Biotechnology and Art Blogs

Alexandra Pourzia

Neuroscience Major

6/6/2012

Honors 177

Professor Vesna

Blog One: From One Culture Two Another

My name is Alexandra Pourzia, and I am a fourth year neuroscience student. Although I spend nearly all my time in south campus currently, my first experience of UCLA was on the north side at YRL. Although I was ignorant of the divide between north and south (and the ‘two cultures') at the time, I felt very much at home there. Now, I could not feel more different.

As long as I can remember, I’ve had a passion for history. Some kids my age enjoyed watching TV or playing outside: my sister and I recreated a medieval fiefdom out of Playmobil people on our living room floor. When historically accurate siege equipment or raiment were missing, we made them ourselves out of clay or bits of fabric. I joined a local Shakespeare festival, sewed my own period costumes, and eagerly collected books on all my favorite historical personages. In tenth grade I had the chance to take a course on European

history, which was also the first advanced placement course I ever took. Despite the challenge, I have never since then taken a course that was so enjoyable to study for. I went out of my way to do extra reading, simply because I was interested in the material. That was the reason I came to UCLA for the first time – to look for primary sources as part of an assignment.

In the years that followed, a change took place inside of me. As college applications drew nearer, I simply knew that I was not going to be studying humanities. Nobody ever told me that I must go into science, or forced me to choose neuroscience as my major. But there was a great unspoken pressure. I cannot recall a single conversation directly on the subject, but everyone at my high school knew: you did not major in the humanities. You had to go into science, because doctors make money. If you pursued research, you had to get an MD/PhD because the MD meant more money. Ironically, ever since my sister and I excelled on standardized testing on literature and history in elementary school, we were pushed into accelerated science in middle and high school. Without anyone outright telling me about it, I was molded into a scientist. And that is what makes me the most uneasy, looking back: I was so happy the way I was. I adored learning about history; I adored studying literature and theater. Today, I still feel the same bubble of excitement when I come across a book on 1789, or when I hear my north campus friends discussing ancient Greece. But it’s subdued. The old passion is gone. I know less about those topics now than I did when I was 15. And even more frightening is the fact that I feel like I am unqualified to form new opinions on them: that’s for the north campus majors. For the writers. Me, I’m just a scientist now.

Images: 1. http://info.biotech-calendar.com/Portals/45279/images/UCLA%20school%20of%20public%20health-resized-600.JPG 2. http://blog.ctnews.com/tracy/files/2012/01/sculpture-garden-Murphy-ucla.jpg

Blog Two: All Natural ≠ Organic

When I am in Westwood, I make an effort to buy most of my food from Trader Joe’s, since they offer many healthy and organic food options. Although not everything they sell is organic, they maintain that everything with their own label on it is ‘sourced from non-genetically modified ingredients’, which I thought meant GMO-free. 1 This wording is very specific: apparently it is required, because contaminants could be present. ‘Organic’ food has to be 100% free of GMOs, while food that is grown without GMOs but not verified GMO-free could be contaminated with GMOs.2 Since Trader Joe’s brand labeled food is not certified organic, they have to be careful how they label it.

One problem I encounter at Trader Joe’s and elsewhere is the high price of organic food. While I think most people recognize the benefits of organic fruits and vegetables (pesticides are linked to Parkinson’s disease3), they are ridiculously expensive compared to the cheaper non-organic alternatives –organic foods range from 10-40% more expensive than regular food products.4 However, a promising trend of increasing organic food production has been underway in the United States and Europe. Organic food sales in the United States increased by 17% in 2003 alone5, and hopefully as they become more popular prices will eventually decrease.

Another issue I encounter at Trader Joe’s is the misleading ‘natural’ label. This is not confined to one grocery chain: most other grocery stores carry

‘natural’ products as well. The ‘natural’ label is the equivalent of ‘non-GMO produce’ – meaning contaminant GMOs could still be present in the food. Pesticides are also allowed to have been used on ‘natural’ foods.6 If a food is ‘natural’, it could still have been treated with pesticides.6 The label is nowhere near as comprehensive as ‘organic’, yet somehow its presence lulls us into a sense of safety. I felt compelled to purchase these foods in the past, because the label

makes them seem healthier. Now I realize it is mostly meaningless.

Works Cited:

1. “Trader Joe’s Customer Updates.”Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s, 2012. 15 April 2012. <http://www.traderjoes.com/about/customer-updates-responses.asp?i=4>

2. “Trader Joe’s and US Supermarkets Claim Impossibility of Going GE-FREE.” Organic Consumers Association. Fairchild Publications, Inc, n.d. 15 April 2012. <http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/traderjoesge.cfm>

3. Wang, A, et al. “Parkinson’s disease risk from abient exposure to pesticides.” Eur J Epidemiol, July 2011.

4. Winter, Carl K, Davis, Sarah F. “Organic Foods.” Journal of Food Science, November 2006. 5. Hansen, Nanette. “Organic food sales see healthy growth.” MSNBC.com. CNBC Inc, 2012. 15

April 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6638417/> 6. Benson, Jonathan. “Know the difference: ‘Natural’ foods are not organic, often contain GMOs and

other toxins.” Natural News.com. Natural News Network, 2012. 15 April 2012. <http://www.naturalnews.com/035238_natural_foods_GMOs_organic.html>

Images: 1. http://www.losanjealous.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/tj01a.jpg 2. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/USDA_organic_seal.svg/500px-

USDA_organic_seal.svg.png 3. http://img4.realsimple.com/images/food-recipes/tools-products/0813/label-100-natural_300.jpg    

Blog Three: UnCultured? How We've Changed

I have always been a lover of animals. However, the animals may not have felt the same way about me: I used to catch lizards quite often as a kid, and they probably did not appreciate me grabbing them and turning them upside down to see if they had blue bellies. I also used to chase after butterflies and other insects, and I kept them in special cages. Although I did my best to research exactly what food they ate, I would always be devastated when inevitable a few of my captives would die. Eventually I realized that with my limited resources, I could not provide for them the way they needed, and I stopped trying to capture bugs and critters for my own enjoyment. I’m happy enough now just to observe them whenever I’m outside.

Strange Culture was a rather frightening film. My instinctive reaction to hearing about everything that happened to Mr. Kurtz was just “how could this happen?”. Under that kind of scrutiny and condemnation, I don’t know how I could have held up. I think it would have driven me crazy. Although I could understand if an EMT felt uncomfortable seeing bacterial cultures lying around a house (I would have wondered if there was any danger, not on a bioterror level, but simply because if the plates were not handled correctly other fungus and bacteria that were harmful could have grown on them1), I think that this definitely speaks to the divide between art and science, and even the divide between science and personal life.

During the Enlightenment, philosophical thinkers were expected to be well-rounded, and people who were not what we would term specialists in science undertook their own experiments. For example, the famous author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also studied optics2. In the present day, we only trust scientists to conduct science in the ‘right way’, and we would never expect anyone to do science in their home (for example, as a hobby or for pleasure), especially if they were not a scientist by trade.

A portrait of Goethe, who was more proud of his scientific works than his writing

Works  Cited:  1.  “Risks  of  Growing  Bacteria.”  Newton.  Argonne  National  Laboratory,  2012.  22  April  2012.  <http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00253.htm>  2.  “Johann  Wolfgang  von  Goethe.”  Wikipedia.  Wikimedia  Foundation,  n.d.  22  April  2012.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe>  Images:  1.  http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-110602-ecoli-culture-7a.grid-6x2.jpg  2.  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Goethe_%28Stieler_1828%29.jpg/486  px-­‐Goethe_%28Stieler_1828%29.jpg    

Blog four: Self, Meet Body

I was fascinated by Noa’s exhibition. I think she achieved her goal of making us more aware of the everyday things we take for granted. The oversized coffee, pollen, and sugar reminded me of the beauty inherent in the things we consume every day, and of the beauty of the natural world that we remove them from. I feel compelled to live a less wasteful life after seeing her work, especially the pollen grain. The honey was transformed into something otherworldly and beautiful as it interacted with the pollen – I think it speaks volumes about how interconnected everything in the natural world is, and how much we ought to work to preserve that

balance, even at the expense of what is convenient for us as humans. Also, the dust bunny project was extremely fun to be able to touch and walk around in. It definitely brought back memories of my childhood, when everything seemed so vast and there was so much to explore.

In researching a connection between medicine and art, I was able to find an exhibit that evokes a similar sense of awareness of something we all take for granted at one time or another: the human body. The ‘Body Worlds’ project (1), which has traveled worldwide, is an exhibit of over 200 human bodies and body parts. Utilizing a process called ‘Plastination’(2), the Body Worlds team is able to perfectly preserve either whole bodies, individual organs, or individual organ systems such as the entire lymphatic circulation in a clear material that leaves them totally visible. The result is intended to be educational – to make us both appreciate our bodies and understand how they are put together. Medical terminology is used throughout, and detail is of paramount importance (3).

I was lucky enough to see this exhibit when it was on display at the California Science Center, and it definitely is an achievement of both science and art. The bodies are not just displayed in rows: they are deliberately posed and grouped together. I remember a group of three bodies: a man, woman, and child, with only their blood vessels suspended in plastic. They were positioned in a family scene, with the man carrying the child on his shoulders and the woman holding his hand.

It was eery how alien the blood vessels seemed as part of a scene from everyday life: one which they probably enacted numerous times as a part of the human bodies they used to inhabit. I left the show feeling both a sense of awe and gratitude for my own body and for the gift of life that allowed me to inhabit it, but also with a lingering sense of my own mortality. I highly recommend this show to everyone in our class. It is an unforgettable experience, and I think it is a great example of how science can work with art to create a lasting impact in our lives.

Works  Cited:  1.  “Questions  and  Answers.”  Body  Worlds.com.  n.d.  28  April    2012.  <http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/exhibitions/questions_answers.html>  2.  “Plastination.”  Wikipedia.  Wikimedia  Foundation,  n.d.  28  April  2012.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastination>  3.  Williams,  Kevin.  “The  science  exhibit  ‘Body  Worlds’  has  generated  controversy  every  stop  of  its  tour  for  being  too  realistic,  even  gross.  But  we’ve  seen  it,  and  we  think  it’s  amazing.  So  have  no  fear.”  

Chicago  Tribune.  Chicago  Tribune,  2012.  29  April  2012.<  http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-0502180429feb18,0,6732236.story> Images: 1. http://s1.hubimg.com/u/1217168_f520.jpg 2. http://image64.webshots.com/164/0/31/91/543703191THpxLH_ph.jpg

Blog Five: Why the War Against Gray?

When I first saw the picture of Kathy Brew’s “in-between” hair as I walked into the exhibition room, I did not know what I was looking at. It seemed eerily beautiful: a mix of white and copper, with the contrast making the copper seem like fire. When I realized it was hair, I thought it must have been made that way on purpose. Little did I know that it was the evidence of a struggle the artist had been dealing with since her early twenties.

Although she mentioned dealing with stigma against her age, and I have heard enough stories about how difficult it can be to be treated “normally” if one looks above a certain age to believe it, I feel like my generation is less conscious of age than most. We are used to people retiring later: our parents, the baby boomers, are still working. Activists groups have been formed to promote the shedding of the stigma against the aged.

However, ageism remains a serious issue for many older people, to such an extent that geropsychologists have begun speaking out in order to help their patients, whose mental health can be badly affected by ageist treatment.1 In response to ageism, several anti-ageism movements and groups have been founded - one of the most well-known of these is the Gray Panthers, which was founded in 1970 by Maggie Kuhn after she was forced to retire at the age of 65.2 This group and others like it view age as a natural occurance that should be embraced rather than stigmatized – which seems obvious to me, but apparently this is not the case for many. Such beliefs have also inspired some unique lines of products such as Boom! for women, which are meant to bring out the natural age and beauty of the user, rather than attempt to "hide" or prevent the signs of aging.3 Personally I think it is ridiculous to be prejudiced

against the aged, because it implies a disgust for one’s own future and therefore oneself. It seems ridiculous: nobody can escape ageing; where does an ageist individual think him or herself will be in thirty or fifty years? I am glad that a movement towards embracing and accepting age exists.

Works  Cited:  1. “Gray  Panthers.”  Wikipedia.  Wikimedia  Foundation,  n.d.  13  May  2012.  

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Panthers#Ageism>  2. Dittmann, Melissa. “Fighting ageism.” American Psychological Association. American

Psychological Association, 2012. 13 May 2012. <http://www.apa.org/monitor/may03/fighting.aspx>

3. “Boom! By Cindy Joseph.” Boom! By Cindy Joseph, 2012. 13 May 2012. <http://www.boombycindyjoseph.com/intro>

Images:  1.  http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5020/5591059506_3bbb194c71.jpg    2.  http://vivmag.com/vivsays/files/2010/11/Cindy-­‐Boom-­‐231x300.jpg  

Blog Six: Alan Turing and Morphogenesis

Alan Turing proposed, based purely on logical reasoning, that pattern formation in nature involved an ‘activating’ substance and an ‘inhibiting’ substance. The repetition of activator and inhibitor could create patterns such as stripes.1 Previously, developmental biologists were puzzled by pattern formation because they could not explain it using the linear models that were the extent of their knowledge at the time. Turing proposed a nonlinear model by introducing diffusion as the generator of instability in the model, instead of being a byproduct of the model. 2 The implications of Turing’s mechanism were astounding: he predicted the mode of action of the Hox genes in Drosophila, which result in the patterning of the embryo’s body segments. 3

The Hox genes induce patterning by activating transcription of their unique set of genes while repressing others not related to their segment. They in turn are regulated by patterning genes (gap, pair-rule, or segment polarity genes), which follow Turing’s proposed model very closely. These patterning genes are induced by high or low concentrations of maternal proteins in the embryo, which was formed from the maternal egg and paternal sperm. For example, high concentrations of maternal protein induce the expression of Bicoid and Hunchback, while inhibiting Giant and Kruppel. The concentration of these “morphogens”, as Turing first called them, lead to the formation of a pattern – segment two of the fly

embryo.3

Works  Cited:  1. Hughes,  Virginia.  “Alan  Turing’s  60-­‐Year-­‐Old  Prediction  About  Patterns  in  Nature  Proved  True.“  

Smithsonian.com.  The  Smithsonian  Institution,  21  Feb  2012.  Web.  20  May  2012.  <http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/02/alan-­‐turing-­‐predicted-­‐natures-­‐stripes-­‐and-­‐patterns/>  

2. Reinitz, John. “Pattern formation.” Nature. Feb 2012. 3. “Hox gene.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, n.d. 20 May 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hox_gene>

Images:

Segmentation in Drosophila: body plan organized by genes

Pair rule genes in Drosophila: alternating segments

1. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Hoxgenesoffruitfly.svg/400px-Hoxgenesoffruitfly.svg.png

2. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Gap_ene_expression.png 3. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Even-

skipped_fushi_tarazu.svg/203px-Even-skipped_fushi_tarazu.svg.png