You Bet

How do we feel about graduate advisers betting with each other on the progress of their students?

I am not talking about a vast gambling ring involving misuse of grant funds. I am talking about one professor saying to another (from time to time) something like "I bet you a medium caramel macchiato that Student X will not finish the next draft of the manuscript by next Tuesday" and then the other professor says "OK, I think Student X will finish that draft by next Tuesday, but I don't want a medium caramel macchiato, I want a large extra-hot pumpkin soy chai latte."

Despicable and unprofessional behavior that Student X would find deeply troubling were he/she to find out, thereby preventing the completion of the manuscript draft by next Tuesday owing to emotional turmoil?

Harmless fun between professors who are seeking ways to stay sane after years of graduate advising/cat herding?

I personally do not find the revelation of these professorial gambling habits at all shocking or disturbing. In fact, I think that the Student X's of the world should start to worry only when no one is willing to bet on them because no one believes they will meet their deadlines, ever.

Chill Out

A young colleague in Europe recently told me about some of the problems he has with students who don't treat him with respect. If he shows any sign of lenience, some students take advantage. Other students speak rudely to him.

This colleague is quite youthful looking and is not a large or imposing person. He is extremely nice and kind and thoughtful. It sounds as if some of his students are taking advantage of his niceness and others are testing him to see how he will respond.

In my younger days, I had some of these problems as well. Some of these negative interactions with students were very much gender related (example: A male student who was failing my course asked me if I ever walked alone on campus at night, and, if so, what my personal feelings were about rape. Did I think it was wrong? I found this conversation disturbing.) Other problems were more generic and are a particular affliction of those perceived to be vulnerable in some way: e.g., the youthful-looking and the non-tall.

The colleague in question is of course troubled by his negative interactions with some of his students, but I was troubled by the ways he has responded to these students or is planning to respond to some students. I think it is a mistake to overreact to such incidents or to show that you are very upset.

I did not give my young colleague direct advice because I think it would be obnoxious of me to say "You should do this and that" when I don't really know all the facts and I know little about the culture of his department or university. Also, I think that everyone needs to figure these things out in ways that best suit their own circumstances, personality, and philosophy. It can, however, be helpful to know how others have responded to similar situations, so I told him how I had or would respond in his position. He can use this information or not.

And that is: In these situations, my approach is to remain calm and consistent. It is possible to respond in a very firm and unambiguous way without appearing angry or upset. If the problems are extreme, the response can also be very strong, but showing well reasoned, patient, and persistent authority can be more effective than angry words. At least, this is what has worked for me in most situations of this sort.

Another colleague of mine used to react to student problems with great anger. She found that this was highly ineffective because some students responded by actively trying to make her angry, as if it were a game to see what buttons would get an angry response. This escalated into progressively more offensive behavior (example: Male students would show her obscene photos on their cell phones, just to see her get upset). Requesting help from administrators was not successful (their response: boys will be boys). It's difficult not to get angry in circumstances such as these, but when faced with such problems, I think a calm statement to the students of the (dire) consequences of their actions might work better than yelling. And then follow through with the consequences if required.

As college professors, we don't typically have to deal with the discipline problems of our K-12 teaching colleagues, but we do encounter student misbehavior of various sorts. We can't send these students to the principal or give them a time-out, so we have to use the tools at our disposal. Low-level rudeness can mostly be ignored or dealt with by discussion with the students. For more serious problems, it is worth looking into university policies regarding removing a threatening or disruptive student from a class or following other official courses of action.

Ruined

Imagine that there is one research group that doesn’t like or respect another. It is perhaps not so difficult to imagine such a scenario. In such cases, the people involved typically deal with the conflict in ways that may include aggressive tactics, passive-aggressive behavior, or simply benign dislike. Some of these interactions stay entirely professional and the disagreeing factions confine their battlefields to the literature and conference presentations. In other cases the disagreements become more personal.

Other aspects of inter-research group conflicts include whether the conflicts involve only the principal investigators or whether other members of research groups are involved, and whether the conflicts are mutual or largely one-sided (e.g. one group feels hostile towards another, but the group that is the target of the ire doesn’t participate in the conflict or even really care).

I recall an incident in which I met a particular person for the first time at a conference. We had both been graduate students at about the same time at different universities with advisers working in a broadly similar field, and had become professors at semi-neighboring institutions. This other person noted that it was unlikely that we would get along very well because my adviser had been his/her adviser’s “nemesis”. I thought that was a strange remark; I had no particular feelings of hostility towards anyone in that group, and I don’t think my adviser did either, even if he didn’t agree with some of their research methods and interpretations. I would call that an example of a one-sided conflict.

Now consider a different situation – one in which a faculty member in Research Group 1 tells a recent PhD graduate of Research Group 2 that the student made a huge mistake in choice of adviser and had probably ruined his/her career by working with this person. This is an example of a conflict that broadens to include various members of a research group, not just the principal investigators.

Is there any circumstance in which this is an OK thing to say? I am trying to imagine someone who may believe that they have sincere motives and deep concern for the newly minted PhD. Even in that case, though, what good does it do to say such a thing after the student has already received the PhD?

And in a specific case of which I am thinking, both recent PhD student and advisers had a mutually compatible working relationship, and the student’s research was very successful and led to interesting job opportunities. In that case, the person making the critical comment about the student’s choice of PhD advisers is perhaps best interpreted as spiteful, as the student’s career has clearly not been “ruined”.

Some colleagues and I were discussing this incident the other day. Responses among my colleagues included:

1. The (former) student can take of his/herself in this situation and doesn’t need any help from the adviser (except sympathy at having to deal with the spiteful person).

2. The former adviser should step in and directly confront the spiteful person, perhaps issuing a threat of some sort, or should take revenge via reviews.

3. The former adviser should say nothing but should refuse to review the spiteful person’s work.

I was a proponent of the first response; I think the student is confident enough to deal with the situation, however unpleasant, and that it would be a mistake to escalate the conflict, as in the second option. The third option should be used if those involved really felt that they could not be objective.

Of course the best thing would be if everyone could find a way to be as professional as possible about their intellectual hostilities.

National Parks - America's Best Idea

Tonight, Sunday, September 27, the first show in documentary series the National Parks - America's Best Idea airs at 8 pm EST/PST 7pm CST on PBS stations in the United States.

I'm quite excited about the documentary. It is a fabulous way to learn about our nation's natural resource heritage and to inspire awe in each of us. I also hope it encourages us all to appreciate these wonderful beautiful places and visit National Parks, as well as other public heritage lands like State Parks, National Forests and other heritage lands.

The series will air six episodes nightly (7pm CST) until October 9th. Full episodes are available on the PBS National Parks website.

This documentary also promises to be a celebration of diversity, too. It series captures the stories of the people who created, protected, and lived on/near these precious lands. Many of these stories have been lost to our collective memories. Yet thanks to people like Burns, as well as National Park supporters like Audrey & Frank Peterman founders of the Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great American Outdoors Conference, and James Mills an outdoor enthusiast and blogger, can once again know these stories and [re]discover our heritage. Be sure to check out Mills NPR/PRI To the Best of Our Knowledge interview with Burns and his interview about the important part the Buffalo Soliders played in American History and National Parks like Yosemite, Yellow Stone, and Sequoia.

I have visited:
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site - Little Rock, Arkansas
Hot Springs National Park - Hot Springs, Arkansas
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (& Gateway Arch) - St. Louis, Missouri
Ozark National Scenic Riverways - Float trip near St. James, Missouri
Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site - St. Louis, Missouri
Great Smoky Mountains National Park - I'vedriven through it along Interstate 40 in Tennessee and North Carolina

waiting in line to enter Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Park and inside the Museum (under the Arch)

________________________

Now, it's your turn.
This land is you land, this land is my land....A meme of sorts....
I'm calling out my blog friends to join in the fun.
The Oyster's Garter

The Joy Trip Project http://joytripproject.org/
Outdoor Afro
Everyday Adventurer
Nature Blog Network Blog

How many National Parks have you visited?
Visit the site National Park Service map see which parks you may have visited or parks near you that you can visit soon.

Tell me in the comments and share on your blog (if you have one).

Induced pluripotent stem cells with one transcription factor

Just under three years ago, in October 2006, some important stem cell research was announced by a Japanese scientific team led by Shinya Yamanaka. The team showed how ordinary mouse skin cells could be transformed into cells that turned out to be pluripotent, just like embryonic stem cells (ESCs). The new cells were called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Although "ground-breaking" is an over-used term, this research genuinely deserved the description.

Aside from the fact that it could be done at all, the surprising thing was that the transformation could be effected by adding transcribable genes for just four transcription factors to the skin cell DNA. Those genes were Oct4, Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4. And now very recent research shows that, under the right conditions, just the addition of Oct4 alone can accomplish the same feat.

We discussed some of the early research here, with additional reports here, here, and here.

In the three years since the original announcement, research has extended and improved the process in a number of ways. The ultimate goal is to be able to produce pluripotent human stem cells that are in all important respects equivalent to embryonic stem cells, by a process that meets several important criteria:

Cells to be reprogrammed into a pluripotent state should be readily obtainable from human subjects (unlike embryonic cells or rare types of adult stem cells).
No permanent changes to cellular DNA should be made, only changes to gene expression.
The process should be relatively quick and efficient, so that reasonable number of pluripotent cells can be obtained for routine therapeutic or experimental uses.

Reprogramming of other cell types into pluripotent cells is important not just as a technical feat to prove it can be done. There are two other important objectives. The first is to develop human cell lines that model many types of pathology (cancer, Parkinson's disease, or whatever) to facilitate research into therapeutics for these diseases. The best way to develop such lines is first to obtain pluripotent cells with the appropriate pathology, derived from human subjects with the disease, which can't generally be done from embryonic sources. From there, several techniques can be used to produce appropriate cell cultures with the desired model pathology.

The second objective is longer-range but even more important: to manufacture cells, for patients with certain diseases, that can be used as therapeutic replacements for the patient's own malfunctioning tissue. This would be accomplished by obtaining pluripotent cells derived from the patient, correcting genetic problems in those cells, and then inducing the cells to differentiate into the required tissue type. Diseases that should be treatable in this way include Parkinson's disease, Type 1 diabetes, and heart disease. Starting with cells from the actual patient eliminates the problem of tissue incompatibility.

The criteria listed above that are imposed on the process are important for meeting both of these objectives.

In the three years since the original work was announced, dozens of research groups have set about testing improvements to the original procedures in order to progress towards the ultimate objectives. The improvements that have been made include:

adapting the procedures to work in species other than mice – including pigs and fruit flies, as well as humans
reducing the number of transcription factors that need to be introduced, or finding other suitable transcription factors
finding other cell types besides skin cells to start with, generally various types of non-pluripotent stem cells – which makes other improvements in the process easier to accomplish
changing the way that the transcription factors are introduced into the target cells, in order to avoid alteration of the original DNA (since such alterations may introduce risks of cancer or other cellular malfunction)
finding other proteins or small molecule compounds that can be added to enhance the efficiency and speed of the process

Quite a few important improvements have been announced within the past several months, along with other related news. The most interesting related news is a demonstration that iPSCs really are not only equivalent to ESCs in terms of gene expression, but are in fact equally pluripotent. This latter fact was convincingly demonstrated by cloning several generations of live, healthy mice from iPSCs. (We'll discuss that in a separate article, but here's an overview.)

What I want to discuss here is how the list of transcription factors (or their genes) that need to be added to a non-pluripotent cell has been reduced to just one: Oct4. The work was done by a mostly German team led by Hans Schöler of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine.

So how was this accomplished? Well, the trick is, you have to start with the right kind of cells. In this case the researchers used human fetal neural stem cells (HFNSCs). While such cells aren't pluripotent, they are "multipotent", which means they can normally differentiate into various other cell types.

Back in February the researchers in this study reported that reprogramming with just Oct4 could be done in mouse neural stem cells (see here, here, or here). But would this also work with human cells?

Yes. The latest report shows that HFNSCs can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent state using only Oct4 and Klf4, and (generally) even with Oct4 alone. How is this possible? It is known that mouse neural stem cells already express Sox2, c-Myc, and Klf4. As for the human case, the paper says, cautiously, that "The feasibility to reprogram directly NSCs by OCT4 alone might reflect their higher similarity in transcriptional profiles to ES cells than to other stem cells like haematopoietic stem cells or than to their differentiated counterparts."

And the main indication of this is that the process works: "One-factor human NiPS cells resemble human embryonic stem cells in global gene expression profiles, epigenetic status, as well as pluripotency in vitro and in vivo. These findings demonstrate that the transcription factor OCT4 is sufficient to reprogram human neural stem cells to pluripotency."

What this is saying is that there are several criteria for similarity to embryonic stem cells that the reprogrammed HFNSCs meet. At a molecular level the reprogrammed cells express the same genes and have the same epigenetic markers as ESCs. In addition, they can differentiate into many adult cell types both in vitro and in vivo (in the latter case, by forming teratomas (mixed masses of cell types) when implanted in mice).

There are still several drawbacks to this method for practical purposes, even of research. For one thing, human fetal neural stem cells are not exactly easily obtainable. And in addition, retroviruses were used (as in the original Yamanaka work) to introduce Oct4 into the cells. For therapeutic applications it would be absolutely necessary to use one of the other methods that have been explored and that do not disrupt the existing cell DNA or leave exogenous DNA in derived cells – since either alternative means the derived cells might revert to a more undifferentiated state. On top of all that, the process is still inefficient and slow.

Reprogramming methods that have been explored in other research include the introduction of genetic material in forms other than retroviruses, as well as direct delivery of the transcription factor proteins. The researchers in this study intend to investigate such possibilities, as well as use of other initial cell types: "Future studies will show if direct reprogramming is possible with small molecules or OCT4 recombinant protein alone. ... It will be interesting to extend this study to human NSCs derived from other sources, such as dental pulp, as well as to other stem-cell types."

ResearchBlogging.org

Kim, J., Greber, B., Araúzo-Bravo, M., Meyer, J., Park, K., Zaehres, H., & Schöler, H. (2009). Direct reprogramming of human neural stem cells by OCT4 Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature08436

Further reading:

One step to human pluripotency (8/28/09) – blog post at The Scientist

Stem cells, down to one factor (8/28/09) – blog post at The Niche

Induced pluripotent stem cells, down to one factor (9/10/09) – excellent overview at Nature Reports Stem Cells

Direct reprogramming of human neural stem cells by OCT4 (8/28/09) – Nature research paper

One-gene method makes safer human stem cells (8/28/09) – New Scientist article

Tags: stem cells, pluripotency

National Public Lands Day & Environmental Education

Tomorrow, September 26, 2009 is 16th Annual celebration of National Public Lands Day. Public lands are all of those lands that belong to the public such as parks, forests, grasslands, scenic by-ways and waterways. These public lands include state parks, nature reserves, national forests and parks and other public monuments. Each of these public lands have 5 things in common
1. They are owned by everyone and no one. Each citizen has a stake in its health but no one person can claim it for his or her own.
2. They are managed by our civil servants, such as local, state or federal employees
3. They are home to many wild creatures including threatened and endangered plant, animal, and bug species.
4. We are all responsible, individually and collectively for taking care of this land and its wildlife by not littering or removing necessary items from it.
5. These are special places that should be around for generations of ALL Americans and visitors to enjoy.

National Public Lands day is celebrated in nearly every community with a large public service event. The event keeps the promise of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the "tree army" that worked from 1933-1942 to preserve and protect America's natural heritage.
This annual event:

Educates Americans about critical environmental and natural resources issues and the need for shared stewardship of these valued, irreplaceable lands;

Builds partnerships between the public sector and the local community based upon mutual interests in the enhancement and restoration of America's public lands;

Improves public lands for outdoor recreation, with volunteers assisting land managers in hands-on work.

This year's theme is Water and Public Lands...and it's not too late to Get Involved. Events are happening this weekend and throughout the autumn months. Visit the link discover what's happening in your town. (And be sure to check out the video featuring Alan Spears of the National Parks Conservation Association who is attending the Breaking Color Barriers in the Great American Outdoors conference in Atlanta, Georgia this week).

Then Sunday evening be sure to tune into PBS' debut of Ken Burns Film The National Parks: America's Best Idea

___________________________

Now, it's your turn. Highlight your own Urban Science Adventure while participating in a National Public Lands Day activity. It's a perfect way to earn community service credit, high school and college students who are encouraged to do so or earn badges for scouts. It is also presents an opporuntity earn extra credit for your life science and environmental science classes.

Enter the NPLD Photo and Video Contest 2009 or the Robert Bateman Get to Know Contest.

It is a contest to encourage young people, ages 18 and younger to get venture outdoors and get o know their wild neighbors. Sound familiar?

Use these opportunites to win prizes and have your work published - which is a great way to beef up college and scholarship applictions.

Write me and tell me all about your Urban Science Adventures! ©. Share pictures, too.

Additional online sources:
Association of Partners for Public Lands: Engaging the public in caring for our nation's natural and cultural resources

Land Trust Alliance: Together, conserving the places you love

Mere Woman

This week I have been in a country that uses the language I have been studying for the past few years – for 3 years in undergraduate language courses and this year with a tutor. I am mostly pleased with the progress I’ve made learning the language, though I wish I had more skills, particularly with speaking.

I have found that knowing the language has opened doors (in part owing to surprise that I know some of the language), turned unfriendly people friendly, and of course helped with logistics of travel.

One thing that no amount of language knowledge will overcome is the discomfort that some of the men here have with interacting with me. At times, daily life here is easier if I am quiet and don’t try to spend money directly. I suppose it is a sign of my cultural incomprehension that I cannot really understand why some men here cannot converse with me directly or let me pay for something instead of first handing the money to another man.

The other day during a business transaction with a male employee of a major international corporation in a major city, at each step of the transaction this man handed the relevant item (my passport, my receipt) to my male colleague (also a foreigner in this country), who then handed the items to me. I know enough about the culture to know that his avoidance of direct contact with me was not a sign of respect, but in fact the opposite. This is a situation in which my language skills (such as they are) cannot make up for the fact that I am a mere woman.

Nevertheless, I like being here and working with international colleagues. The research is fascinating and I am willing to endure some unpleasant things to have these experiences.

Trigger-Happy Star Formation

Trigger-Happy Star Formation (8/12/09)

A new study from two of NASA's Great Observatories provides fresh insight into how some stars are born, along with a beautiful new image of a stellar nursery in our Galaxy. The research shows that radiation from massive stars may trigger the formation of many more stars than previously thought.

While astronomers have long understood that stars and planets form from the collapse of a cloud of gas, the question of the main causes of this process has remained open.

One option is that the cloud cools, gravity gets the upper hand, and the cloud falls in on itself. The other possibility is that a "trigger" from some external source -- like radiation from a massive star or a shock from a supernova -- initiates the collapse. Some previous studies have noted a combination of triggering mechanisms in effect.

By combining observations of Cepheus B from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have taken an important step in addressing this question. Cepheus B is a cloud of mainly cool molecular hydrogen located about 2,400 light years from the Earth. There are hundreds of very young stars inside and around the cloud -- ranging from a few millions years old outside the cloud to less than a million in the interior -- making it an important testing ground for star formation.

Cepheus B – press for 660×864 image

More: here, here, here, here, here

Team Players

In my youth I had many of those classic experiences in which someone (typically a teacher) selects two of the most popular and athletic kids and asks them to choose their own teams for some activities. The designated team captains took turns picking team members, although there was never any surprise as to the order of the choices. I was usually selected somewhere in the middle; I wasn't the most awesomely popular kid but I was reasonably well liked.

As a professor, I am responsible for choosing team members for a big project. This project will involve a large number of people from many different countries, and I need to devise an effective working group. I have been working hard to come up with a research team that is as compatible as possible. Do I choose my friends? The most popular scientists? Some new kids?

Thus far, I have encountered two types of obstacles to establishing a harmonious team.

One type involves statements like “I refuse to work with X”, in which X = another person who is already part of the group and is already making important contributions. If someone refuses to play with others, they can’t be on my team.

Another obstacle occurs when someone has political reasons for wanting someone else to be invited to be on the team. An example is when a young colleague who is part of the group requests that a senior professor in the same department be invited because otherwise the senior professor might be angry and could make life difficult for the younger professor. Do we invite bullies to be on the team because otherwise they might beat up one of the team members?

It may not be possible to assemblage a diverse group of people who can all get along and contribute substantially to the group effort, but it should be possible to leave out those who don't get along with others and those who aren't interested in the research. For me, it seems that team-choosing is still a part of life and still involves complex social issues.

Wordless Wednesday: Fields of Flowers (Travelog Europe)

Photos of cultivars from Europe. Cultivars are a variety of a plants and flowers developed from a natural species and maintained under cultivation.

Purple cone flowers. Leek, the Netherlands

Black-eyed Susans (a yellow cone flower). Leek, the Netherlands

Unknown Asteridae-type cultivar. Rennes, France

Hanging basket of cultivars. Rennes, France

Dedicated to the Tobin Family of Homer, Alaska in loving memory of their girl Sapphire.

Diversity in Science Carnival is back

Calling all bloggers and blogging communities! Call for submissions for the Diversity in Science Carnival. The blog carnival that celebrates people, innovations, and programs that promote diversity in STEM!

The upcoming edition coincides with Hispanic Heritage Month which is celebrated every year from September 15-October 15. Drug Monkey of Scienceblogs has graciously agreed to host and has posted an announcement: Diversity in Science Carnival in Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month: Call for Submissions!

Blogs of every genre are encouraged to participate: science, nature, education - formal and informal, technology, engineering, math, industry, academic and personal blogs. Please share your stories. And we are happy to connect this carnival to other online initiatives such as the Year of Science 2009, The Year of the Gorilla, or the International Year of Astronomy or even past initiatives like International Polar Year and the Year of the Frog. It is a perfect way to introduce carnival readers to exciting research taking place in Latin America or by Latin Americans.

You can submit your article by clicking on this link.

Please Share Your Worst Accounting Nightmares

It would really cheer me up a lot if some of you would share stories of your worst accounting woes, especially if some of your experiences are worse than those currently afflicting my departmental colleagues and me.

Get competitive. Send in your worst accounting nightmare story. It doesn't even have to be true, though I suspect there is no need for fiction.

Here are 2 contributions to a group-accounting-woe-wallow:

1. A colleague of mine submitted a large number of receipts for several professional trips. All the expenses were on his personal credit card(s) and added up to quite a lot (thousands) because he had also paid upfront for the travel of his graduate students and a postdoc. The reimbursement was delayed and delayed and delayed for months.

Finally he found out why: He had not indicated how many people were in each hotel room. This is not part of the instructions. This is not a line on the forms. This is not something that ever had to be listed before. This is one of those Mystery Traps that accountants set for the unwary. In this case, the travel was within the US, where it doesn't matter if there are 1, 2, or 4 people in a hotel room; the price is the same: SO WHY DO THE ACCOUNTANTS CARE? And if they do care, why not just ask for the information that is holding up the reimbursement?

2. I recently had to approve a form that lists the people who are receiving salary from a certain grant. In fact, in the time frame indicated on the form, I paid the salaries of one graduate student, one undergraduate, and one postdoc from this grant. The form, however, which contains an automatically generated list of people paid, using information in the university's personnel database, indicated that I had hired no one and was paying no one. I asked the accountants about this. Even though all of these people have been paid in the time frame of the form I had to approve, because the effort reporting time frame of the university does not match the reporting time frame of the form, the people whose salaries are being paid by the grant don't show up on the form that is supposed to report how many people received salary from the grant. Apparently this problem can't be fixed and I have to approve a form that is in error. If I don't approve the form so that it can go on its merry way up the approval chain, the consequences for me and my research group are not good. If I refuse to sign the form because it has incorrect information on it, the consequences for me and my research group are not good.

Hence my plea for Your Accounting Nightmares.

*** NOTE: Owing to unexpected circumstances, I will have limited internet access for a few days and will probably only moderate comments once/day. There might also be an interruption in posts until regular internet access resumes. ***

In Memorium: Ms. Gloria Eggerson, Math Educator

Ms. Eggerson taught me math in 7th grade (Riverview Jr. High) and also 10th grade Geometry (Whitehaven High School), both of Memphis, Tennessee. She also taught my mother, my uncle, my younger sister, my older cousins and their children. For 29th years Ms. Eggerson was an esteemed member of the faculty of Memphis City Schools and made quite an impression on the hundreds of students she taught.

In addition to educating us, she was also a close friend of our family. Many of my earliest sleepovers were with her daughters and had many Sunday and holiday dinners at my grandmother's and later my mother's table. Her passing was a personal loss for our family. I have many memories of her, most of which brings a big smile and plenty of loud rambunctious laughter (which she and I are both known for).

Yet, I learned something more than math from her for she embodied Pan-Hellenic love. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. - made November 1968 at LeMoyne-Owen College. She was very proud of her sorority and represented to the fullest. She loved Delta, but not once did I ever hear her say one disparaging word about other sororities or their members. (This despite some of the common misperceptions and mis-representations that members of different organizations don't get along). In fact, many of her best friends belonged to other sororities and they would all wear their T-shirts and hang together, often referring to one another as sisters. And when I pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. she'd refer to me as Little Skee Wee. She was the first person I had met who had belonged to a Black Greek Letter organization and I learned from her generosity and sweet nature the meaning of service and community.

I am proud to call her my friend and I will miss her dearly.
Link to her obituary in the Commercial Appeal here.

You're Great. Take a Hike.

These are the summary comments from recent reviews for a manuscript of mine:

This is an intriguing and important paper. It will be of great interest and should have a great impact.

This is an interesting paper. It got me thinking.

Editor decision: Reject

This is one of those cases in which I feel intense hostility for a day or three. I set the reviews and editor letter aside. I take them out again when I am feeling a bit calmer. I re-read everything. I look closely at the reviewer comments for substantive reasons for the rejection.

I still feel angry. I wait a few more days, and then I write a calm but forceful letter to the editor who will then tell me that there are lots of excellent papers that can't be published and he has to make some hard decisions and this was one of them and I should take a hike (down the journal food-chain).

And that is exactly what I will do because this intriguing, important, interesting, and thought-provoking paper, of which I am very fond, is getting published (eventually.. somewhere).

Making Breakthroughs and Breaking the Color Barriers in the Great Outdoors

The Breakthrough.

I’m busy, busy, busy like a bee. I have been busy writing. Writing is a necessary part of science. I know my dissertation meter has moved in a while. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. It’s just that I am reluctant to count a word until I feel that what I have written is perfect. Perfectly worded and perfectly placed.

But I’ve been feeling like I need to claim my words, all of them – even the imperfectly worded and placed ones. So my word meter reflects those words. I expect that I will lose many of those words – to revisions, and re-drafts. I also think that my final dissertation word count might actually be less than 40,000 words (10,000 words per chapter).
I now claim 28, 981 words!

I feel gravid – productive, full of promise and excitement.

Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great American Outdoors
My spirits have been quite high lately. I’ve made new online friends and discovered new websites and blogs. I feel excited to be apart of a community, a movement of people who care about increasing diversity in outdoor experiences.

Not long ago I learned about a fantastic upcoming conference - Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great Outdoors. It meets next week - September 23-26 in Atlanta, Georgia, and will feature a host of great speakers including some people I am big fan of: Majora Carter
Dudley Edmundson
Dr. Carolyn Finney

It's a conference of educators, environmental activists, outdoor recreationists, and nature enthusiasts that focuses on how members of diverse communities (people of color) participate in these activities and examines reasons/strategies for getting more people of color outdoors enjoying nature. Isn’t that right up my alley? See the CNN interview with conference organizer, Audrey Peterman: Aiming to add more diversity under America's blue skies - CNN.com

I've met some people online who are also involved in this barrier breaking, too.
Wayne Hubbard, host and producer of Urban American Outdoors (Kansas City, Kansas)
Kellen Marshall-Gillespie, fellow Ecology Ph.D. Student at the University of Illinois-Chicago and owner of Roots and Shoots Organic Gardening
Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro (Albany, California)

Even though I won’t be attending the conference (and I am so tempted to just go anyway), I really need to stay close to home and finish writing. I’ll catch up with all of those great people sooner or later.

In the meantime, I’ll be sporting my swag (thanks Rue, cause I sport the the Afro outdoors all of the time. hahaha)

and breaking down color barriers in the great outdoors my own way….By trying to win this contest to Antarctica!!! So, please continue to support me. Please vote and pelase spread the word.

What is it About Faculty Meetings?

There is something extremely annoying about faculty meetings, and I have never fully explored exactly what it is about them that I so dislike.

I do not loathe my colleagues (with very few exceptions). In fact, I like quite a lot of them, and I am quite fond of my department chair. It should not be an unpleasant experience to spend a few hours in a room with these people discussing topics of mutual concern, if not interest.

We have much to discuss that is of great importance to the department and its denizens. The chair has things of importance to tell us about the budget, new policies and procedures, issues he discussed with the Dean at their last meeting. Learning these things in a meeting is a good forum for asking questions and expressing concerns.

Nevertheless, I do loathe these meetings. Here are my top 5 reasons. I am sure that I could come up with 10 reasons, but I am typing this in an airport and the Transportation Security Administration has placed an arbitrary limit on the number of items that can be included in a blog list typed in an airport.

These are in no particular order.

1. Time. I don't have time for these meetings. No one has time for these meetings except the deadwood faculty. Of course we make time (if we are not traveling or otherwise involved in an activity scheduled for the same time as the meeting), but it is hard to lose time that could be spent on other essential activities.

2. Efficiency or lack thereof. Faculty meeting time is typically time that is not well spent. I know that meetings involving any collection of people with disparate views and personalities is unlikely to be efficient, but I wish there were a bloviating quota. Those exceeding this quota will be ejected, preferably forcibly, from the meeting.

3. The Men. Sitting around a conference table with my department colleagues is a vivid reminder of how few women faculty there are in my department. On rare occasions when issues involving underrepresented groups arise, some of the older faculty say that we have no problem with underrepresentation of women because so many of our students are female. Some of the younger faculty agree that we don't have a problem with underrepresentation of women because.. well, I don't know why. The definition of underrepresented is not so difficult to understand, and our department fits this definition. What this means is that they don't think underrepresentation is a problem that needs fixing.

4. The Sports Analogies. In most cases I can figure out from context what is meant, but it kind of annoys me that we are all expected to understand these expressions, which are used extraordinarily often.

5. The insanity factor. Some of my colleagues are really strange. I am really strange, too, so it is hypocritical to list this factor, but thus far my strangeness manifests itself rather quietly. For some of my colleagues, their insanity seems to require them to repeat themselves over and over at every faculty meeting for a decade or more. The effort required for me to keep from rolling my eyes at these repeat tirades is painful and may cause me permanent physical and emotional damage.

No, I don't think we should be more corporate and make faculty meetings efficient in that way. I am willing to put up with some amount of random behavior to preserve our ability to be free-spirited (tenured) professors. And I don't think we should abolish faculty meetings. We faculty would be outraged if the department chair started making decisions without consulting us, even if many of us have nothing useful to say.

Hence faculty meetings..

Because I am a look-for-the-silver-lining kind of person, especially when I am in an airport, I will force myself to list relevant items that make me feel better about having to attend regular faculty meetings:

- faculty retreats are far far more painful
- my spouse hates faculty meetings far far more than I do

It seems to be a short list.

Wordless Wednesday: Urban Waterscapes (Travelog Europe)

The cities I visited in Europe were marked by internal waterways – rivers and canals. Here I share my views of the urban landscape as it meets the urban waterways.

Canals of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Canals of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Canals of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Canals of Groningen, the Netherlands

Vilaine River Rennes, France

Vilaine River Rennes, France

Seine River Paris France

Seine River Paris France

Seine River Paris France

It's a Female Thing (?)

Many of us in certain fields of science teach Science courses in which male students outnumber female students. When we teach large introductory courses for non-majors, however, we see a gender ratio that is more typical of universities today; i.e., in these classes, female students outnumber male students.

I am not the first to mention that in these settings, female students ask the most questions, have the best attendance, send the most e-mail to faculty, and attend office hours more often than their male classmates. I am not qualified to comment on the consequences of this disparate behavior for the academic success of female students vs. male students, but I am wondering what the effects of this are for the classroom environment.

Maybe there isn't any effect, but a colleague recently wondered whether asking questions in class has become a 'female' thing to do, inhibiting the inclination of male students to ask questions. This is most certainly not the case in science major classes, but in the large classes for non-majors, women rule.

A male colleague of mine who is teaching a giga-class recently commented to me about the number of female students who ask questions. I had the same experience last spring, so it clearly does not relate to the gender of the professor.

I am pleased that these (mostly) young women are being assertive and involved in their courses, even large lecture courses that can be quite impersonal, but of course I don't want to teach a class with interactive female students and alienated male students.

The challenge is (always) to help as many students as possible to become engaged in a class, however large. I like to think that projecting a combination of Awesome Scientific Knowledge and Approachability will help all students be interested and involved in a course. This is my goal -- not yet attained -- but other ideas and hypotheses are welcome for different approaches.

My other goal -- also not yet attained -- is that the large numbers of female students who take intro science classes to fill a graduate requirement will find that they actually love science and want to take more science classes.. and then even more.. etc.

Pollinators make the world go round (Travelog Europe)

This is part of my Urban Wildlife Watch:Travelog Europe Series where I introduce wildlife and botanicals I came across while traveling to Europe August 18-31, 2009.

Pollinators are animals that visit flowers and distribute pollen among individual flowers. Most pollinators are invertebrate species like bees, wasps, flies, and butterflies and vertebrate species like hummingbirds. These animals visit flowers for their nutritious, high-calorie nectar. Sometimes they also dine on the pollen.

While consuming from the attractive (visually and olfactory) flowers, the animals get dusted with pollen - the white or yellow dust on the anthers of the flower. When the animal visits another flower and repeats the behavior, pollen from a previous flower gets left behind and the cycle repeats itself.

The old saying "It's all about the birds and the bees" is about this very activity - pollination. The saying is also used to refer to sex. That's because pollen is actually the sperm cells, or male gametes, of a flower. In fact, flowers are the reproductive parts of plants. Next time you step to smell a flower, take a closer look. A complete flower has both the male and female equivalent parts. Flowers come in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors with some plants have only one sex. But for the most part it isn't hard to find a flower that has all of the basic parts, just things maybe bigger or smaller.

The male parts are called the Stamen and the female parts are called the Pistil or Carpel. The stigma is often moist and sticky and when a pollinator visits or if carried by wind and rain, pollen from other flowers land on it and travel down the tube (style) in the ovaries. Seeds develop and new flower life begins anew to be planted for new flowers.

At the tip of this fragrant lavender stalk is an arrangement of dozens of little flowers. Pollinators, like this bumble bee inspects each of these tiny blossoms in search of food. Lavender and bumble bees are also common in North America. I photographed this pair in Rennes, France.

I don't know the name of this flower - looks like a forb - or species of fly visiting this tall wild flower I found in an open-field in Groningen, the Netherlands. Notice the white-spiky parts, these are the reproductive parts of the plant, but I'm not exactly sure if it's the stamen or the pistil, I'm guessing stamen because of the volume.

Despite the strong winds, the flies (there are 2 in this photo) were able to hold on tight and continue foraging. You'll also notice that many of the flower buds have yet to open up on this pink flower.

A tiny little grass flower, very dainty with a small tender fly on the petal. If you look closely, the tiny knobs in a circle are the stamen. Photo taken in Groningen, the Netherlands.

This Echinacea flower has a spiny head referred to as a cone, which is where it gets its common name the purple cone flower.. The stamen and pistil aren't very distinct, but the flower still attracts many kinds of pollinators with its height and colorful petals.

A fly visiting the flower. Not sure of the fly species but there are similar - bee-looking flies in North America that also visit cone flowers, daisies, and sunflowers. I photographed these flowers in Niennord Park in Leek, the Netherlands.

I was surprised to see this large bumble bee climbing along the stalk of the flower. That is not typical behavior at all. I wanted a closer look at this bee because I noticed it had a white rump. I had never seen a white-rumped bumble bee in the States before. When I returned to school, I asked my lab mate and bumble bee expert, Javier Hernandez to identify it for me. It is Psithyrus or cuckoo bumble bee. It gets this name because, like the cuckoo bird, the female lays her eggs in the nest of another species and let's that female take care of her pupae (babies).

Check out this quick video clip of the bee.

The bee was behaving strangely, crawling on the stalk of the flower and flying low to the ground. It's quite possible this bee may be infected with a fungus going around, but I don't know all of the disease ecology details right now.

September Celebrates Biodiversity and Conservation

What to Expect When You're Clueless

Consider the situations of two undergraduate students who will be applying to graduate programs in Science during this academic year, in the hopes of starting grad school the following year. These two students are both smart -- neither is brilliant, but both are hard-working and motivated, have had research experiences as undergraduates, and have done well in their classes. On paper, they will have similar records that look very promising for graduate studies.

Student 1 has been talking to graduate students about their research and their general experiences as grad students and has been reading papers in the major journals. Student 1 seeks out professors for scientific and other academic discussions and has been proactive about doing research experiences (for credit) and science-related jobs (for pay). By talking to people and being generally aware, Student 1 knows what steps to take in applying to grad programs. Student 1 probably needs some advice, but overall is pretty savvy about the process.

Student 2 has had a similar number of research experiences and science jobs, but tends to focus on the immediate task at hand. Student 2 does best when told very specifically what to do and doesn't seem to be able to handle a lot of information at once. If general advice is given to Student 2 in advance of a specific task, it needs to be given again when directly relevant. Imagine that Student 2 (S2) has the following conversation with a Science Professor (SP) who advised one of Student 2's research projects.

S2: I've decided to apply to 6 graduate programs and was wondering if you would write me a letter of reference for my applications.

SP: Yes, of course. What are the 6 places?

S2: Do I have to tell you?

SP: Umm.. Yes, you do because each program is different and most programs require me to send or upload my letter to them directly. Aside from that, it makes a better letter if I can personalize it to address your strengths relative to a specific program or adviser. Is there some reason you don't want to tell me?

S2: No, that's fine. I'll come back later and tell you what they are.

SP: Have you already written to some potential advisers at each place so you know they are taking on new graduate students next year and are interested in seeing your application?

S2: No, am I supposed to do that?

SP: Yes, remember we talked about this a couple of months ago. It's a good idea to make some contact and briefly introduce yourself.

S2. Oh, OK. So should I just send my CV? Do I have to write anything with it or just send it?

SP: I was thinking more of an email in which you briefly introduce yourself; for example, tell them you are doing a senior thesis with Professor X on Project A and that last summer you were a research assistant for Professor Y on Project B and that based on these experiences you have developed a strong interest in Z Science and therefore you are thinking of applying to the graduate program at University K because Professors L and M do interesting work in Z Science. Or something like that. You can be brief but informative. Don't send a form letter to all 6 and don't send your CV without explanation.

S2: Oh. This is going to be more work than I thought. Maybe I will talk to you more about this later.

Faculty colleagues who are aware of this conversation with Student 2 have two different reactions:

Type A reaction: Student 2 needs a lot of help figuring out how to apply to graduate schools, so let's give that help.

Type B reaction: If Student 2 is that clueless, there is no way that student will do well in grad school. Let Student 2 flounder and nature take its course.

Professors are always searching for a foolproof way to figure out in advance whether a potential grad student will succeed or not. We all know that an excellent academic record and even glowing letters of recommendation may have no relevance to whether a student has the ability to do well in a research environment.

Can (should) the difference between Students 1 and 2 described above be used as an indicator of potential success in graduate school? Is Student 1 likely to take initiative, be observant and thoughtful, and get things done? Is Student 2 likely to bumble along not really knowing what to do unless told very specifically?

Or is that too harsh an evaluation of Student 2? Sometimes university professors expect that undergraduates will absorb information about how the university, department, and research groups work, but even students involved in research projects may not really be aware of how things work beyond their immediate experience.

Applicants to graduate school are given detailed information about the application materials, but applying to graduate school also involves a system of unwritten procedures that vary from discipline to discipline, e.g. the details of the admissions process and the expected amount of pre-application communication between students and potential advisers (none? some?). This is the type of information that we as advisers can help our students learn as they navigate the grad school application system.

My own conclusion is that Student 1 is more likely to succeed by being proactive and savvy (and smart) but, although it very likely does have some significance that Student 2 is so clueless, I'd rather not judge too harshly. If Student 2's cluelessness extends to research experiences, then it is relevant.

Scientific Overlap

It recently came to my attention that a certain scientist had submitted identical proposals to two different funding sources at the same time. Submitting "overlapping" proposals to the same funding agency is prohibited by some (but not all?) funding agencies.

Scattering the same proposal among different programs in the hopes that one (or more) of them will fund the proposal might seem like an efficient strategy for the PI who invested a lot of time in a proposal, but this practice is prohibited for good reasons. Given the time and effort involved by funding agency employees, panel members, and reviewers to deal with the large number of submitted proposals, a prohibition on overlap makes sense

NIH outlines in detail the consequences of the simultaneous submission of proposals with scientific overlap. I did a rather quick search of the NSF website to try to find a similar document, but didn't find anything. It seems like there must be a policy, though, so maybe I just missed it.

Rejecting proposals for reasons of overlap is straightforward if the proposals are identical or even "essentially identical" (in the words of the NIH document). It might become more difficult to judge overlap when the definition is extended to proposals containing "similar" research, another term used in the NIH document, but I suppose experienced program directors know it (overlap) when they see it.

In the case to which I referred in the first sentence of this post, there was no administrative mechanism by which the "overlap" could have been detected if a reviewer had not been become aware of both proposals. I suppose there is a high probability of a reviewer's discovering overlap in cases in which the research is highly specialized and both funding programs use peer review. The same reviewer(s) are likely to be sent both proposals.

In the first sentence of this post, I used the vague term "funding source" deliberately so that I could consider the ethics and consequences of the following situations:

- Identical proposals are sent to different programs of one funding agency that specifically prohibits submission of overlapping proposals. This is clearly wrong and both proposals would be rejected

- Identical proposals are sent to different programs of a funding agency that does not have specific rules about overlap. Reviewers might balk at this (if the overlap is detected) because it is annoying and seems unethical, but if there are no rules against it, what's to stop a dual proposal submission?

- Identical proposals are sent to two completely different funding agencies, one or both of which may or may not have rules about overlapping proposals within each agency. Again, reviewers might balk at this, but is it wrong?

I have never attempted submission of overlapping proposals and am not really interested in doing so, though I'm not sure why not. There is something appealing about the general concept of sending a proposal out into a broad funding universe to see if anyone would like to give me money for my research. This would reduce the time spent trying to figure out to which one of several possible programs a proposal will be sent, a decision that may involve making likely unfounded assumptions about the scientific preferences and sanity levels of the program officers and hoping that an interdisciplinary proposal won't fall through the cracks between programs.

It does seem wrong, though. And speaking as someone who just reviewed quite a few proposals, I certainly don't want to see multiple versions of any of these, even the ones that were Very Good*.

* In NSF-speak, Very Good is not as good as Excellent but much better than Good, which is not good at all, except when compared to the dreaded Fair and Poor.

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