CLOSE
Tags Posts tagged with "Daniel Dunaief"

Daniel Dunaief

by -
0 498
Allison McComiskey, chair of the Environmental & Climate Sciences Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

The wildfires last week in Quebec, Canada, that brought an orange haze, smoke and record pollution to New York were not only disconcerting, but also were something of a reality check.

These raging fires occurred earlier than normal and, with a so-called cut-off low in Maine acting like a bumper in a pinball game driving the smoke down along the eastern seaboard, created hazardous air quality conditions from New York through Virginia.

“There’s a real concern about this intensity, the size of the fire, happening this early in the season,” said Allison McComiskey, chair of the Environmental & Climate Sciences Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory. “Typically, wildfire season starts later in the summer and extends through the fall. If we’re going to be having wildfires of this size this early in the season and it continues, [there will be] much more of an impact on people in terms of air quality, health, and well being.”

Dry conditions caused by climate change intensified the severity of these fires, making them more difficult to extinguish and increasing the amount of particulates that can cause lung and other health problems thrown into the air.

“Wildfire season is getting longer,” said Dr. Mahdieh Danesh Yazdi, an air pollution expert and environmental epidemiologist from Stony Brook’s University’s program in Public Health. These fires are “spread because we have drier conditions, the vegetation is dry, we have droughts. Those require long-term solutions of trying to tackle climate change on a fundamental level.”

The intensity of the smoke and the cancelation of events like the Yankees and Phillies games has raised awareness of the downwind dangers from wildfires.

“This is like our Hurricane Sandy from an air quality perspective,” said Brian Colle, division head in Atmospheric Sciences at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. 

Scientists urged a multi-level approach to tackle a wildfire problem that they believe will become increasingly dangerous for human health.

Forest management, including controlled burns, would reduce the available fuel for fires started by natural causes such as lightning.

“Forest management may be one approach,” said Dr. Danesh Yazdi. That alone, however, won’t solve the threat from wildfires amid higher temperatures and more frequent droughts, she added.

McComiskey added that researchers are “certain” that wildfires are going to increase in the future due to climate change and suggested that these events ratchet up the need for getting better predictive models about what these fires will mean for human health and the climate.

The heavy smoke that descended on New York, which some health officials described as creating conditions for those who spent hours outdoors that are akin to smoking several cigarettes, is “a wake up call that we need policies” to deal with the conditions that create these fires, McComiskey said.

The increase by a “fraction of a degree in temperature is really not the point,” McComiskey added. “We need to decarbonize our economy and we need to move toward addressing the bigger causes of climate change.”

A wildfire occurring earlier in the year with smoke filled with particulates could raise awareness and attention to the dangers from such events.

“Having this kind of thing happen in the East Coast through New York and [Washington] DC, as opposed to where we typically think of bad wildfire happening out west, in Washington State and the Rocky Mountains, might help in terms of the awareness and urgency to take some action,” McComiskey added.

by -
0 1164
Speakers at the “Africa: The Human Cradle" International Conference paying Tribute to Richard E. Leakey” on June 5. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

Combative, loyal, determined, consequential, energetic and courageous. These are just a few of the many traits paleoanthropologists and others shared to describe the late Richard Leakey at the “Africa: The Human Cradle” memorial conference at Stony Brook University this week.

The founder of the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya, Leakey, who partnered with SBU and received 34 grants from National Geographic over the course of his decades in science, was a part of nearly every presentation and discussion on the first day of the week-long event which closes tomorrow, June 9.

From left, Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis with Louise Leakey on June 5. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

Held at the Charles B. Wang Center on the main campus, the conference brought together luminaries in the field who interlaced stories about their science in Africa with anecdotes — many of them humorous — about Leakey. Marilyn and Jim Simons, whose Simons Foundation announced last week that it was donating $500 million to the university, attended the entire slate of speakers on the first day.

Leakey was “one of the most important paleoanthropologists of our time,” Maurie McInnis, President of Stony Brook, said in opening remarks. His impact “can be felt across our campus and across the world.”

In an interview, former Stony Brook President Shirley Kenney, who helped bring Leakey to the university, suggested that he “put us into the elite of that whole research field.”

Leakey stubbornly entered his parents Mary and Louis’s chosen fields when he dropped out of high school, eager to make discoveries on his own and to contribute to his native Kenya.

In 1968, during a meeting at the National Geographic headquarters, Leakey “lobbied the committee to divert funding from his father’s money” to his own research, Jill Tiefenthaler, National Geographic CEO, said during her presentation.

‘Sitting on a knife edge’

Like Leakey, however, these scientists looked deep into the past to understand the lives of early humans, our distant ancestors and other organisms while looking for lessons that might help with the present and the future.

Dino Martins, Chief Executive Officer of the Turkana Basin Institute and Lecturer in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, suggested that Leakey was driven by a sense of “childlike wonder” and a need to know “where we are, where we’re coming from and where we’re going.”

Leakey suggested that the extremely hot climate in Kenya was a potential model to understand how ancestral humans survived in hotter conditions, which are becoming increasingly prevalent amid global warming.

“There are many parallels in the past” in terms of extreme environments, Louise Leakey, director of public education and outreach for the Turkana Basin Institute and Richard and Meave Leakey’s daughter, said in an interview. “We’re sitting on this knife edge of really dramatic change now.” 

In addition to encouraging science in Africa, Leakey also believed in engaging with students and researchers from a range of backgrounds and experiences. He wanted to ensure that people from every continent had an opportunity to join the ranks of scientists.

When presenting his research on Homo naledi, an extinct human with a brain a third the size of modern humans from South Africa who created burial sites and left behind etchings on a cave wall, Lee Berger, National Geographic Explorer in Residence, explained that he wished Leakey “had seen this and I think he would have been really angry with me.”

Words from a devoted daughter

In the final presentation of the first day, Louise Leakey shared memories of her upbringing and her father.

Among many pictures of her father and his discoveries over the years, Louise shared one in which she highlighted a pipe in the corner of the photo.  She believed her father “rarely smoked it” but liked to pose with it in photos.

Louise Leakey speaks at the memorial conference for her father on June 5. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

Louise Leakey recalled how one of her father’s partners, Kamoya Kimeu, proved a valuable partner in the search for fossils. When Kimeu died soon after Richard Leakey, Kimeu’s daughter Jennifer reached out to Louise to raise money for his funeral.

Louise Leakey has since learned that Jennifer never saw her father searching for fossils in the field. Rather, she learned all about his exploits when her mother read his letters each night to her before she went to bed.

A second generation of the two families is working together, as Jennifer has joined Louise in some of her fossil hunting work. The two daughters are also creating a comic strip, in many languages, that depicts the two of them hunting for fossils.

Leakey believes Jennifer Kimeu will serve as an inspiration to other Kenyans.

On the east side of Lake Turkana, Leakey and her team recently discovered the new head of a fossil. Before his death, her father said it was “time you found new skull.” Richard Leakey was right.

by -
0 501
Turkana Basin Institute: Richard Leakey All photos downloaded with permission from: www.flickr.com Username: turkanabasin Password: knmwt15000

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

What’s possible?

We can spend time criticizing each other, becoming nattering nabobs of negativity, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said. We can also rue our lot in life or feel an overwhelming sense of dread about problems we can’t solve or conflicts we haven’t resolved.

Or …

Or we can get out and create a remarkable life.

That’s what happened with famed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey.

Okay, so maybe he had a few advantages, like the fact that his parents Mary and Louis Leakey were already successful in the field and, unlike those of us who grew up on Mud Road near Gelinas Junior High School, he spent his formative years near and around fossils.

I recall digging in the back corner of my yard when I was young, convinced that I would pull up a dinosaur bone or reveal some incredible secret someone had hidden among the prickers and weeds. Yeah, no such luck.

And yet, the life of the late Richard Leakey offers exciting hope and opportunities for inspiration.

He didn’t graduate from high school, but he was successful and world-renowned.

Leakey’s life is “awe-inspiring,” demonstrating the “ability of one person to literally transform the world and leave it a better place,” Lee Berger, National Geographic Explorer in Residence, said in an interview.

National Geographic Society CEO Jill Tiefenthaler described the impact Leakey had on his home country of Kenya as “amazing” and the impact on the field as “remarkable,” particularly because he did it in a non-traditional way.

In an interview, Tiefenthaler credited the “army” of people who supported him with helping him achieve his goals.

“How do you move and get people to move with you?” Tiefenthaler said. “He was this person who saw talent. It wasn’t just about him. He would see [someone] and say ‘you’re going to do this’ and they did.”

Next generation

As for how to get the next generation to believe in themselves and to participate in the scientific process, National Geographic’s Berger and Tiefenthaler shared their vision.

Ensuring transparency in the process helps people trust the science.

“People are with us when we find those fossils, they watch us, we make sure there’s open access when they come out,” said Berger, who considered Leakey a friend and mentor. “Your child can print these things out and they can check.”

For National Geographic, which funded Leakey for decades, the goal is to “try to give people information and let them draw their own conclusions,” Tiefenthaler added.

The next generation of scientists has access to a large educational program through National Geographic, she added.

“I spent my career in higher education,” said Tiefenthaler, who was the president of Colorado College for nine years before becoming the first woman to lead National Geographic in its 135-year history. “We have got to meet them where they are: they are probably not reading the paper magazine with small, dense print.”

National Geographic is on social media and TikTok.

“We are focusing on issues they care about,” Tiefenthaler said. “We know this generation is very concerned about climate change and biodiversity loss.”

Tiefenthaler “loves how much they care about the work we do at National Geographic [Society]. They’re a little mad at [this generation] because of the predicament that we’ve left the world in for them. We made the mess and there are fewer resources to fix things.”

Still, she believes there are leaders and actors among the younger generation who will follow in Leakey’s footsteps and have an important and positive impact on the world.

“We have a generation that’s going to make major progress on this planet,” she said.

by -
0 2368
1 of 7
National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Lee Berger and leader of the excavation expedition, inside the Rising Star cave in South Africa where fossil elements belonging to H. naledi, a new species of human relative, were discovered. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Photo by Robert Clark/National Geographic
Where: Rising Star, formed within Dolomitic Limestone Lee Berger, the leader of the excavation expedition, inside the Rising Star cave, watches a monitor in the command center. Photo by Robert Clark/National Geographic
Discovered on July 28th, 2022. This picture shows an image of Panel B in the Hill Antechamber exhibiting numerous engravings and etchings on the ancient dolomitic wall. The panel shows repeated etchings likely done over a considerable period. The etchings include geometric figures such as squares, ladders, triangles, crosses, and X’s. Image from Berger et al. (2023b).
Discovered on July 28th, 2022. This picture shows an image of Panel B in the Hill Antechamber exhibiting numerous engravings and etchings on the ancient dolomitic wall. The panel shows repeated etchings likely done over a considerable period. The etchings include geometric figures such as squares, ladders, triangles, crosses, and X’s. Image from Berger et al. (2023b).
A closeup of the non-geometric image from the Hill Antechamber burial chamber that is found at the top of Panel B as described in Berger et al (2023b). Note the upside-down cross shaped etching to the left of the carving as well as other etchings to the right and below. The material discoloring the surface has not as yet been analyzed but appears to be secondarily applied to the surface in order to highlight the image in low light. Image from Berger et al., 2023.
An image of the Panel A crosshatch engraving in the passage between the Hill Antechamber burial chamber and the Dinaledi Burial Chamber from Berger et al (2023a). The image is taken using a polarizing filter to highlight the various non-natural etchings on the surface. The roughly horizontal wavy lines at the bottom of the image which are crossed by the engravings is a fossil algal stromatolite found in the native dolomitic rock. Earlier etchings can be seen behind the crosshatch, possibly having been obscured by covering the surface with cave dirt as described in the scientific papers. Image from Berger et al., 2023.
A close up of the base of the Panel A crosshatch engraving in the passage between the Hill Antechamber burial chamber and the Dinaledi Burial Chamber described in Berger et al (2023a). The roughly horizontal wavy lines at the bottom of the image which are crossed by the engravings is a fossil algal stromatolite found in the native dolomitic rock and clearly illustrate the non-natural origin of the more prominent etchings as they cross the fossil. Image from Berger et al., 2023.
Breaking news from the Richard Leakey Memorial Conference

By Daniel Dunaief

A species of archaic humans is defying conventional wisdom about what it means to be human.

Lee Berger, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and paleoanthropologist.

Homo naledi, which were discovered in a cave about 25 miles away from Johannesburg, South Africa, had brains that were about a third the size of ours. That, previous research suggested, likely limited their ability to engage in a range of activities, like burying their dead or creating symbols.

Wrong and wrong.

In an expedition through narrow caves that required him to lose 55 pounds just to get to the site, Lee Berger, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and Lead of the Rising Star program, along with a team of other scientists, studied the remains of these humans that lived over 236,000 years ago. The bones they studied and, in some cases excavated, were buried deep in the Rising Star Cave.

Along the wall of a cave, the researchers also found symbols, including crossed lines and swirls.

“Big brains don’t explain what we thought they explain,” Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and National Geographic Explorer and On-Site Biocultural Specialist, said during a press briefing announcing the discoveries. This research “takes humans off the pedestal.”

The research, which was shared at the Richard Leakey Memorial Conference at Stony Brook University on June 5, is published in the journal eLife.

Berger wanted to share his latest findings with the conference, particularly given the important role Leakey played in his career.

Berger had known Leakey for 34 years. When they met, Leakey, who was his “idol,” directed Berger to follow his dream of searching for fossils in South Africa. Leakey and Berger remained close throughout the decades.

“I owe him my entry into this field,” said Berger.

Indeed, Berger feels that Leakey was, “in some ways, responsible for the discovery” about the burials and cave drawings of Homo naledi. “I’m very personally indebted” to Leakey.

Extraordinary effort

While scientists don’t know what the lines in the dolomitic limestone walls signified, they believe Homo naledi, whose name in Sotho language means “star,” made those marks. 

Natural processes over the course of over 200,000 years wouldn’t have left such a distinctive pattern. In addition, the depth of the markings, which would have taken considerable effort and a tool to create, indicate a concerted and sustained physical effort.

The dolomite is about half as hard as a diamond, which would have taken an “extreme amount” of work, Berger said. Several of the lines suggest multiple efforts to make carvings. “These are engravings that are not done in one sitting,” he said.

During the press briefing, Berger indicated that other species of early humans didn’t leave any evidence of entering the same cave. “There’s no evidence of humans” other than the scientists who published the paper “that entered the cave,” he said.

At this point, researchers, who are trying to minimize any disturbance in the cave, haven’t pinpointed an exact date for the symbols.

“In time, we’ll likely be able to date” the symbols, said Berger. The researchers arrived at the approximate date and linked the symbols to Homo naledi through association and context, he explained.

Homo naledi are the only humans who left any evidence of their presence in the cave.

Moments after discovery, Lee Berger holds a photographic scale next to a hashtag, or crosshatched engraving in the passage between the Hill Antechamber burial chamber and the Dinaledi Burial Chamber known as Panel A. Photo by Mathabela Tsikoane, Courtesy Lee Berger and the National Geographic Society.

Researchers described the arduous process of descending through narrow passageways to arrive at the burial site, which Berger discovered in 2013.

The site is extraordinarily difficult for modern humans to navigate. In addition to losing weight to get through small openings, Berger tore his rotator cuff climbing out of the site last July. He is still recovering, but said losing weight and even sustaining an injury was worth the effort.

While modern scientists use headlamps and battery-powered lights to record their discoveries, earlier humans would have had to carry some form of portable fire with them to bring their dead to their burial sites and to make carvings in the walls.

“How they’re making that fire and the exact mechanism of transport, I think, will be established over the next several years as we study all the occurrences of it,” Berger said.

“For us to say something clearly, definitely, strongly, again as [Berger] has said, we need to go back and excavate some more and check out more areas that we might have missed because clearly we walked straight past this,” said Keneiloe Molopyane, National Geographic Explorer and Lead Excavator of Dragon’s Back Expedition.

New perspectives

As far as a DNA analysis, the team hasn’t yet found anything they can test in the fossils. They are planning to test the sediment.

The researchers have left large amounts of evidence in place, which includes multiple other burials that haven’t been excavated. Berger suggested that the images and information from this site “provide as robust evidence for burial and graves as for practically any grave ever published for humans or otherwise.” Researchers examining this information will realize that “more works needs to be done.” As for what that entails, one of the plans is to bring additional technology and specialists into the area.

Homo naledi “intensely altered this space across kilometers of underground cave systems, and I think that deserves not just the involvement of our team, but the involvement of every scientist around the world who can participate, and perhaps technologists and other people who have ideas about how/ what we do,” Berger added.

As for the implications of this research, the scientists suggested that the discovery and the analysis will continue to alter the perspectives of researchers and students of human history.

“All of us who write textbooks or major articles about this probably have to go back and shift what we said about big brains, meaning, complex meaning-making behavior, or the kind of complex experiences of grief, social community, that’s associated with mortuary and funerary practices,” Fuentes said. “It makes us think about human evolution really in a new way, and puts us back closer to a starting point, and showing again that we know a lot less than we thought we did.”

 

by -
0 624
Chengfeng Yang Photo by Zhishan Wang

By Daniel Dunaief

This is part two of a two-part series.

As Erin Brockovich (the real life version and the one played by Julia Roberts in the eponymous movie) discovered, some metals, such as hexavalent chromium can cause cancer in humans.

Chengfeng Yang and Zishan Wang

Environmental exposure to a range of chemicals, such as hexavalent chromium, benzo(a)pyrene, arsenic, and others, individually and in combination, can lead to health problems, including cancer.

In March, Stony Brook University hired Chengfeng Yang and Zhishan Wang, a husband and wife team to join the Cancer Center and the Pathology Departments from Case Western Reserve University.

The duo, who have their own labs and share equipment, resources and sometimes researchers, are seeking to understand the epigenetic effect exposure to chemicals has on the body. Yang focuses primarily on hexavalent chromium, while Wang works on the mechanism of mixed exposures.

Last week, the TBR News Media highlighted the work of Wang. This week, we feature the work of Yang.

————————————–

When he was young, Chengfeng Yang was using a knife to make a toy for his younger brother. He slipped, cutting his finger so dramatically that he almost lost it. Doctors saved his finger, impressing him with their heroic talent and inspiring him to follow in their footsteps.

Indeed, Yang, who earned an MD and a PhD from Tongji Medical University, is focused not only on answering questions related to cancer, which claimed the life of his mother and other relatives, but also in searching for ways to develop new treatments.

A Professor in the Department of Pathology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University and a member of the Stony Brook Cancer Center, Yang has his sights set on combatting cancer.

“Our research always has a significant clinical element,” said Yang. “This is related to our medical background.”

He is interested in studying the mechanism of cancer initiation and progression and would like to develop new strategies for treatment.

Yang and his wife Zhishan Wang recently joined the university from Case Western after a career that included research posts at the University of Pennsylvania, Michigan State University, and the University of Kentucky.

The tandem, who share lab resources and whose research staffs collaborate but also work independently, are focused specifically on the ways exposures to carcinogens in the environment cause epigenetic changes that lead to cancer.

Specifically, Yang is studying how hexavalent chromium, a metal commonly found in the environment in welding, electroplating and even on the double yellow lines in the middle of roads, triggers cancer. It is also commonly used as a pigment to stain animal leather products.

Yang is focused mainly on how long cancer develops after exposure to hexavalent chromium.

People can become exposed to hexavalent chromium, which is also known as chromium 6, through contaminated drinking water, cigarette smoking, car emissions, living near superfund sites and through occupational exposure.

Yang has made important findings in the epigenetic effect of metal exposure. His studies showed that chronic low-level chromium six exposure changed long non-coding RNA expression levels, which contributed to carcinogenesis. Moreover, his studies also showed that chronic low level exposure increased methylation, in which a CH3 group is added to RNA, which also contributed significantly to chromium 6 carcinogenesis.

“It is now clear that metal carcinogens not only modify DNA, but also modify RNA,” Yang explained. Metal carcinogen modification of RNAs is an “exciting and new mechanism” for understanding metal carcinogenesis.

By studying modifications in RNA, researchers may be able to find a biomarker for the disease before cancer develops.

Yang is trying to find some specific epigenetic changes that might occur in response to different pollutants.

Stony Brook attraction

Yang was impressed with the dedication of Stony Brook Pathology Chair Ken Shroyer, whom he described as a “really great physician scientist. His passion in research and leadership in supporting research” helped distinguish Stony Brook, Yang said.

Yang is confident that Stony Brook has the resources he and Wang need to be successful, including core facilities and collaborative opportunities. “This is a very great opportunity for us, with strong support at the university level,” he said.“We plan to be here and stay forever.”

Yang is in the process of setting up his lab, which includes purchasing new equipment and actively recruiting scientists to join his effort.

“We need to reestablish our team,” he said. “Right now, we are trying to finish our current research project.”

He hopes to get new funding for the university in the next two to three years as well. After he establishes his lab at Stony Brook, Yang also plans to seek out collaborative opportunities at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is “very strong in RNA biology,” he added.

A return home

Returning to the Empire State brings Yang full circle, back to where his research experience in the United States started. About 23 years ago, his first professional position in the United States was at New York University.

Outside of work, Yang likes to hike and jog. He is looking forward to going to some of Long Island’s many beaches.

He and Wang live in an apartment in South Setauket and are hoping to buy a house in the area. The couple discusses science regularly, including during their jogs.

Working in the same area provides a “huge opportunity” for personal and professional growth, he said.

Yang suggested that his wife usually spends more time training new personnel and solving lab members’ technical issues. He spends more time in the lab with general administrative management and support. Wang has “much stronger molecular biology skills than I have,” Yang explained in an email, whereas he has a solid background in toxicology.

Growing up, Yang said he had an aptitude in math and had dreamed of becoming a software engineer. When he applied to college, he received admission to medical school, which changed his original career path.

Once he started running his own experiments as a researcher, he felt he wanted to improve human health.“Once humans develop disease, in many cases, it’s very expensive to treat and [help] people recover,” he said. “Prevention could be a more cost effective way to improve health.”

by -
0 399
Photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

From June 5 to 9, Stony Brook University will host a conference titled “Africa: The Human Cradle: An International Conference Paying Tribute to Richard E. Leakey” at the Charles B. Wang Center, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook.

The University, which has 15 speakers among the 40 scientists delivering lectures, will celebrate the achievements of famed and late scientist and conservationist Richard Leakey and will bring together researchers from all over the world to celebrate the research in Africa that has revealed important information about early human history.

Stony Brook will host the conference in connection with the Turkana Basin Institute, which Leakey founded and is located in his native Kenya. The National Geographic Society, which provided financial support for Leakey’s seminal research for decades, is serving as a partner for the gathering.

Scientists from seven countries will discuss the latest developments in fossil research, archaeological and paleoecological records, as well as advances in geology, geochronology and genomic research.

Leakey inspired scores of scientists and made important discoveries that helped highlight Kenya’s central role in the narrative of human evolution. He died in early January 2022 at the age of 77.

Lawrence Martin, Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook and Director of the Turkana Basin Institute, organized the meeting, along with Professor Frederick Grine. Stony Brook President Maurie McInnis and Jill Tiefenthaler, CEO of the National Geographic Society will provide opening remarks.

Martin, who called Leakey a “close friend” and a “mentor,” said the idea for the conference started in the days after Leakey’s death. The Stony Brook president “wanted Stony Brook to be the place that celebrates Richard Leakey as a scientist” and to recognize his “impact on the world.”

Organizers for the conference, which involved nine months of planning, wanted to focus on the “human story in Africa as it’s emerged” since Leakey’s ground breaking research, Martin explained. He expects the conference will involve an emotional outpouring, reflecting the personal and scientific impact Leakey had on so many other researchers and anticipates the meeting will be “state of the art” and will “pull things together in a way that’s never been done before.”

Leakey, who made his first major hominin discovery in 1964 at Lake Natron in Tanzania, worked with Stony Brook University for 20 years. SBU will share a National Geographic video tribute to Leakey on June 5 that will include pictures of his parents Louis and Mary Leakey, who made important fossil discoveries and were involved in numerous important scientific projects, through the last few years of Leakey’s life. 

Scientific talks

Martin suggested that the multi-disciplinary nature of the power-packed line up reflected Richard Leakey’s scientific views and bigger picture understanding of discoveries across a range of fields.

Leakey didn’t see geology, biology, paleobiology and other fields as separate, Martin explained. He saw all those disciplines as different sources of how humans adapted and evolved, which reflects the “integrated view” the conference is “looking to encourage.”

Richard Leakey examines fossils at the Turkana Basin Institute

Bernard Wood, Professor in the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University, joined Leakey on his first expedition to Lake Turkana. Wood will deliver the first talk, on June 5 at 2:15 p.m. He will focus on how Leakey inspired many scientists from a range of disciplines, with his intellectual curiosity leading to numerous research projects.

Lee Berger, explorer and scientist with the National Geographic Society, will deliver a talk on June 5 at 3:50 pm that will discuss recent discoveries of human origins. Martin said Berger’s talk would be “global news” and will likely be “covered all over the world.”

The first day will conclude with a free public lecture at 5 p.m. in the Staller Center’s Recital Hall by Richard Leakey’s daughter Louise, who will provide an overview of the discoveries and expeditions of the Koobi Fora Research Project in the Turkana Basin.

While Louise Leakey’s talk is free, attendees need to pre-register. The cost to attend the entire conference is $100.

Carrie Mongle, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, will be giving a talk on June 7 at 1:15 pm. She plans to attend all of the talks, as she sees this as an “incredible opportunity to see some of the world’s top paleoanthropologists come together and present the latest research in the field.”

In her lecture, Mongle will present new data related to the reconstruction of the hominin family tree.

“One of Richard’s scientific legacies is the extraordinary number of hominin fossils he was able to add to our collective understanding of human evolution,” she said. “Phylogenetic inference is a critical step in figuring out how all of these fossils come together to form the human family tree.”

On June 6 at 2:15 p.m., SBU Assistant Professor Marine Frouin will give a talk about the contribution of luminescence dating to the chronology of Pleistocene deposits in Turkana. Frouin uses luminescence dating techniques to study human evolution.

Turkana Basin Institute: Richard Leakey
All photos downloaded with permission from:
www.flickr.com
Username: turkanabasin
Password: knmwt15000

On June 7 at 9 a.m., Stony Brook Associate Professor Sonia Harmand, who worked closely in her career with Leakey and whose family developed a close relationship with the late researcher and conservationist, will describe research in the early Stone Age. Harmand and Directrice de Recherche Emerite at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Hélène Roche will discuss evidence in light of biological and environmental changes in East Africa and will present future research directions.

Also on June 7at 2:40 p.m., Jason E. Lewis, lecturer at Stony Brook, will discuss the implications of a new Early Pliocene hominin mandible from Ileret, Kenya on the origins of Australopithecus.

Stony Brook Associate Professor Krishna Veeramah, will conclude the talks on June 7 at 4:10 p.m. with a discussion of how the analysis of modern and ancient DNA has helped understand African prehistory.

Martin, who will wrap up the talks on June 9 at 12:20 p.m., said he thinks Leakey would appreciate what people say and how much impact he had on the field.

“He was quite a self-effacing person,” Martin said. “He wouldn’t have liked too much fuss about him.” He would, however, have appreciated that people recognized that he made “significant contributions in the area of the human evolutionary story,” among so many others fields.

For a full schedule of events and lectures, visit www.stonybrook.edu/richard-leakey/

by -
0 520
Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Shhh. Listen. If what you hear is nothing, then maybe you’re onto something.

Noise envelops us. Some of it, like the sound of a Broadway musical, the waterfall laughter of a giggling child, or the deep resonant breath of a humpback whale surfacing amid floating cubes of ice in Alaska can give us peace, pleasure and joy.

Many noises, however, are irritants or worse. We step out of a loud airplane onto a jetway, where loudspeakers announce the boarding in group four of a flight awaiting takeoff. We walk through a crowded airport, as fathers shout to their children, a woman calls to ask Breanne if she “wants fries with her burger,” and a man informs his wife that he “has to pee so badly that he’s not sure he’s going to make it.”

We step outside of the airport, where whistles from people directing traffic echo in our ears and where officials in orange vests bark orders at drivers to “vacate this spot immediately!”

We try to ignore many of the harsher and more abrasive sounds, even though our nervous system tracks noises as a way to protect us in case someone yells something we need to hear.

And then there are those wonderful moments when we hear nothing, not even the buzzing of a lightbulb, a dog drinking in the next room, or a cat cleaning himself on a nearby chair.

Silence.

If it lasts long enough, it’s the pause that refreshes, giving our ears a rest and our brains a chance to hear an inner voice that might otherwise get lost.

We can find those moments when we’re on our own. When we’re surrounded by others, the silence is harder to discover, as we either speak or hear the noises they make as they unwrap a newspaper, chew their gum, or shake their leg up and down so rapidly that the material from their pants makes a repetitive rubbing sound.

But then, we can go to a meditation or yoga class or a religious or memorial service and reflect with others who sit still like a slope of shaded stones in an Ansel Adams photo.

During those moments, we can slow our breathing, think beyond the constant fast twitch need to act and react to our phones, and can allow our minds to make unexpected connections.

During one of those recent times, I pondered symmetry in nature, where you can draw a line down the middle of something like our faces, and see that the image on one side, excluding freckles, beauty marks, and that scar from the time we tripped and got stitches, is incredibly similar to the one on the other.

With so much chaos in nature, I wouldn’t expect such symmetry. At a distance, most leaves have remarkable symmetry, as do the shape of most animals. Human designs often have a pleasing symmetry, with windows, flying buttresses and A-frame houses looking remarkably similar on the left and right. Almost every field or arena for a sporting event has some symmetry, except for those with irregular outfield fences.

During a recent service, I enjoyed time when I couldn’t look at my phone and when I could read religious text. I haven’t considered these texts in a while and was drawn in by their drama and story value, as opposed to the spiritual and life guidance I often imagine. Basic struggles for power, sibling rivalries, and the search for food and stability dominate these narratives, which makes it clear why religion (and mythology) continue to offer connections for people whose lives, at least on the surface, are considerably different from the ones people lived lo those many years ago.

Ultimately, silence can be refreshing, giving us auditory time and space to reflect and to clean a cognitive filter cluttered with chaos and cacophony.

by -
0 1220
Zhishan Wang. Photo from Chengfeng Yang

By Daniel Dunaief

This is part one of a two-part series.

As Erin Brockovich (the real life version and the one played by Julia Roberts in the eponymous movie) discovered, some metals, such as hexavalent chromium can cause cancer in humans.

Chengfeng Yang and Zhishan Wang

Environmental exposure to a range of chemicals, such as hexavalent chromium, benzo(a)pyrene, arsenic, and others, individually and in combination, can lead to health problems, including cancer.

Recently, Stony Brook University hired Chengfeng Yang and Zhishan Wang, a husband and wife team to join the Cancer Center and the Pathology Departments from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

The duo, who have their own labs and share equipment, resources and sometimes researchers, are seeking to understand the epigenetic effect exposure to chemicals has on the body. Yang focuses primarily on hexavalent chromium, while Wang works on the mechanism of mixed exposures. 

In part one, TBR News Media highlights the work of Wang. Next week, we will feature the efforts of Yang.

——————————-

In certain areas and specific job sites, people can be exposed to environmental pollutants.

Sometimes, the introduction of a metal or element can cause cancer after long term exposure. The effect of another carcinogen can be synergistic in triggering disease, triggering a stronger progression of cancer than an individual exposure alone.

Zhishan Wang, who joined Stony Brook in March and is a Professor of Research in the Department of Pathology, is trying to understand what changes this mixed exposure creates at a molecular level.

“If we find out some gene or pathway change, we can try to intervene,” said Wang, who is a member of the Stony Brook Cancer Center and earned MD and PhD degrees from her native China.

Among the many possible environmental triggers, Wang chose to study arsenic, which is common in rock soil and water and is present in some places in drinking water.

“People living in high exposure areas to arsenic and [who] are also cigarette smokers have a significantly higher risk of lung cancer,” she said.

Arsenic can cause three different kinds of cancer: skin, bladder and lung cancer. For skin cancer, Wang explained that direct contact can lead to the kind of irritation that promotes the disease. 

As the heavy metal works its way through the body, parts of it get excreted through the urine system, which means that bladder cells come into contact with it as well.

For a long time, scientists knew arsenic exposure through drinking water caused lung cancer. The underlying mechanism for the development of that cancer was not well understood. 

Wang’s lab studies the mechanism by which arsenic and benzo(a)pyrene (or BAP) co-exposure increases lung cancer risk. Exposure to arsenic alone causes cancer, but it takes a long time in animal models. Arsenic and BPA co-exposure significantly increases lung cancer risk.

Wang’s study showed that co-exposure increases lung tumor burden and malignancy. She plans to continue to study the mechanism of how arsenic and BAP co exposure increases lung cancer risk.

“That’s our big goal: to try to find some useful method to prevent this tumor from happening,” she said.

Wang believes the cancer cells caused by the mixed exposure increases the number of cancer stem cell-like cells, which could mediate therapeutic resistance.

Wang explained that generating the mouse model took considerable time and effort. She tried to find the exposures during particular windows of time that lead to cancer.

“By using this model, we can do a lot of data analysis” including single cell analysis and can determine which cluster or pathway will change.

Choosing SBU

Wang suggested she and her husband chose Stony Brook for several reasons. The couple would like to help the University earn a National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation, which would give scientists the ability to compete for ambitious, well-funded, multidisciplinary efforts.

Both Wang and Yang “lead NCI-funded research programs that will enhance the [Cancer Center’s] eligibility for NCI designation,” explained Kenneth Shroyer, chair of the Pathology Department at Stony Brook.

Shroyer, who described both researchers as “highly competitive candidates with the potential to enhance the status of any cancer center,” is looking forward to working with his newest recruits.

Wang is eager to use the tissue bank at Stony Brook, which Shroyer explained has also attracted other cancer research scientists recruited to the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook.

The new scientists also hope to tap into the expertise at nearby Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which has become one of the leading centers in creating organoids. 

In the early years of her training during her MD and PhD years in China, Wang developed her technical skills. Through her career, she has worked on several genes that play important roles in carcinogenesis. Down regulation of the gene known as SOCS3, for suppressor of cytokine signaling 3, plays an important role in arsenic and BAP co-exposure caused lung tumorigenesis.

Early in their careers, Wang worked in her husband’s lab for seven years until she received her own research funding.

Outside of work, Wang enjoys playing badminton and ping pong. She also cooks every day. She and her husband bring her home cooked meals to work.

When she was in high school, Wang had ambitions to become a writer. Her teachers regularly read her work out loud to the class.

Her father, who was a lawyer, had encouraged her to join the legal profession. She had heard that people called others “smart” when they joined the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. “I want people to call me smart,” she said, so she changed her career and went to medical school at Tongji Medical University where she earned top scores. 

Her father had a stroke, surviving afterwards for seven years. When she was in medical school, Wang hoped to learn ways to help him. Wishing she could have done more, she pursued clinical research in the lab. She passed the tests to become a practicing physician in the United States, but she was more inspired to work as a scientist.

As for her work at Stony Brook University, Wang appreciates the beauty of Long Island. She hopes this is their “last move,” as they continue their careers.

by -
0 642
Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

While for now, the pandemic is officially in the rearview mirror, according to the World Health Organization, it’s worth considering what we can and can’t blame on COVID-19. For starters, here are a few things that aren’t the fault of the pandemic.

— A favorite sports team’s defeat. Every team had to deal with COVID-19. The pandemic didn’t affect my team’s best athletes any more than any other team’s stars.

— The weather. It’s going to rain, and it’s going to be too hot and too cold. That happened before the pandemic, and it’s going to happen afterward. Global warming, if anything, might have slowed slightly as more people stayed home each day.

— Unrequited love. Authors throughout history have found this topic particularly appealing. A would-be romantic goes out into the world with a proverbial heart filled with affection and admiration. Cupid hits that person with an arrow, creating a wellspring of dedication and devotion toward someone who doesn’t return the favor. The pandemic might have made it harder to know where we stood with each other, but unrequited love will continue to cause problems and lead to sad-but-relatable romantic comedies.

— Bad grades. We all have moments when we don’t study enough, the right way, or even the right material. The pandemic might have made it harder to focus or to care about theorems or memorizing dates, but it’s not the fault of the virus. It might have been tougher to concentrate in those early days, with dogs barking, parents yelling into Zoom calls, and people dropping off food at our front door.

— Anger in Washington. This is one of the easiest to dispel. Did you pay any attention to the vitriol coming out of the nation’s capital before 2019? It’s not as if the parties suddenly decided fighting each other was more valuable than getting anything done or compromising. The words under the Washington DC license plate shouldn’t read “taxation without representation,” which refers to the fact that residents pay taxes but don’t have federal representation. Instead, it should read: “Grrrrrrrrrrr!”

— Biased journalism. As a member of the media, I understand the frustration with the written and spoken words on TV and in print. The left hates Trump; the right hates Biden and ne’er the ‘twain shall meet. The pandemic didn’t pour gasoline on that dumpster fire. Media organizations staked out their territory prior to the pandemic and have remained more faithful to their talking points than many people do to their own marriage vows.

Okay, now, what about the things we can blame on the pandemic.

— Mental health strain. While the pandemic may be gone, we haven’t wrapped our arms around the mental health impact. We spent way too much time on our phones, making us feel simultaneously connected and disconnected while the pool of frustration continues to get deeper.

— Educational gaps. Students will never get back those days and the lessons they missed during the pandemic. Classes condensed their syllabi, lowering requirements and expectations for each class and for graduation. Students of all ages missed lessons and assignments that might have inspired them and that would have helped them reach previous educational requirements.

— Social graces. A first-grade teacher recently told me that their school still can’t bring all the first-grade classes together. When they do, the students argue about resources and space. Prior to the pandemic, students from several classes could easily play together. Hopefully, that will change as the students age and fill in gaps in their ability to interact.

Even as we hope to move past the pandemic, we can’t ignore the difficult reality, forcing parents, teachers, children and members of society to relearn lessons about acting and interacting. No, we can’t take cues from Washington, but maybe we can overcome deficiencies exacerbated by the pandemic.

by -
0 584
John Moses. Photo courtesy of CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

It sounds like something straight out of a superhero origin story.

With resistance to widely used drugs becoming increasingly prevalent among bacteria, researchers and doctors are searching for alternatives to stem the tide.

That’s where shape shifting molecules may help. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor of Organic and Click Chemistry John Moses and his team have attached the drug vancomycin to a molecule called bullvalene, whose atoms readily change position and configuration through a process called a thermal sigmatropic rearrangement as atoms of carbon break and reform with other carbon atoms.

The combination of the bullvalene and vancomycin proved more effective than vancomycin alone in wax moth larva infected with vancomycin resistant Enteroccoccus bacteria.

“Can I make a molecule that changes shape and will it affect bacteria? That was the question,” Moses said. The promising early answer was, yes!

Moses believes that when the bullvalene core is connected to other groups like vancomycin, the relative positions of the drug units change, which likely change properties related to binding.

The urgency for novel approaches such as this is high, as drug resistant bacteria and fungi infect about 2.8 million people in the United States per year, killing about 35,000 of them. 

In his own life, Moses said his father almost died from a bacterial infection five years ago. Vancomycin saved his father’s life, although the infection became resistant to the treatment. Other drugs, however, conquered the resistant strain.

“We need to work hard and develop new antibiotics, because, without them, there will be a lot more misery and suffering,” Moses explained.

To be sure, an approach like this that shows promise at this early stage with an insect may not make the long journey from a great idea to a new treatment, as problems such as dosage, off target effects, toxicity, and numerous other challenges might prevent such a treatment from becoming an effective remedy.

Still, Moses believes this approach, which involves the use of click chemistry to build molecules the way a child puts together LEGO blocks, can offer promising alternatives that researchers can develop and test out on a short time scale.

“We shouldn’t be restricted with one set of ideas,” Moses said. “We should keep testing hypotheses, whether they are crazy or whatever. We’ve got to find alternative pathways. We’re complementary” to the standard approach pharmaceutical companies and researchers take in drug discovery.

Looking to history, Moses explained that the founders of the Royal Society in 1660 followed the motto “nullius in verba,” or take nobody’s word for it. He believes that’s still good advice in the 21st century.

The shape shifting star

Moses has described this bullvalene as a Rubik’s Cube, with the parts moving around and confounding the bacteria and making the drug more effective.

The CSHL scientist and his team don’t know exactly why shape shifting makes the drug work in this moth model.

He speculated that the combination of two vancomycin units on either side of a bullvalene center is punching holes in the cell wall of the bacteria.

Moses is eager to try to build on these encouraging early developments. “If you can make it, then you can test it,” he said. “The sooner the better, in my opinion.”

Moses acknowledged that researchers down the road could evaluate how toxic this treatment might be for humans. It didn’t appear toxic for the wax moth larvae.

Welcoming back a familiar face

Adam Moorhouse
Photo by Rebecca Koelln

In other developments in his lab, Moses recently welcomed Adam Moorhouse back to his team. Moorhouse, who serves as Chemistry Data Analyst, conducted his PhD research in Moses’s lab at the University of Oxford.

Moorhouse graduated in 2008 and went on to work in numerous fields, including as an editor for the pharmaceuticals business and for his own sales consultancy. In 2020, he had a motorcycle accident (which he said was his fault) in which he broke 16 bones and was hospitalized for a while. During his recovery, he couldn’t walk.

At the time, he was working in the intense world of sales. After the accident, Moorhouse decided to build off his volunteer work with disabled children and become a high school teacher. After about 18 months of teaching, Moorhouse reconnected with Moses.

“It’s nice getting here and thinking about chemistry and thinking about ideas and communicating those ideas,” Moorhouse said.

He has hit the ground running, contributing to grants and helping to translate intellectual property into commercial ventures.

The chance to work on projects that get molecules into humans in the clinic was “really exciting,” Moorhouse said. “I’m back to try and support that.”

Moorhouse will be working to procure funding and to build out the business side of Moses’s research efforts.

“Where I’d like to lend a hand is in driving ongoing business discussions,” Moorhouse said. He wants to “get these small molecules into the clinic so we can see if they can actually treat disease in humans.” The vehicle for that effort eventually could involve creating a commercial enterprise.

Like Moses, Moorhouse is inspired and encouraged by the opportunity for small operations like the lab to complement big pharmaceutical companies in the search for treatments.

Moses believes the work his lab has conducted has reached the stage where it’s fundable. “We’ve done something that says, ‘we checked the box,’” he said. “Let’s find out more.”

Currently living on campus at CSHL, Moorhouse appreciates the opportunity to do some bird watching on Long Island, where some of his favorites include woodpeckers, herons, egrets, robins and mockingbirds.

He is tempted to get back on a motorcycle and to return to mountain biking.

As for his work, Moorhouse is excited to be a part of Moses’s lab.

“Back in my PhD days, [Moses] was always an idea machine,” Moorhouse said. “The aim is to move ideas to the clinic.”

 

Prev1...262728...88Next Page 27 of 88
TBR News Media is your local news and entertainment website.
We provide you with the latest breaking news and information for your community.
Contact us: [email protected]

Most Viewed

©