“I’m going to start with talking about why feminism matters to science,” Subramaniam began, “I could do the reverse, why science should matter to feminism, but these are often on different sides of the campus, and they don’t talk to each other. My life’s work is getting these conversations going.” 

Subramaniam started the lecture by inviting the audience to look at examples of where language describing gender, race and class are also used in science, from the mating behavior of rats to the construction of the International Space Station.

“We often say, ‘Oh, masculine, feminine, what does it matter?’ It matters immensely because we have histories that have always valued one over another, especially in patriarchal societies that we live in. These are not innocent categories, they are rich with history and come with meaning, they entangle with structures of power,” Subramaniam explained.

She then introduced the field of Feminist STS and why such an approach to science is necessary.

“The way I was taught science is that science is outside of culture. That scientists are objective, that miraculously, we walk through the lab door, … and who we are … goes floating out of our heads, and we become objective, pure observers. Anyone who’s learned a little bit of history of science knows that [is] false. Rather, the model we should be moving towards is that science is within culture, scientists are embedded in culture, they bring all the values of that culture into the science that they do,” Subramaniam said, continuing, “[Feminist STS] is about critiquing, looking at these histories to critiquing these claims of value neutrality, that somehow scientists can separate themselves from what they study.”

During the lecture, Subramaniam announced her upcoming book, “Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism.”

“‘Botany of Empire’ is really tracking how colonial histories shape botany. Modern botany is a colonial discipline, and unless we look at our histories, unless we are reflexive, we continue producing colonial science,” she said.

Subramaniam explained how her work in California, as well as elements of her personal life helped inform and inspire the book.

“It came because I was doing a set of experiments looking at native and foreign plants and their soil communities, out in California. I was also in the midst of my immigration process … [you] come as a non-resident alien, then you become a resident alien, then you become a naturalized citizen. But you will never be native, because natives are reserved for other people. I noticed that as I was reading scientific articles about plants, they go through the same thing. We talk about alien plants, naturalized plants and native plants. It’s the same passage, feeling a kinship to these plants I was working on,” she said.

While writing the book, Subramaniam found parallels between rhetoric used to describe immigrants and invasive species, demonstrating the connection between science and culture.

“If you look at how we talk about foreign plants and animals and how we talk about foreign humans, they are very, very similar. They are dirty, bringing diseases, bringing germs, they take over everything,” she said. 

Subramaniam spent the second half of the lecture discussing the “nature-cultural” approach to dismantling colonialist attitudes in botany.

“The problem is not going to be solved by spending a weekend pulling foreign plants. It’s much deeper. It’s our politics of land, it’s our politics of development, and so we need to be addressing the problems at a much deeper level than legal plants … We need a nature-cultural intervention.”

Subramaniam suggested using interdisciplinary approaches to provide a nature-cultural intervention.

“We need an interdisciplinary education. We should be crossing buildings, from Science to Founders and from Founders to Science. We should all be having more conversations because there’s so much to be learned in how the world came to be what it is.”

“The problem is not humans, but the ideologies humans promote. And so thinking about the histories of racism, misogyny, classism and histories of settler colonialism, those are infrastructures that have been built across science and we need to take that seriously and that we must dismantle,” Subramaniam concluded.

Our Inquiry to Action project “The BIPOC Youth Perspective” intends to contextualize our course contents in the Wellesley College community and demonstrate our individual commitments to making education more equitable. Specifically, we want to contextualize the racial disparities and structural racism found in a schooling system that is built on white supremacy through investigating the education trajectories of Wellesley students that led them here. Although this is only a very limited portrait of the entire BIPOC student population at Wellesley, in conducting these interviews, we endeavored to center voices that are not usually at the center of their own educational experiences. Ultimately, despite the differences in the students we interviewed, there were a few common threads that we found in multiple interviews. While still acknowledging the diversity of experiences that BIPOC youth have in their education, it is important to expand on these commonalities in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges BIPOC students face and how their experiences can be made more equitable in the future.

Four Big Themes:

1. Who do you go to class with? Did they grow up with experiences similar to yours? Due to the way school systems are intentionally designed in the US, we often go to school with students in our neighborhood, which are determined by race and socioeconomic class. So more often than not, classrooms were homogenous and this was the first common theme we saw in our interviews and through personal experiences. The system builds upon itself and leads to further homogeneity and clustering of resources.
2. The inaccessibility of opportunities and resources. Many high schools in the United States lack accessible opportunities for academic advancement for students of color. In most high schools, students have access to college preparation programs and enrichment activities, but those programs are usually only available to students that present as high achieving. We can not limit access to college preparation programs and enrichment activities to only students that earn the highest grades or present as intelligent students. We must make these opportunities available to all students in different capacities through diverse college access programs that prioritize exposing students to all access to college life. In the Wellesley College community, marginalized BIPOC students express educational inequity in this community through financial insecurity, less diversity of class offerings and less access to student research positions for students without former research experience. Wellesley must address these disparities by rethinking the financial aid package and expanding access to marginalized students earlier on in early research programs that are available to a larger number of underrepresented students across departments. Also, students are in need of consistent mentorship and support from faculty and many marginalized students in our interviews accredit their academic success to the strong relationships that they have with their professors. Representation, funding and mentorship is essential to education justice, and the College must intentionally develop support networks for marginalized students in order for Wellesley to reckon with the educational disparities that exist on this campus and beyond. 
3. The third common theme is that BIPOC parent involvement faced different barriers: immigrant parents, parents who did not finish school, parents who had to work to put their children through school and others. When asked about parent involvement, all of us and the academic institutions had in our mind a strict view of what this means — participating in meetings, talking with teachers, going to school events and even helping the student with homework. However, we now reject this view and must consider that this behavior is not inclusive for parents who have to work full-time, or single parents, for example. Although our interviews had different reasons to explain why their parents were not “involved” in their academic journey, this common thread of their parents not being able to fully support and participate in their school communities symbolizes the lack of accessibility schools have inside their programs and commitment to cultural exclusion. There needs to be a redefinition of parent’s involvement that includes parents who have significant work responsibilities and whose children attend schools that are far from their neighborhoods. When a parent works full-time to put their child in school, this is parent involvement. When a parent goes to another country to find a better life and, consequently, educational opportunities for this child, this is parent involvement. When a parent encourages a student to go to school when they themselves did not, this is parent involvement. Recognizing those different ways parents are involved at school is important to POC students recognize that school is also a space for their community represented by their parents and that they are valued.
4. Lastly, BIPOC students can encounter unique challenges when faced with dual marginalization. The BIPOC community is not monolithic, and low-income is not synonymous with BIPOC. However, many of the students that we interviewed identify as low-income and BIPOC which directly influences their academic journeys. Prior to attending Wellesley, many students felt like their schools lacked essential resources and could have better equipped them to enter an institution like Wellesley. Many thought that Wellesley would bridge the gaps for them and equalize the disparities that they encountered prior to Wellesley. This has happened for some people, but many BIPOC students continue to feel a sense of otherness at Wellesley because the lack of diversity in some spaces can lead students to question their intelligence and insinuate that they do not belong. These types of racial microaggressions are not unique to Wellelsey, but must be addressed and combatted if we are to create an inclusive learning environment for all students. Financial disparities also exist in the BIPOC community with other BIPOC students amongst themselves and other students which perpetuates sentiments of imposterment.

Education justice looks like …

Increasing teacher diversity and representation. Having role models in classrooms that understand where we come from, what our lives outside of school looks like and the cultural selves that we bring into schools is meaningful for many BIPOC Students.

More wellness programs and accessible college preparation programs. Intentional investment into students that might not otherwise already have access to informal networks of information and know how to access these resources, often BIPOC students. As BIPOC students enter college, the importance of informal and intercommunity networks become obvious. Opportunities are often shared through word of mouth in these social settings where students are comfortable with one another. In order for these types of exchanges to occur, administrators need to invest in BIPOC student organizations and minimize budget cuts to allow students to fully participate and build relationships with their community at both the high school and university level.

More holistic financial support. The privilege of only studying for BIPOC and low-income students is not an option. As they have to support themselves and sometimes their family as well, working becomes essential because the college does not take into consideration emergency funds for surgeries/emergency flights/or other necessities related to health and wellbeing or living expenses. Students need financial security to feel belonging and thrive.

What does education justice look like for you? For a more detailed breakdown of interviews and background information visit: https://bit.ly/b-perspective

Before this semester, my grasp of our planet’s situation was limited to a vague sense of impending doom. Over the last few months, while interning for NOVA, a documentary series produced by WGBH, a public radio station located in Boston, my understanding came into much sharper focus. My main project has been fact-checking the soon-to-be-released “NOVA Polar Lab” — a digital interactive exploration of polar science aimed at middle- and high-school students. I have dug deep into the past of our planet’s poles throughout this process. Looking at Earth’s changing climate in context can make our current situation a bit simpler to navigate. 

My fact-checking journey began by reviewing statements about the Arctic one by one. Ellesmere Island in northern Canada is a polar desert. Check. There are no trees there except for tiny two-inch arctic willows (Salix arctica). Check. Massive dawn redwood trees (Metasequoia) grew there during the Eocene 50 million years ago. Check. Alligators, turtles, tapirs and other swamp- and forest-dwelling creatures used to thrive in this landscape, which is now nothing but barren tundra. Check. I paused and took stock for a moment.

Clearly, the Arctic used to look much different than it does today. It turns out that during the Eocene — a time after the dinosaurs but long before humans — Earth was naturally a “hothouse” planet: a world without ice at the poles. Fossil evidence from Ellesmere and elsewhere reveals that swampy, warm, wet conditions dominated even the uppermost parts of the globe 50 million years ago. During this period in the far, far distant past, our world was unrecognizable. Its dramatic heat and monumental CO2 counts begin to tell us about the relationship between greenhouse gas concentrations and climate today — and what might be possible in the future.

To fully understand this relationship between CO2 and temperature, we need to look in the more recent history of “icehouse” Earth: the ice-capped Earth that humans have always known. While “hothouse” climate data is hard to come by, continuous records of our more recent past lie buried in lake beds and ice sheets. 

As organic material settles at the bottom of lakes year by year, it forms information-rich layers. The resulting mud traps and preserves single celled organisms, fungi and pollen — each of which thrive under specific climatic conditions. For example, trees require warmer environments than grass, so scientists can measure the ratios of tree to grass pollen to reconstruct ancient temperatures. More trees signify a warmer climate, more grass signifies a cooler climate. 

Similarly, when snow falls and builds up to create layers of ice, it traps air bubbles, which preserve samples of the current atmosphere, allowing researchers to determine how much CO2 filled the air at any given time. 

By drilling deep into mud and ice, scientists essentially extract time capsules that help them recreate the climate history of the last few million years. Comparing ancient CO2 levels to ancient temperatures across time — matching up the contents of those frozen pockets of air to reconstructed climate estimates — reveals a clear pattern connecting the two measures: more CO2 means higher global temperatures. The records show that for the past 800,000 years, these levels have danced up and down together in predictable, natural cycles explained by Earth’s fluctuating orbit around the sun. 

Until recently, that is. Over the last few decades, CO2 levels have shot up at a rate around 100 times faster than past natural increases. This increase, scientists agree, is due to human activity. Concentrations of the greenhouse gas now sit above a whopping 400 parts per million. 

To predict what happens next, we can look back in the data to the last time Earth’s CO2 levels were this high: about three million years ago. This period — called the mid-Pliocene — was long before humans arrived, but much closer to today than the swampy Eocene. The mid-Pliocene was not a “hothouse,” but the world still looked different. Lake sediment data from above the Arctic circle shows high percentages of tree pollen from that time, suggesting forests blanketed areas that are now barren tundra. Differences like these were not just local to the poles. Global temperature estimates for the mid-Pliocene are about 3ºC warmer than current averages. The east coast of North America was mostly underwater. 

While the underlying causes of these differences in temperature, ecosystems, and shorelines are far from one-dimensional, researchers look to this ancient warmer world as the closest analog we have for a near-future climate. Even though the recent rise in CO2 started a mere split-second ago on the geologic time scale, we are already seeing the effects. My fact-checking journey ended with lines like this: Inupiat people in Shishmaref, Alaska have to adapt their hunting methods as the ice around their village shrinks. Check. Weddell seal populations are declining in the fastest-warming parts of Antarctica. Check. If we keep emitting greenhouse gases at today’s rate, the world will look more like the world of the dinosaurs than the one we have always known. Check. 

Knowing the science behind these changes allows us to better understand the danger of interfering with our climate system. My experience at NOVA this semester has shown me exactly what is at stake — and inspired me to work to keep our “icehouse” home frozen for as long as possible.

Such was the reality for patients afflicted with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a chronic, life-threatening condition that previously was a death sentence. And while HIV/AIDS patients languished physically, they also suffered emotionally, facing social isolation and scrutiny. Indeed, few other diseases carry as much cultural significance as HIV; homosexual, African-American and immigrant patients faced unprecedented levels of discrimination during the 1970s and 80s. Today, patients continue to face the stigma associated with HIV despite effective noncurative treatments and prophylactic agents.

Biologically, HIV is a single-stranded, positive-sense ribonucleic acid retrovirus that causes AIDS. HIV preferentially infects and kills the body’s immune cells, including helper T cells, which help to mediate the body’s ability to respond to infections. When the body loses these critical cells, patients become more susceptible to the types of viral, bacterial, and fungal infections that healthy people do not normally get sick from. This pathobiology raises two questions: how does HIV infect these cells? And why are only immune cells affected?

HIV exhibits a unique tropism, a preference for infecting certain cells in the body. This tendency is caused by special proteins on the surface of HIV particle, called envelope glycoprotein 120 (gp120), which interacts with proteins on the surface of helper T cells, including CD4. You can think of gp120 as a key that is able to fit into the lock, CD4, which allows HIV to infect helper T cells. Other proteins on the surface of helper T cells, such as CCR5 and CXCR4, are also important for HIV infection and permit the virus to enter the cells, like a molecular doorknob.

Once in the cell, the HIV particles break down, releasing its viral genome and proteins. It then copies and pastes its genome into the cell’s genome and co-opts the cell’s own proteins to make more HIV particles. These particles are released into the bloodstream to infect more cells. These steps are discrete and involve the participation of both HIV and human proteins; one can imagine how interrupting anyone step can prevent the production of HIV particles.

In fact, this idea of blocking intermediate steps is how the first HIV antiretroviral therapies (ARTs) were initially conceived during the 1980s and 90s. Now, these drug therapies are often used in combination to control HIV viral levels in patients and prevent the transmission of HIV to romantic partners and healthcare workers. Despite incredible improvements in patient survival and quality of life, patients experience a lifetime of drug side effects, including liver toxicity and neuropathy, and these multi-drug regimens are by no means a cure — until now.

Last week, physicians and researchers in the United Kingdom reported that a patient had been “cured” of HIV, the second such report in the history of HIV. The patient, who is only identified as the “London” patient, was diagnosed with HIV in 2003, which was managed well with ART. In 2012, the patient was sadly diagnosed with advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a rare blood cancer that affects white blood cells called lymphocytes, and received a special bone marrow transplant (BMT) as part of his treatment.

So what is BMT? All blood cells in the body—erythrocytes (red blood cells), macrophages, B lymphocytes, and T lymphocytes, including T helper cells—are made in the bone marrow. In lymphoma, the bone marrow produces too many abnormal lymphocytes, so treating lymphoma involves eradicating these abnormal cells and their precursors. Unfortunately, our best treatments, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, are unable to distinguish between healthy cells and diseased cells, and healthy bone marrow cells are destroyed in the process. This would be analogous to trying to use a flamethrower to weed a garden. After clearing the bone marrow, BMT is often needed to help the body regenerate blood cells.

In this case, the London patient received a BMT from a donor who had a rare mutation in CCR5 (dubbed CCR5∆32) that prevents CCR5 from being produced. CCR5 is one of the helper T cell proteins that permits HIV infection, and individuals with this mutation have been found to be more resistant to HIV infection. 18 months after receiving this special BMT, the London patient was found to have undetectable HIV levels. Could BMT cure HIV?

These are incredible and promising findings, but BMT is not without its risks and complications. In addition to requiring daily immunosuppressants, which disrupts the immune system in a way similar to HIV/AIDS, the London patient experienced dangerous side effects, including grant-versus-host-disease, where cells produced by the donor’s bone marrow attack the body’s tissues. There is also insufficient evidence to suggest that such approaches are better than ART, which are the current standard of care.

In spite of these limitations, scientists, physicians and HIV patients alike are excited about the prospect of using BMT to “cure” HIV. Perhaps in the coming decade, society as a whole will recognize the human experience of HIV patients and celebrate the spirit of its survivors.

On Nov. 23, the federal government released the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a detailed report by the U.S. Global Change Research Program that discussed specific impacts of climate change across different regions of the U.S. The report highlighted that global warming would not only impact Earth’s long-term weather patterns, but also the nation’s economy, the population’s health and even cultural identity.

First, let’s backtrack and review what causes global warming. Since the industrial revolution, human activity has caused an increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal or oil, which are often used to produce electricity and heat. Carbon dioxide and other specific gases in the atmosphere can block heat from escaping Earth, which is similar to what happens in a greenhouse. The result is an overall warming of the planet. This phenomenon, known as the greenhouse effect, is actually what makes Earth a habitable planet for life — without it, the surface would be approximately 60 degrees cooler! However, continued warming could also threaten the persistence of life by leading to changes in Earth’s long-term weather patterns.

As a result of global warming, many studies have highlighted that oceans are warming, wildfires are more frequent and snow cover is decreasing. Climate change also means that while some areas of Earth experience an increase in temperature, others get cooler due to changes in the movement of heat.

The detailed report compiled by hundreds of U.S. scientists presented a glimpse of climate change’s impacts on daily life if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. The report, which spanned more than 1,600 pages, discussed climate change’s effects on the economy, the persistence of life and tourism, to name a few.

One of the primary aspects of human life threatened by climate change is economic growth. Rising temperatures and changes in regional climates are not only expected to result in property and infrastructure damage but also a reduction in employment. As a result of climate change, many industries that rely on favorable climates, including agriculture, forestry and fishery, are at risk, potentially leading to a decline in labor productivity and an increase in food prices. Because of increased demands for energy and decreased efficiency for power generation, global warming could also result in higher electricity bills.

Climate change is also predicted to greatly impact human health. The climate report specifically detailed how global warming would increase mortality within different regions of the U.S. For example, the northeast and southwest regions are expected to experience the most heat-related deaths, while the midwest is expected to have increased mortality from poor air quality. Health risks also arise from greater occurrences of wildfires, increased severity of allergies and asthma, and higher vulnerability to waterborne and foodborne diseases. Low-income communities and vulnerable populations, including children and the elderly, are also predicted to be disproportionately impacted by health concerns caused by climate change.

One of the consequences of climate change that is not frequently discussed is a loss of cultural identity in particular areas of the U.S. Many states like Florida and California rely on tourism and outdoor recreation industries to sustain communities, and with a predicted decline in tourism revenue, some of these areas may experience a loss of cultural identity. A reduction in snow cover could also impact winter outdoor recreation like skiing in areas of the northeast, northwest and Northern Great Plains, further impacting communities that rely on tourism and recreation industries.

The results of the report released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program highlight that the impact of climate change transcends simply influencing long-term weather patterns. Economic growth, human health and cultural identity are just a few examples of aspects of daily life that climate change can impact if actions are not taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

First, let’s backtrack to how we can cut calories without even moving. If you’re sitting on the couch or lying in bed, you probably don’t feel as though you’re exerting yourself. Yet your body is still expending energy to perform basic functions to keep you alive. Physiological processes like maintaining a regular heartbeat, controlling breathing rate and regulating body temperature are all examples of how your body is hard at work, even though you may not know it. The term for the amount of energy — or number of calories — needed to maintain body functions while at rest is called the basal metabolic rate.

If we’re engaging in physical activity rather than remaining at rest, our bodies must also expend energy to maintain that level of activity, which also means that more calories are being burned. The number of calories we burn at any given time can also vary due to other factors like diet or sleep-wake cycle.

In past decades, scientists found conflicting evidence about whether the number of calories the body burned at rest remained relatively constant throughout the day, or whether this number fluctuated in accordance with our circadian rhythm — which is the body’s endogenous, internal 24-hour clock. In a study published this month, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that the body’s resting rate of metabolism does in fact change based on our circadian rhythm.

To examine changes in metabolic rate solely based on the body’s internal clock, researchers evaluated the metabolism of seven individuals who were unaware of the actual time of day. This meant no access to clocks, phones or the internet, as well as living in a windowless room for three weeks. Though the control and experimental groups followed consistent diets and activity levels, the experimental group continuously went to bed four hours later than the previous evening. Thus, the main factor influencing their metabolic rates would be their circadian rhythm, rather than their sleep-wake cycle.

Based on the results, researchers found that the number of calories subjects burned in a day varied according to their own internal, 24-hour body clock rather than their sleep-wake cycle, activity or diet. Researchers also found specific patterns in the number of calories burned over the course of the body’s “biological day.” For example, resting energy expenditure was lowest on average at about five in the morning and highest approximately twelve hours later, at five in the evening. These timings varied according to each person, since their own internal clocks were governing metabolism and were influenced by their tendencies to be morning people or night owls.

So why might it matter that the number of calories you burn at rest varies according to your body’s circadian rhythm? The results of this study suggest that irregular sleeping and eating schedules may contribute to weight gain and obesity. For example, binging on potato chips at two in the morning — a time when your body’s resting energy expenditure might be relatively low — may mean that those calories aren’t burned off and will instead pile on.

The study also highlights the importance of maintaining a consistent eating and sleeping schedule each day. This regularity, or lack thereof, can influence our internal body clock, which can thus affect the number of calories we burn at rest at a given time.

In the past decade, evolutionary scientists have proposed that the main purpose of olfaction, or our sense of smell, is to aid in navigation. This hypothesis makes sense for animals. If a polar bear — one of the world’s most acute smellers — scent-marks its tracks or territory, it can more easily find its way back to its original spot. Smelling has also been found to help other animals in long-distance navigation. In 2017, researchers from universities in Oxford, Barcelona and Pisa found that a bird’s sense of smell plays a vital role in its ability to navigate long distances over an ocean.

Though studies investigating smell and navigation have been conducted on a variety of species, few have examined humans until one published this month. In this investigation, Louisa Dahmani and her colleagues at McGill University tested the relationship between olfaction and navigation in college-age individuals. To do so, the research team examined participants’ senses of smell, their ability to navigate, and the relative volumes of brain regions associated with these two traits.

The first part of the study consisted of assessing subjects’ sense of smell. In this section, the subject was asked to sniff odor-infused felt-tip pens and identify the smells based on four multiple-choice options. Examples of smells included grass, chocolate, ginger and lavender.

To study navigation, participants were tested on their ability to navigate through a virtual town that included streets, buildings, and eight landmarks marked by signs, such as a school or movie theater. Participants were first allowed to explore the town for 20 minutes so they could learn spatial relationships between the different landmarks, enabling them to construct a cognitive map of the virtual town. Afterwards, participants were tested on their ability to navigate from one landmark to another using the most direct route.

Through both of these tests, researchers found that those who were the best at smelling tended to be the best at navigating.

In addition to testing the subjects’ skills in navigation and olfaction, the research team also used neuroimaging to gather biological evidence for the correlation between olfaction and navigation. In particular, the team examined the relative sizes of the orbitofrontal cortex, which mediates our sense of smell, and the hippocampus, which is involved in both smelling and navigation. Both regions of the brain were found to be larger in participants that demonstrated a superior sense of smell and an adept ability to navigate through the virtual maze. Scientists then concluded that a biological link does in fact exist between olfaction and navigation.

Examining brain region volume alone isn’t enough to prove that sense of smell and navigation are linked. Researchers also studied a separate group of individuals who had damaged orbitofrontal cortices. They determined that these subjects had impaired olfaction and navigation, which further strengthened the hypothesis that the two processes were linked.

So, why does it matter that these two senses are related? For one, it offers insight about the original function of olfaction — that is, to aid in navigation. It also provides an explanation as to why the sense of smell is so important that it has persisted in organisms through time. On the surface, we might not consider our sense of smell to be very important. Sure, it’s useful for smelling burnt toast, but it turns out that it can also help us in ways we never considered — like finding our way through a new town or even a crowded room.

Before arriving at this strategy, scientists drew on a variety of age-old techniques for reducing the temperature of a building. In countries like Greece, houses are often painted white because lighter colors absorb less heat than darker colors. Yet, though white paints are better at fending off heat than darker paints, they can still absorb other types of light emitted by the sun, including ultraviolet and near-infrared rays, which can cause surfaces to heat up. To more effectively cool a building, researchers have been working on creating materials that can reflect nearly all types of rays from the sun.

Though several research groups have engineered effective cooling materials in the past, these compounds often proved difficult to incorporate into existing buildings and could only be added to newly constructed buildings — until recently.  

Research groups led by two applied physicists at Columbia University, Yuan Yang and Nanfang Yu, produced an effective reflective material by drying the compound under certain conditions so it would acquire a porous, sponge-like structure. The air voids in the material would then scatter and reflect sunlight rather than absorbing it, preventing the material from increasing in temperature.

After experimenting with different compounds using this drying technique, the researchers finally chose a commercial polymer known as PVDF-HFP. To apply the drying technique, PVDF-HFP is first dissolved in acetone, after which a little water is added. Once this solution is painted on the surface the acetone evaporates quickly, and the polymer separates from the water due to its water-repellent properties. As a result, tiny droplets of water form within the material. When this water evaporates, it leaves a sponge-like array of air voids. The researchers found that these air spaces reflected nearly 99.6 percent of light, including the different types of light emitted by the sun.

After producing this compound in the lab, the next step was to test this material in a hot, sunny environment. According to the study, which was published in Science magazine, researchers tested the material under peak solar intensity in Phoenix, Arizona, New York and Chattogram, Bangladesh. In warm and arid Phoenix, the temperature of the painted surface was six degrees Celsius lower than the air temperature, and in New York, the painted surface was five degrees lower. Though a few degrees may seem insignificant, to our bodies this small difference in temperature can actually feel quite drastic. Though scientists have found that flat surfaces coated in this material can resist temperature changes, the next step would be to test this on a full building.

In addition to its cooling properties, PVDF-HFP also has other beneficial characteristics. The material has paint-like characteristics and can be directly applied onto nearly any surface, including metal, plastic and wood. It can also be fabricated into durable sheets that withstand thermal aging and moisture, which can prove useful in the construction of new buildings.

The results of this study yield tremendous implications for protecting the environment, as well as aiding populations that don’t have access to electricity or air conditioning. Furthermore, they offer room for future investigations into other environmentally-friendly techniques for staying cool in hotter climates.

First, what is BPA, and how is it harmful? It is a compound that has been used in the manufacturing of plastics and resins since the 1960s. The chemical helps to harden plastic products and make them shatter-resistant. It is also found in cash register receipts and can be absorbed through the skin.

In 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expressed concern about the harmful effects of BPA on fetuses and young children, citing adverse health effects observed in animal studies. The chemical structure of BPA was thought to mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen, resulting in harmful changes to the reproductive and endocrine systems.

Despite a vast amount of research, conclusions about the dangerous nature of BPA remain controversial even today. Some studies conducted on lab animals have not resulted in behavioral or reproductive issues, while other reports suggest that even low levels of BPA exposure in humans could lead to breast cancer, diabetes and behavioral problems.

Currently, the FDA has banned the use of BPA in baby bottles, sippy cups and infant formula packaging. A number of states, including Connecticut, Maryland and Vermont, have enacted laws to restrict the sales of products containing BPA. Other states, like Massachusetts, have only banned the sale of children’s containers made with BPA.

In order to continue producing plastics, manufacturing companies have been using alternatives such as bisphenol S (BPS) and diphenyl sulfone, which are similar in chemical structure to BPA, but whose effects have not been studied carefully.

Hunt, who has done extensive research on BPA, discovered the adverse effects of BPA alternatives nearly by accident. During her studies on BPA, Hunt noticed odd results in her control mice housed in cages made of polysulfone. After further investigations, she and her colleagues discovered that the polysulfone in the cage was degrading into BPS, a compound commonly used as an alternative to BPA.

As a result of this discovery, Hunt chose to focus her research directly on testing BPA alternatives to determine whether they too produced health defects in lab animals. In their investigation, Hunt and her colleagues fed pregnant female mice low amounts of either BPA, BPS, diphenyl sulfone or a placebo. In comparison to control females, the mothers and fetuses exposed to BPA and its substitutes were characterized by reproductive and chromosomal abnormalities, particularly during meiosis, which is the process of cell division that produces sperm and eggs. Furthermore, genetic defects persisted for two generations of mice that were not directly exposed to BPA and its replacements.   

Though this study may be alarming, researchers are still skeptical of the effects of BPA and its substitutes on humans, particularly at normal levels of exposure.

“Nobody has ever proven it causes harm at the levels to which people are normally exposed to it,” said Australian chemist Oliver Jones, as reported in Science magazine.

Though research remains inconclusive, Hunt and colleagues give reason to be wary of plastic products that are labeled as BPA-free. For those concerned about consuming BPA-free products, healthcare providers suggest using containers made of non-plastic materials, such as glass, porcelain and stainless steel.

The study also highlights that plastic containers and objects advertised as BPA-free may contain other compounds, such as BPS, that may also produce harmful effects.

Studies on BPA are steadily evolving. Scientists continue to gather data regarding the effects of BPA in humans, as well as the levels at which this compound can prove toxic to the body.

The mold we find on our strawberries, known as pin mold, is closely related to another, larger soil fungus called Phycomyces blakesleeanus. Unlike pin mold, this fungus has some interesting capabilities that have made it famous within the scientific community: it is attuned to the presence of light, the touch of wind, physical touch disturbances and even the presence of gravity.

Everything that has mass and exists in the universe is affected by gravity. It is what keeps us firmly rooted to the ground. As we go about our daily lives, we probably aren’t actively thinking about gravity. However, we have mechanisms in our bodies that are constantly helping us measure and respond to gravitational forces. This ability allows us to know up from down and to move around on Earth without dizziness or other unpleasant side effects. One of the mechanisms for maintaining balance in the human body is actually a calcium carbonate crystal in the ear, which brushes against hairs to signal which way is up and which way is down.

The gravity sensing mechanism in Phycomyces blakesleeanus also requires a crystal. The fungus has a complex structure that looks like a sewing pin and contains crystals that can move around within that elongated pin-like container. In simplified terms, the crystals fall through the cells that are present in the fungus to tell those cells which direction is up and which is down. While fungal cells do not need to balance, walk around or avoid dizziness like humans do, it is critical that their fruiting bodies, which contain spores, grow upward and above ground.

A team of scientists in Singapore, led by geneticist Gregory Jedd, wanted to understand how this ability for a fungus to sense gravity evolved. After tracing a gene which codes for proteins involved in the crystal matrix of the fungus, they found that this ability was probably picked up from a species of bacteria. Since all kinds of microbes coexist in the soil, the odds of them interacting with each other are very high. For example, we know that natural antibiotics result from bacteria producing substances that are toxic for their fellow microbial competitors. In this case, the transfer of the gene from a bacteria to a fungus happened through a process called horizontal gene transfer.

Horizontal gene transfer is a random occurrence in which genetic material is picked up from another organism, often another species, and incorporated into the genome. If the new genetic material aids in survival, then it might be passed down to the next generation.

In this case, the gene that got picked up did not originally have anything to do with gravity sensing. It was instead involved with a self-assembly process which the researchers think became relevant to the building of the crystal matrix in the pin mold. They also think that a gene like this one, which directs where and when certain building steps should happen, could be useful in treating human diseases. A drug could be told when and where to disperse, for example, which would increase specificity and targeting of treatments. But until the power of the gene is harnessed, we can at least feel intrigued by our moldy strawberries and their molds’ evolution. Perhaps the intrigue will override the disappointment.