The Stony Brook University men’s lacrosse team fell to No. 14 Rutgers, 16-12, on Feb. 10 at LaValle Stadium. Six different Seawolves registered multi-point games, but Stony Brook’s late comeback effort fell short in the 2024 home opener.
The Scarlet Knights exploded out of the gates, scoring seven of the game’s first eight goals. Noah Armitage was responsible for the first two Stony Brook goals, the first coming on a man-up opportunity, but despite his efforts the Seawolves found themselves in an early seven-goal hole.
Freshman Justin Bonacci tallied a pair of goals to end the first half, trimming Stony Brook’s deficit to five heading into the halftime break. Tommy Wilk entered the contest with just under 10 minutes to play in the half, immediately making his presence felt and swinging the momentum back into Stony Brook’s favor. He made four saves in the final eight minutes of the half, conceding just one goal.
Jack Dougherty opened the second-half scoring off an assist from Nick Dupuis, but Rutgers responded with four of the next five tallies to build its lead back to seven, 13-6, with just over six minutes to play in the third frame. What ensued was a furious comeback effort from the Seawolves; the squad scored six of the game’s next seven goals, conceding the lone goal against on a man-down opportunity. Dupuis scored back-to-back goals and Dougherty’s man-up goal with 8:28 left to play whittled the Seawolves deficit to two goals, 14-12.
Rutgers locked in defensively from that point on, holding Stony Brook scoreless over the final eight-plus minutes and putting the game away with a pair of goals down the stretch.
“I think it was a tale of being disciplined and consistent,” head coach Anthony Gilardi noted after the game. “The first half got away from us in the cage and I thought Tommy Wilk did a great job coming in and settling us down.”
Brooke Ellison and her mother, Jean Ellison. Photo courtesy Jean Ellison
New York, NY; Edison Ballroom: (1/26/16) 40 Under Forty Event (1/27/16)
Brooke Ellison, 11 years old. Photo courtesy Jean Ellison
Ellison family at Suffolk County Women's Hall of Fame on Nov. 18, 2009. Photo courtesy Chris Carrion
Brooke Ellison with her siblings aged 5, 7 and 9. Photo courtesy Jean Ellison
From left to right, back row, David Martin, Kysten Ellison, Jean Ellison, Ed Ellison, Reed Ellison (holding Oliver), Ellen Ellison: front row, Carter, Harrison, Jamie, Theodore and Brooke. Photo courtesy Chris Carrion
Prepared by Daniel Dunaief
Brooke Ellison, 45, a pioneering disabilities advocate whose abilities with words and compassion far outdid her disability, died on Sunday, February 4.
Ellison was a tenured Associate Professor in the School of Health Professions in the Department of Health Sciences at Stony Brook University.
A resident of Stony Brook, Ellison was returning home from Murphy Junior High School as an 11-year old when she was struck by a car. The accident, which paralyzed her from the neck down, didn’t deter her budding academic interest or her ambitions.
As soon as she woke from the accident, she insisted she not fall behind in school.
With her mother Jean at her side throughout her education, Ellison became the first quadriplegic to graduate in 2000 from Harvard College, where she received magna cum laude honors in cognitive neuroscience and gave the class commencement speech.
Ellison earned a Master’s in Public Policy in 2004 from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and received her PhD in sociology from Stony Brook University in 2012.
A passionate advocate for accessibility and opportunity for the disabled, Ellison conducted research on the ethics and policy of science and health care.
Her mission “was to turn what happened to her into a [way to] help people who are handicapped achieve independence,” said Miriam Rafailovich, Distinguished Professor in Material Science and Engineering.
Ellison wrote two books about her life. The first, called “Miracles Happen” became a movie directed by Christopher Reeve titled “The Brooke Ellison Story.” More recently, Ellison published “Look Both Ways.”
Jean Ellison said her daughter felt her recent book was one of her most important contributions. Knowing she was in failing health after surviving three bouts with sepsis over the last year and a half, Brooke Ellison felt a sense of urgency to share her experiences.
“She poured out [her life] to the universe through this book,” said Jean Ellison.
While Ellison died young, she lived for over 33 years after the accident, which is well above the seven years the medical community expected at the time for someone on a ventilator.
‘Deep sadness’
Ellison served on several committees and boards, including the Board of the Directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union and the search committee for a president of Stony Brook.
In a letter to the campus community, President Maurie McInnis, who expressed her “deep sadness” for Ellison’s passing, recounted how Ellison was one of the first people she met on campus.
“Her legacy at Stony Brook and beyond is defined by passionate advocacy for inclusive education, healthcare and disability rights,” McInnis wrote in a letter to the campus community. “She helped alert me and others to our blind spots and offered many ideas for making this campus more inclusive and welcoming.”
Ellison was recently teaming up with students using drones and artificial intelligence images to map the topography of Stony Brook.
“To go from one building to the next looks like a straight pathway, but at the end, a one-inch drop, which is not encoded anywhere” could be a huge problem for someone in a wheelchair, said Rafailovich.
Ellison’s students asked her what she would want a robot near her that she could control to do. She suggested a hand she could control that could turn the pages of a book.
Ellison was working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure that people with disabilities who need power for ventilators or other equipment receive immediate attention after power disruption.
“She noticed during Hurricane Sandy that emergency workers had no idea where people who were on life support were during two weeks,” said Rafailovich.
Ellison was working with the state to get a new system where people on life support could receive help quickly.
Ellison had planned to do a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
Caring for everyone
In addition to her focus on helping people with disabilities achieve independence, Ellison served in many capacities at Stony Brook, including as the Director of the Center for Community Engagement and Leadership Development.
Among her many efforts, Ellison also ran for election in 2006 for the New York State Senate, where she lost to republican incumbent John Flanagan.
Ellison was a committed educator who asked students before they met her in an ethics class to describe what they thought would make a life not worth living. Students suggested this would include not being able to do things they needed, needing care from someone else, or living on life support.
At the end of the semester, she asked the same question.
“They thought if they were on life support or if they had to have someone take care of them, maybe it could be done,” Jean Ellison said. “Their whole outlook changed.”
Senior Sabah Bari, who is a Health Science student, appreciated how Ellison spent the first 15 minutes of class asking how students were doing. Describing Ellison as “one of the most influential people I’ve gotten to know,” Bari plans to dedicate her pursuit of a master’s in public health to Ellison.
Stacy Gropack, Dean of the School of Health Professions explained that the school is eager to make sure students are doing well and feeling well at all levels.
“Many of our instructors do that,” Gropack said, but “Ellison in her position took it to a different level. She was always very concerned that students were in the right place and were healthy. She made sure students had the capacity to succeed at all levels.”
A dedicated family
Ellison received considerable ongoing support from her family.
Jean Ellison served numerous roles, from getting up at 3:45 am each day to get her dressed to driving her to ensuring her slides were ready and in order for her presentation. It took six hours from the time Ellison awoke until she was ready to leave.
Jean Ellison is “probably one of the most dedicated, strongest women I know,” said Gropack. Ellison “could not have accomplished what she did without [her mother] on all fronts.”
Mathias Risse, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy at the Harvard Kennedy School, recalled how he taught an ethics class that included Ellison in the fall of 2002.
Ellison was “one of the most talented students in the class,” Risse wrote in a memorial to his former student. “Jean was there with her, every time, and she was as much a member of the [class] of 2004 as [Ellison] was herself.”
When the two of them were on campus, “everyone knew who they were, mother and daughter,” Risse wrote.
Ellison’s father Ed and her siblings Kysten and Reed provided important, meaningful and ongoing care for her.
“One of us had to be with her 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Ed Ellison. “Jean and I feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to help her do what she wanted to do. It was a life well-lived.”
Ellison adored her family and, in particular, her five nephews, who not only returned her affection, but were also fiercely protective of her.
One of Ellison’s nephews had a cat that she almost ran over in her wheelchair. She asked her students to help her design a 360 degree camera so she could survey the perimeter when the cat was nearby.
“That’s the kind of independence she wanted,” said Rafailovich.
Ellison shared affection with her family and friends by blowing kisses frequently. Her father stroked her cheek and lifted her up out of her chair and put her arms around his neck.
“The love she had for everyone oozed out of her,” Jean Ellison said. Her daughter “constantly told people how much she loved them.”
Before the accident, Ellison had been a ballet dancer. She would sometimes dream of herself dancing.
“We both like to think that she’s dancing now,” said Jean Ellison.
Stem cell research
Ellison became a powerful voice in some of the earlier battles in 2000 over stem cell research. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that could one day help in the treatment and care of people with neurological limitations.
Ellison, who founded the Brooke Ellison Project, helped establish the New York State stem cell research organization, which provided research funding outside of the federal level.
Ellison and the Christopher Reeve foundation “had the courage to put [state funding] in place,” said Rafailovich. “She saw stem cell research as the key if we’re ever going to regenerate nerves.”
Ellison recognized any new treatment wouldn’t happen immediately, but wanted to help people in the future who were dealing with similar challenges.
Ellison is featured in the upcoming documentary “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” which was recently shown at the Sundance Film Festival.
Ellison served as a board member on the Empire State Stem Cell Board, which designed New York State’s stem cell policy from 2007 to 2014.
In 2017, Ellison also served on the board of directors of the New York State Civil Liberties Union and, in 2018, was chosen as a political partner for the Truman National Security Project.
“We count ourselves incredibly lucky to have known her and are extraordinarily humbled by who she was and what she accomplished in her short life,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman wrote in an email. “I have benefited immeasurably from [Ellison’s] wisdom and friendship, and I am especially grateful or her patience and determination in helping the NYCLU to better understand and advocate for the rights of people with disabilities.”
Leaders from the Truman National Security Project, which is a diverse nationwide community of leaders united with the goal of developing smart, national security solutions that reinforce strong, equitable, effective and non-partisan American global leadership, expressed their appreciation and admiration for Ellison’s contributions.
Ellison was a “visionary, leader, teacher, and, most importantly, a true friend to us and the disability community. [Ellison’s] eloquence captured the heights and depths of the disabled experience – beauty, pain, nuances, and silver linings – while pushing society’s boundaries of a more inclusive and dynamic world. Amongst [Ellison’s] vast list of accomplishments and accolades, her kindness and strength touched everyone she met,” wrote Jessica Gottsleben and Kristin Duquette, TruDisability Experts, in a statement.
Ellison thought well outside of her wheelchair and outside of the proverbial box.
In the first day of class, Bari recalled how Ellison asked students to think about the character Thanos from the Marvel series.
Bari recalled wondering, “are we in the right class? Where is she taking us?”
Throughout the class, Bari suggested that she and her fellow students rethought numerous aspects of their lives.
In her own words
In the introduction to her book “Look Both Ways,” which people can hear Ellison read on YouTube or on her web site BrookeEllison.com, she shares her life and perspective.
Look Both Ways
“People living with disability are celebrated yet rejected, are the objects of both praise and of ridicule, and are heralded for their understanding of challenge, while often left to battle those challenges on their own,” she wrote.
Ellison continued, “the lens from which I view the world is not one of disability, but rather one of humanity touched by disability, which serves to heighten the lessons fundamental to our lives: those of adaptation and problem solving, leadership and growth, compassion and hope. These are the lessons of disability. These are the lessons of life.”
Funeral
Ellison is survived by her parents Ed and Jean Ellison, her sister Kysten Ellison and her husband David Martin, their sons Carter and Harrison, her brother Reed Ellison and his wife Ellen Ellison and their three sons Jamie, Oliver and Theodore.
Visitation will be held next Monday, February 12 at Bryant Funeral Home, 411 Old Town Road in Setauket from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. The family will hold a private burial service.
The free public lecture at Stony Brook University by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Astrophysicist and Visiting Academic at Oxford University, scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 5 p.m. has been rescheduled for the same time tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb. 14 due to the weather.
Burnell, who discovered radio pulsars in 1967 and who received a $3 million Breakthrough Prize, which she donated to help advance women and minorities in science, will give a talk on pulsars, or pulsating radio stars, at the Della Pietra Family Auditorium, Room 103, at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics on Stony Brook University’s West Campus. The university is providing a reception at 4:15 pm.
Burnell received a Royal Medal, a Copley Medal and the 2010 Faraday Prize. She was also the first female president of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is a member of seven Academies worldwide.
Stony Brook is providing a livestream of the lecture, which is available at scgp.stonybrook.edu.live.
In anticipation of a nor’easter on Tuesday, Feb, 13 that has triggered a National Weather Service Winter Storm Warning, Stony Brook University announced that it was canceling classes and events scheduled for Tuesday.
The canceled classes and events apply to the Stony Brook main campus, SB Southampton and SB Manhattan campuses and includes the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Health Professions, School of Social Welfare, and the Dental School.
In a note from Jason Casale, Director of Emergency Management, Stony Brook urged students with clinical obligations to make every effort to attend rotations and contact their clinical coordinators with questions or concerns.
During emergencies, non-essential employees can request supervisory approval to charge their accruals when offices are open, according to the campus e-mail blast. Essential employees have to report to work according to their scheduled hours.
University Hospital and the Long Island State Veterans Home employees are considered “essential” and are expected to work according to their regular schedule.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is also closed to everyone but essential personnel from 6 a.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, meanwhile, announced it is closing on Tuesday until 5 pm.
As of Monday evening, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning, predicting Suffolk County could receive snow accumulations of 5 inches to 10 inches and wind gusts of 40 miles per hour.
The Stony Brook University women’s track and field program competed at the Scarlet Knight Open, hosted by Rutgers, at the Armory in New York City on Feb. 3 and 4. Niamh Durcan posted an ECAC qualifying time, finishing the 3K with a personal-best 9:56.07 mark.
HIGHLIGHTS
Durcan’s time in the 3,000-meter was a personal-best time and earned her a seventh-place finish in the event.
The Stony Brook University men’s lacrosse team defeated Sacred Heart, 17-14, in the come-from-behind fashion in the 2024 season opener on Feb. 4 at Campus Field. A second-half surge saw Stony Brook outscore Sacred Heart 11-4 over the final 30 minutes to overcome a halftime deficit and emerge victorious.
The Seawolves tallied three of the contest’s first four goals, with three different scorers finding twine in the opening quarter of action.
Stony Brook carried a one-goal advantage, 3-2, into the second period, but would concede eight goals in the quarter, facing a 10-6 deficit as the two sides headed to the half. The Pioneers scored four of the first five goals of the second quarter, and ended the period by tallying four of the last five scores of the first half.
The Seawolves surged out of the gates in the second half, netting three goals to open the third quarter and trim their deficit to one goal. After Sacred Heart padded the lead to two goals, Nick DuPuis and Noah Armitage found twine to level the game heading into the final 15 minutes of action.
Stony Brook ripped off four consecutive goals to open the fourth quarter and were responsible for six of the period’s first seven tallies, opening up a 17-12 lead with four minutes to play. The Seawolves conceded a pair of goals over the final three-and-a-half minutes, but closed out the come-from-behind victory after a strong second half performance defensively.
Three Seawolves tallied hat tricks in the win. Jack Dougherty, Nick Dupuis and Dylan Pallonetti all finished with a team-high three goals.
Dupuis finished with a career-high eight points, scoring three goals and dishing out a game-high five assists.
Jamison MacLachlan earned the victory in net, making 16 saves. MacLachlan made 10 of his 16 saves in the second half.
“Really proud of the response out of half time. Disappointed with the second quarter and the first half issues at the face-off and X, but we had a big response when we needed it in the second half,” said head coach Anthony Gilardi postgame.
“Now we need to utilize the jump from week one to week two as we get ready for a huge home game against Rutgers,” he added.
Up next, the team hosts Rutgers on Feb. 10 at noon at LaValle Stadium. The contest will be streamed live on FloSports.
The Stony Brook University men’s basketball team came from behind to beat Northeastern, 59-55, on Feb. 3 at Island Federal Arena. The Seawolves had three players score in double figures, led by Dean Noll, who had 14 points, six rebounds and four steals. Aaron Clarke also added 14 points and Keenan Fitzmorris chipped in with 12 points off the bench.
The event was also the sixth annual Stony Brook Children’s Hospital Night; the Seawolves hosted more than 20 patients, and their families, from the Children’s Hospital as part of an annual tradition, celebrating the event with a victory over the Huskies.
Stony Brook started out the scoring by going on a 6-0 run, culminating in a three from Clarke, to take an early lead with 17:53 left in the first half. Northeastern responded after a slow start, tying things up at 22-22 as the contest headed into the half. Stony Brook got the job done in the paint in the first half, scoring 14 of its 22 points close to the basket. Northeastern took control of the contest in the second half, holding a lead from the 17-minute mark all the way until the 1:22 mark when Clarke buried a three on a second-chance opportunity.
After Northeastern snagged a 52-46 advantage, Stony Brook responded by going on an 11-0 run to seize a 57-52 lead with 27 seconds to go in the contest. Noll provided a dagger, sinking a running hook shot with 39 seconds to play, helping Stony Brook close out Northeastern in front of a crowd of more than 3,500 people at Island Federal Arena.
The team heads south to face Elon on Feb. 8. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. on FloHoops.
Katie Engel submitted a video of her spinning on the ice to demonstrate the work of Emmy Noether.
*This article was updated Feb. 13 to reflect a change in the Jocelyn Bell Burnell lecture from Feb. 13 to Feb. 14 due to the weather.
By Daniel Dunaief
And the winner is … women in science!
While Stony Brook University’s Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS) announced the winners of its inaugural challenge to celebrate the scientific and engineering achievement of women on Feb. 7, the organizers and participants feel like they’ve already come out ahead.
The inaugural competition, which 195 students kindergarten through 12th grade in schools on Long Island entered by submitting a one-minute video, included prizes for the 13 finalists. The winner received $1,000 prize, the runner up got $750 and the third-place finisher collected $500.
Marivi Fernández-Serra
“The goal of it was to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, while simultaneously promoting the important role that women had in science in the last century,” explained Marivi Fernández-Serra, Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department and at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science.
In their videos, the students selected one of nine scientists that included experiments showcasing the work of these researchers by using computers or household products to demonstrate the search for dark matter, explore the laws of conservation, create homemade telescopes, simulate a volcano with lava and many more.
Fernández-Serra, who had helped with a similar effort at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Madrid, Spain, brought the idea for the competition to Mónica Bugallo, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and affiliated member of the IACSFaculty Director of the Women in Science and Engineering Honors Program, who immediately supported it.
Fernández-Serra thought the competition might attract 10 entrants in its inaugural year while Bugallo, who reached out to Long Island schools to showcase the competition, was confident local students would embrace the opportunity.
“Wait for a tsunami of participants,” Bugallo said she told Fernández-Serra, with whom she’s been a colleague and friend for years. “I was not surprised” by the contributions from the 103 teams, which included entrants from individual students and groups of as many as three students.
Bugallo, who recommended computer scientists Grace Hopper and mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace as important scientists for the competition, was impressed with the student effort.
“It was extremely tough to come up with the finalists,” said Bugallo.
Stony Brook plans to share the videos from the finalists after naming the winners.
Figure skating and conservation
One of the finalists, Katie Engel, a senior at Cold Spring Harbor High School, chose to demonstrate the work of Emmy Noether.
A German mathematician, Noether contributed to theoretical physics and abstract algebra. A theorem named after her, the Noether Theorem, explains that any continuous symmetry in a system has an associated conservation law. That helps explain how the speed of someone spinning in a chair changes depending on how far their arms re-extended.
Mónica Bugallo
An ice skater since she was six who is also interested in studying computer science or engineering, Engel had never heard of Noether but was intrigued with the physics and with the person who helped discover ways to characterize it.
In her entry, Engel explained the mathematical principals on a white board and then recorded a video of herself spinning on ice. When she learned about Noether’s life, Engel discovered that Noether was an important contributor to her field, despite some resistance to her work from men. “Reading about her stories is really inspiring,” said Engel.
Engel is stunned at the conclusions Noether reached with the tools at her disposal.
Currently working as an intern for Peter Koo at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Engel suggested she is committed to pursuing her interest in science, technology, engineering and math fields during and after college.
Engel was also a member of the robotics team at Cold Spring Harbor High School that won the regional conference and went to the World Championships in Houston last year. In robotics, Engel said the number of girls on the team declined from 10th through 12th grades.
She is, however, heartened to learn that 180 boys and 200 girls attended a recent research fair at her school.
New teaching tools
Fernández-Serra and Bugallo are hoping that teachers at all levels can use the videos to inspire students and help them connect with scientists whose contributions continue to resonate with current researchers. The purpose of activities like the competition is to “spark interest, so students want to investigate more,” said Bugallo.
Stony Brook plans to build on this experience in future years through either similar efforts or ongoing programs or initiatives. “Our intent was to have these challenges year after year if this was successful, and it obviously was,” said Bugallo.
In the immediate future, Fernández-Serra encourages students in the area to attend the upcoming talks given by University of Oxford astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered the pulsar, as a part of the Della Pietra lecture series at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics on Stony Brook University’s West Campus from February 13 through Feb. 15.
Bell Burnell is giving a general public lecture on Feb. 14 at 5 p.m., with a reception at 4:15 p.m. in the Simons Center Lobby. The lecture will also be livestreamed at scgp.stonybrook.edu/live.
Bell Burnell will also offer a special talk for high school students titled You Are Made of Star Stuff! on Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. that examines how and where elements in the human body were created in the cosmos. Both lectures will be held in the Della Pietra Family Auditorium (room 103).
A curiosity outside the classroom
For scientists, what they learn and study often stays with them long after they finish an assignment or submit or publish a paper.
Fernández-Serra, who studies the fundamental properties of liquid water using quantum mechanical simulations, thinks about how amazing water atoms are that are holding her when she swims.
As for Engel, thoughts of Noether will stay with her when she figure skates. “I probably can’t do a spin without thinking about her,” she said.
Heroes with staying power
For Fernández-Serra, Mildred Dresselhaus, one of the celebrated scientists of the past who was a part of the contest, was a “number one hero” in condensed matter physics.
Called the “Queen of Carbon,” Dresselhaus earned numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science and Engineering.
“She was a positive and brilliant scientist who never lost her enthusiasm and curiosity,” Fernández-Serra explained.
Stony Brook’s IACS team hopes this competition, the Bell Burnell lecture, and other efforts ignite such enthusiasm in the next generation of STEM students.
These images from the PET scans reveal the side view of a pigeon’s brain at rest and in flight and highlights cerebellum brain activity. The redder colors indicate higher brain activity, and sub-regions of the cerebellum are outlined. Credit: Paul Vaska
Study Involving Advanced Brain Imaging Reveals Expansion of the Cerebellum was Key
An international team of researchers led by Amy Balanoff, PhD, at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute and Paul Vaska, PhD, at StonyBrook University combined the use of positron emission topography, or PET scans, of modern pigeon brains and studies of dinosaur fossils to help answer an ongoing question in evolutionary biology: How did the brains of birds evolve to enable them to fly? The answer, detailed in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B., appears to be an adaptive increase in the size of the cerebellum in some fossil vertebrates.
The evolution of flight is a rare event in vertebrae history, and one that demands functional integration across multiple anatomical/physiological systems. This new research combined modern PET scan imaging data of ordinary pigeons with the fossil record, examining brain regions of birds during flight and braincases of ancient dinosaurs.
The PET imaging and analysis for the study was conducted at StonyBrook University by a team of graduate and undergraduate students led by Vaska, a senior author on the paper, and Professor in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering in the Renaissance School of Medicine at StonyBrook University. Lemise Saleh, a graduate student in the PhD program in BME at StonyBrook, was one of the three lead authors.
The researchers performed PET imaging scans to compare activity in 26 regions of the brain when the bird was at rest and immediately after it flew for 10 minutes from one perch to another. PET scans show the location and amount a tracer compound similar to glucose, indicating increased use of energy and thus brain activity (the tracer rapidly degrades and is excreted from the body).
Vaska collaborated closely with Amy Balanoff, lead author of the study, along with the rest of the research team, in order to compare the brain activity of modern pigeons before and after flight.
Of the 26 regions, one area — the cerebellum — had statistically significant increases in activity levels between resting and flying. Overall, the level of activity increases in the cerebellum differed by more than two standard statistical deviations, compared with other areas of the brain. This makes sense because the cerebellum is a brain region responsible for movement and motor control.
The researchers also detected increased brain activity in the so-called optic flow pathways, a network of brain cells that connect the retina in the eye to the cerebellum. These pathways process movement across the visual field.
Their novel research links the cerebellum findings of flight-enabled brains in modern birds to the fossil record, which showed how the brains of bird-like dinosaurs began to develop brain conditions for powered flight. The team’s overall data is an important step toward establishing how the brain of modern birds supports their unique behaviors and provides insights into the neurobiology of the bird-like dinosaurs that first achieved powered flight.
“PET imaging is really the only way to directly assess brain function across the whole brain during animal behavior,” says Vaska. “Because of our expertise and resources in PET technology, we were able to design a study that used PET to effectively capture the brain activity during flight, and then discovered the primary role of the cerebellum. This lays the groundwork for future studies to better understand brain evolution across species.”
Connecting the findings to avian dinosaurs
The researchers used a digitized database of endocasts, or molds of the internal space of dinosaur skulls, which when filled, resemble the brain’s outer shape. They identified and traced a sizable increase in cerebellum volume to some of the earliest species of maniraptoran dinosaurs, which preceded the first appearances of powered flight among ancient bird relatives, including the well-known Archaeopteryx, a winged dinosaur.
They also found evidence in the endocasts of an increase in tissue folding in the cerebellum of early maniraptorans, an indication of increasing brain complexity. They noted that their tests involved straightforward flying, without obstacles and with an easy flightpath, and that other brain regions may also be active during more complex flight maneuvers.
Their next step in the ongoing research is to pinpoint precise areas in the cerebellum that enable a flight-ready brain and the neural connections between these structures.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.
The new species named, Booralana nickorum, may play a crucial role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem. Photo courtesy of OceanX
By Daniel Dunaief
Oliver Shipley recently shared one of the mysteries of the heavily photographed but lightly explored deep sea areas near the Bahamas’ Exuma Sound.
Oliver Shipley
A Research Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University, Shipley and his colleagues published a paper in the journal Zootaxa describing a new species of isopod they named Booralana nickorum.
A few inches long, this isopod, which was found at a depth of about 1,600 feet, sheds light on some of the mysteries in these waters, offering a glimpse into areas mostly too deep for sunlight to penetrate.
“The level of knowledge on deep sea biodiversity anywhere in the Caribbean is very poor,” said Shipley. The scientists were specifically studying the biomass housed areas around The Exuma Sound.
In the Bahamas, the researchers are interested in preserving species biodiversity and identifying links between the shallow and deep-sea ecosystems, which can inform management of marine resources and help conserve biodiversity.
Shipley suggested it was “exciting” and, perhaps, promising that this area has already produced two isopods that are new species, both of which he described with low-cost technologies deployed off small boats.
“We haven’t even genetically sequenced 95 percent of the creatures that we’ve captured” which includes fish and sharks, Shipley said.
Brendan Talwar, a co-author on the paper describing the isopod and a Postdoctoral Scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, added that “this discovery is representative of the lack of knowledge” in this area. “You can swim from one environment, where almost every species is known or has been studied, to a place where almost nothing is known and almost nothing is studied.”
Finding new species could have numerous benefits, including in the world of drug discovery. To be sure, such findings require “many years of work and analysis” he said.
Still, such a possibility for future benefits exist, particularly as researchers catalog and study these creatures.
In the meantime, understanding individual species and the ecosystems in which they live can reveal information about how, depending on the biomass of various species, different places affect the cycling of gases such as carbon dioxide.
“When you find high biomass of a new species, it could have potentially huge implications for mitigating climate change,” said Shipley. “We have a primitive understanding of the Caribbean deep sea ecosystem. We don’t know the full effects or benefits and services of organisms that live in the deep ocean environment.”
In addition to finding organisms that might provide various benefits, scientists are also hoping to understand the “food web dynamics of the eastern Bahamas,” said Talwar.
Long road to identification
Shipley first saw an individual of this isopod species in 2013. Over time, he has since identified numerous other individuals.
Dorsal views of the newly described Booralana nickorum on left and previously known Booralana tricarinata highlight distinguishing characteristics between the two species. Image courtesy of Oliver Shipley
The region in which Shipley identified this isopod has several potential food or energy sources. The deep sea area is in close proximity to shallower sea grass beds, which are closer to the surface and use light to generate food and energy through photosynthesis.
The tides and currents wash that sea grass into the deeper territory, sending food towards the deeper, darker ocean.
Energy also likely comes from coral reef productivity as reefs line the edge of the drop off.
Additionally, animals that traverse the shallower and deeper areas, whose poop and bodies sink, can provide food sources to the ecosystem below.
“There may be multiple sources of productivity which combines to promote a high level of biodiversity” in the ecosystem below, said Shipley.
The isopod Shipley and his collaborators identified lives in a pressure that is about 52 times the usual atmospheric pressure, which would be extremely problematic for organisms like humans. Isopods, however, have managed to live in most major ecosystems around the planet, including on mountains, in caves and in the deep sea.
“There’s something about that lineage that has supported their ability to adapt to a variety of environments,” said Shipley.
To bring the creatures back to the surface for study, researchers have used deep sea traps, including crustacean and eel traps, that are attached to a line. People working on boats then retrieve those traps, which can take one to two hours to pull to the surface.
When they are brought to the surface, many animals suffer high mortality, which is a known sensitivity of deep-sea fisheries.
“We must gain as much knowledge as possible from each specimen,” Shipley explained
Scratching the surface,at depth
Talwar and Shipley have each ventured deep into the depths of The Exuma aboard a submersible.
The journey, which Talwar described as remarkably peaceful and calm and akin to an immersive aquarium experience, is “like a scavenger hunt,” he said.
When scientists or the sub pilot see a new species of sea cucumber, the pilot can move the sub closer to the organism and deploy the manipulator arm to store it in a collection box. Shipley and others hope to explore deep sea creatures under conditions akin to the ones in which they live in high pressure tanks on land.
Talwar described Shipley as “an extremely productive scientist” who works “incredibly hard.” Talwar also appreciates how Shipley will put collaborative projects at the top of his list, which is “fairly unique in a field where people are so busy with their own stuff.”
Shipley, who lives in Austin, Texas with his girlfriend Alyssa Ebinger, explained that researchers are pushing to support scientific leadership by Bahamians to conserve marine resources threatened by climate change.
Looking under rocks
As a child, Shipley, who grew up in York, England, spent about three years in Scotland, where they spent time at a beach called Trune.
“I remember looking in rock pools, picking up stuff and inspecting it,” he said. He was naturally inquisitive as a child.
While Shipley enjoys scuba diving and is a committed soccer fan — his favorite team is Leeds United — he appreciates the opportunity to build on his childhood enthusiasm to catalog the unknowns of the sea. He’s so inspired by the work and exploration that it “doesn’t feel like a job,” he said. He’s thrilled that he gets paid “to do all this exciting stuff.”
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