berkeley science review - spring 2002

8/6/2019 Berkeley Science Review - Spring 2002

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BERKELEY

science

reviewSpring 2002 Vol.2 no.1


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FROMTHE EDITORBERKELEYsciencereviewEDITORINCHIEF

Eran Karmon

MANAGINGEDITOR

Temina Madon

ARTDIRECTOR

Una Ren

CONTENTEDITOR

Jessica Palmer

CURRENTBRIEFSEDITOR

Heidi Ledford

COPY EDITOR

Donna Sy

EDITORS

Joel KamnitzerColin McCormick

Jane McGonigalTeddy Varno

ARTAND LAYOUT

Aaron Golub

Dan HandwerkerJinjer Larson

Merek Siu

WEBMASTER

Tony Wilson

SPECIALTHANKS

David PerlmanCharles Petit

PRINTER

Fricke-Parks Inc.2002 Berkeley Science Review. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without express permission of the publishers. Publishedwith financial assistance from the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley, the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly, the Associated Students of the University of California,

and the UC Berkeley Chancellors Publication Committee. Berkeley Science Review is not an official publication of the University of California, Berkeley, or the ASUC. The contentin this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the University or the ASUC. *Dollars will be paid in BSR Fun Cash, which is useless.

Dear Readers,

A lots been happening at the BSR. For one, weve fully quintupled our circulation for

Issue 2, up to a healthy 5000. Weve also added two new sections to the magazine.

Turn to Labscope (p. 4) for a lively look at recent Cal-produced breakthroughs, and read

through Biotech Beat (p. 6) for high points of the Bay Area biotechnology industry. Plus,

weve broken new journalistic ground by printing an actual picture of someone actu-

ally naked on the actual South Pole (The Back Page).

Your old favorites are here, too. Probable lunatic Alan Moses is back with his LastAngry Man column (p. 37), this time settling for good any debate over the definition of

Life. And Aaron Pierce has written a wonderful feature (p. 18) about how $350 mil-

lion and a mile-and-a-half deep hole in the ground may tell us how the Sun shines.

The BSR is about bringing science to the public in a way thats understandable and

exciting. Because science is, well, generally pretty exciting. We know it is, because all

of us are active members of Berkeleys research community. Were graduate students

in the sciences, engineering, math, and the humanitiesand the BSR is what we do in

our spare time, because we think people outside the sciences and even outside Berke-

ley should know about what Berkeley researchers do.

Come be part of the BSR. Visit us on the web at http:/ / sciencereview.berkeley.edu to

find out how to become a contributing writer, editor, or designer for what my mom

has called the greatest magazine of the new millennium. Were always looking for

shockingly well written and compelling stories or a spare hand at the Mac when layout

time comes. So come on, tell the world about all the great research that comes out of

Cal. I will give you a dollar.*

All the best,

Eran Karmon


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Features

28 Science IllustratedTraining artists to bring

complex concepts into

living color. By Jessica Palmer and Una Ren

Hunting down the elusive

solar neutrino.

18 The Ghost in the Sun

By Aaron Pierce

BSR Vol. 2 No. 1

BERKELEYscience

review


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Departments

On the cover:

4 Labscope

Controlling computers via aglove interface.

Stamping out tuberculosis in African buffalo.

A silicon Campanile.

Drawing with electrons.

6 Biotech BeatWhats happening in Bay Area

biotech (sorry, no job postings).

17 Book ReviewAnnie Alexander and the UC museums.

27 Weird ScienceKen and Barbie meet Godzilla.

Bacteria that band together.

BSRExclusive:Big ole naked guy on the South Pole!

The Back Page

12 Spin Doctors

The University

W hy more and more Berkeley professors

are splitting time between the lab and the

boardroom.

Perspective

37 Life: Wanted Dead or AliveIs a goldfish alive? W hat about a tub of

margarine? Alan Moses sorts it out.

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

40 Quanta (heard on campus)

Current Briefs

7 Telling Stories

Why do autistic children have troubledescribing emotions?

Modeling the corneas topographymay lead to improved contact lenses.

8 Correcting Keratoconus

Even in cyberspace, geography

matters.

9 Mapping the Net

Shrinking software for networkeddevices.

10 Tiny OS


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Labscope

ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER

GESUNDHEIT

BERKELEYscience 4r e v i e w

A group led by physics professor Joel Fajans is pioneering ways to trap groups of pure electrons (called electron plasmas) usinmagnetic and electric fields. While previous researchers have generated their electrons by heating pieces of tungsten meta

Fajans uses a photocathode material that emits electrons when exposed to light. By carefully controlling the pattern of lig

exposure, his group can organize emitted electrons into highly complex patterns. The patterns are allowed to evolve for a tim

and are then imaged by a CCD camera on a phosphor screen. Aside from improving techniques for the control of charg

plasmas, this research has led to a better understanding of the flow of two-dimensional fluids, including the behavior of Jupiter

Great Red Spot. Learn more at http:/ / socrates.berkeley.edu/ ~ fajans.

Colin McCormick

Researchers at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center are developing computer control systems small enough to fit on fingernail. Graduate students Seth Hollar, John Perng and Brian Fisher have designed a glove that translates hand gestures in

computer-recognizable symbols. Although the glove is much larger than the 1 mm device the team ultimately hopes to creat

it proves that the technology for a tiny virtual keyboard works. Electronic chips called accelerometers are placed on each fing

of the glove to measure the force and direction of movement of the users hand. These signals are digitized and transmitted to th

computer, which uses special software to match a movement to its database of gestures. In addition to paving the way for th

advent of fingernail-sized digital controllers, the researchers say that potential applications of their glove include virtual music

instruments and American Sign Language interpreters.

Jane McGonigal

Nearly 87 years after its completion, Elliot Hui has figured out how to make the Campanile fifty-two thousand times smaller

Hui, a graduate student in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a researcher at the Berkele

Sensor and Actuator Research Center, has built a miniscule model of Sather Tower to demonstrate a new technique for assem

bling three-dimensional silicon microstructures. The structures are designed to initially lie flat. Then with a single push of a tin

probe, the pieces rise up and precisely arrange themselves, much like the pages in a childs pop-up book. Part of the finisheCampanile is shown at right, standing an impressive 1.8 millimeters tall.

Joshua Garret SILICON POP-UP BOOKS

Bovine tuberculosis (BTB) is raging among Cape buffalo in South Africas Kruger National Park. Berkeley researchers led b

Professor Wayne M. Getz of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management are investigating strategies f

containing the disease. While seemingly benign to its buffalo hosts, BTB is transmissible and harmful to other animals. Pred

tors, particularly lions, are being killed by the pathogen after eating infected buffalo carcasses. Plans for controlling the epidem

have ranged from killing all infected buffalo to building a large fence across the New Jersey-sized preserve. Getzs team is usinmethods from epidemiology, field ecology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), microbiology, mathematical modeling, an

statistics to understand the important ecological processes behind disease spread and to assess possible management plans.

Heidi Ledford

DESIGNER ELECTRONS

Eran Karmon

W RAPPED AROUND YOUR LITTLE FINGER

David Zusmans lab in the department of Molecular and Cell Biology is studying a species of bacteria that really knows how tstick together when times get tough. When food is scarce, tens of thousands ofMyxococcus xanthus cells congregate to form

fruiting body that contains dormant spores capable of surviving the food shortage. Forming a fruiting body is a complex task th

requires extensive communication, movement, and adhesion of cells. To understand how these small bacteria carry out such

monumental task, Zusmans lab has isolated mutant bacteria that are unable to aggregate properly. The lab has found a numb

of gene products that are important for sensing chemical signals in the environment. M. xanthus has nine different signalin

pathways that sense and respond to chemical changes in the environment; the ubiquitous E. coli has only one. By characterizin

these pathways, Zusman and his colleagues are uncovering how these single cells work together to form complex structures.


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Bay Area companies Endocare and Sanarus have developed two new minimally inva

sive breast tumor diagnosis and removal procedures. Sanarus representatives say th

new procedures are less expensive and more reliable than open surgery. Each yea

over a million women require breast biopsies, 80% of which reveal benign tumors

One of the new procedures is for performing breast biopsies, and the other is fo

removing fibroadenomas, the most common form of benign tumor. In the new b

opsy procedure, a small needle is placed into the affected tissue; the tissue is the

stick frozen and removed to check for cancerous growth. The fibroadenoma systemuses cryoablation, a technique in which extremely cold temperatures destroy tissue

to remove benign tumors. Cryoablation has previously been used to treat prostat

cancer. Both new procedures can be performed in the doctors office using only loc

anesthesia, and leave minimal scars.

Be on the lookout for a new, tougher strain of rice. The Plant Sciences division o

genomics-based drug discovery company Exelixis was awarded an NSF grant to iden

tify genes in rice that will boost resistance to stress and disease. Exelixis will use i

gene activation technology to find genes in rice that are responsible for turning on

and turning off physical characteristics of the plant. Development of a new resi

tant strain of rice could improve production of one of the worlds major food crops

A new class of anti-cancer drugs, angiogenesis inhibitors, has proven effective in treatin

kidney cancer. National Cancer Institute trials show that biotech pioneer Genentech

drug Avastin increases survival, or at least slows the progression of the disease. Can

cer cells secrete substances that promote angiogenesis,the formation of new bloo

vessels which deliver oxygen to a rapidly growing mass of tumor cells. Angiogenes

inhibitors like Avastin block this process, thus starving cancer cells of oxygen. Avasti

has also shown positive results in colorectal and breast cancer. It is expected to ente

into phase III clinical trials, the last stage of testing before regulatory approval.

Tough rice

Biotech Beat

Emily Sin ger


New kidney cancer drug

New breast tumor biopsy techniques

HERES W HATS HOT IN BAY AREA BIOTECH


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TELLING STORIES

For some children, storytelling

doesnt always come naturally.

Everyone knows that you can

learn a lot by listening to chil-

dren. But for Molly Losh, the

way a child tells a story reveals much

more than the narrative itself. A

graduate student in UC Berkeleys

Department of Psychology, Losh

investigates the way children tell stories

so that she can learn more about thebasic skills they use to construct

narratives.

Losh focuses on children with autism, a

disorder that prevents normal develop-

ment of social interaction and communi-

cation skills. Narratives occur fre-

quently in everyday life for children,

such as during bedtime stories, telling a

parent about their day at school, andpretend play with peers,she says.

Difficulties producing or comprehend-

ing narratives may severely restrict a

childs ability to engage in social

interactions. Working together with

her UC Berkeley mentor, the late Lisa

Capps, and with UCLA researcher

Christopher Thurber, Losh recently

completed a study showing that

knowledge and communication ofemotional states are key factors in

storytelling. In addition to providing

information about the linguistic and

cognitive aspects of narrative, Losh

believes that these data could give

psychologists new tools for identifying

and meeting the

special needs of

autistic children.

In the study, Losh and

her team worked

with three groups of

children: children

with autism, children

with milder forms ofmental retardation,

and typically-developing children.

Researchers asked the children to look

through the wordless picture-bookFrog

on His Own and then to recount the

frogs escapades. The researchers

analyzed audio and video recordings of

the childrens stories for grammar,

structure, and six categories of narrative

devices, including sound effects(Thefrog went splash!), attention-getters

(WOW! Look at that!), and hedges

(I think the frog got away).

Losh and her fellow researchers

discovered that the most significant

difference among the three groups is in

their ability to explain the characters

emotions. Although all three groups

used words to describe feelings equallyoften, children with autism and mild

retardation gave a reason for identified

emotions only 7% of the time, com-

pared to 25% of the time for typically-

developing children. Instead, children in

the first two groups tended simply to

state the emotions without

mentioning any cause, as if

the feelings had spontane-

ously arisen. Even when

these children mentioned

the underlying reasons foran emotion, they generally

failed to establish a cause-

and-effect relationship

between the two. An the

baby was crying. The frog

was trying to get away.

Losh and her colleagues also

noted that the autistic

children often talked aboutemotions as external

physical expressions rather than internal

states: The frog ate the bug and made

his mouth sad, and Her face looks

mad. Neither of the other two groups

of children exhibited this tendency.

The difficulties in explaining emotional

states were unexpected, because children

with autism did not experience the samedifficulties when explaining cause-and-

effect relationships for actions in the

story. To explore the implications of her

findings, Losh has started a new research

project with very high-functioning

autistic children. Because their overall

language ability is more comparable to

that of typically-developing children,

Losh expects that differences in their

narrative skills will be more clearly theresult of lack of emotional knowledge

rather than to weaker communication

skills in general.

Jane McGoniga l

Current Briefs

Merek Siu/ BSR

Tell me a story. Molly Losh found

that autistic children have trouble

describing emotions.

The frog ate the

bug and madehis mouth sad.


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Brian Barsky has a problem. Like

millions of others, his vision is

not as clear as it should be.

Unlike most peoples vision problems,

though, Barskys stem from a rare

condition called keratoconus.

Keratoconus results in small bumps on

the cornea that distort vision bydisrupting the path of light through the

eye. Because the bumps are irregular,

and their pattern differs from person to

person, the condition is difficult to

treat using standard corrective lenses.

Like many who suffer from keratoco-

nus, Barsky spent years trying on

various standard contact lenses and

spectacles before being told that his

condition could only be treated withcorneal replacement surgery. Unwill-

ing to accept a risky surgery, Barsky, a

professor of computer science at UC

Berkeley, decided to use his computer

graphics expertise to design contact

lenses that could fit the cornea

perfectly, even in the presence of

aberrations like kerataconic bumps.

From Barskys frustration rose theOPTICAL project, an interdisciplinary

effort between the Departments of

Computer Science and the School of

Optometry. For Barsky, the need for a

union between the two departments

was clear. I went to the medical

library, studied books on contact

lenses, and realized that the mathemati-

cal modeling used in contact lens

design was not as sophisticated as the

techniques used in the geometric

modeling community, he says.

The group began by improving the

modeling techniques used in cornealmeasurement devices called

videokeratographs. A videokerato-

graph measures corneal shape by

projecting a ring pattern onto a

patients cornea and taking video

images of the results. The machine uses

a simple algorithm to compute app-

roximate values for the curvature of

the cornea based on the distortion of

the ring pattern in the images acquired.

OPTICAL researchers demonstrated

that current standard algorithms

produce curvature results that change

based on the direction in which the

patient looks during the exam and the

angle of the corneal bump relative to

the camera. According to Barsky, the

discrepancies in curvature values show

that the instruments are flawed and

produce erroneous measurements of

patients corneas.

To improve upon the standard recon-

struction algorithm, Barskys research

group has created a new algorithm

which starts by guessing a shape, like a

simple dome, for the cornea that has

been scanned. This shape is run

through a simulation of the

videokeratograph system and itera-

tively modified until it produces a scanthat matches that of the real cornea.

Using this new surface, the researcher

can calculate highly accurate values for

curvature and other geometric

properties. The corneal models can

also aid ophthalmologists in planning

delicate corneal surgical procedures.

Eventually, the shape models will be

used to create prototype contact lense

that exactly match a patients eyes.

Although he hasnt yet managed to giv

himself perfect vision, Brian Barsky ha

opened a new path for collaborative

research in computer graphics and

optometry. His work has the potentia

to provide improved vision not only to

sufferers of keratoconus, but to anyone

who wears contact lenses.

CORRECTING KERATOCONUSCorneal shape modeling

for contact lens design.

Learn more about the OPTICALproject at:

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

Big Creepy Eye. Raw data taken from

a videokeratograph machine. The distor-tion in the ring pattern is caused by akeratoconic bump on the patients cornea.

courtesy/ Michael Downes

Michael Downes

Current Briefs



10/42

Wherever you go, tyou are. Densitinternet activity in

U.S. is concentratemajor cities (court

Matthew Zook).

In an Internet world

where geographic

boundaries dissolve at

the click of a mouse,

Internet geographer Matthew

Zook is a bit of an oddball.

While most in his field focus on

how the World Wide Web is changing

the global landscape, Zook is intent onproving that physical location still

matters. To address this issue, Zooka

graduate student in UC Berkeleys

Department of City and Regional

Planningcreates maps that test how

closely Internet terrain parallels its

real-world counterpart.

This project arose in response to one

of the great myths of the Internet age,this widespread idea in the mid-1990s

that the Internet was going to bring

about the end of geography or the end

of cities, Zook explains. People made

similar predictions about the tele-phone. So this really was an effort to

provide empirical proof that cities were

in fact a central part of the Internet.

Figuring out how to make the maps

and prove this hypothesis is anything

but obvious.

Assigning geographi-

cal locations to what takes place on the

spaceless Internet is especially

difficult, Zook says. His solution is to

plot WWW domain nameslike

amazon.com and nokia.fion standard

city, state, country, and global maps

based on the postal codes used to

register the names. Zook admits itsnot an ideal method, because his

research shows that a little more than

25% of domain names are actually

registered at a

postal code

other than

where their

activity is

taking place. Nevertheless, he main-

tains that domain names postal codesare the best available indicators for the

location of Internet activity.

So Zook has embarked on a mission to

collect postal codes for millions of dot-

coms, dot-orgs, and dot-nets. Using an

Internet utility program called whois,

Zook strategically gathers sublists of

domain names by requesting the names

of all dot coms starting with a specific

group of letters. For example amaz

returns thousands of results like

amazon.com, amazingrace.com, andamazeyourfriends.com. Once he has a

complete list of names, he uses several

custom-made computer programs to

gather contact information for each

domain. He completed the first round

of data collection in July of 1998, and

now has a full and total account of all

domain names registered through that

date.

Zook uses the data to create maps and

charts of a range of geographical

locations. All of the maps he has made

show that Internet activity is centered

in urban areas. There should be

nothing surprising about this, since

INTERNET GEOGRAPHYIn the digital age,

place still matters.

Cyberspace is actually reinforcing

the dominance of cities.



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From their perch on the 13th

floor of the Power Bar build-

ing next to the Berkeley BART

station, David Culler and his students

are preparing a revolution. Culler

(who is currently on Industrial Leave

from Berkeley to build the new Intel

Research Laboratory @ Berkeley) is a

member of the Endeavour Expedi-tion, a collaborative project within the

Department of Electrical Engineering

and Computer Sciences, whose stated

goal is to achieve nothing less than

radically enhancing human understand-

ing through the use of information

TINY OS

Theres a new kind of radical

in downtown Berkeley.

Jane McGonigal

technology. Cullers role in the

revolution is to network tiny wireless

sensors, enabling applications that

range from monitoring glucose levels

in humans to monitoring weather on

Mars.

Cullers overall mission is to increase

the power and capabilities of networks

of computers while at the same time

shrinking the size of the hardware.

Higher capabilities and smaller size are

what computer technology is headed

towards. If automotive technology

tracked computer technology, cars

today would get 10,000 miles pergallon of gas, theyd move at 20 times

the speed of sound, and they would

also be three inches long, Culler says.

The Endeavour project began in 1998.

Its first goal was developing a mini-

motherboard, with all the basic

hardware components of a regular

computer, sized down to a device

exactly the size of a stack of fourquarters. The hardware was first

developed by a team led by Kris Pister

a professor in the Department of

Electrical Engineering and Computer

Sciences. Originally the size of golf

balls, the devices were brought to

Culler and his team, who wrote the

operating system, known as Tiny OS,

for them.

In addition to a tiny computer chip,

each device has a thermometer and a

photocell that allows it to measure the

temperature and light of the environ-

ment it is placed in. It is also equipped

with a radio, which allows it to

Current Briefs


Change the World. David Culler has teamedup with Intel to create operating systems for

miniscule networked devices.

Merek Siu/ BSR

cities have always been the primary

source of innovation, Zook says. His

results indicate that cyberspace is

actually reinforcing traditional urban

structure, not making it obsolete as so

many have predicted.

For Zook, its important to keep

reminding people that no matter how

virtual our lives become, real places

continue to matter. Although the

power of the Internet does open up

new possibilities for long-range

collaboration and even new spaces of

interaction within cyberspace,Zook

says, it also exhibits much of the

traditional unevenness that has

characterized urban and economic

development throughout history.

There is a much more complicateddynamic involving the connection of

specific places to global networks.

Zook urges us to remember that we are

both place-rooted and networked at

the same time.


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communicate with the other devices in

its system, and a tiny battery. Some of

the Tiny OS devices have even been

designed with solar cells to replace the

batteries.

Creating a Tiny OS for tiny sensors

represents a special challenge. Operat-

ing systems on this scale have to handle

simultaneous input from multiple

sources. They are limited by their small

size and low power availability. And

their design has to be versatile enough

to handle the wide range of potential

applications possible for microsensors.

Some of these problems were ad-dressed through the hardware design in

Pisters lab. Cullers lab dealt with

software problems by creating a

microthreadingoperating system,

which is able to handle multiple levels

of input, allowing short processing

events to be run immediately by briefly

interrupting long running tasks. The

two teams are now collaborating to

find ways to enhance both the effi-ciency of the hardware and the

capabilities of its operating system.

And, of course, they want to make

them even smaller.

Although still in development, Tiny

OS-linked devices have already found a

practical application. Last spring,

during the height of Californias energycrisis, Culler and his team placed a

number of devices inside Berkeleys

Cory Hall to monitor how much power

lighting and temperature control units

were using, and how much of it was

excessive.

Another application that Culler

foresees is monitoring the condition of

structures. For example, Tiny OS

devices could be scattered on the

surface of the Bay Bridge to monitor

how its movements are affected bytraffic, weather, and earthquakes.

Ideally, says Culler, the bridge would be

fitted with millions of the devices,

which would recognize trouble when,

for example, a crack is forming or

when the structure begins to move in

an unusual way.

Just a small part of the Endeavour

project, Culler and Pisters micro-sensors can be used for an enormous

range of applications. Your imagination

can run with it,says Culler. One can

only imagine the impact of the rest of

the project, whose mission statement

claims it will make possible the

enhanced leverage of human activities,

experiences, and intellect.

Learn More:

Intel Research Laboratory @ Berkeley:

http:/ / www.intel-research.net/

berkeley/ index.htm

The Endeavour Expedition:

http:/ / endeavour.cs.berkeley.edu/

April Mo



13/42


Ever wonder what your biology professor does in his

free time? Play tennis? Collect stamps? How about

found a multi-million dollar biotech company?

According to Cherisa Yarkin, director of economic research

and assessment at the Industry-University Cooperative Re-search Program, the

number of California

based biotechnology

firms founded by UC

scientists has dramati-

cally increased over

the last twenty years.

Yarkins r esearch

shows that the number of UC Berkeley faculty founding

biotech companies has increased by nearly a factor of fivesince 1980.

W. Geoffrey Owen, chair of the Department of Molecular

and Cellular Biology, and a founder of the digital imaging

company Viasense, is not surprised that many professors have

decided to start their own companies. Beyond the economic

motivation, he says that many of his colleagues see biotech

as a way of developing potentially revolutionary applica-

tions of new biological knowledge on a scale that would be

impossible within the limitations of an NIH grant.

Owen suggests that moving to biotech after a long and dis-

tinguished career in academia is a natural step for some pro-

fessors. He says that many of the same qualities that are

necessary for success in academic science are important in

founding a company. People who do basic research are

people who love to ask questions and find answers. The

must have a strong belief in their own ideas and a very stron

ego. Professors must be willing to act on their ideas an

able to persuade people to give them money to support thos

ideas. He adds that many professors have worked for year

on a technical issue that may have therapeutic uses. Movininto a company tha

is focused on capital

izing on this knowl

edge is a natura

thing to do.

Jacob Mayfield,

post-doctoral fellow

at UC Berkeley who has had several advisors involved in th

biotech industry, agrees with Owens assessment. Its a goothing for scientists to think of applications for their tech

nologies. Its useful to everyone.

Professors trying their hand at biotech are not without sup

port from the University. There is a significant interdepen

dence between the UC system and biotech that encourage

the flux to flourish. Yarkin says that out of 228 Californi

biotech firms studied, 68% have UC founders. UC Berke

ley makes a particularly strong contribution to Californi

biotech research staff, providing 30% of all PhDs employein the states biotech industry.

Another factor that has helped to foster the exchange be

tween the University and biotechnology industry is the Ba

Areas unique investment environment. Carol Mimura, a

sociate director at UC Berkeleys Office of Technology Li

SPIN DOCTORS

Why more and more professors are spinningbiotech companies off of research.Emily Singer

Biotech is a way of developing potentially

revolutionary applications of new biologicalknowledge on a scale that would be impossible

within the limitations of an NIH grant.

The University


14/42

censing, explains, Venture capitalists came to the Bay Area

to invest in Silicon Valley and then stayed for the next wave.

This easy access to investors has spurred the entrepreneur-

ial spirit. If the infrastructure for funding wasnt there,

these companies never would have been able to get off the

ground. Other institutions, like the University of Michi-gan, have asked Berkeley for advice about expanding their

links to biotechnology, but have been less successful because

they lack the venture community. Mimura also notes that

the biotech community in the Bay Area can be a draw to

prospective faculty, who know they will have consulting op-

portunities available to them.

While the biotechnology industry depends on UC scientists

for staff and ideas to turn a profit, the UC system depends

on industry for some of its funding. Because it owns patentrights to all ideas and technologies invented by its faculty,

the UC system can create revenue by licensing technologies

to private companies for development .

Faculty members who want to be involved in the develop-ment of their products can contact the Office of Tech-BERKELEYscience 13r e v i e w

nology Transfer, which helps campus inventors bring their

technology into the commercial sector by facilitating the

patent process and distributing royalties to the inventors

and UC Berkeley. Mimura says the University will choose

to license an idea to the inventor if the patent needs special

know-how to develop. It is often only the inventor whohas the drive and vision to bring the idea to product. Start-

ups take extraordinary risks in taking nothing and turning

it into something.

The university has taken steps to ensure that professors in-

volved in private ventures do not neglect their academic

duties. Mimura says that an employee of a UC can only

have one full time job. The University doesnt want to

have faculty straddling two commitments. Professors need

to take their teaching jobs seriously. Mimura explains thatthere are several polices in place to ensure a professors pri-

mary commitment is to the University. Following the lead

of the NIH, the University only allows professors to consult

with a company for one calendar day per week. This is moni-

tored at the department level, as faculty must report all

outside commitments to their chair. Mimura says profes-

MCB Chair W. GeoffreyOwen. Moving into a com-

pany that is focused on capi-talizing on this knowledge isa natural thing to do. Merek Siu/ BSR


15/42


The University

Postdoc JacoMayfield. Its good thing for sc

entists to think oapplications fo

their technologiesMerek Siu/ BSR

sors cannot hold full-time outside positions, such as CEO

or chief scientific officer. Ideally they will act as big pic-

ture strategists without any daily responsibilities.

In addition to this UC-wide policy, a conflict of interest com-

mittee exists to monitor and vote on questionable activi-ties, such as when a company gives a gift of money to a lab.

Mimura says, The University has policies in place, but also

relies on the integrity of the faculty until shown otherwise.

It is a self-regulating process.

Mayfield questions how these restrictions can actually be put

into practice. He says, No faculty member limits him or

herself to a 40-hour week, so how do you assess what one

day per week really means? He also says that because lab

research and company research are so often closely related,it can be difficult to determine the percentage of time spent


16/42


From curing cancer to engineering plant genes,

the research goals of Cal professors are now the

industry objectives of Bay Area biotech compa-

nies. Heres a run-down of what some private

companies founded by UC Berkeley faculty in the

past decade are up to.

Tularik, Inc. (1991) uses gene regulation to target

specific disease-causing proteins, enabling re-

searchers to develop oral medications with fewer

side effects.

Cerus Corp. (1991) produces technology that pre-

vents DNA and RNA replication in blood cells,

making the bacteria and viruses in blood harm-

less and transfusions safer.

Exelixis, Inc. (1995) develops drugs to combat

disease-causing genes responsible for diabetes,

obesity, Alzheimers disease, and cancer.

Genteric, Inc. (1997) specializes in creating new

delivery platforms for gene therapies, including

the oral gene pill.

Mendel Biotechnology (1997) researches plant

genes to develop new medicinal and agricultural

products.

Viasense (1997) uses principles from visual neuro-

biology to build software that encodes, stores, and

delivers digital video.

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc (1998) and DNA Sci-

ences, Inc. (1998) both develop oral drugs to com-

bat chronic diseases through gene therapy.

Syrrx, Inc. (1999) uses cutting-edge robotics and

molecular tools to determine the shapes of pro-

teins encoded by the human genome, informa-

tion that will lead to more effective drugs.

Renovis, Inc. (2000) specializes in the develop-

ment of gene therapies for neurological and psy-

chiatric diseases and disorders.

I t is often only the inventor

who has the drive and visionto bring the idea to product.Start-ups take extraordinaryrisks in taking nothing andturning it into something.

thinking of ideas for the university versus time spent think-

ing for biotech.

With such a close intellectual relationship, have the bound-

aries between academia and biotech become too blurred?

Both Owen and Mimura think academia maintains its atmo-sphere of scientific freedom. Owen says, The boundary is

still well-defined. Academics are anxious to preserve the

boundary because of the negative implications of diminished

academic freedom. Mimura adds that the increasing num-

bers of faculty entering the world of biotech shouldnt

change the culture of the university. Professors are under-

standing of the Universitys mission to foster pure research

environment and dont exploit it.

Mayfield points out that there may be more subtle effects.He feels that the lines are blurred in what the professors

and lab members involvement should be in the company

and technology being licensed. He gives the example of a

PI becoming aware of proprietary technology that can help

lab members in their experiments. If they perform a suc-

cessful experiment with that technology, lab members can

then become confused about what role this company plays

in ownership and use of the results. Mayfield says this situ-

ation brings up an entirely new issue. Working out legalissues isnt something academics had to worry about in the

past. It is difficult right now because there isnt a set policy

on what is acceptable and what is not.

How students are impacted by some facultys double role as

professor and consultant is unclear. Professors are very busy


17/42

Emily Singer received an MS in neuroscienc

from UCSD in July 2 00 1. She is currently

research associate at Exelixis, Inc.

This Internet thing is going to be really big.

sciencereview.berkeley.edu

The University


people. Researching and teaching both take time. When

someone spends a day per week away from campus, they

have less time for other duties. I can see the potential for

problems, but as yet I havent seen any evidence, Owen

says.

While the possible negative impact is unclear, there is cer-

tainly a positive implication for students of the biotech-savvy

advisor. Owen feels that this trend has broadened the

professors traditional role. Professors now have the experi-

ence of life outside the environment of the university. Lots of

professors used to see themselves as preparing their students

to be professors, but now they are exposed to alternative ca

reers. He emphasizes, This is a good thing because now

large numbers of companies are doing biotechnology and stu

dents have new opportunities for rewarding careers.


18/42


Book Review

Annie Montague

Alexander was a

r e m a r k a b l e

woman. Heir to a fortune

built on Hawaiian sugar,

she founded and funded

for decades both the UC

Museum of Vertebrate

Zoology and the UC Mu-

seum of Paleontology.With her partner Louise

Kellogg, she took to the

field and collected speci-

mens for the museums

from locales as distant as

Egypt and Alaska. At a

time when social norms proscribed

womens activities to the domestic

realm, Alexander built research insti-

tutions and made significant contribu-tions to science.

In On Her Own Terms, Barbara R. Stein

tells the fascinating story of a woman

who, for all her achievements, shunned

publicity throughout her life and has

remained relatively unknown. Using

Alexanders extensive correspondence

with friends and colleagues, Stein ex-

plores the intimate details of her life.Alexanders close professional relation-

ship with naturalist Joseph Grinnell

strongly boosted the young Museum of

Vertebrate Zoology, while her some-

times stormy encounters with John C.

Merriam kept the Museum of Paleon-

tology from reaching its

full potential. Stein does

an excellent job of explor-

ing how Alexander used

her roles as a philanthro-

pist and a naturalist to de-

fine her identity and to

overcome the constrictive

gender expectations of

early twentieth-centuryBerkeley and Oakland.

Alexander was never

comfortable in cities; she

was happiest spending her

days in the natural realm

and sleeping under the stars. From the

moment she watched a three-foot

boulder crush her father at Victoria

Falls in 1904 through her final trip atage eighty to Baja California, the semi-

nal events in Alexanders life occurred

far from the city. Stein, a scientist fa-

miliar with the rigors of the field, has

recaptured Alexander and Kelloggs

numerous expeditions in minute de-

tail and with telling anecdotes. It is

through these portions ofOn Her Own

Terms that we meet the real Annie

Alexander.

The major weakness ofOn Her Own

Terms is that it makes little attempt to

place Stein into her histor ical context.

There is a sizable body of work on the

history of women in science and the

ANNIE ALEXANDER AND THEUC MUSEUMS

TeddyVarn o is a 1 st year gradua te

student in the History of Science

and Technology program at UC

Berkeley.

Teddy Varno

On Her O wn Terms: AnnieMontague Alexander and

the Rise of Science in theAmerican W est, Barbara

R. Stein (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press,2001), 397 pp.

history of the professionalization of

science that Stein could have drawn

from to place Alexanders life in com-

parative context. This was not, how-

ever, Steins intention. Her main goal

was simply to narrate the life of one ofthe most important figures in the his-

tory of science at Berkeley, and in this

she has succeeded.


19/42

The best place to figure out how

the Sun shines is two kilometers

under the cold, hard ground.


Two kilometers beneath

the slag heaps oSudbury, Ontario, grea

science is afoot. Physicists an

engineers have spent the las

decade in a working nicke

mine building one of th

worlds most sophisticated par

ticle detectors. The quarry is tha

most elusive of fundamental par

ticles, the ghostly neutr ino. Thwork at the Sudbury Neutrino Obser

vatory (SNO) is at last starting to pay big

dividends. SNOs first results were revealed las

June and have already shed some light on a thirty

year-old puzzle about how the Sun shines.

Aaron Pierce

GHOSTTHE IN THE SUN

Feature


20/42


trol over, but there are some you dont. You have to run

away from those. We ran as far as we could. The SNO

experiment ran underground, and

went deeper than all the other re-

search groups in North America.The next deepest experiment is

located in the Homestake gold

mine in South Dakota, at a depth of 1500 meters.

Homestakes problems with spurious signals from cosmic

rays are ten times worse than those at SNO.

Neutrinos are difficult to study because they have extraor-

dinarily weak interactions with normal matter. Roughly a

hundred billion neutrinos pass through your fingernail ev-

ery second, with no effect. Neutrinos have no electriccharge, and consequently are unaffected by the electric and

magnetic fields used to detect less exotic particles like elec-

trons and protons. The only force that does affect neutr inos

is known to physicists as the weak interaction. True to its

name, this force is so miniscule that as often as not, a neu-

trino could barrel through a block of iron a light-year in

The SNO detector was completed two years ago.

It stands over ten stories tall, weighs more than

8000 tons, and cost more than $50 million to build.

Over 100 researchers from 11 institutions in the

United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom

collaborate on SNO. Among the collaborator s is ateam of a dozen physicists, engineers, and students

from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

(LBNL) and UC Berkeley. Berkeley involvement

reaches back to 1989, when the project was in its

nascent stages.

SNO is focusing on a long-standing puzzle about

the Sun known as the solar neutrino problem. For

over fifty years astrophysicists have known that the

Sun generates energy through fusion reactions,which create neutr inos as by-products. The Sun

produces neutr inos prolifically, and is far and away

the biggest source of neutrinos that strike the

Earth. By combining the physics of these reactions

with complex computer models of the Sun, astro-

physicists have calculated the rate at which solar-produced

neutrinos should strike the Earth. Despite the high preci-

sion of these calculations, the observed rate of solar neu-

trino arrival is only half of the expected value. There simply

are not enough neutrinos.

The unique location of SNOa full 2000 meters below the

surface of the Earthis crucial in investigating the solar neu-

trino problem. Layers of rock between the SNO detector

and the Earths surface shield the experiment from cosmicrays, particles that are constantly bombarding the Earths

atmosphere. If these cosmic rays were to reach the experi-

ment, they would result in minute flashes of light that would

give a false signal of neutrino detection. Dr. Kevin Lesko,

the leader of the LBNL SNO group, explains, There are

many [potential sources of false signals] that you have con-

Underground. The SNO detector nestled in its subterranean hall. It is over 10

stories tall (see workers for scale), weighs 8000 tons, and has 9200 ultra-sensitivelight detectors packed into a dense, spherical honeycomb pattern.

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


21/42


The Idea. Artists conception of the SNO detector. The inneracryl ic sphere is filled with heavy water. The sphere is surrounded

by a geodesic dome frame, which holds thousands of sensitivelight detectors (courtesy/ SNO ).

Such a major discrepancy would

imply that astrophysicists are verywrong about how the Sun shines.

Excavation. More than 60,000 tons of rock were blasted away and caried to the surface 2 kilometers above to create the experiments hall (cou

tesy/ Lorne Erhardt, Queens University).

Feature

length and emerge completely unscathed. The vast major-

ity of neutrinos that enter a detector like SNO simply pass

right through it, leaving no trace. However, a small handfuldo leave a calling card: a tiny flash of light in the SNO de-

tector. By carefully hunting for flashes of light inside the

otherwise darkened detector, the scientists at SNO can in-

fer the presence of a neutrino.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Locating an experiment deep in a mine creates a very strange

work environment. According to Alysia Marino, a Berkeley

graduate student working on the SNO experiment, access-ing the detector is an arduous process for participating physi-

cists. Before enter ing the mine, scientists must don stan-

dard mine gear. Decked out in a hard hat, steel-toed boots,

and headlamps, they wait for an elevator to take them down

a darkened mineshaft to the level of the experiment. The

descent can take nearly fifteen minutes, as the elevator stops

at various levels of the mine to drop off miners. The eleva

tor car, not much larger than a typical freight elevator, is th

only route into and out of the experiment, and well ove

10,000 tons of materials were taken down it during SNO

construction phase. Excavating the hall itself was a feat o

civil engineering. It is over 20 meters in diameter, and re

quired that more than 60,000 tons of rock be blasted an

moved to the surface.

Without the intervention of some serious air-conditionin

the experimental level itself would be far less hospitable tha

the elevator. As Marino explains, Once you go below 100

feet, the temperature begins to rise, because of the Earth

molten core. By the time you reach the level of the exper

ment, the ambient temperature would be 100 degrees [Fah

enheit]. Fortunately for the SNO workers, the experimen

tal hall must be kept at a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenhe

to keep the electronics working properly.


22/42

The Main Event.Output of a com-

puter model showinga neutrino event within

SNOs heavy watertank. The neutrino in-teracts with a heavy wa-

ter molecule, creating aburst of light (courtesy/ LBNL).


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

Something strange is happeningto solar neutrinos during their

eight-and-a-half-minute flight

from the Sun to the Earth.

How Does the Sun Shine?

The goal of SNO is to distinguish between two pos-

sible solutions of the solar neutrino problem. The

first explanation for the dearth of solar neutrinos is

that astrophysicists computer models are drasticallywrong, and that they have grossly overestimated the

number of neutr inos coming from the Sun. This is a

highly troubling option, as the models are built on

well-tested physics. Such a major discrepancy be-

tween theory and observation would imply that as-

trophysicists are very wrong about how the Sun

shines.

Ignoring the neutrino discrepancy, there are good reasons

to believe that the solar computer models are correct. Themodels are based on well-understood fusion interactions,

which occur at rates determined by the temperature and

elemental composition of the Sun. Once a solar model speci-

fies the composition of the Sun and its temperature, it is

straightforward to calculate fusion interaction rates. The

most widely accepted solar model was developed over the

past three decades by Dr. John Bahcall, a physicist at the

Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a UC Berke-

ley alumnus. The theory, described by many physicists as

how the Sun shines, predicts many solar properties to high

accuracy. The first and most obvious of these is the observed

brightness of the Sun. Others involve a field known ashelioseismology, which studies how sunquakes travel

through the body of the Sun. Think of the Sun as a giant

bellby studying the way in which the bell rings, we can

learn a lot about what makes up the bell, Bahcall says. We

confidently know the interior of the Sun better than we know

the interior of the Earth. Sophisticated satellites have stud-

ied the way that the Sun rings, and they find that Bahcalls

model is in excellent agreement with observations.

If Bahcalls solar model is indeed correct, why are too few

neutrinos observed? The alternative explanation to the so-

lar neutrino problem is that something strange is happening

to solar neutrinos during their eight-and-a-half-minute flight

from the Sun to the Earth. Somehow neutrinos that are

produced in the Sun disappear en route. Physicists have

proposed that neutrino oscillation causes this disappear-

ance. There are three varieties of neutrino: the electron neu-

trino, the only kind produced by the Suns fusion reactions,and the more rare muon and tau neutr inos. The theory of

neutrino oscillations postulates that solar

neutrinos, once produced, trans-

form back and forth be-

tween their original

electron versions and

one of the other two

varieties. When


23/42


Feature

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

Bob Stokstad, LBNL).

compared to SNO, previous detectors have been relatively

insensitive to the non-electron neutrino varieties. As a conse-

quence, any muon and tau neutrinos that may have been cre-

ated when electron neutrinos oscillated were undercounted by

previous experiments. Thus the neutrino oscillation theory pro-

poses that the solar computer models are correct, but that wecount fewer neutrinos than expected because some have trans-

formed into less detectable varieties.

Thats Heavy

Past neutrino experiments have all used reactions in huge

tanks of water to observe the passing of neutrinos. In ordi-

nary water there is only one kind of neutrino reaction that

can occur, and it is heavily biased towards the electron neu-

trino. SNO, on the other hand, uses a rare form of waterthat is dubbed heavy.

It is this heavy water that makes SNO uniquely suited t

detect all three varieties of neutrinos. The composition o

heavy water allows several neutrino reactions, one of whic

is equally likely with the three types of neutr inos. Thu

heavy water affords SNO an unprecedented sensitivity t

reactions involving the more-difficult-to-see muon and taneutrinos. By comparing the rates of these different reac

tions, SNO scientists can determine not only the number o

electron neutrinos coming from the Sun, but also the tota

number of neutrinos. This is the key to showing that neu

trino oscillations are the solution to the solar neutrino prob

lem. If the total number of neutr inos is the number of elec

tron neutrinos predicted by the solar model, then the sola

models are correct, and the neutrinos are simply transform

ing en route.

SNOs first results, released last June, seem to indicate tha

neutrinos from the Sun are in fact oscillating. SNO scien

tists used two reactions to come to this conclusion. On

reaction, new to SNO, looks exclusively at the number o

electron neutrinos. A second reaction, while biased toward

electron neutrinos, is sensitive to all three types. By sub

tracting the rates for these two reactions, SNO scientis

determined that the harder to see component appears t

be present. They hope to confirm this hypothesis by look

ing at additional interactions that have even better sensitivity to the muon and tau neutrinos.

One reason previous detectors have not used heavy water

because it is a rare and expensive substance. A molecule o

ordinary water, H2O, contains two hydrogen atoms and a

oxygen atom. The hydrogen atom is composed of a sing

proton and a single electron. In heavy water, D2O, the ord

nary hydrogen is replaced by a rare hydrogen isotope know

as deuterium. In contrast to ordinary hydrogen, deuterium

contains a proton, an electron, and a neutron. The mass othis extra neutron in each deuterium atom makes heavy wa

ter about ten percent heavier than ordinary watera dif

ference, according to Marino, which is readily discernible

you try to lift a liter of each. A single liter of heavy wate

would cost nearly $100, a far sight more than even the trend

est bottle of Evian. Marino notes that the SNO experimen


24/42

W hen it rains it pours

The SNO experiment has recently undergone a minor transformation. In May of 2001, over two tons of

table salt were dumped into the heavy water by SNO scientists, creating a br iny solution. The presence of

chlorine in the salt makes the detector four times more likely to interact with neutrinos which have oscil-lated. The results from this phase of the experiment will provide the defini tive test of the neutrino oscillation

hypothesis, and are expected within the next two years. Since the SNO collaboration promised to return

the loaned heavy water just as they received it, all 1000 tons of the heavy water will have to be fed through

an extensive puri fication system which will utilize reverse osmosis to remove the salt. New techniques in

water purification were developed by scientists to allow this to be done effectively.


Building in a clean room environment at the

bottom of a mine was simply unprecedented.

uses heavy water on loan from

the Canadian government. Nor-

mally, it is used in Canadian

nuclear reactors of a particular

design. At present, Canada has

more heavy water than it needs for nuclear power, so thegovernment has agreed to let SNO borrow 1000 tons of the

material, valued at $300 million, with the understanding that

it will be returned at the conclusion of the experiment.

Without the Canadian governments largesse, the entire ex-

periment would have been financially impossible.

Twinkle, Twinkle

When a neutrino enters the SNO detector, it is overwhelm-

ingly likely to pass right through, leaving no trace. How-ever, it will occasionally collide with an atom in a molecule

of the detectors heavy water. When this happens, the neu-

trino imparts a substantial portion of its energy to an elec-

tron in that atom. This energy can be very high, since the

neutrino usually enters the tank moving close to the speed

of light. The impacted electron then zooms off through the

heavy water, emitting light through a process known as

Cherenkov radiation, which continues as long as the elec-

tron is moving faster than the heavy-water speed of light.

(Since light travels more slowly in mater ials than in vacuum,it is possible for particles to travel faster than light speed in

mattere.g. heavy watereven though nothing can exceedlight speed in vacuum.) Cherenkov radiation is analogous

to the sonic boom that occurs when a plane goes faster than

the speed of sound. Just as with a sonic boom, the light-

boom from the speeding electron spreads out in a cone

around the direction the electron is traveling. By detecting

this cone of light, SNO scientists can infer the presence of a

neutrino.

The instruments used to detect the light are called photo-

multipliers. Photomultipliers take extremely dim light andconvert it to strong electrical signals. One of the contr ibu-

tions of the LBNL group was to design and build an enor-

mous stainless steel geodesic dome that holds the 9,500 pho-

tomultipliers used in the experiment. The dome was ini-

tially constructed at a site near Petaluma, California, to test

the design in 1993. According to Dr. Lesko, [The dome]

was visible from the freeway, [and] attracted a great deal of

attention from passing motorists on Highway 101. After

the design proved successful, the dome was assiduously pack-

aged into 21 semi-trucks and driven to the SNO site inOntario, where it was reassembled in the experimental hall,


25/42


Whens lunch? Hard at work in the SNO control room. Operatorswear ultra-clean suits and hairnets to reduce dirt and dust. Even aspeck could cause a false signal wi thin the detector.(courtesy/ QueensUniversity).

Feature

two kilometer s beneath the surface. Dr. Lesko says that the

58,000 lb. dome was designed to allow the photomultipliers

to be packed in as densely as possible. This increases the

efficiency of the detector in picking out whatever flashes a

neutrino might leave behind.

To accurately measure the number of incoming solar neutri-

nos, SNO scientists must be able to distinguish between light

flashes caused by neutrinos and those that come from other

sources. While locating the experiment underground elimi-

nates flashes of light from cosmic rays, it can potentially lead

to a different source of spurious flashes: dirt. At SNO, the

obsession with cleanliness goes beyond a desire to keep elec-

tronic equipment in working order. Ordinary dirt can con-

tain minute traces of radioactive elements such as uranium

or thorium. When these elements decay, they emit particlesthat can cause light flashes in the detector. Just like the cos-

mic rays from above, the mere presence of dirt at SNO can

lead to false signals that could be mistaken for neutrinos.

A mineshaft is not a traditional sterile laboratory environ-

ment. While she didnt expect the mine to be spotless,

Marino still was surprised to see how different it was from

home. Coming from the halls of Lawrence Berkeley Labo

ratory, it is a shock to see all the mud and the dirt associate

with a mining environment. It is not what someone no

mally expects from a physics experiment. SNO scientis

have worked very hard to create and maintain an ultra-cleaenvironment. Once workers have reached the level of th

experiment, two kilometers below the Earths surface, the

must pass through an airlock-style door that protects th

experiment from the mud and dirt of the mine. As the

pass through this buffer zone, they are required to remov

their mining gear, shower, change clothes, and change int

clean-room attire before entering the experimental hall.

The real challenge was constructing the experiment unde

these same rigid standards of cleanliness. According to DLesko, the construction of the detector was like building

ten-story apartment building at the bottom of a mine, pro

ducing only a handful of dirt in the entire process. He add

Building in a clean room environment is something tha

you can learnit has been done before; but building in

clean room environment at the bottom of a mine was sim

ply unprecedented. The detector itself is made out of ex

traordinarily pure mater ials. Ordinary steel, for example

contains minute traces of radioactive elements, just like dir

The building materials were all custom-made to be free othese trace radioactive materials, and LBNL took the lead i

carefully surveying each piece of the detector after its fabr

cation. Only after LBNL scientists had pronounced a com

ponent radioactivity-free was it cleared for use in the ex

periment.

Massive Consequences

Accepting neutrino oscillations as the solution to the sola

neutrino problem has important consequences. If neutrnos do in fact oscillate, this is an indicator that they have

tiny, but non-zero mass. Because neutrinos are so numer

ous, this tiny mass adds up: the mass contained in neutrino

left over from the Big Bang could be roughly equivalent t

the mass of all the stars in the known universe. In the ca

of the neutrino, even a tiny mass goes a long way.


26/42

There goes the competition

On November 12, 2001, neutrino physicists working in paral lel to SNO suffered a major setback. The

Super-Kamiokande neutrino detectorlocated at an underground laboratory in Japansuffered a terri bleaccident. While the experiments water tank was being refilled one of the detectors phototubes exploded.

The explosion caused a shockwave that set off a chain reaction, causing 7,000 other phototubes to also

burst. While the exact cause for the initial explosion i s unknown, i t is suspected that excess water pressure

during refi lling is the culpri t. The total cost of the damage is in the $20 to $30 million range. Yoji Totsuka,

director of the observatory where Super-Kamiokande is housed, says, We wi ll rebuild the detector. There

is no question. However, this process will certainly take over a year.


Crash! Super-K is a 41.4 meter high cylinder located 1,000 meters underground and lined with 11,200 light detectors (left,

top right). It holds 50,000 tons of pure water. Shards of glass littered the bottom of the chamber after the November 12thaccident caused thousands of detectors to burst. (Courtesy/ Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, The University of Tokyo. )


27/42

To Learn More

SNO Experiment. http:/ / www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/ SNO at LBNL. http:/ / snohp1.lbl.gov/

Particle physics for the rest of us. http:/ / ParticleAdventure.org/

N eutrino oscillations. http:/ / www.hep.anl. gov/ ndk/ hypertext/ nu_industry.html

How the Sun shines. http:/ / www.nobel.se/ physics/ articles/ fusion/ index.html

Other neutrino experiments:

SuperKamiokande. http:/ / www.phys.washington.edu/ ~superk/

KamLAND. http:/ / kamland.lbl.gov/

Aaron Pierce is a 4 th year graduate student in

the Department of Physics at UC Berkeley.

Got a great story?Write for the Review.

Submission guidelines are atsciencereview.berkeley.edu

Feature


Although neutrinos have been studied for over fifty years,

the next ten years promise to be particularly fruitful. The

SNO experiment was designed to run for ten years, and it is

only a year and a half into data collection so far. Comple-

mentary experiments are underway in Japan and Italy. With

future data, SNO scientistsincluding many from Berke-ley and LBNLhope to show beyond a shadow of a doubt

that neutrinos are oscillating, finally providing a solution to

the thirty year-old solar neutr ino problem. Physicists wi

then be able to sleep well at night, at last assured that the

know how the Sun shines.


28/42

Interested in writing, editing,

or designing for the BSR?

[email protected]


Lucky the scientist who

works with Drosophila

melanogaster . While formal

naming conventions limit geneti-

cists working on yeast and worms,

fruit fly researchers can name their

mutants whatever they like.

Theyve come up with some great

ones, like technical knockout ,

sex lethal , flamenco , and

telegraph .

Genes are generally named after the

defects, or phenotypes, seen in

mutant animals. Fruit flies with a

null mutation in white cant make

red eye pigment, so they have white

eyes. Other names are a little more

creative: super sex combs and

little faint ball , for example. Ken

and barbie mutants, like the dolls,

lack external genitalia. Ether-a-

go-go flies wiggle their legs when

anesthetized by ether, while a

physical shock makes slamdance

flies convulse. Cheapdate flies are

easily intoxicated by alcohol.

Some names require a little back-

ground reading. Tudor flies have

trouble producing heirs. Mutant

scott of the antarctic flies, named

after the doomed explorer, have

defects in structures called poles.

W HATS IN A N AME?

The wide world ofDrosophila mutants.

Shakespeare fans have given us

malvolio , miranda , and

prospero , and an Edgar Allan Poe

mystery nut coined amontillado .

When a gene is found to interact

with other genes, peculiar genefamily trees form. Sevenless , for

example, spawned son of sevenless

and bride of sevenless . The

decapentaplegic gene is fittingly

opposed by mothers against

decapentaplegic . Grim and

reaper work together to mediate

programmed cell death. Whole

cohorts of genes are named after

vegetables (rutabaga, turnip,okra ) musical instruments (pic-

colo, bagpipe ) and even pickle

varieties (gurkin , cornichon ).

Sci-fly names have done little to

dissipate geneticists geeky reputa-

tion. Consider godzilla , mothra ,

smaug, lost in space , tribbles ,

and the Monty Python-inspired Im

not dead yet .

All official flygene names areregistered with Flybase, the compre-

hensive database of fruit fly research

(http:/ / flybase.bio.indiana.edu).

The fly genome was sequenced last

year, and thousands more Drosophila

genes are being described and

named. If and when their human

counterparts are uncovered, conven-

tion suggests that the human genes be

named after their predecessors.

Imagine pharmaceuticals aimed at

human diseases caused by bang-

senseless , kuzbanian , or big

brain . Revenge of the nerds ,

indeed.

Weird Science

Aaron Golub/ BSR

Jessica Palmer


29/42


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

upon row of tiny, uniform ink

dots. Laws graduated from UCBerkeley with a BS in conservation,

then took an MS in wildlife biology

from the University of Montana.

Hes adept at observing songbirds in their native habitats, and

is an experienced educator with the California Academy of

Sciences. But this year, Laws is a student again, one of just

ten admitted to the prestigious graduate program in science

illustration at UC Santa Cruz. And this afternoon, on the

wooded, bird-filled campus of UCSC, Laws is neither teach-

ing nor bird watching. Hes sitting at a desk, dotting.

Laws and his classmates each bring different backgrounds to

UCSC. Some arrived with science degrees and plenty of re-

search experience; others were artists who kept returning to

nature for inspiration. They all share a love for science and

art and now hope to make a career out of science illustra-

tion, the craft of making scientific concepts and data vividl

and visually accessible to a wide audience.

The goal of the program, according to its coordinator An

Caudle, is to help students develop individual strengths an

interests and enable them to find a niche in the huge field o

science illustration. The program is an intense one-year immersion in technique, theory, and practical advice. It aim

to fully prepare its graduates for collaboration with scien

tists, educator s, and publishers. In addition to thei

coursework, students must complete at least one full-tim

internship with an institution such as Nat ional Geographic o

Scient ific American .

SCIENCE

A unique program at UC

Santa Cruz makes science

jump off the page.

Jessica Palmer and Una Ren

ILLUSTRATED

Feature


30/42

formation. So I know how valuable a good illustration is.

They should all be good! Laws, who has dyslexia, has a

unique perspective on this: My journals are full of

sketches. I dont need to worry about spellingonly care-

ful observation of form, color, behavior, and context.

Sketching was crucial to the success of my masters work. I

was able to sketch free living Lazuli buntings and found that

I could identify individuals from variations in their plumage.

The sketches were essential to consistently identify individu-

als within the study population.

Some successful illustrators have no science backgroundat all. But knowing the language of science can make anassignment much easier. Sometimes many hours are spent in

research, asking scientists or experts educated questions, com-

paring photographs for accuracy and then

piecing together usable bits for the finaldrawing, says Caudle. Her classroom is

papered with painstakingly inked draw-

ings, many taking ten or more hours to

execute. Insects, pinecones, bones, and

shells are exactingly portrayed, down to

every scale, every pore, and every facet

in a compound eye. Careful observations

are crucial, whether the artist is catalog-

ing new species, creating a field guide,

or resurrecting a dinosaur. Caudle looksfor scientists with a strong visual back-

ground because such observation is al-

ready second nature to them.

In todays tech-hungry society, science illustration is ubiqui-

tous. Illustrators are needed for academic papers, technical

journals, textbooks, field guides, mass-market magazines,

websites, posters, book covers, and museum displays. Op-

portunities are unusual and diverse. For example, UCSC

graduate Emma Skurnick recently illustrated a childrens ac-

tivity book on mussels.

Many illustrators enjoy the varied pace, subject

matter, and flexibility of freelancing. But UCSC

grads have also opted for staff positions with de-

sign studios, multimedia companies, technical busi-

nesses, museums, educational institutions, and

magazines, like 1998 graduate Heidi Noland, the

art director ofScientific American Explorat ions.

The goal of science illustration is to make difficult

concepts accessible by translating them into visual images.

2000 UCSC program graduate Kimberlee Heldt says, As a

student, I dissected every drawingthats how I retained in-

When a successful illustration helps a reader visua

and understand the science he or she is reading ab

the fusion of art and article seems perfectly natural

and unobtrusive.


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

Eccentric sand dollar, Dendraster excentricus. (Karina Helm)

Bishop pine, Pinus muricata.

(Mary Sievert)


31/42

Paint Them Macho

Emma Skurnick left UCSC in 2000 and now does freelance work from her studio in N orth

Carolina. Skurnick looks back on the UCSC program as a turning point. It was one of the

best years of my li fe, realizing that I could have a job that I loved, she says.

I did this il lustration for the May-June 20 01 issue of American Scientistmagazine. It was

used as the opening illustration for an article called Preserving Salmon Biodiversity, and

depicts the seven species of salmonids (five salmon and two trout) that inhabit the rivers

and streams of the Pacific

Northwest. The painting

was done in watercolor.

Watercolor is often consid-

ered a delicate medium, be-

cause of its transparency,

but, as the illustration de-

picts spawning males, the

art director of the magazineasked me to paint them ma-

cho, which made me smile.

I did what I could to up the

macho quotient by adding

pen and ink with the water-

color and using a lot of

bright red for their colora-

tion. The art director and

the authors were pleased,

so I suppose it worked.


Illustration by Emma Skurnick.

http:/ / destined.to/ emma.

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32/42


Despite the need

for precision, science illustration

is very different from science photography.Although the students are encouraged to take

photos as references on their many research ex-

cursions, the program does not teach photo-

graphic technique. Basically a photo is just a flat

thingyou lose a lot of information in photos, says

current UCSC student Cornelia Blik. Illustration can

emphasize important features of the object and yet

capture tiny details, structures hidden in shadow, or

details lying in different focal planes, which could not ap-

pear simultaneously in a photograph. Illustrators are oftencalled upon to distill the information from dozens of photo-

graphs into a single accurate illustration with a process thats

a bit like sleuthing, says Caudle. If it could be photographed,

and photographed effectively, why would we illustrate it?

Laws agrees, If you look through field guides that use photo-

graphs, up until just recently, none of them are any good. In

one well-known bird watchers field guide, Laws recalls, they

had this picture of a wrentit, a little bird. The diagnostic fea-

ture is the long tail, but if you look at their wrentit, there is

no tail. The photo was taken from such an angle that the tail

was behind. Omissions like this, which could mislead a nov-

ice bird watcher, have driven Laws own interest in develop-

ing more accurate and accessible field guides.

Katydid, Scudderia sp. (Jennifer Kane)

Sea otter, Enhydra lutris. (Jack Laws)

Good science illustratorscan make an article

jump off the page with a

flashy piece of art.


33/42

A Scientist at Heart

Kimberlee Heldt, UCSC class of 2000, is currently

illustrating the textbook Human Physiology 4e, by

Rhoades and Pflanzer. Heldts forte is illustrating

molecular machinery, a subject without li ve models

or photographic references. I love textbook il lus-

tration, as I am basically a scientist at heart, not an

illustrator. Working on textbooks keeps my brain

happy, especially when I get to do molecular stuff.

The toughest challenge is, of course, illustrating

something you cannot see. It takes a great deal of

research before you even begin the composition of

the illustration. The whole process, however, is ex-

ceptionally rewarding.

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

you cross-eyed. We are simply too detail-ori-

ented to be able to accomplish this. The answer

came to me one day as I was in the car with my

husband driving over HWY 17. I was trying to

draw on this uneven road, around cornersand,

lo and behold, I was drawing cartoons. The un-

even terrain loosened me up enough to be able

to get the essence of a cartoon!

It took some unconventional approaches to discover theessence of drawing a cartoon. It is NOT as easy as it looks!

Kimberlee Heldt, [email protected].


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34/42



35/42

No Typical Day

Peter Gaede recently took his natural science illustration

skills far afield, traveling across Kenya on assignment with

the National Museum and Nature Kenya in Nairob i. I

worked on a field guide to the waterbirds of Kenya which

included 123 pen and ink drawings to aid in identifica-

tion, he explains. I also painted some of the local flora

and fauna of the Kakemega forest in western Kenya to

promote awareness and conservation.

Gaede, a 2000 graduate of the UCSC Science Illustration

program, usually freelances closer to home, out of his Cali -

fornia studio. One of the most rewarding aspects of my

work is that there really is no typical day, he says. As-

signments vary from very specif ic and technical black-and-

white illustrations for scientific papers to full color maga-zine art and book covers. Perhaps his most unusual as-

signment was an illustration sequence portraying copulat-

ing Desert Horned li zards for an academic paper. To accu-

rately represent the amorous lizards, Gaede studied pho-

tos, notes, and preserved specimens from UC Berkeley.

As an undergraduate Gaede immersed himself in biological research, but itched to use his artistic talents as

well. UCSC provided such an opportunity. It used to be that science and art were at opposite ends of the

spectrum. I enjoyed both, but it seemed inconceivable to put them together. Now that I have, its a perfect

match, and I have a hard time figuring out what took me this long to see it.

In memory of JosephGrinnell, watercolor andgouache.

For thi s project, I accessedone of Joseph Grinnells

original field notes from1915. He was the firstdirector of UC BerkeleysMuseum of VertebrateZoology, serving from 1908to 1939.

Peter Gaede,[email protected].

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

Peter Gaede, [email protected].


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The goal of science illustration is to

make difficult concepts accessible bytranslating them into visual images.

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

Pagemaker. For each illustration, digital or traditional, the mechanics of scanning and repro-

duction are taken into account. In their last quarter, under the supervision of instructor Larry

Lavendel, the students illustrate and design Science Notes, a web-based journal of articles written by

students in the UCSC science writing program. Lavendel teaches the theory of information

graphicshow to present information clearly and accurately, in an eye-catching graph or illustra-

tion, then fit it into the larger context of an article.

The UCSC program is all about putting art in contexta scientific context, the context of a

publication, and the professional context of an illustration career. In addition to making valuableprofessional contacts in the field, students learn to handle time sheets, billable hours, contracts,

andadvertising. Its the nitty-gritty side of science illustration, as one current student puts it.

Graduates love it, because unlike many PhDs, they feel immediately prepared to market them-

selves and take assignments from concept to completion. As Laws puts it, I want to do field

guides, but what I have done so far is just sketches. I want to learn how to generate a finished

product. That is why Im here.

Long horned woodboring beetle. (ClarkA. Eising)


37/42

For potential applicants to the UCSC science illustration pro-

gram, Caudle emphasizes that its important for people to

have looked into science illustration seriously and not just

be sampling it. Many members of the current class have

previous experience freelancing as medical illustrators, for

example. Campus researchers, student publications (likethe BSR), nature centers, and nonprofit groups often need

illustrations and are happy to help an aspiring illustrator start

a portfolio. Caudle also suggests joining the Guild of Natu-

ral Science Illustratorsand reading books on natural science

illustration and graphic design.

Good science illustrators can make an article jump off the

page with a flashy piece of art, but more often, their work

goes practically unnoticed. When a successful illustration

helps a reader visualize and under

berkeley science review - spring 2002

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