Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Researcher leads a team of 94 undergrads to explore gut health – Mirage News

Getting a big team on the same page

While admitting she was initially fazed by the size of her class, which averages 100 students, Gamberi has found strength in numbers. She splits the large class into groups of four or five students and assigns one article to each.

Every student in the course learned how to perform an initial guided research of published literature, Gamberi says.

Next, the students learned to compose a written contribution as a group. After the course was over, three students volunteered to assemble and edit the article under Gamberis direct mentorship and supervision.

Tarin Sultana is one of the studys co-editors. This initiative moved forward as a pedagogical approach that demonstrated the value of teamwork, collaboration and painstaking review of original research works, she says.

This undertaking has marked a milestone in many next-generation scientific careers.

Susannah Selber, a fellow co-editor and the articles first author, adds that opportunities to write scientific papers at the undergraduate level are scarce.

This writing project was my second grand endeavour with Dr. Gamberi (Selber participated in Gamberis first co-published paper).

Many assignments involve writing, yet few require the tools and skills necessitated in published works. Dr. Gamberis approach adds great value to the other regular skills students obtain from their university education.

Dr. Gamberi brought a whole new meaning to the classroom experience, where a simple assignment may lead to a concrete contribution to the scientific community, says third co-editor W, adding they hope the project inspires others.

This next-generation approach allows students involved in a course to create something that can be remembered.

Gamberi also credits the Georges P. Vanier Library team as an invaluable resource in helping students to navigate the world of academic publishing and avoiding the perils of plagiarism.

Katharine Hall has been a tremendous resource, she says. Hall is the biology and health, kinesiology and applied physiology subject librarian. The two faculty members co-authored an article about the subject.

I am extremely grateful to her for all she has done to support my students and her collaboration in this educational initiative, Gamberi says.

Encouraged by two successful iterations of her model, Gamberi is ready to move ahead with a third, this one focusing on the role hormones play in regulating kidney function.

Now we know the model works. I dont plan to stop, she says.

I love working closely with students, to encourage their curiosity and to see how much it opens minds and doors to foster their love of learning and of science.

Read the cited paper, Metabolic networks of the human gut microbiota.

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Researcher leads a team of 94 undergrads to explore gut health - Mirage News

Physiology

The Planet We Think Were Living on No Longer Exists: 3 Profound Ways the Art World Can Address the Climate Crisis – artnet News

While the art worlds habit of jetting from one art fair or biennial to the next becomes increasingly untenable as the climate crisis looms, a group of art industry leaders headed to the Swiss mountaintops last weekend to discuss how the field can reduce its complicity in environmental collapse.

The irony of traveling to a remote alpine village to discuss the climate at the fourth annual Verbier Art Summit was not lost on some of its speakers. Across two days of programming, Resource Hungry: Our Cultured Landscape showcased presentations by artists including Joan Jonas as well as organizations like Julies Bicycle, but it was finally on the last afternoon that Stefan Kaeg of art group Rimini Protokoll voiced what everyone had been thinking the whole time: Could the knowledge shared in Verbier have happened in a different form, without any of us being there?However noble the cause, one wonders if luxurious symposia like Verbier are even close to sustainable.

While the art world drags its heels on structural overhauls, this years organizerJessica Morgan, director of Dia Art Foundation nevertheless pulled together a fascinating crop of creatives to tackle formidable questions around the industrys ecological impact.

Here are three of the weekends biggest takeaways.

Artist Andrea Bowers said it plainly on Saturday afternoon: The earth is not out there, we are part of it.

Indeed, as we sat glassed-in on the third floor of the resplendent W Hotel, with the occasional paraglider-on-skis floating by, this could be easy to forget. Many speakers referenced the need to break down the divide between the museums, galleries, art fair halls, and the real, exterior world. Offering a Global Warming 101 reminder, French architect Philippe Rahm, who works in the fields of physiology and meteorology, stressed that 42 percent of CO2 emitted today is from the cooling, heating, and general operation of buildings.

So, how can a climate-controlled storage space, gallery, or museum reduce its energy consumption, or is that besides the point? Rahm said we need to look beyond updates to wall insulation and instead completely redesign space in line with what he calls climactic architecturea method that utilizes a buildings own convection, radiation, and conduction capabilities to optimize renewable resources. Architecture, said Rahm, is no longer [based on the idea of] form following function or function following form. Its function for the form that follows climate.

Djamila Ribeiro, Joan Jonas, El Ultimo Grito, and Jessica Morgan at Verbier Art Summer. Alpimages

Renowned professors of design practice Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feocollectively known as El ltimo Gritotook the question raised by Rahm to a more speculative level: What would it mean if museums were free from fixed spaces altogether? While humans continuously create permanent structures, many of these places deteriorate or get demolished relatively soon after. Meanwhile, structures initially built with ephemeral intentions (take the Eiffel Tower, for example, which was supposed to be a temporary installation for the Worlds Fair) survive for centuries.

With this, Hurtado and Feos question seemed to push back against the status quo of the art worlds usual haunts, underscoring that the museums and galleries that we have become so familiar with need to be fundamentally reconsidered. While spacious, pristinely white, and climate-controlled venues may feel like theyre here to stay, art historian Dorothea von Hantelmann pointed to exhibition spaces of the 18th-century which were extremely crowded, with walls crammed with art from the floor to the ceiling. We need to strive against the white cube, said von Hantelmann. We need to bring things that weve been separating back together.

One of the most significant changes professors Hurtado and Feo said they witnessed in their students over the past decade was the shift away from individualistic thinking towards collaboration. Its a shift seen beyond the confines of art and architecture schools, of course, as todays youth bring forth new ideas and fight collectively for their future, most notably through the Fridays for Future movement.

Artists Joan Jonas and Andrea Bowers echoed this hope in young activists. Jonas explained that children have become subjects in her work about the future and the environment (theyre the ones who are going to inherit it, she added, simply). With similar motivations, Bowerss new video My Name Means Future, which is currently on view at New Yorks Andrew Kreps Gallery, spotlights Tokata Iron Eyes, a 16-year-old member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and her involvement with the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. But what was missing in both presentations was a consideration of the changing role youth plays in viewership; both artists were mute on whether they even considered the importance of young people seeing their work.

Andrea Bowers,My Name Means Future (2020). Image courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.

To place the crisis of climate change on the shoulders of one generation and await a solution is clearly not the answer; Catherine Bottrill from Julies Bicycle, a London-based charity that supports creative industries transformations towards sustainability, stressed the need to support young people who are going to bring about solutions, while operating at all ages and levels laterally, collaborating across organizational boundaries and typical hierarchies.

The calls to decolonize the art world might not immediately conjure a connection to climate change. However, Brazilian philosopher Djamila Ribeiro emphasized that, more than listening to the voices of indigenous cultures, we need to begin to act upon their novel ways of thinking and apply them to the ways we treat the natural world. In order to hear those voices that are so often drowned out, current power structures need to be dismantled, he argued.Other speakers, including Bottrill of Julies Bicycle, concurred: Hierarchies have to be disrupted. This was a major talking point, as architect and urban designer Adrian Lahoud pushed for a similar upheaval, adding that the planet we think were living on no longer exists.

One of the most effective ways to fight climate change will be to redefine our values. Lahoud shared a movingstory behind a paintingon view in the current edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, which he curated. A group of 40 Aboriginal artists painted an 8-by-10-meter canvas, collectively depicting the story of their cultural history; they then submitted the piece to the Australian government as proof of their rights over nearly 30,000 square miles of land. Amazingly, the Australian government accepted this painting as evidence of ownership and, in 2007, granted them the rights over the disputed territory.

Alternative modes of existence embody different ways of being in the world, outside of the xenophobic, extractive, capitalist modes of relating that currently dominate the world, that lead us to exhaustion, and soon to extinction, according to Lahoud. And, at least in some cases, art can be a welcome bridge to these new ways of thinking.

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The Planet We Think Were Living on No Longer Exists: 3 Profound Ways the Art World Can Address the Climate Crisis - artnet News

Physiology

Maternity LeaveNot Higher PayIs the WNBAs Real Win – The Atlantic

But even with these anecdotes, exactly how to safely and most effectively pair athletics and motherhood is still a bit of a scientific gray area. Stacy Sims, an exercise physiologist, sports nutritionist, and senior research fellow at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand, studies sex differences among athletes. She told me that only in the past five to seven years have scientists begun to seriously approach physiological questions related to the female athlete and pregnancy, reproductive systems, hormones, and the menstrual cycle. The enactment of the WNBAs maternity policy could do more than help support moms in the league, Sims said. It could also help researchers like herself have more incentive, and more cases, to study the physiology of pregnant and postpartum athletes. The WNBA saying, Hey, were putting this in? Im like, Its about effing time, Sims said. Now that the sports culture is changing to be more accepting of pregnant athletes, she said, the research that needs to be done comes down to the health and safety of the athletes.

According to Sims, some physiological effects of being pregnant could actually have a positive effect on athletic performance, such as increased blood volume, higher pain tolerance, and a better ability to access the parasympathetic nervous system (managing stress better). The new policy could also help reduce the risk of injuries that women who give birth are more likely to face, especially mothers in the postpartum period, when womens bodies tend to need more rest and recovery. This maternity leave is really going to help female athletes to have that ability to relax and not worry about losing [pay] and not have the pressure to perform [too soon], Sims said. But there are still many unknowns that she hopes to dive into. The research is still very archaic.

Georgie Bruinvels, a research scientist who co-created FitrWoman, an app that tracks menstrual cycles and physical activity, agreed, telling me that pregnancy isnt the only unknown. The discussion of female athletes and how theyre affected by everything from puberty to menopause has historically been avoided in research in the medical and sports-science worlds. This is due, at least in part, to the constant fluctuation of womens hormones throughout the menstrual cycle, which makes them more complex to perform research on, she said. Not long ago, for instance, women and girl athletes were often told it was normal to lose their periods while training hard, something now known as a sign of a probable nutrient deficiency.

Thats why Bruinvels, an elite runner herself, has started studying the effect of the menstrual cycle on female athletes; her research reportedly gave the U.S. Womens National Soccer team an edge in their 2019 World Cup championship run. Just tracking this kind of information, Bruinvels said, can empower women with the understanding of how to use it to their advantage.

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Maternity LeaveNot Higher PayIs the WNBAs Real Win - The Atlantic

Physiology

An Out of This World Conversation with Astronaut Jessica Meir – UC San Diego Health

UC San Diego alumna discusses her journey from STEM to Stars during live Q&A from International Space Station

NASA astronaut and UC San Diego alumna Jessica Meir called her alma mater from space to participate in a live stream Q&A sessionat the Scripps Seaside Forum. Photos by Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications

Its not every day that you are given the chance to talk to an astronaut, let alone one thats currently residing at the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth. But the doors of possibility were kicked wide open on Jan. 27, when Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego welcomed more than 150 middle school students to campus for the opportunity to engage in a live Q&A session with NASA astronaut and UC San Diego alumna Jessica Meir.

The Scripps Seaside Forum was buzzing with anticipation as eighth grade students from Fulton K-8 and Memorial Preparatory for Scholars and Athletes, two schools supported by Birch Aquariums Price Philanthropies Ocean Science Education Fund, waited for the chance to ask Meir their burning questions. UC San Diego astrophysicist Brian Keating emceed the event, which was also attended by Meirs friends, mentors, and former Scripps colleagues. Thousands more tuned in remotely via live stream and through a special viewing at Birch Aquarium.

Scripps graduate students Anai Novoa, Kiefer Forsch, Tashiana Osborne, and Ivan Moreno participate in a pre-event science panel, sharing their path to science with local eighth graders.

The theme of the event was STEM to Stars, a nod to Meirs trailblazing path from ocean science to space. A trained marine biologist, Meir earned her Ph.D. in 2009 from Scripps Oceanography, where she studied the physiology of deep-diving animals in extreme environments. She credits this research with helping her stand out for NASAs astronaut program. Since launching to the International Space Station in September 2019 for a six-month mission, Meir has conducted three spacewalks, making history in October 2019 when she and astronaut Christina Koch conducted the worlds first all-female spacewalk.

Prior to the live stream, the visiting students heard from four current Scripps graduate students in a pre-event science panel. The studentsKiefer Forsch, Ivan Moreno, Anai Novoa, and Tashiana Osbornediscussed what they research at Scripps, what its like to be a graduate student, their path to science, and challenges theyve overcome. Graduate students from the Scripps group Women & Minorities in Science (WMIS) also participated in the event, showcasing hands-on research demos in the main lobby.

Kicking off the main event, Keating told the students some fun facts about Meirs adventures in space. When shes in space currently, shes traveling about 5 miles per second; she gets to witness sunrise and sunset 16 times a day, but I bet it never gets old for her, and shes traveling many thousands of miles an hour, he said, explaining that it only takes 90 minutes for Meir to travel the entire circumference of Earth.

Scripps Director Margaret Leinen also spoke to the students, describing some of the amazing places science can take you, whether here on Earth or up in space, and she congratulated Meir for utilizing her love of science to reach the stars.

Eighth grade students from two San Diego schools, Fulton K-8 and Memorial Preparatory for Scholars and Athletes, attend the live stream Q&A event with astronaut Jessica Meir.

I want to make sure you know how proud we are of everything that youve done with this extraordinary background in oceanography, and being able to realize this dream of yours to go to space, Leinen said.

Ashley and Alicia, two eighth graders from Memorial Preparatory, were among the lucky students who got to ask Meir a question.

Her being up in space shows us that mostly anything is possible. As long as you try your best, then you can succeed, said Ashley, who plans to one day be a software developer.

Alicia said she felt honored to talk to Meir and was inspired by her determination to pursue something that she really loves.

She inspired me to want to do my best, and even if I know I am doing my best, to try even harder, because theres always a good outcome, Alicia said. Even though she plans to pursue a career outside of STEM, she said she hopes to learn more about science because it never hurts to know more.

Below is an excerpt from Meirs Q&A session, condensed and edited for clarity. View the full livestream on Facebook and YouTube.

Q. Were you afraid of the takeoff? - Andres (Memorial Preparatory)

A. I wasnt afraid, actually, and I think one of the reasons why we dont really have that fear response, or at least I didnt, is because we receive so much incredible training at NASA. I have been training for my mission up here for six years, so we have been over and over all of the different things that well be experiencing.

In the last two years, I spent a lot of time in Russia training with the Russian space program since we launched to space on the Soyuz rocket. We spent a lot of time in simulators, preparing for every step and every phase of the mission. So, it was really interesting. I had been through that so many times in a simulator, which looked exactly like the real thing, that sometimes during the actual liftoff, I had to remind myself that this was finally real. You get so immersed in what youre doing and so focused with all the steps and actions you have to take as an operator, that sometimes you forget that its not just the same as all the practice youve been doing.

There were a few not so subtle reminders though, when the rocket started groaning and shifting a little bit, and then as the different stages of the rocket separated and we got higher and higher away from the earth, you could actually see those things falling off of the rocket outside of the window. Once I started seeing those signs I realized it was true, but it really wasnt any sort of fear; it was really just excitement and a little bit of disbelief and incredulity that my dream was actually finally coming true.

Q. What kind of classes did you take in school that helped you become an astronaut? - Ariana (Fulton K-8)

A. The common theme in everything we do up here is the STEM fieldscience, technology, engineering, and math. Now the nice thing is, there are a lot of different options within those fields. All of those fields could lead to a career like this one. To become an astronaut, you do have to have a degree in one of those areas, but the choices are really broad. For example, Im a life scientist, a biologist, and physiologist, and up here with me on my crew theres an electrical engineer, theres a military doctor, theres a military test pilot with a background in engineering, and then our two Russian cosmonauts up here as well with their engineering and military backgrounds. All of these different backgrounds are basic paths that you can use to get up here, so spending time in any of those STEM courses really helped us all get where we are today.

Q. What type of research do you do on the space station? Do you do any experiments outside the space station? - Naomi (Fulton K-8)

A. Its really amazing how many different types of experiments we conduct up here, and as a scientist, it is so exciting because as you can imagine, once you eliminate these gravity-driven effects that are always present no matter where you are on the earth, you might unveil a whole variety of responses and results that we never even thought possible. So we do experiments ranging from physiology and medicine, how the space flight environment affects our human bodies; we do experiments about combustioneven flames burn differently in space without gravity, without convection driving that motion. So in a chamber we study how different things burn in terms of flammability and safety responses, also in terms of fuel efficiency that might enhance fuel efficiency on earth and also for future spacecraft. We do biotechnology experiments; I did a DNA sequencing experiment called Genes in Space up here, and we do fluids experiments. We do any type of experiment and it is really an amazing playground as a scientist to be up here.

I was fortunate enough to go outside the space station three times now on spacewalks, and those are actually not for scientific experiments; those are for repair jobs. We have hardware both inside and outside the space station thats critical to making sure the systems work up here to accomplish our mission, and one of the things that needed to be upgraded were our batteries. So we conducted a series of spacewalks to upgrade those batteries to more efficient lithium ion batteries, just like youre using down on Earth. And that was one of the most amazing things that Ive done while Im up here is venturing out of the hatch in a spacesuit, and having really nothing between you and the earth below, except for the visor of your helmet. It really is an extraordinary experience.

Q. What advice do you have for young women who want to be astronauts? - Alma Renero (Instagram)

A. I think the most important thing to do is to make sure that you identify your passion and do what it is that you really care about. Once youve done that, you do need to work really hard to make those dreams come true, and it sounds a bit trite when I say it, but it really is true! I think this is proof that your dreams can come true. Ive been saying I wanted to be an astronaut since I was 5 years old, and because I had identified that as my passion, and also identified other aspects of science and exploration that led me down that road and pursued itwith a lot of hard work and dedication and perseveranceand then a lot of luck, all wrapped together to actually get me where I am today. The point is really, anybody can do it if thats what you set your mind to.

Q. Before you got accepted as an astronaut, did you ever consider any other careers? Jhiana (Fulton K-8)

A. Well I certainly did! I had a whole other career and that is thanks to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC San Diego and all of the mentors and colleagues that I had during my time as a graduate student there. My time at Scripps was invaluable; it really taught me how to think as a critical thinker, how to form and conduct something efficiently using the scientific method, and most importantlyrelevant to my job todayit taught me a lot about working with a team.

I was working as a comparative physiologist so I was studying animals, in particular animals that live in extreme environments, and trying to understand how those animals can do the incredible things they can. I was particularly intrigued by animals that live and work at extraordinary depths, so diving animals like emperor penguins, and elephant seals, and also high-altitude animals, birds that migrate over the tallest mountains on the planet. It was just fascinating to understand how these animals could live in these very oxygen-deprived zones.

I was working as a scientist at various universities and academia conducting research with animals in the wild and it was a very fulfilling career, but when the opportunity came to have this childhood dream job, I couldn't pass this up.

Stay informed about Meirs latest activities by following her on Twitter and Instagram.

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An Out of This World Conversation with Astronaut Jessica Meir - UC San Diego Health

Physiology

Waltz into something new with Wildcat Dancesport – Arizona Daily Wildcat

Wildcat Dancesport has been waltzing around as the official ballroom dance club at the University of Arizona for over 20 years and serves as one of the universitys most unique way of making friends, according to club president Brenna Hall.

The club held its most recent showcase on Feb. 1, where dancers got the chance to show off their skills to everyone in attendance and hoped to gain some more attention from students who may want to join.

Ballroom is inherently a social dance; you have to dance with other people, Hall said. You get a chance to meet a lot of different, fun people who are all interested in the same thing.

Hall has been in the club for five years. She graduated from the UA with a bachelors degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and is currently studying for her masters degree in epidemiology at the UA.

Hall said that she became interested in the club because of her interest in dance and desire to be more social and meet new people.

Sometimes in college things get really busy, so its a great way to be both active and social, Hall said. Its also a good way to take a break from studying for a bit.

Wildcat Dancesport focuses on two genres of ballroom dance: American Smooth, which includes the waltz, tango, foxtrot and Viennese waltz, and international Latin, which consists of the cha cha, rumba, paso doble, samba and jive.

The club has two different levels of dancers: beginners, and intermediate and advanced. Beginners are taught lessons by the more experienced dancers in the intermediate and advanced level, while dancers in the intermediate and advanced level are taught by a professional instructor.

We welcome everyone from any level of experience, Hall said. Whether they have danced ballroom before or even if theyve never danced a day in their life.

The club is not exclusive to current students. Some members, like Athena Simmons, are alumni that just couldnt step off the dance floor after college.

Simmons has been a member of Wildcat Dancesport for 10 years now. She graduated from the UA in 2015 with a degree in psychology and now works at a physical therapy office. Simmons said that since non-students are able to be in the club, she has been able to remain a member.

I love this club with all my heart for a reason, I just wanna see it prosper, Simmons said. Its been a part of my life for these past 10 years and Ive enjoyed every moment of it.

Simmons said that although she has been in the club for many years, she is still constantly learning and working hard.

Theres always something to improve upon, Simmons said. Dance teaches you how to persevere. You definitely learn about yourself.

UA junior Jessica Guise, a physiology major, has been a member of the club for two years. According to Guise, she truly began dancing through the club. She said her mother is a ballroom dance teacher and encouraged her to join while in college.

As a freshman, Guise said she was lonely and not very outgoing. But through Wildcat Dancesport, she met new friends.

She found getting to be more social in college and actually being involved in something refreshing. According to Guise, the club serves as a creative outlet for a lot of science, technology, engineering and math majors like herself who might have otherwise struggled to find one.

It feels really great to have a connection with another person when you dance, Guise said. I think you can express your creativity, meet new friends and find a new passion.

According to Hall, the club holds weekly practices, dance socials and about three competitions per year.

All dance lessons take place at the Student Recreation Center, so all attendants must have a Rec Center membership. The beginners lessons take place in the Multi-Activity Court at the Rec Center on Sundays from 10 - 11 a.m. Intermediate and advanced lessons take place Mondays in room A from 8 - 10 p.m. The beginner review lessons take place Wednesdays from 8 to 10 p.m., and open dance sessions occur every Monday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Wednesday from 9 - 10 p.m.

To learn more about Wildcat Dancesport visit their website at wildcatdancesport.com or their Facebook page, UADancesport.

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Waltz into something new with Wildcat Dancesport - Arizona Daily Wildcat

Physiology

Franke Program, blending science and humanities, hits the right note – Yale News

Ambre Dromgoole and Davis Butner are hitting their scholarly stride in the sweet spot between art and science.

Their projects are quite different from each other. Dromgoole, a third-year doctoral student in religious studies and African American studies, is rediscovering a black female composer who was missing from the historical record. Butner, who earned a masters degree in architecture last year, is mapping the sounds of the sacred architecture of different faiths.

They do have one important thing in common. Theyre both bolstered by Yales Franke Program in Science and the Humanities.

Created as a launchpad for interdisciplinary projects, the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities is a Yale initiative that both lessens the isolation of academic specialization and encourages boundary-breaking projects.

We are creating an expanded community of interdisciplinary scholars across academic stages, said Priyamvada Natarajan, the Yale professor of astronomy and physics who directs the program. The radical, transformative ideas that will reshape and impact the world will come out of cross-disciplinary engagement. Our goal is to foster collaborations that will inspire creative thinkers at Yale who will leverage these new strengths to make breakthroughs.

Mapping and Knowing is the broader theme of the program, which annually supports highly imaginative projects by 15 undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows senior Alexis Hopkins analysis of mental illness within slave populations, for example, and senior Addison Lucks study of how law and environmental policy intersect in Ecuador.

Graduate student Mary Yap is using photography and drone videos to look at urbanization across Southeast Asia and Scandinavia. Another graduate student, Luna Zagorac, is creating a diagram of the ancient Egyptian heavens. Postdoctoral fellow David Merritt Johns is conducting a historical analysis of the cultural and scientific debate over elevated salt consumption.

The problems and challenges we face today are exceedingly complex and will require new approaches to tackle them, Natarajan said. Cross-fertilization of ideas developed in one discipline, applied to another, are clearly strategies needed to make advances. This requires us to boldly venture beyond our intellectual silos.

Dromgooles Franke Program project started in a taxi.

She was on her way to an academic symposium in Texas in 2017, sharing a cab with a documentary filmmaker named Jerry Zolten. During the ride, Zolten mentioned a long-abandoned project of his own: an interview with a gospel music songwriter named Roxie Ann Moore, who had since died.

Dromgoole said she immediately felt an emotional and scholarly tug. Just from Zoltens brief description, Moore sounded like so many of the talented choir directors and gospel singers Dromgoole had known while growing up in Nashville, Tennessee.

Moore was an innovative composer and guitarist who collaborated with such luminaries as Count Basie and the Dixie Hummingbirds, but often didnt get a songwriting credit for her compositions. Her songs included Love Your Fellowman, Jesus He Looked on Me, and It Wont Be Long.

Fortunately, Moore kept a trove of letters, diaries, interviews, and other documents detailing her work from 1935 until her death in 2012.

She saved copies of every letter she ever wrote, Dromgoole said. There is a deep kind of hope in that. She may have been viewed as insignificant by society at large, but she was still trying to show the importance of her work even if no one ever came along later, looking for her.

Dromgoole applied for a Franke Fellowship in 2018. By then she had a mountain of material about Moore to sift through and evaluate. She said other students and faculty mentors in the Franke Program whose expertise range from applied physics and computer science to history and comparative literature offered insights and suggested scientific tools to help her corral the data effectively. She also studied vocal physiology and pedagogy to gain a better understanding of how voice and vocal timbre are produced.

Music analysis is a science, she said. Im doing in-depth musical analysis of chord structures.

Dromgoole said Moores compositions perfectly reflect the influence of other musical genres in gospels formative years. Moore had listened to ragtime music when she was a child; she became friends with rock/gospel pioneer Rosetta Tharpe when they were both teenagers. Moore later said gospel and blues music sounded similar to her.

These cross-genre collaborations are all the more significant given Moores involvement in the Black Holiness-Pentecostal tradition, known for its strict doctrinal delineations between sacred and secular, Dromgoole said.

The project has become Dromgooles dissertation subject. She said Moores life and work offer a window into important aspects of African American culture and American religious history in the 20th century. Dromgoole plans to create a digital archive of Moores documents.

Shes been overlooked for far too long, she said.

While Dromgoole was re-establishing the relevance of a singular 20th-century gospel composer, Butner was busy mapping the sounds that fill religious buildings across the globe.

His project, Sounding Sacred, looks at the how the architectural and acoustic characteristics of temples, mosques, churches, and other religious buildings reflect the specific ways those buildings are used. The survey project includes churches in New Haven, synagogues in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, koothambalams in India, and mosques in Turkey.

For instance, Butner said, in analyzing the wooden Pogost monasteries of Northern Russia, he found that their highly ornamented exteriors masked strikingly intimate interiors and dampened acoustical properties reinforcing the collective choral techniques practiced there. Closer to home, Butner led a performance tour featuring Yales Schola Cantorum, New Havens Trinity Church on the Green, St. Thomas More Cathedral, and Christ Church, to demonstrate acoustical properties and aural techniques tailored to each worship space.

Its a project that looks at the indescribable nature of sound and how that sound plays into religious spaces, said Butner, who is continuing his Franke project while participating in a Luce Fellowship in Asia this year.

Sounding Sacred includes 40 religious buildings, representing four faith groups. It also includes animated, 3D visualizations of the way sound moved through some of the structures.

I had never done curation of this kind before, Butner said. The ways one can archive and document material are wide-ranging. The Franke Program made it easy to collaborate with scholars in other fields and get feedback.

As Butner and Dromgooles projects near completion, a new batch of Franke Program projects will soon commence. The application deadline for undergraduate fellowships is March 6 (the deadline for graduate and postdoctoral researchers is Aug. 1). Details for applying can be found at the Franke Program website.

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Franke Program, blending science and humanities, hits the right note - Yale News

Physiology

Increasing numbers of people are in pain. How do we cope? – Big Think

Pain is one of the most confusing aspects of human physiology. From an evolutionary perspective, pain is either a signal that something is wrong (broken bone; stomachache) or a cautionary tale informing us to not repeat an activity (touching a hot stove). Pain often resolves when the noxious stimulus is removedthe form of pain related to tissue damage. Then we enter the world of emotional pain, which itself is intimately related to physical pain.

Let's begin with the physical. You stub your toe, immediately sending a signal up your spinal cord to your frontal anterior cingular cortex (ACC), which assess the meaning of this pain. The ACC plays an important role in error detection, noting the distance between what you expected (you were walking to the bathroom) and what occurred (your foot caught the edge of your bed frame because you were staring at your phone). Tissue damage has indeed occurred. It hurts.

An interesting study placed subjects in a brain scanner tossing a ball with two other (virtual) people. After a while, those players decide to stop throwing to you. You've been outcast and the rejection stings. Your ACC activates. As Robert Sapolsky writes, "as far those neurons in the ACC are concerned, social and literal pain are the same."

The ACC activates when you get an electric shock. Incredibly, if you watch a friend get shocked, the same region fires. We call this empathy, the ability to perceive what another is feeling, yet this goes a step further: you actually feel their pain. Sapolsky notes that both dread and depression can be physically felt. Research has shown that ibuprofen alleviates emotional pain as well (in women, at least).

Pain management is one of the hardest aspects of medicine. Diagnosing disease from the perspective of pain alone is challenging. When I broke my femur the emergency room doctor knew exactly what had happened. Yet how many different ailments begin with a stomachache or a headache?

Then there's our relationship to pain. We live in the most comfortable age in the history of our species. We're also under the illusion that a pill can dissolve pain, be it physical or emotional, by blocking neurotransmission of specific chemicals. Pain alleviation is a great feature of modern medicine, yet when you create a society expectant of constant relief you cheat its citizens from important lessons about the nature of physiology. Many of our pain relief efforts, from antidepressants to aspirin, are driven by profit maximization, not compassion.

While a number of techniques for alleviating pain exist, without an honest and open discussion about the nature of pain people find their own methods. A new study published in the journal Emotion has found that the intentional onset of physical pain (cutting, for example) helps people deal with emotional distress. It also clues us in to the conceptual world of pain.

Ashley Doukas at NYU Langone Health conducted this research after she studied body-based coping mechanisms such as deep breathing and smiling. The clinical instructor says,

"I became interested in the topic of pain because a great deal of the literature on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) indicates that one reason people engage in self-injurious behavior is to regulate extreme emotional states."

Doukas noticed that even healthy controls felt better emotionally after experiencing physical pain. It's hard for your brain to focus on two forms of pain simultaneously. On top of this is hormesis, an internal form of vaccination: a little bit of a toxin makes you stronger. In exercise studies, this is similar to purposefully tearing your muscles after lifting weights, a process that ultimately makes them stronger. The neurological reaction runs parallel: while you struggle with increasing loads during workouts, you feel better for hours after (if not a bit sore).

Nick Kyrgios of Australia feels the pain during his fourth round match against Rafael Nadal of Spain on day eight of the 2020 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 27, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia.

Photo by James D. Morgan/Getty Images

For the study, Doukas and team recruited 60 test subjects to look at upsetting images. They were then provided with four methods of coping, two cognitive and two physical. The cognitive methods were distracting yourself with another thought or mentally changing the meaning of the image. As for physical means, subjects could self-administer an electric shock, either painful or painless.

Over the course of 16 trials, two-thirds (67.5 percent) of volunteers self-administered at least one painful electric shock. The average was two per person, with 13 being at the high end. Doukas hopes that this information helps to de-stigmatize those who purposefully engage in painful behavior to deal with emotional duress.

"While of course we do not want people to put themselves at risk for infection or accidental death, the fact is that human beings use pain to manage their emotions all the time think of an intense massage to relax, and putting extra hot sauce on tacos to make them more intense and enjoyable. While the injurious aspect of NSSI can be alarming to many, the infliction of pain on oneself may not be inherently pathological, and may actually be making good use of some basic biological responses to pain, such as endorphins."

We often discuss the brain-body connection as if they're separate domains. We can actually witness the workings of that connection in the form of our nervous system. Everyone recognizes that injury can lead to depression while heartache can result in the manifestation of physical disease. If cutting seems a strange choice for dealing with stress or anxiety, remember that for roughly 2,000 years bloodletting was the go-to by doctors for a variety of ailments.

This is not a call for sanctioned cutting. We know that in most cases draining blood from your body is the opposite of healing. Yet we're also aware that the distance between physical and emotional pain is not far. Creating a holistic pain management paradigm moving forward would be in our best interests. While some region-specific remedies are important, epidemics such as with opioids, depression, and obesity show that we are not managing pain well.

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Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook. His next book is Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy.

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Physiology

Purdue-affiliated Health Tech firm Receives $500000 to Advance AI Innovations – Inside INdiana Business

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Wednesday, January 29th 2020, 5:23 PM EST

PhysIQ, founded by Purdue alumnus Gary Conkright, received a $500,000 investment from Purdue Research Foundations Foundry Investment Fund. (photo provided)

WEST LAFAYETTE - An artificial intelligence firm specializing in the life sciences just received a $500,000 investment from Purdue Research Foundations Foundry Investment Fund.

PhysIQ is a Purdue-affiliated company founded by Gary Conkright, a graduate in Purdues College of Engineering.

Conkright develops solutions to improve health care outcomes by applying AI to real-time physiological data from wearable sensors.

The Foundations support will help us continue to lead the way in changing how health care is developed and delivered through FDA-cleared physiology analytics, said Conkright.

Established in 2014, the Foundry Investment Fund is a partnership between Purdue Research Foundation and Cook Medical.

The goal of the fund is to provide capital to life science startups, affiliated with Purdue, to help them transition their ideas to the creation of a viable company.

Gary Conkrights team at physIQ offers a great example of the kinds of technology and products that align perfectly with the goals of the fund, said John Hanak, managing director of Purdue Ventures.

Purdue says the physIQ solution provides pharmaceutical companies data-driven support to demonstrate the efficacy of their products using real-world data.

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Purdue-affiliated Health Tech firm Receives $500000 to Advance AI Innovations - Inside INdiana Business

Physiology

Upcoming One Health Conference hopes to inspire interconnectivity – UConn Daily Campus

Students for One Health hopes their upcoming conference will inspire University of Connecticut students and faculty to adapt and create a healthier world, MadisonBritting, co-conference director and sixth-semester physiology and neurobiology major, said.

The One Health conference will be taking place Saturday Feb. 8 from 10a.m.4p.m.on the third floor of the Student Union, Murphy Kenny, co-conference director and sixth-semesterphysiology and neurobiology major,said. Themain topic of discussion will be explaining the philosophy of One Health, along with worldwide issues and possible solutions.

One Health is the idea that human, environmentand animal health are all interconnected and affect one another, Murphy said. If one suffers, they all suffer.

There will be two guest speakers,Brittingsaid. The first speaker is Rob Werner, the New Hampshire State Director for the League of Conservation Voters and Energy and Environment Advisory committee member on the Concord City Council. The second speaker isDr. SandraBushmich, theassociate dean of academic programs for theCollege of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources.

[Werner] will be talking about climate change impacts, public health and the benefits of transitioning to a clean energy economy at 10:30 a.m.,Brittingsaid. [Bushmich]will be talking about a One Health view of tick-borne diseases in Connecticut at 2:30 p.m.

In addition to the guest speakers,there will be four workshops throughout the day, Kenny said. These workshops include a DIY pick-your-scent laundry detergent, recycling games, flower potdecorating and a Solutions Room. She said that these workshops will help provide easy solutions thathelp create a healthier planet.

Brittingsaid that the DIY laundry detergent workshop highlights the idea that everyday products that appear harmless arent quite as they seem.

For the DIY laundry detergent workshop,students will be provided the ingredients and a recycled jar to make laundry detergent that is safer for the environment, animals, and us,Brittingsaid. Regular store-bought laundry detergent has harmful chemicals that can cause health problems, dont biodegradeand contaminate our watersupplies, rivers and oceans,creating algal blooms that can starve fish and plants from oxygen.

There will be an ongoing art project that attendees can help decorate, Kenny said. It will be placed in the CAHNR building after the event.

From 12:30 p.m. to2:30 p.m., therewill be student organizations and research teams presenting their particular niche of One Health,Brittingsaid.

This will provide a space for conference attendees to explore on their own and possibly spark a new interest in a One Health-related field, she said.

BothBrittingand Murphy encourage all undergraduates, graduates and faculty to attend this free event.Brittingsaid she hopes the conference will make an impact.

This very important ideology is popular in countries throughout the world, but has not taken off in the United States yet, so we are hoping this conference will spread the word,Brittingsaid.

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Upcoming One Health Conference hopes to inspire interconnectivity - UConn Daily Campus