Category: Field Research Page 11 of 16

Mouse Lemur Quandary Stumps Researchers

On March 4, 2015

In Animals, Biology, Field Research, Guest Post, Lecture, Lemurs

By Sheena Faherty, Ph.D. Candidate in Biology

What does famous lemur researcher, Dame Alison Richard, do when she has a burning question she can’t answer?

She visits Duke and appeals to a room full of lemur enthusiasts to help out.

Richard’s question concerns the curious case of the mouse lemurs at Beza Mahafaly in southwestern Madagascar, where she has been involved in a wildlife-monitoring program since the mid-1990s.

Alison Richard (left) and Lemur Center Director Anne Yoder (right) lead a discussion in the ‘Beach House’ at DLC.

“What do I know about mouse lemurs?” she questioned a group that gathered at the Duke Lemur Center on March 3 as the first of three talks she held at Duke this week as part of the Von der Heyden Fellows Program. “Probably less than you do. But I am incredibly interested in what is going on with them at Beza Mahafaly.”

Everywhere else in Madagascar, mouse lemurs that look indistinguishable are classified as different species due to big variations at the genetic level. But at Beza Mahafaly, Richard is finding that mouse lemurs with major deviations in appearance are genetically the same.

Dame Alison Richard (Photo: HHMI)

For a long time, the general view was that there were two species of mouse lemur in the forests of Beza Mahafaly : the gray-brown mouse lemur and the gray mouse lemur (both being exceptionally adorable).

A few studies in the mid-1990s and early 2000s compared the shapes of certain features such as jawbone shape and leg length, and confirmed this view. Then, researchers started noticing a few trapped animals that had very noticeable differences in coat coloration. These animals were redder than the other two known species. Was this a possible third species?

In 2006, Duke Lemur Center Director, Anne Yoder, and her former Ph.D. student Kellie Heckman examined this same population of mouse lemurs from a genetic standpoint. Comparing sequences of DNA they expected to find major genetic differences between the two known species, and possibly confirm the existence of a third species.

“The genetic data was a disaster for the mouse lemurs,” Richard said.

All the samples collected from animals at Beza Mahafaly, regardless of the animal’s outward appearance, sorted together and seemed to be one species.

Dame Alison and the bedeviled mouse lemur of Beza Mahafaly

“There’s a part of me that’s very distressed about this, but there’s a part of me that thinks this is great,” Richard said. “At Beza Mahafaly we swim upstream. We’re contrarians,” she said laughing. “But we still don’t know how to best explain the diversity that we do see.”

She offered up some suggestions: A glimpse of an ongoing process of change? A replacement by one species over another? The beginning of a new species?

Flashing a picture of a mouse lemur displaying ominous eye shine from a headlamp, she said: “The mouse lemurs are waiting with an evil gleam in their eye to be told the truth about themselves. The question is how should we take this forward?”

Research, New Policies Protect "The Lungs of India"

By Karl Bates

On February 6, 2015

In Engineering, Environment/Sustainability, Field Research, Global Health, Guest Post

Guest Post By Sheena Faherty, Ph.D. Candidate in Biology

You can’t see into the lungs of the people of Agra, India, home of the Taj Mahal. But just a glance at what should be pristine white marble domes of the local landmark shows that air quality is a major concern. The iconic domes are tarnished and need frequent cleaning to keep them white.

A cleaning in progress shows how much discoloration grimy air deposits on the Taj Mahal. (Courtesy of Mike Bergin)

A study by Duke researchers published in Environmental Science and Technology has determined the exact air particles that are the cause of the Taj’s discoloration and threat to the health of the local people.

“The Taj Mahal can be thought of as the lungs of India,” says Mike Bergin, the lead author of the study and a new faculty member in Duke’s Civil and Environmental Engineering department, who credits his wife Michelle with coming up with the analogy.

What he means is that the same particles discoloring the Taj Mahal are depositing in the lungs of people in Agra and are having a negative impact on their health.

Within weeks of the publication of the study, the Indian government started putting air pollution control strategies in place. In the city of Agra, diesel-guzzling vehicles have been banned from the streets, new policies are being enacted to stop the burning of trash and refuse, and local governments are replacing the traditional heating and cooking method of dung-burning with free compressed natural gas.

Air sampling devices were set up to determine the exact particles causing the discoloration. (Courtesy of Mike Bergin)

This might be one of the fastest “science into policy” actions ever and Bergin couldn’t be more pleased.

His research looks at how small particles in the atmosphere have impacts on human health and climate. A few years back, while attending a scientific meeting in India, he visited the Taj Mahal and noticed something strange.

“Part of it was covered in scaffolding and under the scaffold, part of the dome was brown, and there was a thick line that was white. I took a photo right away and thought, ‘That’s the weirdest thing I have ever seen.’”

He started asking people about it and kept getting the same story: The Taj Mahal gets really dirty. It has something to do with the quality of the air. We don’t know what it is, but we clean it off.

And for Bergin—a scientist whose expertise lies in air quality—the wheels began to turn.

While serving as faculty at Georgia Tech, he assembled a multi-disciplinary team from international in both the US (University of Wisconsin at Madison) and India (IIT Kanpur and the Archaeological Survey of India) to tackle the challenge of sampling both particulates in the air, as well as those that collect on the surface of the Taj Mahal, to determine which particles were the cause of the unblemished white domes turning brown.

The team found that collected samples contained high concentrations of carbon-based particles and dust. Both sources are known to absorb light, which gives the appearance of a brown hue.

Findings from this study and the impact it has had on policy-makers in India demonstrate how deeply celebrated our cultural icons, such as the Taj Mahal, are.

“People knew the air there was bad, but nobody was really doing that much about it. The interesting thing is that they moved very quickly because they didn’t want to see the Taj Mahal getting discolored,” Bergin says.

The Power of the Past

By Karl Bates

On January 30, 2015

In Behavior/Psychology, Field Research, Guest Post

Guest Post by Eric Ferreri, Duke News & Communications

If you grow up in the working class, neither love nor money can trump your blue-collar roots, a Duke sociologist has found.

Her study of couples from different social classes suggests that those who “marry up” still make life decisions based on their upbringing.

Sociologist Jessi Streib’s book “The Past” is about class structure in marriages.

“Your social class never goes away,” says Jessi Streib, an assistant professor of sociology whose findings are revealed in her new book: The Power of the Past: Understanding Cross-Class Marriages. “It stays with you in terms of how you live your life. The class you’re born into sticks with you and shapes you, even when you marry into more money and a far more financially secure life.”

Streib’s findings derive from interviews she conducted with white, heterosexual Midwestern couples. She interviewed 32 couples in which one spouse came from a working class background, the other from the middle class. For comparison, she also interviewed 10 couples in which both spouses grew up in the middle class.

Streib defines working class as people raised by parents with high school educations; the middle class subjects were raised by college-educated parents.

Her findings run contrary to the notion held by many scholars that strivers can outrun a difficult childhood by getting a college degree and good-paying middle-class job.

While the findings suggest that a middle class upbringing isn’t required to excel in the American workplace, those upwardly mobile people from working class roots may still miss out on opportunities if they can’t or don’t subscribe to the unspoken norms of middle class culture, Streib notes.

Streib found that couples from different classes held onto their own, firmly-rooted beliefs regarding money and parenting, often negotiating fervently with each other over the proper amount of career planning and nurturing of children. Should children be left to grow and discover on their own, or should goals and schedules be set for them?

“Those are the sorts of tiny battles cross-class couples have all the time,” Streib said. “These are not insurmountable obstacles, but they are certainly common and consistent.”

Curiosity, Music and Mentors Led Nowicki to Science

By dbd4@duke.edu

On January 28, 2015

In Biology, Faculty, Field Research, Science Communication & Education

By Duncan Dodson

“The only reason I got into the program I wanted to was because I was a pretty good low brass player—I’m actually sure of it!”

Stephen Nowicki, Dean and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, chuckles as he recounts his journey from early scientific beginnings to his most recent research. As part of Duke BioCoRE program, prominent Duke Scientists are asked to answer the question, “Why am I a scientist?”

Nowicki explains his most recent research with swamp sparrows and phonemes, the smallest derivative of vocal communication, at Love Auditorium January 23, 2015.

Nowicki started his answer to that question on January 23 with a picture of a dissected—well more like massacred—frog, commenting that he never thought he liked science because of his high school science courses that were not well-taught.

“All I remember from that course was dissecting a frog, and not knowing what I was supposed to get out of it.” This led him to pursue a music major at Tufts University. It was Tufts’ equivalent of Duke’s Trinity requirements in a natural science field that led to an ironic turn of events—quickly picking up a biology double major.

“I had some friends that said ‘Oh you should take this biology course,’ and I did and it changed my life, because it was really well taught,” he said. From there, his mentor at Tufts reached out to a colleague, the head of a competitive graduate neurobiology program at Cornell, Tom Eisner. Eisner mentioned to Nowicki that he was looking to start an amateur orchestra at Cornell; Nowicki responded that he could play lower brass, sparking Eisner’s interest, and ultimately, according to Nowicki, his acceptance into the program.

Flash forward about 30 years. Nowicki has an impressive career in the field of neurobiology. His most recent publication challenges the neurological methods in which swamp sparrows process the subtle differences of phonemes, the smallest derivatives of vocal communication, in other birds’ songs.

Nowicki’s tweet (@SteveNowickiDU) January 13, 2015. “Back where I belong at last!” Nowicki is a regular in the Cameron pep band who has always combined his passion for music with a curiosity for science.

Nowicki spent a majority of his talk relating entertaining anecdotes about his work with “Robobird,” a titanium swamp sparrow used to test these theories.

He repeatedly stressed the importance of curiosity, which led him to discover subjects he was passionate about. He discussed the process of instilling the same kind of curiosity in three undergraduate engineers through the two-and-a-half year research project. “[The first year engineers] didn’t have a clue, but they were not deterred. When they started to understand the problem they just kept digging in and digging in.”

When asked why he is a scientist, Nowicki responded, “I was lucky to run into mentors who revealed me to aspects of science that interested me, and I wasn’t afraid to fail.”

iGEM: An Exciting Way to Merge Biology and Engineering

By Anika Radiya-Dixit

On January 13, 2015

In Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Computers/Technology, Engineering, Field Research, Genetics/Genomics, Students

Duke iGEM 2014 team with faculty advisors Nick Buchler, front left, and Charlie Gersbach, front right. Mike is behind Dr. Gersbach.

by Anika Radiya-Dixit

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition is dedicated to education for students interested in the advancement of synthetic biology, in other words, taking engineering principles and applying them to natural sciences like biology.

Students in the competition explored using a gene or series of genes from E.coli bacteria to create biological devices for applications such as dissolving plastic or filtering water. In November 2014, the Duke iGEM team took part in the annual competition in Boston, proudly leaving with a gold medal on their work in 3D printing technology and DNA synthesis protocol.

This week, I contacted the iGEM team and had the opportunity to talk with one of the members, Mike Zhu, about his experience in the competition. Mike is currently a junior from Northern California studying Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science. He is enthusiastic about researching how biology and computer science interact, and is conducting research with Dr. John Reif on DNA technology. Mike is also involved with the Chinese Dance team, and enjoys cooking, eating, and sleeping. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.

How did you get interested in your project topic?

We wanted to build a binary response platform that uses logic gates or on-off switches in E. coli to make it easier to regulate genes. We used the CRISPr/Cas9 system that allows for specific targeting of any gene, and that enables synthetic biologists to create more complex gene circuits. Personally, I was interested in developing an infrastructure that allows engineering concepts to be applied to cells, such as creating code that allows cells to do arithmetic so they can keep track of the cells around them. I think applications like these open doors to a really cool field.

What was your best moment during the Boston competition?

The competition was four days long, but we had to come back early due to work and midterms, so we missed the last dance and dinner, but overall it was a lot of fun. There were multiple workshops and talks, and the one that stood out most to me was one by someone from MIT who designed a ‘biocompiler’ to take code specifying the behavior of cells [1]. It was essentially like creating a programming language for cells, and I thought that was really cool.

Tell me about someone interesting you met.

There were a lot of people from the industry who came by and asked about our project, and some of them wanted to recruit us for internships. At the competition, there were people from all over the world, and I liked best that they were friendly and genuinely interested in developing tools to work with cells.

Experiment work in a biology lab.

What was the hardest or most frustrating part of working on the project?

Lab work is always the most frustrating because you’re dealing with microscopic parts – things easily go wrong and it’s difficult to debug, so we ended up repeating the experiments over and over to work through it.

Are you continuing with the competition this year?

I’m working for Caribou Biosciences in Berkeley, one of the companies that wanted to recruit us during the competition. They are developing tech similar to what we did, so I enjoy that.

It’s a good thing to get into bioengineering. People are trying to make tech cheaper and easier so we can potentially do experiments in our garage – sort of like ‘biohacking’ or do-it-yourself-biology – and this still has a long way to go, but it’s really cool.

Mike Zhu, wearing the competition shirt.

Now that you’ve gone through the competition, what would you like to say to future students who are interested in applying their knowledge of BME learned at Duke?

There are a lot of clubs at Duke that are project-based, but these are primarily in Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering, so the iGEM competition is – as far as I know – the only project-based club for students more interested in biology. You get funding, lab space, and mentors with a team of undergraduates who can work on a project themselves. It’s pretty rare for both PIs [Principal Investigators] to give the undergrads free reign to work on what they want, especially compared to volunteering in a lab. You also get a chance to present your project and meet up with other people, and you’re exposed to topics most students get to experience only in senior year classes. Overall, the club is a great way to be introduced to cutting edge research, and it’s a good opportunity for freshman to find out what’s going on in BME.

Learn More about the Duke iGEM team and project

[1] More about MIT’s Biocomplier can be read at http://web.mit.edu/jakebeal/www/Talks/IBE12-BioCompiler-Feedback-abstract.txt.

Touring Duke's Biggest Laboratory

By Karl Bates

On December 18, 2014

In Biology, Climate/Global Change, Computers/Technology, Environment/Sustainability, Field Research, Science Communication & Education

Sari Palmroth and the 130-foot research tower in the Blackwood Division of Duke Forest.

By Karl Leif Bates

You may think of Duke Forest as a nice place to run or walk your dog, but it’s actually the largest research laboratory on campus, and probably the oldest too.

Last week, Duke Forest director Sara Childs and operations manager Jenna Schreiber took about a dozen interested stakeholders on a whirlwind tour to see three active research installations tucked away in areas of Duke Forest the public often doesn’t see.

We had to hunt a little to find UNC Biology grad student Jes Coyle in the Korstian division off Whitfield Road, but at least she wasn’t 30 feet up in an oak tree like she usually is. Jes showed the group some of her cool climbing gear while explaining her work on figuring out which part of a lichen, the fungus or the algae, is more responsible for the lichen’s adaptation to microclimates.

She does this by climbing way the heck up into trees to affix little data loggers that track temperature and sunlight at various places on the trunk.

Coyle is looking at 67 lichen species in 54 sampling locations, which is a lot of climbing and a lot of little $50 loggers.

The whole time Jes was talking, we were eyeing her six-foot-tall slingshot and waiting for it to come into play.

UNC grad student Jes Coyle shows off her climbing gear.

Indeed it did, as she let three participants, including Sara Childs, have a go at shooting a ball on a fine string over a likely-looking branch to start a climbing rope. (None succeeded.)

Abundant data was the theme at our second stop too, where Sari Palmroth, an associate research professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment, explained how she measures how much water goes into and out of a tree. Her installation is in the Blackwood Division off Eubanks Road, tucked behind the old FACE experiment.

Standing next to an imposing 130-foot scaffolding tower studded with active and abandoned instruments of all sorts, Palmroth said a square meter of Duke Forest exhales about 700 mm of rainfall a year, which is about half of what falls on it. “How do I know these numbers? Because it’s my job.”

In addition to being a lovely place to get away from the world and sway with the treetops, the tower measures CO2 levels at different heights throughout the canopy.

Palmroth reveals where probes go into a tree trunk.

The tower also hosts a big white box stuffed with wires that capture data streaming in from sensors embedded in the tree trunks all around the tower.

Palmroth and her colleagues are seeing the trees breathe. During the day, when the tiny pores on the underside of their leaves – called stomata — are open and exhaling water and oxygen, roots in the top 40 centimeters of soil are pulling in more water. When the sun sets and the stomata close, then the tree’s deeper roots pull water up to the top level for tomorrow’s drinking. Unless it doesn’t get cool at night and the stomata don’t completely close, which is the prediction for some climate change scenarios. What then?

Aaron Berdanier

Back in the vans and even deeper into the Blackwood division, we come upon an intrepid young man in a flannel shirt sitting in a sunny spot by the side of the two-track. He’s Aaron Berdanier, a doctoral candidate at Duke who is also looking at water use by taking automated measurements of 75 trees every minute for four straight years.

His work is part of a larger research project established by Nicholas School professor Jim Clark 15 years ago. Every one of the 14,000 trees in this sloping 20-acre stand of the forest — from spindly saplings to giants — is labeled and has its data regularly collected by a platoon of undergrads armed with computer tablets.

Other data flows automatically on webs of wiring leading to data loggers situated every few yards. Some of the trees wear a stainless steel collar with a spring that measures their circumference constantly and precisely. They change noticeably both seasonally and by the year, Berdanier says.

The forest is alive and its trees are breathing and pulsing. Berdanier likens his detailed measurement of water consumption to taking a human patient’s pulse. “We’re trying to determine winners and losers under future climate conditions.”

Aaron handled a wide-ranging Q&A with the curious visitors as the sun set and the temperature fell.

How To Get Your Foot In The Door At A Research Lab

By Thabit Pulak

On December 8, 2014

In Animals, Biology, Faculty, Field Research, Neuroscience, Students

By: Thabit Pulak

So now you are at Duke — one of the world’s best research universities — but now what? You might be taking cool classes, but how can you take advantage of the world-class research happening here? Roughly 50 percent of Duke undergrads do so at some point. Getting involved in research as a freshman might sound intimidating (I know it did to me!), but a little luck and perseverance can get you off to a strong start.

Alan working in Dr. Eroglu’s laboratory.

I had the opportunity to talk with Duke freshman Alan Kong about his experiences trying to get into research labs, and how he successfully ended up finding one to join. Alan is considering majoring in biology whilst on the premed track.

He initially started to look into labs within a month of starting classes at Duke. He spent about two months sending out emails to professors who were working on interesting projects.

“It was a very frustrating search, and initially difficult. I emailed five professors, and emailed each many times,” Alan said. “But perseverance ultimately paid off.”

Alan now works in the lab of Dr. Eroglu who is an assistant professor of cell biology, associated with the Duke School of Medicine. According to the Duke Institute of Brain Science website description, Eroglu’s laboratory “is interested in understanding how central nervous system (CNS) synapses are formed.”

Alan was also accepted into two others labs, but ultimately felt Dr. Eroglu was the best fit. “I picked Eroglu because her research was very interesting, and relevant to my interests,” Alan says. “I felt I could learn more interesting techniques in research, such as working with live animals.”

Now, Alan has been working in Dr. Eroglu’s lab for a month. When I asked him how it was going, with a smile he exclaimed, “It’s great!”

“Right now I am learning techniques such as genotyping, western blot. I even took out the retina of a rat!” Alan said. “I am learning the ropes of the lab, and my mentor said that down the road, if I learn properly, I can eventually work on my own independent project!”

When asked for any advice for other students thinking of getting into research, Alan said “Persistence is key — don’t give up! It’s a difficult process; don’t let small things get in the way. Keep trying until you find one.”

“Persistence is key – don’t give up!” Alan says

Learn more:

More information regarding Dr. Eroglu and her research: http://www.dibs.duke.edu/research/profiles/46-agla-eroglu

List of all Duke Faculty affiliated with Cell Biology with contact details: http://www.cellbio.duke.edu/all-faculty/

Summer research opportunities in math and statistics: http://bigdata.duke.edu/research/?field_project_topics_tid=19

Research opportunities in biology: http://cubr.biology.duke.edu/projects

For other research and summer opportunities visit https://biology.duke.edu/undergraduate/current-students/research-independent-study/summer-opportunities

For a list of research opportunities across the sciences, arts, humanities and social sciences visit: http://undergraduateresearch.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/summer-2015-funding-opps.original.pdf

More Elephants Means Fewer Trees in Kruger National Park

By Robin Smith

On December 2, 2014

In Animals, Biology, Environment/Sustainability, Field Research

By Duncan Dodson

Imagine learning research methods while also getting charged by a rhino, observing a pride of lions hunting warthogs, and glimpsing a cheetah and her cub.

Lizzie feeding an elephant in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Her research attempted to map woody tree coverage in a section of the park since rising elephant populations has resulted in the destruction of woody trees.

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hoerauf experienced this last summer with five other students from Yale, Vanderbilt, Duke, and Reed Universities. The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) brought them to Kruger National Park in South Africa, charging them with researching various plants and animals in the park — with a primary focus on the effects of the park’s growing elephant population.

Culling of elephants – i.e., reducing their populations by selective slaughter — has been banned since 1994, resulting in a significant increase in the elephant population. This seems admirable, yet as the increasingly abundant massive animals roam the savanna they knock down more trees. Fewer trees across the park means lower habitat diversity for the park’s other plants and animals.

Lizzie’s project laid the groundwork for other students’ surveying efforts. To map woody cover, Lizzie took overhead images from previous park data of one of the four supersites that make up the park and overlaid them using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software.

Her project did not come without its struggles. One moment she would emerge from her tent with a look of triumph telling her peers, “Guys look how amazing this is!” The next, disgruntled and lamenting, “Everything crashed….” However, her ultimately successful data consolidation demonstrated that less than ten percent of the area she studied was now populated with tall trees — a significant decrease from years past.

With some time to reflect Lizzie says that she learned more from this project than in the classroom. When I asked her if she had interests in returning to project in the future she noted a preference to pursue field research projects of her own. Lizzie did let me know that OTS is a wonderful program that Duke offers — it felt rewarding to be a small part of a massive and constantly evolving field research project.

Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, Lizzie was able to map out and analyze woody tree cover for one of the supersites of the park. Her analysis found approximately 6 percent of the supersite to be covered by tall trees, much lower than previous years (12 percent in 1940 or 9 percent in 1974).

Duke Forest is Healthy But Vigilant

By Karl Bates

On November 14, 2014

In Environment/Sustainability, Field Research, Science Communication & Education

By Karl Leif Bates

Duke Forest director Sara Childs, left, got into the trees a ways with some of the annual gathering guests.

The map that Kelly Oten showed at the Duke Forest annual gathering Thursday night could have been a metaphor for the 7,000-acre research and teaching forest itself .

Her map showed the entire state with Duke Forest in the middle, and advancing legions of forest-killing pests approaching from all sides. In this case, Oten, a forest health monitoring coordinator for the North Carolina Forest Service, was talking about bugs that kill native trees in various horrible ways.

But it might just as well have been a map of encroaching development, rapacious deer, unleashed, freely pooping dogs or any of the dozens of other things that threaten to change the face of this forested oasis on a daily basis.

In a two-hour meeting with snacks and wine, forest director Sara Childs, her staff and Oten brought a room full of forest-lovers up to date on the current health of Duke’s forested reserve and the status of all kinds of invasive species. Things are going well, said Childs, who took over this year after the retirement of Judd Edeburn, but the challenges never go away.

Childs said the forest hosted 84 research projects from 23 institutions in the last year. More than 500 students attended class activities — probably a dramatic undercount — and 827 person-hours went into the ambitious overhaul of the heavily used trails and bridges in the Korstian Division.

The biggest blow of the year was the back-to-back ice storms in February and March that disturbed 187 acres in all, 22 of which simply had to be salvage-cut because they were beyond repair, Childs said.

Deer management seems to be helping, Childs said. Ideally, they’d like to see 15-20 of the giant herbivores per square mile, but the count was more like 80 per mile when they started fall culling operations five years ago. The cull is on right now, by the way, closing the Durham, Korstian and Blackwood Divisions Monday through Friday. That’s in effect until Dec. 19, so stay safely away.

Sara Childs presents Judd Edeburn with the plaque for a new division named in his honor. He doesn’t get to keep it; it’ll be bolted to a very big rock.

At the end of the evening, Childs and the Duke Forest staff showed Edeburn a handsome new brass plaque that will be installed at the entrance to the former Eno division to rename that section of the forest in his honor.

And while we’re learning about and admiring the Duke Forest, check out these ten fun facts. https://dukeforest.spotlight.duke.edu/

Judd Edeburn Division plaque will be installed at an entrance to the former Eno Division.

3D Storytelling of Livia’s Villa

By Anika Radiya-Dixit

On October 16, 2014

In Computers/Technology, Engineering, Field Research, Visualization

by Anika Radiya-Dixit

Eva Pietroni is in charge of the 3D modeling project, “Livia’s Villa Reloaded”

Have you ever pondered upon how 3D virtual realities are constructed? Or the potential to use them to tell stories about architectural masterpieces built millenniums ago?

The 5th International Conference on Remote Sensing in Archaeology held in the Fitzpatrick Center this weekend explored new technologies such as remote sensing, 3D reconstruction, and 3D printing used by the various facets of archaeology.

In her talk about a virtual archeology project called “Livia’s Villa Reloaded,” Eva Pietroni, art historian and co-director of the Virtual Heritage Lab in Italy, explored ways to integrate 3D modeling techniques into a virtual reality to best describe the history behind the reconstruction of the villa. The project is dedicated to the Villa Ad Gallinas Albas, which Livia Drusilla took as dowry when she married Emperor Augustus in the first century B.C.

The archeological landscape and the actual site have been modeled with 3D scenes in a Virtual Reality application with guides situated around the area to explain to tourists details of the reconstruction. The model combined images from the currently observable landscape and the potential ancient landscape — derived from both hypotheses and historical references. Many parts of the model have been implemented in the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE).

Instead of using simple 3D characters to talk to the public, the team decided to try using real actors who talked in front of a small virtual set in front of a green screen. They used a specialized cinematic camera and played around with lighting and filtering effects to obtain the best shots of the actor that would later be put into the virtual environment. Pietroni expressed her excitement at the numerous feats the team was able to accomplish especially since they were not limited by rudimentary technology such as joysticks and push buttons. As a result, the 3D scenes have been implemented by testing the “grammar of gesture” — or in other words, the interactivity of the actor performing mid-air gestures — in a virtual environment. Hearteningly, the public has been “attracted by this possibility,” encouraging the team to work on better enhancing the detailed functionalities that the virtual character is able to perform. In her video demonstration, Pietroni showed the audience the Livia’s villa being reconstructed in real time with cinematographic paradigms and virtual set practices. It was extremely fascinating to watch as the video moved smoothly over the virtual reality, giving a helicopter view of the reconstruction.

Helicopter view of the villa

One important point that Pietroni emphasized was testing how much freedom of exploration to give to the user. Currently, the exploration mode — indicated by the red dots hovering over the bird in the bottom left corner of the virtual reality — has a predefined camera animation path, since the site is very large, to prevent the user from getting lost. At the same time, the user has the ability to interrupt this automated navigation to look around and rotate the arm to explore the area. As a result, the effect achieved is a combination of a “movie and a free exploration” that keeps the audience engaged for the most optimal length of time.

Another feature provided in the menu options allows the user to navigate to a closer view of a specific part of the villa. Here, the user can walk through different areas of the villa, through kitchens and gardens, with guides located in specific areas that activate once the user has entered the desired region. This virtual storytelling is extremely important in being able to give the user a vicarious thrill in understanding the life and perspective of people living in ancient times. For example, a guide dressed in a toga in a kitchen explained the traditions held during mealtimes, and another guide in the private gardens detailed the family’s sleeping habits. The virtual details of the private garden were spectacular and beautiful, each leaf realistically swaying in the wind, each flower so well created that one could almost feel the texture of the petals as they strolled past.

Guide talking about a kitchen in the villa

Strolling through the gardens

The novelty of the “Livia’s Villa Reloaded” project is especially remarkable because the team was able to incorporate new archeological findings about the villa, rather than simply creating a system from old data without ever updating the visual aspects. Sometimes, as the speaker noted, this required the team to entirely reconfigure the lighting of a certain part of the villa when new data came in, so unfortunately, the project is not yet automatic. Of course, to ultimately improve the application, the team often queries the public on specific aspects they liked and disliked, and perhaps in the future, the virtual scenes of the villa may be developed to a perfection that they will be confused with reality itself.

See details about the conference at: http://space2place.classicalstudies.duke.edu/program/dive