science...features 28 science illustrated training artists to bring complex concepts into living...

B E R K E L E YsciencereviewSpring 2002 Vol.2 no.1

FROM THE EDITORBERKELEYsciencereview

EDITOR–IN–CHIEF

Eran Karmon

MANAGING EDITOR

Temina Madon

ART DIRECTOR

Una Ren

CONTENT EDITOR

Jessica Palmer

CURRENT BRIEFS EDITOR

Heidi Ledford

COPY EDITOR

Donna Sy

EDITORS

Joel KamnitzerColin McCormickJane McGonigal

Teddy Varno

ART AND LAYOUT

Aaron GolubDan Handwerker

Jinjer LarsonMerek Siu

WEBMASTER

Tony Wilson

SPECIAL THANKS

David PerlmanCharles Petit

PRINTER

Fricke-Parks Inc.©2002 Berkeley Science Review. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without express permission of the publishers. Publishedwith financial assistance from the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley, the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly, the Associated Students of the University of California,and the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Publication Committee. Berkeley Science Review is not an official publication of the University of California, Berkeley, or the ASUC. The contentin this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the University or the ASUC. *Dollars will be paid in “BSR Fun Cash,” which is useless.

Dear Readers,

A lot’s been happening at the BSR. For one, we’ve fully quintupled our circulation forIssue 2, up to a healthy 5000. We’ve also added two new sections to the magazine.Turn to Labscope (p. 4) for a lively look at recent Cal-produced breakthroughs, and readthrough Biotech Beat (p. 6) for high points of the Bay Area biotechnology industry. Plus,we’ve broken new journalistic ground by printing an actual picture of someone actu-ally naked on the actual South Pole (The Back Page).

Your old favorites are here, too. Probable lunatic Alan Moses is back with his LastAngry Man column (p. 37), this time settling for good any debate over the definition of“Life.” And Aaron Pierce has written a wonderful feature (p. 18) about how $350 mil-lion and a mile-and-a-half deep hole in the ground may tell us how the Sun shines.

The BSR is about bringing science to the public in a way that’s understandable andexciting. Because science is, well, generally pretty exciting. We know it is, because allof us are active members of Berkeley’s research community. We’re graduate studentsin the sciences, engineering, math, and the humanities—and the BSR is what we do inour spare time, because we think people outside the sciences and even outside Berke-ley should know about what Berkeley researchers do.

Come be part of the BSR. Visit us on the web at http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu tofind out how to become a contributing writer, editor, or designer for what my momhas called “the greatest magazine of the new millennium.” We’re always looking forshockingly well written and compelling stories or a spare hand at the Mac when layouttime comes. So come on, tell the world about all the great research that comes out ofCal. I will give you a dollar.*

All the best,

Eran Karmon

Features

28 Science IllustratedTraining artists to bringcomplex concepts intoliving color.

By Jessica Palmer and Una Ren

Hunting down the elusivesolar neutrino.

18 The Ghost in the Sun

By Aaron Pierce

BSR Vol. 2 No. 1

BERKELEYsciencereview

Departments

On the cover:

4 Labscope

Controlling computers via aglove interface.

Stamping out tuberculosis in African buffalo.

A silicon Campanile.

Drawing with electrons. 6 Biotech Beat

What’s happening in Bay Areabiotech (sorry, no job postings).

17 Book ReviewAnnie Alexander and the UC museums.

27 Weird ScienceKen and Barbie meet Godzilla.Bacteria that band together.

BSR Exclusive: Big ole’ naked guy on the South Pole!

The Back Page

12 Spin Doctors

The University

Why more and more Berkeley professorsare splitting time between the lab and theboardroom.

Perspective37 Life: Wanted Dead or Alive

Is a goldfish alive? What about a tub ofmargarine? Alan Moses sorts it out.

Artwork by Jennifer Kane, afirst year student in the ScienceIllustration Progam at UCSC.Read about it on page 28.

40 Quanta (heard on campus)

Current Briefs 7 Telling Stories

Why do autistic children have troubledescribing emotions?

Modeling the cornea’s topographymay lead to improved contact lenses.

8 Correcting Keratoconus

Even in cyberspace, geographymatters.

9 Mapping the Net

Shrinking software for networkeddevices.

10 Tiny OS

Labscope

ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER.

GESUNDHEIT!

BERKELEYs c i e n c e 4r e v i e w

A group led by physics professor Joel Fajans is pioneering ways to trap groups of pure electrons (called “electron plasmas”) usingmagnetic and electric fields. While previous researchers have generated their electrons by heating pieces of tungsten metal,Fajans uses a photocathode material that emits electrons when exposed to light. By carefully controlling the pattern of lightexposure, his group can organize emitted electrons into highly complex patterns. The patterns are allowed to evolve for a time,and are then imaged by a CCD camera on a phosphor screen. Aside from improving techniques for the control of chargedplasmas, this research has led to a better understanding of the flow of two-dimensional fluids, including the behavior of Jupiter’sGreat Red Spot. Learn more at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~fajans.

Colin McCormick

Researchers at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center are developing computer control systems small enough to fit on afingernail. Graduate students Seth Hollar, John Perng and Brian Fisher have designed a glove that translates hand gestures intocomputer-recognizable symbols. Although the glove is much larger than the 1 mm device the team ultimately hopes to create,it proves that the technology for a tiny virtual keyboard works. Electronic chips called accelerometers are placed on each fingerof the glove to measure the force and direction of movement of the user’s hand. These signals are digitized and transmitted to thecomputer, which uses special software to match a movement to its database of gestures. In addition to paving the way for theadvent of fingernail-sized digital controllers, the researchers say that potential applications of their glove include virtual musicalinstruments and American Sign Language interpreters.

Jane McGonigal

Nearly 87 years after its completion, Elliot Hui has figured out how to make the Campanile fifty-two thousand times smaller.Hui, a graduate student in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a researcher at the BerkeleySensor and Actuator Research Center, has built a miniscule model of Sather Tower to demonstrate a new technique for assem-bling three-dimensional silicon microstructures. The structures are designed to initially lie flat. Then with a single push of a tinyprobe, the pieces rise up and precisely arrange themselves, much like the pages in a child’s “pop-up” book. Part of the finishedCampanile is shown at right, standing an impressive 1.8 millimeters tall.

Joshua Garret SILICON POP-UP BOOKS.

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is raging among Cape buffalo in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Berkeley researchers led byProfessor Wayne M. Getz of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management are investigating strategies forcontaining the disease. While seemingly benign to its buffalo hosts, BTB is transmissible and harmful to other animals. Preda-tors, particularly lions, are being killed by the pathogen after eating infected buffalo carcasses. Plans for controlling the epidemichave ranged from killing all infected buffalo to building a large fence across the New Jersey-sized preserve. Getz’s team is usingmethods from epidemiology, field ecology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), microbiology, mathematical modeling, andstatistics to understand the important ecological processes behind disease spread and to assess possible management plans.

Heidi Ledford

DESIGNER ELECTRONS.

Eran Karmon

WRAPPED AROUND YOUR LITTLE FINGER.

David Zusman’s lab in the department of Molecular and Cell Biology is studying a species of bacteria that really knows how tostick together when times get tough. When food is scarce, tens of thousands of Myxococcus xanthus cells congregate to form afruiting body that contains dormant spores capable of surviving the food shortage. Forming a fruiting body is a complex task thatrequires extensive communication, movement, and adhesion of cells. To understand how these small bacteria carry out such amonumental task, Zusman’s lab has isolated mutant bacteria that are unable to aggregate properly. The lab has found a numberof gene products that are important for sensing chemical signals in the environment. M. xanthus has nine different signalingpathways that sense and respond to chemical changes in the environment; the ubiquitous E. coli has only one. By characterizingthese pathways, Zusman and his colleagues are uncovering how these single cells work together to form complex structures.

Bay Area companies Endocare and Sanarus have developed two new minimally inva-sive breast tumor diagnosis and removal procedures. Sanarus representatives say thenew procedures are less expensive and more reliable than open surgery. Each year,over a million women require breast biopsies, 80% of which reveal benign tumors.One of the new procedures is for performing breast biopsies, and the other is forremoving fibroadenomas, the most common form of benign tumor. In the new bi-opsy procedure, a small needle is placed into the affected tissue; the tissue is then“stick frozen” and removed to check for cancerous growth. The fibroadenoma systemuses cryoablation, a technique in which extremely cold temperatures destroy tissue,to remove benign tumors. Cryoablation has previously been used to treat prostatecancer. Both new procedures can be performed in the doctor’s office using only localanesthesia, and leave minimal scars.

Be on the lookout for a new, “tougher” strain of rice. The Plant Sciences division ofgenomics-based drug discovery company Exelixis was awarded an NSF grant to iden-tify genes in rice that will boost resistance to stress and disease. Exelixis will use itsgene activation technology to find genes in rice that are responsible for “turning on”and “turning off ” physical characteristics of the plant. Development of a new resis-tant strain of rice could improve production of one of the world’s major food crops.

A new class of anti-cancer drugs, angiogenesis inhibitors, has proven effective in treatingkidney cancer. National Cancer Institute trials show that biotech pioneer Genentech’sdrug Avastin increases survival, or at least slows the progression of the disease. Can-cer cells secrete substances that promote angiogenesis, the formation of new bloodvessels which deliver oxygen to a rapidly growing mass of tumor cells. Angiogenesisinhibitors like Avastin block this process, thus starving cancer cells of oxygen. Avastinhas also shown positive results in colorectal and breast cancer. It is expected to enterinto phase III clinical trials, the last stage of testing before regulatory approval.

Tough rice

Biotech Beat

Emily Singer


New kidney cancer drug

New breast tumor biopsy techniques

HERE’S WHAT’S HOT IN BAY AREA BIOTECH


TELLING STORIESFor some children, storytellingdoesn’t always come naturally.

Everyone knows that you canlearn a lot by listening to chil-dren. But for Molly Losh, the

way a child tells a story reveals muchmore than the narrative itself. Agraduate student in UC Berkeley’sDepartment of Psychology, Loshinvestigates the way children tell storiesso that she can learn more about thebasic skills they use to constructnarratives.

Losh focuses on children with autism, adisorder that prevents normal develop-ment of social interaction and communi-cation skills. “Narratives occur fre-quently in everyday life for children,such as during bedtime stories, telling aparent about their day at school, andpretend play with peers,” she says.“Difficulties producing or comprehend-ing narratives may severely restrict achild’s ability to engage in socialinteractions.” Working together withher UC Berkeley mentor, the late LisaCapps, and with UCLA researcherChristopher Thurber, Losh recentlycompleted a study showing thatknowledge and communication ofemotional states are key factors instorytelling. In addition to providinginformation about the linguistic andcognitive aspects of narrative, Loshbelieves that these data could givepsychologists new tools for identifying

and meeting thespecial needs ofautistic children.In the study, Losh andher team workedwith three groups ofchildren: childrenwith autism, childrenwith milder forms ofmental retardation,and typically-developing children.Researchers asked the children to lookthrough the wordless picture-book Frog

on His Own and then to recount thefrog’s escapades. The researchersanalyzed audio and video recordings ofthe children’s stories for grammar,structure, and six categories of narrativedevices, including “sound effects” (“Thefrog went splash!”), “attention-getters”(“WOW! Look at that!”), and “hedges”(“I think the frog got away”).

Losh and her fellow researchersdiscovered that the most significantdifference among the three groups is intheir ability to explain the characters’emotions. Although all three groupsused words to describe feelings equallyoften, children with autism and mildretardation gave a reason for identifiedemotions only 7% of the time, com-pared to 25% of the time for typically-developing children. Instead, children inthe first two groups tended simply to

state the emotions withoutmentioning any cause, as ifthe feelings had spontane-ously arisen. Even whenthese children mentionedthe underlying reasons foran emotion, they generallyfailed to establish a cause-and-effect relationshipbetween the two. “An’ thebaby was crying. The frogwas trying to get away.”

Losh and her colleagues alsonoted that the autisticchildren often talked aboutemotions as external

physical expressions rather than internalstates: “The frog ate the bug and madehis mouth sad,” and “Her face looksmad.” Neither of the other two groupsof children exhibited this tendency.

The difficulties in explaining emotionalstates were unexpected, because childrenwith autism did not experience the samedifficulties when explaining cause-and-effect relationships for actions in thestory. To explore the implications of herfindings, Losh has started a new researchproject with “very high-functioning”autistic children. Because their overalllanguage ability is more comparable tothat of typically-developing children,Losh expects that differences in theirnarrative skills will be more clearly theresult of lack of emotional knowledgerather than to weaker communicationskills in general.

Jane McGonigal

Current Briefs

Merek Siu/BSR

Tell me a story. Molly Losh foundthat autistic children have troubledescribing emotions.

“The frog ate thebug and madehis mouth sad.”

Brian Barsky has a problem. Likemillions of others, his vision isnot as clear as it should be.

Unlike most people’s vision problems,though, Barsky’s stem from a rarecondition called keratoconus.

Keratoconus results in small bumps onthe cornea that distort vision bydisrupting the path of light through theeye. Because the bumps are irregular,and their pattern differs from person toperson, the condition is difficult totreat using standard corrective lenses.Like many who suffer from keratoco-nus, Barsky spent years trying onvarious standard contact lenses andspectacles before being told that hiscondition could only be treated withcorneal replacement surgery. Unwill-ing to accept a risky surgery, Barsky, aprofessor of computer science at UCBerkeley, decided to use his computergraphics expertise to design contactlenses that could fit the corneaperfectly, even in the presence ofaberrations like kerataconic bumps.

From Barsky’s frustration rose theOPTICAL project, an interdisciplinaryeffort between the Departments ofComputer Science and the School ofOptometry. For Barsky, the need for aunion between the two departmentswas clear. “I went to the medical

library, studied books on contactlenses, and realized that the mathemati-cal modeling used in contact lensdesign was not as sophisticated as thetechniques used in the geometricmodeling community,” he says.

The group began by improving themodeling techniques used in cornealmeasurement devices calledvideokeratographs. A videokerato-graph measures corneal shape byprojecting a ring pattern onto apatient’s cornea and taking videoimages of the results. The machine usesa simple algorithm to compute app-roximate values for the curvature ofthe cornea based on the distortion ofthe ring pattern in the images acquired.

OPTICAL researchers demonstratedthat current standard algorithmsproduce curvature results that changebased on the direction in which thepatient looks during the exam and the

angle of the corneal bump relative tothe camera. According to Barsky, thediscrepancies in curvature values “showthat the instruments are flawed andproduce erroneous measurements ofpatients’ corneas.”

To improve upon the standard recon-struction algorithm, Barsky’s researchgroup has created a new algorithmwhich starts by guessing a shape, like asimple dome, for the cornea that hasbeen scanned. This shape is runthrough a simulation of thevideokeratograph system and itera-tively modified until it produces a scanthat matches that of the real cornea.Using this new surface, the researcherscan calculate highly accurate values forcurvature and other geometricproperties. The corneal models canalso aid ophthalmologists in planningdelicate corneal surgical procedures.Eventually, the shape models will beused to create prototype contact lensesthat exactly match a patient’s eyes.

Although he hasn’t yet managed to givehimself perfect vision, Brian Barsky hasopened a new path for collaborativeresearch in computer graphics andoptometry. His work has the potentialto provide improved vision not only tosufferers of keratoconus, but to anyonewho wears contact lenses.

CORRECTING KERATOCONUSCorneal shape modelingfor contact lens design.

Learn more about the OPTICALproject at:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/optical/

Big Creepy Eye. Raw data taken froma videokeratograph machine. The distor-tion in the ring pattern is caused by akeratoconic bump on the patient’s cornea.

courtesy/Michael Downes

Michael Downes

Current Briefs


Wherever you go, thereyou are. Density ofinternet activity in theU.S. is concentrated inmajor cities (courtesy/Matthew Zook).

In an Internet worldwhere geographicboundaries dissolve at

the click of a mouse,Internet geographer MatthewZook is a bit of an oddball.While most in his field focus onhow the World Wide Web is changingthe global landscape, Zook is intent onproving that physical location stillmatters. To address this issue, Zook–agraduate student in UC Berkeley’sDepartment of City and RegionalPlanning–creates maps that test howclosely Internet terrain parallels itsreal-world counterpart.

“This project arose in response to oneof the great myths of the Internet age,this widespread idea in the mid-1990sthat the Internet was going to bringabout the end of geography or the end

of cities,” Zook explains. “People madesimilar predictions about the tele-phone. So this really was an effort toprovide empirical proof that cities werein fact a central part of the Internet.”Figuring out how to make the mapsand prove this hypothesis is anythingbut obvious.

“Assigning geographi-cal locations to what takes place on the‘spaceless’ Internet is especiallydifficult,” Zook says. His solution is toplot WWW domain names–likeamazon.com and nokia.fi–on standardcity, state, country, and global mapsbased on the postal codes used toregister the names. Zook admits it’snot an ideal method, because hisresearch shows that a little more than25% of domain names are actually

registered at apostal codeother thanwhere theiractivity is

taking place. Nevertheless, he main-tains that domain names’ postal codesare the best available indicators for thelocation of Internet activity.

So Zook has embarked on a mission tocollect postal codes for millions of dot-coms, dot-orgs, and dot-nets. Using an

Internet utility program called “whois,”Zook strategically gathers sublists ofdomain names by requesting the namesof all dot coms starting with a specificgroup of letters. For example “amaz”returns thousands of results likeamazon.com, amazingrace.com, andamazeyourfriends.com. Once he has acomplete list of names, he uses severalcustom-made computer programs togather contact information for eachdomain. He completed the first roundof data collection in July of 1998, andnow has a full and total account of alldomain names registered through thatdate.

Zook uses the data to create maps andcharts of a range of geographicallocations. All of the maps he has madeshow that Internet activity is centeredin urban areas. “There should benothing surprising about this, since

INTERNET GEOGRAPHYIn the digital age,

place still matters.

Cyberspace is actually reinforcingthe dominance of cities.


From their perch on the 13thfloor of the “Power Bar” build-ing next to the Berkeley BART

station, David Culler and his studentsare preparing a revolution. Culler(who is currently on Industrial Leavefrom Berkeley to build the new IntelResearch Laboratory @ Berkeley) is amember of the “Endeavour Expedi-tion”, a collaborative project within theDepartment of Electrical Engineeringand Computer Sciences, whose statedgoal is to “achieve nothing less thanradically enhancing human understand-ing through the use of information

TINY OSThere’s a new kind of radical

in downtown Berkeley.

Jane McGonigal

technology.” Culler’s role in therevolution is to network tiny wirelesssensors, enabling applications thatrange from monitoring glucose levelsin humans to monitoring weather onMars.

Culler’s overall mission is to increasethe power and capabilities of networksof computers while at the same timeshrinking the size of the hardware.Higher capabilities and smaller size arewhat computer technology is headedtowards. “If automotive technologytracked computer technology, carstoday would get 10,000 miles pergallon of gas, they’d move at 20 timesthe speed of sound, and they wouldalso be three inches long,” Culler says.

The Endeavour project began in 1998.Its first goal was developing a mini-motherboard, with all the basichardware components of a regularcomputer, sized down to a deviceexactly the size of a stack of fourquarters. The hardware was firstdeveloped by a team led by Kris Pister,a professor in the Department ofElectrical Engineering and ComputerSciences. Originally the size of golfballs, the devices were brought toCuller and his team, who wrote theoperating system, known as Tiny OS,for them.

In addition to a tiny computer chip,each device has a thermometer and aphotocell that allows it to measure thetemperature and light of the environ-ment it is placed in. It is also equippedwith a radio, which allows it to

Current Briefs


Change the World. David Culler has teamedup with Intel to create operating systems forminiscule networked devices.

Merek Siu/BSR

cities have always been the primarysource of innovation,” Zook says. Hisresults indicate that cyberspace isactually reinforcing traditional urbanstructure, not making it obsolete as somany have predicted.

For Zook, it’s important to keepreminding people that no matter howvirtual our lives become, real placescontinue to matter. “Although thepower of the Internet does open upnew possibilities for long-rangecollaboration and even new spaces of

interaction within cyberspace,” Zooksays, “it also exhibits much of thetraditional unevenness that hascharacterized urban and economicdevelopment throughout history.There is a much more complicateddynamic involving the connection ofspecific places to global networks.”Zook urges us to remember that we areboth “place-rooted and networked atthe same time.”

communicate with the other devices inits system, and a tiny battery. Some ofthe Tiny OS devices have even beendesigned with solar cells to replace thebatteries.

Creating a Tiny OS for tiny sensorsrepresents a special challenge. Operat-ing systems on this scale have to handlesimultaneous input from multiplesources. They are limited by their smallsize and low power availability. Andtheir design has to be versatile enoughto handle the wide range of potentialapplications possible for microsensors.Some of these problems were ad-dressed through the hardware design inPister’s lab. Culler’s lab dealt withsoftware problems by creating a“microthreading” operating system,which is able to handle multiple levelsof input, allowing short processingevents to be run immediately by brieflyinterrupting long running tasks. Thetwo teams are now collaborating tofind ways to enhance both the effi-ciency of the hardware and thecapabilities of its operating system.

And, of course, they want to makethem even smaller.

Although still in development, TinyOS-linked devices have already found apractical application. Last spring,during the height of California’s energycrisis, Culler and his team placed anumber of devices inside Berkeley’sCory Hall to monitor how much powerlighting and temperature control unitswere using, and how much of it wasexcessive.

Another application that Cullerforesees is monitoring the condition ofstructures. For example, Tiny OSdevices could be scattered on thesurface of the Bay Bridge to monitorhow its movements are affected bytraffic, weather, and earthquakes.Ideally, says Culler, the bridge would befitted with millions of the devices,which would recognize trouble when,for example, a crack is forming orwhen the structure begins to move inan unusual way.

Just a small part of the Endeavourproject, Culler and Pister’s micro-sensors can be used for an enormousrange of applications. “Your imaginationcan run with it,” says Culler. One canonly imagine the impact of the rest ofthe project, whose mission statementclaims it will “make possible theenhanced leverage of human activities,experiences, and intellect.”

Learn More:Intel Research Laboratory @ Berkeley:

http://www.intel-research.net/berkeley/index.htm

The Endeavour Expedition: http://endeavour.cs.berkeley.edu/

April Mo



Ever wonder what your biology professor does in hisfree time? Play tennis? Collect stamps? How aboutfound a multi-million dollar biotech company?

According to Cherisa Yarkin, director of economic researchand assessment at the Industry-University Cooperative Re-search Program, thenumber of Californiabased biotechnologyfirms founded by UCscientists has dramati-cally increased overthe last twenty years.Yarkin’s researchshows that the number of UC Berkeley faculty foundingbiotech companies has increased by nearly a factor of fivesince 1980.

W. Geoffrey Owen, chair of the Department of Molecularand Cellular Biology, and a founder of the digital imagingcompany Viasense, is not surprised that many professors havedecided to start their own companies. Beyond the economicmotivation, he says that many of his colleagues see biotech“as a way of developing potentially revolutionary applica-tions of new biological knowledge on a scale that would beimpossible within the limitations of an NIH grant.”

Owen suggests that moving to biotech after a long and dis-tinguished career in academia is a natural step for some pro-fessors. He says that many of the same qualities that arenecessary for success in academic science are important infounding a company. “People who do basic research are

people who love to ask questions and find answers. Theymust have a strong belief in their own ideas and a very strongego. Professors must be willing to act on their ideas andable to persuade people to give them money to support thoseideas.” He adds that many professors “have worked for yearson a technical issue that may have therapeutic uses. Moving

into a company thatis focused on capital-izing on this knowl-edge is a naturalthing to do.”

Jacob Mayfield, apost-doctoral fellow

at UC Berkeley who has had several advisors involved in thebiotech industry, agrees with Owen’s assessment. “It’s a goodthing for scientists to think of applications for their tech-nologies. It’s useful to everyone.”

Professors trying their hand at biotech are not without sup-port from the University. There is a significant interdepen-dence between the UC system and biotech that encouragesthe flux to flourish. Yarkin says that out of 228 Californiabiotech firms studied, 68% have UC founders. UC Berke-ley makes a particularly strong contribution to Californiabiotech research staff, providing 30% of all PhDs employedin the state’s biotech industry.

Another factor that has helped to foster the exchange be-tween the University and biotechnology industry is the BayArea’s unique investment environment. Carol Mimura, as-sociate director at UC Berkeley’s Office of Technology Li-

SPIN DOCTORSWhy more and more professors are spinningbiotech companies off of research.

Emily Singer

“Biotech is a way of developing potentiallyrevolutionary applications of new biological

knowledge on a scale that would be impossiblewithin the limitations of an NIH grant.”

The University

censing, explains, “Venture capitalists came to the Bay Areato invest in Silicon Valley and then stayed for the next wave.”This easy access to investors has spurred the entrepreneur-ial spirit. “If the infrastructure for funding wasn’t there,these companies never would have been able to get off theground.” Other institutions, like the University of Michi-gan, have asked Berkeley for advice about expanding theirlinks to biotechnology, but have been less successful becausethey lack the venture community. Mimura also notes thatthe biotech community in the Bay Area can be a draw toprospective faculty, who know they will have consulting op-portunities available to them.

While the biotechnology industry depends on UC scientistsfor staff and ideas to turn a profit, the UC system dependson industry for some of its funding. Because it owns patentrights to all ideas and technologies invented by its faculty,the UC system can create revenue by licensing technologiesto private companies for development .

Faculty members who want to be involved in the develop-ment of their products can contact the Office of Tech-


nology Transfer, which helps campus inventors bring theirtechnology into the commercial sector by facilitating thepatent process and distributing royalties to the inventorsand UC Berkeley. Mimura says the University will chooseto license an idea to the inventor if the patent needs specialknow-how to develop. “It is often only the inventor whohas the drive and vision to bring the idea to product. Start-ups take extraordinary risks in taking nothing and turningit into something.”

The university has taken steps to ensure that professors in-volved in private ventures do not neglect their academicduties. Mimura says that an employee of a UC can onlyhave one full time job. “The University doesn’t want tohave faculty straddling two commitments. Professors needto take their teaching jobs seriously.” Mimura explains thatthere are several polices in place to ensure a professor’s pri-mary commitment is to the University. Following the leadof the NIH, the University only allows professors to consultwith a company for one calendar day per week. This is moni-tored at the department level, as faculty must report alloutside commitments to their chair. Mimura says profes-

MCB Chair W. Geof freyOwen. “Moving into a com-pany that is focused on capi-talizing on this knowledge isa natural thing to do.”

Merek Siu/BSR


The University

Postdoc JacobMayfield. “It’s agood thing for sci-entists to think ofapplications fortheir technologies.”Merek Siu/BSR

sors cannot hold full-time outside positions, such as CEOor chief scientific officer. “Ideally they will act as big pic-ture strategists without any daily responsibilities.”

In addition to this UC-wide policy, a conflict of interest com-mittee exists to monitor and vote on questionable activi-ties, such as when a company gives a gift of money to a lab.Mimura says, “The University has policies in place, but alsorelies on the integrity of the faculty until shown otherwise.It is a self-regulating process.”

Mayfield questions how these restrictions can actually be putinto practice. He says, “No faculty member limits him orherself to a 40-hour week, so how do you assess what oneday per week really means?” He also says that because labresearch and company research are so often closely related,it can be difficult to determine the percentage of time spent


From curing cancer to engineering plant genes,the research goals of Cal professors are now theindustry objectives of Bay Area biotech compa-nies. Here’s a run-down of what some privatecompanies founded by UC Berkeley faculty in thepast decade are up to.

Tularik, Inc. (1991) uses gene regulation to targetspecific disease-causing proteins, enabling re-searchers to develop oral medications with fewerside effects.

Cerus Corp. (1991) produces technology that pre-vents DNA and RNA replication in blood cells,making the bacteria and viruses in blood harm-less and transfusions safer.

Exelixis, Inc. (1995) develops drugs to combatdisease-causing genes responsible for diabetes,obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer.

Genteric, Inc. (1997) specializes in creating newdelivery platforms for gene therapies, includingthe oral “gene pill.”

Mendel Biotechnology (1997) researches plantgenes to develop new medicinal and agriculturalproducts.

Viasense (1997) uses principles from visual neuro-biology to build software that encodes, stores, anddelivers digital video.

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc (1998) and DNA Sci-ences, Inc. (1998) both develop oral drugs to com-bat chronic diseases through gene therapy.

Syrrx, Inc. (1999) uses cutting-edge robotics andmolecular tools to determine the shapes of pro-teins encoded by the human genome, informa-tion that will lead to more effective drugs.

Renovis, Inc. (2000) specializes in the develop-ment of gene therapies for neurological and psy-chiatric diseases and disorders.

“I t is often only the inventorwho has the drive and visionto bring the idea to product.Start-ups take extraordinaryrisks in taking nothing andturning it into something.”

thinking of ideas for the university versus time spent think-ing for biotech.

With such a close intellectual relationship, have the bound-aries between academia and biotech become too blurred?Both Owen and Mimura think academia maintains its atmo-sphere of scientific freedom. Owen says, “The boundary isstill well-defined. Academics are anxious to preserve theboundary because of the negative implications of diminishedacademic freedom.” Mimura adds that the increasing num-bers of faculty entering the world of biotech “shouldn’tchange the ‘culture’ of the university. Professors are under-standing of the University’s mission to foster pure researchenvironment and don’t exploit it.”

Mayfield points out that there may be more subtle effects.He feels that the lines are blurred in what the professor’sand lab members’ involvement should be in the companyand technology being licensed. He gives the example of aPI becoming aware of proprietary technology that can helplab members in their experiments. If they perform a suc-cessful experiment with that technology, lab members can

then become confused about what role this company playsin ownership and use of the results. Mayfield says this situ-ation brings up an entirely new issue. “Working out legalissues isn’t something academics had to worry about in thepast. It is difficult right now because there isn’t a set policyon what is acceptable and what is not.”

How students are impacted by some faculty’s double role asprofessor and consultant is unclear. “Professors are very busy

Emily Singer received an MS in neurosciencefrom UCSD in July 2001. She is currently aresearch associate at Exelixis, Inc.

This Internet thing is going to be really big.

sciencereview.berkeley.edu

The University


people. Researching and teaching both take time. Whensomeone spends a day per week away from campus, theyhave less time for other duties. I can see the potential forproblems, but as yet I haven’t seen any evidence,” Owensays.

While the possible negative impact is unclear, there is cer-tainly a positive implication for students of the biotech-savvyadvisor. Owen feels that this trend has broadened theprofessor’s traditional role. “Professors now have the experi-ence of life outside the environment of the university. Lots ofprofessors used to see themselves as preparing their students

to be professors, but now they are exposed to alternative ca-reers.” He emphasizes, “This is a good thing because nowlarge numbers of companies are doing biotechnology and stu-dents have new opportunities for rewarding careers.”


Book Review

A nnie MontagueAlexander was ar e m a r k a b l e

woman. Heir to a fortunebuilt on Hawaiian sugar,she founded and fundedfor decades both the UCMuseum of VertebrateZoology and the UC Mu-seum of Paleontology.With her partner LouiseKellogg, she took to thefield and collected speci-mens for the museumsfrom locales as distant asEgypt and Alaska. At atime when social norms proscribedwomen’s activities to the domesticrealm, Alexander built research insti-tutions and made significant contribu-tions to science.

In On Her Own Terms, Barbara R. Steintells the fascinating story of a womanwho, for all her achievements, shunnedpublicity throughout her life and hasremained relatively unknown. UsingAlexander’s extensive correspondencewith friends and colleagues, Stein ex-plores the intimate details of her life.Alexander’s close professional relation-ship with naturalist Joseph Grinnellstrongly boosted the young Museum ofVertebrate Zoology, while her some-times stormy encounters with John C.Merriam kept the Museum of Paleon-

tology from reaching itsfull potential. Stein doesan excellent job of explor-ing how Alexander usedher roles as a philanthro-pist and a naturalist to de-fine her identity and toovercome the constrictivegender expectations ofearly twentieth-centuryBerkeley and Oakland.

Alexander was nevercomfortable in cities; shewas happiest spending herdays in the natural realm

and sleeping under the stars. From themoment she watched a three-footboulder crush her father at VictoriaFalls in 1904 through her final trip atage eighty to Baja California, the semi-nal events in Alexander’s life occurredfar from the city. Stein, a scientist fa-miliar with the rigors of the field, hasrecaptured Alexander and Kellogg’snumerous expeditions in minute de-tail and with telling anecdotes. It isthrough these portions of On Her Own

Terms that we meet the real AnnieAlexander.

The major weakness of On Her Own

Terms is that it makes little attempt toplace Stein into her historical context.There is a sizable body of work on thehistory of women in science and the

ANNIE ALEXANDER AND THEUC MUSEUMS

Teddy Varno is a 1st year graduatestudent in the History of Scienceand Technology program at UCBerkeley.

Teddy Varno

On Her Own Terms: AnnieMontague Alexander andthe Rise of Science in theAmerican West, BarbaraR. Stein (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press,2001), 397 pp.

history of the professionalization ofscience that Stein could have drawnfrom to place Alexander’s life in com-parative context. This was not, how-ever, Stein’s intention. Her main goalwas simply to narrate the life of one ofthe most important figures in the his-tory of science at Berkeley, and in thisshe has succeeded.

The best place to figure out howthe Sun shines is two kilometersunder the cold, hard ground.


Two kilometers beneath the slag heaps of Sudbury, Ontario, great

science is afoot. Physicists andengineers have spent the lastdecade in a working nickelmine building one of theworld’s most sophisticated par-

ticle detectors. The quarry is thatmost elusive of fundamental par-

ticles, the ghostly neutrino. Thework at the Sudbury Neutrino Obser-

vatory (SNO) is at last starting to pay bigdividends. SNO’s first results were revealed lastJune and have already shed some light on a thirty-year-old puzzle about how the Sun shines.

Aaron Pierce

GHOSTTHE IN THE SUN

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trol over, but there are some you don’t. You have to runaway from those. We ran as far as we could.” The SNO

experiment ran underground, andwent deeper than all the other re-search groups in North America.The next deepest experiment islocated in the Homestake gold

mine in South Dakota, at a depth of 1500 meters.Homestake’s problems with spurious signals from cosmicrays are ten times worse than those at SNO.

Neutrinos are difficult to study because they have extraor-dinarily weak interactions with normal matter. Roughly ahundred billion neutrinos pass through your fingernail ev-ery second, with no effect. Neutrinos have no electriccharge, and consequently are unaffected by the electric andmagnetic fields used to detect less exotic particles like elec-trons and protons. The only force that does affect neutrinosis known to physicists as the “weak interaction.” True to itsname, this force is so miniscule that as often as not, a neu-trino could barrel through a block of iron a light-year in

The SNO detector was completed two years ago.It stands over ten stories tall, weighs more than8000 tons, and cost more than $50 million to build.Over 100 researchers from 11 institutions in theUnited States, Canada, and the United Kingdomcollaborate on SNO. Among the collaborators is ateam of a dozen physicists, engineers, and studentsfrom Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory(LBNL) and UC Berkeley. Berkeley involvementreaches back to 1989, when the project was in itsnascent stages.

SNO is focusing on a long-standing puzzle aboutthe Sun known as the “solar neutrino problem.” Forover fifty years astrophysicists have known that theSun generates energy through fusion reactions,which create neutrinos as by-products. The Sunproduces neutrinos prolifically, and is far and awaythe biggest source of neutrinos that strike theEarth. By combining the physics of these reactionswith complex computer models of the Sun, astro-physicists have calculated the rate at which solar-producedneutrinos should strike the Earth. Despite the high preci-

sion of these calculations, the observed rate of solar neu-trino arrival is only half of the expected value. There simplyare not enough neutrinos.

The unique location of SNO—a full 2000 meters below thesurface of the Earth—is crucial in investigating the solar neu-trino problem. Layers of rock between the SNO detectorand the Earth’s surface shield the experiment from cosmicrays, particles that are constantly bombarding the Earth’satmosphere. If these cosmic rays were to reach the experi-ment, they would result in minute flashes of light that wouldgive a false signal of neutrino detection. Dr. Kevin Lesko,the leader of the LBNL SNO group, explains, “There aremany [potential sources of false signals] that you have con-

Underground. The SNO detector nestled in its subterranean hall. It is over 10stories tall (see workers for scale), weighs 8000 tons, and has 9200 ultra-sensitivelight detectors packed into a dense, spherical honeycomb pattern.

A neutrino could barrel through a block of iron a light-yearin length and emerge completely unscathed.


The Idea. Artist’s conception of the SNO detector. The inneracrylic sphere is filled with heavy water. The sphere is surroundedby a geodesic dome frame, which holds thousands of sensitivelight detectors (courtesy/SNO).

Such a major discrepancy wouldimply that astrophysicists are verywrong about how the Sun shines.

Excavation. More than 60,000 tons of rock were blasted away and car-ried to the surface 2 kilometers above to create the experiment’s hall (cour-tesy/Lorne Erhardt, Queen’s University).

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length and emerge completely unscathed. The vast major-ity of neutrinos that enter a detector like SNO simply passright through it, leaving no trace. However, a small handfuldo leave a calling card: a tiny flash of light in the SNO de-tector. By carefully hunting for flashes of light inside theotherwise darkened detector, the scientists at SNO can in-fer the presence of a neutrino.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Locating an experiment deep in a mine creates a very strangework environment. According to Alysia Marino, a Berkeleygraduate student working on the SNO experiment, access-ing the detector is an arduous process for participating physi-cists. Before entering the mine, scientists must don stan-dard mine gear. Decked out in a hard hat, steel-toed boots,and headlamps, they wait for an elevator to take them downa darkened mineshaft to the level of the experiment. Thedescent can take nearly fifteen minutes, as the elevator stops

at various levels of the mine to drop off miners. The eleva-tor car, not much larger than a typical freight elevator, is theonly route into and out of the experiment, and well over10,000 tons of materials were taken down it during SNO’sconstruction phase. Excavating the hall itself was a feat ofcivil engineering. It is over 20 meters in diameter, and re-quired that more than 60,000 tons of rock be blasted andmoved to the surface.

Without the intervention of some serious air-conditioning,the experimental level itself would be far less hospitable thanthe elevator. As Marino explains, “Once you go below 1000feet, the temperature begins to rise, because of the Earth’smolten core. By the time you reach the level of the experi-ment, the ambient temperature would be 100 degrees [Fahr-enheit].” Fortunately for the SNO workers, the experimen-tal hall must be kept at a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenheitto keep the electronics working properly.

The Main Event.Output of a com-puter model showinga neutrino event withinSNO’s heavy watertank. The neutrino in-teracts with a heavy wa-ter molecule, creating aburst of light (courtesy/LBNL).


Skeleton. SNO before light detectors were installed (courtesy/SNO).

Something strange is happeningto solar neutrinos during theireight-and-a-half-minute flight

from the Sun to the Earth.

How Does the Sun Shine?

The goal of SNO is to distinguish between two pos-sible solutions of the solar neutrino problem. Thefirst explanation for the dearth of solar neutrinos isthat astrophysicists’ computer models are drasticallywrong, and that they have grossly overestimated thenumber of neutrinos coming from the Sun. This is ahighly troubling option, as the models are built onwell-tested physics. Such a major discrepancy be-tween theory and observation would imply that as-trophysicists are very wrong about how the Sunshines.

Ignoring the neutrino discrepancy, there are good reasonsto believe that the solar computer models are correct. Themodels are based on well-understood fusion interactions,which occur at rates determined by the temperature and

elemental composition of the Sun. Once a solar model speci-fies the composition of the Sun and its temperature, it isstraightforward to calculate fusion interaction rates. Themost widely accepted solar model was developed over thepast three decades by Dr. John Bahcall, a physicist at theInstitute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a UC Berke-ley alumnus. The theory, described by many physicists as“how the Sun shines,” predicts many solar properties to highaccuracy. The first and most obvious of these is the observedbrightness of the Sun. Others involve a field known ashelioseismology, which studies how “sunquakes” travelthrough the body of the Sun. “Think of the Sun as a giantbell—by studying the way in which the bell rings, we canlearn a lot about what makes up the bell,” Bahcall says. “Weconfidently know the interior of the Sun better than we knowthe interior of the Earth.” Sophisticated satellites have stud-

ied the way that the Sun “rings,” and they find that Bahcall’smodel is in excellent agreement with observations.

If Bahcall’s solar model is indeed correct, why are too fewneutrinos observed? The alternative explanation to the so-lar neutrino problem is that something strange is happeningto solar neutrinos during their eight-and-a-half-minute flightfrom the Sun to the Earth. Somehow neutrinos that areproduced in the Sun “disappear” en route. Physicists haveproposed that “neutrino oscillation” causes this disappear-ance. There are three varieties of neutrino: the electron neu-trino, the only kind produced by the Sun’s fusion reactions,and the more rare muon and tau neutrinos. The theory ofneutrino oscillations postulates that solarneutrinos, once produced, trans-form back and forth be-tween their or ig inalelectron versions andone of the other twovarieties. When


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Way Down. SNO researchers decked out in protective gear head tothe elevator for the 15 minute, mile-and-a-half ride down. (courtesy/Bob Stokstad, LBNL).

compared to SNO, previous detectors have been relativelyinsensitive to the non-electron neutrino varieties. As a conse-quence, any muon and tau neutrinos that may have been cre-ated when electron neutrinos oscillated were undercounted byprevious experiments. Thus the neutrino oscillation theory pro-poses that the solar computer models are correct, but that wecount fewer neutrinos than expected because some have trans-formed into less detectable varieties.

That’s Heavy

Past neutrino experiments have all used reactions in hugetanks of water to observe the passing of neutrinos. In ordi-nary water there is only one kind of neutrino reaction thatcan occur, and it is heavily biased towards the electron neu-trino. SNO, on the other hand, uses a rare form of waterthat is dubbed “heavy.”

It is this heavy water that makes SNO uniquely suited todetect all three varieties of neutrinos. The composition ofheavy water allows several neutrino reactions, one of whichis equally likely with the three types of neutrinos. Thus,heavy water affords SNO an unprecedented sensitivity toreactions involving the more-difficult-to-see muon and tauneutrinos. By comparing the rates of these different reac-tions, SNO scientists can determine not only the number ofelectron neutrinos coming from the Sun, but also the totalnumber of neutrinos. This is the key to showing that neu-trino oscillations are the solution to the solar neutrino prob-lem. If the total number of neutrinos is the number of elec-tron neutrinos predicted by the solar model, then the solarmodels are correct, and the neutrinos are simply transform-ing en route.

SNO’s first results, released last June, seem to indicate thatneutrinos from the Sun are in fact oscillating. SNO scien-tists used two reactions to come to this conclusion. Onereaction, new to SNO, looks exclusively at the number ofelectron neutrinos. A second reaction, while biased towardselectron neutrinos, is sensitive to all three types. By sub-tracting the rates for these two reactions, SNO scientistsdetermined that the “harder to see” component appears tobe present. They hope to confirm this hypothesis by look-ing at additional interactions that have even better sensitiv-ity to the muon and tau neutrinos.

One reason previous detectors have not used heavy water isbecause it is a rare and expensive substance. A molecule ofordinary water, H2O, contains two hydrogen atoms and anoxygen atom. The hydrogen atom is composed of a singleproton and a single electron. In heavy water, D2O, the ordi-nary hydrogen is replaced by a rare hydrogen isotope knownas deuterium. In contrast to ordinary hydrogen, deuteriumcontains a proton, an electron, and a neutron. The mass ofthis extra neutron in each deuterium atom makes heavy wa-ter about ten percent heavier than ordinary water—a dif-ference, according to Marino, which is readily discernible ifyou try to lift a liter of each. A single liter of heavy waterwould cost nearly $100, a far sight more than even the trendi-est bottle of Evian. Marino notes that the SNO experiment

When it rains it pours

The SNO experiment has recently undergone a minor transformation. In May of 2001, over two tons oftable salt were dumped into the heavy water by SNO scientists, creating a briny solution. The presence ofchlorine in the salt makes the detector four times more likely to interact with neutrinos which have oscil-lated. The results from this phase of the experiment will provide the definitive test of the neutrino oscillationhypothesis, and are expected within the next two years. Since the SNO collaboration promised to returnthe loaned heavy water just as they received it, all 1000 tons of the heavy water will have to be fed throughan extensive purification system which will utilize reverse osmosis to remove the salt. New techniques inwater purification were developed by scientists to allow this to be done effectively.


“Building in a clean room environment at thebottom of a mine was simply unprecedented.”

uses heavy water on loan fromthe Canadian government. Nor-mally, it is used in Canadiannuclear reactors of a particulardesign. At present, Canada hasmore heavy water than it needs for nuclear power, so thegovernment has agreed to let SNO borrow 1000 tons of thematerial, valued at $300 million, with the understanding thatit will be returned at the conclusion of the experiment.Without the Canadian government’s largesse, the entire ex-periment would have been financially impossible.

Twinkle, Twinkle

When a neutrino enters the SNO detector, it is overwhelm-ingly likely to pass right through, leaving no trace. How-ever, it will occasionally collide with an atom in a moleculeof the detector’s heavy water. When this happens, the neu-trino imparts a substantial portion of its energy to an elec-tron in that atom. This energy can be very high, since theneutrino usually enters the tank moving close to the speedof light. The impacted electron then zooms off through theheavy water, emitting light through a process known asCherenkov radiation, which continues as long as the elec-tron is moving faster than the heavy-water speed of light.(Since light travels more slowly in materials than in vacuum,it is possible for particles to travel faster than light speed in

matter–e.g. heavy water–even though nothing can exceedlight speed in vacuum.) Cherenkov radiation is analogousto the sonic boom that occurs when a plane goes faster thanthe speed of sound. Just as with a sonic boom, the “light-boom” from the speeding electron spreads out in a conearound the direction the electron is traveling. By detectingthis cone of light, SNO scientists can infer the presence of aneutrino.

The instruments used to detect the light are called photo-multipliers. Photomultipliers take extremely dim light andconvert it to strong electrical signals. One of the contribu-tions of the LBNL group was to design and build an enor-mous stainless steel geodesic dome that holds the 9,500 pho-tomultipliers used in the experiment. The dome was ini-tially constructed at a site near Petaluma, California, to testthe design in 1993. According to Dr. Lesko, “[The dome]was visible from the freeway, [and] attracted a great deal ofattention from passing motorists on Highway 101.” Afterthe design proved successful, the dome was assiduously pack-aged into 21 semi-trucks and driven to the SNO site inOntario, where it was reassembled in the experimental hall,


When’s lunch? Hard at work in the SNO control room. Operatorswear ultra-clean suits and hairnets to reduce dirt and dust. Even aspeck could cause a false signal within the detector.(courtesy/Queen’sUniversity).

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two kilometers beneath the surface. Dr. Lesko says that the58,000 lb. dome was designed to allow the photomultipliersto be packed in as densely as possible. This increases theefficiency of the detector in picking out whatever flashes aneutrino might leave behind.

To accurately measure the number of incoming solar neutri-nos, SNO scientists must be able to distinguish between lightflashes caused by neutrinos and those that come from othersources. While locating the experiment underground elimi-nates flashes of light from cosmic rays, it can potentially leadto a different source of spurious flashes: dirt. At SNO, theobsession with cleanliness goes beyond a desire to keep elec-tronic equipment in working order. Ordinary dirt can con-tain minute traces of radioactive elements such as uraniumor thorium. When these elements decay, they emit particlesthat can cause light flashes in the detector. Just like the cos-mic rays from above, the mere presence of dirt at SNO canlead to false signals that could be mistaken for neutrinos.

A mineshaft is not a traditional sterile laboratory environ-ment. While she didn’t expect the mine to be spotless,

Marino still was surprised to see how different it was fromhome. “Coming from the halls of Lawrence Berkeley Labo-ratory, it is a shock to see all the mud and the dirt associatedwith a mining environment. It is not what someone nor-mally expects from a physics experiment.” SNO scientistshave worked very hard to create and maintain an ultra-cleanenvironment. Once workers have reached the level of theexperiment, two kilometers below the Earth’s surface, theymust pass through an airlock-style door that protects theexperiment from the mud and dirt of the mine. As theypass through this buffer zone, they are required to removetheir mining gear, shower, change clothes, and change intoclean-room attire before entering the experimental hall.

The real challenge was constructing the experiment underthese same rigid standards of cleanliness. According to Dr.Lesko, the construction of the detector was like building “aten-story apartment building at the bottom of a mine, pro-ducing only a handful of dirt in the entire process.” He adds,“Building in a clean room environment is something thatyou can learn—it has been done before; but building in aclean room environment at the bottom of a mine was sim-ply unprecedented.” The detector itself is made out of ex-traordinarily pure materials. Ordinary steel, for example,contains minute traces of radioactive elements, just like dirt.The building materials were all custom-made to be free ofthese trace radioactive materials, and LBNL took the lead incarefully surveying each piece of the detector after its fabri-cation. Only after LBNL scientists had pronounced a com-ponent radioactivity-free was it cleared for use in the ex-periment.

Massive Consequences

Accepting neutrino oscillations as the solution to the solarneutrino problem has important consequences. If neutri-nos do in fact oscillate, this is an indicator that they have atiny, but non-zero mass. Because neutrinos are so numer-ous, this tiny mass adds up: the mass contained in neutrinosleft over from the Big Bang could be roughly equivalent tothe mass of all the stars in the known universe. In the caseof the neutrino, even a tiny mass goes a long way.

There goes the competition

On November 12, 2001, neutrino physicists working in parallel to SNO suffered a major setback. TheSuper-Kamiokande neutrino detector—located at an underground laboratory in Japan—suffered a terribleaccident. While the experiment’s water tank was being refilled one of the detector’s phototubes exploded.The explosion caused a shockwave that set off a chain reaction, causing 7,000 other phototubes to alsoburst. While the exact cause for the initial explosion is unknown, it is suspected that excess water pressureduring refilling is the culprit. The total cost of the damage is in the $20 to $30 million range. Yoji Totsuka,director of the observatory where Super-Kamiokande is housed, says, “We will rebuild the detector. Thereis no question.” However, this process will certainly take over a year.


Crash! Super-K is a 41.4 meter high cylinder located 1,000 meters underground and lined with 11,200 light detectors (left,top right). It holds 50,000 tons of pure water. Shards of glass littered the bottom of the chamber after the November 12thaccident caused thousands of detectors to burst. (Courtesy/Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, The University of Tokyo.)

To Learn More

SNO Experiment. http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/SNO at LBNL. http://snohp1.lbl.gov/Particle physics for the rest of us. http://ParticleAdventure.org/Neutrino oscillations. http://www.hep.anl.gov/ndk/hypertext/nu_industry.htmlHow the Sun shines. http://www.nobel.se/physics/articles/fusion/index.html

Other neutrino experiments:SuperKamiokande. http://www.phys.washington.edu/~superk/KamLAND. http://kamland.lbl.gov/

Aaron Pierce is a 4th year graduate student inthe Department of Physics at UC Berkeley.

Got a great story?Write for the Review.Submission guidelines are at sciencereview.berkeley.edu

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Although neutrinos have been studied for over fifty years,the next ten years promise to be particularly fruitful. TheSNO experiment was designed to run for ten years, and it isonly a year and a half into data collection so far. Comple-mentary experiments are underway in Japan and Italy. Withfuture data, SNO scientists––including many from Berke-ley and LBNL––hope to show beyond a shadow of a doubtthat neutrinos are oscillating, finally providing a solution to

the thirty year-old solar neutrino problem. Physicists willthen be able to sleep well at night, at last assured that theyknow how the Sun shines.

Interested in writing, editing,or designing for the BSR?

[email protected]


Lucky the scientist whoworks with Drosophila

melanogaster. While formalnaming conventions limit geneti-cists working on yeast and worms,fruit fly researchers can name theirmutants whatever they like.They’ve come up with some greatones, like technical knockout ,sex lethal , flamenco , andtelegraph .

Genes are generally named after thedefects, or phenotypes, seen inmutant animals. Fruit flies with anull mutation in white can’t makered eye pigment, so they have whiteeyes. Other names are a little morecreative: super sex combs andlittle faint ball , for example. Kenand barbie mutants, like the dolls,lack external genitalia. Ether-a-go-go flies wiggle their legs whenanesthetized by ether, while aphysical shock makes slamdanceflies convulse. Cheapdate flies areeasily intoxicated by alcohol.

Some names require a little back-ground reading. Tudor flies havetrouble producing heirs. Mutantscott of the antarctic flies, namedafter the doomed explorer, havedefects in structures called “poles.”

WHAT’S IN A NAME?The wide world of Drosophila mutants.

Shakespeare fans have given usmalvolio , miranda , andprospero , and an Edgar Allan Poemystery nut coined amontillado .

When a gene is found to interactwith other genes, peculiar genefamily trees form. Sevenless , forexample, spawned son of sevenlessand bride of sevenless . Thedecapentaplegic gene is fittinglyopposed by mothers againstdecapentaplegic . Grim andreaper work together to mediateprogrammed cell death. Wholecohorts of genes are named aftervegetables (rutabaga, turnip,okra ) musical instruments (pic-colo, bagpipe ) and even picklevarieties (gurkin , cornichon ).

“Sci-fly” names have done little todissipate geneticists’ geeky reputa-

tion. Consider godzilla , mothra ,smaug, lost in space , tribbles ,and the Monty Python-inspired I’mnot dead yet .

All official fly gene names areregistered with Flybase, the compre-hensive database of fruit fly research(http://flybase.bio.indiana.edu).The fly genome was sequenced lastyear, and thousands more Drosophila

genes are being described andnamed. If and when their humancounterparts are uncovered, conven-tion suggests that the human genes benamed after their predecessors.Imagine pharmaceuticals aimed athuman diseases caused by bang-senseless , kuzbanian , or bigbrain . Revenge of the nerds ,indeed.

Weird Science

Aaron Golub/BSR

Jessica Palmer


Jack Laws is sit-ting at his desk fillinga sheet of paper with row

upon row of tiny, uniform inkdots. Laws graduated from UCBerkeley with a BS in conservation,then took an MS in wildlife biologyfrom the University of Montana.He’s adept at observing songbirds in their native habitats, andis an experienced educator with the California Academy ofSciences. But this year, Laws is a student again, one of justten admitted to the prestigious graduate program in scienceillustration at UC Santa Cruz. And this afternoon, on thewooded, bird-filled campus of UCSC, Laws is neither teach-ing nor bird watching. He’s sitting at a desk, dotting.

Laws and his classmates each bring different backgrounds toUCSC. Some arrived with science degrees and plenty of re-search experience; others were artists who kept returning tonature for inspiration. They all share a love for science andart and now hope to make a career out of science illustra-

tion, the craft of making scientific concepts and data vividlyand visually accessible to a wide audience.

The goal of the program, according to its coordinator AnnCaudle, is to help students develop individual strengths andinterests and enable them to find a niche in the huge field ofscience illustration. The program is an intense one-year im-mersion in technique, theory, and practical advice. It aimsto fully prepare its graduates for collaboration with scien-tists, educators, and publishers. In addition to theircoursework, students must complete at least one full-timeinternship with an institution such as National Geographic orScientific American.

SCIENCE

A unique program at UCSanta Cruz makes sciencejump off the page.

Jessica Palmer and Una Ren

ILLUSTRATEDFeature

formation. So I know how valuable a good illustration is.They should all be good!” Laws, who has dyslexia, has aunique perspective on this: “My journals are full ofsketches. I don’t need to worry about spelling—only care-ful observation of form, color, behavior, and context.

Sketching was crucial to the success of my master’s work. Iwas able to sketch free living Lazuli buntings and found that

I could identify individuals from variations in their plumage.The sketches were essential to consistently identify individu-als within the study population.”

Some successful illustrators have no science backgroundat all. But knowing the language of science can make an

assignment much easier. “Sometimes many hours are spent inresearch, asking scientists or experts educated questions, com-

paring photographs for accuracy and thenpiecing together usable bits for the finaldrawing,” says Caudle. Her classroom ispapered with painstakingly inked draw-ings, many taking ten or more hours toexecute. Insects, pinecones, bones, andshells are exactingly portrayed, down toevery scale, every pore, and every facetin a compound eye. Careful observationsare crucial, whether the artist is catalog-ing new species, creating a field guide,or resurrecting a dinosaur. Caudle looksfor scientists with a strong visual back-ground because such observation is al-ready second nature to them.

In today’s tech-hungry society, science illustration is ubiqui-tous. Illustrators are needed for academic papers, technicaljournals, textbooks, field guides, mass-market magazines,websites, posters, book covers, and museum displays. Op-portunities are unusual and diverse. For example, UCSCgraduate Emma Skurnick recently illustrated a children’s ac-tivity book on mussels.

Many illustrators enjoy the varied pace, subjectmatter, and flexibility of freelancing. But UCSCgrads have also opted for staff positions with de-sign studios, multimedia companies, technical busi-nesses, museums, educational institutions, andmagazines, like 1998 graduate Heidi Noland, theart director of Scientific American Explorations.

The goal of science illustration is to make difficultconcepts accessible by translating them into visual images.2000 UCSC program graduate Kimberlee Heldt says, “As astudent, I dissected every drawing—that’s how I retained in-

When a successful illustration helps a reader visualizeand understand the science he or she is reading about,the fusion of art and article seems perfectly naturaland unobtrusive.


Tobacco hornworm moth chrysalis, Manduca sexta. (Katura Reynolds)

Eccentric sand dollar, Dendraster excentricus. (Karina Helm)Bishop pine, Pinus muricata.(Mary Sievert)

Paint Them MachoEmma Skurnick left UCSC in 2000 and now does freelance work from her studio in NorthCarolina. Skurnick looks back on the UCSC program as a turning point. “It was one of thebest years of my life, realizing that I could have a job that I loved,” she says.

“I did this illustration for the May-June 2001 issue of American Scientist magazine. It wasused as the opening illustration for an article called ‘Preserving Salmon Biodiversity,’ anddepicts the seven species of salmonids (five salmon and two trout) that inhabit the riversand streams of the PacificNorthwest. The paintingwas done in watercolor.Watercolor is often consid-ered a delicate medium, be-cause of its transparency,but, as the illustration de-picts spawning males, theart director of the magazineasked me to ‘paint them ma-cho,’ which made me smile.I did what I could to up the‘macho quotient’ by addingpen and ink with the water-color and using a lot ofbright red for their colora-tion. The art director andthe authors were pleased,so I suppose it worked.”


Illustration by Emma Skurnick.http://destined.to/emma.

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Despite the needfor precision, science illustrationis very different from science photography.Although the students are encouraged to takephotos as references on their many research ex-cursions, the program does not teach photo-graphic technique. “Basically a photo is just a flatthing—you lose a lot of information in photos,” sayscurrent UCSC student Cornelia Blik. Illustration canemphasize important features of the object and yetcapture tiny details, structures hidden in shadow, ordetails lying in different focal planes, which could not ap-pear simultaneously in a photograph. “Illustrators are oftencalled upon to distill the information from dozens of photo-graphs into a single accurate illustration with a process that’sa bit like sleuthing,” says Caudle. “If it could be photographed,and photographed effectively, why would we illustrate it?”

Laws agrees, “If you look through field guides that use photo-graphs, up until just recently, none of them are any good.” Inone well-known bird watcher’s field guide, Laws recalls, “theyhad this picture of a wrentit, a little bird. The diagnostic fea-ture is the long tail, but if you look at their wrentit, there isno tail. The photo was taken from such an angle that the tailwas behind.” Omissions like this, which could mislead a nov-ice bird watcher, have driven Laws’ own interest in develop-ing more accurate and accessible field guides.

Katydid, Scudderia sp. (Jennifer Kane)

Sea otter, Enhydra lutris. (Jack Laws)

Good science illustratorscan make an article

jump off the page with aflashy piece of art.

A Scientist at HeartKimberlee Heldt, UCSC class of 2000, is currentlyillustrating the textbook Human Physiology 4e, byRhoades and Pflanzer. Heldt’s forte is illustratingmolecular machinery, a subject without live modelsor photographic references. “I love textbook illus-tration, as I am basically a scientist at heart, not anillustrator. Working on textbooks keeps my brainhappy, especially when I get to do molecular stuff.The toughest challenge is, of course, illustratingsomething you cannot see. It takes a great deal ofresearch before you even begin the composition ofthe illustration. The whole process, however, is ex-ceptionally rewarding.”

Heldt, who has a BA in biology from UC Berkeley and a MS in biochemistry, has found breaking awayfrom scientific precision a challenge. “Ask any illustrator to try and draw a cartoon and they’d look at

you cross-eyed. We are simply too detail-ori-ented to be able to accomplish this. The answercame to me one day as I was in the car with myhusband driving over HWY 17. I was trying todraw on this uneven road, around corners—and,lo and behold, I was drawing cartoons. The un-even terrain loosened me up enough to be ableto get the essence of a cartoon!”

“ It took some unconventional approaches to discover theessence of drawing a cartoon. It is NOT as easy as it looks!”Kimberlee Heldt, [email protected].


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No Typical DayPeter Gaede recently took his natural science illustrationskills far afield, traveling across Kenya on assignment withthe National Museum and Nature Kenya in Nairobi. “Iworked on a field guide to the waterbirds of Kenya whichincluded 123 pen and ink drawings to aid in identifica-tion,” he explains. “I also painted some of the local floraand fauna of the Kakemega forest in western Kenya topromote awareness and conservation.”

Gaede, a 2000 graduate of the UCSC Science Illustrationprogram, usually freelances closer to home, out of his Cali-fornia studio. “One of the most rewarding aspects of mywork is that there really is no typical day,” he says. “As-signments vary from very specific and technical black-and-white illustrations for scientific papers to full color maga-zine art and book covers.” Perhaps his most unusual as-signment was an illustration sequence portraying copulat-ing Desert Horned lizards for an academic paper. To accu-rately represent the amorous lizards, Gaede studied pho-tos, notes, and preserved specimens from UC Berkeley.

As an undergraduate Gaede immersed himself in biological research, but itched to use his artistic talents aswell. UCSC provided such an opportunity. “It used to be that science and art were at opposite ends of thespectrum. I enjoyed both, but it seemed inconceivable to put them together. Now that I have, it’s a perfectmatch, and I have a hard time figuring out what took me this long to see it.”

“ In memory of JosephGrinnell,” watercolor andgouache.

“For this project, I accessedone of Joseph Grinnell’soriginal field notes from1915. He was the firstdirector of UC Berkeley’sMuseum of VertebrateZoology, serving from 1908to 1939.”

Peter Gaede,[email protected].

Black-footed albatross (Phoebastria nigripes) in water-color and gouache, painted from a study skin at theUCSC Natural History Museum.Peter Gaede, [email protected].


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T he goal of science illustration is tomake difficult concepts accessible bytranslating them into visual images.

Caudle’s students start drawing with traditional pen and ink, then progress to watercolor,acrylic, colored pencil, and computer programs like Painter™, Photoshop™, and

Pagemaker™. For each illustration, digital or traditional, the mechanics of scanning and repro-duction are taken into account. In their last quarter, under the supervision of instructor LarryLavendel, the students illustrate and design Science Notes, a web-based journal of articles written bystudents in the UCSC science writing program. Lavendel teaches the theory of “informationgraphics”—how to present information clearly and accurately, in an eye-catching graph or illustra-tion, then fit it into the larger context of an article.

The UCSC program is all about putting art in context—a scientific context, the context of apublication, and the professional context of an illustration career. In addition to making valuableprofessional contacts in the field, students learn to handle time sheets, billable hours, contracts,and advertising. It’s the “nitty-gritty side of science illustration,” as one current student puts it.Graduates love it, because unlike many PhDs, they feel immediately prepared to market them-selves and take assignments from concept to completion. As Laws puts it, “I want to do fieldguides, but what I have done so far is just sketches. I want to learn how to generate a finishedproduct. That is why I’m here.”

Long horned woodboring beetle. (ClarkA. Eising)

For potential applicants to the UCSC science illustration pro-gram, Caudle emphasizes that “it’s important for people tohave looked into science illustration seriously and not justbe sampling it.” Many members of the current class haveprevious experience freelancing as medical illustrators, forexample. Campus researchers, student publications (likethe BSR), nature centers, and nonprofit groups often needillustrations and are happy to help an aspiring illustrator starta portfolio. Caudle also suggests joining the Guild of Natu-ral Science Illustrators and reading books on natural scienceillustration and graphic design.

Good science illustrators can make an article jump off thepage with a flashy piece of art, but more often, their workgoes practically unnoticed. When a successful illustrationhelps a reader visualize and understand the science he or sheis reading about, the fusion of art and article seems per-fectly natural and unobtrusive. Peter Gaede, UCSC class of2000, feels that “my illustration work is my contribution toscience. As an illustrator, I am able to communicate on manydifferent levels.” Heldt agrees: “Each drawing is a new chal-lenge to illustrate a concept so that people will grasp it andlearn from it. If you understand your subject matter, text-

To learn more about science illustration as a craft and career check out:

UCSC Science Illustration Program. http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciIllus.htmlUCSC Science Illustration summer courses. [email protected], http://summer.ucsc.eduScience Notes. http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/BackIssues.html

Exhibition: Illustrating Nature(May 4 - June 9 2002). Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. (831) 420-6119

The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators. http://www.gnsi.org

Scientific Illustration: A Guide to Biological,Zoological, and Medical RenderingTechniques, Design, Printing, and Display. By Phyllis Wood

book illustration never gets te-dious or repetitive. You dive in,get it done and move on, allthe while learningabout new sub-jects and keepingthat brain happy.I couldn’t ask fora better job to fit mylifestyle and intellec-tual needs.”

Jessica Palmer and Una Ren are 4th yeargraduate students in the Molecular andCell Biology Program at UC Berkeley.


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Unidentifiedshell fragment.(Alicia Calle)

LIFE: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVEThe last angry man tries to get one.

Alan Moses


Yale crystallographer Tom Steitz will undoubtedly wina Nobel Prize for his recent solution of the com-plete structure of the ribosome. Knowledge of this

structure quickly led to the realization that the ribosome–the mammoth complex of RNA and protein that orches-trates the translation of the genetic code to functional infor-mation–is in fact, a ribozyme. The crucial enzymatic activ-ity of the ribosome seems to be carried out not by proteins,as is typical of cellular machinery, butrather by the RNA itself. In answerto one of biology’s classic chicken andegg problems, this discovery showedconclusively that RNA could, in prin-ciple, have made enzymes without anyoriginal proteins, and, therefore, thatRNA is almost certainly the more an-cient of the two components. The long-standing debate overwhich molecule came first in evolutionary history is nowsolved: there must have been an “RNA World” in which lifeexisted without the use of proteins.

Of course, to really clinch the Origin of Life, it would benice if some lab evolved a simple living creature based onlyon RNA–a feat certainly worthy of another Nobel Prize,while we’re handing them out. Perhaps only somewhat lesssatisfying would be an appropriately dated fossil of one ofthese creatures, or even a living RNA-only descendant inthe muck at the bottom of Strawberry Creek. Unfortunately,all living things that have ever been found seem to use DNA

and proteins as well as RNA to do their business. Well, thereare RNA-viruses, which sort of live without DNA. And whatabout transposons and retro-transposons? These “jumpinggenes” might be examples of protein-less life. But are theyeven alive at all?

The explosion of knowledge about the molecular founda-tions of biology has brought us tantalizingly close to the

Origin. So close, in fact, that it hasbecome difficult to say what we areseeking the origin of. Historically, lifehas been defined using a list of char-acteristics found in every living thing.Sadly, there always seem to be glar-ing exceptions to the rules. For ex-ample, a typical “characteristic of life”

is that living things should be able to reproduce. Obviously,this is false–it would mean that Bob Dole was dead for twentyyears and then, when Viagra came on the market, was mi-raculously brought back to life. Classical definitions of lifealso require that an organism be free-living and able to me-tabolize. But in general, there always seem to be examplesof non-living things that have these characteristics, or thingswe want to call living that don’t. These “lists of life” do verypoorly in borderline cases (like viruses, or individual cellsin a multi-cellular organism). Furthermore, these sorts ofapproaches never make it clear whether they are consider-ing the definition of “Life,” as in the “Origin of Life,” or “life,”as in whether or not a particular creature is alive, or dead,

We may realize thatthe definition of life isnot entirely binary.

Perspective


If “Origin of Life” meansthe circumstances under

which the first living thingappeared, we’d better beable to say what we mean

by “living thing.”

Perspectiveor neither. One thing we can say is that if “Origin of Life”means the circumstances under which the first living thingappeared, we’d better be able to say what we mean by “liv-ing thing.”

But wait a minute, telling living from non-living is easy. Chil-dren can do it. They just use the old I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach. A goldfish is alive and a tub of margarine isn’t.

End of story. Though that approach has been successful formany of our most important concepts (love, justice, etc.),somehow we expect more from science. Defining living ornot as “I-know-it-when-I-see-it” doesn’t seem adequate.What is “it” that we “know” when we “see it,” anyway? Need-less to say, we are now very far from crystal structures andvery close to philosophy. But don’t worry: it’s all a part ofmy plan.

Stuart Kauffman provides a different way of thinking aboutthe definition of life in his recent book, Investigations.

Kauffman provokes the criticism of scientists (he has, in gen-eral, no conventional evidence for any of his theories), phi-losophers (he invents and uses ill-defined theoretical lan-guage), writers (his style is pompous, disorganized and in-fected with new-age mysticism), and me (see the last threeparenthetical remarks). Still, he is something of a lone voicewhen it comes to new ideas about the big picture. He ar-gues that living things should be thought of as a very specialclass of physical system. Specifically, he claims, living thingsare physical systems that are “autonomous agents” or that

have “agency.” He works very hard to define these in moreprecise physical terms, namely that “autonomous agents” 1)are auto-catalytic systems capable of reproduction, and 2)perform thermodynamic work.

While these may be features of many or even all living things,focusing on these physical characteristics misses the essenceof what makes something autonomous: having interests andthe ability to act on these interests. As Kauffman puts it, lifecomes down to the ability to say “yuck or yum.” This is howwe know that even a single cell can be alive. We can tell thatit has interests, and it makes decisions based on those inter-ests.

The particular interests and decision-making capabilities thatliving things have are the result of natural selection. That’swhy survival is second only to sex in popularity. The reasondeath is “yuck” and sex is “yum” for most living things isbecause they have been shaped by Darwin’s mechanism. Butit is the ability to make the decision–not the particular deci-sion you make–that makes you alive. It just turns out thatnew decision-making (read: living) things don’t arise veryoften. And we usually see only those that happened to pri-oritize self-preservation and reproduction.

In case all this talk about “decisions” and “intentions” is alittle too anthropomorphic for your taste, and in order toavoid notions like “free will” rearing their ugly heads andconfusing us, let’s be clear about what it means to have the“ability to make a decision.” Imagine a single-celled organ-ism, a bacterium, say, living in a pond. This creature doesn’thave anything like free will, but it can certainly make deci-sions. It has various means of sensing its environment, andbased on those observations, it engages in various behav-iors. Our pond-bacterium might think: if the temperatureis higher on the left than on the right, swim to the right.For this particular bacterium, hot is “yuck”; it steers awayfrom hot. This is probably how we’d guess whether the crea-ture was alive or dead–if it can make the decision, it’s prob-ably alive, and if it’s oblivious, it’s probably dead (assumingthis type of bacteria doesn’t sleep or get distracted). No-tice, however, the general form of the decision: if (some


Alan Moses is a 2nd year student in theBiophysics Graduate Group at UC Berkeley.

combination of observations) then (do some behavior).When it seems like a bacterium is “making a decision,” whatit really might be doing is just evaluating a series of logicalclauses, and then executing some response–exactly what wecall “computation.” Although computation and informationprocessing are not entirely well-defined from a physical per-spective, they are certainly an improvement over the vaguenotions like “autonomy” and “agency” that we started with.

Regardless of how important the computational abilities ofliving things turn out to be, it seems clear that Kauffman’sattempt to understand living things as a very special class ofphysical system leads to new and interesting ways of think-ing about the age-old dilemma of the definition of life. Aswe inch closer to the Origin of Life, the problem of its defi-nition will continue to surface. We may realize that the defi-nition of life is not entirely binary–systems may not simplybe “alive” or “not.” Instead, we could imagine a life param-eter, L, whose value expresses how alive a given thing is at agiven time in a given environment. This parameter mightbe a function of the total number of possible computationsthat the system could perform, say Nc, and the associatedchange in some “utility” or the “yuck or yum”-ness associ-ated with each possible decision or computation, say, ∆Uc.To this end, I conclude with a delightful theorem whose proofcertainly exceeds this narrow margin:

L = k log Nc ∑ ∆Uc2,

where the sum is over all the Nc computations, and k is someconstant named after me.


Quanta (heard on campus)

“Linear systems essentially can’t compute anything. My wife might be at home,she might be in the office. A linear system would dial the average number.”

John Hopfield, ProfessorDepartment of Molecular BiologyPrinceton UniversityOctober 15, 2001

“A science writer’s job is keeping scientists fromchoking on their own jargon.”

Charles Petit, Senior WriterU.S. News & World ReportNovember 1, 2001

“All of us at UC Berkeley are government employees. If yougo against the official government dogma on HIV/AIDS, youmight be a free professor, but you’ll never get a student andyou won’t publish in Science. It may not be the best thing todo to pay the rent or get parking on this campus.”

Peter Duesberg, ProfessorDepartment of Molecular andCellular Biology(and infamous AIDS dissident)UC BerkeleyNovember 1, 2001

BERKELEYs c i e n c e 1r e v i e wDear Mom,

We attached our ACBARreceiver to the Viper Telescope here atAmundsen-Scott South Pole Station acouple of weeks ago, and now we are takingdata. Everyone in our group has been working twelve-hour days atthe telescope, seven days a week. I’m on the night shift. Well, “night” meaningfrom dinner until breakfast. It is actually daylight, and it will be daylight for sixmonths straight. Weird. The main building of South Pole Station is a geodesic domelocated about 100 meters from the actual Pole. The Viper telescope is about akilometer away, a nice little walk across the ice runway.

There’s housing for about 30 people under the geodesic dome. Another 25 canstay in the “El Dorm,” or Elevated Dorm, away from the dome. There are over 200people here during the summer, though. Lots of them stay in Summer Camp, whichhas Hypertats (metal huts) and Jamesways (Korean War-era tents). I stayed in aHypertat last year, and I’m in El Dorm this summer. We eat in the galley, which isinside the dome. Cooks make four square meals a day: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner,and Midrats. Folks are working all three shifts, so there are meals around the clockto feed everybody. The food was my favorite part about the Pole. It reminded me ofdorm food. And there was a lot of it.

And don’t worry about me dressing warm, Mom.Everyone who goes to the Pole is supplied with ECW(Extreme Cold Weather) gear on loan from the USAntarctic Program. They give us a parka, jackets,insulated Carhartt overalls, thermal underwear,wool socks, hats, gloves, snow goggles, bunnyboots, and so on. I brought my own insulatedwork boots because I prefer them over the bunnyboots for climbing on the telescope. The clothingthey provide is more than enough to keepeveryone warm while they work outside. I onlywish I’d remembered to wear it today.

Love,Mike

The Back Page

Dear Mom,Mike Daub is a graduate student in physicsat Cal, working with Professor Bill “Swill”Holzapfel. He spent six weeks at the SouthPole during January and February of 2001and returned there in January 2002. Good sonthat he is, he keeps his mom apprised of lifeat the Pole.

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