Looking at Evolution through Germs part: I

Or, screwed, screwed, we are all screwed.

When it comes to talking about evolution, I like to go big and old. I mostly base my research on whales with legs, giant snakes, and dinosaurs because , well, I geek out over big animals that lived a while ago. If I could figure out why, I probably wouldn’t have this blog.

Today I’d like to switch things up and talk about evolution that’s happening in modern times, sometimes under our own noses.

Bacteria. The word itself sounds kind of icky. Bacteria themselves are one celled organisms so tiny that more than 100,000 of them could fit on the period at the end of this sentence. Something really interesting about them is exactly how they reproduce and how fast they reproduce.

Bacteria make more of themselves through a neat trick called binary fission. That is, they split (fission) into two (binary). Both copies have they exact same DNA, which I am required by science writer code to call, “the building blocks of life.” Some species of bacteria can double their population in 20 minutes by way of binary fission.


Bacteria reproduction.

What brings us to the subject of evolution is mutation in bacterial reproduction. Evolution itself is tiny genetic mutations spread out through many, many generations. Since generations in bacteria last hours instead of years, these creatures make excellent subjects for evolution.

Mutations are generally a bad thing. Downs syndrome is a mutation. Sickle cell anemia is another one. Sometimes mutations can be neutral, like blue eyes or pointer toes that are longer than big toes. Every once in a great while, something beneficial comes out of a mutation. For many organisms, beneficial mutations typically come in the form of eating or reproducing more efficiently. For bacteria, it’s most often antibiotic resistance.

We live in a world covered in germs, and a world covered in antibiotics. We put antibiotics in ourselves when we get sick, we put antibiotics in the animals we eat, we put antibiotics in our soap. It’s little wonder that when one of these fast-mutating “bugs” gets a gene promoting antibiotic resistance, the new type spreads like wildfire. As you will see in the next post, this can lead to some very hairy situations.

Looking at Evolution through Germs part: II

Or, screwed, screwed, we are all screwed… Part II



Pretty scary, huh? A bacterial infection spread through dirty gyms that is totally resistant to antibiotic treatment. Oddly enough, most people think that this strain of Staph infection came into being at a hospital.

This is sort of counter-intuitive. Hospitals are supposed to be clean, right? The problem is that hospitals may be too clean for their own good. Anti-bacterial cleaning solutions are put down on the hospital floors, everything in use is constantly sterilized, et cetera.

Normally, this is all well and good. After all, who wants to go to a 19th century hospital? But as I stated earlier, all these sterile techniques run into the problem of rapid bacterial evolution. If one bacterium gains a mutation allowing it to survive a dose of antibiotics, in 20 minutes, there will be two of them, in 40 minutes there will be four of them, and in a day, there could be 2 to the 72nd power of them, which is more than all the people in the world, times a billion. Insert explicative of choice here.

The sad part is, there’s little middle ground on this subject. If we were to stop using antibiotics altogether, a particularly bad ear infection (which I am quite familiar with) could equal a death sentence. The best chance we have against these hospital borne “super bugs” becoming antibiotic resistant is to have doctors make educated decisions on when to administer drugs. This may be easier said than done, as many people clamor for antibiotics at the first sign of the sniffles.

Unfortunately, that’s not the only place we can find antibiotics, due to pharmaceutical companies’ large presence in American business, we can find antibacterial in our hand soaps, in the feed we give to farm animals, and even in our G&$d@*n drinking water.

What can you personally do to cut down on antibiotic use? (And perhaps stop some kind of 28 Days Later s___ from going down?)

• Buy Organic meat- being certified organic means that your chicken patty wasn’t pumped full of antibiotics at a factory farm. (plus, some say organic meat is rich in self-righteous flavors, with delicate undertones of smugness)

• Use regular hand soap, not the antibacterial kind. Bacteria will cover your hands within the next hour anyways, so you might as well skip the whole I-created-a-super bug-that-destroyed-mankind deal. If you’re a real Mysophobe, use alcohol based sanitizers instead

• When you get sick, ask the doctor if you actually need antibiotics to cure your ills. If you wind up with an antibiotic, do not stop taking them until you are done with the course.

Well, that’s all for this entry. I was only planning on doing these two, but I’m having fun with this, so I’ll do another on bacteria.

Next stop: 1347 AD- The Black Plague.

Looking at Evolution through Germs part: III

Or, screwed, screwed, we are all screwed…Part III

For a second, imagine you’re living in 14th century Southern France, around 1349 AD. This is not only a world without lolcats and gangsta rap, but also one without cotton clothing, chocolate, and a knowledge of how germs are spread.

The last one is particularly important, as a plague called the Black Death is currently sweeping through your town, killing, using the best evidence, about every one in three people. Named because of the blackish color the lymph nodes take when infected with the disease, it spread when rats infected with the disease were bitten by fleas, which then carried it to humans. This was a nasty, nasty way to go.

"Doctor Beak of Rome" an 1656 engraving by Paul Furst. This was the typical uniform of a plague doctor at the time, a sort of medieval hazmat suit. The bird mask holds sweet smelling herbs in the bill in order to keep the smell of death at bay. Seeing as these men were unsuccessful at stopping the plague, it is thought the mask is what gives us the word "quack" to describe unprofessional doctors.

The real question is, why didn’t all of Europe succumb to the plague? The answer again lies in evolutionary biology. Some Europeans had a genetic mutation that made them less likely to get the plague. It is thought that the Yersinia pestis bacterium latched on to a protein found on some people’s cells. Those who had a mutation deleting this protein were much more likely to survive. Six and a half centuries later, a good ten percent of European ancestored people still lack this protein. A cool side effect of this is that HIV uses the same protein, making those with the mutation more adept at resisting AIDS.*

Interestingly enough, evolution and epidemics go hand in hand.

Diseases like smallpox nearly wiped out the Indian tribes when Europeans first set foot on the New World. The reason for this (as well as the reason why the Europeans weren’t wiped out as well) has to do with natural selection. Smallpox had been common to the old world for millennia. Europeans who had genes adept at avoiding smallpox infections were more likely to survive and have children with the same genes. Those who didn’t, died.

Across the pond, the genes responsible for smallpox immunity would have been useless, and therefore not as common. When Smallpox first hit America, as many as 50 million lives were lost. The few Indians that survived were likely carriers of a resistance gene.A scene describing the Smallpox virus racing through the Aztec population. This comes from the Florentine Codex, a story written by unknown native students of Bernardino de Sahagún.

It is thought that germs, not guns or better technology are why we aren’t speaking Aztec.

So the bad news is that germs have been around forever, and some are waiting for a good time to kill millions of us. The good news is that germs aren’t the only things evolving. Humans’ immune systems are constantly evolving new ways to protect us from all sorts of nasty things. This is called the evolutionary arms race, and is a topic for next time.

*The author is saying this is a cool legacy of a long gone epidemic event, not condoning sharing needles or unsafe sex. Don’t be stupid, people.

Weather Story

story by Ted Rogers

There is an old Yankee saying that New England weather is, “Nine months of Winter followed by three months of damned poor sledding.” And while how warm this spring is going to be is still up for debate, the two snowstorms that walloped central Massachusetts in January and March are still being remembered. These blizzards shut down the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a day each; a situation that pleased nearly all students, but only some of the faculty.

The first storm hit the county area in the early hours of Wednesday, January 28th. About five to eight inches of wet, heavy snow fell from 4 am to the early afternoon. In the Amherst area, the worst effects of the weather were limited to slick roads and closed schools- with some public schools and colleges receiving an extra half-day for clean up.

Elsewhere in Massachusetts, problems included a few power outages in Suffolk and Worcester counties and several car accidents in the Westfield area of the Massachusetts turnpike. State Police report that they lowered the speed limit on the turnpike to 40 miles per hours as a response.
Nationally, the storm took a far heavier toll. Before heading north, the snowstorm went through the southern and eastern states, laying down a sheet of ice across roads and causing power failures for up to 1 million customers. The blizzard is said to have caused more than 23 deaths nationwide.

The second snowstorm to hit Massachusetts went down on Monday, March 2nd, dumping six to 12 inches of snow throughout the region. This was a classic example of a nor’easter system- a storm named after the trade winds bringing the tempest in. The snow delayed flights and buses in the New England area for most of the day. Other then a few icy roads and closed schools, however, the day was fairly uneventful.

After the snowstorm ended, the mercury plunged into the low 10s, creating icy roads. By Wednesday, the air temperature at Westover Air Reserve Base had reached an all-time low of three degrees Fahrenheit, beating a previous 1943 record by a degree.

This storm also had far reaching effects, with snow being seen as far down south as South Carolina. Pictures were captured of snow blanketing the US Capitol Building. As snowy conditions are rarely seen south of Pennsylvania, car accidents and a 15 mile long traffic jam were reported in North Carolina. More than 900 flights on the eastern seaboard were canceled.

These storms have also taken a toll on the already weak US economy. New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine reported that the storm could cost his state 2.5 to 7 million dollars. Closer to home, Chicopee Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette said, "At $12,000 an inch, we are expecting to reach $1 million in costs," for this season alone.

On the brighter side of things, the old saying that March, “comes in like a lion, out like a lamb,” is expected to hold true. Daytime temperatures are predicted to be in the mid to upper 50s for the next week, with a likely high of 62 degrees and sunny weather on Friday.

For more on how the snow affected Students at UMass, please check this audio slide show out, with photography by Emily Grund and narration by Alyssa Montalbano

Given that this is an evolution/paleontology blog, I get disproportionately excited any time some group of people finds a few bones in a hole that they've been digging for years.

It's one of those days.

After three years of digging in the freezing cold, polar bear-infested island of Spitsbergen, scientists have unearthed an absolutely gigantic Pliosaur. This monster was as big as a humpback whale, and a whole lot meaner.

Large Pliosaur skeleton with person for scale. Courtesy of Sarah Katzenell

Today, I think it would be interesting to use this discovery to show a core principle of evolution- Body structures are related to the animal‘s environment and behavior.

Take a look at this creature’s flippers- there are four of them. All other fully aquatic animals have eventually lost their hind limbs, in what is thought to be a response to better hydrodynamics. Flippers tend to create drag when traveling through open water, which means more energy is spent swimming and less spent on eating and reproducing.

So, why would four massive flippers exist on an animal? To know this, we need to look at the Pliosaur’s environment.A world map of the Jurassic Period. Notice the continents are partially fused together. Courtesy of Dr. Ron Blakey

As you can see on the map, there is one giant ocean, a few shallow seas, and thousands of miles of coastland. The coasts and shallow waters make excellent habitats for reefs- and creatures that like to hide in reefs. Now, animals hide for two reasons; to avoid becoming prey, or to wait until your next dinner comes close enough to be convenient. As the Spitsbergen monster was quite possibly the largest animal in the ocean at that point, it can be assumed that its behavior was the latter.

Tests done with robots show some interesting benefits that come with swimming with four flippers. This style allows the animal more maneuverability, and short bursts of speed, something associated with an ambush method of hunting.

Fossils are nothing short of amazing. When looking at the case of the four-flippered pliosaur, one can not only learn about how this creature may have behaved, but also get a better glimpse of what kind of environment this animal lived in.

Fun with Fossils

I have to admit something- talking about evolution can get old in a sense. 3.8 billion years old, to be somewhat precise. But every so often, I get to talk about some recent discovery that shocks scientists the world over. Without further ado, I would like to show you the newly uncovered Maiacetus (mother whale in Latin), the whale that lived like a sea lion.

Mother Whale
It’s not just the discovery of a new species of whale that has science in a uproar- it’s also the fact that this fossil whale was extremely pregnant. As it turns out, a fossilized pregnant whale can give a wealth of information about how the creature lived.
The mother Maiacetus’ fetus was so developed that it already had a set of tiny teeth, something that suggests the baby was equipped to hunt and defend itself soon after birth. What is really amazing is that the baby whale was positioned for a head first birth. Since modern whales give birth tail first, (to prevent the newborn from drowning) this suggests that Maiacetus hauled its bulky body onto shore to give birth, just like modern day sea lions.



What else can fossils tell us?
It depends on what is being fossilized. An egg or a pregnant mother can tell paleontologists about what early life was like for that specific species. Teeth can tell us what the species ate, and sometimes, where they lived. Fossilized foot prints show how an extinct animal walked.

It may come as a surprise to my readers at UMass, but the nearby Holyoke Range is covered with dinosaur footprints from the late Triassic. 190 million years ago, the Pioneer Valley was a vast swampy region with a decent amount of volcanic activity going on nearby. Something interesting about these tracks- they show that theropod dinosaurs walked on two legs without dragging their tails. Believe it or not, this was a lively field of debate a few decades ago.

Notice how this early exhibit of T. Rex had the animals standing with a tripod tail? We now think they had an upright walking position, like a bird.
Public Domain

Fun German word of the day-
Lagerstätten- Means, “place of storage.” This are entire environments that have been flash frozen in stone. These are generally due to a catastrophic event that buries all life in the area and preserves it. The formation of Lagerstätten are associated with events like eruptions, landslides, and flash floods.

Vestigial structures

Ouch. You can see the impacted wisdom teeth on the right. Why do we have them? Read on.
Courtesy of Ka-ho Chu

Today I’d like to have some fun showing you how you can trace your long, seamy ancestry through your own body. In the far distant past, your grandparents to the umpteenth power may have swam through murky swamps, warmed up on rocks, or jumped from tree to tree in the search of leaves. How can we figure this out? Through vestigial structures.

Vestigial structures are parts of you that have lost their function in your body, but have retained their function in many other animals.

What are some of your vestigial organs?
Everybody’s favorite example is the human appendix. It’s a little, worm shaped organ that hangs off of your large intestine. In humans, the appendix is famous for doing nothing- except for occasionally getting infected and necessitating it’s immediate removal. Some scientists claim that the appendix actually plays the small but important part of reintroducing beneficial bacteria back to your intestines after a bout of Montezuma’s Revenge.

In other animals, however, it plays a huge role. Animals that eat a lot of cellulose (an extremely starchy product of some plants) or toxic materials have huge appendixes. The Koala, the Australian marsupial famous for eating (highly poisonous) eucalyptus leaves, has an appendix over two meters long. Rats also have a large appendix, allowing them to eat pretty much anything.

Other good examples of vestigial traits in humans are: The coccyx- a remnant of the tails our distant relatives used to swing around on trees. The muscles attached to our ears- most small mammals use these muscles for directional hearing. Wisdom teeth- these teeth used to pushed others forward as people got older and started to lose their teeth. Thanks to better dentistry, present day wisdom teeth usually just impact and snaggle the jaw-line.

Do other animals have vestigial organs?
Yes, Virginia, other animals have vestigial organs. To show you one famous example, I’d like to go back to the whales. As I already discussed, the early ancestors of whales had legs and hips. Interestingly enough, they still do- they’re just embedded under layers of fat and muscle. Every so often, a little genetic accident occurs, and something amazing happens.

The letter "C" in this picture shows you a modern whale's hips and legs. Courtesy of Stefan Kühn

Multimedia and the Budget

The story in question can be viewed here

I find this bundle of media to be very effective in showing the viewer what the impact and legislation of the enormous ten year budget is going to be. I’ll break the package into it’s component parts.

The Printed Story:
The printed story goes over several key areas of the story behind the budget. The first part focuses on the budgets aims are and how much it will cost. The second portion looks at President Obama’s efforts in creating the budget, examining the sectors where he wants the money to go and which the sectors where he is planning to cut funding. The story than switches to the methods that will be used in paying for the budget, focusing on the taxation of wealthy individuals and business. Finally, the story ends with the fears expressed by some legislators over the colossal amount of money proposed to be spent. I found the story to be informative and diligent in answering the major questions of the deal behind the budget.

The Graphic:
There are two parts to the graphic. The graph gives detailed information of government spending, earning, and the related deficit issues over an 80 year period. Under it, you have some bullet points as to where the money will come from and where it will go. I liked this graphic because it gives a more thorough look at the money issues of the budget and gives the reader a little look at the history of budgets.

The Pod cast:
This was my favorite part of the news package. The writer of the story, 25 year Washington reporter Jackie Calmes, gives the lowdown on the authorship of the budget, where she thinks the money is going, and some insider information on who she thinks will oppose some of Obama’s budget cuts. It was very cool to hear the journalist talk about what she learned while working on this story.

The Video:
The video was interesting too. It goes over Obama’s announcement of the budget and outlines where the money is going as well as where funding is going to be cut. This was a basic rundown of what is talked about in the article, condensed into a few minutes.