How can I quantify the number of rocks in this chute? I could easily count the number of boulders as large as a car by sight but what about the smaller ones? Definitely could not use imaging software. If I managed to count rocks correctly and sand and dust, I could then calculate an erosion rate. Then I could figure out if the thousands of people who climb this route are causing excessive erosion off the beautiful Mnt. Whitney.
Who am I kidding, just look at the foot traffic and the state of that trail. It is obviously highly used and constantly eroding, I can hear the rock fall with each step. There is no reason you have to calculate or quantitate that. Ok, now focus on the climb. Left hand here, right hand here. But humans like numbers. Regulators need calculated evidence. So, numbers are necessary. For instance, terrain grades--people like to know that this is a Class 3 scramble and that coming up is a Class 1 trek. They like to know how many steps they have taken for the day, their heart rate zone during exertion, the exact vertical distance they have climbed and still have to accomplish. Numbers everywhere. Left hand there, right hand there, counterbalance with the left foot. How would we engineer a robot to do this climb? It would have to do all of the calculations for balancing properly. Don’t put too much weight on that foot, make a quick transfer to the other, find a really good foot placement to get over this boulder, check the stability of that one before grabbing. All of these things are intuitive for our bodies and would not be so easy to explain or define externally. But then again, these are not exactly intuitive. It takes quite a bit of time to learn how to move our bodies efficiently. Following others and learning from someone more experienced helps a lot, but nothing beats experience (putting in the time and adapting your methods with each new opportunity). No outright calculations are made, but somehow, I manage to successfully navigate up the difficult trail to the top of Mnt. Whitney. I think of hikes with my parents, runs down Cedar Mountain with my high school ski coach, Marty. I remember navigation with Christi (college ski coach). These are not numbers either, but memories of moments, lessons ingrained in my muscle. With each difficult section of trail that I overcome, the feeling at the summit feels that much better. A familiar satisfaction triggered by the warm sun on my body. For a moment, I stop quantifying and questioning, letting myself feel awe at the endless rows of valleys and mountains into the distance. Of course, as my feet resume movement (to get me down off this peak), my mind resumes its inquiry. Is that a hybrid bird following me? How does that chipmunk survive the winter at 14,000’? What types of trees are these? How is it that there is a 0’ spot at Death Valley right over there and the highest point in the US over here- so close together? Why are so many humans excited by climbing mountains and attracted to nature? Why have we lost contact with nature? Why is outdoor gear so expensive? I’ve learned that it is easy to ask questions and ponder the unknown. Following through with the scientific method—searching through human knowledge (usually in the form of literature), developing a protocol to address the question, carrying out the protocol, analyzing the data and drawing conclusions from it—takes a lot of time and effort. Many questions that I would be willing to devote a lifetime to answering, are not equally valued by society or funders. So that means that I adapt my questioning, my route, myself to societal needs/funders’ needs. I do not have to quantitate that either, it is an intuitive molding, a balancing act necessary to keep from tumbling down the chute.
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November 11, 2018
When I get together with my family, the conversation always turns to science. Both of my parents spent their careers as public land managers and have an innate love for the environment and asking questions about the world. On long drives west from Wyoming, we’d talk about the salmon population declines, fire frequency, butterfly migrations, invasive plant species, and beaver architects. In all of these discussions, I always assumed that the “scientists” had it figured out. That they could easily resolve whatever issue we were talking about. That scientists could easily determine where sage grouse leks were, the number of individuals present, and the success of the breeding ritual in the coming spring. The lack was simply underfunding and under-empowerment of science. That’s why scientists relied on people like me to go out with my dad in the spring and sit at a lek site to count those birds and record evidence of their mating dances. Right? No. I now know that I was wrong. “Scientists” actually do not have “the answers”. The scientific method allows us to ask questions and then spend years figuring it out for a very particular instance of the problem. Every method employed for answering a question will have its flaws and assumptions have to be made that are always limiting. Often, scientists will ask a broad question and then reduce that question to its basic components, which can be manipulated and controlled in the laboratory environment. This process is crucial to getting at some sort of answer, but that answer may be very different when you expand back out of the laboratory. This is why a major component of my education has been learning to ask the right questions, learning how and when to spend the resources that are available, and being able to quantify the error in the answers that I produce. In Optical Imaging class this week, we discussed a paper on ant foraging behavior. The authors wanted to be able to measure trophallactic events, which is when forager ants feed non-forager ants by regurgitating food from their “social stomachs”, much like how mother birds feed their hatchlings. This paper on ants reminded me of videos I had seen where an artist poured liquid metal down an ant hill to preserve the intricate tunnels underground and then dug up the metal structure. It was fascinating to see the complex 3D mold of the ant’s home that exists entirely beneath the single hole that we can see from the surface. This video raised an interesting idea. If I wanted to study anything about the ants- their colony structure, diet, behavior, strategy for surviving winter, I’d have to either destroy their home (and them) or rely only on observations from the surface. This is an example of how current technology and current scientific strategies do not allow us to answer basic questions that seem so simple to address. To continue with the ant paper, these researchers brought the ants into the lab into an artificial home that was an enclosed platform. They used a recently developed technique for tracking individuals, which is called barcoding. Each ant is marked with a unique tag that can be visually identified by a human or by software and thus tracked as it moves about in its home. They also added fluorescent dye to sugar-water and were able to capture videos of forager ants feeding the non-forager ants (trophallactic events). What’s crazy though is that it was easier to manually count these events in the video (to have someone sit there and watch hours of video and click every time a feeding even occurred) than it was to develop a computer program that could identify these events automatically. This is a perfect example of something I would have assumed scientists could do, easily. That tracking individuals or identifying behaviors on a computer program would be a thing of the past. But they’re not. People are actively working on these problems. And we haven’t even attempted accurate measurement of these behaviors in a natural system. The implications of this are pretty big. I am reminded of the Science Marches of a year ago where people were in the streets demanding that science guide our policy making. “Science reveals reality”. “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether you believe in it or not”. “Scientists speaking truth to power”. It is so hard to get behind the Science March knowing the limitations of science. Only certain questions get funded, only certain individuals ask the questions, only certain types of questions can be answered in the first place, and all of those answers have measurable and unmeasurable uncertainty. I do believe that science is a fantastic tool that should be guiding decision making, but science should not be taken as fact. And I do not think it helps to make people believe that science has the answers. Each scientist makes their own choices in study design and purpose. They decide whether to destroy the any colony or to observe from the surface. Each choice influences the answers they produce as well as our societal impressions and judgements of the world around us which can guide our political voices, economic choices, and passions. Sources: Greenwald, E., Segre, E., Feinerman, O. 2015. Ant trophallactic networks: Simultaneous measurement of interaction patterns and food dissemination. Scientific Reports. 5. 12496. DOI: 10.1038/srep12496. Casting a Fire Ant Colony with Molten Aluminum (Cast #043) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJ2jMZ-gaI “And we have all heard about the food the Spartans eat at their public meals. Once, when the tyrant Dionysius was dining with them, he remarked that he did not care for that famous black broth which was their principle dish.
”No wonder you don’t”, said the cook, “because you haven’t got the seasoning”. “What’s that?”, asked Dionysus. “Hard hunting, sweating, a sprint down to the river Eurotas, hunger, thirst. Those are the things Spartans use to season their banquets.” (Cicero, On the Good Life, pg. 103-104) Almost every weekend for me includes a long run. This is an old habit that started while I was an athlete with the University of Wyoming Nordic Ski Team that is always the best part of my week. My long runs are generally over an hour (up to 6 hours) and are usually designated “an adventure” because they are my chance to explore places I have never been before. I love long runs because of their rhythm- preparation, execution, recovery. Preparation: I gather the things I will need: my water bladder and tiny backpack, my running shoes and special socks, granola bars, sunscreen. Lately this list includes some cold-weather gear like a hat, gloves, and coat, but I am still surprised every time that the pile of necessities is so small. While on the ski team, the list was a bit longer. Add electrolyte-rich fluids and a heart rate monitor. As well as the things that I always know I should take, but end up forgetting like the first aid kit, paper map, and toilet paper. Execution: I love the feeling of arriving at the trailhead where we will start. There are no spectators or anxious nerves like there are on race days. No one knows why I am there or what I am about to do. I wander around, finding the trail and take photos of the trail map just in case. Then I set off. My body feels really bad for about 30 minutes, but by 40 minutes, my stride has completely changed. My chest is puffed into a strong holding position, my arms glide next to my torso, and I am relaxed. The pattern of step, step, step breathe is addicting and there is always so much to see. That’s when the thinking happens. Things I didn’t even know were on my mind suddenly bubble sort to the front. I have good ideas, I have bad ideas. I go through cycles of elation and embarrassment as I recap the week. By the end, I’ve worked through a lot of tension and managed to exhaust my body. Recovery: At the end of the run, I bask in the endorphin high and take the time to fully appreciate the day, the place, myself. Throughout the day, my body and mind recover from the exertion. The peace that comes from my long run usually lasts a few days and lets me dive back into school work with vigor. What I have been struggling with lately is maintaining a physical program throughout the week. It was so easy when I was part of a team that had regular meeting times and expectations. But now, when it is just me there are a lot of doubts. No training partners, no fixed schedule, no competitions to train for. This is an issue faced by most of my teammates from UWYO and this fall, our coaches motivated us all to develop a platform to maintain the team environment even far from one another. It is difficult for me to explain how innovative this idea is, and I have yet to see how well it actually works. What I do know is that the lowest participation rates in our sport are the age groups just out of college. When people are in the prime of their physical ability, they lack a platform for staying engaged in the sport. We are actively working on ways to fight against this trend. While it is easy for me to say that I do not have time to workout each day because I am in a demanding PhD program, I know that it is not true and that my academics will suffer as I lose the mind-body balance that has been crucial to my happiness for the last 21 years of education. This is something we teach the younger athletes at the high school training camp each spring when their parents tell them that they should “focus on academics”. This tradeoff approach does not work for me, I need challenges in both mind and body to season my broth. |
AuthorSierra is a graduate student in the Barger Lab at CU Boulder studying microbial ecology for dryland restoration. Archives
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