Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

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.               

No Further Please

Now, what do you think the punishment would be if I stole this sign from Mepkin Abbey and modified it a little bit and put it up on my office door?  I thought about it, for a brief second last Sunday afternoon.  I'd feel compelled to change 'monastic area' to something less monastery-like...or perhaps (better yet!) the monks could designate an area for stressed-out and simultaneously wired grant writers at their place?  Think of the grant writing that could get done! 

Sixteen days until my next grant deadline.  Let the games begin! 

In Search of Solar

Leyland cypress (Cypress x leylandii).  And a whole lot of blue sky.  Sun, sun - so much sun.

When I first moved into this place, there was an old wooden fence in the back corner, that I was going to use as one 'wall' of a dog pen - you know, one of those places that I could banish the dogs to when they were being annoying.  So, one of the first things I did was plant three tiny leyland cypresses in front of the fence - I remember paying $3 for each of them (on sale, at Lowe's) 12 years ago.  They weren't even a foot tall.  Now they're quite tall and full - forming a green wall in front of a wooden fence that has long since fallen apart and been discarded.  Each spring the cardinals nest somewhere deep inside of them. And the dogs?  Yep, they're still annoying from time-to-time - but they're also still roaming my one acre (that is fenced) in freedom.

I think that I need to start a new 'category' today.  I don't think I've added one since I started this thing - and I do need to add one, maybe two actually.  First, I think I need to add some kind of 'Airstream' related category - since it does appear that the Airstream might arrive on Wednesday from chilly Vermont (yes, even inanimate objects seem to be moving south these days).  This is the Airstream that I might end up living in - while I build a new home on my acre of land.  The reality of the Airstream actually showing up here in Lower Awendaw has me a bit wired - so, it's something that really might happen?   Getting two of my live oak trees pruned was actually Step 1 in the process - since the Airstream will most likely be parked near the larger of the live oaks.  Now, this week - Step 2, the Airstream actually  arriving on the premises, will occur. 

Pretty soon all I'll have to deal with is tearing down my existing house and figuring out the whole building process.  I haven't talked to any builders yet, and as the consumate non-shopper, I dread the process.   But I may have been saved - not from ending up in eternal damnation - but from the whole process because it ends up that the guy that is bringing the Airstream down from Vermont is also a builder.  And as he was talking to my brother, he said 'boy, I'd just love to go down to South Carolina for a year and build a house' and it ends up he was serious.  So Bart is arriving on Wednesday with the Airstream and his portfolio - and it's positive that after a warning from my brother (one of those typical brother warnings - oh, she'll be difficult, has all these weird ideas for her house, etc) that he's still interested.  I know, I know - we've got to figure out all sorts of licensing rules and regulations for the County of Charleston - but the thought of having an individual - just a guy (who my brother says can pick up a couch with one hand) and not a corporation that is building a bunch of houses at once is really appealing to me.  My fingers (and toes) are crossed that Bart will be all the shopping that I need to do for a builder.  He's worked for my brother on various jobs for years, and my brother says he's exceptional - and hilarious.  Perfect!

So - the second new category needs to be a 'thinking outloud' (aka online) about aspects of home building that I'm thinking about.  And for the most part know absolutely NOTHING about.  The first of which is the incorporation of active solar into my home design.  I'm really determined to try to do it - although I'm concerned about the price and since there aren't alot of solar homes in the area - I'm also concerned about finding someone good to contract out this part of the house.  My brother had a home in New Hampshire a number of years ago that was on a large hill (a mountain by South Carolina standards) and incorporated both active and passive solar - so my brother is helping me to research this area a bit.  But what I've found so far, which I thought I'd share with you, is:

1. South Carolina Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency
2. More specifically, here are the solar heating and cooling personal tax credits.  This is a new credit (as of June 2006), and it states that 'A taxpayer may claim a credit of 25% of the costs of installing a solar energy heating or cooling system, or both, in a building owned by the taxpayer. The maximum credit is $3,500 or 50% of the taxpayer's tax liability for that taxable year, whichever is less.'   
3. US DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy:  Active Solar Heating
4. SC Solar, Inc.
5. A Consumer's Guide to Buying a Solar Electric System
6. Financing Solar Energy Systems:  A Federal Overview
7. Search for solar professionals

Guy, Joe, John, Lyle, and Marcia

Another camellia - this time it's Camellia japonica 'Sea Foam'.  An absolutely beautiful formal double - and the first 'formal' form that made it into my garden.  I purchased it the day after a friend, Marcia, passed away on her 53rd birthday - a year and a week after she had been diagnosed with a glioblastoma.  I've mentioned before my tendency to splurge on plants at times of stress - and so we could add trauma to the list too, and losing a friend is pretty traumatic.  But now, for the past three years - when I see this camellia blooming, I smile and think of Marcia - and it oddly helps, makes me feel like a part of her is right here in my garden - looking perfect (like she always did).

It's funny how certain things - a camellia, a song - or a painting - takes us to another place.  It's a wonderful magic trick really, especially since it's often so unintentional.  Last night I was fortunate to be able (at the very last minute) to get tickets to hear a wonderful group of songwriters - Lyle Lovett (who I'd seen before) and three other guys that I've always enjoyed but never seen perform live - John Hiatt, Joe Ely - and the amazing Guy Clark.  What a nice show.  All four performers were sitting on a chair - all in a row - and took turns with a song, and then they'd join in from time-to-time.   I've always loved John Hiatt - since I started listening to him during my last few years in graduate school.  When I left Michigan for a postdoctoral position in Florida - I won't ever forget my friend and I pulling the U-Haul out of the drive of the farm and farmhouse that I'd lived in for the past five years - 100 acres of central Michigan heaven and a 10-room farmhouse with 30 single-pane windows.  I couldn't imagine leaving the place.  But it was 5 am, we had a long drive ahead of us - and the first thing we did was play Hiatt's 'Drive South' as loud as we could as we drove down Colby Lake Road for the very last time.

I didn't say we wouldn't hurt anymore
That's how you learn, you just get burned
But we don't have to feel like dirt anymore
Though love's not earned, Baby it's our turn
We were always looking for true north
With our heads in the clouds, just a little off course
I left the motor running, now if you're feeling down and out 

CHORUS:
Come on Baby drive south, with the one you love
Come on Baby drive south, with the one you love 

I'm not talkin' 'bout retreatin' little girl
Gonna take our stand, in this Chevy van
Windows open on the rest of the world
Holdin' hands, all the way to Dixieland
We've been tryin' to turn our lives around
Since we were little kids, it's been wearin' us down
Don't turn away now Darlin' lets fire it up and wind it out 

CHORUS 

BRIDGE:
I heard your mama callin', I think she was just stallin' 

Don't know who she was talkin' to, baby me and you
We could go down with a smile on, don't bother to pack your nylons
Just keep them pretty legs showin', it gets hot down where we're goin'
We were always looking for true north
With our heads in the clouds, just a little off course
I left the motor running, now if you're feeling down and out
Come on baby drive, come on baby drive south, come on baby drive south 

CHORUS 

So, sitting in the North Charleston Performing Arts Center (in the next-to-last row of the whole place) - I finally got to see Hiatt perform that song - and I couldn't help but remembering every last detail of that early morning in July in Michigan when I was driving south myself.  And when the performance ended last night - on a song (Step Inside this House) performed by Lyle Lovett that was supposedly the first song that Guy Clark ever wrote - you just couldn't help but think that there was an awful lot of talent up on that stage.  It all made me think about the power of words and the power of images - both in our past, present and future - and this morning when I noticed that my formal white camellia was once again in bloom, I couldn't help but think about a day just over three years ago now.

Download Marcia.doc

Perfection (and lack thereof)

Finally -- some sunshine.  Cold air and sun.  This morning it was 50 degrees warmer here than it was outside my brother's home in Vermont (just to put the cold into perspective...but I know, he chose to live up there).

Random thoughts:  Camellia japonica 'Pink Perfection' is indeed beautiful.  Twenty days until my next grant is due (the countdown has begun).  I'm psyched about seeing John Hiatt tonight (the other guys too - but I've never seen Hiatt perform before - and I'm taking Joan's advice and trying the roasted corn at Sesame before the concert).  The Airstream is arriving early next week!  I need to get out to Pete's and walk through the camellia garden - I need to get outside and walk through my own garden.  I need to work like crazy for a few weeks.  I'm snowed under and don't get the benefit of actually seeing snow.      

Postcard from...the Lab

How can I explain to my graduate students that nothing really is something?

I say that I still remember.  And I do - I remember that year and a half when every gas chromatographic trace looked the same - when there wasn't a single piece of evidence to suggest that I was even close to finding an anaerobic consortium of sediment microorganisms that could remove bromines from the polybrominated biphenyl (PBBs) mixture, Firemaster.  I set up anaerobic enrichment cultures weekly, extracted them weekly, ran the resulting samples on the gas chromatograph 24/7.  Nothing.  The lab was basking in the glow of a Science paper (Quensen JF III, Tiedje JM, Boyd SA. 1988. Reductive dechlorination of PCBs by anaerobic microorganisms from sediments. Science 242:752-754) - CNN filmed the lab, General Electric was estactic (they funded much of the work).  The paper demonstrated for the first time that anaerobic microorganisms were responsible for the dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - a finding that changed the way we view this group of contaminants in the environment.

But then bromines should be energetically easier for a microorganism to remove.  Right?  Easy project.  But for a year and a half, nothing.

Do any of you remember the Firemaster story?  When bags of the brominated flame retardant Firemaster were accidentally feed to cattle in Michigan?  Here's an excerpt:

Sometime in May or June 1973, the Michigan Chemical Co. accidentally shipped a fire retardant with the brand name of Firemaster to Farm Bureau Services, a supplier for thousands of Michigan farmers, in place of Nutrimaster, a cattle feed containing magnesium oxide. Firemaster was a brand name for PBB, a four-year-old chemical used to reduce the flammability of plastics and electrical circuits. Customers incorporated Firemaster in auto dashboards and casings for telephones and hair dryers. The mistake apparently happened at a time when Michigan Chemical ran out of preprinted bags and hand-lettered the trade names of the two products in black. The similarity of product names or perhaps the smudging of the letters was all it took to make the first link in a disastrous chain of events.In October 1973, the state Department of Agriculture’s head diagnostician inspected the sickened dairy herd of Fred Halbert of Battle Creek and at first suspected lead poisoning. When tests for lead proved negative, the department sought help from Michigan State University and laboratories in Wisconsin, Iowa and New York to isolate the contaminant in the feed. Not until May 1974 did the department determine, with help from Halbert’s son Rick, a chemical engineer, that PBB was the poison. The department then tested feed and farm products across the state. By 1975 the state had quarantined more than 500 farms and condemned for slaughter over 17,000 cattle, 3,415 hogs, 1.5 million chickens, and 4.8 million eggs. PBB was removed from the market. In the 1980s, the state health department confirmed that approximately 95 per cent of Michigan’s population had residues of PBB in fat tissue.

I remember thinking that I'd never be able to do it.  That an observation that we thought would be relatively simply, might just not happen (for me at least) - and what would I do?  It was my dissertation project.

But then it happened.  In one serum bottle filled with sediment from the Pine River (the river adjacent to the plant that manufactured PBBs).  The gas chromatographic traces between the control (autoclaved sediments) and live (containing sediments with live microorganisms) treatments were different - and showed that some of the heavily brominated PBB congeners were reduced in concentration, and that new, less brominated PBB congeners were formed.  From nothing to something.

During yesterday's lab meeting, Katherine presented a poem from Wyn Cooper, a poet who got his career kick-started when Sheryl Crowe  asked to use his poem 'Fun' as the basis for what would become Crowe's big hit 'All I Wanna Do'.  As Katherine introduced the poem - she said that she felt it was about luck - but also about the virtue found in hard work - the essence of which was captured simply in the last line of the poem 'Wrote every day no matter what.'  Writing and science really are the same - you just keep doing it. Every day.  I joke with the lab about how I'm happy as long as there is 'forward progress'...and much of that progress can be defined as showing up, showing up at the lab bench and starting another experiment, regardless of the frustration and the obstacles and the remaining questions.  I know now that for that year and a half of nothing, that I was learning, ruling out possibilities, refining my skills in anaerobic culturing and polyhalogenated biphenyl analysis by gas chromatography.  However when students in my own lab are going through similar periods of frustration - I want to tell them that it will be okay, that interesting discoveries will be made - that simply keeping at it is worth everything - but I also know that this has to be their own road.  Their own path to discovery.  Personally as well as scientifically.  Hopefully, yesterday, the poem that Katherine chose to read to us will help a little - perhaps we need to edit it a bit, perhaps change the title to 'Postcards from the Lab'...or perhaps it's perfect as it is.    

Postcard from the Party

by Wyn Cooper (Postcards from the Interior, BOA Editions, LTD)

You have to be invited, and there's nothing
you can do to be asked. Headlines and bloodlines
don't help. It's a long way from home but I'm
here, the view much better than I'm used to.
How did this happen? Dumb but good luck,
right place and time, the planets aligned.
No contract, no deadline, no risk. And what
did I do to deserve this? Slept with all
the wrong people, gambled too much on friends
of friends with light bulbs over their heads.
Wrote every day no matter what.

Emerging...Blossoms? Pathogens?

I don't remember the name of this camellia - maybe it's Camellia japonica 'Scented Treasure' - but I'm not sure.  It's one of the fragrant japonicas, a newer one, and while I don't think the flowers are very pretty (they're okay - peony form) - I love their big, round buds and their light fragrance.  It's also a fairly fast grower - this one started off at about a 1' tall, and now five or so years later it's at least 6' tall.  No disease problems either.  So...if I could just find where I put the tag years ago, I would know for sure what it was!  Oh well.

I've been reading up for the past day or so on emerging pathogens.  Pathogens in general really, but also about the causes of their emergence and spread.  There was a short feature article in Microbe (2006, Vol. 1 No. 11, p. 511) that gave a nice overview on the subject, and provided this information on known pathogens that infect humans:

Of the catalogued pathogen species that infect humans, 538 are bacteria, 317 are fungi, 287 are helminths, 208 are viruses, and 57 are protozoa; among those associated with emerging and re-emerging infectious disease, viruses are significantly over-represented, whereas helminthes are under-represented.

I'm interested in emerging pathogens because of a small side-project that we have in the laboratory that is examining the microbiota associated with bottlenose dolphin upper respiratory tract fluids.  It's a fascinating project, and a unique opportunity - to examine wild populations from two different east coast locations.  It's part of a much larger project assessing bottlenose dolphin health - and other researchers are examining bioaccumulation of pollutants, immune function, etc.  Right now I'm helping to write up a manuscript describing microorganisms that were found in dolphin respiratory tracts using traditional, clinical approaches - approaches based on media routinely used to characterize known (and often opportunistic) human pathogens.  These approaches select for microorganisms that we know, microorganisms that infect humans, and microorganisms that grow on human bodily fluids - so the media used is based on the human model.

But what about a mammal that lives in the marine environment?  Much of what we find using traditional approaches is just one snapshot of the microorganisms that are present, and a tiny snapshot at that.  We don't have dolphin-specific media - so when we examine the same samples using molecular (DNA-based) approaches - we're finding that the 'snapshot' changes pretty dramatically.  The microorganisms that we're finding are different from those found to grow on traditional media.  Some of the organisms are closely related to potentially interesting human pathogens (and not 'traditional' ones) - and we're yet to determine whether what we're seeing might be a novel species-level microbe specific to a marine mammal - or even perhaps a novel Genus.  There's alot of work left to be done on this project - right now, we've only looked at one dolphin out of 60 or so that we can analyze.  Yes, a grant is pending to fund this work.  This project is dependent on acquiring funding for the extensive DNA sequencing required to analyze the microbial communities.

But residing in a marine laboratory, and being affiliated with a medical university -- a broader question that is of relevance to the mission of both institutions is what role does the marine environment (and it's residents) play as a reservoir of potential human pathogens.  According to the Microbe article, the majority of pathogens are zoonoses (defined by the World Health Organization as 'diseases or infections which are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and humans').  In other words, only a few (no more than 100 or so) pathogens only infect and cause diseases in humans.  The majority of them need to hangout somewhere - and not necessarily with a human host.  Many of the pathogens - emerging pathogens - that you are familiar with have been zoonotic - think SARS coronavirus and the causative agent for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.  Think HIV-1 and 2.  Think H5N1 influenza A virus.  Ebola.

The reality is that population growth - and urbanization - are human factors that are influencing pathogen emergence.  Human behavior will continue to influence pathogen emergence as we modify the way and extent we interact with the environment.  In the Microbe article, they liken 'emerging and reemerging pathogens to weeds because both are adaptable exploiters of unstable environments.'  As our environment changes, and adapts to climate change (as one example) - I can't help but think that opportunities will arise for pathogens that we've yet to identify.  The marine environment is just one of those environments where change will provide novel opportunities for adaptable microorganisms.

Off to the lab.    

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.

Science Blogging Anthology 2006

Over at A Blog Around the Clock, Bora Z. (aka Coturnix) has announced the arrival of The Science Blogging Anthology.  I'm going to order a copy in a bit (you can order it online here).  If you're not sure about it, or haven't spent any time roaming the Science Blog sites, then you can take a look here at links to the 50 finalists and the posts that were included in the book.  A diverse and interesting group for sure.   

I can't believe this guy did it (well, sure I can - from everything I can tell, Bora has the energy of 100 people!), because he just put out an announcement for this in a 22 December post and here we are, less than a month later - and it's a book.  He found a local publishing company (Lulu.com) that needed little lead time - and got a bunch of folks to review the posts and narrow down the entries - they got it done.  If only I could write a grant that efficiently!  Just in time for tomorrow's NC Science Blogging Conference.  Now how cool is that?

Whenever I read the science bloggers, I feel conflicted:  my original intent (hence the name) of this blog was to write more about science, but it definitely evolved into more of an escape from science - an escape from writing manuscripts, writing grants, worrying about students, thinking about science, and generally feeling swamped.  Since I'm not anonymous - I'm hesitant to write about too much of my day, since many of my day-to-day activities and stresses would be in appropriate to write about here.  But I think there's room for more science, more stories about microorganisms, more tales about what they can do - that's something I'll aim for, slowly.  The group of writers in this new anthology are definitely motivating to me in that respect.

But I'll still need to spend alot of time in the garden.