When I read headlines like these, I imagine a bunch of scientists huddled around a table with a great big jigsaw puzzle in front of them. The “missing piece” feels like some neatly carved shape ready to fit neatly into a space made just for it. Science then feels like a multi-player virtual jigsaw, open to anyone across the globe, a race to find the same piece sometimes, with a combined goal of finishing the picture to neatly fit that on the box. The problem with this metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle is that the process of science is rarely neat and the findings even less so. They almost never fit into some existing known empty space between four corners. They almost never click magically like a lock and its key. No, that’s not really a fitting metaphor either. Science is messy. Worldwide cooperation within and across political boundaries is a constant struggle. Races are staggeringly competitive and not everyone starts at the same line. Science is not so much a puzzle as it is a collage. Yes, a riveting, constantly evolving combination of layers and underlying patterns that may appear mismatched on occasion and yet somehow blend together to tell a story. Sometimes more than one story even, for perspectives differ to some extent. The pieces and their places are not pre-decided, the corners and edges are flexible, and there is often room enough to add layers for the unknowns as they become known. A collage is dynamic. It allows for change, for building on existing knowledge, for learning and growth. Much thought and reflection goes into deciding which next magazine cut-out adds the most to the whole. What makes the story more comprehensive? What makes it more abstract? How to choose what makes the most sense? Side note: Before you ask “but why should it make sense?” and conflagrate this metaphor into an art vs. science thing, I will state that 1) Art and science have inspired each other since the beginning of time and often use similar creative processes; and 2) We want science to “make sense” and art to “speak to us”; I like to believe these responses are essentially the same, they create a similar sense of “feeling settled”, of comprehension, either by logic (science) or by relating to it (art). The greatest scientists are artists as well. - Albert Einstein I made collages as a child as part of school work (remember the brown paper scrapbooks?), of animals and fish and mountains and boats. I loved cutting and sticking things, and of course peeling off dried glue as if it were skin. Admittedly, I also collaged as a teen, of an actor that I am now grossly embarrassed by and an alt-metal band which is still one of my favourite bands. But, along with other traits lost to adulthood, like fast metabolism, I lost this one too. I’ve since rediscovered my joy in cutting and sticking things and the parallels between the process of collaging and science-ing. I also make postcard-size collages to snailmail to friends around the world; it reaches them faster than the scientific peer-reviewed publication process! That science requires creativity is not new information. Designing ecological experiments within constraints of time, space, money, and the unpredictability of nature and wildlife, requires innovation. The ability to think out-of-the-box. To brainstorm and develop ideas, throw them out and come up with some more, go out to the field, nature throws it out, come up with more ideas still. To troubleshoot on the spot, think on your feet, and change direction. To listen to your intuition at the right time. To spend time in the field observing with keen focus the workings of the natural world, to be patient and allow yourself to be inspired. All of this requires spirited dedication and openness, to learn from mistakes and improve, to figure out the mess, to draw meaning from the patterns beneath the mess. I’ve often wondered why I feel drawn to Jackson Pollock’s art, especially the drip painting style he is most known for and I now know why. At first glance, it just looks like a giant abstract mess, a seemingly random smattering of paint and brush strokes (see panel at the top of this page). It is not, in fact, a madman scrambling on the floor throwing paint on a canvas at random. Each sweep of the arm, each throw of paint, choice of colour and canvas size, were conscious decisions Pollock made towards building layers that together paint a story, that inspire further wonder and thought. I am unable to appreciate most Abstract Art, I just don’t get it. But Pollock’s “abstractions” resonate with me in much the same way as an experimental study design clicks and makes sense. Maybe reporters and science writers will come up with new metaphors to galvanize the thrill of scientific discoveries. If they still want to use the puzzle thing, well, it might be more fitting if it was a 3D puzzle with multiple permutations and combinations, allowing for a few different outcomes and not just the one on the box. Either way, I'll be here cutting and sticking things, making collages and running models with combinations of variables to see which makes the most sense, which best explains or mirrors our observations of the world, which one is the best fit (statisticians will get this pun). Not perfect, not neatly cut, but the best fit given a set of constraints. May we continue to be puzzled by the the mysteries of the world. May we remain open to new findings even as they challenge old learnings. P.S. I love jigsaw puzzles.
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In a world with limited funding and fast-vanishing space, most conservationists work towards preservation and management of existing animal populations within available land. They work to prevent extinctions. However, there are also those who would rather apply their efforts towards resurrecting extinct animals. This ideology may seem a bit far-fetched and is not particularly popular with the larger community. From minor scepticism of the methods used, to outright dismissal of the entire concept, the idea of recreating extinct animals tends to divide a room. Torill Kornfeldt’s book, The Re-Origin of Species: A Second Chance for Extinct Animals attempts to bring these disparate opinions to the table and provides plenty of food for thought.
The resurrection of extinct species is definite cause for trepidation. There are too many movies out there with apocalyptic settings and out-of-control dinosaurs. The author shares similar concerns and sets out in search of meaning and reason behind the concept, taking us with her to meetings with scientists across the world. If we are resurrecting species, how do we decide which species to recreate? If a species has been extinct for 10,000 years should we invest time and money in bringing it back? What about a species that went extinct only 100 years ago? Or one that is not yet extinct but stands on its precipice? Will it be a real mammoth if we’re only tinkering the DNA of an elephant to produce certain mammoth-like features? Kornfeldt does not want to give us the answer. Possibly because it is a philosophical question that we need to present to ourselves. The book acts as a guide on this journey, providing an insightful blend of scientific objectivity and dilemmatic humanity. The words encourage the reader to think about where they stand on the spectrum, how they might feel about having mammoth-like creatures roaming the Arctic scapes or cowering under the poop shower of a hundred thousand passing passenger pigeons. Each chapter is dedicated to ongoing ‘de-extinction’ projects on species – mammoths, passenger pigeons, bucardo (Iberian ibex), aurochs – and explains key concepts and methods involved in bringing back the dead. Since supernatural spell-casters are highly elusive, we are left with expert scientists and tiny cells in petridishes that are not nearly as insignificant as they may appear to be. The author does well to articulate with simple and relevant analogies complex methods such as genome sequencing and CRISPR (which is all the latest buzz). The writing maintains a good balance between the ethical and logistical complexities involved in species revival. Periodically, Kornfeldt brings the mystical back to the courtroom of reality; it is not about the first passenger pigeon or even the first 100 pigeons. This would be a technological advancement indeed. But the aim of species revival, at least with the passenger pigeon, is to restore earlier processes of ecosystem functioning. And to have any intended impact on the ecosystem, we have to not only create many pigeons but we also have to figure out how to get passenger pigeons to form large flocks (hundreds of thousands in one flock), the way they used to in the 19th century. This is a mighty task, given that the cells in the petridish are still years from taking flight. Maybe reviving extinct species is not altogether a bad idea. Take the northern white rhinoceros, for example. They are viably extinct today, with only two females and no males remaining. As recent as September 2019, scientists were able to create two embryos using eggs from females and frozen sperm from dead males. The embryos are on their way to a surrogate southern white female rhino. The long-term goal is to recover this species and hopefully safeguard it from the very threats that drove it to the edge of extinction. Before this book, I didn’t think to consider the role of mammoths in keeping carbon dioxide locked into the permafrost in Siberia’s vast tracts. As temperatures continue to rise, the ice breaks and carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, further increasing temperatures. If mammoths were present, they would compact the snow with their movements to insulate the frozen layers beneath, while also encouraging growth of light-coloured grass (which would reflect the sun’s warmth), overall preventing the ice from melting and keeping the greenhouse gas trapped. Why mammoths? Why not introduce a similar species to fill that niche? The scientist working on this project currently drives around an old Soviet armoured tank to simulate a mammoth knocking down trees, and he hopes it’s only temporary. Even though the book briefly mentions the threats that drive a species towards extinction, it does not spend much on it. The author does acknowledge that these threats need to be addressed, perhaps simultaneously, but prefers placing the context of the book squarely on a post-damage situation, to focus on the philosophical debate around de-extinction rather than the causes of species decline. Easily the best feature of this book – it’s backbone – is how it constantly initiates discussions on the morality of de-extinction. It asks the big questions of whether we should even bring back extinct species or not, how it may affect the way we interact with nature and our current views on conservation, whether it may inadvertently make us complacent to species on the edge, and what if the worst happens and we suddenly find ourselves in Jurassic Park part 6 without Jeff Goldblum. The voice of the author at times trembles with uncertainty, fills with hope, shivers a little while pondering the whys and hows of de-extinction. As a reader, you may find her words mirroring yours – trying to choose which side of the fence to land on. I’m left wondering if the appeal of species revival, like other concepts in conservation, depends on context. I would have liked for the author to arrive at a decision, albeit for herself, in any one species revival project, and share her reason with the readers, as an example of how to navigate this “philosophical quibble in my (own) mind.” If we are indeed re-creating species, I find myself more accepting of the rhino project than the mammoth project for instance, and even then only after completely eliminating poaching and other threats to rhinos. Can we truly predict and prevent any possible mishap in the re-origin of species? Where would you draw the line? *Originally published in Current Conservation 13.4 This is not a story of me travelling with a backpack. This is a story of a backpack travelling the world, with me.
My uncle gave me a dark blue JanSport backpack when I was in the ninth grade. It had two large compartments in the back, no fancy laptop sleeve because that wasn’t a thing yet, one medium-sized front compartment with two pen pockets and one velcro eyeglass-case-shaped pouch, two smaller compartments in the front for an assortment of forgotten items, receipts, scraps of paper, earrings, coins, tampons, you name it. No side mesh areas for water bottles and no sturdy back support, just some light cushioning. All the compartments had two zippers each, except the two smallest ones. A great basic bag for daily functioning. It is now 2019, about 17 years after. I have used it almost every day since and I still use it today. Three zippers have been changed, the shoulder strap shows some fray, the back cushion is now odd lumps of sponge. It has been washed and cleaned often enough. In the last 15 years, the bag has carried notebooks, fat textbooks, to and from school and tuition classes, it has been stuffed with clothes and shoes and books, with binoculars and bird guides, with an extra jacket and snacks for cold morning treks, with thousands of liters of water through the years, with a heavy 15.6” laptop before, a lighter one now, with pens and pencils and a little blue book with tiny squares and scribbles, with jute wallets and a swiss army knife, phone chargers and lost hair-ties. In the last 17 years, the bag has hung on my shoulders like Betal to my Vikram, on short and long treks through easy and tough terrain, it has sat and lain on sand, mud, snow, grass, pebbles and stones by rivers, lakes and oceans, on tiled floors and carpeted floors, forest floors and grimy bar floors, on fossil-covered orange earth, cushions and sofas, bunk beds on buses, in overhead compartments on flights, beneath my head on top berths in cross-country trains, resting on my weary feet in dirty bus and train stations, strapped to bicycle carriers, piled into car trunks, hung from tree branches. This bag has been everywhere I have and seen the things my eyes couldn't. It has seen the madness of Madras, it has been my buffer for creepy men on the bus, it has filled my arms with squishy hugs. It has been to conferences and music festivals, badminton games and theater productions. It has seen Ladakh and Kanyakumari, Kachchh and Mizoram, and other places along the way. It has seen the bustle of Ho Chi Minh City and New York City. It has seen rainbows above the Niagara and the snow falling in Colorado. It has seen the sun rise in Angkor Wat and set in California. It has carried many times its weight, plus a sleeping mat tied to the top and hiking boots hanging off the bottom. It has shielded its contents from the rain with the average effectiveness of a condom. It has proven to me over and over that if you want, you can carry your entire life in a small simple backpack. Plus an extra set of clothes, because one must always carry an extra set of clothes. The bag sits and watches me as I type now, slouched with age and emptiness, shiny zippers against a faded blue. For the last four years, I have browsed the stores, real and virtual, for new backpacks, contemplating, searching, preparing, never buying. I wanted to write a tribute, an ode to this old friend and companion, but I’m afraid I may be writing an obituary. Do you have a lifeline that you travel with? That time is abstract could not be more clear when you’re nearing the end of a PhD.
I’m sitting here in the library with Marga. She’s a year closer to the light than me and has spent more hours in the library this week than in her house. I feel inspired and so, I join her. We stare into space, write a few words, babble an unfinished thought to the other, zombie-walk to the bathroom, and close our eyes every 20mins (we have one of those anti-eye-straining apps on our computers). So the only duration of time we are aware of is that 20 mins have passed since the last time we closed our eyes. And even then only because the computer forces us to, by making the screen opaque with a colour of our choice. I chose green because it doesn’t matter, my eyes are supposed to be closed anyway. We eat when we are hungry, usually around noon. Day 2. We’ve been here for three hours now. Or has it been six? Maybe five? We said we would work until 2030hrs. How much longer will that be? I feel lost and confused, like a child holding cotton candy with the hand that slipped from her parent’s at a fair, except I don’t even have the comfort of cotton candy. Without looking at my watch or the wall clock or the tiny numbers at the bottom of my laptop screen, I am unable to tell time. Why does it feel like we’ve been sitting here for hours, and then why does it almost immediately feel like we could use a few more hours? Time sort of hovers around, suddenly zooms ahead, then comes back and looms over our shoulders. This seems to happen more often now than before, in all likelihood because we have more to do and finish now than before. I look up at her sitting across the table from me, our laptops back-to-back, and a vision fills my head for a few seconds. I see us sitting here at this table forever, at this exact spot until the end of time. Our twin lunch bags stand next to each other on the table, we are stuck to the chairs, our fingers to the keyboard and our eyes fixed ahead. I would like time to end about now, if you don’t mind. There’s this idea, some may say fact, that coffee helps awaken the brain especially when it slips into that afternoon idle. There’s also this romanticised relationship between coffee and academics, almost as if you can’t be a real academic without caffeine. “What is a lab without a coffee machine?” I remember asking my PhD advisor in my second week; he was befuddled. A month later we had a brand new coffee machine that he uses more than anybody else, because he loves coffee and couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t bought one earlier. He prefers the strong black ‘cowboy’ kind of coffee from his favourite small roasters in Wisconsin or Texas or our own Rex Coffee in town. He buys them, we all drink them, and they’re delicious. I know people who regularly go through 5 or 6 cups of strong black coffee a day, I’ve had some of those days myself. But there are also days when I drink tea, or just lots and lots of water instead. I do not doubt the scientific literature that says caffeine stimulates brain cells, but I’m not sure how much psychology influences it. Let me explain.
I drink coffee. Sometimes it does its job, so I’m able to do mine. But what if it’s working only because I want it to? What if I psyche myself out about really needing to get work done and allow my brain to think it’s the coffee that’s pushing me? I will the coffee to work, and it does. Sometimes I drink tea, caffeinated, decaffeinated, herbal, it doesn’t matter. And I do my job just as well. Things work with water too. So I’m starting to think that maybe it’s not so much the caffeine (a tiny part, perhaps), but just something to drink, anything. Some days I don’t want to embrace the bitter, maybe I want a light lemony ginger, or just the freshness of cool water. I’m starting to think that just the act of drinking may be enough, at least for me, to stay awake and work. Because if you drink enough of any liquid of your choice, you will have to pee often, and that will require getting up from your chair, walking down the hallway, looking at yourself in the mirror while you wash your hands (because everyone does this), and walking back to the chair. Maybe all this movement and diversion is enough to energize the body and the mind. If you’re a moderate coffee drinker like me, try another beverage for a few days, and see if it does as well. If you need to, kick up the pace of the walk to the restroom and wash your hands in cold water, even splash some on your face (I like to do this), talk to the mirror you and say, “you got this!” (warning: you may get some stares). If you’re a high-level caffeine user, forget everything I said and refill your mug with dark black. I’ll be right back, I need to pee. p.s. There are days where no matter what I drink, I can’t get any work done. I don't have a good explanation for this except, it happens. Even before I finished reading The Snoring Bird, I had another book of his lined up. Such is Bernd Heinrich's mastery of words in a language he adopted, while being adopted by a country that promised freedom in many ways. I have not read a memoir as beautifully evocative as this one, fast-paced yet detailed, one that seamlessly intertwines a family's intrepid journey through the brutalities of war by escaping into the vast curiosities of nature.
The idea for the book grew out of Heinrich's wish to tell the stories of his family to his children, but the resources for it lay out of sight "covered in chicken shit". You can see the author in the old Maine house's dusty barn loft, rediscovering a letter he had sent to his father about making the cross-country team at college – an impossible dream at the time. In that same cobweb-covered pile, you can see Heinrich's eyes brighten and soften as he reads the fond correspondence that his father regularly shared with his own mentor and lifelong friend, the late Professor Erwin Stresemann, filled with rich details of his latest expedition to distant Dobruja, or even one of his father's 'love letters' to his wives. The Snoring Bird is a memoir not of one person, but an entire family. The author's father, Gerd Heinrich's skill as an ornithologist, and a bird and mammal collector was unparalleled, as was his love for Ichneumon wasps. He relied greatly on his wives, at least one of whom always accompanied him on his many strenuous expeditions, multi-tasking efficiently as taxidermist, trapper, cook and assistant. The author does not mince words when he writes about his father's need to control, his expectancy of obedience and strict adherence to 'duty'. But he also portrays the honesty and simplicity that defined his father, his quick-thinking and instinctive actions, one of which miraculously saved the author and his mother from being drowned in the Baltic Sea with hordes of other refugees fleeing war-torn Poland. Even though the author and his father were "more apart than together", this book is testimony to the unintentional influence and impact that a parent has on their child. The pages are filled with plenty of natural history tidbits, in a backyard or in untraversed far-away lands, all equally exotic and riveting. Heinrich appreciates his good fortune to be part of the "last classical zoological expedition" in Africa. The tedious work of hunting tiny birds in dense jungles and skinning and preparing specimens that are still seen today in museums across the world severely paled in comparison to the feeling of rejuvenation he experienced just by being there, his senses stimulated in new ways as if reborn in a paradise waiting to be explored. Placed squarely in the middle of the narrative is a short quick telling of their family's escape to America during the second world war. You almost miss the brevity of this portion because you are busy pursuing the trails of members of the family, temporarily broken up as they leave their cherished Borowke estate in Poland. It is this very human part of the book that had my hands glued to it. Every winding step of their journey seems nudged by a stroke of luck. An ominous 'What if?' almost every night could have, and probably did torment the author years later when he was old enough to comprehend the gravity of that particularly cruel reality. Heinrich has managed so well to keep this track of the story just out of focus, as he weaves natural history through the entire book. Or, perhaps by keeping it crisp, he has in a masterstroke of brilliance given the reader just enough information that you can choose to dwell in the astonishing turn of events for a moment, like I did, or continue to read with a mild sense of disbelief (which the author lightly warns against in the preface). Heinrich has judiciously sprinkled the text with paragraphs that exude the beauty and thrill of nature, woven with his deeply personal emotions as he lies on his belly and crawls through the jungles of east Africa. Even while he tracks his own life from being his father's boy overturning rocks to look for wasps, to being a graduate student in California and eventually a professor in Vermont, not to mention the author of several books, you can still see that young excited boy sitting in nature's lap, filled with limitless curiosity. The story behind the intriguing title, one as exciting as the rest of the book, I leave for you to discover. Heinrich is a world-class story-teller, and anyone interested in history, war, nature or just a great read should wake up to The Snoring Bird. *Originally published in Current Conservation 9.1 What work atmosphere feels most productive? Do you need complete silence, or are you drawn to mild cafes with the sound of an espresso machine and muffled conversations in the background? Do you prefer windows or would they be too distracting because you’ll want to stare out of them all the time? Maybe it depends on the kind of work you’re doing? Do you have any distractions you would call necessary, that help you work?
Most people tell me they like absolute silence when they have to work alone, and that they prefer to be physically alone like in a library study cubicle. The ones in our library have a tiny window on the door usually facing away from the person inside, so I’m not sure why the window is there. A handful of people tell me they prefer cafes where they can drown out the noise with earphones if it gets too loud, where there may be few people walking about, where you can choose a view with a window or not, you can sit forever and there’s always coffee. They also tell me that they usually only come out to a café when they feel stuck in their work or need a change of scene to regain focus. So, the café is not their primary work space but rather a reprieve from it. My random pool of knowledge comes from informal conversations with undergrads, graduate students, teachers/professors, artists, and writers. I clearly spend a lot of time wondering about people’s work practices. I myself like to use the general library ‘talking is allowed’ area less than often, and the restricted talking floor even lesser. I work better in the library when my friend Marga shares my table and we can think aloud to each other as we work; I find that it helps process thoughts better to say them out loud. I like cafes for a work space when I can afford it. When I’m sitting by a window and know that I can look up after this paragraph and see a few trees, I’m content and focussed and work better. Sometimes I force myself to sit in my windowless lab with Radiohead on low, a soft yellowish lamp, and write. It helps, but soon enough, I realise I need windows. I also like moderately noisy spaces like bars or a house party with a bunch of friends sitting around and enjoying themselves, maybe a beer in my hand, looking up to smile at someone or laugh at a joke before writing another sentence. I remember writing most of my thesis in a friend’s hostel room, small like the other rooms and cozy with the sounds of nine or ten people, laughter and music, short intense discussions in the corner about regression analysis and synonyms for “study”, “understand”, and “investigate”. There are days when I take my lawn chair to sit and work on the porch outside, watching sparrows and robins hop around as I type, thoughts moving through the bird sounds that fill my head. I get so much done before the mosquitoes arrive. I also pick up my phone while I work, sometimes after every other sentence, sometimes after twenty minutes. I’m pretty good at ignoring texts. Sometimes all I do is pick it up, unlock, swipe my homescreen left and right, keep it back down, and start working again. I think I look at my phone more often when I’m in the library or my quiet lab space, than in the café-type atmosphere. I forget about it entirely for hours when I have windows or friends around. The only social media I’m on for now is Instagram, I browse through it some days more than others, and I see and learn so much. So yes, I check my phone often while I work and I used to tell myself it wasn’t good practice, that I should be more disciplined and just turn it off. But now I think maybe I need that distraction to stay focussed. I don’t have an agenda with the phone, it seems to happen without thought. And for now, I let it. Windows, ambient sounds, a phone or an object to play with, and a few friends. These are my necessary distractions. What are yours? This space is for short posts on ideas, thoughts, perspectives, life as a PhD student, grad school, opportunities, and other news. First post will be up shortly!
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