Research Blog

Four Things You May Not Know about Ecologist E.O. Wilson

On February 12, 2014

In Animals, Biology, Climate/Global Change, Environment/Sustainability, Lecture

By Erin Weeks

Edward O Wilson Red Hills, Aalabama 2010 by Beth Maynor Young 6x9_0

(Photo: Beth Maynor Young)

Edward O. Wilson is one of the most renowned living biologists, the world’s foremost authority on ants, and for a little while at least, a member of the Duke faculty.

Wilson is on campus teaching the first of an annual course, part of a recent partnership between the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation and Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Feb. 11, he spoke to a sold-out auditorium about “The Diversity of Life,” a lecture that was equal parts awe-inspiring facts, humorous anecdotes from a life in science and call to arms for future generations.

Here are four things the audience learned last night about E.O. Wilson.

1. He’s dabbled in dreams of Jurassic Park. When asked what he thought of de-extinction, the plan to resurrect vanished species using their DNA, Wilson enumerated all the reasons why the efforts may be futile: we have only genetic shreds; the appropriate habitat may be gone; we can’t produce breeding populations from limited DNA.

But then he paused. “I’ll tell you frankly,” he said, “I’d like to see a mammoth.”

2. He made his first scientific discovery as an adolescent. An eye permanently damaged in a fishing accident led the young Wilson to his interest in ants, which he could view up close. One day in his native Alabama, he discovered a ferocious mound-building species he’d never seen before. He didn’t recognize it then, but those were among the first of the destructive red fire ants that would soon invade the entire Southeast, causing billions of dollars of economic and medical damage.

3. The man is 84 and still going strong. Professor Wilson closed his talk with a passage from his newest book, arriving in April, called “A Window on Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk Through Gorongosa National Park.” He’s written two dozen other books, including a foray into fiction at age 80 (the novel, called Anthill, won him the 2010 Heartland Prize for fiction).

4. The future is in nematodes. Or fungi. Or Archaea. Throughout the talk, Wilson reiterated his hopes for young scientists to become the cataloguers and guardians of Earth’s immense biological diversity. Only a fraction of the planet’s estimated species of nematodes, fungi and Archaea are known to science, and “these little things run the world,” he said.

The need for “-ologists” has never been greater, he said.

(Photo: Jared Lazarus)

VIEW THE ENTIRE TALK (YouTube, 1:10 with introductions)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-DZ0CUKn2Y?rel=0]

Inside the Monkey Brain

By Ashley Mooney

On February 12, 2014

In Animals, Behavior/Psychology, Field Research, Neuroscience

By Ashley Mooney

Both in the lab and on a tropical island, primate behaviors can shed light on social-decision making.

To fully understand the biology of social-decision making, Michael Platt, director of the Duke Institute for Brain Science, conducts lab work at Duke and field research an island off the coast of Puerto Rico called Cayo Santiago. His research focuses on understanding both the physiological and social aspects of decision making.

“Our brains are exquisitely tuned to making [social] decisions and acquiring the information to inform them,” Platt said. “When these processes go awry, as occurs in disorders like autism, schizophrenia or anxiety disorders, the consequences can be devastating.”

Courtesy of Lauren Brent.

Platt’s group uses rhesus macaques as model animals because of their strong behavioral, physiological and neurobiological similarity to humans. But understanding how the monkey brain—and thus the human brain—works requires both laboratory-based biological information and social studies in a natural environment.

Researchers can combine the knowledge they gain from lab and field studies to create a holistic picture of the biological basis of behavior, said Lauren Brent, associate research fellow at the University of Exeter who did her post-doc with Platt at Duke.

Lab studies are best suited for quantitative, repeatable studies in which variables can be precisely controlled, Platt said. On the other hand, field studies emphasize external validity and an animal’s response in its natural conditions, but are not suitable for determining precise measurements of internal processes.

In the lab, Platt’s group studies the neural mechanisms that mediate prosocial and antisocial decisions, Platt said. They can also study the ways in which humans can enhance prosocial decisions using pharmacological or behavioral interventions.

On Cayo, the researchers are exploring the genetic factors that shape individual differences in social behavior and decision-making in free-living monkeys. They use observations, behavioral experiments and blood and fecal samples to study the monkeys non-invasively.

“The project on Cayo and the work that goes on the lab are complementary in the best sense because we can do things on Cayo that we can’t do in the lab,” Brent said. “For example, we have hundreds of monkeys, of known pedigree, interacting with each other in a purely spontaneous and naturalistic fashion. You can’t get that in a lab.”

Lauren Brent conducting behavioral observations on Cayo. Courtesy of Lauren Brent.

Although working with free-ranging monkeys can produce more naturalistic results, Brent noted that there are drawbacks to working in the field.

“Working with monkeys in the field is painstaking,” Brent said. “You need to be physically fit, but moreover it is a mentally demanding thing to do because you need to pay close attention to everything that is going on in the group at all times so that the data are as finely detailed and accurate as possible.”

Brent found that a monkey’s position in its social network is heritable and can impact the survival of its infants. She determined a monkey’s social connections using grooming and spatial proximity, or how long one monkey spends sitting next to other monkeys.

“Regardless of how big your family is, monkeys who are better connected in the grooming network have greater reproductive success,” Brent said. “Together, these results suggest that social interactions have adaptive benefits and are something on which selection has acted.”

Deconstructing the HS Textbook: A perspective from Steve Nowicki

By Olivia Zhu

On February 12, 2014

In Biology, Science Communication & Education

Nowicki's original version of his textbook, published by the family-owned McDougall-Littell. Nowicki railed against the organization of the new corporation, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, owned by people somewhere in the Arab Emirates.

Nowicki’s original version of his textbook, published by the family-owned McDougall-Littell. It’s now published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

By Olivia Zhu

Today I learned that Steve Nowicki wrote my ninth grade biology textbook! Dr. Nowicki, most commonly known for his neurobiology research in birdsong or his role as Dean and Vice Provost for undergraduate education, gave a lecture about his experience writing a high school textbook on Tuesday, February 11, through Bass Connections.

Nowicki shed light into the seven-year process of writing a textbook. He said the table of contents itself took two years. After drafting an initial table of contents, Nowicki sent it to nationwide teacher focus groups—multiple times—for revisions. He then edited the table of contents to meet each individual state’s standards, a process complicated by No Child Left Behind. As for the actual writing process? “I could send the editors crap,” Nowicki confessed. The editors would then turn crap into “better crap.”

Dean Nowicki’s official portrait

Nowicki then faced more challenges. He described the struggle of biology textbook companies against the Texas state government, whose governor and chair of state education simply did not believe in evolution. The legislature ultimately allowed the teaching of evolution, mostly in the interest of attracting businesses, in Nowicki’s opinion. The opposition got personal as well. Nowicki said that in the Los Angeles Unified School District, competing textbook companies spread smear sheets about him questioning his credentials as a scientist and the quality of his book.

Ultimately, Nowicki put forth tremendous effort into writing a textbook that still stands as the biology book for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, but said it did little for his CV and didn’t turn much profit.

Still, he said he feels rewarded because he believes “each average citizen should know something about biology,” if only to be thoroughly informed of current issues.

Advice in the "Love Market" from Dan Ariely

By Olivia Zhu

On February 11, 2014

In Behavior/Psychology, Business/Economics, Faculty, Lecture

In a simulation in which he doled out five dollars to every audience member, Ariely demonstrated that a small gender inequality leads to an enormous balance of power. One gender would be competing, in this case paying, for a partner of the opposite sex, and thus expending all of their resources supply and demand-style.

By Olivia Zhu

With Valentine’s Day approaching—ripe with the promise of love for some and fraught with the bitter reminder of love unfulfilled for others—Duke professor Dan Ariely shared what he’s learned about the “love market” by analyzing romance from a behavioral economic perspective.

Starting with the premise of assortative mating—the principle that “hot” people date “hot” people, and “not hot” people date others who are “not hot”—Ariely asked how the “not hot” psychologically cope with their “unattractive” partners. His answer: “not hot” people “reframe what is important to them” and focus on non-physical qualities, like humor.

Using regression-based labor analysis, Ariely discovered that the most attractive quality in men was height. In fact, for a 5’ 9” man to be equally attractive to a 5’ 10” man, he would have to make $40,000 more in salary per year. Not to fear—men were equally shallow. The most attractive quality in a woman was BMI, with the optimal being 18.5 (slightly underweight). No amount of money could make up for a woman’s BMI; men didn’t care about a woman’s salary or her graduate degree.

Ariely also discussed the pitfalls of online dating. Online dating often ends in repeated disappointment, he said, not only because of embellished profiles, but because your imagination fills in the gaps of a potential date’s personality with ideal, untrue qualities. Moreover, online dating is inefficient, with an exchange rate of six hours of talking for one coffee date.

To improve your online dating experience, Ariely suggested “going and doing stuff together,” even if in an online environment, and asking provoking questions about past relationships and sexual fantasies rather than sticking with mundane, interview-style dates. He also found that too many online “options” decreased one’s happiness by making one pickier. Perhaps we shouldn’t have so much freedom in our love lives, after all.

Why Cute Babies are a Cognitive Illusion

By sa160@duke.edu

On February 11, 2014

In Behavior/Psychology, Lecture, Neuroscience

By Nonie Arora

Daniel Dennett, Co-Director Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, spoke last week to a packed room at Duke University’s annual Mind, Brain, and Behavior lecture. He said that The Hard Problem of Consciousness, which describes how we have subjective conscious experiences, rests on a series of straightforward mistakes.

“The Hard Problem is a cognitive illusion,” Dennett said.

Cartesian Theater. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Dennett’s conclusion rests on two tenets: (1) there is no Cartesian theater and (2) there is no second transduction. The Cartesian theater is an image of a place where the show happens; Dennett said it is where the decisions get made, according to some philosophers.

The second transduction is the idea that the nervous system first converts outer stimuli to neural signals and then the brain translates these signals to some other medium of consciousness, as originally suggested by Descartes. Some theorists still believe that there is a second transduction into a physical medium in the brain that has not been identified, but according to Dennett’s book Kinds of Minds, this idea is a myth.

Dennett said that the features in our brain are more similar to DVDs than to cinema films. They are not iconic. If you show a caveman a DVD, what will he think? He’ll think: where are the mini pictures, where is the sound? Anybody who thinks that there is a Hard Problem is making the analogous naive error about consciousness, Dennett explained.

Depiction of consciousness. Credit: New Yorker 1969 Saul Steinberg

We are the “unwitting creators of fiction,” he said. “Babies are not inherently cute. They’re cute because we adore them. Shapes of babies faces stimulate nurturing behavior… This is an evolved adaptation. We misinterpret an inner reaction as an outer cause,” he said.

He believes that we project our innate predispositions into the manifest world. Thus, we have a propensity to think that babies are cute. “We have expectations about our expectations,” he said. “Not only do we feel the urge to reach out and cuddle, we expect to feel that urge. Our satisfaction of that expectation confirms our perception of cuteness of the baby.”

Interested in hearing more from Dennett?

Learn more about the illusion of consciousness or why babies aren’t actually cute.

Duke Labs Produce 2 Intel Talent Search Finalists

By Karl Bates

On February 9, 2014

In Biomedical Engineering, Medicine, Nanotech, Students

By Karl Leif Bates

Two North Carolina high school seniors who worked on their research projects in Duke University labs are among 40 students recently named finalists of the Intel Science Talent Search 2014.

Alec Arshavsky is a senior at East Chapel Hill High School

Alec Arshavsky, 17, of East Chapel Hill High School is being recognized for his project “Automatic Characterization of Donor Tissue for Corneal Transplantation Surgery.”

Arshavsky worked in the Duke lab of assistant professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering Sina Farsiu, developing an algorithm that automates the process of making precise measurements of a donor cornea for transplant. These measurements are currently being done laboriously by hand, and they ensure that the donor eye is healthy and will be compatible with a recipient’s anatomy and not change their vision too much.

Arshavsky spent two years working on his project, first learning the mathematical framework of image processing and then applying it to automate the process of analyzing corneal images from optical coherence tomography. His algorithm is currently being used in clinical trials. Arshavsky said he will pursue engineering in college but hasn’t chosen his school yet. Alec’s dad, Vadim Arshavsky, is a professor of ophthalmology and pharmacology at Duke.

Parth Thakker recently displayed a poster of his Duke research.

Parth Thakker, 17, of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, did his work, “Design, Assembly, and Optimization of Novel Zn_xSeAg_y Biocompatible Quantum Dot Sensitized Solar Cells” in the lab of Nico Hotz, an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke.

The Hotz group has been working on quantum dots for solar collection that don’t rely on toxic cadmium and lead, making them safe for skin contact. Thakker, who’s from Charlotte, said there might be an application for a wearable device like Google Glass that would benefit from a little safe solar power.

Thakker worked on his project over three months last summer, making some winning suggestions about counter-electrodes and new ways of depositing quantum dots on a substrate, “but it’s very much a group project,” he said. Thakker, who is also the student body president at NCSSM, will be headed to Harvard in the Fall, possibly to study chemistry. (He also gives a pretty good TV interview.)

March 6-12, Arshavsky, Thakker and the other 38 finalists will travel to Washington, D.C. for a week-long event to pick the Intel Science Talent Search winners. They’ll undergo a rigorous judging process not only on their own work, but also covering general problem-solving and scientific knowledge. “They want to see how you think,” Arshavsky said. The students will also get a chance to interact with leading scientists and national leaders and will display their research for the public at the National Geographic Society.

The top 10 winners will be announced at a black-tie, invite-only gala awards ceremony at the National Building Museum on March 11, 2014.

Alec presenting his work at the 2013 Annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in Seattle.

The prestigious contest awards $630,000 in prizes this year, with the first-place winner receiving $100,000 from the Intel Foundation. Many past winners have gone on to achieve great things, including eight Nobel Prizes, two Fields Medals, five National Medals of Science, 11 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships and an Academy Award for Best Actress (that would be Natalie Portman).

The following week, Arshavsky will be off to Beijing to present his work again, this time one of four students selected as winners of the North Carolina International Science Challenge.

Adventures in Sanitation and Synthetic Poop

By Erin Weeks

On February 5, 2014

In Engineering, Environment/Sustainability, Faculty, Field Research, Global Health

Assembling an anaerobic digestion toilet in Eldoret, Kenya (Photo: Marc Deshusses)

Assembling an anaerobic digestion toilet in Eldoret, Kenya (Photos: Aaron Forbis-Stokes, Deshusses Lab)

By Erin Weeks

Marc Deshusses spends a lot of time thinking about toilets.

A professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke, Deshusses studies and designs technologies to treat contaminated soil, air and water — and save lives in the process.

An estimated 2.6 billion people across the globe lack access to a safe way of disposing of human waste. Poor sanitation spreads waterborne and diarrheal diseases, contributing to the deaths of over half a million children a year.

“The problem is huge,” Deshusses said last week in a talk (watch it here) describing two of his lab’s recent projects to improve the sanitation crisis. “We’re trying hard, we’re working on our solutions, and we’re trying to make a dent in this massive problem.”

One of those solutions-in-progress is a low-tech anaerobic digester, a toilet system that relies on biogas (produced by bacteria when they break down the human waste) and a simple biogas-powered heater to sterilize the treated waste. Deshusses wanted the digester to be cheap and easy to assemble, so one prototype even included a heater made from an aluminum coffee canister and a tomato soup can.

But before Deshusses’ team could deploy the technology in the field, they had to test it in the lab. And to do that, without having to handle real (somewhat dangerous) sewage, they turned to a synthetic pee-and-poo product developed for NASA.

NASA cares deeply about this issue because the logistics of dealing with waste in space are even trickier than on earth. The Duke team tinkered with a recipe for synthetic poop, adapting a formula for “simulated human feces” published in 2006 by NASA-funded researchers. The chemical composition of human waste varies from person to person, but the imitation poop needed to achieve the right nitrogen content, salts content, and chemical/biochemical oxygen demand, all of which impact how bacteria will break the waste down. Deshusses’ lab mixed up vats of the ingredients below, which include some surprising candidates.

A recipe for human waste: from L-R (top row), yeast, polyethylene glycol, psyllium (a soluble fiber), miso, oleic acid; (bottom row) calcium chloride, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, cellulose, water.

A recipe for syn-poo: from L-R (top row), yeast, polyethylene glycol, psyllium (a soluble fiber), miso, oleic acid; (bottom row) calcium chloride, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, cellulose, water.

The finished product, ready to be anaerobically digested

In the lab, the bacteria broke down the synthetic waste, producing enough biogas to power the heater, which in turn sterilized the small amount of leftover sewage. After confirming the technology worked, local partners helped the team deploy prototype digester toilets in three locations around Eldoret, Kenya last summer. Through trial and error there, they’re learning how to make the system even better, so they can roll out deployment in more locations.

See a movie from the Pratt School of Engineering:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbEHVWEQ84Q?rel=0]

“There’s not a silver bullet,” Deshusses said, but added, “anaerobic digestion is simple, it works, and it has potential.”

The heat exchange system sitting in front of the anaerobic digestion vat

No syn-poo here: the completed system (heat exchanger in foreground, anaerobic digestion vat in back) is ready for the real thing.

Student Melissa Chieffe: Budding Conservation Biologist

By sa160@duke.edu

On February 5, 2014

In Animals, Biology, Field Research, Lemurs, Students

By Nonie Arora

Melissa Chieffe, a Junior Biology major, grew up outside Cleveland, Ohio and arrived at Duke enthusiastic about following a pre-vet path. As a freshman, she began volunteering at the Duke Lemur Center as a technician assistant. Through her work, she became interested in conservation in Madagascar and decided to apply to OTS – South Africa.

A map of Chieffe’s travels. Credit: Melissa Chieffe using Google Maps. (click on map to learn more)

Through OTS – South Africa, she had the opportunity to travel all around the region and work on three group research projects, focusing mainly on ecology and conservation in the Kruger National Park.

Melissa Chieffe. Credit: Liza Morse

In the first, she collected data for the Kruger long-term research initiative on vegetation changes caused by elephants. Specifically, she honed in on damage done to AppleLeaf trees (Philenoptera violacea) and assessed damage done to 175 trees of that species in the Kruger National Park. The study looked at bark stripping and toppling of trees caused by elephants. Bark stripping happens when elephants rub their tusks on trees; if the elephants remove too much mark the trees are more likely to die, according to Chieffe.

From their study, her team observed a bottleneck in tree size: the elephants generally knocked trees over before they could reach their mature height. Their preliminary data indicated that higher elephant population densities – combined with frequent burnings in the savannah – made it harder for trees to reach the mature stage.

In their independent research project, Chieffe and her group had the opportunity to work with a population of captive elephants. The elephant population in the Kruger National Park has been growing exponentially since the termination of culling operations in the 1990s, which is causing problems for the vegetation and the nearby rural farms, according to Chieffe. The elephants are known to destroy crops, fences, and storage facilities. The students looked into using bee hives as a deterrent for elephants. Chieffe explained that beehive fences could have great applications for conservation through community based conservation initiatives.

They used the sound of bees buzzing & the scent of honey to stand in as surrogates for bee hives. Wild elephants exhibited defensive retreating behaviors when exposed to the bee sounds and scents.

Chieffe learns to use camera traps (above) and photo of lion cubs taken by a camera trap (below). Credit: Melissa Chieffe

Chieffe learned to use camera traps (above) and made a photo of lion cubs with a camera trap (below). Credit: Melissa Chieffe

In her faculty field project, Chieffe worked with Professor Jeremy Bolton, an expert in the field, and Professor Tali Hoffman from the University of Cape Town to study camera traps. Chieffe’s team set up four camera traps at five different watering holes, which are known to act as “nodes of activity” for wildlife, to compare efficacy of two types of camera traps: field scan and motion sensor. Camera traps can be used to to record endangered animals and to survey biodiversity of an area.

“I enjoyed living in nature reserves, the national park, constantly surrounded by amazing researchers and scientists and others who are involved in conservation management. It was inspiring to live near them. We also got to present our findings to park management, which was awesome,” Chieffe said.

The program has helped her further her ambitions in conservation biology.

“I thought it was a dream [to become a conservation biologist]. But meeting people who are actually doing what I now want to do has made it seem realistic,” Chieffe said. She hopes to continue with her research in South Africa on elephants and vegetation this summer.

Volunteer Network Shouldn't be Stranded and Dying

By Karl Bates

On February 4, 2014

In Animals, Biology, Field Research, Guest Post, Students

measurements on a dead dolphin (Photo: Susan Farley)

During a lab necroscopy, Dr. Vicky Thayer (left) takes measurements on a dead dolphin as student Samantha Emmert records the data. (Photo: Susan Farley)

Guest Post by Samantha Emmert, a Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology undergraduate at the Duke Marine Lab

The rolling sand dunes and gentle waves of Emerald Isle are so picturesque that I almost forget why I am there: to conduct a necropsy (autopsy on a non-human) on a stranded bottlenose dolphin. Vicky and I have been searching for the animal for about an hour now, driving up and down the beach. Suddenly, I catch a whiff of rotting flesh. Great! We’ve found it!

During my year at the Duke Marine Lab, I am volunteering for the North Carolina Central Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network. This is no normal year for the network and others like it on the east coast. In the last seven months, 1081 bottlenose dolphins have stranded between New York and Florida. This magnitude of strandings is almost ten times the average, and has therefore been declared an “Unusual Mortality Event” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The cause of these deaths? Morbillivirus, the disease family that includes human measles.

For Independent Study credit I have been collecting data about the stranded dolphins and comparing them to data from 1987-88, the last and only other time there was a morbillivirus Unusual Mortality Event affecting bottlenose dolphins. I have found that this event is following the patterns of 87-88 almost exactly, particularly in terms of the sex and age of dolphins, and when and where they are stranding. These patterns may be a strong indicator for the path of future events.

Dolphin strandings in the area are reported to Dr. Vicky Thayer, the network’s coordinator and a Duke alumna (M.E.M. 1982, Ph.D. 2008). Vicky then calls her volunteers, such as myself, to assist in a response. Today, the dolphin was freshly dead and in good shape for a full necropsy. As Vicky assesses the dolphin for signs of human interaction, I sharpen knives and prepare vials to hold tissue samples. I put on my boots, coveralls, and gloves (things are about to get bloody). Together, Vicky and I peel back blubber and slice through flesh in order to reach the organs that are most impacted by morbillivirus: the lungs, associated lymph nodes, and spinal cord.

This Unusual Mortality Event is not the only problem that the network has been facing this year. Their federal funding for the upcoming year was not renewed.

Many marine mammal rescue networks, such as this one, rely on the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant Program, established under amendments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. However, the number of networks that received awards declined from 39 in 2012 to 12 in 2013. Only two of those 2013 recipients are in the geographic range affected by the dolphin mortality, compared to 13 in 2012. Particularly during a time when they are busiest, the loss of funding has been a huge stress for the networks.

Samantha climbs out of a freshly dug beach grave for yet another dead dolphin.

Samantha and Vicky got to this dolphin just before town workers buried it on the beach and were able to get their tissue samples.

Throughout the necropsy, several fishermen stop by to ask what we are doing. They’ve been fishing on this beach for decades and are aware of the increased occurrence of strandings in the area. It is vital to us that they understand the importance of reporting stranded animals.

“As top predators in coastal waters, these animals are sentinels of ocean health. When they wash ashore in unprecedented numbers, we should direct our attention and funding to learn as much as we can about the cause,” Vicky explains while taking apart the carcass.

We reach the lungs and, sure enough, they are discolored and covered in lesions. We cut chunks from the lung, lung lymph node, and spinal cord and I squish them into small vials. They will be sent to a lab in California to be tested for morbillivirus. The data we record and samples we take will be useful for the many researchers interested in this event across the nation.

It is hard to say what will become of the NC Central Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network and others like it. Without renewed funding in the 2014 year, Vicky will be unable to continue the network and stranding response will stop in this area. Valuable data for long-term research on stranded animals will be lost. Live-stranded animals will die on beaches unaided. In order to protect and conserve these beloved species, the Prescott Grant and other funding sources must be made more readily available.

Beers with Bob — Without Beer

By sa160@duke.edu

On February 3, 2014

In Cardiology, Science Communication & Education, Students

By Nonie Arora

My living group, Round Table, had the opportunity to meet up with Dr. Bob Lefkowitz in his office for “Beers with Bob without Beer.” Arnab Chatterjee, a Pratt sophomore and one of our members, works in his research lab and arranged the meet-up…and later dropped the beer from our plans.

We enjoyed being immersed in Dr. Lefkowitz’s office. We saw the jersey, hanging from the “rafters”, that Coach K presented to him last year amidst cheers of “He’s so smart” from the Cameron Crazies.

He showed us a video – three times – of the first pitch he threw out for the Durham Bulls baseball game.

Dr. Lefkowitz’s biggest piece of advice to us all was to eat a square of chocolate every day. He jokingly attributes part of his Nobel prize to the threshold effect of upping his chocolate consumption from two squares a week to one a day just two months before receiving the call from Stockholm. That’s one recipe for success that I can get behind!

Round Table meets with Dr. Bob Lefkowitz. (Nonie’s just to the left of Bob in red top.)