Research Blog

How To Hold a Bee and Not Get Stung

On October 7, 2021

In Animals, Biology, Environment/Sustainability, Faculty, Science Communication & Education, Students

Pictured from left to right are Lindsey Weyant, Andrew McCallum, and Will Marcus.

On Saturday, September 25, the Wild Ones club hosted an insect-themed outing with Fred Nijhout, an entomology professor at Duke. We visited a pond behind the Biological Sciences Building bordered by vegetation. Apparently, the long grasses and flowers are prime habitat for insects, which are often attracted to sunny areas and edge habitat. Along with several other students, I practiced “sweeping” for insects by swishing long nets through vegetation, a delightfully satisfying activity, especially on such a gorgeous fall day.

A species of skipper feeding on a flower. According to Fred Nijhout, the best way to distinguish butterflies (including skippers) from moths is by looking for knobbed antennae, characteristic of butterflies but not moths.

Professor Nijhout says much of his research focuses on butterflies and moths, but the insect biology class he teaches has a much broader focus. So does this outing. In just a couple hours, our group finds a wide array of species.

A milkweed bug (left) and a soldier beetle, two of the species we saw on Sunday.

Many of the insects we see belong to the order Hemiptera, a group sometimes referred to as “true bugs” that includes more than 80,000 species. We find leafhoppers that jump out of our nets while we’re trying to look at them, a stilt-legged bug that moves much more gracefully on its long legs than I ever could on stilts, spittlebugs that encase themselves in foam as larvae and then metamorphose into jumping adults sometimes called froghoppers, and yet another Hemipteran with a wonderfully whimsical name (just kidding): the plant bug.

Professor Nijhout shows us a milkweed leaf teeming with aphids (also in the order Hemiptera) and ants. He explains that this is a common pairing. Aphids feed on the sap in leaf veins, which is nutrient-poor, so “they have special pumps in their guts that get rid of the water and the sugars” and concentrate the proteins. In the process, aphids secrete a sugary substance called honeydew, which attracts ants.

The honeydew excreted as a waste product by the aphids provides the ants with a valuable food source, but the relationship is mutualistic. The presence of the ants affords protection to the aphids. Symbiosis, however, isn’t the only means of avoiding predation. Some animals mimic toxic look-alikes to avoid being eaten. Our group finds brightly colored hoverflies, which resemble bees but are actually harmless flies, sipping nectar from flowers. Professor Nijhout also points out a brightly colored milkweed bug, which looks toxic because it is.

Sixteen species of hoverfly, all of which are harmless. Note that hoverflies, like all flies, have only one pair of wings, whereas bees have two.
Image from Wikipedia user Alvesgaspar (GNU Free Documentation License, Creative Commons license).

Humans, too, can be fooled by things that look dangerous but aren’t. As it turns out, even some of our most basic ideas about risk avoidance—like not playing with bees or eating strange berries—are sometimes red herrings. When we pass clusters of vibrant purple berries on a beautyberry bush, Professor Nijhout tells us they’re edible. “They’re sweet,” he says encouragingly. (I wish I could agree. They’re irresistibly beautiful, but every time I’ve tasted them, I’ve found them too tart.) And on several occasions, to the endless fascination of the Wild Ones, he catches bees with his bare hands and offers them to nearby students. Male carpenter bees (which can be identified by the patch of yellow on their faces) have no stinger, and according to Professor Nijhout, their mandibles are too weak to penetrate human skin. It’s hard not to flinch at the thought of holding an angry bee, but there’s a certain thrill to it as well. When I cup my hands around one of them, I find the sensation thoroughly pleasant, rather like a fuzzy massage. The hard part is keeping them from escaping; it doesn’t take long for the bee to slip between my hands and fly away.

Professor Nijhout in his element, about to capture a male carpenter bee (below) by hand.

The next day, I noticed several bees feeding on a flowering bush on campus. Eager to test my newfound knowledge, I leaned closer. Even when I saw the telltale yellow faces of the males, I was initially hesitant. But as I kept watching, I felt more wonder than fear. For perhaps the first time, I noticed the way their buzzy, vibrating bodies go momentarily still while they poke their heads into blossoms in search of the sweet nectar inside. Their delicate wings, blurred by motion when they fly, almost shimmer in the sunlight while they feed.

Gently, I reached out and cupped a male bee in my hands, noticing the way his tiny legs skittered across my fingers and the soft caress of his gossamer wings against my skin. When I released him, his small body lifted into the air like a fuzzy UFO.

I realize this new stick-my-face-close-to-buzzing-bees pastime could backfire, so I don’t necessarily recommend it, especially if you have a bee allergy, but if you’re going to get face-to-face with a carpenter bee, you might at least want to check the color of its face.

Damla Ozdemir, a member of the Wild Ones, with a giant cockroach in Professor Nijhout’s classroom.

If you could hold all the world’s insects in one hand and all the humans in the other, the insects would outweigh us. More than 900,000 species of insects have been discovered, and there may be millions more still unknown to science. Given their abundance and diversity, even the experts often encounter surprises.“Every year I see things I’ve never seen before,” Professor Nijhout told us. Next time you step outside, take a closer look at your six-legged company. You might be surprised by what you see.

By Sophie Cox, Class of 2025

New Blogger Nidhi Srivaths: Attracted by Words

By Nidhi Srivaths

On October 7, 2021

In Biomedical Engineering, Science Communication & Education, Students

Before I moved to the U.S, the concept of a “Starbucks name” was foreign to me, but after six cups of coffee that read everything from “Nemo” to just an unintelligible scrawl, I understood the need for it. Back home in India, my name was quite common, but having to repeat myself multiple times only to still be misheard made suddenly made feel unusually unique.

Speech can often be tricky, and growing up in a family that speaks four languages interchangeably, I’ve always been acutely aware of that. Missing a tongue roll on the word for “tell” in Kannada makes it dinner-table inappropriate, and a small vowel slip in Telugu can completely alter conversational context. I lived in India’s objectively best city, Hyderabad, that has its special version of Hindi, which was unacceptable in conversation with my mother’s own dialect. Language was thus the most unique part of my upbringing, and the unconventionally twisted sentences that combined the vocabulary of two languages and the grammar of another are characteristic of my childhood.

Raised amidst the chaotic storm of my family’s polyglotism, I found my shelter under the pages of books. Writing soon became a beautiful structure of stability for me, and the decisiveness of ink on paper drew me to it. At first, I began to read simply because I loved dragging my finger across the smooth finish of my brother’s gigantic encyclopedia but soon my childish captivation with the book turned to fascination with its contents. I loved hunting for and sounding out difficult words, and my favorite ones would always be the scientific terms.

So, the world of science was the logical next destination.

My strange love for the word “bioluminescence” led me to the ocean, and for months, I dreamed of glowing plankton and starfish. When “constellation” caught my fancy, I spent years imagining myself flying through the vast expanse of outer space, journeying to the very ends of the universe as an astronaut. From the cozy confines of my bedroom, I traversed through Egyptian ruins with “pharaoh”, Norse myths with “valkyrie” and dinosaur dig sites with “paleontology.” Finally, it was an anatomy book that bound me to the world of healthcare and the human body, and my brother’s weekly technology magazine that pulled me towards automation, before I settled on the middle ground I now love – biomedical engineering. Now a sophomore majoring in BME and ECE, I learn new words every day!

Scientific innovations and advancements are often looked at as difficult to understand, discouraging many from learning more about them. But science is embedded in every facet of our daily lives, and I believe it is essential (now, more than ever!) that its literature and progress become more accessible and understandable. As a child, it was the simple, clear and concise language of informal blogs and books that convinced me that I belonged in the fields I read about, and as a blogger, I want to convince many more that the world of science is well within their reach! Fancy terms like glycolysis may seem daunting, but everything can be broken down and made simpler (in this case, quite literally!). Blogging for Duke Research, I hope to meet trailblazers, learn and write about research that fascinates me, and make it accessible to more people. Along the way, I want to introduce the next inquisitive little girl to the exotic word that feeds her imagination, propelling her into the world of science!

However, beyond my selfless mission of spreading the good word of science and technology far and wide, I recently found a new, far more relatable reason to love writing – I don’t need a Starbucks name! It’s a lot easier to just tell you my name is Nidhi.

Post by Nidhi Srivaths, Class of 2024

The Duke Dentist and her Research: Saving Children’s Teeth, One Tooth at a Time

By Camila Cordero

On October 4, 2021

In Biology, Medicine

Walking into our small meeting room with green scrubs and a white lab coat on, our special guest set her bag down in the front and stated “I fixed 60 teeth today and haven’t sat down since this morning.” To us, it sounds like a nightmare, but to Dr. Martha Ann Keels, working in her clinic and conducting dental research is a dream come true.

Born and raised in North Carolina, Dr. Keels has kept her roots as she studied here at Duke. As a Duke undergrad, she received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and a minor in Art History, later choosing to become a pediatric dentist at UNC. It wasn’t long until she returned back to Duke to volunteer at Duke’s Children Hospital, and in 1986, she became the first pediatric dentist to get privileges to practice at Duke. She continues to run her own clinical practice alongside Duke Health System to this day, working for over 30 years!

“I get to feel the satisfaction that something I used my hands for helped alleviate pain in children,” Keels said. “I also get to watch them grow as they come in over the years. It feels super rewarding.”

With her passion and dedication, not only does she help those that enter her office, but she also conducts research on the side, wanting to help dentists all over.

Dr. Keels currently has her hands dirty with a major research project she has been working on for the past nine years. According to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, 42% of children between the ages of two to eleven years old have at least one cavity in their primary teeth, and 23% of those children are untreated. With how high these numbers are, she and a group of other researchers are trying to develop tools that allow pediatricians and pediatric dentists to be able to identify high risk factors of cavities in children and care for them before they do occur; tools like questionnaires, surveys, and ‘top 5 predictors…’.

Table of percentages of children with cavities corresponding to age, sex, race, and poverty (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)

By observing a group of 1,300 children ever since birth, they have been analyzing all aspects of each child: collecting saliva, looking at biofilm (more commonly known as plaque), physical deformities in their teeth, and even social factors like parents’ dental experience.

Despite the children still being fairly young, Dr. Keels reveals that a surprising amount of information has been found. “No one has ever looked at tight teeth– when your teeth are closely spaced– but we are seeing that it puts a child at high risk of cavities,” Keels said. She also adds that they have also begun to identify which types of bacteria help with reducing chances of getting a cavity, as well as bacteria that bring a high risk of creating a cavity.

This also goes hand in hand with the microbiomes in our mouths. Dentists first believed that the microbiomes of the child’s caregiver affected the child’s microbiome, in the sense that their microbiomes would be similar from the beginning. Dr. Keels’s study says otherwise. It’s being shown that a child’s microbiome starts off as its own, unique microbiome, and it is over time that it begins to become similar to their caregiver’s microbiome.

With the vast amount of information already collected, Dr. Keels and her team continue to persevere, now wanting to push the study for another five more years. They want to start working with adolescents, wanting to also analyze mental states and how that might affect their dental hygiene and risks of cavities.

Maybe in the near future, as you speak to your dentist at your next appointment, and they bring up a list of risk factors for cavities, who knows? That list or table could be coming from the one and only Dr. Martha Ann Keels.

Post by Camila Cordero, Class of 2025

New Blogger Camila Cordero: Renaissance First-Year

By Camila Cordero

On October 4, 2021

In Art, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Students

My name is Camila Cordero, and for those who know Spanish: yes, my last name does mean lamb. I’m a Hispanic female, born and raised in Miami, Florida. Living in Miami, one can think of many stereotypes (don’t pretend). You have the terrible traffic, the apocalyptic heat, and the international sensation, “Despacito” played everywhere.

Having a civil engineer as a father and an agriculture specialist as a mother, I became the best of both worlds as someone who now seeks to pursue a degree in Biomedical Engineering, interested in following pre-health as well.

To say I have a ‘passion’ in the sciences would be an understatement. Ever since I was a young person, I have always been curious about the world around me; questioning why things happen, how things occur, and what composes of things. It came to no surprise that in elementary school, I was already competing in multiple science competitions, broadening my range of knowledge. At first, I was drawn into the world of cartography and mechanical engineering– drawing profiles and building Rube Goldberg machines at the young age of 11. Yet, in just a span of a few years, I continued my journey into the unknowns of science, later figuring out that my true calling falls in the world of biology.

But don’t think I cut myself short there! Having such an excitement to be taught and taking every opportunity to acquire a new skill, I can see myself in the future as a Renaissance woman. Just as easy as it is for me to sketch you a beautiful drawing, I can also figure skate on ice, talk to you in Spanish or Greek, and change a NASCAR stock car tire. From here, who knows what else I will do in these next four years at Duke!

Writing for the Duke Research Blog, I seek to learn yet another ability: to write. Having written short stories for writing competitions and speeches in school, I seek to perfect this skill through the blog. Not only will I practice my writing, but I will continue to explore the world of science that I love so deeply with the help of others. I hope that with my writing, I will be able to reach out to the public and teach them about the scientific research that can impact the world for the better.

Post by Camila Cordero, Class of 2025

Carrying On a Legacy of “Whimsical” Gardening

By Sophie Cox

On September 28, 2021

In Animals, Environment/Sustainability, Science Communication & Education

A contorted hardy orange tree (*Poncirus trifoliata*) in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden. The brightly colored structures in the background are pollinator houses.

On Wednesday, September 15, the Sarah P. Duke Gardens hosted a drop-in event in the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden, an area near the main entrance with a focus on organic and sustainable gardening. This part of Duke Gardens is almost ten years old, but Wednesday’s event, led by curator Jason Holmes and horticulturist Nick Schwab, showcased what makes it unique.

The entrance to the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden is marked by a lovely arbor draped with vines. Inside, the winding paths are lined with flowers, fruiting trees, and beds of herbs and vegetables. Bees and butterflies flit here and there, bright against the rainy sky.

Holmes finds me admiring a display of carnivorous plants. He introduces himself and shows me around.

Flirting with danger: a fly perches on a Venus flytrap. The Venus flytrap is a carnivorous plant native only to parts of the Carolinas.

One of the first things I notice is the array of pollinator houses scattered amongst flowers and attached to wooden structures. Many plants rely on pollinators to reproduce, and the pollinator houses can help attract native species like mason bees and leaf-cutter wasps, but Holmes says they have another purpose as well: bringing awareness to the importance of pollinators.

Along with the pollinator houses, which are designed to attract native bees, the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden has beehives for honey bees. Though honey bees are not originally native to the New World, they are important pollinators, and their populations are declining. Like many native bees, honey bees are threatened in part by habitat loss and pesticide use, but gardeners and landowners can help.

The Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden is only about an acre in size, but exploring it feels like walking through a museum, a new exhibit around every corner. Over here, raised beds of hot peppers, organized by level of spiciness. (“I don’t do spicy,” says Holmes, but even Schwab, who has sampled the garden’s hottest peppers, tells me he often finds the less spicy ones to be more enjoyable.) Over there, clusters of pumpkins. Despite the steamy day, the pumpkins are a reminder that fall is coming. I’ve been noticing subtle hints of fall for weeks—brisk mornings, breezes that send dry leaves skittering across pavement—but despite these tantalizing harbingers of autumn, some days still seem distinctly summery. As it turns out, this garden is experiencing a similar transition.

A recipe for “Peri-Peri Sauce” within a display of hot peppers. Peppers are common in many cuisines, but they are originally native to tropical America.

Holmes and Schwab, along with other dedicated gardeners, are in the process of phasing out summer vegetables like okra, melons, cucumbers, zucchini, and eggplant and planting crops like cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower in anticipation of cooler weather.

Change is something of a constant in the garden. Holmes likes to tell everyone who works with him that “every day’s going to be different.” When I ask if he has a favorite season in the garden, Holmes mentions two: “I love the cool-down of fall, and I love the rebirth of spring.” As for winter, Holmes describes it as a period of much-needed rest—for both the garden and the gardeners.

Potted succulents and clusters of bright orange pumpkins add to the garden’s whimsical feel.

The Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden is a fully functioning garden, donating most of its produce to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, but it is also a space for discovery. Since its inception in 2012, the garden has sought to foster curiosity about gardening and the natural world.

The garden also houses a chicken coop, which Holmes says is constructed out of recycled materials from local factories. Holmes picks up a white silkie chicken, holding her gently before prompting her to join the others in the enclosure outside. He tells me she’s acting “broody,” exhibiting a tendency to behave as though she is incubating eggs.

Jason Holmes with one of the chickens. Holmes also cares for chickens at his home, but not because he wants to eat their eggs. He considers them “companions” instead.

When I ask Holmes about Charlotte Brody, he describes a woman who lived in Kinston, North Carolina, and invited kids to her home to learn about organic gardening and discover its joys for themselves. Holmes says Brody had a “whimsical, free approach” to gardening.

“Whimsical” describes this garden well. Tiny, orange spheres dangling from bushes. A tree frog peering out from a pollinator house. Hand-written signs nestled amongst peppers, offering recipes for “Peri-Peri Sauce” and “Hot Honey.” Everything from cacti to chickens to oranges coexisting peacefully in the same garden.

Before I leave, I linger under the arbor. The sun streams through the dome above me. The frog is still hiding in the same pollinator house as before. Looking around, I see more than a small garden. I see the legacy of a woman who devoted her time to gardening joyfully and sustainably and teaching others to do the same.

The arbor at the entrance to the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden. Despite the rain earlier in the afternoon, the sun had come out again by the time I left.

Jason Holmes, Nick Schwab, and the many workers and volunteers who have put their time and effort into this garden are continuing that legacy. Holmes hopes that visitors will find inspiration here, whatever that means to them. I know I did, and next time I come back, I’ll wander the paths and notice the changing seasons, ready to be inspired again.

By Sophia Cox, Class of 2025

New Blogger Vibhav Nandagiri: The Curious Student Blogger

By Vibhav Nandagiri

On September 27, 2021

In Biomedical Engineering, Cardiology, Global Health, Neuroscience, Science Communication & Education, Students

Hey everyone! My name is Vibhav Nandagiri, I use he/him/his pronouns, and I’m currently a first-year student at Duke. Amidst the sea of continuous transition brought upon by college, one area of my identity that has stayed fairly constant is my geography. I’ve lived in North Carolina for sixteen of my eighteen years, and my current home lies just twenty minutes from campus in sunny, suburban Cary, NC.

The two missing years are accounted for through my adventures in my parents’ hometown–Hyderabad, India–as a toddler. Spending some of my earliest years surrounded by a large and loving family impacted my life profoundly, forever cementing a strong connection to my emotional, cultural, and linguistic roots.

The latter had a secondary impact on me, one I wouldn’t discover until my parents enrolled me in preschool after returning to the States. With hubris, I marched into my first day of class, ready to seize the day, until I soon discovered an uncomfortable fact: I couldn’t speak English. I am told through some unfortunate stories that I struggled considerably during my first month in a new, Anglicized environment; however, I soon learned the quirks of this language, and two-year-old me, perhaps realizing that he had some catching up to do, fully immersed himself in the English language.

Nowadays, I read quite a bit. Fiction and journalism, academic and satire, I firmly believe that all styles of literature play a role in educating people on the ebbs and flows of our world. In recent years, I’ve developed a thematic fascination with the future. The genre of far-future science fiction, with its rich exploration of hypothetical advanced societies, has led me to ask pressing questions about the future of the human species. How will society organize itself politically? What are the ethical implications of future medical advancements? Will we achieve a healthy symbiosis with technology? As a Duke Research Blogger, I hope to find answers to these questions while getting a front-row, multidisciplinary seat to what the future has to offer. It’s an invigorating opportunity to grow as a writer and communicator, to have my curiosity piqued on a weekly basis, to understand the futuristic visions of innovators at the top of their field.

Prior to Duke, I had the opportunity to conduct research at the Appalachian State University Pediatric Exercise and Physiology Lab, where I co-authored a published paper about adolescent fat metabolism. Not only was I introduced to the academic research process, but I also learned the importance of communicating my findings clearly through writing and presentations. I intend to bring these valuable lessons and perspectives to the Duke Research Blog.

Beyond exercise science, I am intrigued by a diverse range of research areas, from Public Health to Climate Change to Business to Neuroscience, the latter of which I hope to explore further through the Cognitive Neuroscience and Law FOCUS. I was drawn to the program for the opportunity to build strong relationships with professors and investigators; I intend to approach my work at the Duke Research Blog with a similar keenness to listen and connect with researchers and readers alike. When I’m not reading or typing away furiously at my computer, you can find me hitting on the tennis courts, singing Choral or Indian Classical music, or convincing my friends that my music taste is better than theirs.

Post By Vibhav Nandagiri, Class of 2025

New Blogger Nhu Bui: Discovering Science Communication

By Nhu Bui

On September 23, 2021

In Animals, Policy, Science Communication & Education, Students

My name is Nhu Bui, pronounced “New Buoy.” I’m a sophomore from Cypress, Texas hoping to major in Environmental Science & Policy and English (that’s only two, I promise), and I’m thrilled to join the Duke Research Blog team.

I’ve loved science ever since I could waddle into my backyard to catch ladybugs and earthworms. For the longest time, I was convinced I was going to be a zookeeper, or maybe a veterinarian – anything that would allow me to work with animals. (I also toyed with the idea of becoming a physician, treating the most ferocious of creatures.) But I also knew that reading and writing were my fortes and that I was always happier in a library than in a laboratory.

In high school, I joined the speech and debate team. My primary (and favorite) event was informative speaking: 10 minutes of educational entertainment on a topic of choice. I always chose to speak on environmental issues – from bees to coral reefs – and I loved it. The event was my perfect storm of science and communications… so imagine my excitement upon entering college and discovering that science communication is a whole thing.

Some highlights of my informative visual aids

With the blog, I hope to be able to discover new interests and explore my intrigues across the wide world of research at Duke University. But most importantly, I hope to be able to hone my craft. Effective science communication is more crucial than ever; issues like climate change and vaccination impact every aspect of life, but the public’s view of science is mired in perceptions of bias and manipulation. While science and politics are inextricable, trust and awareness are critical for a functioning society.

Of course, constantly questioning the world is also critical – it’s the foundation of scientific discovery – but as with everything, it’s all about balance. Who knows where that balance is? I’m still looking for it myself, but I’m hoping that joining the Duke Research Blog will help me on the way.

Keeping a respectful distance while admiring monkeys.

Outside of my love for science and writing, here are the most important things to know about me: my favorite movies are Paddington 1 and 2 (can’t choose), my top genre on Spotify is show tunes (I’ve never done theater), and I once walked through a Whataburger drive-thru (it’s a Texas thing).

Thanks for getting to know me, and I hope to see you back on the blog soon!

Post by Nhu Bui, Class of 2024

New Blogger Sophie Cox: Keep Asking Questions

By Sophie Cox

On September 23, 2021

In Animals, Biology, Science Communication & Education, Students

Typing with one hand, especially my left hand, is not easy, but my right hand is currently occupied by freeze-dried mealworms and, momentarily, by a chittering wild bird.

My eagle-eyed supervisor is a Carolina wren, South Carolina’s official state bird.

“You have babies, don’t you?” I mutter as a small, brown bird with a white eyestripe wraps her long toes around my fingers.

She doesn’t answer–she never does–but she flutters repeatedly to my socked feet and from there to my hand, where she selects a mealworm and then flies to a flower box on my neighbor’s mailbox.

This bird and her mate are the pair of Carolina wrens who have spent the past year training me to hand-feed them. Life hack: if you’re being cornered by wild birds every time you step outside, I suggest keeping a bag of dried mealworms in your pocket.

I want to investigate the flower box, but I don’t want to betray the trust I’ve worked so hard to build. Instead, I wait until my little friend finishes her ritual before approaching the mailbox.

Among the fake hydrangea blossoms, I see a scruffy head poking out. Judging by its size, the youngster looks about ready to leave the nest. With a smile, I turn and walk away.

Along with observing wildlife, I enjoy reading, writing, playing board games, and spending time outside.

My name is Sophie, and I’m a freshman at Duke. At home in upstate South Carolina, I can often be found smearing fruity, fermenting moth bait onto tree trunks at dusk or curled up in a hammock swing with a good book while the Carolina wrens do their best to distract me.

They each have their own personalities (which is partly how I tell them apart), but both birds strike me as curious and even intelligent.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if Carolina wrens belong on the growing list of animals believed to possess theory of mind, the ability to understand mental states and to recognize that others’ thoughts and beliefs can differ from one’s own.

I have always associated the natural world with a sense of wonder that borders on enchantment.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I plan to major in biology. My lifelong aspiration to study science hasn’t faded, but science should be accessible to everyone, scientists or not. That is partly why I want to work for Duke’s research blog.

If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it’s the importance of having access to accurate information we can trust. Too often, data is manipulated and obscured, twisting facts and turning science into a political minefield. That should never be acceptable. My favorite news
sources are those that effectively bridge the gap between academia and the general public, providing information that is digestible and engaging without sacrificing scientific integrity.

Judging by the articles I have read, Duke’s research blog has a similar mission, and it’s a mission I firmly believe in.

Science is full of unanswered questions. At its simplest, my goal for the future is the same as it was ten years ago: to answer some of those questions.

This summer, I worked as a counselor and nature instructor at a residential summer camp. Campers often approached me throughout the day to enthusiastically describe their encounters with click beetles, squirrels, and frogs. I saw in their eyes the same exhilaration I feel when the Carolina wrens’ amber eyes meet mine or when a shimmery, pale golden moth flutters across my pajamas and then disappears soundlessly into the night, as beautiful and ephemeral as a
moonbeam.

One young boy, a seven-year-old who reminded me of myself at his age, was fascinated by my field guide to insects and spiders of North America. Again and again, he’d point to an insect or spider or worm, then hand the field guide to me and wait for me to find the right page. At one point, he even retrieved the book from my backpack. I don’t know if he could read, but he knew what the book was for, and he cared. He could neither hear nor speak, but maybe, in the end, it didn’t matter. You don’t need words to flip over stones and marvel at the life hidden beneath.

People want scientific knowledge. Studying science — and not just as scientists — brings us so tantalizingly close to the mysterious, the undiscovered, the unknown. Science is more than petri dishes, graphs, and Latin jargon. It is a world full of questions waiting to be asked. In my own scientific writing, mostly in the form of nature journals, I strive to be methodical but not impersonal. My goal as a blogger is similar: to be accurate and objective without sacrificing the mystery and excitement that makes science so engaging to begin with.

After college, I hope to pursue ecological field research. In the meantime, I’ll keep exploring. I’ll keep flipping over stones. I’ll keep talking to the wrens, even if they never talk back, and wondering what they’re thinking when their gaze meets mine. In short, I’ll keep asking questions. I think you should, too.

Post by Sophie Cox, Class of 2025

A Look Inside the Most Dynamic Criminal Trial of 2021

By Skylar Hughes

On September 22, 2021

In Behavior/Psychology, Lecture

“You were told, for example, that Mr. Floyd died because his heart was too big. You heard that testimony… the truth of the matter is – that the reason George Floyd is dead is because Mr. Chauvin’s heart was too small.”

– Jerry Blackwell

George Floyd holding his now 7-year-old daughter, Gianna Floyd.

May 25, 2020 was a day that shook the United States to its core. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black father was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by white police officer Derek Chauvin. Police brutality is nothing new to America, but the barbarity of this incident sparked international outrage, leading to the reignition of the Black Lives Matter movement, worldwide protests, and national polarization.

On Sept. 20 at Duke Law, political science professor Kerry L. Haynie and law professors Timothy Lovelace and Trina Jones had the opportunity to converse in a virtual panel discussion with Jerry Blackwell, the lead prosecutor for the George Floyd trial.

“The unique thing about this case was that George Floyd died in all of our living rooms,” Blackwell began. “The people wearing the badge who are supposed to protect the people almost made me feel like an object that could be brutalized.”

Blackwell, a North Carolina native, said he sympathized with George Floyd, not in the direct sense of being brutalized, but from other dehumanizing injustices by police, such as being pulled over without reason, being racially profiled, and being questioned without a warrant.

Lead Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell during the Derek Chauvin trial.

Blackwell’s involvement with the case launched with a call from Attorney General Keith Ellison, the first Black attorney general in the state of Minnesota. “Happenstance” was how Blackwell described his acquisition of the case. He explained that his law firm, Blackwell Burke, practiced trial law and that this was a criminal case, causing potential issues in participation. Regardless, he wanted to help in any way that he could, especially since the incident happened in Minneapolis, where he lives.

Blackwell thought he would be “helping with costumes and hemming the curtains,” helping other criminal lawyers get ready for the trial, maintaining a more behind-the-scenes position. He joined on a pro bono basis, meaning he did not get paid, but after a few weeks, he ended up becoming the Lead Prosecutor for the case.

During his work, Blackwell said he encountered a plethora of obstacles, one of which was the issue of American History. Since the onset of the civil rights movement, attempting to commit a white police officer for the brutalization of an African American is a rare and arduous thing. “So many citizens don’t want to believe that police officers would ever do that,” thinking instead that there had to be some confusion going on, that if given more time, there would have been a different reaction. The assumption that cases like these represent a situational issue and not a personal one is one of the factors responsible for the current lack of accountability in the justice system.

There was also the concern of drugs being in Floyd’s system at the time of the murder.

“Some jurors might hear ‘drug equals thug’ and a thug isn’t a thing a juror would rule in favor of against a white police officer.” Blackwell said. It was important to him that his team prove without a doubt that drugs were not his cause of death, so they could turn their attention to incriminating Derek Chauvin. Blackwell was also questioned by his team on whether he held enough objectivity to handle this case since he had lived similar experiences as a black man.

During the three-week trial, Blackwell remained hopeful about the outcome of the case, even though it was extremely difficult at times.

Officer Derek Chauvin moments before the final verdict was given.

He opened up about having white counterparts who expressed, “How hard can it be, with video proof?” and explained that when it comes to the issue of social justice, just because everyone has seen it doesn’t mean the verdict will be any different.

“Every African American was on the edge of their seats, and I was too,” he said. After deliberating for around 10 hours over a two-day period, the jury found Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder and he was later sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.

Justice was served, right?

According to Blackwell, it wasn’t. “Don’t call it justice, because if it were, George Floyd would still be alive.”

Post by Skylar Hughes, Class of 2025

Cemetery, Community, Classroom: Collaborating to Honor the Dead

By Zella Hanson

On September 21, 2021

In Art, Business/Economics, Environment/Sustainability, Faculty, Policy, Responsible Conduct, Students

The institutional neglect and indignity faced by many African Americans during and after the Jim Crow era in the South didn’t end when their lives did. In a panel hosted by the Duke Office of Durham & Community Affairs on Sept. 10, a community leader, Duke professor, and undergraduate student discussed some of the work they are doing to combat the marginalization of Durham’s deceased in Geer Cemetery, two miles from Duke’s campus.

Debra Taylor Gonzalez-Garcia, President, Friends of Geer Cemetery

Founded on land purchased from Frederick and Polly Geer by John O’Daniel, Nelson Mitchell, and Willie Moore in 1877, Geer Cemetery is the final resting place for over 3000 of Durham’s African American citizens. As Maplewood Cemetery was segregated, from 1877 until the opening of Beechwood cemetery in 1924 Geer served as the only cemetery for the African American dead. Lacking public funding and under fire from the health department for overcrowding, Geer Cemetery closed in the 1930s and, in the absence of a plan for its continued upkeep, fell into a state of disrepair.

President of Friends of Geer Cemetery Debra Taylor Gonzalez-Garcia provided a brief history of Geer Cemetery.

The nonprofit Friends of Geer Cemetery was formed in 2003 by “concerned citizens and neighbors” and has worked to “restore the cemetery’s grounds and research its histories” under their mission statement “restore, reclaim, respect.” According to Gonzalez-Garcia, work consists of maintaining the cemetery grounds, repairing headstones, writing life stories, and advocating for recognition.

Friends of Geer Cemetery has accomplished a lot in terms of restoration: in 2004 the cemetery was unrecognizable, with broken headstones, overgrowth, and sunken burials. Today, with the help of Keep Durham Beautiful, Preservation Durham, and other volunteers, the entire cemetery can now be easily viewed.

The organization also continues to work tirelessly toward their other objectives, reclamation and respect. By mining local records, research volunteers have created a database which includes approximately 1,651 burials, but efforts are ongoing.

Gonzalez-Garcia expressed excitement about the organization receiving grant funding for an archaeological survey. “[The survey] will help us to map out burials, because currently, there is no map,” Gonzalez-Garcia said. “We aren’t sure where people are buried.”

The community leader discussed how efforts to reclaim Geer Cemetery bring about questions that reckon with white supremacy in general. “We’re not told stories of the African Americans who built Durham,” Gonzalez-Garcia said. “Why do we know so much about Washington Duke, and nothing of Augustus Shepard? Why should Maplewood still exist and not Geer Cemetery?”

Associate Professor of the Practice in International Comparative Studies Adam Rosenblatt expressed his interest in how care for the dead is “bound up with human rights and social justice.” This interest is personal: he has his own graveless ancestors who disappeared in the Holocaust. He expressed his passion for educating others about “places of mourning in our midst” through “community-engaged” scholarship.

Along with Gonzalez-Garcia, Rosenblatt sponsored a Story+ program at Duke entitled Geer Cemetery: Labor, Dignity, and Practices of Freedom in an African American Burial Ground. With the help of sponsors and a graduate mentor, Duke undergraduates Nyrobi Manuel, Kerry Rork, and Huiyin Zhou researched the cemetery closely in order to “uncover the stories of ordinary citizens and add these stories back into the historic narrative about Geer.” The researchers produced three unique, interactive digital projects which will contribute to the Friends of Geer Cemetery’s online platform for education and outreach.

Rosenblatt discussed one challenge the Story+ engaged with: What really constitutes a human subject? The IRB’s definition doesn’t include the dead; there’s no IRB protocols for researching the dead and their stories. Many archives disappear entirely, or are fragmented.

Nyrobi Manuel, a Duke undergraduate, was one of Rosenblatt and Golzalez-Garcia’s mentees. Manuel took Rosenblatt’s course “Death, Burial, and Justice in the Americas” and says the course inspired her to dig deeper into African American death practices. Through the Story+, Manuel researched John C. Scarborough, who established the fifth-oldest Black-owned funeral home in the country. She produced a project entitled “Scarborough and Hargett Funeral Home: Dignified Death and Compassion in the Black Community.”

Manuel discussed her findings. Many funeral directors became important figures in their community, and John C. Scarborough was no different. A philanthropist and important community member, he helped to establish Scarborough Nursery School, North Carolina’s oldest licensed nursery school.

What’s always drawn Gonzalez-Garcia to Geer Cemetery is its “quiet beauty” and sense of connection. Though her ancestors are buried in Virginia, where she’s from, Geer Cemetery seeks to tell stories of African Americans through “emancipation and reconstruction: throughout history.” Geer is special because it seeks to tell the story of her “blood relatives” while also celebrating the history of Durham, which, she said fondly, is “my community now.”