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Daniel Dunaief

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From left, Adrian Krainer and Danilo Segovia with the Breakthrough Prize, which Krainer won in 2018. Photo from Danilo Segovia

By Daniel Dunaief

For many young children, the ideal peanut butter and jelly sandwich doesn’t include any crust, as an accommodating parent will trim off the unwanted parts before packing a lunch for that day.

Similarly, the genetic machinery that takes an RNA blueprint and turns it into proteins includes a so-called “spliceosome,” which cuts out the unwanted bits of genetic material, called introns, and pulls together exons.

Adrian Krainer. Photo from CSHL

When the machinery works correctly, cells produce proteins important in routine metabolism and everyday function. When it doesn’t function correctly, people can contract diseases.

Danilo Segovia, a PhD student at Stony Brook University who has been working in the laboratory of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Adrian Krainer for seven years, recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about an important partner, called DDX23, that works with the key protein SRSF1 in the spliceosome.

“We obtained new insights into the splicing process,” said Krainer, who is the co-leader of the Gene Regulation & Inheritance program in the Cancer Center at CSHL. “The spliceosome is clearly important for every gene that has introns and every cell type that can have mutations.”

Krainer’s lab has worked with the regulator protein SRSF1 since 1990. Building on the extensive work he and members of his lab performed, Krainer was able to develop an effective treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which is a progressive disease that impacts the muscles used for breathing, eating, crawling and walking.

In children with SMA, Krainer created an antisense oligonucleotide, which enables the production of a key protein at a back up gene through more efficient splicing. The treatment, which is one of three on the market, has changed the prognosis for people with SMA.

At this point, the way DDX23 and SRSF1 work together is unclear, but the connection is likely important to prepare the spliceosome to do the important work of reading RNA sequences and assembling proteins.

Needle in a protein haystack

Thanks to the work of Krainer and others, scientists knew that SRSF1 performed an important regulatory role in the spliceosome.

What they didn’t know, however, was how other protein worked together with this regulator to keep the machinery on track.

Danilo Segovia in the lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Photo by Constance Burkin/CSHL

Using a new screening technology developed in other labs that enabled Segovia to see proteins that come in proximity with or interact with SRSF1, he came up with a list of 190 potential candidates.

Through a lengthy and detailed set of experiments, Segovia screened around 30 potential proteins that might play a role in the spliceosome.

One experiment after another enabled him to check proteins off the list, the way prospective college students who visit a school that is too hilly, too close to a city, too far from a city, or too cold in the winter do amid an intense selection process.

Then, on Feb. 15 of last year, about six years after he started his work in Krainer’s lab, Segovia had a eureka moment.

“After doing the PhD for so long, you get that result you were waiting for,” Segovia recalled.

The PhD candidate didn’t tell anyone at first because he wanted to be sure the interaction between the proteins was relevant and real.

“Lucky for us, the story makes sense,” Segovia said.

Krainer appreciated Segovia’s perseverance and patience as well as his willingness to help other members of his lab with structural work.

Krainer described Segovia as the “resident structural expert who would help everybody else who needed to get that insight.”

Krainer suggested that each of these factors had been studied separately in the process, without the realization that they work together.

This is the beginning of the story, as numerous questions remain.

“We reported this interaction and now we have to try to understand its implications,” said Krainer. “How is it driving or contributing to splice assembly.”

Other factors also likely play an important role in this process as well.

Krainer explained that Segovia’s workflow allowed him to prioritize interacting proteins for further study. Krainer expects that many of the others on the list are worth further analysis.

At some point, Krainer’s lab or others will also work to crystallize the combination of these proteins as the structure of such units often reveals details about how these pieces function.

Segovia and Krainer worked together with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Leemor Joshua-Tor, who does considerably more biochemistry work in her research than the members of Krainer’s lab.

When a cowboy met a witch

A native of Montevideo, Uruguay, Segovia came to Stony Brook in part because he was conducting research on the gene P53, which is often mutated in forms of human cancer.

Segovia had read the research of Ute Moll, Endowed Renaissance Professor of Cancer Biology at Stony Brook University, who had conducted important P53 research.

“I really liked the paper she did,” said Segovia. “When I was applying for college in the United States for my PhD, I decided I’m for sure going to apply to Stony Brook.”

Even though Segovia hasn’t met Moll, he has benefited from his journey to Long Island.

During rotations at CSHL, Segovia realized he wanted to work with RNA. He found a scientific connection as well as a cultural one when he discovered that Krainer is from the same city in Uruguay.

Krainer said his lab has had a wide range of international researchers, with as many as 25 countries represented. “The whole institution is like that. People who go into science are naturally curious about a lot of things, including cultures.”

Segovia not only found a productive setting in which to conduct his PhD research, but also met his wife Polona Šafarič Tepeš, a former researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who currently works at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. Tepeš is originally from Slovenia.

The couple met at a Halloween party, where Segovia came as a cowboy and Tepeš dressed as a witch. They eloped on November 6, 2020 and were the first couple married after the Covid lockdown at the town hall in Portland, Maine.

Outside of the lab, Segovia enjoys playing the clarinet, which he has been doing since he was 11.

As for science, Segovia grew up enjoying superhero movies that involve mutations and had considered careers as a musician, scientist or detective.

“Science is universal,” he said. “You can work wherever you want in the world. I knew I wanted to travel, so it all worked out.”

As for the next steps, after Segovia defends his thesis in July, he is considering doing post doctoral research or joining a biotechnology company.

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Catch a screening of 'The Candidate' on July 12.
Update: The event on July 10 has been postponed to October 7.

By Daniel Dunaief

Films can take us far from our lives, even as they can also bring us closer to truths about our world.

From July 9 to 12, the Cinema Arts Centre, 423 Park Ave., Huntington is presenting a four-day festival that highlights the intersection between politics and Hollywood. The screenings, which cost $16 for nonmembers and $10 for members, will include the films Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Best Man, and The Candidate.

On the first night, former Congressman and the festival’s curator Steve Israel will host a discussion entitled “Campaigning on Celluloid: How Cinema Informs and Reflects Changing Political Communication on Film.”

Israel, who taught a class at Cornell University about politics and film after he left public office, selected the movies.

‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ will be screened on July 10.

“I thought it would be interesting and fun to offer a similar series” to the films he discussed at Cornell “on Long Island to the general public,” he said.

Israel describes the film The Best Man, which pits the principled William Russell, played by Henry Fonda, against the populist opportunist Joe Cantwell, acted by Cliff Robertson, as eerily prescient of recent political battles.

“It’s an example of a film in 1964 that was regarded as entertaining and implausible that has been overtaken by the reality,” said Israel.

The Cinema Arts Centre is debuting this series of movies this year and may run another similar program in future years.

Israel anticipates a discussion about how films are a “projection of our times and politics often influences films,” and added that some films seem political, but they aren’t, while others don’t seem political, but they are.

‘The Best Man’ will be screened on July 11.

“We are going to explore that dynamic,” Israel explained.

Atticus Finch, the hero in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, served as a role model for Israel, who spent his early time in public service trying to emulate the determined lawyer. “Atticus Finch wouldn’t survive in our current political environment,” Israel said.

The novel is relevant in the world of today, as a modern day Finch would struggle to confront the anger, vitriol and division that defines contemporary society, Israel suggested.

The reality of the modern political environment has surpassed the fiction, making the two satirical novels Israel has written difficult to produce.

“The market for satire is dead because the reality has surpassed the story,” Israel added. 

Non partisan

Nate Close, the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Cinema Arts Centre, explained that the mission of the festival is to be nonpartisan.

Indeed, guest speakers come from both parties, with republican Representative Peter King joining Israel for a discussion after Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and political strategist and policy advisor Basil Smikle participating in the post discussion after The Candidate.

The festival hopes to “shine a light on how these two institutions [politics and Hollywood] influence American culture and shape each other,” said Close. “There’s interplay there.”

Films are “more important than ever,” said Israel. “You sit through it, you take in the textures, the characters and the writing” and it “should inspire us to think.

Program Schedule:

Tuesday, July 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Campaigning on Celluloid: How Cinema Informs and Reflects Changing Political Communication on Screen — Lecture with former Congressman Steve Israel

*Postponed to October 7: Wednesday, July 10 at 7 p.m.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — Film screening and discussion with Rep. Steve Israel and Rep. Peter King

Thursday, July 11 at 7 p.m.

The Best Man — Film screening and discussion with Steve Israel

Friday, July 12 at 7 p.m.

The Candidate — Film screening and discussion with Rep. Steve Israel and Basil Smikle

For tickets, visit www.cinemaartscentre.org. For more information, call 631-423-7610.

 

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Our senses are such an exquisite gift, at any time of the year.

During the summer on Long Island, we can close our eyes, which is home to our most dominant sense, and breathe in the other stimuli.

For me, the sounds of summer form a symphony, with notes coming from nearly every part of my imagined orchestra.

First, the water and everything on and around it reminds us of the pageantry of the island.

The regular horn from the Port Jefferson/ Bridgeport Ferry warns other boats of its movements even as the horn carries great distances.

The summer surf, which can be so variable, can offer a calming, rhythmic shushing sound, as the water laps on the shore or slowly feels its way up the rocks.

With stronger winds or a storm brewing in the Atlantic, those same waves can crash down more violently, as if someone put an amplifier along the beach. Instead of offering a peaceful shush, they provide more of a vibrating symbol, announcing their presence on shore, pulling rocks and sand back out to the ocean amid a more violent undertow.

Then, of course, there is the welcome sound of merriment coming from the water, with children squealing with delight as they play “Marco Polo,” race back and forth in a pool, splash each other, or have chicken fights.

Often at the beaches, the slow progression of an ice cream truck, playing “The Entertainer” or some other redundant musical variant, calls to parents and adults, luring us with cold sweets to offset hot days.

Depending on where you walk, drive, or bicycle, you might also hear the sound of a well struck tennis ball or the disappointed grunt or unprintable word that follows a missed volley, a double fault, or a backhand that sailed long.

Growing up, I was part of a sailing family. In addition to the constant chewing sound that came from the nonstop floating meals, we also heard the fluttering and unfurling of a sail, the regular crashing and splashing of the boat on the waves, and the sudden and frantic maneuvers of passengers on a boat that’s heading into shallow water or towards another vessel.

All manner of birds call to each other from the trees, with the familiar tweet, tweet, screeeeech coming from red-winged blackbirds who always seem to be trying to one-up each other with their aggressive squawking.

Our noses also become more active during the summer, as we can smell the salt water even before we round that last turn on the way to the beach. We can also enjoy the scent of mouth-watering Fourth of July barbecues or, perhaps, the smell of late night s’mores.

Those of us fascinated and delighted by the weather also might catch the scent of an approaching rain storm before the first drops arrive, as the sudden change in humidity or cooler air serves as a preamble for approaching precipitation.

Speaking of cooler, our skin, which we, of course, should protect during the brighter and longer days of summer, can also partake in a wide range of experiences.

For starters, we can cool off during the unbearably hot days by diving into a cool pool or running through the surf and plunging below the surface.

After we take long walks along a hot path, we can enter a heavily air conditioned room, where we might consider grabbing a long-sleeved tee shirt or a light sweatshirt despite the searing outdoor heat.

The tastes of summer also sweeten the season, with fresh fruit and pies serving as the finale to a satisfying meal.

Even without looking at the fireworks, we can appreciate the percussive cadence of these exploding colors. We can hear the long whistle of fireworks hissing their way against gravity, until they explode into a shower of sparklers. As the fireworks celebrations build, we can hear the more rapid explosions, which typically conclude with loud, rapid sounds whose echoes sometimes interfere or amplify the boom from the next set of entertaining sights and sounds.

Then, of course, we can enjoy the wide range of colorful light that uses our homes and neighborhoods as a posterboard, enabling even mundane speed limit signs to irradiate with oranges, yellows and reds.

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Clockwise from top left, Musankwa sanyatiensis leg bones as they were discovered in the ground on Spurwing Island, Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. Image courtesy of Paul Barrett; Musankwa sanyatiensis fossil bones in situ, after mechanical preparation, and after CT scanning. Image courtesy of Paul Barrett; and an artist reconstruction of Musankwa sanyatiensis showing position of fossil bones (in blue). Rendering by Atashni Moopen

By Daniel Dunaief

The dinosaur family tree has few members in Zimbabwe, as only four fossils have been found in the region.

Kimberley Chapelle

Recently, researchers from several universities, including Kimberley “Kimi” Chapelle, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, described a new species of dinosaur from a 210 million year-old fossilized hind leg in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.

Reconstructing the entire dinosaur from the bones they discovered in Lake Kariba, the scientists, led by Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum of London, estimated that this plant-eating sauropodomorph weighed about 850 pounds and was among the larger dinosaurs in the late Triassic period.

The first new dinosaur species described in the Mid-Zambezi Basin of Northern Zimbabwe in more than 50 years, the sauropodomorph survived a mass extinction event that wiped out about 76 percent of all terrestrial and marine creatures. The sauropodomoprh group includes animals like the enormous Brontosaurus, which came later in the evolution of the lineage. Chapelle was on the field expedition in 2017 when Barrett noticed the fossil sticking out of the ground.

The discovery was “extremely exciting, as there was a high chance it was going to be something new,” said Chapelle. “It was well-preserved in articulation and we knew the bones came from the same individual.” She participated in the lengthy process that involved excavating the rare find, creating a reconstruction, isolating the bones to look at the structure, describing the fossil and comparing it to other, closely-related dinosaurs to determine where it sits on the family tree.

The researchers named this species Musankwa sanyatiensis, using the name of the houseboat Musankwa on which they lived and worked as they searched for fossils during the dry seasons around the man-made Lake Kariba.

“Musankwa is cool because it’s one of only a handful of dinosaurs from Zimbabwe, a country with amazing fossil resources that have yet to be fully discovered,” explained Jonah Choiniere, a Professor in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa, who served as Chapelle’s PhD advisor. “Because we don’t have any specimens of Musankwa in similar-age rocks in South Africa, it tells us that during the Triassic period there might have been slightly different species groups of dinosaurs in the two countries.”

The Earth looked considerably different when this long-necked dinosaur was searching for its plant meal, as the land masses of the planet were combined in one supercontinent called Pangaea. In that time, Musankwa’s predators likely included meat-eating therapods and crocodile-like reptiles, which are ancestors of modern crocodiles.

Keep your head up

Hunting for fossils in Zimbabwe, which presented an opportunity for this kind of discovery, came with some challenges.

Kimberley Chapelle with Jonah Choiniere at Lake Kariba. Photo from Jonah Choiniere.

For starters, researchers lived aboard the houseboat Munsankwa, whose name in the Tongan dialect means “boy close to marriage.” Lake Kariba, which was created between 1958 and 1963 and is the largest artificial lake and reservoir by volume, gets “really hot in the summer and all you want to do is swim,” said Chapelle.

That, however, is ill-advised, as modern crocodiles roam the waters of the lake so regularly that people stay far from the shoreline.

To combat the heat, Chapelle drank plenty of water, applied regular sunscreen and wore large hats and long sleeves to keep the strong rays of the sun off her skin. Additionally, the researchers worked between morning and afternoon. The scientific expedition had an armed game ranger with them, to keep scientists safe.

“When you’re looking at fossils, you are always looking at the ground,” Chapelle said. At one point, she looked up and saw a hippo about 50 feet from her. “You have to remember to be aware of your surroundings,” she  said.

Field experience

Choiniere, who inspired his former student to consider entering the field when he first arrived at the University of Witwatersrand, saw Chapelle in action when she first did some field work.

Chapelle’s scientific curiosity never faltered, despite some significant field misadventures that included staying in a rotten old farmhouse without plumbing, sleeping in tents in the freezing cold in the backyard of a rural pub, hiking through brambles over the side of a mountain, and touring around Germany eating nothing but stewed cabbage and pork in brown sauce, and staying three to a hostel room to save money.

“In [Chapelle’s] case, there was never any doubt — she loved the field from day one and has never looked back,” Choiniere explained.

Choiniere believes Chapelle has a “unique skillset among paleontologists,” as her talents include math, observations of shape and structure, histology, three-dimensional data processing and field work. Beyond her diverse skills, Choiniere appreciated Chapelle’s time management skills and her pleasant demeanor, which enabled her to greet him with a smile even when he delivered his part later than she anticipated.

A promising LI start

Chapelle, who started working at Stony Brook at the end of January, is enjoying a return to New York. A native of Johannesburg, South Africa, she  had done a postdoctoral fellowship at the American Museum of Natural History in 2021.

A current resident of Rocky Point, Chapelle lives close to the beach. She and her husband Dominic Stratford, an Adjunct Professor at Stony Brook and Archaeologist and Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, brought their Australian Shepherd named Shango with them.

A runner who recently completed the Shelter Island 10K and who loves taking pictures, Chapelle, who is the daughter of a doctor, originally thought she’d want to become a veterinarian. When she took a course in her third year of college with Choiniere, she was hooked by the link between evolution and anatomy.

As for the recent paper, Chapelle is pleased that people can read about this newly discovered dinosaur.

“This is years and years of work that gets put into this,” she said. “It also gives us a push to keep finding new things and publishing.”

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METRO Photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

The montage played in my mind even before I stepped out of the car at the Old Field Club last weekend. My father and older brother were pedaling ahead of me, too fast for my thick, stocky legs to keep pace. My younger brother and mother were behind me, too slow for my taste and my level of impatience.

“Pe-dal fa-ster,” I recalled grimacing through crooked, gritted teeth, hoping that I could hear whatever magic words my father and older brother were exchanging.

Pushing on a bicycle that didn’t have any gears and struggling against a wind that always seemed to be blowing in my face, I only caught up to them when they circled back. Determined as I was not to cut corners or shorten my ride, I reached the end of West Meadow Beach, stopped for a few seconds to rest my legs and restarted the pursuit.

I could also picture the numerous times I stood on the shore, searching for the perfect skimming rock, bringing a collection to the water’s edge and waiting my turn to try to send a rock far from shore.

More dramatic weather scenes also played in my head, as I pictured waves frozen in place by a prolonged stretch of cold weather. I’m sure I love winter beaches because of those moments when I felt like I owned the isolated sand sculpted by the same powerful wind whose fingers tried to reach through any holes in my coat or open air spaces to stab at exposed skin.

After heavy rainstorms, I recalled stopping on my ten-speed bike, staring at the flooded road that turned the road into a canal.

And then there was last Saturday, as I drove up to the entrance to the club, waiting for a valet to park my car and to celebrate the wedding of the son of a close friend and former coworker of my wife.

We entered the club, took our glass of champagne and made our way to the benches outside, where other people my wife knew greeted her and compared notes about the changes in their lives since they last saw each other.

While overlooking the water, we listened as my wife’s friend’s son, whom I recall seeing years earlier eating ice cream and “making memories,” exchanged vows each of them wrote to mark this incredible occasion. My wife’s friend’s son expressed his eagerness to start his own family.

I watched carefully as my wife’s friend had a perma-grin plastered on her ageless face, reveling in this couple that seemed to melt into each other’s arms for their first dance. The family I didn’t know at all also seemed pleased, albeit in a more buttoned down and restrained way, as they clapped for the happy couple.

Then, of course, the music, which served as a starter’s gun for my wife and me at these events, began, sending us vaulting out of our seats and onto the dance floor.

Life was so different for me now, as an appreciative guest for this loving event, but also for the world. People took out their cell phones to take pictures of this endless love, they exchanged cell phone numbers, and smiled at a camera atop a giant mirror on the dance floor that developed a sequence of photos.

Several grandparents enjoyed the celebration, beaming with pride at their children and grandchildren.

They likely had even more memories flooding through their mind than I, as they could recall the birth of their own children and grandchildren, with yet another magical turn of the time wheel to the next generation.

When these grandparents were considerably younger, they couldn’t have attended such a wedding, as the loving couple are both men. 

Here they were, supporting their grandson, who floated across the room with his husband and expressed his keen appreciation for the guests who came to celebrate this momentous day.

I wonder what ways the world might change between now and when we, if we’re fortunate enough, get to celebrate a similar event for future generations.

For me, that night was yet another memory on a familiar road that has served as the backdrop for my life’s journey. Even as I replay the celebration, I can hear the words of several ABBA songs, like “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme” and “Lay all your love on me.”

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Luis Medina Faull conducting research on a ship in Venezuela.

By Daniel Dunaief

Typical sampling of ocean water excludes small microplastics which, as it turns out, are much more abundant even than larger pieces.

Luis Medina Faull

That’s the conclusion of a recent paper published in Marine Pollution Bulletin based on research conducted by Luis Medina Faull, Lecturer and IDEA Fellow, Sustainable Climate Justice and Solutions at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.

Using Raman microspectrometry to test ocean waters from the Caribbean to the Arctic, Medina Faull discovered smaller microplastics that were 10 to 100 times more abundant than the larger ones.

“We can’t see these plastics and, until recently, we couldn’t even track the samples,” said Medina Faul. “These small pieces can be easily ingested by marine organisms, such as fish” who translocate them into tissues where humans can consume them. “They are an emerging contaminant in our ocean so we have to be very concerned.”

Microplastics not only harm organisms that live in the ocean, but also create a health threat to humans, appearing in breast milk, heart muscles, blood, and waste products such as feces.

Microplastics can alter cell activity. The threat these particles pose to the environment and human health increases the urgency to understand this contaminant.

At this point, scientists don’t yet know how much of these microplastics fish have consumed although every species studied has evidence of microplastic ingestion.

Plankton nets can find microplastics that are between 300 and 500 micrometers or larger. Medina Faull, however, can detect microplastics that are 1 to 300 micrometers.

In samples taken from the Northeast Coast of Medina Faull’s native Venezuela, the Gulf Stream Current, which includes the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Arctic Ocean, the Stony Brook scientist found that the most abundant microplastics were between 1 and 14 micrometers, with 60 percent under 5 micrometers.

His findings exceeded previous combined reports about the abundance of these microplastics by six orders of magnitude.

While the larger particles of microplastics weighs more in the ocean, “it is important to measure the number of particles and their mass,” Medina Faull explained in an email, which will help “to understand the plastic budget in the ocean and the possible ecological or biological impact of these particles.”

The general public, government agencies and the scientific community have become increasingly concerned about microplastics. Medina Faull recently attended the first New York State Microplastics summit organized by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the State University of New York at Buffalo. They discussed the kind of microplastics thresholds that could be harmful to humans and the environment.

The challenges of small pieces

The primary ingredient in plastics, which are made from fossil fuels, is carbon, constituting about 70 to 90 percent of the material that creates packaging, coverings, wraps and other products.

Luis Medina Faull conducting research on a ship in Venezuela.

Determining the origin and content of these microplastics, which are a collection of materials manufactured and sold in different countries, is challenging. Microplastics in the ocean come from mismanagement of solid waste, dumping, fisheries, tourism and other sources.

For the larger pieces of microplastics, which are still exponentially smaller than the eight-inch water bottle that people drink at baseball games and picnics, researchers can determine where the plastic was made.

For the smaller pieces, scientists can link materials to specific activities. Polystyrene is used in floating devices, such as buoys, as well as in fishing, boating and tourism. Polystyrene is also used in food containers and clothing. For these smaller microplastics, scientists have a hard time pointing out the source.

Additionally, smaller microplastics of the kind Medina Faull found in abundance, can contain a mix of particles, suggesting that the ocean contaminant likely came from a recycling process.

“We call them plastics, but there are [numerous] types of materials with different chemical compositions,” he said. These may interact differently with the environment and the oceanic organisms.

At this point, Medina Faull suggested that the majority of the ocean remains undersampled, which makes it difficult to know the concentration and distribution of microplastics.

Microplastics are also distributed in different parts of the ocean, as some of them float at the surface while others sink to the bottom. The process for vertical transport in the water column isn’t well studied.

New plastic producing technology

Some companies are working to develop bioplastic materials. Made from natural polymers or polymers produced by algae or bacteria, these plastics might dissolve more rapidly and provide a safer environmental alternative. These could be photo, bio or chemically degraded faster than synthetic polymers.

As for his own consumer decisions, Medina Faull thinks about ways to reduce his own plastic use regularly.

For starters, he tries to reduce the use of plastics in his own house. He drinks water from the tap and, when he does use plastic, he tries to make sure it’s more than for a single use. 

He urges residents concerned about the use of plastics to buy local products, which not only help the community but also reduce the need for as much plastics for shipping.

When he buys toys for his two-year-old daughter Aila Marina, he tries to make sure they’re manufactured with recycled plastic or wood.

Aerosolized plastics

When microplastics are small enough, they can become aerosolized amid a heavy surf, as the impact of water releases them into the air.

Areas in the Arctic and Antarctic have now found evidence of microplastics that were carried by the wind.

“We know that they are part of these complex transfer mechanisms in the ocean,” said Medina Faull.

A native of Margarita Island, Venezuela, Medina Faull spent considerable time growing up in and around water. He grew up going to the beach, surfing, scuba diving, and spearfishing.

Medina Faull and his wife Elizabeth Suter, who is also a marine scientist and works at Molloy University in Rockville Centre, live in Long Beach with their daughter.

When he’s not on, near or studying the water, Medina Faull appreciates the opportunity to create objects in his own woodworking shop. He has made furniture for his office, a toy chest for his daughter and picture frames.

As for the message from his work, Medina Faull believes any contamination is cause for concern.

“We need to be aware” of microplastics, he said. There are “so many things we don’t understand yet.”

For consumers, he urges people to be careful about what they are buying and consider ways to reduce plastics.

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I just received a copy of the draft of the debate rules that were sent to the two older gentlemen who would like to be president from 2024 to 2028.

Now, no one was supposed to see these, but my friend’s nephew’s babysitter’s neighbor happened to be taking out his recycling and he noticed a piece of paper with official presidential letter head on it. I’m going to share a few ideas that almost made it into the debate.

First, the two candidates considered the possibility of a brief nap. Each of them would have had a pillow and a small bed, just off stage, where they could recover and restore their vim and vigor.

Second, they were considering whether to allow a translator for each of them. That way, when one of them misspeaks and uses the wrong name or mispronounces a word, a country, a language or a religion, the translator could auto correct for the moment.

Third, they each considered bringing a Pinocchio onstage. When the other person spoke, the nonspeaking candidate could demonstrate the perceived inaccuracy of the other person’s comments by extending the nose of their puppet. 

Fourth, they each considered at least 30 seconds when they could appeal directly and exclusively to their donors, explaining why they needed more money and how they would best use it.

Fifth, they were each given the opportunity to ignore one question openly and ask themselves a better one that they themselves could then answer.

Sixth, they wanted the chance to stump the other with their spectacular knowledge of the world. Each person could ask the other to spell the name of a particular country and then demonstrate their world prowess by pointing to that country on an unlabeled map.

Seventh, they could each choose a way to demonstrate their intellectual prowess by choosing from the following list: name as many digits of pi as possible, name the former presidents in order, share the names of some important Supreme Court decisions, or name as many national parks as they could.

Eighth, each candidate would have the opportunity, in a minute or less, to share a lesson they learned in the classroom that they believe has come in particularly handy in their lives.

Ninth, each candidate would have to name at least five people who aren’t relatives and who are alive who they think might be great presidents one day.

Tenth, before they offered their own positions, each president would have a chance to do their best impersonation of the other man. For 90 seconds, each of them could pretend to be the candidate for the rival party.

Eleventh, in the spirit of collaboration and cooperation, each one had to say something genuinely supportive and nice about the other person, and it couldn’t be about the person’s family.

Twelfth, each participant would need to spend at least 30 seconds sharing his thoughts on RFK Jr.’s candidacy.

Thirteenth, each candidate would have to indicate how he would be president for the entire United States and not just his constituency. Each candidate would be required to speak directly to the supporters of the other candidate, suggesting why people who have made up their minds should change their vote.

Fourteenth, both candidates would need to discuss something other than his rival as the greatest threat to the future of the United States.

Fifteenth, each candidate should discuss why, despite their frustration with the press that they think favors the other side, they still support the First Amendment. They would also need to share their views on the value of a free press, emphasizing in particular its ability to hold politicians accountable.

Sixteenth, the winner of the debate, as determined by an independent panel of disinterested observers, would circle the stage while sharing some dance moves of his choice.

Seventeenth, regardless of the outcome of the debate, the candidates agree to shake each other’s hands, to smile and to wish their competitor, their competitor’s family, and the country well.

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A humpback whale with propeller scars in inshore waters of the New York Bight. A humpback whale surface feeding in inshore waters of the New York Bight. Image taken under NOAA Permit No 26260. Credit: Thorne Lab, Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

Concerns about the connection between offshore wind farms and whales strandings are likely just a lot of hot air.

Pictured from left, Lesley Thorne with lab membersChelsi Napoli, PhD candidate; Nathan Hirtle, PhD candidate; and Josh Meza-Fidalgo, Research Associate.

In a recent study published in the journal Conservation Biology, Lesley Thorne, Associate Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, and David Wiley, Research Coordinator for NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, pointed to vessel strikes as an important driver of the increase in humpback whale strandings.

To address concerns about whether the development of offshore wind farms led to the death of these cetaceans, Thorne and Wiley compared the distribution and timing of humpbacks between 1995 and 2022 relative to anthropogenic factors, such as vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, as well as elements associated with wind farm development.

“We know that there is a narrative out there suggesting that the surveys used for site assessment and characterization are factors” in these whale strandings, said Thorne. “Studying strandings, mortalities and injuries of large whales is important as it can provide information” about the relative impact of different threats.

The researchers found that New York and Virginia were hotspots of mortalities and serious injuries, with a subset of strandings confirming that vessel strikes were the cause of serious injuries or death.

A number of parts likely played a role. Beginning in 2016, vessel traffic in New York and New Jersey increased at the same time that observers noticed an increase in humpback whales.

These whales have also expanded into new foraging areas in recent years, regularly using inshore New York waters as a foraging ground starting around 2011.

The increase in the population of menhaden, which are a fatty, energy-rich forage fish, in the mid 2010s also expanded humpback whale feeding ground.

Menhaden tend to form dense surface schools in shallow coastal waters in mid-Atlantic states such as New York. These cetaceans often use surface foraging behavior to feed on menhaden, which could make them more vulnerable to vessel strikes.

Understanding and appreciating the causes of these strandings could lead to informed decision-making, in developing offshore wind farms and in creating responsible regulations for various vessels around the time whales might be foraging.

Wind farm activity

During the time these scientists studied humpback whale strandings, seven wind turbines were constructed and then operational. 

Looking at humpback strandings, the highest number of strandings in Rhode Island and neighboring states during the unusual mortality event occurred in years following construction, including 2017 and 2022, and not in the year when construction occurred. 

In Virginia, the highest number happened years before construction.

Their assessment of these patterns did not suggest a link between strandings and site assessment and characterization surveys for offshore wind development. Survey authorizations increased over the course of the unusual mortality events and primarily occurred between New Jersey and Massachusetts, whereas elevated patterns of strandings did not follow this pattern.

In the year 2016, Massachusetts had one survey authorization related to offshore wind.  Massachusetts, however, showed a lower number of strandings relative to other years, while the area from North Carolina to Rhode Island had higher strandings.

Thorne and Wiley are not involved in the stranding response. They used the data from the National Marine Mammal Strandings Database, which provides standardized data on marine mammals strandings collected by strandings responders.

They studied changes in the location and timing of humpback whale strandings, and of humpback whale mortalities and serious injuries that were caused by vessel strikes and entanglements.

To be sure, Thorne emphasized that their study focused on humpback whales, which are the species that strand most frequently. Other large whale species have different distributions, foraging and habitat preferences, which clouds the picture for any broader analysis.

Vessel strikes

The biggest increases in strandings occurred from Rhode Island to Virginia.

In the waters near New York and Virginia, strandings had some of the highest increases. Stranding responders confirmed the prominent role of vessel strikes in mortalities and serious injuries near these states.

As for the whales, they have also changed their spring and summer feeding ranges. Until more recently, the southern feeding range extended much further north, to the Gulf of Maine as well as areas farther north, such as Iceland and Greenland.

While humpbacks have foraged in New York waters periodically in the past, they have been consistently feeding in these waters during the summer since 2011.

The whales are following one of their food sources, as the population of menhaden has increased off the south shore of Long Island and in other mid Atlantic states.

Juveniles have also used the waters off the coast of Virginia as a supplemental feeding ground.

“We know that vessel strikes, along with entanglement in fishing gear, are the major threats to large whales around the world,” said Thorne.

When boats are moving more rapidly and whales are feeding in regions with a higher density of vessel traffic, such mortality events are more likely.

Possible solutions

For starters, the scientists urge further study to add to the body of research, including a more thorough understanding of the movements and habitat use of humpbacks and other large whales. 

Additionally, assessing the abundance and distribution of prey species will contribute to an understanding of habitat use and the health of large whales.

She also suggested further work to analyze feeding and feeding in shallow coastal habitats with the risk of vessel strikes.

Slowing ships down reduces the risk from a vessel strike.

“There’s a lot of interest in how we can better use dynamic management instead of management that is focused on fixed areas and times,” said Thorne.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

It’s so easy to take each other for granted. Of course mom is going to drop everything at work, where she has an incredibly important job, and race to watch you play clarinet with your dad during a day-time concert because that’s what she does and that’s who she is.

And, of course, grandma is going to bring the entire family together for various holidays, welcoming us with hugs and kisses and ensuring that the house has the specific foods each of us needs for the days we share.

But these moments are not a given, any more than sunshine during a picnic or a last minute, life-saving reaction that avoids a traffic accident is.

Recently, my wife and I attended a service for my late mother-in-law. In a small ceremony at the cemetery, almost the entire extended family came.

My wife and I, our children and father-in-law arrived together over 90 minutes early. We sat in the car, waiting for everyone else to arrive and for the ceremony to begin. Other cars slowly glided past us, as other families and friends came to pay respects and to honor those whom they were fortunate enough to know but had lost.

Our children and I climbed out of the car and walked up and down the road, looking at the significant life-defining dates — when someone was born and when they died. We calculated how old each person was. A child died at the age of two in 1931, while a grandmother lived well into her 90’s.

Small raindrops started to fall, sending us scampering back into the car just before a sudden and surprisingly strong downpour.

My wife checked the forecast, which suggested that the rain would stop before the ceremony. Sure enough, 20 minutes before we had to get out of the car, the rain eased up and the sun peaked through the clouds, as the mixed weather served as a backdrop for moments of appreciation and an awareness of the keen loss.

We greeted other family members, who hugged us, shook our hands, or, in some cases, ignored us, carrying grudges or standing on principle for slights real or imagined long ago.

We saw an extended relative and her fiancée whom we hadn’t seen in person since their engagement. We congratulated them on their upcoming wedding, asked about the planning for the big day, and enjoyed the reality of a multi-year relationship transitioning into an upcoming marriage.

The officiant called everyone over, causing almost every other conversation to stop. After some somber words, he urged us to reflect on the person we were so fortunate to know and on the valuable time we shared.

After he expressed awe at the incredible long-term marriage between my father-in-law and mother-in-law, he asked if anyone wanted to speak. In a soft voice, my father-in-law celebrated the relationship he had with his wife, recalling the first time he met her and the bond they formed over 66 years of marriage.

When the officiant asked if anyone else wanted to speak, he turned to the grandchildren. Our son, who is the youngest grandchild and who gravitated towards his mother to offer his support, nodded.

He remembered the way his grandmother called him over whenever we arrived, smiling broadly and signaling with her index finger for him to come kiss her, which he and all the next generation readily did.

He also remembered how grandma, who was among the smallest people in any room, was always the cake cutter for birthdays. He described how her tiny arms worked their way through each cake, even frozen ice cream cakes, as she made sure everyone got a piece.

With each word, he reflected the love she gave to all her grandchildren back out into the world. In that moment, when he so eloquently captured his grandmother’s dedication to family, he made it clear that he didn’t take her for granted, any more than my wife and I took him for granted.

Without any preparation, he rose to the occasion, helping us see her through his grateful eyes.

There was no “of course” that day for grandma or for her grandchildren, just gratitude.

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Benjamin Cowley. Photo courtesy of CSHL Communications

By Daniel Dunaief

Most behaviors involve a combination of cues and reactions. That’s as true for humans awaiting a response to a gesture like buying flowers as it is for a male fruit fly watching for visual cues from a female during courtship. 

The process is often a combination of behaviors and signals, which the visual system often processes as a way of determining the next move in a courtship ritual.

At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Assistant Professor Benjamin Cowley recently published research in the prestigious journal Nature in which he used a so-called deep neural network to mirror the neurons involved in a male fly’s vision as it interacts with a potential female mate.

Working with a deep neural network that reflects the fly’s nerve cells, Cowley created a knockout training process, in which he altered one set of neurons in the model at a time and determined their effect on the model and, with partners who conduct experiments with flies, on the flies themselves.

Cowley’s lab group, which includes from left to right, Rabia Gondur, computational research assistant, Filip Vercuysse, postdoctoral researcher, Benjamin Cowley, and Yaman Thapa, graduate student. Photo by Sue Weil-Kazzaz, CSHl Commnications.

Cowley worked closely with his former colleagues at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, including Professor Jonathan Pillow and Professor Mala Murthy. His collaborators genetically silenced a fruit fly’s neuron type, observing the changes in behavior. Cowley, meanwhile, trained his deep neural network on this silenced behavior while also “knocking out” model neurons, teaching the model by perturbing it in a similar way to the changes in the fruit fly circuitry.

This approach proved effective, enhancing the ability of these models not only to understand the wiring involved in processing visual information and translating that into behavior, but also to provide potential clues in future experiments about similar cellular dysfunction that could be involved in visual problems for humans.

What researchers can infer about the human visual system is limited because it has hundreds of millions of neurons. The field has taken decades to build artificial visual systems that recognize objects in images. The systems are complex, containing millions of parameters that make them as difficult to explain as the brain itself.

The fly visual system, which is the dominant focus of the fly’s brain, occupying about 70 percent of its 130,000 neurons, provides a model system that could reveal details about how these systems work. By comparison, the human retina has 100 million neurons.

“To build a better artificial visual system, we need to know the underlying mechanisms,” which could start with the fly, Cowley said. “That’s why the fruit fly is so amenable.”

Researchers need to know the step-by-step computations going from an image to neural response and, eventually, behavior. They can use these same computations in the artificial visual system.

‘A suite of tools’

The fly’s visual system is still robust and capable, contributing to a range of behaviors from courtship to aggression to foraging for food and navigating on a surface or through the air as it flies.

The fly “gives us a whole suite of tools we can use to dissect these circuits,” Cowley said.

The fly visual system looks similar to what the human eye has, albeit through fewer neurons and circuits. The fruit fly visual system has strong similarities to the early processing of the human visual system, from the human eye to the thalamus, before it reaches the visual cortex in the occipital lobe.

Interpreting the visual system for the fly will “help us in understanding disorders and diseases in human visual systems,” Cowley said. “Blindness, for the most part, occurs in the retina.”

Blindness may have many causes; a large part of them affect the retina and optic nerve. This could include macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.

In its own right, understanding the way the visual processing system works in the fly could also prove beneficial in reacting to the threat of invasive species like mosquitoes, which pass along diseases such as malaria to humans.

Visual channels

Anatomists had mapped the fly’s 50 visual channels, called optical glomeruli. In the past decade, researchers have started to record from them. Except in limited cases, such as for escape reflex behaviors, it was unknown what each channel encoded.

Cowley started the research while a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton Neuroscience Institute in Jonathan Pillow’s lab and finished the work while he was starting his own lab at CSHL. Mala Murthy’s lab, who is also at Princeton, performed the silencing experiments on fruit flies, while Cowley modeled the data.

Through hundreds of interactions between the flies in which some part of the fly’s visual system was silenced, Cowley created a model that predicted neuronal response and the behavior of the fly.

The deep neural network model he used deploys a new, flexible algorithm that can learn its rules based on data. This approach can be particularly helpful in situations when researchers have the tools to perturb the system, but they can’t recover or observe every working part.

In some of the experiments, the males became super courters, continuing to engage in courtship activities for 30 minutes, which, given that the fly lives only three weeks, is akin to a date that lasts 25 days.

It is unclear why these flies become super courters. The scientists speculate that silencing a neuron type may keep the male from being distracted by other visual features.

In the experimental part of the experiments, the researchers, including Dr. Adam Calhoun and Nivedita Rangarajan, who both work in Murthy’s lab, tried to control for as many variables as possible, keeping the temperature at 72 degrees throughout the experiment.

“These flies live in nature, they are encountering so much more” than another fly for potential courtship, said Cowley, including the search for food and water.

This research addressed one small part of a behavioral repertoire that reveals details about the way the fly’s visual system works.

A resident of Huntington, Cowley grew up in West Virginia and completed his undergraduate work and PhD at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.

An avid chess player, which is a field that has included artificial intelligence, Cowley, who spent much of his life in a city, appreciates having a backyard. He has learned to do some landscaping and gardening.

Cowley had been interested in robotics in college, until he listened to some lectures about neuroscience.

As for the next steps in his work, Cowley hopes to add more complex information to his computational system, suppressing combinations of cells to gather a more complete understanding of a complex system in action.

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