Discover Magazine 2017-09

Discover PALEONTOLOGY

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How Brain Cells Go Rogue

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What’s Hiding in Fossils?

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SEPTEMBER 2017

Understanding an

ECLIPSE and its mysterious spell

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Researchers Flee War Your Brain on Religion Environmental Fallout of Growing Pot P.42

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FEATURES

30 Eclipse Special Section We explore humanity’s fascination with total solar eclipses, which have long inspired fear and awe, and prepare you for the summer spectacle that will darken skies across America. STORIES BY SARAH SCOLES, MICHAEL E. BAKICH AND TYLER NORDGREN

42 Science, Interrupted As refugees flee conflicts in their home countries, the scholars among them face an additional struggle: how to save their life’s work. BY JENNIFER HATTAM

ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH HANSON; COLLAGE PHOTOS BY BALKANSCAT/SHUTTERSTOCK AND DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

50 High Consequences Toxins from illegal pot farms threaten the ecosystems of California’s forests. A dedicated group of researchers is sounding the alarm. BY JEFF WHEELWRIGHT

58 The Brain of Ben Barres After a career of breakthroughs, a neuroscientist is poised to change how we treat Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and other diseases. BY KENNETH MILLER

Scientists are among the millions fleeing war-torn countries. Read about refugee scholars on page 42.

September 2017 DISCOVER

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Contents COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS

6 EDITOR’S NOTE

When the Day Dims Memories of a total eclipse from a Montana hillside.

7 INBOX Readers comment on science heroes and explore why flamingos stand on one leg.

THE CRUX

Arctic mounds are earthy on the outside, icy on the inside; the Cassini probe ends its mission in a blaze of glory; a geologist witnesses the dance between hot and cold on an erupting volcano; your wristband fitness tracker might be burning you on calorie count; a Hubble telescope image error becomes abstract art; and more.

22 VITAL SIGNS No Relief

A woman suffers from digestive symptoms that wax and wane for months. What could be the root of her mysterious illness? BY TONY DAJER

26 MIND OVER MATTER

Trying to Lose My Religion A skeptic grapples with her spiritual experience, religious upbringing and the workings of the brain. BY STAV DIMITROPOULOS

64 ORIGIN STORY Beyond DNA

Move over, fossils and DNA. Now, ancient proteins are revealing how creatures, including hominins, lived. BY GEMMA TARLACH

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Learn how scientists are accounting for all we see in the universe on page 70.

70 OUT THERE

Missing Matter Found After decades of coming up short, scientists have finally discovered what was hiding in plain sight. BY LIZ KRUESI

74 20 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT …

Traffic From congested lanes on freeways to motor enzymes navigating DNA, traffic (and the occasional roadkill) is part of life. BY GEMMA TARLACH

ON THE COVER In 2012, photographer Colleen Pinski traveled to New Mexico to capture an annular solar eclipse, renting a super-telephoto lens and setting up more than a mile from a ridge. As she shot, a boy wandered into the frame to view the spectacle. Cover photo by Colleen Pinski

TOP: NASA, ESA, HST FRONTIER FIELDS. BOTTOM: GESHA/SHUTTERSTOCK

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Health

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Discover SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS

Editor's Note

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BECKY LANG Editor In Chief DAN BISHOP Design Director

When the Day Dims It was February 1979, a late winter day in Montana, and school was out. It wasn’t a snow day. This was planned — thoroughly predicted — because the center line of a total eclipse would be mere miles from town. That morning, we walked across the dirt road to hike up our neighbor’s giant hill. We lived at the end of a road, down in a gulch, surrounded by hundreds of acres of wooded Forest Service land. To see anything, we needed to get up above the trees. I’d made a box with a pinhole in it in my third-grade classroom. I held it as we scrabbled up the hill and then waited for the moon to slide across the sun. I still can feel that sense of otherworldliness in those 2½ minutes as the light across the grassy hillside dimmed. Everything was quiet, and with a hush it all seemed to slow down. There’s still time to join That feeling, even after nearly 40 years, our Northern Lights tour still sticks with me. I hope to experience this October in Norway, something similar during the Great led by our travel partner, American Eclipse on Aug. 21. In this TravelQuest. Go to issue, you’ll read about the psychology travelquesttours.com of eclipses and how they lure us to step outside of ourselves. And you’ll also learn about the geometry of eclipses, as well as how to safely view them. Did the 1979 event cause me to ponder our place in the universe back when I was 8? Nah, not really. But I’ll never forget that experience of eerie darkness.

EDITORIAL KATHI KUBE Managing Editor GEMMA TARLACH Senior Editor BILL ANDREWS Senior Associate Editor MARK BARNA Associate Editor ERIC BETZ Associate Editor LACY SCHLEY Assistant Editor DAVE LEE Copy Editor ELISA R. NECKAR Copy Editor AMY KLINKHAMMER Editorial Assistant SYLVIA I. MORROW AAAS Mass Media Fellow Contributing Editors

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Inbox PRINT FEEDBACK COVER STORY

Paying Homage to Ohm I just finished reading your Heroes of Science (May 2017) issue that included the profiles of both well-known and unsung science heroes. I appreciated the variety of topics, epochs, genders and cultures presented. The references to volt, ohm and amp reminded me of a quip I once heard while I was teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School around the same time as Richard Hamming (of Hamming Code fame). When asked about his role in the science and engineering community, he responded: “I’ll know I’m really famous when they stop capitalizing my last name.” Jeff Goldfinger, San Diego

Our Unsung Heroes As a retired science and math teacher, I especially appreciated the section Heroes of Science (May 2017). In the fall of 2008, I learned about the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and his seminal contributions to the study of evolution and biodiversity. (Incidentally, this was the subject of your August 1997 article, “Mr. Wallace’s Line,” which I’d not yet read at that time.) Wallace is my unsung hero. Terrie Patterson, Ballard, Calif. Feedback is edited for space and clarity.

WEB FEEDBACK A Smart Stance

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK MARTURELLO

Why do flamingos stand on one leg? It sounds like the setup to a joke, but researchers at Emory University went to Zoo Atlanta to get the answer. The results: Standing on one leg actually conserves energy — it’s easier. Discover readers still had some fun coming up with their own hypotheses.

D Pat Gorman I used to think if a crocodile bit off one leg, the bird still had a spare tucked away. Sóstenes R Ibarra To avoid varicose veins. Bernard Valerio To rest the other foot.

September 2017 DISCOVER

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THE CRUX T H E L ATEST S C I E N C E N E WS A N D N O T ES

VARIETY AMONG CLONES Among these 100 stem cells, no two have the same shape — yet all are clones. This composite was made using images from the recently launched Allen Cell Explorer, an online portal that lets researchers view the 3-D structures of different cell types, gleaned from more than 1.2 million photographs. “Being able to image cells in 3-D, model cells in 3-D and analyze cells in 3-D is really critical to truly, deeply understanding how cells work,” says Graham Johnson, director of the Animated Cell project at the Allen Institute of Cell Science, in a video about the tool.  ERNIE MASTROIANNI; PHOTO BY THE ALLEN INSTITUTE FOR CELL SCIENCE

September 2017 DISCOVER

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THE CRUX

The Linac Coherent Light Source — with one imaging station shown here — catches atoms in motion.

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BIG IDEA

The Atomic Movie Machine

SLAC NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY

Scientists double down on an X-ray laser that can re-create a star’s interior and catch photosynthesis in action. IN THE SUMMER OF 2010, Oxford University physicist Justin Wark flew to Northern California to study the interiors of stars. The instrument he sought there was not a telescope, but rather a new kind of laser, more than 3,500 feet long and capable of emitting X-rays a billion times brighter than anything ever generated on Earth. It was worth the airfare. In the 60 hours he spent bombarding metal foils with X-rays — creating analogs to stellar plasma, or ionized gas — Wark pulled more data than he had from any single experiment in a quarter century. It was remarkable that the machine worked at all; nobody had ever made this kind of laser at any scale. Everything about the enormous Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) was a gamble, says LCLS Director Mike Dunne. In the 1960s, Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy constructed the longest linear particle accelerator in the world. The Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) collided electrons and other particles at nearly lightspeed, allowing physicists to make Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about the quark, an elementary particle. But by the turn of the millennium, more powerful machines existed, and the accelerator was essentially obsolete. “If nothing else had changed, the system would just have been shut down,” Dunne says, “but alongside that came an idea, a speculation almost.” Scientists thought particle accelerators might be repurposed to churn out X-rays in a way

that would behave like a laser — a light beam made by exciting atoms. And that laserlike behavior, the speculation went, could create a tool for observing matter in unprecedented atomic detail. The plan was relatively straightforward. Researchers would fire the accelerator’s speeding electrons through an undulator — a contraption to make them zigzag — and their undulations would emit high-energy radiation in the form of X-rays. The big question was whether the waves of those X-rays could align, which is a must for making “coherent” laser light. Theory said yes, and the U.S. Department of Energy bet half a billion dollars on it. The results, according to Dunne, were “beyond everybody’s expectations.” Wark’s work on LCLS shows what’s possible. “I’m interested in generating and diagnosing extreme states of matter,” he says. The X-ray laser not only re-creates the extreme temperatures and pressures inside stars and planets, but also images their atomic structure. With LCLS, the laser pulses 120 times per second, and each pulse lasts as little as one-hundredth of a trillionth of a second. By stringing those X-ray snapshots together, “you can make a little movie of what’s going on,” Wark explains. That movie-making potential also appeals to researchers studying chemical reactions in fuels, for instance, or how electrons behave

in superconducting materials. LCLS has even helped scientists understand photosynthesis, where the chemical reactions for turning sunlight into energy are fast and unpredictable. Crucially, LCLS works without freezing the plant samples — a necessity with some other instruments. So scientists know what they’re seeing is closer to natural conditions, according to Junko Yano, who researches photosynthesis at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Scientists say LCLS was such a complex system that it needed experts from diverse fields all working together to make its experiments possible. And that interdisciplinary approach is still strong. Yano’s team, for example, includes researchers in fields that might otherwise never talk to each other, from biologists to physicists, as well as chemists, engineers and computer scientists. On the strength of these collaborations — and new findings in areas ranging from photosynthesis to stellar physics — the Department of Energy doubled down last year with $1 billion of additional funding for a more advanced X-ray laser in another segment of the old SLAC tunnel. Superpowered with a superconducting accelerator, LCLS-II should start making X-rays in 2020. LCLS-II may need an even greater interplay of expertise. The new superconducting accelerator will make the upcoming laser 8,000 times faster and 10,000 times brighter than LCLS, requiring major innovation in X-ray detectors, data processing and analysis. “We have to have them all come together simultaneously,” Dunne notes. “By pure serendipity, we think they can converge on the timescale that LCLS-II will turn on.” He doesn’t sound especially worried. It’s just another big bet on a machine with a winning streak any gambler would envy.  JONATHON KEATS

Nobody had ever made this kind of laser at any scale.

September 2017 DISCOVER

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THE CRUX THAT WORD YOU HEARD

Pingo

THERE, OFF IN THE DISTANCE: It’s a mountain … it’s a hill … it’s a pingo! These mounds may appear mundane, but beneath their earthy exterior is a core of ice. Sometimes called hydrolaccoliths, pingos typically form in arctic regions, like Siberia and northern Canada. In such frigid climates, groundwater collects and freezes, amassing ice beneath the surface that eventually forces the ground up. They can reach heights of over 170 feet, and if the core melts, they can leave behind giant sinkholes — a popular explanation among experts for the mysterious Siberian sinkholes that made headlines back in 2014.  LACY SCHLEY; ILLUSTRATION BY CHAD EDWARDS

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THE CRUX

Cassini’s Closing Act V

One of NASA’s most iconic missions comes to an end.

CASSINI

V NORTHERN

EXPOSURE This false color image, taken in nearinfrared light, shows the raging eye of the 1,200-mile-wide storm at Saturn’s north pole. Red shows lower clouds; the green ones are higher.

V HEXAGON

PUZZLE Cassini brought new detail to Saturn’s mysterious hexagonshaped polar jet stream, shown here from 2 million miles away. Researchers created similar shapes in computer models, concluding the unusual cloud patterns are caused by atmospheric disruptions.

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THIS PAGE: NASA/JPL-CALTECH (3). OPPOSITE FROM TOP: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MICHAEL BENSON/KINETIKON PICTURES; NASA/JPL-CALTECH; NASA/JPL-CALTHECH/IAN REGAN; ESA/NASA//UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA (TITAN); NASA/JPL-CALTECH (2)

The orbiter and attached Huygens lander eased into Saturn’s orbit in 2004.

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TIGER STRIPES Under the icy surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a liquid ocean launches water plumes through the cracks. Cassini also sniffed out organic compounds and potentially life-giving hydrothermal vents.

V

CASSINI IS RUNNING OUT OF GAS.

GRAVITY WAKE

Only 5 miles across, Saturn’s ringembedded moon Daphnis kicks up waves of particles in the A ring.

V V

CRACKING THE WALNUT MOON

GRAND FINALE PORTRAIT Here

Cassini close-ups found a 900-mile mountain range, up to 12 miles high, encircling Iapetus. Some researchers say the moon’s rotation caused the ridge; others blame a collapsing debris disk, suggesting a ringed moon once circled the ringed planet.

V

the ringed planet shows a side never visible from Earth. Cassini took 96 backlit photos for this mosaic on April 13, 2017. Because the sun shines through the rings, the thinnest parts glow brightest and the thicker rings are dark.

METHANE LAKESHORE As

V

the Huygens probe parachuted to Titan’s surface, it revealed the shorelines of a liquid methane sea, plus geologically active mountains and channels.

MANY MOONS Saturn had 18 known moons when Cassini launched. The latest total is 62 — seven found by Cassini. This view shows (from left) Pandora and Prometheus — moons that shepherd the F ring — and Epimetheus. Each is less than 70 miles across.

So before mission managers lose control, they’ve steered the spacecraft on a no-return course into Saturn’s atmosphere, where it’s scheduled to burn up Sept. 15 at about 3:45 a.m. PDT. The move is precautionary. A dead spacecraft carrying stowaway microbes could contaminate icy Enceladus, a moon Cassini showed us has a salty ocean and the potential for life. Instead, friction from the high-speed atmospheric entry will destroy Cassini. NASA launched Cassini from Cape Canaveral on Oct. 15, 1997, and it slid into Saturn’s orbit nearly seven years later. The robotic spacecraft proved so robust that NASA extended the mission twice. Its twin 1-megapixel cameras, built in the early ’90s, snapped thousands of pictures. Along the way, Cassini discovered seven moons and parachuted the Huygens probe down to Titan, the only known moon with a thick atmosphere. But perhaps its most startling discovery was detecting organic compounds in the saltwater ocean sloshing under Enceladus’ icy shell. Now the last leg of the mission, which NASA calls the Grand Finale, flings the craft over Saturn’s mysterious polar hexagon and into a series of daring dives between planet and rings. On that final day in September, the team will gather to say goodbye at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Among them will be Cassini’s science team leader, Linda Spilker. She’s been with the team for almost 30 years — or the equivalent of just one Saturn orbit, she says. “When the signal stops, there will be a moment of silence, then applause and tears,” Spilker predicts. “We will miss her.”  ERNIE MASTROIANNI

September 2017 DISCOVER

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THE CRUX PERSONAL

The Lava Catcher LAVA MELTS ICE, RIGHT? It seems like a no-brainer, but it’s not quite that simple. Benjamin Edwards, a geologist at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penn., has explored scores of volcanoes in British Columbia, Iceland, South America and Russia. His specialty is studying what happens when flowing lava meets ice and snow. Figuring out this interaction helps Edwards and his team understand a volcano’s climate history and better estimate flooding in nearby communities when snowcapped volcanoes erupt. In 2013, Edwards journeyed to Tolbachik, a complex of active volcanoes on eastern Russia’s remote Kamchatka Peninsula. When he and his team arrived at one of the volcanoes via helicopter, the peak was drooling lava across the rugged, snowy terrain. In his silver fire suit, Edwards stood next to a lava bank, took its temperature — roughly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — and got to work studying how the flowing molten mass and snow do their dance.

Edwards takes the temperature of lava from a volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.

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IN HIS OWN WORDS . . .

There was this place where the lava was barely sticking out of the snow; it’s inside the snow, basically. It would push into the snow, melt it and keep pushing through. In some places, it actually pushed hard enough that the snow started to break into blocks and pop up above — almost like cartoons where a mole starts to dig a tunnel into the ground, and you see all this dirt come up. We could tell the lava was doing something because there was a little bit of steam, and you could see the flow moving, but we had no idea what was going on under the snow. So we needed to dig a hole. We went out, maybe 20 or 30 feet in front of the lava, and started digging a pit. And we tried to gauge which direction the lava

Geologist Benjamin Edwards, above, studies how lava flows like this one interact with snow.

was going, so we could dig the pit in front of the flow and it would come into our little trap. We dug as fast as we could so we could start making measurements as meltwater started seeping through the snow and into the pit. We were so busy digging, we didn’t consider we were only 4 feet from about 2,000-degree lava, with nothing in between but snow. Once we got it done, the lava started oozing in. That was pretty incredible to see. As far as I know, we’re the only people who have ever seen that on this planet.  AS TOLD TO MARK BARNA

BENJAMIN EDWARDS/DICKINSON COLLEGE (3)

A geologist treks to an active volcano to see what happens when opposites collide.

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THE VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL

THE CRUX

TRENDING

BY LACY SCHLEY

Building Blocks Bacteria That Shape Blood Vessels Researchers have discovered a surprising link between gut-dwelling bacteria and the brain’s blood vessels. Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are capillaries that are enlarged or deformed and thinwalled, making them vulnerable to leaks — which can lead to stroke or seizure. To study these deformities, experts genetically engineered mice to form CCMs after an injection of a specialized drug. Some rodents went on to develop abdominal infections, thanks to the bacteria Bacteroides fragilis. Researchers realized when B. fragilis was present, the mice were more likely to have CCMs, and when the bacteria were eliminated, the CCM development stopped. The findings strengthen a growing body of evidence that the microbes of our intestines play an important and unexpected role in an array of maladies.

How Accurate Is Your Fitness Tracker? If you’re relying on the gadget around your wrist to lose weight, you might need to rethink your game plan. A team from Stanford University recently investigated how good some leading consumer fitness trackers were at monitoring heart rate and calculating calories burned, or energy expenditure. After a group of 60 volunteers tested the fitness bands, researchers realized that while most of the devices measured heart rate well, they all failed to accurately gauge energy expenditure.

Heart Rate Apple Watch

How to Spot a Dud

MIO Alpha 2 Samsung Gear S2

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A distorted body image, an extreme fear of putting on pounds, abnormally low body weight — all hallmarks of the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. Long thought to be a psychiatric condition, a new study reveals it also might have genetic underpinnings. Analyzing the DNA of about 3,500 diagnosed people and nearly 11,000 without the disorder, researchers homed in on a genetic locus — a gene’s location on a chromosome — that’s involved in the body’s metabolic processes and seems to be associated with the disorder. Scientists are now closer to a more complete picture of this potentially deadly condition.

Fitbit Surge

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Pinpointing Anorexia

BASIS Peak

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Sorting good sperm from bad may have just gotten easier. Scientists have come up with a new way to test the viability of human sperm by using a technique called magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Other testing methods either can’t provide much detailed information or damage the cells in the process. MRS, however, lets experts study the molecules inside cells while in action, to determine the properties of healthy swimmers. The technique could lead to better male infertility tests.

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Source: “Accuracy in Wrist-Worn, Sensor-Based Measurements of Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in a Diverse Cohort,” Journal of Personalized Medicine, 2017

The Original Brexit

OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CNRI/SCIENCE SOURCE; MARTIN-DM/GETTY IMAGES; KZENON/SHUTTERSTOCK; STOCKTREK IMAGES/SCIENCE SOURCE. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: CHASE STONE/IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON; US AIR FORCE; NOAA (2)

Long before recent political turmoil across the pond came to a head, Britain made a literal break for it and physically separated from mainland Europe. Now, researchers have an idea of how the process went down some 450,000 years ago. A new study from Imperial College London and other European institutes supports the claim that before the English

Channel existed, a large chalk ridge connected Britain and France. The ridge acted as a dam, holding back a lake that had formed in front of a nearby glacier. Eventually the lake overflowed, eroding away large craters in what is now the channel’s floor and gradually breaking down the ridge to help form the English Channel we know today.

BRITAIN

Base of chalk ridge FRANCE

Base of chalk ridge

Cooler colors indicate lower depths while warmer colors indicate more shallow depths.

A Whirlwind Journey of Hurricane Science Hurricanes, typhoons, tropical cyclones — whatever you call them, it’s prime time for these marine storm systems. The season peaks roughly mid-August through mid-October in our neck of the woods. So let’s take a look at some of the major mile markers for how we came to understand these forces of nature.

1743: John Winthrop is the first to scientifically measure a hurricane; he gathered tidal

and pressure data on a storm that passed through the northeastern U.S. 1819: John Farrar first describes a hurricane as a “moving vortex” in his published account of The Great September Gale of 1815 that struck New England. 1847: William Reid creates the Northern Hemisphere’s first hurricane warning system in Barbados. 1870: The U.S. establishes what would become the

National Weather Service. The organization issues its first hurricane warning just three years later. 1944: With the help of aircraft, researchers capture radar images of a cyclone’s eye and spiral bands for the first time. 1948: The first evidence is found that water temperatures must be at roughly 80 degrees Fahrenheit for hurricanes to form. 1950: The National Weather

Service officially starts naming Atlantic storm systems. 1956: Herbert Riehl and William Haggard come up with the earliest statistical hurricane forecasting system. 1971: Richard Anthes develops the first 3-D hurricane simulation. 1984: The first seasonal forecast for hurricanes is released. 2010: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration adds 12 hours of lead time for its hurricane storm watches and warnings, now 48 and 36 hours in advance, respectively.

September 2017 DISCOVER

19

THE CRUX FAR, FAR AWAY

HUBBLE GONE WILD After waiting months to use the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomer Ata Sarajedini was excited to have the instrument at his command. But his pictures were ruined when the guiding sensors failed to lock onto its target. Instead of pinpoints, the stars were rendered as streaks of light. After fixing the glitch, Hubble officials granted the University of Florida professor another session, but the flawed images stayed in Hubble’s database. Imaging expert Judy Schmidt saw artistry in the errors and assembled this abstract image for the Hubble Hidden Treasures contest. “I did this in jest,” Schmidt wrote in a description. “I thought it looked a little like a [Jackson] Pollock painting.”  ERNIE MASTROIANNI

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Vital Signs

For months, a middle-aged woman experiences painful bowel symptoms that defy treatment. BY TONY DAJER

→

“I’ve never seen my belly so big,” said Christina, puffing her cheeks out like a cartoon character. “It keeps bloating and bloating.” Christina, the wife of my good friend Norman, was a healthy 50-year-old who took no medications and had no chronic health issues. She had first told me about the bloating, diarrhea and stomach cramps one month earlier. The symptoms had been plaguing her for weeks. Because it’s unwise to treat friends and relatives, I had referred her to Dr. Travers, an excellent local gastroenterologist. Travers ordered a stool analysis, which indicated rotavirus, a common cause of prolonged diarrhea in infants and young children but rare in adults. The diagnosis was good news since rotavirus usually goes away without treatment. Christina improved for a while, but now her symptoms had worsened to the point where she was spending nights in the bathroom, doubled over with cramps and diarrhea. “The silver lining is I’ve lost 10 pounds,” she joked, thumbing her loose waistband. “Are you still taking the lactase?” I asked. Two months ago, in June, Christina noticed that dairy products would upset her stomach. Guessing she was lactose intolerant, Christina started taking lactase, the enzyme that helps digest lactose, with meals. “It’s not helping anymore,” she said. Something wasn’t right. Despite the positive stool sample, I wasn’t confident that rotavirus was the cause. Stool samples are sometimes wrong, and rotavirus can also be

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She was spending nights in the bathroom, doubled over with cramps and diarrhea. present but not show symptoms. But what else could it be? Cancer and ulcerative colitis — an autoimmune assault on the intestines — could cause symptoms like hers, but they usually progress to intestinal obstruction or blood in the stool, which she did not have. She tested negative for celiac disease, another food-triggered intestinal disorder. As for possible infectious causes, the list was long. But in addition to not bleeding, Christina also had no fever. So it was unlikely to be dysentery caused by invasive bacteria, such as Campylobacter or Salmonella. Besides, what kind of stomach bug lasts for months?

CHASING SYMPTOMS By the time she saw Travers a week later, the pain had gotten sharper and shifted to her upper abdomen and lower chest, and she occasionally vomited. These were symptoms of esophageal reflux or stomach ulcers. But an endoscopy of the esophagus and stomach, which involved putting a camera down there and taking a look, showed nothing amiss. An ultrasound of the right upper abdomen showed no gallstones, an often-overlooked cause of upper (not just right-sided) abdominal pain. Travers was diligently chasing every symptom and finding nothing. That evening, I visited Christina and Norman, who said that Travers wasn’t overly concerned and did not plan to see Christina for a month. “I almost cried,” Christina said. “How could there be nothing wrong? Then he said, ‘Intestinal bugs like rotavirus can damage the gut lining and impede digestion for a while. It will work itself out.’ ” Her voice petered out. “It is not working itself out.” The couple had planned a vacation to Machu Picchu, a 15th-century Incan citadel in the Andes of Peru. “We’re due to leave next week,” Norman said, sounding dejected. “It was supposed to be her birthday present.” “If I go in this condition, I’ll just spend it in the bathroom,” Christina said. Baffled, I mumbled something about hydration and said goodnight. That weekend, during a road trip,

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No Relief

Mysterious, hard-to-diagnose abdominal conditions, like irritable bowel syndrome, can bedevil patients for years and lack a definitive cause or cure. It’s a tempting label for doctors to affix when a diagnostic work-up hits a dead end. I was stumped. “Drink fluids. Don’t get dehydrated,” I reminded her somewhat lamely. “You need to go back to the gastroenterologist.”

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I called (hands-free) an old friend from physician residency. Once we’d caught up on kids and life, I related Christina’s saga. “The cramping gets pretty bad,” I told her. “And the bloating won’t quit. It’s been months.” “That sounds like giardia,” she said.

A SLOW FUSE Most medical mysteries unravel like detective stories: You cross off possibilities one by one, winnowing them to a few suspects. Eureka moments are for television. Except this time. If I hadn’t been driving, I would have slapped my forehead. Nothing but giardia causes such bloating. During my medical internship in Seattle, patients returning from camping trips described their bellies inflating. They called the condition “beaver fever.” Having attended medical school in New York, I couldn’t help needling Seattleites that they were more likely to get sick drinking from a Cascades mountain stream than a rusty faucet in Manhattan. Giardia lamblia is not a bacterium, but a single-celled protozoan that gets around by cracking its whiplike flagellum. Found worldwide, many strains infect only animals (beavers are a common host), but some strains branch out to humans. Excreted in feces, Giardia cysts can survive in cold water and are resistant to chlorination. Giardia can be contracted from contaminated water as well as undercooked or poorly washed food. Rivaling E. coli and other invasive bacteria as a cause of turista, or traveler’s diarrhea, Giardia distinguishes itself as the delayed-action bug. Bacterial dysentery usually hits a day or two after exposure, so returning travelers can’t miss cause and effect. Giardia has a slower fuse. Symptoms usually begin a week or so after exposure and aren’t as dramatic. There is no bloody diarrhea and

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less abdominal pain and fever than felt worse. Norman called to say she classic turista. had passed out sitting on the toilet. But you don’t have to go abroad “She needs IV fluids. Take her to the to catch giardia. In North America ER,” I told him. and Europe, daycare centers are hot At the emergency room, they checked spots, where it rivals rotavirus as a cause her blood work, gave her 2 liters of of non-dysentery diarrhea. Giardia is saline and did a CT scan to look for in something like 5 percent of stool colitis, a fairly common but non-specific samples taken in the U.S. Over time, the inflammation of the large intestine. body raises its immunity — about half Everything came back normal. of people exposed will never develop Christina continued on the symptoms — but that’s no guarantee medication. After day two, she slept exposure to a new foreign strain better than she had in weeks. In won’t set off a round the morning, the diarrhea of misery. came only once. They My mistake was decided to risk the trip not starting from to Machu Picchu. the beginning. In The following day May, three months in Peru, Norman earlier, Christina recounted later, had traveled to she was downing Indonesia on some breakfast, with a business trip. She no dashing for the Giardia lamblia had a nasty stomach bathroom. By day five bug a week afterward on the antibiotic, she was that soon went away. a new woman. This is giardia’s nasty ruse: Christina wasn’t out of the Its symptoms can wax and wane over woods. Giardia is a stubborn beast and months. Each flare-up seems like an can take several rounds of antibiotic unrelated problem. treatment to cure. Not only that, but Lactose intolerance, which Christina the wily protozoan may set up shop as noticed in June, is a hallmark of an asymptomatic chronic infection that giardia. Weeks after the stomach keeps shedding cysts in the feces while bug abated, the lactose intolerance causing poor absorption of vitamins chapter began. A month after that, and carbohydrates. As another parting the abdominal pain, bloating and shot, the lactose intolerance can last intractable diarrhea appeared. many months, even after the infection Travers included a test for giardia in is fully eradicated. the original stool sample, but multiple But Christina played up the positive tests are sometimes needed for a positive and was happy to show off her now result. My Seattle colleague said that loose-fitting pants. if a returning hiker shows giardia-like A week later, she tripped over her symptoms, she treats the patient and pant leg and fell, scraping her hands doesn’t bother with a stool test. and face. As I checked for fractures, she said with a sigh, “Does this little bugger BUGGED OUT ever run out of tricks?” D I pulled into a rest stop and called Tony Dajer is director of the emergency Christina. “I know what this is,” I told department at New York-Presbyterian/Lower her. “You need an antibiotic called Manhattan Hospital. The cases described Flagyl. I’ll call in the prescription in Vital Signs are real, but names and certain right now.” details have been changed. But after one day on the Flagyl, she

TONY BRAIN/SCIENCE SOURCE

Vital Signs

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Mind Over Matter

Trying to Lose My Religion →

My Greek Orthodox grandparents’ house had Byzantine icons of Jesus on virtually every wall. It’s not that they were die-hard religious people; they seldom went to church. But they did have religious rituals they stuck to. Burning incense in the house every Sunday was one. Bringing home koliva (a delicious dish of sweetened boiled wheat) after special services was another. They also insisted that if I wanted to be in God’s good books, I should make the sign of the cross every time I walked by a church or heard the church bell ring. And if I saw a priest on the streets? I should spring over to kiss his hand. But as I got older, I learned about science, philosophy, logic and reason. I don’t fancy God as a long-bearded, old man with wizardlike powers anymore. And heaven and hell seem an oversimplified reward-andpunishment scheme. There’s a catch, though. Every time I go to church, I’m still overcome by a mystifying experience that transcends my skepticism. I focus my eyes on the warm glow of the prayer

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Every time I go to church, I’m still overcome by a mystifiying experience that transcends my skepticism. candles, I inhale the intoxicating frankincense, and the reflections of the gold icons around the altar induce a sense of euphoria. I have no choice but to surrender my logic to the religious fervor around me. I lose my sense of self and instead feel oneness. What happens in the neural labyrinths of my brain amid these religious experiences? Could my grandparents’ faith, foisted upon me during my formative years, have hard-wired my otherwise logical brain for mysticism?

THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION The questions racing through my mind about the inexplicable lure

of religious, spiritual and mystical experiences (RSMEs) have long fascinated researchers. In their classic textbook The Psychology of Religious Behavior, Belief & Experience, psychologists Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle describe RSMEs as moments of revelation that strike like lightning; swept away by ecstasy, you may lose your sense of place, time and self, and have feelings of redemption and ineffable beauty. Now, with the help of imaging technology such as single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), researchers can see how these experiences play out in the brain. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist and director of research at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Pennsylvania, headed a small, preliminary study that used SPECT to measure changes in the cerebral blood flow of three Muslims during prayer. It turns out that while they were praying, participants had less blood flow to their prefrontal cortex and

FROM LEFT: DUDLEY M. BROOKS/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES; MICHELLE MCMAHON/GETTY IMAGES; MOSHE ASHKENAZI/GETTY IMAGES; MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES

How does a spiritual experience play out in the brain — even a rational one? BY STAV DIMITROPOULOS

  
  
 




  









  


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Mind Over Matter

NO CHURCH NECESSARY Mystical experiences also happen beyond the walls of temples and cathedrals. Psychoactive drugs will do the trick, too. So a team led by University of Zurich psychiatrist Michael Kometer looked at RSMEs triggered by drugs to learn more about the phenomenon. Kometer and his team gave 50 people a moderate dose of psilocybin, the hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms that’s known to induce spiritual experiences. Then, the experts took brain scans of the volunteers. The results, published in 2015, showed that the drug-induced religious mindset was due to a change in activity in the default mode network — a region associated with

28

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“Mystical experiences can lead to creative thoughts and artistic development.” how we relate information about the world to ourselves. So while the volunteers were tripping, they felt a sense of unity with their environment. In a 2016 study, researchers used data from the Vietnam Head Injury Study, a longitudinal project following American male combat veterans with brain injuries. The experts compared this data with data from healthy combat veterans to see how specific brain regions were tied to reported mystical experiences. Jordan Grafman, one of the study’s investigators, and his team found that injured veterans who experienced more RSMEs were more likely to have damage in an area of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This region regulates executive functions like planning, some aspects of memory, cognitive flexibility, inhibition and our ability to reason abstractly — all skills key to tamping down our inclination to use mysticism as an explanation for the world around us. But while these functions might be hampered in people who have RSMEs, Grafman, a professor of psychiatry and

behavioral sciences at Northwestern University, says there’s another side to this phenomenon. “Mystical experiences can lead to creative thoughts and artistic development,” he says. “So for most people, there is this search to find the right balance to have a meaningful existence.”

THE POWER TO CHANGE But, is everyone wired in the same way for this balancing act? Or are some of us prone to being more religious? “We’re all capable of religious and other forms of belief systems,” Grafman says. “But, I think, yes, there is sufficient evidence to indicate that, on average, some people are more neurologically wired to be religious.” However, he’s quick to point out that that wiring isn’t set in stone, thanks to neuroplasticity — our brain’s ability to change and shape neural pathways over time, which leads to new memories, skills and habits. I feel content with my experiences at church. Though I’m still not sure if my tendency to have RSMEs is wired in me or just a byproduct of my early religious exposure, I can at least revel in what I learned about how they work. I know my mind will probably succumb to the experience, but at least I can rationalize it. D Stav Dimitropoulos is a scientist turned journalist. Follow her on Twitter, @TheyCallMeStav

LEFT: JETTA PRODUCTIONS/GETTY IMAGES. RIGHT: VALERY SHARIFULIN/GETTY IMAGES

frontal lobe, the areas of the brain where complex behaviors such as planning and expression of personality take place. “Hence, the feeling of surrender,” Newberg explains. He and his team also observed a slowdown of blood to the parietal lobe, the area that integrates sensory information to help us form a sense of self. When activity in that part of the brain was dialed back, instead of their usual self-identity, the volunteers instead reported a feeling of “oneness” at the peak of their RSMEs. Finally, the researchers saw a spike in the activity of the limbic system, the brain’s emotional center, and changes in the thalamus, which helps us shape our sense of reality. All of these results, Newberg says, are tied to what he calls the five core elements of religious experiences: sense of intensity and unity, transformation, clarity and a feeling of surrender. Thinking back to my own uninvited mystical experiences, I felt swallowed by them and filled with emotion, while the details of my surroundings — the colors, the reflections, the shapes — were more defined, brighter and more intense than ever.

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ECLIPSE SECTION

Mind Melt BY SARAH SCOLES

This August, the sky will dim until the daytime world becomes dark. The bright disk that usually lights everything, burns skin, feeds plants and tells animals when to sleep will become a blank circle, surrounded by the shifting haze of its atmosphere. This scene will pass over the United States, from Oregon to South Carolina, potentially capturing an audience even larger than the Super Bowl. And these people — including you, I hope — will likely react emotionally, not scientifically. It’s a human response that has played out for millennia, but one

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that humans have begun to study only recently. The moon is the same size as the sun in the sky and can, sometimes, pass in front of it in the ultimate cosmic photobomb. For many centuries, that light show mostly seeded thoughts of disaster and destruction — something, or someone, sinister was putting on a show of power. In China, it was a dragon. In Hindu tradition, it was a severed-head demon called Rahu — but if humans made enough noise, Rahu would run away, resulting in a partial eclipse. Other cultural

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Eclipses and their unsettling darkness have long inspired fear and awe — the precise reason some seek them out.

Whenever the moon blocks the sun’s light, it can create an eerie scene, as in the 2012 partial eclipse in Albuquerque, N.M. (opposite), or the total eclipse in Australia later the same year.

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ECLIPSE SECTION The 2013 total solar eclipse in the African nation of Gabon showed off the sun’s wispy corona — literally an otherworldly show.

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OPPOSITE: MILOSLAV DRUCKMÜLLER AND CONSTANTINOS EMMANOULIDIS. THIS PAGE FROM TOP: JUSTIN SOFFER; RICHARD BOUHET/GETTY IMAGES; ERNIE LEYBA/DENVER POST/GETTY IMAGES

explanations also empowered people to bring back the light. Chippewa Indians let loose flaming arrows toward the sky, intending to reignite that life-giving orb. And you know what? It seemed to work. The sun always returned. But that didn’t change humans’ animal reaction of fear, which dogged eclipses into modern times. David Baron, author of American Eclipse, experienced that sensation when he saw his first solar disappearing act. “I’m a very scientific person, a very logical person, not a spiritual person,” he says. He didn’t expect to be so moved. But when the sun left for a few minutes, his perception of his place in the universe, which he’d always known intellectually to be small, registered that way emotionally. “You can look with the naked eye at this completely alien sky,” he says. “I felt like I was transported to another planet, but I knew it was Earth. It was just an Earth I’d never been on before.”

CHASING ECLIPSES In the 19th century, eclipses became a purely scientific pursuit. But as travel became cheaper and easier, more people were able to experience, even chase, eclipses. Those tourists shared their experiences back home. And then came the internet, which spread that knowledge across the globe. During an eclipse that crossed the Faroe Islands in the 1950s, people scurried to get their laundry off the clotheslines — they feared it’d burst into flames. By the time another eclipse appeared in 2015, the clothes, and the islanders, were outside to see it. Keep in mind, “not feeling fear” is not the same as “not feeling.” Psychologist and author Kate Russo studies people’s reactions to eclipses, and she’s found empirically what Baron learned anecdotally: Savviness doesn’t keep you stoic. “Even though we have scientific understanding of things, it doesn’t take away the fact that we are still animals,” she says. In her surveys of first-time eclipse viewers, she sees the same emotional roller coaster, ridden again and again. People believe they are prepared. Then, when the object that keeps them alive and has watched over them for decades suddenly disappears — when that most solid knowledge is capsized for a few minutes — they feel unmoored like those poor saps with no scientific explanation.

It flies in the face of every sun we’ve seen rise and set. “If this can happen, what else can happen in life?” Russo says. “It’s the sense that your trust in how things happen can be challenged in a way it never has been before.” It’s not for nothing that the English word eclipse comes from the Greek term for abandonment. In those moments of darkness, viewers must recalibrate their sense of constancy and realize that they live in a universe with big, round celestial objects. Most of the time, earthlings can ignore those objects. When Russo surveys veteran eclipse chasers, she finds that they know that unmooring is coming, and they welcome it. They want the universe to put them in their place.

From top: A May 2012 eclipse casts crescent shapes in Martinez, Calif. A crowd on the island of La Reunion, east of Madagascar, checks out the 2016 annular eclipse with dark safety glasses. Another safe way to view an eclipse is through a homemade viewing box, as these Denver students did in 1979.

This month, millions of people will experience that perspective together, and share that with millions, perhaps billions, more online. A huge swath of humans will feel their spot in the universe shrink. And just like any cultural event that unites the people who experienced it together — from music festivals to football games to elections — humans will feel their connection to each other expand. “It’s not just an astronomical event,” says Russo. “It’s a human experience.” D Sarah Scoles is a science writer in Denver. Her previous article for Discover was about why exoplanets are still cool.

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ECLIPSE SECTION

What’s happening in space and on Earth. BY MICHAEL E. BAKICH ILLUSTRATION BY ROEN KELLY

n Aug. 21, the dark inner part of the moon’s shadow will sweep across the United States, creating a total solar eclipse for regions in 14 states. But, you may ask, the sun is so much larger than the moon, so how does this work? While our daytime star has a diameter about 400 times larger than that of the moon, it also lies roughly 400 times farther away. This means both disks appear to be the same size, so at certain times from certain locations, the moon can completely cover the sun. Be sure to protect your eyes during the partial phases. The simplest way is to buy a pair of solar viewing glasses. Wear them even when 99 percent of the sun is covered because the remaining part is still intense enough to cause retinal burns. But remember: During the 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality, remove any solar filters, or you’ll miss the most spectacular part of the eclipse.

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Michael E. Bakich is a senior editor of Astronomy who will be hosting the world’s largest eclipse event Aug. 21 at Rosecrans Memorial Airport in St. Joseph, Mo.

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Two Types of Shadows If the sun were a point source, like one of the nighttime stars, the moon would cast only one kind of shadow. Instead, the sun stretches 0.5° across, so even during total solar eclipses, some of its light passes either above or below the moon, creating a less-dense shadow called the penumbra. Only where the moon blocks all the light from the sun — in its dark inner shadow called the umbra — can people on Earth see a total solar eclipse. Anywhere in the penumbra, the eclipse will be partial, but the percentage of the sun covered will increase as you get near the umbra. Unfortunately, the umbra is small, no more than a hundred miles in diameter. On the other hand, the penumbra measures more than 4,000 miles across.

Earth

Path of totality Moon Umbra (total eclipse) Penumbra (partial eclipse)

Moon

Types of Eclipses The three main types of solar eclipses are total, where the moon completely covers the sun’s surface (also shown above); annular, during which the moon lies too far from Earth (or Earth too far from the sun) for it to cover the sun completely; and partial, where the lineup isn’t exact and only the moon’s outer shadow touches our planet.

Moon’s Changing Distance

Top view

Total eclipse

The sun behind the moon Earth

Sun

Annular eclipse

Perigee

Apogee

225,300 miles (362,600km)

251,900 miles (405,400km)

Some central eclipses are total and others annular because the moon’s distance from Earth changes.

Moon’s Orbital Tilt Partial eclipse

Side view 5.14°

Plane of the moon’s orbit

An eclipse doesn’t happen every new moon because our satellite’s orbit tilts more than 5° from the plane of our orbit. New moon

Moon’s orbit New moon

New moon

Sun

Line of nodes point to the sun New moon

Earth’s orbit

When Can Eclipses Happen? The moon’s tilted orbit intersects our orbit around the sun only twice in each revolution at points called nodes. Only when the moon lies at one of the nodes can an eclipse (solar or lunar) occur.

September 2017 DISCOVER

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ECLIPSE SECTION

Darkness Is Coming Millions of Americans will watch our sun disappear on August 21. BY TYLER NORDGREN

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38-year period in which Americans will get to see five (in 2017, 2024, 2044, 2045 and 2052). Over time, these cycles of bounty and absence come and go, and every place on Earth is crossed eventually. For human beings, with our limited lives and limited means of travel, these vagaries of celestial alignment mean the majority of people on Earth have never seen a total solar eclipse.

THE DAYTIME STARS The first total solar eclipse most Americans will have ever seen begins the morning of Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, two seconds before 10:16 a.m. PDT. At that moment, the dark shadow of the moon touches the Pacific Coast at the Yaquina Head lighthouse outside the coastal town of Newport, Ore. There is no doubt about this. Astronomers have a bad reputation for predicting amazing sights for the public. Too many “Comets of the Century” turn into faint fuzzy duds that disappoint in the darkness. Too many meteor “storms” wind up being no more than a drizzle once you’ve woken the family at 2 a.m. But this eclipse is happening, in the middle of the day, exactly on time, and in exactly the places that are predicted. It’s as certain as the sunrise. The only question is a matter of clouds, and even those can be forecast with some certainty.

TYLER NORDGREN

Totality’s eerie light bathes the ring of massive monoliths while robed figures chant and burn their sacrificial offerings. Around them, the gathered throngs raise their voices in joy and smile for the cameras of the CBS Evening News. It is 1979, and the scene is a bizarre roadside re-creation of Stonehenge overlooking the Columbia River in western Washington state. Neo-pagans and curious onlookers have amassed to witness the rare event unfolding overhead, and this being Washington (and the 1970s), it’s clear that not all the smiles and good vibrations are due solely to the solar eclipse. Back in the studio, Walter Cronkite tells us there will not be another total solar eclipse to touch the continental United States this century. Not until the far-off date of 2017 will totality once more be so visible to so many on this continent. I’ve been waiting to see this eclipse ever since. The Feb. 26, 1979, eclipse only touched a corner of the U.S. before swinging up into western Canada, and not even half of today’s Americans were alive for it. A continent-spanning eclipse hasn’t occurred in the U.S. since 1918, almost 100 years before what is being called the Great American Eclipse of 2017. When the current drought of 38 years without a total solar eclipse ends in 2017, it will mark the beginning of a new

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SOLAR SPECTACLES I saw the 1979 eclipse, my first, in complete safety at home: in a darkened room, with all the windows covered, watching it on TV. I missed experiencing the greatest awe-inspiring wonder that nature has to offer because our local school officials — who felt eclipsewatching was too dangerous for children and did not want to be held liable in the event of an injury — had issued overly cautious warnings. Regardless of whether those school administrators were right to be wary, not a year has gone by since that I haven’t felt cheated out of a life-changing experience. That said, observing a solar eclipse can be dangerous if proper precautions are not taken. First, you may be wondering what the potential harm is. The un-eclipsed sun is visible every day, yet we don’t warn children to stay indoors on sunny days. The sun doesn’t emit any special rays during an eclipse, but how we behave toward the eclipsed sun does change. On a typical day, very few people willingly stare at the sun for a prolonged period of time. Health officials’ concern during an eclipse is that people will stare at the sun, particularly close to totality when the sun may look like a crescent. People want to see this phenomenon, and so they will look longer than

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ECLIPSE SECTION

The region with the best chance of clear skies all along the path of totality on that date is eastern Oregon, which the moon’s shadow reaches at 10:19 a.m. and 36 seconds PDT as it crosses the Cascade Range and flies eastward at a speed of 2,265 mph. At 2:47 EDT, one hour and 33 minutes after coming ashore on the Pacific Coast, the moon’s shadow crosses out into the Atlantic just north of Charleston, S.C. In that time it will have touched 13 states, five state capitals, and 9.7 million residents, not counting the millions who will travel into the path to see it. Totality — when the sun is completely blocked by the moon — will take only 93 minutes to cross from sea to shining sea. But not all views are equal. Although all of North America will witness at least a partial eclipse, the real show is within the zone of total darkness. You must get into the umbra, the darkest part of the moon’s shadow where the disk of the sun is completely covered. That is where the eclipse is total. Those in totality’s path see Baily’s beads, when sunlight shines through lunar mountains, sometimes making the eclipsed sun look like a diamond ring. Totality also makes it possible to see the sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, and any prominences extending from our star’s edge. Day becomes night and the brighter stars and planets, such as Venus and Mars, become visible near noon. You will understand the true meaning of awe. But the difference between being inside and outside the path of totality is the literal difference between day and night.

Dos and

Don’ts

What Not to Use Stay away from people offering to let you look through makeshift items like dark beer bottles, silver candy wrappers, CDs or DVDs, smoked glass or dark sunglasses. These might make the sun look dim, possibly even dim enough to look at without discomfort, but they may do nothing to block infrared or ultraviolet radiation that will cause permanent damage to the retina and possibly lead to blindness.

Filters The most widely available device for viewing the partial phase of a solar eclipse is simple, commercially available plastic or cardboard safety glasses. These glasses are inexpensive, typically $1 or $2, and are available from a number of websites. Local stores usually sell them in places where total eclipses occur. You should be unable to see anything other than the sun through the lenses of these glasses. The special solar filter in these glasses can be delicate. Any holes or scratches they develop make them instantly worthless and potentially dangerous. Keep them protected. If you have any doubts, hold them up to a lightbulb: If you see any light at all coming through the lenses, throw them away and use another pair.

Projection The cheapest, simplest and absolutely safest method of watching a partial solar eclipse is to find a piece of cardboard and poke a small hole in it. Hold this outside and the sunlight passing through the hole produces an image of the sun wherever the shadow of the cardboard falls. Place a sheet of paper on the ground or on a wall and everyone can see the eclipse progress together. Do not look through the pinhole at the sun. One of the most enjoyable parts of watching a partial solar eclipse (or spending time outside in the sun waiting for totality to begin) is looking around for natural pinhole projectors. You can use leafy trees, woven hats, interlaced fingers, or any other place that tiny holes occur through which the eclipsed sun shines, casting myriad crescents into their shadows.

When It’s Safe to Look Whether using filters or projection, once totality begins with the first diamond ring, you may put the filters and glasses aside and feel free to look at the sun with the naked eye in complete safety, until the second diamond ring marks totality’s end.

September 2017 DISCOVER

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DARKNESS AHEAD If you miss the total solar eclipse of 2017 — or, having seen it, you catch the bug and absolutely must see another — don’t worry, there are many more coming. The next total solar eclipse to touch the continental U.S. is April 8, 2024. On that day in midafternoon, the path of totality starts in Mexico, travels northward into Texas, and then crosses the central U.S. before passing through eastern Canada. The residents of southern Illinois are the lucky ones: They will get to see two total solar eclipses in seven years without having to travel anywhere. Perhaps the most spectacular views in 2024 will come for those on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls. From the railing beside the water, the totally eclipsed sun will hang directly above the crashing falls for 3 minutes and 30 seconds in what is sure to be a wild sensory-

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they should, placing its image on a single part of the retina. Since there are no pain receptors in the retina, the damage as it burns produces no discomfort but can be permanent. The solution is simple: Never look directly at the partially eclipsed sun without proper eye protection. Either look through specially designed filtered glasses, or project an image of the sun on a screen, using a pinhole projector made from items found around the house or naturally outdoors. These two methods of seeing the partial phase of a solar eclipse are cheap, safe, and in the case of finding naturally occurring pinhole-projections, an enormous amount of fun.

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overload spectacle of sight and sound — assuming it is clear at that time of year, of course. Lest we forget total lunar eclipses, when our planet blocks sunlight from shining on its satellite, there is a special beauty to going out under a night sky brightly lit by a full moon. What begins with only a few stars visible against the glare of the moon slowly turns into a thousand points of light as the eclipsed moon darkens. By the time totality occurs, the sky is ablaze with stars; if totality occurs near the peak of a meteor shower, the dark-red moon can be surrounded by shooting stars for the duration of totality. I saw this in August 2007 from Grand Teton National Park immediately after the Perseid meteor shower with the Milky Way arching overhead; it was one of the most magical moments I’ve ever experienced. For such a night, consider the total lunar eclipse of July 27, 2018. It will occur two weeks before the peak of the Perseid shower, but a few meteors may be visible as the blood-red moon hangs beside the brightest portion of the Milky Way for witnesses in Europe and Africa through Asia. Beyond 2030, we run into the conundrum that all eclipse-chasers ultimately face: How many more will life allow us to see? D

Adapted excerpt from SUN MOON EARTH: THE HISTORY OF SOLAR ECLIPSES FROM OMENS OF DOOM TO EINSTEIN AND EXOPLANETS by Tyler Nordgren. Copyright © 2016. Available from Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

THIS PAGE: ROEN KELLY/DISCOVER. OPPOSITE: JAY SMITH

ECLIPSE SECTION

Solar eclipses for the next 15 years

Seize

the Moment My simplest recommendation for photographing a total solar eclipse is this: Don’t do it! Typically, you will have no more than two minutes of totality. That’s 120 seconds. Why spend those precious seconds looking down at your camera’s instruction menu, trying to get your camera to focus, or working to get the exposure right? Professional photographers will surely be covering this celestial event, and it’s safe to assume their pictures will be better than yours. If none of that dissuades you, here are a few tips for taking solar eclipse photos.

1 

During the partial phase of the eclipse, do not point your camera at anything you wouldn’t look at with the naked eye. You may be able to safely look at the monitor on the back of your digital camera, but your camera lens is focusing the sun’s light on your sensitive camera optics. If you need a filter for your eyes, your camera needs one, too.

be another piece of equipment you will need to handle during those precious seconds of totality.

4

It will be dark during totality, but do not use a flash. It will blind everyone around you at exactly the moment they want to see the sky the most. Turn all flashes off.

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If you are using a filter for your camera during the partial phase, remember to take it off during totality or you won’t capture anything. During totality, the sky darkens enough for the brighter stars to appear. In the days before totality, go outside immediately after sunset and wait until the first, brightest stars appear. This is a fair approximation of how dark it will be. Experiment with taking photos at this time. How do they come out? Do you need a tripod for your camera to successfully take sharp, nonblurry, non-grainy photos under these conditions? If so, this will

The full moon is about as bright as the corona. Try taking photos of the full moon to see how long you need for it to be properly exposed. Again, does this require a tripod? The full moon is also the same size as the sun and will be the size of the “hole in the sky” during the eclipse. Practice using your camera to photograph the full moon. How big does it appear in your image? Is this worth taking a picture of? Many of the best eclipse photos that show details of the corona and prominences use telephoto lenses with focal lengths of at least 500 millimeters, but they cost thousands of dollars.

September 2017 DISCOVER

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SCIENCE, INTERRUPTED WAR AND STRIFE HAVE UPROOTED MANY RESEARCHERS. CAN THEIR LIFE’S WORK BE SAVED?

BY JENNIFER HATTAM //// ILLUSTRATIONS BY SARAH HANSON

September 2017 DISCOVER

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“Everything was damaged, our university, our home. My family had to move to a rental apartment outside the center of the city, where people were fighting and killing each other,” says Dauqan, 37, a biochemist from Ta‘izz. The city, near the Red Sea in the country’s south, was known as Yemen’s cultural capital. Before the armed conflict between rival military factions in Yemen broke out in March 2015, Dauqan had been a lecturer and head of the university’s laboratory medicine and therapeutic nutrition departments, where she and her students researched the effects of natural antioxidants on health.

DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

“Our university had to close down due to the attacks, and I stayed home for 10 months with no salary, hardly any internet access, and often no electricity to charge my laptop or mobile phone,” says Dauqan. After months of idleness and fear, Dauqan got a fellowship as a visiting scholar at University Kebangsaan Malaysia, where she had done her postgraduate studies. But another hurdle remained: getting out of Yemen. “Our airport in Ta‘izz was closed due to the fighting. There’s another airport, in Sana’a, but it’s 15 hours away by car, and the road is very dangerous,” Dauqan says. During a brief window of opportunity, however, Dauqan was able to leave via Sana’a. Current conflicts raging around the world have created the highest numbers of displaced people ever tallied by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency that tracks and advocates for displaced populations. More than 20 million people have had to leave their home countries; about 40 million more are displaced within their borders. Among them are thousands of scientists and researchers, many fleeing with little more than a USB flash drive or the password to a Dropbox account containing what they could salvage of their life’s work. The war in Syria alone has displaced at least 2,000 scholars. Less than 10 percent of them have been able to resume their careers — and even fewer return to their fields — according to the Institute of International Education-Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF). The New York-based group, which is funding Dauqan’s fellowship in Malaysia, is just one of several organizations helping at-risk academics. Although many of the researchers are refugees, their status varies.

COLLAGE PHOTOS BY AFP/GETTY IMAGES AND LIPOWSKI MILAN/SHUTTERSTOCK. PREVIOUS PAGES: COLLAGE PHOTOS BY DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES AND BALKANSCAT/SHUTTERSTOCK

QBAL DAUQAN was excited. She had just completed her postdoctoral fellowship and was leading the new therapeutic nutrition department she’d lobbied to create at Yemen’s Al-Saeed University. Then the bombs started dropping.

Some have formally sought asylum in the countries where they are now working or studying, while others hope their academic placements abroad will be a temporary respite. Countless more scholars remain in their own countries, their work — and lives — severely restricted by security threats, failing infrastructure, persecution, loss of income, international isolation and collapsing governments. “These researchers are important as critical voices in their home countries and for contributing to development and social well-being, to scientific and economic progress,” says Georg Scholl of Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, a foundation that is funding dozens of displaced researchers on two-year fellowships at German universities and research institutions through its Philipp Schwartz Initiative. “They are not just refugees in need, but researchers who are good at what they do,” Scholl says. “If we lose them, we lose their impact, too, what they could do for economies and for societies.”

“I FEEL LIKE A REAL SCIENTIST AGAIN”

Nedal Said was one such researcher working to make a positive impact in his home country of Syria. At a microbiology lab in Aleppo that monitored water pollution, he was researching new methods of drinking water disinfection. Then, in 2012, a friend in the police force tipped him off that he had been labeled an opponent of the Syrian regime and was in serious danger. “My friend said, ‘I won’t tell anyone, but you have to leave the country within two days,’ ” Said says. “So I got passports issued for me and my family, and we fled to Turkey.” There, Said, his wife and their three young children bounced around cities, moving from a rented home into a refugee camp as their financial resources dwindled. Said worked a year as a cashier in a produce market, but it provided hardly enough money to live on, much less any professional satisfaction. “I studied for 15 years to do science, to help people, not to live in a camp with the government giving me food,” he says. Seeing no future in Turkey, Said left his family in the camp and made the perilous sea crossing to Europe, ending up in Germany, where he didn’t know a single person and couldn’t speak the language. His luck changed when he met a couple he could talk to in Russian, which he knew from his student days abroad.

“Finally I could explain myself, how I was a microbiologist, how I had worked at a university in Aleppo,” Said says. A chain of personal connections led him to a professor at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig who was looking for a microbiologist for his department. The researcher sponsored Said’s successful application to become one of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative’s first fellows. “The people at the Helmholtz Centre are from Canada, Italy, Japan, Russia, but we all work as one family,” Said says. He has been preparing bacteria samples and learning how to use a

Yemeni biochemist Eqbal Dauqan, currently a visiting scholar at a Malaysian university, was able to travel to Italy earlier this year to attend a conference on displaced scientists. Many other researchers, however, are unable to leave their wartorn homelands, or languish in refugee camps where their skills go unrecognized.

DEMIS ALBERTACCI/THE WORLD ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

More than 20 million people have had to flee their home countries; about 40 million more are displaced within their borders. cryo-scanning electron microscope to analyze the role microorganisms play in transforming carbon, nitrogen and other elements in both natural and polluted ecosystems. “I feel like a real scientist again.” Said’s family has joined him in Germany, where they are all learning the language. “The children learn very quickly, not like us,” he laughs. He is volunteering with another organization, Chance for Science, which connects displaced researchers with academic resources and European peers. “I talk to the scientists who only speak Arabic, to tell them about ways they can continue in their field in Germany,” Said says. “I know how they feel because I lived through the same difficult situation. I want to help them, because they are like I was.” Many uprooted scientists feel a similar commitment to help their colleagues — those trying

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livestreamed hundreds of lectures on a wide range of subjects to colleagues and students in Iraq when internet connectivity is good enough, and delivered the material on DVDs when it is not. Iraqi marine biologist Adil Al-Handal, an IIE-SRF fellow, gave a series of these talks cautioning colleagues in Baghdad about predatory publishing. “Most academics in Iraq don’t have international experience, they’re not good in English, and they don’t have the facilities and technology needed to do good research and get published in reputable journals, so they turn to these fake journals with no peer review,” Al-Handal explains. “I wanted to make clear to them the damage they can do to their research if they publish in such journals.” In Germany, a chance encounter with someone who spoke a shared language led to displaced Syrian microbiologist Nedal Said finding a position in his field at Leipzig's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

to integrate in a new country and those struggling to continue their work back home. Dauqan, the Yemeni biochemist in Malaysia, recently organized an academic workshop for Yemeni students at her current university. She also tries to help them find postgraduate job opportunities abroad until it is safe to return home. And she continues to act as a supervisor for a biochemistry Ph.D. candidate who is still in Yemen. “We communicate by WhatsApp and email,” Dauqan says of the candidate, who is analyzing the chemical composition of thyme. “The university in Sana’a is still open, but her situation is

A CHILLING EFFECT

The influence academics like Al-Handal have among students and colleagues can be part of what puts them at risk, says Willcox. “Professors are in a position of prominence,” she says. “They are well-respected in society, so silencing them sends a chill across an entire university and an entire society.” Al-Handal first left Iraq in 2011 due to a growing lack of academic freedom. “The facilities I had before were no longer available to me,” he says. The Scholar Rescue Fund found him a yearlong fellowship in Florida, where he analyzed satellite images that showed the effects of water shortages in southern Iraq and published the results in the journal Wetlands. But when he returned home to Basra after the fellowship, the situation there was worse than when he left. “So I collected some water samples with a phytoplankton net, concentrated them into a small plastic vial, and then brought that in my suitcase to Sweden,” he says. As an IIE-SRF fellow at the University of Gothenburg, Al-Handal is again able to use his expertise in taxonomy of marine diatoms, a type of microalgae, with the added advantage of direct access to a scanning electron microscope, which he didn’t have in Iraq. He has already published papers on six new species he found in the water samples he collected from Sawa Lake in southern Iraq. “The microalgae communities are completely different from what I observed there in the 1990s due to the huge change in environmental conditions,” he says, explaining that the salinity

so difficult. She is trying to do her best, but she can’t do any laboratory work when they have no electricity.” Sarah Willcox, director of the Scholar Rescue Fund, has seen the dedication many displaced scientists have to developing the next generation of researchers despite their difficult situations. “Many of our fellows are still advising their master’s and Ph.D. students, texting them feedback on their theses,” Willcox says. The Scholar Rescue Fund organizes distance-learning lectures by its Iraqi fellows that help fill the gaps in their home country’s curriculum. Iraqi scholars abroad have

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HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

Iraqi scholars abroad have livestreamed hundreds of lectures on a wide range of subjects to colleagues and students in Iraq when internet connectivity is good enough, and delivered on DVDs when it is not.

BY THE NUMBERS Worldwide Refugee Population Mid-2016 Conflict and other crises have driven millions of people from their home countries to neighboring states, and sometimes halfway around the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) tracks their dispersal.

NUMBER OF REFUGEES 500,000 100,000 10,000 1,000 Insufficient data

    

Displaced Scholars

4

WHAT DO THEY STUDY? DISCIPLINES (%)

0

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 21

Social Sciences

Physical & Life Sciences

15

Law/Human Rights

2

40

71%

20

Middle East & North Africa

18

9

Medicine & Public Health

3 6

Mathematics & Information Science 3 3

15% Sub-Saharan Africa

5% South Asia 4% Central/East/ Southeast Asia

5 5

Journalism & Writing

ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER

3

AREAS OF ORIGIN, 2016

19 20

Arts & Humanities

Business & Finance

1

WHERE ARE THEY FROM?

YEAR 11

2015 2016

2% Latin & South America 3% Eastern Europe

2

of the groundwater-fed lake has increased threefold because of frequent drought. Al-Handal is also collaborating with his host at the university, fellow professor Angela Wulff, to analyze samples of polar algae she’s collected in both the Arctic and Antarctic. “It’s very beneficial for me to have someone in my group who is so skilled at doing species identification so we can sort out issues about how biodiversity changes with increased temperature and melting,” Wulff says. She hopes to help Al-Handal find a way to stay in Sweden and continue working with her team after the end of his two-year fellowship — and that her university will host more at-risk researchers, for the benefit of both parties. “There’s so much competence and skill among the people who arrive here or are at risk in their own countries. They can give so much to society and the university, but very often we look upon them as problems instead,” Wulff says. “They should be encouraged so they can continue the work they started in their own countries. If they

5

TOP 5 ORIGIN COUNTRIES OF DISPLACED SCHOLARS, 2016 1. Syria 2. Iran 3. Iraq 4. Turkey 5. Ethiopia

Sources: UNHCR Mid-year Trends 2016; Scholars at Risk

get stuck, unable to work for a year or two, they can lose their confidence. And things happen fast in science; if you don’t keep up, it gets harder and harder to be involved in research.”

FILLING THE GAPS

New initiatives in Europe are trying to help fill those gaps for displaced scientists unable to reintegrate into academia through a full-time job or fellowship. “Researchers come to Germany, and they’re a little bit lost because they don’t have access to a library, they can’t have exchange with colleagues. They worked hard and now are sitting around with nothing to do and no one recognizing them for what they’ve done in the past,” says Carmen Bachmann, a professor of tax and finance at the University of Leipzig who founded Chance for Science. The online platform allows displaced researchers to connect with German peers who can provide access to libraries or university events, invite them to give guest lectures,

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or collaborate on publications and other scientific exchanges. Leila, an Iranian textile engineer, is one of the scientists participating in the initiative. “Having a network is very important. If you know somebody who can get you in direct conversation with institutions, that can create a way for you to find a job,” she says. Leila and her husband fled Iran after he became a target for arrest due to his active involvement in a liberal opposition group. (She didn’t want her real name published

Syria who participated in the Science in Asylum seminars, has written his paper based on data from his doctoral thesis about cotton breeding. “Most of our institute in Damascus has now been destroyed, I think. We can’t get anything from our labs there,” says Alsaffouri. Fortunately, he had previously sent a copy of his thesis to a friend in Egypt, and he was able to retrieve the data from him. A radio interview Alsaffouri did about his situation eventually put him on the radar of a professor at Austria’s Research Center for Forests, and he was offered a threemonth training position. “I didn’t earn any money there, but it gave me a chance to see how the research system works here in Austria,” he says. “I liked my work at the lab, and it gave me the hope that I can find a chance here to work in my field. Just this acknowledgement that you are a scientist is enough.”

Every country in the European Union has different requirements for acceptance of qualifications from abroad, a process made even more challenging for refugees who may have fled without copies of their diplomas, or lost them on their often difficult journeys.

A range of threats drives researchers to flee their homes. Threat to life Threat of arrest/ violence General risk Harassment/ intimidation Other

2%

15% 8%

2015

44%

31% 11% 20%

1%

2016 32%

Source: Scholars at Risk

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36%

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STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Tetiana Goidenko, a landscape planner from Ukraine, has experienced only a small taste of that recognition since fleeing the unstable military and political situation in her country for Austria in 2015. Fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatist forces and the Ukrainian military has killed almost 10,000 people and displaced more than 1 million since early 2014. Through Science in Asylum, Goidenko volunteered as a teacher in KinderUni, a summer science program for kids in Vienna, teaching them about different properties of soil and giving them hands-on experience with growing plants. “It was good to feel like my knowledge was necessary again,” Goidenko says. But it was a far cry from her previous work at a Ukrainian university, where she researched and taught coastal environment management in the face of climate change. “I still hope to meet someone who can hire me in the land management field,” she says. “I miss my work, and it’s very hard for me to just sit at home.” Goidenko is studying German and taking night-school classes in finance and economics to broaden her options while trying to get her scientific qualifications recognized in Austria. Every country in the European Union has different requirements for acceptance of qualifications from abroad, a process made even more challenging for refugees who may have fled

ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER

Causes of Flight

for the same reason.) “I’m still working, not for money, but writing papers, trying to keep myself up to date, and serving as a volunteer reviewer for a well-known journal to improve my CV,” she says. Eventually Leila hopes to return to the field in which she did her master’s research: medical applications of nanotechnology, specifically using synthetic fibers to create minute scaffolds that aid in tissue repair. Being able to publish papers is crucial for any academic to further their career, but it’s an avenue that can be difficult to access for those no longer affiliated with a university, unfamiliar with international publishing conventions, or struggling to write in a second language. Students and academics at Oxford University in the U.K. have founded a new publication, The Journal of Interrupted Studies, specifically devoted to giving a platform to notable work created in exile. Science in Asylum, an initiative based in Austria, also offers a series of seminars, including sessions on scientific writing and publishing along with information on how to find job openings and get foreign qualifications recognized in Europe. “Participants in the course had the chance to each write a paper, and we’re working to get local peer reviewers who can give feedback and serve as mentors, and then create a joint publication that will illustrate their qualifications,” says Constantin Scherer, who organized the Science in Asylum project as part of his work at the Viennabased Centre for Social Innovation. “It will be a reference for them when they can look for a job, to show they’ve been active during the time they were not really able to work.” Hamdi Alsaffouri, 34, a plant geneticist from

COLLAGE PHOTO COURTESY BILDUNGSZENTRUM FÜR WALD

without copies of their diplomas, or lost them on their often difficult journeys. Tamim Chalati, 38, a pharmacist from Syria, has a Ph.D. from the University of Paris-Sud. However, he still has to get his bachelor’s diploma from Syria recognized by the United Kingdom, and he has to take exams in both pharmacy and language to improve his job prospects in the U.K., where he is currently an IIE-SRF fellow at York University. “It would take another two years of training to get the equivalent of my first degree in Syria,” says Chalati, who is working on ways to use nanotechnology to deliver drugs into the human body more efficiently and with fewer side effects. His wife, a dermatologist, is preparing for four qualification exams of her own. Chalati understands why some colleagues still in Aleppo are hesitant about leaving, despite the dangers, the electricity and water shortages, and a cost of living that has increased at least tenfold since the war began. “In Syria, I had a permanent position at my university; here in the U.K., I have to begin my career over in a completely different system, where you have to apply for grants to finance your projects,” he says. “I’m now working on short-term contracts rather than being on academic staff. The older people, especially, at my university in Aleppo don’t want to leave and start all over.” Chalati and his wife hope to be able to stay in the U.K. until the situation improves in Syria. As the bloody war there rages into its seventh year, that possibility seems remote. But it’s a hope that many displaced researchers share: that they can someday return to their countries, bringing with them the new knowledge, connections and ideas they have acquired during their exile. “Our fellows want very much to go back home, and about half of them do, even under situations that are still dangerous,” says Allan Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education. He recalls one Iraqi science professor who applied for an IIE-SRF fellowship after

receiving threats, but decided to go back home after two years abroad. “The power shortages in the area where he lived in Iraq meant everyone had a generator running on diesel and spewing out carbon. This professor discovered that if you plant myrtle, which we usually dig up as a weed, it absorbs a tremendous amount of carbon,” Goodman says. The scientist turned this finding into a research paper, which he subsequently published. “He said that psychologically it would have been difficult for him to remain in Iraq after the threats; the stresses and strains of daily life there were so overpowering,” Goodman says, adding that the researcher’s time abroad as a fellow reinvigorated his commitment to science. “Seeing normal scholarly activity at the university where he did his fellowship gave him the courage to go back home and get back into research immediately.” D

Syrian plant geneticist Hamdi Alsaffouri was able to get a position at Austria’s Research Center for Forests after his academic home in Damascus was destroyed.

Jennifer Hattam is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

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Research ecologist Mourad Gabriel is one of the few scientists studying illegal grow sites in California’s overrun national forests.

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High Consequences Pot growers have turned public lands into industrial agricultural sites. And the ecosystem effects are alarming. BY JEFF WHEELWRIGHT PHOTOS BY MORGAN HEIM

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O

N A HOT August morning, Mourad Gabriel steps out of his pickup onto the gravel road that winds up the side of Rattlesnake Peak. Dark-bearded and muscular, the research ecologist sports a uniform of blue work clothes, sturdy boots and a floppy, Army-style camo hat. He straps on a pistol. “Just to let you know,” Gabriel says, sensitive to the impression the gun makes, “it’s public land, so I open-carry.” Another 100-degree day is promised. Gabriel and his four field assistants are headed to work in California’s Plumas National Forest, a few hours’ drive from Lake Tahoe, at the northern terminus of the Sierra Nevada. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has enlisted Gabriel to assess the scars from rampant marijuana cultivation. Today’s field site: an illegal marijuana plantation known as the Rattlesnake Grow. Gabriel doesn’t take chances because he’s been threatened personally. In 2014, someone poisoned his family dog with a pesticide that’s used at the grow sites. The intruder crept onto Gabriel’s property at night and scattered poisoned meat in his backyard. And last year during raids on plots elsewhere in California, two police dogs were stabbed by men fleeing the scene. So whenever Gabriel enters a cultivation site with his research team — even one that’s been abandoned, as this one is — he always goes in first. Most of the U.S. domestic marijuana supply is raised in California. Some pot is grown on private property for legal use by medical marijuana patients. These operations can be monitored, and with Californians having legalized recreational pot last November, the regulation is sure to tighten. But in popular pot-growing regions like Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties — closer to the Northern California coast in the so-called Emerald Triangle

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U.S. Forest Service officers collect coils of plastic pipe used to divert water from springs to marijuana plants at an illegal grow site on public lands.

— environmental regulation has been slow to catch up. Commandeering streams, growers divert the water into high-tech greenhouses, to the detriment of the aquatic life lower in the drainage, including the threatened coho salmon. Biologists for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have shown that thirsty marijuana plantations can dry up water sources. What’s more, the rest of the crop — the vast black-market portion — is planted on public or tribal lands by people who ignore the environmental consequences of their activity. When they’re captured, some turn out to be Mexican drug cartel workers, and others come from smaller independent groups. U.S. authorities concede that the great majority of these

“trespass grows” are never detected. Even after sites are cleared, the shadowy growers may reclaim them the next year. “The public doesn’t understand the industrial scale of this,” says wildlife biologist Craig Thompson. But if you have heard anything about streams being polluted or animals and birds being poisoned by marijuana production, it’s almost certainly because of Gabriel, a soft-spoken scientist who now and then unleashes his inner Rambo.

AFTER THE BUST Gabriel takes his team of biologists over the top of an open, sunbaked ridge and down the other side of the mountain. Immediately, burnt and toppled trunks of pine and fir and head-high tangles of

Trouble in Pot Country Illegal marijuana grow sites are a big problem in California’s national forests. Government stats on California’s top 15 national forests for marijuana busts show “trespass grows” happen across the state.

MARIJUANA PLANTS SEIZED IN CALIFORNIA’S NATIONAL FORESTS, 2016

#10 Klamath

#15 Modoc

41,833 plants

#11 Six Rivers

THE EMERALD TRIANGLE Most of the U.S. domestic marijuana supply is grown in California. The counties of Humboldt (1), Trinity (2) and Mendocino (3) have been dubbed the Emerald Triangle due to their prolific pot output.

242 plants

#2 Shasta-Trinity 308,889 plants

#9 Lassen

33,588 plants

48,775 plants

#7 Mendocino

#5 Plumas

1

2

102,323 plants

59,851 plants

3

#8 Tahoe 49,489 plants

#13 Stanislaus 15,887 plants

1,466,510 TOTAL PLANTS SEIZED FROM CALIFORNIA PUBLIC LAND

#14 Inyo 9,053 plants

#4 Sierra 122,523 plants

#1 Sequoia 415,800 plants

MAPS: ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER. POT LEAF: MARTIAL RED/SHUTTERSTOCK

U.S. MARIJUANA LEGALITY BY STATE, 2017

wild lilac shrubs impede the way. Ten years ago, the Moonlight Fire destroyed 65,000 acres of forest in the Plumas. The marijuana growers stole into the broad footprint left by the blaze in dozens of places. In the section we’re hiking, they cut trails and cleared a series of plots on a steep slope above a ravine. Then the trespassers dug out three springs and diverted their flow into half-inch black plastic piping, which they threaded through the cover of vegetation to their network of plots below. The waterlines emptied into tarp-sealed pits that could store hundreds of gallons of water. Having started thousands of marijuana seedlings in plastic cups, the growers planted them among the shrubs throughout the plots. Each bright green

While cannabis remains a schedule I controlled substance under federal law, a number of states have passed measures making pot legal for medical and recreational use. Environmental safeguards have been slow to keep up as legislation changes.

#3 Los Padres 162,120 plants

#6 Angeles 72,607 plants

#12 San Bernardino 23,530 plants

Recreational Medical* Not legal *States with limited access laws for low THC products are not shown. Sources: National Conference of State Legislatures (U.S. map); U.S. Forest Service (California map)

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Craig Thompson, a USFS biologist, drops a water filter into a High Sierra stream (left) near a marijuana grow site. Tests have turned up pesticides and fertilizers coming from the grows. Wildlife biologist Greta Wengert (above) carefully handles a suspected neurotoxin found in a Gatorade bottle.

plant was irrigated via drip lines, some triggered by a battery-powered timer. Although the mountainside faced north and east, light was no problem. Where it used to be blocked by trees, the strong California sun now slathered the crop. Gabriel was with the rangers and deputies when they busted the site in 2015 and uprooted more than 16,000 plants. Judging by bags left around the site back then, he suspects at least 4,000 pounds of potent fertilizer were used. He also recorded several empty containers of a concentrated organophosphate insecticide — a lethal nerve poison that’s toxic to wildlife. Gabriel’s non-profit organization, Integral Ecology Research Center (IERC), was hired to assess the damage to water sources, soils and sensitive plants and animals. They also inventoried toxic waste, piping, camp materials and trash. Now it’s up to the Forest Service to decide how to repair the damage. Gabriel, enlisting local volunteer groups, will assist with the cleanup, too. The service he offers is soup-to-nuts.

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“He’s passionate. He’s a character,” says USFS’s Thompson, who collaborates with Gabriel on research. “He has continued to shine a light on the issue, though it’s still under the radar.”

CONNECTING THE DOTS The first glimmer of impacts to wildlife came to Gabriel from fishers. A fisher — a type of weasel whose body is about the size of a housecat’s — is a denizen of deep woods. It has a wide face and long furry tail, and it can run up and down trees like the woodrats and squirrels it hunts. Fishers have never been overly abundant in the mountains of the West Coast, and their population plummeted after a century of logging and trapping. In the 21st century, biologists have tried to restore the Pacific fisher by reintroducing young animals and tracking them with radio collars. But the fishers’ expansion has been slow because they have been dying more rapidly than researchers expected. Gabriel joined the fisher reintroduction project in 2009. At the time, he was

completing his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis. He credits an uncle for interesting him in the outdoors. The uncle was also a taxidermist; hence, young Mourad developed an interest in the interiors of animals. In high school, a vocational aptitude test suggested that he could be a game warden, park ranger or biologist. As an undergrad at Humboldt State University, he took courses supporting all three. Gabriel met his future wife, Greta Wengert, while they were both studying wildlife biology in college. After marrying, the two founded IERC in Blue Lake, Calif. Gabriel’s work for the fisher reintroduction project was lab-based. He conducted necropsies of dead animals that Thompson’s field researchers had picked up. Examining a fisher carcass one day, Gabriel found that its organs had turned to mush. The fisher had been poisoned by a compound that blocks clotting and prompts unchecked internal bleeding, a so-called second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide (AR). D-CON, commonly used against mice and rats, is a

Researchers examine a Pacific fisher carcass (left). The animals are struggling in part due to rat poison used by illegal marijuana growers. Forest Service officials catalog fertilizers (above) found at a Northern California grow site. One grow operation can use thousands of pounds of fertilizer.

familiar brand of AR. But how did a forest carnivore absorb a pesticide typically used around farms and houses? Gabriel remembers wondering if this one fisher was an outlier. “So we went back to the archival liver tissue,” he says. When he inspected frozen specimens and collected additional carcasses from colleagues, Gabriel discovered that rodenticides had, if not killed, then at least tainted 85 percent of expired fishers. “It took a while to connect the dots,” he says. From his field experience he was familiar with illegal pot grows, which had plagued the backcountry terrain for 20 years or more. “We’ve all run into it. We’ve been trained,” Gabriel says. “If you come upon a site, you do a 180 and walk away.”

MOUNDS OF PESTICIDE Law enforcement officers from different agencies asked him if rat bait from grow sites might be the culprit. It made sense; woodrats and squirrels would gnaw the marijuana plants.

If the growers scattered AR and the rodents were sapped by internal bleeding, they would become easier prey for fishers. Bioaccumulation, as the process is known, would pass the rodenticide up the food chain, where concentrations increase. The fishers in turn might have become prey for bobcats and mountain lions. Raids turned up empty bags of AR and sometimes even mounds of the pesticide. To test their hypothesis about bioaccumulation, Thompson, Gabriel and state toxicologists tried to tie the levels of AR exposure in fishers with the locations of grow sites found by law enforcement. The researchers analyzed 46 female fishers that died over five years. Their results showed that the animals that lived longest had the least rodenticide in their livers and the fewest grow sites within their home ranges. Conversely, animals with roughly four or more grow sites nearby died the soonest. In a 2015 paper in the journal PLoS ONE, the researchers stepped back

and examined all the causes of mortality in their collared fishers. Predation accounted for 70 percent of the deaths, disease an additional 16 percent, and poisoning, which until lately hadn’t been considered, 10 percent. The new factor might explain why fishers weren’t rebounding as fast as they might be. Pesticides might be the major factor in most of the deaths, even those not poisoned outright. “You can argue that the animals that are affected by rodenticide are weaker,” Thompson says, “and that the predation rates on them, as I suspect, are higher.”

SOUNDING THE SIREN In a parallel case, rodenticides have worked their way into some of California’s northern spotted owls, a threatened species. The owls also eat tainted rodents near grow sites. The evidence here is less direct, and depends on analyses of a competing species, the barred owl. For decades, barred owls from Eastern states have been invading the breeding territory of the northern spotted owl

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Dried-up streams, polluted water and toxic chemicals from illegal grow sites in Northern California put a number of native species in danger.

COHO SALMON Oncorhynchus kisutch Growers divert water from streams, harming this key species.

PACIFIC FISHER Pekania pennanti These creatures are among the hardest hit by grow operations.

SPOTTED OWL Strix occidentalis Owls eat rodents that have been weakened or killed by rat poison.

OTHER ANIMALS EXPOSED INCLUDE • Golden eagles • Great horned owls • Barn owls

• Red-tailed hawks • Canada geese • Coyotes • Minks

Source: California Department of Fish and Wildlife

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• Bobcats • Kangaroo rats • Mountain lions • Turkey vultures

• Martens • San Joaquin kit foxes

in California, Oregon and Washington. Already on the ropes from the logging of old-growth woods, spotted owls were disappearing, and so biologists tried a desperate measure: shooting barred owls. At the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in Humboldt County, forestry biologist Mark Higley, who has helped with the fisher project, also takes part in the culling of barred owls. Higley says he and his staff have had run-ins with illegal growers, “taking risks we shouldn’t take.” After Gabriel’s breakthrough with AR and fishers, Higley sent him liver samples of more than 155 barred owls that had been collected at Hoopa. More than half were positive for rodenticide. Gabriel also had positive results from two spotted owls that were hit by cars. Since spotted owls are endangered, Higley and Gabriel use barred owls as a surrogate — their dietary habits are similar — and infer that up to half of spotted owls near grow sites might be exposed to rodenticide. Now Thompson is looking for other examples of bioaccumulation. He’s testing mountain lion scat for rat poison and pesticides. Only Gabriel, Thompson and a handful of other biologists are investigating the ecological effects of toxins from the trespass grows. The funding opportunities are scant, and the fieldwork is hard and potentially dangerous. Although growers who have been surprised at their plots haven’t hurt anybody — usually they just run away — sometimes shots are fired. Adding to the frustration, many important questions are nearly impossible to answer. At what levels do agricultural chemicals and rodenticide interfere with fishers’ reproduction? How much poison does it take to weaken an animal enough that it becomes easy prey for fishers and bobcats? Wildlife toxicology’s pitfall is that lab experiments can’t be performed on wild populations, let alone on sensitive and rare species. “You have these snippets of fieldbased evidence,” Gabriel says. “Maybe you could do a liver biopsy on a captive fisher, but it would cause bleeding, and if an anticoagulant were affecting the animal, [the test] could push it over the edge. I’ll leave that work to someone else.” His role, as he sees it, is sounding the siren.

THIS PAGE FROM TOP: NOAA/NMFS/SOUTHWEST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER SALMON ECOLOGY TEAM; MORGAN HEIM; J. MARK HIGLEY/HOOPA TRIBAL FORESTRY. OPPOSITE: MORGAN HEIM

Animals at Risk

Growers often squat in primitive camps on public lands, leaving their mess to the Forest Service after harvest time.

“The problem is getting worse,” he says, frustrated. “Who’s documenting this?”

THE UNSEEN GROWER Amid the lilac shrubs, pungent with pollen, marks of the Rattlesnake Grow aren’t immediately obvious. Soon the paths and waterlines of the growers can be spotted, and then other items like fertilizer bags, heavy-duty plant shears and matted clothing, which the wilderness is swallowing up. As Gabriel investigates a stream angling toward the ravine, the four techs split into pairs. Two young field biologists push off in opposite directions, using their GPS trackers to measure plot boundaries. The slanting plot, still faintly pocked with bare spots where the marijuana grew, is about 50 yards wide and 100 yards long. They crisscross the area with cans of spray paint, tagging empty bags of chemicals as they count them. When they take a break, they huddle in the shade thrown by the charred trees. Walking on a diagonal line across

the site, the biologists collect at least five samples of soil in plastic bags. The samples will be tested for various pesticides. Five samples for 1,500 square yards might not seem like much. “That’s all we can get funded for,” says Gabriel, who has rejoined the others. He reports spotting boot tracks. “I think they came back and took the tent and sleeping bags, probably sometime last spring.” Of all the species Gabriel studies, the human animal — the unseen grower — is the hardest for him to figure out. “I’ve visited between 100 and 200 grow sites,” he says, leaning against a fallen tree. He wonders, why would growers plant so high up on this ridge with limited water? “We saw a different approach last week,” Gabriel says. “Just 60 meters from a paved road they were growing 5,000 plants. Maybe one criminal organization decides, ‘We’ll go deep in the wilderness,’ and another, ‘Let’s put it by the road.’ You’re trading easier access for greater risk.” He sees each site as a piece of a larger puzzle. If researchers could

better understand the selection process, it might be possible to better handle these trespass grows. Later, over a beer in his motel room, Gabriel says, “There’s no way I can do this physically 15 or 20 years from now.” He figures he’s got eight more years, after which he hopes the field will be big enough for him to exit and do something else, leaving others to carry on the research. He’s trying to spur other biologists to study illegal grows too. He wants to track the long-term effects of the chemicals by incorporating specialties like hydrology and soil science. “As an ecologist, I love working on species of conservation concern,” he says. “I want a stable population of fishers and owls. I want basic research and applied management. Not science just for the sake of science but science as a solution.” D Jeff Wheelwright, a contributing editor at Discover, has written two books on environmental science and has reported on wildlife issues for four decades.

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OF BEN BARRES A neurobiologist’s legacy: rewriting how cells operate — and how they go rogue.

model of Ben Barres’ brain sits on the windowsill behind his desk at Stanford University School of Medicine. To a casual observer, there’s nothing remarkable about the plastic lump, 3-D-printed from an MRI scan. Almost lost in the jumble of papers, coffee mugs, plaques and trophies that fill the neurobiologist’s office, it offers no hint about what Barres’ actual gray matter has helped to accomplish: a transformation of our understanding of brains in general, and how they can go wrong. Barres is a pioneer in the study of glia. This class of cells makes up 90 percent of the human brain, but gets far less attention than neurons, the nerve cells that transmit our thoughts and sensations at lightning speed. Glia were long regarded mainly as a maintenance crew, performing such unglamorous tasks as ferrying nutrients and mopping up waste, and occasionally mounting a defense when the brain faced injury or infection. Over the past two decades, however, Barres’ research has revealed that they actually play central roles in sculpting the developing brain, and in guiding neurons’ behavior at every stage of life. “He has made one shocking, revolutionary discovery after another,” says biologist Martin Raff, emeritus professor at

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University College London, whose own work helped pave the way for those advances. Recently, Barres and his collaborators have made some discoveries that may revolutionize the treatment of neurodegenerative ailments, from glaucoma and multiple sclerosis to Alzheimer’s disease and stroke. What drives such disorders, their findings suggest, is a process in which glia turn from nurturing neurons to destroying them. Human trials of a drug designed to block that change are just beginning. “I hope I live long enough to see how it goes,” says Barres. Last year, at 61, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The disease’s five-year survival rate is just 8 percent. Thanks to an aggressive regimen of chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy (and assorted meds to counteract the side effects), he feels well enough to go to the lab each day — for now. Still, he is preparing for the likelihood of an early death. He plans to donate his brain for dissection when he’s done using it, and is scrambling to solve at least a few remaining glial mysteries while he still can. Small-statured and balding, with a sparse beard, rimless glasses and cargo shorts, Barres looks surprisingly serene as he retraces the path that led him to his breakthroughs. “I’m really not too bothered about dying,” he says. “What’s

THIS PAGE: BEN BARRES. OPPOSITE: TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD

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BY KENNETH MILLER

Ben Barres, photographed in 2006, has made key discoveries in the complex functions of certain brain cells. A 3-D-printed model of his brain (opposite) sits in his Stanford University office.

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GETTING STUCK ON NERVE GLUE

One thing to know about Barres’ brain is that it was born into a female body, but has always perceived itself as male. Although the biological basis for being transgender remains unknown, Barres suspects that in his case, the cause was a testosterone-like drug that his mother took to prevent miscarriage. His fraternal twin sister was apparently unaffected. Barres, however, insisted from toddlerhood on playing with trucks instead of dolls. He — or she, as young Barbara was designated — hated wearing dresses and yearned to join the Cub Scouts. At 6, further contravening the era’s gender norms, she decided she would be a scientist when she grew up; soon, she was tinkering with chemistry sets and telescopes. Barres’ parents, a salesman and a homemaker in West Orange, N.J., simply saw her as a tomboy. But others considered her an oddball. “I was pretty much alone as a kid, but I never really felt unhappy about it,” Barres recalls. There were always experiments to do and machines to disassemble. In eighth grade, she set her sights on MIT. Although her high school guidance counselor discouraged her — MIT in 1972 admitted few girls, even if, like Barres, they were captain of the math team — she was accepted for early admission, becoming the first person in her family to go to college. There, a course taught by pioneering neuropsychologist Hans-Lukas Teuber sparked Barres’ fascination with the

The Who’s Who of Brain Cells Glial cells outnumber neurons by 9 to 1. Once thought of as mere helper cells, glia are now known to play key roles in shaping brain circuitry and controlling neurons’ behavior.

Neuron Forms networks with other neurons and transmits messages through rapid electrochemical signals across connections known as synapses.

Astrocyte Provides structural support, nutrients and oxygen to neurons. Enables synapse formation and prunes weak synapses. Can help heal — or destroy — injured or diseased neurons.

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brain. After earning a bachelor’s degree in life sciences, she went on to medical school at Dartmouth College, followed by a residency in neurology at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. During her neuropathology rotation, she encountered a phenomenon known as gliosis, which occurs in every type of acute or chronic injury to the central nervous system. Glial cells proliferate and change shape in the damaged area, emitting a complex array of chemical signals. Peering through her microscope, Barres was transfixed. “What does it mean?” she wondered. At the time, no one could say. Glial cells were first named in 1856 by the German pathologist Rudolf Virchow; assuming that their function was to hold neurons in place, he dubbed them neuroglia, or “nerve glue.” By the 1920s, scientists had identified the three basic types: astrocytes, named for their star-like shape; microglia, covered with branchlike protrusions; and oligodendrocytes, whose tentacles anchor them to nerve fibers, or axons. By the time Barres encountered glia, researchers knew that oligodendrocytes wrapped axons in the fatty insulation known as myelin. They suspected that microglia (like some immune cells in the body) gobbled up molecular debris and any pathogens that made it past the blood-brain barrier. Astrocytes supplied neurons with nutrients and removed their waste products. But much more about glia remained mysterious. During gliosis, for example, astrocytes were associated with both healing and exacerbation of neural injury. Scientists weren’t sure if they were helpful or harmful. Nor was it clear how glial cells communicated with one another, or with neurons.

Microglia Prunes excess synapses in developing nervous system. Removes molecular debris. During infections, gobbles up invading pathogens. May also prune functional synapses in cases of neurodegenerative disease.

Oligodendrocyte Insulates axons (nerve fibers) with myelin, improving transmission of nerve impulses. Damage to oligodendrocytes leads to demyelination, implicated in neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Charcot-MarieTooth disease. — K.M.

DESIGNUA/SHUTTERSTOCK

frustrating is that there are so many things I won’t be able to work on. There are so many things I wanted to know.”

Advanced tools capable of answering such questions were just becoming available, enabling researchers to measure gene activity and probe cells’ functions using labmade molecules. But because glia lacked neurons’ ability to transmit rapid-fire nerve impulses, and were thought to be quiescent in a healthy brain, few scientists considered them worth studying. Barres, however, was accustomed to going her own way. In 1983, she followed her curiosity about these neglected cells to Harvard Medical School’s neurobiology Ph.D. program. Impressed by her talent and drive, her adviser David Corey — though not a glial specialist himself — encouraged her explorations. He also urged Barres to approach Raff, of University College London. A few years earlier, he had identified the surface proteins on certain immune cells (a first step toward understanding their structure and behavior), and was now attempting to do the same for glia. The two exchanged ideas when Raff flew in from London to deliver a lecture, and wound up carrying on a transAtlantic correspondence. As a graduate student, Barres became an expert at studying glia using the available methods. She also devised some major technical improvements and published several groundbreaking studies. Barres was one of the first researchers to show that glia had their own mechanisms for generating electrochemical signals, as well as receptors for neurotransmitters — key clues to how they sent and received messages. In 1990, Barres went to London as Raff ’s postdoc. “She was very, very smart,” the renowned biologist, now 79, recalls, “and she worked harder than any scientist I’ve ever known. Occasionally, she would sleep in my small office, and I’d whack her in the head when I opened the door in the morning.” At University College, Barres continued to pump out papers charting the intricacies of glial physiology (specifically oligodendrocyte development) and to create new techniques for extracting and culturing the fragile objects of her obsession.

weird thing to talk about. The internet hardly existed back then. I didn’t even know the word transgender.” Two years later, when Barres was diagnosed with breast cancer at 41, she saw an opportunity to bring her body into closer alignment with her brain. “I said to the doctor, ‘While you’re taking off the right breast, please take the left one, too,’ ” Barres says. She explained that her mother had died of breast cancer in her 40s. Although no test yet existed, she suspected the susceptibility was genetic. Besides, she added, “I don’t like having breasts.” Soon afterward, Barres published her most important study yet, in the journal Science. It showed that neurons cultured in the absence of glia form fewer synapses (the connections through which nerve impulses travel), and that the synapses that do appear aren’t fully operational. This was some of the first solid evidence that neurons need signals from glia in order to function. Barres won tenure in 1997. That fall, she came across a newspaper article that stunned her: the story of a patient who’d undergone a femaleto-male sex reassignment at a Palo Alto clinic. “It was the first time I ever knew there was anyone else like me,” Barres says. After consulting with a couple of close colleagues, she decided to take the leap. She started on hormones, and sent out an email blast announcing that she would henceforth live as a man. At 43, Barbara became Ben. “It was a little scary,” he confesses. “Would students still want to join my lab? Would I be invited to meetings? Would I have a career?” But in the 20 years since his transition, he says, “I haven’t had anyone who was other than totally supportive.” Barres quickly rose to full professor, then department chair. He recruited ambitious postdocs and grad students and, with no domestic life to distract him — he’d never really been attracted to anyone — knitted them into an impromptu family. There were morning bike rides and late-night bull sessions. A coffee fanatic, Barres would toss bags of homeroasted beans to those toiling at their benches. “If he was hungry, he’d root around in your drawer for snacks,” recalls neurobiologist Cagla Eroglu, now at Duke University. Barres also made mentoring a priority. “He gave lots of advice, but he treated us as equals,” says Eroglu. “He taught us to be independent thinkers and manage projects by ourselves.” Having lived on both sides of the gender gap, he was especially attuned to the challenges facing female researchers. After then-Harvard University president Larry Summers

MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS

”He gave lots of advice, but he treated us as equals,” neurobiologist Cagla Eroglu says of Barres. “He taught us to be independent thinkers.”

IN ALIGNMENT AT LAST

Barres landed at Stanford in 1993 as an assistant professor with a lab of her own. She was happy with her work, but the stress of living in the wrong gender was growing unbearable. “I thought about suicide a lot,” says Barres. Although her appearance was androgynous — bobbed hair, T-shirt, jeans — she’d never confided to anyone that she felt like a man. “It just seemed to be a

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suggested in 2005 that the dearth of women in the sciences reflected differences in “intrinsic aptitude,” Barres published a rebuttal in the journal Nature, citing not only academic studies but his own experiences as Barbara: the time a professor accused her of having gotten the answer to a tough math problem from her boyfriend; the time she lost a fellowship to a far less accomplished male. Since transitioning, he wrote, “I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man.”

CELLS GONE ROGUE

Barres’ protégés began to build on his breakthroughs. A key advance involved a protein known as C1q, part of an immune-system process called the classical complement cascade. In the body, C1q marks sick cells and pathogens to be eaten by immune cells. It wasn’t thought to appear in the brain at all. But Barres had found C1q in healthy neurons early in their development: Astrocytes stimulated production of the protein. Researchers had long known that, in order to establish mature neural circuits, excess synapses must be pruned back in young animals. The details of the process, however, remained sketchy. Barres wondered if the C1q protein helped trigger the brain’s resident immune cells — microglia — to do the pruning. One of the young researchers in his lab, Beth Stevens, set out to investigate. In 2007, Stevens and Barres published a study suggesting that the answer was yes. They focused on a portion of the brain’s visual center. Mice without a functioning gene for C1q production showed inadequate pruning in this optic area. Moreover, in normal mice, C1q was concentrated at the synapses only during the animals’ development, and nearly absent thereafter. This raised an intriguing question: Could neurodegenerative diseases result from this pruning process being mistakenly turned back on? In several such disorders, the authors noted, genes for C1q production were activated. Perhaps, they suggested, rogue astrocytes coated innocent synapses with the protein, tagging them for unnecessary elimination by the microglia. To test this hypothesis, the team examined mice bred to develop glaucoma, in which the optic nerve’s neurons slowly die off. As expected, C1q appeared at synapses before the cells withered. Further experiments bolstered the researchers’ hunch that it was microglia doing the pruning, both during development and in neurodegenerative disorders, and that C1q and other complement proteins played key roles. In 2011, Barres co-founded a company, Annexon Biosciences, to develop medications based on this notion.

A subsequent study by Barres’ team brought new insight into gliosis, the response to neural damage that first sparked his fascination with glia. Researchers led by Jennifer Zamanian found that astrocytes reacted to injury in at least two different ways, depending on the type of threat. When mouse brains were injected with a substance that creates the kind of inflammation seen in infections, astrocytes turned on genes controlling complement proteins — a response later dubbed A1. When brains received the kind of injury caused by a stroke, in which blood supply is cut off, astrocytes boosted the activity of genes controlling a range of peptides and proteins that help neurons grow and stay alive — a reaction called A2. Because complement proteins were associated with synapse loss and the other peptides and proteins with synapse growth, the researchers proposed, A1 astrocytes were probably harmful, while A2s were probably beneficial. The picture became more complex when researchers led by another Barres protégé, Won-Suk Chung, found that astrocytes could also eat synapses themselves, without subcontracting the job to microglia via C1q. In fact, Chung’s team discovered, pruning by astrocytes persists into adulthood; in a healthy brain, they speculated, this ongoing process may aid learning and memory. In March 2016, Stevens — now running her own lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and teaching at Harvard Medical School — published a paper in Science, in collaboration with Barres’ team, that offered the first demonstration that C1q is at least partly responsible for aberrant synapse loss in Alzheimer’s. The study reported that in mice bred to produce excess amyloid, the waste protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease, high levels of C1q triggered microglia to eat functional synapses long before the appearance of telltale plaques or cognitive symptoms. The microglia only attacked synapses when both amyloid and C1q were present, suggesting that these elements together drive synapse loss associated with the disease — and contradicting the widely held belief that amyloid plaques are the culprit. Most promisingly, more synapses remained intact when the mice were given an antibody that blocked C1q. For Barres, however, another development took center stage. A week before the paper went online, he awoke at 3 a.m. with crushing chest pain. It was a heart attack. He drove to the emergency room, where doctors saved his life. Subsequent tests unveiled the cause: a massive tumor in his pancreas, which had already spread to his liver.

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THOMAS DEERINCK/NCMIR/SCIENCE SOURCE

A week before the paper went online, he awoke with crushing chest pain. It was a heart attack. Tests unveiled the cause: a massive tumor.

Beth Stevens, now an assistant professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital, continues to collaborate with her mentor, Barres.

JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION

NO REGRETS

The day after his diagnosis, “Ben was working as hard as he could to identify transition plans for all the people in his lab, to make sure that on the day he died, there would be a safety net for them. His first thought was to try to help them,” recalls Stanford neurobiologist Tom Clandinin, who took over as department chair. Barres also kept probing the secrets of glia. Sometimes, especially after chemo infusions, he was too exhausted to leave his bed, so he worked from there. But nearly every morning, he came into the lab — and he often still stayed later than anyone else. “He inspires all of us,” says Stevens. “He’s a force of nature.” The good news about Barres’ tumor was that it was triggered by a BRCA2 mutation, the same genetic flaw that likely caused his (and his mother’s) breast cancer. Advanced BRCA2 pancreatic cancer often responds better to therapy than other types; median survival is about two years, rather than six months. Barres’ tumor and metastases gradually shrank. In October, he made it to Maui to speak at a conference. In November, he was awarded the Ralph W. Gerard Prize, the highest honor given by the Society for Neuroscience, which further boosted his spirits. And in January, a study led by his postdoc Shane Liddelow made a giant step forward in explaining how astrocytes are transformed into destructive A1s. This time, it was microglia that gave the marching orders. When Liddelow’s team injected mouse brains with a compound found in bacterial cell walls, microglia ramped up production of C1q and two other proinflammatory proteins — TNF-alpha and interleukin 1 alpha. Each substance, by itself, had a partially A1-inducing effect on resting astrocytes. Combined, they created full-fledged assassins, capable of crippling or killing other cells.

A1 astrocytes, the team found, secrete an unidentified toxin. At low concentrations, it interferes with synapse formation and function. At higher levels, it triggers the self-destruction of many types of neurons, as well as oligodendrocytes (the myelin-producing glia whose loss gives rise to multiple sclerosis). The researchers observed clusters of A1s in brain tissue from patients with MS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, suggesting that these astrocytes may help drive the neurodegenerative conditions. But A1 formation was prevented altogether by dosing astrocytes with antibodies to all three triggering proteins. In March, Annexon launched human safety trials on its C1q blocker. Liddelow plans to continue his killer-astrocyte research when he starts his own lab at New York University this fall; his next step is to nail down the toxin emitted by A1s. Another open question is how that poisoning process connects with the discoveries by Barres and Stevens regarding synapse destruction by errant microglia. Eagerness to witness the results of these investigations, Barres says, “is really what’s keeping me alive right now.” Yet however long he has left, he considers himself a lucky man. Barres says he’ll never forget a patient he treated as an intern, a man in his 60s who’d just been diagnosed with cancer. “He grabbed me and said, ‘I have to tell you something. My whole life, I’ve worked so hard — days, nights, weekends. I thought it was OK because when I was 65 I could retire and enjoy life. Don’t make the mistake I made.’ ” “I totally ignored him,” Barres says with a laugh. “But I have no regrets. I would do it all exactly the same way.” D Kenneth Miller is a Discover contributing editor. His previous story in the magazine was about cancer-immunology researcher James Allison.

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Origin Story

Beyond DNA Ancient proteins hidden in fossils and artifacts are the new frontier in understanding human evolution. BY GEMMA TARLACH

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THE POWER OF PROTEIN The study of ancient proteins, paleoproteomics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that draws from chemistry and molecular biology as much as paleontology, paleoanthropology and archaeology. Its applications for understanding human evolution are broad:

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Intricately folded proteins can be preserved in fossils and on artifacts much longer than ancient DNA.

Genetic code is fragile . . . but ancient proteins offer the molecular-level precision of ancient DNA with the sturdy longevity of a fossilized bone. They may be the key to unlocking the secrets of our past. One 2016 study used ancient collagen, a common protein, to determine otherwise unidentifiable bone fragments as Neanderthal; another identified which animals were butchered at a desert oasis 250,000 years ago based on protein residues embedded in stone tools. Paleoproteomic research can also build evolutionary family trees based on shared or similar proteins, and reveal aspects of an individual’s

physiology beyond what aDNA might tell us. “Every cell in our body has the same genetic blueprint,” says evolutionary anthropologist Frido Welker of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. “If you looked at a liver cell from my body and a neuronal cell from my brain, the DNA would be identical, but the cells themselves would be very different because they are composed of different proteins. The different proteins are the things that make us work as an animal.” Or as paleoproteomics pioneer Matthew Collins puts it: “DNA is like the Encyclopedia Britannica: It’s got almost everything, all the information, in it. Proteins are more like throwaway cheap newspapers detailing what’s happening at that moment, and repeating it over and over as it happens again and again.” Thanks to ancient proteins surviving far longer than aDNA — in January, one team claimed to have found

ILLUSTRATIONS: CYNTHIA SCHROEDER. BACKGROUND: GALKIN GRIGORY/SHUTTERSTOCK

First came the fossils. Pieced together, sketched and measured, the bones offered our first look at distant ancestors. But it was only a glimpse. Even with today’s highest resolution scans, researchers are limited to studying the structures and shapes they can see. Then came the extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA (aDNA), which has advanced at a stunning pace. Genomes hundreds of thousands of years old can now be read, at least partially; aDNA has uncovered a new member of our family tree, the Denisovans, and revealed how our own species interbred with both them and Neanderthals. But the genetic code is fragile and prone to microbial contamination and degradation over time. Researchers cap the potential for finding aDNA, even from an ideal site, at no more than a million years. Ancient proteins, however, offer the molecular-level precision of aDNA with the sturdy longevity of a fossilized bone. They may be the key to unlocking the secrets of our past.

evidence of collagen in a dinosaur fossil that’s 195 million years old — researchers are able to read those cheap molecular newspapers from deep time.

WHO’S ZOOMING WHO? The roots of paleoproteomics actually predate its sister field, paleogenomics. In the 1930s, archaeologists attempted (with little success) to determine the blood types of mummies by identifying proteins with immunoassays, which test for antibody-antigen reactions. A couple of decades later, geochemists found that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could survive in fossils for millions of years. But it wasn’t until this century that paleoproteomics established itself as a robust area of research. In 2000, researchers identified proteins in fossils using a type of mass spectrometer that, unlike earlier methods, left amino acid sequences more intact and readable. Much of today’s research uses a refined version of that method: zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS). Created by Collins and colleagues and first reported in 2008, ZooMS typically uses collagen extracted from a fossil. Unlike costly aDNA research that can take years to complete, ZooMS is as fast as its acronym implies. It has a roughly 24-hour turnaround for results, and is significantly cheaper. In ZooMS, fossil samples — typically about the size of a breadcrumb — are processed in a way that pulls proteins out, unwinds their folded structures and chops them up. The pieces are applied to a liquid chromatograph, which separates them. The application, by the way, “is the same technique used for painting cars in factories,” says Timothy Cleland, a molecular paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution who uses ZooMS. “They electrify the parts to be painted, and then, when they spray the paint, the droplets are pulled onto the parts. Though ours is a much, much smaller process, on a nanoscale.” Fragmented and separated, the bits

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In 2015, ZooMS pioneer Matthew Collins (left) and colleagues used ancient proteins to classify several extinct South American animals that had puzzled science since Charles Darwin first collected some of their fossils.

Unlike costly ancient DNA research that can take years, ZooMS is as fast as its acronym implies. of protein are then placed in mass spectrometers. “Each amino acid has a different weight, and as the mass spectrometer smashes (the fragments) up, it also measures the weight,” says Welker. “That tells us what amino acids were originally present.” Researchers feed that raw data into programs that match it with protein sequences to build a species profile. Use of ZooMS has taken off as scientists test how far the technique can take them. Cleland, for example, was able to identify proteins from a 12,000-year-old giant beaver skull sitting in a museum collection since 1845. His findings suggest that ZooMS can be used to analyze material that has been archived for decades and even centuries. And in 2016, Welker, Collins and colleagues used ZooMS to determine

that otherwise unidentifiable bone fragments in the French cave Grotte du Renne belonged to Neanderthals, settling a debate over which member of Homo occupied the site about 40,000 years ago. Given how closely related Neanderthals are to our own species, the researchers’ ability to identify a single protein sequence specific to our evolutionary cousins is stunning. ZooMS is not a perfect methodology. Analyzing proteins within a fossil requires destroying a piece of the specimen, something unthinkable for precious ancient hominin remains. That’s why the most significant applications for ZooMS may be to identify fragmentary fossils and to learn more about ancient hominins’ environments — especially the ones they created. In 2016, Collins and colleagues published evidence of proteins on ostrich shells that were almost 4 million years old — the connection to human evolution may not be readily apparent, but such shells have been used by hominins for millions of years to transport water and other resources. The humble ad hoc vessels may hold many secrets about our ancestors. Collins says he’s also excited about other teams producing paleoproteomic studies on cave art: The research can help us understand how early hominins created paints by adding binding agents to ochre and other material, which hints at their cognitive process. “It’s not just what the sequences will tell us about us. There are other things to learn about how humans made things,” says Collins.

DUCK, DUCK, RHINO Another method in paleoproteomics is particularly valuable for understanding the early hominin environment. Like ZooMS, crossover immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP) is fast — researchers get results in two or three days — and cheaper than aDNA sequencing. And CIEP’s results can be equally jaw-dropping.

DENIS FINNIN/AMNH, COURTESY OF THE DANISH NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION

Origin Story

Origin Story

HAND AX | Positive for horse

In 2016, a team led by University of Victoria archaeologist April Nowell and her colleague Cam Walker, a biological anthropologist with Archaeological Investigations Northwest Inc. in Portland, Ore., used CIEP to analyze tools found at a 250,000-year-old animal processing site in Jordan’s Shishan Marsh. The researchers identified six species of animals butchered at the site from protein residues on 20 of the tools. “It’s the first direct evidence of how the tools were used,” says Nowell. “All of a sudden, a wealth of information is unlocked.” Detecting species by protein residues on stone tools is especially important for once-marshy sites, like Shishan, which are not conducive to bone preservation. Although the Shishan excavations have yet to determine which species of hominin was at the site, Nowell’s team found that they were eating everything from Asian elephant and rhino to duck. The diversity sheds light on the hominins’ cognitive skills and ability to hunt very different species. “It tells us a lot about their social complexity, their technology,” Nowell says. “You don’t go after a duck the same way you go after a rhino.” Unlike ZooMS, CIEP is noninvasive and nondestructive. Researchers apply antibody-rich blood serum, or antiserum, targeting a specific antigen — say, one found in a rhino — to the sample they’re testing. If the specimen contains rhino proteins, they’ll get a reaction.

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BLADE | Positive for camel

Detecting species by protein residues on stone tools is especially important for once-marshy sites, like Shishan, which are not conducive to bone preservation. Unfortunately, researchers are limited to using antisera collected from living species. That’s why CIEP typically identifies by family rather than genus; genus is deduced later during the study based on knowledge of the animals present at that time and place in the fossil record. “We’re using modern taxa to find paleotaxa. If something didn’t leave any descendants, we won’t find it,” says Nowell. But the real problem with CIEP, contend some critics, is more basic. “Proteins are made up of a series of amino acids that fold into a chain in a structure specific to that protein,” says University of Manchester biomolecular archaeologist Terry Brown. CIEP and similar immunological methods “are based on detecting proteins by using antibodies that would recognize the protein by shape. If they unfold, the antibodies can’t accurately identify them.” Shishan study co-author Walker,

BLADE | Positive for rhino

FLAKE | Positive for bovine

however, dismisses that concern. He says a detection rate of only about 5 to 10 percent is typical when searching for protein residue on artifacts, but he’s confident in those results. Walker crosstests every antiserum with samples from other species to ensure it’s only identifying proteins from its target, rather than providing false positive results. “Sure, proteins do degrade, and unfolding can be a part of that process,” Walker explained via email, “[but] a protein does not need to be complete in order to be detected.”

GROWING PAINS As with any young field of science, there are growing pains. Researchers who use ZooMS tend to question CIEP’s accuracy; CIEP advocates point out ZooMS’ destructive nature. While Collins says he’s “not a huge fan of CIEP,” he also appreciates that greater collaboration between proponents of various approaches would be a win for all. “Throughout the field, we’ve each got our own hammer — ZooMS, ancient DNA — and to us everything looks like a nail,” Collins says. As researchers push the limits of ancient protein analysis, it’s possible that methods more refined than either ZooMS or CIEP will emerge. “We’re such a new field,” says Cleland. “We’re only scratching the surface of what we can do, and what we can learn.” D Gemma Tarlach is senior editor at Discover.

PORTRAIT: JAMES POKINES. STONE TOOLS: COURTESY APRIL NOWELL

University of Victoria archaeologist April Nowell (right) led a team that identified protein residues on tools used to butcher animals 250,000 years ago at a site in Jordan.

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Out There

Astronomers solve a mystery when they tease out how galaxies shove the universe’s oldest light. BY LIZ KRUESI

While telescopes like Hubble got more powerful, certain targets still eluded astronomers.

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When Colin Hill found himself bored on winter break from Princeton University in late 2013, he decided to search through old cosmology papers. (Grad students are fun like that.) He saw one that sparked an idea: Now that telescopes are so sensitive, could we learn anything new about missing matter by comparing the latest maps of galaxies with traditional records of Colin Hill the universe’s oldest light? Over the next few days, Hill worked through a quick analysis. It looked like he might be on to something. He returned to campus in January and sat down with his thesis adviser, David Spergel, and others to

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dig deeper on this map comparison. After finishing up — and triplechecking every step — they could do something no one had done before: reliably account for all of the normal matter in the universe.

A NORMAL PROBLEM It’s a surprisingly big deal. This normal matter, the types of particles that make up you and me and everything astronomers can see in the universe, seemed to be evading detection. The mystery of this missing stuff officially began in the early 1990s when scientists first tallied up all the stars, hot gas, cold dust and everything else they knew about. The total amounted to only a fraction of all the normal matter that

“We’re missing about 30 percent of the [normal matter] we know should be there when we do this accounting.” Unfortunately, those telescopes have their limits. Some can make out only cold dust, some only hot gas; if the target is too diffuse, stretched out across vast distances, it won’t show up in some detectors. To find that missing matter, then, you need an equal-opportunity approach, one that can see all material no matter its temperature or density. Luckily, the universe provides one.

IN THE BEGINNING It all goes back to the oldest light in the cosmos. It’s been traveling through our expanding universe since 380,000

TOP: NASA/ESA/HST FRONTIER FIELDS. BOTTOM: COURTESY OF THE SIMONS FOUNDATION

Missing Matter Found

the universe should have created during its first few minutes, based on other, super-solid observations using both the oldest cosmic light and nuclear physics equations. (Dark matter is its own mystery, and it involves totally different stuff.) Over the next two decades, as telescopes became more sensitive, astronomers would make some progress hunting that unseen normal matter they knew had to be there. But the numbers still weren’t adding up. “There’s a huge disconnect,” says Argonne National Laboratory cosmologist Lindsey Bleem. “We’re missing about 30 percent of the [normal matter] we know should be there when we do this accounting.” And the fact that astronomers couldn’t find it was disconcerting. After all, telescopes can see every form of light, from radio waves all the way up to high-energy gamma rays. Regular matter shouldn’t be able to hide.

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Out There

PUSH COMES TO SHOVE It’s not easy to find, but researchers are just barely able to detect the kSZ effect today by correlating two separate datasets: their CMB maps of choice and the newly precise maps of galaxy structures. When combined, these allow astronomers to see the exact locations of the moving gases that give the CMB light particles a kick. Hill’s team looked for the strength of that kick, because from that they can figure out how much matter is out there. However, determining that strength depends on two things: the velocity and amount of gas doing the kicking within the galaxy.

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The kSZ signals, while faint, revealed the long-missing matter had been there all along, too diffuse to make out. Now researchers could finally see it.

The CMB (left), combined with sky maps from future telescopes like the LSST (above), will map the universe’s matter with unprecedented precision.

Once cosmologists have the kSZ signal, they can finally determine how much matter is out there — as long as they also know its velocity. Normally that’s no problem, as astronomers can study a galaxy’s light to learn how far away it is and how fast it’s moving. But that type of measurement is time-intensive and expensive, and Hill’s team wanted to look at a lot more — ultimately 46 million galaxies. So they created a computer model based on scientists’ standard understanding of the universe — things like how old it is, how much dark matter it holds and how powerful gravity is. And from that model, they could estimate, statistically, the velocities of the galaxies across the entire sky. All the pieces fell into place. “By comparing the measurements with the theoretical model,” says Hill, “we get the measurement of the amount of gas associated with the galaxies.” Their technique worked, and they published last year in Physical Review Letters. “According to the measurement we made, all of the [normal matter] is accounted for in the present-day universe,” Hill says.

COMPLEMENTARY CONVICTION But tallying that normal matter was just the beginning. “I was both relieved and excited with the results,” says Hill, now at Columbia University. “But what’s more exciting is to think about what we’re going to be doing in the next couple years.” The next decade will include more advanced CMB telescopes and galaxy sky surveys. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), for example, will photograph all of the southern skies from its Chilean ridge in a matter of days, compiling information on 20 billion galaxies over 10 years. Those observations will lead to refined maps of the universe’s normal material. “We’ll be applying [this technique] to these much bigger samples and measure how the gas distribution is changing as the universe evolves,” says Hill’s adviser and co-author Spergel. That information can start to reveal details of cosmic structure. How exactly is matter distributed throughout a given galaxy? How much material do high-energy objects, like exploding stars or ravenous black holes, toss out of their galaxy’s gravitational grip? “We’re hoping that by using these types of measurements over the next few years, we’ll probe precisely how this gas is getting moved around by these very dramatic processes,” says Hill. “That’s the next frontier.” D Liz Kruesi, a freelance science writer, ponders the mysteries of the universe from Austin, Texas.

TOP: LSST PROJECT/NSF/AURA. BOTTOM: ESA AND THE PLANCK COLLABORATION

years after the Big Bang. Today, it saturates the modern sky in microwave light. Embedded in this cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation are hints aplenty about the universe in its infancy. But the all-sky maps that chart the CMB also contain details of everything the light passed on its way to our telescopes. The gravitational pull from massive clumps of matter can yank on the light’s path, and the hot gas floating between galaxies in clusters can donate a bit of energy to the light. Moving gas can also impart some of its own momentum to the light particles passing through as microwaves, literally shoving around the CMB. Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel’dovich hypothesized this action in the 1970s, but it hid from astronomers’ detectors until 2012. Because it’s synonymous with movement, the momentum transfer is called the kinematic Sunyaev Zel’dovich, or kSZ, effect — and that’s what Hill’s team used to unveil the universe’s normal matter.

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20 Things You Didn’t Know About …

BY GEMMA TARLACH

1 Is your daily slog through a non-equilibrium system of interacting particles — how physicists define vehicular traffic — getting you down? Us too, especially when it slows for no apparent reason. 2 According to a study in the New Journal of Physics, traffic jams develop spontaneously when vehicle density exceeds a critical level, beyond which minor fluctuations in the flow of individual vehicles destabilize the whole thing. 3 In fact, even construction or an accident isn’t directly responsible for congestion; the cause is the increase in vehicle density. 4 Traffic jams predate the automobile. William Phelps Eno, a pioneer of vehicular traffic control in the early 20th century, wrote about gridlock caused by horse-drawn carriages on the streets of his native New York City in the 1860s. 5 Also nothing new: judging others on the road. “I don’t think I ever went on the streets of New York nor of any other city or town without being astonished at the stupidity of drivers, pedestrians and police,” Eno wrote in 1939. 6 Traffic has been an issue since the first single-celled organisms. Motor enzymes are constantly moving around the crowded DNA streets of every living thing to copy or repair genetic code, a process called molecular traffic. 7 And yes, even on this minute level there are roadblocks and collisions (imagine the tiny orange cones!) that can disrupt replication and other processes crucial to genomic stability. 8 In even simple organisms like bacteria, however, researchers have observed a distinct molecular traffic flow to reduce head-on collisions between enzymes engaged in different tasks. 9 If enzymes can figure out how to go with the flow, why can’t we? About 1.25 million people die every year in traffic accidents, according to the World Health Organization. 10 Half of those killed are defined as vulnerable road users: people on foot, bicycle or motorcycle. 11 Self-driving cars may soon increase traffic safety — or just seem to do so. A recent study presenting different accident scenarios found that people were less likely to blame an automated car, even when it was at fault, than a human driver at fault. 12 You don’t even have to be in traffic to

suffer from it. A 2016 multiple-study review linked traffic pollution to asthma, pulmonary disease, eczema and even food allergies. 13 Another 2016 study found that high exposure to traffic pollution and noise was associated with daytime sleepiness and nighttime snoring. 14 But traffic poses even bigger problems for other species, particularly birds: Worldwide, it kills about a quarter of a billion of the animals annually. 15 Some birds, though, have adapted. Roadkill-noshing crows, for example, will pause their meal and fly straight up or walk to a different lane as traffic approaches. 16 And a 2013 study found that several species of common European birds adjust the timing of their takeoff to avoid oncoming traffic based on the speed limit of the specific stretch of road. 17 It’s difficult to pinpoint how many land animals are killed by vehicular traffic annually — no single entity keeps track — but over a 17-month period, one study documented more than 8,000 fatalities along a 1.1-mile stretch of road in Indiana. 18 In 2015, a Wildlife Research paper found roads with gentle grades and wider lanes and shoulders have the highest risk of wildlife-vehicle collisions. High visibility may encourage drivers to speed, a known crash risk. 19 Roads break up habitats and block migration routes, but as our species continues to expand, some researchers are asking which is better for wildlife: more traffic on fewer roads or less traffic on more roads? 20 One 2014 study based on modeling animal movement found that increasing vehicle density on existing roads, rather than adding more roads with lower density, resulted in fewer wildlife fatalities. Good for them — and more traffic for us. D Gemma Tarlach is senior editor at Discover.

DISCOVER (ISSN 0274-7529, USPS# 555-190) is published monthly, except for combined issues in January/February and July/August. Vol. 38, no. 7. Published by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Periodical postage paid at Waukesha, WI, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to DISCOVER, P.O. Box 62320, Tampa, FL 33662-2320. Canada Publication Agreement # 40010760. Back issues available. All rights reserved. Nothing herein contained may be reproduced without written permission of Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Printed in the U.S.A.

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