Going to seek a Great Perhaps

Another relatively short entry for now; hopefully after next week these can get longer, more interesting and more eloquent but for now, I will write about what I currently know. It seems like the next few months or so are a time of immense transition. And not just for me but for a lot of the people in my life-not just the graduating seniors. I think when I take stock of things in a year, things will definitely feel very different. I feel like even though everyone is finally settled in where they currently are, it's time to move upwards and onwards to new places. 

All of this is a bit confusing for me, because I understand that change is good in the long term. Change means things are still in the process of happening and getting better...but it is also slightly terrifying. Moving into new places and meeting new people might be exhilarating for some but for me, the thought of diving into something completely new without any context to anchor me is incredibly anxiety-inducing.

It is so odd to think that my time is limited and a lot of the people that are here today will be scattered around the globe in the next few months. People are getting married, moving away and...moving on. I feel like my mood oscillates between being so ready to go onto greater things myself and being terribly afraid that I am wholly unprepared for what the world has in store for me. 

The world seems to be spinning faster and faster and the moment that I stop to take stock of what is happening, the less and less time I seem to have. I think I definitely took for granted that there would be four years of my life that would more or less just build on themselves and now I must confront something new. 

Because there is no turning back, nor would I want to. Although I am not one to be easily bored, I think that while known things are safe, they are also stagnant. I think that in moving forward, there should be some balance of the fear of the unknown(because I think it is a useful instinct), hope that things could be wonderful, and comfort in the fact that if it isn't wonderful, it isn't for forever-it's just for now. I hope that 2015 is the year where we all have the courage to take that first step and make something spectacular. 

The 2014 Retrospective

I'm running out of hours to do this so this will be short and (hopefully) sweet.

I have never really believed that the new calendar year necessarily meant a blank slate and a fresh start, since in this regard things like the beginnings of semesters seem more meaningful. But it is a very convenient time to look back, take stock of the year and be grateful for the passing of time.

2014 got off to a very tumultuous start and it hasn't really slowed down much since then. It's been a whirlwind year full of weddings and tests and lots of other things.

But despite all of the crazy, it has also been a year where I have known an overwhelming amount of love and support from those around me. I didn't participate in Facebook's annual "Year in Review" because for the first time since I can remember, my most meaningful moments happened offline and there are no electronic records. As a millennial who spent(is spending) most of her formative years on the internet and connected to her phone, that is kind of a big deal. Also, as someone who likes playing with words, the mostly visual interface wasn't really the best way to approach this task.

When I look back at my year, the memories that stick out the most are conversations. They were times when I was just really honest with someone and they reciprocated. These conversations happened in very common places-buses, hallways, meals that I hadn't even intended on leaving my room for. It might sound silly but I think that for a long time, I couldn't even get out of my head enough to even make those possible-not to mention that they make you feel really vulnerable, which is a very uncomfortable feeling. So it's a small change but a really important one for me.

Compared this time last year, I think a lot calmer than I was-though now that I think about it, I don't know that there is any really good cause for it. In 2013, 2014 was a huge beastly unknown. Despite 2015 also being somewhat of an unknown, I don't quite feel as frantic as I did then. I think this past year has shown me that no amount of worrying about and wishing for things will cause any meaningful change in the course of events. There's no way to eliminate those feelings (nor should we, because they're valid), but they don't need to be all-consuming.

As it looks right now, 2015 looks like a pretty big year as well. I don't really believe in huge overhauls just because we're flipping the page of the calendar but hopefully I can write here once a week, among several other small goals. Funnily enough though, I am no longer afraid of the fact that I am leaving Wellesley this year.

Onwards and upwards to the next big adventure, lovelies.

What I am Thankful for in 2014

I am still grateful for all the things I was last year-for fuzzy socks, for tea, and of course for fairytales. These things are comforting and I will always be able to return to such material comforts. But there is one thing that I can't emphasize enough and probably will never be able to be thankful for enough, so long as I live.

I have been blessed with wonderful people in my life, both friends and family (though the line betwixt them is pretty thin).
Simply put, they are the reason that I haven't just stopped-just sat down and refused to go forward.

I am, have always been and will forevermore be grateful to my family. Yes, they push my buttons for fun but I have never questioned that they have my best interests at heart. Thanks to technology, you can basically carry me in your pocket and I can carry you in mine.

But I wanted to spend a little more time talking about my friends this year, the people that I have somehow convinced that it is a good idea to hang around me for extended amounts of time. From an emotional and psychological perspective, it would be so much easier to hold everyone at arm's length. It has definitely been an process for me this past year, trying to figure out if it's even okay for me to admit to people that I don't have it all together, that there wasn't a plan, because I was so terrified of the subsequent judgement that would come.

But a lot of times, the judgement never came.

I have no doubt that I will remember a lot of the anxiety and stress of this past year down the road. But I hope that I will never forget the other times too-the countless times that people have calmed me down when I freaked out that I had no future (as I am prone to do). The times that I actually left my room to have meals with people and felt a little bit less like an academic robot and more like a human again. Saturday morning coffee runs, late nights in lab, walks through art galleries, walks through the mall, the rare instances that we ventured off campus into the big bright city. Thank you for not giving up on me when I retreated into my introverted self and for still trying to coax me out of my room anyways.

Writing them out now, they aren't the most daring and bold stories-they probably wouldn't be impressive to those who enjoy living on the edge. But they have been the most important times to me and the best part of all of this is, is that they can happen every day that I am with my friends. They have truly seen me at my best, my worst and everything in between. Despite me wanting to curl up into a ball at what seems like every minor setback, my friends have picked me up again, fed me (very important), and set me on my path again. They have proved that we can endure this really weird and stressful time together and I could not be doing what I am doing without them by my side.

With lovely, sassy and wonderful people like that, could anyone truly be lost?

Is it possible to run out of words?

Because it sure feels like I already have.

A lot of my classes have lots of weekly writing assignments so I have been doing a lot more reading and writing about things than I ever have in previous semesters. And while it is in subjects that I find to be intellectually stimulating, I somehow find myself in the position of not knowing what to say. I've done the reading, I've done the outlining but right now, I can't put words on paper to make something meaningful and distinctly mine.

Considering it is actually my job to work with words, finding the best and most precise words and presenting them with finesse, it seems like a kind of odd problem to have-not being able to say anything.

I don't actually have any profound messages that I wanted to say with this, no romantic metaphorical resonances I wanted to strike. I just wanted to share. Maybe I just need more sleep.

The Bees are at their Breaking Point: If they die, we might go with them

While some may think of distant poverty-stricken countries when hearing the phrase “wide-spread hunger”, it is the reality that our nation will be faced with if something is not done to conserve honeybee colonies. Since 2006, scientists have reported that honeybee colonies are dying at record rates of 30%, a substantial jump from the previous annual average of 5-10% and the number is only increasing. It is easy to think that this is an esoteric issue that is best left to the crusades of well-meaning yet eccentric environmentalists. However, this is a natural disaster that affects the daily life of the consumer. Considering that bees are directly or indirectly responsible for roughly 75% of the food that we eat, the decline of the honeybees has very dire implications for our future as a nation.

Do you enjoy consuming food? If so, then the honeybee crisis is actually incredibly relevant to you. One may think that honey is the only commodity that the bees contribute to the food market. However, the US Department of Agriculture reports that honeybees are responsible for pollinating over $15 billion of crops each year and agricultural products constitute some of the fastest growing American exports. Honeybees pollinate many commercial crops including apples, almonds, citrus fruits and many more. Some crops, like almonds, rely exclusively on professional bee pollination each year on a massive scale. Beekeeping is in and of itself a dynamic industry and farms pay to have truckloads of bees help them out each spring. There are many other indirect ways that bees affect the food industry as well. For example, crops like alfalfa are pollinated by bees but not directly used as a human food source. However, they are then used to feed cows that are in turn responsible for producing many dairy products as well as being used for meat. One may wonder why the average consumer may not have noticed this crisis at the food markets but the average price of almonds per pound has actually more than doubled in the last five years. The honeybee population is at the center of the food industry and absolutely crucial to the continued success of the US economy as well.

The honeybee crisis appears to be caused by several of factors. First introduced to the US in the late 1980s,  varroa mites are parasites that have been an increasing problem for the bees in recent years. The mites target the maturing honeybees, causing them to be more susceptible to disease and eventual death. Thus, in colonies affected by the mites, few bees ever reach adulthood. A lonely queen is left to watch over young bees who will never grow up, waiting for workers who will never return.

However, perhaps the most significant factor contributing to the bee crisis is the use of certain insecticides. In 2007, the EPA estimated that the US used a record-breaking 1.1 billion pounds of insecticides.  While insecticides have been used for many years, a new class of nicotine-derived insecticides called neonicotinoids has come under fire most recently. After being approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2005, the use of neonicotinoids has increased dramatically. However, recent research has come to light supporting the fact that these chemicals can have seriously detrimental effects on honeybee populations. A clinical study showed that honeybees exposed to these compounds were unable to find their way back to their hives and died due to the subsequent lack of protection. Neonicotinoids also differ in their mode of dissemination, as they are ingrained into the seeds of plants and can thus persist for many months when other pesticides might have washed away. The increased use of neonicotinoids correlates to the rise in honeybee mortality and unless something is done, the numbers will only continue to escalate. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that although separately the EPA might not consider the insecticides lethal, roughly 20 different chemical residues have been found in devastated beehives. This suggests that the chemicals are unexpectedly far more potent together and play a role in bee deaths. Together the mites and pesticides are the perfect storm to absolutely decimate honeybee populations.

We do not have to stand idle watching this crisis unfold; there are several things that we can do. By buying food that has not been treated with pesticides, we can change the market. Companies currently have no incentive to choose bee-friendly methods but might be swayed by consumer demands. However, organic foods have become a bit of cultural cache here in the US and are not necessarily accessible to everyone. So more than just hoping to change the markets indirectly, we can take action by appealing to the legislative bodies, which could lead to a solution with longevity. The European Union has already banned the use of certain pesticides and the time has come for us to finally try and open the conversation here that our European counterparts have been having for many years. This is not an issue that is only for the tree-hugging bohemians, it is an issue that concerns us all. Consider this the call to arms to help our apiarian comrades.

Hacking the Bacterial Social Network

While we update our Twitters, Facebooks and Instagrams throughout the day, many might be unaware that a similar phenomenon is happening at the microbial level as well. In a two-part lecture, Bonnie Bassler, a professor and researcher at Princeton University, proposed that bacteria everywhere from the ocean to our gut relay and receive messages to one another through chemical signals. These signals help the bacteria know when to change their behaviour when other bacteria are around. For some, that means illuminating the marine darkness. For others, it means producing toxic chemicals to wreak havoc on our immune systems. Many disease-causing bacteria actually use this chemical network to sense when there are enough of their comrades before launching an attack against the immune system. But if the message can be sent, can it then be intercepted? In addition to presenting their previous research on what is currently known about this signaling system and combining several scientific disciplines, Bassler and her team worked with the bacterium that causes cholera to see if they could do just that.

Central to understanding the work of the researchers is the concept of quorum sensing. Bacteria have a chemical “language” that allows for communication with other members of the species, when they would otherwise be completely isolated from one another. When they receive messages from other bacteria, the bacteria then knows to modify its behaviour. Sometimes this means producing light, as the researchers found from their initial work with a species of marine bacteria. For others, the bacteria know to produce toxins that would otherwise be ineffective to carry out alone. Furthermore, bacterial species are able to transmit messages that can be received by other bacterial species as well. Long thought to be isolated but co-existing entities, Bassler and her associates proved that there is actually a bacterial nexus existing right beneath our eyes.

Armed with the knowledge of bacterial communication, Bassler and her team wanted to see if it was possible to hijack this communication network. Although the team initially worked with marine bacteria, Bassler turned her attention to the pathogenic bacteria that causes cholera, under the assumption that it uses the same chemical network as well. Cholera is a fast-disease that causes dehydration through extreme diarrhea, caused by the release of toxins by a certain species of bacteria. Though it often calls to mind images of a distant past, cholera still claims up to 120, 000 lives every year and can kill within hours after the onset of infection. Unlike some of the other known pathogens, the bacterium that causes cholera is most dangerous at low levels. When there are not too many other bacteria of the same species around, cholera-causing bacteria ramp up the productions of toxins that make us sick. When the numbers of bacteria increase, the cells send out a message to stop producing toxins and instead focus their attention towards infecting a new host.

For cholera-causing bacteria specifically, Bassler and her team wanted to see if they could send the cells false intelligence.  Bassler’s team wanted to manipulate experimental cells by sending them a synthetic signal to stop producing toxins while the cells were at low density. After isolating and characterizing what they believed to be this chemical signal responsible for turning off toxin-production, the team created a synthetic molecule that they hoped would mimic the actions of the real “off” signal.  When they added the synthetic molecule to cells infected with the bacteria, toxin production decreased dramatically.  The team then moved onto mice infected with cholera and saw similar drops in toxin levels. With the addition of the synthetic molecule, the researchers were able to restore the animals to health.

The team’s findings are incredibly exciting from a curative perspective. It implies that patients infected with the bacteria could be treated effectively and efficiently. However, the chemical mechanism this treatment does not necessarily work for all species of bacteria. The signaling system is complex and many other pathogens use the opposite mechanism whereby they are largely inactive but ramp up virulence at high densities. Therefore, instead of trying to mimic the chemical signal directly, researchers would need to create a synthetic antagonist (an off-switch) that is a molecule that would counteract the messenger rather than trying to duplicate the messenger itself. We should definitely take heart in the fact that some of the signals are species-specific. This has huge implications for the future of antibiotics. By finding ways to exploit signals for only one species, we can target harmful bacteria without the risk of also targeting good bacteria species or healthy tissue cells. Currently, antibiotics lack specificity and end up killing good and bad bacteria alike in addition to causing painful side-effects. By proposing a novel type of antibiotic, Bassler and her team may have laid the foundation to revolutionize the way that we treat diseases and lead to less noxious medications.

Breaking out from the Ivory Tower

I think coming up with topics to write about here has been one of my longest-lasting conflicts.

I consider myself a content creator... sometimes. I have always agonized about what to put here-I want to write about things that were relevant and engaging. I wanted to create content that was intelligent and poignant. For awhile I was very adamant about not writing about my thoughts or feelings, lest some future admissions council find it and decide I was not worthy to attend their institution-and actually I'm still working with that today. I also wanted to write about things that were not in any shape or form related to the things that I was learning in school. I think I was trying to prove the point that I was an engaged person who was not just some nerdy bookworm and that I was a person who thought about issues outside the realm of academia.

But as more and more of my time became dedicated as classes became more and more difficult, I had less time to ruminate on things outside of my studies. As a result, the posts here just became less and less frequent and less and less enthused.

I only recently have started to understand why I didn't really feel comfortable writing about the things that I am learning in school. There are two main reasons, the first being that I didn't think that what I was learning was relevant. Interesting to me, but would anyone else think so? The second reason, and far more embarrassing one, is that I didn't feel comfortable explaining things that I myself didn't understand. I had hoped that this problem would go away and that magically by the time I was a senior in high school I could read complex scientific journal articles and understand them perfectly. Unfortunately this seems to be a recurring phenomenon that I think will be an ongoing event so long as I am a person that is learning things.

The reason that any of this came to mind is because I am in a class designed specifically for writing about academic subjects but for the general public. Yes, we had to have classes specifically designed for this purpose. And while I obviously think that it is a worthwhile endeavor, I think that speaks volumes about how disconnected we the Wellesley community are from "the Real World", so much so that we need to have classes with the main objective of helping us communicate our passions and interests to the hypothetical layman. Being a senior in college has made me hyperaware of the fact that in one year's time I will have to find a place for myself in this "real world" I keep hearing so much about.

So you can probably see where I'm going with this-I am going to be trying to post the articles I write for class here on the blog and maybe even the other things I've written about before. While I can't pretend I will love every subject I write about, I do think it defeats the purpose of writing for the general public if no one but my classmates and professors read my writing. I'm actually really really nervous about doing this because the serious subjects will never go viral the way that another post I write might. But I guess I have to take the leap that the while the good things may not be the most exciting click-baitable things they are still worthwhile.