural immunity people have after their bodies successfully fought off the infection and from the protection offered by the vaccine and boosters.

Doctors added that the vaccine and natural immunity hasn’t prevented people from getting infected, but they have helped people avoid severe and potentially life-threatening symptoms.

“All these people who run around saying, ‘My vaccine isn’t working because I got reinfected,’ are missing the point,” said Dr. Bettina Fries, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Medicine. “It is working. It doesn’t protect you from infection, but [it does prevent] a bad outcome.”

Indeed, during the most recent COVID surge during the winter, Fries said the hospital continued to care for patients, most of whom recovered. 

Vaccine timing

Amid discussions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health organizations throughout the state and country about the timing of future booster shots, local health care providers indicated the increasing likelihood of an annual COVID booster.

Fries said we will get to an annual vaccination for COVID, adding, “It’s the same as we see with the flu.”

In general, people aren’t rushing off to get an updated COVID booster.

“To maximize the protective value of the vaccine while minimizing the number of vaccines you use, people should likely get the vaccine two weeks before they anticipate heavy exposure,” Clouston said.

For most people, that would mean getting the shot in early November to prepare for larger indoor gatherings, like Thanksgiving and the December holidays.

In a recent article in the journal Lancet, researchers conducted an extensive analysis of COVID reinfection rates.

The study dealt only with those people who had not had any vaccinations and addressed the effectiveness of natural immunity from preventing infections and from the worst symptoms of the disease.

Prior infections in general didn’t prevent people from getting reinfected, but it does “protect you from getting a really bad disease and dying,” Fries said.

Long COVID

Even with the number of people contracting COVID declining, the overall population of people battling symptoms of long COVID, which can still include anything from loss of smell and taste to chronic fatigue, continues to increase.

“There’s a plethora of symptoms of long COVID,” Fries said. “We’ll have to figure out how to classify this and hopefully come up with better therapy. Right now, we can only symptomatically treat these patients.”

Dr. Sritha Rajupet, director of the Stony Brook Medicine Post-COVID Clinic, explained in an email that some patients who have lost their sense of smell or have a distorted sense of taste have tried a process called a stellate ganglion block “after several case reports and early research have shown that it could be helpful.”

In such a procedure, doctors inject a local anesthetic on either side of the voice box into the neck. Rajupet said that “additional research and clinical trials still have to be performed.”

Newborns and COVID

As for children infected with COVID soon after birth, doctors suggested that the impact has been manageable.

“The great majority of young children who contract COVID do quite well and recover fully,” Dr. Susan Walker, pediatrician with Stony Brook Children’s Services, explained in an email. “The impact on their development from having actually experienced COVID illness is minimal.”

Children hospitalized with more significant illness from COVID might experience temporary developmental regression which is common in children hospitalized for any reason. The developmental impact seems more tied to social isolation.

“Children born during the pandemic spent their first years of life rarely seeing adults or children other than those in their immediate family,” Walker said. “The result is that many of these kids became excessively stranger anxious and timid around others.”

The lost social opportunities, the pediatrician said, resulted in delays in the personal/social domain of development. She added, “The good news is that kids are resilient and, in time, with appropriate social stimulation, [these children] should be able to regroup and catch up developmentally.”

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Long ago, back when my son was shorter than I, and when he listened to more of what I said, I was driving him and his teammate back from a baseball game that was more than an hour away from our house.

Those were the days when such long rides were part of our weekend routine, as we packed athletic gear, food, paper towels and flip-flops into the car to enable our children to compete against other children from distant towns or neighboring states, while also taking off their cleats and running into a deli to use the bathroom.

I don’t recall the details of the game because, even then, my son played in so many of them that the entire montage of memories blurs into a collection of highs, lows and everything in between.

Halfway home, we were the first car to stop at a red light. When another car pulled up next to us, we recognized the father of one of my son’s teammates.

Looking straight ahead, the father was screaming at the top of his lungs. My son and his teammate, who usually filled the car with nonstop commentary about the game, school, weekend plans and anything else that came to mind, were stunned into silence.

The three of us shifted our heads and saw his son sitting in the front seat with his head down, absorbing the ongoing verbal blows from his father, who had started gesticulating and was so frustrated that he spit on the windshield as he shouted.

During the entire red light, the father excoriated his son. As we drove away, my son’s teammate shared his memories of the game, pointing out that the boy in the other car had made a key error and struck out late in a close game.

METRO photo

After our next game, my son and I got in the car, and I had a chance to look at us more closely in the metaphorical mirror.

No, I wasn’t screaming at him. No, I didn’t spit on the window. The pattern I noticed, however, was one in which my son — when he was alone with me — focused only on the things that went wrong. He lamented everything he did wrong or didn’t do right. Sometimes, I recalled, I piled on, telling him how he could or should have done something differently.

As I tried to get a few words in after that game, he cut me off. He continued to criticize his performance until he was too exhausted to speak, at which point he urged me to talk.

I didn’t want to review the game. I wanted to discuss our interactions.

After considerable back and forth, I set new ground rules not for coach/player interactions, but for father/son discussions, particularly as they pertained to sports.

I never wanted to discuss whatever he thought went wrong in a game first. I wanted to begin with everything he did well. That could include positioning, fouling off a tough pitch, supporting his teammates, calling for a ball — even one that he dropped — and having a long at bat.

Then, we discussed what could have gone better. He threw the ball to the right base, but the throw was too low. He was fooled on a high pitch at the end of an at bat.

The first game after our discussion, he started off by criticizing himself. But then, something remarkable happened: he remembered our last discussion, and we started with everything he did well. Those first few moments built a positive foundation around which to start making improvements.

In future games, he started to focus on ways to perform well, even after he had struck out or had made a mistake. Instead of focusing on the ways he might have let himself or the team down, he wanted the opportunity to help.

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Braving the bugs, Alistair Rogers (right) and his colleague Stefanie Lasota collect leaf samples in Alaska for analysis. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt

By Daniel Dunaief

Alistair Rogers lives, thinks and works on opposite extremes.

At the same time that he gathers information from the frigid Arctic, he is also analyzing data from the sweltering tropical forests of Panama and Brazil. He visits both regions annually and, within one eight-day span, saw a Polar Bear in Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow), Alaska and a tarantula in Brazil.

Alistair Rogers. Photo from BNL

That’s not where the extremes end. Rogers is also studying plants at the physiological level to understand how best to represent processes such as photosynthesis, respiration and stomatal conductance in climate models.

The leader of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science & Technology Group in the Environmental and Climate Sciences Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Rogers recently was honored as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The AAAS has named fellows every year since 1874 to recognize their contributions to the advancement of science. Previous honorees included astronaut and former Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa, a founding member of the NAACP and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois and inventor Thomas Edison.

Lisa Ainsworth, Research Leaders of the Global Change in Photosynthesis Unit for the USDA Research Service, nominated Rogers, who served as a mentor for her when she conducted her PhD research.

“[Rogers] is one of the world’s authorities on understanding how plants respond to atmospheric change and in particular rising carbon dioxide concentration,” Ainsworth said. He’s an experimentalist who “built a bridge to the scientific computational modeling community.”

Ainsworth suggested she would not have the career she developed if it weren’t for the support she received from Rogers.

Rogers, who the Department of Energy recognized as an Outstanding Mentor three times and has been at BNL since 1998, “makes you believe in yourself when you don’t have any reason to do that. He believes in you before you know you should believe in yourself,” Ainsworth said. For his part, Rogers is “delighted to be honored and recognized as a fellow.”

Carbon dioxide sinks

For all the extremes in his work, Rogers has been collecting data from plants to address a range of questions, including how they will react to and affect environmental changes caused by global warming.

Through photosynthesis, plants are responsible for absorbing about a third of the carbon dioxide humans produce through the burning of fossil fuels.

The uptake of carbon dioxide by plants and oceans has limited warming so far to 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial temperatures. Without such carbon dioxide removal by oceans and plants, the temperature would already be 3 degrees warmer.

The models his work informs are trying to understand what will happen to the carbon dioxide subsidy in the future.

“In order to work out how warm it’s going to get, you need to know the carbon dioxide concentration and the climate sensitivity (how much warmer it will get for a given amount of carbon dioxide),” he explained in an email.

Photosynthesis is less efficient at higher temperatures, but is also more efficient amid an increased amount of carbon dioxide. Drier air also reduces the efficiency of the process as plants close their stomata to conserve water, which restricts carbon dioxide supply to their chloroplasts.

The transfer of water from land to the atmosphere most often occurs through stomata, so understanding the way these pores open and close is important in predicting cloud formation and other land-atmosphere interactions.

Ainsworth described how a typical day of field work gathering data could last for 16 hours. She appreciated how Rogers worked and played hard — he is a cyclist and a skier — while keeping the work fun. Indeed, Ainsworth said Rogers, on regular calls with two other professors, blends discussions about grants and work decisions with their first choice for their guesses at the New York Times wordle game.

Leadership roles

In addition to his leadership role at BNL, Rogers is also part of the leadership teams for the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment — Arctic and the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment —Tropics.

Rogers said the Arctic is seeing the biggest increase in temperature relative to anywhere else on the planet faster because of climate feedback. When ice and snow melt, it reveals surfaces that absorb more heat.

The tropics, meanwhile, have been more stable, although the region is expected to experience hotter, drier temperatures in the coming decades as well.

Alistair Rogers. Photo from BNL

The Department of Energy is studying these biomes because they are climatically sensitive, globally important and poorly represented in climate models.

Rogers is working with other scientists at BNL and around the world to understand these processes to feed his data collection and analysis into global models.

Using an analogy for developing these models, Rogers suggested trying to predict the time it would take to get to the airport. A traveler would need to know the distance and the mode of transport — whether she was walking, biking or riding in a car.

A model predicting the travel time would make assumptions about how fast a person could go in a car, while factoring in other data like the weather and traffic density at a particular time to anticipate the speed.

If the traffic model wasn’t sure of the maximum possible speed of a vehicle, the error associated with predicting the arrival time could be large, particularly when considering the difference between traveling in a steamroller or a Lamborghini on empty roads.

Climate models use a similar process. By studying the species of plants, Rogers can tell the models whether the plants are the equivalent of sports cars or steamrollers.

Big picture

The worst case scenario of earlier models is highly unlikely, although the scenario of a drastic reduction in carbon dioxide also hasn’t occurred. The models, however, still suggest that changes in human behavior are critical to protecting the future of the planet against the effects of climate change.

Rogers is encouraged by the declining cost of solar energy and the work developing countries have done to bypass some of the more polluting sources of energy from the industrial revolution. He is also pleased by the commitment from the Department of Energy to look for climate change solutions.

These elements “represent great opportunities for scientists like me” to work on these problems.

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

What says hello nonverbally more than a wave? I’m surprised nonhuman animals don’t do it more often. It’s efficient, requires minimal energy most of the time and can be as subtle as a lifted finger or as dramatic as a full-body wave signaling to someone at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

People wave to me frequently, particularly when I’m walking my dog. I suspect many of them are really waving to my dog. He is cuter, more charming and more personable than I am. Sure, I’m happy to engage in a conversation about the weather, the latest “Big Game,” my kids, or someone else’s family, but my dog is prepared to throw his head into someone’s knees as long as they pet him and assure him he’s wonderful.

Back to waving — I think the gesture merits categories, along with a short explanation.

— The-wave-or-maybe-not moment: We’ve all been there. Someone we kind of know or with whom we might want to interact appears to wave at us. Is that for me, we wonder? We consider swiveling our heads to check, but we’re not owls. We raise our hand tentatively. When we realize the more popular person behind us is the wave target, we awkwardly run our fingers through our hair. Great recovery, we mutter to ourselves.

— The “here-but-don’t-really-want-to-be” wave. Remember back when you were in high school, and your homeroom teacher took attendance? He or she would go down the list and when your name came up, you pulled your wrist back as casually as possible and pointed your fingers to the fluorescent lighting on the ceiling? It’s a wave and acknowledgment devoid of any enthusiasm.

— The “tickle the piano keys” wave. After lifting their wrists, some people wiggle their fingers next to their heads, as if they are tapping an imaginary musical instrument to send a visual and auditory greeting.

— The eraser wave. This can either be an enthusiastic or an unenthusiastic gesture. With this wave, people keep their fingers together and brush back and forth, as if they have an eraser in their hand and are removing an incorrect answer from the blackboard. This kind of wave can be an Eeyore greeting from the Winnie the Pooh series, in which he sighs and shares a burden with a deflated wave. With a head tilt, an affectionate smile, and faster side-to-side motion, this kind of wave can also signal a responsive and more enthusiastic greeting.

— The stiff-fingered-salute. Often offered by older men, this isn’t a wave so much as it is a signal that the person sees you, but does not intend to encourage any kind of dialog or further gesturing. It’s a nonverbal stop sign, telling you that he’s coming through, he sees you, and he would prefer that you keep whatever eye contact you’re going to make to a minimum. In fact, if you need to look at something, look at his flat and indifferent hand.

— The tree-swaying-in-a-blustery-wind wave. Yes, this is one of those moments when people are so thrilled to see you that they raise their arms over their heads and wave quickly back and forth. They may even catch some air. People waving this way don’t care what others think and, more importantly, want to share how excited they are to see you. This kind of wave transitions into a full-body hug.

— Finally, to end on the opposite end of the spectrum from where we began, there’s the wave from someone you might otherwise want to ignore. That wave says, “I’m over here, I see you, but you’re not responding.” It has the same characteristics as the excited greeting, except that it adds the need for acknowledgment. If you’re embarrassed, that may be a bonus.

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CSHL Associate Professor Stephen Shea and Postdoc Yunyao Xie in Shea’s lab. Photo from CSHL/2020

By Daniel Dunaief

Good parenting, at least in mice, is its own reward.

No, mice don’t send their offspring to charter schools, drive them to endless soccer and band practices or provide encouragement during periods of extreme self doubt.

What these rodents do, however, protects their young from danger.

When a young mouse wanders, rolls or strays from the nest, it becomes distressed, calling out mostly to its mother, who is the more effective parent, to bring it back to safety.

Responding to these calls, the mother mouse carries the young back to the safety of the nest.

This behavior involves a reward system in a region of the mouse brain called the ventral tegmental area, or VTA. When the mouse effectively retrieves its young, the VTA releases the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is the brain’s way of saying “well done!”

In a paper published in December in the journal Neuron, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Stephen Shea and his postdoctoral researcher Yunyao Xie, who worked in the lab from 2019 to 2021, likened the release of dopamine in this area to a neurological reward for engaging in the kind of behavior that protects their young.

The research “proposes a mechanism that shapes behavior in accordance with that reward,” Shea said. The connection between dopamine in a reward system is an established paradigm.

“There was plenty of smoke there,” he said. “We didn’t pull this out of thin air.”

Indeed, in humans, mothers with postpartum depression have disrupted maternal mood, motivation and caregiving. PPD is linked to dysfunction of the mesolimbic dopamine system, which is a neural circuit that involves the VTA, Xie explained.

“Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed that the reward brain areas including VTA in healthy mothers have higher response to their own babies’ smiling faces than those in mothers with PPD,” Xie added.

What’s new in this research, however, is that it is “a study of how these signals use mechanisms to shape behavior and social interaction,” Shea said.

How the process works

The feedback loop between dopamine in the VTA and behavior involves a cumulative combination of dopamine interactions.

Dopamine is not at its highest level when the mouse mom is engaging in effective pup retrieval.

“Dopamine is shaping future, not current behavior,” Shea said. “If dopamine was driving the mouse on a current trial, a high dopamine level would be associated with high performance. The trial found the opposite: a low dopamine level was associated with high performance in a given trial, and vice versa.”

Like a skater laying her blades down effortlessly and gracefully across the ice after spending hours exerting energy practicing, the mother mouse engaged in the kind of reinforcement learning that required less dopamine to lead to effective pup saving behavior.

As the performance increases, dopamine diminishes over time, as the reward is “more expected,” reflecting a nuanced dynamic, Shea said.

To test the correlation between dopamine levels in the VTA and behavior, Shea and Xie created an enclosure with two chambers. They put a naive virgin female mouse, which they called surrogates, on one side and played specific sounds behind a door on each side of the chamber. The test mice initially had “no experience in maternal behaviors,” Xie explained.

As these surrogates became more experienced by either observing mothers or practicing on their own, the amplitude of the VTA dopamine signals got smaller.

To provide a control for this experiment, Xie monitored a group of naive virgin female mice who spent less time with pups and had to figure out how to retrieve them on their own under similar neurological monitoring conditions. The dopamine signals in this group stayed elevated over days and their performance in maternal behaviors remained poor.

Through these experiments, Xie and Shea concluded that “there is a negative correlation between the dopamine signals in the VTA and their performance in maternal behaviors,” explained Xie.

‘Mind blowing’ moment

In her experiments, Xie used optogenetic tools that allowed her to inhibit the activity of dopaminergic neurons in the VTA with high temporal precision.

Shea appreciated Xie’s hard work and dedication and suggested the discoveries represent a “lot of her creativity and innovation,” he said.

A native of China, Xie said her grandparents used to have a garden in which they taught her the names and morphologies of different plants during her childhood. She enjoyed drawing these plants.

In graduate school, she became more interested in neuroscience. She recalls how “mind-blowing” it was when she learned about the work by 1963 Nobel laureates Alan Hodgkin, Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley and John Eccles, who established a mathematical model to describe how action potentials in neurons are initiated and propagated.

In the study Xie did with Shea, she found that the dopamine signals in the VTA encoded reward prediction errors in maternal behaviors that was consistent with the mathematical model.

In the bigger picture, Xie is interested in how neural circuits shape behaviors. The neural circuits of most natural behaviors, such as defensive behaviors and maternal behaviors are hard-wired, she added.

Mice can also acquire those behaviors through learning. She is interested in how pup cues are perceived as rewards and subsequently facilitate learning maternal behavior. She found a great fit with Shea’s lab, which focuses on the neural mechanism of maternal behavior.

Xie enjoyed her time at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she could discuss science with colleagues by the bench, at the dining room or at one of the many on site seminars. She also appreciated the opportunity to attend neuroscience seminars with speakers from other schools, which helped expand her horizons and inspire ideas for research.

Next steps

As for the next steps, Shea said he believes there is considerable additional follow up research that could build on these findings. He would like to apply methods that measure the activity in individual neurons. Additionally, with a number of targets for dopamine, he wants to figure out what areas the neurotransmitter reaches and how the signals are used when they get there. More broadly, he suggested that the implications for this research extend to human diseases. 

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Jelly donuts. METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

You don’t have to pay me. I’m not selling anything, and I don’t have any desire for you to provide testimonials.

Many of you have probably pledged to lose weight. It’s healthy, you’ll look and feel better, and you might increase your endurance, allowing you to walk, jog or engage in your exercise of choice for longer. Some of you may have gone to the gym for a week or even a month and are ready for a break or, maybe, a different way.

Before I proceed, I’d recommend that those with weak stomachs or who are eating one of their favorite meals not read this until you’ve happily digested your food and are now prepared for something that might not be all that pleasing.

No, I’m not going to suggest something harmful or particularly unhealthy. I’d like to suggest a few sensory images to keep in mind that will prevent you from eating too much of the wrong foods.

So, let’s say there’s a jelly donut at your office. Now, I want you to picture or imagine any of the following:

— You’re exercising at the gym (you don’t have to go to the gym. Just imagine yourself there). Maybe you’re on an elliptical machine. There, standing in front of you is a man who has a ring of hair above his ears and a bald spot on top of his head. He’s on the phone, with air pods in his ears, and he brings his index finger slowly to the bald part of his head. He starts digging his fingernail into that spot. Over and over and over again. You try to look away, but then, he’s still there, digging. Even with all the noise of other people grunting, sweating and clearing the phlegm from the backs of their throats, you can hear the scratching as if it were broadcast directly into your ears. You want him to leave, but he’s planted in front of you.

Yes, I know I may have turned you off the gym and food at the same time. Then again, were you really going to the gym or were you just looking for an excuse to cuddle up under the covers? And, yes, this did happen to me.

— Okay, next, you’re walking into a house filled with dogs after a rainstorm. The dogs are friendly enough and, in fact, want you to pet them, which is fairly unpleasant because their fur is covered with water. Soon, the smell of matted, wet, soggy dog fur overwhelms you. You can barely breathe as you search for an open window and fresh air. That donut might taste like wet fur at this moment, right?

— You don’t have to work out to imagine this one, either. Picture yourself in a gym locker room. You’ve changed into your work clothes and are ready to return to your desk. But, wait, the scent of body odor is so strong that you have to breathe shallowly through your mouth. You search for the exit, which seems to have moved, leaving you stuck in a foul-smelling maze. A jelly donut is the last thing on your mind.

— The heating system in your office suddenly goes on full blast, turning your office into a sauna. It’s so hot that sweat drips down your forehead and lands in a growing puddle on the floor. Your body sticks to the material on your seat. Even the saliva in your mouth feels too hot to swallow. Water is much more appealing and refreshing than food at this point.

Okay, so, if all you got out of that is that you now want a jelly donut, my apologies. Chances are, you wanted one anyway and maybe it’s time to find a gym that smells nice and where men aren’t scratching their scalps. If, however, those unappealing images work for you, consider this a free food stop sign.

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The Vietnam memorial in Bill Richards Park in Hauppauge. Photo from Town of Smithtown

By Daniel Dunaief

The first day Kevin O’Hare arrived in Vietnam, a bullet flew over his head during reverie. Vietcong fighters regularly targeted the assembled morning crowd of soldiers who stood in formation to honor the flag.

Kevin O’Hare
Wayne Johnson

“That was a shock,” recalled O’Hare, a resident of Kings Park who is a retired sales director for RJR Nabisco and who served in the army from 1966 to 1968. “I jumped in the bunker as fast as I could.”

O’Hare, who shared memories of his time in the military, wants to ensure that others have an opportunity to reflect and appreciate the soldiers who served during the war amid a time of civil discontent in the United States.

In 1966, the hamlet of Hauppauge created what O’Hare and others believe is one of the first tributes to those serving in Vietnam. The “Vietnam Era Hauppauge Honor Roll” memorial sits in Bill Richards Park near Suffolk County’s H. Lee Dennison Building off Veterans Memorial Highway and will soon add plaques with the names of O’Hare and navy veteran Wayne “Mickey” Johnson.

Officials have considered the possibility of moving the memorial, O’Hare said, although he would prefer that it remain in the park.

Close calls

O’Hare’s near miss during reverie was one of several other times he could have been severely injured or worse, including two incidents when mortar landed without exploding outside his tent. “They were duds,” he said. “If they had gone off,” said the 78-year old father of two and the grandfather of four, “I wouldn’t be here.”

In April of 1967, O’Hare was in a bunker with five other men. A mortar round came in and killed three of his fellow soldiers.

At another point, a man approached O’Hare with a bag. As he got closer, the man tried to strap the satchel around O’Hare. Two infantry men assigned to protect O’Hare saw the exchange and shot the man before he could plant explosives that would have killed O’Hare.

So, what made this American soldier worth an attempted assassination?

Boosting morale

Bob Hope with Joey Heatherton

Initially a mortar man, O’Hare’s experience with the Soupy Sales comedy show in New York prior to his tour of duty attracted the attention of army brass. Officials asked O’Hare to help run the shows for the United Service Organization, or USO.

Started in 1941, these shows entertained troops stationed overseas and gave them a taste of home half a world away. The entertainment “took them away from the war,” said O’Hare, “even for two hours. They looked forward to it.”

In some ways, the shows were the antidote to people like Hanoi Hannah, a radio broadcaster from North Korea who chided American troops, suggesting that their girlfriends back home were cheating on them or that they were fighting an unjust and unwelcome war.

The USO shows featured Hollywood stars, who were determined to bring their talents to members of the military who might otherwise feel disconnected from American life or who might be physically or emotionally wounded. Seats in the first 10 rows for these often crowded shows were reserved for the wounded.

O’Hare worked with celebrities including Bob Hope, an entertainer who hosted the Academy Awards 19 times.

Hope, who later became an honorary veteran for visiting the troops starting in World War II and ending with the Persian Gulf War, was eager to visit the wounded in the hospital after his show, O’Hare recalled.

Crazy hair and a helicopter ride

Comedienne Phyllis Diller, who was famous for her wild hair and self-deprecating stand up routines, also traveled to Vietnam. During Diller’s visit, O’Hare recalled, the army arranged to transport her in a Huey, a helicopter with a single blade. Nervous about flying in a small helicopter, Diller asked O’Hare if he could help her fly in the larger Chinook, which has two blades.

After receiving the approval of senior officers, O’Hare strapped a chair next to a pole in the Chinook. Sandwiched between the cue cars on one side of the helicopter and her clothing on the other, Diller rode in her preferred helicopter.

Before she returned to the United States, Diller drew a self-portrait, with spiky hair and a smile on her face and signed her name for O’Hare.  “That’s the craziest autograph I ever had,” O’Hare recalled. It wasn’t, however, the last.

Legendary actor and future head of the National Rifle Association, Charlton Heston, who played Moses in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments, also made the long trip to Vietnam to entertain the troops. On his last day before returning the states, Heston chatted with O’Hare. Heston, who autographed a program for O’Hare, asked him when he would return to the States. O’Hare recalled being nervous speaking with the intense and direct Heston.

Kevin O’Hare meets actor Charlton Heston during the actor’s visit to Vietnam in 1967.

“When you get back,” Heston urged, “you’re going to see my new movie.” When he returned to the States, O’Hare saw the film Heston mentioned: Planet of the Apes.

In addition to working with celebrities including five winners of the Miss America contest, O’Hare coordinated shows in between these high-profile visits. He kept a list of the people who could play instruments. When he found out about a drummer, a guitarist and others who could play instruments, he formed a band that provided live performances.

O’Hare also helped bring a show to the Black Virgin Mountain near Cambodia. For his work bringing that show to the troops, O’Hare won the Bronze Star.

Respect for others

While the Kings Park resident appreciates the recognition, he knows, despite escaping serious injury and death in Vietnam, that he had a considerably easier experience than many of other members of the military.

He recalled the terrible job of “tunnel rat” that the smallest and lightest men had to perform. Once the Americans found some of the tunnels built under their bases and scattered throughout the country, the tunnel rat had to try to flush out the enemy. The Vietcong left scorpions, tarantulas and snakes for the Americans. Seeing the disadvantage of fitting the profile for this job, some servicemen tried to gain weight quickly so they wouldn’t fit in small tunnels that often became death traps.

Since he left the army, O’Hare has continued to try to serve some of his fellow vets. He sits with vets and talks at a bagel store. He has also helped restore monuments like the one at Bill Richards Park, so people don’t forget the service and sacrifice of other Long Islanders. O’Hare is also the president of the Citizen’s Police Academy. 

For his consistent and enduring contributions to the community, O’Hare has won several admirers. “Nothing is too much work for him,” said Legislator Leslie Kennedy (R-Nesconset). “He does more than 20 or 30-year-olds. He’s a rocket.”

Proud of his service

Wayne Johnson on the amphibious ship USS Hermitage in 1970.

A navy veteran who served from 1968 to 1972 and a 1967 graduate of Hauppauge High School, Wayne “Mickey” Johnson is excited about the prospect of seeing his name alongside those of other members of the community who served during Vietnam.

Johnson would like his grown sons to see his name on the memorial along with those of some of his high school friends.

“I’m proud of my service,” said Johnson, who spent two years stationed in Puerto Rico and two years stationed on the amphibious ship USS Hermitage, which included a six month stint in the Mediterranean.

Johnson, who is a resident of Patchogue, said his father, Vandorn Johnson, served in the navy during World War II and the Korean conflict.

Johnson, whose brother shares a name with his father and is preparing the additional plaques, said he knows his father would be pleased with his service.

Johnson said he doesn’t mind if the memorial moves. “Wherever it is, I’ll find it,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier to be on it.”

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From left, Alea Mills and Xueqin Sun Photo from CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

People have natural defenses against cancer. Proteins like P53 search for unwelcome and unhealthy developments. 

Sometimes, mutations in P53, which is known as the “guardian of the genome,” rob the protein of its tumor fighting ability. In more than seven out of ten cases, the brain tumor glioblastoma, which has a grim prognosis for people who develop it, has an intact P53 protein.

So what happened to P53 and why isn’t it performing its task?

That’s what Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor and Cancer Center member Alea Mills and postdoctoral researcher Xueqin “Sherine” Sun wanted to know.

Starting with the idea that something epigenetic was somehow blocking P53, Sun conducted numerous detailed experiments with the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9.

She knocked out parts of the chromatin regulating machinery, which determines whether factors for DNA replication, gene expression, and the repair of DNA damage can access genes and perform their tasks.

The researchers wanted to find “something specific to glioblastoma,” Mills said in an interview. Working with a team of researchers in Mills’s lab, Sun focused on the protein BRD8.

In experiments with mice, Sun and her colleague inhibited this specific protein by destroying the gene that encodes it. That step was enough to stop the tumor from growing and allowed the mouse to live longer.

Mills and Sun published their work in the prestigious journal Nature just before the holidays.

The article generated considerable buzz in the scientific community, where it was in the 99th percentile among those published at the same time in attracting attention and downloads. It also attracted attention on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.

“We see this as a major discovery, and are not surprised that many others think that the impact is extraordinary,” Mills said. The paper “has the potential of having a significant impact in the future. The work is completely novel.”

While finding a connection between BRD8 and glioblastoma suggests a target for researchers to consider in their search for new glioblastoma treatments, a potential new approach for patients could be a long way off.

“We cannot predict how long it will take to be able to help patients” who have glioblastoma, Mills said.

A promising step

From left, Alea Mills and Xueqin Sun Photo from CSHL

Still, this finding provides a promising step by showing how knocking out the BRD8 protein can enable P53 to gain access to a life threatening tumor.

Sun and Mills said BRD8 and its partners lock down genes that are normally turned on by P53.

“What you inherit from mom and dad is one thing,” said Mills. “How it’s packaged, the epigenetic mechanism that keeps it wrapped up or open, is key in how it’s all carried out within your body.”

By targeting BRD8, Mills and her team opened the chromatin, so P53 could bind and turn on other cancer fighting genes.

After receiving patient samples from Northwell Health, Stanford and the Mayo Clinic, the team studied tissue samples from patients battling glioblastoma. Those patients, they found, had higher concentrations of BRD8 than people without brain cancer.

Researchers and, down the road, pharmaceutical companies and doctors, are careful to make sure removing or reducing the concentration of any protein doesn’t have so-called “off target effects,” which would interfere with normal, healthy processes in cells.

Mills said they tested such actions in the context of neural stem cells in the brain. At this point, removing BRD8 didn’t have any “deleterious consequence,” she said. 

Her lab is working to see the effect of reducing or removing the mouse version, also called Brd8, during development by engineering mice that lack this protein.

Future research

An important next step in this research involves searching for and developing viable inhibitors of the BRD8 protein.

For histone readers like BRD8, researchers look for an active domain within the protein. The goal is to interrupt the interface in their interactions with histones.

In creating molecules that can block the action of a protein, researchers often start with the structure of the protein or, more specifically, the active site.

Sun, who is currently applying for jobs to run her own lab after working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for over eight years, is hoping to purify enough of the protein and determine its structure.

Sun is working on x-ray crystallography, in which she purifies the protein, crystallizes it and then uses x-rays to determine the atomic structure.

Sun described the search for the structure of the protein as an “important direction” in the research. “Once we solve the structure” researchers can focus on drug design, testing and other experiments.

She suggested that the search for a small molecule or compound that might prove effective in inhibiting BRD8 would involve optimizing efficiency and activity.

There is a “long way to go” in that search, Sun added.

She is working to generate a chemical compound in collaboration with other groups.

A long, productive journey

Born and raised in China, Sun has been an active and important contributor to Mills’s lab.

“I’ll miss [Sun] personally as well as in the lab,” Mills said. “She’s been a really good role model and teacher across the Cold Spring Harbor campus and in my lab.”

Mills is “really excited about [Sun’s] future,” she said. “She’ll be really great” at running her own lab.”

For her part, Sun enjoyed her time on Long Island, where she appreciated the natural environment and the supportive culture at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Sun described her time on Long Island as a “very exciting and satisfying journey.” 

She is determined to study and understand cancer for a number of reasons.

“I know people who died of cancer,” she said. “It’s a terrible disease and it’s urgent to find more efficient therapeutic strategies to stop cancers and improve human heath.”

Sun is also eager to embrace the opportunity to mentor and inspire other students of science.

“Teaching is very important,” she said. She looks forward to helping students grow as professionals to create the “next generation of scientists.”

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

One day, you’re playing with your twin sons at home, running around with a ball on the driveway, calling and waving to neighbors who pass by when they walk their dogs or take their daily stroll through the neighborhood.

The next day, your life changes.

You want to know why or how, but you’re too busy trying to apply the brakes to a process that threatens the nature of your existence and your current and future happiness.

Your son had some gastrointestinal issues for a few weeks. You took him to the pediatrician and he said he’s got to get over a virus.

You wait, hope, and maybe say a few extra prayers, because the hardest thing for any parent to endure is the sickness of a child.

You check on him, day after day, hoping he’s better, only to find that there’s no improvement.

Suddenly, three weeks later, you’re in the hospital, trying to keep yourself, your spouse, and your other son calm while doctors remove a malignant brain cancer in a 5-year-old boy who defines “goofy” and “playful.”

One of our close friends in our neighborhood just started this unimaginable battle against a disease many of us know all too well, although the specific form of cancer varies.

Their babysitter shared the horror of the prior weekend with me outside the window of her passing car, where she normally would have driven both the twins to school.

I heard the story because I asked about the empty car seat in the back, where both boys typically showed me whatever stuffed animals or toys they had decided to bring to school, either for show and tell or because they were carrying an object that began with a particular letter.

As I talked with the babysitter, who spoke in the kind of hushed and dramatic tones often associated with discussions about serious health crises, I thought about how hard it was and will be for the other son. I thought he needed the kind of 5-year-old normalcy that might become hard to find when he’s worried about his brother and the anxious adults around him.

I asked him to show me what he was holding. He had a pink llama, who he said wanted to poop on my head or on my dog’s head.

I told him that my dog wouldn’t appreciate the poop unless the stuffed llama somehow pooped pink marshmallows.

He laughed, flashing all his straight baby teeth.

As I walked home, I thought of all the things my wife and I planned to offer our neighbors. Maybe we’d babysit the healthy son, walk their dogs, help with house chores, bring over food, do anything to lighten the unbearably heavy load.

I also thought about all the scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University I have known who are working towards cures for cancer.

Many of them know someone in their family, their friend group, their neighborhood, or their schools who, like my daughter’s beloved first-grade teacher, suddenly were in a battle for their lives against a disease that steals time and joy from people’s lives.

Their labs often invite or include family members of people with cancer to staff meetings and discussions about their work, making the connection between what the scientists are studying and the people desperate for solutions.

It seems utterly cliche to write it, but I’m going to do it anyway: we should appreciate and enjoy the days we have when we’re not in that battle. The annoyance of dealing with someone who got our order wrong at a restaurant seems so spectacularly small in comparison. 

We can appreciate that the person who seems like a total jerk for cutting us off on our way home may also be the one racing back to hug his child or spouse after an impossible day that changed his life.

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