Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~Hillary~

Last night, this felt like one of 'those' moments for me - where I'll remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard that Hillary Clinton had been projected to win the New Hampshire primary.  There are alot of 'firsts' going on in this primary season - much to feel proud of, even some things going on that might make one feel hopeful, but this was one that felt personal to me.  This election needs to be earned, there needs to be debate and on-going discussion - anything should be possible. 

Perhaps it is? 

(Take a look at these interesting numbers over at Xark).

(A Sniffing and Pondering) Stanley and an Acceptance Speech

Stanley can't help but sniff the air on this wondrous and crazy-warm December day, all the while pondering the significance of Al Gore's shared Nobel Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the words Al delivered in his acceptance speech, and the fact that the very leaves that littered the ground all around him fell from a tree [Triadica sebifera (L.)] considered to be a highly invasive species in the southeastern United States.  (In case you didn't know, Stanley does ponder quite a bit).

~~~~~

Read below the fold for a copy of Gore's acceptance speech.

Microbiologists for Colbert (in a skirt, of course)

The Microbial Laboratory has announced today that it supports the campaign by Feminists for Colbert to see...well, to see Stephen Colbert in a skirt. 

Yep, in a skirt in Skirt.

This Saturday at 3 pm at the Cistern.  In a skirt.  Walking the streets of Charleston.

That is, if he wants our vote.

What is it about a man in a skirt?  Truly.

Update:  Damn.  That was short-lived.  But perhaps he can still put on that skirt?

 

Only in South Carolina

Please support a NO vote on H. 3355.

Update:  Go and place your vote over at The State.

Okay, so another update:  This isn't so much as another update, as it is a huge exasperated sigh.  This bill just seems so manipulative to me - so political, so not medical - not about a procedure that is a legal one.  This is a way of lashing out at women who have the right to choose.  This bill is unkind, and not considerate of the fully formed and breathing human being.  Ads show images of a well-formed fetus - not what women will actually see in an ultrasound at early stages of pregnancy.  But what I keep thinking about, and what others keep thinking about -- perhaps we would relate better to the supposed 'sincerity' of SC legislators if they took better care of the living in our state.  I kept thinking all day about it - not being able to help linking that we are a state that ranks among the lowest in so many educational parameters, and here our legislators go - clammering to be 'first' with voting in a bill like H. 3355.  Why can't they put their energy into the living, into children who don't get the educational opportunities they deserve, to families of children who don't get the support they need to lead a reasonable life?  They are so worried about women who are making a legal choice - but I would like them to first prove to me that they truly and deeply care for the living.

I just find this bill offensive.

Another update (because this is really bugging me).  You can go here, South Carolina Legislature Online, to read more about this bill.  Here is their summary:

A BILL TO AMEND SECTION 44-41-330, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO PREREQUISITES FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF AN ABORTION, INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED, CERTIFICATION, WAITING PERIOD, SPECIAL PROVISIONS FOR MINORS OR MENTALLY INCOMPETENT PERSONS, RETENTION OF RECORDS, AND UNAVAILABILITY OF RECORDS, SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT THE PHYSICIAN WHO IS TO PERFORM THE ABORTION MUST VERIFY THE PROBABLE GESTATIONAL AGE OF THE EMBRYO OR FETUS BY USING AN OBSTETRIC ULTRASOUND, TO PROVIDE THAT THE IMAGES USED TO VERIFY THE PROBABLE GESTATIONAL AGE MUST BE REVIEWED WITH THE WOMAN SEEKING THE ABORTION, AND TO PROVIDE THAT THE WOMAN SEEKING THE ABORTION MUST CERTIFY IN WRITING BEFORE THE ABORTION IS PERFORMED THAT SHE HAS REVIEWED THE ULTRASOUND IMAGES.

Oh - and here are the names of the folks that are in support of (rather, are sponsoring) the bill:

Delleney, Mulvaney, Bedingfield, Shoopman, Leach, Gullick, Duncan, Hamilton, Kelly, M.A. Pitts, Rice, Talley, Walker, Haskins, Simrill, Vick, Owens, Viers, Loftis, G.M. Smith, Toole, G.R. Smith, Pinson and Bingham

Something else still.  Once again - the Gladys' cut right to the quick.  I just love those women.

Okay, something else.   Where the list of the 91 yays and 23 nays were located (here), there was also a for-the-voting-record statement by Rep. B.R. Skeleton (District 3, Pickens Co.):

I voted against H. 3355 because I don't believe the House of Representatives should be practicing medicine without a license.

Well said, and thanks.

On the other hand, my SC House District 112 '"Representative", Ben A. Hagood, Jr voted for the bill - and in his response to my email stating that I did not support the bill, this is what he had to say (in part, to me and many others, I'm sure):

I voted for the bill because I believe that it will enable women to be more fully informed before consenting to this extraordinary medical procedure.  I am sworn to defend the constitution of the United States, and I respect the constitutional interpretations of the United States Supreme Court.  I thus respect a woman's right, as a matter of law, to choose.   I personally believe, as a matter of faith, that human life begins at conception.  But it is not my duty as a legislator to legislate my personal faith.  My faith determines my values and my values inform my decisions on public policy.  Because I believe that a fetus is a sacred life, my conscience requires me to vote for laws that protect the unborn.  These protections must be balanced against the legal rights of a woman to choose an abortion.  Informed medical consent is a fundamental principle that applies to every medical procedure.  I believe that the ultrasound bill balances a woman's legal right to choose with her need for informed medical consent and the maximum protections available under the Constitution for the unborn.  This was a difficult vote for me, as a man, because I know that I could never fully understand the difficult decision that a woman must make to terminate her pregnancy.

Extraordinary?  You don't think that you are legislating your personal faith in this vote?  Come on now.  And no, I don't think you could ever fully understand the decision, but you sure as hell can make it a more painful process for the woman who has every right to make the choice herself.

 

Venturing out...

What is the deal?  Truly.  I turn on Larry King Live tonight and it's a discussion about whether or not global warming is happening or not.  "Is it real?  Is it man-made?  How scared should we be?"  Come on now.  Why is Inhofe even being given air time?  Why is this still a debate? 

And on the eve of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 4th Assessment Report being released.  I think it's due to be released on Friday?

Fifteen days until my grant is due.  A grant that focuses on why corals are dying - how the coral holobiont (the coral and it's symbiotic microbes) progresses from a healthy to a diseased state.  So I keep my head in the sand, trying not to listen to the news, trying not to listen to the political bantering, the backdrop of everyday.  The politics are distracting, annoying - and oddly seem irrelevant to statistics like:  by the year 2030 60% of the world's coral reefs will be dead.  The science drives the grant - not the politics that are buzzing all around.

But unfortunately, I know that isn't true.  Tonight I sadly learned that Molly Ivins lost her battle with cancer.  I remember first hearing her years ago - and just making a mental note that here was a woman who was openly (and loudly!) shouting her opinions out to the world.  I liked that.  Tonight as I was reading a tribute to her, I saw this quote attributed to Ivins that seemed oddly pertinent to my thoughts today:

Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't care much about.

Well, I'm certainly guilty of that.  When I'm busy, or annoyed - I just push it aside, stop paying attention, make fun of it - laugh.  But the politics of global warming in reality affects me everyday - affects the systems we study.  One coral pathogen that we are looking at is only pathogenic at warmer temperatures - and just a few degrees makes all the difference.  This pathogen seems to be becoming more prevalent - and in studies in the lab we haven't found a single coral-associated microorganism that can inhibit it.  It's robust as hell.  So here I'm reading an article on Molly Ivins on MSNBC and another article is about how scientists believe that 'germs' communicate.  As if that's something new - we've known about this for years now.  And this all makes me think that as scientists we suck at communicating what we do.  Maybe I need to ignore the academic 'we' for now - and just say that I do.

But it's difficult.  I'm often asked why I don't get involved in more environmental causes and organizations - and it's hard to explain how our 'process' is so different from theirs - and sometimes in surprising ways.  Do you remember when they were trying to ship plutonium from the Charleston Harbor to France for re-formulation?  I was asked them to speak to a group that was against the shipment - because they knew that my laboratory conducted research on crude oil degradation.  They assumed - falsely - that because my laboratory promotes the use of microorganisms to biodegrade crude oil that we actual think that crude oil isn't so bad.  Personally, I think that nuclear energy is a good thing - and that we should invest more in it.  When we study microorganisms that degrade crude oil, what we're actually observing (even on a good day) is a consortium of microorganisms that can at best biodegrade only about 30% of crude oil.  Which means that an awful lot of that oil remains in the environment.  When I told the group that I wouldn't exactly give the kind of talk that they thought I would - they were insulted, and asked me "How can you call yourself an environmentalist?"  I am an environmentalist, but not one defined by any special interest group.  Because of interactions like that one, scientists (well, myself) tend to retreat into their own world.  We like data.  Figures and tables.  We like discussing experiments and evaluating the work of others.  We present what we've learned and observed.  We're not skilled at venturing out.

The environment is far from simple, and global climate change issues are complicated and convoluted and challenging.  I'm tired of comments like 'but it's really cold this week in New England' or 'but we didn't have a bad hurricane season last year' - this isn't about casual observations.  I can say that the tiny flower above, Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum), bloomed almost a month earlier this year - but it's not about this observation either.  It's about scientific consensus - numerous observations coming together, observations from many different laboratories from many different institutions from many different countries.  Of course there are people that disagree with this consensus - there should be people who disagree - but the few voices of those who disagree shouldn't be given the same weight as the thousands of scientists who are in consensus. 

What's frustrating is that while all of this discussion continues - we're wasting time when we could all be moving forward in environmentally positive ways.  There are alot of small things you can do - I mean, check out Governor Locke's webiste.  Take a look at stopglobalwarming.org.  Read this and this.  I don't know - just read anything.  And maybe turn off the TV when these stupid debates are on...'Is it real?'  Geez, this stuff drives me nuts.  CNN and Larry King should be ashamed.

Back to the grant.  But after I get it turned in, perhaps I'll take Molly Ivins advice and get out there and toss my two cents into the ring.  Especially since I can't simply turn it off.               

Blogging for Choice

I saw this via JanetLee via Allison.

I'm pro-choice.

When my brother was in high school, he dated a young woman named Jeanne for several years.  I was three and a half years younger than him, and even though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, I paid attention to just about everything he did - both good and bad.  Jeanne ended up spending alot of time at our home, just hanging out, and over time I learned out why (and trust me, it wasn't solely due to my brother's charm):  her father was the only physician in town that would give a woman an abortion.  A legal abortion.  Jeanne told stories about bricks being thrown through her front window, stories about how her father was harrassed repeatedly - it was a strange time, the mid-70s.  Roe v. Wade was really new and alot of people were still getting abortions the dangerous way - with physicians they didn't know anything about in facilities that weren't safe or regulated.  But at least in my hometown (Charlottesville, VA) - Jeanne's father was the one guy who stepped up and was providing abortions to women in the confines of a safer environment.  His office was constantly being threatened, there were always folks protesting outside of it - but this burly and outspoken man ignored them the best he could.  It stressed Jeanne though - she was always worried about her father.  Her father believed deeply in a woman's right to choose.

I don't know what the statistics are, but the time of my life when abortions became 'real' was when I was in college.  I drove several friends to the clinic to have them - and I learned that even if it is the right choice, it is never an easy one - it's always sad.  Frightening too (even if you're fortunate to arrive at a quiet clinic) - it simply isn't an easy decision.  I was fortunate - I always tried to be careful, and was for the most part - but I was also lucky, and during pregnancy 'scares' as a woman in my early 20s, I ended up not being pregnant.  If I had been pregnant, I honestly don't know what choice I would have made.  Often I've thought that I wouldn't be able to have an abortion - but then when I've tried to imagine being 20, a sophomore in college and being pregnant, I can't imagine that either.  I'm not sure that unless one is faced with that very personal decision, if they know what they would have done.  All I do know is that having that choice is critical - it's that choice that needs to be protected.

After school, and more school - I landed in Gulf Breeze, Fl working with the US EPA - on a piece of land jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola.  The month that I was leaving Florida for South Carolina (in 1994), a physician providing abortions and his escort were shot and killed outside of a clinic in Pensacola.  Another woman was also injured.  I knew where that clinic was - it was just an understated place on a quiet street.  The man responsible for these killings was executed in 2003 (I just saw this - and as an FYI - the National Abortion Federation has a page on clinic violence to put some of this in perspective).  When I heard about these shootings in Pensacola, I remember thinking back to Jeanne's father over 15 years prior - and recognizing for the first time the danger that he put he and his family in because he provided a service that he believed in.  Jeanne's father firmly believed in choice - he had seen too often in his practice what might happen to women when they chose unsafely.

I'm for sex education, birth control, emergency contraception and for choice - and counseling.  I think a woman should have the freedom to choose and the freedom to discuss this choice - counseling to help her through either decision.  I think men should be involved in this process as well.  I think that women that choose to have a child should have resources available to them - health care, child care, education care - life care.  The children born need to have positive life choices as well - we can't forget about them the moment their mother decides to give birth to them.  I also think that clinics that provide abortion services to women should be protected - they should be left alone.  Women should be able to walk safely and quietly into these facilities, without being harrassed on a day that is difficult to begin with. 

Footnote:  My brother had mentioned awhile back that Jeanne's father had passed away (I think it was late in 2004).  When I googled him, I found that in the summer of 2004, a Planned Parenthood Clinic was named after him - 'The Dr. Herbert C. Jones, Jr. Reproductive Health and Education Center' in Charlottesville, VA.  On one site, this was written about Dr. Jones:

Jones has been a leading crusader for women's health options since his graduation from UVA medical school in 1951. According to Jones, a Petersburg native, eleven members of his immediate family were in the medical field. Jones said he credits an uncle, an obstetrician, with instilling the spark that led him to devote his life work to women's health. While practicing obstetrics in the 1970s during the women's movement and the fight for Roe v. Wade, Jones said he realized "there wasn't any question in my mind that some young women really needed help."
Jones, who sat in the front row at the opening announcement ceremony, gingerly raised his hand. "Could I say a few words?" he asked. At the podium he thanked "the people of this community and the surrounding area" for their generous donations to the facility. "It's unbelievable, really," he said. He said he was against the name at first, "embarrassed, really," but now was overjoyed that the center had become a reality.

Jones said he was confident that the center would offer "good common sense counseling to let [a] woman make her decision," thoroughly emphasizing her.

     

Clinton in 2008, Updated

I must confess that when I first read the headliner, I was still half asleep and I immediately thought "Bill".  But then, seconds later, I woke up and realized that it's happened.  Finally. 

Hillary is running! 

I know that this is somewhat of a 'duh', and folks have already been working on this (for example, here)...but I'd like to say that I just love seeing a woman throw her hat into the ring.

Who will I vote for?  I don't know yet.  But I've always liked Clinton.  I liked her from the beginning, and now it's time to see what kind of Presidential Candidate that she will be.  I wish her well.

Update:  Oh, not really an update, but just a few additional thoughts.  So one poll (for what a poll like this is worth) has Hillary out in front - with 41% of the hypothetical primary vote, compared to Sen. Obama at 17%...I know, I know - this is just one poll, one poll with only a 1,000 folks or so surveyed.  But I was a bit surprised that she was that far ahead of the other folks, giving her, as this ABC Polls states, "early frontrunner status".

So my thoughts on this?  I don't know.  I think it's going to be tough for a woman - they're are minefields everywhere, some related to important issues and some that are going to be trivial as hell.  I couldn't help but think back to a day years ago, to Clinton's (Bill) first inauguration (on a cold January day in -- was it 1992?). 

I was living on the Gulf Coast of Florida, where I was doing a postdoctoral fellowship with the US EPA - well, technically with the University of Florida, with funds, from General Electric, at a US EPA laboratory - a convoluted position that upon even superficial evaluation could be viewed as a conflict of interest (aka political nightmare).  My 'boss' was actually a guy just a year older than myself, who was in an even more convoluted position - working with the US EPA while simultaneously trying to get a bioremediation company off the ground.  Anyway, I digress.  My boss, Jim, was an ardent Republican.  He had a pastel portrait collection of Ronald Reagan in his office - all framed, in those frames that you'd put a diploma in - and I'll never forget the first time I walked into his office.  It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. 

But, oddly enough, Jim and I became friends, humorous bedfellows so-to-speak, and took great pleasure poking fun at each other's political affiliation.  Soon after I arrived, the doors to our offices (which were adjacent) became littered with political cartoons - my poking fun at the right, his at the left.  We began to entertain much of the lab - except for the night prior to a visit from EPA Headquarters - and generally then, all of the cartoons would be mysteriously stripped from our door (to the dismay of both of us).  If anything, Jim and I bonded on the common philosophy that all of those cartoons should have been allowed to stay up - but oh well, we were both at a federal laboratory - so had little to say in the matter.

Jim and I voted in that election together.  We were in line for over three hours at a Catholic Church in Gulf Breeze, Fl -- bantering the whole time, and once again entertaining everyone around us.  No one understood why we were in line together, much less why we had actually driven to that location together in the same car.  When we finally got in, and into our respective booths, we couldn't help shouting a few key phrases to the other during the process - and when Jim jokingly walked into my booth and I screamed 'Help!  Someone's trying to influence my vote!" and Jim was escorted (somewhat jokingly) out of the facility - everyone that had been in line with us was laughing.  Of course, I wasn't laughing when I saw him drive off - but, fortunately, he drove back a few minutes later and picked me up.  At that point, we made a bet:  if Bush won, I'd go to his place of choice for the inauguration, and buy the margaritas, if Clinton won, we'd go to my place of choice for the inauguration, and he'd buy the margaritas.  Which is exactly what we did - it was a small bar, on Santa Rosa Island, the only place with a large TV that would be open at 11 in the morning (and serving margaritas - pitchers of them in fact) - a place that would keep us warm while allowing us to look out on the Gulf of Mexico. 

A group of people from the lab joined us that day - mostly folks that aligned politically with Jim and who weren't very happy.  I, on the other hand, had finally voted for a candidate that had won - a small miracle, and was in a celebratory mood.  But the day proved to be interesting to me, educational really - as I spent my first inauguration in a part of the country that was unfamiliar to me (and that actually resided south of Alabama), that wasn't embraced by the culture of a University town.  When Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton first came on screen - I was simply overwhelmed by how the conversation drifted rapidly from any discussion of Clinton's politics, the election, or the future of the US Congress - but instead, the conversation immediately focused on what Hillary Clinton was wearing.

It really surprised me.  The women in the group with us that day, all sipping on their before-noon margaritas, were about as viscious a group as I had seen in some time.  Jim joined in - making the statement that 'someone shouldn't be allowed to be President if he had a wife that wore such a hideous hat' (do any of you remember that big blue hat?).  The discussion, even then - even then in this little bar sitting by the Gulf of Mexico - was about Hillary.  About her hat.  It wasn't about her politics, her background, her contributions to society - it wasn't even about what kind of mother or spouse she was - it was about her hat.

So when I saw her official decision to run for President of the United States yesterday, I felt oddly proud that this woman - this woman who had been demeaned because of a stupid hat years ago - and who has been criticized for so many aspects of her life over the years - was still standing up, was still in the game, and had 'early frontrunner status' in at least one poll.  I can't tell you how good that feels as a woman who doesn't think too much about the hat she wears, and for God's sake hopes that her self-worth is never measured by the covering on her head.  Regardless of how you might feel about her politically or personally - please recognize how thrilling it is for some women to see her taking this step.  I swear, the background music is the sound of doors opening.  Granted, the doors might just be in my head (for now) - but the music is still so sweet.

???

So 'Saddam to be hanged by Sunday'?  How barbaric is that headline?  Before the Eid religious holiday you say?  Nothing says 'Happy End of Ramadan' like a hanging...

Does anyone feel good about this?

5:15 pm update:  His execution will possibly occur by 10 pm tonight.

Quagmires

So, I guess my brother didn't just bring me a blue spruce when he drove down from Vermont for Thanksgiving.  He also brought me what he describes as the most common bumper sticker he sees around his town (Stowe) - and although mine isn't stuck on my car, it does stand proudly on my dining room table where...it does absolutely no good. For the past day and a half I've been up at Clemson for a minisymposium - and I must say it was nice hanging out for a short while at a big university where conversations ranged from the latest pyrosequencing toy (that doesn't even have a case built for it yet - just the 'guts' are available for a demo) to the Iraq Study Group Official Report.

We need change.  This isn't working.  I feel like we're caught up in quagmires - an Iraq quagmire, a global warming quagmire - lots of talk, discussion, criticism, frustration, outrage and thrashing - alot of (random) action - but every single day opportunities are lost.  I fear that at some point, some point soon, it won't matter what we do anymore.  We should have never gone into Iraq - the war was wrong from the very beginning.  Remember this article?  Eloquent. 

Folks I Won't Miss (an abbreviated list)

Richard W. Pombo (R, Incumbent, California 11 House Race)

From Ted Williams:

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was an awakening--humankind's first serious expression of an ecological conscience and its first and, so far, best major effort to preserve the planet's genetic wealth. The law has been a beacon for the world, inspiring nations and global communities to enact similar statutes, most notably the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Pombo's been one of the most outspoken critics of the Endangered Species Act.  Although his stance may have softened recently (2005 NYTimes article) - he interfered with numerous attempts to re-write the act to make it more effective.  I am a definite supporter of the ESA.  From Environment & Animals:

Consider this: During the administration of the first President Bush, on average, 58 species per year were protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Clinton administration averaged 65 per year. And the administration of George W. Bush? Eight species per year -- and most of those only after the courts compelled it to take action. That means that in five years, only 40 species have gained ESA protection -- fewer than in any single year of the two previous administrations. While the Act is under assault by Congressman Richard Pombo and his legislative allies, Ted Williams (that's him at left), editor-at-large of Audubon magazine and conservation editor of Fly Rod & Reel, reminds us in an exclusive web-only essay of the myriad ways that the Bush administration undermines a law it is ostensibly charged with upholding. The Endangered Species Act, a law that protects America's most vulnerable species, needs protection itself, and, as Williams writes, it "reflects America at its very best."

Richard Santorum (R, Incumbent, Pennsylvania Senate Race)

"Therefore, intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes."  R. Santorum, 2002, The Washington Times

In 2001, Santorum tried to add language to the "No Child Left Behind Bill" that promoted the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools (along with questioning the academic legitimacy of evolution).  This became known as the Santorum Amendment.  As someone who firmly believes that Intelligent Design is something that should not be included in any science curriculum, I'm pretty thrilled that this guy is gone.  This is the guy that feels that "scientists have not decisively concluded' that global warming exists, who has supported drilling for oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, and these are just environmental/science-related issues I'm talking about - let's not go into his statements on homosexuality, Katrina - the list is long here.  Just go to Santorum Ducking Global Warming for a laugh - but just laugh for a minute and move on - this guy simply isn't worth the time.

Clay Shaw (R, Incumbent, Florida 22 House Race)

"I've heard both sides of it," he continued. "On a hot day everyone will say it's global warming. Now we get early snowfalls in Denver and places like that, and people say it's not global warming. Then people say it's a trend that has happened before. Other people say the seas are rising. ... I'm not convinced either way."  Clay Shaw, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, October 30 2006
    

While the medicare drug issue probably killed him (and the Foley scandal), he's not a favorite of environmentalists/scientists.  Yes, he's another skeptic of global warming,  and he supported oil drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge - plus he's been known to side with the developers in Florida in almost every case.

Today, in the halls of the laboratory, these were the three names that popped up the most - that we all felt from an environmental and/or scientific perspective, wouldn't be missed.  This is just our 'top three' - and I'm sure we left some folks out.  For now though, lets hope that the Democrats that won these seats can live up to their words and their ideals and their challenges.  One of the most promising things I heard all day - amongst alot of promising pieces of news - was from the President himself, saying "...as head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility...".  Boy, has he ever said something like that before?  Not that I can remember.  I say we accept the olive branch, and spend the next two years trying to get back on track.