Tuesday, June 17, 2008
If Seeds Could Only Talk
I just read about a 2,000-year-old date seed that scientists successfully germinated in Israel. How incredible! It's like a time capsule of sorts, maybe the closest thing we have to time travel. The date plant is the only one of its kind, in an extinct lineage. I can only imagine the nerve-wracking weight of responsibility the cultivator of that seed must have felt. And now it is a three-foot-tall sprouting piece of history, with a tantalizing array of ancient genetic diversity in every cell. Nature and science are truly amazing!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
I'm sitting at the lab on a Sunday evening, waiting to go watch the Tony Awards with some fellow theatre fans. The sun is glittering on the water, and in the yellow glow a line of twenty pelicans or so flew across my field of view. I love watching them glide on their big wings, with their long beaks pointing assuredly in their direction of flight. They rise and fall gently one after the other, each following the path of the one before.
There are some otters paddling around in the river, flapping and splashing their feet. When I think, I mean really think about this environment I'm in, I can't believe my luck. And yet it is somehow possible to get so wrapped up in the business of completing tasks that this amazing setting gets taken for granted. My goal is to look at it each day with fresh eyes, fresh excitement. Never for granted, I remind myself. Never for granted.
There are some otters paddling around in the river, flapping and splashing their feet. When I think, I mean really think about this environment I'm in, I can't believe my luck. And yet it is somehow possible to get so wrapped up in the business of completing tasks that this amazing setting gets taken for granted. My goal is to look at it each day with fresh eyes, fresh excitement. Never for granted, I remind myself. Never for granted.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Dolphin and the Prostitute - a talk with Paul Molyneaux
"The way we treat women is the way we treat the ocean."
Of the many take-away quotes from the talk I attended this evening at Hopkins Marine Station, that was most definitely the keeper of keepers.
It was one of those opportunities where I had to make a decision. At the end of a long day at the lab, do I chill out and watch Juno with other students and get free pizza, or do I drive an extra 20 minutes to Monterey to hear this talk I had heard about? And at such a crossroads, I followed a tactic that has served me well in the past - which will I regret doing more if I don't do it now? I didn't now much about the speaker, Paul Molyneaux, except that he is a commercial fisherman-turned-author who has written two books, The Doryman's Tale, and Swimming in Circles, about the state of the world's fisheries. But, luckily for me, following my gut (rather than my stomach) turned out to be the right decision.
Molyneaux's talk was about his forthcoming book, and he was an absolutely captivating storyteller. Though surprisingly short in stature - he can't be much taller than five feet - he was able to command the room with with a gentle and natural ease. No PowerPoint presentation, just the seemingly dying art of painting pictures with words. And a rather refreshing twist, he actually pulled out a few props.
While discussing a visit to an artisanal fishery in Mexico, he described hearing a puff of air exhaled while the fishermen set their nets at midnight. And as he explained discovering a dolphin entangled in the fishing net, he pulled out a stuffed dolphin from behind the podium. A few chuckles. But holding the dolphin in his hands, he demonstrated how it would lift itself to the surface, take in several panicked breaths, then sink again. And how the fishermen, not willing or able to risk their own safety, or maybe their net, did not cut it free. And after five hours of fading, labored breathing, the dolphin let out piercing screams, and then drowned.
At dawn, when the fishermen reeled in their nets, there was the dead dolphin, and the fishermen cast its body aside. Here Molyneaux tossed his prop to the floor and reached behind the podium again. For at this point in the narrative, he was joined by the cameraman accompanying him on his story, recounting an exuberant play by play of his escapades with a prostitute the night before. Molneaux pulled out a doll at this point, and the display particularly affected me because it was Josephina, one of the American Girl dolls I had read about when I was younger.
But it was the connection that he made at this point that captivated me all the more. "I thought about this woman (the prostitute) and the dolphin," he said, "and I could not separate them in my mind." For here they were, both representing the body - the dolphin representing the body of the ocean, the woman our own fragile selves - and both were stuck, both in a bad place.
The analogy surfaced again in his visit to India as part of a Guggenheim fellowship. There he heard a woman share the saying I mentioned above: "The way we treat women is the way we treat the ocean." For in this seaside village where women squatted on the wet streets peeling shrimp for $3 a day, so too were there destructive bottom-trawling practices, so too was there domestic violence. The ocean, a woman. A productive and precious body that gives, and gives - but is thus subjected to violence from those who will take and take.
And from this intersection hope could also arise. Is it a coincidence that he witnessed these same women shrimp peelers unionizing in the same period that their village called for a ban on some destructive trawling?
His story from Thailand was eyeopening as well. The home of the largest shrimp farming practice - and largest "sex tourism" industry. Failing shrimp farms and women prostituting themselves in Bangkok to support families back home. The people are backed into a corner, but the system pays out because of "our hunger for shrimp and for sex," as he put it.
It all is driven by economics, and he referenced the "critical triangle" I first learned about when interviewing Steve Vosti at UC Davis. In "ecological economics" there is a pull between the environment, culture, and money - and the trick is to find balance between all three. But our (American) economic system places all the value on $$$ when it comes to fishing (and probably other things as well), and there is nothing left to support a community when that particular market or fishing stock collapses.
Yet Molyneaux described the places that his travels took him where there were solutions to be found - at a lot of it comes from a paradigm shift in how we view fishing and ownership. We need to completely rethink our attitude toward fishing. I asked him - Can the rate that this way of thinking catches on ever match the rate at which we are outstripping our natural resources? What is it going to take to reach that tipping point?
It's going to take people talking to people, he said. You talking to me and me talking to somebody else. And though I've heard that real and lasting change needs to originate with lawmakers, with broad-reaching regulations (he himself acknowledged that these community-based fishing programs depended on strong leadership) - still, when it comes down to it, if all you can do is start with one person at a time, then that's what you have to do. Better that then throw up your hands in despair.
It was wonderful to hear someone talk about an issue that I've been wanting to learn more about, that I dream of getting involve in, the intersection of my passions - marine biology, helping people, the developing world. It doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore, wanting to bring respect and protection to both women and the ocean. And I made it back to Moss Landing in time to watch an incredible sunset, and make a personal pact, a private resolve, not to lose hope. There are so many meaningful things to work for that are at stake.
And I even had time to snag some pizza.
Of the many take-away quotes from the talk I attended this evening at Hopkins Marine Station, that was most definitely the keeper of keepers.
It was one of those opportunities where I had to make a decision. At the end of a long day at the lab, do I chill out and watch Juno with other students and get free pizza, or do I drive an extra 20 minutes to Monterey to hear this talk I had heard about? And at such a crossroads, I followed a tactic that has served me well in the past - which will I regret doing more if I don't do it now? I didn't now much about the speaker, Paul Molyneaux, except that he is a commercial fisherman-turned-author who has written two books, The Doryman's Tale, and Swimming in Circles, about the state of the world's fisheries. But, luckily for me, following my gut (rather than my stomach) turned out to be the right decision.
Molyneaux's talk was about his forthcoming book, and he was an absolutely captivating storyteller. Though surprisingly short in stature - he can't be much taller than five feet - he was able to command the room with with a gentle and natural ease. No PowerPoint presentation, just the seemingly dying art of painting pictures with words. And a rather refreshing twist, he actually pulled out a few props.
While discussing a visit to an artisanal fishery in Mexico, he described hearing a puff of air exhaled while the fishermen set their nets at midnight. And as he explained discovering a dolphin entangled in the fishing net, he pulled out a stuffed dolphin from behind the podium. A few chuckles. But holding the dolphin in his hands, he demonstrated how it would lift itself to the surface, take in several panicked breaths, then sink again. And how the fishermen, not willing or able to risk their own safety, or maybe their net, did not cut it free. And after five hours of fading, labored breathing, the dolphin let out piercing screams, and then drowned.
At dawn, when the fishermen reeled in their nets, there was the dead dolphin, and the fishermen cast its body aside. Here Molyneaux tossed his prop to the floor and reached behind the podium again. For at this point in the narrative, he was joined by the cameraman accompanying him on his story, recounting an exuberant play by play of his escapades with a prostitute the night before. Molneaux pulled out a doll at this point, and the display particularly affected me because it was Josephina, one of the American Girl dolls I had read about when I was younger.
But it was the connection that he made at this point that captivated me all the more. "I thought about this woman (the prostitute) and the dolphin," he said, "and I could not separate them in my mind." For here they were, both representing the body - the dolphin representing the body of the ocean, the woman our own fragile selves - and both were stuck, both in a bad place.
The analogy surfaced again in his visit to India as part of a Guggenheim fellowship. There he heard a woman share the saying I mentioned above: "The way we treat women is the way we treat the ocean." For in this seaside village where women squatted on the wet streets peeling shrimp for $3 a day, so too were there destructive bottom-trawling practices, so too was there domestic violence. The ocean, a woman. A productive and precious body that gives, and gives - but is thus subjected to violence from those who will take and take.
And from this intersection hope could also arise. Is it a coincidence that he witnessed these same women shrimp peelers unionizing in the same period that their village called for a ban on some destructive trawling?
His story from Thailand was eyeopening as well. The home of the largest shrimp farming practice - and largest "sex tourism" industry. Failing shrimp farms and women prostituting themselves in Bangkok to support families back home. The people are backed into a corner, but the system pays out because of "our hunger for shrimp and for sex," as he put it.
It all is driven by economics, and he referenced the "critical triangle" I first learned about when interviewing Steve Vosti at UC Davis. In "ecological economics" there is a pull between the environment, culture, and money - and the trick is to find balance between all three. But our (American) economic system places all the value on $$$ when it comes to fishing (and probably other things as well), and there is nothing left to support a community when that particular market or fishing stock collapses.
Yet Molyneaux described the places that his travels took him where there were solutions to be found - at a lot of it comes from a paradigm shift in how we view fishing and ownership. We need to completely rethink our attitude toward fishing. I asked him - Can the rate that this way of thinking catches on ever match the rate at which we are outstripping our natural resources? What is it going to take to reach that tipping point?
It's going to take people talking to people, he said. You talking to me and me talking to somebody else. And though I've heard that real and lasting change needs to originate with lawmakers, with broad-reaching regulations (he himself acknowledged that these community-based fishing programs depended on strong leadership) - still, when it comes down to it, if all you can do is start with one person at a time, then that's what you have to do. Better that then throw up your hands in despair.
It was wonderful to hear someone talk about an issue that I've been wanting to learn more about, that I dream of getting involve in, the intersection of my passions - marine biology, helping people, the developing world. It doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore, wanting to bring respect and protection to both women and the ocean. And I made it back to Moss Landing in time to watch an incredible sunset, and make a personal pact, a private resolve, not to lose hope. There are so many meaningful things to work for that are at stake.
And I even had time to snag some pizza.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Consider the Stars
There is something truly other-worldly about looking through a telescope. I scrunch one eye, press the other to the eye piece, and through the distance of a few well focussed lenses, I am transported across time and space, suddenly face to face with Saturn, a binary star, a distant galaxy. When I pull my eyes away, the bewitching night sky beckons from afar once more, both tantalizing and humbling in its vast scope, its distance. I can suddenly relate to the moth that fell in love with a star.
This past weekend I traded the vast unknown of the ocean for its cosmic equivalent at a community astronomy night at the Fremont Peak Observatory with two friends. The blissfully warm evening was hosted by Allen, a researcher at our lab who studies both marine science and astronomy. It's truly inspiring to know that people can balance two such different and difficult fields.
He pushes around the massive 30" telescope, which moves with surprising ease for something the weight of a small car. He trains it on various sparkling specks, and we wait our turns to climb the ladder and peer at the artistically named Sombrero Galaxy, the Whirlpool Galaxy. True, they are a little blurry, just a smudge, really, in the corner of the view finder. But add one drop imagination and another of curiosity, and I can begin to understand how science fiction was born. What is it like out there, in all that space?
The real show stoppers are the globular clusters, flowerbursts of hundreds of little stars. And being the neophyte astronomers that we are, we also clamor to see Saturn and Mars - even the moon! Saturn through the telescope looks like a picture pulled from my third grade report - a perfect ringed orb, with tiny moons visible. Having seen its image so many times before, I can can hardly fathom that I'm looking at the real thing.
And the moon - its brightness wreaks a little havoc on the visibility of everything else that night, and something about its attention-hogging glow makes it hard to look away. It is so blinding white through the powerful telescope that I have its image seared into my closed eyelids for a few minutes after I finally pull myself away. But oh, its curving surface stretching away from view, its mysterious shadowed edge creeping over a craggy mountain range. I planned my trip across its frontiers, through the hills and valleys of its pockmarked surface.
My own scientific passion having lead me down a completely different road, I feel refreshed and awed by students of a visitng astronomy class who rattle off about the Orion nebula, about various and sundry stars that are indistinguishable to my eyes. I feel the same excitement as I did while reading a recent Smithsonian cover story written by Rob Irion, director of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program. Every piece of knowledge is new and slightly exhilarating, as I momentarily dip a toe into a field so foreign to me.
Indeed, I am more than happy to simply flesh out my paltry knowledge of constellations. Gemini, Corvus, and Leo now join the Big Dipper and Orion in my mental sky map. Allen points them out with an incredible laser pointers that can beam up into the heavens, outlining patterns in the sky (if you missed my birthday, there's a hint for you...). I am transported back to my summer camp days at the community college planetarium, sitting back in my plush seat inside a giant volleyball of a dome, listening to stories of Pegasus and Medusa, of swans and scorpions trapped in the sky.
How comforting the stars must have been to the seafaring explorer, reappearing each night like old friends, passing through in their seasonal trek across the sky. The timeworn tale holds a little more weight, as my personal night sky becomes that much more familiar, expanding my mental horizons with it.
This past weekend I traded the vast unknown of the ocean for its cosmic equivalent at a community astronomy night at the Fremont Peak Observatory with two friends. The blissfully warm evening was hosted by Allen, a researcher at our lab who studies both marine science and astronomy. It's truly inspiring to know that people can balance two such different and difficult fields.
He pushes around the massive 30" telescope, which moves with surprising ease for something the weight of a small car. He trains it on various sparkling specks, and we wait our turns to climb the ladder and peer at the artistically named Sombrero Galaxy, the Whirlpool Galaxy. True, they are a little blurry, just a smudge, really, in the corner of the view finder. But add one drop imagination and another of curiosity, and I can begin to understand how science fiction was born. What is it like out there, in all that space?
The real show stoppers are the globular clusters, flowerbursts of hundreds of little stars. And being the neophyte astronomers that we are, we also clamor to see Saturn and Mars - even the moon! Saturn through the telescope looks like a picture pulled from my third grade report - a perfect ringed orb, with tiny moons visible. Having seen its image so many times before, I can can hardly fathom that I'm looking at the real thing.
And the moon - its brightness wreaks a little havoc on the visibility of everything else that night, and something about its attention-hogging glow makes it hard to look away. It is so blinding white through the powerful telescope that I have its image seared into my closed eyelids for a few minutes after I finally pull myself away. But oh, its curving surface stretching away from view, its mysterious shadowed edge creeping over a craggy mountain range. I planned my trip across its frontiers, through the hills and valleys of its pockmarked surface.
My own scientific passion having lead me down a completely different road, I feel refreshed and awed by students of a visitng astronomy class who rattle off about the Orion nebula, about various and sundry stars that are indistinguishable to my eyes. I feel the same excitement as I did while reading a recent Smithsonian cover story written by Rob Irion, director of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program. Every piece of knowledge is new and slightly exhilarating, as I momentarily dip a toe into a field so foreign to me.
Indeed, I am more than happy to simply flesh out my paltry knowledge of constellations. Gemini, Corvus, and Leo now join the Big Dipper and Orion in my mental sky map. Allen points them out with an incredible laser pointers that can beam up into the heavens, outlining patterns in the sky (if you missed my birthday, there's a hint for you...). I am transported back to my summer camp days at the community college planetarium, sitting back in my plush seat inside a giant volleyball of a dome, listening to stories of Pegasus and Medusa, of swans and scorpions trapped in the sky.
How comforting the stars must have been to the seafaring explorer, reappearing each night like old friends, passing through in their seasonal trek across the sky. The timeworn tale holds a little more weight, as my personal night sky becomes that much more familiar, expanding my mental horizons with it.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Escaping the Pigeonhole
Today my class received a visit from blogger Craig McClain, who maintains the Deep Sea News blog. It was great to talk to someone who has no problem with being goofy, who recognizes that marine science is inherently awesome and who uses the world of the blog to communicate it on that "oh wow!" level. And who is walking proof that people with Ph. D.'s can be have tattoos and work as club bouncers on the side.
Of course a few things came out of our discussion that gave me food for thought on trying to start my own blog. The first being just to go for it and get it out there...so here I am. A general rule of thumb that Craig shared was to have a theme, an overall gist to the blog that people can grab onto. Fair enough. Yet as passionate and excited as I am about wanting to be a window into the world of the marine biology grad student, I'm realizing that's perhaps not my goal of this particular site.
As someone who has always had so many interests, wanting to be involved with everything and still wanting to live every one else's life vicariously, I'm realizing that the intense focus on a single subject (albeit the many diverse sides of that subject) which is an inherent part of the marine lab environment has been one of the biggest adjustments I've faced this semester. I love the ocean and science, and I want to dedicated to them, just not defined by them.
The only guideline I can really think of for myself at this point is to not have a guideline about what to write or not write. So perhaps the title of this blog is rather misleading, as I probably will not write just about fish, or even mostly about fish. I really want a blog to showcase all the cool research that I'm surrounded by...but that will hopefully be something more polished in the future, and possibly collaborative with other people at my lab. This is most definitely the practice leading up to that - training wheels still on here.
You know that whole saying "Dance like nobody's watching," etc. My whole attitude going into this thing is "Write like nobody's reading." (Which is completely true at the moment - ha!) And it seems counterintuitive really for someone who deeply wants to reach people through writing...but eventually is the key word. Just like Anne Lamont advises writers to mentally kill off their parents, teachers and any other potential creative roadblocks, I will keep quiet about my little corner of cyberspace while I keep tuning my instruments, splashing up different colors of paint, and doing a bit of mumbling to myself, just trying to figure out what works.
Of course, I really do hope to produce something reader-worthy through all this, and thereby attract actual readers! So should you an actual reader be, please pardon the shakiness while I find my voice. If you have the patience for it, we'll see what happens when my latest reads and cooking experiemnts, passion for produce and flowers, and dabbles with Buddhism and experiences of multiculturalism all come bubbling up in the mix - with, of course, fish.
Of course a few things came out of our discussion that gave me food for thought on trying to start my own blog. The first being just to go for it and get it out there...so here I am. A general rule of thumb that Craig shared was to have a theme, an overall gist to the blog that people can grab onto. Fair enough. Yet as passionate and excited as I am about wanting to be a window into the world of the marine biology grad student, I'm realizing that's perhaps not my goal of this particular site.
As someone who has always had so many interests, wanting to be involved with everything and still wanting to live every one else's life vicariously, I'm realizing that the intense focus on a single subject (albeit the many diverse sides of that subject) which is an inherent part of the marine lab environment has been one of the biggest adjustments I've faced this semester. I love the ocean and science, and I want to dedicated to them, just not defined by them.
The only guideline I can really think of for myself at this point is to not have a guideline about what to write or not write. So perhaps the title of this blog is rather misleading, as I probably will not write just about fish, or even mostly about fish. I really want a blog to showcase all the cool research that I'm surrounded by...but that will hopefully be something more polished in the future, and possibly collaborative with other people at my lab. This is most definitely the practice leading up to that - training wheels still on here.
You know that whole saying "Dance like nobody's watching," etc. My whole attitude going into this thing is "Write like nobody's reading." (Which is completely true at the moment - ha!) And it seems counterintuitive really for someone who deeply wants to reach people through writing...but eventually is the key word. Just like Anne Lamont advises writers to mentally kill off their parents, teachers and any other potential creative roadblocks, I will keep quiet about my little corner of cyberspace while I keep tuning my instruments, splashing up different colors of paint, and doing a bit of mumbling to myself, just trying to figure out what works.
Of course, I really do hope to produce something reader-worthy through all this, and thereby attract actual readers! So should you an actual reader be, please pardon the shakiness while I find my voice. If you have the patience for it, we'll see what happens when my latest reads and cooking experiemnts, passion for produce and flowers, and dabbles with Buddhism and experiences of multiculturalism all come bubbling up in the mix - with, of course, fish.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Just what is going on here?
So it begins.
The question posed: How do you become a writer?
The answer received: Well, by writing, of course!
After dabbling with the world of internet writing once and again, I'm sticking my toe back into the blogging pool, wondering "Can I really do it (and stick with it) all on my own?"
Two months ago, I became a graduate student in an ichthyology lab (aka a fish lab, aka an "ick!" lab). I am surrounded by resources and experts in an intellectually stimulating setting. For the first time in my life, I get to see the ocean every day. A new chapter in my life is starting, and it's like a dream.
But I also have another dream, and that dream is to be a writer. To bring the rich world of science to life for others, to stimulate the flow of information from scientists to the public. My goal after finishing my master's is to pursue science communication, but why, I realized, should I have to wait until then? Why not start today, and continue to build my confidence as a writer by puting miles of text under my fingertips.
With science currently vying for most of my attention, I need somewhere for my other interests to also take root and play side by side. So here I am, looking not only for a place to share the insider's scoop of my fishy adventures, but also for the space to flex a little creative muscle. To collect some cluttered thoughts big and small, and build a meeting ground for all the technicolor pieces of my life spreading out in every direction. (And to finally figure out how in the heck to pretty up a website.)
It will be an evolving experience, if you will. Really just a big experiment.
So this is me diving in.
The question posed: How do you become a writer?
The answer received: Well, by writing, of course!
After dabbling with the world of internet writing once and again, I'm sticking my toe back into the blogging pool, wondering "Can I really do it (and stick with it) all on my own?"
Two months ago, I became a graduate student in an ichthyology lab (aka a fish lab, aka an "ick!" lab). I am surrounded by resources and experts in an intellectually stimulating setting. For the first time in my life, I get to see the ocean every day. A new chapter in my life is starting, and it's like a dream.
But I also have another dream, and that dream is to be a writer. To bring the rich world of science to life for others, to stimulate the flow of information from scientists to the public. My goal after finishing my master's is to pursue science communication, but why, I realized, should I have to wait until then? Why not start today, and continue to build my confidence as a writer by puting miles of text under my fingertips.
With science currently vying for most of my attention, I need somewhere for my other interests to also take root and play side by side. So here I am, looking not only for a place to share the insider's scoop of my fishy adventures, but also for the space to flex a little creative muscle. To collect some cluttered thoughts big and small, and build a meeting ground for all the technicolor pieces of my life spreading out in every direction. (And to finally figure out how in the heck to pretty up a website.)
It will be an evolving experience, if you will. Really just a big experiment.
So this is me diving in.
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