Table of Contents 3 4 8 12 13 14 15 16 18 19 22 25 26 31 32 33 36
Cuttlefish, Sydney Lo Ghosts, Alice Pieplow Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, Christian Kengeter Toes, Samahria Alpern Falling, Malika Ramani Propagations, Samahria Alpern Growth, Kitty Ng Nature Writing, Blake DeVaney Oftenly, Emma Tilley Organisms and Machines, Gabrielle Santas Little Gods, Henry Dawson Hidden Dragons, Samahria Alpern Equations, E.L. Meszaros Lightning Rod, Liam Carpenter-Urquhart Horse Thoughts, Julia Illana Sea Turtles, Zach Cook Continuity and Departure, Katherine Sang
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Bone Nests, Sydney Lo Home, Kitty Ng Annual Dental Checkup, Sydney Lo Anatomy of Stress, Deanna Moorehead A Cup of Coffee, Deanna Moorehead alluvion, Tiffany Lin
From the Editors:
Co-Editors in Chief Kaitlin Sandmann Elena Renken Writing Editors Micaela Camacho-Tenreiro Christian Kengeter Richard Li Leticia Wood Tiffany Lin Kristen McLean Elena Renken Kaitlin Sandmann Moe Sattar Emma Tilley
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Staff Writers Liam Carpenter-Urquhart Henry Dawson Christian Kengeter Tiffany Lin E.L. Meszaros Deanna Moorehead Emma Tilley Malika Ramani
Dear gentle collections of atoms,
Design Editors Lisa Yu Li Richard Li Tanaya Puranik Elena Renken Moe Sattar Staff Artists Deanna Moorehead Cover Art Submerged, by Sydney Lo watercolor and ink on paper 5.25 x 5.75� Web Editor Kitty Ng Printing Art Communication Systems, Harrisburg, PA
In this issue of Catalyst, we examine the intricacies of bodies, considering an array of biological and material forms as they engage with the world. Bodies are sites of change, growth, and shifts in understanding. Our experiences of the scientific world are refracted through the body; materiality provides the means to grapple with concepts that require careful thought, precision, observation, and experimentation. The works in this volume of Catalyst explore the ways corporeality helps us understand our own place in this universe. The body is a site of tension, a site of medicine, a site of emotional turmoil, a site of surreal experiences; it is an element that decays, that fails, that considers the beauty of science and mathematics. The body is a tangible gateway to the scientific world and a changing, imperfect lens. Our understanding of bodies is also politicized. Different bodies move through the world differently by virtue of societal expectations and restraints, some subjected to violence and pain so much more than others. We have seen this continually and recently, with tragedies based on hatred of religions, genders, races. Bodies are sites on which hatred wages war. Without assuming knowledge of solutions, this issue hopes to at least inspire caring thought about the way bodies are situated and treated. Bodies are constitutive and resultant, resilient and vulnerable. They reflect society and inspire it, demonstrating the elaborate scientific choreography within and outside their bounds. Bodies provide a personal and visible science, drawing together experiences that privileged and traditional distance leave forgotten. As always, we hope that you find something in this journal that speaks to you. We appreciate your reading. Love, Elena and Kaitlin
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Cuttlefish Sydney Lo
I find you in prism, glass panels hold warped sunlight spinning over its flatness so it is all transparent edges and you are a shadow in it shifts of red and black colors shaking through your body or felt in almost-sleeping, or stillness. The aquarium screams back your reflection— you throw yourself against it, all mirrors ripple like water.
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ghosts
Alice Pieplow
Marker on paper, 9x11� During embryonic development, an alien form called the “pluteus� predominates our image of the humble Sea Urchin, at least, as long as they live as free-swimming plankton. The structure of a pluteus erupts rapidly from the fertilized egg and resembles nothing else existing on earth. Two species of sea urchin, separated by millions of years of divergence, will have unique pluteus stages that look nothing alike. Even so, as they develop, all sea urchins undergo metamorphosis to produce what are essentially identical adult animals. After metamorphosis, the embryonic form is discarded and left floating in the water as a ghost. This ghost reveals that sea urchin development is just a microscale voyage through space. A pluteus is simply the vessel for an adult form to grow as it drifts through the ocean. Here I have used pointillism to capture microscope images of Lytechinus variegatus (Florida native), and Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (California native) sea urchin larvae. 4 3
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Ophiocordyceps unilateralis Christian Kengeter
“Not much longer now!” I yelled, struggling under the weight of the sugar lump I had hauled all the way from Silver Creek. It had taken almost two days to make the trip but I knew it would be worth it. Queen Itsy had been unsure about the mission at first – Bullets hadn’t foraged as far as Silver Creek in several years but with winter fast approaching and the stores only half full, we were in desperate need of a new food source. The huge relief we had all felt when Slash found the remains of a picnic this morning was testament to just how dire our situation had been. But with the trail now laid out behind us, it wouldn’t be long before thousands of workers streamed down the track in single file, harvesting the leftovers. I’d be made Brigadier for saving the colony and Queen Itsy would shower me with praise. She might even give me a swarm of alates to settle on more fertile lands once the colony had recovered but I wasn’t going to tempt fate.
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“We’ve reached the field sir!” Sergeant Flipp cried, snapping me out of my daydreams. Up ahead towered huge grass blades either side of a slender path that meandered its way through the meadow. It had rained the night before and the air smelt musty and damp. “You take the front Flipp, I’ll follow from behind” I called. “Yes sir.” I waited as Flipp and the rest of the cohort overtook me, then fell in line behind Boris’ stocky frame. A faint breeze swept across the field, causing the grass stalks around to dance gently in the wind. Tiny little grass seeds, carried by the wind, shimmered slightly in the evening sun before settling down on the ground around us, a few landing on Boris’ head and antennae. Up, Up I stopped dead in my tracks. What the hell was that? Up, Up It was coming from inside my head, a mesmerizing chant that filled my entire body. Looking down in terror, I noticed my front legs beginning to tremble slightly. 9
Up, Up The voice was getting more and more insistent. Ahead of me Boris had also stopped, his body beginning to twitch in unison. Block and Slash had dropped their bounties and were looking around in frenzied confusion. Up, Up! My head snapped up and I noticed the seeds again, float ing down thicker and faster, settling on Boris’ head and legs. I watched in horror as he lumbered slowly towards a blade of grass and began to climb, his mandibles locking around its diameter, his legs gripping it tightly from each side. “Sir! Sir!” Flipp suddenly veered into my field of vision. “The seeds, sir ... spores... don’t let them touch you ... Cordyceps!” he blustered. What? Cordyceps? It sounded vaguely familiar. Up, Up! I was no longer listening to Flipp – the voice in my head compelled me to find the nearest grass blade, the top of which was imbued in a halo of golden light. “Don’t listen to it!” Flipp yelled, picking me up with his mandibles, scampering hastily down the Path. Up, Up! 10
My vision was closing fast but as we sped down the path toward the colony I caught a brief glimpse of Boris, perched high on a grass blade, antennae waving manically in the air. Block was on the ground, thrashing from side to side as if fighting some inner demon. My entire body was spasming now and my legs clawed desperately at Flipp’s head and eyes. “Nearly there sir” Flipp whispered as we flew out of the meadow, into the woods. But this was not the way to the colony! None of the trees seemed familiar and I became gripped with panic, screaming inaudible, guttural sounds at Flipp. Bursting into a clearing, Flipp finally stopped in front of a deep ditch, still holding me tightly with both mandibles. “Sorry sir” Everything went dark as I was flung into oblivion.
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Falling
Malika Ramani
Black leather soles crush auburn leaves underneath I wait for the satisfying crackle but it never comes Damp vestiges of the bare trees scatter the murky gravel below Woolen scarves fold around necks, suede heeled boots click on pavement I gaze up at the gray-tinged sky and wish holiday cheer could truly be infectious A shivering body trudges forward while its mind lingers, searching for days that were longer, sunnier Pink-cheeked children warm around a crackling blaze, parents marvel at nature’s vivid hues I see only shriveling petals and drizzling rain, visible breath and muddied snow Autumnal beauty is eclipsed by the perpetual winter to come Eyes desperately seek out something green, something bright, something living Beside me, a hand tenderly reaches for mine But in the cold my fingertips are numb.
Toes
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Samahria Alpern
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Propagations Samahria Alpern
It feels weird, taking apart something that’s alive. But we know it’s not forever. As long as you split the stem at the node, the original plant will grow more leaves from where you cut it and the new plant clipping will grow roots after you tuck it into a bed of soil. My mom and I move carefully — I take cuttings from the bush, and she trims off any leaves that are too large and will use up the new plant’s energy. I feel a gentle breeze of urgency in the air. It’s almost fall and the bush will wither in the cold. But the fresh clippings will live inside our home, where they won’t even notice that the season has changed. The leaves of a Coleus plant are shaped like hearts. I inspect each one before removing it from the bush. The center is a fiery magenta, surrounded by deep red splotches that seep into a scalloped, green rim. I’m almost surprised when the stem doesn’t bleed as I split it in half, surprised that the Coleus’s veins do not contain the same vital fluid as my own. When my great-grandmother’s skin became speckled and her memory shriveled and she no longer pressed into the earth using only the soles of her feet but with the rubber knobs of a walker as well, a neighbor came to take her plants away. She had 85, and cried as she watched each one vanish. The Coleus reminds me of her. Now that my mom and I have gathered enough clippings, we can settle them into their new homes. We kneel on the damp grass and shelter the bases of the vulnerable, raw stems inside containers of warm soil. From here, we can only hope that roots will grow and that from the incisions we inflicted with dull scissors upon the stalks of the Coleus, small leaves will sprout.
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Growth Kitty Ng
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Nature Writing Blake DeVaney
On a chill Wednesday afternoon in April, I sat nestled at the base of a tree. Its gnarled roots wrapped around me in a comfortable embrace. As I carefully observed the contours of an elm tree across the green, I sensed the trees reaching their limbs to the sky as if to say, “Look at how I have grown!” I thought tenderly back to my younger years where I frequently played under a large tree in my front lawn. As a child, I always felt a close communion with trees and would eagerly climb on their branches and lay under their shade as if trying to soak up the knowledge that they had witnessed through their years. While I sat under this tree, feeling the roughness of its bark under my fingers, I saw a robin land not ten feet from where I sat. It sat in the grass, raised its head, and chirped several times and then lowered its head to the ground. When it raised its head again, it held in its beak a long worm, wriggling slightly, and slurped the worm into its body in a quick moment. This appearance delighted me as I thought of my young sister, only 16
ten years old, who has recently taken up quite the interest in bird watching. My mother has always had an affection for birdwatching and tried to pass it on to me and my sisters. One of my earliest memories was of sitting in my mother’s arms with an encyclopedia of birds sprawled on my lap. We would place homemade bird feeders outside of my mother’s bedroom window, the kind with peanut butter and birdseed spread thickly on an empty toilet paper roll and wait anxiously for birds to appear. My mother continued this pastime with my youngest sister, until my step father left. After that, my mom became very busy, struggling to keep our house and working three jobs to try and keep our family afloat. I took on a much more maternal role in my family. Frequently caring for my young sister; helping her with homework, getting her ready for bed, and taking her to school in the morning. Since coming to college, the bond I share with my sister has remained intact, but I often worry that I am missing too much of her childhood and that she’ll drift away from me. As my full attention shifted back to the bird, I fell very quiet, but it flew away as quickly as it had come. I resolved that I would have to call my sister and tell her all about the little robin I had seen. 17
Oftenly Emma Tilley
the sun Itself from the patio stones— a highly regulated no thoroughfare, near-field recognition, we, here, that are the conduits and the conducted let us articulate a frequency and mode from rivers lifted show through garden planning a prototype raise people not questions questions, are for opening to the bones what use is a homme moyen when all are known and know each other —reach your reach! knotted and willow branched as thread roads we make heart shapes for the radio— through glance arrive at static gaze, it does not convey sufficiently. it is, with us, mid-step. 18
Organisms and Machines Gabrielle Santas
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Little Gods Henry Dawson
7000 BC, Jiahu, China Little gods slumber under the patter of bees’ feet and the hush of their wings. Before this honey slick hearth became their own, they had lain sun-touched on the skin of petals and nestled cozy in crumbs of soil, drifted indolent on the waft of sultry air; fat in the deep coils of animal gut. Thousands of years from now, they will lie cloned and dry in foil sachets, born to pump air into the bread of nations and sob life into liquor for more. But now they are wild; brushed up by hairs on a honey-bee toe, winged over to hive and home; crumbled in their in unseen millions. These little gods eat sugar, chew it up and cry out their bitter tears, but the honey beneath them is too dense and thick to eat. And so they sleep, quiet in the wax-caught buzz, while their brothers glut and die in the rot of fallen fruit. A woman’s breath sings out through a flute carved from bone, wind sliced notes stretching over Jiahu and her people, over bricks and the valley-slung quiet. Rice and millet have been cooked, cooked, cooked, boiled and broken down to gruel, finally poured into wax-slicked pots. Water too, along with it, cut red hawthorn fruit. And then honey, dripped precious slow by 22
cracked hands. The little gods tumble out with it, borne raw into a world sculpted in obeisance to their hunger. Sugars from the honey stretch and open, mingling with the memories of the grains, now broken down into the unfurled chains of starch by the clockwise toil of those tan cracked hands. And the little gods break their fast. Bite by bite, they chew and burp and feast. Sweetness, wrought pure by the patient of work of countless blossoms and tiny wings. Strength, the water-chained body gifted to a seed so it may rise and bask and one day bear its own kin. The gods eat, mindless, the kerneled essences of sweetness and strength plucked away one by one on the tips of twelve key-crooked teeth. The woman who sang through the flute does not know it takes the gods exactly ten bites and two to devour each morsel and leave behind something that is irreconcilably not what it was. The man whose palms run dry with canyoned cracks does not know the lines of their lives bud and branch and split like the hawthorn tree writ endless. They do not know what nature of gift they give these little gods. ~~~ Echoes of mirth lie speckled still through the halls of a hermetic realm, silent till air frees the tiny laughter to pop and chor23
tle up. Their tears, spilled to a flood, are cut bitter; burnt by the jagged hollow left by sweetness gone to gullet. And the little gods lay dead. The tears they had no choice but to cry, locked as they were, have left them quiet and white. Cracked hands open the cask with a fierce pop. Stars look down as little laughs twinkle out, free. For the people of Jiahu, what remains in that cask is a touch of the gods. The froth left atop and the rush of escaping air show it has moved silent and strong, boiled without the touch of fire. There are hints of tart red fruit and the honey once poured into it, and a quiet burn in the back of the throat to all who drink. As they revel in the gift, the god’s tears sink into them; aches and cricks and worries fade. Fears and frustrations are gone. Laughs come easier, as do crook-tooth smiles and soft embraces. Little strengths to wake up to another day of work and pain. Sweetness; kisses, jokes, the lilting swoop of the bone flute’s song. The little gods are given home and bread. The people get a touch of something higher. They don’t know the truth of the gods of honey and wine, of fruit skin and mead, and yet they live out their worship by the turn of the moon. The gods sleep and revel and die in shades of darkness, and yet always, gently, leave behind a touch of themselves. A drop of heaven for people bound tight and dark to the earth. We drink the tears of gods and feel a touch. 24
Hidden Dragons Samahria Alpern
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Equations E.L. Meszaros
Mathematicians often talk about the beauty of equations, referring specifically to how comprehensive or simple they are. The explicative power of equations defines their aesthetic value. But usually as humans we talk about beauty from a visual standpoint, and there’s something powerful in the look of a formula even when separated from its use and explanatory ability. Is there a way of reading equations both as denotative and connotative, as both meaning-laden mathematical instructions and still meaningful when stripped of their literal interpretation, valuable in inexplicability? Can we see a magic in mathematical formulae? Babylonian Multiplication Equation Perhaps because of its sexigesimal system of notation, or the millenia that separate it from us, Babylonian mathematics is often 26
regarded as complex. It may not help this reputation to learn that for something as simple as the multiplication of two numbers, the ancient Mesopotamians relied on a comparatively lengthy formula: xy = ((x+y)2 - (x-y)2)/4 Here, to arrive at the product of x and y, the Mesopotamians would add x to y, square it, and from that quantity subtract the value of x minus y, also squared. This whole value was then divided by four to produce the answer. Relying on easily accessible tables of the values of squares and reciprocals turns large number multiplication into a trivial problem of locating values and simple addition. Moreover, as complex as it seems, it’s not too far removed from our modern system of complex multiplication, where we handle digits in place value notation separately. It’s only foreign, not complex. The left-hand side is a simple product, yet written as it is in letters only it’s rendered as a short, unpronounceable word. The reader, the mathematician, is invited to begin by translation. The right-hand side, though lengthier, is an exercise in symmetry. Within the innermost parentheses, our two values are first added and then subtracted, maintaining a sort of equilibrium. The two numerals introduced denote a symmetry as well; the 2s ask us to square our added/subtracted quantities, but when added or squared themselves leave us with the final component of this formula, 4. 27
But Babylonian math wasn’t written using Hindu-Arabic numerals, the Roman alphabet, and modern algebraic notation. It was written in cuneiform. Instead of adding ink to a parchment surface, these numbers were literally impressed into a writing tablet, carved out of the clay body. We can think of these numbers, then, as indicated by absence; an empty, negative space. How then can we view this formula differently, seeing it not in high relief of pigment-on-surface but fire-hardened intaglio? This multiplication formula, absent from our modern lives and modern understanding, is also written as an absence. Pythagorean Theorem Moving forward chronologically and northwestward geographically, we are presented with one of the most well-remembered equations to come out of the modern mathematical education system: the Pythagorean Theorem. a2 + b2 = c2 Here we refer not to any quantities for a, b, and c, but rather to specific sides of a right triangle where c is the hypotenuse and a and b are the other sides, indiscriminately. There’s a requested precision here that was missing in the general multiplication formula examined before, assumed prior knowledge on the part of the mathematician. “A” isn’t just “a” but a meaning-laden letter stand-in. By relying on the user to supply this knowledge, 28
the equation is rendered simplistic: three terms, each squared, two added. If we de-abstract the squaring, too, we find an even more simplistic, linguistic, verbal equation: aa+bb=cc. Here, the Pythagorean Theorem is barely math but just a symbol-interrupted word. The equation itself is put forward not in numerals and operations but words: ἐν τοῖς ὀρθογωνίοις τριγώνοις τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς τὴν ὀρθὴν γωνίαν ὑποτεινούσης πλευρᾶς τετράγωνον ἴσον ἐστὶ τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν τὴν ὀρθὴν γωνίαν περιεχουσῶν πλευρῶν τετραγώνοις. Now the simple equation bears more linguistic weight but grows also in complexity and meaning-ladenness. There is a beauty to this presentation, however. The reader is onboarded and offboarded with dative plural shapes, the ὀρθογωνίοις and the τετραγώνοις growing in size and sides from the triangle to the square, neatly bounding the equation in the key concepts that make this formulat run: squared sides of triangles. We see this bounding in the contained participial phrases, too; the subtending side (τῆς ὑποτεινούσης πλευρᾶς) is subtending the right angle (τὴν ὀρθὴν γωνίαν) both conceptually and also by subtending the very words of the concept. Similarly, the encompassed sides (τῶν περιεχουσῶν πλευρῶν) conceptually and literally encompass their angle (τὴν ὀρθὴν γωνίαν). There is a sense, then, in which the verbal description of this equation mimics the conceptual burden of the equation itself. 29
Euler’s identity Forward and northwestward once more, we find the oft-lauded and even aesthetically admired Euler’s Identity: eiπ + 1 = 0 Aside from its mathematical interest, this equation is often praised as beautiful for combining three of the simplest, most critical mathematical operations: addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. Additionally, the components describe some of the most important mathematical concepts: e, a constant that defines natural logarithms; π, another constant defined by the relationship between a circle’s circumference and its diameter; i, the basic imaginary number; and then 1 and 0, not only basic numerals but potentially complex concepts in their own right. Euler’s Identity is therefore a combination of basic mathematical operations and base-level mathematical constants. Though assigned a mathematical beauty, this equation also betrays an aesthetic one, something often overlooked in the frequent discussions of the “deep mathematical beauty” of Euler’s Identity. Most notably, half of this equation takes place in superscript literally lifting the equation off the mundane ruled line.
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Lightning Rod Liam Carpenter-Urquhart
You’re searching for the outside world. Your self. It reeks of solipsism. Meanwhile, your chest warms with someone else’s breath. Why are you
hiding that? You stole it, didn’t you. You stole it. Give it back. You stole it. It’s lonely. Everyone is sleeping or dead. Failing. Your gaze is fray-
ing. You have a fever. Lolling fans and lights below them. You mistake
those shadows for your own. You mistake. The floor smacks your skull, and there is pain and more confusion. Are you okay? No. no. no. no. yes, but you’re alone in more than your perception. You have to find your
own way back to the ground. You have to find your own. Your shudder’s
reached the sky, and its field is quiet, now. You are glowing in reverse. The sky might open, still. So try to stay awake until your name comes back down.
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The Fate of the Green Sea Turtle Is In Your Hands. What Will You Do? Zach Cook
Horse Thoughts Julia Illana
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Almost everyone knows what a sea turtle is and looks like, even if they are in the most land-locked of places. When thinking about sea turtles, they may picture “Crush” from finding nemo or maybe they might picture the iconic videos of sea turtle hatchlings running from the beach to the surf, in a desperate race against time and predators. Whatever it may be that comes to a person’s mind when they hear the words “green sea turtle,” almost everybody can recall an image of one. Better yet, if you have the funds and/or live in the right location, you can go out into nature and observe these magnificent creatures. At least for now. What if the following human generations: your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, etc., only learn about sea turtles from a picture in a textbook followed by a classification as an extinct animal? 33
Unfortunately, that is the reality that we are facing today, not only for the green sea turtle, but for a wide range of the biodiversity on our planet. Trying to imagine an ocean empty of these beautiful and docile creatures is a difficult thing to do. A world devoid of the green sea turtle, an animal that has been around since the Late Jurassic, 208-144 million years ago, all due to anthropogenic climate change and overfishing is a harrowing thought. While many people know what green sea turtles are and can picture them interacting with their environment, there are many unique facets about this organism that are not so conspicuous. One of these being how sex is determined in green sea turtle offspring. It may come as a surprise to some that sex determination in sea turtles is much different than our own. For the green sea turtle, sex determination is temperature dependent (Standora and Spotila 1985). This, much like the name indicates, means that the sex of the green sea turtle offspring is controlled by the temperature inside their nests as they proceed through development. Additionally, with temperature dependent sex determination there is a critical temperature that, if met or exceeded, will result in all or most of the hatchlings developing into one sex. For the green sea turtle this critical upper bound temperature is about 30 degrees Celsius (Standora and Spotila 1985). Once the nest temperature reaches or exceeds this value, almost all of the hatchlings that emerge from the nest will be female. This, in conjunction with anthropogenic climate change, increased global temperatures, and overfishing, creates a concerning and looming forecast 34
for the survival of the green sea turtle if nothing is done to mitigate the rapidly increasing temperature of the planet. Already at some sites studied in 2012, the offspring sex ratio was estimated to be 95% female due to the approachment of this critical temperature (Wright et al. 2012). This reduction in the male population size of the green sea turtle is already having observable effects on the amount of offspring that are able to be produced each year. With continued decline in the male population size due to increasing global temperatures, we will also see a decline in total population size of the already endangered green sea turtle. Compounding the effects of anthropogenic climate change on nesting temperatures, is the overfishing of the green sea turtle population by humans. Along the Great Barrier Reef, all turtle species continue to decline at unsustainable rates (Jackson et al. 2001), and this is not an isolated case. According to the research done by Jackson et al.: Vast populations of very large green turtles were eliminated from the Americas before the 19th century. Formerly great populations of green turtles in Moreton Bay, Australia, also were greatly reduced by the early 20th century. Moreover, there are no estimates of abundances of turtles in Australia at the dawn of European exploitation, so that reported reductions must be only a small fraction of the total numbers lost (Jackson et al. 2001) Not only is the careless decimation of this species by humans egregious, but it also has profound impacts on the surrounding ecosystems. The 35
Continuity and Departure 36
Katherine Sang ink pen and digital
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decrease in the sea turtle population in these areas has caused seagrass ecosystem die-off, and so the loss of this species causes a trophic cascade, in turn affecting other species it directly and indirectly interacts with. On a broader scale, the loss of the green sea turtle and other oceanic organisms due toanthropogenic climate change and overfishing has lead to widespread effects felt across the ocean and even on land. More specifically, “marine biodiversity loss is impairing the ocean’s capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations” (Worm et al.2006). Therefore, not only are we cutting down on the green sea turtle and other organismal biodiversity of the ocean through overfishing and anthropogenic climate change, but we are also destabilizing long-held and regulated systems, de-purifying the water, and recklessly exhaustinga major food source for ourselves. If this doesn’t seem convincing enough, Worm et al. asserts that: Historical trends led to the present depletion (here defined as >50% decline over baseline abundance), collapse (>90% decline), or extinction (100% decline) of 91, 38, or 7% of species, on average. Only 14% recovered from collapse; these species were mostly protected birds and mammals (Worm et al. 2006). This is a very concerning statistic considering that, when this article was published, 38% of species were in a collapsed state and that on average only 14% of species were predicted to recover from this state. It gets 38
even worse for sea turtle populations and aquatic organisms as the only species that tend to recover from these collapsed states are mostly comprised of terrestrial animals and birds. Green sea turtles are amazingly magnificent creatures full of wonder and mystery. For many, the mention of a green sea turtle instantly brings images of this beautiful creature to mind. But that is where most people’s consideration of the life of a green sea turtle ends. For the green sea turtle, the reality of its future existence on this planet becomes dimmer and dimmer everyday, mostly thanks to the effects that humans are having on their population. Due to anthropogenic climate change, the temperatures of our planet are increasing at rates never seen before, leaving many species vulnerable and unprepared to adapt to this rapid change. Sea turtles are especially vulnerable to these increases in global temperature as they have temperature dependent sex determination. In many nesting grounds across our planet, nest temperatures have become concerningly close to the critical temperature point resulting in offspring that are largely female. Moreover, this depletion of the male population size and therefore the overall green sea turtle population size due to anthropogenic climate change is compounded by the effects that overfishing is having on these populations. Overfishing of the green sea turtle in many places across the globe has led to unsustainable declines in their population. Additionally, the decline in biodiversity caused by overfishing and climate change results in unstable ecosystems, trophic cascades, impure 39
water, and impairment in the ocean’s ability to sustain our food demand. For the future of the green sea turtle, it is not as smooth as gliding along an ocean current like Crush, but rather a fight against humans and a rapidly changing climate. The green sea turtle is facing two large and compounding issues that are both individually capable of wiping out their entire population. We as humans are not only capable of helping the survival of this species but are the ones facilitating both of the major issues plaguing this species and so we are therefore directly responsible for the fate, whichever it may be, of the green sea turtle population. If we care about the survival of the green sea turtle, and more broadly the general diversity of life on our planet, then we are in a dire situation in which we must act now to attempt to mitigate and reverse some of the effects of anthropogenic climate change and overfishing.
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Works Cited Jackson, Jeremy BC, et al. “Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems.” science 293.5530 (2001): 629-637. Standora, Edward A., and James R. Spotila. “Temperature Dependent Sex Determination in Sea Turtles.” Copeia , vol. 1985, no. 3, 1985, pp. 711– 722. JSTOR , JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1444765. Worm, Boris, et al. “Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services.” science 314.5800 (2006): 787-790. Wright, Lucy I., et al. “Turtle mating patterns buffer against disruptive effects of climate change.” Proc. R. Soc. B . Vol. 279. No. 1736. The Royal Society, 2012.
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Bone Nests Sydney Lo
What is the shape of the settled body? Being stirred, half-woken and barren? Brittle frame? A collection of bedpost twigs? Waxen bloom? The blackbird, pine warbler, blue jays and barn swallows, the northern cardinal, red-bellied woodpecker, a lost prairie sparrow two mourning doves, the winter wren, edges of shadow flickers and feathered motion? Did they constellate its stripped bark, thinned like a lullaby in the frosted borealis, coniferous mandible unbound, caught in the bend? Could that restore the marbled ice, staring out? Where did the weight of copse wilt go? Was it like the opening of ribbed scavenge, widened hollow through which world is exchanged, or whittled hold of cork against its own wound and in it frigid memory of being beneath bitter sky whose glass coalescence fixed blood to crystal? Did the heart rot spill slow into sapwood, into arboreal rust, chlorotic, and umber callus, into an upturned cavity that cries for spring? What was done when it was found? 42
And what of the bird songs in the split limbs, branches broken for their marrow?
Home
Kitty Ng 43
Annual Dental Checkup Sydney Lo
A tongue with a thick white film presses the inside of my jaw and it aches through the consonants, nerve endings chewed to pinkness in the space between half-healed scars and biting down. When I was younger they cut open my gums to remove my extra teeth, gave them back to me all edges in a glass vial and I spent the next few weeks licking the stitches completing the incision, impulse reducing impulse over the interstitial
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blood and saliva I couldn’t floss out, lived with salt and something in my throat they told me I’d reopened the wound and I wondered what else was left split inside me. They prescribed a bluish rinse that stuck in the plaque in my mouth, decayed into cavities and I picked at the rot until everything felt loose. Molars scrape against warm breath, wet-lipped and waiting for metal to pull at bone, push back gums, soreness spilling into spit.
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A Cup of Coffee Deanna Moorehead A sip. A bit of bitter; sip it quicker at the bottom flavor’s thicker because sugar Sits there. Like you do at home in car at work Or farther, sipping syrup swishing in a travel cup. Coffee Contains caffeine; Adenosine Looks like caffeine but isn’t.
Anatomy of Stress
Deanna Moorehead digital
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Adenosine, when working well, fits flush with its receptors And they bond together, guided by your 47
nervous system center. The chemicals send sluggish signals to your slipping senses So every time they bond you yawn-But now it’s 8am and you just want the yawning gone. Caffeine, contained in coffee, serves to sever that which sends you off to sleep. See, You’re sitting And you’re sipping on your caffeinated drink When the caffeine cuts the queue to form a link with those particular receptors Passing poor adenosine. Your brain calls this “Emergency” and preps your legs to fight or flee But you will use this energy To work from 10pm till 3.
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alluvion Tiffany Lin
the sea is boundless— step in and you will float out to where the sun meets the horizon—farther—beneath the stars— sink and you will fall as though sleeping and as you are drawn down fish with ten eyes will blink blindly and pass; mermaids will pull at your hair, take of you your heart and lungs, ears where there should be gills (they will hold you in their webbed claws and swim and swim— no longer will sand shift under your feet no longer will your heart beat blood)
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and if you are careful you may find treasures: sharks’ purses, rubbery, ragged, thick red strands of hair, scales like cut pearls, feathers with waxy stems and charred edges; if you are not careful you may find treasures: shells swooped and hollowed, cavernous, mouths with pink lips, emptied throat, (you will lift it and listen and listen— you will hear women calling from afar and you will turn to the sea and you will run) you should be wary of this ocean, this shifting blue-black with its briny tears, its seafoam of the fallen, reaching, reaching, ever-reaching lapping at your feet, your calves, your hands, your hair (and this is how the sea takes us all, in the end, slowly, with the sand.)
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