Fran has her hair back--silver and curly and thick.
Her breast is gone, but perhaps the cancer is gone as well. She has her hair back, though, and with it, a bit more energy. Like Samson, her strength waned when her hair fell out.
Most of the hair on your head is actively growing; this is called the anagen phase, and lasts several years. The hair follicle then enters a resting period, the telogen phase, which lasts about 1 to 3 months. (There is a winding down period from anagen to telogen called the catagen phase, which lasts 2 to 3 weeks). About 90% of the hair on a person's scalp is in the anagen phase.
Ana-: up, again, anew....gen: to be born, to become. Anagenesis, according to the OED, means "a reproduction or regeneration of structure." Anagenesis. A good word to learn on the day of the vernal equinox.
The hairs you lose while routinely shampooing your hair are usually from follicles in the telogen phase--the resting follicle easily gives up the hair. A new shaft will soon develop.
Chemotherapy is designed to kill actively growing cells. Cancer cells divide at ferocious rates, and are quite susceptible to the systemic poisons physicians administer. Other active cells, however, are also affected.
Effluvium is a flowing out, often associated with sewage. In medical terms, effluvium is the flowing of hair out your scalp. Anagen effluvium is what happens when chemotherapy stuns your hair follicles. You lose huge patches of hair, sometimes overnight, often with devastating psychological effects.
Spring arrived a few hours ago. My seedlings are in various stages of development. The first leaves sprouting from a seed are cotyledons, or seed leaves. Cotyledons among different types of plants look similar. The cotyledons feed the growing plant as it struggles to find sunlight and water.
No matter how long I have been gardening, the emergence of the first true leaves from a seedling startles me. My rosemary seedlings look like anything else the first week or two, then the first blades of rosemary leaves emerge. My tomato plants all look the same until the potato leaf of the brandywine clashes with the spiny leaf of the yellow pear tomato.
I studied enough botany to understand our models of how seeds work, with nucleic acids expressing proteins that determine how a living thing transforms itself. Still, when a purple serrano thrusts brilliant purple leaves from a pale brown seed no bigger than a starved tick, something has occurred beyond a simple model.
If we truly understood the model, we could figure out a way to make Fran's breast grow again. Every nucleated cell in her body, trillions upon trillions, holds the genetic code that transformed her mother's energy into two small infant breasts. A decade later, hormones awakened a tiny part of her DNA, and her breasts developed. A few decades later, something again triggered a small nest of cells to grow wildly in the same breast, threatening her life. Cancer comes from within, from our deepest secrets of life.
Physicians do not yet know how to control the genetic code that triggers malignancy; we do know how to poison actively growing cells. For all our fancy tests and technology, fighting cancer still depends on cutting it out, poisoning it, or frying it with radiation.
The body does not forget how to make hair; remove the poisons, and the hair follicle wakes up, and starts making fibers again. Sometimes the hair returns thicker than before, sometimes a different texture. It is virgin hair, untouched by years of shampoo and dyes, agents to make it curl, agents to make it straight.
It is hard to resist touching an infant's new curls; I felt an urge to touch Fran's new silvery locks, but civil adults follow customs, and one does not impulsively stroke another's hair (unless it be a lover or a small child). In a culture that celebrates youth above wisdom, cancer remains a dirty secret. We have not developed the social graces needed around patients with severe life-threatening disease. Fran is getting better--people flock to her these days.
When my mother was dying, people came to see her, but the uneasiness could not be washed away with grim smiles. Many people find fewer visitors their last few weeks. "She needs her rest... her family needs its privacy... she does not need the stress of visitors right now." Even in hospitals, doctors pull away from the doomed.
Thank God for nurses, and assistants, and technicians who care. The doctor writes an order and walks away. A nurse injects the poison, a tech irradiates the tissue. A nursing assistant cleans up the pools of vomit and loose stool.
Dying here in the States can be a lonely activity. We have professionalized the dying process. Hospices do wonderful work, but I still think there is something terribly amiss when we rely on strangers to escort our loved ones to their death.
Today, however, is the first day of spring. Fran's hair is back, her husband is growing his first beard after shaving for almost a half century, and my rosemary seedlings know enough to make rosemary leaves. Anagenesis. I pray that in this season of exuberant growth, a few cells stay quiescent.
Amen.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
elodea
I have two holes in my backyard, each one dug by a child of mine at an age when digging holes was still fun. I filled them up with water, plopped a few fish in them, and spontaneous generation took care of the rest.
Wiggly red worms, squirming ostracods, larvae of all sorts. Dragonflies thrust their asses to the sky like tiny winged mandrills. A muskrat spent its last hours in my son's pond--I doubt it drowned, but its carcass confirmed its death.
While the economy hums along, while trades get made, folks consume, and as we continue our Malthusian descent that will make lemmings look prescient, I must confess that I wile away sunny mornings staring at ponds. Oh, I might contribute to the local economy by downing an ale or two (no sense wasting time), but mostly I just sit and watch.
Late spring I played God and altered the local flora--I bought 3 sprigs of elodea. I use them in biology class, and I figured I could grow some over the summer. Like similar projects on a much larger scale, introducing a new species tipped things over a bit, and frogs can now walk over the pond barely moistening their toes.
No new lessons there.
In late June, on a particularly bright day, I noticed bubbles coming from the pond. It's not unusual to see the pond burp now and then--muck builds up on the bottom, and the mud belches some methane.
This was different--it looked like a string of champagne bubbles, tiny but furiously active. The top of the pond had pockets of fine foam.
Oxygen.
I (rather pedantically) ran off to tell my son, then I tried to write.
"Awe" does not fit the cerebral cortex well. It's a funny word, and the jaw drops when it is spoken. If the limbus had a conscious vocabulary, "awe" might be its second entry (right after "angst").
I cannot find the right words. Until I do, I will continue to stare at some bubbles.
Wiggly red worms, squirming ostracods, larvae of all sorts. Dragonflies thrust their asses to the sky like tiny winged mandrills. A muskrat spent its last hours in my son's pond--I doubt it drowned, but its carcass confirmed its death.
While the economy hums along, while trades get made, folks consume, and as we continue our Malthusian descent that will make lemmings look prescient, I must confess that I wile away sunny mornings staring at ponds. Oh, I might contribute to the local economy by downing an ale or two (no sense wasting time), but mostly I just sit and watch.
Late spring I played God and altered the local flora--I bought 3 sprigs of elodea. I use them in biology class, and I figured I could grow some over the summer. Like similar projects on a much larger scale, introducing a new species tipped things over a bit, and frogs can now walk over the pond barely moistening their toes.
No new lessons there.
In late June, on a particularly bright day, I noticed bubbles coming from the pond. It's not unusual to see the pond burp now and then--muck builds up on the bottom, and the mud belches some methane.
This was different--it looked like a string of champagne bubbles, tiny but furiously active. The top of the pond had pockets of fine foam.
Oxygen.
I (rather pedantically) ran off to tell my son, then I tried to write.
"Awe" does not fit the cerebral cortex well. It's a funny word, and the jaw drops when it is spoken. If the limbus had a conscious vocabulary, "awe" might be its second entry (right after "angst").
I cannot find the right words. Until I do, I will continue to stare at some bubbles.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
kneading
Thoughts while kneading bread.
On a good bread day, when the humidity is just right, the yeast is budding furiously and happily in their doughy world, and when my hands work unconsciously, my dough comes together after about 15 minutes of kneading.
An occasional turn of the dough. Fold and press. It will be ready when, as the adage goes, it feels like a baby's bottom. It usually takes me about 200 folds. The purists may push for 300 folds, but after 200 or so, it feels ready. I am middle-aged, and I only know the feel of a middle-aged woman's thigh. Enough for me. Perhaps younger bakers yearn for the firmness of 300 folds. Let them yearn. They have more energy, and certainly more time.
Which would you rather have, the old teaser goes....a million dollars, or a penny doubled every day for a month?
16...32...64...128...256...512...1,024.
Each layer makes the gluten strands stretch and layer upon itself. A network to catch the carbon dioxide released by the yeasts busy budfucking in the dough.
2,048....4,096...8,192...16,384...32,768...65,536...131,072.
Most of us in this part of the world do not exert a whole lot of energy. Most of the carbon dioxide we release comes from the decomposed ferns and trilobites and pterodactyls that we burn without a thought. Sunlight captured 10 million years ago combusts, consumes O2, produces CO2. In the States, few folks walk anymore.
262,144...524,288...1,048,576...2,097,152....4,194,304....8,388,608
My dough doubles in size in less than two hours. The hot breath of yeasties, budding and budding and budding.
16,777,216...33,554,432...67,108,864...134,177,200...268,000,000....536,000,000
We screw. We fuck. We get laid. We score. We pant. Sex. A commodity. An end in itself. Few of us take the time to bud anymore. I want to make a bud. Asexual reproduction. Proof I matter. Silly thoughts. My brow beads with sweat. Kneading is hard work.
1,072,000,000...2,144,000,000...5,488,000,000....10,976,000,000...21,195,200,000...43,904,000,000...
The moon is about 240,000 miles away. That's about 127, 200,00 feet. Or about 1,524,000,000 inches. My layers of dough are now 40 times more than the inches to the moon. And I am not even a quarter of the way through.
I have a 300 gallon puddle in my backyard. It has a lot of critters in it. One large koi. 2 bream I nabbed from a Newark park trying to catch tadpoles. Perhaps a few dozen nymphs. A hundred thousand copepods. And hundreds of millions of bacteria. Each critter no more aware of me than I of each of them.
87,808,000,000...175,616,000,000...351,232,000,000...702,464,000,000...1,404,928,000,000
My head hurts from counting. Too many critters to think about. 6 million people, give or take a million, slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps. 20 million Russians perished in the latest world war. Maybe a million less. Maybe a million more.
2,809,856,000,000...no more counting--sweat in my eyes.
I say a prayer when I toss my yeast down the drain after they convert raw honey and blueberries into a heavenly melomel that makes my legs wobble. I doubt they hear my prayer. Most are dormant from exhaustion, poisoned by the alcoholic milieu they created. It is a prayer of thanks.
The yeast in my dough are less lucky--they are living and breathing, and they will be baked. While I no longer ponder the sentience of critters who have less than two cells to rub together, I no longer question their desire. I hear the burbling of carbon dioxide passing through airlock in my basement as the yeasties bud and bud and bud to exhaustion. I feel most alive when my lifelong love and I share breath and energy. Get the cortex out of the way. The cortex developed late in the scheme of evolution. The medulla is where we fall in love.
We try to imagine the pain of millions dead. The real challenge is to feel the pain of one creature dying. I recoil at the thought of millions slaughtered. I get real quiet when I remember the slow death of my mother. Millions matter, of course, but only matter if I have the courage to recall my mother's strength. "We are born to die," she said. Maybe. Just not so slowly. Not so painfully. Not so grotesquesly.
Fold and press and fold and press.
I have a recipe for bread from an ancient Yugoslovian woman. I know her grand-daughter. I taught her grand-daughter a little bit about medicine.
Her grand-daughter knows I love bread. Her grand-daughter is not so far removed from her grandmother's world that she does not recognize a wheat berry. She gave me her grandmother's recipe for potato bread.
I am such an idiot. "Why potato bread?" I asked. Dr. Elana bowed her head ever so slightly--she still had an old world respect for her teachers. "Because," she explained, " we had no grain during the war. We were starving."
Fold and press and fold and press.
"We were starving" before she was even born, and she still feels the pangs.
Almost done. I slap the dough. Almost right. It is warming up from the life inside. Americans confuse sensuality and sexuality because we cannot see that the two cannot be separated. We pretend otherwise at our peril. We blame the Puritans. I'd bet my loaf of bread that Puritans knew how to make love better than most of us. I know they could make bread better than us. Too easy to blame the Puritans.
I fold again. The dough snaps from a bubble trapped between the layers. The dough is ready.
I slap the dough. I like the sound. I slap it again. Millions and millions of layers. A fine net of gluten strands ready to catch the breaths of jubilant yeasties madly reproducing, respiring, realizing. This will be a good loaf. You know before the first rise.
A prayer before I thrust the dough into the oven hours later. The yeast die noiselessly, and (good western man I am), without awareness.
Still, on a perfect summer afternoon, it is not awareness that matters. Desire.
Desire without awareness.
On a good bread day, when the humidity is just right, the yeast is budding furiously and happily in their doughy world, and when my hands work unconsciously, my dough comes together after about 15 minutes of kneading.
Fold and press, fold and press, fold and press.
An occasional turn of the dough. Fold and press. It will be ready when, as the adage goes, it feels like a baby's bottom. It usually takes me about 200 folds. The purists may push for 300 folds, but after 200 or so, it feels ready. I am middle-aged, and I only know the feel of a middle-aged woman's thigh. Enough for me. Perhaps younger bakers yearn for the firmness of 300 folds. Let them yearn. They have more energy, and certainly more time.
200 folds. Each fold doubles the number of layers of dough beneath my hands. Two. Four. Eight.
Which would you rather have, the old teaser goes....a million dollars, or a penny doubled every day for a month?
16...32...64...128...256...512...1,024.
Each layer makes the gluten strands stretch and layer upon itself. A network to catch the carbon dioxide released by the yeasts busy budfucking in the dough.
2,048....4,096...8,192...16,384...32,768...65,536...131,072.
Most of us in this part of the world do not exert a whole lot of energy. Most of the carbon dioxide we release comes from the decomposed ferns and trilobites and pterodactyls that we burn without a thought. Sunlight captured 10 million years ago combusts, consumes O2, produces CO2. In the States, few folks walk anymore.
262,144...524,288...1,048,576...2,097,152....4,194,304....8,388,608
My dough doubles in size in less than two hours. The hot breath of yeasties, budding and budding and budding.
16,777,216...33,554,432...67,108,864...134,177,200...268,000,000....536,000,000
We screw. We fuck. We get laid. We score. We pant. Sex. A commodity. An end in itself. Few of us take the time to bud anymore. I want to make a bud. Asexual reproduction. Proof I matter. Silly thoughts. My brow beads with sweat. Kneading is hard work.
1,072,000,000...2,144,000,000...5,488,000,000....10,976,000,000...21,195,200,000...43,904,000,000...
The moon is about 240,000 miles away. That's about 127, 200,00 feet. Or about 1,524,000,000 inches. My layers of dough are now 40 times more than the inches to the moon. And I am not even a quarter of the way through.
I have a 300 gallon puddle in my backyard. It has a lot of critters in it. One large koi. 2 bream I nabbed from a Newark park trying to catch tadpoles. Perhaps a few dozen nymphs. A hundred thousand copepods. And hundreds of millions of bacteria. Each critter no more aware of me than I of each of them.
87,808,000,000...175,616,000,000...351,232,000,000...702,464,000,000...1,404,928,000,000
My head hurts from counting. Too many critters to think about. 6 million people, give or take a million, slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps. 20 million Russians perished in the latest world war. Maybe a million less. Maybe a million more.
2,809,856,000,000...no more counting--sweat in my eyes.
I say a prayer when I toss my yeast down the drain after they convert raw honey and blueberries into a heavenly melomel that makes my legs wobble. I doubt they hear my prayer. Most are dormant from exhaustion, poisoned by the alcoholic milieu they created. It is a prayer of thanks.
The yeast in my dough are less lucky--they are living and breathing, and they will be baked. While I no longer ponder the sentience of critters who have less than two cells to rub together, I no longer question their desire. I hear the burbling of carbon dioxide passing through airlock in my basement as the yeasties bud and bud and bud to exhaustion. I feel most alive when my lifelong love and I share breath and energy. Get the cortex out of the way. The cortex developed late in the scheme of evolution. The medulla is where we fall in love.
We try to imagine the pain of millions dead. The real challenge is to feel the pain of one creature dying. I recoil at the thought of millions slaughtered. I get real quiet when I remember the slow death of my mother. Millions matter, of course, but only matter if I have the courage to recall my mother's strength. "We are born to die," she said. Maybe. Just not so slowly. Not so painfully. Not so grotesquesly.
Fold and press and fold and press.
I have a recipe for bread from an ancient Yugoslovian woman. I know her grand-daughter. I taught her grand-daughter a little bit about medicine.
Her grand-daughter knows I love bread. Her grand-daughter is not so far removed from her grandmother's world that she does not recognize a wheat berry. She gave me her grandmother's recipe for potato bread.
I am such an idiot. "Why potato bread?" I asked. Dr. Elana bowed her head ever so slightly--she still had an old world respect for her teachers. "Because," she explained, " we had no grain during the war. We were starving."
Fold and press and fold and press.
"We were starving" before she was even born, and she still feels the pangs.
Almost done. I slap the dough. Almost right. It is warming up from the life inside. Americans confuse sensuality and sexuality because we cannot see that the two cannot be separated. We pretend otherwise at our peril. We blame the Puritans. I'd bet my loaf of bread that Puritans knew how to make love better than most of us. I know they could make bread better than us. Too easy to blame the Puritans.
I fold again. The dough snaps from a bubble trapped between the layers. The dough is ready.
I slap the dough. I like the sound. I slap it again. Millions and millions of layers. A fine net of gluten strands ready to catch the breaths of jubilant yeasties madly reproducing, respiring, realizing. This will be a good loaf. You know before the first rise.
A prayer before I thrust the dough into the oven hours later. The yeast die noiselessly, and (good western man I am), without awareness.
Still, on a perfect summer afternoon, it is not awareness that matters. Desire.
Desire without awareness.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
jumping fish
I grew up close enough to the Jersey shore to have spent many hours submerged up to my nose in the Atlantic Ocean. If you tilt your head back underwater, you can see your reflection in the underside of the sea; a silvery, shimmery Neptune child gazes back.
I mostly bobbed up and down, nose sometimes in the water, sometimes out, pretending I was a salt-water crocodile. With eyes so close to the surface, the seaweed and broken reeds floating by loomed like large islands. When I turned away from the shore gazing eastward, I was the largest creature in the universe, not quite human anymore.
In New Jersey, what most of the world calls silversides or smelt, we call spearing. Menidia notata. They are mostly translucent, no bigger than a pinky. Each side has a silver band that looks like smooth tin foil. They have straight jawlines that make them look rather glum close-up, but since we mostly saw them when threading them on a hook as bait, looking glum seemed appropriate.
Spearing travel in huge schools, almost invisible except for the occasional flash as the sun catches the silver. The surface sometimes erupted with them when a predator came underneath the school, but otherwise spearing had no particular reason to jump.
Or so the books will tell you.
One August afternoon, when I was 11 or 12ish, and I was busy conquering the sea world, a piece of a phragmites reed drifted by. A tiny fish jumped over it. Odd.
I drifted closer to the reed, my eyes inches away. One fish, then another, their bands of tin flashing in the sun. I spotted the school just below the surface. I figured a few got too close to the reed, and jumped over it out of need. I continued to watch.
The fish jumping over the reed appeared to turn back. The school was mulling about in no particular direction. The fish were lining up to jump over the reed.
For the empiricists:
For the rest of you:
I observed this more than once, or so I remembered. I am old enough now confuse imagination and memory. The tao tale above says as much as needs to be said contemplating joy in fish, and the tale reminded me of my jumping spearing.
Then the tao met Google.
Had anybody ever reported seeing fish jump over reeds for no apparent reason (or at least for any reason apparent to humans, who have an insatiable need for "reasons"). If you throw "fish" and "jumping" and "twig" together, you get a few hits. One of the hits is for an entry in Fish-Sci.
Fish-Sci is a listserv, a "scientific forum on fish and fisheries." On it fish biologists carry out long, serious conversations about, well, fish. You will find discussions on "otoliths in dolphinfish", "iron content in adult eel", and "fish biomass estimates for oligotrophic systems," all within the past 6 months.
The inquiry started innocently--Randy E. Edwards, PhD. and principal scientist for the Center for Coastal Geology needed to present a poster to the International Symposium on Sturgeon in Oshkosh, WI back in 2001. His question was simple: why do Gulf sturgeon jump? In his thoughtful letter, he listed numerous known reasons why fish jump.
The resulting discussion takes on a dance worthy of Albert the Alligator and company in Pogo. Fish apparently jump, at times, for no discernible reason.
Ivor Growns, a scientist with the Australian government, dodged the issue with an anecdote:
Another scientist, Glenn Crossin, a salmon specialist for the Centre for Applied Conservation Biology in Vancouver, Canada, notes that sockeye salmon expend tremendous amounts of energy getting to their spawning grounds, yet when they get there, spend two weeks jumping and wasting energy.
When he asked his 9 year old nephew what he thought, the child answered "maybe they are just so happy to have made it there."
Dr. Rodney Rountree is a scientist. He has a PhD., he teaches at the University of Massachusetts, he knows fish. He finally said what the others were skirting:
Spearing like to play. Or at least it's a reasonable hypothesis.
I wonder what else I taught myself to forget.
Sources:
FISH-SCI archives, June, 2001, http://segate.sunet.se/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0106&L=fish-sci
Personal observations and a ragged memory
I mostly bobbed up and down, nose sometimes in the water, sometimes out, pretending I was a salt-water crocodile. With eyes so close to the surface, the seaweed and broken reeds floating by loomed like large islands. When I turned away from the shore gazing eastward, I was the largest creature in the universe, not quite human anymore.
In New Jersey, what most of the world calls silversides or smelt, we call spearing. Menidia notata. They are mostly translucent, no bigger than a pinky. Each side has a silver band that looks like smooth tin foil. They have straight jawlines that make them look rather glum close-up, but since we mostly saw them when threading them on a hook as bait, looking glum seemed appropriate.
Spearing travel in huge schools, almost invisible except for the occasional flash as the sun catches the silver. The surface sometimes erupted with them when a predator came underneath the school, but otherwise spearing had no particular reason to jump.
Or so the books will tell you.
One August afternoon, when I was 11 or 12ish, and I was busy conquering the sea world, a piece of a phragmites reed drifted by. A tiny fish jumped over it. Odd.
I drifted closer to the reed, my eyes inches away. One fish, then another, their bands of tin flashing in the sun. I spotted the school just below the surface. I figured a few got too close to the reed, and jumped over it out of need. I continued to watch.
The fish jumping over the reed appeared to turn back. The school was mulling about in no particular direction. The fish were lining up to jump over the reed.
For the empiricists:
The individual subjects were observed approaching the reed at about 1 to 2 inches below the surface, then leaping about 1/2 inch before the reed, clearing it by no more than a 1/2 inch, then appeared to turn after reentering back into the water. The fish consistently approached the reed from the same side.
For the rest of you:
How do you know the fishes are enjoying themselves? They jump for no apparent reason over a randomly floating object on a lovely day when (for the moment) no predators were interested in them, when the water was not cloudy with the milt of spawn, and when they forgot a crocodile sea god was watching).
I observed this more than once, or so I remembered. I am old enough now confuse imagination and memory. The tao tale above says as much as needs to be said contemplating joy in fish, and the tale reminded me of my jumping spearing.
Then the tao met Google.
Had anybody ever reported seeing fish jump over reeds for no apparent reason (or at least for any reason apparent to humans, who have an insatiable need for "reasons"). If you throw "fish" and "jumping" and "twig" together, you get a few hits. One of the hits is for an entry in Fish-Sci.
Fish-Sci is a listserv, a "scientific forum on fish and fisheries." On it fish biologists carry out long, serious conversations about, well, fish. You will find discussions on "otoliths in dolphinfish", "iron content in adult eel", and "fish biomass estimates for oligotrophic systems," all within the past 6 months.
The inquiry started innocently--Randy E. Edwards, PhD. and principal scientist for the Center for Coastal Geology needed to present a poster to the International Symposium on Sturgeon in Oshkosh, WI back in 2001. His question was simple: why do Gulf sturgeon jump? In his thoughtful letter, he listed numerous known reasons why fish jump.
A number of hypotheses have been brought forward to explain jumping behavior and include: parasite shedding, startle reflex, behavioral communication (to alert other individuals of their presence), to help shed eggs during spawning, nuptial behavior, and air gulping or swim bladder adjustment. .... Gulf sturgeon jumping is not temporally random, but instead is concentrated in the early morning and late afternoon. Why mullet jump (often in the same habitats as sturgeon) is not known.
The resulting discussion takes on a dance worthy of Albert the Alligator and company in Pogo. Fish apparently jump, at times, for no discernible reason.
Ivor Growns, a scientist with the Australian government, dodged the issue with an anecdote:
On a lighter note, I have heard of a member of the public sending a letter to their local parlimentarian asking why fish jumped. The minister asked for an explaination [sic] from the Fisheries department. The staff member sent back a reply saying "Because they are happy".
Another scientist, Glenn Crossin, a salmon specialist for the Centre for Applied Conservation Biology in Vancouver, Canada, notes that sockeye salmon expend tremendous amounts of energy getting to their spawning grounds, yet when they get there, spend two weeks jumping and wasting energy.
Energetically one might think that this would be a risky behavior. Salmon typically expend most of thier [sic] fixed somatic energy reserves (mostly lipid) just reaching the spawning ground. Thus to expend limited energy unnecessarily, particularly when their one and only spawning opportunity lays ahead, seems risky.
When he asked his 9 year old nephew what he thought, the child answered "maybe they are just so happy to have made it there."
Ha-ha, kids are cute, let's get back to science.
Dr. Rodney Rountree is a scientist. He has a PhD., he teaches at the University of Massachusetts, he knows fish. He finally said what the others were skirting:
Fish likely jump for a lot of reasons, but I've often observed fishes jumping for no obvious reason (i.e., no predators or feeding behavior). I've often felt that the often cited purpose of jumping as an effort to dislodge external parasites (e.g., ocean sunfish) seemed inadequate. I even admit to thinking that some fish are just playing after on many different occasions watching Atlantic silversides (Menidia menidia) jumping over floating twigs over and over again. It sure seemed like a game.... The jumping fish never made contact with the twig, which might be expected if they were trying to rub off a parasite or scratch an itch.
Spearing like to play. Or at least it's a reasonable hypothesis.
I wonder what else I taught myself to forget.
Sources:
FISH-SCI archives, June, 2001, http://segate.sunet.se/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0106&L=fish-sci
Personal observations and a ragged memory
Saturday, April 14, 2007
geosmin
I had the fortune to be in Clarksdale, Mississippi a few year ago. Home of the blues. Bessie Smith died here, when a "white" hospital refused to treat her. I had a wonderful time, except for a minor quibble. The catfish tasted too clean. Obviously raised in a commercial pond.
A young bluesy band followed a group whose elder bass player was missing various obvious body parts. Good European folk lose gall bladders, breasts, a rare testicle, small patches of skin--nothing obvious. The peasants among us, however, insist on losing limbs, vision, and sanity. I have yet to meet a white Methodist missing a calf.
The bass player may have been blind, too.
I can't play for beans, much as I try (though I can bend a harmonica), but I know good music when I hear it And in Clarksdale, I heard it.
I was with a contingent of docs. We get pampered. I love catfish. An hour earlier, I had passed bales upon bales of cotton, still sitting in the fields. Under the circumstances, the catfish, well, sucked.
"Um, the cats. Where they from?"
"Farm raised. Aren't they great?"
Robert Johnson disappeared for a year, and came back a blues player. If you are looking for a black hole in the States, it's in Clarksdale. Bessie died here, Johnson was born here. Blues isn't about race. That sounds like lip service until you come here. Clarksdale is real. Realer than the Beatles at Shea Stadium, realer than Abba. Realer than the ducks at the Peabody Hotel, and that's more real than most icons in our culture.
"Nope."
Geosmin means, literally, "earth smell." Tastes like dirt. I expect my catfish to taste like, well, mud.
One of the perks of my former profession was that others presumed what I would like, and go out of their way to make that happen. Enough reason to find another profession. And I did.
What is geosmin? Two linked benzene rings, a couple of methyl groups, a hydroxyl group--mud. The taste matters not, mostly. Water suppliers fret, vintners worry. Me? I love mud. And I miss it when I eat a farm-raised cat.
In spring, the actinomycetes awaken. Remember the smell of a good rainfall when you were a child, the muddy smell of life? Geosmins. The smell of the earth.
Our answer? Chlorine. Chlorine kills actinomycetes. Chlorine masks the mudy taste of actinomycetes. Chlorine can kill you.
Mud? Well, if you fall into a mudpit deeper than your nostrils, you have a problem. Tarzan movies thrived on the perceived dangers of quicksand.
I'll take my chances with mud. The prokaryotes survived when dinosaurs did not. I like the blues, and I bet even a Tyrannosaurus rex could be mollified by Ms. Bessie. She died because of ignorance of the dominant culture. I'd like to avoid the same fate.
I like my cats to taste like life, full of geosmin. I can go to Branch Brook Park in Newark, New Jersey, and catch me a mess of catfish. Despite the accumulated toxins of an urban pond, should I ever catch my cat, it will taste delicious.
lightning bugs
I
Dusk settled on the lake. I could hear the kiss of bluegills as they sucked down insects struggling on the surface.
A few lightning bugs flashed above the mirrored surface. Attracted by their own reflections, they swooped ever closer to the lightning bugs flashing below them.
Fish may not be smart, but they're not all get-out stupid, either. And a bluegill will jump if hungry enough. A few were hungry enough. And inside their bellies glowed a few foolish lightning bugs.
II
Lightning bug light is cool-literally. Luciferin combines with ATP, the energy molecule of life--the resulting compound combines with oxygen, catalyzed by luciferase, and light results. Even tiny amounts of ATP will cause luciferin to light, as long as oxygen is present. While man has never been to Mars, bits of lightning bugs have--luciferin is an extremely sensitive detector of ATP. If it flashes, carbon-based life may be present.
Luciferase from the North American firefly (Photinus pyralis) is the enzyme of choice for reporter gene assays. Luciferase catalyzes the oxidation of a firefly-specific substrate called luciferin to produce light. This reaction is extremely efficient and the quantum yield is the highest of any characterized bioluminescent reaction. The bright signal makes this a valuable enzyme to use for reporting promotor activity.
Scientists have yet to synthesize luciferin, so they buy lightning bugs.
III
My daughter dug out a tiny mudhole for me in our backyard. At dusk, I sit opposite the pokeweed I am learning to like, under a stray white birch I have always liked. Lightning bugs arise from the earth, flashing their "J"'s, looking for love. Harry Potter, like the Bible, makes sense sitting outside on a warm July evening.
I read until the dusk chases words off the page, my feet resting on a small stone wall we built together.
A flash just below my right foot.
I break from Harry Potter to anticipate the courtship. A second scurrying critter rumbles about the flash. The flashing becomes frantic, several short blips in less than a few seconds. My eyes adjust--a spider dances around its prey.
I've never seen a lightning bug flash quickly like that, but then I've never seen one eaten by a spider either. A lightning bug makes a flash by adding a tiny bit of ATP to luceferin. In our mechanistic view of the world, not a bad worldview if you're in the business of conquering it, lightning bugs flash instinctively. They are not known to flash for defensive purposes.
I cannot know why this one flashed, but I do know that lightning bugs, at least this one, had a pattern distinct from its cherchez la femme mode when struggling with a spider.
I almost didn't try to "save" it--a good naturalist observes, does not interfere. The spider has as much a right to the meal as I do to mine. Death by spider is likely to be quicker than death by starvation if the critter could no longer fly.
I pulled the frenetically flashing bug out of the web--a white wisp of web stuck to its backside. I set it on a leaf of the birch with mixed feelings. It will die slowly because my imagination would not allow me to let the spider bite it.
As the critter struggled with its first pair of legs to grasp the edge of the leaf, I gently pulled back the stick. The spider silk stuck to my stick. The lightning bug scootched a few millimeters, no longer flashing, and stood still.
I watched a moment longer. The lightning bug opened up its beetley shell, opened its wings, and flew away.
A moment later, a lightning bug brushed my leg at the bottom of its "J". No way to know if it was the same one. And it really doesn't matter.
IV
Some Asian lightning bugs flash in unison. The lightning bugs in the Jersey area, at least the ones that make a J, are not known to do this (according to the scientists). Oh, occasionally they'll accidentally flash together a few seconds after the flash of a bright light, as though they were all resetting their bellies after seeing a god, but left alone, our fireflies are supposed to be the individualistic sorts.
The local critters must be illiterate--once or twice a dusk, they amuse themselves with synchronous flashing. ("Amuse" sounds like anthropomorphizing, of course--it's an interesting word, comes from the French amuser, "to stupefy"--we're most amused when our brains are buggy.) .
V
One poor fellow one evening couldn't turn off his belly --he'd glow properly enough in his "J", but still fizzled a bit as he looked for a response--doubt he could see much light beyond his perpetually lit self.
I muttered "padiddle."
VI
Lightning bugs are, obviously alive. They have a lot of ATP. They have a lot of luciferin and luciferase. We made lightning bug earrings, lightning bug drawings, we'd smear dying and dead lightning bugs over our faces and laugh and scream like the atavistic creatures we were, mock Indian face paint.
VII
I am a science teacher; I am not a scientist. Like the President, a lot of folks are confused about what constitutes science. We want children to be amazed. You can purchase, via PayPal, a lightning bug "collection system." You have a choice of sizes, and the handle glows in the dark. Imagine that! No doubt safer than punching holes in a half-rinsed mayonnaise jar.
Another "experiment" suggests that kids catch lightning bugs in a jar for 5 minutes, record their observations, then let them go.
Took me 40 years to realize I learn a whole lot more doing nothing, feet up on a tiny stone wall next to my daughter's puddle.
Dusk settled on the lake. I could hear the kiss of bluegills as they sucked down insects struggling on the surface.
A few lightning bugs flashed above the mirrored surface. Attracted by their own reflections, they swooped ever closer to the lightning bugs flashing below them.
Fish may not be smart, but they're not all get-out stupid, either. And a bluegill will jump if hungry enough. A few were hungry enough. And inside their bellies glowed a few foolish lightning bugs.
II
Lightning bug light is cool-literally. Luciferin combines with ATP, the energy molecule of life--the resulting compound combines with oxygen, catalyzed by luciferase, and light results. Even tiny amounts of ATP will cause luciferin to light, as long as oxygen is present. While man has never been to Mars, bits of lightning bugs have--luciferin is an extremely sensitive detector of ATP. If it flashes, carbon-based life may be present.
Luciferase from the North American firefly (Photinus pyralis) is the enzyme of choice for reporter gene assays. Luciferase catalyzes the oxidation of a firefly-specific substrate called luciferin to produce light. This reaction is extremely efficient and the quantum yield is the highest of any characterized bioluminescent reaction. The bright signal makes this a valuable enzyme to use for reporting promotor activity.
Scientists have yet to synthesize luciferin, so they buy lightning bugs.
III
My daughter dug out a tiny mudhole for me in our backyard. At dusk, I sit opposite the pokeweed I am learning to like, under a stray white birch I have always liked. Lightning bugs arise from the earth, flashing their "J"'s, looking for love. Harry Potter, like the Bible, makes sense sitting outside on a warm July evening.
I read until the dusk chases words off the page, my feet resting on a small stone wall we built together.
A flash just below my right foot.
I break from Harry Potter to anticipate the courtship. A second scurrying critter rumbles about the flash. The flashing becomes frantic, several short blips in less than a few seconds. My eyes adjust--a spider dances around its prey.
I've never seen a lightning bug flash quickly like that, but then I've never seen one eaten by a spider either. A lightning bug makes a flash by adding a tiny bit of ATP to luceferin. In our mechanistic view of the world, not a bad worldview if you're in the business of conquering it, lightning bugs flash instinctively. They are not known to flash for defensive purposes.
I cannot know why this one flashed, but I do know that lightning bugs, at least this one, had a pattern distinct from its cherchez la femme mode when struggling with a spider.
I almost didn't try to "save" it--a good naturalist observes, does not interfere. The spider has as much a right to the meal as I do to mine. Death by spider is likely to be quicker than death by starvation if the critter could no longer fly.
I pulled the frenetically flashing bug out of the web--a white wisp of web stuck to its backside. I set it on a leaf of the birch with mixed feelings. It will die slowly because my imagination would not allow me to let the spider bite it.
As the critter struggled with its first pair of legs to grasp the edge of the leaf, I gently pulled back the stick. The spider silk stuck to my stick. The lightning bug scootched a few millimeters, no longer flashing, and stood still.
I watched a moment longer. The lightning bug opened up its beetley shell, opened its wings, and flew away.
A moment later, a lightning bug brushed my leg at the bottom of its "J". No way to know if it was the same one. And it really doesn't matter.
IV
Some Asian lightning bugs flash in unison. The lightning bugs in the Jersey area, at least the ones that make a J, are not known to do this (according to the scientists). Oh, occasionally they'll accidentally flash together a few seconds after the flash of a bright light, as though they were all resetting their bellies after seeing a god, but left alone, our fireflies are supposed to be the individualistic sorts.
The local critters must be illiterate--once or twice a dusk, they amuse themselves with synchronous flashing. ("Amuse" sounds like anthropomorphizing, of course--it's an interesting word, comes from the French amuser, "to stupefy"--we're most amused when our brains are buggy.) .
V
One poor fellow one evening couldn't turn off his belly --he'd glow properly enough in his "J", but still fizzled a bit as he looked for a response--doubt he could see much light beyond his perpetually lit self.
I muttered "padiddle."
VI
Lightning bugs are, obviously alive. They have a lot of ATP. They have a lot of luciferin and luciferase. We made lightning bug earrings, lightning bug drawings, we'd smear dying and dead lightning bugs over our faces and laugh and scream like the atavistic creatures we were, mock Indian face paint.
VII
I am a science teacher; I am not a scientist. Like the President, a lot of folks are confused about what constitutes science. We want children to be amazed. You can purchase, via PayPal, a lightning bug "collection system." You have a choice of sizes, and the handle glows in the dark. Imagine that! No doubt safer than punching holes in a half-rinsed mayonnaise jar.
Another "experiment" suggests that kids catch lightning bugs in a jar for 5 minutes, record their observations, then let them go.
Took me 40 years to realize I learn a whole lot more doing nothing, feet up on a tiny stone wall next to my daughter's puddle.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
spidercamp
Because a few folks still know how to make bread, and know why it matters....
Because of silly bunnies and wayward cats....
Because of a whimsical taste in music....
Worth visiting.
wasp
I witnessed a miracle today.
Wasps are, well,insects. I have been taught that insects are great at specialization--different species fill different niches. Evolution somehow explains how these specialized behaviors developed, but the behaviors are automatic, reflexive. No thought is involved.
We have a couple of wrought iron fish hanging on fence posts guarding the honeysuckle. Each fish has a candle in it. The flickering candlelight on hot summer nights fills some religious void as we chat about stock indices and presidents gone bad over late evening merlot. We chatter like cicadas, loud and senseless, just to let others know we exist.
Last summer, while lighting the candle in one of the fish, I swatted away a few moths that fluttered about my face. The next morning I saw the singed wasp nest above the candle; I had been swatting at wasps, who perhaps realized the futility of stinging a drunken man who imagined he had been troubled by moths.
Today, I spent a good bit of a warm Easter afternoon watching a wasp make the third cell of her nest, creating paper walls from her mouth. I mentioned it to my wife; she reminded me of the wasp problems the summer before, so I decided to knock the nest out now, before the fish held a colony of wasps. I felt ridiculous caring about the work the wasp had already done.
When the wasp had gone to gather more water, I took the fish down off the fence post, and knocked off the new hive, as well as the larger nest left from last summer. I set the fish upside down on our patio table, a good 10 feet from where it had hung, and forgot about it. The little sadness I had felt for the wasp dissipated with a shake of my head, reprimanding myself for my silly sentimentality.
I spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with a grape vine--I want it to go one way, it insists on following the sun. As I walked past the patio table, I noticed the lone wasp walking back and forth on the overturned fish. It looked frantic. It rapidly walked one way, then the other. It clearly was looking for the nest I had knocked off.
I called my wife--the wasp had clearly identified the fish as the home of its nest. My wife is rational, and a good empiricist--she keeps me sane. She could not understand why I got so agitated.
"Maybe it can smell the nest." The nest lay a good 15 feet away. I have a habit of saving wasp nests, shells, acorns, anything of interest not made by humans. "How do you know it's the same wasp?" she wondered.
I brought the tiny nest back to the iron fish. I laid it next to the wasp. A breeze blew the nest away. A moment later, the wasp left.
I was shaken. The wasp clearly recognized the fish, upside down on the table, more than 10 feet away from its original site. She clearly exhibited an increase in movements. At the risk of anthropomorphizing, the wasp was clearly distressed.
There is more to this world than I can ever hope to understand.
Wasps are, well,insects. I have been taught that insects are great at specialization--different species fill different niches. Evolution somehow explains how these specialized behaviors developed, but the behaviors are automatic, reflexive. No thought is involved.
We have a couple of wrought iron fish hanging on fence posts guarding the honeysuckle. Each fish has a candle in it. The flickering candlelight on hot summer nights fills some religious void as we chat about stock indices and presidents gone bad over late evening merlot. We chatter like cicadas, loud and senseless, just to let others know we exist.
Last summer, while lighting the candle in one of the fish, I swatted away a few moths that fluttered about my face. The next morning I saw the singed wasp nest above the candle; I had been swatting at wasps, who perhaps realized the futility of stinging a drunken man who imagined he had been troubled by moths.
Today, I spent a good bit of a warm Easter afternoon watching a wasp make the third cell of her nest, creating paper walls from her mouth. I mentioned it to my wife; she reminded me of the wasp problems the summer before, so I decided to knock the nest out now, before the fish held a colony of wasps. I felt ridiculous caring about the work the wasp had already done.
When the wasp had gone to gather more water, I took the fish down off the fence post, and knocked off the new hive, as well as the larger nest left from last summer. I set the fish upside down on our patio table, a good 10 feet from where it had hung, and forgot about it. The little sadness I had felt for the wasp dissipated with a shake of my head, reprimanding myself for my silly sentimentality.
I spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with a grape vine--I want it to go one way, it insists on following the sun. As I walked past the patio table, I noticed the lone wasp walking back and forth on the overturned fish. It looked frantic. It rapidly walked one way, then the other. It clearly was looking for the nest I had knocked off.
I called my wife--the wasp had clearly identified the fish as the home of its nest. My wife is rational, and a good empiricist--she keeps me sane. She could not understand why I got so agitated.
"Maybe it can smell the nest." The nest lay a good 15 feet away. I have a habit of saving wasp nests, shells, acorns, anything of interest not made by humans. "How do you know it's the same wasp?" she wondered.
I brought the tiny nest back to the iron fish. I laid it next to the wasp. A breeze blew the nest away. A moment later, the wasp left.
I was shaken. The wasp clearly recognized the fish, upside down on the table, more than 10 feet away from its original site. She clearly exhibited an increase in movements. At the risk of anthropomorphizing, the wasp was clearly distressed.
There is more to this world than I can ever hope to understand.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
mitochondrion
In 6th grade, you labeled your cell diagram, not quite understanding what you were doing, but enjoying picking colors from the crayon box, then coloring in the pill-shaped organelle a Crayola cadet blue.
In 8th grade, you learned that the mitochondrion was where oxidation and the Krebs cycle took place. You learned that this was the cell's power plant. You imagined a tiny car engine burning gasoline.
In high school you memorized the Krebs cycle, took the Biology Advanced Placement Exam, and managed to slip into a decent college. You slogged through biochemistry. You eventually became a pharmacist.
Mitochondria reside in our cells--they are sort of us, but not exactly--they carry their own DNA, and they descend from (mostly) your mother. And her mother. And her mother. You may have heard that from a teacher trying to get you excited about cell organelles. Coloring them was about as exciting as they got.
Too many teachers confuse science with fact.
Three decades ago I sat in the auditorium of the American Museum of Natural History. The teacher had primed our class, so when the serious man at the podium asked what energy was, I knew the right words. I half-raised my hand. The serious man looked over at me. I started to open my mouth—I knew the words, my teacher already started to smile.
I did not say them. I shook my head slightly, then looked down at my feet. “The ability to do work.” The words explained nothing to me, and still do not. My teacher was disappointed—usually enough motivation to make me answer a stranger’s question.
I stopped trusting words.
Oxidation involves transferring electrons--energy, “the ability to do work,” is involved.
Oxygen combines with fuel to create heat and light. If it happens quickly--fire. Oxygen is consumed, and flame and water and carbon dioxide are released.
It can happen slowly--the rusting rims of your child's bicycle left out over winter warms the frigid air as metallic iron morphs into ferric oxide. Heat is released, slowly. Molecules vibrates as electrons shift. I know the words. I still do not trust them.
In the morning, the sun rises again. The apple pie she ate last night courses through her veins as sugar, and the sugar feeds the mitochondria. Heat, water, and carbon dioxide are released. As she steps outside into the chill, you see her breath. The water vapor dissipates, and will, eventually be released as rain. The carbon dioxide will eventually feed next spring's garden, and a few molecules may indeed end up in the blossom of an apple tree, as the sun's energy restores a bit of order. You make up your shared bed, laughing at the entropic knot of sheets and blankets.
The heat from your body comes from mitochondria. Trillions of symbionts stoking our fires. The work of shifting electrons produces free radicals and peroxides, fiercely reactive compounds that can distort strands of nucleic acids. Each mitochondrion carries several copies of the same (relatively) simple chromosome, to ensure that a working copy remains among the ashes.
If the soul rests anywhere, it rests in the mitochondria. After the last agonal gasp, the body cools quickly--the surface of the corpse quickly approaches ambient temperature. The change is startling, even to my experienced hands. But the mitochondria are only half the story.
Mitochondria are thought to have the same common ancestor as chloroplasts. Both alter states of energy. The chloroplast uses sunlight to create "stuff" from carbon dioxide and water. A mature oak tree weighs tons, all but a few pounds derived solely from carbon dioxide and water. The "stuff" of flour and apples and sugar in the pie last night all from chloroplasts. The turkey last night fed on this "stuff," the chair you sit on, the tar in the shingles over your head, all from this "stuff." The oil in the ground, the coal powering your electricity, all from the same "stuff."
The best part of science gets buried in the details:
My high school students yawn at the details. I try to use a three-dimensional model. The nitrogen atom is represented by a blue wooden ball. “The red balls are oxygen, the blue balls.…” My frontal lobe edits a little too slowly today. I have their attention now—blue balls they know, and the room now vibrates, a different kind of heat.
The chloroplasts, like mitochondria, make their own DNA, separate from the organism it inhabits. Both transduce energy. Both descended from a primitive bacteria, prokaryotes, and both now use modern cells to play their game. One captures energy in organic bonds, the other releases it. Carbon provides the backbone, and water the electrons. They did this before we were conscious, before anything was. And they will do it until the sun stops.
And here is where dharma enters the classroom, but not in the strictly religious sense. Creationism rests on faith. There may be something to it, but it is not science, even if the state of Texas requires biology textbooks to mention it.
Dharma comes from the Sanskrit root dher-, "to hold firmly, support." It is an Hindi word, and it is a good one. We have a similar word, "religion," but religion may be too narrow. Evolution requires dharma.
I breathe. I eat. I make an apple pie from fruit picked by energy released by my sister's mitochondria. My lover snuggles against my warm, full belly. In the morning, I see my breath against the morning chill, the sun warming my face. Water and motion and carbon dioxide and warmth. By the spring, my sister will rest next to a tree on a hill overlooking her favorite place in the world, Keeney Orchards. The carbon dioxide and water vapor of my sobs will someday form more stuff in a chloroplast not so far away, molded together with the energy of the sun.
In 8th grade, you learned that the mitochondrion was where oxidation and the Krebs cycle took place. You learned that this was the cell's power plant. You imagined a tiny car engine burning gasoline.
In high school you memorized the Krebs cycle, took the Biology Advanced Placement Exam, and managed to slip into a decent college. You slogged through biochemistry. You eventually became a pharmacist.
Mitochondria reside in our cells--they are sort of us, but not exactly--they carry their own DNA, and they descend from (mostly) your mother. And her mother. And her mother. You may have heard that from a teacher trying to get you excited about cell organelles. Coloring them was about as exciting as they got.
Too many teachers confuse science with fact.
Three decades ago I sat in the auditorium of the American Museum of Natural History. The teacher had primed our class, so when the serious man at the podium asked what energy was, I knew the right words. I half-raised my hand. The serious man looked over at me. I started to open my mouth—I knew the words, my teacher already started to smile.
I did not say them. I shook my head slightly, then looked down at my feet. “The ability to do work.” The words explained nothing to me, and still do not. My teacher was disappointed—usually enough motivation to make me answer a stranger’s question.
I stopped trusting words.
Oxidation involves transferring electrons--energy, “the ability to do work,” is involved.
Oxygen combines with fuel to create heat and light. If it happens quickly--fire. Oxygen is consumed, and flame and water and carbon dioxide are released.
It can happen slowly--the rusting rims of your child's bicycle left out over winter warms the frigid air as metallic iron morphs into ferric oxide. Heat is released, slowly. Molecules vibrates as electrons shift. I know the words. I still do not trust them.
The warmth and movement of your love come from the sun.
You twist together, heat and motion.
In the morning, the sun rises again. The apple pie she ate last night courses through her veins as sugar, and the sugar feeds the mitochondria. Heat, water, and carbon dioxide are released. As she steps outside into the chill, you see her breath. The water vapor dissipates, and will, eventually be released as rain. The carbon dioxide will eventually feed next spring's garden, and a few molecules may indeed end up in the blossom of an apple tree, as the sun's energy restores a bit of order. You make up your shared bed, laughing at the entropic knot of sheets and blankets.
The heat from your body comes from mitochondria. Trillions of symbionts stoking our fires. The work of shifting electrons produces free radicals and peroxides, fiercely reactive compounds that can distort strands of nucleic acids. Each mitochondrion carries several copies of the same (relatively) simple chromosome, to ensure that a working copy remains among the ashes.
If the soul rests anywhere, it rests in the mitochondria. After the last agonal gasp, the body cools quickly--the surface of the corpse quickly approaches ambient temperature. The change is startling, even to my experienced hands. But the mitochondria are only half the story.
Mitochondria are thought to have the same common ancestor as chloroplasts. Both alter states of energy. The chloroplast uses sunlight to create "stuff" from carbon dioxide and water. A mature oak tree weighs tons, all but a few pounds derived solely from carbon dioxide and water. The "stuff" of flour and apples and sugar in the pie last night all from chloroplasts. The turkey last night fed on this "stuff," the chair you sit on, the tar in the shingles over your head, all from this "stuff." The oil in the ground, the coal powering your electricity, all from the same "stuff."
The best part of science gets buried in the details:
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.
Adenosine triphosphate.
Alpha-ketoglutarate pathway.
My high school students yawn at the details. I try to use a three-dimensional model. The nitrogen atom is represented by a blue wooden ball. “The red balls are oxygen, the blue balls.…” My frontal lobe edits a little too slowly today. I have their attention now—blue balls they know, and the room now vibrates, a different kind of heat.
The chloroplasts, like mitochondria, make their own DNA, separate from the organism it inhabits. Both transduce energy. Both descended from a primitive bacteria, prokaryotes, and both now use modern cells to play their game. One captures energy in organic bonds, the other releases it. Carbon provides the backbone, and water the electrons. They did this before we were conscious, before anything was. And they will do it until the sun stops.
And here is where dharma enters the classroom, but not in the strictly religious sense. Creationism rests on faith. There may be something to it, but it is not science, even if the state of Texas requires biology textbooks to mention it.
Dharma comes from the Sanskrit root dher-, "to hold firmly, support." It is an Hindi word, and it is a good one. We have a similar word, "religion," but religion may be too narrow. Evolution requires dharma.
I breathe. I eat. I make an apple pie from fruit picked by energy released by my sister's mitochondria. My lover snuggles against my warm, full belly. In the morning, I see my breath against the morning chill, the sun warming my face. Water and motion and carbon dioxide and warmth. By the spring, my sister will rest next to a tree on a hill overlooking her favorite place in the world, Keeney Orchards. The carbon dioxide and water vapor of my sobs will someday form more stuff in a chloroplast not so far away, molded together with the energy of the sun.
Science. And grace.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
elodea
Sounds like the beautiful peasant girl in Don Quixote.
Elodea is a marvelous water plant that grows while you watch it. Oxygen bubbles stream from clumps of elodea sitting under the June sun, water split into oxygen and hydrogen, the mischief that allowed aerobic critters to arise a billion or two years ago.
I have elodea in a bucket outside. It survived the winter keeping worms and snails and ostracods company wiling away the wintry months under fluorescent lights.
In the science department, we spent a lot of time debating how much light elodea needed to survive. We'd buy clumps of it, then watch it slowly die in our classrooms.
What bothered me was that my elodea survived outside event through November, until the ice formed. And it's plenty dark in November.
I suspected the chlorine in the tap water. I still do. Chlorine is not good. Chlorine and TNT recently made the headlines. Chlorine damages more than just elodea.
Elodea is a marvelous water plant that grows while you watch it. Oxygen bubbles stream from clumps of elodea sitting under the June sun, water split into oxygen and hydrogen, the mischief that allowed aerobic critters to arise a billion or two years ago.
I have elodea in a bucket outside. It survived the winter keeping worms and snails and ostracods company wiling away the wintry months under fluorescent lights.
In the science department, we spent a lot of time debating how much light elodea needed to survive. We'd buy clumps of it, then watch it slowly die in our classrooms.
What bothered me was that my elodea survived outside event through November, until the ice formed. And it's plenty dark in November.
I suspected the chlorine in the tap water. I still do. Chlorine is not good. Chlorine and TNT recently made the headlines. Chlorine damages more than just elodea.
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