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In the Path
of Elephants
,%0,
Local voices are missing
from the conservation
dialogue in Africa
1992
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September–October
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American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
__________________________________________
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
AMERICAN
Scientist
Departments
Volume 106 • Number 1 • January–February 2018
Feature Articles
2 From the Editors
3 Letters to the Editors
6
Sightings
Croplands up close
8 Spotlight
Prehistoric arts and crafts r Down
Syndrome and the immune system r
Infographic r Briefings
15 Science Communication
The gene-editing conversation
Matthew Nisbet
20 Engineering
Can the museum of failure succeed?
Henry Petroski
24 Perspective
Rearranging the planet to save it
Robert L. Chianese
28 Computing Science
Imaging without lenses
David G. Stork, Aydogan Ozcan,
and Patrick R. Gill
34
34 Living in an Elephant Landscape
The local communities most affected
by wildlife conservation often have
little say in how it is carried out, even
when policy incentives are supposed to
encourage their support.
Jonathan Salerno, Lin Cassidy,
Michael Drake, and Joel Hartter
42 Slicing Sandwiches, States, and
Solar Systems
Can mathematical tools help determine
what divisions are provably fair?
Theodore P. Hill
Scientists’
Nightstand
54 Book Reviews
Claude Shannon remodels information
From Sigma Xi
58 Distinguished Lectureships,
2018–2019
61 Sigma Xi Today
Chapter award winners r Grant
opportunities r Sigma Xi hosts
symposium on climate and Student
Research Conference r Registration
opens for 2018 Student Research
Showcase
42
50
50 Zircons: More Precious Than
Diamonds
These tiny crystals in grains of sand hold
evidence of Earth’s early water and life.
Donald R. Prothero
The Cov er
Elephant numbers across Africa have dropped by as much as 60 percent since 2007. Increasing global demand for ivory, especially in
China and elsewhere in Asia, has exacerbated elephant poaching in Africa and induced international outcry. This situation has prompted changes in wildlife conservation policy, often without locals’ knowledge or input. Botswana has remained a stronghold against the
rise in ivory poaching. Although numbers of elephants are decreasing overall, in Botswana they are increasing or stable. The livelihoods
of the people in the paths of growing numbers of elephants in Botswana are shaped by the animals’ presence. In “Living in an Elephant
Landscape” (pages 34–41), Jonathan Salerno, Lin Cassidy, Michael Drake, and Joel Hartter—a group of ecologists and geographers—
talk about how wildlife conservation policy in the region currently affects locals, and how their voices could be better included in the
policy-making process. (Cover photo LZT/Alamy.)
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
FROM THE EDITORS
AMERICAN
Divvying Up
I
t is somewhat amazing that a time of such
great hardship, destruction, and loss as World
War II could also have been a time of such immense advancement in the mathematics of fair
divisioning. Despite the growing chaos around
them, a group of Polish mathematicians—including Stanisław Ulam, who went to work on the
Manhattan Project in Los Alamos after the war
ended—met regularly at a coffee shop to discuss
elegant mathematical ideas. One of their concepts, now known as the ham sandwich theorem,
proved that there were ways to equally cut groups
of multiple objects with a single line, in two or
three dimensions. But as Theodore Hill describes in “Slicing Sandwiches,
States, and Solar Systems” (pages 42–49), the research has implications for the
extant problem of gerrymandering, the unfair partisan divisioning of voter
districts. However, whether mathematics helps or adds to such divisioning
depends on the definition used for “fair,” which can be tricky.
A debate similarly divided along party lines surrounds the concept of gene
editing. Matthew Nisbet discusses investments that will be necessary to expand the public dialogue around this new technology in this issue’s Science
Communication column, “The Gene-Editing Conversation,” on pages 15–19.
As humans we often make choices about how to use the world around us,
and how we are going to ensure that we preserve our environment for future
generations. Energy generated by less polluting sources is therefore seen by
many as a noble effort to mitigate climate change. But even green sources of
energy require space, and where is that space going to come from? In this issue’s Perspective column, “Rearranging the Planet to Save It” (pages 24–27),
Robert L. Chianese examines the plight of a diminutive species, the desert
tortoise, that is being displaced by solar power projects in the Mojave Desert.
Humans may think of the desert as a barren place, but Chianese points out
that’s only from our perspective as an apex species.
A species that is decidedly not diminutive is the African elephant, and it
knows how to use its size. Western populations are all for the conservation
of this majestic animal, but what about the people who have to live near the
conservation areas and have their crops regularly destroyed by these large
marauders? In “Living in an Elephant Landscape” (pages 34–41), Jonathan
Salerno, Lin Cassidy, Michael Drake, and Joel Hartter describe efforts to encourage more local voices in the debates surrounding conservation efforts.
One thing for certain is that humans are not going to stop using resources.
Let’s hope that with thoughtful dialog, we can make decisions that work the
best for everyone, and everything, in our world. Let us know what you think.
—Fenella Saunders (@FenellaSaunders)
Scientist
www.americanscientist.org
VOLUME 106, NUMBER 1
Editor-in-Chief Fenella Saunders
Senior Consulting Editor Corey S. Powell
Digital Features Editor Katie L. Burke
Contributing Editors Sandra J. Ackerman,
Marla Broadfoot, Catherine Clabby, Brian Hayes,
Anna Lena Phillips, Diana Robinson, David
Schoonmaker, Michael Szpir, Flora Taylor
Editorial Associate Mia Evans
Art Director Barbara J. Aulicino
SCIENTISTS’ NIGHTSTAND
Editor Dianne Timblin
AMERICAN SCIENTIST ONLINE
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LETTERS
In Defense of Lyell
To the Editors:
Michael Rampino’s article “Reexamining Lyell’s Laws” in the July–August
issue presents a fascinating story of the
importance of catastrophism within
the geological record and the significance of rare extraterrestrial events in
shaping Earth’s history. His analysis
discounts the fundamental tenets laid
out by Charles Lyell in his classic Principles of Geology and concludes that
“modern geologists who focus only on
terrestrial causes for geologic events,
and who stress the importance of
gradual processes, may be…depriving
themselves of a broader understanding of our vibrant field of study.” Although we agree with Rampino that
catastrophic processes have been important in Earth’s history, we feel he
oversells his case for the vast majority
of rocks within the geological record.
First, we argue that the overwhelming majority of modern geologists are
well aware of the effects of catastrophic events in shaping parts of the geological record, from glacial outburst
floods called jökulhlaups, to cataclysmic
volcanic eruptions and the effects of
extraterrestrial bolide impacts. Such
concepts and events are presented in
many courses and introductory Earthscience textbooks, and have been for
several decades now. Thus, leaving the
impression that many who use “the
present as a key to the past” ignore
catastrophism is simply wrong.
Second, if one examines the totality
of the geological record, and not just
key points in time where catastrophic
events have been pivotal, it is apparent that contemporary processes can
explain nearly all ancient conditions.
The record of sedimentary rocks and
the invaluable resources they contain,
such as hydrocarbons, precious metals,
and industrial minerals, are a case in
point, where the overwhelming majority of deposits can be interpreted without recourse to catastrophist events
and principles. Thus, although we
accept that catastrophic events hold
huge importance at particular points
in the Earth’s past, it is obvious that
the vast majority of rocks can be interpreted without the need to invoke
catastrophic processes. In this aspect,
Lyell’s tenets hold true and still provide an essential template for reconstructing Earth’s history. The converse
view, suggested by Rampino, that
catastrophic events “could well be the
dominant factors in creating the geologic record,” is patently untrue.
Finally, it is easy to overcriticize past
scientists in light of modern knowledge,
and we judge Rampino’s critique of Lyell to be too harsh. Lyell’s contributions
are better viewed through a lens that
focuses on the state of science during his
lifetime. Lyell, like James Hutton before
him, walked a tightrope of new, heretical, secular explanations in a world that
still demanded that such ideas fit within
a religious context. A more generous critique would better recognize this context for Lyell’s immense contributions to
the development of geological thought.
Uniformitarianism and catastrophism
are not that difficult to reconcile within
the context of a concept of deep time
that contains both catastrophic events
and gradualist formation.
Jim Best
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign
Urbana, IL
Paul Wignall
University of Leeds
Leeds, UK
American Scientist (ISSN 0003-0996) is published bimonthly by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 (919-549-0097). Newsstand single copy $5.95.
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ONLINE @ americanscientist.org
New Website Design
Check out our new online look:
http://www.amsci.org
Video: The CRISPR Craze
The genetic tool CRISPR has prompted a lot of scientific activity, caused
some agony, and holds still more
promise. Here is a video summary of
more than 10 years of research with
CRISPR by Rudolphe Barrangou of
North Carolina State University:
http://bit.ly/2ALTpUu
Encouraging Replication
In a response to a recent Nature Human Behavior paper discussing how
to encourage replication, computer
scientist Shlomo Engelson Argamon
of the Illinois Institute of Technology
says scientists should work to build
the standards, techniques, incentives,
and institutions needed to support
the grand edifice of future science.
http://bit.ly/2nsA6d5
Video: Geology of the Solar System
In this video, planetary scientist
David Byrne of North Carolina State
University gives a tour of the geol-
ogy of our Solar System. It’s not easy
“to condense 50 years of spacecraft
exploration of more than two dozen
bodies that are more than four-andhalf billion years old,” as he puts it,
but we think he’s up to the task.
http://bit.ly/2nqyr7U
Scientists Become Politically Engaged
In this opinion piece, graduate
student Asia Murphy of Pennsylvania State University highlights that
juggling science and political involvement is the new normal for many
researchers—and explains why she
thinks that’s a moral approach to being a scientist and a citizen.
http://bit.ly/2APxuLS
Marine Sanctuaries in Virtual Reality
With new 360-degree images, optimized for virtual reality, more people
can experience the United States’
underwater treasures—without even
leaving their desks. Marine conservation biologist David Shiffman writes
about these scuba divers’ views of
coral reefs in this guest blog:
http://bit.ly/2ihw6Xs
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Dr. Rampino responds:
Lyell was indeed a pioneer of geological thought, and he was influential in
establishing a systemic “theory of geology” based on processes observed at
present, working with the same intensity, over long periods of time. As I argued, however, his three “laws”—that
all change is gradual, purely terrestrial,
and devoid of astronomical cycles—
have all been superseded. Despite the
new discoveries—beginning in 1980
with the impact hypothesis for the endCretaceous mass extinction—there is
still a Lyellian bias that tends to work
against the acceptance of the new catastrophism. Geologists tend to consider
catastrophes only as a last resort.
In 1990, Ursula Marvin described
the situation in geology, which I believe could still apply today:
True to our heritage, geologists still
work with the presupposition that
gradual changes are more likely
than sudden ones, continuity is
4
more common than discontinuity,
and all the great changes of which
we observe evidence in the geologic record—mountain building,
continental glaciation, continental
rifting, plate motion and others—
have proceeded in small increments over vast amounts of time.
Twenty-eight years later, it is still
possible to find geologists who ignore
the possibility of catastrophes in their
attempts to explain significant aspects
of the geologic record, and also possible to find a new popular textbook
on evolution that nowhere discusses
the importance of catastrophic mass
extinctions in the history of life. Lyell’s
gradualism is so deeply ingrained in
the geosciences that it still colors our
view of the geologic record.
Mountain Lions in Cities
To the Editors:
In the article “Suburban Stalkers:
The Near-Wild Lions in Our Midst”
(September–October), Robert Louis
Chianese says on page 279 that “only
two megacities” have mountain lions. I
live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and
mountain lions are reported regularly.
In particular, in Oakland where I live,
neighbors regularly see mountain
lions. In addition, here is a recent
article in the San Francisco Chronicle
with a report of a sighting: http://
_____
www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/
article/How-did-a-cougar-find-its________________________
way-to-San-Francisco-12346037.php.
_________________________
Mountain lions are frequent enough
that we have training on what to do
when we see them.
Howard Matis
Oakland, CA
Dr. Chianese responds:
I appreciate the comment from the
reader questioning expert opinion
about lions in megacities. The comment is not quite correct about lions
in San Francisco itself, with just one
discovered in the past month.
American Scientist, Volume 106
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Having an occasional lion may not
be what lion experts mean by only two
megacities with a lion population. For
example, the San Francisco Chronicle
story to which Mr. Matis refers points
out the puzzling anomaly of this lion
in the city—raising questions about
how it got there and where it came
from. This sighting is a rarity. By contrast, rural and suburban Los Angeles
has more than 50 lions, with some 20
or more actively tracked that are what
we might call “in residence,” with the
males roaming for many miles and
sightings being quite frequent—there
was one in my neighborhood a week
ago. Nevertheless, it is clear that we all
need to know how to act when we see
one, and my point stands that people
still have to decide just how to manage
these wonderful beasts.
Overcoming Jet Lag
To the Editors:
My technique for overcoming jet lag,
not mentioned in the article “Adapting
Your Body Clock to a 24-Hour Society” (November–December) by Alexis
Webb and Erik Herzog, is to set my
watch for destination time at takeoff
and to live as much as possible by that
time, staying awake if it’s daytime
over there and sleeping if it’s nighttime. I still have jet lag, but a large part
of it I suffer on the plane, not at my
destination. I have been doing this
for some decades, and it is a great
improvement over doing nothing in
particular. One has to exert some discipline, of course, such as not watching the movie unless it’s daytime at
my destination; also, meals often get
served at strange hours.
John A. Wills
Oakland, CA
Drs. Webb and Herzog respond:
This approach of setting your watch to
the time of your destination can work,
provided you are getting light at times
that will shift your body clock in the
correct direction. The problem with
living by your watch, however, is that
you can also end up getting light that
will actually shift you in the wrong
direction. For example, if you are flying east, wanting to advance your
clock, but you see light in the early
part of your subjective night and end
up sending your body clock west, you
will delay your internal time and prolong your jet lag.
Imagining Alien Life
To the Editors:
Illustr ation
Credits
Infographic
Page 13 Andy Brunning
Living in an Elephant Landscape
Pages 34–41 Barbara Aulicino
Slicing Sandwiches, States, and Solar
Systems
Pages 42–49 Theodore P. Hill
and Barbara Aulicino
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I carefully read Howard Smith’s article “Questioning Copernican Mediocrity” (July–August). I found the
premise of the title interesting, due
to the significance of the Copernican
revolution, which indeed “demoted”
the Earth from the center of the Solar
System and the universe, to an ordinary planet revolving around an ordinary sun.
There are three points of debate that
I raise over Dr. Smith’s article: First,
the article seems to make a water-rich
environment essential for the evolution of a carbon-based life-form and
ultimately intelligence—meaning no
other type of life-form is considered.
Second, the article seems to make an
anthropogenic argument that if we
encountered other intelligence, we
could see it and communicate with it.
Third, the article spends many words
arguing for the existence or nonexistence of extraterrestrial intelligence
based on distance and time; in other
words, Dr. Smith assumes that the
only method of communication is via
electromagnetic signals propagating
at the speed of light, which raises the
additional issue of whether we will be
able to receive either electromagnetic
or other signals generated by an alien
intelligence.
Dwain Butler
Vicksburg, MS
Dr. Smith responds:
Dr. Butler asks about the possibility
of intelligent life forms based neither
on carbon nor water. Maybe they
could exist somewhere, but there is
no authority I know of who thinks
that silicon, for instance, comes close
to carbon in its suitability, and the
same goes for water. So, such aliens
are expected to be even rarer than
conventional ones. I briefly mention
some of the difficulties in my other
articles. The bottom line is that no one
has figured out in the slightest what
quantitative possibility to assign such
strange creatures to develop; it could
certainly be nil. My article attempts
a quantitative estimate of whether or
not “mediocre” and speculative beings (why not civilizations hidden
underground on Mars?) are excluded because they are limited so far to
the realm of human imagination. In
a similar vein, if we encounter some
beings but do not recognize them as
such, then surely they—as far as we
are concerned—are the same as nonexistent and we are still alone. As for
communication, any forms we can
conceive of will use the force carriers: photons most likely, but perhaps
gravitons or other bosons, or perhaps
pressure waves (sound) locally. We
have good detectors, and they are getting better, so unless an alien signal is
intentionally hidden in some faint or
noisy frequency band, it seems to me
we could in principle detect it. The exciting recent discovery of gravitational
waves demonstrated that even they
travel at the speed of light.
How to Write to American Scientist
Brief letters commenting on articles
appearing in the magazine are welcomed. The editors reserve the right
to edit submissions. Please include
an email address if possible. Address:
Letters to the Editors, P.O. Box 13975,
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 or
editors@amscionline.org.
_________________
2018
January–February
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Sightings
Croplands Up Close
A highly detailed map of the world’s productive areas for crops corrects some
misconceptions about how much is being grown and where.
T
he U. S. Geological Survey recently relased a new
map of worldwide croplands (above) that zooms
in to a resolution of 30 meters, or about 0.09 hectares per pixel, and is the highest resolution yet for
examining the world’s productive areas. A close-up of the
map over Texas (see bottom of facing page) shows the level
of detailed imaging possible at such high resolution. And
there were some surprises.
This more accurate map shows that there is 15 to 20 percent
more cropland on Earth than previous assessments had estimated, with a worldwide total of 1.87 billion hectares being
devoted to crops. Earlier studies had also concluded that either
China or the United States has the highest net cropland area,
but it turns out that’s not accurate either. This new map gives
that status to India, which has a net cropland area of 179.8 mil-
6
lion hectares, amounting to 9.6 percent of global net cropland
area. The United States follows with 167.8 million hectares,
which is 8.9 percent of global net cropland area (see top of facing
page). China has 165.2 million hectares, and Russia has 155.8
million hectares. But in terms of percentage of the country
devoted to croplands, both the United States and China fall
short, with only about 18 percent of the total geographic area
of each country being devoted to crops. The distinction of being an agricultural capital goes to Moldova, Hungary, and San
Marino, because in each country, more than 80 percent of the
geographic area is made up of croplands.
The study that produced the new map was carried out by
a group called the Global Food Security-Support Analysis
Data at 30 m (GFSAD30) Project, in which the U.S. Geological
Survey participates. The map is built primarily from Landsat
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satellite imagery from 2015. “One major challenge was obtaining cloud-free images in regions such as the tropics and
during rainy seasons. That took multiple years in some areas.
This project required the use of satellite-acquired big-data
analytics using machine learning algorithms on a cloud computing platform,” said Prasad Thenkabail, U. S. Geological
Survey research geographer and principal investigator for
the GFSAD30 Project Team, in reports.
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“This map is a baseline and starting point for higher-level
assessments, such as identifying which crops are present and
where and when they grow, their productivity, whether lands
are left fallow, and whether the water source is irrigated or rainfed,” said Thenkabail. “Comparisons can be made between the
present and past years as well as between one farm and another.” The hope is that better data will lead to more efficient management of land and water for agriculture. —Fenella Saunders
2018
January–February
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Spotlight
Prehistoric Arts and Crafts
At a recent meeting in the hometown of Rembrandt, archaeologists
examined the images created by some really old masters of painting,
sculpture, and design.
Leiden, The Netherlands. Researchers
from more than 30 countries discussed
new findings regarding some truly ancient examples of human creativity.
Some of the most enigmatic examples, which have been studied
intensively over the past few years,
are found in Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France. On the floor of a large
natural chamber, hundreds of stalagmites stand or lean in what appear to
be deliberate arrangements: two large
circles and several smaller piles. Many
of the artifacts, or speleofacts (a term
coined by researcher Jacques Jaubert
to acknowledge their human origin in
caves), have been broken off at both
the tip and the base, as if to make each
one a certain length.
“These are exquisitely selected
single stalagmites,” says Jaubert, professor of prehistory at the University
of Bordeaux. The piling of smaller
Jacques Jaubert
If you’ve ever wondered where human creativity comes from, try this
simple experiment: Gather a random
assortment of three-year-olds, anywhere in the world; distribute plenty
of crayons, paper, and lightweight
play blocks; and stand back.
In no time at all, the tiny research
participants will begin to make things.
Admittedly, what they make more
than anything else will be a mess, but
in their mind’s eye they are building
a great big tower or drawing an awesome picture. Long before they can put
together the words to describe it, these
young humans are demonstrating the
deep roots and the universality of the
creative impulse.
Just how deep into the past those
roots extend was a question that came
up several times at the September
meeting of the European Society for
the Study of Human Evolution, in
Bruniquel Cave, in southwestern France, contains 175,000-year-old evidence of early human
habitation, planning, and creativity. Several hundred stalagmites, broken off at one or both
ends, stand or lean in recognizable geometric patterns—one circle with an inside circumference of 16 meters and another with a circumference of 5.45 meters—along with smaller piles.
In addition, archaeologists have identified the remains of at least 18 fireplaces.
8
speleofacts into wedges at the base
of larger, upright ones suggests they
were used for support—a sign of intentional construction, Jaubert says. As
another sign that they were deliberately handled, more than 120 of the speleofacts show traces of fire: fissuring,
red discoloration or black soot, and
localized increases in magnetic susceptibility, which are characteristic of cave
substrate that has been exposed to fire.
The evidence includes the remains of
at least 18 fireplaces.
The chamber containing the speleofacts is located well inside the cave
(336 meters), a placement that implies
a great deal of planning and coordination. Creating the speleofact structures
“would have required adequate lighting, combined with long-term access
to the chamber,” Jaubert points out. In
his view, the structures were a team effort, requiring both complex thinking
and social adeptness—a combination
of abilities that might be thought to
distinguish the modern human mind
at its best.
And yet, the evidence shows that
these structures are much too old to
have been built by humans like ourselves. Jaubert and his colleagues used
uranium-series dating (which assesses
the ratio of uranium-234 to its decay product, thorium-230, in a given
sample) to calculate the age of calcium
carbonate regrowth on the stalagmites
after they had been broken off and
handled. Judging by their results, the
speleofacts must have been arranged
about 175,000 years ago—some 130
millennia before anatomically modern Homo sapiens arrived in Europe.
Throughout the continent, the only
members of the human family who have
left traces from this time are our nowvanished cousins the Neanderthals. For
the present, Bruniquel Cave continues
to hold onto the mysteries of how they
created this assemblage and what its creation may have meant to them.
Who, Where, and When
It’s easy to understand why there
are many contenders for the title of
“world’s earliest cave art”—that is,
the first images created by human
hands—but it is less easy to distinguish among the competing claims.
American Scientist, Volume 106
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Dirk Hoffmann
The Lion Man, from the Swabian region of
Germany, is about 35,000 years old, which
makes it one of the earliest animal-human
figurines known. Carved from a mammoth
tusk, it measures 26.9 centimeters tall.
Among the notable sights in the cave of El Castillo, on the northern coast of Spain, is a wall
displaying more than two dozen images of human hands, each outlined in red pigment.
Uranium-series dating of the calcite crust overlaying the images indicates that the so-called
“Panel of Hands” was painted some 33,000 to 40,000 years ago.
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American Scientist
tion of calcite over it, but as Hoffmann
reported at the meeting, because the
calcite crust dates to between 33,000
and 40,000 years before the present
(BP), he’s confident that the “Panel of
Hands” is at least that old.
Striking as the cave paintings of
northern Spain may be, they’re not the
only art form dating back to the Ice
Age. They may not even be the oldest.
Equally remarkable, and also the basis
for designation as a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, are the figurines, musical instruments, and jewelry excavated
from caves of the Ach and Lone valleys in Germany. These objects include
small carved representations of various
animals, a woman, and a creature with
the body of a man and the head of a
lion; flutes carved from ivory and from
bird bones; and innumerable beads
pierced with holes for stringing. In his
presentation in Leiden, Nicholas Conard, professor of early prehistory and
quaternary ecology at the University
of Tübingen, gave these objects an age
range of 33,000 to 43,000 years.
Conard explained that he and his colleagues had identified this age range by
using several dating techniques: radiocarbon, which determines how much radioactive carbon-14 (whose rate of decay is known) is missing from a sample;
thermoluminescence, whereby material
that is subjected to intense heat gives
off flames whose properties indicate
the age of the sample; and electron spin
resonance, which calculates how many
trapped electrons have accumulated
Yvonne Mühleis © State Office for Cultural Heritage Baden-Wuerttemberg/Museum Ulm
“Cave art is extremely impressive evidence for human symbolic behavior,”
explains Dirk Hoffmann, a research
scientist at the Max Planck Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology. “Unfortunately,” he adds, “it is also one
of the most difficult kinds of evidence
to date accurately.” Hoffmann studies
decorated caves on the northern coast
of Spain. These include the UNESCO
World Heritage sites of Altamira, El
Castillo, and Tito Bustillo, with their
red, black, and stippled animals and
designs. A less famous but equally
evocative sight at El Castillo is the
“Panel of Hands,” a section of cave
wall on which appear images of more
than two dozen hands, outlined in
reddish pigment. The hands are unmistakably human—but how long ago
were the images made?
Determining the age of cave paintings has often required sacrificing a
tiny part of the picture, because the
only materials that could be removed
for chemical analysis were the pigments in the paintings themselves. Instead, Hoffmann and his colleagues
take samples of the calcite veil or crust
that has formed on top of the pigments,
reasoning that it could have accumulated only after the artwork was completed. Thanks to recent refinements,
uranium-series dating techniques can
now be used on calcite samples smaller
than a grain of rice, with no need ever
to touch the art itself. It is not known
how much time elapsed between the
creation of the painting and the deposi-
in the crystalline structure of a sample
since the time of its burial. Focusing on
the older end of the range, Conard proclaims, “One can safely say the earliest
and best record of figurative art and
music is [here].” Colleagues who study
other decorated caves might argue the
point with regard to figurative art—the
claim cannot be settled as long as archaeological dating techniques produce
age ranges instead of definite dates—
but certainly the flutes, at least, are the
earliest ever found.
Large monumental art took much
longer to make its first appearance. “By
far the oldest wooden sculpture in the
world,” according to Thomas Terberger,
2018
January–February
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Nicolas Conard
The Ach and Lone valleys of Swabia, in
southwestern Germany, have yielded examples of human creativity from 33,000 to
43,000 years ago. Clockwise, from top left:
ivory beads; ivory and bone flutes (with insets showing marks of manufacture and use);
and a mammoth figurine carved from ivory.
tained from accelerator mass spectrometry
dating, which can measure extremely
low concentrations of carbon-14 in a
sample: According to this method, the
find is at least 10,000 years old.
The Russian totem pole thus dates
back almost to the dawn of agriculture, a time that many social-studies
textbooks set down as the beginning of
fixed dwellings and the domestication
of animals. In the popular imagination,
that was around the time that society,
culture, and art all emerged in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
But the new, earlier date for an elaborate
carved monument far to the north—
together with the finding of a perforated
and decorated antler from the same peat
Tammy Hodgskiss
of the Monuments Preservation Office
in Lower Saxony in Germany, is a totem
pole–like figure discovered near what is
now Yekaterinburg, Russia. Almost four
meters tall, with carefully carved eyes,
nose, and mouth at the top and with six
additional faces and numerous zigzags
carved along the body, it must have been
an impressive sight in its day.
The monument was exceptionally
well preserved, thanks to having settled in the acidic, low-oxygen environment of a peat bog, so it was a surprise
when conventional radiocarbon techniques assigned it an age of about 7,800
years. More surprising still, as Terberger reported at the meeting, were the
new results he and his colleagues ob-
Pieces of ochre found at archaeological sites in South Africa show evidence of use from
100,000 years ago. Under magnification, ochre from Sibudu Cave (left) displays striations
from being ground for powder; likewise, the grinding of ochre from Rose Cottage Cave
(right) has produced a faceted tip.
10
bog and of human-form monuments in
southeast Turkey from about 9,000 to
10,000 years BP—tell Terberger something different: that “complex art [was]
no exclusive element of the societies of
the Fertile Crescent” at that time.
By What Means
The process of obtaining art supplies
has had its own prehistory, which contributes to our knowledge about the
conditions of life for the earliest members of our species. At the University
of the Witwatersrand in South Africa,
Tammy Hodgskiss analyzes how hominins have collected and used ochre for
a very long time. “There is convincing
evidence that ochre was deliberately
collected as far back as 285,000 years
ago, in Kenya,” she says. This yellowish
to bright-red iron ore, found in chunks
and then ground into power, has
served many purposes: as a sunscreen,
insect repellent, and ingredient in hidetanning, not to mention as a pigment
for decorating the body and the home.
When Hodgskiss looks at changes
over time in the use of ochre, she sees
a basis for inferences about the fluctuating climate in which human ancestors evolved. In places where the
archaeological record shows ochre
having been used more intensively,
American Scientist, Volume 106
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with each piece reused many times,
this indicates the climate at that time
was relatively cool and dry, with large
areas of open grassland. In sites with
evidence of less use, with fewer pieces
of ochre found, the climate of the time
was likely warmer and wetter, with
more close-growing vegetation.
Even the humblest of art supplies
has a prehistory that tells us something
about our forebears. Paul Kozowyk, a
research scientist at Leiden University,
is probably one of the world’s few experts on the properties of ancient glues.
This line of research intersects with a
surprising number of fields: chemistry,
of course, but also botany, pyrotechnology, mechanics, and paleoanthropology.
By comparing several different
methods for the dry distillation of birch
bark into a tarry, adhesive substance,
Kozowyk and his colleagues have
been able to recreate a process that was
probably developed by Neanderthals
Down Syndrome, the Immune
System Disorder
Comparing protein levels in blood samples from those with and without an extra 21st chromosome suggests that the underlying pathology
is immune dysfunction.
Several years ago, cancer researcher
Joaquin Espinosa started down a completely new research path: studying
Down syndrome, the most common
intellectual disability. Thomas Blumenthal, who was at the time the executive
director of the Linda Crnic Institute for
Down Syndrome at the University of
Colorado, recruited him to work on an
intriguing question: Why is it that people with Down syndrome are protected from most solid tumors—including
breast cancers, prostate cancers, and
colon cancer—but have higher rates of
leukemia and blood cancers?
“Five years ago, I really didn’t have
any clues as to why that would be,”
says Espinosa, who recently succeeded
Blumenthal as the executive director
of the Institute. “Now, my team and I
find ourselves studying a known tumor response in the immune system.”
This question led him, Blumenthal,
and their collaborators to upend the
way we think about Down syndrome.
Espinosa elucidates: “The public at
large thinks of Down syndrome as a
condition of the brain, but our studies are recasting Down syndrome as
a condition of the immune system,
which then goes on to have impacts
on the brain and many other organs.”
Even though people with Down syndrome are less likely to develop hard tumors, they are diagnosed at higher rates
with certain autoimmune disorders—
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such as celiac disease, Hashimoto’s hyperthyroidism, and type-1 diabetes—
compared with the general population.
These associations have been known
for a long time, but are only now being
understood. As the tools for studying
proteins have advanced, researchers
have started to fully appreciate the repercussions of having a third copy of
the 21st chromosome. A paper recently
published in Scientific Reports describes
the team’s exhaustive investigation of
the levels of more than 4,000 proteins in
blood samples from 263 people, 165 of
whom had that extra chromosome and
98 of whom did not, matched for age
and gender.
A third copy of the 21st chromosome means that the proteins encoded
on the genes from that part of the genome tend to be found at higher levels than in most other people and can
have downstream effects on the levels
of other proteins. “When we look at
the 200 proteins that were statistically
different between people with Down
syndrome and those without, about
half of those proteins are involved in
control of the immune system, such
as control of inflammation, response
to bacterial infections, response to viral infections, and so forth,” Espinosa
explains. “The study puts immune
dysregulation at the top of the biological processes that are impacted by the
extra chromosome.”
more than 200,000 years ago—long before modern humans began to make
their own form of glue from the resin
of conifer trees. In this particular technological race, the Neanderthals may
have gotten a head start simply because they were working with a more
amenable kind of raw material. “Birch
may just be more suitable for making
tar in a simple way,” says Kozowyk.
Sometimes, using what’s available is
an art in itself. —Sandra J. Ackerman
The Linda Crnic team’s proteomic
analysis—a method of identifying and
quantifying all circulating proteins—
showed interesting differences between
the two groups. Not only were levels of
proteins encoded on the 21st chromosome 1.5 times higher than normal in
those with Down syndrome—as would
be expected for three rather than two
copies of the chromosome—but also
those elevated levels caused a cascade
of signaling that resulted in much higher levels of certain types of proteins associated with the immune system. The
signal amplification may explain how
the extra copy of chromosome 21 can
have such profound health consequences. Espinosa clarifies, “What we believe
we’re observing here is a process of signal amplification from a few proteins
on chromosome 21 that are master regulators of the immune system.”
Four proteins in particular, all encoded by genes on chromosome 21 and all
known to be potent regulators of the
immune system, had elevated levels in
people with Down syndrome, according to a 2016 study in eLife by the same
team. These four proteins belong to a
type of immune system regulator called
interferon receptors. Interferons are signaling proteins named for their ability to
interfere with the replication of pathogens or tumor cells. Interferon receptors
sense the presence of interferons and
trigger a biochemical response.
“When you have more of these receptors, you’re hypersensitive to the
presence of interferons, and that triggers another reaction in the immune
system,” Espinosa notes. “What we
found in the blood samples is consistent
with the notion that a small increase—
only 50 percent more—of these interferon receptors suffices to cause profound immune dysregulation.”
Some drugs that tone down the interferon response, such as JAK inhibitors,
2018
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log2 [protein] picograms per milliliter
a
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vascular endothelial
growth factor A
p = 0.0145
b
interleukin 6
p = 0.0105
monocyte chemoattractant protein-1
p = 0.0145
c
7.0
6.0
2.0
6.5
5.0
6.0
0
4.0
5.5
–2.0
euploid trisomy
control
21
group
group
log2 [protein] picograms per milliliter
d
euploid trisomy
control
21
group
group
interleukin 22
p = 0.0190
euploid trisomy
control
21
group
group
tumor necrosis
factor alpha
p = 0.0309
e
4.0
2.0
2.0
1.5
0
1.0
–2.0
0.5
euploid trisomy
control
21
group
group
euploid trisomy
control
21
group
group
When protein levels in a group of individuals with Down syndrome (trisomy 21 group) were
compared with levels in a group without Down syndrome (euploid control group), significant
differences were found for the five proteins whose data are plotted here. All these proteins
are associated with the immune system. These differences must be the result of signal amplification from a few proteins coded on chromosome 21 that regulate the immune system.
(Figure adapted from Sullivan, K. D., et al. 2017. Trisomy 21 causes changes in the circulating
proteome indicative of chronic autoinflammation. Scientific Reports 7:14818.)
are already approved by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration, because they
are used for other autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Clinical trials of these drugs are also
underway to test their efficacy in treating additional autoimmune conditions.
Espinosa and his colleagues next plan
to study how these drugs could treat or
alleviate risks and impairments associated with Down syndrome—not only
those related to cancer but many other
aspects of the condition as well.
The results of the study in Scientific
Reports are consistent with the team’s
2016 findings in eLife. The earlier study
looked at differences in levels of RNAs,
the intermediate molecule between
DNA and proteins, in isolated cells
from people with and without Down
syndrome. Espinosa says, “The key
conclusion of that study was that most
of the changes at the RNA level could
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be linked to a particular aspect of the
immune system involved in defense
against viruses and tumors. So the two
studies agree on this immune dysregulation as a key event that is going on in
people with Down syndrome.” This result laid the groundwork for looking at
proteins circulating in the blood stream.
“Both studies also agree that different people with Down syndrome have
different degrees of immune dysregulation,” Espinosa says. “Some have a
very obvious autoinflammatory signature with many potent inflammatory
proteins elevated in the blood; others,
not so much.” The next step for their
research is to parse out how this immune dysregulation might contribute
to various aspects of Down syndrome:
the cognitive impairments, the higher
risk of autoimmune conditions, the congenital heart defects, the visual problems, and the hearing problems. Such a
connection may not seem immediately
obvious, but it makes sense to Espinosa.
“The immune system is throughout
the body, including the brain, of course,”
he notes. The underlying driver of the
cognitive impairments associated with
Down syndrome may be the changes in
the immune system that Espinosa and
his collaborators have identified.
He explains, “We know that when
the immune cells of our brain, the socalled microglia, are hyperactivated, they
can have harmful effects on other brain
cells. When the immune system is activated, it produces all kinds of toxic molecules, compounds that are rare to find
in a person unless they have been going
through a strong immune response.”
So, these studies could lead to a
broader advance in understanding brain
disorders. Espinosa says, “We knew
even before this work was published
that people with Down syndrome have
strong signs of microglia activation in
the brain. We knew that they have brain
inflammation. And there is a vast body
of literature showing that the hyperactivation of the microglia can lead to
cognitive impairment, even in typical
people. For example, the microglia,
when hyperactive, contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and
the death of neurons.”
People with Down syndrome are the
largest human population with a genetic predisposition to develop earlyonset Alzheimer’s disease. By the time
they reach age 40, 100 percent of people with Down syndrome develop the
brain pathology of amyloid plaques
and neurofibrillary tangles that precede cognitive decline, and a fraction
(4 percent to 55 percent) go on to develop dementia by age 59. If researchers
could understand why, it could help
both people with Down syndrome and
those with Alzheimer’s disease.
And the implications go well beyond Alzheimer’s. The long-mysterious
medical associations with Down
syndrome—higher rates of autism, certain autoimmune disorders, and certain cancers, along with very low rates
of most solid-tumor cancers—could
all have connections back to immune
system dysfunction. Understanding
the biochemical mechanisms at work
in people with Down syndrome could
therefore have huge implications. Espinosa says, “My conviction is that our
research is not only going to benefit
people with Down syndrome, but also
the population at large.” —Katie L. Burke
American Scientist, Volume 106
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Infographic
© Andrew Brunning/compoundchem.com
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to
Jacques Dubochet of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, Joachim Frank of Columbia University in New York,
and Richard Henderson of MRC Laboratory of Molecular
Biology in Cambridge, United Kingdom, for developing
cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure
determination of biomolecules in solution.
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rainer
Weiss of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Barry C. Barish of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration and the California Institute of Technology,
and Kip S. Thorne of the LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration and the
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California Institute of Technology, for decisive contributions to
the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was
awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall of the University of Maine, Michael Rosbash of Brandeis University in Massachusetts, and
Michael W. Young of Rockefeller University in New York,
for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling
the circadian rhythm.
The 2017 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Richard
H. Thaler of the University of Chicago, for his contributions to
behavioral economics.
2018
January–February
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Briefings
I
Neutron Star Merger Discovery
NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet
Amini, S., et al. Preventing mussel adhesion
using lubricant-infused materials. Science
357:668–673 (August 18)
Preventing Malaria Transmission
Two studies affirm the promise of genetic modification of mosquitoes to curb
malaria transmission. Malaria is caused
by a pathogen that lives in mosquitoes’
guts. One study focused on whether mosquitoes with genetic modifications that
make them more resistant to the malaria
parasite are able to spread. The genetically modified males preferred wild-type
females, and normal males preferred mating with genetically modified females. In a
single generation, the trait spread through
90 percent of the population. In the second study, a team genetically modified
bacteria in the mosquitoes’ microbiome
to secrete a substance that prevented the
growth of the malaria-causing parasite,
Plasmodium. Because the selected bacterium lives in male and female reproductive organs, as well as in the gut, it can be
passed down through generations. Both
approaches need to be tested further to
ensure they work outside the lab.
Pike, A., Y. et al. Changes in the microbiota
cause genetically modified Anopheles to
spread in a population. Science 357:1396–
1399 (September 29)
Cho, A. Merging neutron stars generate
gravitational waves and a celestial light
show. Science doi:10.1126/science.aar2149
(October 16) [The full set of papers is listed
at the end of this article.]
Wang, S., et al. Driving mosquito
refractoriness to Plasmodium falciparum
with engineered symbiotic bacteria. Science
357:1399–1402 (September 29)
Nature 551(7678):5–128 (November 2) [Full list
of papers here: http://go.nature.com/2k1BpLn]
Fungi in Earth’s Deep Crust
Curbing Mussels’ Invasion
A lubricant-infused material could prevent the spread of invasive mussels and
other invertebrate stowaways on ships.
By preventing mussels from latching on
14
A partially fossilized fungus was found
in a vein of quartz from Sweden 800
meters underground, during a search for
nuclear storage space. The biome of the
deep continental subsurface is largely
unexplored. This unnamed fungus is the
first found to have grown in deep bed-
Drake, H., et al. Anaerobic consortia of
fungi and sulfate reducing bacteria in deep
granite fractures. Nature Communications 8:55 (July 4)
New Protist Lineage
A new species of unicellular organism
complicates the story of early evolution
in eukaryotes—the domain of life that
includes organisms with a nuclear membrane around protein-bound DNA and
with organelles such as mitochondria. The
organism is a protist—a group of mostly
one-celled eukaryotes that are not fungi,
plants, or animals—and was named Ancoracysta twista. It was found in an aquarium at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and was recognized as unique when
its genetics couldn’t be reconciled with
any known lineage. Eukaryotes with longer mitochondrial genomes are thought
to dwell closer to the
root of the domain’s
family tree. A group
of protists called jakobids have 60 genes on
their mitochondrial
genome, compared
with humans’ 13, and
so were thought to be
one of the earliest branches on the family tree. A. twista has 47 genes but is not
closely related to jakobids.
Janouškovec et al., 2017, Current Biology 27, 3717–3724
The first direct observation of a merger
of two neutron stars—the remnants of
massive stars that died in a supernovas—
occurred on August 17. Gravitational
waves produced by the merger, designated GW170817, were sensed first at two
Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave
Observatory detectors. Less than two seconds after that detection, NASA’s Fermi
Gamma-Ray
Space Telescope
registered a
short gammaray burst. After
a rapid analysis
of these twin
events, more
than 70 spaceand groundbased telescopes were pointed toward
the site of the signals, observing it across
the spectrum from radio waves to x-rays.
The merger was traced to the galaxy NGC
4993, located 130 million light years from
Earth. These observations will give astronomers a look inside neutron stars, and
an opportunity to study their composition.
The observations confirm that gamma-ray
bursts shorter than about two seconds
originate from neutron-star mergers.
GW170817 also resolved a question about
the origin of elements heavier than iron,
such as silver, gold, and platinum. The data
indicate that some, and perhaps all, of
these elements come from the rapid neutron capture process after such a merger.
rock and hints at a greater deep-Earth
biodiversity than had been recognized
before. In such a sealed-off location
the fungus must have been anaerobic,
raising questions about what it fed on.
Although there was no direct evidence
of other life at that depth, the pyrite
crystals surrounding the fungal filaments
were enriched with
sulfate, commonly associated with sulfatereducing microbes. If
such microbes had been
present, they could
have had a symbiotic
relationship with the
fungus as part of an underground ecosystem.
The presence of deep fungal life could
complicate plans for storing toxic and
radioactive waste, because such microbes
may dissolve or corrode containers.
Nature Communications 8, Article Number: 55 (2017)
to a surface, the infused silicone material, called 3D polydimethylsiloxane, can
stop them from gaining new footholds.
In laboratory tests, invasive Asian green
mussels (Perna viridis) didn’t recognize
the surface as one they could latch on to.
In field tests, the mussels also failed to
adhere to the surface. This material was
already being commercialized for preventing blood or bacteria from adhering
to a medical device’s surface. Now, its
applications also include this way of addressing an environmental problem.
n this roundup, digital features
editor Katie L. Burke summarizes
notable recent developments in
scientific research, selected from reports
compiled in the free electronic newsletter Sigma Xi SmartBrief. Online: https://
_____
www.smartbrief.com/sigmaxi/index.jsp
Janoudžkovec, J., et al. A new lineage of eukaryotes illuminates early mitochondrial genome
reduction. Current Biology DOI:10.1016/j.
cub.2017.10.051 (November 22)
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Science
Communication
The Gene-Editing Conversation
Public dialogue about the new technology will require major investments from
scientists, journalists, and philanthropists.
Matthew Nisbet
I
n 2014 biochemist Jennifer Doudna
of the University of California at
Berkeley awoke from a nightmare
that would shift the focus of her
world-class scientific career. Two years
earlier, with her colleague Emmanuelle
Charpentier, now director of the Max
Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens
in Berlin, Doudna had achieved one of
the most stunning breakthroughs in the
history of biology, becoming the first to
use a process called CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the genetic makeup of living organisms. Their “gene-editing” tool would
allow scientists to efficiently insert or
delete specific bits of DNA with unprecedented precision.
But as applications related to modifying human genes were soon reported in
the scientific literature, Doudna began to
worry. In the dream, a colleague asked if
she would help teach someone how to
use CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindrome Repeats). She
followed him into a room to be greeted
by Adolph Hitler wearing a pig face.
The nightmare reinforced her belief
that public discussion of the technology was far behind the breakneck pace
of its emerging applications. She feared
a public backlash that would prevent
beneficial forms of gene-editing research
from moving forward.
Doudna organized a workshop
among scientists, ethicists, and other
experts; they published a 2015 paper
in Science urging an international summit on the ethics of gene-editing and a
Matthew Nisbet is professor of communication studies at Northeastern University, a coauthor of the
2017 National Academies’ report Communicating
Science Effectively: A Research Agenda, and a
consulting researcher to the American Association
for the Advancement of Science Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion. Twitter: @MCNisbet
www.americanscientist.org
American Scientist
voluntary pause in scientific research
that would alter the genetic makeup
of humans. In a TED talk that year, she
called for a global conversation about
gene editing so scientists and the public could consider the full range of social and ethical implications. Her 2017
book, A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control
Evolution, coauthored with her former
student Samuel Sternberg, follows up
on these efforts.
In their book, Doudna and Sternberg
systematically review the vast number
of applications across the life sciences
that CRISPR-Cas9 may enable. With
livestock, gene editing can be used to
produce leaner meat, to make livestock
more resistant to infection, to remove
allergens from eggs and milk, to reduce
the use of antibiotics, and to achieve
other outcomes that benefit human nutrition and animal welfare. In medicine,
gene editing is being used to engineer
mosquitoes so they no longer spread viruses such as malaria or Zika, and mice
so they no longer transmit Lyme disease
to ticks, thereby reducing infection rates
among humans. In other applications,
the gene editing of goats, chickens, and
rabbits may allow pharmaceuticals to be
manufactured more quickly, at higher
yields, and at lower cost than by way of
traditional laboratory methods. In the
Biochemist Jennifer Doudna, a codeveloper of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique,
spoke at TEDGlobal>London in 2015 and called for a global conversation about gene editing.
(Photograph courtesy of James Duncan Davidson/TED.)
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Public Beliefs about the Morality of Human Gene-Editing
Percent of U.S. adults who say gene-editing to give healthy babies a much reduced risk of
serious disease is . . .
Morally Acceptable
Morally Unacceptable
Not Sure
28%
30%
40%
All U.S.
Adults
Highly
Religious
Moderately
Religious
Nonreligious
15%
41%
25%
43%
41%
32%
17%
45%
37%
Respondents who did not give an answer are not shown.
Source: Pew Research Center, N=4,726, survey conducted March 2–26, 2016.
future, gene-edited pigs may even be a
major source for lifesaving organ transplants, providing tissues that are less
likely to be rejected by human patients.
In a process called somatic gene editing,
scientists are exploring ways to treat diseases caused by a single mutated gene
such as cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s, and
sickle cell disease. The patient’s cells in
the affected tissues would be either edited within the body or edited outside
and returned to the patient. In both cases, the corrections would not be passed
on to offspring. But in terms of human
applications, the most widely debated
research involves so-called germline gene
editing. This process would alter sperm,
eggs, and early stage embryos to protect
a child against inheritable diseases such
as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and forms of
cancer. But such techniques could also
potentially be used to select for specific
physical traits or to boost human performance by way of denser bones and
greater endurance, creating so-called
designer babies. In each application,
as a human matured, the altered DNA
would be copied into every cell, and
passed on to their progeny.
Not surprisingly, public opinion surveys reveal widespread public reservations about the technology and a firm
belief that scientists should consult the
public before applying gene-editing
techniques to humans. Given the
many important considerations that
gene editing raises, in 2017 the U.S.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommended
that scientists invest in ongoing input
from the public regarding the benefits
and risks of human genome editing,
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and that more research be conducted
to better understand how to facilitate
such a process.
But to lead a national and global conversation about gene editing, scientists
will need help not only from their colleagues in the humanities, social sciences, and creative arts, but also from journalists and philanthropists. Informed
public discussion about gene editing is
not possible without high-quality, sustained reporting from journalists with
deep knowledge of the subject. And
new initiatives designed to understand
public attitudes, to facilitate public dialogue, and to report on the complexities of gene editing will not be possible
without financial support from philanthropists and their foundations.
A Skeptical Public
Given that discussion of human gene
editing still remains primarily confined
to scientific meetings and to elite gatherings such as TED conferences, it is not
surprising that a 2016 Pew Research
Center survey showed that 42 percent
of Americans have heard “nothing at
all” about the topic, compared with
48 percent “a little” and 9 percent “a
lot.” But polls also show that Americans hold fairly consistent opinions and
judgments about gene editing, even
as they possess very little information
about the complex subject. To do so,
individuals actively draw on their religious and cultural values, familiar
narratives from popular culture, and
similarities to past debates.
For example, in the same Pew survey,
when asked about the moral acceptability of gene-editing techniques intended
to give healthy babies a reduced risk of
disease, only 28 percent of Americans
consider the application acceptable,
compared with 30 percent who say it
is unacceptable and 40 percent who
are not sure. Notably, among the onethird of Americans who can be classified as highly religious, only 15 percent
consider such applications morally
acceptable (see the figure at left). When
asked separately if such an application
meddled with nature and crossed a line
that should not be crossed, 64 percent of
highly religious Americans agreed with
the statement.
For many religious Americans, gene
editing is likely closely associated with
past debates over embryonic stem cell
research and fetal tissue research. In
these controversies, Christian leaders
mobilized opposition to government
funding by framing research as a violation of religious teachings. From a traditional Christian perspective, human
life begins at conception and is created
in God’s image. Embryos are considered
to be divinely created human beings.
When scientists destroy or alter human
embryos, they take on the role of God,
violating divine will. Therefore, traditional Christians believe that embryo
research is morally wrong and that if it
is funded by the government using tax
revenues, such funding makes all Americans complicit in destroying human life.
In the Pew survey, for example, among
those who said gene editing was morally unacceptable, more than one-third
of responses made reference to changing
God’s plan or violating his will.
But as various survey findings indicate, it is not just strongly religious
Americans who have moral reservations about gene editing. Even among
nonreligious Americans, 17 percent say
that gene editing to give babies a much
reduced risk of disease is morally unacceptable, and 37 percent say they are unsure. In a follow-up question, more than
one-quarter of nonreligious respondents
say they oppose gene editing to improve
the health of a baby because it would be
meddling with nature and cross a line
that should not be crossed. When asked
more specifically if saving a baby’s life
required testing on human embryos or
altering the genetic makeup of the whole
population, about half of all Americans
say that such scenarios would make the
application less acceptable to them (see
the figure on page 15). A 2016 survey conducted by Harvard University’s Chan
School of Public Health finds even stron-
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ger levels of reservations. In this case,
when asked about changing the genes
of unborn babies to reduce their risk of
developing certain serious diseases, 65
percent of Americans said that such an
application should be illegal. More than
80 percent said the same when asked
about gene editing to improve intelligence or physical traits.
What explains the reservations
voiced by both religious and nonreligious Americans? Bioethicists have
used the term Yuck Factor to describe a
“visceral repugnance” and “emotional
opposition” felt by the public when
they first hear about human genetic
engineering. This repugnance, wrote
University of Chicago ethicist Leon
Kass in an oft-cited 1997 article in the
New Republic, is an “emotional feeling of deep wisdom,” that leads an
individual to “intuit and feel, immediately without argument, the violation
of things that we rightfully hold dear.”
The Yuck Factor likely has its origins
in Kantian and Christian philosophies
of human dignity that permeate Western culture. These traditions, as political theorist Francis Fukuyama of
Stanford University described in his
2002 book Our Post Human Future, emphasize that human life has a higher
moral place than the rest of the natural
world. Therefore, according to these
philosophies, even at its earliest stages
of development, human life should always be treated with a sacred respect.
Such teachings have shaped Western culture to the extent that their principles are passed on even to those who
have never set foot in a church. The
Yuck Factor is therefore a relatively
intuitive response, a reaction formed
below the level of conscious deliberation on the part of an individual, often
in the absence of substantive information. When asked about emerging
gene-editing techniques that would
involve altering human embryos or
engineering desired traits, most individuals probably have difficulty articulating why they might believe it to be
morally questionable; they just know it
when they feel it.
Why Journalism Matters
Although scientists hold a responsibility to engage the public about the
social implications of gene editing, informed public dialogue ultimately depends heavily on journalists and their
news organizations. Quality science
reporting is essential to understanding
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Public Beliefs about the Acceptability of Gene-Editing Research
Percent of U.S. adults who say gene-editing that gives healthy babies a much reduced risk
of serious diseases would be more acceptable, less acceptable, or make no difference...
More Acceptable
Less Acceptable
No Difference
34%
23%
40%
if the effects were limited
to that person and could
not be passed on
if it required testing on
human embryos to
develop these techniques
if it changed the genetic
makeup of the whole
population
32%
54%
11%
31%
49%
17%
Respondents who did not give an answer are not shown.
Source: Pew Research Center, N = 4,726, survey conducted March 2–26, 2016.
how and why gene-editing research is
being conducted, including the connections between new advances and
ongoing debates over funding, governance, regulation, ethics, accessibility,
uncertainty, and patent rights. Even
in today’s dramatically altered media
landscape, coverage in print and online, at both traditional and new media outlets, still drives discussion of
complex issues such as gene editing.
These news organizations provide the
information, frames of reference, and
narratives that scientists, journalists,
funders, policy makers, and societal
leaders frequently draw upon to set
their readers critical context. Industry
practices within journalism have also
changed. In a business model dependent on Facebook and Google to generate traffic and advertising revenue,
former New Republic editor Franklin
Foer warns that journalists are being
told by their editors to actively seek
out trending topics that are likely to
catch on or go viral, rather than to
rely on their news judgment to decide
what are the most important stories to
tell readers. As a consequence, coverage of gene editing loses out to the
latest sensational cultural event or
breaking political scandal. When gene
The Yuck Factor is a relatively intuitive
response, a reaction formed below the
level of conscious deliberation, often in
the absence of substantive information.
policy, make decisions, or communicate with various segments of the public who trust their advice.
Yet for the past two decades, the
news media have faced crippling
economic and technological disruptions that have forced cutbacks in the
amount of reporting on complex science topics such as gene editing. As
University of Wisconsin-Madison
communication scholar Dietram
Scheufele has documented, due to
layoffs there are also far fewer veteran journalists on staff who can draw
on decades of experience to provide
editing is covered, headlines and story
angles may exaggerate the technology’s promise and peril in an effort to
win scarce reader attention.
Now is the time, therefore, for scientists and philanthropists to help
journalists and news organizations to
correct for these pressures and biases.
They can do so by sponsoring workshops where a diversity of experts and
stakeholders gather to discuss with
journalists and editors the scientific,
ethical, and legal implications of gene
editing, making it easier for journalists to cover gene editing accurately
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A series of workshops at the University of Alberta, which brought together scientists, artists,
and ethicists to discuss the social implications of human genetic engineering, developed into
a touring exhibit of visual works on this theme. (Sean Caulfield & Roy Mills, University of
Alberta; End Point, from “Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society, and Art” exhibition
at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, November 2008–January 2009.)
leaders and the public are invited to be
active participants in defining what is
discussed, sharing their own knowledge and perspectives. Third, there is
no single “public” with which to communicate or engage, but rather multiple “publics” exist. These include but
are not limited to church leaders and
congregations, racial or ethnic groups,
parents and patient advocates, and political identity groups such as liberals
or conservatives.
Among the most important types
of organized dialogue initiatives are
smaller, more intimate events that
bring together scientists with other societal leaders to facilitate the sharing of
perspectives, and the forging of relationships. In one leading example, the
Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science
has organized workshops that convene scientists and clergy to discuss
topics of mutual concern and possible
disagreement such as embryonic stem
cell research. To inform the discussion,
focus groups were conducted in advance of the events, and the meetings
were professionally facilitated. Scientists and clergy participating in the
meetings indicated that the sessions
helped break down stereotypes about
each other, facilitating learning and
mutual respect. In a related initiative,
DoSER has worked with seminary
schools and synagogues to develop
curricula and resources that aid clergy
in leading more constructive conversa-
and on a regular basis. Philanthropists,
universities, and research institutions
can also provide fellowships and other
sources of financial support that enable journalists to spend the weeks
and months required to substantively
report on the subject.
But journalists are not the only professionals who are needed to write
compellingly about the scientific and
social implications of gene editing. Scientists, ethicists, and social scientists
can also contribute commentaries and
articles to the popular press, offering
independent insights and context. In
one initiative to help facilitate such
articles, the Kavli Foundation is partnering with the Alan Alda Center for
Communicating Science and a number
of science magazines and online publications (including American Scientist)
to train scientists to apply the techniques and standards of journalism in
writing about complex topics such as
gene editing.
A strong predictor of individuals
becoming involved politically on
embryonic stem cell research was whether
they had discussed the topic at church.
Investing in Public Dialogue
Yet even as quality journalism provides the main architecture around
which informed debate about gene editing will take place, the scientific community, along with universities, philanthropies, and research institutions,
must also help create opportunities
for direct public participation in dialogue and deliberation. Such an effort
starts with the sponsorship of carefully
conducted social-science research that
assesses public discourse about gene
shares a few common principles. First,
in these initiatives, communication is
defined as an iterative back-and-forth
process between various segments
of the public, experts, and decisionmakers. Such approaches assume that
there is no single “correct” way to talk
about and understand the social implications of a complex subject such
as gene editing. Second, rather than
being top-down and controlled by
scientists and their partners, societal
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editing, the sources of information and
arguments that are shaping debate,
and the factors that are influencing
public attitudes. In turn, this research
should inform the design and evaluation of a variety of dialogue-based
communication initiatives organized
by scientific organizations, government agencies, and universities.
Over the past decades, across Europe and North America, efforts to
promote dialogue-based science communication have taken various forms,
but as the University of Calgary’s
Edna Einsiedel notes, each format
tions about complex scientific topics
with their congregations.
As these examples suggest, it is
important to remember that religion
is more than just a belief system that
shapes how people understand gene
editing. Churches are communication contexts where discussions can
at times be framed in strongly moral
terms by congregational leaders, reinforced by conversations that churchgoers have with others, and shaped by
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information provided directly when
at church. For these reasons, on a topic
such as gene editing, churches often
serve as powerful networks of civic
recruitment where congregants receive requests to voice their opinion
to elected officials. During the debate
over embryonic stem cell research, for
example, among the strongest predictors of whether individuals had become involved politically on the issue
was whether they had discussed or
received information about the topic at
church. In sum, when it comes to public dialogue about gene editing, scientists can either cede communication
at churches to religious leaders or become active partners in facilitating and
enriching church-based discussions.
Yet to promote broader public engagement across both religious and
nonreligious segments of the public, the
scientific community can also benefit
by partnering with experts specializing
in the humanities, philosophy, and the
creative arts. Scholars in the humanities and philosophy draw on literature,
religious traditions, and ethical frameworks to help the public consider what
is good, what is right, and what is of
value about a complex topic such as
gene editing. Writers, artists, filmmakers, and other creative professionals are
among society’s most inspiring storytellers about complex issues, and they
are able to communicate about gene
editing in imaginative, compelling,
and novel ways. Integrated into public dialogue initiatives, their work can
motivate different forms of learning,
sponsor critical reflection and deliberation, and produce thought-provoking
visions of the future.
In a past example that serves as a
prototype for such initiatives, faculty
at the University of Alberta in Canada
hosted workshops in 2008 that facilitated discussions about the social implications of human genetic engineering
among visual artists, scientists, bioethicists, and social scientists. Informed by
their conversations together, the artists were commissioned to produce
visual works reflecting on the themes
discussed, while the other participants
were asked to write short essays. The
project culminated in the exhibit “Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology,
Society, and Art,” which toured North
America. As part of the exhibit tour,
forums were held at museum venues,
generating local news coverage of the
themes expressed. The essays along
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with the artistic works were published
as part of a book and catalog sold at art
museums, bookstores, and online.
Apart from artistic exhibits, classic
works of literature and films can also
serve a similar function in stimulating public dialogue. For example, the
1997 film Gattaca is often used in college classrooms to stimulate student
discussion of the social implications of
human engineering. Research suggests
that rather than alarming audiences,
science fiction TV and film portrayals
may help familiarize viewers with the
moral dimensions of human genetic
engineering, thereby helping them
overcome their intuitive Yuck Factor
reservations. This year, in recognition
of the 200-year anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, faculty at Arizona State University have published
an annotated version of the novel that
also features essays from scientists and
scholars in the humanities and social
sciences. With support from the National Science Foundation, the university is also coordinating nationwide
events and activities at science museums and centers, which include exhibits, an online multimedia game, and
at-home activities for use by parents.
Each is carefully designed to foster discussion about the social and ethical
dimensions of gene editing and other
technological innovations.
For many, such broad-based initiatives may be beyond their ability to
organize or to fund. Major investments
in public dialogue and in supporting
high-quality journalism about gene editing will take coordinated action from
leaders of the scientific community
and their peers across fields including the news media and philanthropy.
But scientists and others should not
overlook the contributions to public
dialogue they can make starting right
now. University scientists, by way of
their classrooms and new degree programs, can partner with their peers in
the social sciences and humanities to
equip students with the knowledge
and skills they need to think critically
about the future of gene editing and
similar advances. At Cornell University, for example, one model to emulate
is the undergraduate major in Biology
and Society. Among the most popular
on campus, the major enables students
to group foundational training in the
biological sciences with coursework in
science communication, the social sciences, and the humanities.
Within their local communities, individual scientists can also actively encourage discussions about gene editing
by way of informal conversations and
by volunteering to give presentations
to community groups, connecting with
others by way of shared interests, values, and identities. Ultimately, for Jennifer Doudna, her goal is to motivate
the next generation of scientists to engage much more actively and directly
with the public, applying the principle
of “discussion without dictation” on
how gene editing should be used. All
scientists, regardless of discipline, she
argues in her recent book, must be prepared to participate in conversations
with the public about the far-reaching
consequences of gene editing and similarly powerful technologies.
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(eds.). 2011. Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society and Art. Edmonton, Canada:
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Doudna, J., and S. H. Sternberg. 2017. A Crack
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Einsiedel, E. F. 2014. Publics and their participation in science and technology. In M.
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2018
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
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Engineering
Will the Museum of Failure Succeed?
Showcases for the best in art, science, design, or even concepts, rarely feature the
missteps on the way to masterpiece status.
Henry Petroski
M
useums are commonly
and rightly thought of as
celebrations of success.
Patrons of the arts, and
even just plain patrons who like to be
seen as cultured, flock to these temples
of taste to view and admire acknowledged masterpieces in what has become
their natural setting: well-lit, climatecontrolled, and securely guarded galleries. No matter how good the technology
of reproduction has become, no experience is considered equal to being in the
presence of the real thing.
Except for small placards giving the
names and relevant dates of the artists,
sometimes supplemented by guided
tours and gallery talks, the works on
display in art museums are mostly supposed to speak for themselves. Typically, they are well-composed, wellexecuted, and well-preserved. They
represent the best of the best, and they
are investments that many who view
them may aspire to own, but few can
afford. There is usually a coupling between works of art and money that
may be less discussed than the art itself.
There are also museums of science
and technology, of course, but the real
thing is often not so easily exhibited in
them. Atoms, for example, are too difficult to corral and too small to see with
the naked eye, and great structures such
as long-span bridges are too large to fit
in even the largest of museum galleries.
Science and technology museums often
must rely on metaphor, model, and marvel to get across the idea that what they
celebrate is indeed something special.
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of
Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke
University. His most recent book is The Road Taken:
The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure. Address: Box 90287, Durham, NC 27708.
20
Manufactured goods can be represented by an example, of course, such
as an iPod or one of the many derivative
Apple iProducts that are admired for
their artistic design and technical innovation. The Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Institution’s design museum located in New York City, like the Museum
of Modern Art in the same city, collects
and exhibits this kind of extraordinary
work of design and manufacture. Sometimes, when something produced by the
millions gains cult status only after the
fact of its being introduced and used for
some time, a design museum has to satisfy itself with acquiring and exhibiting a
less-than-mint-condition specimen. But
this compromise is considered acceptable, because it is the ideal of the product, rather than the product itself, that
has the real claim to museum status.
This reasoning is partly why we find
the great science museums of the world
full of exhibits that explain processes
rather than just exhibit masterpieces.
Putting Newton’s Laws behind glass
in a gilded frame would be as foolishlooking as draping an engineering
drawing with flowers. These things
are pretty in themselves—in a way
that is usually described as elegant or
ingenious—rather than being objects
to be admired for their conformity to
classical artistic standards. Their real
meaning is in the context of what they
represent, not just in what they are.
Inspired Repurposing
Great engineering projects can be admired in a range of media, from backof-the-envelope sketches through
blueprints—or the kind of multicolored
Victorian drawings that may be considered works of art in their own way—to
photographs of construction progress
and the finished real thing. Joseph Pen-
nell, the American artist, became known
for depicting large infrastructure projects, such as the Panama Canal, in various stages of construction. His drawings were true pieces of art depicting
true pieces of engineering in the making,
and the depictions were of such a scale
that, unlike what they represented, they
could fit into a gallery space.
Some great engineering projects are
museums in their own right. Others
have exhibits pertaining to them incorporated into their fabric or built within
sight of the artifact that is the main
attraction. Such setups are in place at
the Hoover Dam and its visitor center and guided tours, at the Golden
Gate Bridge with its outdoor exhibits
in the shadow of the structure itself,
and at the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, with
its freestanding museum just across an
expansive plaza from the enormous
structure, to name just a few.
There is another kind of museum, one
between the art and the science kind,
which may be termed a museum of concepts. In such a museum, the unifying
theme is not the medium but the message. Museums devoted to the computer
and to computer science fall into this category, and they rely to a large extent on
representative artifacts to tell the story of
the ongoing evolution of a technology.
But in virtually all cases, the artifacts
on display—and the placards explaining
their role in the evolution of a concept or
as an innovative step in the history of the
technology—celebrate success, as incremental or transient as it may have been.
An early typewriter, for example, might
be on display to demonstrate the breakthrough idea of linking the depression of
a key to the activation of a shaped slug
of metal that strikes through an inked
ribbon to leave the impression of a letter
on a piece of paper.
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Never mind that the concept was prefigured (as just about every technological concept always has been and can be
expected always to be) in an unrelated
area. Keys, levers, linkages, and plucking and hammer mechanisms were the
basis of the harpsichord and the pianoforte, the development of which began
centuries before the typewriter’s mid19th century debut. But it is the genius
of invention to find inspiration in something seemingly unrelated to a newly
devised concept. It should be a function
of museums to point out this property.
Museums can celebrate long lines
of inspiration, and they sometimes do,
sons from the World’s Most Creative Places. He identified locations around the
world and throughout history where
there was a favorable relationship between the place and the kind of innovative thought associated with genius.
He was in search of common features
that spanned miles and centuries, manners and civilizations. Among the subthemes of his book is that masterpieces
are built on the backs of mistakes—in
the footsteps of failures—which have
been with us for as long as humans
have inhabited the planet.
The title of Weiner’s book itself struck
me as an example of a path to discovery
Joseph Pennell/Library of Congress
Joseph Pennell (1857–1926) was one of few artists to make a name for himself by depicting
large infrastructure projects in the midst of construction. This piece, titled Dinner time Gatun
Locks, shows workers going on break during the building of the Panama Canal.
but the stories can get too complicated
and drawn out, and demand too much
exhibition space—not to mention
museumgoer time and patience—to be
practical. Putting two and two together and getting five is left to the museum visitor to do for him or herself.
That is, after all, the role of genius, if
genius and creativity can be said to be
meaningfully classified and measured
at all. It seems to be one of those things
that we all just know when we see it.
Keep Trying
Discovering the roots of genius is what
Eric Weiner set out to do in writing his
2016 book, The Geography of Genius: Leswww.americanscientist.org
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littered with false steps and discarded
directions. On the copyright page of my
paperback edition, I found the statement
that the book was “previously published
as A Search for the World’s Most Creative
Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley.” When I saw this, I thought, “Aha!
That earlier title was like a discarded
draft crumpled up and tossed in the
wastebasket; like an unsatisfying painting on whose boards or canvas some
painted-over improvement survived;
like a failed product, or at least a misguided marketing plan; like a collapsed
bridge on whose piers a new one was
erected.” The book, I imagined, had
been repackaged under the catchier title
of The Geography of Genius. The book
itself—or at least its title—was an example of learning from failure.
But I could not find on the internet
or elsewhere any other references to the
prior title mentioned on the copyright
page. Indeed, the more I looked, the
more I became confused. The Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data farther down on the copyright
page listed a more extensive subtitle
than on the title page. It was the previously published title, complete with
the mention of Ancient Athens and
Silicon Valley. What a curious lapse in
proofreading! If that’s what it was.
Regardless of its present or original
title, The Geography of Genius makes for
fascinating reading. Weiner is a former
foreign correspondent for National
Public Radio, and so it seems fitting
that he knows his way around the
world. In seeking the roots of genius,
he visits and revisits seven locations
and times that he believes had something in common that amounted to
more than hospitality for genius: Athens in ancient times; Hangzhou during
the Song Dynasty; Florence during the
Renaissance; Edinburgh during the Enlightenment; Calcutta in the 19th and
early 20th centuries; Vienna at the end
of the 18th century and again a century
later; and, in most recent years, Silicon
Valley, California.
According to Weiner, genius flourished at different historical times and
locations for different reasons. In Florence, for example, the driving force was
money and the patronage and sponsorship offered by the Medicis and other
wealthy Florentines. Among the unifying insights Weiner brings to his discussion of creativity and innovation is
that people classified as geniuses “make
more mistakes than the rest of us.” It’s
a myth, he argues, that geniuses get it
right the first time every time they try
something, regardless of what that
something is. This insight comes upon
reflection on his conversations with an
irreverent Florentine guide named Eugene Martinez, who refers to Michelangelo as Mike and Leonardo as Leo, and
who declares that “there was a lot of
crap produced during the Renaissance.”
Upon further reflection, Weiner
comes up with geniuses from other periods and fields who also produced a lot
of crap. He notes that Thomas Edison
held more than 1,000 patents, “most for
completely worthless inventions.” And
of Pablo Picasso’s 20,000 works, “most
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were far from masterpieces.” In the field
of literature, he cites W. H. Auden, who
made the shocking claim that, “In the
course of his lifetime, the major poet will
write more bad poems than the minor.”
Weiner explains these examples with
the observation that “the more shots
you get at the target, the more likely
you’ll eventually score a bull’s-eye, but
the more misses you’ll accrue as well.”
Continuing his metaphor, he notes that
“the bull’s-eyes end up in museums
and on library shelves, not the misses.”
It is this unfortunate occurrence, according to Weiner, that feeds “the myth
that geniuses get it right the first time.”
This thought takes him back to thinking about Athens and Aristotle, from
whom he learned that archaeologists
“love mistakes,” which “reveal process.”
Indeed, “A perfectly crafted statue tells
the archaeologists nothing about how
it was made,” and that is exactly why
successes are so barren
of lessons to be learned.
Mistakes, on the other
hand, “shine a light on
the messy world of creative genius.”
Weiner’s Museum of Mistakes contains, for example, a can of New Coke,
which the world did not need when
it was introduced in 1985 as a replacement for the original formula. The product was proffered supposedly because
Coca-Cola was losing market share to
sweeter-tasting Pepsi. Within months, in
response to consumer disappointment,
Coke announced that the original formula would be reintroduced, under the
name Coke Classic. New Coke came to
be branded Coke II, but it was discontinued in 2002, a costly failed experiment with plenty of lessons about not
messing with a good thing.
Weiner’s idea for a Museum of Mistakes was prescient. Last year, in the
Swedish coastal city of Helsingborg,
which is located in the country’s southern region, a short ferry ride across
the Øresund strait from Denmark, a
Museum of Failure was opened. Its
international collection
of more than 70 failed
products and services
that were hoped to be
successful innovations
represent, by analogy, opportunities for
company executives
and would-be entrepreneurs, not to mention laypeople, to learn
about what not to do, at least in the
exact same way.
There is no guarantee that a tweaked
product, such as original formula Coca-Cola becoming New Coke, has to
fail. Nor is there any law stating that
tweaking a successful product cannot succeed—but the odds are greatly
against it. Every invention—even if imprecisely called an innovation, a term that
should be earned and not declared—is a
thing unto itself. It is conceived and created in a unique context that separates it
from everything that came before. Forgetting that basic idea is what leads from
hoped-for success to near-certain failure.
In every case of a new attempt at creativity, it is best to start with a blank slate.
Experience with prior attempts at art or
science, technology or marketing—of
the kinds of successes that end up in one
museum or another—can certainly be
used for foundation, inspiration, motivation, and emulation, but they are used as
a template at the creator’s peril.
It is no coincidence that among the
“innovation failures” on exhibit in the
Museum of Failure is a can of New
Coke. Its story—as often as it has been
“A perfectly
crafted statue tells
the archaeologists
nothing about how
it was made.”
Masterful Mistakes
It is at this point that
Weiner decides that
what the world needs
is a “Museum of Crap,” or, to put it
more genteelly, a Museum of Mistakes.
He imagines such a museum containing and displaying examples drawn
mostly from the world of consumer
products. Although neither fine art nor
elegant engineering, these products
metaphorically represent other serious
attempts to paint a masterpiece, write
a memorable poem, or design a daring
new bridge. None of these products individually is absolutely necessary for
the continuation of civilization as we
know it, but they do provide fresh fodder for the canon of culture. The artists, poets, and engineers engaged in
their enterprises are akin to the CEOs
and marketing geniuses who bring us
design and technology that is “New!”
“Improved!” and “Innovative!” not
to mention “Bigger and Better!” than
what is already in supermarkets, museums, and the world at large.
The Museum of Failure showcases some
less-than-successful products, such as (from
top): Harley-Davidson fragrance “Hot Road,”
Coke II, Sony Betamax, Twitter Peek, and the
Rejuvenique electric-shock face mask.
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American Scientist, Volume 106
Sofie Lindberg
American Scientist
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www.americanscientist.org
Wikimedia Commons
On the Shoulders of Failures
The late J. E. Gordon, author of outstanding books on structures and materials, observed that the history of engineering could be written in terms of its
failures. What he meant, of course, was
the same idea that Weiner learned from
Aristotle and archeologists: Successes
mask process; it is failures that reveal
it, albeit in a piecemeal way. So, the
best kind of museum of engineering—
if by engineering we mean the process
of design and development—would
not be a celebration of success but a
revelation of failure.
It is from the classic failures, ranging
from the Bent Pyramid in ancient Egypt
to the tragic Grenfell Tower apartment
building fire in today’s London, that
we learn what the limits of innovation
can be. We already know, in principle,
that the sky is not the limit, but we
do not know—from science or experience—what incremental limits exist
between ground and sky that require
zigzag trajectories to achieve new tech-
Early typewriters, such as this one from
Sholes (left) showcase their mechanistic descendance from musical instruments such as
the harpsichord (above).
Wikimedia Commons
told—is too good to pass up. In Helsingborg, New Coke is joined by a host of
other rather well-known failures whose
stories deserve also to be retold and put
on display. Among them is the Sony
Betamax system of video recording that
was introduced in the mid-1970s but
ultimately lost out to the technologically inferior competitor VCR, which
controlled a larger market share and
so could price its product more
appealingly. There are also the
Apple Newton, the personal digital assistant with handwriting
recognition, and Google Glass,
the spectacles-frame–mounted
minicomputer and screen.
But there are also products
whose names are rather selfexplanatory, such as the Bic for
Her ballpoint pen (which has
been subject to deeply sarcastic satiric reviews on consumer sites such as Amazon.com,
which ironically caused negative awareness of the product
to go viral on social media)
and Harley-Davidson perfume. These examples might
be thought to represent brandname hubris, the temptation to
associate a product of questionable need or relevance with a long-established brand’s fundamental image.
Success may be unique, but failure
comes in many forms.
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nological heights. A successful Moon
mission consisted not of a direct rocket
trajectory from Earth to its natural satellite, but a circuitous route involving
first orbiting Earth, then transitioning
to orbiting the Moon via a roller-derby–
like maneuver, followed by separation
from a command module and descent
in a lunar lander. The return trip was
equally roundabout, with the lander
leaving its base behind and blasting off
as light as possible to rendezvous with
the orbiting command module, and using roller derby principles once again
to return to Earth orbit and, finally, to
a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The
genius of it was its success in avoiding
failure at each stage.
Tweaking the brilliant engineering
achievement of landing men on the
Moon and bringing them back alive
can, of course, be attempted, but such
endeavors are best done in increments
that recognize the fact that failure may
lurk around every altered or added maneuver. Successes teach us little beyond
the fact that they are successes. In art,
close copies of such masterpieces as the
Mona Lisa will always be just that—
copies—and whether they work or not
can depend on a single brush stroke. The
question may remain whether the copying artist was trying to improve on the
masterpiece or was parodying it. Regardless, a successful work of art inspired by
it need not look anything like the classic
painting that hangs in the Louvre.
Analogous observations apply to science and engineering. Incremental and
iterative theories and designs may or
may not work, depending on how attentive the scientist or engineer is to
detail. In a theory, the thing analogous
to a brushstroke can be a symbol, or
a word, or a single number. There are
mathematical theorems, for example,
that work for a certain number n that
do not hold when n is replaced with
n+1. Think of Fermat’s Last Theorem.
And what about Edward Lorenz’s observations of nature’s chaotic tendency,
in which the flapping wings of a butterfly in Brazil can affect the weather in
Texas a week later?
In engineering, the analog to the
brushstroke is the nut, the bolt, the
nature of the cladding on a high-rise
apartment building. Change one thing
in a design, such as the number and
arrangement of steel rods supporting
a pair of elevated walkways in a hotel
in Kansas City, and a marginally safe
structure can develop into a failed one.
It is the nature of the endeavor, and it
deserves to be communicated through
exhibits in museums.
Bibliography
Gordon, J. E. 1978. Structures: Or Why Things
Don’t Fall Down. New York: Da Capo Press.
Gordon, J. E. 2006. The New Science of Strong Materials: Or, Why You Don’t Fall Through the Floor.
Revised edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Weiner, E. 2016. The Geography of Genius: Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Places.
New York: Simon and Schuster.
2018
January–February
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Perspective
Rearranging the Planet to Save It
Green energy plants are displacing the desert tortoise. What sacrifices are
acceptable side effects of technologies aimed at saving the Earth overall?
Robert L. Chianese
O
ur human-defined era on
Earth is only around 200,000
years old. But in the past few
centuries alone, we have reshaped the planet—by means of wars,
mass migrations, population pressures
for development, and the burning of fossil fuels—so rapidly and extensively that
flora and fauna extinction rates are soaring, to the point that some recommend
adopting extreme measures. Renowned
biologist E. O. Wilson, in his 2016 book
Half-Earth, proposes such a radical solution.
To curb our destruction of Earth’s
remaining plants and animals, Wilson
would set aside half the planet from human intrusion, to protect the greatest
number of life-forms. Rather than divvying up the globe into actual hemispheres,
he lists some 35 “Best Places in the Biosphere”: biodiversity “reservoirs” worth
keeping ourselves out of because of their
relatively unspoiled plant and animal
life. Otherwise, Wilson fears we will
continue acting as an arrogant apex species, judging other life-forms to be subordinate and expendable—for him, our
key misguided concept. Half-Earth thus
may express his most sweeping wisdom
about the planet—hands off half of it.
But one begins to worry that Wilson
is eco-dreaming about these massive
bio-preserves without figuring out
how we might actually make treaties,
pay for, and protect them—which inRobert Louis Chianese is an emeritus professor
of English at California State University, Northridge, a 1979 Mitchell Prize Laureate in Sustainability, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and Past
President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Pacific Division (2012), the
only humanities professor selected in its 100-year
history. Email: rlchianese@gmail.com
____________
24
clude, for example, whole islands such
as immense New Guinea, and California’s vast redwood forests, stacked
with 66 million dead trees ready to
ignite. Because Wilson doesn’t address
such questions, the book feels more
like a utopian vision than a detailed
implementation strategy for ringing
the globe with semi-Edens.
Nonetheless, Wilson is convinced
humans will make the required leap of
awareness and adapt to greener ways
despite the odds, and puts his full faith
in future techno-fixes. Advances in biology, nanotechnology, and robotics—
“bnr” as he labels them—will help us
change our dominance script. How
so? As he claims, “We are thinking organisms trying to understand how the
world works. We will come awake.”
But what nasty consequences could
emerge from his summa ecologica? One
obvious one is the constant need for efforts to keep out super-wealthy developers, corporations, resort companies,
celebrities, and rogue countries with
militias, as well as kings, potentates,
and oligarchs with endless financial
resources and takeover ambitions. If
these numerous bio-preserves are the
last pristine areas on the planet, flush
with rare and native species, imagine
the need to protect them, a perfect
recipe for new international conflict,
with legal, diplomatic, and military
repercussions. Where will the “Keep
Out” signs—and sentries—be posted?
If Wilson’s half-Earth plan could be
realized—negotiated, paid for, protected, and sustained—what goes on
in the unpreserved other half? This
area is where most of us would live,
presumably not too concerned about
harming already compromised nature,
and some of us developing the sav-
ing “bnr” technologies to support both
halves, the specifics of which Wilson
does not elaborate. But we must also
consider what problems might arise
from separating high-tech civilization
from healthy untouched nature.
Forced Removal
We have something of a model to contemplate. In California’s Mojave Desert,
desert tortoises have been moved and
resettled, or “translocated,“ to make way
for two kinds of projects—military ones
and less polluting energy sources from
wind, solar, and sun-mirror projects.
These green energy solar fields in the
Mojave reconfigure parts of the desert
with a new kind of dividing of the land.
This division is not on the scale that Wilson proposes nor is it fully analogous.
The Mojave version is more relocation
and preservation than separation in half,
but the revamped sections of Mojave for
alternative energy along with their protected preserves are something of Wilsonian half-Earths—nature “reservoirs”
split off from high-tech regions.
The vast Mojave spreads throughout
southeastern California and southern
Nevada for 48,000 square miles. On the
west side of the Colorado River, one species of desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizi,
is the Mojave’s most famous native inhabitant. It lives more than 50 years, can
grow more than a foot long, withstand
temperatures up to 60 degrees Celsius,
and spends most of its time in various
underground burrows. It needs anywhere from 10 to 100 acres for its home
range, to which it is very dedicated and
on which it depends. In 1990 it was listed as threatened.
In addition to their natural enemies—
coyotes, ravens, badgers, and gila
monsters—the tortoises have to contend
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Ashley Cooper/Alamy
Brightsource Energy’s Ivanpah Solar Project (left) has
caused the relocation of
thousands of desert tortoises. Many of the conserved
animals are marked for
tracking (above), and their
mortality rates after relocation have been found to be
high, as much as 50 percent.
Jim West/Alamy
with diseases, floods, drought and everhigher temperatures, as well as development, habitat destruction, soil compaction, traffic roadkills, capture by humans,
and vandalism. This has resulted in a
90-percent loss of their numbers in certain areas, with perhaps 100,000 remaining overall in the Sonoran and Mojave
deserts, and their population density has
decreased from 200 adults per square
mile in 1950 to 5 to 60 per square mile
today. As their numbers continue to diminish, preservationists try to conserve
desert habitat itself, plus translocate hundreds of individuals, as well as reconnect
habitats fragmented by energy projects.
However, tortoises do not relocate
well; hundreds have been transplanted with marginal success, 40 percent
of them having died in the process.
Just picking them up causes them to
urinate water stored for the hottest
months, and they soon languish and
die. And there are only so many relocated tortoises able to survive with
their tortoise neighbors in a place such
as the 38-square-mile (25,000-acre) Mojave Desert Tortoise Preserve.
The total predicted area for Mojave
solar projects in Nevada and California is
30,180 acres, home to an estimated 1,621
tortoises. (Earlier, the development of
Las Vegas caused 9,000 translocations.
The military, since 2008, has moved more
than 1,300 tortoises.) A reasonable estimate of translocations for the new energy systems in multiple Mojave locations
would be about 1,000 to 2,000 tortoises,
with a survival rate of 50 percent or less.
In 2013 the Desert Tortoise Conservation
www.americanscientist.org
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Center reported 2,700 tortoises potentially ready for “repatriation” back into the
desert, which suggests even larger numbers had been moved there. Compiling
totals for tortoises translocated for alternative energy projects and calculating
their survival rates requires reference to
reports on permits granted, updated tortoise status reports, and health reports.
Biologists who facilitate and carry
out these translocations later find themselves having second thoughts. Kristin
Berry, a key researcher of translocated
tortoises, first argued in a 2013 paper
that returning them to the wild was
not as helpful to their survival as people keeping them as pets, but then she
later criticized the translocation process
itself in news articles, stating: “In general, moving organisms from one area
to another...is not a successful conservation action and may do more harm
than good to conserved populations by
spreading diseases,…increasing mortality, and decreasing reproduction and
genetic diversity.” Another scientist reported that a study of hundreds of translocated animals saw 50 percent of them
dead five years after they were moved.
Julie Cart, a reporter for the Los Angeles
Times, framed the multiple ironies for
environmentalists helping to build solar
projects in the title of her article from
2012: “Sacrificing the Desert to Save the
Earth.” Environmental organizations issued no legal challenges to the trashing
of parts of this fragile ecosystem. In addition, energy rates increased for this
“green” source, huge federal and state
subsidies added to the public’s costs,
and permits were bought speculatively
and will likely never be used—all in the
noble effort to combat climate change.
The desert might seem the perfect
place for these projects, except that it
is anything but devoid of life. The Mojave may harbor a total of 2,450 plant
species and about 266 vertebrates, with
the desert tortoise judged the “focal
species”—that is, the one most sensitive
to the threat of a changing environment.
Wilson doesn’t list a desert as one of his
“Best Places” worth preserving, a nature
“reservoir,” and it is certainly not as biologically rich and diverse as a rainforest.
But his and our prejudices about “best
places” may be showing here. We have
applied our apex species’ assumption to
it, judged it a bit spare and incommodious to man and beast, a brown blank
slate, and we have made economic decisions about what’s worth sacrificing.
However, the mirror-based solar
power plant, called Ivanpah BrightStar, covers 3,500 acres, whereas other
solar plants have covered hundreds.
But compared with the millions of
acres lost to producing fossil fuels,
and the thousands of tons of pollution these plants save while generating
electricity for hundreds of thousands
of households, such solar plants seem
like a very worthwhile trade-off.
But we need at least to own up to
our new eco-economic calculus—we
will disturb and potentially damage a
small few for the large many: Ex Unibus
Pluram (“From One, Many”). Have we
seen this model before? It may be our
favored strategy. We need your land,
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This map illustrates that, across their range, desert tortoises in areas under the highest level of
conservation management remain subject to numerous threats, stresses, and mortality sources.
(Map courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.)
your space, your resources, so we will
remove you to a preserve—dare we call
it a “reservation”?—for a greater good.
This pattern defines nature itself as
“other,” as if we and our technologies
are extreme contraries to tortoises and
deserts. Will this precedent let the next
claim for expropriating desert land and
its focal creature for beneficial technol-
ogy be easier to make?
It may have already happened, in a
proposal filled with new “green” ironies. Eagle Crest Energy plans to turn
a vast abandoned iron mine on top
of a mountain in the Mojave’s Joshua
Tree National Monument into a source
of even more alternative energy. (This
plant would depend on the Trump ad-
Lauren Kurkimilis/U.S. Marines Corps/AP Imagges
U.S. Marines relocated desert tortoises in the Mojave Desert in 2015 to make way for a practice
bombing range.
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ministration’s plan to open national
monuments for energy development.)
It would pump water from deep desert
aquifers and fill the 191-acre open pit
mine with water and then run the water
downhill through a large pipe underground over a turbine, generating electricity. The water would fill a newly constructed 163-acre reservoir below, and
then be pumped back up into the reservoir 1,400 feet above, to start the process
over again. The pumps would use the
excess alternative energy already being
generated by the solar installations—we
always seem to need even more excess
power. However, the net energy produced after all the pumping would be
negative. It would waste energy, deplete
rare and valuable water, degrade desert
landscape, and require more tortoise relocations. Presumably this result is better
than having to pay both Nevada and
Arizona to take excess energy off our
hands, which is what California must do
now. Do these desert solar and hydro alternative energy strategies suggest careful planning and sustainable solutions to
our global warming crisis? Was it worth
moving the tortoises in the first place?
Ironies Abound
The seemingly efficient solar mirror
installations actually need natural gas
to start up in the morning after the
cooldown at night, and they also need
large quantities of water to operate—
requirements that almost contravene
their claim to efficient and sustainable
energy production. We know that the
Ivanpah BrightSource Solar Electric
project incinerates many birds—called
“streamers”—in its mirrored beams
of light, perhaps as many as 1,500 to
3,500 per year or maybe even tens of
thousands more, from preliminary estimates. Wind turbine farms, such as the
vast one in the low hills and mountains
west of the Mojave desert floor, may kill
300,000 birds per year—but again, in a
grim calculus, not as many as the more
than 500 million that collide with radio
and cell towers and with glass in lowrise buildings. Although these tallies of
“externalities” are somewhat contested,
few biologists or environmental groups
protest strongly—the obvious reason
is the hoped-for global environmental
benefit of these ”green” installations.
Both the mirror systems and the
solar panels need two other crucial
components—towers and transmission
lines. With new towers, ravens, also
threatened, have new perches and can
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now better spy baby tortoises on the
ground, so that their carcasses litter the
bases of the towers. Ravens are also native to this area and are protected from
population control measures, but they
are thriving at the expense of another
native animal because of our interventions. Some have suggested the introduction of falcons to keep the ravens in
check, but then we invoke the unforeseen Gordian knot-tangles of our techno-intrusions, well-intentioned or not.
Redesigning the desert for our energy
needs provokes a gaggle of new, hardto-mitigate consequences.
And then we learn that the U.S. Marine Corps has bought up a very large
area of private desert land, and following the lead of the power companies,
is also removing tortoises, but to make
way for a bombing range. The justifications for such use obviously lie in increased security from pilots gaining better bombing skills. But we must consider
that droughts from climate change likely
contributed to the collapse of millions of
Syrian farms—a collapse that can be connected to military conflicts in the Middle
East. Although this connection would
be a rationale for producing lots of alternative energy, to forestall social disintegration anywhere around the globe, the
fighting of wars generates vast amounts
of carbon dioxide, through air, land, and
sea maneuvering and combat itself. The
military practice operations in the Mojave might generate more carbon dioxide
than nearby alternative energy projects
can offset. Cutting back on both total fossil fuel and alternative energy use, and
leaving alone the inconveniently-in-theway tortoises, might ultimately save nations, lives, farms, and tortoises to boot.
So are we sanguine about these uses
of the desert and further disruptions of
its crucial species? How might we calculate that? At what point do the biologists hired to locate and extirpate the
tortoises from their burrows begin to
balk? At what point does the public begin to see the desert as a necessary—and
beautiful—part of Earth’s ecosystems, its
own kind of nature “reservoir,” and its
tortoises as not expendable?
The obvious “moral” here is that any
technology designed to save the Earth
as a whole might seriously damage an
individual species or habitat. Our newly reconfigured global ark, possibly segregated into our domain and nature’s,
cannot take all aboard; indeed we tacitly concur that some may have to be
thrown overboard or left to languish in
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John Locher/Las Vegas Review-Journal/AP Imagges
Ravens in the Mojave Desert region are threatened, but with new power transmission lines and
towers, the birds have new perches from which they can better prey upon baby desert tortoises.
resettlement zones, while others luxuriate in verdant preserves. Trade-offs
abound. Are we willing to admit and
tolerate them? Even if they might have
been unnecessary to begin with?
There may be better ways that are
not too far-fetched or distant. There
are proposals to outfit every rooftop in
America not with solar panels and their
sprawling infrastructures, but with
solar shingles that generate electricity
The desert might seem
the perfect place for
these projects, except
that it is anything
but devoid of life.
to each individual house. Elon Musk,
CEO and chairman of Tesla, Inc., claims
he has a prototype. And yet, I ask, What
new disturbances will these visionary
strategies invoke? What new creatures
will suffer from our eagerness to save
the planet from our old technology
through the new? Why do we always
rush to a new technological solution
to our environmental woe, when the
previous, once-new technology kickstarted the problem? These questions
are difficult to answer in our rush to
stave off ecological crisis.
Perhaps more to the point, what are
we willing to sacrifice in our own lives
to save the planet from ruin? If we are,
as Wilson claims, rational creatures
with the will and capacity for technological solutions to our environmental
crisis, I hope we can also employ our
ethical and imaginative intelligences to
make those solutions compatible with
terrains and creatures we have unfortunately viewed as expendable. Can
we consume less, live on a smaller scale
with less development, and not think
first about what biome or creature has
to make way for our seemingly beneficial technological innovations? Might
we actually implement true sustainable
ways of living—use only renewable resources, nothing toxic, with no loss of
biodiversity? That advance might take
more wisdom than we—Homo sapiens
sapiens, though still something of an
apex species—currently seem to have.
Bibliography
Boxall, B. 2017. From spectacular vistas
to the pits: A decades-long public land
battle continues in the California desert.
Los Angeles Times, August 7. http://www.
latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-eagle_________________________
mountain-20170807-htmlstory.html.
_____________________
Desert Tortoise Council. 2017. Forty-Second Annual Meeting and Symposia Abstracts. ____
http://
www.deserttortoise.org/symposia.html.
Edwards, T., and K. H. Berry. 2013. Are captive
tortoises a reservoir for conservation? An
assessment of genealogical affiliation of captive Gopherus agassizii to local, wild populations. Conservation Genetics 14:649–659.
Green, E. 2013. Can we save Mojave Desert
tortoises by moving them out of harm’s
way? High Country News, August 11.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/45.13/
can-we-save-mojave-desert-tortoises-by_________________________
moving-them-out-of-harms-way.
___________________
Milius, S. 2014. Windows may kill up to 988
million birds a year in the United States.
Science News 185(6):8.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2009. Desert
Tortoise (Mojave Population) Field Manual
(Gopherus agassizii). https://www.fws.
____________
gov/nevada/desert_tortoise/dtro/dtro_
_________________________
manuals_forms.html.
____________
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 2017. Status of the
Desert Tortoise and Its Critical Habitat. https://
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Computing
Science
Imaging Without Lenses
New imaging systems, microscopes, and sensors rely on computation, rather
than traditional lenses, to produce a digital image.
David G. Stork, Aydogan Ozcan, and Patrick R. Gill
E
ver since medieval artisans first
learned to grind glass lenses
and curved mirrors that could
project optical images, such devices have been used to make microscopes, camera obscuras, telescopes, and
other instruments that enable us to better see objects both small and large, near
and distant, on Earth and in space. The
next revolution in imaging came near
the middle of the 19th century with the
invention of photography, which made
it possible for optical images to be fixed
permanently, reproduced, and printed
widely. That era of chemical photography is coming to an end, having been
increasingly eclipsed in the third revolution—digital imaging—which has its
roots in the technology of television, but
can best be dated to the 1975 invention
of the digital camera. Today billions
of webcams and digital still and video
cameras on mobile phones worldwide
capture more than a trillion images per
year, many of which are shared instantly on the internet. Throughout this remarkable expansion in the number, variety, and uses of imaging systems, the
task of optical designers has remained
for the most part unchanged: to make a
high-quality optical image that mimics
the scene as faithfully as possible—one
that “looks good.”
David G. Stork is Rambus Fellow at Rambus Labs
in Sunnyvale, California. He received his PhD in
physics from the University of Maryland. Aydogan
Ozcan is Chancellor’s Professor in the Electrical
Engineering and Bioengineering departments at
the University of California at Los Angeles, and
cofounder of Holomic/Cellmic LLC. He received
his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford
University. Patrick R. Gill is Principal Research
Scientist at Rambus Labs. He received his PhD in
biophysics at the University of California at Berkeley. Email for Stork: davidgstork@gmail.com
_____________
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In the past decade or two, however, a
new paradigm, the fourth revolution in
imaging, has emerged: computational
imaging. Although this paradigm may
not completely supplant traditional
approaches, it questions centuries-old
assumptions and provides alternative
methods for designing imaging systems. It has led to novel imaging functions and forms, including ultraminiature imagers for recording macroscale
objects, and microscopes that eschew
lenses altogether.
Computational Imaging
As its name suggests, the key advance
in this new paradigm is the essential
role played by computation in the formation of the final digital image. Digital
image processing has long been used
to improve images, of course—such as
eliminating “red eye” in flash portraits
or balancing the color to correct for a
red sky at sunset—but the design of the
optics had never been influenced by
such needs. Digital signal processing
can go further and correct some optical
defects, however. When the orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope first sent its
photos to Earth in the late 1980s, the
images were far blurrier than expected;
it quickly became apparent that something was wrong with the telescope
optics. NASA scientists diagnosed the
optical problems and, in the years before the unmanned telescope could be
repaired, designed sophisticated digital
processing algorithms to correct the images by compensating for many of the
effects of flawed optics.
In the mid-1990s, W. Thomas Cathey
and Edward R. Dowski, Jr., realized
that one could go further still: One
could intentionally design optics to
produce blurry, “degraded” optical images, but degraded in such a way that
special digital processing would produce a final digital image as good as,
or even better than, those captured using traditional optics. Specifically, they
addressed a property of all traditional
cameras: limited depth of field. If you
focus your camera on an object at an intermediate distance, its image appears
sharp, but the images of objects closer
or farther away appear blurry. The
range of distances at which an image is
acceptably sharp is called the camera’s
depth of field. These scientists designed a
new kind of lens element that blurred
the optical images of objects at every
distance in nearly the same way. Then,
a special image-processing algorithm
sharpened the entire image, thereby effectively extending the depth of field
beyond what was possible using a traditional camera. Although a number
of groups—including one led by one
of us (Stork)—have extended this pioneering work, Cathey and Dowski’s
deep insight has propelled the field of
computational sensing and imaging in
ways few could have anticipated.
Another way to understand their insight is to realize that the task of optics
is now to make optical images for a
computer—not for a human. Paradoxically, in this era seemingly swamped
with images, few humans directly see
true optical images generated by imaging systems such as cameras anymore:
Long gone are the days when a photographer, head under a black cloth,
looked at an optical image on a view
camera’s ground-glass screen before
inserting the plate of film. Instead, we
now look at the contents of processed
digital files as displayed on computer,
tablet, or mobile phone screens.
The next application of joint design
of optics and image processing was
to simplify the design of lenses. The
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One type of lensless imaging uses gratings that diffract light instead of lenses that focus it. In this example, an array of 12 binary
phase microgratings (left) are designed to capture as much visual
information from the scene as possible. The gratings produce
an optical image on the sensor array that consists of 12 blurry
complete lens on your mobile phone
camera might have seven or eight
component lens elements, and a lens
on a professional photographer’s camera might contain 15 or more. Multiple
lens elements are necessary to correct imperfections or aberrations, such
as color blurring or image warping,
that are inherent in real optical systems—all to make an optical image
that “looks good.” Joint design of optics and digital processing could move
some of the burden of correcting aberrations onto digital processing, thereby
allowing some of the lens elements to
be eliminated without compromising
final digital image quality. One can
think of the processing algorithms as
acting as a form of virtual lens element. This approach has led to lensed
systems that are a bit smaller and less
expensive for a given quality of final
digital image.
Some of us asked: How far can we
push these ideas? How much of the
imaging burden can be moved from
the optics to the computation? How
simple can we make the optics and
still get a usable digital image? Can
we eliminate lenses and curved mirrors altogether? In the past few years,
this last goal has been achieved in
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“blobs,” none of which mimic the scene (middle). Nevertheless
this optical image contains enough information that the final portrait image (right) can be computed through a type of processing
called image convolution. (Unless otherwise indicated, images are
courtesy of the authors.)
three primary ways—all of which eschew lenses and the traditional optical images that lenses create. These
three methods are based on diffraction,
optical phase reconstruction, and compressive sensing. All rely heavily on
computation to yield the final, humaninterpretable digital image.
Diffraction for Imaging
Traditional lenses focus light through
the process of refraction, in which light
bends when passing from one medium
(such as air) into another medium in
which its speed differs (such as glass
or plastic). Refraction explains why
a pencil dipped into a glass of water
appears bent at the surface: The light
from the pencil underwater bends
when it passes into the air on its way
to your eye; thus you see the underwater portion of the pencil as displaced.
Curved mirrors, such as those used in
large astronomical telescopes, form an
image differently, by exploiting reflection. The reason you look distorted in
a fun-house mirror is because of reflections from the undulating mirror.
Refraction and reflection can be understood by visualizing light as though it
travels in in lines or rays.
Two other physical processes can be
used to change the direction of light
propagation and to exploit the wave
nature of light: diffraction and interference. When two light waves meet,
their wave values add. If a peak from
one wave always meets a peak from
the other wave, the values reinforce, a
process called constructive interference,
which yields increased light. If a peak
always meets a valley, however, the
waves cancel each other—destructive
interference—yielding no light.
A common way to control light
through diffraction is by directing
light onto a diffraction grating, often
simply called a grating—patterns of
microscopic ridges on a surface. Because different wavelengths of light
diffract into different directions, colors
spread out; for instance, when white
light reflects from the teeny ridges
on the surface of an audio compact
disc or DVD, those surfaces appear
to be rainbow-colored. Because of the
Early images returned by the Hubble Space Telescope, when it was optically flawed, were blurry
and hardly better than terrestrial telescopes (below, left). Engineers designed digital processing
algorithms to partially reverse these flaws (below, right). (Images courtesy of Richard R. White.)
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wavelength dependency of gratings,
one cannot design a grating that will
simply replace a lens; the optical image from a grating will never look
quite as good as one produced by a
carefully designed lens. Nevertheless,
with proper design of both the diffractive optics (to exploit diffraction) and
matched signal processing (tailored to
the optics), acceptable digital images
can indeed be created.
Diffraction-Based Imaging
One class of lensless devices for imaging macroscopic objects relies on
miniature gratings consisting of steps
in thickness in a transparent material
(glass or silicate) that delay one portion of the incident light wave with
respect to another portion. The pattern
of steps expresses special mathematical properties that uniquely ensure
that the pattern of light in the material
does not depend much on the wavelength of the light and thus upon the
unintended variations in thickness
arising during the manufacture of the
glass. These gratings are affixed atop
a photodetector array—much like the
light-sensitive sensor used in a traditional digital camera. The light from
the scene diffracts through the grating,
yielding a pattern of light on the array
that does not appear like a traditional
image—it does not “look good” but instead more like a diffuse blob, unintelligible to the human eye. Nevertheless,
the blob contains enough visual information (albeit in an unusual distribution) such that the desired image can
be reconstructed through a computational process called image convolution.
The image reconstruction algorithm
is a bit sensitive to visual noise, such
as random fluctuations in the number
of photons, or electrical noise when
converting sensor signals into digital
numbers (so-called quantization error),
among others. As a result, the final
digital image might appear a bit speckled. Although such an image might
suffice for a range of simple applications—for instance, counting people
in a scene—forming a higher quality
image may require that more information be captured from the scene.
A straightforward approach is to use
several miniature phase gratings, each
designed to capture slightly different
information from the scene. Each grating leads to a component digital image, and these components can be processed digitally as a group to produce
a single, higher-quality image.
This general computational approach can be extended from imaging to sensing—estimating some visual property of a scene, such as the
input
image
digital
filter
intermediate
calculation
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-.65 -.37 -.61 -.89 -.87
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-1
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8
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– 4.3
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Digital image processing by convolution involves representing each pixel in the image with a number (here, a 5x5 pixel area is shown). A digital filter multiplies each number to get an intermediate
value, all of which are added. Any number less than 0 is rendered as black. Convolution in this
particular filter (often called an edge detector) highlights change and therefore sharpens the image.
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presence or absence of a human face,
the direction and speed of the overall
motion of the scene (the visual flow),
or the number of people in a room. In
these cases, one designs the grating to
extract the relevant information, and
designs the processing algorithm to
be tailored to the task in question. For
instance, if the sensing task is to read
a vertical barcode, one should use a
grating that is itself vertical, and signal
processing that first thresholds every
pixel in the digital image so that lighter pixels are converted to white, and
darker pixels are converted to black.
Thereafter, the black and white digital
image can be read using a barcodereading algorithm.
Phase Reconstruction Microscopy
The approach to making a lensless
microscope differs somewhat from a
computational macroimager or camera, but it too relies upon diffraction
of light. Unlike the case of an imager
for a scene in natural light, such as
sunlight or room lamps, in microscopy one can use coherent laser light
or monochromatic light from single
or multiple sources. In this case, the
effects of diffraction and light interference can be controlled or engineered.
Moreover, the objects of interest are
small, and thus the diffraction is from
the samples themselves, rather than
from an engineered grating.
A basic design for a lensless microscope calls for the specimen to be
placed atop a photodetector array having a large number of small pixels, for
instance a 10-megapixel photodetector
array often found in digital cameras.
Such a design is also referred to as an
“on chip” microscope, because the
sample is directly positioned on an imager chip. Light from a laser or spectrally pure colored light-emitting diode (LED) shines through the sample
and diffracts around the specimens.
These diffracted waves—comprising
the object beam—interfere with the illumination that passes straight through
the sample—the reference beam—creating a complex interference pattern
sensed by the photodetector array in
a process called digital in-line holography. This raw optical image vaguely
resembles microscopic shadows of the
sample, and in some cases can be used
to get a rough idea of the number and
placement of the target. However, this
raw holographic image is rather blurry, mottled, contains “ring artifacts,”
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A micrograph shows a spiral grating etched in
clear silicate (top). The tip of a ballpoint pen
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and does not closely resemble the morphology of the specimens. It does not
“look good.”
The interference pattern is digitally
processed through a number of steps,
but the central step is a phase recovery
algorithm that incorporates knowledge
of the physics of optical interference to
infer the structure and position of the
cells in the specimen. In brief, this algorithm searches for the optical phase
information of the sample that is lost
in the hologram on the sensor array
(which records just the interference
pattern, not the phases of the individual light beams themselves). The algorithm iteratively seeks the phase information in the object beam most likely
to have produced the detected optical
interference pattern. Once this phase
information of the object beam is estimated, it is computationally propagated backward (or time-reversed)
to infer the images of the object and
thereby yield the final digital image.
Much as with the macroimager,
one can get higher resolution digital
images by capturing multiple optical
images, each bearing slightly different
information. One simple approach to
this end is to shift the illumination
source, the sample, or the sensor array slightly between each exposure.
The resulting individual images are
then digitally integrated to yield a
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A computer simulation shows the diffraction and interference of light passing through
glass-mounted gratings for green (532 nanometers, left) and red (650 nanometers, right) wavelengths. Brightness indicates electromagnetic energy density within the glass. A square-wave
amplitude grating (top row) creates a repeating pattern of light intensity, the depth of which
depends on wavelength. A binary phase antisymmetric grating (bottom row) creates a pattern
independent of wavelength, from which information in a scene can be recovered.
single higher-resolution interference
image (which still remains uninterpretable by the human eye) before
the phase recovery and time-reversal
steps are applied.
There are several benefits of having
such lensless microscopy tools implemented on a chip. First, the area of
sample that can be sensed (that is, the
equivalent field of view) can be extremely large—as large as the area of
the sensor itself, because the sample
is placed directly on top of the sensor
array. A field of view of 20 square millimeters to 20 square centimeters can
be achieved using modern photodetector chips. Second, lensless microscopy can even reveal transparent and
clear objects, so long as they affect
the phase of light passing through
them, as do tiny glass beads and most
bacteria in water. (Special lens-based
optical microscopes can also reveal
such “phase objects,” although over
much smaller fields of view and sample volumes.) Third, digital processing of the optical image can distinguish different cell types and track
their motion, such as motile sperm
cells or blood cells flowing through a
small channel, providing data useful
in medicine and biology. Fourth, these
microscopes are significantly less expensive and more portable than their
lens-based counterparts; they can be
attached to a mobile phone and used
in rural areas of a developing country,
and the image data can then be sent
anywhere in the world for professionals to analyze remotely.
Compressive Sensing
The third general approach to lensless
imaging is based on a recent advance
in the mathematics and statistics of signals known as compressive sensing. An
optical image on a sensor is just a complicated signal that can be represented
as a list of numbers and processed digitally. Just as a complicated sound can be
built up from a large number of simpler
sounds, each added in a proportion that
depends on the sound in question, so
too can an image be built up from lots
of simpler images. The set of simpler
images or signals is called a basis. In
sound, the most common basis is the
set of pure cosine-wave tones. No matter how complex a sound is—from a car
horn to a Beethoven symphony—it can
be created by adding together a large
number of such basis cosine waves,
each with the appropriate intensity and
shift in time.
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digital holograms
final micrograph
computed images
Raw interference patterns, from blue, green, and red LED light, are generated by in-line
holography (left, top row). The lensless microscope captures several such holograms by
shifting the illumination source or the sample. The holograms in each of the three colors
are then digitally processed through phase-recovery algorithms that produce a highresolution final digital image in each of the three colors (left, bottom row). The three
reconstructed images are integrated and rendered in full color for the final microscope
image (right). Here, the sample is a human Pap smear.
What would be the corresponding basis for images? Two of the most
popular and useful image basis sets
are two-dimensional cosine waves, and
multi-resolution wavelet patterns. These
base elements are mathematically el-
microcontroller
egant and serve as the foundation for
existing image compression schemes
such as JPEG and JPEG 2000. Rather
than store or send every pixel value
in a digital image, you merely send or
store a digital file describing the amplitudes of the different component basis
signals. The “compressed” file is thus
much smaller than the image itself.
For decades these bases have served
the digital-image processing community well, but they have not led to new
optical design principles in large part
because no optical element easily implements any bases.
Enter compressive sensing. Theoretical results from statisticians have
shown that, as long as the information from the scene is redundant (and
the image is thus compressible), one
does not need to measure such mathematically elegant bases, but can use
measurements from a suitably random
one. If such “coded measurements”
are available then one can still exploit
the idea that the signal can be well represented in the elegant basis elements
(such as cosines or wavelets) and recover the image through compressive
sensing. Moreover, with this special
class of new reconstruction methods,
one generally needs far fewer measurements to reconstruct an image
than was previously thought.
This theoretical insight expanded
the opportunities for new classes of
optical designs for cameras based on
early advances in X-ray and gammaray imaging. Coded apertures (a suitably designed fixed two-dimensional
mask pattern of transparent and
opaque regions), can potentially provide an elegant means to capture
coded measurements from the scene
onto a traditional image sensor array.
One design, called FlatCam, has been
developed by Ashok Veeraraghavan
and his colleagues at Rice University,
and consists of a simple amplitude
mask placed on top of a traditional
LED array
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20
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One design for a mobile lensless microscope
uses 20 LEDs, the sequence of which is automatically controlled to produce a set of
different interference patterns that can be
processed into an image.
)
40
0
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sample
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A lensless microscope can be used to track the movement of living cells (here, a sperm cell, over
several seconds) in three dimensions in a volume much larger than that for a traditional microscope.
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image sensor array (see figure at right).
Light from the scene—here, a stuffed
toy—passes (and diffracts) through
the transparent regions of this amplitude mask and reach the image sensor.
Note that there is no lens, and thus
no traditional optical image is ever
formed. Instead, the sensor records a
complex, apparently chaotic pattern
of light that contains information both
about the scene and about the mask
pattern. Because this single image consists of several pixels, each of those
pixels provide different coded measurements about the scene. Later, a
digital algorithm finds the “simplest”
scene that is consistent with all the
measurements by exploiting the mathematical and algorithmic methods of
compressive sensing.
There are several significant advantages to this lensless imaging approach. The cost of traditional cameras
is dominated by lenses and post-fabrication assembly, so eliminating lenses
from the design could lead to inexpensive cameras. In addition, the entire camera design, including the mask
and the sensor, could potentially be
made using traditional semiconductor fabrication processing techniques,
providing benefits in terms of scalability and cost. Also, this redesign
yields cameras that are thinner than
0.5 mm and weighing less than 0.2
grams, possibly enabling novel applications where today’s bulky designs
are an impediment. And although it is
inspired by compressive sensing, the
FlatCam approach allows all necessary information to be captured from a
single snapshot, thereby enabling realtime, video-rate capture of dynamic
scene information.
Changing Rules
Designers of imaging systems are entering a new era, one in which optical
elements, which exploit the physics of
light and tangible materials, can be designed along with digital algorithms,
which involve the intangible realm
of information. Many of the familiar
principles and informal rules of thumb
that have guided optical designers for
centuries are being overthrown, including the need for lenses and curved
mirrors or structured digital bases
such as cosine functions. We find traditional optical images so familiar and
useful that we have been reluctant to
consider them instead more abstractly,
as information.
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1.0
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One compressive imager (top) passes light
from the entire scene through a series of
two-dimensional masks. Output from two
different masks are shown in the middle
row. A compressive sensing reconstruction algorithm takes information from
all of the masks and finds the “simplest”
signal consistent with the set of measurements captured by the sensor (left). The
more complex the scene or the higher the
accuracy required, the more component
images that must be captured. (Images
courtesy of Ashok Veeraraghavan.)
Future directions for our macroscale
sensors and imagers include the design of application-specific gratings
and processing algorithms. For instance, if the task is to detect the presence of a human face, then the grating itself should extract, to the extent
possible, only visual information indicative of faces. Another intriguing
direction is to place as much of the
end-to-end computational burden as
possible onto the optics, so as to reduce the digital processing steps and
thus reduce the electrical power dissipation. In lensless microscopy, we
seek to increase the spatial and temporal resolution, and to design digital
microscopes tailored for the diagnosis
of specific diseases, particularly those
plaguing the developing world.
Lenses and curved mirrors have
served us well for centuries, and it’s
likely they will never be eliminated
from imaging technology. Neverthe-
less, the recent paradigm of computational imaging is showing new
ways forward, leading to devices (and
paired computation) that use these familiar devices in new ways, or eschew
them altogether.
Bibliography
Asif, M. S., A. Ayremlou, A. Sankaranarayanan,
A. Veeraraghavan, and R. Baraniuk. 2017.
FlatCam: Thin, Lensless Cameras Using Coded Aperture and Computation. IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging 3:384–397.
Cossairt, O., M. Gupta, and S. K. Nayar. 2013.
When does computational imaging improve
performance? IEEE Transactions on Image Processing 22:447–458.
Stork, D. G., and P. R. Gill. 2014. Optical, mathematical and computational foundations of
lensless ultra-miniature diffractive imagers
and sensors. International Journal on Advances
in Systems and Measurements 7:201–208.
Tseng, D., O. Mudanyali, C. Oztoprak, S. O. Isikman, I. Sencan, O. Yaglidere and A. Ozcan.
2010. Lensfree microscopy on a cellphone. Lab
on a Chip 10:1787–1792.
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Living in an Elephant
Landscape
The local communities most affected by wildlife conservation often have little
say in how it is carried out, even when policy incentives are intended to
encourage their support.
Jonathan Salerno, Lin Cassidy, Michael Drake, and Joel Hartter
I
n July of 2016, a group of farmers
and livestock keepers, mostly from
the Subiya ethnic group, met with
us in their open-walled community hall in Kavimba, a small village in
northern Botswana. The community sits
on a shifting, narrow strip of land at the
edge of a wilderness. Houses and community lands are sandwiched between
two protected areas—Chobe National
Park and Chobe Forest Reserve—and
the floodplain of the coursing Chobe
River, within sight of the Namibian border across the wide wetland. A Kavimba councilman spoke up to explain the
livelihood challenges that increasingly
affected his community.
“Years ago, a Subiya man needed
only a mokoro (dugout canoe), net,
plough, sledge, spear, and yoke. Nothing else,” he said. But those times were
very different. Last year, many people
did not bother to plant their fields.
Jonathan Salerno is a postdoctoral fellow in the
Environmental Studies Program at the University
of Colorado. His research asks questions about
people, communities, and wildlife near conservation areas and public lands in rural landscapes.
Lin Cassidy is an independent researcher focusing
on social-ecological systems and land-change science. She is based in Maun, Botswana, working on
southern African projects related to conservation
and development, landscape-level planning, and
natural resources management. Michael Drake is
a PhD student at the University of Colorado. His
research combines ecological and anthropological
approaches to study how human development affects wildlife movement in Southern Africa. Joel
Hartter is a human-environment geographer in
the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado. His work focuses on human
livelihoods, land use, and resource management in
conservation landscapes of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Email: __________________
jonathandavidsalerno@gmail.com
34
The risk of elephants eating the crops
(mostly maize) before harvest was too
great. Many people now subsisted on
pensions and subsidies from the government of Botswana. Communitybased conservation arrangements had
created a few jobs and a small stream
of revenue from safari tourism, which
are intended to attenuate these problems. However, these were having little positive effect on their livelihoods.
The councilman and a handful of
other residents were speaking with us,
a group of ecologists and geographers
from the United States and Botswana
conducting research in the region, to
share their experiences with changing
climate. The meeting quickly shifted
topics to a recent hunting ban and the
ways that elephants affected residents’
daily lives.
Botswana had placed an indefinite
moratorium on hunting, including for
trophy elephants, which had taken effect in 2014. Although the hunting ban
was made in the context of global conservation concerns and was motivated
by declines in many species of wildlife, the removal of legal hunting significantly reduced the revenue stream
from wildlife tourism to communities
such as Kavimba. Despite their membership in the Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust, residents in this area did
not feel that their interests had been
represented, or that they had had a say
in the policy decision.
For the majority of Chobe residents
whose livelihoods had shifted in recent years to depend on a commercial tourism economy, the hunting ban
was abrupt and was implemented
without their knowledge or consent.
The residents sitting in our meeting
described a lack of jobs in the tourism
sector, while they perceived a recent,
unmitigated rise in elephant conflicts
that undermined their livelihoods. In
their view, the benefits from hunting
that were supposed to mitigate crop
raiding and other livelihood costs had
abruptly been taken away.
The shift in conversation away from
climate was not surprising, given the
significant effect of the high and rising
elephant numbers on the local landscape. The Chobe Enclave sits between
the river, an important water source
during the dry season, and protected
areas used by elephants during the wet
season, the Chobe Forest Reserve and
the Chobe National Park, which protect
one of the largest elephant populations
remaining on the planet. On the tarmac
road that bisects the northeastern strip
of the Chobe Enclave, drivers pass trees
broken off at the trunk along the escarpment, their canopies removed and their
branches lying on the ground, a consequence of heavy elephant browsing.
On the opposite side of the tarmac, toward the Chobe River, fallow floodplain
crop fields are barricaded with barbed
wire, metal panels, and scrap material.
Fences are strewn with strips of plastic
and cloth put there to flap in the wind as
elephant deterrents. Sections of road are
scattered with dung, marking crossings
where elephants move from the upland
forest to the floodplain and its perennial
sources of water and forage, their paths
taking them through farmers’ fields and
grazing lands. The livelihoods of Kavimba residents are clearly shaped by
elephants and are far removed from the
life described by the Subiya councilman.
The empty fields and more obvious signs of elephants illustrate that
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A bull elephant crosses the tarmac road near the Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust in Botswana in 2017. Elephant browsing changes landscapes and can destroy crops. In places where
conservation of elephants has been successful, locals must shift their livelihoods to accommodate the wild animals. (Photographs courtesy of the authors, unless otherwise noted.)
conservation concerns in the Chobe
Enclave are paramount. The current
efforts at balancing trade-offs between
people and wildlife are not working.
Similar conflicts have persisted for decades, and this problem is not uncommon in Africa.
The Chobe Enclave Conservation
Trust was born out of pioneering
community-based conservation efforts in the late 1980s and early 1990s
in sub-Saharan Africa; the goal was
to decentralize management of natural resources. The community-based
conservation model is premised on the
assumption that if communities are
given formal rights to manage land
and resources—including the rights
and ability to profit from wildlife and
nature conservation—then more locals will support conservation as a
means of improving their livelihoods.
Community-based conservation programs were introduced in part to offset
the costs of living adjacent to national
parks, game reserves, and other areas
protected for wildlife. Those costs include wildlife eating crops and livestock, wildlife harming people, loss of
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land, restricted resource access, and, in
some cases, even forced eviction.
Community-based conservation
programs were first established in
Botswana in 1995 (through community
conservation trusts). Similar programs
were created in neighboring countries:
conservancies in Namibia, the
Administrative Management Design
(ADMADE) Programme in Zambia,
and the Communal Areas Management
Programme for Indigenous Resources
(CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe. They were
founded through partnerships between
communities and state governments,
with major support from the U.S.
Agency for International Development
and international conservation
organizations. In each of these countries,
the respective programs have, at times,
been successful. Success of transferring
revenue to communities depends on
profitable wildlife tourism, primarily
trophy hunting and photo safaris.
In contrast to the ideals of these programs, living conditions for people in
the Chobe Enclave have declined in recent years. The Enclave is remote and
yet constrained, bounded by wildlife
conservation areas to the south and
east, and by the floodplain and Namibian border to the north and west (see
the maps on pages 36 and 38). Human
population growth contributes to land
shortages. Distant government offices
control the allocation of land, particularly for commercial use. For example,
any land deemed to have tourism
potential is currently overseen by the
centralized Botswana Tourism Organization. Lack of easy market access
to the nearest town, Kasane, acts as a
barrier to commercial harvest of natural
resources such as grasses and reeds,
and to the sale of value-added products
such as baskets and mats. Due to the
presence of foot-and-mouth disease in
the region, nonlocal sale of livestock
is prohibited, which severely limits
the economic return on grazing cattle.
Through our ongoing study, we estimate the level of unemployment to be
90 percent. Most household cash comes
from family remittances or government
subsidies and poverty-relief programs.
The success of the community-based
conservation model is debated among
scientists, practitioners of conservation
and development, and policy makers.
The policy-specific criticisms include
the following claims: that participating communities never actually gain
rights to manage their resources and
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75
150
225
300
miles
ANGOLA
N
~1,600
elephants
ZAMBIA
~4,200
elephants
KAZA
boundary
national borders
Mashi
Conservancy
community
conservation area
Chobe
Enclave
ZIMBABWE
~62,500
elephants
commercial wildlife
management area
forest reserve
NAMIBIA
~12,900
elephants
national park/
wildlife reserve
BOTSWANA
~153,000 elephants
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) spans an area larger than
the state of California and includes 17 national parks, along with numerous other protected
areas, within five countries. Elephant numbers in KAZA are stable or increasing, making
it a stronghold against the global rise in poaching. (Elephant population numbers from
elephantdatabase.org.)
_____________
Okavango
Delta
Elephants move from areas of wet-season forage to dry-season water sources, such as the
Okavango Delta shown here.
36
consequently struggle to implement effective conservation; that the majority
of wildlife revenue is often retained by
state authorities; and that benefits that
do accrue locally are unequally distributed and insufficient to offset the significant costs of living amid wildlife.
These are not new criticisms, but there
is still a need to argue for a stronger role
of communities within the national and
international conservation agenda.
The situation in Chobe Enclave demonstrates the complexity of balancing
national and global policy interests
against the livelihood and decisionmaking needs at the community level.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to
wildlife conservation and economic development. For the Subiya and others
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A resident of Mashi Conservancy in Namibia stands with his ox-drawn
sledge, with homes in the background that are built with mud and thatch
from the floodplain. The livelihoods of people in Mashi and the Chobe
Enclave, which both fall within KAZA’s borders, have changed as they have
had to share land with elephants.
in communities like theirs, centralized
policy-making and the promotion of
wildlife are a dual threat to their livelihood security. The ongoing changes
in climate and in resource availability
suggest that there is a mounting need
to resolve conflicts with wildlife and
the more fundamental conflicts between communities and conservation
goals. However, the Chobe Enclave is
a case study in which long-term experience has failed to transform useful
lessons into better livelihoods for people. Our work in this region highlights
missed opportunities in conservation
policy to acknowledge and respond to
the real-life consequences that locals incur from protected wildlife. Restructuring policy to include representation of
Chobe residents could make community conservation in this region again a
model for others to follow.
Policy Changes for Conservation
While rural communities struggle to
live with elephants, the massive scale
of elephant poaching across Africa
and of the global ivory trade in recent
years has garnered attention and outcry from the scientific community,
the international public, and national
governments. Across the continent,
African elephant populations have declined by as much as 60 percent since
2007, falling to approximately 400,000,
largely because of poaching to meet
consumer demand for ivory in China
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The Subiya and other residents use a traditional dugout
canoe called a mokoro to access resources in rivers and wetlands. Access to these resources can be limited by wildlife
conservation.
and Southeast Asia. Globally, illegal
wildlife trade is estimated to total $10
billion to $23 billion in U.S. dollars.
Halting the legal sale and trade of
ivory is viewed as a powerful policy
instrument to combat poaching, as evidenced by two decisions in late 2016
from the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature and the Convention on the International Trade of
Endangered Species to ban domestic ivory trade in signatory nations,
protected. The nation is home to onethird to one-half of Africa’s remaining
savanna elephants, so it plays a key
role in conservation of the species. The
2014 hunting moratorium in Botswana
sacrificed significant state and community revenue from trophy hunting, and
community-based conservation communities were entirely excluded from
that policy decision. Although the decision was in part enacted in response to
population declines in many species,
Because elephants have become so
numerous in recent years, farmers have
experienced heavy losses from crop raiding
and destruction of fences and fields.
and also by China’s State Council announcement to make domestic ivory
trade and processing illegal by the end
of 2017.
But the situation is complicated.
Following the 2014 suspension of
all imports of elephant trophies, the
United States is currently struggling
with resolving conservation and trophy hunting interests. While elephant
populations have plummeted across
many regions in Africa, Botswana’s
elephants have remained relatively
the inclusion in the moratorium of elephants, whose population was increasing locally, reflected the global imperative to support their conservation.
At our meeting in Kavimba, the
councilman described how the livelihoods of the Subiya and other residents had changed under communitybased conservation, and how they
now faced another change under Botswana’s hunting moratorium. Over
the 23-year history of the Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust, human and
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Satau
Parakarungu
NAMIBIA
wetlands
Muchenje-Mabele
settlements
croplands
Ch
elephants
ob
e
Ri
r
ve
Kavimba
Kachikau
Chobe Enclave
Chobe Forest Reserve
BOTSWANA
elephant population growth had led
to increasing constraints on the use of
natural resources. The Trust promoted
trophy hunting and other wildlifebased tourism to generate revenue
and jobs for the member communities.
At the same time, under the Trust’s
management plan, individual rights to
harvest wildlife and other natural resources were limited to ensure sustainable use and preservation of wildlife
habitat. The result was a shift from traditional natural resource–based livelihoods to a more cash-based economy.
From 2011 to 2013, trophy hunting
generated US$420,000 annually for the
Trust, representing about 70 percent
Chobe
National
Park
As Botswana’s elephant population has grown, the Chobe Enclave has been especially affected.
During the dry season, elephants cross the Enclave from Chobe National Park and Chobe Forest Reserve to get to the river, which swells with floodwaters at that time of year from the previous months of rain upstream in the headwaters. Balancing sustainable ecosystem management
and the socioeconomic well-being of the people in the elephants’ path has become a challenge.
munities ever controlled the rights to
their lands and resources, which is a
long-standing criticism of communitybased conservation strategy globally.
Livelihoods in the Elephant Landscape
In the absence of centralized national
policies controlling land and resource
rights, the Subiya were historically dependent on resources from the floodplain landscape and on small-scale
In many cases, a market exists for
hunting in areas that are unsuitable for
photo tourism.
of their revenue stream. At the same
time that the Subiya people and their
neighbors continue to bear conservation costs, the removal of trophy hunting revenue without the replacement
of rights to traditional use of natural
resources means that community benefits from wildlife have been greatly
reduced and that local support for
wildlife conservation has been strongly undermined. Indeed, the moratorium calls into question whether com38
farming. Traditional homes were built
of mud and roofed with thatch found in
the floodplain. Household compounds
were walled with reeds, and sleeping
mats were woven from spongy papyrus
stems. As the councilman described, the
mokoro canoe allowed wet-season access
to the floodplains and river channels for
resource gathering, such as fishing and
harvesting wild food. The ox-drawn
sledge, built from the fork of a large tree,
provided dryland transport in the san-
dy upland and the means to transport
timber, firewood, and harvested crops.
In the floodplain fields, people cultivated maize, sorghum, and millet intercropped with beans, pumpkins, and
melons. Households kept livestock,
although herding has been far more
central to the livelihoods of non-Subiya
groups such as the Tswana. For all people in the region, livelihood strategies
were flexibly implemented based on
the highly variable ecosystem dynamics associated with the flood pulse of
the Linyanti and Chobe Rivers.
Today, most rural households in
northern Botswana still use the floodplain for many things—for example,
to supplement their diets, graze livestock, and gather thatch and mud for
their homes. But their access to these
resources is now constrained, which
further limits their ability to adapt to
economic or environmental changes.
Because elephants have become so
numerous in recent years as a result
of successful antipoaching efforts and
in-migration from areas of extreme
poaching pressure, farmers have experienced heavy losses from crop raiding
and destruction of fences and fields.
They have also faced the constant
threat of losing livestock to lions and
other predators. These costs of living
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Tim Hester/Alamy
American Scientist
Tourists on a photo safari watch elephants swim across the Chobe River in Botswana.
Community-based conservation arrangements rely on photo tourism and trophy hunting
to offset the costs locals incur from living with elephants and other protected wildlife. Botswana’s 2013 hunting moratorium significantly reduced revenue generated for communities.
with wildlife severely affect already
vulnerable livelihoods.
Residents in the Chobe Enclave secure few jobs in safari lodges, and the
Trust receives limited shared revenue
from contracts with lodges, guiding
operators, or other tourism endeavors.
Generally, where trophy hunting is legal, it can provide a greater source of
revenue than photo tourism, while also
diversifying the community’s income
stream. Community-based conservation communities earn either a flat
concession fee or a percentage of game
license and tag fees, both of which are
controlled or overseen by central wildlife agencies. In many cases, a market
exists for hunting in areas unsuitable
for photo tourism—for example, in areas of thick bush and incessant tsetse
flies; hunting can then operate simultaneously with photo tourism.
The challenges and successes of community-based conservation vary widely for a variety of reasons: differences
in local-level governance and management with regard to matters such as
the use of revenue; ecology and geography; policy arrangements; foreign
economies; and the international tourism market. This variation is demonstrated across one of the world’s largest
networks of parks and protected lands,
spanning five nations in southern Afriwww.americanscientist.org
American Scientist
ca, called the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).
Competing Needs in a Dry Land
KAZA was announced in 2006, when
an agreement among the leaders of
Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia,
and Zimbabwe agreed to sustainably manage the large wetland and
savanna ecosystem for conservation,
tourism, and community well-being.
Seventeen national parks, along with
numerous other protected areas, including those under community-based
conservation, sit within the boundaries of KAZA, spanning an area larger
than the state of California. The Chobe
Enclave, including Kavimba, is part of
this larger area, which makes KAZA’s
governing body, the KAZA Secretariat,
well poised to act as a liaison between
local, national, and global entities.
In the past decade, Botswana, at the
core of the KAZA landscape, has become a stronghold against the global
rise in poaching for ivory. As elephant
populations decline precipitously
across Africa, their numbers in KAZA
and in Botswana specifically are stable
or increasing.
KAZA breathes its elephants with
the seasons. The roughly 150,000 individuals in Botswana move through
fields, among protected areas, and
across national borders between
the three perennial water sources
(Okavango/Cubango, Kwandu, and
Zambezi) during the dry- to wet-season cycle. From one year to the next,
elephant populations can fluctuate
dramatically as well, often in response
to human-caused changes. Elephants
were nearly wiped out from the KAZA
region during the Angolan civil war
and ensuing Namibian struggle for independence. Less than 30 years later,
elephants have returned en masse to
the stability of KAZA as poaching has
increased in surrounding regions.
Each KAZA nation must try to
manage variable, mobile elephant
populations across a range of different land-use conditions. Management budgets are small, typical of
those for many government agencies
in nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Not
only must management activities be
flexible and responsive to population and environmental changes, they
must also balance the two sides of the
KAZA mission: sustainable ecosystem
management and human wellbeing.
Achieving this balance is particularly
challenging in the dry season, when
wildlife habitat most overlaps with
the farmlands and settlements of rural
communities near water sources.
Making management even more
challenging, KAZA’s mission includes
coordination across national borders
and with communities on the ground.
Although Botswana plays a key role
because of its stake in protecting its
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Elephants have a marked effect on the landscapes where they live, as
evidenced by the heavily browsed foliage in the image above.
exceptional wildlife populations,
KAZA management is a joint venture
that includes the other five member
nations. Each KAZA partner weighs
both conservation and development
needs; this balancing act is the primary
motivation behind the landscape-level
collaboration. Importantly, KAZA’s
governance structures cannot make
binding policy prescriptions; decisions
must come from member nations.
Wildlife-based tourism sectors
in each of the KAZA nations differ,
When crossing through farmland along the river to get to the wetlands during the dry season, elephants can cause crop damage like
that seen in this field of maize in the Chobe Enclave.
wildlife. As the president of Botswana,
Ian Khama, said in his 2013 State of
the Nation address: “The shooting of
wild game purely for sport and trophies is no longer compatible with our
commitment to preserve local fauna as
a national treasure, which should be
treated as such.”
People on both sides of the hunting debate recognize the importance
of tourism for KAZA. And most recognize that sustainability in an increasingly isolated or closed ecosystem
A business-as-usual approach means that
households in KAZA remain subject to
high risk and uncertainty.
influenced by factors such as political stability and economic priorities.
Nevertheless, the commitment to
conservation by all KAZA partners
remains strong. Recently, the issue of
whether to limit or ban trophy hunting
within KAZA has been debated. On
one side, hunting generates revenue,
which supports tourism economies
and cash-strapped government agencies charged with managing land and
wildlife. Hunted wildlife populations
can be healthy and sustainable, yet
overhunting and the effects of killing
only dominant individuals are persistent and wide-ranging problems.
On the other side, there are preservationist arguments against hunting
vulnerable species, and ethics often influences opinions of acceptable uses of
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may require population management
to control growth in certain species.
Unchecked population growth in elephants can lead to negative consequences for the landscape, catastrophic
die-offs, or the need for culling of animals. Well-managed hunting can be an
effective tool for keeping populations
in check.
An important consequence of the
hunting moratorium in Botswana is
that it has revealed community-based
conservation to be an economic bargain that exists between communities
and the nation. Communities do not
possess actual rights and control over
resources; rather, they endure the costs
of living with wildlife in exchange for
a portion of wildlife revenue. And in
many cases, the right to negotiate the
terms of this bargain or even knowledge of its existence escapes the people
affected most by conservation.
As the Subiya councilman pointed
out, giving up individual rights to
hunting and other resource use as part
of their livelihoods was more acceptable when these strategies could be
replaced by revenue from trophy hunting. In 2014, the Trust’s revenue was
nearly halved, falling from US$650,000
to US$330,000 with the closure of
hunting in its areas. The higher revenues that the Trust had received over
the previous 20 years had helped to
increase tolerance for elephant damage
among its communities.
Yet the central issues may be agency
and representative forms of management of natural resources, rather than
revenue. For example, across the Chobe
River in Namibia, another long-running
community-based conservation institution, Mashi Conservancy, dispenses
only 100 Namibian dollars per adult
per year, equal to less than US$8. Mashi
uses hunting and tourism revenue to
fund these small payments, along with
community projects such as scholarships and health services. In a 2017
survey of Mashi households, we found
that nearly all residents self-identify as
active community-based conservation
members. Conversely, in the Chobe Enclave, four years after the cessation of
Botswana hunting revenue, less than
1 percent of households identify themselves as members, although the Trust’s
constitution defines membership as
universal among adult residents of the
five Chobe Enclave communities.
These challenges are not unique
to the Enclave and KAZA. They ex-
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ist throughout sub-Saharan Africa and
across the tropics, where conservation
strategies attempt to balance the needs
of people and wildlife. Providing sufficient revenue for households to practice sustainable livelihoods may be
too great a challenge for conservation
strategies alone. However, the KAZA
Secretariat can positively affect communities by better linking global support for conservation to communities
on the ground, while rallying member
nations to incorporate communities
more directly into the policy process
affecting local lands.
Connecting KAZA to Communities
KAZA is an important global model
for conservation. It faces universal
challenges while also demonstrating
partnership among nations and stakeholders. The KAZA Secretariat coordinates national policy around protected
area management and has marshaled
significant backing from conservation
organizations and other multilateral
donors. The global poaching crisis
has put the spotlight on KAZA and its
member nations. This situation presents an opportunity for the Secretariat
to advocate among its diverse conservation supporters to include the costs
to local communities in the price tag of
preserving elephants and other species
in the landscape.
Acting on this opportunity will not
be easy. The levels of funding required
to offset the costs to communities of
wildlife conflict and restricted resource
access are steep and outside the scope
of existing social programs of KAZA
member nations (such as subsidized
labor or rural development programs).
However, the recent rise in global support for elephant conservation could
leverage increased donor contributions
from multilateral organizations and
agencies, and from the global public.
KAZA should act as a boundary organization, channeling increased financial
support to the trusts and conservancies
that share land with the world’s largest
remaining elephant population. Programs to remunerate people for financial losses due to wildlife, to support
and subsidize employment in tourismrelated sectors, and to compensate for
food and resource shortfalls may not lift
communities out of poverty, but they
may reduce the livelihood uncertainty
that is inherent in this landscape and
that is made more acute by conservation. Current efforts are insufficient.
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Even if financial support is increased to a sufficient level, which
would be no small achievement, the
problem of disempowerment will remain. Tourism jobs and well-funded
government subsidy programs could
constitute an adequate economic bargain, paying people for the costs of
wildlife. However, without collective
choice arrangements and decisionmaking authority over lands and resources, the Subiya and other community members across KAZA would be
living in a conservation welfare state.
To achieve the human well-being half
of its mission, the KAZA Secretariat
must go beyond promoting tourism as
a silver bullet. It is well-positioned to
lobby its member nations to institute
greater local decision-making authority over community lands.
Successful examples of communitybased resource management exist across the globe. Central features
of these institutions include local
decision-making authority and locally captured benefits. Such successes, however, are more common in
the Global North, Latin America, and
Asia, and in cases of forest conservation. In Africa, cases of successful community management of wildlife have
been few and short-lived.
KAZA and its member nations still
serve as a positive example of conservation leadership. Current policies
include the implementation of spatial
landscape management. This strategy
attempts to reallocate land use to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Elephant
corridors through community lands
are identified, and settlements and
farms within these zones are relocated.
Ideally, spatial management would
better account for seasonality of wildlife habitat and human resource use,
and would potentially allow wildlife
and humans to use areas at different
times of year. Current steps toward implementing the strategy are under way,
both in the Chobe Enclave and elsewhere. But effective planning comes at
high cost, and the role of communities
in new land policies is as yet unclear.
Regardless of the pathway forward,
the Subiya livelihood described by the
councilman is unlikely to be restored
while KAZA still effectively protects
one of the most important remaining
elephant populations. Human population growth and resource demands
require that some lands remain strictly
protected for wildlife. Nevertheless,
residents in the Chobe Enclave should
retain certain rights to natural resource
access in the floodplain and upland forest, and they should be better integrated into the policy process that grants
and limits these rights within national
land-use management. To accomplish
this, the KAZA Secretariat could lobby
its member countries’ governments
to transfer some aspects of land-use
and conservation decision-making to
rural communities. Further, the Secretariat could formalize institutional
mechanisms that include local voices
and allow the active participation of
member households in management
planning that will directly affect their
livelihoods. Facilitating this integration
will ensure that the Secretariat acts on
the mission of sustainably managing
the well-being of the community and
of the ecoregion as a whole.
Bibliography
Agrawal A., and E. Ostrom. 2001. Collective
action, property rights, and decentralization in resource use in India and Nepal.
Politics and Society 29:485–514.
Agrawal A., and K. H. Redford. 2006. Poverty,
Development, and Biodiversity Conservation: Shooting in the Dark? Working Paper
no. 26. Wildlife Conservation Society, Washington, DC.
Brooks, J. S., K. A. Waylen, and M. Borgerhoff
Mulder. 2012. How national context, project
design, and local community characteristics
influence success in community-based conservation projects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 109:21265–21270.
Chase, M. J., et al. 2016. Continent-wide survey reveals massive decline in African savannah elephants. PeerJ 4:e2354.
Dowie, M. 2011. Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict between Global Conservation
and Native Peoples. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nelson F. 2010. Democratizing natural resource governance: Searching for institutional change. In F. Nelson, editor. Community Rights, Conservation, and Contested Land,
p. 310. London: Earthscan.
Salerno, J., M. Borgerhoff Mulder, M. N. Grote,
M. Ghiselli, and C. Packer. 2016. Household livelihoods and conflict with wildlife
in community-based conservation areas
across northern Tanzania. Oryx 50:702–712.
West, P., J. Igoe, and D. Brockington. 2006. Parks
and peoples: The social impact of protected areas. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:251–277.
For relevant Web links, consult this
issue of American Scientist Online:
www.amsci.org/magazine/issues/2018/
january-february
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Slicing Sandwiches, States,
and Solar Systems
Can mathematical tools help determine what divisions are provably fair?
Theodore P. Hill
G
errymandering is making
headlines once again, with
a case already before the
Supreme Court regarding
partisan redistricting in Wisconsin,
and another from Pennsylvania waiting in the wings. At the core of the
problem of redrawing congressional
districts is the issue of “fairness,” and
that is tricky business indeed. The general subject of fair division has been
studied extensively using mathematical tools, and some of that study has
proved very useful in practice for
problems such as dividing estates or
fishing grounds. For gerrymandering,
however, there is still no widely accepted fair solution. On the contrary,
this past October Pablo Soberón of
Northeastern University showed that a
biased cartographer could apply mathematics to gerrymander on purpose,
without even using strange shapes
for the districts. The underlying idea
traces back to one of mathematicians’
favorite theorems, which dates back to
World War II.
The late 1930s were devastating
years for the Polish people, but they
were years of astonishing discovery
for Polish mathematicians. Between
the rock of the Great Depression and
the hard place of impending invasion and occupation by both Nazi
and Soviet armies, a small group of
mathematicians from the university in
Lwów (today Lviv) met regularly in a
coffee shop called the Scottish Café to
Theodore P. Hill is a professor emeritus of mathematics at Georgia Institute of Technology, and is currently
research scholar in residence at California Polytechnic
State University in San Luis Obispo. He received
his PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. One of his hobbies is tracking down
early American mathematics books, and the resulting
collection now resides at the Bancroft Library at UC
Berkeley. Website: http://www.math.gatech.edu/~hill
42
exchange mathematical ideas. These
ideas were not the mathematics of
complicated calculations (which were
then done with the aid of slide rulers),
but rather were very general and esthetically beautiful abstract concepts,
soon to prove extremely powerful in
a wide variety of mathematical and
scientific fields.
The café tables had marble tops,
and could easily be written on in pencil and then later erased like a slate
blackboard. Since the group often returned to ideas from previous meetings, they soon realized the need for
a written record of their results, and
purchased a large notebook for documenting the problems and answers.
The book, kept in a safe place by the
café headwaiter and produced by him
“Given are three sets
A1, A2, A3 located in the
three-dimensional Euclidean space and with
finite Lebesgue measure.
Does there exist a plane
cutting each of the three
sets A1, A2, A3 into two
parts of equal measure?”
To bring this question to life
for his companions, Steinhaus
illustrated it with one of his
trademark vivid examples, one
that reflected the venue of their
meetings, and also perhaps their
imminent preoccupation with
daily essentials: Can every ordinary ham sandwich consisting of
three ingredients, say bread, ham,
The general subject of fair division has
been studied extensively using mathematical tools, and some of that study
has proven useful for problems such as
dividing estates or fishing grounds.
upon the group’s next visit, was a collection of these mathematical questions, both solved and unsolved, that
decades later became known in international mathematical circles as the
Scottish Book.
The Ham Sandwich Problem
Problem No. 123 in the book, posted
by Hugo Steinhaus, a senior member
of the café mathematics group and a
professor of mathematics at the University of Lemberg (now the University of Lviv), was stated as follows:
and cheese, be cut by a planar slice of
a knife so that each of the three is cut
exactly in half? (See the figure at the bottom of page 44.)
A Simpler Problem
At the meeting where Steinhaus introduced this question, he reported that
the analogous conclusion in two dimensions was true: Any two areas in a (flat)
plane can always be simultaneously bisected by a single straight line, and he
sketched out a solution on the marble
tabletop. In the spirit of Steinhaus’s food
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theme, let’s consider the case in which
the two areas to be bisected are the crust
and sausage on a pepperoni pizza. If the
pizza happens to be a perfect circle, then
every line passing through its center will
exactly bisect the crust.
To see that there is always a line that
will bisect both crust and sausage simultaneously, start with the potential cutting line pointing in any fixed direction,
and slowly rotate it about the center, say
clockwise. If the proportion of sausage
on the clockwise side of the arrow-cut
happened to be 40 percent when the rotation began, then after the arrow-cut rotated 180 degrees, the proportion on the
clockwise side of the arrow-cut would
now be 60 percent. Because this proportion changed continuously from
40 percent to 60 percent, at some point
it must have been exactly 50 percent, and
at that point both crust and
sausage would have been
exactly bisected. (See the figure at the top of page 45.)
On the other hand, if
the pizza is not a perfect
circle, as no real
pizza is, then
t here may
not be an
exact center
point such
that every
straight line
The Salem Gazette published this cartoon in 1813 with the title “The GerryMander,” stating that the district had been “formed into a monster!” by
partisan divisioning. The shape was likened to a salamander, and the term
came from blending that word with the last name of the Massachusetts governor at the time, Elbridge Gerry. Mathematical theories can possibly help
with fair divisioning, but if misappropriated, can instead increase problems.
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through it exactly
bisects the crust. But
in this general noncircular
case, again move the cutting
line so that it always bisects the
crust as it rotates, and note that
even though the cutting line may not
rotate around a single point as it did
with a circular pizza, the same continuity argument applies. If the proportion
clockwise of the north cut started at
40 percent, then when the cut arrow
points south, that proportion will be 60
percent, which again completes the argument using the simple fact that to go
continuously from 40 to 60, one must
pass through 50. This simple but powerful observation, formally known as
the Intermediate Value Theorem, also
explains why if the temperature outside your front door was 40 degrees
Fahrenheit yesterday at noon and 60
degrees today at noon, then at some
time in between, perhaps several times,
the temperature must have been exactly 50 degrees.
It is Steinhaus’s two-dimensional
(pizza) version of the ham sandwich
theorem that may be used for gerrymandering. Instead of a pizza, imagine a
country with two political parties whose
voters are sprinkled through it in any arbitrary way. The pizza theorem implies
that there is a straight line bisecting the
country so that exactly half of each party
is on each side of the line. Suppose, for
example, that 60 percent of the voters in
the United States are from party Purple
and 40 percent are from party Yellow.
Then there is a single straight line dividing the country into two regions, each
of which has exactly 30 percent of the
Purple on each side, and exactly 20 percent of the Yellow on each side, so the
Purple have the strict majority on both
sides. Repeating this procedure to each
side yields four districts with exactly 15
percent Purple and exactly 10 percent
Yellow in each. Again the majority party
(in this case Purple) has the majority in
each district. Continuing this argument
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shows that whenever the number of desired districts is a power of two, there
is always a straight-line partition of the
country into that number of districts so
that the majority party also has the majority of votes in every single district.
(See the map on page 46.)
This repeated-bisection argument
may fail, however, for odd numbers of
desired districts. Sergei Bespamyatnikh,
David Kirkpatrick, and Jack Snoeyink of
the University of British Columbia, however, found a generalization of the ham
sandwich theorem that does the trick for
Protesters rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2017 while the court hears arguments
in a case about gerrymandering in Wisconsin. The court has not considered the constitutionality
of gerrymandering in more than a decade, and has not previously been able to agree on a standard for determining when a redistricting map goes too far for the sake of partisanship. A 2013
poll found that, across party lines, 7 in 10 Americans agreed that those who stand to benefit from
drawing electoral lines should not have a say in the way those lines are drawn.
any number of districts, power of two
or not. They showed that for a given
number of Yellow and Purple points in
the plane (no three of which are on a
line), there is always a subdivision of the
Direct application of the ham sandwich
theorem would not fix the gerrymandering
problem, but would make it worse.
plane into any given number of convex
polygons (districts) each containing exactly the same numbers of Yellow points
in each district, and the same number of
Purple. (See the map on page 47.)
The ham sandwich problem asks whether any
three objects, such as the ham, cheese, and
bread in a sandwich, can be bisected simultaneously by a single straight cut of a knife.
The objects need not be connected to one another, or even to themselves—the bread, for
example, might already be in two slices, or
even broken into crumbs and scattered about.
44
In his application of this theorem
to gerrymandering, Soberón observed
that for any desired number of districts, this theorem implies that there
is always a subdivision into that num-
ber of polygonal districts so that each
district has exactly the same number
of Purple, and exactly the same number of Yellow. Whichever party has
the overall majority in the country
will also have the majority in every
district. Thus, as he found, a direct
application of ham sandwich theory
would not help fix the problem, but
would actually make it worse, and
the electorate should be wary if the
person drawing congressional maps
knows anything about that theory. No
wonder the Supreme Court balked on
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all three of the most recent cases it has
heard on partisan gerrymandering.
The Scottish Café
After giving his argument for the twodimensional case of the ham sandwich
theorem, Steinhaus then challenged
his companions to prove the 3-dimensional version. The same basic Intermediate Value Theorem argument of
continuity that worked for the pizza
theorem will not settle the “ham sandwich” Problem 123 question, simply
because there is no single “direction”
to move a given starting plane passing
through the sandwich, guaranteeing
a return to the same spot having bisected both of two other objects somewhere along the way.
Two gifted students and protégés of Steinhaus, Stefan Banach and
Stanisław Ulam, were also members
of the Scottish Café group. Using a discovery Ulam had made around the
same time with Karol Borsuk, another
Scottish Café comrade, Banach was
able to prove the sandwich conjecture of Steinhaus. The key to Banach’s
proof, called the Ulam-Borsuk Theorem, was another general continuity
theorem similar in spirit to the Intermediate Value Theorem, but much
more sophisticated. Steinhaus also
brought that abstract theorem to life
with another of his colorful real-life
examples: the Ulam-Borsuk Theorem,
he said, implies that at any given moment in time there are two antipodal
points on the Earth’s surface that have
the same temperature and the same
atmospheric pressure.
If there are more than three solid
objects, or more than two regions in
the plane, then it may not be possible
to bisect all of them simultaneously
with a single plane (or line), as can
easily be seen in the case of four small
balls that are located at the vertices
of a pyramid. Also the conclusion of
bisection cannot generally be relaxed.
For example, if your goal is to split a
pizza (or political territory) into two
pieces so that one side contains exactly 60 percent of each, that may not
always be possible. (See the figure at the
bottom of page 47.)
If a pizza is a perfect circle, every line through the center will bisect the crust. If a cut starts with 40
percent of the sausage on the clockwise side of the arrow, then after rotating the arrow 180 degrees,
60 percent of the sausage will be on the clockwise side. So somewhere in between, the line hit 50
percent and the same cutting line bisected both crust and sausage. If the pizza is not a perfect circle,
the crust-bisecting lines may not all pass through the same point, but the same argument applies.
Wikimedia Commons
Members of the Scottish Café mathematicians who worked on the ham sandwich
theorem in two- and three-dimensional cases included (clockwise from top left) Hugo
Steinhaus, Stanisław Ulam, Stefan Banach,
and Karol Borsuk.
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30 percent Purple
20 percent Yellow
30 percent Purple
20 percent Yellow
15 percent Purple
10 percent Yellow
15 percent Purple
10 percent Yellow
15 percent Purple
10 percent Yellow
15 percent
Purple
10 percent
Yellow
According to the two-dimensional (pizza) version of the ham sandwich theorem, there is a
straight line across the United States so that exactly half of the Purple and half of the Yellow
party voters are on either side (top). Bisecting each of those (bottom), the same argument shows
that there are four regions with equal numbers of Purple and equal numbers of Yellow in each
of them. Thus the party with the overall majority also has the majority in each of the districts.
Generalizations
During World War II, the statement of
this colorful and elegant new mathematical result—that any three fixed objects
simultaneously can be bisected by a single plane—somehow made it through
enemy territory and across the Atlantic, long before email or smartphones
or Skype. Mathematicians Arthur Stone
and John Tukey at Princeton University
learned about this new gem of a theorem
via the international mathematics grapevine, and improved the result to include
nonuniform distributions, higher dimensions, and a variety of other cutting
surfaces and objects. The new Stone
and Tukey extensions also showed, for
example, that a single circle simultaneously can bisect any three shapes in the
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plane. For example, there is a location
for a telecommunications satellite and
a power level so that its broadcasts will
reach exactly half of each of three groups
of voters—Yellow, Purple, and Teal (independents). (See the map on page 48.)
Formally speaking, of course, drawing a line to bisect two discrete mass
distributions such as Yellow and Purple voters may require splitting one
of the voter-points, which may not always be possible (or desirable). If a
distribution has an odd number of indivisible points of one type, for example, then clearly no line can have exactly half those points on each side of
the line. Inspired by the success of my
PhD advisor Lester Dubins in addressing a different fair division problem in-
volving indivisible points (professors,
in that case), I wondered whether the
conclusion of the ham sandwich theorem might be extended to also include
mass distributions with indivisible
points—such as grains of salt and pepper sprinkled on a table—by replacing
the notion of exact bisection of distributions with a natural generalization
of the statistical notion of a median.
Recall that a median of a distribution—say of house prices in a neighborhood—is a price such that no more than
half of all the house values are below
and no more than half are above that
price. Extending this notion to higher
dimensions yields the concept of median lines, median planes, and median
hyperplanes in higher dimensions. Using the Ulam-Borsuk Theorem again,
but this time applying it to a different
“midpoint median” function, it was
straightforward to show that for any
two arbitrary random distributions in
the plane, or any three in space, there is
always a line median or plane median,
respectively, that has no more than half
of each distribution on each side.
Some 20 years later, Columbia University economist Macartan Humphreys used this result to solve a problem in cooperative game theory. In a
setting in which several groups must
agree on allocations of a fixed resource
(say, how much of a given disaster
fund should be allocated to medical care, power, housing, and food),
the objective is to find an allocation
that no winning coalition could override in favor of another allocation. He
showed that such equilibrium allocations exist precisely when they lie on
“ham sandwich cuts.”
Touching Planes
In explaining the beauties of the ham
sandwich theorem to nonmathematician friends over beer and pizza, one
of my companions noticed that often
there is more than one bisecting line (or
plane), and we saw that some bisecting
lines might touch each of the objects,
whereas others may not. I started looking at this observation more closely and
discovered that in every case, I could
always find a bisecting line or plane that
touched all the objects. When I could not
find a reference to or proof of this concept, I posed the question to my Georgia
Tech friend and colleague John Elton,
who had helped me crack a handful of
other mathematical problems: Is there
always a bisecting plane (or hyperplane,
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in dimensions greater than 3) that also
touches each of the objects?
Together, he and I were able to show
that the answer is yes, which strengthens the conclusion of the classical ham
sandwich theorem. For example, this
improved version implies that at any
instant in time, in our Solar System there
is always a single plane passing through
three bodies—one planet, one moon,
and one asteroid—that simultaneously
bisects the planetary, the lunar, and the
asteroidal masses in the Solar System.
(See the figure at the bottom of page 48.)
Diverse Divisions
The ideas underlying the ham sandwich theorem have also been used in
diverse fields, including computer science, economics, political science, and
game theory. When I asked my friend
Francis Su, Harvey Mudd College
mathematician and fair-division expert, about his own applications of the
ham sandwich theorem, he explained
how he and Forest Simmons of Portland Community College had used
ham sandwich results to solve problems in consensus-halving. In particular,
they used it to show that given a territory and 2n explorers, two each of
n different specialties (two zoologists,
two botanists, two archeologists, etc.),
there always exists a way to divide the
territory into two regions and the people into two teams of n explorers (one
of each type) such that each explorer is
satisfied with their half of the territory.
As a more light-hearted application
during a keynote lecture at Georgia
Tech, Tel Aviv University mathematician Noga Alon described a discrete
analog of the ham sandwich theorem
for splitting a necklace containing various types of jewels, as might be done,
he said, by mathematically oriented
thieves who steal a necklace and wish
to divide it fairly among themselves.
Even though it had been offered as
an amusement, his result had applications, including to VSLI (Very Large
Scale Integrated) circuit designs in
which an integrated chip composed of
two different types of nodes is manufactured in the shape of a closed circuit
(much like a necklace), and may be
restructured after fabrication by cutting and regrouping the pieces. Alon’s
theorem answers this question: How
many cuts need to be made of the original circuit in order to bisect it into two
parts, each containing exactly half of
the nodes of each type?
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12 percent Purple
8 percent Yellow
12 percent Purple
8 percent Yellow
12
percent
Purple
8
percent
Yellow
12 percent Purple
8 percent Yellow
12 percent Purple
8 percent Yellow
For odd numbers of desired districts, the repeated-bisection argument of the two-dimensional
version of the ham sandwich theorem may fail. However, a generalization of the theorem
works for any number of districts, by showing that for a given number of Purple or Yellow
points in a plane (no three of which are on a line), there is always a subdivision of the plane
into any given number of convex polygons, each of which contains exactly the same number
of Yellow, and the same number of Purple, points.
Revisiting the Café
Steinhaus published the proof of the
ham sandwich theorem in the local Polish mathematical journal Mathesis Polska in 1938, the year of the infamously
violent Kristallnacht. The Scottish Café
mathematics gatherings continued for
a few more years, despite the invasion
of western Poland by the German army
and the Soviet occupation of Lwów
from the east, but the difficult times
would soon disperse both these scholars and their works. Ulam, a young
man in his 20s and, like Steinhaus, also
of Jewish roots, had left with his brother on a ship for America just two weeks
before the German invasion.
Banach, nearing 50 and already
widely known for his discoveries in
mathematics, was appointed dean of
the University of Lwów‘s department
of mathematics and physics by the
Soviets after they occupied that city,
on the condition that he promised to
learn Ukrainian. When the Nazis in
turn occupied Lwów, they closed the
universities, and Banach was forced
to work feeding lice at a typhus research center, which at least protected
him from being sent into slave labor.
(Banach, like many others, was made
to wear cages of lice on his body, so
they could feed on his blood. The lice,
which are carriers of typhus, were
It is not always possible to bisect simultaneously more than three objects with a single plane
(such as points at the corners of a pyramid, shown at left); nor to separate simultaneously three
objects by the same unequal ratios. The analog in two dimensions (right) shows that the pizza
cannot be cut by a straight line so that exactly 60 percent of the crust and 60 percent of the
sausage are on the same side of the line.
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Mathematicians Arthur Stone and John Tukey of Princeton University extended the ham
sandwich theorem to nonuniform distributions, higher dimensions, and a variety of other
cutting surfaces and objects. One of their examples showed that a single circle simultaneously
can bisect any three shapes in the plane. For instance, it is always possible to design the power
and location of a telecommunications satellite so that its broadcasts will reach exactly half of
the members of each of three groups—Yellow, Purple, and Teal (independents).
used in research efforts to create a vaccine against the disease.) Banach was
able to help reestablish the university
after Lwów was recaptured by the Soviets in 1944, but he died of lung cancer in 1945.
Although the correct statement
of the crisp ham sandwich theorem
had made it through the World War
II mathematical grapevine perfectly,
the proper credit for its discoverers
was garbled en route, and Stone and
Tukey mistakenly attributed the first
proof to Ulam. Sixty years later the
record was set straight when a copy
of Steinhaus’s article in the Mathesis
Polska was finally tracked down, and
we now know that Steinhaus posed
the problem and published the first
paper on it; however, it was Banach
who actually solved it first, using a
theorem of Ulam’s.
Today Banach is widely recognized
as one of the most important and influential mathematicians of the 20th
century, and many fundamental theo-
Some bisecting lines or planes may touch each of the objects, whereas others may not, as
shown on the pizza below. Nevertheless, there is always a single bisecting line or plane
(or hyperplane, in higher dimensions) that touches all of the objects. For example, at any
instant in time in our Solar System there is always a single plane passing through three
bodies—one planet, one moon, and one asteroid—that simultaneously bisects the planetary,
the lunar, and the asteroidal masses in the Solar System.
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rems, as well as entire basic fields of
mathematics, that are based on his
work are now among the most extensively used tools in physics and
mathematics.
Ulam went on to work as one of
the key scientists on the Manhattan
Project in Los Alamos, achieving fame
in particular for the Teller-Ulam thermonuclear bomb design, and for his
invention of Monte Carlo simulation, a
ubiquitous tool in economics, physics,
mathematics, and many other areas of
science, which is used to estimate intractable probabilities by averaging the
results of huge numbers of computer
simulations of an experiment.
After the war, Steinhaus would have
been welcomed with a professorship
at almost any university in the world,
but he chose to stay in Poland to help
rebuild Polish mathematics, especially
at the university in Wrocław, which
had been destroyed during the war.
During those years in hiding, Steinhaus had also been breaking ground
on the mathematics of fair division—
the study of how to partition and allocate portions of a single heterogeneous
commodity, such as a cake or piece
of land, among several people with
possibly different values. One of Steinhaus’s key legacies was his insight to
take the common vague concept of
“fairness” and put it in a natural and
concrete mathematical framework.
From there fairness could be analyzed
logically, and that analysis has now
evolved into common and powerful
tools. For example, both the website
Spliddit, which provides free mathematical solutions to complicated everyday fair division problems from
sharing rent to dividing estates, and
the eBay auction system, which determines how much you pay—often an
amount below your maximum bid—
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Stanisław Kosiedowski/Wikimedia Commons
Stako/Wikimedia Commons
The building that housed the Scottish Café, where a group of mathematicians met in the late 1930s, is still standing in Lwów (above left).
Copies of the Scottish Book with the original entries by Banach and
Ulam are on display at the Library of the Mathematical Institute of
the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (above right). The original
book remains in the custody of the Banach family, who took it with
them after Banach died and the war ended, when they were required
to resettle in Warsaw. Steinhaus kept in touch with the family, and
after the war, he copied the book by hand to send to Ulam at Los
Alamos in 1956. Ulam translated the book into English and had 300
copies made at his own expense. Requests for the book became so
numerous that another edition was printed in 1977. After a “Scottish
Book Conference” in 1979, in which Ulam participated, the book was
again reissued, with updated material and additional papers.
are direct descendants of Steinhaus’s
insights on how to cut a cake fairly.
These ideas, born of a mathematician living and working clandestinely
with little contact with the outside
world for long periods of time, and
undoubtedly facing fair-allocation
challenges almost daily, have inspired
hundreds of research articles in fields
from computer and political science
to theoretical mathematics and physics, including many of my own. Steinhaus eventually became the first dean
of the department of mathematics in
the Technical University of Wrocław.
Although I never met him in person,
I had the good fortune to be invited
to visit that university in December
2000, and it was my privilege to lodge
in a special tower suite right above the
mathematics department and to give a
lecture in the Hugo Steinhaus Center.
Steinhaus had made the last entry
in the original Scottish Book in 1941
just before he went into hiding with a
Polish farm family, using the assumed
name and papers of a deceased forest ranger. The Scottish Book itself
also disappeared then, and when he
came out of hiding and was able to
rediscover the book, Steinhaus sent a
typed version of it in Polish to Ulam
at Los Alamos, who translated it into
English. Mathematician R. Daniel
Mauldin at the University of North
Texas, a friend of Ulam, published a
more complete version of the Scottish
Book, which included comments and
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notes by many of the problems’ original authors. Their Problem 123, which
evolved into the ham sandwich theorem, continues to fascinate and inspire researchers, and Google Scholar
shows that eight decades later, several
dozen new entries on the topic still
appear every few months.
But what about that pesky gerrymandering problem? Negative results
in science can also be very valuable;
they can illuminate how a certain line
of reasoning is doomed to failure, and
inspire searches in other directions.
That outcome is exactly what happened when the negative ham sandwich gerrymandering result showed
that a redistricting attempt might still
be radically biased even if the shapes
of the districts are quite regular. That
insight led researchers to drop the notion of shape as the key criterion, and
to look for another approach. The result was a new “efficiency gap” formula that quantifies how much a map is
gerrymandered based on vote shares,
not on shape. This formula, too, has
problems, and in turn it inspired me
and my colleague Christian Houdré at
Georgia Tech to look for a better measure of “gerrymandered-ness” using
combinatorial models involving balls
and urns. And so the exciting cycle of
scientific discovery that started with
the ham sandwich theorem continues.
A great many mathematicians today
owe a huge debt to those intrepid Polish academics, and we raise our cups
of java to those original Scottish Café
mathematicians!
Bibliography
Bellos, A. 2014. The Grapes of Math. New York:
Simon and Schuster.
Bespamyatnikh, S., D. Kirkpatrick, and J. Snoeyink, J. Generalizing ham sandwich cuts to
equitable subdivisions. Discrete and Computational Geometry 24:605–622.
Elton, J., and T. Hill. 2011. A stronger conclusion to the classical ham sandwich theorem.
European Journal of Combinatorics 32:657–661.
Hill, T. 2000. Mathematical devices for getting
a fair share. American Scientist 88:325–331.
Humphreys, M. 2008. Existence of a multicameral core. Social Choice and Welfare 31:503–520.
Mauldin, R. D. (ed.) 2015. The Scottish Book:
Mathematics from the Scottish Cafe, 2nd Edition. Basel:Birkhäuser.
Simmons, F., and F. Su. 2003. Consensus-halving via theorems of Borsuk-Ulam and Tucker. Mathematical Social Sciences 45:15–25.
Soberón, P. 2017. Gerrymandering, sandwiches, and topology. Notices of the American
Mathematical Society 64:1010–1013.
Steinhaus, H. 1938. A note on the ham sandwich theorem. Mathesis Polska XI:26–28.
For relevant Web links, consult this
issue of American Scientist Online:
www.amsci.org/magazine/issues/2018/
january-february
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Zircons: More Precious than
Diamonds
These tiny crystals in grains of sand hold evidence of Earth’s early oceans and life.
Donald R. Prothero
I
f you flip channels and watch
some of those home-shopping
shows or infomercials on television, sooner or later you see someone hawking gaudy jewelry made of
“cubic zirconia crystals.” They ooh
and ahh about the diamondlike appearance of the cubic zirconia crystals,
for sale at a fraction of the cost of real
diamonds—but who can tell? Likewise,
you can find many vendors online touting their cubic zirconia jewelry.
There’s nothing wrong with cubic
zirconia if you want a cheap faux diamond to impress your friends. But it’s
not a real diamond, and zirconium is
not even that rare in nature. Cubic zirconia is just a synthetic gem made of
zirconium dioxide (ZrO2). (In its natural
mineral form, ZrO2 is known as baddeleyite, after Joseph Baddeley, a superintendent of a railroad project in Sri
Lanka who first discovered it. Not a
name you would hear the infomercial
announcers using to sell jewelry.) Another mineral formed from the element
zirconium is zirconium silicate (ZrSiO4),
known as the mineral zircon. Large
crystals of zircons form an octahedron,
a structure that looks like two pyramids
glued together. They come in many different colors, including purple, yellow,
pink, red, and clear, depending upon
what impurities are in them and what
has happened to their crystal structure.
Donald R. Prothero is adjunct professor of geological sciences at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, adjunct professor of astronomy
and earth sciences at Mt. San Antonio College,
and research associate in vertebrate paleontology
at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles
County. He received his PhD in geological sciences
from Columbia University in 1982. This article
is excerpted and adapted from his book The Story
of the Earth in 25 Rocks (Columbia University
Press, January 2018) with permission of the publisher. Internet: www.donaldprothero.com
50
But although diamonds have great
commercial value, the scientific information content of zircons is much greater,
making them more precious scientifically than any diamond. Zircons are incredibly useful minerals to geologists.
They form very hard, durable crystals,
especially in granitic magmas during
the last stage of cooling. Because zircon
crystals have spaces for big atoms such
as zirconium, they also trap other large
atoms that won’t fit in any other mineral
and that were concentrated in the last
stage of magma crystallization. These
include extremely rare elements such
as uranium and thorium. Thus, you can
take a crystal of zircon and analyze it for
its uranium content. Zircons are widely
used to produce dates in the uraniumlead or lead-lead method of dating.
There are just a handful of elements in nature that are radioactive
and spontaneously decay from a parent atom (such as uranium-238, uranium-235, and potassium-40) to a
corresponding stable daughter atom
(lead-207, lead-206, and argon-40, respectively) at rates slow enough to use
in geologic dating. This rate of decay is
precisely known, so if we can measure
the amount of both the parent atom
and the daughter atom in a sample,
their ratio is a measure of how long
that decay has been ticking away.
Conventional uranium-lead dating
is problematic in rocks 4 billion years
old and older, because almost no measurable amounts of the parent atom
uranium are left. So another method of
dating is measuring the lead daughter
products (lead-206 and lead-207) produced by the decay of the two different isotopes of uranium, uranium-235
and uranium-238. Because the uranium decays to lead at different rates in
each system, the ratio of the two can be
put on a plot with a slope that depends
on the age of the samples.
Zircons are also used in another
method known as fission-track dating,
which examines the density of crystal
structure damage caused by spontaneous fission decay of uranium-238.
Zircons are so durable and resistant
to nearly everything that brute force
methods must be used to extract them
from granitic rocks. Typically, you use
a crusher to reduce the original rock to
a fine powder. Then you soak the powder in the most powerful acid on Earth,
hydrofluoric acid. It is so caustic you
must work in a very good fume hood
and wear lots of protection for your
skin, eyes, and lungs. Hydrofluoric acid
even dissolves many types of containers, so you have to keep it in special
bottles. Hydrofluoric acid will break
down nearly every other mineral in the
rock except the zircons, so once the acid
bath is finished, you rinse the residue
with water, and you have concentrated
zircons, ready for analysis.
Zircons are durable not only in the lab
setting but in nature as well. When rocks
weather into sand grains that go bumping and bashing in the sand along the
bottom of a stream, zircons are among
the most durable minerals. Even in the
most heavily weathered sand, which is
about 99 percent quartz (the most common and durable mineral on the Earth’s
surface), there will still be a small fraction of a percent in zircons as well. In
fact, the presence of zircon (plus two
other durable minerals in sand, tourmaline and rutile) has been used as a
“ZTR index” to measure how extremely
weathered and winnowed the sand or
sandstone is. There are many geologists
who specialize in zircons because they
can be very powerful tools for all sorts of
geological problems.
Who’s on First?
Zircons are particularly useful, because
geochronologists find that they are often
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Wikimedia Commons
Crystals of zircon come in a range of colors, sizes, and shapes, but they all share the property
of being hard and durable, and containing enough internal space to trap other big atoms during their formation, making them useful for geologic dating.
the best mineral for dating very ancient
rocks. The dates on some meteorites
and Moon rocks came from zircons, and
zircons work for dating ancient Earth
rocks as well. Many of the oldest rocks
on Earth have been dated by applying
not only uranium-lead methods but also
lead-lead and the decay of other radioactive elements, such as that of rubidium
to strontium, to zircons. For many years,
the oldest known rocks on Earth were
the Amitsôq Gneisses from the Isua Supracrustal belt on the southwest coast of
Greenland, which gave dates of 3.8 billion years. They represented some of the
earliest crustal rocks formed, including
small blocks of protocontinental crust
(now metamorphosed into distinctly
banded rocks called gneisses), plus slices
of ancient proto-oceanic crust (known
as greenstones), and even some pieces of
the earliest mantle (peridotites). However,
this age was not the maximum one, because these rocks had been highly metamorphosed and altered, so it was always
possible that their true age was quite
a bit older. What they did tell us was
that the earliest crust of the Earth was
made of very small blocks of continental crust (proto-continents) that floated
in a very thin, hot oceanic crust made
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of lavas that erupted directly from the
mantle. These weird lavas, known as
komatiites, were made entirely of mantle
minerals such as the greenish silicate
called olivine. They are even richer in
magnesium and iron than the basaltic lavas that make up all the oceanic crust today. They tell us that the early Earth was
temperature and chemistry of the upper
mantle has changed. Today, only lavas
that cool to form basalts erupt to form
the ocean floor.
Then, in 1999, another ancient rock,
known as the Acasta Gneiss, pushed
the record for the Earth’s oldest rock
back from 3.8 billion years to 4.031 billion years, plus or minus 0.003 billion
years. The Acasta Gneiss is another
piece of proto-continental crust, but it
Zircons form durable crystals with spaces
for big atoms, which trap rare elements
such as uranium and thorium, and are
widely used to produce geologic dates.
still very hot and that the crust was thin
and highly mobile and easily remelted.
It still had not differentiated into the
mature types of oceanic and continental
crust rocks we have today. Indeed, the
crustal blocks were so small and thin
that true plate tectonics probably did
not exist yet. Komatiite lavas could only
form under these conditions and can no
longer erupt anywhere on Earth now
that oceanic crust has matured and the
is from a block known as the Slave Terrane, which got its name from Great
Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada. This rock was mentioned in all the textbooks and held the
record for a number of years.
Just as in athletics, however, records
are meant to be broken. In 2008 the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone belt in northwest
Quebec, on the east shore of Hudson
Bay, gave dates of 4.28 and 4.321 bil2018
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Researchers from the University of Wollongong are shown on location in Greenland at the
site of the Isua Supracrustal belt, rocks from which have been dated to 3.8 billion years old.
(Photograph courtesy of Laure Gauthiez Putallaz.)
A sample of rock shows the characteristic striations of the Acasta Gneiss in Canada, which
has been dated to 4.03 billion years old.
4.32 billion years ago. Given the history
of research, we can expect some geologist to find a rock even older before long.
Notice that the oldest Earth rocks are
no older than 4.32 billion years, yet the
oldest materials of the Solar System (meteorites and Moon rocks) are at least 4.55
billion years old. Why the difference?
The answer is plate tectonics, and the
deep weathering of the Earth’s surface
caused by water and wind. The Earth’s
surface is constantly being recycled and
remodeled by the motion of plates melting and plunging into the mantle, then
being born again. The Moon, by contrast,
has a dead surface with no plate tectonics, so some of its rocks date to 4.5 billion
years ago when it formed. Meteorites
that formed with the early Solar System
have been unaltered since they cooled,
so they give the oldest dates of all.
Cool Earth
These dates are for the oldest rocks on
Earth, but they are not the oldest Earth
materials known. That distinction goes
to a handful of zircon sand grains found
in 2014 from a much younger sandstone found in the Jack Hills of Western Australia. Each individual grain can
be dated by uranium-lead methods, so
they give a scatter of ages. But the oldest
grains of all give an age of 4.404 billion
years, at least 100 million years older
than the 4.3-billion-year-old materials
from Quebec. Thus, the current record
holder for the oldest material from Earth
(that is, not a meteorite or Moon rock) is
4.4 billion years. These sand grain dates
put us closer and closer to the age of
Moon rocks and meteorites, but we still
have a gap of about 200 million years.
This time span is about the same as from
the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs
(Late Triassic) until today, so it is not a
trivial amount of time.
But those same tiny zircon sand
grains held even more surprises. Not
only did they give the oldest known
dates, but when scientists analyzed the
tiny bubbles of gases trapped inside
them, they found evidence of the early
atmosphere from more than 4 billion
years ago. These bubbles had oxygen
isotopes in them that suggested the
Earth had liquid water on its surface as
early as 4.4 billion years ago!
Prior to this discovery, geologists had
always assumed that the Earth took a
long time to cool from its molten state at
4.55 billion years ago. Most thought that
the Earth took about 700 million years
to cool down below the boiling point
of water, because that was the age of
the oldest sedimentary rocks that would
have been produced by running water
(the Isua Supracrustals from Greenland
mentioned above, which are 3.8 billion
years old). But the Jack Hills zircons turn
that assumption inside out. If they truly
indicate the presence of liquid water on
the Earth 4.4 billion years ago, then it
took only 200 million years for the Earth
to cool from its molten state to a condition that was below the boiling point of
water. This finding also suggests that
Emmanuel Douzery/Wikimedia Commons, from collection of Hervé Martin (Université Blaise Pascal de Clermont-Ferrand).
lion years. This age was determined not
by direct uranium-lead dating, but by
determining the level of decay of the
radioactive element samarium into neodymium in the lavas in the greenstone
belt. However, this date is controversial.
Many scientists think that the dates of
4.28 billion years and older are not the
age of the rocks but the age of the parent material that was remelted to form
these rocks. The oldest uranium-lead
date on the zircons from the rocks themselves suggest that they are really only
around 3.78 billion years old. Even if this
younger date is true, it is evidence of the
oldest crustal formation around 4.28 to
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there were not as many meteorite impacts during this time interval, or the
oceans would have been vaporized over
and over again. Taken together, these
data suggest what is now called the
“cool early Earth hypothesis.”
So where did this early Earth water
come from? Traditionally, geologists
thought that it was water trapped inside the Earth’s mantle when it cooled,
gradually escaping through volcanoes
in a process called degassing. But lately,
chemical analyses of extraterrestrial objects match the chemistry of the Earth’s
oceans (especially carbonaceous chondrite meteorites). This result suggests
that there was a lot of water trapped
in the debris of the early Solar System
(of which the chondrites are remnants).
The same is true of Moon rocks, which
do not have much water in them today,
but apparently were pretty wet when
the Solar System formed. If so, then the
Earth was born with its water already
present as it cooled and condensed. It
only required its surface temperature to
drop below 100 degrees Celsius for that
water to form the first oceans.
One thing we can rule out is comets. Although comets are often called
“dirty snowballs” because they are
A micrograph shows the internal structuring of a tiny zircon grain, found in the Jack Hills of
Australia, which has been dated to 4.4 billion years old. (Image courtesy of John Valley.)
old as the oldest zircons with water
chemistry in them at 4.4 billion years.
Nevertheless, this piece of data is startling. Previously, the oldest carbon that
had the right chemistry to be produced
by life, as well as possibly the oldest fossils, came from those Isua rocks from
Greenland, dated at 3.8 billion years. The
Jack Hills zircons are 300 million years
older than the previous record holder.
And the oldest strong fossil evidence of
Tiny bubbles of gas trapped inside zircon
sand grains have oxygen isotopes that
suggest Earth had liquid water on its
surface as early as 4.4 billion years ago.
made mostly of dust and water ice, a
2014 chemical analysis of four comets
showed that their geochemistry is very
different from the Earth’s water. Thus,
the popular idea that comets impacted
the early Earth and melted to form its
oceans can be dismissed.
Those tiny zircon sand grains from
the Jack Hills had one more surprise in
them. In 2015 a paper was published on
the tiny crystals of graphite that were
also trapped inside them. Graphite is
more familiar to most people as a mineral form of crystalline carbon, the same
mineral that makes your pencil “lead.”
Amazingly, the geochemical data from
that graphite was consistent with the
isotope ratios of carbon found in life!
These particular zircon grains gave dates
of 4.1 billion years, so they were not as
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life comes from the Apex Chert in the
Warrawoona Group of Western Australia, dated at 3.5 billion years, and the Fig
Tree Group of South Africa, dated at 3.4
billion years. So this data extends the origin of life much earlier than previously
supposed and not that much later than
the early oceans on the cool early Earth.
Once more, this much older evidence of life, just like the evidence of
early oceans from the same zircons,
forces us to revise our ideas about the
early Earth. Based on the dates of the
Moon craters (which all cluster between 3.9 and 4.4 billion years in age),
we assumed that the early Earth must
have also undergone intense bombardment of leftover debris from the Solar System prior to 3.9 billion years
ago. But the evidence of liquid water
oceans at 4.4 billion, and possibly even
life at 4.1 billion, makes it appear that
the bombardment of Earth was much
less intense than previously supposed.
Soon, the odds are good that even
more amazing discoveries will be announced, and there may be a yet older
candidate for the oldest rock on Earth.
But that is a good thing. That is a sign
that the science of early Earth geology
is an active and vibrant field, always
yielding groundbreaking discoveries.
For some, it may be frustrating to be
out of date immediately. But science
marches on, and we are always learning new and more surprising things
about the Earth every time another
critical analysis is published.
Bibliography
Chambers, J., and J. Mitton. 2013. From Dust
to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar
System. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Gargaud, M., H. Martin, P. Lopez-Garcia, T.
Montmerle, and R. Pascal. 2013. Young Sun,
Early Earth, and the Origins of Life: Lessons for
Astrobiology. Berlin: Springer.
Hazen, R. M. 2013. The Story of the Earth: The
First 4.5 Billion Years from Stardust to Living
Planet. New York: Penguin.
Shaw, G. H. 2015. Earth’s Early Atmosphere
and Oceans, and the Origin of Life. Berlin:
Springer.
Ward, P., and J. Kirschvink. 2015. A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries About
the Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth. New
York: Bloomsbury.
For relevant Web links, consult this
issue of American Scientist Online:
www.amsci.org/magazine/issues/2018/
january-february
2018
January–February
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S c i e n t i s t s’
Nightstand
The Scientists’ Nightstand,
American Scientist’s books
section, offers reviews, review
essays, brief excerpts, and more.
For additional books coverage,
please see our Science Culture
blog channel, which explores
how science intersects with other
areas of knowledge, entertainment, and society:
americanscientist.org/blogs
/science-culture.
__________
ONLINE
New and upcoming on our
Science Culture blog:
americanscientist.org/blogs
/science-culture
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2017 STEM Books Gift Guide
Physician Santiago Ramón y
Cajal’s drawing of synapses that
carry auditory information. From
The Beautiful Brain.
54
A MIND AT PLAY: How Claude Shannon
Invented the Information Age. Jimmy
Soni and Rob Goodman. 366 pp. Simon
and Schuster, 2017. $27.
A
Mind at Play, Jimmy Soni and
Rob Goodman’s new biography of Claude Shannon, the
mathematician considered to be the
father of information theory, introduces us to its subject with an anecdote: After falling out of sight during
the 1960s, Shannon made an unannounced appearance in 1985 at the International Information Theory Symposium in Brighton, England. The shy,
white-haired celebrity was eventually
spotted and soon afterward mobbed
by autograph-seeking fans. Persuaded by the symposium chairman to
come to the podium at the evening
banquet, the reluctant Shannon had
to endure hearing himself introduced
as “one of the greatest scientific minds
of our time.” When the cheering and
applause finally subsided, Shannon
could only say, “This is—ridiculous!”
He reached into his pocket, produced
three balls, and began to juggle.
The chairman later described the
bizarre scene: “It was as if Newton
had showed up at a physics conference.” Although hyperbolic (Newton,
as far as we know, could not juggle),
his comparison expresses an admiration for Shannon that has only grown
stronger through the years. It reached
dramatic height last year, the centennial
of Shannon’s birth. Celebratory conferences were held around the world. A
Google doodle marked the day, April
30, 1916, when Claude Elwood Shannon was born in Petoskey, Michigan.
One wonders what Shannon would
have thought of all the fuss.
Image courtesy of Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
THE BEAUTIFUL BRAIN: The
Drawings of Santiago Ramón
y Cajal. By Larry Swanson, Eric
Newman, Alfonso Araque, and
Janet Dubinsky.
Information,
Reimagined
The fuss, however, is understandable:
Shannon’s landmark innovations—
especially in laying theoretical groundwork for encoding messages for transmission and by determining how
digital circuits could be designed—
link him inextricably to today’s information age. And in the wake of
the centennial, Soni, a journalist, and
Goodman, a writer and political scientist, have handily supplied curious readers with more of the modest
mathematician’s story.
Shannon’s most productive years,
those between 1940 and the mid1950s, were spent in Manhattan at Bell
Telephone Laboratories (which later
moved to Murray Hill, New Jersey).
During World War II he worked on
a variety of projects involving electronics and cryptography. However,
Shannon’s enduring fame rests mainly on his landmark paper, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,”
published in 1948 in the Bell System
Technical Journal and republished by
University of Illinois Press in 1963.
In the short paper Shannon considered the problem of transmitting digital
data (that is, sequences of zeroes and
ones) along a noisy channel. Many had
believed that in order to increase the
rate at which information can be transmitted, one should simply increase
the power of the signal source. Building on earlier work by Harry Nyquist
and Ralph Hartley, two colleagues at
Bell Labs, Shannon showed that in fact
there is a maximum rate of transmission over any channel. Assuming that
the channel interference is caused by
white noise, Shannon gave an easily
computable formula for the maximum
rate in terms of bandwidth and signalto-noise ratio. Its calculated rate is a
sharp maximum, meaning that it can
be approached as closely as we desire,
but it can never be exceeded.
Any transmission is vulnerable to
error—random zeroes received as
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ones or vice versa. Shannon showed
that if the transmission rate is less than
the maximum, then there exist ways to
send the data (by “coding” the transmission) so that the probability of error can
be made arbitrarily small. The work of
finding such codes, however, was left
to others who took up the challenge. Today, data compression algorithms that
rely on Shannon’s theorems are used for
an array of digital tasks, from recording
music to sending pictures from Mars.
An abstract interpretation of the
word information lies at the heart of
Shannon’s theory. Gone are semantic meanings. Any string of zeroes
and ones satisfying a particular list
of rules (for example, “zero cannot be
followed immediately by zero”) could
be acceptable. English words can be
communicated in this way by assigning different strings of zeroes and ones
to individual letters (including an additional “letter” for a space).
As Shannon observed, our language
has a certain amount of redundancy
built in. For example, you can read
this sentence, but, as Soni and Goodman relay, Shannon observed that
“mst ppl hv lttl dffclty n rdng ths
sntnc” as well—a condition familiar
to anyone who sends text messages.
Shannon gave a definition for the
amount of information transmitted in
a message. He then defined the rate
of information transmitted, which
he called entropy. For example, if we
Photo courtesy of the Shannon family
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restrict ourselves to messages of zeroes and ones, then a source that can
produce only ones would have zero
entropy, whereas a source that produces zeroes and ones with the flip of
a coin would have the largest possible
entropy.
Shannon’s appropriation of the term “entropy” inspired
a productive debate about deep connections between
information and thermodynamics. Mathematicians in
probability and dynamical systems found that it could
be extended and used effectively in their own work.
Claude Shannon was an avid unicyclist who enjoyed coming up with eccentric designs to
build, including one with an off-center hub that caused the rider to bob up and down while
pedaling. Whether Shannon was redesigning data transmission or unicycles, the authors note
that his work displayed a “mastery of model making: the reduction of big problems to their
essential core.” From A Mind at Play.
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Soni and Goodman relate a famous
story about Shannon’s choice of the
word “entropy.” The mathematician
John von Neumann noted the uncanny similarity between Shannon’s
notion and one that had been used
in thermodynamics for decades. “You
should call it entropy, for two reasons,” von Neumann advised. “In the
first place your uncertainty function
has been used in statistical mechanics
under that name, so it already has a
name. In the second place, and more
important, no one knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will
always have the advantage.”
“Almost certainly, this conversation
never happened,” insist the authors,
echoing doubts raised elsewhere.
However, Shannon himself related
the story, exactly as above, in a 1971
interview with the engineer Myron
Tribus. Regardless of whether the story is true, Shannon’s appropriation of
the term “entropy” inspired a productive debate about deep connections
between information and thermodynamics. Mathematicians who work in
the areas of probability and dynamical
systems then heard about Shannon’s
definition and found that it could be
extended and used effectively in their
own work. It is not difficult to imagine
that von Neumann, one of the greatest
mathematical minds of the 20th century, anticipated some of these later
developments.
It is a temptation to look back at
the early life of a genius and search
for signs that promise future greatness. In the case of Claude Shannon,
however, we find few indicators. We
read that Shannon won a third-grade
Thanksgiving story-writing contest
and that he played alto horn in school
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musicals. He loved to build and fix
things, especially radios, as did many
youngsters in the 1920s. He found
mathematics easy and enjoyed its
competitive aspects, but no evidence
is offered of exceptional mathematical ability.
What little is revealed about Shannon’s college career also fails to pre-
ence courses he took at the University
of Michigan. Such information might
have helped the reader anticipate the
first blaze of Shannon’s genius, his
master’s thesis, completed in 1937.
Serendipity is a standard ingredient
of notable careers, and for Shannon it
was added during his master’s program, in the spring of 1936, when he
A prolific tinkerer with a singular sense of humor,
Shannon invented bizarre devices, including a
calculator that operates with Roman numerals.
dict eminence. He attended the University of Michigan, where he earned
dual bachelor degrees in mathematics
and electrical engineering. He was
elected to the Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Xi honor societies. He published
two solutions to questions proposed
in the American Mathematical Monthly, an expository journal intended
for both students and faculty. These
accomplishments are laudable but
certainly not rare. Unfortunately, we
don’t learn who Shannon’s teachers
were or what mathematics and sci-
noticed a typed card stuck to a bulletin
board. It advertised a graduate assistantship at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology with the duty of running a differential analyzer, a mechanical computer designed to solve differential and integral equations. Such
analog computers had been around
since 1876, but this one also had some
digital components and was the first
capable of general applications. Eventually it would solve differential equations with 18 independent variables.
Its inventors were Harold Hazen and
Vannevar Bush. “I
pushed hard for
that job and got
Princeton University Press congratulates
it,” Shannon reKip S. Thorne, co-winner of the
called. “That was
one of the luckiest
2017 Nobel Prize in Physics
things of my life.”
Vannevar Bush
was a tall figure in
American science.
He had joined
MIT’s electrical
engineering department in 1919,
and three years
later, he founded
a military supplier now called
the Raytheon
Company. In 1941,
Modern
Gravitation
Bush would help
Classical Physics
Charles W. Misner,
convince PresiKip S. Thorne &
Optics, Fluids, Plasmas,
dent Roosevelt to
John Archibald Wheeler
Elasticity, Relativity,
begin building an
and Statistical Physics
atomic bomb, and
he would take a
Kip S. Thorne &
leading role in its
Roger D. Blandford
development. At
MIT Bush recognized Shannon’s
See our e-books at press.princeton.edu
brilliance and took
____________
a serious inter-
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est in his career, guiding him through
graduate school and on to Bell Labs.
Shannon’s thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, is
regarded as one of the most important
master’s theses ever written. Completed in 1937, it used century-old ideas
of the British logician George Boole
to simplify the arrangement of relays
comprising electrical networks. Elegant and practical, Shannon’s system
provided a basis for modern digital
circuit design. Most mathematicians
who teach applications of Boolean algebra to electrical circuits in courses
of discrete mathematics do not realize
they are presenting the ideas in Shannon’s thesis. More than 50 years later,
Shannon downplayed the significance
of his discovery. “It just happened no
one else was familiar with both fields
at the same time,” he told an interviewer, adding, “I’ve always loved
that word. `Boolean.’”
Bush was not only a good judge
of intellect, he was also a shrewd
observer of temperament. He might
have been worried about his new
protégé. Shannon had lost his father
in his sophomore year, and for some
reason stopped speaking to his mother shortly afterward. Bush encouraged Shannon to spend time at Cold
Springs Harbor Laboratory and apply
Boolean algebra to Mendelian genetics. He would be supervised by Barbara Stoddard Burks, a sympathetic
psychologist interested in the genetics of genius and keenly interested
in questions of nature versus nurture. The Genetics Records Office at
Cold Springs Harbor had more than
25 years of data for Shannon to contemplate. In less than one year, Shannon had learned enough of genetics
to complete his Ph.D. dissertation,
An Algebra for Theoretical Genetics, a
masterful but overly theoretical work
that would have little to offer geneticists. The experience confirmed the
opinion that Bush and Burks shared:
Shannon was a genius who could
acquire knowledge of a new subject
quickly and from it create significant
mathematics. However, Shannon had
little regard for the work. He fled the
field and never bothered to publish
his dissertation. Some years later he
remarked, “I had a good time acting
as a geneticist for a couple of years.”
After receiving his doctorate Shannon spent a summer at Bell Labs and
a year at the Institute for Advanced
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Study in Princeton, and he finally
found full-time employment back at
Bell Labs.
Shannon was fortunate to work at
Bell Labs during a period when research and development in the United
States was generously funded. His
brilliance entitled him to a freedom
that seems impossible today, in a time
of international competition and demands by shareholders for fast profits.
With characteristic modesty, Shannon
once admitted to a supervisor, “It always seemed to me that the freedom I
took [at the Labs] was something of a
special favor.”
Lured by a change of scene and the
relative security of academia, Shannon accepted a position at MIT in
1958. He retired in 1978. The good
luck that had followed him for so
long finally departed in the early
1980s as Shannon began displaying
signs of Alzheimer’s disease. He died
from the illness in 2001.
A Mind at Play is a loving biography recounted by two admirers of
Claude Shannon. It is especially good
at relating the many stories that have
contributed to the growing fascination with its hero. A prolific tinkerer
with a singular sense of humor, Shannon invented bizarre and amusing
devices, many of which are described.
They included a motorized pogo
stick, a rocket-powered frisbee disk,
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a juggling machine, a calculator that
operates with Roman numerals, and
a relay-controlled robotic mouse that
could solve a maze and keep track
of its solution. An invention of Shannon’s that became known as the “Ultimate Machine” fascinated sciencefiction writer Arthur C. Clarke during
a visit to Bell Labs. In his 1958 book
Voice across the Sea, Clarke offered a
description of the machine’s workings: “When you throw the switch,
there is an angry, purposeful buzzing. The lid slowly rises, and from
beneath it emerges a hand. The hand
reaches down, turns the switch off,
and retreats into the box. With the finality of a closing coffin, the lid snaps
shut, the buzzing ceases, and peace
reigns once more.”
A Mind at Play is somewhat less successful when mathematics appears.
For example, both the conclusion of
Shannon’s “Theorem on Color Coding” and Hartley’s formula for information are misstated. The authors do
an admirable job of describing Shannon’s entropy for a coin toss, but they
stop short of explaining it for a more
general information source. Readers
wishing to learn details of Shannon’s
work would do better to go to Shannon’s papers, which are well written
and freely available online.
More distressing than minor technical slips is the authors’ discussion
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issue during preceding 12 months, 458; no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date,
450. D2. Free or nominal rate in-county copies as
stated on PS Form 3541: average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0; actual no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date,
of the criticism that followed publication of The Mathematical Theory of
Communication. After citing a sharp
comment by probabilist Joseph Doob
in a review, the authors imagine that
pure mathematicians formed a cabal
to condemn Shannon’s applied work.
Certainly Shannon’s definitions and
proofs were not always complete and
correct. (For example, Shannon’s theorem about the optimum use of noisy
channels by coding, discussed previously, was finally proved by Amiel
Feinstein in 1954, and today it is
known as the Shannon-Feinstein theorem.) Nevertheless, Shannon’s work
was and continues to be used and admired by the mathematical community. Mathematical Reviews, in which
Doob published his odd remark, contains nearly 2,000 reviews that refer to
Shannon’s entropy.
Shannon did more than open up
the new field of information theory.
He also demonstrated what can be accomplished by combining passionate
inquiry with a fondness for levity. A
Mind at Play is an enjoyable biography
that unites us with the singular spirit
of Claude Shannon.
Daniel S. Silver is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of South Alabama. His
research explores the relation between knots and
dynamical systems, as well as the history of science
0. D3. Free or nominal rate copies mailed at other
classes mailed through the USPS: average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 0; actual
no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing
date, 0. D4. Free or nominal rate outside the mail:
average no. copies each issue during preceding 12
months, 248; no. copies of single issue published
nearest to filing date, 225. E. Total free or nominal
rate distribution: average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 706; no. copies of single
issue published nearest to filing date, 675. F. Total
distribution: average no. copies each issue during
preceding 12 months, 34,801; no. copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 28,783. G. Copies not distributed: average no. copies each issue
during preceding 12 months, 23,025; no. copies of
single issue published nearest to filing date, 25,217.
H. Total: average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 57,827; no. copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date, 54,000. I. Percent
paid: average no. copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 98 percent; no. copies of single issue
published nearest to filing date, 98 percent. 16. Total
circulation includes electronic copies: no. copies of
single issue published nearest to filing date: a. paid
electronic copies, 7,504. B. Total paid print copies +
paid electronic copies, 41,600. C. Total print distribution + paid electronic copies, 42,306. D. Percent
paid: 98%. 50% of all distributed copies (electronic
& print) are paid above a nominal price.
2018
January–February
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Sigma Xi
Anna Baron, Professor, Department of
Biostatistics and Informatics, Colorado
School of Public Health
Distinguished Lecturers 2018–2019
5IF%PXOTJEFPGUIF6QTJEF'BMTF1PTJUJWFTBOE0WFSEJBHOPTJTJO&BSMZ%FUFDUJPO
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or the 80th consecutive year, Sigma Xi
presents its panel of Distinguished Lecturers as an
opportunity for chapters to host visits from outstanding individuals who are at the leading edge of
science. These visitors communicate their insights
and excitement on a broad range of topics.
The Distinguished Lecturers are available from
July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019. Each speaker has consented to a modest honorarium together with full
payment of travel costs and subsistence.
Local chapters may apply for subsidies to support
expenses related to hosting a Distinguished Lecturer.
Applications must be submitted online by March 1,
2018 for funds to be available the next fiscal year.
Additional support for the program comes
from the American Meteorological Society and the
National Cancer Institute. Lecturer biographies,
contact information, and additional details can be
found online under the Lectureship Program link
at www.sigmaxi.org or by email to lectureships@
__________
sigmaxi.org.
Robbin Chapman, Associate Provost
and Academic Director of Diversity and
Inclusion, Wellesley College
STEM and non-STEM Disciplines: Are
5IFZ.VUVBMMZ&YDMVTJWF 1 ( r%JWFSTJUZ
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*NQMJDBUJPOTGPS-FBSOJOH5FDIOPMPHJFT ( r3FOEFSJOHUIF*OWJTJCMF7JTJCMF4UVEFOU
Success in Exclusive Excellence STEM Environments (G,S)
Andrew Cleland, John A. MacLean
Sr. Professor for Molecular Engineering
Innovation and Enterprise, University of
Chicago
.FDIBOJDBM4ZTUFNTJOUIF2VBOUVN3FHJNF
( r#VJMEJOHB2VBOUVN$PNQVUFS ( r
5SBOTJUJPOJOH4DJFOUJGJD3FTFBSDIUPB4UBSUVQ
$PNQBOZ 1
Judith Herzfeld, Chair
Committee on Lectureships
James P. Collins, Virginia M. Ullman
Professor of Natural History and the Environment, Arizona State University
Application Deadline: March 1, 2018
Extinction in our Times: Global Amphibian
%FDMJOF 1 ( 4 r"MUFSJOH/BUVSFXJUI(FOF
Drives—We Can, But Should We? (P,G,S)
r4DJFODF&EVDBUJPOJOB3BQJEMZ$IBOHJOH
Political, Cultural, and Economic Landscape
(G,S)
https://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/lectureships
_____________________________
Paul T. Anastas, Teresa and H. John
Heinz III Chair of Chemistry and the
Environment School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
%FTJHOJOHB4VTUBJOBCMF5PNPSSPX ( 1 r(SFFO$IFNJTUSZBOE5SBOTGPSNBUJWF*OOPWBUJPO ( 1 r&BSUI"CVOEBOU
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%FHSBEBUJPO 4
Kristen Averyt, President, Desert Research Institute
Averyt became president of the Desert Research Institute in July 2017. She was previously the associate director for science at
the Cooperative Institute for Research in
Environmental Sciences at the University
of Colorado Boulder. She earned her doctorate in geological and environmental
science from Stanford University.
Titles to be announced.
P (Public), G (General), S (Specialized)
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Lisa Cook, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Michigan State
University
5IF*EFB(BQJO1JOLBOE#MBDL&YQMBJOJOH
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Susan Coppersmith, Professor of
Physics, University of Wisconsin–
Madison
From Bits to Qubits: A Quantum Leap for
$PNQVUFST 1 ( r#VJMEJOHB2VBOUVN
$PNQVUFS6TJOH4JMJDPO2VBOUVN%PUT 4
Details available at https://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/lectureships
_______________________
American Scientist, Volume 106
American Scientist
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James Costa, Executive Director, Highlands Biological Station, and Professor of
Biology, Western Carolina University
Isaac Krauss, Associate Professor,
Department of Chemistry, Brandeis
University
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Aaron Dominguez, Dean, School of
Arts and Sciences, The Catholic University of America
Patricia McAnany, Kenan Eminent
Professor of Anthropology, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Lola Fatoyinbo, Earth Scientist, NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center
Peter MacLeish, Chair and Professor,
Department of Neurobiology, Director
of Neuroscience Institute, Morehouse
School of Medicine
Global Forests and Earth’s Climate: 4%JNFOTJPOBM%BUBGSPN/FX4BUFMMJUF
Constellations (G,S) r5SFFIVHHJOH.FFUT
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3FTPMVUJPO3FNPUF"TTFTTNFOUPG$PBTUBM
Carbon (G,S)
Gregory Forbes, Severe Weather Expert, The Weather Channel
Severe Thunderstorms and Tornadoes: UnEFSTUBOEJOH5IFNBOE4UBZJOH4BGF 1 ( 4 r-PPLJOHCBDLBU :FBSTPG4FWFSF4UPSNT
BOE5PXBSEUIF'VUVSF 1 ( 4 Tomás Jiménez, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Stanford
University
5IF0UIFS4JEFPG"TTJNJMBUJPO*NNJHSBUJPOBOEUIF$IBOHJOH"NFSJDBO&YQFSJFODF
1 ( 4 r*NNJHSBUJPOBOEUIF.BLJOHPG
Mexican America (P,G,S)
Clifford V. Johnson, Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Southern California, Los
Angeles
#FZPOE4QBDFBOE5JNF4VHHFTUJPOT'SPN
4USJOH5IFPSZ"CPVUUIF6OEFSMZJOH/BUVSF
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#MBDL)PMFTBOE5IFSNPEZOBNJDT ( 4
P (Public), G (General), S (Specialized)
www.americanscientist.org
American Scientist
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#
JPNFEJDBM3FTFBSDIJOUIF64 1 Beth Middleton, Research Ecologist,
Wetland and Aquatic Research Center,
U.S. Geological Survey
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1 ( 4 r8FUMBOE3FTUPSBUJPOBOE.BOBHFNFOUJOB'VUVSFPG$IBOHJOH$MJNBUF 1 ( 4
Jim O’Connor, Research Geologist, U.S.
Geological Survey
5IF(FPMPHZBOE(FPHSBQIZPG'MPPET ( 4 r %BNT%PXOBOE$PVOUJOH 1 ( 4 r
The Great Missoula Floods of the Last Ice
"HF 1 ( 4
Alexander Orlov, Associate Professor
of Materials Science and Engineering,
State University of New York, Stony Brook
)PX/BOPUFDIOPMPHZ$BO4BWF6TBOEUIF
&OWJSPONFOU.BLJOH*U)BQQFOJOB4BGF
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Used in Consumer Products: Should We be
Concerned? (G)
Details available at https://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/lectureships
_______________________
2018 January–February
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American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Tatyana Polenova Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of
Delaware
6OEFSTUBOEJOH4USVDUVSBM#JPMPHZPG)*7
1SPUFJO"TTFNCMJFTCZ*OUFHSBUJOH&YQFSJmental and Computational Approaches (G,S)
r5IF$SJUJDBM3PMFPG/BUVSBM4DJFODFTBOE
4DJFODFT&EVDBUJPOJO4VTUBJOBCMF4PDJFUZ
(P,G,S)
June Pilcher, Alumni Distinguished
Professor of Psychology, Clemson
University
Sally Seidel, Professor of Physics,
University of New Mexico
%JTDPWFSJOH/FX1BSUJDMFT8IBU1BUUFSOTJO
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1IZTJDT'SPOUJFS ( 4 r5IF3PMFPG*OTUSVNFOUBUJPOJO1BSUJDMF1IZTJDT%JTDPWFSZ ( 4 Eric E. Simanek, Robert A. Welch
Chair of Chemistry, Texas Christian
University
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1 ( r6TJOH/BOPUP'JHIU$BODFS 1 ( 4 r5SJB[JOF%FOESJNFST7FSTBUJMF4DBGGPMET
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8IJTLFZ"$BUBMZTUGPS4PDJBM$IBOHF 1 4
M. V. Ramana, Associate Research
Scholar, Program in Science and Global
Security, Princeton University
Steven Usselman, Professor of History
and Chair, School of History and Sociology, Georgia Institute of Technology
'VLVTIJNBBOEUIF'VUVSFPG/VDMFBS&OFSHZ 1 ( r/VDMFBS&OFSHZJO$IJOBBOE
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3%JO)JTUPSJDBM1FSTQFDUJWF 1 ( Paula Rayman, Professor of Sociology,
University of Massachusetts Lowell;
Gender Consultant, United States Institute of Peace
George Weiblen, Professor in Plant
Biology, University of Minnesota
$BO:PV8PSLBOE)BWFB-JGF #BMBODJOH$BSFFSTJO45&. 1 ( r.PWJOHUIF
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*OTVSF%JWFSTJUZ &RVJUZ BOE*OOPWBUJPO 4 Federico Rosei, Professor, Director of
UNESCO Chair INRS Centre for Energy,
Materials and Telecommunications
&OFSHZBOE4PDJFUZ8IBU5ZQFPG&OFSHZGPS
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GPS4DJFOUJTUT ( r.VMUJGVODUJPOBM.BUFSJBMT
BOE5IFJS"QQMJDBUJPOTJO&NFSHJOH5FDIOPMPHJFT ( 4
The Cannabis Conundrum: Genetics and Politics of America’s Most Controversial Plant
1 ( r#JPEJWFSTJUZ%JTDPWFSZPOUIF3BJO
'PSFTU'SPOUJFS 1 ( r5IF$PFWPMVUJPOBSZ
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and Renewables
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&BTU ( 4 r#PPTUJOH*OUFSOBUJPOBM$BQBDJUZ
for Environmental Governance and Climate
3FTJMJFODF ( 4
Richard Schwartz, Chancellor’s Professor of Mathematics, Brown University
1PJOUTPOB4QIFSF 1 ( 4 r5IF.BUIFNBUJDTPG4MJDJOHBOE3FBTTFNCMJOH 1 ( r
-VDZBOE-JMZ 1
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Scientist’s :PV5VCFDIBOOFMBUXXXZPVUVCFDPNVTFS"N4DJ_________________
.BHB[JOFPSVOEFSCMPHTBUBNFSJDBOTDJFOUJTUPSH
_____
____________
P (Public), G (General), S (Specialized)
60
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https://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/lectureships
American Scientist, Volume 106
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
January–February 2018
Volume 27
Number 1
Sigma Xi Today
A NEWSLETTER OF SIGMA XI, THE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH HONOR SOCIETY
Chapter Award
Winners
Announced
Sigma Xi’s Committee on Qualifications and Membership selected the
following chapters for awards based
on fiscal year 2018 chapter annual reports and evaluations from regional
and constituency directors.
Chapter of Excellence awards are
given to chapters that have demonstrated exceptional innovation and
quality in their overall annual programming.
First place: National Institute of Standards and Technology
Second place: Columbia–Willamette
Third place: Rice University–Texas
Medical Center and Oakland University (tie)
Chapter Program of Excellence
awards are given to chapters that
have conducted a singularly exceptional program during 2017.
First place: University of Nebraska
at Kearney for the Great American
Solar Eclipse Panel Discussion
Second place: North Shore for the
marine/oceanography cruise and
sampling workshop on Sea Shuttle’s Endeavour
Third place: Ohio State University for
the Meet a Scientist program
The committee recognized the
following chapters for initiating
the most new members in 2017 (in
descending order): Brown University, Fordham University, Princeton,
Union College, Carleton College,
Washington University, Swarthmore
College, Oberlin College, Southern
Maine, Delta, Denison University,
Smith College, Williams College,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and
Amherst College.
www.americanscientist.org
American Scientist
From the President
Politicization of Science
Political science is a respected field of study that
can yield benefits to our understanding of how
the political process works, but politicization
of science is dangerous to our society. I did not
think I would need to speak out on this topic, but
developments in Washington, DC, have created
an imperative for Sigma Xi to explicitly state its
support for rational decision-making by our government. The engineers and scientists in private
and public entities who carry out research on issues such as atmospheric chemistry, climate, and
health effects, for example, reach their findings
based on data. Other scientists and engineers
Stuart L. Cooper
can challenge such research which can be refined
or refuted if necessary, but ultimately there is a need to reach consensus
about causation, which should inform what policy evolution and legislation is needed to keep society safe and healthy.
We better understand environmental health issues now, and we as a nation should use that hard-won scientific research to protect ourselves and
our children from future debilitating illnesses. For example, we now agree
that smoking is a health hazard—there is a consensus on that. While not
quite as dramatic as smoking, particulates in the atmosphere create related
health issues and shorten life spans. Perfluorocarbon water pollution and
hazardous chemicals leaching from mine waste are issues in West Virginia,
for example. When needed, regulatory actions in Congress—based on the
research findings of scientists in organizations such as the Environmental
Protection Agency—can significantly protect society. The last thing we
need is to degrade the capability of such organizations, especially by
stifling ongoing research and installing new leadership that is at crosspurposes to agency missions of societal protection.
The breakdown today in the linkage between meticulous researchsupported conclusions and governmental actions should activate Sigma Xi
members to call attention to this serious situation. Local chapters, in their
Science Café activities and other outreach with the public, could invite
speakers to talk about issues such as climate change, the carbon cycle, water and air pollution, energy production options, and other timely topics.
Sigma Xi members are exemplary researchers guided by ethical considerations, integrity, and the search for truth. We need to stand up for those
principles in light of what is rapidly becoming a great concern of how
business is done in Washington. Look for Sigma Xi leadership to speak out
via position papers and statements that address some of the issues I have
raised in this letter.
Stuart L. Cooper
2018 January–February 61
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
GRANTS
Chapter Grant Applications Are Due March 1
Sigma Xi chapters are resources in their communities for promoting and supporting science and engineering research—a task for which the Society provides support. Applications for the following funding
opportunities are due on March 1.
Science, Math, and Engineering Education
(SMEE) Grant
Amount: $2,000
Distinguished Lecturer Subsidy
Amount: Varies
How the funds may be used: To provide one-time
How the funds may be used: To subsidize a presentation from a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer
seed money to help a chapter initiate innovative
programs related to science, math, and engineering education
Application tip: Coordinate the visit with nearby
chapters to share travel costs.
Application tip: Matching support from other resources greatly enhances a chapter’s chance of
receiving a SMEE grant.
Multi-Chapter Grant
Diversity Grant
of collaborations among Sigma Xi chapters, such
as those that develop the science and engineering
workforce or promote ethical research practices.
Collaborations may be virtual or in person.
Amount: Up to $1,000
How the funds may be used: To provide one-time
seed money for innovative diversity programs
that help promote STEM to underrepresented
groups in regard to gender, race, ethnicity, mental
or physical disability, socioeconomic status, age,
religious affiliation, cultural background, national
origin, or sexual orientation.
Application tip: Plan to help underrepresented
groups achieve sustained involvement in STEM.
Amount: Up to $2,000 for two-year collaborations
How the funds may be used: To support a range
Application tip: Incorporate sustainability mea-
sures so the collaboration will continue beyond
the two years of the grant.
Chapter officers can get more information in the Officer
Resource Center at www.sigmaxi.org or by emailing
chapters@sigmaxi.org.
______________
Students Research Grant Applications Are Due March 15
Beginning December 15, undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences or engineering can apply for funding
of up to $1,000 each from Sigma Xi’s
Grants-in-Aid of Research (GIAR) program. Submit the online application at
www.sigmaxi.org/programs/grants___________________________
in-aid/apply by March 15. The website
_____
also has tips for submitting a successful
grant application.
Designated funds from the National
Academy of Sciences support GIAR
and allow for grants of up to $5,000 for
astronomy research projects and up to
$2,500 for vision-related projects.
Students may use the grants to
pay for travel expenses to or from a
research site or to purchase non-standard laboratory equipment and supplies needed for a specific project.
Support
Student Researchers
The Grants-in-Aid of Research
program will reach its
centennial year in 2022,
thanks to donors and
funds from the
National Academy of Sciences.
If you would like to
support student research,
donate to the program at
www.sigmaxi.org/support-giar
Students who apply in this cycle
should know by mid-May if they will
receive funding. In the March 2017 grant
cycle, 150 students from seven countries
received grants totaling $120,354.
Sigma Xi Today is
edited by Heather Thorstensen
and designed by Spring Davis.
62 Sigma Xi Today
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
EVENTS
Sigma Xi Hosts Symposium on Climate and
Student Research Conference
The climate is changing, but how are
those changes affecting people’s health
and the environment? Sigma Xi invited
its members and the public to the Symposium on Atmospheric Chemistry, Climate, and Health on November 10 at the
Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh,
North Carolina, to learn about this topic.
Five researchers discussed previous
policies that led to climate successes, potential paths forward to address climate
change today, the impact of society’s current energy decisions on generations to
come, the controversies surrounding air
pollution and health, and environmental
determinants of pathogens. The symposium included two public events: a
town hall session where attendees asked
a panel questions related to climate
change, and a screening and scientific
critique of the documentary An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.
Sigma Xi President Stuart Cooper proposed the idea of this symposium in part
because solving issues related to climate
change will draw on multiple research
disciplines, which aligns with the Society’s multidisciplinary membership.
“As a chemical engineer and researcher,” he said, “I could see the relevance of
this theme to a broad swath of our membership and to society at large.”
The climate change theme continued
the next day with the Student Research
Conference. Local meteorologist for
WRAL and Sigma Xi member Greg
Fishel delivered the keynote address,
discussing how he came to understand
the science behind climate change.
Approximately 135 high school, undergraduate, and graduate students representing 56 institutions from 19 states
plus Washington, DC, attended. Students competed for poster presentation
awards, and 26 students were named as
top presenters. These winners received
a $150 cash prize and a medal. Additionally, top presenters who were not already Sigma Xi members were inducted
into the Society with their first year of
membership dues waived. Fifteen top
presenters were already Sigma Xi members and received an extended year of
membership dues. All other primary
presenters received nominations for associate membership in the Society.
The District of Columbia Chapter sponsored the Student Choice
Awards, which were given to three
presenters voted by their peers as having the top presentations. The conference also included sessions on best
practices to communicate science,
how scientists can prepare to talk with
policymakers, how to use social media to promote science, and how high
school students can take steps toward
publishing their research.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
undergraduate students, from left, Kasey
Norton, Maebelle Mathew, and Cherrel Manley presented posters in the human behavioral and social sciences category during the
Student Research Conference.
Luis Cantu, on right, an undergraduate student from University of California, Irvine,
presents his research in the cell biology and
biochemistry category to judge and Sigma Xi
member Michael Wolyniak, an associate professor of biology and director of undergraduate research at Hampden-Sydney College.
Save the Date:
Sigma Xi Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference
0DUPCFSo t)ZBUU3FHFODZt#VSMJOHBNF $BMJGPSOJB
Speakers for the Symposium on Atmospheric Chemistry, Climate, and Health included,
from left, A. R. Ravishankara of Colorado
State University; Barbara Finlayson-Pitts of
University of California, Irvine; Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University; and C. Arden
Pope III of Brigham Young University.
At left: Students presented their research
posters to judges and each other during the
Student Research Conference.
www.americanscientist.org
American Scientist
2018 January–February 63
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
.&.#&3/&84
Students Hone Science Communication Skills
in Online Competition
Many different diseases, such as
this competition, I went to some
dengue and malaria, have similar
other conferences using similar
fever symptoms. Sigma Xi memstuff. I think this was a huge mober Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, a gradutivation for me to reach out to
ate student at Cornell University,
other possibilities. I recommend
is part of a team that is developing
people do this and at least give it
FeverPhone: a device that would
a shot because you never know
work with a smartphone to help
what will happen.
physicians distinguish and diagWhat do you think helped your
nose six fever-causing infections.
presentation stand out to the
He presented his work at the
judges?
2017 Sigma Xi Student Research
The most helpful advice is to be
Showcase, an online science comconcise and to the point. I recmunication competition, and won
first place in the graduate division. Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, a PhD student at Cornell University, ommend students look at anHe received $500 and, like all pre- was the graduate division winner at Sigma Xi’s 2017 Student other competition called Three
Minute Thesis (3MT), for which
senters, feedback on his presenta- Research Showcase.
you have to condense what you
tion from professional researchers.
High school, undergraduate, and What is your advice for students who do in a whole PhD into three minutes,
which is similar to what the Student
graduate science and engineering stu- will compete in the 2018 showcase?
dents can sign up for the 2018 Student Don’t be shy, because if you never Research Showcase is about. Also,
Research Showcase through Febru- register, you can never win. When I don’t use any technical items (in the
ary 26. Sigma Xi members, affiliates, was registering for this, I didn’t think video); make it more reachable to a
and explorers receive a registration I would win, but this was a huge op- general audience.
discount. Projects must be submitted portunity for me. I just registered and
by March 26; judges will review the submitted what I had, and suddenly
they told me I was the winner for the Learn more about the Student Research
projects April 16–30.
Sigma Xi asked Cao for his advice for graduate division. This actually opens Showcase at www.sigmaxi.org/student_________________
research-showcase.
a lot of opportunities for me. After ___________
the 2018 showcase hopefuls.
Sigma Xi Members Win Nobel Prizes
The 2017 Nobel Prize laureates include two members.
Sigma Xi member Kip S. Thorne of the California Institute of Technology shares the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics with Barry C. Barish, from the same institution, and
Rainer Weiss from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All three were part of the collaboration between the
two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in the US and the Virgo detector
near Pisa, Italy. The trio earned the prize for “decisive
contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation
of gravitational waves.” In an interview with Adam
Smith, chief scientific officer of Nobel Media, Thorne
called the prize a remarkable team effort.
“We live in an era where some huge discoveries
are really the result of giant collaborations, with major contributions coming from very large numbers
of people,” Thorne said. “I hope that in the future
the Nobel Prize committee finds a way to award the
prize to the large collaborations that make this, and
not just to the people who may have been seminal to
the beginning of the project, as we were.”
Member Jeffrey C. Hall of the University of Maine
shares the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Michael Rosbash of Brandeis University
and Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as
Michael W. Young of Rockefeller University. They
earned the prize for their “discoveries of molecular
mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.”
In his Nobel interview, Hall said fruit flies should
be the fourth awardee of the prize because he used
them in his research.
“It’s just one of a zillion examples of how basic
research on a supposedly irrelevant organism can
have broader significance, with regard to what’s
going on in terms of that organism itself,” Hall said.
64 Sigma Xi Today
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Supporting the
Needs of Postdocs
2017
National Postdoctoral Association
Institutional Policy Report
Kryste Ferguson, MEd, NPA
Michael McTighe, SUNY Fredonia
Bhishma Amlani, PhD, NYU Langone Medical Center
Tracy Costello, PhD, Moffitt Cancer Center
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Sponsors
Advisors
National Postdoctoral Association
12320 Parklawn Drive
Rockville, MD 20852
Phone: 301-984-4800
www.nationalpostdoc.org
P.O. Box 13975
3200 Chapel Hill Nelson Highway
Cape Fear Building, Suite 300
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
800-243-6534 r 919-549-4691
www.sigmaxi.org
Supplemental materials and links are
available online at: https://www.
_________
sigmaxi.org/publications
________________
Cover photo: David McNally/U.S. Army Research
Laboratory Public Affairs Office
This report would not have been possible without the support of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Elsevier, and Sigma Xi, which enabled the National
Postdoctoral Association (NPA) to develop the Institutional Policy Survey,
finish data collection, analyze the results, and write this report. The NPA is
extremely grateful for their support of NPA projects over the years.
The NPA thanks the talents and wisdom of the Institutional Policy Survey
Taskforce:
r 5SBDZ$PTUFMMP 1I% Moffitt Cancer Center
r $ISJTUJOF%FT+BSMBJT &E% University of California, San Francisco
r ,SZTUF'FSHVTPO .&E NPA
r ,FMMZ1IPV .4 National Science Foundation
r .FMBOJF4JODIF ." The Jackson Laboratory
r "NZ8JMTPO #", NPA
Our sincere thanks to the team that analyzed the data and/or contributed to
the final report:
r #IJTINB"NMBOJ 1I% NYU Langone Medical Center
r 5SBDZ$PTUFMMP 1I% Moffitt Cancer Center
r +VMJF'BCTJL4XBSUT .4 $'3& $"1 NPA
r ,SZTUF'FSHVTPO .&E NPA
r *NPHFO)VSMFZ 1I% University of Wisconsin-Madison
r "QSJM-PSFO[J SUNY Fredonia
r .JDIBFM.D5JHIF SUNY Fredonia
r "NZ8JMTPO #" NPA
8QORFNLQJUHVHDUFKSRWHQWLDO
Career Development Guides
Burroughs Wellcome Fund has developed a series of
career development guides that focus on a number of
issues scientists face. They explore giving talks, staffing
your lab, team science, intellectual property, and others.
Email ___________
news@bwfund.org for a full offering.
Follow @bwfund on Twitter
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JHWSXEOLVKHGLQWRSMRXUQDOV
Ɣ 3UDFWLFDOJXLGDQFHRQREWDLQLQJIXQGLQJ
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_______________________
bwfund.org
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
2017 National Postdoctoral Association
Institutional Policy Report
Introduction
What Is the NPA’s mission, and What Is a
Postdoc?
Since 2003, the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) has sought
to enhance the research training
experience for postdoctoral scholars
(or postdocs), who, by definition, are
individuals holding doctoral degrees
and who are engaged in a temporary
period of mentored research and/
or scholarly training for the purpose
of acquiring the professional skills
needed to pursue a career path of his
or her choosing. 1 The NPA has consistently provided postdoc scholars
with a unified national platform that
provides advocacy, education, and
professional development. By working closely with federal agencies such
as the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and the National Science
Foundation (NSF), as well as professional societies and postdoctoral
support offices at institutions across
the country, the NPA has developed
policies and programs that improve
the training experience for postdocs.
The NPA provides resources that
postdocs and postdoctoral program
administrators need for success, and
it hosts an annual conference where
all members can network and develop their professional and leadership
skills. The NPA’s Institutional Policy
Survey is designed as a longitudinal
survey of its member postdoc offices.
The organization is using these data
to measure the progress and growth
of postdoc services and benefits over
time. “Improvements have continued
to be made in the postdoc experience,” notes Kate Sleeth, chair of the
NPA Board of Directors. “However,
there are still areas for growth. The
NPA is committed to providing guidance and resources to our membership and advocating at the national
level to ensure that improvements
continue to be made.”
The Need for Data Collection and Analysis
The various fields of research that
postdocs study are diverse and often
interdisciplinary. Data collection on
the postdoc community is vital to
advocate at both the institutional
and agency level to provide postdocs
with more equitable benefits and
competitive compensation. Moreover, further research into this field
can help promote a more audible
dialogue for the public and for policy
makers. The research presented in
this report seeks to improve the
quality of life for postdocs who, for
example, are hoping to make the next
big breakthrough in cancer treatment, attempt to find a way to bring
humans to Mars, or work to improve
education access around the world,
among many other significant areas
of research.
2014 NPA Institutional Policy Report
In 2014, the NPA published the NPA
Institutional Policy Report 2014: Supporting and Developing Postdoctoral
Scholars,2 addressing issues in the
postdoc world such as professional
development programs, compensation, and benefits, to name a few. The
report concluded that the quality of
programs and availability of postdoc
offices (PDOs) have improved
significantly over the past decade.
Concerns remained, however, about
minimal funding for PDOs, limited
health and retirement benefits, training lasting longer than five years,
a lack of training programs, and a
lack of exit surveys. This 2017 report
will highlight some of the advances
made since the recommendations
in the 2014 NPA Institutional Policy
Report,as well as areas where work
remains to be done.
Previous Studies and Recommendations
Although the first postdoc fellowships were formed more than a
century ago, reports examining the
postdoc world were rare until the
1990s. Since 2000, various associations, societies, and organizations
have published a number of reports
on the importance of postdoctoral
fellows in the research enterprise,
and how the postdoctoral training
period could be improved. As a
result of these early studies, postdocs
Wikimedia Commons
2016 npa
Institutional Policy
Survey Respondents
Argonne National Laboratory
Baylor College of Medicine
Boston Children’s Hospital
Boston College
Brown University
Case Western Reserve University
City of Hope
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dartmouth College
East Carolina University
Emory University
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Georgia Institute of Technology
Gladstone Institutes
Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Harvard Medical School
Harvard University
Indiana University
Iowa State University
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Johns Hopkins University
King Abdullah University of Science and
Technology
Los Alamos National Lab
Maine Medical Research Institute
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
McMaster University
Medical University South Carolina
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Michigan State University
Moffitt Cancer Center
National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences
National Institutes of Health, National
Cancer Institute
National Institutes of Health, Office of
Intramural Education
1
American Scientist
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2016 npa
Institutional Policy
Survey Respondents
(continued)
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
New York University
New York University School of Medicine
North Carolina State University
Oregon Health & Science University
Oregon State University
Pennsylvania State University
Princeton University
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine
and Science
Roswell Park Cancer Institute
Rush University Medical Center
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical
Discovery Institute
Schepens Eye Research Institute
Stanford University
State University of New York at Buffalo
State University of New York Downstate
Medical Center
Stony Brook University
Temple University
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University Health Science
Center
The Children’s Hospital of Phialdelphia
The Jackson Laboratory
The Ohio State University
The Rockefeller University
The Scripps Research Institute
Univerity of Texas Southwestern
University of Alabama Birmingham
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of Chicago
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Colorado Denver
University of Florida
University of Georgia
University of Illinois at Chicago
University of Iowa
University of Kansas Medical Center
University of Maryland
University of Maryland, Baltimore
University of Miami
University of Missouri
University of Nevada, Reno
began to be discussed at a national
level, the NPA was formed, and the
association has remained the national
voice for the postdoc community.
In 1998, the Association of American Universities (AAU) conducted
the first major examination of the
postdoc world. Their report highlighted the gradual expansion of the
postdoc population and the number
of postdocs studying on temporary
visas. Furthermore, their report
brought to light general concerns
regarding unclear appointment
processes as well as overall postdoc
dissatisfaction.3
A joint effort in 2000 by the
National Academy of Sciences
(NAS), the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE), and the Institute of Medicine (now called the
National Academy of Medicine
[NAM]) fostered the publication of a
comprehensive review of the postdoc
world. Their report, Enhancing the
Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists
and Engineers, was the first of its kind
that provided information regarding
postdoc demographics and career
plans, as well as postdoc salaries and
benefits, or lack thereof.4 The NPA
Recommendations for Postdoctoral
Policies and Practices, created as a
result of that report, continue to be
used across the country as benchmarks for institutions to improve
their postdoc environment.5
In 2014, the NAS published The
Postdoctoral Experience Revisited, a
follow-up to their 2000 report. This
report provided a means of comparison to the 2000 report and further
emphasized their recommendations
to institutions, mentors, and funding
sources aimed at improving the individual postdoc training experience.
Two noteworthy recommendations
discussed in their report are raising the starting salary from an NIH
National Research Service Award
(NRSA) to $50,000, and limiting appointment lengths to a maximum of
five years.6
The data put forth by these
reports, and others by the National
Research Council7 and the NIH
Biomedical Workforce Working
Group,8 have laid the foundation
for a more inclusive conversation regarding postdocs across the
research community. There is a general agreement for the institutional
recommendations put forth by these
organizations and the NPA. One
cannot overstate the importance of
clear appointment processes, access
to career services, affordable health
benefits, and a living stipend for
postdocs.
Methodology
2016 NPA Institutional Policy Survey
The 2016 NPA Institutional Policy
Survey was distributed to 190 NPA
institutional sustaining members.
The postdoc administrator at the sustaining member institution is often
the person who best understands
the current policies, benefits, and
resources for postdocs at their respective institutions. The survey included
82 possible questions, which sought
to ascertain basic demographics,
benefits, resources, and policies at
the institutional level. The average
respondent took between 30 and 60
minutes to complete this survey, depending on the accessibility of their
data on their postdocs. The survey,
which launched in August 2016, was
open for eight months, during which
time 130 institutions (68 percent of
those surveyed) started the survey,
and 102 (54 percent) completed it.
The comprehensive survey is critical to understanding the current state
of the postdoc community and how
to improve it. The topic areas covered
in the survey include the following:
r demographics of the institution
and its postdoc population
r structure of the institution’s
postdoc office
r postdoc policies: appointment
process, length of appointment,
postdoc handbook, exit survey,
administrative policies that
pertain to postdocs, postdoc performance reviews, and tracking
of alumni
r postdoc compensation and
benefits
r career and professional development services
r other institutional services
To maximize the ability to make
comparisons between the two surveys,
the survey task force used the following same four categories for postdocs
that were used in the 2013 survey:
*OTUJUVUJPOBMMZ'VOEFE1PTUEPD
&NQMPZFFT *'1& the classification(s)
an institution typically uses for a postdoc employed by the institution and
2
American Scientist
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
usually funded on a principal investigator’s research grant (for example, an
NIH R01 grant).
*OTUJUVUJPOBMMZ'VOEFE1PTUEPD
5SBJOFFT *'15) the classification(s)
an institution typically uses for
a postdoc funded on a principal
investigator’s training grant (for
example, an NIH T32 grant) but who
is not considered an employee of the
institution.
*OEJWJEVBMMZ'VOEFE1PTUEPDT
*'1 the classification(s) an institution typically uses for a postdoc
funded by a fellowship that is paid
to the institution (such as an NIH
National Research Service Award).
&YUFSOBMMZ'VOEFE1PTUEPDT
&'1 the classification(s) an institution typically uses for a postdoc
funded by a fellowship that is paid
directly to the postdoc (such as a fellowship from a foreign country).
The survey was open only for two
and a half weeks, during which time
142 institutions (68 percent of those
surveyed) started the survey and
127 (60 percent) completed it. The
vast majority stood by their decision
to compensate their postdocs at the
higher level.
Building the Survey
After reviewing the data from the
2013 survey, the policy survey task
force decided to add questions to
gain a better understanding of some
topic areas. Among the new questions were if and with whom PDOs
share resources, whether they plan to
start an exit survey and/or postdoc
tracking in the next 12 months, and
the postdoc’s cost for insurance
plans. Additional demographic questions asked about the types of visas
the international postdocs hold, how
many permanent-resident postdocs
they have, and if they track the number of postdocs with a disability and/
or from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Overview of Findings
Follow-Up Postdoc Compensation Survey
In the 2016 survey, the reworded
compensation question asked what
postdocs would be paid after December 1, 2016, the date new regulations
under the Fair Labor Standards
Act (FLSA) were anticipated to be
implemented. (The postdoc compensation section includes more information about FLSA.) Following a court
injunction against the new FLSA
regulations, the survey task force
conducted a brief follow-up survey
in February 2017 to find out how the
change affected the NPA institutional
sustaining member’s compensation
policies. NPA sent the eight-question
follow-up survey to 210 of its institutional postdoc office and postdoc
association sustaining members.
Analysis
To measure the level of success, further analysis of these data included
comparison to the data collected
in 2013 as well as evaluation of the
implementation of the NPA Recommendations for Postdoctoral Policies
and Practices as a factor driving
change. We also present subsets
of data to illustrate how various
factors—including institution type,
size of postdoc community, and NIH
funding levels—influence postdoctoral benefits and programs.
,Z[HISPZOHU(J[P]L7VZ[KVJ6MÄJLHUK
Association
At the heart of every strong set of institutional postdoc policies and programs sits a vital and vibrant postdoc
office (PDO) and postdoc association
(PDA). This recommendation is first
among the NPA Recommendations
for Postdoctoral Policies and Practices because it builds the base for all
other efforts. When working closely
with the PDA, the PDO is able to stay
current with the needs of its institution’s postdoc population. The PDO
administrator becomes the liaison between postdocs and their institution
for creating and enforcing all
postdoc policy—from working with human resources
on the classification
and appointment/
reappointment
process of postdocs, to assisting
the international
office in taking care
of the international
postdocs’ unique and
important needs, to collaborating with the career
services office to incorporate
postdoc career needs into their
programs, just to name a few.
To ensure equity in benefits across
all postdoc classifications, or to create
a robust set of career and professional-
2016 npa
Institutional Policy
Survey Respondents
(continued)
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
University of Notre Dame
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences
Center
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
University of Rochester
University of South Florida
University of Tennessee Health Science
Center
University of Texas Health Science Center
at San Antonio
University of Texas Health Science Center
at Houston
University of Texas Medical Branch
University of Utah
University of Virginia
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Univesity of Connecticut
Upstate Medical University
Van Andel Research Institute
Virginia Commonwealth University
Washington University in St. Louis
Wayne State University
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Yale University
3
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PDO Annual Operating Budgets
(excluding personnel salaries)
resides can be different from where it
receives its funding.
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Percentage of Institutions
25
seen over the years is the increase in
the number of institutions with a formal PDO or at least a dedicated staff
member for postdoc affairs. When the
NPA began in 2003, there were only
about 25 PDO/institutional Members
across the country. This list grew to
167 members in 2014, and the growth
trend has continued so that there are
190 NPA PDO/institutional members
in 2017. There has also been a parallel
and consistent growth in the presence
of a PDA, at 84 percent of institutional
respondents in our 2016 survey.
The organizational structure of a
PDO is tailored to the institution’s
unique culture. We consistently find
that the PDO structure depends on
the configuration of the institution’s
hierarchy and this structure defines
whether the PDO exists within a
graduate education division, stands
alone under research affairs, or
resides at the provost level of a university. Interestingly, where the PDO
development programs, an institution
needs a postdoc advocate from within
who can interact with all the different
offices and also help educate the institution’s staff who may not be familiar
At the heart of every
strong set of institutional
postdoc policies and
programs, sits a vital and
]PIYHU[WVZ[KVJVMÄJLHUK
postdoc association.
with the important role the postdocs
play in the research enterprise. This is
the role the postdoc administrator has
at NPA member institutions across the
country.
Given the importance of a strong
PDO presence at an institution, arguably one of the most significant outcomes the NPA advocacy efforts have
PDO Reporting Structure and Funding Sources (percent)
PDO Reporting Structure
Graduate School/Division
Graduate School / Division
Research Affairs
ZĞƐĞĂƌĐŚīĂŝƌƐ
21%
Other (please specify)
11%
Other (please specify)
An Academic Dean
10%
Provost/President/Chancellor
9%
AcademicHuman
Dean
Resources
6%
n
Provost/President/Chancellor
5%
3%
Training Kĸce
Human Resources
Alumni īairs
An Academic Department Chair
Central Administration
3%
0%
0%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Percentage of Institutions
Administrative Dean
PDO Reporting Structure
PDO Funding Source
Training Office
Alumni Affairs
Academic Department Chair
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
7YV]PKL:\MÄJPLU[)\KNL[Z[V7+6Z
To adequately assist postdocs, it is
critical for PDOs to have an operating budget and dedicated staff,
which allows a PDO to perform
functions such as enforcing policies,
appointing postdocs, coordinating training programs, mediating
disputes between postdocs and their
advisors, and/or providing career
counseling.
The distribution of PDO budgets
(excluding personnel salaries) in the
2016 survey did not change from the
2013 survey data. The 2016 survey
asked more questions about PDO
budgets and found that 61 percent
of PDOs share resources with other
offices at their institution. This arrangement is not surprising, given
how much PDOs interact with other
offices and that they are understaffed
the majority of the time. The average full-time equivalent (FTE) staff
for a PDO was 1.24 FTEs, and the
mode was 1 FTE. Having at least one
dedicated staff person is important
to a PDO’s success, but the demands
on only one dedicated staff person
of serving an institution’s entire
postdoc population are still daunting. There are PDOs with only one
staff member who serve even more
postdocs than the average number
across institutions (449 postdocs).
By sharing resources, we know
anecdotally that the PDO is able to
better serve their postdoc population
because they receive help with carrying the workload of implementing
programs, as well as drafting and
enforcing policy.
Establish Administrative Policies
Part of creating a good training
environment for postdocs is to have
established administrative policies
in the event of authorship disputes,
termination due to grant funding
loss or other causes, along with other
grievance issues. The survey question
covering this topic asked whether
the policies listed in the figures are
in place and include postdocs at the
institutional level of policy or whether
there is a specific postdoc policy. It is
encouraging to see that institutions
generally have policies that include
postdocs. The NPA contends, however, that establishment of postdoc-
4
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Who Shares Resources with PDOs? (percent)
Graduate School/Division
Other
Research Affairs
Career Services
Academic Dean
Provost/President/Chancellor
Central Administration
Training Office
Administrative Dean
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
SRNL
postdocs. Many of these policies and
important resources can be outlined
in a uniform appointment letter
that all postdocs sign before starting
their appointment. The percentage
of institutions that have adopted an
appointment policy since the last
survey has increased: In 2013, 87
percent of institutions reported having a clear appointment process and
this number rose to 94 percent in the
2016 survey.
Because postdocs are primarily
hired by their advisors and may
not gain exposure outside of the
research group, it is critical for them
to know from the beginning about
the PDO as their institutional home
base for support. The PDO often
serves as the gateway to all other
institutional services, and the NPA
advocates that an orientation program is the best mechanism to present this information to postdocs. The
number of NPA member institutions
that reported holding an orientation
program is another area that showed
growth, from 70 percent in 2013 to
85 percent in 2016. An orientation
program can address a variety of
topics—such as the importance of
institutional identification, where
to obtain an ID card, and what
specific policies is essential, because in
cases such as termination, authorship,
misconduct, grievance, and intellectual property, postdocs are in a position
of lesser power than their advisors.
Creating a postdoc-specific termination policy, for example, enacts the
safeguards necessary in case grant
funding runs out for an international
postdoc on a temporary visa. Under
such a policy, the postdoc could be
given time to find another position so
there is no lapse in their work status.
The survey results do not show a high
percentage of postdoc-specific policies
for any of the types queried.
+LÄUL[OL(WWVPU[TLU[7YVJLZZ
The appointment process of postdocs is another critical area in which
PDOs should exert a degree of
control when postdocs are entering
the institution. Although the survey
did not cover the topic of uniform
postdoc titles, the NPA supports this
concept. Defined titles for postdoc
appointments in the payroll system
of an institution are critical for the
successful tracking of postdocs. The
2014 NPA report, like most of the
previous postdoc reports, strongly
recommended that institutions have
a specific process for appointing
Administrative Polices that Include
Postdocs: Institution Type
88
98
100
92
96
Public
16
39
6
2
6
47
14
Public
91
88
73
97
100
91
94
Private
6
30
3
0
0
45
18
Private
94
88
82
94
100
100
100
Other
6
12
0
0
0
29
29
Other
s co
Mi
Gr
nd
uc
t
iev
an
ce
A
In t
u th
elle
ors
c tu
hip
a
Se
lP
xu
rop
al
er t
Ha
y
ras
sm
en
Re
Te
t
rm
sp
on
ina
sib
tio
le
n
of Con
Re
se duct
arc
h
94
nd
uc
t
iev
an
c
e
Au
In t
th o
e lle
rsh
c tu
i
p
al
Se
Pro
xu
pe
al
r ty
Ha
ras
sm
en
Re
Te
t
rm
sp
on
in a
sib
tio
le
n
of Con
Re
se duct
arc
h
s co
100
98
Gr
Mi
Postdoc Specific Administrative
Polices: Institution Type
80
60
40
20
0
institutional services and amenities
are available to postdocs—as well as
provide an opportunity to connect
with peers and begin networking
outside of their research group to
mitigate feelings of isolation.
Many institutions with postdocs
are located in major cities. The
cost of living in these areas is often
The establishment of
WVZ[KVJZWLJPÄJWVSPJPLZ
is essential, because in
cases such as termination, grievance, and intellectual property, postdocs
are in a position of lesser
power than their advisors.
exceptionally high, and a significant
amount of the average postdoc’s
stipend goes toward housing. Furthermore, for foreign postdocs the
process of finding a place to live can
be exceptionally difficult. Only 46
percent of respondents reported providing monetary or non-monetary
housing assistance to postdocs.
Provide Fair Postdoc Compensation
One of the key areas for which the
NPA has consistently advocated
since its inception is higher postdoc
pay and this point is central in the
NPA Recommendations for Postdoctoral Policies and Practices. The
NIH NRSA stipend scale provides a
framework that is used beyond the
NIH’s internal research program; at
many institutions, it serves as the
gold standard for minimum stipend
in institutional policies regardless
of funding source. Our 2013 and
5
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Institutions Raising the Minimum
Postdoc Compensation Level
to $47,476 (n=134)
(percent)
2013 and 2016 Minimum Postdoc Stipends
70
2013
2016
60
Number of Institutions
50
17
40
6
30
16
20
61
10
2016 survey data show that the NIH
NRSA stipend scale is the driving
force for what institutions decide to
pay their postdocs.
The largest increases in the NRSA
stipend scale have historically
come after publication of reports or
The majority of responding
institutions have a
minimum stipend for
postdocs but do not require
annual stipend increases.
introduction of legislative measures
that brought postdoc compensation
to the forefront of discussions with
senior leadership at research institutions. The 2003 increase was after the
release of two reports—Enhancing
the Postdoctoral Experience for Scien-
$5
6
$7 ,000
5,0 to
00
$5
0
$5 ,000
5,9 to
99
$4
7,
$4 000
9,9 to
99
$3
8
$3 ,000
9,9 to
99
$4
0
$4 ,000
6,9 to
99
No
$2
0,
$3 000
7,9 to
99
0
tists and Engineers,4 by the Institute
of Medicine, National Academy of
Sciences, and National Academy
of Engineering, and Addressing the
Nation’s Changing Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists,9 by the
National Research Council. Both
reports recommended raising postdoc stipend levels. After the release
of these reports, the NIH promised in
2001 after the release of these reports
to raise NRSA stipend levels from
about $31,000 to $45,000 over the
next few years.10 Stepwise increases
occurred for a few years, but because
of a recession and a relatively flat
NIH budget, postdoc stipend levels
were either frozen or raised by only
1–2 percent for the next several years.
The next biggest increase occurred
because the NIH Biomedical Research
Workforce Working Group recommended raising the starting NRSA
stipend level to $42,000 in 2014.11
NIH NRSA Stipend Scale History
$50,000
$48,000
$46,000
NIH Minimum Stipend
$44,000
Actual Postdoc Stipend (Mean ± SEM)
$42,000
$40,000
$38,000
$36,000
$34,000
$32,000
20
17
20
16
20
15
20
14
20
13
20
12
20
11
20
10
20
09
20
08
20
07
20
06
20
05
20
04
20
03
20
02
$30,000
Still deciding
Already above $47,476
Yes, required
The most recent increase in
postdoc compensation came as a
result of the FLSA legislation that
Congress passed in May 2016 to
raise the minimum salary for all
United States nonexempt workers
from $23,600 to $47,476 per year, or
allow for overtime pay. To become
an exempt worker, one must be paid
more than the FLSA minimum salary.
Postdocs were explicitly included in
this legislation’s working population.
The new regulations became controversial on many academic campuses
because this increase in the minimum
salary now meant postdocs, if paid
less than $47,476, would be eligible
to receive overtime pay for any time
worked more than 40 hours per
week. Because postdoc hours depend
on their research and do not fit into a
typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, this
legislation had institutions discussing postdoc compensation more than
ever before. In October 2016, 21 states
filed an emergency motion for a
preliminary injunction, and after this
case was consolidated with another
lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce and other business
groups, a Texas federal judge filed
an injunction 10 days prior to the
December 1, 2016, implementation
date. On August 31, 2017, the court
officially concluded that the FLSA
overtime rule was invalid. Prior to
the anticipated FLSA implementation, institutions had already spent
a lot of effort analyzing postdoc
compensation, and most had told
their postdocs that they would be receiving a raise. Additionally, Francis
Collins, director of NIH, announced
6
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Benefits to Each Postdoc Type
96
83
90
89
82
88
84
79
83
76
60
67
47
76
65
74
86
67
45
64
37
61
22
41
22
41
40
50
IFPE*
78
66
72
70
64
69
64
59
61
50
40
40
19
30
30
50
67
53
37
49
30
49
14
32
17
21
32
41
IFPT*
68
60
64
63
55
62
55
50
54
44
32
31
14
24
23
47
55
51
33
45
24
45
12
31
12
18
32
36
IFP*
52
50
52
51
48
51
45
43
44
31
24
24
10
18
17
40
48
44
24
40
17
40
6
24
9
11
21
32
EFP*
100
80
60
*See pages 2–3 for postdoc definitions.
Benefits by Institution Type
40
98
87
91
89
87
87
84
80
82
78
58
64
49
71
58
62
84
64
29
64
24
58
9
42
9
40
24
44
Public
97
84
97
94
78
91
84
75
88
81
56
69
41
75
69
88
88
78
66
69
59
69
38
44
34
47
62
69
Private
100
88
94
88
82
94
94
88
88
71
71
71
53
88
76
82
94
65
59
65
41
71
29
41
35
35
53
41
Other
20
S in
g le
Tw
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o -P
a lt
ers
hI
on
ns
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.
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a lt
mi
ly H h Ins
.
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n
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nta
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on
s
.
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.
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tal
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sst
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pa
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id
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a
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ve
pa
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id
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be
rsh
ip
0
that NIH would move forward with
the higher compensation levels for
NRSA stipends regardless of what
happened with FLSA.12 This strong
support for raising the compensation
of postdocs is evident in the data
Minimum Stipend Policy
(percent)
10
6
84
No
Yes, recommended
Yes, required
Annual Stipend Increase
(percent)
21
36
43
No
Yes, recommended
Yes, required
collected from the 2016 NPA Institutional Policy Survey and from a small
follow-up survey conducted in February 2017 to see what decisions NPA
member institutions had made after
the injunction halted implementation
of new FLSA regulations.
Although it is critical to establish
a baseline postdoctoral salary to
support fair compensation as well as
inclusion, it is important for institutions to require an annual stipend increase. The vast majority of responding institutions have a minimum
stipend for postdocs that are either
required (84 percent) or recommended (6 percent), but the majority do
not require annual stipend increases:
36 percent require an annual increase
and 43 percent recommend it. The
remaining 21 percent of institutions
do not have a policy that requires
annual increases.
/H]L,X\HS)LULÄ[ZMVY(SS7VZ[KVJZ
The topic of benefits offered to postdocs is one of the most debated areas
in the postdoc community. It is, of
course, critical for postdocs to have
adequate health insurance, paid time
off, and retirement benefits, along
with parent and family benefits for
those postdocs that need them. The
topic of benefits has the widest variance in what is offered to postdocs
at different institutions and in who
is eligible.
The largest disparity found in the
survey results is the availability of
benefits for different classifications
of postdocs based on their funding
source. The survey uses the same
four postdoc classifications shown
on pages 2 and 3.
When postdocs move
from their principal
investigator’s grant to their
individual fellowships,
they often lose access to
health insurance or can
only sign up for lesser
health insurance.
Although most postdoc employees receive insurance benefits and
paid time off, the postdocs who have
their own funding (individually
funded and externally funded postdocs) show a sharp decline in access
to benefits. This point is critical to
raise, because a postdoc that successfully writes and is awarded a prestigious fellowship should not lose
benefits. The data, however, clearly
show that when postdocs move from
their principal investigator’s grant
(institutionally funded postdoc) to
their individual fellowships (individually funded postdoc), they
often lose access to health insurance.
Some institutions provide an option
for these individuals to sign up for
graduate student health insurance,
but it is often a lesser insurance and
7
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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®
Development Programs: NIH Funding
100
83
72
11
33
22
11
72
72
61
44
89
50
44
50
44
56
Q1
95
80
15
35
35
20
90
90
70
50
95
65
55
45
45
60
Q2
84
63
32
53
58
37
79
84
84
68
89
53
63
42
63
63
Q3
60
95
80
50
70
60
30
95
95
80
85
100
75
75
45
80
85
Q4
40
80
20
Development Programs: Dedicated Staff?
91
80
22
51
46
26
80
93
77
74
94
65
65
46
62
67
Yes
87
61
39
39
26
26
78
61
57
43
91
52
43
39
39
57
No
0
Development Programs: Institution Type
89
67
26
41
35
17
83
87
74
63
91
54
48
48
57
65
Public
90
84
29
58
58
35
87
84
74
61
97
71
77
42
61
68
Private
94
82
18
47
24
29
59
82
65
82
88
65
59
35
53
53
Other
Development Programs: Number of Postdocs
82
76
24
18
18
12
59
88
59
41
94
47
35
29
24
53
1–100
88
67
25
54
25
17
79
79
71
58
92
62
54
42
50
50
101–250
95
82
27
36
50
36
82
82
82
77
86
68
68
59
77
73
251–500
88
69
38
75
50
38
81
94
75
88
94
62
88
50
50
69
501–750
100
80
40
80
100
20
100
80
80
80
100
80
40
40
80
60
751–1,000
100
90
0
50
50
30
100
90
70
60
100
60
60
30
90
90
1,000 +
100
90
60
60
80
50
100
90
90
80
100
80
90
60
70
80
Yes
90
71
23
48
42
21
85
85
73
61
92
60
58
45
60
65
No
Sc
ien
ce
tW
r iti
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Wr
itin
Mo
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Ac
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ad
S tu
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Development Programs: BEST Award?
Gr
an
M
q
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MQmags
q
inadequate for the postdocs, especially if they have families.
We know some institutions create
policies and provide mechanisms to
ensure all postdocs receive the same
Institutions that offer
[OLZHTLILULÄ[Z[VHSS
postdocs consistently have
postdoc titles separate
from faculty and staff.
benefits, but we reiterate that it is
critical to provide the same comprehensive benefits package to all postdocs regardless of funding source.
Postdocs are at a stage in life where
this benefit cannot be overlooked;
furthermore, they represent a lowrisk, highly educated population that
can be insured at a rate that is lower
than a typical university employee
pool. Although the implementation
varies among institutions that offer
the same benefits to all postdocs, the
consistent element is that the institution has defined postdoc titles so it
can administratively separate the
group from faculty and staff. Establishing defined and enforced postdoc
titles allows institutions to address
this group’s unique needs.
Besides looking at the different
postdoc classifications in relation to
benefits, NPA also analyzed benefits
data across other variables, including institution type, the number of
postdocs at different institutions, and
NIH funding level. For this analysis,
the benefit was classified as being
offered if any one of the postdoc
classifications reported the benefit.
The types of benefits offered in relation to number of postdocs and NIH
funding level did not appear to affect
benefits offerings, but there is some
variance among institution types.
The most apparent difference is that
public academic institutions lack parental and family benefits. The need
for paid parental-leave policies is
important and ongoing. Parents in the
Pipeline, a 2017 report on which the
NPA collaborated with the University of California Hastings College
of the Law, specifically looked at
this issue and has many relevant
recommendations for institutions
and funders.13
Maintain Training Programs
The NPA’s Recommendations for
Postdoctoral Policies and Practices recommends that institutions
provide training programs that
assist postdocs in developing a time
frame for transition to independence
through effective mentoring, career
planning, professional development
programs, and career counseling.
Professional development programs offered across institutions
include diversity outreach programs,
presentation skills, grant proposal
writing, and many others. The 2016
survey yielded results similar to
the survey conducted in 2013. The
three most common professional
development programs offered still
are responsible conduct of research
(86 percent), grant proposal writing
(84 percent), and presentation skills
(79 percent). The three least common
programs remain the mock study
session (23 percent), project management for an industry setting (23
percent), and project management
for an academic setting (37 percent).
Professional development programs
across institutions are still being offered at a high rate.
NPA evaluated several factors to
determine whether they correlated
with more or less professional development programming. With NIH
funding levels of academic institutions grouped in quartiles, results
showed that institutions with higher
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Career Services: NIH Funding
100
76
94
59
47
94
53
76
59
18
47
29
76
12
12
6
18
53
Q1
65
85
65
45
70
35
85
80
20
60
45
85
20
35
10
35
50
Q2
79
89
74
58
84
53
84
74
42
68
37
95
26
21
21
42
74
Q3
60
85
100
95
85
95
75
95
95
70
70
90
100
5
55
35
60
90
Q4
40
80
20
Career Services: Dedicated Staff?
0
77
94
80
62
88
62
88
78
42
64
55
91
14
32
17
46
72
Yes
73
68
50
41
77
32
64
55
27
41
23
82
14
18
23
14
50
No
80
89
67
54
83
48
85
72
41
61
39
87
11
24
13
24
61
Public
70
97
83
67
90
63
87
87
33
63
70
93
23
43
27
63
77
Private
76
71
65
53
88
59
71
53
41
47
29
88
6
18
18
41
65
Other
69
69
31
31
94
25
69
56
6
31
25
75
0
6
12
31
44
1–100
71
83
79
46
79
54
75
58
38
50
38
88
8
25
21
33
58
101–250
82
95
73
68
77
59
86
82
32
68
41
95
27
32
9
27
64
251–500
Career Services: Institution Type
Career Services: Number of Postdocs
81
100
88
69
88
75
88
81
62
69
56
94
19
25
19
62
88
501–750
100
80
60
100
100
40
100
80
60
80
80
80
0
60
60
60
80
751–1,000
70
100
100
70
100
70
100
100
60
80
90
100
20
60
20
50
90
1,000 +
90
100
90
80
90
80
100
90
50
70
70
100
30
50
50
90
90
Yes
73
90
74
56
84
52
85
77
39
63
50
89
15
31
15
31
65
No
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Career Services: BEST Award?
CV
NIH funding were more likely to
have developmental programs across
the spectrum. Having dedicated PDO
staff at an institution, however, does
not alter the availability of developmental and training programs.
There is also no relationship between
the availability of these programs
and the type of institution, whether
public, private, or other. The results
did determine that there is a modest
trend correlating the number of postdocs at an institution with the overall
availability of professional development programs.
PDOs offer various events,
workshops, and programs to assist
postdocs in their career exploration
and skill development. According to
the 2016 survey, the most commonly
offered programs are networking
events (86 percent), cover letter
reviews (85 percent), and career exploration programs, panels, and talks
(83 percent). The least commonly
offered programs include on-campus
interviews (13 percent), job shadowing opportunities (17 percent), and
on-site visits to local employers (27
percent). Unlike professional development programs, career service
programs across the spectrum are
more available now than in 2013.
As was the case with professional
development programs, there is a
positive correlation between funding and available services. Academic
institutions with higher NIH funding
have more available career services.
The results also show that institutions
with dedicated staff have a tendency
to provide better career services. There
was not, however, any significant
relationship between career services
and institution type: Private, public,
and other types of institutions all
have similar career services. Additionally, the number of postdocs that an
institution serves does correlate with
available career services: Institutions
with more postdocs generally provide
more career services.
Since 2013 the NIH has provided
Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) awards to 17
institutions across the country for
the purpose of improving biomedical career development. These BEST
programs provide grant funding
for institutions to develop innovative training programs that prepare
postdocs for a wide range of career
opportunities. Ten of the 17 BEST
In d
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institutions responded to our survey.
When comparing their professional
development and career services
programs, as well as their overall
benefits, to institutions that did not
receive a BEST award, results show
that, as expected, institutions that
have received BEST awards provide
more professional development
and career services programs. This
result reinforces NIH’s position that
investing in training programs helps
institutions provide better programs
and services for their postdocs to succeed in their careers.
Support Diverse Demographics
The opportunities for postdoctoral
training are more widely avail-
able than graduate students often
consider. In addition to academic
institutions, PhD graduates can find
postdoc training opportunities in
Professional development
programs across
respondent institutions
are still being offered to
postdocs at a high rate.
national laboratories, government
agencies, and industry. The majority of responses to the survey came
from public academic institutions (51
percent) and private academic insti-
9
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Only 9 percent of
respondent institutions
are tracking postdocs
from disadvantaged
backgrounds.
under 57 percent male, and just under
43 percent female. The percentage
of postdocs with gender reported as
“other” was less than 1 percent, likely
based on an institution’s collection
of this variable. The survey results
indicated clearly that a number of
universities actively capture diversity
beyond binary gender assignment.
30
16
51
33
25
20
15
10
5
Other
Since the 2013 survey, little has
changed regarding the demographics
of international postdocs. More than
half of the population at the majority
of institutions consists of international postdocs conducting research
while on temporary visas. The overwhelming majority of these postdocs
are short-term scholars, holding
J-1 researcher visas. On average, 38
percent of postdocs at an institution
are U.S. citizens, and 8 percent hold
permanent resident status.
Because of the significant presence
of postdocs studying on temporary
visas, the availability of resources
for international postdocs is a major
concern of the NPA. Many academic
institutions have some type of international scholar office wherein postdocs on temporary visas can receive
assistance in navigating the U.S. tax
>1
00
0
Private academic institution
101
to
25
0
25
1t
o5
00
50
1t
o7
50
75
1t
o1
00
0
0
Public academic institution
Postdoc Gender
100
Number of Postdocs
Institution Type (percent)
Number of Institutions
tutions (33 percent). The “other” category (16 percent) comprises national
laboratories, government agencies,
and private research institutes, which
provides a group large enough for
comparison in analyses.
The overall number of postdocs at
a particular institution varies greatly
from place to place. The majority
of institutions (53 percent) have
between 100 and 500 postdocs, 17
percent of institutions have less than
100 postdocs, and only 10 percent
have more than 1,000 postdocs.
The gender demographic of current
postdocs is almost exactly the same
as it was in 2013. The survey asked
respondents, “What percentage of
postdocs at your institution are female, male, or other?” On average, the
population across institutions is just
1t
o1
00
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and other governmental systems, and
many institutions provide information
or programs to help postdocs learn or
improve their English-language skills,
and services to navigate living in a
new city or country. Theoretically, any
institution that trains an international
postdoc with a temporary visa should
have support available. Institutions
overwhelmingly reported the availability of resources for international
postdocs (98 percent).
The NPA diversity statement
indicates, “The National Postdoctoral Association seeks to promote
diversity and ensure equal opportunity and inclusion for all postdocs
in the membership, leadership and
activities of the NPA regardless
of race, ethnicity, sex, disability,
national origin, socio-economic
status, religion, sexual orientation, or
Postdoc Status
Other
Male
Female
US Citizen
Permanent Resident
Temporary Visa
Postdocs (percent)
80
60
40
20
0
Institutions
Institutions
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Institutions Tracking Postdoc Demographics (percent)
Track Postdocs from Underrepresented
Minority Groups
Yes
No
Track Postdocs with Disabilities
Track Postdocs from Disadvantaged Backgrounds
0
gender identity.” The past decade has
witnessed many positive advances in
regards to diversity; however, diversity within the fields of the sciences
continues to lag behind. Given that
government agencies are increasingly concerned with the presence
of diversity in the various fields of
research, the NPA survey asked, “Of
the U.S. citizen postdocs at your institution, approximately how many are
from underrepresented groups?” The
survey defined an underrepresented
group as: “Racial and ethnic groups
such as blacks or African Americans;
Hispanics or Latinos; American
Indians or Alaskan Natives; Native
Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders;
Filipinos; Southeast Asians; or other
groups determined by your institution.” Two-thirds of respondents
reported that less than 20 percent of
postdocs at their institutions were
from an underrepresented group. It
is important to note, however, that
these are the percentages of minorities within those classified as U.S.
citizens. Because postdocs studying on temporary visas make up
a significant portion of the overall
postdoc population, we know that
the percentage of the complete
group is actually much lower. To
meet the NPA’s diversity goals, it is
important to ensure that institutions
create inclusive recruiting procedures
and policies, and support diversity
through programming, so future
postdocs can transition into the career path of their choice. Establishing
a diversity office in each institution
can potentially assist with this goal.
The survey defined disability as
“Any person who has a physical or
mental impairment that substantially
limits one or more major life activities.” In the survey, 74 respondents
10
20 30 40
50 60 70
80
Konstantin Pelikh/Alamy
90 100
answered the following question:
“Does your institution collect data on
the number of U.S. citizen postdocs
from the following groups: with a
disability?” Only 36.5 percent of these
respondents answered “yes.” Because
of the high percentage of missing
data, the percentage of postdocs with
a disability across institutions cannot
be accurately stated. Similarly, the
NPA sought to understand whether
institutions are tracking postdocs from
disadvantaged backgrounds, and
only 9 percent of survey respondents
indicated that they have been. Again,
this response rate does not provide
accurate data to fully understand the
effect of economic background on current postdocs.
Conduct Exit Surveys
The NPA’s Recommendations for
Postdoctoral Policies and Practices
has continuously encouraged institutions to conduct exit surveys at the
end of a postdoc scholar’s appointment to collect honest feedback
about the individual’s experience
and to have information about a
next location so that the postdoc’s
future endeavors can be tracked. The
data collected in these surveys could
inform institutional policy decisions
that affect future postdocs. Additionally, tracking postdocs after their
appointments could help develop a
comprehensive alumni network.
According to the 2016 NPA Institutional Policy Survey, the percentage of institutions administering
exit surveys remains at 45 percent,
despite recommendations from NPA
and NAS in their report, The Postdoc
Experience Revisited.6 Among the 55
percent of institutions that do not
administer exit surveys, the primary
reason reported was that the PDO is
not integrated into the appointment
process, and they do not know when
a postdoc is leaving the institution.
Without this knowledge, it is significantly more difficult to introduce an
initiative and collect these data. Data
The percentage of
institutions administering
exit surveys remains at
45 percent. The primary
reason the rest do not
was because the postdoc
VMÄJLKVLZUV[RUV^
when a postdoc is leaving.
such as these, however, are critical to
being able to provide information on
outcomes and career trajectories,14 although this study comments that recommendations to collect outcomes
data have largely gone unheeded.
To evaluate planned implementation of exit surveys, the NPA survey
asked how many institutions plan to
Exit Survey (percent)
44.6
8.9
55.4
24.8
7.9
13.8
Yes
No
Likely, in 1 year
Possibly in 1 year
Unlikely in 1 year
Cannot
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Only 28 percent of
institutions indicated that
they track their postdocs
after their postdoctoral
training period.
will not start or are unlikely to start
conducting these surveys. Nearly 14
percent of institutions were undecided, responding that they might
or might not begin conducting exit
surveys in the next 12 months.
Track Postdoc Alumni
The current model of postdoc training
has the potential, in some fields, to
narrow postdoc research focus, which
in turn limits the potential opportunities for postdocs to find employment
Tracking Alumni (percent)
32.7
27.7
4
68.3
12.9
22.7
Yes
No
Likely, in 1 year
Possibly in 1 year
Unlikely in 1 year
Unknown
benefits, and in several other areas.
The NPA will continue to advocate
for these recommendations, as they
have been shown to positively affect
the postdoctoral experience, and the
NPA will continue to evaluate progress with comparative radar graphs
in the coming years.
These data additionally provide
an important resource for institutions to evaluate their policies in
comparison with those of their peer
institutions. In some instances,
showing an opportunity to provide
the same or better level of benefits or
policy can strengthen their advocacy
for policy changes. Examples of
successful advocacy have included
providing the same insurance
benefits for all postdocs regardless
of funding source, providing access
to career services programs, or
establishing a uniform appointment
process for all postdocs.
Recommendations and
Conclusions
Increase PDO Staff and Budgets
A core finding of this report is that
a strong PDO at every institution is
required for the development of postdoc policies and programs. Many
institutions, however, don’t have
even one full-time staff member,
and institutions that have one are
often understaffed compared with
the number of postdoctoral fellows
and/or the quantity and depth of
programmatic initiatives they seek
to provide. Institutions should do
their best to increase the number of
full-time staff dedicated to postdoc
affairs. It is likely that this limited
PDO staff is related to PDO funding
across institutions. Increasing PDO
budgets across institutions will help
increase the number of available
staff, so institutions can provide the
optimal postdoc training experience
at their campus.
The NPA continues to stand by its
currently published recommendations for postdoc policies and
practices document.14 The presence
of a strong PDO and PDA at every
institution where postdocs train
continues to be a strong indicator of
institutional commitment to the education and training of their postdoc
population. The support offered from
PDOs across the country remains a
deciding factor in the postdocs’ overall experience, and potential postdocs
might note this factor when choosing
an appointment. The NPA commends the creation of or expanded
development of PDOs since the 2014
report; however, improvement in this
and other areas is still needed.
The radar graph at right shows
the degree to which institutions are
meeting the NPA’s recommendations
and where progress can be made.
The closer a dot is to the edge of the
graph, the closer the percentage of
institutions possessing that queried
policy is to 100 percent. According
to this graph, institutions as a whole
are doing very well at maintaining
an office for international scholars.
This graph also shows, however,
that a great deal of progress can be
made regarding institutions conducting exit surveys, providing family
David McNally/U.S. Army Research Laboratory Public Affairs Office
start conducting exits surveys over
the next 12 months. Of the institutions
that responded, 25 percent stated they
are likely to start conducting them
within a year. At the other end of the
continuum, 17 percent reported they
within the same field of research.
Also, the overall success of the
postdoc experience is often measured
by whether or not a postdoc can find
employment as faculty within their
academic field. Because outcome
reporting is critical to understanding
the success of a training program,
some institutions track postdocs after
their appointment period has ended.
The NPA survey asked participants
whether they tracked postdocs
after they left and found that only
28 percent of institutions indicated
that they do. The survey also asked
if institutions plan to start tracking
postdocs over the next 12 months: 32
percent of institutions that responded
to the survey reported that they are
likely to start tracking; 23 percent of
institutions reported that they might
or might not start tracking; 13 percent
are unlikely to start tracking; and 4
percent of institutions did not know.
Provide Higher Compensation and
,X\HSP[`PU)LULÄ[Z
The NPA recommends that all
institutions that fund postdocs
should establish a minimum stipend
amount, which should be equal for
all postdocs, and that institutions
consider implementing a stepwise
increasing stipend ladder by year
of postdoc experience, such as the
NIH NRSA scale. The NPA recognizes that a sizeable proportion of
postdocs within the United States are
not in biomedical fields, but trends
12
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NPA Recommendations: Opportunities for Growth
Ensure Family
Benefits
Track Postdoc
Alumni
Maintain Office
For International
Scholars
Increase PDO
Budgets
Establish
PDO/PDA
Establish Clear
Appointment
Periods
Maintain
Training
Programs
Have Retirement
Benefits
Establish Postdoc
Policies
Ensure Health Care
nationally show institutions across
disciplines adopting the NIH NRSA
minimum stipend or scale, because
this national agency has significant
visibility in postdoctoral training.
Given the number of reports on the
postdoctoral experience that recommend $50,000 as a baseline postdoctoral salary, the NPA recommends
that all institutions continue to work
toward this minimum. In addition,
the NPA strongly recommends that
institutions provide equal health
benefits for all postdocs, regardless
of their classifications. In particular, a
disparity exists for individually funded and externally funded postdocs,
and institutions should establish policies to ensure that postdocs in these
categories receive the same benefits
as their institutionally funded peers.
Increase Parental Leave Policies and
-HTPS`-YPLUKS`)LULÄ[Z
The NPA recommends that more institutions adopt and enforce parental
leave policies and offer more familyfriendly benefits for postdocs. Recent
studies have concluded that women’s
research productivity is related to an
increase in parental leave policies.15
Paid maternity leave is currently
low, especially at public institutions.
Given that postdoc training often
occurs when many people begin to
establish families, policies offering
parental leave and family benefits can
provide a degree of security at such an
important time, while also potentially
helping to stem the leaky pipeline of
women leaving academia at higher
rates than their male counterparts.13
Implement More Postdoc Tracking
The percentage of institutions that
track postdocs after their appointment is exceptionally low. It is critical,
however, that we begin to better
understand which career sectors postdocs transition into, as well as trends
over time. It has been noted that this
tracking will be most pertinent at the
institutional level13 because of regional
and field-specific nuances, but the
overall recommendation stands that
institutions should establish a system
to contact postdocs after their training and track where they become
employed. Continued contact with
postdocs after their appointment
period also provides data about the effectiveness of their training, which can
also enhance recruiting strategies as
well as foster a loyal alumni network.
We know anecdotally from conversations with PDOs that provide career
coaching that postdoc alumni provide
strong networking opportunities for
current postdocs who are exploring
career options.
Other Recommendations
In aggregate, all of the data presented
in this report verify that a number of
institutions agree with the recommendations set forth in the NPA
Monty Rakusen/Cultura Creative (RF)/Alamy
Recommendations for Postdoctoral
Policies and Practices. There are a
number of areas, however, in which
there are opportunities to grow and
in which institutions can improve the
postdoc experience. Much of these
findings have been stated previously, through a variety of reports,
The presence of a
strong PDO and PDA at
every institution where
postdocs train continues
to be a strong indicator of
institutional commitment
to the education and
training of their postdoc
population.
workshops, conferences, etc., and
although the NPA’s findings are
promising, the importance of these
areas cannot be emphasized enough.
Institutions must establish clear
postdoc appointment periods and
clear postdoc policies to adequately
protect the postdoctoral fellows as
well as their faculty. Additionally,
the NPA reiterates the recommendation that more institutions conduct
exit surveys upon the completion of
a postdoc’s training. Above all, the
postdoc experience is considered a
time of advanced training, and it is
imperative that institutions evaluate
the quality and quantity of current
postdoctoral career development
and work to provide more training
programs for postdocs.
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References
1. National Postdoctoral Association. What is a
Postdoc? Accessed November 15, 2017. http://
____
www.nationalpostdoc.org/?page=What_is_a_
____________________________
postdoc
_____
8. National Institutes of Health. ACD Working
Group on Biomedical Workforce. Accessed November 15, 2017. https://acd.od.nih.gov/working___________________
groups/bwf.html
__________
2. National Postdoctoral Association. 2014. National Postdoctoral Association Institutional Policy
Report 2014: Supporting and Developing Postdoctoral Scholars. Accessed November 15, 2017.
http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/?page=policy_
_____________________________
report_databa
_________
9. National Research Council. 2000. Addressing
the Nation’s Changing Needs for Biomedical
and Behavioral Scientists. Washington, DC: The
National Academies Press. https://www.nap.edu/
_____________
catalog/9827/addressing-the-nations-changing______________________________
needs-for-biomedical-and-behavioral-scientists
_____________________________
3. Association of American Universities. 1998.
Committee on Postdoctoral Education: Report
and Recommendations. Washington, DC: AAU.,
https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/
_______________________________
Key-Issues/Postdoctoral%20Education/
_________________________
GradEdRpt.pdf
__________
10. National Institutes of Health. 2001. NIH Statement in Response to the NAS Report: Addressing
the Nation’s Changing Needs for Biomedical and
Behavioral Scientists. Accessed November 15,
2017. __________________________
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/noticefiles/NOT-OD-01-027.html
________________
4. Institute of Medicine, National Academy of
Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering.
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for Scientists and Engineers: A Guide for Postdoctoral Scholars, Advisers, Institutions, Funding Organizations, and Disciplinary Societies.
Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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engineers-a-guide
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11. National Institutes of Health. 2012. Biomedical
Research Workforce Working Group Report. Accessed November 15, 2017. https://acd.od.nih.gov/
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documents/reports/Biomedical_research_
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wgreport.pdf
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5. National Postdoctoral Association. NPA
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with Families. Accessed November 15, 2017. http://
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6. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2014.
The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://
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2014. Enabling work? Family-friendly policies and
academic productivity for men and women scientists. Science and Public Policy 41:750–764.
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