Friday, January 15, 2010

“Survivors face aftermath isolated, alone - San Francisco Chronicle” plus 4 more

“Survivors face aftermath isolated, alone - San Francisco Chronicle” plus 4 more

Survivors face aftermath isolated, alone - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 07:54 AM PST

Sima, a high school biology teacher, jumped onto his bicycle and peddled the 9 miles from his home to the wrecked building. He wanted to offer the only tool he had: his hands.

All day Thursday, Sima and a handful of other volunteers using small, dull saws and broken windowpanes were the only rescuers searching for dozens of missing students and teachers at St. Gerard's Technical School in Port-au-Prince. Eventually, a volunteer turned up with a dump truck and a student's relative came with a generator for a drill.

"It's the families of the victims - it's not the government," said Sima, 32, whose cousin, Louis Larosilihre, had founded the college. "For us, the government doesn't exist at all."

Bodies were piled on street corners, and residents stepped past quickly, holding limes to their noses to block the stench. Family members were moving their dead across the city in coffins borne on shoulders. One man ferried a body down a street in a wheelbarrow. A crew of men with shirts wrapped around their faces lurched down the block in a converted school bus stacked with corpses.

At a partially collapsed funeral home, the open carport held 20 bodies, some of them children. Just outside the chaotic General Hospital was an especially gruesome pile of corpses, bloated from the sun.

"We are all alone. We don't have any contact with anyone. No phones. No help. We beg for the Americans to come help us. Look at us!" said Jules Hector, an elderly man helping a neighbor, Pauline Paul, who was being carried to the hospital on a broken door.

On St. Martin Street in central Port-au-Prince, men chipped at the heap of sagging concrete that was once a Methodist church and school. The percussion of their blows could not drown out Exellent Fontus' wails.

"My mother is in there!" she cried. "My mother is dying."

Fontus stamped her feet and flapped her arms. She sobbed, and no amount of consoling could calm her. Her mother, Issionese Fontus, had gone to the little teal-trimmed church for a Bible reading session. It took her daughter a full day to pick through the debris-strewn streets to reach the church, where she fears her mother will be entombed.

"No one could have survived this," a man said as he plunged back into the concrete pile.

Tens of thousands of people were erecting tents of sheets on any piece of open ground. Markets were closed, and it was hard to purchase either food or water.

In the park across the street from the wrecked National Palace, Haiti's equivalent of the White House, a refugee camp grew. Playground equipment became makeshift dwellings. Men and women who had lost almost everything strung blankets over slides and monkey bars, then squatted in place, lest someone swipe their tiny spots.

Mivesa Antoine huddled with three sons - ages 3, 5 and 10 - and what was now the sum total of his worldly possessions: one plate, one spoon, one cup and half a bag of rice.

"I was a businessman. I sold sodas," Antoine said. "Now I have nothing."

Almost no one, it seemed, was spared tragedy. Sima, the small and balding teacher, had barely escaped with his wife and five children as their house tumbled down in the quake. Then he heard on the radio about the collapse of St. Gerard's, his 60-year-old cousin's school. "He was like a father to me," Sima muttered.

Arriving at the school, Sima found eight floors pancaked into five, a dusty white mountain of rubble. The body of a man in a golf shirt hung out from the ruined building, his hand extended - as though showing off his gold wedding band.

About 20 men began picking at the debris. But hours later, they were still getting nowhere.

Sima turned angrily to a crowd of gawkers.

"Come help! Do not talk! Talk is cheap! Help!" he screamed.

Suddenly, one of the brightly painted public buses known as tap-taps pulled up, hired by a student's family. "Here's a generator!" a man in the crowd cried.

Through hours of digging, there was only one sign of officialdom. At about 2 p.m., a Haitian government official - known as a civic action monitor - appeared.

"If you have a pickup truck, bring the bodies to the General Hospital," the bureaucrat, Lamour Jean Guyto, called through a bullhorn, referring to a dozen corpses lying on the street near the school. He then walked past the bodies - a St. Gerard's student, a woman wrapped in a sheet printed with dragon cartoons, a naked baby boy covered with flies.

This article appeared on page A - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Parasitic Wasp Genome Released - Redorbit.com

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 06:06 AM PST

Posted on: Friday, 15 January 2010, 09:10 EST | Related Video

Parasitic wasps kill pest insects, but their existence is largely unknown to the public. Now, scientists led by John H. Werren, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, and Stephen Richards at the Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine have sequenced the genomes of three parasitoid wasp species, revealing many features that could be useful to pest control and medicine, and to enhance our understanding of genetics and evolution. The study appears in the Jan. 15 issue of Science.

"Parasitic wasps attack and kill pest insects, but many of them are smaller than the head of a pin, so people don't even notice them or know of their important role in keeping pest numbers down," says Werren. "There are over 600,000 species of these amazing critters, and we owe them a lot. If it weren't for parasitoids and other natural enemies, we would be knee-deep in pest insects."

Parasitoid wasps are like "smart bombs" that seek out and kill only specific kinds of insects, says Werren. "Therefore, if we can harness their full potential, they would be vastly preferable to chemical pesticides, which broadly kill or poison many organisms in the environment, including us."

The three wasp genomes Werren and Richards sequenced are in the wasp genus Nasonia, which is considered the "lab rat" of parasitoid insects. Among the future applications of the Nasonia genomes that could be of use in pest control is identification of genes that determine which insects a parasitoid will attack, identification of dietary needs of parasitoids to assist in economical, large-scale rearing of parasitoids, and identification of parasitoid venoms that could be used in pest control. Because parasitoid venoms manipulate cell physiology in diverse ways, they also may provide an unexpected source for new drug development.

In addition to being useful for controlling pests and offering promising venoms, the wasps could act as a new genetic system with a number of unique advantages. Fruit flies have been the standard model for genetic studies for decades, largely because they are small, can be grown easily in a laboratory, and reproduce quickly. Nasonia share these traits, but male Nasonia have only one set of chromosomes, instead of two sets like fruit flies and people. "A single set of chromosomes, which is more commonly found in lower single-celled organisms such as yeast, is a handy genetic tool, particularly for studying how genes interact with each other," says Werren. Unlike fruit flies, these wasps also modify their DNA in ways similar to humans and other vertebrates—a process called "methylation," which plays an important role in regulating how genes are turned on and off during development.

"In human genetics we are trying to understand the genetic basis for quantitative differences between people such as height, drug interactions and susceptibility to disease," says Richards. "These genome sequences combined with haploid-diploid genetics of Nasonia allow us to cheaply and easily answer these important questions in an insect system, and then follow up any insights in humans."

The wasps have an additional advantage in that closely related species of Nasonia can be cross-bred, facilitating the identification of genes involved in species' differences. "Because we have sequenced the genomes of three closely related species, we are able to study what changes have occurred during the divergence of these species from one another," says Werren. "One of the interesting findings is that DNA of mitochondria, a small organelle that 'powers' the cell in organisms as diverse as yeast and people, evolves very fast in Nasonia. Because of this, the genes of the cell's nucleus that encode proteins for the mitochondria must also evolve quickly to 'keep up.' " It is these co-adapting gene sets that appear to cause problems in hybrids when the species mate with each other. Research groups are now busy trying to figure out what specific kinds of interactions go wrong in the hybrid offspring. Since mitochondria are involved in a number of human diseases, as well as fertility and aging, the rapidly evolving mitochondria of Nasonia and coadapting nuclear genes could be useful research tools to investigate these processes.

A second startling discovery is that Nasonia has been picking up and using genes from bacteria and Pox viruses (e.g. relatives of the human smallpox virus). "We don't yet know what these genes are doing in Nasonia," says Werren, "but the acquisition of genes from bacteria and viruses could be an important mechanism for evolutionary innovation in animals, and this is a striking potential example."

A companion paper to the Science study, published today in PLoS Genetics, reports the first identification of the DNA responsible for a quantitative trait gene in Nasonia, and heralds Nasonia joining the ranks of model genetic systems. The study reveals that changes in "non-coding DNA," the portion that does not make proteins but can regulate expression of genes, causes a large developmental difference between closely related species of Nasonia. This finding relates to an important ongoing controversy in evolution – whether differences between species are due mostly to protein changes or regulatory changes. "Emerging from these genome studies are a lot of opportunities for exploiting Nasonia in topics ranging from pest control to medicine, genetics, and evolution," says Werren. "However, the community of scientists working on Nasonia is still relatively small. That is why we are hoping that more scientists will see the utility of these insects, and join in efforts to exploit their potential."

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Image 1: Nasonia female. Credit: Michael E. Clark/University of Rochester

Image 2: Chris Desjarding and Jack Werren compare parasitic wasps (tiny insects in upper tube) to their hosts flies ( in the lower tube). Credit: University of Rochester

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Biology project saves life of Fort Worth ISD teacher’s daughter - Pegasus News

Posted: 11 Jan 2010 11:55 AM PST

by PegNews wire

A student chose to write about diabetes for his science project. When his teacher proofread his paper, she realized her daughter Hope was experiencing those same symptoms.

Lori Roque enjoys teaching -- especially since one of her students inadvertently saved the life of Roque's 14 year old daughter, Hope.

"I had given my Honors Biology students a research assignment on a disease that effects multiple organ systems," said Roque. "So the kids wouldn't procrastinate, I made them submit an outline or summary of their research by Friday, Dec. 18."

On the Sunday before Christmas as Roque was reading the outlines, she found one describing symptoms being experienced by her daughter. After reading it to her husband, they decided to take Hope to the doctor.

"At the doctor's office, I told them that I wanted to have her tested for diabetes. After doing some tests, the doctor told us to take her to the Cook Children's Hospital emergency room right away. My daughter had Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes and it was approaching a life-threatening stage."

Hope remained in the hospital until Christmas Day afternoon. Because her body had stopped producing insulin Hope was "metabolically starving to death." Fortunately, she can regulate her diabetes with supplemental insulin now.

"The doctor told me I 'owed' a consultation fee to the student who wrote the project outline I had read. Jokingly, I agreed and he said, 'No, really. This was very serious.'"

As for the biology student, he had no idea what had happened. A mundane and insignificant homework assignment turned out to be life-changing.

"While the diagnosis was not good news, I realize that without it we might not have realized what was going on until it was too late," said Roque. "I thank God that I decided to teach, that the student turned in his assignment on time, and that the T-MATE program helped me become a teacher at Southwest where he would be in my class!"

Lori Roque is a product of the TMATE-FWISD program. TMATE stands for Tarleton Model for Accelerated Teacher Education. The program is a collaboration between Fort Worth ISD and Tarleton State University. TMATE, which began in Fort Worth ISD in 2001, is specially designed for adults who have previously earned their bachelor's degree and who now seek to make a career transition into teaching. Once hired, they continue coursework and testing during their first year of teaching. After passing all required certification exams and successful completion of one year of teaching, they become fully certified.

Source: Fort Worth ISD

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Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society Selects Richard ... - Yahoo Finance

Posted: 12 Jan 2010 03:54 AM PST

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Richard N. Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University has been selected to receive the 2010 Theodore William Richards (TWR) Medal for Conspicuous Achievement in Chemistry from the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS). The Richards Medal, named for the first Nobel laureate in Chemistry from the United States, is the Section's oldest and most prestigious award.

Professor Zare is being honored for his development of sensitive optical techniques for chemical analysis. According to Dr. Roy Gordon, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University and Chair of the Richards Medal Selection Committee, the Selection Committee recognized that Zare's techniques "have been applied to many different disciplines, from studies of fundamental chemical reactions, to chemical analysis of compartments within a cell, to the chemical analysis of heterogeneous features in particulates and meteorites; spanning the disciplines of chemistry, biology, and astrophysics. In each case, his work inspires us to understand how the chemical analysis of nanoenvironments can reveal hidden worlds that inform us deeply about large questions – from the nature of life within a cell to the origin of the solar system as it relates to the composition of the interstellar medium. Through Zare's pioneering and fundamental advances, the world of the ultra small is being opened for study by the scientific community."

Professor Zare joined the Stanford University Department of Chemistry in 1977. Prior to joining Stanford University, Professor Zare was an assistant professor at MIT (1965), and a professor at the University of Colorado (1966) and Columbia University (1969). He earned a B. A. in chemistry and physics (1961) and a Ph. D. in chemical physics (1964), both from Harvard University. He is the recipient of multiple honors and awards for teaching and for his work in chemistry, including, most recently, the 2010 Priestly Medal, to be given by the American Chemical Society this spring.

Professor Zare will receive the Richards Medal Award during ceremonies at Harvard University on Thursday, March 4, 2010. The evening will include dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club, followed by the award presentation and a lecture, entitled "Theodore W. Richards Redux: Determining Isotope Ratios without Mass Spectrometers," given by Dr. Zare in the Pfizer Lecture Hall.

For further information about the Richards Award contact Professor Roy Gordon, at gordon@chemistry.harvard.edu or +1. 617.495.4017. Additional details will be forthcoming on the NESACS website.

The Northeastern Section of the ACS, which has nearly 7000 members, sponsors a number of awards, travel grants and scholarships to honor professional chemists. NESACS holds more than ten meetings per year, open to the public, around the Boston area. More information can be found at our website, www.nesacs.org. For press inquiries about NESACS, contact Leland L. Johnson, Jr., chair of Public Relations, at ljohnson@creagenbio.com, public.relations@nesacs.org, or +1.781.938.1122, ext. 115.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 154,000 members, the ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Students remember 'Bio Bob' Collins - Port Huron Times-Herald

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 07:32 AM PST

When retired St. Clair County Community College Professor Robert "Bio Bob" Collins died Jan. 4, he left behind a legacy of educators.

Biology Professor David Sheldon said Collins, 69, of Dexter was one of his best friends. Sheldon said the years he spent working with Collins at the college were a direct result of the time he had spent in Collins' class in 1984.

"He lived biology. He kind of taught me to do the same. ... I would not be teaching biology if I hadn't taken his class at SC4," Sheldon said.

Collins, who began at the college in 1965, tried to make students feel comfortable in the classroom, teaching his lessons like discussions, Sheldon said.

"It might be my classroom, but it's also their classroom," Sheldon said, sharing a philosophy he took from Collins.

Collins retired in 2005, just a couple of years after Kyle Whymer said he took as many of Collins's classes as possible.

"I like the way he presented the material," Whymer said. "He made biology interesting to me. He had botany and zoology (classes), too."

Collins was the biggest influence in Whymer's decision to become a science teacher, a position he now holds at Landmark Academy in Kimball Township.

"I was very undecided when I went into college, then he cemented it. If I was going to teach something, (biology) was what I was going to teach," Whymer said.

One thing Whymer remembers about Collins' botany class was time outdoors, identifying plants.

Collins was well-known for his love of nature. He went "birding" -- bird identifying -- year round, bringing other instructors with him. While others shivered uncontrollably, Collins held his binoculars steady, Sheldon said.

Few topics made Collins lose his usual calm demeanor, but among them were wetlands preservation, environmental degredation and higher education.

In his classroom, all three could be related.

"I think he knew one person is going to have a very small role in trying to slow population growth or slow increasing levels of pollutants, but if he could get his students to understand why that's not good for nature ... one by one by one (they may) go out and reduce their (environmental) impact," Sheldon said.

"From the first day I sat in his class as a student to the last day I birded with him, I learned every single day. ... I'd like to think he lives on a little bit in the teaching I do."

Collins is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and several children and grandchildren.

Memorial donations can be made in his name to the Blue Water Audubon Society, c/o Robert Haas, 7820 Graham Road, Grant Township, MI 48032.

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