NU Sci Summer 2020 Issue: Quaranzine

Summer 2020

NU SCI

Quaranzine the summer issue

Summer 2020

Table of contents

16 14

7 Psychology 4

9

Staying inside How a new sedentary lifestyle affects the human body Paws-itively essential The psychological benefits of pets and protecting them from COVID-19

People 10

Contact tracing and privacy The price of public health

12

16

Opinion: Is female leadership the solution to the pandemic?

Analyzing successful countries’ responses

Biology

Room to breathe Reinventing urban design to withstand future pandemics

24

Healthcare 19

Two sides of the coin Boston biotech’s role in COVID-19

are hospitals losing 20 Why money during a pandemic?

A business model at the brink

development 22 Vaccine From the lab bench to the

doctor’s office

A lack of bread leads to a lactic acid bacteria in our homes The science of sourdough

Humans of nu sci of NU Sci 25 Humans Lessons for the future

Letter from the editor Staff

N

U Sci doesn’t usually publish a distinct summer issue; in fact, it’s the first in our publication’s history. Though usually, we don’t shut down businesses, leave once vibrant city streets empty, or attend lectures from our bedrooms.

In previous summers, we’ve operated nearly autonomously, save for a faceless email or two.

That very same autonomy — once easily accepted — now feels too isolating, an echo of our circumstances. Every moment shared with another on a video call has turned into one of gratitude for the most fortunate among us.

Yet, the misfortune of many humans has rung through the United States louder than ever, and many in the country are listening — rest assured that we are. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and far too many other Black Americans have commanded our attention to the systemic racism that’s ingrained in every aspect of our society.

As a platform, NU Sci has a duty to our underrepresented writers, especially Black writers, to amplify your perspectives. We couldn’t produce such high quality magazines without you. If there are any members of this club who don’t think that Black lives matter, then you are not welcome. We don’t tolerate racism or hate, and I encourage you to educate yourself and reflect on your biases.

President Kristi Bui Editor-in-Chief Binh Dang Head of communications Kristina Klosowki Treasurer Annabelle Mathers Chief Design Officer Lillie Hoffart Chief Marketing Officer Sam Klein Outreach Ambassador Yael Lissack

Science should be an unbiased process — chemicals don’t care who’s making them. Although this is not the case currently, we will be part of the transformation to fix it. We’re currently working with an alumnus who’s part of the #STEMforBLM campaign to fight against this injustice. As we work towards an equal and equitable future, I also encourage you to suggest ways that we can do better for all who are discriminated against in STEM.

Head of Photography Gus Mueller

Unfortunately, as we look to the future, uncertainty looms on the horizon.

The COVID-19 pandemic — still raging on in the United States and still disproportionately affecting Black and Latinx communities — is a painful dismissal of science in our country. This only highlights how important our work as science communicators is to properly inform the public and to inspire critical solutions.

Webmasters Isabel Kain Megan Li

Our writers were passionate about understanding the pandemic and its effects.

Each article, written at a different time in the pandemic, is a snapshot of what we knew or thought about in that moment. In preserving them as they are, we’ve captured stories of the humanity — within the text and beyond — that we long to connect with when this all ends. I encourage you to look for the person behind each article, bits and pieces of personality that are hidden throughout; each one has their own story to tell.

Lastly, we’d like to extend our gratitude to the healthcare, grocery, public service, and postal workers, as well as all other workers who are on the frontlines maintaining the health and wellness of people around the world. If there’s one thing I hope we remember about this time, it’s your importance in our society, because without you we wouldn’t have one.

Head of webteam Anson Huang

Editors Cailey Denoncourt Jason Denoncourt Sara Gannon Jennifer Garland Lillie Hoffart Isabel Kain Maya Krause Beiyu (Pam) Lin Rachel Lines Annabelle Mathers Cara Pesciotta Emma Tusizian Catrin Zharyy Design team Kristi Bui Kai Gravel-Pucillo Green Sophia Hitt

Katie

Binh Dang Editor-in-Chief Cover Design by Lillie Hoffart

4 I Psychology

Staying inside: How a new sedentary lifestyle affects the human body

BY JULIA BREED, CELL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, 2021

Gyms and fitness centers have been closed until further notice. Team sports and workout classes have been cancelled.

Even the more routine activities that people carry out in their everyday lives have changed — less commuting, fewer trips to the grocery store, skipping out on non-essential errands that would have taken them a few miles farther from home.

How is this new indoor lifestyle affecting people’s health?

When someone exercises regularly, their body begins to experience long-term changes. Muscle and bone mass increase, ligaments and tendons become stronger, and the size and number of mitochondria in their cells increase. The heart becomes more powerful, and lungs are able to absorb oxygen more efficiently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists improved cardiovascular, metabolic, bone, muscle, endocrine, immune, and brain health among the long-term benefits of exercise.

Improvements in mental health have also been observed in correlation with regular exercise. A 2018 study in Lancet Psychiatry provided a meta-analysis of over one million American adults to explore the association between exercise and mental health burden. The paper’s findings show that individuals who regularly exercised had fewer days of poor mental health in the past month than those who had not exercised, even when corrected for other variables such as socioeconomic status. In this analysis, all types of exercise were significantly associated with lower mental health burden.

In fact, exercise is one of the most commonly recommended therapies for both healthy people and those with underlying disease. Some have even argued that exercise has such a prominent effect on physiological changes in the body that it should be treated as a drug, with attention paid to dosing and variation among individuals.

Exercise can improve life expectancy by reducing

the risk of harmful health conditions like coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and breast and colon cancers.

So, what can happen when regular exercise becomes difficult to achieve? Dr. Justin Crane, professor and eponymous researcher of the Crane Lab at Northeastern, has some insight on the physiological changes that occur when regular exercise is stopped. The Crane Lab is a translational biology lab that focuses on cellular metabolism, aging, and degeneration.

“The first things to decline,” he notes, “are the fitness of the cardiovascular system and skeletal muscles, as these are very flexible metabolic systems. In circulation, your body has adapted to exercise such that you have a higher volume of blood and your heart pumps this more forcefully.

Additionally, your muscles are rich in mitochondria and other metabolic enzymes and are highly vascularized.

“When you suddenly detrain your body and stop exercising, your blood volume starts to become reduced, and you start to lose the density of mitochondria in your muscles. The same issues happen on a faster timescale when astronauts go to space, or patients become bedridden. In both cases, there is a rapid increase in muscle atrophy and a drop in cardiovascular fitness.”

This sounds alarming, but it is not an inevitability. Dr. Crane defines exercise as “moderate to vigorous physical activity,” where there is at least modest sweating and heavier breathing. This is more difficult to achieve in quarantine, but it is not impossible — the human body is flexible and responds to the changes it is given. This is not to say that exercise is the cure for all physical and mental health conditions, and exercise should not be used as an excuse to avoid social distancing. If you’re tired of crocheting, though, and your sourdough didn’t come out the way you wanted, try yoga. Or pilates, Xtend Barre, or do 100 jumping jacks in your living room pretending you’re in a movie training montage. The most important thing is that you get up and be active for some part of the day. Regular exercise is one of the most important things you can do for your body, and its benefits will last well beyond the point when society’s doors can finally reopen.

British Journal of Pharmacology (2012). DOI:10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.01970.x Lancet Psychiatry (2018). DOI:10.1016/s2215-0366(18)30227-x The Lancet (2012). DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61031-9

PHOTOS BY PIXABAY

DESIGN BY KAI GRAVEL-PUCILLO, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

T

he silence is palpable on Huntington Avenue these days. During an hour that would have normally seen a frantic commute, an empty Green Line train rumbles by. In a city like Boston that is (wisely) following social distancing guidelines, people’s lifestyles have changed almost overnight — they are staying inside. The act of social distancing is necessary and should continue until the pandemic is appropriately contained. That being said, it comes at the cost of being less physically active. COVID-19 has imposed a new way of life on the country and the world, and it is a sedentary one.

Psychology I 5

A Promising Connection Between Dementia and Meditation

BY EMMA TAKIZAWA, BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE, 2021

W

ith an estimated 50 million people living with dementia around the world, the recent connection between dementia and meditation shows promise for using mindfulness as an effective practice to delay brain and cognitive changes. Current studies are exploring the benefits of instilling this practice for patients with an early form of dementia called mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which is characterized by the death of brain cells and loss of brain tissue. One of the cellular pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s is the formation of amyloid beta plaques, preventing communication between neurons and ultimately leading to cell death. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease have trouble memorizing, thinking, multitasking, and making judgements and decisions. However, most of the current meditation studies only include participants with mild cognitive impairment or subjective cognitive decline (SCD).

These diseases are considered precursors for dementia and are characterized by milder symptoms including forgetfulness and judgement impairment beyond that of normal aging.

Mindfulness meditation is the practice of focusing an individual’s attention on a single target, such as the breath or a sound in the environment. Anytime their attention drifts away, they gently refocus it back to the target. Two innovative pilot studies show the promise of meditation in delaying the loss of cognitive abilities in patients with cognitive decline.

In 2013, a study by Dr. Rebecca Wells et al. at Harvard Medical School recruited participants with MCI and observed how mindfulness affected the connections and overall health of the brain. In comparison to the control group, meditation participants showed increased neural pathways between the hippocampus, a brain structure important for memory, and the default mode network, a collection of brain regions involved in self-thought. Additionally, participants that meditated displayed less brain tissue loss compared to the control group.

Although this was a preliminary study, it shows promising results that for patients with MCI, meditation has the potential to preserve tissue density and strengthen connectivity in regions important for memory and cognitive processing.

A follow up study by Wells et al. compared the cognitive functioning of the participants with MCI before and after meditation. The participants who underwent meditation displayed improved cognitive test scores whereas the control group’s scores worsened. Meditation participants also reported subjective improvements in well-being and decreased stress response. These findings suggest that meditation may delay onset of cognitive decline as well as improve the wellbeing of patients with MCI. In 2018, a study at West Virginia University recruited participants with SCD, where they attended a music listening

DESIGN BY KAI GRAVEL-PUCILLO, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

class or a meditation class. Their cognitive functioning and blood biomarkers for cellular aging were measured before and after the intervention. One of the biomarkers evaluated was their amyloid beta level, which is positively associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Contrary to the previous study by Wells et al., both groups showed improvement in their memory performances on tests in this study. However, the meditation group showed greater improvements in well-being. This suggests that meditation can be implemented into someone’s routine for the low-risk potential of improved cognitive functioning and well-being.

For the meditation group, researchers found that higher amyloid beta levels in the blood after the intervention class correlated with an improvement in participant’s memory skills. It was suggested that higher levels of amyloid beta in the blood meant more plaques were cleared from the brain, reducing neuronal death. This finding shows that meditation may somehow alleviate amyloid-beta burden in the brain, which is linked to improvements in cognition. Subsequent research is now being conducted in order to further examine the association between blood biomarkers, cognitive function, and meditation.

Because of the novelty of this research, researchers cannot conclusively say that meditation delays the process of cognitive decline, but the findings so far provide evidence that it may be able to make neural changes to the brain and improve cognitive ability for those with MCI. Because of some inconsistencies, follow up research is needed, but given the lack of success in finding treatments and preventative measures for dementia, meditation may be a worthwhile alternative for people with cognitive impairment.

J Am Geriatr Soc (2013). DOI: A10.1111/jgs.12179 Neurosci Lett (2013). DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2013.10.001 J Alzheimers Dis (2018). DOI: 10.3233/JAD-180164 PHOTOS BY PIXABAY

6 I Psychology

Self-care and skincare: The importance of routine

W

here physical health concerns spread, a mental health pandemic followed. There is no question that COVID-19 has shaken most of the world, pausing life as people know it in the face of an uncertain future. The new quarantined reality quickly revealed the psychological impacts of self-isolation and disruption of routine. Mental health has become increasingly relevant as every person faces major changes, challenging them to rebuild peaceful mental spaces from scratch. Finding a new rhythm of life during a time of disruption has been a journey that truly highlights the importance of self-care. Often overlooked, self-care is the purposeful nurturing of an individual’s mental, emotional, and physical health. It is meant to refuel people with small, planned successes defined only by themselves for themselves.

Intentionally taking care of oneself is always important, but self-care has become especially valuable for those facing extra challenges to their mental health in quarantine.

If readily practiced, taking self-care pauses can be empowering and comforting amid stress. Normalizing these small changes within daily life can help ground people in continuous proactivity and even uplift entire communities. Research suggests U.S. medical students who report engaging in a range of self-care activities may be more successful in lessening the impacts of stress on quality of life.

However, current investigation indicates that students continue to “encounter stigma, time constraints, and other barriers” that often stand in the way of seeking needed support, according to a 2018 study published in the BMC Medical Education Journal. Minimizing these barriers is extremely important to regularly process life stressors in a healthier, planned fashion.

The pandemic is an extreme example of the importance of checking in with one another and speaking openly about mental health. Selfcare is not selfish, but rather necessary and often misunderstood.

Many people have different ways of addressing the stressors of daily life, but widespread conversation about self-care can encourage building healthier and more meaningful habits. The benefits of self-care extend beyond behavioral and emotional, evidently found within physical brain function as well. Studies on mindfulness reveal that the practice of self-care can “reduce activity in the amygdala, the brain region responsible for the fightor-flight response,” according to David Creswell, director of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. People must take care of themselves in order to take care of others, so speaking openly about activities that help people feel more present can make a difference.

The sudden disruption of routine within quarantine has also highlighted its importance to mental health. Research indicates that routine is not only crucial during quarantine, but may also be significant in building a meaningful life. Engaging in a routine may help a person connect with overarching circumstances and better understand relationships with one’s environment. It can

BY EMMA TUSUZIAN, PSYCHOLOGY, 2023 DESIGN BY KRISTI BUI, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2021

foster a sense of meaning and purpose in one’s life. When routines vanished under quarantine, people naturally found new rhythms to live by. It is evident that routines create structure and help make life more understandable with consistent connections.

One popular mode of self-care is skincare. A skincare routine allows for a truly personalized experience that emphasizes individual needs and overall well-being. It offers small pauses of time with oneself to focus on continuous, routine improvement. A key to building a healthy routine is ensuring the activity does not cause stress to execute, which contributes to the subjectivity and individualization of self-care.

Skincare is “a form of self-love, self-acceptance, and healing,” said psychotherapist Zakiyyah Abdul-Mateen in a recent InStyle article.

“Using skin-to-skin contact, fingers to face, allows the blood to flow while also allowing the muscles in the face to relax,” thus allowing for an experience separate from broader agendas or pressures.

No matter the outcome of the products, developing a routine alone gains traction for larger change and progress.

Deciding to cleanse every night or glide on sunscreen every morning can motivate the meal planning that was put aside and eventually help organize upcoming weeks. The benefits of routine skincare for mental health is even becoming relevant within research, as the FDA asks pharmaceutical companies to include quality of life (QoL) scores in dermatology clinical trials. Improvements in quality of life are in many ways just as important as improvements in skin.

Such lasting, impactful outcomes of developing a routine of self-care altogether makes it truly valuable for bringing life positive change, added meaning, and self-love.

Regardless of what self-care means for each individual, taking the time to practice it regularly can strengthen mental health and ease daily stressors. It boosts self-confidence and is a reminder to oneself and others that personal needs are important. Real self-care involves finding small ways to improve without self-criticism for failing to meet expectations. With the added pressures of protecting oneself and others from the spread, it is especially important to maintain personal mental health and availability before supporting the same in others. In the context of a global pandemic, rebuilding a meaningful routine helped people persevere. Implementing selfcare, whether it be seeing a therapist, taking a walk, trying a new hobby, or talking to a friend, is necessary in a fast-paced society.

There is still work to be done regarding accessibility in the United States, but mental health has a hopeful future as conversations surrounding it continue to be encouraged. Experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the universal need for meaning and self-love on a global scale.

BMC Medical Education (2018). DOI: 10.1186/s12909-018-1296-x Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2018). DOI: 10.1177/0146167218795133 Frontiers in Psychology (2019). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02452

Psychology I 7

Work, reward, and equity:

Productivity in the age of quarantine

BY CRISTIAN PIRANEQUE, BIOENGINEERING, 2022

I

n the age of quarantine, it can easily seem as if nothing can be controlled. The systems and routines that we had developed for ourselves disintegrated within a few days as social safety regulations were implemented. While trying to restore a sense of normalcy to our lives, many have attempted to become more productive with this new surplus of time.

However, in a culture where staying busy is a virtue, the abundance of time for those able to stay home has created the potential for adopting obsessive productivity. One can view the necessary work to be done as a means of escape — a way to cope with the growing uncertainty around us.

Whether it be family members at risk, rising fears over the future economy, or uncertainty over how to handle dayto-day finances, there are many factors that can contribute to stress. It is not surprising that many people have used productive behaviors as a safety blanket, since the system of earning rewards for completing work is the backbone of student life and employment in the workforce. Usually, reward takes the form of money, including bonuses offered to employees or scholarships given to students.

While money is widely used as a motivator for behavior, a 2007 study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science argues that fairness and equity are also important

DESIGN BY KRISTI BUI, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2021

in behavior modification. One experiment from this study offered participants $2 out of $4 versus $2 out of $10, with the purpose of testing whether participants reported higher happiness ratings with the fair offer in comparison to the unfair offer, although the monetary value was the same.

Indeed, the more “fair” option prompted both higher happiness ratings and higher association with reward centers in the brain. Therefore, individuals generally value not only a reward, but the fair distribution of a reward.

But as our workdays and schooldays cease to be normal, some have turned to create their own systems to generate their own fair reward. For example, time spent learning how to bake bread provides the baker with the fair reward of homemade bread. The COVID-19 pandemic has made normal interdependence in work and academic study all that much more important, and all that much more straining.

Some have turned to personal productivity to regain a sense of control — an illusion upheld by launching personal projects and at-home workout regimens. It seems that people believe that they can maintain a level of fair reward for work and productivity. Even if that means small rewards, people have been able to find temporary calm through the occupation of their time with new skills and routines.

Annals of the New York Academy of Science (2007). DOI: 10.1196/annals.1412.001

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8 | Psychology

The psychology of isolation A double-edged sword

I

solation reveals the human mind at its best ... and its worst. Free from some of the distractions and stressors that harangue them, our minds have the time and space to wander a bit. We might find ourselves lost in thought or daydreaming more often. By lifting that which constrains our cognitive processes to the productive or necessary, we’re letting our minds take a stroll through the metaphorical garden, discovering more about ourselves and life overall.

However, severed from the usual social supports they rely on, our minds can feel somewhat lost, adrift in a big sea without the anchors of friends, colleagues, and mentors to keep them in place.

Self-isolating takes a variety of forms, but it often means working from home, taking classes online, and cancelling plans. These may seem like unequivocally negative situations, but reducing the rigidity and density of our daily activities can give us extra free time and space to think. We tend to prioritize work and essential tasks to keep up with everything. This leaves less time for our minds to wander to ideas that are valuable, but perhaps not vital. Rather than the day being governed by a series of obligations, selfquarantining allows us to finish tasks on our own schedules and leaves time for longer lunches, and time to sip coffee and daydream. With that reduced cognitive load, the mind gets a well-needed break, and you can spend time thinking about other things. This can have a freeing effect on the mind, and people have reported feeling less stressed and more relaxed. While missing out on things may be disappointing, we can certainly appreciate that in today’s fast-paced society, sometimes our minds could use some respite.

Studies by researchers such as J.L. Singer, who pioneered work on daydreaming, have suggested that daydreaming and letting your mind wander actively creates happiness. Recent research has created four functions of daydreaming, all of which are constructive, including future planning, creativity, attentional cycling, and dishabituation. Giving ourselves more time to let the mind wander can provide cognitive benefits, and self-isolation has certainly given us the chance to embrace daydreaming while stuck at home.

However, the freedoms that self-isolation bring to us come with caveats. We may

BY ANANYA IYENGAR, BIOLOGY, 2023 DESIGN BY KAI GRAVEL-PUCILLO, PSYCHOLOGY, 2022

have less work to do, or less rigidity in our daily lives, but we also have to face working without the helpful distraction of friends nearby or access to our favorite places. Psychologically, human minds thrive when others are around. So, while isolation has freed up more of our thinking space, the circumstances could hinder our ability to be productive. The sharp decrease in external stimuli can actually trigger physiological and psychological changes in humans similar to animals going into hibernation. So, despite having more time to do the things we want to do, our brains can have a hard time doing so.

When taken to the extreme, isolation can have striking impacts on the human psyche. Journalist Sarah Shourd was imprisoned in total isolation for nearly 10,000 hours after accidentally crossing the border between Iraq and Iran in 2009.

She began experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations and became detached from reality. Her symptoms only abated when short visits with her imprisoned companions were allotted to her. This type of isolation is more extreme than the self-quarantine most Americans have endured this year, but the way isolation impacts the mind is analogous, even when the severity varies greatly. Clearly, seeing and interacting with people plays a significant role in the health of our cognitive processes.

Humans are social creatures, and it is difficult for us to spend lengthy periods of time completely alone.

Though we are not totally cut off from our social circles in the digital age, there is something fundamentally different between getting coffee with a friend and calling them on Zoom from a bedroom. Even if that Zoom call seems like a poor substitute for normal social interactions, the human contact it provides adds diversity to our day and exposes our brains to external stimuli that are vital to maintaining a healthy mental state.

Call your friends, even if just to complain about quarantine or reminisce on happier times — your mind will thank you for it.

Lancet Psychiatry (2018). DOI: 10.1016/s22150366(18)30227-x British Journal of Pharmacology (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.01970.x The Lancet (2012). DOI: 10.1016/S01406736(12)61031-9 PHOTOS BY PIXABAY

Psychology I 9

Paws-itively Essential: The psychologial benefits of pets and protecting them from COVID-19

BY RACHEL LINES, BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE, 2023

A

nimals have long provided assistance to humans in times of great need. Countless heroic animals have saved human lives — dogs can undergo training to track missing persons, detect an oncoming seizure, or alert humans to mines underground. During the COVID-19 pandemic, animals continue to impact human lives (beyond interrupting Zoom calls). As knowledge about COVID-19 becomes clearer, it may be important to protect domestic animals just as we protect our immediate households.

Domestic animals may also be saving lives in an unexpected way — by providing key support to mental health.

participants described their “ The relationship with their pets as ‘the only thing that stayed constant,’ and researchers found that participants valued ‘a sense of enduring trust’ between themselves and their companion animals.”

A study by Dr. Helen Brooks and her colleagues from the University of Manchester evaluated the role that domesticated animals can play in human social networks. Participants in this study were diagnosed with long-term mental illnesses and were under the care of community-based mental health services. The researchers used semi-structured interviews to collect information regarding the roles of individuals in a person’s social network with respect to the subject’s mental health management.

In the majority of study participants, individuals placed pets in the central, most important circle of their social network.

Through qualitative surveys, the participants described their relationship with their pets as “the only thing that stayed constant,” and researchers found that participants valued “a sense of enduring trust” between themselves and their companion animals.

Additionally, pet care established an important routine that provided study participants with a responsibility that “[felt] vital for their wellbeing.” The sample used in this survey had high levels of unemployment and isolation, and participants

DESIGN BY SOPHIA HITT, BIOLOGY, 2023

had few similar opportunities to experience the pride associated with caring for a well-loved pet. One participant remarked that caring for the animals impacted her confidence, and another found it helped them present themselves in a more positive light. Overall, Dr. Brooks and colleagues found that pets should be considered as a main source of support in the management of mental health problems.

Other studies have also demonstrated animals’ psychological and physiological effects on humans. Animal interactions have resulted in beneficial effects for psychiatric inpatient populations through Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT).

Additionally, animal interactions can have biochemical effects on humans. Researchers found that a single session of animal-assisted activity can increase immunoglobulin A, an antibody that plays a crucial role in the immune function of mucous membranes. Furthermore, a familiar pet can exhibit measurable relaxing effects on an individual, including lowered heart rate variability, decreased psychological stress, and deactivation of the middle frontal lobe, putamen, and thalamus regions of the brain. These regions are involved in executive function and reward systems.

How can pets provide these physiological and psychological benefits and intimate social connections? What makes our connection to our animals so great?

A team of researchers, including Sara Hayama and colleagues of the University of Hawaii, sought to begin answering these questions. Anthrozoological neuroscience, a term proposed by this research team, refers to the use of neuroscience techniques to study human-animal interaction and elucidate the mechanisms that may underlie the health effects of these interactions. The team used functional MRI procedures to view and analyze the brain responses of self-identified “pet owners” and “non-pet owners” while viewing animal images. Questionnaires were also administered to evaluate the conceptual attraction and attachment to different animal species.

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT NUSCIMAG.COM PHOTO BY ERNEST SETON VIA FLICKR BMC Psychiatry (2016). DOI: 10.1186/s12888-016-1111-3 Neuropsychologia (2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.03.018

10 I People

Contact Tracing and Privacy

BY SANJANA MISHRA, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2023

I

f COVID-19 has improved one skill of the masses other than bread baking, it’s recognizing people without their face. From six feet away with masks covering most of their faces, people have now become recognizable by their mannerisms, clothing choices and occasionally (if you can hear them through their masks) their voices. Not being able to hug family members or friends, shake hands, or conduct meetings in person has become a nuisance to our daily lives.

Humans are social creatures, but it has been almost three months since our definition of “social interaction” was flipped on its head. As we endure “pandemic-fatigue,” the nation, along with the rest of the world, is looking for a way to open up safely. We’ve flattened the curve, but how do we keep it that way? Many have their eye on contact tracing apps.

DESIGN BY KATIE GREEN, BIOENGINEERING, 2022

officials and Apple were responsible for vetting the app before it was released for public use, but privacy software maker Jumbo discovered that Care19 was violating its own privacy policy by sharing citizen data location and other personal information with Foursquare, a data provider for marketers. While Foursquare alleges that the data was never used, companies could take advantage of future data.

To combat the very concerns that were exacerbated with Care19, Apple and Google are utilizing Bluetooth technology to ease security concerns. Bluetooth’s low-energy specification for broadcasting short bursts of data allows smartphones to emit a random string of characters, which we refer to as a key, that acts as an alias to other devices.

The key is changed every 10 to 20 minutes to ensure that According to Crystal Watson, a senior scholar with the John connecting data to a specific individual is nearly impossible for third parties. While the Hopkins Center for Health key is being shared with Security, contact tracing is “the other devices, the smartphone best tool we have to manage Regardless of the rules, records other incoming keys [COVID-19] in an ongoing way regulations, and laws in place, as well. This system allows an and allow our economy to open people may not feel comfortable individual who tests positive up again.” Tech giants Apple for COVID-19 to anonymously and Google have partnered to downloading an app meant to alert those they have come in make it easier for these apps to monitor them onto their devices.” contact or interacted with. hit their respective app stores sooner rather than later. The Even with this updated system, plan is for the app to monitor our locations and interactions for 14 days. If we get tested for many Americans are put off by installing apps that can COVID-19 and the results are positive, the app will alert those monitor them and instruct them on how to live. A study who have come in contact with us and advise them to isolate of about 800 Americans conducted by Microsoft Research, as well. The noble goal behind these apps is unmistakable, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Zurich but citizens still question, “What about privacy?” Many showed that eagerness to install these contact tracing apps users fear their data will be leaked and feel uncomfortable was dependent on the app’s accuracy and ability to protect with the idea of carrying around a smartphone all day with personal information. Specifically, Americans cared about certain settings turned on to specifically track their locations how accurate the app was at detecting false positives.

Researchers found that people didn’t want to be told they and interactions. should isolate for 14 days if they weren’t seriously exposed Contact tracing apps bring the constant battle between and were only in the vicinity of an infected individual. Already convenience and privacy to the forefront. If we look to North uncomfortable with potential privacy loss, many Americans are not looking to give up that information in and South Dakota, we can get a better sense of just how exchange for threats of unlikely infection. complicated the tracking aspect of these apps can be. These two states released a contact tracing app, Care19, that was supposed to help with the reopening process. Both state TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT NUSCIMAG.COM

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People I 11

Coming out clean Renewables in a pandemic

BY LAUREN MACDONALD, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & CHEMISTRY, 2022 DESIGN BY LILLIE HOFFART, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

I

t’s undeniable that COVID-19 has completely changed our way of living, but there is a silver lining: the coronavirus may be a catalyst for allowing renewable energy to surpass traditional modes of energy generation in the United States. For decades, coal has been responsible for half of the energy in the U.S., but it is now severely declining in the face of renewable energy sources.

With energy demand and natural gas prices falling as a result of consumers driving less and businesses temporarily closed, the energy sector must cut the slack somewhere. Coal, in addition to releasing the highest amount of CO2 per gigawatt of energy, is also one of the most expensive sources of energy. Because of this, coal plants are being shut down before wind, solar, or petroleum plants.

Some coal plants operated at less than 50 percent of their intended capacity in 2019, and that percentage has only decreased in the face of COVID-19. The fraction of U.S. energy sourced from coal is expected to fall to around 18 percent from last year’s 24 percent, and coal production will decrease by one-quarter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Many coal plants are outdated and are even more expensive to run when they are only running at a fraction of capacity.

As a result, they are being closed entirely in favor of cheaper, cleaner alternatives such as wind and solar energy. Once a coal plant is decommissioned, it’s much more expensive to get it back up and running, which makes it less likely that coal could fully come back to its previous prevalence.

In addition, the cost of wind energy has decreased by 40 percent since 2010, and solar has fallen 80 percent. Both are now cheaper than coal and are not expected to take as drastic of a hit as a result of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. In 2019, 40 percent of new energy generation capacity in the U.S. was solar power, and a decreasing coal market in the coming months opens a path for solar and wind to fill the gap.

However, the renewable energy industry is not without its coronavirus woes. Industry leaders fear that the pandemic may cause the solar industry to have to take a step back. Already, 17 percent of employees in the renewables sector have lost their jobs. Across the

clean energy sector, 27,000 workers have lost their jobs in May 2020, for a total of 620,000 jobs lost as a result of the pandemic. New solar installations are also expected to fall to one-third of what was previously projected. Because of the drop in workforce, it will now be more difficult to meet project deadlines that allow companies to reap tax benefits for building renewable energy capacity. Consumer use is particularly at risk since homeowners may not have the money to install solar panels at the moment, and installation in homes requires close contact.

“ Coal is unlikely to be able

to fully recover from the hit it has taken because of the coronavirus.”

Despite the dangers, there is still hope. Some tax credit deadlines and requirements have already been loosened or extended to account for delays as a result of COVID-19. This year is still on track to be a record one in terms of wind farm construction, as of May. This means 15 gigawatts of capacity installed, or enough energy to power nearly two million homes. Coal is unlikely to be able to fully recover from the hit it has taken because of the coronavirus and will likely suffer worse than renewables in the long term as a result. The percentage that renewables contribute to U.S. energy will likely rise and remain above coal, which is a win for the environment. There will likely be a 14 percent decrease in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, compared to 2.8 percent in 2019, partly because of a reduction in coal usage.

So, even in the midst of a global pandemic we are starting to see positive changes for the environment. The coronavirus has sped up the decline of the coal industry and created more space for the clean energy solutions that we need to combat climate change. All that is left is for us to recognize this, take advantage of the space that has been created, and continue to make the environment a priority.

PHOTO BY SERGE LE STRAT VIA UNSPLASH

12 I People

Opinion

Is female leadership the solution to the pandemic?

BY MAYA KRAUSE, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022 DESIGN BY LILLIE HOFFART, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

O

n June 8th, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the country had completely eradicated COVID-19, citing no active cases for the first time since February. This news brought celebration, as public gatherings such as sporting events, retail shopping, and hospitality have reopened. As some countries succeed and others struggle in standing up to the challenges of the pandemic, patterns in leadership will emerge. For instance, countries with female leaders have largely been successful at fighting the coronavirus.

Does this pattern demonstrate the skills that women bring to leadership, or is it more representative of what comprises a successful leadership style when faced with a crisis?

Country United States Leader Donald Trump COVID-19 case count 4,523,888

a four-level alert system (Prepare, Reduce, Restrict, Lockdown) and had already closed the country’s border.

And when New Zealand entered the Lockdown phase a few days later, Ardern addressed the country on Facebook Live in a sweatshirt, apologizing for the abrupt emergency alert announcing the lockdown that had been sent to citizen’s phones with a “loud honk.”

Because the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing, no peer-reviewed studies have been conducted that determine any patterns in leadership throughout the pandemic. However, so far, womenled countries have been notably successful in acting quickly and controlling the spread of COVID-19.

From Ardern to Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin to Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, female leaders around the world have been applauded for their swift and successful action in tackling the pandemic. On March 21st, when New Zealand only had 52 cases of COVID-19, Ardern announced

Stereotypes associated with female leaders have typically not been viewed as effective leadership strategies, especially in the United States. According to a study by Dr. Kira Sanbonmatsu at the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics, women’s gender stereotypes (caring, collaborative, communityoriented) are seen as less fitting for political office than male gender stereotypes (power-seeking, strong, combative). Additionally, as explained to The New York Times by Alice Evans, a sociologist at King’s College London, “there is an expectation that leaders should be aggressive and forward and domineering. But if women demonstrate those traits, then they’re seen as unfeminine.” However, during the pandemic, women leaders around the world have succeeded by leading cautiously, but swiftly, and steering away from the combative responses seen used by some male leaders.

Country South Korea Leader Moon Jae-in COVID-19 case count 14,366

Country Brazil Leader Jair Bolsonaro COVID-19 case count 2,662,485

Each dot represents one case per 10,000 people

People I 13 Country Belgium Leader Sophie Wilmes COVID-19 case count 69,309

Country New Zealand Leader Jacinda Arden COVID-19 case count 1,215

Country Finland Leader Sanna Marin COVID-19 case count 7,443

It is possible that the pattern of successful female leadership has more to do with leadership style than gender. Many of the countries with the highest rates of coronavirus mortality, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil, have authoritarian, populist leaders who have presented themselves as antiestablishment leaders working for the common folk. These leaders have dismissed the advice of public health

Angela Merkel has a doctorate in quantum chemistry and worked as a research scientist prior to becoming a politician. Merkel has handled the coronavirus crisis by calling to her strengths as a scientist, presenting residents of Germany with detailed guidelines to halt the spread of COVID-19. Ultimately, the United Kingdom has seen nearly twice the number of cases of COVID-19 per million residents as Germany, and Britain’s lockdown has continued into June while Germany began to reopen shops in May.

COVID-19 to five deaths per million residents, which is significantly lower than the worldwide death toll of 57.2 deaths per million people.

leaders ” Female around the world

professionals surrounding personal protective equipment and banning public gatherings. For example, in the United Kingdom, male Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government initially encouraged residents to continue socializing while later delivering updated lockdown plans that lacked detail and confused citizens. In contrast, Germany’s female Chancellor

The pattern of successful female leaders does have outliers. While Belgium has seen one of the world’s highest mortality rates from COVID-19, female Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes has downplayed the severity of the virus, suggesting that health officials may be over-reporting deaths. Health officials have stated that poor preparation along with a high elderly-home population has led to the devastating death toll. And, in South Korea, male President Moon Jae-in has been praised for his quick response in providing personal protective equipment to medical staff, covering all COVID-19 medical expenses, and implementing extensive contact tracing, identifying those who may have come in contact with someone with COVID-19. South Korea has limited the death toll from

Country Taiwan Leader Tsai Ing-wen COVID-19 case count 475

Country United Kingdom Leader Boris Johnson COVID-19 case count 303,956

have been applauded for their swift and successful action in tackling the pandemic.”

As the pandemic continues, with economies battered, healthcare infrastructure vulnerable, and citizens nervous for the future, the leaders who have succeeded in quelling the damage will emerge. The nations that have been the most successful at tackling the virus thus far have been the leaders that have acted quickly, avoided confusion with clear and consistent responses, and remained sympathetic and understanding to the anxieties of the pandemic. Considering many of the successful leaders so far have been women, the pandemic may affect global perception of the strength of female leadership. Furthermore, the impacts of the world leaders who have succeeded in slowing or stopping the pandemic in their nations could alter the perception of what qualities comprise a good leader.

Data from the World Health Organization, the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control as of Aug. 2, 2020

Country Germany Leader Angela Merkel COVID-19 case count 209,893

14 I People

COVID-19:

An unlikely agent of international sociocultural exposure

BY SAGE KUMAR, BIOLOGY, 2023 DESIGN BY KRISTI BUI, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2021 PHOTO BY LUCA SARTONI VIA FLICKR

A

drastic difference, in terms of upper-level public health responses to COVID-19, is quite apparent when comparing the East to the West. Even when it comes to personal choices and social distancing practices, a similar degree of contrast is observable. Surgical masks are commonplace in public spaces in many East and South Asian countries, while the same safeguards are met with negative responses ranging from resistance to xenophobic remarks in the States. In terms of governmental initiatives, Asia’s public health authorities seem to have taken a much more proactive and involved approach than that of the United States. Not to say that Asia is a monolith — it resembles more of a gradient based on the given political backdrop. Citizens in India and South Korea regularly receive aid in the form of care packages with food, cleaning supplies, and information on how to minimize transmission risk in order to maintain as airtight of a lockdown as possible, while China’s authoritarian management of contact tracing and surveillance saw citizens receive regular temperature checks followed by swift extradition to quarantine centers. Western countries have taken a much more laissez-faire attitude toward drafting and enforcing quarantine regulations, as case numbers continue to climb while lockdown legislation has loosened up.

Why do these extreme variations exist on such a global scale? One explanation comes in the form of a region’s past experience with similar pandemics. The normalization of wearing masks in many Asian countries is due in part to impactful prior experience with droplet-based viruses like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the same can be said for their comparatively quick and comprehensive pandemic response plans. An additional route of reasoning can be traced back to any given country’s history with air pollution or natural disasters. But even if one were to eliminate this experience factor and take Asian governmental and individual behaviors at face value, whether they be public health-based or otherwise, a common difference can explain certain Eastern and Western behaviors: collectivist versus individualistic thinking. Individualistic cultures like that of the United States place value on independence and self-reliance and generally disprove of the state wielding the majority of governing power, while collectivist cultures like that of many Asian and African nations emphasize the importance of prioritizing the well-being of the group over the self. The degree to which these schools of thought are ingrained in a culture has a profound impact, all the way down to the psychological level.

A social experiment conducted by Toshio Yamagishi and colleagues in 1999 reveals behavioral trends and value systems that remain relevant over 20 years later. In this study, college-aged participants from both Japan and the United States were presented with a scenario involving an

array of colored pens, which was said to contain one pen of one color and four pens of another color. When asked which pen they would choose, without knowing context about other participants, the Japanese students tended to choose the majority color, while the American participants preferred the rarer color. In a slightly different scenario, when asked which pen they’d choose given that they were the first of five participants to get to choose one, both groups tended to select the majority color. But when told that they were the last of the group to see the pen selection, and that there happened to be five pens remaining, both groups displayed a large preference toward the rarer-colored pen.

The similarity across both groups when it came to the initialselection and final-selection scenarios demonstrates how uniqueness and consideration are valued equally across these cultures. When given the context that they were the first to choose a pen, both American and Japanese subjects tended to be a bit more considerate of their group members who hadn’t gotten to select, and the opposite was true across both groups after they were told that their action would have no effect on any other individuals. These trends helped to debunk prior stereotypes that painted Asia as a continent of conformist attitudes. The fact that when given an non-contextual choice, Japanese participants continued to choose as if they should be concerned with other people’s responses, while Americans saw this scenario without this concern reveals the value that collectivist cultures tend to place on harmony and cooperation, not conformism.

This experiment is one of many that has been used to demonstrate the behavioral differences between those raised in collectivist versus individualistic cultures but is especially relevant when considering the nuanced responses to the coronavirus on a global scale. Given the culturallyinfluenced nature of the choices we make and the actions that authorities take, the contrast between the East and West can be partially explained. The value that collectivism places on group effort and harmony gives relevant context to why masks are the norm and seen as a symbol and a tool of protection and solidarity in big cities of Asia such as Hong Kong, and why the self-sacrifice that comes with social distancing is seen as a duty in Eastern sociocultural practices.

All this is not necessarily meant to demonize individualism nor promote collectivism. Both schools of thought have their pros and cons that manifest themselves in the ups and downs of the cultures and countries they reside in. But when it comes to this pandemic, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to conclude that skewed individualistic thinking could be responsible for generating more harm than good.

Psychological Science (2008). DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02126.x

People I 15

The Environment in a covid-19 world E arth Day went nearly unnoticed this year. Being in the throes of a worldwide pandemic due to COVID-19, people were likely more focused on their glaring lack of social plans in April than on the planet. However, the environmental benefits of quarantine have unexpectedly begun to reveal themselves, making this year’s Earth Day one that should be celebrated rather than forgotten.

“

This order has prevented roughly 12,000 premature deaths strictly from air pollution, which is approximately three times more premature deaths than those who would have been infected with COVID-19 during this timespan.”

With people confined to their homes, air pollution worldwide has declined at levels unseen up until this point.

As automobile emissions drop because of work-at-home orders and power plants lessen electricity production, record low nitrogen dioxide emissions have been recorded in regions such as the Chesapeake Bay. This decrease is noteworthy because of the harmful environmental effects of nitrogen dioxide, a gaseous air pollutant released from the fuel burned in vehicles and power plants. Nitrogen dioxide has a myriad of environmental consequences, including its reaction with other atmospheric particles to produce acid rain, ability to make air hazy, and contribution of nutrient pollution in coastal waters. In addition, the presence of this gas in the air also irritates human respiratory tracts, which can lead to aggravating respiratory symptoms and even the development of asthma. While nitrogen dioxide itself

BY BEIYU (PAM) LIN, BIOLOGY, 2021 DESIGN BY SOPHIA HITT, BIOLOGY, 2023

is not a greenhouse gas, it is an important component of tropospheric ozone, which is a greenhouse gas.

While the benefits of this decrease are certainly visible in the United States, they are even more evident in China, a country notorious for its severe air pollution. China set a roughly one month traffic mobility ban in response to the virus this year, which, according to a study conducted by the Yale School of Public Health, led to a clear improvement in air quality. This order has prevented a roughly estimated 12,000 premature deaths strictly from air pollution, which is approximately three times more premature deaths than those who would have been infected with COVID-19 during this timespan. This trend has shown researchers and healthcare professionals the immense health benefits that could result from more aggressive policy with regard to air pollutants.

Despite the current trends, scientists are skeptical that these numbers will last past the quarantine era. As states begin to lift restrictions, pollution levels are likely to return to their original numbers. These predictions are based on precedent; past instances of a correlation between reduced traffic flow and improved health have been observed in both the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, yet these have not been observed to have lasting impacts. However, more research needs to be conducted to have a stronger grasp of the impacts of short-term air quality improvements on long-term pollution health effects. Regardless of past or future research on the topic, the current trends in air quality still provide valuable insight into how monitoring the environment has a direct impact on human health. Looking forward, this will hopefully be a stepping stone for more research and insight into the negative effects of air pollutants.

Health Effects Institute (2008). DOI: 10.1097/01.ede.0000340468.63293.50 Res Rep Health Eff Inst (2010). PMID: 20575278

16 I People

Room to breathe:

Reinventing urban design to withstand future pandemics

BY ANNABELLE MATHERS, CIVIL ENGINEERING, 2022

T

he idea of transforming cities into ideal, or even relatively effective, urban spaces that accommodate physical distancing and large fluctuations in public behavior can seem overwhelming, especially in the tumultuous wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This task, as a whole, is enormous on an economic, political, and social level, with an innumerable amount of moving parts and complex factors. Fortunately, urban planners, engineers, and architects are working to develop cost-conscious changes that make cities more flexible and functionally dynamic in preparation for future times of great sickness. It may not presently be possible to create components of a city that completely prevent viral transmission; however, this effort may decrease transmission and urban shutdowns, improve quarantine experiences, and accelerate societal recovery.

Across different countries, climates, and local cultures, the priorities of urban inhabitants differ. Thus, there may be widely nuanced applications of solutions pertaining to common areas of concern including offices, environmental psychology, infrastructure, and communal public spaces.

Ongoing research now attempts to consider and mull these evolving factors as the wait continues for more consistent statistical analysis. Fear, harbored by a more wary public, now challenges trends like open-concept offices, high density infrastructure, and community spaces that encourage physical interaction. Instead of creating spaces that perpetually enforce social and physical distancing, society may work toward facilitating spaces that are, whenever necessary, creatively flexible enough to accommodate varying degrees of societal change without complete separation and shutdown.

This transitional concept of urban design allows the public to weigh the risks and rewards with societal changes and expenditures, and can be applied toward epidemics of different severities and characteristics. Public health must be maintained; however, the drastic application of rigid lifestyle changes and physical distancing in perpetuity has already pushed people to reevaluate the balance of risk and PHOTO BY GUS MUELLER, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, 2023

DESIGN BY KRISTI BUI, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2021

reward. Urban improvements have to consider this sense of realism, while also envisioning an ingenuitive society beyond its current state. Private homes and spaces highlight the smaller, and realistically easier changes that may still be relatively important to individuals.

Environmental psychology, in particular, permeates the boundaries of public and private spaces. This term refers to the study of the way in which the surrounding world, mostly built and natural environments in this application, affects mental wellbeing. With the lines blurred between work and home during quarantine, the uncomfortable physical and mental confines of homemade office spaces, and rooms in general, are more apparent. In other words, the spatial chaos of quarantine may distort spatial associations and comforts held by the average person. Adaptive spaces in homes are especially helpful for remote workers, where multifunctional rooms and interior setups enable individuals to more comfortably reallocate space for work and leisure.

Public office spaces may also need to question and reorganize spaces and priorities for meetings, cubicles, foot traffic, and shared spaces like kitchens. Offices that lack private, distanced workspaces, and that encourage a high degree of collaboration in shared spaces, now may consider temporary strategies for a more independent, spatially restrictive work environment. Although not every existing office can be retrofitted to become perfectly flexible in terms of physical spaces, it is the general open-mindedness toward preparation and adaptation that may be beneficial.

Additional questions arise regarding whether reinvigorated appreciation for outdoor spaces and spacious interiors will affect architectural design of urban homes that lack the backyards and square-footage of suburban ones. A desire for rooftop and urban gardens, windows, and natural light in homes has the potential to grow considering the burden that a tiny apartment may place on mental health during quarantine.

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT NUSCIMAG.COM OSF Preprints (2020). DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/rf7xa Emerald Open Research (2020). DOI: 10.35241/emeraldopenres.13561.1 KnE Engineering (2017). DOI: 10.18502/keg.v2i2.596

People I 17

Ecological boomerang: How man-made climate change is biting back

BY CATRIN ZHARYY, BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE, 2023 DESIGN BY SAM KLEIN, EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN, 2022

O

ver the past few years, a new moral code including owning up to one’s mistakes and vowing to “do better” has swept mainstream American culture. Not only have people taken personal oaths to hold themselves to a higher standard, but they’re expecting more out of their neighbors, law enforcement, local elected officials, global leaders, and even celebrities.

It’s not surprising that accountability also plays a role in the modern environmental movement, arguably since 2015 when the United Nations published 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals to reach by 2030. Since then, millions have participated in climate strikes, and the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates drafted policies aimed at rectifying the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Both as a global community and nation, people are identifying who and what are at fault for the current frightening state of the natural world. Humanity has caused significant damage to the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, and animal species. In fact, scientists argue that humans have single-handedly caused Earth to enter a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene.

“ Humans have single-handedly caused Earth to enter a new geological epoch.”

The Anthropocene’s earliest stage, they suggest, began with the arrival of agriculture, domestication of animals, and wide-ranging deforestation. However, geologists claim the official beginning of the epoch was not until the “Great Acceleration” of the mid-20th century, when the rate of world population growth was at its peak and industrialization was on the rise. The Anthropocene epoch is distinct from the previous geological epoch, the Holocene, because of higher global temperatures and sea level; production and dispersion of new materials like concrete and plastics; harmful levels of certain chemicals in the atmosphere, ocean, and soil; and rapid species extinction and displacement.

The rise in global temperature is largely due to the greenhouse effect: the accumulation of gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and synthetic chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that all act to trap heat by absorbing longwavelength infrared light being reflected by the Earth. The greatest producer of excess carbon dioxide is, of course, the burning of fossil fuels. Using up a gallon of gas in one’s car adds 20 pounds of carbon dioxide to the air. To an extent, the planet can be very helpful in removing some of this carbon dioxide. Oceans can dissolve it, and plants use it in the process of photosynthesis — remarkably, a tree weighing two tons consumes seven tons of carbon dioxide in its lifetime.

Unfortunately, exploitative deforestation and industrial agriculture strip such large tracts of land at a time and so quickly that it is simply impossible for forests to grow back at the same rate as they are being depleted.

Furthermore, global warming leads to more violent weather by changing air and ocean currents and causing a rise in sea levels. It also causes climate zones to move away from the equator and toward the poles, and the equatorial tropic region to shrink. This has drastic effects on the order of the natural world, and, in turn, on human well-being and survival. All species, from animals to plants to diseasecarrying bacteria, must either go extinct or adapt to a new man-made environment — putting agriculture, food and water security, public health, and economies in grave trouble.

One greenhouse gas, CFCs, not only traps heat, but also eats away at the ozone layer: the Earth’s natural shield for lethal ultraviolet-C rays. CFCs are most often used in refrigeration, air conditioning, spray cans, and making foam plastic. On the surface of ice crystals in the stratosphere, CFC molecules are broken up by ultraviolet radiation to release a form of chlorine that destroys ozone gas. A single molecule of CFC lasts for nearly a century and destroys about 100,000 molecules of ozone. Each winter, the Antarctic vortex seals off the southern pole from warmer surrounding air, enabling more ice crystals to form and more ozone to be depleted until temperatures warm again. All that is needed to patch up ozone holes are free oxygen and the sun’s rays, but climate change can make this process unpredictable from year to year by altering the amount of ice crystals that form at the South Pole. Moreover, if CFCs continue to run rampant in the stratosphere, ultraviolet-C rays can reach the surface and cause painful burns and even cancer before the ozone hole manages to close back up with warmer weather.

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT NUSCIMAG.COM

18 I Healthcare

The myth of vitamin C

BY CERINA KARR, BIOLOGY, 2023

T

he coronavirus pandemic triggered a wave of paranoia that left the public susceptible to a variety of healthrelated propaganda. These myths likely did more harm than good, as people prioritized toilet paper over the physical distancing and protection protocols that we are more accustomed to now.

Many widespread myths were dispelled by the World Health Organization (WHO). Consuming garlic, drinking alcohol, and exposing yourself to the sun and hot temperatures were all thought to prevent COVID-19. The WHO also stated on its website, “Adding pepper to your soup or other meals DOES NOT prevent or cure COVID-19.” While these myths were easily disproved and clearly lacking in scientific backing, one practice that did not lose popularity was vitamin C supplementation.

At the start of the outbreak in the United States, people across the country, including students on Northeastern’s campus, cleared store shelves of vitamin C supplements — the explanation being that it’s good for your immune system. But, what exactly does vitamin C do, and does it actually protect one against the coronavirus?

Vitamin C has many functions in the body, such as helping to protect cells from oxidative stress (cellular damage that results from normal metabolic processes), the formation of collagen to help wounds heal, and assisting in iron absorption. Regarding the immune system, with which it is most commonly associated, vitamin C is necessary for some immune system cells to function, including phagocytes and T cells. Since cells that are involved in typical immune response require vitamin C, it makes sense that vitamin C supplementation could potentially prevent one from getting sick. However, research on the common cold, led by scientists at the Leibniz University Hannover, has shown that unless a person is deficient in vitamin C, supplementation “may slightly reduce the duration of the illness in healthy persons but does not affect its incidence and severity.”

DESIGN BY KRISTI BUI, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2021 PHOTO BY PIXABAY

Similarly, there have been no studies so far supporting the idea that vitamin C supplements are capable of preventing COVID-19. If vitamin C could reduce the duration of sickness for those infected with COVID-19, as has been suggested for the common cold, then perhaps vitamin C could play a role in slowing the spread of the disease. This is just speculation, though, and more research is needed to draw any conclusions about vitamin C with respect to the coronavirus.

Interestingly, high doses of intravenous vitamin C are being tested as a treatment for severe COVID-19 cases, and one meta-analysis published in the journal Nutrients in 2019 found that this reduced the duration of stay in the ICU and the duration of mechanical ventilation (for non-COVID-19 patients). This is not yet a standard treatment procedure for ICU patients with COVID-19, and more research is needed on the subject.

Excessive vitamin C consumption has been associated with mild gastrointestinal complications. Otherwise, it is not likely to be harmful to have too much vitamin C in the body, as it is a water-soluble nutrient and excess is simply excreted through urine. The main harm, therefore, would be a false sense of security against contagious diseases like COVID-19 fueled by aggressively supplementing with vitamin C. You shouldn’t rely on vitamin C to keep you safe from COVID-19 or any other sickness. Vitamin C has the potential to reduce the duration of the illness, but your chances of getting infected are unlikely to change, unless you know you are deficient. The most important practices to keep in mind during this pandemic are wearing facial coverings, physical distancing, washing hands, self-isolating if symptoms present, and following other guidelines provided by the WHO. Med Monatsschr Pharm. (2009). PMID: 19263912 Nutrients (2019). DOI: 10.3390/nu11040708

Healthcare I 19

Boston biotech’s role in COVID-19

BY GABRIELLE HERNANDEZ, BIOCHEMISTRY, 2023

B

oston takes pride in being one of the scientific research capitals of the world. With some of the most prestigious universities funneling students and professors alike into small start-ups in Kendall Square and Seaport, Bostonian biotechnology has blossomed into a multi-billion dollar industry. At Northeastern University, the biotech industry has provided thousands of cooperative education opportunities to STEM students, allowing undergraduates to observe how research is conducted in industry versus academia. Furthermore, students witness the great innovations that arise out of Boston’s biotech field, such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ small-molecule therapies for cystic fibrosis, or Pfizer’s vaccine developments to fight infectious disease. However, as with any field, there are two sides to Boston’s gold coin.

In early February, the majority of American citizens went about their daily lives unaware of a worldwide shift that would take place in just over a month and push most of the population to shut their doors to the outside world for weeks on end. This was true for most of Boston as well. Only one confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2, better known as COVID-19 — the disease caused by this novel strain of coronavirus, existed in the state. This case involved a student who had returned to the University of Massachusetts Boston from his home in Wuhan, China, the original epicenter of the virus. He stayed in quarantine — all of his interactions contact-mapped with the precision expected of a scientific and medical capital.

There was little reason for panic, although, COVID-19 was silently spreading throughout the country.

This all drastically shifted when a meeting of 175 executive employees from the biotech company, Biogen, met at a hotel in downtown Boston. Employees gathered from across the United States and the world and, unbeknownst to them, carried the virus across the nation. As of now, the CDC states that it can take up to 14 days to experience first symptoms after exposure to the virus, so many employees attended the conference initially feeling completely healthy, only to realize they carried the coronavirus days later. Since then, experts have traced the Biogen conference as the cause of early cases in North Carolina and the first cases in both Indiana and Tennessee. The Massachusetts Department of Health initially linked 99 cases back to the original meeting, which experts then termed a “super-spreader” event, or a moment of high transmission that leads to a greater spread of disease.

Although the Biogen event caused many of the early cases in Massachusetts (and elsewhere), Boston biotech is also playing a large part in the race to produce accurate, widespread testing systems and a vaccine. E25bio, a two-year-old startup company that grew out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, quickly stepped up to develop cheap and easy COVID-19 tests. The company is a good fit for the task too medRxiv (2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.05.24.20112110 Science Translational Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aan1589 Science (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.abc9586

— they have experience in designing rapid antigen tests for Zika and dengue. Through innovative methods that include mobile image capture and image processing through new computer software, they remove subjectivity and time limits that are characteristic of these tests. By February 26th, the tests could already produce results in 15 minutes, and they provided a visual indicator of whether or not the patient has ever had COVID-19. Although this seems promising, antigen tests have a disastrous history of testing efficacy. The sensitivity of most antigen tests ranges from 50 percent to 90 percent, indicating that, in nearly half of cases, the tests can be wrong. Nevertheless, E25bio now awaits FDA approval to begin testing.

Despite the questionable nature of the development of antibody and antigen tests, one Boston biotech company spells hope for the world in the form of a future vaccine.

Moderna, a start-up known for its mRNA-based therapies, produced promising Phase 1 results for its COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273.

With this, the Food and Drug Administration gave Moderna permission to begin Phase 2 trials, which will grow the study from eight participants using two different dosages to 600 participants using multiple dosages. Moderna also announced protocols for Phase 3, which includes 30,000 subjects, each tested with a 100-microgram dose starting in July 2020. Experts chose this particular dose based on the results of Phase 1, which showed it to be the best balance between immune response and sideeffects of the treatment.

The nucleic acid vaccine created by Moderna produces proteins from mRNA codes that cause your body to prepare antigens for the proteins associated with the virus.

TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE, VISIT NUSCIMAG.COM

Therapeutic Delivery (2016). DOI: 10.4155/tde-2016-0006 RNA Biology (2012). DOI: 10.4161/rna.22269 DESIGN BY KATIE GREEN, BIOENGINEERING, 2022 PHOTOS BY PIXABAY

20 I Healthcare

Why are hospitals losing money during a pandemic?

DESIGN BY KAI GRAVEL-PUCILLO, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

W

ith cases surpassing two million nationwide, hospitals and healthcare systems across the country have stepped up to meet the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers courageously serve those weakest while risking it all — reusing personal protective equipment (PPE), taking up additional shifts, and often living in hotels or garages in fear of infecting loved ones.

Despite often filling beyond capacity and providing thousands of tests daily, U.S. hospitals are losing an estimated $50.7 billion per month, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA). While hospital revenue has sharply declined since the start of the pandemic, hospital expenses have dramatically sky-rocketed.

As the pandemic spread, governors across the country quickly mandated the indefinite cancellation and delay of all elective operations and procedures. Though these swift actions improved public safety by preventing unnecessary contact while simultaneously preserving PPE, they’ve directly resulted in immediate and widespread financial distress among hospitals. Before the pandemic, many hospitals, particularly independent and rural hospitals, were already losing money.

According to the AHA, about 23 percent of hospitals in the United States lost money in 2015. The pandemic has only exacerbated the financial fragility of hospitals caused by a flawed business model.

often filling beyond “ Despite capacity and providing thousands of tests daily, US hospitals are losing an estimated $50.7 billion per month.”

The financial success of most hospitals heavily relies on providing elective, well-reimbursed procedures, like orthopedic surgeries and radiological scans, to privately insured patients. Conversely, patients covered only by public insurance, like Medicare and Medicaid, cost hospitals $57.8 billion per non-pandemic year, according to the AHA. Furthermore, hospitals lose additional money by providing uncompensated care for those uninsured. Now, with nearly all healthcare resources committed to COVID-19 treatment, the business model of hospitals is evidently failing during these unprecedented times.

At-risk populations, primarily the eldery and people with underlying conditions, have significantly higher COVID-19 hospitalization rates. Minority groups face disproportionately higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death. In a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report,

33 percent of hospitalized patients were Black, compared to only 18 percent in the greater community. Ultimately, these groups are more likely to be on public insurance, like Medicaid, or uninsured. According to the CDC, Hispanics/ Latinxs are nearly three times more likely to be uninsured compared to white people and Black people nearly twice as likely compared to whites. These numbers present financial challenges for hospitals, as the surge in uninsured or underinsured Americans seeking medical attention applies yet another strain on the already fragile healthcare system.

With hospitals receiving less from public insurance than the cost of treatment and little to no money from the uninsured, hospitals are forced to take the financial burden as more are hospitalized. To put it in perspective, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates the cost of treating a COVID-19 patient often exceeds $20,000. It can even extend up to $88,000 for patients that need ventilator support.

Moreover, with unemployment rates nearing 15 percent as of April 2020, many American families have lost insurance provided by their companies, further increasing the amount of uncompensated care at hospitals. Compared to March of 2019, charity treatment has risen about 13 percent in 2020, according to a recent study from Kaufman Hall.

Though the cancellation of elective procedures has helped to preserve the limited supply of PPE, healthcare workers have still ultimately been forced to reuse N95 masks or resort to the lovingly-sewed, but less effective, homemade masks. The shortage of PPE spans the entire country.

Even rural hospitals that have not seen a COVID-19 case face shortages and high prices. Gowns that cost 50 cents before the coronavirus pandemic fetched nearly $10 in peak shortage periods. Face shields costing $1.25 before the pandemic went for upwards of $25. These high prices and need for face coverings for all staff force hospitals to spend much more than budgeted for PPE. As a result of lost revenue and rising expenses, hospitals must furlough or lay off the healthcare heroes in the midst of the pandemic. According to the US Labor Department, about 1.4 million healthcare workers lost their job in April of 2020. Furthermore, the cancellation of elective procedures at rural, independent hospitals, which have often seen very few COVID-19 cases but are burdened by rising expenses, is expected to push many perilously close to closing. Since 2010, 130 rural hospitals have closed across the country.

These hospitals are critical for healthcare equity. With the pandemic only accelerating the closure of rural hospitals, some Americans could be forced to drive more than an hour to the nearest doctor, which would be catastrophic in cases of emergencies. With COVID-19 still an eminent threat in many parts of the country, this pandemic will continue to expose and exacerbate the issues of America’s fragile and inequitable healthcare system.

Morb Mortal Wkly Rep (2020). DOI: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6915e3

PHOTOS BY PIXABAY

BY JASON DENONCOURT, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 2023

Healthcare I 21

Fewer visits, fewer diagnoses:

How the decline in preventative care during the pandemic affects cancer patients

BY NATALIE MCGOWAN, BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE, 2021

A

t the start of the pandemic, the American Cancer Society recommended postponing non-essential cancer screenings to reduce the strain on the medical system. Because of these reduced screenings, cancer diagnoses have dropped since the first cases of COVID-19 were recorded. As the pandemic persists, understanding this drop in diagnoses is critical to ensure that doctors move forward in a way that balances the risks of the coronavirus with the importance of catching cancers early.

A study recently published in The Lancet: Oncology found that there was a decline in cancer cases in the Netherlands after the country’s first confirmed case of COVID-19.

Diagnoses for all cancers, excluding skin cancers, had decreased by 26 percent, while those for skin cancers had decreased by 60 percent.

Similar findings have been seen in the U.S. An analysis by the Epic Health Research Network reported a nationwide drop in preventative cervical, colon, and breast cancers by 86 – 94 percent. The University of Pennsylvania Health System reported an 80 percent drop in skin cancer diagnoses.

The reasons for these declines are complex, as different barriers are seen at each level of clinical care. Patients may delay seeking care because they perceive their concern as nonurgent, do not want to strain the medical system for noncoronavirus-related issues, or have concerns about the risk of coronavirus transmission in the medical setting. Additionally, many annual visits are postponed, so patients may miss opportunities to be reminded of critical cancer screenings.

DESIGN BY KRISTI BUI, COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2021

and cervical cancer because of the increased strain on the health system. This level of clinical care has the broadest impact, as every patient and provider in the country is affected by policy change.

Whether these diagnostic delays end up changing the patient’s prognosis depends on the type of cancer. For example, for colorectal cancer, screening typically consists of a colonoscopy every 10 years, so a delay on the scale of months may not affect the prognosis for most patients.

However, for more aggressive cancers such as inflammatory breast cancer, an early diagnosis can significantly improve outcomes. Similarly, invasive melanomas also should be diagnosed as early as possible, which makes the steep drop in skin cancer diagnoses particularly troubling.

Taking proper precautions during this pandemic is of the utmost importance, and delaying certain procedures may be necessary as hospitals brace for an increase in cases and ensure that they have enough resources to fight the disease. Additionally, existing cancer patients are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, as many cancer treatments are immunosuppressive, so hospitals must allocate more resources to these patients as well.

As the U.S. begins to reopen, it is important to see whether these diagnostic trends change — will there be a compensatory increase in diagnoses compared to baseline, or will the diagnoses stay low? Furthermore, the potential impact on cancer mortality rates remains to be seen, and it will likely vary depending on the type of cancer.

The rising use of telemedicine has also affected the number of cancer diagnoses. Providers conducting appointments via telehealth may be unable to investigate certain symptoms further, which could delay their ability to send referrals to specialists. Diagnostic evaluations may be delayed as hospitals need to allocate more resources to combating the coronavirus.

However, as this epidemic threatens to become endemic, it is vital to understand how to best promote preventative care while also protecting patients from the coronavirus. To this end, it is important for patients and providers to discuss the risks and benefits of receiving cancer screenings as well as which screenings should and should not be delayed.

Many countries, including the Netherlands, have also paused national screening programs for breast, colorectal,

The Lancet: Oncology (2020). DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30265-5 JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association (2020). DOI: 10.1001/ jama.2020.6236 The New England Journal of Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMms2009984

PHOTO BY SERGIO SANTOS VIA FLICKR

22 I Biology

Vaccine Development From the lab bench to the doctor’s office

BY CAILEY DENONCOURT, BIOENGINEERING, 2022

T

DESIGN BY SOPHIA HITT, BIOLOGY, 2023

he race to develop a vaccine for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic spans across the world as the virus continues to take thousands of lives every day. Unfortunately, the fastest vaccines typically take at least five years to fully develop; this includes multiple failed attempts before commercializing an effective vaccine that successfully passes all clinical trials and safety guidelines. As businesses start to reopen across the country and social distancing guidelines continue to be ignored, infection rates coming into Fourth of July weekend are at an all time high. With another wave expected later this year, the rapid development of a vaccine could save thousands of lives.

This is a very extensive, time-consuming process that would take extremely long to complete during the current pandemic. Thus, during an outbreak, this timeline is often accelerated by overlapping the pre-clinical, clinical, and manufacturing phases. During a public health emergency, the FDA is allowed to authorize emergency-use potentially before all the usual bars have been met. This, combined with compressing the timeline, is leaving the public with many reservations. Even with the possibility of record breaking release, as companies continue to push the regulation limits, the vaccine may not be as widely accepted or effective as needed to stop the spread.

In order to fully understand the lengthy vaccine development process, how the vaccine is able to give an individual immunity to the virus must also be understood. Vaccines are developed in order to mimic the agents of the virus, so that the immune system can build a defense system without directly experiencing the negative symptoms associated with infection.

As of early April 2020, there are about 115 vaccine candidates in development across the globe. The most advanced candidate being the mRNA-1273 from Moderna, which was developed at a record pace of 42 days. This was possible with a newer variety of vaccines that do not involve directly injecting the virus into the patients. Similarly to the traditional process, the virus is isolated from an infected individual. However, instead of direct injection, Moderna uses mRNA. It encodes for the instructions on how to make the spike protein, a necessary agent of the COVID-19 virus that allows it to invade cells. The mRNA is taken in by APCs in the immune system, and they are able to directly use the mRNA to produce the protein with the components they’re already equipped with. The development of RNA vaccines are becoming more common because of shorter manufacturing times and easier antigen manipulation, so although no mRNA vaccines are available to date, their popularity is expected to increase in the future.

When the virus first enters the body, an antigen presenting cell (APC) breaks down the virus and displays the antigens on its surface, which are detected by T-helper cells to alert an immune response. This response recruits two types of B cells: plasma and memory cells. Plasma B cells are antibody factories. The produced antibodies can then attach to the antigens on the virus prohibiting it from entering the cells.

More critical are memory B cells, which memorize how to produce these antibodies, so the immune system can respond stronger and swifter if ever exposed to the virus again.

Starting in the lab, the traditional vaccine development process begins with isolation of the virus from an affected individual, which is then grown in bioreactors and harvested for modifications. These modifications can range widely based on the virus and can include weakening, inactivating, or removing a portion of the virus so that an immune response is still activated with no symptoms.

Since a vaccine requires injecting parts or the entire virus into the patient, there are multiple safety guidelines that are regulated by the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Once a vaccine candidate has been developed, it undergoes a series of preclinical trials, which must prove its effectiveness and safety before moving onto clinical trials.

The three stages of clinical trials allow the companies to evaluate the safety and effectiveness directly in humans, while also determining the correct dosage and possible side effects. On top of ensuring the vaccine is safe and effective, manufacturing development is equally important in order to ensure that the commercialization of the vaccine is able to support distribution to a large population.

Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/d41573-020-00073-5 The New England Journal of Meadicine (2020). DOI: 10.1056/ NEJMp2005630 PHOTO BY KEVIN KOBSIC VIA FLICKR

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Biology I 23

The role of mucins in disease transmission

BY RYAN BRADY, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING & BIOCHEMISTRY, 2022 DESIGN BY KATIE GREEN, BIOENGINEERING, 2022

T

he body is a well-designed system with a variety of barriers to keep invaders out. These range from the physical barriers of the skin to the biological protection of the immune system. However, the structures of the face such as the eyes, nose, and mouth represent major vulnerabilities. The nose and mouth are an interconnected system in which saliva and mucus serve as the physical barriers to keep viruses and other contaminants out. Coughing and sneezing are effective means of keeping viruses and other foreign material out of the body by expelling these invaders into the environment.

These expulsions create small particles of liquid which travel through the air, potentially infecting others with the virus.

One MIT study was conducted this year and demonstrated the potential impact of coughing and sneezing on disease transmission. The researchers generated a number of visualizations of the small liquid particles that are generated. These visualizations show that the particles gathered in clouds up to 27 feet from the original expulsion.

Physical barriers such as masks can help to minimize the size of the emulsions and decrease the potential for viral transfer. This demonstrates the need for masks in public and the need for social distancing to prevent the direct transfer of these particles. However, another means of transmission is the deposition of these droplets onto surfaces.

these droplets to aqueous solutions. In reality, these droplets contain a number of biochemical compounds and cells which could potentially impact the survivability of the virus. One of the compounds that directly interacts with the virus are mucins.

Mucins are a specialized type of protein designed to form chemical barriers in epithelial tissues. There are up to 20 different types, but all of them fall into the class of glycoproteins.

Glycoproteins consist of proteins that are covalently linked to carbohydrates.

For mucins, the proteins serve as a sort of a molecular backbone, off of which numerous carbohydrates are linked.

These carbohydrates form chains off of the protein to create a matrix of said chains. This matrix provides the functional relevance of these molecules, allowing large molecules

to get stuck within it.

These proteins can be either membrane-bound or secreted out of cells to form a gel layer. This gel layer is part of t h e epithelial lining. As part of the lining it will be present in the throat and nasal cavities and can therefore be expelled as part of a sneeze or cough.

One particular mucin is present in high proportions in the mouth: MUC5B. This mucin is most likely to be present in the particles expelled via coughing and sneezing. It has been shown to decrease the amount of bacteria and fungal infections in that area. This is related to the spread of diseases because the particles expelled from the body contain these mucins, which can impact the survivability of particles outside the body.

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The analog to this MIT study is an early publication in The New England Journal of Medicine from earlier in 2020, which attempted to assess the survivability of the aerosolized virus on surfaces.

It identified that the virus could potentially survive up to 72 hours on plastics and stainless steel. However both this and the MIT study represent preliminary findings which fail to fully capture the phenomena occurring. Both studies simplified the chemistry of

Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2015). DOI: 10.1128/AEM.02573-14 JAMA (2020). DOI:10.1001/jama.2020.4756 The New England Journal of Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2004973

24 I Biology

A lack of bread leads to a lactic-acid bacteria in our homes

BY GABRIELLE HERNANDEZ, BIOCHEMISTRY, 2023 DESIGN BY KATIE GREEN, BIOENGINEERING, 2022

B

read has always been a staple to humanity when it comes to times of crisis. The infamous pictures of bread lines during the Great Depression demonstrated the weight of the economic downturn in the United States. With an unemployment rate of about 25 percent, many people turned to local food banks and churches for bread and soup. This is not dissimilar to the winding lines of cars at food banks as a result of the current global pandemic.

Now, as the general public finds ways to entertain themselves in their own homes, many have turned to learning the art of baking bread at home. So much so that, along with toilet paper and basic cleaning supplies, flour has seemed to fly off the shelves. Forbes reported that King Arthur, America’s oldest flour company, experienced a 287 percent increase in March sales of its high-protein bread flour, a key ingredient in producing the gluten that gives bread its distinct chewiness.

Along with flour, dry-active and instant yeast have also seemed to disappear from shelves, motivating more people to take part in growing their own yeast at home, which has led to bread-making becoming a popular trend. Northeastern students are well involved in the craze. Liz Gmoser, a fourth year mechanical engineering major, commented, “I started my starter because apparently I am one of the people who ‘if my friends were jumping off a bridge, I would too’ because all my friends were doing it and I wanted to try as well. Pierre, named because when all his little bubbles pop it’s like he’s peeing air, is unique because he’s a sturdy starter willing to put up with my sporadic feeding schedule. It’s been a fun quarantine journey, and he’ll be coming back to Boston with me.”

“Starter” refers to a base mixture of flour and water (other ingredients can be added as well), that supports a culture

of yeast and bacteria that naturally leavens sourdough bread. Sourdough is aptly named for the sour taste of the bread produced by the lactic acid bacteria, but varying species of bacteria and yeast impart a unique flavor and smell to every loaf. The varying species

“

The varying species in starters can originate from dust in the air, the container it’s kept in, and even the hands that first form the starter.”

in starters can originate from dust in the air, the container it’s kept in, and even the hands that first form the starter.

In fact, this diversity is so integral to sourdough that a lab out of North Carolina State University has made it their mission to track starters through a citizen science project. Participants send in their starters, and Professor Rob Dunn’s lab uses DNA sequencing

to identify species across the Silva Database, a database of ribosomal RNA sequences. Now, they have built an interactive map of their participants showing the most common strains of yeast and bacteria in the starters of those regions. They have also performed an experiment correlating the bacteria on a select number of baker’s hands and their starters, showing the symbiotic relationship between our microbiome and the microbiome of the world around us (or the world of bacteria in a jar of starter).

Ultimately, many in quarantine have gained new skills and new behaviors in this momentary interruption of daily life. One of those skills has become baking, a historic tradition for human beings around the world. Culturing a sourdough starter is an excellent example of creative survival when the shelves are emptied of bread and yeast, and it has created a community of bacteria, yeast, and humans alike.

Trends in Food Science and Technology (2005).

DOI: 10.1016/j.tifs.2004.02.012 American Society for Microbiology (2020).

DOI: 10.1128/mSphere.00950-19 PHOTOS BY GABRIELLE HERNANDEZ

Humans of NU Sci I 25

Humans of NU Sci Lessons for the future

BY BINH DANG, ENGLISH, 2022 DESIGN BY LILLIE HOFFART, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

I

n search of the ever scarce commodity of human connection during quarantine, I interviewed some e-board and editors in my own imitation of Humans of New York. I also wanted to synthesize a piece that might provide solace in isolating times, one regaling human stories. I cherish those conversations — discussing fears, aspirations, favorite memories, but I’ve decided not to publish any interview in full. There were some things more profound in the totality of these tales, so I’d like to share them instead.

I look at the world, and I see the great challenges we face as a species: climate change, inequality, famine, disease. They all seem so insurmountable; what can we do to make things better? Sometimes, I am wrapped in anxiety and fear because of this question; there are clear answers to a lot of them, but so much opposition to achieving them.

However, I found a theme emerging as I talked to each person. Our worries were all similar, if not the same. We gravitated towards worries for our loved ones. One editor said, “I’m most afraid that someone in my family will get sick...I wanted to be close to family in case anything does happen. A couple weeks ago, my grandma was exposed, and she tested negative, which was a relief, but just the anxiety around whether she would be okay — she’s probably the most vulnerable person in my family.” Separated families worried for each other; those from the United States expressed their concerns for their international friends. Of the 15 interviewees, not one of them was afraid for themselves; their fears were rooted in compassion for others.

That sentiment emerged independently amongst everyone, and while it isn’t necessarily earth-shattering on its own, I grew optimistic because of another stress they shared: a lack of productivity. Much like anyone with the privilege of quarantining, working from home or taking classes was still difficult. Focusing was a challenge for some; mental health, another. Everyone was steadily adjusting to their new

realities at this point (in mid-May), but they were excited to get back to normal. They were anxious to improve their lives or work towards their goals. As counterintuitive as it may sound, those self-developed goals focused on others.

Gus Mueller, our head of photography, told me about his dream of making an artificial heart or a device that helps everyone in their daily lives. I’ve never heard someone talk about an iPhone with such awe, but he was right—it’s astoundingly intuitive and useful for so many people. A few editors brought up their aspirations to be doctors, especially pertinent given the global circumstances. Others expressed their concern for the planet and the animals inhabiting it. I was struck with optimism; each person talked about their career goals without a sense of self — nothing seemed as important as making the world a better place for someone else.

I encourage anyone to ask, “Who do you want to be in the future, and are you that person today?” This was a frequently used question I asked throughout the interviews. At first, you might throw them off, but I think that question strikes at the core of each of us. No one knows what the future will be like, but even when you don’t know what your future holds, you know the values you have today. Using those values, there’s a trajectory — it may have large confidence intervals, but landing somewhere in the middle is quite alright; that’s still net good.

I hold that to be true because I don’t think any of the e-board members or editors will stray off their paths. And if the members I interviewed are any representation of NU Sci as a whole, then that’s a fairly large amount of good intentions.

I look at the news, and I see problems, but I looked at the interviewees and saw solutions, problem-solvers. We’ve been ingrained with the idea that we’ll be the ones to carry the burdens of the past, and that’s unfortunately true. But even if a fraction of our generation is as motivated and compassionate as them, then I think we’re in pretty good hands.

PHOTO BY GUS MUELLER, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, 2023

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