Science in Society - NYAS

“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.”
— Homer, The Odyssey (Alexander Pope translation)

Published June 1, 2007

By James Kennedy

Built in the 14th century, destroyed in the 15th, then rebuilt in the 17th, the tower of Chateau Latour in the Bordeaux region of France is one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks associated with the rich history and longevity of fine red wine. Photo by James Kennedy.

Celebrated for centuries, red wine has extensive historical, cultural, and economic significance in the Western world. Wine connoisseurs become enamored with the “mystique” of a supple Burgundy or an explosive Australian Shiraz. They expound on the taste of black currants and leather coexisting in the same wine. The average wine drinker, by contrast, may be content to distinguish between “dry” and “fruity.” Yet it is unlikely that either consumer fully grasps how dynamic the chemical system is that transforms a simple fruit juice into an ever-evolving synthesis of soil, sun, oxidation, winemaker influence, and age.

The Chemistry of Wine

Wine is a complex liquid. Although water, ethanol, glycerol, and various organic acids comprise the major (nondescript) portion of wine, its distinct identity comes from the aroma compounds (such as terpenes, esters, and alcohols), polysaccharides and phenolics (such as anthocyanins and tannins). Some aroma compounds are present in the grapes from which the wine is made, and some are synthesized as by-products of fermentation by the yeast that turns the sugar in the grape into ethanol. Still others are formed only after wine has been aged and are the result of oxidation and acid-catalyzed reactions.

This constant evolution of the different kinds of aroma compounds is one of the many subtle aspects of wine appreciation. Polysaccharides are polymeric unfermentable sugars that lend body and viscosity to a wine—without them, a wine might seem thin or watery. These compounds are formed during fruit ripening when the grape berry softens. The riper the grape, the more these components are found in the final wine. This explains why wines from warm growing areas (Australia, the Central Valley in California) often have more body than those from cooler climates.

Tannins contribute to the color stability, astringency, and bitterness of wine. This combination of factors is critically important to the age-worthiness and texture of wine, and possibly has health benefits. With regard to texture, tannins can be a positive or negative influence. This duality is a core aspect of red wine quality—the right amount of the right type of tannin yields a blockbuster wine, whereas too much of the wrong type of tannin results in a wine lacking character and suppleness. From a chemical and research standpoint, tannins are probably the most defining component of the quality of red wine.

What Are Tannins?

Tannins (or proanthocyanidins, or condensed tannins) are a class of complex flavonoids that are localized in the grape skin and seed and are extracted into the wine during fermentation. Flavonoids are found in plants—and include several compound classes such as anthocyanins (responsible for the color in many fruits and flowers), catechins (the healthy component of green teas), and flavonoid-based tannins (found in blueberries, apples, cranberries, bananas, and quinces).

Tannins encompass a large molecular weight range and interact strongly with most proteins. This interactive property is the functional role of tannins in nature. For example, many developing fruits contain large amounts of tannins, which interact strongly with salivary proteins. Any creature eating the fruit perceives it as astringent; making tannins effective feeding deterrents. This same property explains why tannins are the component of red wine that makes the taster’s mouth pucker, a distinctive characteristic of red wine.

Although scientists’ understanding of the physiology of taste is incomplete, we do know that tannins can be perceived as “good” or “bad.” Wines with “good” tannins we often describe as “ripe,” “supple,” “lush,” “velvety,” or “round,” whereas a wine with bad tannins we find “unripe,” “hard,” “coarse,” and “bitter.” This is much like how we describe the taste of fruit (think of an underripe versus fully ripened banana).

Eating an underripe fruit is not a pleasant experience for most people, yet the fruit emerges as a succulent and tasty morsel once sufficiently ripe. Where did the tannin go? Through the complex biochemical process of fruit ripening, the tannins, while still in the fruit, have become “inactivated” by the production of sugars, oxidation, and the breakdown of cell-wall material. The fruit becomes a delectable treat. In the case of red wine, changes in the grape during fruit ripening yield wine with increasingly ripe tannins.

Astringency and Texture

The molecular structure of the different tannins is strongly correlated with its sensory property in wine: the lowest-molecular-weight tannins can have a distinct bitterness associated with them, whereas the larger-molecular-weight tannins are regarded as purely astringent. Whether these sensory properties are considered individually or in combination, they are almost universally regarded as negative. Humans have evolved in such a way that we find bitterness and astringency to be repulsive. How can this repugnant taste become something we desire and prize in red wine?

Tannins become palatable in fruit because our ability to perceive tannins is influenced by many things. This combined perception of tannin in the presence of other components is described as texture or mouthfeel in the wine world. In many fruits, organic acids are produced at the same time as tannin and the combination of high organic acid and tannin concentrations yields a very astringent (and sour) experience. During fruit ripening, sugars are produced, and our ability to perceive astringency diminishes as the sweetness increases. Moreover, many fruits soften during fruit ripening, due to cell-wall breakdown. The breakdown of cell-wall material produces soluble polysaccharides which interact with tannins, once again reducing their astringent properties.

In a similar way, red wine contains many components that influence our ability to perceive tannins. The short list of compounds includes organic acids, simple sugars (generally too low in concentration to influence astringency), ethanol, polysaccharides, and anthocyanins. These all combine to modify astringency perception. As many winemakers describe the effect, it is much like flesh covering a skeleton. The tannins provide the structure and support of the red wine, and the other components provide the flesh and appeal.

Tannins and Longevity

Essential as they are to red wine texture, tannins prove just as important to red wine longevity. Several chemical features of tannins give red wine its stability. First, under red wine’s acidic conditions, tannins are continuously recombined through hydrolysis reactions. Through this recombination process the anthocyanins responsible for red wine color become incorporated into the tannin pool and become stabilized. Without tannins, the color of red wine would quickly fade and become orange. Once the anthocyanins join the tannin matrix, the color becomes stable. For age-worthy wines, color that would otherwise last for just a few years lasts for many decades in the presence of tannins.

During wine aging, tannins can also minimize the damaging effects of oxidation. Grape-based tannins possess the ortho-phenol (pyrocatechol) substitution pattern. These pyrocatechol groups are susceptible to oxidation and because of this, they are very effective antioxidants. In general, red wines that are built to age contain large amounts of tannin. The long-term effect of age on tannin structure is that it becomes increasingly pigmented (due to anthocyanins) and oxidized.

These processes “soften” the tannin and make their texture more desirable. Wines that are built to age can often be quite astringent when young, and it is only with time that these wines reveal their innate wonder. Here lies the source of one of the fundamental schisms in the wine-producing world: When should a wine be drunk? On the one side, most wine is consumed within a couple of days of purchase and therefore it should be “ready to drink” when bought. From a winemaking perspective, these wines should contain lower concentrations of tannin. Theoretically, wines meant to be aged should contain lots of tannin.

The Complexity and Unique Taste of Well-aged Wine

Despite the worldwide movement towards the consumption of young wines, consumption of a well-aged wine offers complexity and a unique taste. There are very few people who can experience and appreciate this, due to the limited availability and costliness of aged red wines. This is unfortunate because wine of this caliber is a scientific, philosophic, and culinary wonder. More people should experience it. Wine writers do. While most wine is consumed when young, the most influential wine writers have a studied appreciation of age-worthy wines. These wines get media attention far beyond what their production volume or revenue justifies.

Is it possible to produce a wine that is ready to drink yet will age well? The answer depends on whom you ask. Based upon what we know, the ideal wine should have an abundance of structure (tannin) but with ample flesh to dress the tannins so that they aren’t too astringent. How would this wine age? Must a wine that is made to be age-worthy be unpalatable in its youth? This question was put to the test in the famous Paris wine tasting of 1976 and again in 2006.

In this tasting, first-growth Bordeaux wines were pitted against California Cabernet Sauvignon. These wines represent the stereotypical extremes detailed above: the aggressive and astringent-in-youth Bordelaise against the fat-and-happy, drink-me-when-I’m-young California Cabs. The winner in the 1976 tasting was a California Cabernet Sauvignon (1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars). Thirty years later in 2006, the tasting was repeated and again, the winner was a California Cabernet Sauvignon (1971 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello). These results suggest that it is indeed possible to produce age-worthy wine in such a way that it can be consumed when young or after a considerable amount of time.

Timing Tannins

The process of optimizing tannin concentration and composition in red wines occurs at all stages of production and in a variety of ways. In the vineyard, research has shown that wines made from increasingly ripe fruit tend to have a more desirable texture. Yet, grapes that are left to ripen too long risk developing so much sugar content that the resulting wine is excessively alcoholic, and is therefore perceived as “hot” in the mouth. During the winemaking process, the fermentation temperature and the contact of the new wine with the skins and seeds influence the extraction of tannins and thus the balance of the wine.

Skill in wine production is knowing when to separate the skins and seeds from the new wine. Premium wines are generally aged in small oak barrels. When they age in barrels the tannins oxidize (and thus soften) at a more rapid rate than they would in the bottle, so cellaring time is another critical factor. This is a significant cost to wineries because of the barrel and time investment. Recent advances in wine production practices have accelerated this process and reduced the cost by incorporating oak in wine stored in stainless steel tanks along with micro-oxygenation.

The Future of Wine Research

The comparatively recent progress in our understanding of grape and wine tannins serves as a good example of how the wine industry is better served when scientists and craftsmen can work side by side to uncover the secrets of a centuries-old tradition. An example of how wine science has contributed immensely to the success of our global wine industry is seen in the emergence of commercial winemaking in parts of the world that have had little in the way of wine history. For example, in Oregon, the wine industry is based upon vineyards that were planted on sites without prior grape production experience.

Moreover, the most significant varietal in Oregon is Pinot noir, a varietal notoriously difficult to produce well.

And Oregon isn’t alone in its achievement. Other wine producers have done as well in Australia, Chile, New Mexico, South Africa, Texas, and many other new and emerging winemaking areas. What took centuries to achieve in well-established lands, new wine-producing regions have achieved in mere decades. Grape and wine scientists of the world: give yourselves a collective pat on the back. Job well done! Where does wine tannin research go from here? Here are some examples of projects that are currently in progress and how they are designed to contribute to the progress of our fine wine industry.

Spatial Variation in Grape and Wine Tannins

In many parts of the world, vineyards are planted in sites that are far from uniform (e.g., soil, aspect, elevation, nutrient availability). This makes the fruit as heterogeneous as the site. Transferring this heterogeneity into a fermentation tank is not desirable because it makes wine quality a guessing game. Using precision agriculture tools, this heterogeneity can be mapped out and the vineyard management practices can either be modified to try to minimize the heterogeneity or the winemaker can use this information to make harvesting decisions. Based upon our research findings, understanding how site variation influences tannin chemistry can have a large impact on the entire winemaking enterprise.

Influence of Grape Cluster Temperature on Composition

The immediate climate around a grape cluster can profoundly affect its composition at harvest. Understanding how specific microclimate factors (e.g., light, temperature, relative humidity) influence grape composition could change grape management practices and our ability to predict effects due to climate change. Working with United States Department of Agriculture micrometeorologist Julie Tarara, the Food Science and Technology department at Oregon State University is investigating how cluster temperature influences grape tannin composition.

Relative Extraction of Skin and Seed Tannins

When tannins are extracted from the grape into new red wine, they generally come from two sources, the skin and seed of the berry. Research has shown that these tannin pools have different compositions. Anecdotally, it is thought that seed and skin tannins have different sensory properties in wine. Winemakers have developed production methods to accentuate the presence of one or the other tannin based upon this anecdotal evidence. The problem: How do you differentiate skin tannin from seed tannin once extracted into wine? This problem was recently solved and we are now studying how specific grape and wine production techniques influence the extraction and presence of these tannin pools in wine, and more importantly, their corresponding sensory properties.

Science and Craftmanship

Wine history predates western civilization itself, and it is not surprising that wine production today is steeped in tradition. Despite the many advances in wine science, from a traditionalist’s perspective, it often seems that the product of wine science is dull and uninteresting. Yet I would argue that at no other time in the history of wine have so many fine age-worthy wines been readily available. Wine science has been instrumental in this progress. So pour yourself a fine wine and toast to the accomplishments of wine science!

Also read: Harmonious: A Quick Course in Wine Chemistry

About the Author

James Kennedy is an assistant professor in the department of Food Science and Technology at Oregon State University. His research focus is on grape and wine chemistry, with much of his current research in the area of red wine phenolics and how they relate to wine quality.

The Evolution and Impact of Einstein

Walter Isaacson, acclaimed biographer and onetime CNN chairman personalizes history’s most famous genius in his new biography about Albert Einstein.

Published May 25, 2007

By Adrienne J. Burke

Having already penned a bestselling book about the life of Ben Franklin and another on Henry Kissinger, Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, became interested in Albert Einstein as the subject of his third biography while working as managing editor at Time Magazine.

“We were looking at who should be person of the century in the mid ’90s and I became more and more convinced that it should be Einstein because it was a century of science and technology,” Isaacson says. “Obviously the two great scientific theories, quantum theory and relativity, are born out of his papers in 1905, but also [his work led] to a century of technology in which you can see his fingerprints on everything from atomic power to lasers to photoelectric cells—even the microchip.”

Isaacson says he also saw Einstein as a representative of people who left oppressive places, fleeing the Nazis or the Communists during the last century, in order to come into places where there is more freedom. “His life is a testament to the connection between freedom and creativity,” Isaacson says.

In a prelude to his upcoming speaking engagement at the Academy, the author discussed his research on Einstein.

Your educational background is not in science, but you do a fantastic job of explaining Einstein’s theories in a way a lay reader can understand them. How did you do that?

First of all, I love science. I was one of those geeks who always used to enter what was then the Westinghouse Future Scientists of America contest. Unfortunately, I was also among those who never won the big prize. But I kept that sense of wonder and I believe that those of us who are not scientists should be able to appreciate and grapple with science just as we do with great music or theatre. The joy and wonder of creativity is something we should embrace as a society even when it’s in a field we don’t know as much about.

I also had a lot of great help from scientists like Murray Gell-Mann, Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, Doug Stone at Yale, and Gerry Holton up at Harvard, who helped me with the science. And I took a couple of math courses to make sure I could understand the tensor calculus. But I tried to do a book that’s geared for the non-scientist. There are other great books for those who want to delve down deeper into Einstein’s science.

You note in the book that there are those who have suggested that Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, contributed more to the development of his theories than she’s credited with, but you seem to conclude that the work was purely his own.

I don’t think it was purely his. I think the conceptual leaps were his. The idea of the relativity of simultaneity, which is at the core of the special theory—I think he does that while walking with his friend from the patent office, Michele Besso.

But I do think she helped check the math, she served as a sounding board, and, perhaps even more difficult, she put up with him when he was not the world’s best husband in 1905 and that period. I think she’s a great pioneer in science, but as we look at the papers and discover day by day what he was writing, what he was saying, who he was talking to, I don’t think it does her justice to exaggerate her credit to these things.

I think we can do her justice and show her the respect she deserves by showing what a pioneer she was in the field of science for women, how important she was to Einstein’s life at that point, but not try to say that she came up with the concepts behind the theory of relativity.

Everyone is fascinated with Einstein’s view of God. You call him “the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos.”

He always tried to figure out the elegance and the spirit manifest in the laws of the universe and he says, for him, that’s his cosmic religion. Both during his lifetime and nowadays, both sides of the religious argument try to compete for Einstein, whether it’s the people who are strongly atheist or the people who are fundamental believers. They all quote Einstein out of context.

It takes an entire chapter of my book for me to try to put it all in context, and it evolves over the years. But at age 50 he believes in what you might call a deist or perhaps pantheist conception of a God whose spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, not a personal God who intervenes in our lives.

I think what’s important is to watch him wrestling with that concept and to see how humbled he is, because, as he puts it, our imaginations are far too small for the vastness of these eternal questions, so we just feel our way. And I think it might give pause and some humility to those on both sides of the argument who think they’ve solved this argument to know how Einstein wrestled with it and to see how his views evolved over the years.

Are there things that you reveal in this book that had been previously unknown about Einstein?

I think there’s a lot in the personal letters that became available just in the past 12 months … that shows the struggle in particular when he’s doing general relativity, struggling against the militarist times in Berlin where he’s a professor, becoming a pacifist, having these custody battles where the kids are being used as pawns between him and Mileva, and racing against others to get the field equations of gravity right for his general theory. To me that’s an absolutely thrilling tale that we couldn’t tell until the latest opening of the papers.

About the Author

Walter Isaacson has been the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute since 2003. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time Magazine. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) and of Kissinger: A Biography (1992) and is the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). His biography of Albert Einstein – Einstein: His Life and Universe – was released in April 2007.

Also read: From Successful Actors to Impactful Science Advocate

Two Centuries of Science Research at Your Fingertips

The front cover of 'Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences' in 1915.

Academy members will soon have access to the entire historical collection of the ‘Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,’ dating back to 1823.

Published May 1, 2007

By Adelle Caravanos

From *Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1915*

Published continually for 184 years, the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences is now available online in its entirety for the first time. It stands as the longest-running American scientific serial publication. (Click here to visit the Annals archive.)

At the time the Annals was first published, two attempts at establishing an American scientific journal had recently failed: Historian Simon Baatz reports of one of those failures that “[Benjamin] Silliman had learnt a painful lesson: the fickleness of the scientific public often masqueraded as enthusiasm,” [1]. Distinguishing true enthusiasm from “fickleness” and adjusting the focus accordingly have been challenges for Annals editors ever since.

The Lyceum Years

For many years, the Annals published papers read by members at “sectional meetings” when the Academy was known as the Lyceum of Natural History in the City of New York. Some papers anticipate concerns that have only now moved into center stage: a paper on “sanitary science” (environmental pollution), “rather quaintly termed ‘filth among men,'” was published in the last Annals volume of the Lyceum days. [2]. The charm of antique language is one of the rewards of reading the early papers.

In the first Annals volume, DeWitt Clinton, just recently retired as governor of New York, began a paper on the ornithology of swallows with “a fanfare of allusions to classical authors, quoting Horace, Hesiod, and Virgil … Herodotus, Aristotle, and Pliny before getting down to scientific brass tacks.” [3] The swallow enthusiasts were undoubtedly happier with the lively, yet straightforward style of another contributor to the same volume: John James Audubon.

In following the successful formula of publishing the papers presented at its meetings, the Annals reflected the scientific interests of the day and remained viable by attracting support from sources such as the Audubon Fund, which subsidized publication until the early 20th century.

In 1899, about the time the Audubon Fund support was tapering off, the record of the Annual Meeting contained the following entry: “The publications of the Academy have been greatly improved as to quality, appearance, and dignity…The thanks of the Academy are certainly due to our enthusiastic and very careful Editor, Mr. van Ingen.”

The Leadership of Eunice Thomas Miner

Under the leadership of Eunice Thomas Miner (beginning in 1935), multi-day conferences rose in importance among the Academy’s activities, and the Annals began publishing conference proceedings. A landmark conference on electrophoresis was convened, paving the way for another conference, “Gel Electrophoresis,” held in 1963. It produced the two most cited Annals articles in history, by B. J. Davis and G. Scatchard, accumulating between them some 44,000 citations.

In the 1970s, the Annals editors broadened their remit by beginning selectively to consider for publication conferences that had not been sponsored and held under the Academy’s auspices. Science’s impact on society always raises controversy, and one quality of conference proceedings is that they allow speculative and often controversial assessments of a field. The Academy has discussed and published subjects years before the public became fully aware of their importance.

In 1973, the Annals published a paper by Raymond Damadian on the potential for NMR’s use in cancer research and diagnosis (Vol. 222). Annals also published early work on HIV and AIDS, with individual papers in 1982 and a full volume in 1984 (Vol. 437), followed by another in 1990 and two volumes on pediatric AIDS (1993, 2000).

The Academy was an early publisher of work on the neurologic basis for the self concept in psychology, beginning in 1961 (Vol. 91). In 1960, before the Surgeon General’s warning, the Academy convened and published the proceedings of a conference on cardiovascular effects of nicotine (Vol. 90). Volumes on asbestos (starting with Vol. 132 in 1965) have had a large impact on workplace health regulations.

Joining the Information Revolution

The Annals rose to the challenge of the information revolution with online publication in 1998, an initiative that no doubt assisted the steady increase of its impact and immediacy factors over the past seven years. The Academy currently publishes 28 new Annals volumes every year. The Institute for Scientific Information ranks the Annals in the top 2% of sources cited in the scientific literature. All Annals volumes dating back to 1823 have been digitized and are available in PDF format.

Access to Annals is one perk of being an Academy member. Not a member? Sign up today!

Notes

[1] Baatz, Simon. 1990. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 584: 31.
[2] Cullinan, Denis. 1993. Current Comments, #49 (Dec. 6), p. 403.
[3] Ibid.

Exploring the Science of Haute Cuisine

French chemist Hervé This is a founder of the field of molecular gastronomy which uses the tools of science to explore the methodology and mechanisms of the culinary arts.

Published March 1, 2007

By Adelle Caravanos

Image courtesy of NORN via stock.adobe.com.

Students in introductory chemistry courses are taught one important and seemingly obvious rule: Do not eat in the laboratory. But for French chemist Hervé This, eating in the lab is the whole point.

This (pronounced “Teese”) is one of the founders of the field of molecular gastronomy, the application of science to culinary knowledge and practice. Along with physicist Nicholas Kurti and science writer Harold McGee, This was among the first to use the tools of science to explore the methodology and mechanisms of the culinary arts.

This will speak at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) on April 10, as part of the Science of Food series. Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor, his first book available in English, was published in September 2006.

It Started with a Soufflé

While preparing a Roquefort cheese soufflé for friends one Sunday in March 1980, This—then an editor at Pour la Science, the French edition of Scientific American—stopped at a line in an ELLE magazine recipe that called for adding eggs two-by-two. Why two-by-two? This wondered. With his scientific curiosity piqued, This tempted the fate of the dinner by adding all the eggs at once—resulting in a dish that was “edible,” but lacked the signature pouf of a perfectly prepared soufflé.

When another party of friends called the following Sunday, This repeated his informal experiment, this time adding the eggs one at a time. Pour la Science did without its editor the following day, as This stayed home to tinker with the recipe and postulate about the precisions, or old wives’ tales, which peppered this, and many other recipes, of France’s haute cuisine.

Since that day, This has collected more than 25,000 of these precisions, with the admittedly lofty goal of putting each one to the test. He continued experimenting in his home laboratory (otherwise known as his kitchen) and in 1986 met Kurti, a physicist at Oxford who shared the same passion for science and cooking. The two began collaborating almost immediately, writing papers and hosting a series of meetings in Erice, Sicily, which were attended by the few active researchers in the newly created field of molecular and physical gastronomy, including McGee and biochemist Shirley Corriher.

In 1995, This was awarded the first PhD in molecular and physical gastronomy, and he took a part-time position in Nobel Laureate Jean-Marie Lehn’s chemistry lab at the Collège de France. Five years later, he quit his day job at Pour la Science to work as a full-time researcher at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA).

Rules are meant to be challenged

The French culinary method, viewed by gastronomes as close to perfect in its practice, is rife with detailed recipes and long lists of instructions, many of which seem almost silly. To this day, the same set of traditions that calls for cooking green beans uncovered (lest they turn blue in the pan) predicts that a menstruating woman cannot get mayonnaise to emulsify. With assistance from his wife, This debunked both tenets.

This breaks the old wives’ tales into four categories: “Some precisions seem wrong and they are wrong; some seem wrong and they are true; some seem true and they are wrong; and some seem true and they are true.” He says, “I’m most interested in ‘right’ precisions that seem ‘wrong’.” For example, one particular precision instructs a chef preparing a suckling pig to immediately cut off the animal’s head after cooking, to preserve the coveted crackling skin. Although this traditional advice seemed misguided to This, his experiments showed that the pig skin indeed softens if left on the body (due to a layer of water vapor that cannot escape unless the skin is cut).

It Takes a Kitchen-full

As This’s list of old wives’ tales grew longer, he decided to enlist the help of both the culinary and the scientific communities. He began challenging his friend, world-renowned chef Pierre Gagnaire, to create recipes using some of the precisions. These monthly challenges led to a series of more than 60 collaborative molecular gastronomy seminars in Paris.

For each meeting, sponsored by the INRA, scientists, chefs, and students are given a culinary precision in advance (for example: Is it true that omelets become dry when they are over-whipped? And what does “dry” exactly mean?). At the seminar, participants perform preliminary observations and experiments, and decide on protocol and methodology to be used to conduct more controlled tests at home. The attendees reconvene a month later to share their results and reach a consensus on the accuracy and practicality of the precision.

Learning a New Language

Often, the participants at This’s seminars find that it is not the results, but the interpretations, that demand further study. On one occasion, Gagnaire explained to This that when French chefs make wine sauce with butter, they are taught not to whip the ingredients. According to the grand master, shaking the pan ensures the sauce will be “brilliant.”

“Even when Pierre is telling something to me, I do not trust him, technically. I trust nobody, I have to check,” This says. So the chemist set up an experiment to test the preparation methods, and found that visually, the sauces looked no different. But looking at the mixtures through a microscope, he observed that when the sauce was whipped, the melted butter droplets were very tiny.

The reverse occurred with shaking: larger droplets formed. He worked on a calculation, relating the distribution and size of the fat droplets to the energy transferred to the pan. The difference was clear: “Brilliance” is not a visual quality, but a description of the flavor (which is affected by the distribution of the fat in the sauce).

“I know that chefs very frequently use some words to describe taste, not appearance,” This says. “So probably, Pierre has seen an effect, but the words are wrong. [Chefs] can discover very minute effects that we scientists have to interpret.”

The Science and the Practice

This is careful to note the difference between molecular gastronomy—a science—and its various applications, which include molecular cooking, note-by-note cooking, and culinary constructivism. By his own admission, This is not a chef, although he aspires to change the way people cook around the globe. “Cooking in the next century will have nothing to do with cooking today,” predicts this.

“We are sending probes to Mars,” but we have yet to discover the secrets of soup stocks, says This. For him, the stock pot is the final frontier.

About Hervé This

Hervé This is a physical chemist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and author of Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor (Columbia University Press, 2006.) He will speak at the Academy on April 10 as part of the Science of Food series.

Also read: Better Data Means Better Food

National Security, Neuroscience and Bioethics

In his book Mind Wars, bioethicist Jonathan Moreno tells why the defense industry is interested in new discoveries in neuroscience. He explores why the defense department funds brain research, and what scientists should do about it.

Published November 27, 2006

By Adrienne J. Burke

Image courtesy of metamorworks via stock.adobe.com.

Jonathan Moreno was first exposed to brain research as a child. He was 10 when two dozen subjects arrived at the 20-acre sanitorium run by his father, a distinguished psychiatrist, who would observe the effects of LSD on the group.

Little wonder that Moreno has spent a career thinking about the ethics of medical research. As a Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia, and Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics there, Moreno has penned books including In the Wake of Terror: Medicine and Morality in a Time of Crisis; Undue Risk: Secret State Experiments on Humans; Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research; and Deciding Together: Bioethics and Moral Consensus.

Lately, his curiosity has been piqued by the attention that the defense department pays to brain research. His new book, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, explores the possible national security implications that stem from high-tech neuroscience, and reveals how much of it is funded by defense dollars.

Moreno urges neuroscientists to consider all of the possible applications and misapplications of their work, and to engage in the policymaking process.

The Academy spoke with Moreno in advance of his November 28, 2006 lecture.

You say that in 2006, most Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funding has gone to brain-related work.

Much, I wouldn’t say most, but much. It’s clear that DARPA has an interest in neuroscience, which they should.

As you point out, DARPA funding has resulted in great technologies for the public good. What are the problems, risks, or ethical dilemmas with having neuroscience research funded by a defense agency?

One of the biggest problems is that there is so much anxiety—and in many cases paranoia—about the whole notion of mind-control or mind-reading. And I can tell you from this work and from previous work that I’ve done that there are a lot of people who think that they are the victims of mind-control experiments by the CIA. And this is actually cross-cultural; it is not confined to the United States. I was in Pakistan last year and I had a long conversation with the chairman of the Clinical Research department at Karachi University and I asked if he encountered patients who believed that [they were victims of mind control experiments]. He said, “oh yeah, it’s everywhere.”

So one problem of talking about this is just the conspiracy theory that so many people have already—which I want to disassociate myself from. But, if we put aside those conspiracy theories, there are nonetheless reasons to be interested in how information about the brain is going to be used in the future.

For example, evidence suggests that certain chemicals are released by the brain when people are in trusting relationships with one another. So, think now about interrogating detainees in Guantanamo. What if it were feasible to introduce this chemical, this neurotransmitter, artificially, so that instead of waterboarding people or playing good cop/ bad cop, you could chemically induce trusting feelings on the part of the subject of an interrogation? Some people will obviously say that that is a good thing, particularly if innocent people are at risk and this individual might have some information. Other people will say, well, this is a slippery slope here.

What might happen if the same chemical is used against our security agents, for example?

Precisely, or even domestically. If it becomes a useful intervention, then will domestic authorities be given the opportunity to use the stuff? And how does this rub up against our constitutional rights? So, that’s just one example of why we need to be concerned.

[And yet] so many of [the technologies discovered by defense-funded neuroscience] are good for people, which makes them much harder to talk about than nuclear weapons technology or biological weapons.

For example, there’s evidence that beta blockers, which are used for people with heart disease, can be used to treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder. There are some people who believe that not only are they useful after someone has been in a stressful situation, but it might even be plausible to give somebody a beta blocker before they go into a stressful situation, because the drug seems to inhibit the association of experiences with emotions and their consolidation into long-term memory.

Imagine if you were to give a beta blocker to a soldier before he or she went into a combat situation. On the one hand you might prevent or at least ameliorate the terrible emotional feelings that could come from what they see and do in combat, but, to put it in a single phrase, do we want an army of guilt-free soldiers?

So again the more we learn about the possibility of managing if not reading the brain, the more we’ll have to confront these questions. And because they are dual-use, they can be used in both military and civilian contexts, and they can be used both to heal and to harm they become all the more complicated.

All of the issues I talk about in Mind Wars about national security and the brain are part of a bigger conversation, which I think is maybe the most important thing we will talk about in the 21st century: How are we going to enter into changing what we are? What ought the limits be?

But in the end, you don’t advocate separating military from civilian science.

That’s right. Generally if you prohibit scientific research on what could ultimately be important national security technologies, you’re just going to force them underground. Especially in a society like ours, we need to maintain and enhance the relationships between our academic science institutions and the military, because if we tell our government that they can’t give grants to university scientists because we’re afraid that it will be bad for the university, we’re just going to force government to do it on its own, and secretly.

So I advocate continued and even increased funding for DARPA and finding ways to ensure that academia and the security establishment remain in contact with one another. I think it’s bad for democracy to do it any other way.

About the Author

Dr. Moreno is the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia; Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics; and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC.

He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and serves on the Institute’s Board on Health Sciences Policy. Moreno is also a member of the Council on Accreditation of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, and a past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. He is a bioethics advisor for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Faculty Affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, and a Fellow of the Hastings Center and the New York Academy of Medicine.

Also read: What Near-Death and Psychedelic Experiences Reveal about Human Consciousness

Evolution and Intelligent Design in the Classroom

An iguana on a rock, with the ocean in the background.

“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man’s power of selection.”
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, First edition

Published September 1, 2006

By Mary Crowley

Image courtesy of Camilla via stock.adobe.com.

The past year has certainly been a banner year for evolution. Research in genome sequencing that shed light on the inner workings of evolution was chosen by Science magazine as the top science achievement of the year. Charles Darwin graced the cover of Newsweek magazine to mark the opening of a large exhibit on his life and work at New York’s American Museum of Natural History.

The fossil of a 375-million-year-old fish found in the Arctic was reported to be the missing link in the evolution from fish to land animals. And widespread fear of the potential for the deadly avian flu to evolve into a pandemic-ready human form brought evolution’s less desirable potential to the front pages of newspapers and the front seat of lab benches seeking a vaccine.

Ironically, however, the year also featured a courtroom skirmish over the teaching of evolution between high school parents and proponents of intelligent design (ID), who hold that the natural world is too complex to have been developed by natural selection. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, a Republican, ruled for the parents, calling intelligent design “thinly veiled creationism” that is “breathtaking in its inanity.”

As Hessy Taft, an associate professor of chemistry at St. John’s University, explains, “With the publication of his Origin of Species in 1859, Charles Darwin forever changed the way we view the natural world.” Yet the ongoing assault on the teaching of evolution, and of science in general, by proponents of ID convinced her and a team of other scientists and science educators of the need to organize a recent conference of The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy).

A Boot Camp for Those on the Front lines

Entitled “Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science,” and held at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice on April 21-22, 2006, the event—a sort of boot camp for those on the front lines—brought together researchers, philosophers, and teachers to review the nature of science and evolution, how it should be taught, and what strategies are required to keep creationism out of public schools.

The timing for such an event couldn’t be better. The state of the teaching of science in the nation is indeed poor. According to the State of State Science Standards 2005—the first comprehensive study of science academic standards in primary and secondary schools conducted since 2000—22 states received grades of “D” or “F,” and nine states plus the District of Columbia received a “C.”

Conference presenters Gerald Skoog, director of the Center for the Integration of Science Education and Research, Glenn Branch, the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, and Gerald F. Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, outlined several strategies to raise the quality of science teaching—and the teaching of evolution—in the nation’s schools.

How to teach evolution has become a front line in the American culture war. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught along with evolution in public schools, and 42% of Americans are strict creationists who believe that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time,” according to a recent poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People.

Teaching Intelligent Design Alongside Evolution

On August 2, 2005, President Bush said that intelligent design should be taught along with evolution in schools “so people can understand what the debate is about.” A few weeks later, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican said to be considering a 2008 White House run, agreed with the President.

Intelligent design is, indeed, intelligently designed—but as a strategy to derail teaching of true science, not as a true scientific theory. Developed in the wake of a 1987 Supreme Court ruling that teaching creationism in schools violates the separation of church and state, ID veils its creationist roots by avoiding the mention of God. Since 1996, it has been carefully crafted and disseminated by the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank located in Seattle, whose Center for Science and Culture has been at the forefront of a movement promoting ID and its teaching in schools. “Teach the controversy” is the rallying call that the Institute promotes, which the President seems to endorse.

However, there is no bona fide controversy and the issue cannot be framed as a debate over evolution, because ID is not a competing scientific theory. The definition of a theory in science is that it must be based on observable facts, and it must be testable. Evolution is an example of a theory, as are gravity, relativity, the existence of the atom, and countless other scientific concepts. Over time, of course, as new evidence is obtained, a theory can be either reinforced or modified, or overturned, and debate over theories is at the heart of science.

The Test of Time

Evolution has stood the test of time by countless confirming observations. Put simply, the theory is that natural selection— the process by which individuals (or genes) compete for limited resources—favors those that are best suited to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. Random genetic mutations could either be detrimental or beneficial for an organism, but the latter are those that enhance the organism’s reproductive success. Over eons, such mutations lead certain features in a species to persist—and certain species to proliferate, while others die out.

Uncovering the genetic code has also shown the remarkable commonality of the human genome with those of other mammals and even of yeast, lending further support to the evolutionary premise that living things share a common ancestry. At the conference a host of distinguished scholars—Bruce Alberts, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, Leslie C. Aiello, president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and Sydel Silverman, professor emerita at the Graduate Center at The City University of New York and a conference organizer—offered detailed presentations on how their work on protein machines, primate fossils, and the culture factor in human evolution demonstrated scientific support for the theory of natural selection.

Intelligent design fails on both basic tenets of a scientific theory: design cannot be observed, and it cannot be tested. Hence, it falls into the realm of philosophy or folklore—no more deserving of attention than the Flat Earth Society. “There is no place for a discussion of intelligent design in a science class,” says Taft. “It’s as ludicrous as it would be to discuss it in gym [class]—it has no relevance to the subject. The only place it might belong would be in a philosophy class.”

Human Life as an Engineering Wonder

ID proponents hold that human life is an engineering wonder that could not possibly have developed in accordance with the accidental, gene-by-gene fits and starts of evolution, hence pointing to a more intelligent “designer.” A common example they offer is the human eye.

In fact, even this prototypical example fails under minimal scientific scrutiny, as conference speaker Wen-Hsiung Li, James Watson professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, explained in a talk on gene duplication as a force of evolution. The necessary differentiation and fine-tuning of cellular processes required for species to evolve makes absolute sense in light of gene duplication, Li explained.

For example, genetic science traces predecessor ocular genes all the way back to the sightless bacteria at the base of the evolutionary tree. Various intermediate forms of “eyes” can be found in the fossil record and through comparative biology. Gene duplication—“a major force in evolution,” according to Li—is responsible for the development of the highly complex mammalian visual and olfactory senses from a common ancestor.

Philosophy—as well as theology—offers some interesting perspectives on how evolution and divinity need not negate each other—or default to ID. According to John F. Haught, distinguished research professor in the department of theology at Georgetown University, the question “why does life exhibit complex ‘design’?” can be answered in a number of distinct yet correct ways: “Life exhibits complex design because of natural selection. Or, life exhibits complex design because of divine wisdom, love, and humility that endow nature with self-creative capacities essential for the world to become itself,” said Haught.

A Triumph of Education

In this way, evolution and God can coexist. Expanding on evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky’s famed aphorism, Haught concluded, “Nothing in theology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”

In summer 2005, The New York Times editorialist Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote:

Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth—and humans with it –was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn’t a triumph of faith. It’s a failure of education.

By contrast, the presenters at “Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science” provided educators with a veritable arsenal of arguments, tactics, and ideas to take back into their classrooms and rationally discuss with their students and the community what science is and how evolution is a part of it. In an arena that has shaped up to be a pedagogical struggle for survival, Klinkenborg might well agree that this conference was a triumph of education.

Also read: Resolving Evolution’s Greatest Paradox

About the Author

Mary Crowley is a New-York-based writer specializing in medicine, policy, and science. She has contributed many of The New York Academy of Sciences’ eBriefings, particularly in ethics, genomic medicine, neuroscience, and psychology.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of an NYC Biotech Pioneer

From fast growth and profitable sales to research improprieties and legal trouble: the story behind ImClone.

Published July 1, 2006

By Pamela Sherrid and Sibyl Shalo

Boosters of the biotech industry in New York City face a conundrum when it comes to ImClone Systems, Inc. On the one hand, the company should be a poster child for why New York is a great place for biotech. Founded by local scientific talent and located at 180 Varick Street in Lower Manhattan, ImClone beat the longshot odds that face all drug developers and launched a cancer drug that last year had sales of $413 million.

On the other hand, it’s hard to think of a biotech company with more notoriety. The approval process for its lead drug hit a massive pothole in late 2001 because the company misguidedly relied on data from just one small clinical trial. Its founding CEO, Samuel Waksal, is in prison for securities fraud, and Martha Stewart famously served time for lying to investigators about the sale of her ImClone stock.

Today, the company has valuable assets, but it faces huge uncertainties. At the top of the list of assets is Erbitux, a monoclonal antibody that binds specifically to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). After its setback in 2001, the drug was approved by the FDA in 2004 for use in combination with irinotecan in the treatment of patients with EGFR-expressing, metastatic colorectal cancer who were refractory to irinotecan-based chemotherapy, and as a first-line treatment for patients who cannot tolerate irinotecan.

ImClone received a huge boost this March when Erbitux was approved by the FDA for use in a second indication, head and neck cancer. It opens up a whole new market for ImClone, and triggered a milestone payment of $250 million from ImClone’s corporate partner, drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Early-Intervention Research

For ImClone to grow its revenue even further in colon cancer applications, it needs to get patients on the drug sooner and remain on treatment longer. To that end, ImClone has plenty of early-intervention research going on in both its current indications. For instance, David Pfister, MD, a medical oncologist and head and neck cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, is watching “with great interest” the development of a large, randomized study on the combination of Erbitux, cisplatin, and radiation being conducted by a multicenter research consortium that includes MSKCC. The potential for a synergistic effect, he says, is capturing the attention of the oncology community.

ImClone is also trying to win approval of Erbitux for other indications such as lung and pancreatic cancer. At the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in early June, one of the most well-attended cancer research conferences of the year, dozens of papers were presented on Erbitux and other drugs in ImClone’s pipeline. Research data will decide the future, says Mehta Partners biotechnology analyst Max Jacobs, for both Erbitux and ImClone.

Despite the turmoil during Waksal’s downfall, ImClone held on to most of its 900 employees. The company manufactures Erbitux in New Jersey, but its preclinical biology research facility remains on the sixth and seventh floors of the Varick Street building, which also houses ImClone’s corporate headquarters. When he founded the company in 1984, Waksal, who lived in lower Manhattan, wanted to work there, too. In 1986 he negotiated a cheap, long-term lease for 40,000 square feet in a building that was once a shoe factory. Michael Howerton, the company’s chief financial officer, says the company’s scientists, including the 120 in New York, are the “visionaries” of the company.

An Array of Daunting Challenges

With all the uncertainty and the taint of Waksal’s conviction, does ImClone have trouble filling scientific jobs? “Quite the opposite,” says CFO Howerton, “we never have a problem with recruiting top talent.” But ImClone and its employees face an array of daunting challenges. To start, there’s the threat of new competition. Amgen’s panitumumab, another antibody targeting the EGFR receptor, is awaiting FDA approval, and promises to be a worthy challenger to ImClone in the colorectal cancer market. ImClone is also facing a patent challenge regarding Erbitux from MIT and Repligen Corp.

In January, the company announced it had hired investment bank Lazard to review strategic alternatives for the company. Such an announcement can mean a company is putting itself up for sale. Indeed, a high-profile investor has taken an interest. Carl Icahn, who made his name as a corporate raider in the 1980s and more recently backed away from a proxy fight at Time Warner, owns nearly 10% of ImClone stock, second only to Bristol-Myers Squibb’s 17% ownership. Some speculate that ImClone’s January announcement might have been a way to force Icahn’s hand.

Meanwhile, NYC biotech boosters have found there is truth to the public-relations adage that even bad news is good news. Maria Mitchell, CEO and president of AMDeC, a consortium of New York biomedical research centers, says she sees an advantage to having ImClone in Manhattan. “It’s a high profile company,” she says, “which makes it easier to attract smaller companies to the city.”

Also read: A New Approach to Alternative Therapies

Archeological Discoveries Shed Light on Old New York

An old map/street grid of lower Manhattan in NYC.

Slavery, landfill and brothels: Archeologists are learning more about the history of New York City after recent discoveries in downtown Manhattan that date back to the city’s pre-colonial days.

Published July 1, 2006

By Diana Wall

New York City map, circa 1755. Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

New York is unique among American seaboard cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston in that it is regarded as a city with a present and a future, but not with a past. Recent archeological excavations in downtown New York, however, give the lie to that notion. In this oldest part of the city, archeologists have discovered sites dating from the early 17th century until the end of the 19th century, yielding artifacts left by Dutch and English settlers, enslaved Africans, and working-class and middle-class families. Digs have also yielded many secrets about the infrastructure of the old city: how people claimed land from the rivers and how they built on newly made land.

Fruits of Development

Urban archeology in New York itself dates only from around 1980, when preservation regulations, based on local, state, and federal legislation, first took hold. The regulations state, in effect, that any construction project that has government involvement (which might range from federal money to a local zoning variance) requires an environmental review, including an archeological study.

The developer hires archeologists to see if an important find might be preserved in the proposed construction site. In most cases, these studies conclude either that there was never anything of archeological interest, or that (as is usually the case in Lower Manhattan) any remains were destroyed by recent development, such as the construction of a 20th-century building with a very deep basement.

However, if an intact site could be present, the regulations require that archeologists conduct test excavations. If those tests are positive—to the archeologist’s joy and the developer’s agony—the impact of construction on the site has to be “mitigated.” Mitigation can occur in several ways: by moving the construction project, by modifying its plans so that it will not harm the archeological site, or by excavating the site. In Lower Manhattan, where real estate is so valuable, development projects are never canceled and get modified very, very rarely. But there are relatively frequent excavations. In fact, over a dozen large-scale excavations have taken place.

From the perspective of archeologists, these government-mandated Downtown projects are double-edged. On the one hand, archeologists do not choose the sites they get to dig; instead, the sites are chosen, for better or worse, by the vagaries of development. But on the other hand, if there were no development and no government regulations, there would be no archeological excavations in Lower Manhattan at all.

Beneath the Kitchen Floor

Once archeologists are in the field, they are particularly eager to excavate “features,” such as the pits from outhouses and the basements from long demolished houses which might survive under modern basement floors. Features often contain treasure troves of artifacts that were deposited in the ground at a single time and can often be linked with a particular household or business. Archeologists use artifacts to date the layers of soil inside these features, and then use that date to find out who was living or working in the building at that time by consulting historical documents like city directories and tax and census records.

Archeologists have excavated two sites that date to the 17th-century Dutch and early English colonial periods, both on Pearl Street, which was once the East River shoreline. At the Broad Financial Center site, just south of Broad Street, archeologists led by Joel Grossman unearthed the cobble-paved basement floor of a warehouse that Augustine Heermans built in the late 1640s, just next to the Dutch West India Company’s warehouse.

Heermans, a Bohemian, had come to New Amsterdam as an agent for a Dutch mercantile company. He dealt in tobacco, wines, and provisions, and was also involved in the trade in enslaved Africans. There on the floor of the warehouse, the Grossman team discovered a token that had been issued by Prince Maurice of the House of Orange to commemorate his election as a Stadtholder of the City of Utrecht in 1590.

The First Large-scale Excavation in Lower Manhattan

The Stadt Huys Block dig excavated over three tons of artifacts from a slightly later period. Nan Rothschild and I led this first large-scale excavation to take place in Lower Manhattan. Our team found the foundation walls and cellar deposits from the King’s House, the tavern that the English provincial governor Francis Lovelace had had built in 1670. Thousands of clay tobacco pipes, pieces of dark green liquor bottles, and shards from glasses all evoked 17th-century revelers.

The charred basement floor revealed that the tavern had burned—a fact that was not in the historical records. In addition, the archeologists found a barrel buried under the kitchen floor. Inside the barrel were about a dozen whole liquor bottles as well as some whole clay tobacco pipes—the only intact pipes and 17th-century bottles that were found. The barrel and its contents seem to have been a cache, perhaps left by the tavern keeper or by an enslaved African who worked in the kitchen when the tavern burned.

Dozens of features dating to the late 18th and 19th centuries are associated with middle-class households whose members both lived and worked in the same buildings—households like that of Daniel van Voorhis, a silversmith, who, with his family, journeymen, and apprentices, both lived and had his workshop on Hanover Square in the 1780s. Another excavation took place in the Five Points District, the Irish working-class neighborhood which was located to the northeast of City Hall Park. Martin Scorsese recently immortalized this notorious slum in Gangs of New York. Charles Dickens described it after a visit in 1842 as “reeking everywhere with dirt and filth… Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old.”

A Hard Life in the Slums

Life could be extremely hard in the slums. In one of the privy pits, excavators discovered an unusual array of artifacts: ornate dishes; implements used for fancy sewing, such as embroidery; an unusually high number of chamber pots (almost 40); glass bed pans, all designed for women; and a ceramic pot inscribed with “AMAILLE, s.d. Vinaigrier.” The privy also contained the skeletons of three infants—two newborns and a fetus.

Rebecca Yamin, the director of the interpretive phase of the project, discovered historical records that confirmed that there had in fact been a brothel on the site which had been shut down by the police in 1843. The artifacts had presumably been discarded into the privy when the brothel was closed. The bedpans spoke of the illnesses that the young women suffered as occupational hazards, and the vinegar container perhaps of attempts at birth control. Whether the infants died of natural or unnatural causes (we shall never know the answer), their remains also speak of tragedy—they were discarded into the privy rather than accorded proper burials.

Filling in the Blanks

Discoveries at the African Burial Ground have put the spotlight on slavery in the North. This slave, named Caesar, outlived three masters on the Nicoll estate in Bethlehem, outside Albany, until his death at age 115. Daguerreotype, 1851, reproduced collection of the New York Historical Society.

In addition to revealing aspects of daily life, archeological excavations have also uncovered secrets of the city’s infrastructure. Many New Yorkers are not aware that much of Lower Manhattan is made up of landfill—land claimed from the East and Hudson Rivers, as well as low-lying inland areas filled to the height of the surrounding grade. Three blocks of new land were added along the East River shore, from the late 17th through the early 19th century. And four new blocks were added along the Hudson, beginning in the early 19th and continuing into the late 20th century. Excavating in landfill lets us learn about the landfill process itself and also find out what has been buried beneath it.

Some of the landfill came from the river bottom, and was probably dredged up from slips or alongside piers. Other fills are made up of clean soil, probably from grading down hills and excavating cellars. Others contain garbage that was probably picked up by local cartmen and then dumped into the landfill.

Although archeologists cannot link this trash to particular households or businesses in the city, it can reveal details about the city as a whole. During the yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, the city government passed regulations outlawing the dumping of organic material into the landfill. But then, as now, illegal dumping was prevalent—an excavation along the Hudson River revealed offal from butchering when such dumping was illegal.

Landfills and Bulkheads

New Yorkers used many different techniques to hold the landfill in place. Most common were bulkheads made out of planks or logs. But archeologists led by Joan Geismar working at 175 Water Street, a mid-18th-century landfill block, discovered an unusual form of bulkhead. There, an 18th-century merchant ship had been scuttled and sunk to form part of the bulkhead line. Another ship, apparently sunk for the same purpose, has been uncovered in the basement of two of the Water Street buildings owned by the South Street Seaport Museum.

This spring, archeologists working with the MTA on the expansion of the South Ferry subway station in Battery Park discovered part of a seawall. This wall, which also served as a battery and was mounted with cannon to protect the city in case of attack, was put into place between 1730 and 1766. Later, after the Revolutionary War, it was buried in the landfill that was added to the shoreline to create Battery Park. Archeologists uncovered around 600 feet of this seawall in four different areas; the wall is made of stone and is 8 to 10 feet wide. There are plans afoot for reconstructing parts of the wall as an exhibit in Battery Park.

Building on a Landfill

Archeologists have also discovered the different ways that people have dealt with the problem of building on landfill. If buildings are constructed on landfill before it has had a chance to settle, the buildings shift and crack due to the settling. One solution when building in shallow water involves resting the footing stones of the foundation walls directly on the natural river bottom.

Another technique consists of using spread footers—wooden structures laid on top of the landfill and made up of large beams placed on rows of planks set perpendicularly to the beams along the line of the building’s foundation wall. Builders then lay the stone foundation wall on top of the beams. This results in spreading the load of the building so that it in effect “floats” on top of the landfill. This was the most common technique in the 18th and early 19th centuries, when people were building structures out in what had been deep water in the East and Hudson Rivers.

The final technique (a variation of which we still use today) involves driving pilings down through the landfill to the underlying river bottom along the outline of the footprint of the building and placing large beams on top of the pilings. Builders then lay the stone footings of the foundation wall on top of these beams. This technique, which has only been discovered at one site in New York City, required an enormous amount of energy to execute before the invention of the steam-driven pile driver.

A Hidden History

Landfill also helped preserve what many consider the most remarkable site not only in Lower Manhattan but in the whole nation: the African Burial Ground, which was excavated in 1991-1992. This project began when the Federal government was about to build an office tower at 290 Broadway, a block north of City Hall Park.

Archeologists began this project as they always do—by studying the history of the site. They learned that during the 18th century, part of the Negros Burial Ground had been located on part of the parcel that the government was developing. But buildings on that part of the site in the late 19th and 20th centuries had had deep basements, so deep that archeologists assumed that the burial ground had been destroyed, except in the area of an old alley.

Archeologists checked the alley and found something completely unexpected: In the 18th century, the ground surface in the area of the Burial Ground was much lower than it is today. In the early 19th century, developers had added 20 to 25 feet of landfill that served as a blanket and protected most of the burials from being destroyed by subsequent development.

Over the next year, archeologists disinterred over 400 burials. The human remains were taken to Howard University, where they were studied by a team led by Michael Blakey, a physical anthropologist. A decade later, in 2003, the remains were returned to New York, and amidst great ceremony were reinterred in vaults right next to the office tower where they had originally been buried and had lain for over 200 years.

Important in Many Ways

The African Burial Ground is important in many ways. First of all, the presence of slavery in early New York City, and even in the north as a whole, has been denied in modern popular history. But 18th-century New York City had a higher population of enslaved Africans than any other city in the British-American colonies except for Charleston, South Carolina.

Throughout the English colonial period in the 18th century, enslaved Africans constituted from 14% to almost 21% of the city’s population, and in 1703 (the only year for which a detailed census survives for the period), 40% of the city’s households included slaves. The discovery of the burial ground brought home in no uncertain terms to today’s New Yorkers that Africans have had a deep historical presence in New York City from the time of the first European arrivals.

Secondly, because Africans and other members of the disenfranchised tend to have been ignored in written historical records, archeological study is the best way that we have to find out about their lives. The people whose remains were disinterred at the African Burial Ground constitute the largest sample of people of African descent from the colonial period that has ever been studied in the United States. Although we will probably never know the names of any of those whose remains were unearthed—we know them only by the numbers that were assigned to them as they were disinterred—the Blakey team has been able to write their biographies.

Burial 101

Several women were buried with infants resting in the crooks of their arms, presumably mothers who, along with their babies, died during or shortly after childbirth. And there was “Burial 101.” His coffin was unusual in that it was decorated with a design formed by brass tacks. The excavators initially thought that the design represented a heart, but as Blakey discovered, it might also be a Sankofa bird symbol used by the Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast to mean “turn to the past in order to build the future.”

Unlike many of the other burials, Burial 101’s remains showed no signs of stress suffered during childhood. This suggested to the Blakey team that he had been born in Africa and spent his childhood in freedom. His front teeth had been filed into an hourglass shape, an African custom apparently not practiced in the Americas, more evidence suggesting an African past.

But, as Blakey put it, his vertebrae showed fractures that indicate that after his capture and removal to North America as an adult, “his forced labors were backbreaking in the most literal sense.” However, his burial in the decorated coffin—one of only four decorated ones found at the site—indicates that he enjoyed prestige in his community despite his forced labors.

A Spotlight on the Ignored

Many modern-day African-American New Yorkers have been guiding the direction of the African Burial Ground Project. Earlier this year President Bush designated the site a National Monument, and construction is underway on an African-inspired memorial that includes an ancestral libation court and chamber. An interpretive center is planned. Meanwhile, the New York Historical Society has opened a small permanent exhibit on slavery in New York, a smaller spin-off of an earlier landmark exhibit spurred by the Burial Ground discoveries.

As we all know, history is written by the victors. But as digs in New York have demonstrated, archeology can shine a spotlight on individuals and groups whose presence in the past is often ignored or even denied.

Also read: Beyond the Beaches: Revealing the Real Puerto Rico Part I and Beyond the Beaches: Revealing the Real Puerto Rico Part II.

About the Author

Diana Wall, professor of Anthropology at the City College of New York, is co-author (with Anne-Marie Cantwell) of Unearthing Gotham: The Archeology of New York City (Yale, 2001) and Touring Gotham’s Archeological Past (Yale, 2004).

Back to the Future: The Academy’s History

A black and white illustration of an old NYC building.

A pitiless creditor, arson, and rivalry between medical schools: All play a role in the history of the Academy’s real estate. Learn about the Academy’s history, dating back to 1817.

Published July 1, 2006

By Simon Baatz

The New York Institution on Chambers Street, home to several intellectual societies, housed the Academy in the early 19th century.

In a pleasant twist of fate, its move Downtown returns The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) to a location just blocks away from where it was founded nearly 200 years ago. On January 29, 1817, a group of 21 men, almost all recent graduates or professors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, met for the first time in a room of that institution, then located on Barclay Street near Broadway, close to City Hall.

Known (until 1876) as the Lyceum of Natural History, the group was open to anyone with an interest in natural knowledge. By contrast, the two leading scientific societies of the prior century, Philadelphia’s American Philosophical Society and Boston’s American Academy of Arts and Sciences, were limited to the socially prominent.

A Link to the Medical School

The Lyceum’s link to a medical school was no coincidence: In the early 19th century, science was not part of the college curriculum and there was no career structure for science per se, so medicine was the logical profession for young men with scientific curiosity.

With the aim of hosting public lectures on science and establishing a museum of natural history, the Lyceum needed more capacious quarters, a situation that sounds familiar today. And so, in April 1817, the Lyceum moved to a set of rooms in the New York Institution on the south side of Chambers Street directly opposite City Hall. The New York Institution was a cultural and intellectual mecca; the three-story building, on loan to New York’s literary societies from the City, housed the New York Historical Society, the New York Literary and Philosophical Society, the American Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Lyceum of Natural History.

Rapid Expansion

The Lyceum of Natural History was able to take good advantage of the City’s generosity; over the next two decades, the membership and activities of the society expanded rapidly. The growth of the Lyceum caused the members to imagine that they might own their own building, thus ending their dependence on a loan that could be revoked at any moment. In 1831 the Lyceum did eventually move from the New York Institution into a temporary home provided by the New York Dispensary at the corner of White and Centre Streets. But this also was unsatisfactory and in 1834 the members initiated a subscription campaign to raise the funds to construct a new building.

A safe harbor with NYU at the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway.

Their efforts seemed successful; two years later the Lyceum moved into its handsome new home on Broadway between Houston and Prince Streets. It was a notable accomplishment for scientific endeavor in New York City. There was a large lecture room on the first floor and on the second floor, a spacious gallery for the Lyceum’s collections in natural history. The members set aside rooms for a library at the rear of the building and several small meeting rooms on the third floor.

But it was all too good to last. To buy the land and build, the Lyceum incurred debt, hoping to pay it off through ongoing donations. Then came the severe economic recession of 1837. That stalled fund-raising and soon the Lyceum had to take on more debt, for a total of $35,000. The members struggled valiantly to hold onto their building but to no avail; a creditor threatened legal action and in 1843 the Lyceum sold its home at auction for $37,000.

A Serious Blow

The loss of the Broadway building was a serious blow. For a while, a small group of dispirited devotees met in the home of the Lyceum’s president. But then the Lyceum found shelter under the wing of a successful upstart, the newly founded medical school at New York University. That school felt that a tie to the Lyceum would bring it prestige in its competition with the well-established College of Physicians and Surgeons, later to be part of Columbia University.

Less than a year after their own building was sold, the Lyceum, along with its magnificent natural history collection and its superb library of books, moved to the NYU medical school’s home at the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway between Bleecker and Bond Streets. In 1851 the Lyceum moved with the medical school to a new building on the outskirts of the city at 14th Street close to Third Avenue.

But 15 years later, disaster struck. The NYU medical school was adjacent to the Academy of Music, a large opera house on the corner of 14th Street. On the night of Monday, May 21, 1866, an arsonist set a fire to the rear of the Academy of Music. The flames quickly spread and soon the entire block on 14th Street between Irving Place and Third Avenue was ablaze.

The NYU medical school, along with the Mott Surgical Museum and the collections of the Lyceum of Natural History, burned to the ground despite the best efforts of New York City firemen. A collection of birds donated to the Lyceum by John James Audubon, a mineralogical collection from the New York State Geological Survey, and the ichthyological specimens of Samuel Latham Mitchill, an energetic founder of the Lyceum—all vanished in the flames.

Another Severe Setback

The loss of the Lyceum’s collections was a severe setback to the cause of science in New York; it was not certain that they would ever be replaced. But ironically, the loss cleared the way for the creation of a new institution, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Thanks to the generosity of New York City and State, and of the city’s wealthiest citizens, the AMNH opened on Central Park West in 1874.

Its establishment meant a circumscribed role for the Lyceum of Natural History—it would no longer attempt to rebuild its own museum. But the creation of the AMNH had its blessings; renamed the New York Academy of Sciences, the former Lyceum moved into rooms in the museum’s capacious building on Central Park West and assumed a modest, yet significant, role as a spokesperson for the scientific community in New York City.

In the early decades of the 20th century, the Academy organized a comprehensive survey of the natural history of Puerto Rico, a project that coincided with the research of such notable members as Franz Boas and Nathaniel Lord Britton.

Rising from the Ashes

Farewell to the magnificent Woolworth Mansion on East 63rd Street.
Courtesy CBRE.

But it was Eunice Miner, a former researcher at the AMNH who was executive secretary of the Academy from 1939 through 1968, who did more than any other member to revitalize the Academy and to secure it a permanent home. In her rounds of New York philanthropists, Miner attracted the attention of Norman Woolworth, scion of the family that owned a network of chain stores. Woolworth was so impressed that, on learning of the Academy’s search for a new home, he donated his own ornate five-story mansion on East 63rd with the sole requirement that the Academy pay all the necessary legal fees.

It was a spectacular gift. The Academy, the oldest science organization in New York City, could now boast a magnificent home—and a permanent measure of independence and self-sufficiency. After many happy years, and after much careful consideration, Academy members voted to sell the mansion in 2005. But in the other whimsical twist of fate, the Academy’s new home looks down upon the magnificent Gothic spire of the landmark Woolworth Building, which housed the Woolworth company for 80 years and is now being converted into residential apartments. And, of course, the proceeds from the sale of the mansion have resulted in an endowment that will be the bulwark of the Academy for years to come, back Downtown.

Also read: Academy’s Past: Where It All Began (11-part series) and Knowledge, Culture and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences (1817-1970)

About the Author

Simon Baatz, who teaches American history at George Mason University, is the author of Knowledge, Culture, and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences 1817-1970 (1990). His most recent book, For the Thrill of It: The Murder that Shocked Chicago, a history of the Leopold-Loeb case, will be published by HarperCollins in 2007.

PATH Forward: Connecting New Jersey and New York

Santiago Calatrava’s new transport terminal will encourage Downtown residents, commuters and tourists to look up and marvel.

Published July 1, 2006

By Fred A. Bernstein

Image courtesy of sean via stock.adobe.com.

In his first completed project in New York, the Spanish-born architect Santiago Calatrava designed a time capsule meant to be opened in the year 3000. Calatrava’s bulbous, polished metal box, which stands outside the American Museum of Natural History, was clearly inspired by nature. But it would take experts from several departments of the museum to pin down all the referents. Some observers see a seashell; others, a flower or a seedpod; still others, an elaborate crystal. Animal, vegetable, or mineral?

In a world where most buildings are simply containers, their forms influenced only by other buildings, Calatrava’s blatantly biomorphic structures have made him, at 54, the most accessible of the current generation of superstar architects.

Most of Calatrava’s structures— bridges, airports, train stations, and museums—are in Europe, but as many as three more could arrive on the Lower Manhattan skyline by the end of the decade. The largest (and the one most certain to be built) is the $2.2 billion PATH terminal at Ground Zero, scheduled to open in 2009.

Hands in Prayer? Or Birds in Flight?

The terminal, just east of where the Twin Towers stood, will be topped by a pair of curved canopies of glass and steel that reach high into the sky as decoration. A hydraulic system will allow the canopies to rise, creating an opening about 35 feet wide at its center, bathing the huge concourse in sunlight.

Some visitors will see the canopies as hands interlocked in prayer; others will see birds in flight (to heighten the allusion, Calatrava released a dove into the air when he unveiled his design). Or perhaps it isn’t the bird but the birdcage, opening to the sky in a symbol of freedom. The building has been particularly welcome news at Ground Zero, where architectural squabbles—some growing out of forced collaborations— continue to make headlines.

Calatrava collaborates with no one, and it’s just as well, since he has too many ideas already. Born in Valencia, he speaks nearly a dozen languages and sometimes uses all of them—citing the works of philosophers, composers, poets, and painters—in a single sentence. He has no compunction about mixing metaphors in his buildings; how else can he hope to get a fraction of his ideas built in just one short lifetime?

Thirty years ago, after receiving an undergraduate degree in architecture, Calatrava moved to Switzerland to study engineering. He quickly developed a style all his own. His student work resembled the streamlined forms of one of his idols, Robert Maillart, an early 20th-century designer of bridges in the Swiss cantons. Maillart’s goal was to remove excess material, which resulted in concrete bridges so thin, they appeared to be stretched almost to breaking.

Bridging Twist and Turn for Decorative Effect

But unlike Maillart’s strictly economical structures, Calatrava’s bridges twist and turn for decorative effect. Not surprisingly, the great Catalan architect, Antonio Gaudi, who rarely used right angles and whose buildings ornament Barcelona, is another one of Calatrava’s idols.

Since the advent of modernism, architects have almost universally tried to explain form as the direct result of function, as if anything less rational were suspect. But Calatrava has joyfully shaken off that stricture. His design for a music school in Switzerland uses five exposed steel cables. Calatrava has said “I chose five, even knowing that I could have used only two, because music is read over five lines.”

More recently, he designed an opera house for Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, with a vast curved wing that resembles a crescent moon, a wave, an orchid, or about half a dozen other forms from nature. Asked about the origins of the wing, which significantly increased the cost of the building, Calatrava didn’t pretend that it served any practical purpose—except the purpose to inspire.

Lately, the architect has been creating buildings that don’t just look ready to move; they do move. Shortlisted to redesign the Reichstag in Berlin, Calatrava proposed a glass dome that would open when the Bundestag was in session, symbolizing openness in government. That design was never built. But in 2001 his ideas took flight in an entry pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum. There, a roof that resembles a bird’s wings opens to the sky in good weather. Getting the wings built was tricky—after long delays and huge cost overruns, Calatrava had the pieces assembled in Spain and flown across the Atlantic in a giant Soviet transport plane. Even then, there were minor problems with the mechanism.

A Secular Version of Gothic Cathedrals

In the end, Milwaukee garnered an important civic symbol—and even skeptics find the building’s now-reliable daily displays irresistible. The expense is of little concern to Calatrava’s fans, who see his buildings as the modern, secular version of Gothic cathedrals: uplifting symbols of humankind’s highest aspirations.

Private developers in the U.S. are just beginning to see whether Calatrava’s panache can produce profits. If completed in Chicago, his Fordham Spire, a mixed-use tower that twists a few degrees with every floor, would be the tallest building in the United States. For South Street in Lower Manhattan, Calatrava has designed a tower of 45-foot cubes hanging from cables—a plan the architect worked out with blocks of wood and marble.

Each cube would contain a single “apartment” priced at $30 million or more. He has also designed a gondola that could bring visitors from Manhattan to Governors Island—a pro bono project that he accepted at the request of city and state officials hoping to spark interest in the island’s redevelopment.

There’s only one problem with a Calatrava gondola: There had better be a very special building at the other end, or the trip will be an anticlimax.

Also read: An Architectural Historian’s Perspective of NYC

About the Author

Fred A. Bernstein studied architecture at Princeton and law at NYU, and writes about both subjects.

Older posts

Newer posts

“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.”— Homer, The Odyssey (Alexander Pope translation)

The Chemistry of Wine

What Are Tannins?

Astringency and Texture

Tannins and Longevity

The Complexity and Unique Taste of Well-aged Wine

Timing Tannins

The Future of Wine Research

Spatial Variation in Grape and Wine Tannins

Influence of Grape Cluster Temperature on Composition

Relative Extraction of Skin and Seed Tannins

Science and Craftmanship

Walter Isaacson, acclaimed biographer and onetime CNN chairman personalizes history’s most famous genius in his new biography about Albert Einstein.

Your educational background is not in science, but you do a fantastic job of explaining Einstein’s theories in a way a lay reader can understand them. How did you do that?

You note in the book that there are those who have suggested that Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Maric, contributed more to the development of his theories than she’s credited with, but you seem to conclude that the work was purely his own.

Everyone is fascinated with Einstein’s view of God. You call him “the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos.”

Are there things that you reveal in this book that had been previously unknown about Einstein?

Academy members will soon have access to the entire historical collection of the ‘Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,’ dating back to 1823.

The Lyceum Years

The Leadership of Eunice Thomas Miner

Joining the Information Revolution

Notes

French chemist Hervé This is a founder of the field of molecular gastronomy which uses the tools of science to explore the methodology and mechanisms of the culinary arts.

It Started with a Soufflé

Rules are meant to be challenged

It Takes a Kitchen-full

Learning a New Language

The Science and the Practice

About Hervé This

In his book Mind Wars, bioethicist Jonathan Moreno tells why the defense industry is interested in new discoveries in neuroscience. He explores why the defense department funds brain research, and what scientists should do about it.

You say that in 2006, most Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funding has gone to brain-related work.

As you point out, DARPA funding has resulted in great technologies for the public good. What are the problems, risks, or ethical dilemmas with having neuroscience research funded by a defense agency?

What might happen if the same chemical is used against our security agents, for example?

But in the end, you don’t advocate separating military from civilian science.

About the Author

“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man’s power of selection.”-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, First edition

A Boot Camp for Those on the Front lines

Teaching Intelligent Design Alongside Evolution

The Test of Time

Human Life as an Engineering Wonder

A Triumph of Education

From fast growth and profitable sales to research improprieties and legal trouble: the story behind ImClone.

Early-Intervention Research

An Array of Daunting Challenges

Slavery, landfill and brothels: Archeologists are learning more about the history of New York City after recent discoveries in downtown Manhattan that date back to the city’s pre-colonial days.

Fruits of Development

Beneath the Kitchen Floor

The First Large-scale Excavation in Lower Manhattan

A Hard Life in the Slums

Filling in the Blanks

Landfills and Bulkheads

Building on a Landfill

A Hidden History

Important in Many Ways

Burial 101

A Spotlight on the Ignored

A pitiless creditor, arson, and rivalry between medical schools: All play a role in the history of the Academy’s real estate. Learn about the Academy’s history, dating back to 1817.

A Link to the Medical School

Rapid Expansion

A Serious Blow

Another Severe Setback

Rising from the Ashes

About the Author

Santiago Calatrava’s new transport terminal will encourage Downtown residents, commuters and tourists to look up and marvel.

Hands in Prayer? Or Birds in Flight?

Bridging Twist and Turn for Decorative Effect

A Secular Version of Gothic Cathedrals

“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.”
— Homer, The Odyssey (Alexander Pope translation)

“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man’s power of selection.”
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, First edition