Genetic Jungle

Welwitschia: curious cone-bearer of the Namib

2011-11-27T13:54:00.001-07:00

This is no ordinary tree trunk.

It was a hot afternoon during my freshman year and I was trying to find my botany professor's office. Sweat running down my spine, already late for organic chemistry, lost in the basement of the Botany building. I turned a corner and came face-to-face with the giant, scalloped remains of a welwitschia, mounted on a pedestal. Clutching the ethnobotany paper I was meant to submit that day, I just stood there, enraptured, mesmerized. It resembled something creepily organic, like Martian fungus, or at least something indecent that had sprouted from the sea floor. Certainly not a tree trunk. I never made it to organic chemistry that day.

Welwitschia mirabilis makes the scorching Namib desert its home.

Not only is Welwitschia mirabilis the solitary member of its genus, but it is also the only member of its family, the Welwitschiaceae. In fact, it is taxonomically so bizarre and so unique that it has been given its own order. The only other species that appear to be (quite distant) kin are the joint-pines of genus Ephedra. Wait, did I say joint-pine?! Yes, I did. For the welwitschia is a short, stunted gymnosperm and bears its seeds in cones, just like pines, firs and spruces. Think about that for a while. This weird tree is found only in the Namib desert of Namibia and Angola, a habitat as different from a dark northern forest as any, the oldest desert on the planet. It is estimated that welwitschias have been growing here for nearly 100 million years, and that they haven't changed much during that time. The welwitschia has many fascinating adaptations that allow it to thrive in this harsh climate. It survives in places where it sometimes doesn't rain for years, subsisting solely on the fog that rolls in from the Atlantic at dawn.

Alien vegetable forms dot the landscape inside Messum Crater, Namibia.

Its short woody stem is unbranched, but grows wider with age to form a crenulated woody bowl that can be a meter in diameter. Like most moisture-dependent desert plants, welwitschias are pretty slow-growing: it is estimated that large specimens with leaves in excess of 6 m long may be more than 1,500 years old. From the margins of the crested stem sprout what appear to be a myriad of strappy leaves.

A large specimen in the Namib-Naukluft National Park.

Their appearance is deceptive. In fact, the welwitschia only produces two opposing leaves that continue to grow throughout the life of the plant, becoming split and shredded through the action of sand and wind and centuries. The shredded leaves become a trap for wind-blown debris, enriching the sandy soil around the plant and providing shelter for insects, spiders and lizards. Welwitschias have a large taproot to pull moisture from deep underground, and also a network of short fibrous roots near the surface to help them absorb water from ocean fog that condenses on the leaves and rolls to the ground. In a way, these plants engineer their own microclimate to ensure their survival in extremely arid surroundings.

Welwitschia bugs on the cones of a female plant.

As I mentioned, the reproductive structures of Welwitschias are cones, like those of cypresses and cycads. Male and female plants exist separately, bearing different types of cones. Male cones produce pollen, but not in copious amounts like those of wind-pollinated pine trees do. Instead, they rely on insect pollinators to carry their precious cargo to a receptive female plant. The plants are often found crawling with yellow or vermilion coloured welwitschia bugs, Probergrothius sexpunctatis, attracted by the sweet nectar secreted by the immature cones. However, these bugs don't seem to be the pollinators, and other insects have been suggested as the culprits, including flies and wasps. In the unforgiving desert, welwitschias have maximized their chances of survival, especially at the vulnerable seedling stage. When released from mature cones, welwitschia seeds may remain dormant in the sandy soil for several years until heavy rains come to the Namib. Only then does a new generation of Welwitschia mirabilis germinate. All in unison.

Picture credits:
Welwitschia trunk by Routard05
Welwitschia in habitat by Derek Keats
Messum Crater by intelligentinfo
Naukluft specimen by Joachim Huber
Bugs on cones by Jerry Oldenettel

Tasting fractals: true confessions of a synesthete

2011-11-07T12:30:00.001-07:00

Matcha green tea caramels: a volcano of taste.

We were at a bar, discussing the latest lab gossip over flutes of winter ale, when Lyndsay suddenly dug through her bag and presented me with a small, square piece of green candy, wrapped in clear cellophane.

'Our postdoc brought me some of these caramels from Japan,' she said. 'This one's green tea. You should try it.' So I did. An interesting and delicious combination of buttery caramel and invigorating matcha green tea flooded my palate.

'It tastes sort of this shape,' I said, miming a mountain with my hands. 'Sort of...volcano-like. It's rounded, but there's a pronounced indentation at the top where the green tea and the butter caramel intersect.' Both Eric and Lyndsay stared at me as if I'd just confessed to setting a toddler on fire.

'So tastes have shapes to you?' Eric asked.

'Well, kind of,' I said. 'They're more like landscapes than free shapes.' I hesitated. 'But we all have that, right? It's not like I have synesthesia or anything like that.'

'No, Leon, no one else has that,' Lyndsay affirmed. 'No one else tastes shapes.' Eric just laughed, shaking his head furiously. As the first snow of winter started sifting down from pink clouds hugging the town, I started to reconcile myself with the fact that I may have synesthesia.

People with synesthesia show increased connectivity and communication between parts of the brain normally devoted to the processing of different sensory stimuli.

Synesthesia is commonly defined as a neurological condition where stimulation of one of the senses elicits involuntary triggering of another sense. People with synesthesia are dubbed synesthetes, and synesthesia can take many different forms. Some people experience vivid colours when hearing specific sounds (C sharp on the piano sounds golden yellow). Others associate personalities with numbers (4 is such a guarded, introspective number). Still others might associate textures with specific smells (sandpaper smells like strawberries). Much research has been conducted on the cause of synesthesia, suggesting enhanced cross-talk between brain areas usually devoted to separate sensory pathways (see here for an extensive reference list, both peer-reviewed and otherwise). For example, when people who experience coloured-hearing synesthesia are stimulated with spoken words while inside an fMRI, the areas of the brain devoted to the processing of colour information light up like they were watching the psychedelic Star Gate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The brains of control subjects who don't have synesthesia do not light up in this way, even when they were extensively trained to associate words with specific colours. Science is also beginning to make some progress on the genetic basis of some of the more common forms of synesthesia, with evidence from large-scale genome-wide association studies implicating specific regions on several different chromosomes.

Hearing colours can be quite the space odyssey.

But what about me? My apparent synesthesia has not been confirmed by a neurobiologist, and I've had none of my genes sequenced. Synesthetes are more likely to be left-handed. I'm left-handed. About 40% of synesthetes have a close-relative who also has synesthesia. I...well, I don't know. I've never asked them, and perhaps they, like me, haven't thought it anything unusual and therefore never mentioned it. Also, my kind of synesthesia, morphogeusia (from Ancient Greek morphe, 'form' and geusis, 'taste'), seems to be one of the weirder ones. In addition to taste, it also involves my sense of smell to some extent. I once started to describe the scent of a colleague's perfume as 'very tall, sort of skyscraper-shaped, but with a top that resembles a bisected sphere with indentations...' before trailing off when I saw her raised eyebrows.

Ceylon black tea.

Let me explain what is happening to me. Basic tastes and flavours have pretty basic shapes, and these shapes are not so much felt as seen; they're topography, not texture. All fats and oils elicit the same perception of rounded mounds. Butter is distinctly dome-shaped. This partially explains why those buttery green tea caramels tasted volcano-shaped: it's that mountain of buttery goodness! The taste of rooibos is also rounded, but concave in contrast to the convex dome of butter. Rooibos is therefore bowl-shaped to me, and able to contain other flavours (like the bullets of vanilla), whereas the domed heavy cream of a crème brûlée would go over the top of vanilla. Incidentally, real vanilla is fat and short, whereas artificial vanilla is taller and thinner, more like a rifle cartridge. I had a fine cup of black tea the other day that tasted much like a flight of stairs. Sharp, pungent ingredients like raw onions or wasabi tend to taste like valleys or canyons, and the sharper they are, the more sheer those cliff faces become.

Eggs over easy.

Initially, I took that fact that not every taste seemed to have a shape as evidence that I didn't actually have synesthesia after all. Surely everything must elicit a well-defined topography! But then I realized that it's merely harder for me to see the shapes of things such as eggs and french fries; it's not that they lack landscape, it's just that the topography of that landscape is really shallow. French fries are just shallow ripples, whereas an egg forms a shallow depression, like a dried lake bed. Perhaps surprisingly, the extent of a synesthetic shape does not correlate with my enjoyment of a particular foodstuff. I like both eggs and french fries and don't find their taste one-dimensional, regardless of how shallow and dull their synesthetic features are.

Tart cherries, with a lingering oak finish.

While still an undergrad, I was recruited to a university tasting panel by a friend majoring in food science. Soon my palate was required to evaluate all manner of things, from frozen vegetables to chocolate milk. The sensory evaluators commended my vivid gustatory descriptions for new flavours of potato chips they were developing (though I was careful not to describe them as 'salt flats with interspersed pyramids' or anything similar). However, I'm not a supertaster by any means. Neither do I possess a particularly sophisticated palate. All wine resembles a generic jungle canopy to me. It's as difficult for me to tell one pinot noir from another as it is difficult for me to discriminate between a rain forest from Bolivia and one from Ecuador. Highly complex flavors elicit landscapes that are not very memorable and exceedingly difficult to describe, like the faces of strangers you meet in a dream. What synesthetic shapes did that chilli verde from the other night conjure up? I don't recall exactly, but there was some granularity, I'm sure...

So that's my little personal subjective anecdote about maybe perhaps having synesthesia.

'I'm so happy for you,' a lady in a tea shop said to me the other day, when she overheard me discussing my synesthesia with Eric. 'What a wonderful talent.'

'I'm not sure I'd consider it a talent, as such,' I responded. 'It's not even particularly useful. I'd read about Daniel Tammet, who has high-functioning Asperger syndrome and uses the vivid synesthetic landscapes generated by numbers to recite pi to tens of thousands of digits. I don't have that at all. I'd rather be good at math.'

I didn't tell her about lemons and how they taste like fractals, though. But they do that for everyone, right?

Picture credits:
Matcha green tea carmels from Fusion Sweets
MRI scans from Rouw & Scholte (2007) Nature Neuroscience 10:792-797
Star Gate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stone steps from Steve McCullough
Dry lake bed from Reno Tahoe
Jungle canopy from thaths

Making beautiful science

2011-06-27T18:13:00.000-06:00

In about 50 days I'm giving birth to a PhD thesis. I just want to have a beautiful baby. Wish me luck...

A little holiday reading

2010-12-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Jungle fever - Brazil nuts, bees and orchids

2010-12-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

Every Brazil nut you've ever eaten has been collected from the Amazon jungle. Forget about wine and cheese; Brazil nuts represent the ultimate in terroir. Without intact rain forest, the very landscape surrounding the tree, there would be no nuts at all.

The Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa) can live to be more than five centuries old, reaching more than 40 m/130 ft into the sky to become what's known as an emergent, a true forest giant standing head and shoulders above the forest canopy below.

The nuts (which are really just delicious, oily seeds) are encased in an enormous woody capsule that takes more than a year to mature on the tree. Imagine about 20 nuts arranged like the segments of a Terry's chocolate orange, but wrapped in a cannonball. It's downright dangerous to be under the tree when these palatable projectiles (which can weigh 2 kg/4.5 lb) start falling to the forest floor.

Around 20,000 tons of nuts are harvested each year. In the past, people who tried to farm the trees in large scale orchards were disappointed to find that the trees almost never set seed. Something was missing. Those who tended trees within or right next to undisturbed forest had much more success. This practice is called forest gardening, an example of which is shown in the image above, with nut trees growing in a soybean field overhung by jungle. It was clear that the trees need the forest like the forest needs the trees. This is because an intact ecosystem is required in order for the flowers of the Brazil nut tree to be pollinated. And that ecosystem includes horny bees and bizarre orchids.

When the short-lived flowers of certain orchids open up in the shadows of the forest canopy, it's the equivalent of Black Friday for the males of several species of metallic-looking insects known as euglossine bees. The bees have not come to score a good deal on a meal, for the orchids produce no nectar. Instead, the male bees crawl all over the flowers, enticed by otherworldly fragrances produced by special scent glands hidden within. The males bees actively collect the scent molecules onto specialized hairs that cover their legs to form a sexy bee cologne which they'll use to attract females at display sites elsewhere in the stifling forest. In their mad scramble, they'll also pick up and deposit some orchid pollen, thereby intertwining the reproductive fate of the orchid with their own.

Outdoing the talented perfumers of Guerlain and Givenchy, the scent glands of different orchid species produce unique mixes of volatile chemicals. In turn, female euglossine bees are as particular as the mademoiselles of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré: scent preferences are often highly species-specific. The result is that pollination only occurs between orchid plants of the same species, as males of a particular bee species typically only visit one species of orchid. Some bee species play perfumer themselves and collect scent from different orchid species, mixing their custom cologne on-the-go. In these cases, the orchids attach their pollen on different parts of the bees' bodies in order to prevent cross-pollination.

And what role does the female euglossine bee play in all of this? Well, she's the one who pollinates the flowers of the Brazil nut tree. Without intact rain forest, there can be no orchids. And without orchids, no bees. And without bees, no Brazil nuts.

So think about all that jungle lust when you're snacking on your roasted nut mix this festive season, and thank those horny bees and bizarre orchids every time you pop a precious Brazil nut in your mouth.

Picture credits: Brazil nut trees at sunrise © Jeanne S; Brazil nuts in shell © Heather Thorkelson; Brazil nut trees in forest garden © Pat Joseph; Gongora orchid with Euglossa bees © Christian Ziegler/NGM; Catasetum orchid with Euglossa bees © Marcelo Rodrigues; Stanhopea orchid with Eufriesea bee © Daniel Jimenez; mixed nuts Christopher Baron.

Erm...

2010-10-02T00:20:00.000-06:00

*cough*

Is... is this thing on?

Photo credit: Keith Bloomfield

Orchids in the mist: the Denver orchid show

2010-03-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

Odontocidium Sunlight

It never fails. The weather outside has to be absolutely horrid, otherwise it would be a break with tradition, it seems. On the day CJ and I drove to Tagawa Gardens for the 2010 Denver Orchid Society Spring Show, the interstate was shrouded in fog. The Rockies had completely disappeared, but we felt them as a solid presence somewhere beyond the grey banks to the west.

Cattlianthe Madam Kallaloo

I'm always sort of disappointed when the displays incorporate intricate carnivorous plants and gorgeous bromeliads, because these plants have no place at an orchid show, however beautiful and interesting they may be. Worse is when they incorporate props, like fiber optic UFOs and (shudder) garden gnomes. Aren't orchids amazing enough? Just let them be, people. Thankfully, the Denver Orchid Society has too much good taste for that kind of thing. The well-constructed displays were fleshed out with lush, appropriate backdrop foliage; this fit the 'Orchid Oasis' theme for the show very well. Orchids from the genus Masdevallia and complex intergeneric hybrids from the Oncidiinae subtribe featured heavily in this season's show. For those of you who have absolutely no idea what the hell all that Latin means, here are some pictures of lovely orchids to enjoy!

Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi

Large, round, flat and near-ubiquitous, those pink and white hybrid moth orchids can be found in the house plant section of almost any grocery store these days. Coming face-to-face with their wild relatives is therefore always exciting, especially when they look entirely different. Feast your eyes on a lime-flowered version of Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi (above). The species name of this Southeast Asian moth orchid means deer-antlered, and it has curiously flattened inflorescences. With care, it can flower several times a year, unlike the store-bought hybrids, which generally flower only once a year. I also appreciate the fact that it has a starry shape, and not the flat, rounded shape we've come to expect from Phalaenopsis orchids.

Dendrobium garrettii

This adorable Dendrobium from Thailand bears minute flowers on leafless pseudobulbs that resemble a stack of green grapes. I think this would be a gorgeous addition to a cool little terrarium. The genus Dendrobium with its infinite variety: it's easy to see why it's my favourite orchid genus.

Masdevallia pteroglossa

When it comes to Masdevallia, virtually the whole genus is composed of miniature species. Masdevallia pteroglossa, from the cool cloud forests of Colombia, is a pixie among dwarves: the entire plant above would easily fit inside a coffee mug. The species name means wing-tongue, which refers to the dimunitive lip, which is only visible as a small red structure in the centre of the triangular flower.

Cochlioda rosea 'Laramie' HCC/AOS

This lovely specimen plant above was awarded a CCM (Certificate of Cultural Merit) by the American Orchid Society. This coveted award is only bestowed on exceptionally well-grown plants. It commends the patient and skilled grower able to bring out the full potential of an orchid. This Cochlioda, a member of the Oncidiinae subtribe, had a total of 16 inflorescences on it, bearing 102 buds and 320 open flowers! The judges described the hot pink petals as having the texture of "diamond dust". Cochlioda rosea is native to the rain forests of Peru and Ecuador, where it must be an awe-inspiring sight.

Dendrobium harveyanum

With more variations than you can shake a large stick at, the genus Dendrobium surprised us once again with the fuzzy-as-a-bumble-bee Dendrobium harveyanum. I loved the crystalline texture, the deeply fringed petals and the sweet scent. It appears dusted with pollen, but (as is typical for all orchids) the pollen is actually carried as sticky masses behind the anther cap, the small circular structure in the centre of the flower. This orchid is native to places in Southeast Asia with a monsoonal climate, and needs a dry winter rest in order for the flowers to develop in early spring.

Dendrobium Spring Doll 'Sweetheart' HCC/AOS

The absolutely enormous orchid above was awarded Best Flower and Best Grown Plant. Dendrobium Spring Doll 'Sweetheart' is one of the so-called soft cane Dendrobium hybrids, and was originally bred by the Hawaiian firm H & R Nurseries. Soft canes have Dendrobium nobile and related species in their pedigree. Like Dendrobium harveyanum, soft canes need less water during their winter rest. This induces masses of flowers right before the growing season. I would recommend soft canes as good beginner's orchids, as they thrive on benign neglect.

Tolumnia Jairak Rainbow

Tolumnia is an interesting genus, also part of the Oncidiinae subtribe. They are found on the islands of the Caribbean, where they grow as twig epiphytes constantly soaked by rainstorms and dried by the tropical sun. This requirement for rapid wet-dry cycles tends to make them slightly tricky to grow well. However, this example of the hybrid Tolumnia Jairak Rainbow was a carnival of a plant: several inflorescences bearing gaudy coral pink blossoms stained with carmine, like a gaggle of calypso dancers ready for a street parade.

Masdevallia caesia

At every orchid show, there has to be one favourite. Dendrobium species tended to be the attention whores of orchid shows past. This time around, I became obsessed with a rather bizarre Masdevallia from southwestern Colombia: Masdevallia caesia. It has blue-grey leaves. It grows upside-down. It needs cool to cold growing conditions, like you'd find where the South American rain forests meet the Andes and the trees are constantly bathed in clouds. It has flowers that can be 23 cm long (and you thought all Masdevallia were small). The flowers have an unpleasant smell, and are pollinated by flies attracted to the furry red lip, which resembles decaying meat. It's exactly the sort of plant that sends those suffering from orchid fever into pure delirium.

For more photos of my orchid show exploits, please visit my Flickr photostream.

Author guidelines: what's past is prologue

2009-12-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

Last-minute Christmas shoppers are braving the snow and slush outside. I remain sequestered indoors, braving the labyrinthine folds of my own brain. I nurse mug after mug of rooibos, procrastinate by baking these, distract myself by reading that. I find myself at the interface between two parts of my research, you see, and it has taken the form of a mental chasm I am hesitant to traverse.

In reality, I feel most fortunate to have made it this far. New insights into molecular biology are invariably gained using The Scientific Method, and my PhD research has been no exception. The first step is identifying a problem. In my field of study, the problem is that cereal plants manage to protect themselves against the ravages of insect pests, but we don't know how.* The next step is formulating a hypothesis that would address the problem, or some aspect of it. I therefore devised some gene-silencing experiments to test my hypothesis. I spent months in the lab, weeks in the greenhouse and tons of grant money. Most likely, I also inadvertently ate a couple of research subjects (aphids are small). I generated massive amounts of data, crunched the numbers, scrutinized the images, drew the graphs, did the statistics. I spent many hours in helpful discussion with my advisor. And now comes the next step in The Scientific Method: publishing the results.

Ever since I was a child, I knew I wanted to help figure out how the world works. I wanted to add pieces to the puzzle, somehow contribute to our understanding of life itself. Today, I'm fulfilling that dream by investigating the wonderfully complex machinery inside cells that help genes to function. Being a geneticist, with a focus on cereal functional genomics, means the pieces I contribute to the puzzle of nature are rather specific. It all seems rather small. I tend to get caught up in the detail of it. The detail is fascinating, certainly, but sometimes it feels kind of trivial, or unimportant. But then I read Michael Pollan, or about Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution, or about golden rice, or the looming Ug99 epidemic, and I realize that what I do has tremendous value to world food security. What I do will help feed the world.

That's enough reason to get the word out and publish that paper. It is the final step to The Scientific Method. It also proves one of the most challenging. Which publication does one aim for? Should I be arrogant and aim for a high impact journal, with a very real chance of being rejected? Or do I aim for more a modest periodical and run the risk of my work falling into obscurity? Judging the worth of one's own research is really difficult, especially when you've been intimately involved with it for such a long period of time. The peer-review system ensures that only science of high quality gets published. It also means that the reviewers can be quite brutal, sometimes subjecting your raw data to a full-on audit, of sorts. So I need to be sure before I submit the manuscript. Was the experimental design inherently flawed? Did I include the appropriate controls during gene suppression? Did I transpose a decimal in a calculation somewhere? Are the levels of gene expression truly significantly different between treatments? Alone at night, huddled over my notebooks and spreadsheets, there are moments where I doubt myself. This I have no doubt about, though: with the right kind of angle, this thing will go to press. It deserves to. The story must be told. Without the smallest piece, no puzzle is complete.

And once all of it's over and done with, it's merely chapter one. Further hypotheses and fun in the lab to follow...

*More specifically, we know that so-called resistance genes allow plants to detect the presence of pests such as aphids, and act accordingly. Cereals like wheat can strengthen their cell walls, generate noxious chemicals like hydrogen peroxide - a sort of natural bug spray, if you will - and even kill off their own cells around aphid feeding sites, thereby depriving the bugs of their food supply. What we don't know is how plant defence mechanisms evolved. Nor do we know how they coordinate this massive reprogramming of their biochemistry. Some crop varieties are very good at it, while others do nothing to stop aphids from feeding on them and eventually just wither and die. We don't currently understand why this is the case.

Pimp my petals: the Denver orchid show

2009-10-16T20:02:00.000-06:00

There was snow along the highway as we headed for Echter's Garden Center in Arvada. The Denver Orchid Society Fall Show promised to inject some tropical colour into a rather dull October afternoon. The theme was 'Orchids of the World', and I was pleasantly surprised by the diverse amount of species on display. The usual suspects were of course chosen as class winners in their respective alliances: an electric blue Dendrobium victoria-reginae, a denizen of mossy oak forests in the Philippines;

a vibrant Ascocenda Su Fun Beauty, its petals the colour of overripe persimmons;

and Paphiopedilum Magic Lantern 'Memoria Elizabeth Sulzman', holding its pouch as if the plant itself had just blown it from pink bubblegum. Feed me, Seymour, indeed.

Many strange and unusual specimens were on show, to the delight of jaded orchid enthusiasts bored by saucer-sized vandas and over-hybridized cattleyas. This South American Zootrophion below is a prime example of the bizarre orchids on display. Its small cage-like flowers don't open fully, and are covered in tubercules. What sort of minute insect is brave enough to crawl inside these to pollinate them?

Cleisocentron merrillianum is an astonishing little beast from Borneo: its slate grey flowers had many visitors to the show fiddling with the macro settings on their cameras.

Easily overlooked, Eria coronaria had its flowers hidden away in lush green foliage. This fragrant species has a wide distribution and can be found from the Vietnamese coast all the way to the foothills of the Himalayas.

This sinuous monopodial with subtle chartreuse coloured blooms is called Christensonia vietnamica. It originates in Vietnam - as should be obvious from its name - but curiously was unknown to science until as recently as 1993! It was a real treat to see a newly discovered species thriving in cultivation.

As usual my favourite thing on show is a dendrobium - usually a crystalline white Formosae-type with little black hairs on the canes, or a candy coloured jewel from New Guinea. This time Dendrobium bracteosum won me over: masses of waxy flowers emerging from papery bracts on the pendulous canes. This New Guinea native positively froths over with blossoms, each dotted with a rather impudent splash of tangerine on the lip.

Although I've been awfully good since living in the States, this time around I just couldn't help myself. The lure of the sale tables was just too strong, and I bought my first (non-grocery store Phalaenopsis) orchid since moving to Colorado in 2007. I managed to get a totally sweet deal on a Psychopsis Mendenhall 'Hildos' from Oak Hill Gardens. The clone I obtained, 'Hildos, has been awarded a First Class Certificate, the highest award bestowed by the American Orchid Society. So I got a great looking plant from awesome genetic stock for less than the price of a steak dinner. Below is a photograph of a similar orchid that was on show: Psychopsis Mendenhall 'Lace' x Psychopsis Mem. Bill Carter 'Mendenhall'. Are you jealous yet?

I have many more images from the 2009 Denver Fall Show and previous orchid shows available in glorious Technicolor™ on Flickr. Check it out.

Grad school has swallowed me alive

2009-09-07T08:05:00.000-06:00

Yes, I'm still alive. And doing rather well, thanks for asking. Unfortunately grad school has become my whole life this past month or so. I have been silencing genes and counting aphids until it feels my head has been drained of grey matter and stuffed with balls of cotton wool. There are several new stories carefully packed in that cotton wool, of course, but you will just have to be patient with me. In the mean time, here are some images from my research, to tide you over until the next proper installment of (E&E)². The top image shows 3,3'-diaminobenzidine staining in a leaf of resistant wheat after feeding by aphids has caused the massive release of peroxides. The bottom aniline blue image is of callose deposits that strengthen cell walls in response to the little suckers.

Sometimes sciences can just be about pretty pictures, can't it?

Ambergris: perhaps you'd rather not know

2009-08-01T13:32:00.000-06:00

I combed the beaches of St. Francis Bay with my aunt one afternoon, now a lifetime ago. The weather was nasty; it had been raining for most of the day. We didn't mind, of course, since we knew that stormy weather brings the secrets of the sea ashore. That was the day my aunt found the giant eggcase of a paper nautilus, wedged between the rocks. The perfectly white, rippled object was the most gorgeous and delicate thing I had ever seen. I believe that was the first moment my impressionable young mind was filled with a sense of awe at the mysterious creatures that live in the liquid parts of the planet.

Some things that wash ashore are less obviously beautiful: broken jellyfish, reduced to lumps of snot; kelp fronds; dead gannets; ambergris. Ambergris? Yes, ambergris, the stuff of myth and poetry. Sounds romantic, but what exactly is it? Read on, although the story isn't for the squeamish. Sometimes, when something is so... biological in origin, it is perhaps better to live in ignorance.

The sperm whale is the largest predator to have ever existed. It dives to almost three kilometres below the surface of the ocean in order to do battle with giant and colossal squid in the inky depths. Although sperm whales also feed on fish, they are particularly fond of cuttlefish and squid. The problem with a diet high in cephalopods is that those sharp squid beaks are not exactly digestible. So in a process analogous to how a pearl is formed in an oyster through constant irritation, the whale encases these beaks and other indigestible matter in fatty secretions from its digestive system. These lumps are then easily excreted by the whale, without fear of internal nicks and scrapes.

Many people refer to ambergris as "whale vomit", although Hal Whitehead, a whale scientist of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is of the opinion that ambergris is more likely excreted via the faecal route. Not to worry; I won't go into much more detail concerning cetacean scatology. The interesting part of the ambergris story concerns what certain land living bipedal primates elect to do when they find the stuff washed up on the shores of the world. Tar-black and viscous, freshly expelled ambergris is strikingly foul-smelling. However, a counterintuitive thing happens when these lumps drift around in the ocean, exposed to sunlight, oxygen and salt water. As ambergris oxidizes, it begins to cure and harden. Well-aged ambergris has a waxy texture and is marbled grey in colour. In fact, the word ambergris is derived from the French ambre gris, meaning grey amber.

The smell of ambergris fortunately also changes with ageing. People try in vain to describe its depth and complexity, but fail. In the end, ambergris smells like ambergris and there's nothing quite like it. It is sweet, but dangerous. It has earthy notes, like tobacco, mulch or mossy pine forests combined with marine notes like sea spray and ocean breezes. But it also exudes something that belies its animal origin: musk, leather and something altogether mammalian. Like the flowers of jasmine, it retains a definite faecal undertone. The elaborate chemistry of ambergris consists of countless compounds, and is particularly abundant in steroid lipids. The most important of these is a molecule called ambrein, pictured here. Ambrein is oxidized during the ageing process, to form several related pungent compounds with names that make them sound rather like the heroines of forgotten Victorian bodice-rippers: ambrox, ambroxide, coronal, ambrinol... It's the combination of all these molecules together which is responsible for the complex fragrance of ambergris.

Gross as its origins are, ambergris has been a highly valued commodity for centuries. Reknowned in China before the year 1000, it was known as lung sien hiang, meaning "dragon’s spittle fragrance," because it was thought to be the saliva of sleeping sea dragons drooling into the ocean. During the Renaissance, small lumps of ambergris were moulded into decorative jewelry. It was ceremonially burned, like incense. It has since found particular use in the perfume industry as a fixative. It retains other fragrance ingredients, preventing their rapid evaporation and allowing the scent to linger on the skin. One classic method for preparing an ambergris extract used "1½ oz. of ambergris, 30 grains musk and 20 grains civet reduced to powder in loaf sugar," to which was added the juice of 1 unripe lime. This was poured into 3 pints of pure spirit alcohol and placed in a stoppered jar. The jar was incubated in "the constant heat of horse manure for 21 days," and the resultant clear, amber-coloured liquid decanted as Tincture of Ambergris. Perfumiers today rely on more scientific methods of extraction, or have switched to using synthetic alternatives. However, real ambergris is purportedly still an important component of such famous fragrances as Chanel No. 5 and Drakkar Noir.

The quality of ambergris depends on how long it has been floating around the ocean. Just like wine it mellows with age, and increases in value. Standard grade ambergris trades at almost $20 per gram. Considering that ambergris is sometimes found as giant lumps weighing hundreds of kilograms, finding ambergris on the beach can be quite lucrative. Since ambergris resembles a smelly, shapeless lump of sea detritus and not the delicate eggcase of a paper nautilus, most people ignore it witout realizing its value. Pieces of the fragrant flotsam are often sold for tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to so-called "ambergris brokers". The trade in ambergris seems slightly shady: deals occur behind closed doors in hotel rooms in places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and purchases are always made in cash. Just a few people control the world ambergris market, and I suppose they would like it to remain that way.

Through the ages, ambergris has not solely been used for perfume. Its animalistic allure had much further reach. In fact, it formed a vital part of the traditional pharmacopeia of many cultures around the world. It was lauded as a restorative balm. Arab doctors prescribed it as heart and brain medicine. Perhaps not surprisingly, the sensual scent of ambergris was highly in demand as an aphrodisiac. Legend has it that Madame du Barry washed herself with it to make herself irresistible to Louis XV of France. Oddly enough, ambergris has been - and in some cultures still is - used as a spice for food and wine. Beluga caviar? White truffles? How gauche. Surely shavings of first grade ambergris on your eggs benedict must be an unparalleled epicurean billionaire's treat! Personally, I'm sure I could never stomach it. If it disagreed with the whale, it is certain to disagree with me.

Picture credits: paper nautilus © mrpbps; sperm whale © Brian J. Skerry; ambergris © composite from various sources; Chanel No. 5 © Andy Warhol, 1985; vintage perfume bottles © meeralee.

"We should have been foaming at the mouth..."

2009-07-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

It was late-July and the Rocky Mountain orchid season was drawing to a close. When two good friends, First Man* and CJ*, invited me to accompany them on a hike in the mountains around Breckenridge, I didn't hesitate. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to go hunting for terrestrial orchids. I had visions of us locating great species, like the spotted coralroot, the roundleaf orchid, or perhaps the glorious yellow lady's slipper - if we got particularly lucky. Instead, what we managed to do was prove that even three plant scientists, armed to the back teeth with guide books, can still be quite naive and actually very stupid when left to their own devices in the wilderness...

The weather was absolutely perfect as we breached 11,000 ft. in the shadow of Quandary Peak. The mountain itself, highest in the Tenmile Range at 14,265 ft., was teeming with climbers trying to reach the summit. However, we weren't there to test our mountaineering skills. We were there to revel in the botanical splendour that is the alpine summer. When warmth and liquid water have been absent for so long, plants seem to put in extra metabolic effort to really make the most of these summer resources. Wildflowers were everywhere: columbines with their bi-coloured cups; whiproot clover hugging the scree slopes; violets; forget-me-nots; saxifrage and primrose shimmering on the banks of streams; red and yellow paintbrush; asters and monkshood competing to see who had the most intense shade of purple. And higher up, their petals shredded by howling winds, alpine sunflowers. I started to feel giddy from all the biodiversity around me. Or it may have been the altitude, it's difficult to tell. No sign of a single orchid, though. Were we too late? Had they all gone?

We rounded a corner on the trail and came across a stand of the most peculiar plant (above). We stopped dead in our tracks. It was beautiful. Mid-green, pleated leaves bursting towards the sky from large clumps. We had to know what this thing was, taxonomically pin it down on the herbarium cards inside our heads. You could tell by the venation of the leaves that what we had here was a monocot. Which still meant it could be any one of around 60,000 species of plants. Was it some sort of lily? Or was it Cypripedium parviflorum, the yellow lady's slipper orchid? I so desperately wanted it to be the latter. Slippers are unmistakable in bloom, but this one didn't have a single flower on it. So as geeks do in situations like these, we whipped out the guide books. Mine had a lot of interesting text, but the pictures, frankly, were total crap. CJ's book contained more flower porn than you could shake a large stick at, so we elected to look through hers first.

Nothing. Couldn't find this thing at all. Looked through my book next, but to no avail. Mosquitoes started buzzing around our heads. It was time to move on. The trail was marked on First Man's GPS, so we could always come back this way if we didn't see it again. As we were hiking past stone cairns piled by previous explorers, CJ and I decided that it just might be an orchid, since the leaves looked so similar. Here's a picture of the yellow lady's slipper (left). Wouldn't you agree? Big, mid-green, pleated leaves. Identical. Especially because I wanted it to be identical. Which was a big mistake. We finally found another clump of the mystery plant. Against our better judgement (and park regulations, possibly) CJ and I waded into it. We stood waist-deep in the stuff. CJ caressed the leaves with her fingers, as I turned them upside-down to scrutinize the surprisingly hairy undersides. I almost suggested digging one up to look at its root structure (since terrestrial orchids generally have distinctive underground tubers), but luckily the environmentalist in me vetoed that idea.

Then we noticed the inflorescences. Two plants way in the back of the clump had the beginnings of enormous flower spikes forming, with lots of tiny, green undeveloped flowers forming. This was the evidence that shattered the fantasy. This was clearly no orchid, but something entirely different. In the end, we hiked all the way above treeline, to hidden lakes, and all the way back down again, without discovering any orchids. I had a truly terrific time, of course, but the orchid hunter in me was disappointed. We also failed to uncover the identity of the mystery plant, which was most unsatisfying. So that evening, after dinner and in the warm comfort of the cabin, we turned to every scientist's last resort. We Googled it.

Guessing that its colloquial name may have the word "lily" in it (don't they all?) I spent some time doing image searches with various forms of "lily" or "lilies" and "Rockies" or "Rocky Mountains". And then I found it: Veratrum californicum, the corn lily. Without a doubt. CJ and I excitedly grabbed our guide books again. Interestingly enough, the plant and related species were listed in both our books. The images were just really bad likenesses, so we had simply ignored those entries while on the mountain. Once again, a mistake, as we discovered when I read aloud from the entry in my book.

This plant, also known as the California false hellebore, is poisonous. And not just poisonous, the book informed us. Violently poisonous. "Eating even small amounts can result in unconsciousness, followed by death," we were informed. The symptoms of corn lily poisoning apparently include, "frothing at the mouth, blurred vision, lock-jaw, vomiting and diarrhea" and "people have reported stomach cramps after drinking water in which this plant was growing". Geez. We'd been waist-deep in them, touching their furry leaves. A brush with death, literally. Native Americans used to boil the roots and use the resulting extract to kill lice. I was suddenly very glad I had elected not to dig one up. Veratrum californicum contains the teratogenic alkaloids jervine and cyclopamine, which cause major birth defects such as cyclopia. Oh dear.

Just the week before, I had finished reading Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart - a beautiful and fascinating book all about spiky, toxic, invasive and poisonous plants. How ironic. I guess I learned two valuable lesssons on this trip. One: just because you want something to be true, it doesn't necessarily make it so. Two: assume every creature unfamiliar to you will try to kill you somehow. We so desperately wanted to find an orchid that we did things against our better judgement. Even in the mountains, orchids cast their crazy spell. Days later, when we'd all gone back to work, I noticed that CJ had changed her Facebook status to read, "After seeing the photos... we should have been foaming at the mouth".

*Names have been changed to protect the ignorant.

Photography credit: alpine meadow and Veratrum californicum © The Electric Orchid Hunter (that's me!); Cypripedium parviflorum © David Tees and Melanie Schori

Wine me, dine me, finger lime me

2009-05-31T22:36:00.000-06:00

These gorgeous things are becoming my new obsession. They are called finger limes and may well be the sexiest citrus fruit ever. I mean, just look at them! Their exquisitely elongated form echoes the shape of the banana and cucumber, those pedestrian fruit more traditionally associated with the erotic arts. However, when the skin of the finger lime is ruptured, all these sap-filled vesicles come bursting forth, an aromatic explosion of lime-tastic goodness. Am I crazy, or does that sound like a near-perfect description of culinary orgasm?

As you can tell from the scientific name, Citrus australasica, the finger lime is native to Australia. It's a thorny tree almost 10 m in height, endemic to subtropical rainforests from northern New South Wales to southern Queensland. The genetic diversity latent in finger limes is evidenced by the huge number of varieties known. The peel colour is very variable and ranges from yellow to green, burgundy and almost black. Beat that, banana skins! The pulp also varies from palest pearl to deepest ruby, with each colour having a unique flavour all its own.

Finger limes are making real headway into the fancy restaurants and boutique grocers of the world, but I'm yet to find one of these tangy beauties anywhere near where I live. In the meantime, a boy can dream, can't he? They can be used in any dish that calls for conventional limes, and are particularly suited to seafood dishes or those with a Southeast Asian influence. With those zesty vesicles shimmering like salmon roe, it's no wonder they've been called 'rainforest caviar'. Imagine some of these added to your favourite after-work drink: instant jungle-style sophistication. Finger limes are especially prized in the world of molecular gastronomy. Ferran Adrià, chef of the fabled elBulli restaurant on the Spanish Costa Brava, was apparently moved to tears by his first experience with finger limes.

That's okay: many people cry after their first time.

Citrus pr0n credits: top © El Aderezo; middle © Stuart Cohen; bottom © D.T. Pearson.

The Kerguelen Cabbage

2009-05-25T18:43:00.000-06:00

It was widely believed during the 18th century that a massive southern continent must exist in order to balance out the landmasses of the northern hemisphere. King Louis XV wanted to claim this Terra Australis for France, and commissioned Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec, an ambitious naval officer, to set out for the Southern Ocean in search of it and to establish trade with its natives.

Braving stormy seas, De Kerguelen discovered an island wreathed in fog on February 12th, 1772. The island was midway between South Africa and Australia, and right in the path of the Furious Fifties: non-stop Antarctic winds that howled across its barren surface from the west. Wind speeds in excess of 150 kph drove waves as high as 15 m around its ragged coastline cut by fjords and inlets. No trees grew there; the interior was almost entirely covered by glaciers. After several expeditions - not all of which made landfall in the rough seas - it became clear that the island was uninhabitable and not the southern counterpart to France everyone had hoped for. Disillusioned, King Louis XV had De Kerguelen incarcerated at Saumur Château for almost four years. Conveniently for De Kerguelen, the French Revolution occurred soon after. Since he was regarded as a victim of the Ancien Régime, he was released and eventually became Rear Admiral and commander of the port of Brest. De Kerguelen died in 1797. But what became of his island, you ask?

On Christmas Day 1776, Captain James Cook anchored the HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery in a bay on an uninhabited island in the Southern Ocean. Cook decided to call the bay Christmas Harbour and the island itself Desolation Island. While Cook's men explored the shore, one found a bottle fastened with some wire to a projecting rock on the north side of the bay. Inside the bottle was a message, written in Latin by one of De Kerguelen's company, Officer De Rochegude of the French frigate L'Oisseau. The message claimed the island in the name of the King of France. Cook wrote in his log, "I could have very properly called the island Desolation Island… but in order not to deprive M. De Kerguelen of the glory of having discovered it, I have called it Kerguelen Land."

And so Kerguelen Island was discovered and named. It remains a French territory to this day. Although the frozen continent of Antarctica was discovered in 1820, perhaps De Kerguelen was not entirely off the mark when he claimed that his island was Terra Australis. In fact, modern surveys of ocean floor topography have revealed that several islands of the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean are actually the highest exposures of an ancient landmass which sank beneath the surface of the sea about 20 million years ago. This submerged landmass has been named the Kerguelen Plateau. Rich underwater coal seams have been discovered here, evidence of expansive forests that once covered this lost continent.

Captain James Cook and his men were exploring Kerguelen Island in 1776, clubbing seals on the shore and collecting fresh water further inland, when William Anderson, Cook's surgeon, came upon a most curious plant. He described it thus: "It was not unlike a small cabbage," having "not only the appearance, but the watery acid taste of the antiscorbutics."It did resemble the Savoy cabbage, but seemed to be a slow growing perennial, as evidenced by its long woody stem. The leaves of this Kerguelen cabbage contained a pale yellow oil, rich in vitamin C. Having spent months at sea, Cook and his men staved off scurvy by supplementing their meals of seal meat with boiled Kerguelen cabbage. Boiling released all its essential oils, making it even more pungent, but the malnourished seamen took no notice of its strong taste reminiscent of watercress or horseradish. Anderson gave it its scientific name of Pringlea, after Sir John Pringle, who was president of the Royal society at the time.

The Kerguelen cabbage had to await the arrival of the Ross Expedition in 1840, before it received a full scientific description. Sir Joseph Hooker, assistant surgeon on the HMS Erebus, catalogued 18 flowering plants, 35 mosses and liverworts, 25 lichens and 51 algae during the Expedition's time on the island, but called the Kerguelen cabbage "perhaps the most interesting plant procured during the whole voyage in the Antarctic". It was given its full name of Pringlea antiscorbutica, emphasizing its use as a remedy against scurvy. It provided much-needed sustenance to the crew of the Ross Expedition. As Hooker wrote: "During the whole stay of Erebus and Terror in Christmas Harbour, daily use was made of the vegetable, either cooked by itself or boiled with the ships' beef, pork, or pea-soup; the essential oil gives a peculiar flavour which the majority of the officers and crew did not dislike and which rendered the herb more wholesome than the common cabbage for it never caused heartburn, or any of the unpleasant symptoms which that plant sometimes produces." Hooker rightly predicted that the cabbage would be a blessing to future ships that passed by.

In May of 1973, a letter from a curious reader appeared in the journal Nature, asking whether the scientists on board the HMS Challenger, then bound for Kerguelen to observe the 1874 transit of Venus, would try to collect seeds of the cabbage, so that it may be introduced on the shores of northern Europe and America. Because of its achingly slow growth and predilection for the cold, this feat was thought impossible. Recently, Canberra botanists have managed to successfully grow Pringlea antiscorbutica at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, demonstrating its commercial potential. Perhaps soon Kerguelen cabbage will be de rigueur on the menus of fancy restaurants the world over. Peppery Kergeulen cabbage with smoked salmon and lemon vinaigrette – an acquired taste, I’m sure.

Contrary to its common name, the Kerguelen cabbage is not restricted to Kerguelen Island. It grows on several sub-Antarctic islands, including the Crozet Archipelago, Heard Island, the McDonald Islands, and the Prince Edward Islands. Because of the non-stop strong winds, these islands don't have any winged insects. The Kerguelen cabbage, which is indeed related to the common cabbage and other crucifers, has therefore evolved to be wind-pollinated. It has also evolved to produce high levels of compounds called polyamines in its leaves, which act as a natural antifreeze.

The 1874 Challenger expedition to Kerguelen brought rabbits from South Africa with it. These would serve as a food source for the sealers and whalers that regularly passed by the area. However, with no natural enemies, the rabbit population exploded, causing severe erosion and unprecedented damage to the island’s plant life. Where rabbits grazed, plants like the Kerguelen cabbage and the cushion plant (Azorella selago) quickly became rare. The Kerguelen cabbage seemed destined to survive only on small offshore islands free from rabbits. The rabbit myxoma virus was introduced in the 1950s in an attempt to control the population. The rabbits rapidly developed resistance against the virus. It gets worse. Climate change is hastening the spread of plant species introduced from warmer environments. In 2004, a rabbit removal study indicated that the rabbits on Kerguelen Island might now be a necessary evil, required to keep the spread of such exotic plant species at bay.

Kerguelen and its surrounding islands are now home to rabbits, rats, mice, cats, sheep and reindeer. Rats and mice eat the seeds of native plants unchecked, since the cats seem more intent on catching seabirds than vermin. Reindeer consume all the slow-growing lichens. Sheep trample the meadows where cushion plants used to provide shelter for albatross nests. Intentionally or accidentally, we are responsible for the introduction of these creatures. What will happen to the Kerguelen cabbage, this wondrous vegetable that saved the lives of so many sailors in centuries past?

What have we done to Terra Australis?

Image credits: Kerguelen Island © Pascal Subtil; 'View of Christmas Harbour' by John Webber (1776) © British Library; 'Pringlea antiscorbutica' by Joseph Hooker (1844) © Linda Hall Library; Kerguelen cabbage in situ © Station Alpine Joseph Fourier; and © Australian Antarctic Division.

Like a bud bursting with renewed vigor

2009-05-21T11:05:00.001-06:00

Chelsea Flower Show 2009
Originally uploaded by lovedaylemon

It's late Spring. The Chelsea Flower Show is happening right now, which makes for great inspiration in the garden and greenhouse. Best of all, my preliminary exams are finally over. Yes, folks, I have qualified and am now a 'Ph.D. candidate', whatever that means! More frequent posts will hopefully result from my - slightly - more relaxed summer schedule.

Hope to see you all soon!
- orchidhunter

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [4/4]

2009-03-29T16:00:00.001-06:00

It had been raining heavily all night long. Leaves glistened in the stifling understory; mist rose from the damp ground. Alan’s backpack was soaked through and the Garmin GPS kept cutting out, making it difficult to pinpoint the coordinates of some of the plants they collected. He was secretly glad when Olivia stopped to refill her water bottle. Above them, insects throbbed their mating calls on the limbs of trees. His quads burned from climbing uphill virtually non-stop for two days. The things he’d seen. He was teetering at that narrow interface between exhilaration and exhaustion.

The site was amazing: 7,000 hectares of virtually unexplored medium-altitude forest. The only access road ended several kilometers away at a disintegrating tea estate, long abandoned. They had left the Land Cruiser among the collapsing ruins and hiked the rest of the way. The name Mount Mabu does not occur in classic plant collection records from northern Mozambique. After decades of civil war, local people were only now returning to the area. Most were unaware that the mountain even had a name. And now the scientists from the Darwin Initiative had already collected more than 500 different specimens of plants and animals here. They’ve done pretty well themselves, Alan thought. He’d recorded almost thirty succulents so far, and collected a number of specimens. If only he had coordinates for all of them. Cataloguing is going to be a nightmare when he got back to UCT. Olivia was growing more sullen with each step, though; there was still no sign of the Polystachya orchid. She’d hardly spoken a word in the last four hours.

Olivia straightened. ‘My God, Alan, a huge snake,’ she said levelly.

‘Just stand back and don’t bother it,’ Alan responded. ‘Just let it pass.’

‘I think it’s dead, actually. This big guy isn’t going anywhere.’

‘Are you sure it’s not just playing dead?’ Alan exhaled, slowly.

‘It’s a Gaboon viper, Bitis gabonica. I don’t think thanatosis is in its repertoire.’ Olivia meticulously stripped the leaves off a fallen branch. ‘But massive amounts of haemotoxin is,’ she continued. ‘They’ve got the largest fangs of any venomous snake. Here, look.’ With this she forced the dead viper’s jaws open with the end of the branch. At the lips and especially surrounding the giant fangs, the inside of the snake’s mouth was studded with glistening brown ticks. Alan wanted to look away. ‘I guess it must have died of infection,’ Olivia said, dropping the branch. ‘Ticks are vectors for all sorts of diseases.’

In a nearby sycamore fig with peeling yellow bark, samango monkeys twittered like birds. Elephant shrews scurried around in the dark, somewhere in the underbrush. A chameleon jerked and staggered towards a mantis, actors in their own silent film. The blue and brown discs of bracket fungi were slowly decomposing a fallen trunk, already in the shadow of saplings that raced skyward to fill the tear in the canopy. It was so hot. This forest seemed inordinately alive. Metabolic. More so than any place Alan could remember from previous fieldtrips. It was almost unimaginable that somewhere outside this verdant realm people busied themselves with their own cycle of birth and life and death. Nurses administered drugs to expectant mothers so that their unborn children wouldn’t share their fate; teenage heads of households sold scrap metal on the dusty streets of Mozambique’s villages; men woke up in the dark to stand in line outside clinics, not aware that their tuberculosis is multidrug-resistant; women planted maize where Renamo militia once planted landmines. Alan thought of all this as he clambered over lichen-covered boulders after Olivia, who was randomly taking photographs. Suddenly they broke through the canopy at the summit of Mount Mabu, and the light was bright, and there were white butterflies everywhere.

The forest they had traversed rolled into the distance beneath them. Above, every layer of the sky was filled with small white butterflies. Some of them were so high up, lifted by air currents, that Alan couldn’t be sure whether they were butterflies or just floaters in the vitreous humour of his own eyeballs. It was quiet. Millions of minute wings flapped continuously, soundlessly.

‘Mass migration,’ Olivia said from a nearby rock. ‘They’re all heading northwest.’ Alan didn’t say anything. For in the back of his mind, an awful thing had sprouted. A parasitic thought had innervated his brain, like dodder inserts itself into the vessels of a host plant. I am going to die here, he thought. In that very moment, their whole excursion seemed like such a dreadful mistake. Planned in secret, organized in haste; the head of his department didn’t even know that he was gone. Was he really that arrogant that he thought this would work? He’d never done anything this impulsive before, and suddenly it terrified him. He was getting sick, he knew. Even with the heat and the humidity, he knew that he must have a fever. He awaited the quivering of his soft palate, that gentle prickling at the back of his throat that heralds the onset of symptoms. It was just a question of time. He had to hide it from Olivia. Avoid panic. Don’t let her know -

‘Dr. Schroder!’ Alan looked up. He had a vague notion that Olivia had been calling his name for quite some time. ‘I said, I’ll give you the photos, so you can share them with Daniel. We may never see such a thing again. Marvelous creatures, insects.’ It was late afternoon, and the butterflies had not stopped. ‘I’m just a bit disappointed that we never managed to find a Polystachya songaniensis. We recorded so many natural clearings and stream banks. I really thought those would be prime habitat.’ Olivia sighed. ‘Perhaps it just doesn’t occur here after all.’

‘Yeah,’ Alan ventured. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘I guess I could always try and get DNA from one of those epiphytic orchids you collected earlier today. What was it, Mystacidium?’

‘Aerangis. But I’m not sure of the species.’ The wind started to pick up. The heads of thunderclouds were abuzz with lightning on the horizon to the north. Another wet evening was coming. What do butterflies do when it rains? he wondered. ‘Listen,’ Alan said and cleared his throat. ‘Don’t you think we should start looking for a suitable spot to make camp? It’ll be dark sooner than we think.’

‘Alright,’ Olivia said, strapping on her backpack. ‘Let me just take a picture of those clouds.’ She stepped right up to the edge of the summit, her eyes fixed on the screen of her camera. ‘The light is really good right now.’ And with that Olivia slid on some loose rocks and plunged down a ravine.

To Alan it seemed like he was watching it from outside himself, from a viewpoint away from the summit, somehow suspended next to the mountain in mid-air. He watched as she fell several meters towards a rocky ledge. He watched as her left ankle was jammed between large boulders studded with aloes, their succulent leaves sparkling like jade in the afternoon glow. He watched as the momentum of her descent swung her around, pivoted her around her jammed ankle with an audible snap of bone and tendon. He watched as her skull connected with the rock of the cliff. He watched all of this from outside himself. A few seconds of quiet. Olivia’s camera smashed into pieces at the bottom of the ravine. Alan’s next thought was that he would now never be able to share the butterfly migration with Daniel. The weight of her backpack wedged her ankle firmly into the crevice. Olivia hung down there, out of reach and limp, like someone who had been crucified upside-down. Unconscious? Dead? Alan had no way of knowing, and no way of getting to her.

It was all such a dreadful mistake. Shouting her name had no effect. Alan had to get off the mountain as fast as possible, seek help. He did the only thing he could think of: he ran. It didn’t matter that it took them two days of hiking to get there from where they left the Land Cruiser. It didn’t matter that the nearest civilization was half a day’s drive away. It didn’t matter that his skin was ripped by thorns and branches slashing at him as he ran. Nothing mattered, apart from his muscles propelling him down the jungled slopes. He tried to ignore the soreness at the back of his throat, tried to ignore the swollen lymph nodes down the side of his neck. This is how you die, Alan thought. Not in a car on the highway. Not on the treadmill in the gym. Not in a comfortable bed, surrounded by people you love. This is how you die: small and alone in the woods, by claws and venom and poisonous sap. Viruses wait in the dark forest for you, have been waiting for thousands of years for people to come and reawaken them and absorb them and take them to the cities.

It was dusk when Alan ran into a forest clearing. Alan stopped to catch his breath and take a drink. It was a rocky patch next to a stream, populated by grasses and aloes. The soil was too shallow for large trees here. Growing between the rocks, almost hidden by tall grass, Alan saw the orchid. From Olivia’s descriptions and botanical illustrations at the Compton Herbarium, it was undeniably Polystachya songaniensis. None of that seemed to matter now. Rosettes of green leaves supported tall inflorescences with several small blooms. They were everywhere in the clearing, all around him. For some reason, Alan had assumed the flowers would be blood red, but they weren’t. The flowers were pink.

Image credit: Road to Mount Mabu © Julian Bayliss, Kew. Read more about the real expedition to Mount Mabu here.

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [3/4]

2009-03-28T16:00:00.001-06:00

A tremendous cacophony rumbled through the Hospital Rural de Mocuba as a troupe of vervet monkeys rattled across its corrugated iron roof. The village of Mocuba was to be the botanists’ last stop-over, the last outpost of civilization, before they reached the forests of Mount Mabu.

‘I’m surprised by how organized everything is. I kind of wasn’t expecting that,’ Alan said, idly scratching at an insect bite.

‘With new funding, is possible,’ Eduardo said. ‘We start our ARV program soon.’

‘ARV?’ Olivia asked.

‘Antiretroviral treatment program,’ Eduardo explained, without elaborating. In northern Mozambique, living with HIV is seemingly as normal as living with pollen allergies in Cape Town. ‘Come, I show you cholera ward. Is new.’ Alan and Olivia followed Eduardo down a long unlit corridor. In the hallway was a little bench on which five women, dressed in colourful skirts and tattered T-shirts, were waiting to be seen by a clinical officer; they passed them in silence. Both botanists were sweating, but the small Portuguese doctor didn’t seem to notice the heat or the humidity at all. They turned into a large room that smelled of fresh paint, containing forty low stretcher beds in neat rows.

‘European Union initiative,’ Eduardo said, gesturing to all the empty beds. ‘Now after the civil war, is possible for Mozambique to prosper. ’ Each stretcher bed had a circular hole cut into the canvas, with a plastic tub positioned underneath it. Alan briefly thought about what the plastic tubs were for, and shuddered. He could tell by the look on Olivia’s face that she had thought about it, too.

‘Seems like you’re ready for the worst,’ she said weakly.

‘We had a big cholera outbreak in the spring. Many hundreds of people were brought here, but is not possible to treat them with drugs. This cholera is resistant to tetracycline antibiotic, you see. Is only possible to give oral rehydration therapy. Then we hope for the best.’ Alan desperately wanted to go outside. The paint fumes were giving him a headache. It was time to leave the village.

‘Dr. Texeira, it’s been a pleasure and an honour to stay with you and meet your family. May you continue to do good work here at the hospital,’ Alan said, shaking Eduardo’s hand.

‘Give my love to Christina. She’s been so kind to us,’ Olivia said.

‘Please, the pleasure has been all ours. Good luck on your little trip. I hope is possible to find the flower, yes?’

Pressure drops. Temperature rises. It was still sunny, but thunderclouds the colour of basalt were piling on the horizon, beyond the plots of cassava and fields of sugarcane. The Land Cruiser was loaded and ready, but Olivia wanted to buy sundried fruit and cashews from the roadside vendors before they left. There were children everywhere: balancing rusted scrap metal on their heads, laughing; chasing chickens; kicking a weathered football around, their toes stained red from the dusty streets. It was so hot. They walked past a crumbling Portuguese church, shot to pieces twenty years ago and never rebuilt. Some houses had roofs of corrugated iron, others were thatched with palm fronds. All had stands of banana and papaya growing by the front door. Alan caught himself wishing for a moment that he could share this with Daniel, that Daniel was with him. A group of girls were washing clothes in the Licungo River. Although Alan had been told stories, he hadn’t actually seen any crocodiles on its banks so far, nor did the girls seem much concerned by the possibility of reptilian predators lurking in the brown water.

The shacks were built right up to the banks of the river, right among the reeds. They would most certainly all be submerged during a flood, he thought. He was right. This is the place where nature wipes the slate clean. This is the place where people start anew, building on yesterday’s tragedy.

Image credit: Hospital Rural de Mocuba © Christopher van Belle

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [2/4]

2009-03-27T16:00:00.001-06:00

Olivia squeezed lemon juice over her calamari salad. It was a quiet evening at Arnold’s on Kloof Street, which by Cape Town standards meant the average wait for a table was around 15 minutes.

‘How’s the ostrich?’ she enquired, absently licking a finger.

‘Rather tender,’ Alan responded, still mulling over the expression on Daniel’s face when he’d dropped him off in Observatory on his way over. ‘Although, I’d prefer it more well-done. I never claimed to have a very sophisticated palate.’

‘Apparently, they suspect arson. Too many bushfires at too many locations to just be random. Such a shame. All those grapes. All that wine.’

‘I wonder if it will spread all the way to the Hex River Valley. They have some really excellent vineyards there,’ Alan sighed.

‘Oh, that’s where I grew up!’ Olivia brightened. ‘De Doorns, with the snowy peaks of the Hex River Mountains all around!’

‘Now I understand how you got into botany. There’s a lot of cool stuff that grows there and nowhere else.’

‘And now you understand why I’m totally crazy and you shouldn’t be going on collecting trips with me. My dad always said I had a little bit of The Witch in me,’ Olivia said, bringing a glass to her lips.

‘Witch?’ Alan asked, perplexed.

‘You know. It’s a folktale. The Witch of the Hex River Mountains.’ Olivia squinted at Alan’s apparent ignorance. ‘It’s even got an orchid in it. Surely you must have heard it before. No?’ So the evening progressed with Olivia telling Alan the story as her lips were stained successively darker shades with glass after glass of Pinotage.

In the whole of the Hex River Valley, there was no-one as beautiful as Eliza, the only daughter of Jacob Meiring. Charmed suitors came to the Meiring farm from far and wide to court her, but none could win her hand. The truth is that Eliza was too proud. Because of her conceit, countless men left the Meiring farm with empty hands and broken hearts. One day, a young man named Filip appeared. He was different from the rest. He sat upright on his horse. His hands knew what hard work felt like. He had a clear laugh, clear as snowmelt. Eliza knew that this was the man she had been waiting for. But she was still proud, and therefore decided to send Filip on a quest. She said, 'Pick the red disa orchid that only grows on the Matroosberg, the highest peak in the Hex River Mountains. Bring it to me so that I may know you are worthy of my love.' Without a moment's hesitation, Filip set off on his mission, riding upright on his horse towards the gravelly mountain paths. He tied his horse to a wild almond and continued on foot. Filip climbed the steep slopes with a smile, higher and higher. When he thought of Eliza, his laughter was clear, like snowmelt. Filip climbed up the dangerous mountains, his hands cut by the jagged rocks. Then he saw the red disa blooming above him on the sheer cliffs. 'At last. Come, my bride awaits,' he whispered, hugging the rock. But as he reached up and snapped the stem of the orchid, the rock beneath his feet crumbled and he fell to his doom. When Eliza heard of Filip's death, she became delirious. Her father locked her in the attic of the farm house, but to no avail. In her grief she found inhuman strength: one night she broke the shutters from the window and escaped, her despair driving her barefoot up the mountain paths. She was never seen again. Everyone who worked the Meiring farm searched and searched, but the only trace that remained of Eliza was a red shawl, snagged in a wild almond at the foot of the Matroosberg. Not long after, the people of the valley started talking, as people do. 'Her beauty bewitched a young man. Her pride cost a young man his life,' they said. 'The witch got what she deserved,' they agreed. 'Her soul will have no rest as she searches for her Filip, even though she will never find him.' Even today, whenever the wind howls around the peaks of the Hex River Mountains, it does so in the anguished wail of a witch. And when the moon glimmers on the first snows of winter, they say that Eliza Meiring walks the mountain paths of the Hex River Valley.

Image credit: Hex River Valley © Mike

(E&E)² tales: The summit of Mount Mabu [1/4]

2009-03-26T14:10:00.014-06:00

Alan awoke to find his pillowcase covered in blood. Harsh mid-morning sun streamed in through the window. Daniel must have opened the blinds before he left for work.

Alan tightened his grip on the toothbrush as he calculated that this was his fourth nocturnal nosebleed of the year. The first quarter at UCT was still six weeks away. He rinsed the razor under the tap as the reporter on 567 CapeTalk mentioned that Sir Lowry’s Pass was closed to all tourist traffic because of choking smoke. There were fires everywhere. From the historic Vergelegen wine estate in Somerset West to the township of Khayelitsha out on The Flats, it seemed that the whole peninsula would eventually succumb to the blaze. The hot and windy weather was set to continue all through January.

Using the wipers, Alan removed a fine layer of ash that had accumulated on his windshield, before driving up to Kirstenbosch. Table Mountain looked much like it always did, but there was something weird about the light today, as if everything was observed through a layer of insipid tea.

The modest 1930s architecture of the Compton Herbarium hugged the lower terraces of Kirstenbosch. It held almost a million specimens in its collection, mostly of South African plants, but also a few important species from other parts of the world.

‘Dr. Schroder,’ Alan repeated to the young woman at the front desk. ‘I have an appointment with Dr. Kennon at ten-thirty.’

‘Ooh… okay,’ she said eventually, lifting the receiver. ‘I’ll check to see if she’s in. Please sign the visitor’s book and have a seat.’ The girl seemed really young and a tad overanxious. Must be a first year student on a summer internship, he thought to himself. They always end up spending most of it indoors, making copies and manning the front desk.

‘Alan, after all the emails it’s great to finally get a chance to talk in person.’ Olivia Kennon appeared in the doorway. ‘Although, I have actually heard you speak, at that sustainable development conference in Johannesburg last year.’

‘I hope that didn’t bore you too much. I tend to go off on tangents at times.’

‘No-no, on the contrary, the tangents were a welcome break from all those boring talks on carbon credits and environmental policy. Please.’ Olivia showed Alan to a small conference table in the library, which smelled of crumbling monographs and ozone from the photocopier.

They started drawing up equipment lists and designing an itinerary. It was an impromptu thing, this fieldtrip, hardly more than a month or so in the planning.

‘So the main thing I want to do when we get to the site is to collect DNA samples and herbarium material of Polystachya songaniensis.’

‘That’s a terrestrial orchid, isn’t it?’ interrupted Alan.

‘Yes,’ continued Olivia. ‘Now, it’s known from Malawian accessions, but has never been reported from Mozambique at all. I believe that genetic analysis of this little orchid would provide me with supporting evidence that all of the isolated islands of Afromontane forest used to be connected in one large megaforest that pretty much covered all of south-eastern Africa.’

‘That is, until the climate changed and all the species had to seek refuge on the cool, wet mountaintops.’

‘Exactly.’ Olivia was thrilled that Alan saw the connection. ‘Oh, and I also promised a colleague in Pretoria I’d collect some lichens for him. He’s quite excited.’

‘I’m just excited to get out there. Ever since those Darwin Initiative guys from Kew discovered it, I’ve been dying to go and do a proper census of all the caudiciform succulents, perhaps with a slight emphasis on the Euphorbiaceae.’ Alan grinned.

‘Should have known you’d be interested in all that weird stuff.’ They tried to stifle their academic chuckles in the quiet of the library. ‘Are you going to involve any of your students?’

‘No, it’s too short notice, really.’ Alan paused. ‘You realize we might get several papers out of this,’ he said, imagining the grants pouring in.

For more than two hours, the botanists talked excitedly, bouncing around ideas, debating dubious taxonomy, arguing about GPS receivers and the merits of different malaria prophylactics. Then, Olivia looked at her watch and said, ‘Well, Dr. Schroder, I am glad we had this opportunity to discuss our expedition. Unfortunately, I have a series of afternoon meetings I need to attend.’

‘That’s always how it goes at the start of the year, I guess,’ Alan said, getting up from the table. ‘I suppose I should get to campus. I’m lecturing a second year course in plant diversity and I still need to draw up some sort of study guide.’

‘Why don’t we continue this tomorrow over dinner?’ Olivia suggested. Alan found himself strangely attracted to Olivia, on a cerebral level. They shared an intellectual connection, something Alan felt had been lacking in his life lately. No matter how much Daniel seemed to care about him, he never did laugh at Alan’s science jokes.

Image credit: Cape Town Fire © Web Design Cape Town

What was that?

2009-03-24T09:45:00.003-06:00

In the dark of the forest, something stirs...

Image: 'Checkerboard Forest' © Keith Alexander

Whale fall: an assignment of sorts

2009-02-08T21:42:00.010-07:00

There is much to do in fleshspace. I have enrolled in a creative science writing course this semester. One of our first assignments has been to write some poetry with scientific subject matter. So here is my first attempt, inspired by the creatures that call whale falls (sunken whale corpses) home. I haven't done this in a good while, so please be gentle in your comments. Constructive criticism is more than welcome, of course.

WHALE FALL

stirred by this beautiful benthic
metropolis of meat
the glaucous eye of the sleeper shark
trails a parasitic tear
- a lacrimous crustacean

the opaque unseeing eye of
the shark surveys this sunken Atlantis
a city slick with sleek silver things
slimy hagfish; one leucistic octopus
probing the blubber with tentative tentacles

the floral fimbriae of Osedax bloom
from brood sacs embedded in bone
and the fractured skull of this
clam-encrusted carcass currently
serves as headquarters for the grenadier

a curiously noble gesture, then, when the
Leviathan leaves the light for the last time
and descends to these darkest depths
and its cold cetacean body becomes real estate
for blind things made of teeth

Peace and respite

2008-12-24T11:43:00.005-07:00

I'm off for a brief visit to the land of my birth, south of the Equator. Hope to see you all again in 2009.

Image by TahoeSunsets.

Fallen giants of Easter Island

2008-12-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Buried in lake sediments on Easter Island are fossil pollen grains. These pollen grains indicate that a now-extinct species of palm tree once grew there. All suggestions as to what it might have looked like are inferred from the similarity of its pollen to that of the giant Chilean wine palm, Jubaea chilensis. The Easter Island palm disappears from the pollen record around the year 1650. Some say its demise is inextricably linked to that of Rapanui, the ancient Easter Island society...

The extinct palm has been named Paschalococos disperta. Some archaeologists have suggested that the palm would have proved most useful to the ancient Easter Islanders. Could they have felled the trees and used their trunks as rollers to help transport those large moai stone statues from the quarry? Perhaps they used the hollowed out trunks as canoes to get to far-off fishing waters. This idea sounds rather romantic, but they probably used reed ships made of totora bulrushes, not hollow palm trunks. It's quite likely that trees were cut down to get at the edible heart of palm... And so the speculation continues. The bottom line is that we don't know exactly why the palms of Easter Island were annihilated. All we know is that a day must have dawned when someone, for whatever reason, decided to cut down the last tree.

With the island completely deforested, societal collapse seemed inevitable. The lack of trees led to severe soil erosion, still apparent to this day. Other species of animals and plants declined, including the toromiro tree, which was saved from extinction when Thor Heyerdahl collected viable seed on his expedition to the island in the mid-20th century. The toromiro was subsequently entered into a breeding program at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. If only Paschalococos had been that fortunate. Even modern biotechnology will not resurrect this species - the fossil pollen from the lake beds and empty coconut shells found in caves yielded no DNA whatsoever.

Now more than ever, it is clear that our survival is tied to that of our environment. No, not just survival. Our very essence. Everything that defines culture - food, shelter, clothing, medicine, stories, fears, songs, beliefs, temples, tools, traditions, games, dreams - is shaped and nurtured by the plants and animals and microbes among us. Satellites watch Madagascar bleed red earth into the ocean now. Survey ships document tonnes of plastic garbage collecting in the gyres of the North Pacific. The IUCN keeps adding new species to the Red List. Easter Island was a prediction of what happens when biodiversity is lost. Or perhaps not a prediction. A warning - we should know better now. We finally have the tools to manage a whole planet. Collapse is not inevitable.

Respect for nature is respect for human life.

Photo credits: moai heads by explora; Chilean wine palm by badthings; single moai by Jean Delard de Rigoulières.

How to buy an orchid at the grocery store

2008-11-21T12:30:00.008-07:00

It's winter in the northern hemisphere and Phalaenopsis orchids are literally everywhere. The elegant moth orchid can now be found not only near the register at most garden centres, but also at your local greengrocer, favourite supermarket, and the houseplant section of many large department stores. The single best place to buy an orchid is, of course, from a local orchid nursery. Such orchids are fresh and raised under expert care. Plus, it's always a good idea to support the local hobbyists: they are often talented breeders in their own right, and make exciting and exclusive new crosses available to the community. However, sometimes those sexy Phalaenopsis at the store can be so tempting that you almost don't realize you've got one propped between the corn flakes and fat-free yoghurt, until you're unpacking your trolley at the conveyor belt.

I am not a total orchid snob; those store-bought plants can be rewarding. Indeed, most of them originate from giant nurseries in such places as Taiwan and Florida, where they are bred to be appealing and raised to be vigorous. Problems arise when the plants are delivered to the point of sale - supermarkets are not the best of growing environments, and store attendants tend to give the orchids the same treatment as conventional houseplants. How often have neighbours complained of the mysterious and untimely demise of their latest acquisition, mere weeks after purchase! Well, fret no more, folks! The Electric Orchid Hunter is happy to provide some essential buying tips you should know before succumbing to orchid fever in the produce aisle.

Buy your orchids as fresh as possible. The ideal would be to get them as soon as they are unpacked, but it is seldom possible to gauge in advance when the next delivery will arrive in the store. The dry supermarket atmosphere can severely shorten the life span of the flowers, and cause unopened buds to abort. Flowers should be waxy, not papery, and buds should be swollen and unwrinkled.
Check for any instore damage. This includes cracked leaves, snapped aerial roots, bruised flower spikes and torn petals.
Make sure the plant is in prime health. Leaves should be mid to dark green, not yellow, firm and slightly succulent. Look in between the leaves at the crown of the plant - if this is damaged in any way, a Phalaenopsis will usually be unable to recover and will eventually just fade away. Most commercially grown orchids are sold in clear plastic pots to allow the green aerial roots to grow into the medium. These are sometimes slipped inside more aesthetically pleasing clay pots - take out the plastic pot and inspect the roots for healthy growing tips.
Consider the type and condition of the growing medium. Don't buy anything slick with algae or with little ferns sprouting in it. Avoid plants struggling in mushy medium that has completely broken down - you don't want to have to repot your purchase as soon as you get it home. Consider what you're comfortable with: are these orchids planted in bark, or sphagnum moss? Moss holds onto moisture for longer, but bark can be more forgiving of mistakes. Remember that orchid roots need air in addition to water.
Look for a bargain. Sometimes resellers will discount Phalaenopsis once the flowers are spent. It's pretty much a lucky dip at this stage; you won't know whether you've got a large white or a dainty pink candy stripe until you get it to flower again. If the leaves have some red pigmentation at the bases or underneath, that's sometimes an indication of darker-coloured flowers. Unfortunately, commercial varieties are almost never shipped with name tags, and if they are, these rarely provide a clue to the colours you can expect. Bargain bin anonymous orchids might be worthwhile if the plants are still vigorous. Avoid orchids that are marked down because they are obviously on the brink of death.
Go for quality, not quantity. A plant with flowers of good shape and substance and with bold colours will be more rewarding at subsequent flowerings than one that has a few more blooms but the flowers of which are insipid or of poor shape. Perhaps I am an orchid snob, after all.

Let's prevent further disillusionment and unwitting cruelty to houseplants. Two final pieces of easy advice that will help you on the road to success with your new moth orchid:

If you're unsure of whether your orchid is getting sufficient light, that means you should move it to a brighter location.
If you're unsure of whether to water it, that means you should wait another day before you do so.

Photography credits: potted Phalaenopsis by Thomas Tamayo; dead Phalaenopsis by Kristin; helathy Phalaenopsis roots by Andrea K. Please visit the photostreams of these Flickr users for more flights of photographic fancy.

Introducing (E&E)² zen: electric orchids

2008-11-09T12:46:00.005-07:00

Get your daily dose of links and images exploring our world by subscribing to the RSS feed at my new tumblelog electric orchids. Easily digestible tidbits perfect for tea time or a lunch break!

Naturally, this blog will still be the place to read those really in-depth features you've come to expect. Think of (E&E)² as the main digital garden, and electric orchids as a sunny windowsill!

The Orchidhunter at the Denver orchid show

2008-10-12T12:52:00.042-06:00

I made my way to Arvada on a rainy, colourless Saturday morning. The grey day held tropical promise, though: the Fall Show of the Denver Orchid Society. Traditionally held at the Denver Botanic Gardens, the show was moved to Echter's Garden Center this time around because of construction. But what a show! I'd love to share some of my photographs with you.

The theme for this season's show was Picture Perfect Orchids. The organizers and exhibitors put in a lot of effort to get their displays looking great, with artful use of picture frames and actual orchid art, from local artists to prints of famous works by Martin Johnson Heade.

I must admit that I was disappointed by the small amount of species orchids on display. To be fair, Colorado orchid growers face particular challenges - such as the altitude and the climate- that growers in warmer, wetter areas need never worry about. The abundance of beautiful hybrid orchids shown more than made up for this; and the species that were on display were of exceptional quality and were kinds not often seen. The substance and colours of the flowers and the immaculate condition and vigor of the plants proves that Colorado growers can beat the odds and compete with the best.

A table of breathtaking Vandas caught my eye immediately. This Vanda Robert's Delight 'Garnet' won a red 2nd place ribbon. It's obvious why. Those flowers are as big as my hands!

This is one of the most beautiful examples of Vanda Rothschildiana I've ever seen. The coloration is just superb. It's a classic old hybrid between the Indian Vanda coerulea and Euanthe sanderiana from the Philippines. This rightly received a blue 1st place ribbon and the award for Best Flowers in its class.

Shows are a great place to see some of the bizarre things found in the orchid family. Bulbophyllums excel at being weird. This is Bulbophyllum Jersey, a lovely cross between B. lobii and B. echinolabium which marries the best features of both parents.

Resembling a hard-boiled quail egg nestling on a patterned saucer, Paphiopedilum (wenshanense X godefroyae) was a joy to behold. It received a 1st prize ribbon, as well as the award for best flower in its class.

The best Cattleya was this delightful miniature: Sophrocattleya Mini Purple 'Candy Tuft'. Good shape, waxy substance, perfect symmetry, heady fragrance... I could clearly understand why the judges chose this as recipient of the Ed Horton Memorial Award for best flower in the Cattleya alliance. May I have a division of it, please?

This was one of my favourite things on show: Cycnoches chlorochilon. Also known as the green-lipped swan orchid, this species has a subtle, understated elegance. It is usually found in hot South American forests, from Panama to Venezuela. Not only do the flowers smell kind of like banana popsicles, but Cycnoches are also some of the few orchids to have separate male and female flowers, which are totally different in appearance. These are male flowers: if you look closely, some dislodged pollen is visible, stuck to the right petal of the middle flower.

I had a most enjoyable afternoon, inspecting the myriad of blossoms on display, and talking to some of the growers. I took way too many photographs to showcase them all here. If I've whetted your appetite for more, please visit my Flickr photo set for the rest of them and some pictures from orchid shows past. If you'd like to find out more about the Denver Orchid Society, visit their web page, or go to one of their monthly meetings.

Four tonnes of pale awesome

2008-09-10T09:38:00.011-06:00

Be sure to visit the historic coastal town of Augusta if you're planning a trip to Western Australia. This is because it's the temporary home of an albino Southern Right Whale calf and its mother. They are expected to hang around in Flinders Bay at least until October before venturing down to the chilly feeding waters of the Southern Ocean for the summer. The calf weighed two tonnes at birth and will end up weighing about fifty tonnes when it reaches adulthood.Local news and Naturaliste Chartes, a whale watching company, held a contest to choose a name for the hypomelanistic cetacean. The Western Australian Noongar tribe picked the winning name: Wilgi Manung, which means - appropriately enough - White Whale. Wilgi Manung is one of only ten albinistic whales known. According to conservation officers, the whale does not totally lack melanin and is therefore not a true example of albinism. Rather, it shows reduced pigment and is an example of leucism, similar to the famous white lions of southern Africa. Wilgi Manung is expected to go grey with age (but not to be confused with a Gray Whale).Right Whales are fat. Nearly 40% of their body weight is blubber. They were therefore considered the "right" whales to hunt: they float when harpooned and can easily be hauled in from the ocean. After years of successful conservation efforts, the Southern Right Whale was recently moved to Least Concern status on the 2008 IUCN Red List. The North Atlantic and North Pacific Right Whale species, however, remain Endangered.

Photography credit: for more photos and info, visit PerthNow.

Java, 1895

2008-09-05T13:18:00.006-06:00

The Eurasian hunter Charles te Mechelen photographed with a young Javan rhinoceros in Ujung Kulon, Java, in 1895. What I'd like to know is: as things change, do we stay the same?

Image: The Rhino Resource Center.

Deceptive petals: 7 orchid mimics

2008-08-12T01:00:00.018-06:00

Like the Genovese and the Gambino, the Orchidaceae are an intimidating family. With about 25,000 species, it's also the largest family of flowering plants. This does not make it any easier to identify a member, however. So let me ask you: how do you know when a flower is an orchid? Most people will probably answer, 'you can tell by the differently coloured lip'. This would be a mistake. Many plants with brightly coloured lips aren't orchids at all. Many others just have a gestalt that screams 'orchid' in hot pink tones, but you'd be wrong again. Botany is sometimes confusing. Let's take a look at a few examples of flowers that seem to mimic those of the orchids.

Bauhinia blakeana [Fabaceae - the Legume family]. It's easy to see why this is called the Hong Kong orchid tree, for the resemblance to an orchid blossom is rather striking. In 1880, Sir Henry Blake - then British Governor of Hong Kong and a keen botanist - discovered the plant growing near the ruins of a building on the shore of Pok Fu Lam. It has since become the floral emblem of Hong Kong. A popular tree for highway medians and parking lots in hot cities, it's large heart-shaped leaves make it attractive even when out-of-bloom.

Alpinia zerumbet [Zingiberaceae - the Ginger family]. Many members of this gorgeous plant family produce flowers that appear orchid-like, complete with glowing lips in the correct, lowermost orientation. Unlike orchid flowers, those of ginger do not possess a column, the central structure formed from the fusion of male and female parts. Shell ginger is a good example. This Chinese evergreen rapidly forms large clumps of lush tropical foliage when grown in frost-free areas with partial shade.

Tacca chantrieri [Dioscoreaceae - the Yam family]. After seeing the diverse array of black orchids out there, it is tempting to classify this sinister thing as an orchid. The bat flower, as it is affectionately known, actually belongs to the plant family that includes yams and other herbaceous vines. What appears to be large, darkly coloured petals are in fact involucral bracts, and not floral structures at all, just like the festive red 'petals' of the poinsettia. The real flowers are the cup-shaped structures within, surrounded by distinctive whiskers. If you can grow Phalaenopsis orchids really well, this Malaysian terrestrial should be well-suited to your conditions: it likes shade, high humidity and good air circulation.

Zingiber spectabile [Zingiberaceae - the Ginger family]. Another ginger species, the beehive ginger should not be confused with the related Z. officinale, the beloved culinary ginger. The plants grow quite tall, with the inflorescences typically carried beneath the attractive foliage. The beehive structure of the flowerhead is - once again - formed from colourful bracts, with the orchid-like flowers themselves appearing from between these. Gardeners and florists have many varieties to choose from, with flowerheads in orange, pink, yellow, red and several bicoloured combinations.

Strongylodon macrobotrys [Fabaceae - the Legume family]. The jade vine produces pendant clusters of totally unique aquamarine flowers. Once you've walked under a pergola festooned with these, the watery blooms of a wisteria seem positively wistful by comparison. It's not only the Orchidaceae that produce flowers of unusual colour, it seems. The jade vine hails from the Philippines, that trove of botanical marvels, where its blooms are visited by rainforest bats. It was first collected in 1854 on Mount Makiling on the island of Luzon by botanists of the U.S. Wilkes Exploring Expedition. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is now exceedingly rare in the wild and faces threat from deforestation.

Catalpa speciosa [Bignoniaceae - the Jacaranda family]. Just as orchids are not confined to the tropics, so orchid mimics can be found in virtually every environment. The Northern catalpa is a deciduous ornamental tree from the United States, orginally found along the Mississippi River basin, but now naturalized throughout much of the Midwest and considered invasive in places. It is known by several names in the vernacular, cigar tree and Indian bean being the most common, refering to the long, slender pods formed in mid-summer after flowering. The showy flowers bring to mind those of a unifoliate Cattleya, being large, white, ruffled and with distinct streaks of colour toward the interior.

Elettaria cardamomum [Zingiberaceae - the Ginger family]. Cardamom is a giant among gingers, growing to a height of almost 4 m. By contrast, the inflorescences are minute and held close to the ground, bearing several small blossoms. It grows wild in moist forests of the Western Ghats on India's Malabar Coast. An expensive spice, cardamom needs to be hand-picked daily at the moment of perfect ripeness. Few gourmands realize that the cardamom they praise so highly for the beauty of its aromatic fragrance has equally beautiful flowers. These blossoms are truly deserving of the moniker 'orchid-like'.

As we have seen, pretty petals do not an orchid make. So what is an orchid, and what isn't? This question can be answered most decisively by genetics. Simply put, an orchid is any member of the family Orchidaceae. Like the New York crime families, it's an exclusive club; they don't allow just anyone in and it doesn't matter if you look the part. However, in lieu of having a full-fledged genetic fingerprinting lab at your disposal the next time you're poking around your favourite nursery, remember that orchids usually exhibit these characteristics:
∙ a prominent lip (labellum) different from the other petals and sepals
∙ resupinate flowers twisted through 180°, leaving the lip lowermost
∙ pollen formed into sticky masses called pollinia
∙ a column (gynostemium) composed of both style and stamen
∙ fruit in the form of dehiscent capsules
∙ very small, almost dust-like seed
∙ close associations with mycorrhizal fungi
And then remember that there are exceptions to almost all those characteristics. Good luck...

Photography credits: Bauhinia blakeana © Christoph Diewald; Alpinia zerumbet © Avelino Maestas; Tacca chantrieri © Julia; Zingiber spectabile © Tony; Strongylodon macrobotrys © David Midgley; Catalpa speciosa © Cindy Ware; Elettaria cardamomum © Gopu P. Please visit these exceptional Flickr users for more floral excellence.

The shores of phantom islands: 100 posts later

2008-08-05T13:00:00.000-06:00

"At 2 a.m., saw land ahead, luffed and cleared it. It appeared an island 5 or 6 miles in length, running N.E. and S.W., with a high round bluff on the N.E. end, with low land to S.W.: between N.E. and S.W. ends there appeared a valley covered with ice and snow; we passed it within a quarter of a mile, going ten knots: lat. 39° 20' S., long. 120° 20' W.: the position for lat. and long. may differ a few miles by reason of not having had proper observations for several preceding and following days."
-log of Capt. Dougherty of the James Stewart, 29 May, 1841

We are the first people in the history of the Earth to have developed technology that affords us a truly objective view of our planet. Ancient maps are wonderfully inaccurate, decorated with fantastic monsters and indicating shapes of countries that are as much reflections of the cartographer's skill as his sense of whimsy. The Latin inscription on the 16th century Hunt-Lenox Globe comes to mind: HC SVNT DRACONES. And why shouldn't there be dragons, after all? Back then, many places were still considered terra incognita - unknown land - or terra pericolosa - land no-one ever returns from...

On 29th of May, 1841, Captain Dougherty of the British whaler James Stewart reported passing within six hundred yards of a six mile-long island in the Great Southern Ocean. On the northeastern end was a high bluff, while the southwestern end was lower and tapered to a point. The captain said that he could see a deep valley with vegetation and some snow. Although none of the navigators saw any signs of human habitation, there were many birds and evidence of animal life. The place was named Dougherty Island, after its discoverer, and received a mention in Findlay's 'A directory for the navigation of the Pacific ocean', published in 1851 by Oxford University Press. On 4th of September, 1859, Dougherty was sighted by the Louise, a ship from Bristol. The captain of the Louise noted the island to be dark in colour; he estimated that it rose only eighty feet above the surface of the water. The coordinates given by the captain were 59° 21' S., 119° 7' W. In 1886 came another report of Dougherty, this time from the barque Cingalese. Her captain affirmed that the island was six miles long, and that the northeastern part was high while the southwestern point was low. However, he described the island as barren, with no vegetation of any kind.

Try to look for Dougherty Island on any modern map. Use Google Earth and the documented coordinates. You won't find it. And that's because Dougherty doesn't exist: it's a phantom island. The fateful 1921-1922 Shackleton–Rowett Expedition - the one that would claim Ernest Shackleton's life - was the last voyage in search of it and several other doubtful isles of the southern hemisphere. The Scott Polar Research Institute lists 15 of these in the Antarctic Ocean alone: The Aurora Islands, Burdwood's Island, The Chimneys, Dougherty's Island, Elizabethides, Emerald Island, Isla Grande, Macey's Island, New South Greenland, Nimrod Island, Pagoda Rock, Royal Company Island, Swain's Island, Thompson Island, and Trulsklippen. All discovered and charted, only to quietly slip off our maps once they proved to be non-existent. The Aurora Islands continued to appear on maps of the South Atlantic until the 1870s, even though their last sighting was in 1856. First spotted by the Aurora of Spain in 1762, this group of three islands was supposedly located east of Cape Horn, halfway between the Falklands and South Georgia. Some experts claim that the Aurora Islands are merely the Shag Rocks, six small islets 150 miles west of South Georgia. Curiously, the Shag Rocks are known as the Islas Aurora in Spanish to this day.

Phantom Islands are no longer reported. We have grown sophisticated, and make fewer navigational errors. We have grown knowledgeable, and can identify icebergs, fog banks, or oceanic and atmospheric optical illusions for what they are. We now have the power to see the whole surface of the Globe from space, to penetrate its waters with imaging equipment and scope out the topography of mountains under the oceans. But the world does not give up its secrets that easily. There are many places still hidden from view, many secrets not yet revealed. Glowing lights in the dark depths of the ocean, the catacombs of forgotten cities, the airless tropical swamps protected by leeches and disease, the mute progression of evolution captured in the DNA of every creature known and unknown, abandoned treasure on the high wastelands of the Earth: in 100 posts, (E&E)² has attempted to share some of these things with you, dear reader. As we deftly set sail for the terra incognita of our next 100 topics, my hope is that the wonder of the unknown will inspire and excite you as much as it has thrilled and stimulated me.

Picture credit: a big thank you to Dalyn for her visionary artwork combining elements of several famous maps. Can you spot them all?

What is that on the horizon?

2008-07-28T14:03:00.004-06:00

Picture credit: Charles Cochrane.

Horticultural ardour: the allure of vanilla

2008-07-06T22:40:00.001-06:00

It had been venerated by the Totonaca and Aztecs of Mexico for centuries before European explorers introduced it to the Old World sometime during the 16th century. Thereafter, many perished on long ocean journeys undertaken to obtain it. It is one of the world's most expensive spices, even today. So how did something as extraordinary as vanilla become a byword for the ordinary? If we want the simple, unadorned variety of something, we ask for the 'vanilla kind'. Vanilla is not so vanilla. How can the orchid spice be considered boring or commonplace? Its very name is derived from the diminutive of the word 'vagina'. I'd like those connotations to be reinstated, thank you very much. Warm, wet, sensual, exotic, erotic, heady, mysterious, sultry, complex, alluring vanilla, how you fill me with desire…

Our mistress vanilla is no cheap harlot. For a start, the very act of cultivating it constitutes a labour of love; it is agriculture of the most intensive kind. Vanilla is the only orchid cultivated on a large scale for a purpose other than decorating hotel lobbies and winning ribbons for pretty petals at flower shows. The favoured species for production is the original Vanilla planifolia from Mexico, although V. pompona from Tahiti and others are also sometimes used. It is a vining orchid genus, attaining lengths in excess of 35 m. They are typically grown supported on trees, poles or latticework, such that the flowers are within easy reach. This is essential. Almost all orchids require very specific insect pollinators in order to reproduce, and vanilla is no exception. In the wild, it seduces a rare and localized bee species, which obviously cannot be relied on for global commercial purposes. Every vanilla pod is the result of hand pollination by a plantation worker using care, diligence and a small wooden tool. New flowers open on the inflorescences at dawn, wilting by dusk. Open blooms have to be sought out in the humid plantation and pollinated every day. Quite a different exercise to just watching the corn grow. Pregnant with promise, the green bean-like seed pods are harvested about nine months after pollination, at the moment of perfect maturity just before splitting open. This is just the beginning: at this point the beautiful vanilla fragrance is entirely absent. The laborious task of curing follows.

Now for a brief chemistry interlude. The primary chemical found in vanilla extract is the phenolic compound vanillin. Notice how closely its molecular structure resembles that of adrenaline. Neurologist Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation found that vanilla induces sexual arousal: the smell alone can significantly increase blood flow to the penis. So much for Viagra, then. Synthetic vanillin can be easily synthesized from oil of cloves, lignin (a waste product from the paper industry), or more often from petrochemical precursors produced from creosote. Yummo. That's not all, folks: biotechnological advances have enabled bacteria to make it from rice bran, and Japanese scientists have recently extracted it from cow dung. These products are inferior, I feel, and certainly less romantic than obtaining vanilla from orchids and hard labour under a tropical sun. The truth is that the full, complex vanilla flavour is not only due to the presence of vanillin, but also hundreds of other, related chemical compounds. Natural vanilla's perfect balance of these molecules keeps it in high demand. Erm, where were we? Oh yes: the curing process.

In the fabled Bourbon method, the freshly harvested vanilla pods are briefly blanched in hot water to stop the ripening process. For several weeks, the pods are laid out on woolen blankets in the morning sun, wrapped up by midday and stored in airtight containers overnight. During this fevered process, enzymes are at work, liberating vanillin and friends trapped in loveless β-glycosidic linkages with sugar molecules. Maximum aroma is achieved after several months of drying and careful storage. The pods, now brown, become frosted with a white coating of fragrant phenolics. The labour of love is finally complete and the pods (now called vanilla 'beans' to the chagrin of botanists everywhere) are graded, packaged, and shipped to vendors worldwide.

As with all luxury items, the demand for natural vanilla exceeds supply. Finding good quality vanilla is sometimes difficult, especially when looking for vanilla extract - the flavouring agent produced by percolating macerated vanilla beans in alcohol. Artificial impostors abound - true vanilla extract is not clear, not dark and murky, but rather a golden amber colour. Although vanilla beans themselves cannot be faked, they do vary in quality. When choosing vanilla, opt for the longest beans you can find. They should have an oily glisten or the tell-tale frosting of vanillin crystals, and should definitely be devoid of mildew. Vanilla is now cultivated all over the world, from Mexico to Indonesia, with Madagascar and the other islands of the Indian Ocean being the biggest producers today. Local climate and cultivation methods have a definite influence on flavour development, same as any good wine. It's called terroir, and is not to be sniffed at.

Perhaps vanilla gained its reputation for mediocrity from its near-ubiquity. It is found in everything these days: cheesecake, Chanel No. 5, pound cake, aromatherapy oil, crème brûlée, fabric softener, glühwein, Kit-Kats, cough syrup, butterscotch pudding, cream soda, Yankee scented candles... oh, and ice cream, natch. We should not forget how precious it can be, how complex its composition and lengthy its production. Let vanilla regain its luxury status. After all, it's damn sexy.

Photography credits: vanilla flower © Brock; hand pollination © Helen Graham; grading table © Jonathan Talbot; vanilla pods © Kendiala; crème brûlée © Markii. Please visit these tremendous Flickr users for more deviant deliciousness.

Blue tape and found objects

2008-06-13T22:19:00.009-06:00

I am still in the lab on a Friday night. It's after 21:00; a dark and curious place when no-one is around. Fume hoods and laminar flow cabinets cast a ghostly ultraviolet glow. The -80°C freezers hum quietly, a tune in the language of machines. It's a working environment that often seems cold and sterile. Those who occupied bench space here before me have left traces of themselves: small, personal attempts at humanizing this lab, a place where the very essence of existence gets reduced to a few bands on a gel, strings of ACGTs...

At the bottom of an asparagus green filing cabinet I find a set of film negatives, neatly slotted into a sheet of yellowed wax paper. I take out a strip and hold it up to the light. It reveals images of a young woman sitting outside a log cabin in the mountains, smiling a black smile, her white pupils burning hot into the lens. The photographs appear to have been taken in the early nineties. The last three frames of the set are of experimental plants - wheat, or perhaps barley - with their illegible tags a white on black blur. Why were these left here? I turn them over in my hands and bits of brittle wax paper break off and fall to the floor. Even though our acids and organic solvents are safely kept in a chemical cabinet, pieces of paper tend to curl and yellow much more rapidly in the lab. Old Far Side cartoons stuck up with autoclave tape are stained brown, splashed with something that's presumably hazardous to your health.

I am the only person working in this particular lab this summer. New faces are scheduled to arrive in the fall, but until then it is just me. And the ghosts. Who were these people? Why were they stockpiling polypropylene weighing boats so excessively? Vials of formamide line the doors of the freezers in various states of consumption. Bottles of expired extraction buffers gather dust on the shelf above the pH meter. This is my inheritance. That and - oh, I don't know - let's say about 87,000 clones in a badly cross-referenced EST library. There are too many signs posted, too many notices. They remind me of something we used to say in the 4th grade: if you notice this notice you'll notice that this notice has nothing to notice. So I elect to take them down. I remove all the signs while waiting for the thermal cycler to finish my PCRs, take down every last remnant of tacky blue tape. Put up too many notices, and people stop paying them any attention: I know this to be true. So I print new signs in hot colours for the fume hood, the chemical cabinet and the radioactivity area. I opt for Franklin Gothic, the official typeface of the Museum of Modern Art. This shall now also be the typeface of the Crop Genomics Laboratory: fresh, bold. The user manuals for surplussed equipment are recycled, dust bunnies are extricated from behind the Corning Water Still, past personalities are exorcised. I choose new names for the five freezers. Auden, Byron, Chaucer, Dylan, Eliot. English poets from different ages to bring a new mnemonic to the cataloguing of their biotech contents. This new version of the lab will be my legacy, until my efforts are torn down by future inhabitants. Until then, I might as well make myself at home here.

First contact: a lost tribe of the Amazon

2008-05-30T14:43:00.011-06:00

These images were published today by officials of the Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI), the Brazilian government's National Indian Foundation. Taken from a passing helicopter, the photographs show a tribe of Amazonian Indians, covered in bright bodypaint, taking aim at the helicopter with bows and arrows. This instantly piqued my interest.

It is estimated that there are almost a hundred tribes left on the planet who choose to have little or no contact with the outside world. Half of these are said to live in the dense Amazon rainforest of Peru and Brazil. Often so-called 'uncontacted' tribes have actually had encounters with the outside in generations past, usually in the form of prospectors and loggers. Since these experiences are almost invariably violent, the 'uncontacted' tribes are forced ever deeper into seclusion. According to Miriam Ross, spokesperson for Survival International, "First contact is often completely catastrophic for 'uncontacted' tribes. It's not unusual for 50 percent of the tribe to die within months after first contact. They don't generally have immunity to diseases common to outside society. Colds and flu that aren't usually fatal to us can completely wipe them out."

Now, their way of life is being threatened - not by helicopters, but by encroaching development. The forests are shrinking. As logging continues unabated in Peru, which has placed less emphasis on protecting areas for indigenous people than Brazil, these and other groups are forced across borders. Imaginary lines drawn in the mud by people they have never met, for reasons they do not understand. Distress. Disinheritance. Disease. Death. Welcome to the modern world.

For more on this fascinating story, visit Reuters or The Associated Press.

Paradise lost

2008-05-26T20:39:00.006-06:00

As you've no doubt noticed, I've been a tad busy lately. I had to study for finals, did a load of microscopy, got my first tangible results in the lab, and went on a roadtrip across the Southwest US. Now I'm home, listening to the rain (and Róisín Murphy), but thinking about deserts.

When I was very young, I discovered an old book on the dark shelves of my grandfather's house during one of our December holiday visits. The text and photographs in this book detailed vanished cultures and the mysterious objects they left behind: the jungle ruins of the Maya, the moai of Easter Island, the standing stones at Carnac. The most arresting image in the whole book was of a gravel plain in the Sahara simply littered with abandoned millstones. That was the moment I realized that the environment is not a static thing: the Sahara was green once. Buried beneath its dunes and sand drifts lie intricate networks of river valleys carved into the bedrock. Some 10,000 years ago, the continued retreat of the European ice sheets of the last glacial period had shifted the monsoons to the north. This converted the plains of the Sahara to grassy savannah and covered the slopes of its mountains with forest. Humans settled in the area; the art they created illustrated herds of cattle and a menagerie of wild animals like antelope, elephants, giraffes and even crocodiles. About 6,000 years ago, the Sahara began to dry out again. Rock art from this period depicts the rapid loss of once-plentiful grazing land, as well as subsequent battles over the diminishing resources. The savannah and the forests are gone. The Sahara is a place for nomads now.

The Ténéré is a vast sea of dunes bordered by mountain ranges in the Sahara region of Niger. For centuries the Tuareg have run their azalai salt caravans through this hostile environment, traditionally with caravans numbering up to 20,000 camels - as witnessed by French colonial forces in the early 20th century - and using smaller convoys of off-road vehicles today. In this featureless wasteland, bereft of water and shade, grew a solitary, stunted Acacia tree. Even though its height was no more than three metres, it was visible from miles away. It became an important desert landmark, a sacred place for repose and the only single tree to be indicated on maps with a scale of 1:4,000,000. With its closest neighbours more than 400 km away, it was the most isolated tree on Earth: the last surviving member of the ancient Saharan forests.

In 1939, a well dug by the French military at the Tree of Ténéré revealed that its roots reached down to the water table, 35 m underground. To the Tuareg this tree, estimated at 300 years old, was not only a navigational point of reference but also a symbol of life itself, protected from harm. Not a single leaf was fed to a camel, not a single branch was broken for firewood. In his notes for 21 May 1939, Michel Lesourd, Commandant des A.M.M. of the Service Central des Affaires Sahariennes, wrote, 'There is a kind of superstition, a tribal order which is always respected. Each year the azalai gather round the Tree before facing the crossing of the Ténéré. The Acacia has become a living lighthouse; it is the first or the last landmark for the azalai leaving Agadez for Bilma, or returning.' A true miracle, this tenacious tree. So why am I writing about the Arbre du Ténéré in the past tense?

When Raymond Mauny travelled to the tree during the 1959 Berliet-Ténéré Mission, he noticed with alarm that the tree no longer resembled Lesourd's photograph from 1939 (above), noting that, 'It was the victim of an automobile accident; a military lorry, backing, had broken one of its principal branches. This branch had been sawn up and used, and the bit of trunk that remained had been trimmed. Is it not still considered to be taboo?'. Fellow explorer Henri Lhote, who had previously seen the tree in 1934 remarked, 'Before, this tree was green and with flowers; now it is a colourless thorn tree and naked. I cannot recognise it - it had two very distinct trunks. Now there is only one, with a stump on the side, slashed rather than cut, a metre from the soil'.

In 1973, an - allegedly drunk - Libyan truck driver lost control of his vehicle, veering off the road and right into the Arbre du Ténéré, the only tree in a 400 km radius. The tree did not survive this second collision. On 8 November 1973, the dead Tree of Ténéré was taken to the Niger National Museum in Niamey, where it can still be seen, caged off in a sad little enclosure. A sculpture has been erected where it once stood, a metal tree that doesn't require water, doesn't mind a couple of knocks. And so the slow and inevitable desertification of the Ténéré region was completed, albeit with a little help from us and our machines. The Sahara desert is inexorably expanding, drowning the Sahel to the south, reaching with sandy fingers towards the Mediterranean. Time brings change. Although not in our lifetime, or even that of our children's children, a time will come when the Sahara will be green once more, rest assured. In geological time, one wretched little tree means nothing, I know this. Yet I can't help feeling sad for its passing. Not in my lifetime. Not in my lifetime...

Photography credits: Ténéré desert landscape © Alessandro Vannucci; the Tree in 1971 © Peter Krohn; new tree sculpture © Shepherd family; Please visit these astounding photographers for more desert delights.

Banquet of the bizarre

2008-04-19T14:56:00.008-06:00

A Saturday morning is perfect for wandering the stalls of your local farmer's market. Not only is it a great place to pick up fresh produce on the cheap, but it is often also a place where nutrition turns exotic. Markets, grocers and fruit 'n vegetable stalls are infinitely fascinating to me; there are always new varieties of old favourites and by now you've sussed that I'm a sucker for variations on a theme. There are often strange and wonderful new things that entice me: weird fruit from the tropics, or sometimes from someone's backyard; strange vegetable shapes that the Korean lady assures me you cook "like potato". The world is too big and life is too short to bore yourself with green beans and Golden Delicious apples. We should indulge in the variety of tastes and textures that sprout from the Earth (except for okra - that stuff's wholly inedible). So let me unpack my electronic brown paper bag onto my digital countertop here, and I'll share with you some of the virtual veg I scored at the Cyberfarms Cybermarket this morning. Be a love and put the kettle on, will you?

Romanesco Broccoli [Brassica oleracea var. botrytis]. Isn't this gorgeous? It's the mathematician's favourite vegetable, Romanesco broccoli. Which is technically classified as a type of cauliflower, not broccoli. Something to do with the maturity of the developing flowers, apparently. Cruciferous systematics aside, isn't it just the coolest thing? It has an alien symmetry. The whorls of florets have a fractal nature. Some people find it too pretty to eat. I don't: it's delicious simply steamed whole and tossed in butter with some pine nuts and crushed green peppercorns.

Tamarillo [Cyphomandra betacea]. Hailing from the forests of the Andes and now found in gardens everywhere, the tangy tamarillo is a delectable beast. Bursting with colour and zip, I used to eat these straight off the tree. Just don't try the bitter skin; the easiest way is to halve it and spoon the refreshing pulp within. Gorgeous with ice cream, they also make fine chutneys, jellies, jams and compotes. The best thing about the tamarillo is that you can get a giant fruit-bearing tree in as little as two years from seed. This explains why tamarillo seeds are such popular fodder in gardener trades, but also why the trees tend to be rather tender, with shallow root systems. Protect them from frost and strong wind and you too can have juicy freshness straight from the garden.

Water caltrop [Trapa bicornis]. Depending on your frame of reference, it resembles a steer skull charred by a brushfire, or the Baron of Hell from the Doom universe. The water caltrop is the seed of an aquatic plant, which grows with its roots anchored in the mud of lakes or slow-moving rivers. It was cultivated in China for thousands of years as an edible crop, and has recently regained prominence on the international food markets. They need to be cooked in order to be edible, and can then be used in an analogous way to the (unrelated) Chinese water chestnut. Water caltrops feature in several Asian dishes and I shall search them out at the Asian markets in Denver, although they do look rather intimidating, I must admit!

Horned melon [Cucumis metuliferus]. Hello, what's this? In essence, the horned melon is a cucumber gone psycho. Slice it open to reveal the green gelatinous inside, filled with seeds resembling those annoying underdeveloped white ones found in watermelons. Those who can overcome their fear of pips are rewarded with a refreshing taste somewhere between passion fruit, lemons and, well... cucumber. These beautiful and bizarre cucurbits grow in the red soil of the Kalahari desert and so represent one of the few commercial fruits - along with the watermelon - to have their origin in southern Africa. They'll make a colourful and surprising addition to any fruit salad, especially when combined with the white flesh and pink skin of the fabled dragonfruit, the pitaya.

Crosne [Stachys affinis]. Another Chinese introduction, and a member of the Mint family, no less. These made their way to France in 1882 and were long cultivated in the area of Crosne, whence the name. Crosnes are also known as knotroot because of these small, ridged tubers. They are kind of difficult to clean (a potato brush works best) and have therefore proved not to be very popular. However, they are very versatile and can be employed in roasts, or to add a nutty crunch to salads. Crosnes can be stir-fried in olive oil, then sprinkled with parsley and drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette as a dish on their own.

Mangosteen [Garcinia mangostana]. The single most astounding fruit I ever had the privilege to taste. I found these at the famous Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona, and couldn't resist purchasing a couple. Dubbed "the queen of tropical fruit" by the American explorer David Fairchild in 1903, the dark, sexy rind full of tannins hides virginal white segments, resembling those of the orange. The biggest segments contain one seed each. They are originally from the Malay archipelago and historically did not travel well. However, mangosteens have been popping up on the dessert menus of fancy restaurants in North America, imported from Hawaii or Puerto Rico. Lucky foodies in big cities might even find them at the fresh food markets now, where they typically retail for about $10 apiece. And what did it taste like, I hear you ask? A combination of muscadel grapes, muskmelon, lychees, vanilla ice cream, raspberries, yellow cling peaches and somehow none of those things. In short, it tasted like mangosteen.

Tell me about the strange fruits and vegetables you've eaten, grown or fondled in some exotic marketplace. Links to pictures are welcome. More tea?

Photography credits: Romanesco broccoli © rattyfied; tamarillo © evag29; water caltrop © Exif; horned melon © Nadia McIlhany; crosne © @rgs; mangosteen © sasithorn_s. Please visit these talented Flickr users for more exotic produce.

Charlatans in white coats

2008-04-09T19:24:00.029-06:00

So we all know The Ancients were whack jobs. They built pretty temples and sturdy aqueducts, sure, but they not only thought the world was flat with an edge you could actually fall off of, but also that the sun revolved around it, a notion which persisted until the arrival of that crazy Copernicus with his heliocentric theory in the 16th century. They also believed a sneeze was the gods' way of trying to tell you something and that perturbations in the relative levels of the four humours (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood) were the cause of all disease and personality defects. Oh, and not to mention their hideously antiquated taste in orgies: pigs' wombs in brine? Stuffed dormice? I think we'll stick with mini pizzas and garlic dip, thanks.

Modern science is The Truth. None of it is made up. Ever. Second-hand smoke causes cancer because the researchers say it does. If scientists warn that global warming may kill us all, we do our best to lower carbon emissions. The laundry detergent in the commercial must be scientifically proven to be superior, because the actor is wearing a white coat. Oh, wait... The public perception of science can so easily be hijacked. Science is not infallible, of course. It is a construed version of The Truth, based on observational evidence. Good science is objective honesty, but can never be absolute. Therefore, science is not The Truth, but it provides an explanation of natural phenomena that is damn well closest to The Truth. And that's why butter is really bad for you one week, and then much better than margarine the next. As more evidence is gathered, science inches closer to The Truth all the time. Now you can visualize just how far we've come since the days of ancient history.

The problem with the public perception of science is two-fold. First: people equate science with The Truth. Second: people equate anything that appears technical with science. If it sounds sciencey, we should trust it, because it must have come from an expert who knows what The Truth is. Not only is this rationale utterly absurd, it is also exceedingly dangerous. We are preconditioned to trust those who seem like authorities, even if they have hidden agendas. And even if these so-called authorities aren't inherently evil, they may themselves fall victim to indoctrination, disinformation or - worse yet - delusions of grandeur. Dabbling with pseudoscience not only detracts from the slow crawl to The Truth, but can bring a whole nation to its knees.

Trofim Lysenko was born in 1898 to a Ukranian peasant family. He attended the Kiev Agricultural Institute from 1921 to 1925 and was posted at Gandzha agricultural experiment station in Azerbaijan as head of legume selection - whatever that is. Lysenko constituted the perfect fodder for the Communist Party to create a working class agricultural scientist to inspire disenfranchised peasants to embrace forced collectivist farming. Lysenko had lots of novel ideas: in 1928, he proclaimed to have "invented" vernalization, a revolutionary new technique for increasing the yield of crops. By storing wet wheat seeds in snow over the winter, the resultant seedlings would flower earlier. This is of course nothing new - many temperate species require a cold vernalization period in order to break dormancy. It's a natural mechanism evolved to help the plant survive the cold, dark winter and sprout in the spring. However, Lysenko claimed that his technique ensured that the offspring of vernalized crops would already be vernalized themselves, and not require a new round of cold induction. This would stave off the looming food crisis. Could the next potato harvest be enormous? He had the results to back it up. No-one bothered to investigate the experimental practices at his agricultural research station. In reality, a lot of his data was inconclusive, but none of it was closely scrutinized at that point. It was too good not to be true. He could fertilize exhausted fields without applying any fertilizers at all! Lysenko was no mere agronomist, he was an agricultural messiah.

Soon Lysenko became majorly influential in Soviet agriculture. Sound Russian plant breeding was shifted to the sideline as Lysenko's procedures were adopted. Much of his work paralleled aspects of Lamarckism. Lamarckian evolution is the discredited scientific theory that acquired characteristics can be passed on to progeny. This is akin to saying that a man who lost an arm in a car accident will go on to sire armless children. Lamarck's theory was a pretty good one for the early 19th century perhaps, but since that time Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin had provided much improved explanations for how heredity and evolution worked. Lysenko put in a lot of effort in denouncing the burgeoning geneticists of his country. After all, they were playing around with the chromosomes of fruit flies and seemed disinterested in helping to feed the people. The proof that DNA was the genetic material was still some decades away. Such bourgeois academics were of little use to the Soviet government; Lysenko's research output was tremendous, with edible results. His promises were the best way of motivating the kolkhozniks to stay on the ailing collective farms. In 1940, Lysenko became director of The Institute of Genetics for the USSR Academy of Sciences. All so-called counterproductive scientific activities were halted. The study of Mendelian genetics was essentially outlawed. Scientists and researchers all over the Soviet Union were ousted from their positions, imprisoned, or sent to labour camps.

Dark days for science. Georgii Karpechenko, a cytologist and plant breeder, was arrested for "anti-Soviet" inclinations. He was sentenced to death and executed on 28 July 1941. The real reason for his execution was his affiliation with Nikolai Vavilov. Vavilov was a Soviet botanist and director of the Leningrad All-Union Institute of Agricultural Sciences. He was especially interested in finding the centres of origin of crops like wheat and maize. Because he realized the importance of preserving the genetic diversity found at these centres of origin for future plant breeding projects, he was responsible for establishing what continues to be one of the world's largest seedbanks. Vavilov was quite vocal and openly criticized Lysenko's non-Mendelian initiatives. This did not go down well and Nikolai Vavilov was duly arrested. He died of starvation in a prison in 1943.

"He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists." - physicist Andrei Sakharov on Lysenko, 1964

Lysenko's stranglehold on Russian agriculture continued well after Stalin's death and into the 1960s. However, the world had changed by then; mainstream science could no longer be suppressed. A case was brought against Lysenko in 1962 (by three physicists, no less). Lysenko's use of political power to silence opposition and eliminate his scientific opponents was condemned and his work criticizd as pseudoscience. Appeals for the restoration of the scientific method to all fields of biology and agricultural science pervaded the Soviet press. No longer immune to criticism, Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills. The Institute itself was soon dissolved. Trofim Lysenko passed away on 20 November 1976.

Science is not infallible, of course, because scientists are human. Inevitably, researcher bias clouds results: the desire to see the data support the theory - that human need to be vindicated and validated - is very strong. A hypothesis can only be rejected or fail to be rejected, never proven. Truly objective science will allow the theory to describe the data, and so bring us an inch closer to The Truth. That is the beauty of the scientific method. The fact that the guy on TV is wearing a white coat doesn't make him a scientist. Listen to what he is saying: does he juggle technical terms? Does he whip statistics out of clean air? How reliable are the references he uses? Does he rely on your innumeracy to convince you? Is this a conjuring trick disguised as statistics? In the 21st century, now that everyone's an expert, it is more prudent than ever not to become sold on the hype.

Dark desires: the black orchids

2008-03-23T11:20:00.028-06:00

Soundless, unseen, the plants of the Northern Hemisphere are mobilizing resources. Spring is a time of stimulation: the environment stimulates trees and bulbs to burst into bloom; and these colourful signs of life born anew in turn stimulate the senses. Gardeners have been preparing for the new planting season, eager for some green to break the monotony of winter. Soon, pink will be everywhere.

However, we can find much inspiration in the fashionably monochromatic shades of winter. Bright days and garish planting schemes can be countered with something a little more subdued, perhaps a little bit Gothic. Deviant blooms smoulder in the humid depths of the greenhouse to satisfy the erotic nightmares of even the most ardent Transylvanian. Truly black orchids are sexy and mysterious creatures, all the more sought after because of their purported elusiveness. For those who like their orchids on the kinky side, (E&E)² presents five sultry seductresses who will tempt you with their dark beauty. And then probably bite your head off.

Cattleya aclandiae. Orchids that lay claim to the 'black' epithet are not, exactly, black. Orchids do not produce black pigments, instead relying on combinations of red and purple anthocyanins to darken their petals. The effect is obvious in this little Cattleya, which has waxy petals splashed with dark red pigments over a green background. The result is probably more akin to the colour of dark chocolate than true black. Nevertheless, it flaunts a curious colour scheme. Its outrageous hot pink labellum and shiny PVC-like surfaces would not look out of place in the closet of a well-equiped dominatrix. In reality it thrives in the balmy seabreezes blowing through forests on the Brazilian coast.

Dracula roezlii. Names can be deceiving. This abomination does not stalk the dark forests of Stoker's Romania, but the high cloud forests of Colombia. They are related to the more brightly-coloured Masdevallia, but Dracula orchids can be distinguished by the inflated labellum in the centre. This structure kind of resembles the gills of a mushroom; the flowers are often visited by small fungus gnats, the presumed pollinators. Because these orchids require cool temperatures and very high humidity, they are notoriously difficult to keep alive, let alone flower well. They are almost never exhibited at orchid shows, altough I've heard stories of intricate terrariums with in-built fans and misters specially constructed to display them in. Their sinister appearance always attracts attention, as the names given to other members of the genus attest: D. vampira, D. nosferatu, D. diabola, D. chimaera, and D. lotax (well, clowns are scary).

Maxillaria schunkeana.
Discovered as recently as 1993 in the coastal rainforest of Brazil, this miniature orchid packs a wicked punch. The name of the genus describes the way the labellum is fused to the column, thereby resembling a jawbone. Traditionally, the Maxillarias are a rather neglected group of orchids - do not expect to see one at your local florist anytime soon. In Victorian times, when jungle-collected orchids went up for auction labeled as 'misc.', you could bet your last guinea they would all be straggly, unimpressive Maxillarias. M. schunkeana is set to change all that. Wouldn't you want a tray of these at your next séance?

Paphiopedilum Colorbox x (sukhakulii x Joanne's Wine). Man likes to adapt Nature to his own aesthetic. The proof lies in the seedless watermelon, the chihuahua, and the hundreds of thousands of registered orchid hybrids. A breeding goal especially prevalent among slipper orchid enthusiasts is the creation of ever darker, ever more grotesque (in my humble opinion) Paphiopedilums. These Vinicolor (wine-coloured) slippers are popular subjects at any orchid show, eliciting intakes of breath bordering on the orgasmic from many a septuagenarian. I cannot deny that the black warts and faintly pubic hairs are impressive, although they have so far failed to inspire in me the impulse to buy. Perhaps future breeding efforts will create a Paphiopedilum flower that does not overtly proclaim itself to be the plant's genitals?

Fredclarkeara After Dark 'Feuerbach'. What you see here is the current culmination of black orchid breeding, from a master of the dark arts of the Catasetinae: Fred Clarke of Sunset Valley Orchids, located outside San Diego, California. A rather incongruous setting for the practice of black magic, granted, but what results! Fredclarkeara is an artificial genus, a hybrid encompassing the natural genera Catasetum, Mormodes and Clowesia. Many species in the Catasetinae group have very dark flowers, but none match the jet-black, inky blossoms of Fredclarkeara After Dark, a grex created by the skillful hybridization of Mormodia Painted Desert and Catasetum Donna Wise. Four selected cultivars of the majestic F. After Dark have received First Class Certificates, the highest award bestowed by the American Orchid Society. This is a totally unprecedented achievement, confirming just how coveted truly black orchids still are. Demand far exceeds supply, of course, making black orchids a sensual luxury. Consider selling your soul to own one. The Devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.

Photography credits: Cattleya aclandiae © Ed Merkle; Dracula roezlii © Eric Hunt; Maxillaria schunkeana © Eric Hunt; Paphiopedilum Colorbox x (sukhakulii x Joanne's Wine) © Matt Pedersen; Fredclarkeara After Dark 'Feuerbach' © Fred Clarke. Please visit these esteemed photographers for more chocolatey goodness.

Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?

2008-03-19T11:38:00.002-06:00

On Saturday afternoons in the summers of the 1980s, we'd excitedly enter the Dial-A-Movie, still dripping pool water from our swimsuits. Here was a whole world of choice, a rental store with seemingly every movie ever made displayed on its shelves. What to choose, what to choose. Arguments would ensue - the youngest of the bunch would want to get Pinocchio (again) and the older kids wouldn't want to rent things from the Disney shelf at all, or anything else that's animated, for that matter. While the rest of the gang was debating the merits of Summer School versus Spaceballs, I would notice the poor guy standing in front of the Betamax shelf. That's right - just the one shelf, with its meagre selection of titles. I would wonder why they weren't afforded the same cinematic cornucopia as we VHS people. Back then, videotape was videotape to me. Why would they choose a Betamax tape? Why not simply take a VHS tape home? I had no idea that the machines they had at home would be different, that the tape wouldn't fit. With no concept of incompatibility issues, I was therefore even more unaware of the vicious format war between Sony's slightly superior Betamax and JVC's almost ubiquitous Video Home System. Today, I'm more aware of these things. Primarily because history repeats itself.

You knew it was coming, but you couldn't wait, could you? Now you're stuck with an HD-DVD player that has become obsolete within less than a year of purchase, as well as a shelf sagging under buyer's remorse, instead the weight of all those movies. Sony must be pleased: their format has finally won. With all the major retailers exclusively carrying Blu-ray discs, and the movie studios following suit, the future looks blue for Toshiba and its HD-DVD format. In fact, Toshiba has announced that it would cease production of HD-DVD players entirely. Blu-ray has become the de rigeur sexy upgrade from DVD (or VHS, if you've spent the first part of this century on some desert island). And that's the thing: there will always be format wars, winners, upgrades, disappointments, triumphs, technology. No matter how much the 21st century is moving towards doing everything digitally and downloading your music and movies as zeros and ones from some anonymous entertainment server, people still love gadgets. You cannot wrap a download and put it under the Christmas tree. Well, you can probably wrap a download gift card, but that's just not the same; it's the gift that shows you cared enough to do the very least... And for the afficionados, the quality of downloads is still miles behind. Audiophiles wouldn't dream of polluting their ears with 128kbps MP3s, exclaiming, "There are so many gaps, the loss of information from the sound is a crime. I'd rather listen to something authentic." And then return to their scratchy 78s, implausibly. Personally, I love new technology, the fruit of format wars. I love my collection of Super Audio CDs, for example, another Sony brainchild that makes DVD-Audio sound like 8-track tape. Although, the SACD format has been slightly less well supported than I'd like it to be. History repeats itself.

Forgive me, Father, for I have cloned

2008-03-11T22:50:00.009-06:00

Oh, great. Not only am I going to Hell for what I am, I now also deserve eternal damnation for what I do. I can either finish my degree, or drop out and be saved. Hmm... decisions, decisions. Not only is biological research now not helping civilization advance, but the very act of holding a test tube up to the light is akin to stabbing a kitten. It has become a reprehensible act, worthy of the utmost punishment Catholicism affords. Yes folks, the Vatican - being the groovy and happening place that it is - has updated the Seven Deadly Sins of yore (which one is your favourite?):

sloth

envy

gluttony

greed

lust

wrath

pride

to the 21st century 'social' sins of:

genetic manipulation

human subject research

environmental pollution

violating human rights

inflicting poverty

accumulation of excessive wealth

drug trafficking (and consumption!)

So now I'm not allowed to put plant genes in bacteria anymore (or bacterial genes into plants, for that matter), unless I plan to spend eternity in Dante's inferno. Brilliant. Or perhaps I'll just spend some time in Purgatory instead - after all, I gave up chasing the dragon and injecting orphans with trial size volumes of toothpaste years ago.

Read the full story from Reuters here.

Mouthwash hysteria and protocol mythology

2008-03-04T21:53:00.015-07:00

Our society of the 21st century is rather alarmist. I was reading an interesting link on Boing Boing about a single-blind study in which a bunch of audiophiles could hear no difference in sound quality between music conducted through expensive stereo cables and music conducted through coat hanger wire. This led me to the original article at The Consumerist and finally on to this. Briefly, it seems that people are concerned that using Crest Pro-Health Oral Rinse leaves their teeth stained brown. So far, the article has generated more than 150 online comments, most from concerned mouthwash users upset at Procter & Gamble for putting the stuff on the market in the first place. Brown stains in return for practicing good oral hygiene? No thanks!

The comments were really interesting to read. They remind me of a lab phenomenon I call 'protocol mythology'. It starts like this: you're busy in the lab, homogenizing your samples, centrifuging your tubes, cloning your DNA fragments, running your gels, when suddenly... things go pretty much the shape of a pomaceous fruit (hint: it's not an apple). The arduous task of troubleshooting begins. You retrace your steps back to that part of the procedure when things were still working. What came next? Did you precipitate at room temperature, or on ice? What was the pH of the buffer again? Perhaps the restriction enzymes are not compatible with your extraction method. What voltage did you run the gel at? The protocol therefore gets altered, often changing many variables at once in order to save time. Big mistake. And yet, changing it up seems to have worked - the DNA fragments on your gel are of the right size. Hurrah for troubleshooting! This is how the grad lab protocol myth gets born: one student will suggest the set of in-house modifications (which they spent simply months optimizing) to the next student, who then passes it along. Newbies are often intimidated into compliance with tales woe and crying under lab benches. I know I was. Who wouldn't follow the sound advice to rather use that laminar flow cabinet instead of this one, unless you want guaranteed yet unexplained contamination of your agar plates? We can't explain why, all we know is that it works. Don't argue with us - we know what we're talking about. Or do we?

Back to the mouthwash. It seems so much like a snowballing mass hysteria thing to me. Almost everyone has at least some kind of discoloration to their teeth. This is usually in the hard-to-reach areas, like between the bottom teeth, right at the gum line. It's a spot that goes without close scrutiny for the most part - but you're bound to find it if you go looking for it specifically. And what better time to investigate your gumline than after reading a scary report that everyone who has used your new brand of mouthwash was left with stains making them look like champion tobacco chewers? As disinformation gets spread around, the whole thing takes on a mythology of its own. The staining gets rapidly attributed to various things, including the blue dye in the rinse (so why are the stains brown?) and the presence of stannous fluoride (although the Pro-Health toothpaste does contain fluoride, the mouthwash does not and besides, dental fluorosis only occurs during tooth development). Some people spit out blue gunk after using it: how strange and unexpected! Who could have guessed that the active ingredient designed to rupture microbial membranes and act as a detergent to collect cellular debris might actually do its job? We can't be having that! People have poured the contents of their bottles down the drain, or returned them and demanded refunds. The stuff of urban legend. And then there are those who have completely lost their sense of taste after using it. Now that's scary, isn't it? Truth be told, I've never used a brand of mouthwash that didn't extinguish my sense of taste for a couple of hours. Actually, I've never had a gin & tonic that didn't do pretty much the same thing.

We all react differently to different products. Some people are allergic to peanuts, others to tomatoes, some to antibiotics, some to anything that isn't cashmere, Dahlinks! That doesn't mean we should take peanuts, tomatoes or acrylic sweaters off our shelves. Well, maybe the acrylic sweaters at least... The point is that everything we consume, whether it be food or medicine (or both, in the case of nutraceuticals and dietary supplements) has side effects or is toxic to some degree. Yes, even water. The next generation of mouthwash is no exception to this. The brand in question uses cetylpyridinium chloride instead of alcohol to battle bacteria, making it an attractive, non-dehydrating alternative for children, diabetics, the aged... and recovering alcoholics, naturally. The bacterial remnants and salivary proteins disrupted this way can attract tannins from food, and form brown residues in the crevices between teeth. This is will be especially noticeable in only about 7% of people who use the product. And one person out of a million having a bad reaction to one of its ingredients doesn't imply that the product is no longer of any use to the population at large. If that were the case, we wouldn't have any antibiotics left to treat disease with. Or, indeed, food. So there you go. Since stains are not harmful, the rinse has not been slapped with a warning label. Neither are pineapples, which contain enzymes that can cause bleeding, by the way... Is the Crest Pro-Health Oral Rinse responsible for stained teeth? In some cases, probably. Does this warrant all the disinformation-based consumer hysteria? Probably not, although P&G are partly to blame for not explaining the possible side effects and their origins clearly enough. And so fear and ignorance creates a whole 21st century mythology around what is actually a marvelous advancement in human health. From chunky blue saliva to evil fluoride to burned tastebuds... to oral cancer, presumably.

All I know is that once the lab protocol fails again (as it inevitably does) reverting back to the original procedures, presented in Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual by Joseph Sambrook and David W. Russell more than twenty years ago, always gives you the desired results. All that tweaking was just weaving a myth.

Hyaline Hiatus

2008-02-05T08:32:00.002-07:00

As you may have noticed, there has been little activity on this blog in the past month. Unfortunately there is much to do in fleshspace. I've been scrambling around in the lab, getting things in order, and preparing for a scientific conference this coming weekend. I'll be giving a talk, and therefore will devote my time to that. More fun-filled musings from the inside of my head to follow soon. In the meantime, I'd like to share this delightful video clip with all of you. It features some of the best ever footage of a most prehistoric looking fish, the frilled shark, Chlamydoselachus anguineus. Although hardly fresh news (the shark was filmed off the coast of Japan about a year ago) it is still quite mesmerizing and an elegant reminder of how little we now about the things that stir in the depths below. Enjoy.

Object Lessons

2008-01-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

They started switching off all the lights. Green EXIT signs glowed in the twilight and the acrylic eyes of birds in the dioramas followed us as we walked across the parquet floor, past a two-headed skink in formaldehyde and the articulated jaws of a coelacanth. Riding home in the backseat, my young cerebral cortex drowning in globular Zulu pottery and the delicate egg cases of paper nautilus, I realized that I love museums.

It is quite apt that an individual as obsessed with collecting as I should be enamoured of museums: they are grand collections of, erm... collections. Collect, preserve, document, exhibit, display. A myriad of alternative forms behind glass. Variations on a theme, neatly catalogued and archived and ordered in a pleasant, climate controlled environment as you could never find them outside on Darwin's humid and muddy tangled bank. Museums of all kinds beguile me with their charms, not just those institutions devoted to the natural world.

Museums dedicated to the arts have a special allure all their own. Where else could you stand face to face with works of such skill and invention than in a gallery? Each has been a sacred rendezvous in a vaulted space: a small charcoal drawing of a 180° face by Picasso, ablaze with topology in the Pretoria Art Museum; The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein, more luminous in the National Gallery, London, than could ever be portrayed in a mere picture book; the Guggenheim spiralling up to Franz Marc's sanguine yellow cow prancing across a dazzling landscape of the imagination.

The traveller in an unfamiliar city would do well to seek out those small collections off the beaten path, often overshadowed by the famous collections of art, archaeological artifacts, historical objects or biological specimens of obvious value. These small collections often represent the legacies of those whose passions were so fervent that their collections outlive them. Such museums, displaying pieces amassed by one individual driven by their own particular strain of lust, are often the most interesting. These institutions provide an intimate peek into the psyche of a collector. How wonderfully intrusive: voyeurism disguised as erudition. What drives someone to collect cabinets and even rooms full of antique vibrators, Art Déco cocktail dresses, fruit labels, model buildings made of matchsticks, pinned butterflies, photographs of bridges, circus paraphernalia, stuffed and mounted pets, vintage office equipment, celebrity death masks or Charles and Diana royal wedding memorabilia?

These wonderful and informative collections and their curators share some striking similarities with those persons suffering from compulsive hoarding. Both sets of people acquire large numbers of possessions, seemingly of little value, without wanting to discard them. What differentiates the collector from the human squirrel, however, is that the hoarder's life is impaired, whereas the collector's life is enhanced by the habit. Hoarders never catalogue the junk they acquire. The collector invests time and effort in creating a cross-referenced archive for their precious possessions. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." It is because of this underlying order that the collection accrues value. Without context, without a story, the museum is reduced to glass cases of worthless bottle caps.

Museums, galleries and exhibitions tend to have an air of stuffiness about them. Stale air, dead displays. A museum of natural history appears by its nature to be less alive than a zoo would be. The animals strike the same perennial pose at your next visit, their pelts fading to regulation office colours as time passes on. Insects pinned to tiny labels do not crawl away. Many specimens on display were originally collected by explorers long dead; nothing new to see here, move along. The fact is that most of the action in a museum happens in the basement... Unseen by casual visitors, behind doors marked NO ENTRY or STAFF ONLY, lies unspace inhabited by scores of curators, researchers, historians and scientists. Labs are squashed into the alcoves under staircases, microscopes are arrayed on low benches in rooms unadorned except for the exposed plumbing and air conditioning conduits that lead to the planetarium and the new IMAX theatre above. It is here where the people who love museums even more than the rest of us perform their magic. Collect, preserve, document, exhibit, display. It is here where the stories are teased out of the objects. It is here where that most human of attributes - value - is conferred to lifeless objects.

Images: left, contemporary jewellery from Lucca Preziosa, displayed in the Museu Tèxtil i d'Indumentària, Barcelona; and right, ancient Chinese perfume bottles displayed in the British Museum, London.

That knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care

2008-01-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

It is the time of year when people like to take stock of their lives and partake in the ridiculous custom of making New Year's resolutions. I also indulge annually in such fruitless attempts at increasing the regularity of exercise and reducing the amount of swearing and procrastination. By mid-January, of course, all intentions of generating new sets of admirable behaviour have usually disintegrated. So this year I am going to try a much more sensible approach, one directed at the primary cause of many people's dissatisfaction with their lives. This year, I am not going to try to eat healthier, become less stressed, or be more organized. No: this year I resolve to improve the quality of the sleep I get.

Sleeping is such an essentially absurd activity. We run around frantically during the day, then suddenly we need to lie down and keep quiet for a few hours, only to get up and run around once more. It's a curious cycle that needs to be repeated at regular intervals throughout a healthy life. There is a misconception that sleep is a restful state - the opposite of being awake - simply because we don't move much during sleep. The truth is that being asleep is not akin to being unconscious at all; it is very much an altered state of consciousness. In fact, we spend our lives in three states of consciousness: wakefulness, NREM sleep and REM sleep. Although two of these states are lumped together as 'sleep', they are very different from one another. NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep is divided into four progressively deeper stages, culminating in slow-wave sleep which is characterized by rolling delta brain waves on an EEG. Ho-hum. So far sleep doesn't seem that exciting. But as soon as the brain enters REM sleep, dynamic changes can be observed. To the researcher monitoring a sleeping person's EEG, the brain waves would suggest that the sleeper has woken up after the 90 or so minutes spent in NREM sleep. Heartrate and breathing are irregular. The body is responding to some sort of stimuli. Yet the sleeping individual is definitely not awake and lies still, the only movement being that of the eyes under closed lids. The stimuli are not entering from the outside environment through the senses, but are internally generated. It is the only instance when the brain hallucinates and we consider it normal and healthy. This psychosis is more commonly referred to as dreaming. REM sleep is a fascinating but difficult aspect of life to study. What is it for? Why is the brain so active during REM sleep? Why do we dream? One thing is clear: sleep is essential for survival. Sleep heals wounds and stimulates the immune system. We know that reduced sleep significantly increases one's risk of getting involved in accidents, simply due to fatigue and impaired responsiveness. Total, extended deprivation itself can also be fatal: in one study, lab rats died after 11 to 32 days of being denied any chance of sleep, and from 16 to 54 days if selectively deprived of REM sleep only.

The psychedelic splendour of REM sleep! That warm and inviting abyss of dreams. Turn on, tune in, drop out; no acid required. REM atonia ensures that we don't act out our dreams. This is fortunate for those sharing a matress with a fellow dreamer. The motor neurons that control muscle movements are selectively inhibited as REM sleep is initiated. Sometimes this inhibition is triggered before REM is initiated, or persists for some time after a REM phase. When this happens, you find yourself at the interface between sleep and wakefulness, unable to move. Welcome to the land of hypnagogia, where input from the senses is taken by the brain and stretched, distorted, and expanded through iterations of its own design. This is actually the state you normally pass through on the way to dreamland. However, when REM atonia is accidentally coupled with these sensations, people often feel a 'presence' in the room with them, or a fear-inducing pressure on their chest, an inability to breathe. Voluntary breathing is suppressed under REM atonia and is replaced by involuntary breathing controlled by the brainstem, see. Nothing to fear. Yet we don't want to relinquish that conscious control. The anxiety brought about by such incidents of sleep paralysis has given rise to a myriad of legends about crushing demons, maras and the incubus. And all reports of alien abduction from bedrooms, I expect. Apart from the unlucky few who experience it every night, the majority of sleepers will experience sleep paralysis at most once or twice in their lives. So don't be alarmed and enjoy the ride - after all, you engineered it yourself.

REM sleep disorders are teaching scientists all sorts of things. From how the consolidation of memories works by reinforcing them with biochemical loops in new connections between neurons (you may have to read that again), to fascinating breakthroughs in the relationship between sleeping and eating. Yes, the two are connected. If our requirements for energy, shelter and procreation were somehow met by proxy, would we spend our whole lives asleep? Perhaps that's our true baseline state of being. Apart from sophisticated genetic mechanisms that ensure we live our lives according to circadian rhythms, there are others that trigger wakefulness in response to changes in energy reserves. Small proteins called orexins (or hypocretins, depending on which research team you talk to) are produced by a couple of cells in the hypothalamus for just this purpose. These proteins are the brain's own breakfast bell. Interestingly, when this bell malfunctions, either through mutations in the genes for the orexins themselves or in the genes for their receptors, narcolepsy results. This intriguing sleep disorder really warrants a post of its own. I plan to share my thoughts on this remarkable story in a future piece. It's a tale of obese mice, sleepy dobermans, collapsing teenagers and some of the most elegant experiments in all of molecular biology.

All mammals sleep; we all require it to live. So I'll leave you with some final thoughts about whales. Cetaceans (that's whales and dolphins to you non-biology types) never enter NREM sleep with both hemispheres of their brains at the same time. This is called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. In fact, they sleep with only one eye closed - the left when the right hemisphere is asleep, and vice versa. Good thinking, to prevent sinking. And drowning, that certainly wouldn't be conducive to the survival of the species at all. Bottlenose dolphins sometimes rest on the bottom, or seem to just float for a bit. More commonly, they slowly swim counterclockwise while sleeping, even when switching brain hemispheres. Smaller dolphins and porpoises are always on the move from birth until death; they are never immobile, the hallmark of terrestrial sleep. Sleep is anything but a restful, unconscious state. Here is the weird thing, though: nobody has ever published accounts of REM sleep in cetaceans; they are the only mammals studied in which this state has never been observed. How do they survive without the third state of consciousness? Why does REM sleep exist, then? How does learning and the consolidation of memory occur? Do dolphins dream?

Reversal of fortune

2007-12-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

Maori legend holds that you daren't speak its name. When digging for it in the forests of New Zealand, its true name of perei must never be said aloud, or the orchid will hear its pursuers coming and hide away. No amount of digging will uncover its delicious tubers then. It was not formed of the earth like other vegetables, but was a gift sent by the gods. The term maukuuku is substituted for the one true name so that the orchid won't be startled...

Tasting somewhat like cinnamon-spiced potato, the underground rhizomes of the Gastrodia orchid have always lured people into searching them out wherever they grow. Ancient Chinese folklore includes the story of an old man who collected Gastrodia in the mountains every spring. One year, after a complete season of searching without finding a single tuber, the man decided to grow the elusive plant himself. He prepared a field, sowed the seeds fine as dust, and waited. A year later the field was still barren - someone must have stolen his crop. At the next planting season, he set up a shack next to his field and proceeded to watch it, day in day out. At harvest time he dug up the whole field without finding a single tuber. The wise old man concluded that the plant must be a gift from heaven, not meant to be cultivated. He named it tianma, meaning 'from heaven', and since that time everybody knew that no mere mortal could ever grow it.

Just by looking at it, one can tell that Gastrodia is no ordinary orchid. It lacks the basic structures that makes things plants, for a start. It has no leaves, no stems, and no roots. All it consists of is a small rounded subterranean rhizome. Infrequently, it will burst into bloom and produce a tall red inflorescence bearing small curious flowers. How does this thing live? Is it magic? How does it obtain nutrients? Why doesn't it need chlorophyll like other plants? Gastrodia is not a parasite, because it doesn't possess structures that enter the vascular tissues of other plants, like the insiduous haustoria of dodder or mistletoe do. It is not a parasite. Or is it? In fact, in a roundabout way, it is. In order to survive, it is entirely reliant on a fungus. This relationship is termed mycoheterotrophy and is a corruption of the symbiotic mycorrhizal relationships between fungi and plants. It is also a pretty neat reversal of the concept of pathogenic fungi that obtain their nutrients from plants. Armillaria mellea is a deadly fungal parasite of trees. Most of its tissues consist of a mass of underground hyphae called the mycelium, which lives off decaying plant matter in the soil. However, when the fungus finds a tree to infect, these hyphae branch out into fibres that resemble black bootlaces. They rapidly form a network under the bark of the tree, slowly taking nutrients from it and causing the tree roots to rot. Once the tree has succumbed, the fungus sprouts edible fruiting bodies from its carcass, the honey mushrooms so cherished in haute cuisine.

In the wild, all orchids need fungi in order to germinate. Orchid seeds are very small, some consisting essentially of only a couple of cells surrounded by a thin layer of protective tissue. A single orchid capsule can release millions of these seeds to the wind, with the chances of successful germination being very slim indeed. When the seed of an orchid encounters a mycorrhizal fungus, a strange thing starts to happen: the fungus enters the seed. At first it looks like the orchid is doomed. However, the tables are turned and the orchid proceeds to receive nutrients from the fungus. Instead of carrying its nutrients with it in the form of a bigger seed, the orchid relies on the fungus to supply its first meal. Cells start to divide, chlorophyll is made, the orchid turns green, and eventually the tiny orchid seedling can photosynthesize and provide for itself. The Gastrodia orchid interacts in such a way with the fungus called Mycena osmundicola to form its rhizome. There it lies in wait for its next encounter. Armillaria is virtually everywhere; it doesn't need to wait long. Soon the Armillaria filaments come into contact with the rhizome underground and proceed to infiltrate it. This was a mistake. It has now signed a contract to provide the orchid with all its nutritional requirements. Energy flows from diseased and decaying trees to Armillaria and on to Gastrodia. It is a parasite-by-proxy. No wonder no-one could ever cultivate it. They didn't realize that they needed the fungus to make it all work.

And yet, in an anthropomorphic way, it is as if the orchid has not forgotten its kinship with the other plants it indirectly feeds upon. It reduces the voraciousness of the fungus by the clever use of chemical signals. These fungal inhibitors protect uninfected trees in the forest surrounding the orchid from falling victim to the Armillaria's gluttony. It seems the orchid has planned for the wellfare of its future offspring as well.

Recently, five new orchid species were discovered in the Green Corridor, central Vietnam, by the WWF Vietnam programme and the Forest Protection Department of Thua Thien Hue Province. One of these is a brand new Gastrodia - pictured here - named Gastrodia theana after its discoverer, Vietnamese botanist Pham Van The. With warty pink petals that barely open to reveal a reddish lip lurking within, it really is a bizarre addition to the orchid family. It would be easy to believe that it was listening to every word we say. How soon before this one starts its own mythology? Perhaps it already has a MySpace page.

Poll results

2007-12-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the digital garden. Thank you to all who voted in the 80th post commemorative poll; the results are in. Taking third place with a mere 15% of the vote is the post about the spicy molecule zingerone. Although the post about collecting 1st edition books is still statistically the most popular with casual visitors to (E&E)², it only managed to attain second place, with 23% of the vote. The surprise winner, as voted for in the poll (and with a massive 31% of the vote), is the post entitled We're one, but we're not the same, dealing with the intimate subject of confession through song lyrics. Read it here. I must admit that this was an unexpected result. You guys seem to have very particular taste!

I hope you like the new version of (E&E)². A big thank you to the supertalented Dalyn from Bruiser Design for the wonderful new header image. Thank you all for reading and commenting. I wish to share much more of the inside of my skull with you. It's a jungle in here.

The finished image

2007-11-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." - Genesis 1:27

I've been idling over the topic of this week's post for quite a bit now. There's just no easy way to introduce the subject of genetic disease. Sensitive subject matter, whichever way you look at it. To scientists, biology is at its most fascinating and informative when it goes wrong. Often, genes are named after the condition that results when they malfunction. In the lab, determining the function of a specific gene is often done by disrupting the gene in a model organism and investigating any physical changes that result. What we don't realize is how often Nature does the same kind of experimenting.

What a miraculous thing every successful fertilization event is! A sperm and an ovum fuse, forming a zygote, the beginning of a new multicellular organism, with half of its genes derived from the paternal genome, and the other half from the maternal genome. The doubling of DNA and movement of chromosomes essential to this miracle form a major chapter in any biology textbook; the meiotic mantra of prophase-metaphase-anaphase-telophase is chanted in classrooms and lecture halls across the globe. Nature is not textbook perfect, however. Chromosomes get damaged, broken, left behind. They fuse into new entities, unsure of their alliances. The DNA sequences they harbour change over time, get deleted, repeated, inverted, mutated. Here's the rub: change is good. Mutation and change is what drives organisms to adapt to new environments and new pressures. It is what enables them to succeed in the future. Curiously, mutation works blind, unable to see what natural selection is requiring from it. Not all changes are equal; not all mutants fit the mould. Nearly a quarter of all human fertilization events will be aborted - often so rapidly that the woman doesn't even realize that she was pregnant. More than 50% of all embryos miscarried in the first trimester are found to have chromosomal abnormalities. These genetic changes are so severe that they prove lethal. In fact, we all carry a few genes where one of the two copies (alleles) is functionally incapacitated in some way and is compensated for by the healthy copy on the other chromosome - it is masked, recessive. Without that healthy copy, you would probably have suffered from some genetic disorder. More likely, you would never have been born.

Fibrodysplasia. For hundreds of years the medical records noted patients who slowly "turned to stone". This is a very rare condition, striking one out of every two million people. We now know this disease as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP. It is autosomal dominant - you only need one copy of a mutant gene to be affected. Mutations in several different genes can lead to FOP, but the genes all share a common developmental pathway: that of embryonic bone morphogenesis. These genes are involved in bone formation in babies, but get switched off soon after. In FOP patients, one of the genes stays turned on into maturity, with grave consequences. Slowly, muscles and connective tissue are converted to bone. Slight injuries induce massive spurts of bone growth, making surgery to remove the lumps of bone impossible - it only exacerbates the situation. Sufferers might be unable to move their necks, open their jaws or lift their hands as more layers of ectopic bone are deposited, fusing their skeletons in place. Harry Eastlack, the most well-known FOP sufferer, donated his body to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, where his skeleton (above) dripping with bone like a cave drips with stalactites, can still be seen. He passed away in 1973, six days before his fortieth birthday.

Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome. Decades ago, boys with this disease were often misdiagnosed as having cerebral palsy. They writhe and twist and are mildy retarded. But they also suffer from horrifying, uncontrollable urges to self-mutilate. Sufferers will bang their heads against the wall, or bite themselves. Many need to be strapped in and restrained to prevent them from chewing off their own fingers and lips, or gouging at their own eyes, screaming in pain and terror as they do so. Care-givers are also not spared, and may be sworn at or punched, often while the patient apologizes profusely for their compulsion. This terrible disease is caused by mutations in the gene that codes for the HPRT enzyme, involved in the metabolism of nitrogenous molecules called purines. When this enzyme malfunctions, there is a build-up of uric acid, which leads to gout and kidney problems and is also responsible for the changes in neurological development. Most sufferers die of kidney failure early in life. This is a recessive disease, meaning that a healthy copy of the gene will compensate for a faulty one, and the person will not be afflicted but merely a carrier. Unfortunately, the gene resides on the X chromosome. So whereas girls inherit an X from their mother and an X from their father, boys inherit an X from their mother and a Y from their father. Men make do with a single X chromosome. If it happens to contain the faulty HPRT1 gene, they will develop Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Carrier mothers therefore have a 50% chance of transmitting the gene to their sons. Fortunately, this disease is also very rare, and typically affects only 1 out of every 380 000 people worldwide.

Fatal Familial Insomnia. We've all heard of prions, those infectious proteins hiding in our hamburgers, lying in wait for an unsuspecting victim to consume them and become another sporadic case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prions are differently folded variants of normal proteins essential to brain function. When a prion protein comes into contact with a normal protein of the same kind, it can change the shape of that protein into the prion fold. The new prion is like a zombie victim; once bitten, it too becomes a zombie and can turn others into zombies with its lethal bite. Prion proteins form plaques of long fibres inside neurons, damaging their delicate structure and disrupting their function. Most prion diseases take the form of transmissable spongiform encephalopathies - the prion proteins are tranferred through transfusions, transplants, or consuming tainted meat. In the rare case of fatal familial insomnia, the disease is most definitely genetic: if one parent had it, then each child has a 50% chance of developing it as well. The age of onset varies from 20 to 60, so it usually strikes when patients have already had children. The symptoms of FFI are unpleasant, because it is literally a fatal case of insomnia. People with FFI find themselves terminally unable to fall asleep, inhabiting a debilitating world somewhere between slumber and wakefulness. Drastic weight loss occurs, together with decreases in muscle control. No longer able to speak or walk, they are bedridden (a cruel twist) with nothing to do but stare at the walls. Curiously, FFI does not impair cognition, or cause dementia: up to the very end, before the bliss of coma and death, sufferers are completely aware of what is happening to them. It has so far only been identified in about 40 families, and members can be screened for the mutant gene that causes the protein to assume the malignant fold. Researchers hope that the study of FFI might lead to a cure for other prion diseases like CJD, and protein misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

Trimethylaminuria. TMAU, a metabolic disorder that sounds hilarious, yet is anything but funny for those who suffer from it. For them it is a source of much embarrassment. Also known as fish odour syndrome, this disease is again caused by a malfunctioning gene. The gene, FMO3, is located on the long arm of chromosome 1, and encodes an enzyme responsible for breaking down trimethylamine, a molecule formed from nitrogen-rich food by beneficial intestinal bacteria. The disorder is recessive, so both copies of the gene need to be malfunctioning for the disorder to manifest itself. Because trimethylamine is no longer broken down, it builds up in the body. The molecule, which has a fishy, ammonia-like smell, is released in the person's urine, sweat, and breath. No matter how often they wash, the smell is never gone for long. This disorder can be very disrupting. People who suffer from it often shy away from social interaction by isolating themselves, and sometimes struggle with feelings of guilt or depression. Although there is no cure, avoiding certain foods high in nitrogen seems to help, as do daily doses of charcoal to soak up the smelly compounds.

Huntington's Disease. On the short arm of chromosome 4 lies a gene encoding a protein essential to the maintenance of neurons, called huntingtin. The gene sequence specifies the exact order of amino acids that need to be linked together to form the functional protein. Part of this sequence is a stretch of repeats of the same amino acid, glutamine, over and over again. The exact length of this patch of glutamine repeats varies from person to person. Healthy people can have anything from 9 to 35 such glutamines linked end-to-end in this part of the protein. In people with Huntington's disease, or HD, this repeat sequence has been vastly extended, sometimes to more than a hundred repeats. Somewhere along the line, the sophisticated cellular machinery that reads and copies the genetic code had lost its place in all the repeats, reread the code again and created extra copies of those requests for glutamine in the gene sequence; HD is a codon reiteration disorder. The mutant form of huntintin no longer functions normally, and is also not broken down like it should be. Neurons start to die off. Interestingly, the longer the repeats in the mutant huntingtin are, the earlier the patient's symptoms start. HD is typically a progressive decline, with chorea and athetosis generally being the first physical symptoms. Chorea is characterized by abnormal involuntary jerking movements, while athetosis is a continuous writhing movement of the hands and feet. These irregularities in coordination increase as the disease progresses. In the later stages, speaking and swallowing are impaired. The most frightening aspects of HD are those that involve the mind itself - patients often become anxious or depressed, sometimes aggressive or compulsive. They lose the capacity for abstract thinking, for planning ahead or choosing appropriate actions. This deterioration is particularly traumatizing for children who often end up taking care of their ailing parents, loved ones who have become strangers to them. HD is an autosomal dominant disease - if you have the mutant gene, you will eventually develop the disease. Because it only manifests later in life (the average age when symptoms start is 40) HD is often only diagnosed when patients already have children. This means that the mutation gets passed on to the next generation 50% of the time. There is a very efficient DNA test available to detect the presence of the gene. However, many children of HD sufferers choose to rather not know their own fate. At the start of the 21st century, Huntington's disease is still a terminal illness with no cure. If you had a 50% chance of inheriting it, would you want to know for sure?

Let us not view this as a morose post, a mere list of genetic disease, a list of things that can go wrong. Rather, it is intended to be a celebration of the miracle of multicellular life and of how precious a healthy genome truly is. It is a salute to those brave people who live with genetic disorders; they have been of immeasurable help in the study of genes and their functions. They represent the reluctant pioneers of our collective genome, those who are sacrificing themselves in testing the limits of human evolution. Change is good.

"The living form defies evolution at its peril; if it does not adapt, it will be broken. The idea of completed man is the supreme vanity: the finished image is a sacrilegious myth." - John Wyndham, The Chrysalids, 1955

The Siren song of the cloud forest

2007-11-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

In 2002, strange photographs were being circulated via e-mail and doing the rounds on online orchid forums. As always, the photographs were tantalizingly unfocused and indistinct. What they seemed to depict was a New World slipper orchid of some kind, a Phragmipedium. This seemed like a new species, and a brightly coloured one, at that. The last time a really unusual new orchid was discovered was in the early '80s, when the fiery Phragmipedium besseae was spotted from a helicopter, growing on sheer cliffs on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Everyone likes a good mystery, and the online chat room is the premier rumour mill of the 21st century. This new thing intrigued everyone in the orchid world, but intrigue goes deeper than casual fascination for those truly obsessed with these horticultural harlots. No-one could have predicted the magnitude of the mania that was about to strike the orchid community, or how far-reaching the effects of this most severe outbreak of orchid fever would be.

In May of 2002, Michael Kovach from Goldvein, Virginia, was travelling around the cloud forests of Peru on an orchid hunting expedition. On the afternoon of 26 May, he came to the truck stop of El Progresso. In the parking lot, some local farmers were selling orchids. This is a common sight in this part of the world, and the orchids are usually collected from the wild as people clear new patches of forest in order to plant their crops. After Kovach expressed interest in the wares peddled by a brother and sister, the girl wanted to show him something special, and hurried off. She promptly returned with three potted plants with obscenely large, royal purple blossoms. Kovach knew he'd never seen anything like these before. Other Amazonian slipper orchids were half the size and in drab shades of green. He bought them all, for $3.60 a piece. This was it, his chance for orchid fame. Little did he know that his small act of exploitation by the side of the road in rural Peru would set in motion a series of events that would end up with his name living on in infamy instead.

Kovach had to get the plant scientifically described if it were to carry his name. The premier US institution for orchid taxonomy, the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, would be his best bet. Imagine the astonished expressions of the esteemed plant taxonomists at Selby on that day when Kovach walked in with this new slipper orchid. It signified the most important discovery the orchid world had seen in over a century. The race was on: word was received that orchid expert Eric Christenson was preparing a description of a fabulous new Phragmipedium that would change slipper orchid breeding forever. Dr. Eric Christenson worked from photographs sent by Peruvian orchid enthusiasts, and with the support of the Peruvian government. He would name the new species Phragmipedium peruvianum. In order for the name Phragmipedium kovachii to be accepted by the scientific community, the Selby description had to be submitted first: the taxonomists and botanical illustrators were determined to work overtime. Selby ended up beating Christenson to print by five days. Kovach's place in history was secure. At the same time, stories began to appear in orchid forums that specimens of the new orchid were already fetching prices as high as $10 000 on the black market...

Here's the curious thing: due to CITES restrictions which control the trade in endangered species, slipper orchids cannot legally cross borders, for whatever reason. Hybrids yes, nursery-raised plants certainly, but not jungle-collected specimens. Therefore, the Marie Selby Botanical Garden was guilty of orchid smuggling, its reputation forever tainted. Oops. And the name P. kovachii can't even be retracted so that the whole sorry mess will go away, as it was indeed published first. The rules need to apply to everyone. This has happened before: even if we all like the name Brontosaurus so much more, the name Apatosaurus was assigned first, so we'll have to live with it. Whenever you hear of a botanical institution describing a new species from another country, you have to wonder how they managed to do it; even if it were tantamount to smuggling, surely the rules don't apply when it's for science? As Dr. Christenson so eloquently put it, "Anyone with half a brain cell doesn't go near them. They're the pandas of the orchid world... When somebody shows up with an orchid like that, you either quietly tell them to go away or you call the cops."

There's also the part of the story concerning the whereabouts of that specific Selby orchid after it was described. Who got to take it home when they were done? Let's just say there were police raids on several greenhouses that year. Redundancies. Lawsuits. In-fighting. Mud-slinging. The withdrawal of research grants. Thrilling fodder for a Grisham novel, no doubt. Nobody could claim orchids were boring after that. Michael Kovach least of all: he just barely escaped doing time. Others weren't as lucky. "Lead us not into temptation..."

In Peru, the government started posting fliers at every airport warning people against trying to smuggle the slipper orchid out of the country. Unfortunately, the brand new Phragmipedium was already in deep trouble. The slippery hillsides where Kovach's original plants came from were bare. The orchid was lost, nowhere to be found. Local people desperate for some income had helped unscrupulous smugglers in completely stripping the site of its thousands of P. kovachii plants. A second site was subsequently discovered and also collected out. Illegally collected orchids were now selling for $1000 each in parts of Europe. The outlook seemed bleak. Months went by, and scientists started speculating that P. kovachii could already be extinct in the wild, even with hardcore CITES regulation and the fear of spending eternity in a Peruvian prison as deterrents. Finally, a small colony of the regal orchid was discovered on a virtually inaccessible cliff in a remote part of the sub-Andean basin. The unfriendly terrain would be its protection. Getting to the site required making what Harold Koopowitz, the editor of Orchid Digest, calls "the hike from hell".

The true salvation of any species at risk from overcollecting lies in taking pressure off its natural populations by introducing it into cultvation. In a sensible move, the Peruvian government granted Alfredo Manrique of Centro de Jardinería Manrique in Lima permission to collect five - and only five - plants for preservation through propagation. With expert help from some of the world's best specialists in orchid cultivation and tissue culture, this most beautiful of New World slippers will soon be available to everyone at an affordable price. Best of all, the wild orchids will remain queens of the cloud forest, safe for the moment. In the November 2007 issue of Orchids magazine, the American Orchid Society published vanity shots of the first generation of P. kovachii hybrids, including Phragmipedium Haley Decker, pictured here. Orchid breeding is never going to be the same again.

All photographs from Centro de Jardinería Manrique, unless otherwise indicated.

Sexual frustration of the worst kind

2007-11-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

The first reports always come from farms and small towns. Rural areas. Strange sounds in the forest at night. People call them cryptids. These creatures, presumed extinct, cast a delicious spell: we want to believe that they are out there, holding out against the odds. Survivors, after all. A flash of white on a black wing in an Arkansas swamp, and we desperately cling to the hope that the ivory-billed woodpecker has survived, that it is alive and well and breeding. Each frame of footage is cherished as grainy evidence that the thylacine still stalks the Eucalyptus forests of Australia. We want these creatures to have survived the ravages of hunting and habitat destruction. We are to blame for their disappearance. We need to ease our guilt, you see. Our desire to resurrect these species is so overwhelming that we end up ignoring all evidence to the contrary. We will not discover a live moa in a hidden valley in New Zealand. No amount of weeping will cause the cry violet to blossom in Bourgogne again. They are precious jewels lost down the drainpipe and no hook will ever be long enough to retrieve them.

Often we concentrate so much on what we have lost, that we don't notice the things we are about to lose, the findings on the other bracelets coming undone as we vainly poke around in the dark, chasing shadows in the plumbing. A small amount of organisms have indeed come back from the dead, as it were. These so-called Lazarus species, such as the painted frog and the Madagascar serpent-eagle, were reported as extinct for several years, until small populations are rediscovered. These are rare occurences, and dangerous ones for ecology in the end; they give us hope, which is so seldom of any practical use.

What a pitiful, sorrowful thing the very last wild thylacine must have been. All alone, without a mate. A population of top-end predators reduced to a single individual. The last thylacine would not even have been aware of it, of course, but it was doomed long ago. As soon as the number of individuals in a population drops below a certain threshold, the whole species collapses. Even though there are still individuals alive, the genetic diversity needed to sustain their next generation is already lost. You cannot fight natural selection with just a handful of alleles - you need the full arsenal. Imagine that last thylacine, gazing out over its dry scrubland habitat. A dead species walking. Functionally extinct.

The wonderful seaside city of Durban, South Africa, has an incredible botanic garden with a rich history. Planted in Victorian times, its mature tropical trees are a magnificent site to behold. On weekends, crowds of people enjoy a sunny afternoon picnic on its lawns. Its herbarium has collected and catalogued some of the most precious specimens of plants from all over the world and specifically the ravines and coastal forests of southern Africa. Music events, art installations and amateur astronomy nights bring people from all walks of life, not just plant lovers. Chiefly, it is indeed a plant lover's paradise: a whole avenue of Eucalyptus deglupta, the famous rainbow gum, leads to a carefully maintained Japanese garden. Tropical fruit trees grow outside, festooned with bromeliads and orchids, without the need of pampering under glass: jackfruit, cocoa, coffee, mangoes, they're all here. Ponds of waterlilies, formal rose gardens and arches dripping with purple Wisteria provide bridal couples and their photographers with many opportunities for gorgeous scenery. A Victorian orchid house gushes with colourful, heady blooms, a firm favourite with any visitor. And in the middle of it all stands a lonely looking Wood's cycad, Encephalartos woodii.

I've never been a big fan of cycads. They're big and spikey, grow exceedingly slowly, and produce no flowers. Still, the madness of cycad collectors probably exceeds that of the orchid folk. No other kind of rare plant has been as vehemently collected, illegally smuggled or heavily policed. In 1895, John Medley Wood came across a large cycad with four stems at the edge of the coastal forest of Ngoye in eastern South Africa. Luckily for the cycad, John had been curator of the Durban Botanic Gardens since 1882. In 1903, Wood sent James Wiley to collect some of the offsets growing at the base of the plant. In 1907, two of the larger trunks were collected and planted at the Botanic Gardens in Durban. However, Wood wasn't the only person interested in this cycad, apparently. By 1912, there was only a single trunk left. It is known that the indigenous people of the area sometimes use the starchy trunks as a food source, but it is doubtful that they were to blame. The plant seemed mutilated, diseased. In 1916, The Forestry Department sent this ailing trunk to the Government botanist in Pretoria. It died in 1964. All expeditions to find other specimens of Wood's cycad have returned empty-handed. It is very likely that the original plant collected one hundred years ago was the last of its kind.

Fortunately, the specimens growing in the Durban Botanic Garden thrived. Unfortunately, you need a mommy and a daddy cycad to make a baby cycad. The single specimen on the planet was a male, you see, and without a female Encephalartos woodii, no viable seed can ever be made. And yet, there are about 500 individual plants in the world now, in botanic gardens such as Kew and Kirstenbosch, and in private collections. How was this miracle accomplished? The plant regularly produces offsets at its base - all male, all genetically identical. Clones, with about as much chance of surviving in the wild as the original plant did. Functionally extinct. There has been much research and debate about using biotechnology to save Wood's cycad. It might be possible to induce one of the clones to change sex and become a female, whether chemically or using a genetic engineering approach. But even if this feat of gender reassignment surgery were possible, the genetic pool is still severely limited. Encephalartos woodii will remain in cultivation, of that there is no doubt. But genetically crippled, it could never survive in the wild.

The photograph above is of me hugging the trunk of the gigantic original cycad, first collected in 1907, still growing happily in the Durban Botanic Garden. A palaeontological relic, its chromosomes at a loss for something to do. A proud plant, but doomed like the thylacine. Its salvation through cultivation is a hollow victory. Lazarus was raised from the dead, only to die a second death. I recalled a lecture in population genetics, where the secrets of the gene were shared with me in darkened halls: "The only thing worse than somatic death, the death of the body, is genetic death, the failure to reproduce". I closed my eyes and grasped the trunk, cool and solid beneath my fingers.