Things great and small

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As you likely know, Resonance Women’s Chorus, home to my major volunteer gig these days, just finished up the season with its marvelous concert on climate change. After being immersed in this earth-ish topic for months, it’s been fun to find myself stretched through other layers of reality by a handful of articles I've encountered—outward to this incomprehensibly vast cosmos of ours and inward to microscopic realms that touch on our very identity. Not trivial matters, but definitely fun.

(Before I get all wonky, check out these gorgeous roses I spotted on a walk the other day. If nothing else, they're testimony to two happy facts: it's spring and I'm out walking again. Hooray!)

So, as a hint of this perspective stretching I mentioned, I offer these few tidbits for your consideration. 

First, the microscopic: 

The first set of articles I read had to do with the relatively recent development of a new technique in the field of genetics. Not long ago, two geneticists developed a technique called CRISPR-Cas9, which gives scientists the ability to remove and add genetic material at will, altering an organism's genome—sperm, eggs, embryos—in a way that will be passed on to future generations. Here’s a video explaining it, if you're curious. The technique has already been used in rats, monkeys, and a few other species. Folks are pretty certain that it would work in humans. Genetic manipulation that is limited to non-germ cells (e.g., in GMO foods, gene therapy) already raises some ethical concerns. But this is about changes that will be transmitted to subsequent generations. Still unknown are how precise such changes can be (might I clip too much, insert too little?), how specific (what if I alter surrounding genes in the process?), and what the side effects might be (will eliminating, say, a gene that predisposes allergies also damage part of the natural immune response?).  

Aside from these technical issues, CRISPR raises huge ethical concerns—even theological ones. It could have great benefits in curing diseases, preventing birth defects, and so on. But it could also be used in questionable ways, like to engineer offspring sex, physical characteristics, intelligence, etc. Recently, a number of people working in the field called for a moratorium on this research in humans until these issues can be addressed. In the words of one scientist, “It raises the most fundamental of issues about how we are going to view our humanity in the future and whether we are going to take the dramatic step of modifying our own germline and in a sense take control of our genetic destiny.” Another comments, “I personally think we are just not smart enough—and won’t be for a very long time—to feel comfortable about the consequences of changing heredity, even in a single individual.”

Yet, just the other day I saw an article about scientists who had attempted to perform this research in human embryos. The experiment failed in most cases—the embryos died or the DNA was not altered as planned. In other cases, the results were as feared: in some, the DNA interrupted the process, resulting in some changed and some unchanged DNA. In other cases, non-target segments of the DNA were altered, a phenomenon some have called “collateral damage.” So the experiment basically confirmed that the scientists who had issued the warning were right. Still, this research also highlighted the possibility—even the high likelihood—that others will try again.

The questions this raises are just mind-boggling. What is identity? What does “I” mean if my DNA, the “building block” of my distinctive genetic makeup can be altered? And what does it mean to be a human being if the core features of human existence might be subject to alteration? If these techniques get perfected, who decides what traits are worthy of continuing and which are not? It is impossible not to hear the echo of early 20th century programs of eugenics in these questions.

But in a different microscopic domain, another story seems to bring good news: I wrote here before about scientists’ conclusion that viruses make up over 8% of our DNA. These viruses are evolutionary hitchhikers, organisms that infected our long-ago ancestors and that gradually became incorporated into our very genes. Now, that’s mind stretching enough by itself—nearly 1/10 of our DNA consists of viruses! But even more astounding is what these viruses do for us. In that earlier post, I noted that they may be responsible for the evolution of the placenta (the placenta! We’re talking here about the very beginning of our individual selves). And now, last week, I also learned that some such viruses—endogenous retroviruses—may “come alive” during the earliest stages of embryonic development. Retroviruses are not usually our friends—think HIV—but in this case, these endogenous retroviruses may actually serve to immunize the embryo against other viruses. 

Now, this is good news, but it still challenges any simplistic notions we might hold about ourselves as individual, self-contained, unitary beings. Just think about it … microscopic viruses—viruses!—stow-aways from pre-human history may be responsible for the placenta that supported our individual prenatal life and for our immunity to viruses that might otherwise have done us in. So don't you wonder wonder, where does the “I” in this process end and the “they” begin?

To leap from the microscopic to the telescopic ...

Two other recent stories escorted me back into my recurrent fascination with the cosmic. This past week was the 25^th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble telescope, which, as you likely know, has rewritten our understanding of the universe—and illustrated the book. The Internet was full of Hubble photo gems this week. In case you missed them, I’ll paste in a few, and you can click here for more and here for even more.  

                                                                                  

Hubble had some struggles from its earliest days (I’m tempted to say it was star crossed, but that seems too easy), with a microscopic flaw in the mirror that caused blurry views of even nearby objects. But with some clever fixes over the years by astronauts turned telescope experts, Hubble has taught us more about the cosmos than we ever knew there was to learn. As you may know from previous posts, I’m a totally amateur but enthusiastic observer of things astrophysical, so I’ve been paying attention to Hubble’s discoveries for years. This anniversary provided a delightful visual memoir of Hubble’s life so far, and I’m hoping for more.

And then, just today, I came across a short story about another recent Hubble-fueled finding: out there in the universe, there are “runaway galaxies,” and with Hubble's help, we’re starting to understand them. Scientists have known for some time about runaway “rogue” planets, which have either been ejected from their orbits around stars or somehow never belonged to a star system. They’ve also suggested the existence of runaway galaxies that are moving so fast they sail free from the “local cluster” of galaxies whose gravity generally holds galaxies together in a group. And now Hubble has spotted a runaway galaxy and tracked its trajectory as it veers away from its orbit and heads off into … somewhere. I love that the universe is so unruly.

So, I find this stuff fascinating in its own right. But this week, with my thoughts shifting from the issue of climate change—which is global, but local, in the planetary sense—to matters larger and smaller, I realized that both directions of my drift these recent days—the microscopic and cosmic—raise very similar questions: Who are we? What counts as human if much of our substance is actually other organisms? Who do we become  if we alter the genome that defines who we "naturally" are? Where is our place in a universe whose early beginnings over 13 billion years ago is just now coming into sight and whose extent, some would argue, is infinite? And that remains stubbornly errant.

If I drift back from the vast, cosmic question to this smallish, ordinary planet, I wonder at our arrogance to think we matter at all. If I move the other way, to the microscopic, I wonder if we realize how tentative and ephemeral our existence is. Either way, I'm struck by the astonishing improbability of it all. Which cycles me back to earlier musings on this very question, shared here many blogs ago.

I float in these dilemmas for a while, and then go about my business as if none of these questions mattered, as if they hadn't come to mind. Until they do again.

I wonder what that means. 

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2015. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post. 

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Where are you from?

No, I mean really … not where do you live or even where did your grow up. Not even where did your parents come from, or your grandparents, or their grandparents. Maybe what I really mean is, Where are we from? And how did we get wherever we are?

My partner and I are about to participate in a scientific mega-project designed to answer these questions. The aim of the Genographic Project being conducted by National Geographic is to learn about the “human journey,” the migration patterns of Homo sapiens and their close evolutionary cousins over the past 200,000 years or so. Our cheek swabs will become micro-drops in a great genetic bucket that will teach scientists—and then us—tons about our human history. (This isn't the sort of analysis that provides information on disease risks and such. The point is not to understand health risks at the individual scale but to understand the emergence of the human family at the billions-of-people scale.)

The idea of tracing anyone’s ancestral history back tens of thousands of years seems like the stuff of science fiction. It wasn't too long ago that scientists figured out that we all came from one ancestral “Eve” who lived in east Africa and from whom all living humans descended. Eve, not “Adam,” is the identifiable ancestor of us all because mitochondrial DNA, which is transmitted maternally, provides the basis for tracing lineages. It’s the tool scientists use to study the evolutionary relationships among species and among populations within species.

So, anyhow, after analyzing our swabs, the good scientists at National Geographic will be able to tell us where our genes came from, how our ancestors migrated over time, which groups of modern humans and their hominid cousins added genetic information to our DNA. This information, in turn, will contribute to the process of mapping how humans have migrated and morphed over time.

You’re no doubt wondering about those “close cousins” I keep mentioning. There are two: the Neanderthals and the Denosivans. The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) are a well-known relative—well enough known that we've managed to stereotype them as stupid and backward, although those stereotypes may be erroneous. The Neanderthals lived in Europe, and they apparently crossed paths with Homo sapiens, even occasionally interbreeding with them. On the other hand, Denosivans (Denosiva hominim) are a far newer story. Less is known about them, most of it from DNA taken from a fragment of a finger bone of a young girl, which was discovered in a cave in what is now Siberia. Genetic evidence shows that this group interacted and even interbred with both Neanderthals and modern humans. So now, most of us carry small traces of these early interactions—in other words, modern humans are part Neanderthal, part Denosivan, and part Homo sapiens. Maybe that will quiet those stereotypes a bit.

So why, you may ask, are we doing this? I’ll confess, it was at my instigation. Part of my enthusiasm about this project is sheer curiosity, part is my fascination with what used to be called “popular science” (i.e., science translated to a form that educates everyday folks). But apart from all that, I love the idea of participating in the creation of a story of us all, a genogram of the whole human species. Thinking about this project—and viewing this map of the “human journey”) brought to mind a comment often made by astronauts: From space, there are no borders. (In fact, a Mexican-American astronaut got some flak for using this observation to support comprehensive immigration reform). National borders are artificial, invented for purposes of dividing groups. The Genographic Project, on the other hand, seems to me reminiscent of the view from space. It erases borders, unites people.

"The Human Journey" from the National Geographic Genographic Project

This project reminded me of recent news stories about findings from genealogy, which have also expanded our view of our ancestry—or at least the ancestry of some famous folks—at a more personal level. For instance, President Obama apparently has ancestral links to one of the earliest American slaves—through his (white) mother’s family. Michelle Obama had a white great-great-great grandfather. And then there’s former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, whose family emigrated from Czechoslovakia around WWII, so she knows something about borders and their divisiveness—not to mention their impermanence. After being raised as a Catholic, she learned late in life that her parents had both been Jewish. 

How these stories dismantle tidy identity categories! How connected we all are—really! Like, in a very concrete sense. We’re even connected to the groups that we might regard as most distant and different from us. Stories like these make the categories we create and the borders we lay down seem not only artificial, but also cruel. I’m hearing John Lennon’s “Imagine” in my brain:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say 
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

OK, call me a dreamer, but I can’t help but think that greater awareness of how profoundly related we all are can only help. And if learning about our genographic connections as a species contributes to that awareness, I'm all for it.

I suppose it would be interesting to get a personal genealogy done, just to know in detail who my more immediate ancestors were. But for now, I’m content to know what I share with the Neanderthals and Denosivans. And how many miles my ancestors traveled, acting for all the world as if the landscape didn't actually need to be partitioned into nations.

Conference on World Affairs

I’ve been spending a good bit of time this week at the Conference on World Affairs (or CWA) at CU-Boulder. I go as much as I can every year. If you live near Boulder, you really should check it out. What a great way to rev up your brain after the winter doldrums! Besides, I always think that spending time on a college campus is good for anyone. It reminds us that the conveyor belt of life is in working order. There are folks coming along behind us, eager to start their adult lives. But about CWA …


Since 1948, the CU-Boulder campus has hosted the annual Conference on World Affairs. It began as a conference on international affairs (which makes great sense: it was shortly after the end of WW II). But it has since expanded to include sessions on the arts, the media, science, technology, ethics, the environment, politics, business, human rights, etc., etc. To quote Roger Ebert, who participated in CWA for decades, it’s the “conference on everything conceivable.”  Conference planners bring in about 100 scholars, performers, academics, business and government people, and assorted folks with something to say. These folks come at their own expense and without getting paid. All day, every day, for a whole week they gather in auditoriums and rooms around campus to explore every conceivable topic in plenary sessions, panels, and performances—more than 200 sessions in all.


The really astonishing thing about this conference is that all of these events are free and open to the public. Imagine that! A week of free mind-expanding continuing education with some brilliant thinkers, artists, politicians, and wannabes, all without needing to register for anything or pay a cent! Not surprisingly, a huge proportion of the audience is made up of community folks, many with gray or white hair. This is another of the gifts of retirement: the freedom to hang out with ideas in the middle of the day for a whole week!

CWA folks are easy to spot. We're the ones clogging the walkways between sessions, wearing walking shoes for our day on campus. We're carrying a satchel with an umbrella and the conference program peeking out, or we're sitting on a bench and perusing the schedule while we down a snack or some water. We pretty much fill the cafeteria at lunch time. I keep thinking that the cafeteria staff must be warned in advance about this because they are so easy going about all these folks who don’t know quite know how the food court works or where to pay.

The other main group of folks attending CWA sessions is made up of college students. Of course, the location is handy for them, and they also are often encouraged (or required) to attend. The result is a great cross-generational learning opportunity. Think about it. In how many settings do we sit side by side with people 50 or 60 or 70 years our junior (or senior) and share a moment of intellectual challenge?  How often do we get to listen to the questions that college students ask about politics, morality, technological change … and how often do they get to hear ours? There’s just so much to be learned from this.

So that’s how the world looks to a 22 year-old majoring in political science!

Wow! There are actually college students who have never heard of McCarthyism.

Do they really think that the 1960s were “a long time ago”? (answer: yes.) 


Am I hearing this right? The social construction of race, a "fringe" idea in my day, is now taken for granted. Wow. 

Ah! She didn’t understand the point because “before the pill” doesn’t mean anything to her. She never knew a time when contraception wasn’t available.

I can only imagine what thoughts the students have as folks of my generation rise to speak. I hope they find it equally intriguing.

So, I’ve attended about half a dozen sessions so far this week. Of these, I found one (a plenary) pretty boring. But still, I came away with some murmuring thoughts despite not being too enthralled. Another session (also a plenary), I found entertaining, informative, and thought provoking. However, I can’t recall being moved to think about it much. Maybe that’s because I agreed with the speaker so much I just nodded at his points and laughed at this jokes. Both of these were basically on the current crisis of national political polarization. 

The rest of the sessions I’ve attended have been panels: ethics and the new genetics, disability pride, same-sex marriage, and parallels/differences between the Tea Party and the Occupy movements. Three of these four were great! I learned a lot and got stretched a bunch in each of them. But one (same-sex marriage) was extremely frustrating. Probably because I know a fair amount about this (my partner knows a ton, and I absorb a lot from her), and the self-described “experts” on the panel didn’t. But they thought they did.

This is one of the challenging (sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating) things about CWA. The panelists are given only a title for their session—no description, no guidance about what they should say. The titles are pretty vague, sometimes provocative, sometimes obscure. Some panelists take their role really seriously; they think about the topic a lot in advance, read up on the issues, prepare remarks. Others just wing it, sometimes saying something like, “I don’t really know anything about this, but here’s what I think.” It’s sort of pot luck, so I count my experience of three excellent panels out of four as a very tasty outcome. And I haven't had many chances recently to share a tasty potluck with college students. 

Bacteria, viruses, and life itself

We are a society of germophobes. We are preoccupied with cleanliness as a matter of health. We run to the doctor if a cold doesn’t disappear in a few days, eager to stamp out whatever germs are making us feel so awful. All of this makes sense from the perspective of avoiding or eliminating disease. But, as with most things, life is more complicated than this.

Here are two cool bits of information I've come across in recent days that might make us think twice about our germicidal tendencies.

The first is about a bacterium called Clostridium difficile, “C. diff” to friends. Health care professionals are worried these days about a C. diff “epidemic.” C. diff can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. And here’s the kicker: taking antibiotics, perhaps to fend off some other nasty bacterium, actually increases your risk of getting C. diff. This happens because antibiotics also kill off the useful gut bacteria that usually keep C. diff. in check. Mild illness caused by C. diff may actually get better if you stop taking whatever antibiotics you’re on. Severe C. diff symptoms require treatment … get this … with a different antibiotic. Unfortunately, drug-resistant strains of C. diff are cropping up as the bacterium adapts to our overuse of antibiotics. 

So here’s how it works: we take antibiotics to kill off bacteria, also killing off the wrong bacteria, making us more susceptible to C. diff (a bacterium), against which further antibiotics are increasingly feeble, perhaps increasing our vulnerability to C. diff.

Clearly, this is a medical challenge. But it’s also a philosophical, even an existential challenge. For one thing, it challenges our usual neat categories of “good” and “evil.” It forces us to reconsider the agents that we see as invaders and the drugs that we see as heroic defenders. It’s harder to keep the categories clear when inviting a defender increases our vulnerability to the invader, when the rescuer is a potential villain.

OK, hold that thought for a minute …

Then, just to make things more interesting, here’s another tidbit. To quote from an article in Discover magazine, “If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born.” Hmmm … a virus as the heroine? It seems that there is particular gene that’s essential for the placenta to do its job of transmitting nutrients and wastes between the mother and the fetus. And get this: this gene is not a human gene at all. Instead, it seems to be a gene from a virus.

 Apparently, over the millennia, our ancestors have collected souvenir fragments from the viruses that infected them (with those miserable diseases that we are so eager to snuff out). These virus fragments are like hitchhikers, slipping into our DNA and changing the direction of evolution. In fact, it turns out that fragments of viruses make up over 8% of our DNA. Who knew?! And imagine: we have such a virus to thank for the placenta, the amazing organ that makes human life possible.

So this is fascinating in itself. But it also brings me back to that puzzle: how do we know which visitors to fight off and which to welcome? And, on a larger plane, who do we think we are, anyway? We plan and maneuver and study and investigate and invent … and still, we’re products of the very things we resist, and we’re not really sure how to differentiate among the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly (but nonetheless good).  

I won’t expound on the obvious parallel here—what/who we resist and exclude in our own lives and how they might sustain us in the end, if we can only let them. We’ve all heard that lesson many times. But these ideas also bring me to a frequent (for me, at least) train of thought, one that arises more and more as I age:

We are just a blink in time. We are not, despite some politicians’ apparent belief to the contrary, the final outcome of evolution. We are some sort of step in a much larger process. Here we find ourselves: hugely dependent on the tiniest of agents, even as we fight them with all our scientific prowess. And down the line, even if we don’t wipe out the human species and destroy the planet through war, climate change, or distracted driving, everything will change. Slowly, but it will change. We’ll be gone, so it might seem irrelevant. But that’s what our long-ago ancestor might have thought, the one who got infected with the virus that made placentas possible. That is, if “thought” had evolved by then.

 This fascinates me, the long cascade of time. As I face the accelerating change in my own life—my body, my mind, my relationships, my general place in the world—I think a lot about change and mortality and the inevitability of both. The real value, to me, of this train of thought is the invitation to accept the flow and to recognize the uncertainty of our place in it. This is not to say that scientists shouldn't seek the cure for the common cold. It’s not to say that I should resign myself to a dispirited, passive decline in my aging years. It is only to say that time and change move on. I’m better at welcoming this some days than others. But bacteria and viruses are good reminders.