Science in Society - NYAS

A blue and white sign warning: Tsunami Hazard Zone - in case of earthquake go to high ground or inland.

In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunamis, and with tectonic plates continuing to shift beneath the Indian Ocean, scientists are seeking answers to handle the next natural disaster.

Published June 1, 2005

By Sheri Fink, MD, PhD

Image courtesy of jdoms via stock.adobe.com.

Stunning images of devastation and soaring body counts dominated news coverage of last December’s tsunami, leaving one of the most important questions about the disaster barely addressed: Why did so many people die? With tectonic plates still shifting beneath the Indian Ocean, setting off new earthquakes almost daily, finding answers to this question is urgent.

Lareef Zubair is an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and founder of the Sri Lanka Meteorology, Oceanography and Hydrology Network. He studies why disasters in some parts of the world tend to carry a much higher human, as opposed to financial, toll than disasters in other places – compare the thousands who die in a typical cyclone in Bangladesh with the 123 deaths caused by last year’s four hurricanes in Florida.

Zubair recently spoke at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) on a panel organized by Science Writers in New York (SWINY), an affiliate of the National Association of Science Writers, to discuss untold stories of the tsunami.

Disasters: Unequal Opportunity Killers

Destructive acts of nature impact human populations to varying degrees. “People who study disasters sort of separate out three aspects of disasters,” said Zubair. “One is the hazards, which is something like a flood, or lightening strike, or a tsunami, which is the physical or biophysical event itself. And then there is the exposure, the degree to which people are exposed to the hazard. The third thing is how vulnerable you are to that event.”

In Zubair’s home country of Sri Lanka, the tsunami restricted its wrath to the first several hundred meters adjacent to the water’s edge. The destruction coincided with areas of high population density. Not only those who eked out a living on the sea lived in close proximity to it, but also traders and farmers, despite regulations stipulating that construction within 300 meters of the shoreline be reviewed by the government. One reason people are drawn to the coast is that infrastructure such as roads, telephones, hospitals and schools have been developed there.

“The seashore has to be protected,” said Zubair. “Cyclones and flooding and storm surges happen at the seashore…every 10, 20, 30 years, and everybody knows this. But somehow that did not translate into the desired action of having people live in safer areas.”

Not only were people living along the seashore exposed to natural disasters, Zubair said, but because of the area’s depressed economy and 20-year history of civil war, they also were highly vulnerable to them. “Vulnerability…is grossly related [to] the distribution of wealth,” Zubair said. “How good are your houses, how good is the infrastructure, how good are the hospitals that are around so that you can get treatment? How good is the road system?” The answers in the tsunami-hit areas of Sri Lanka were, in most cases, “poor.”

A Failure of Prevention

On December 26, 2004, Sri Lanka’s National Disaster Management Center did not jump into action to mitigate the tsunami’s destructive effects. The country’s “Sunday Times” newspaper summed up the problem in a headline: “Only three phones, staff of 10, and never on a Sunday.” The tsunami had the bad manners to hit on the Sunday after Christmas. “How on earth [can you] have a national disaster management center that does not work on public holidays?” Zubair asked.

An hour elapsed between the tsunami’s first deadly landfall on the island’s eastern coast and its last lashing in the country’s northwest. In that time, an estimated 20,000 additional people died. Zubair believes that had a warning been broadcast to the rest of the country soon after the tsunami began hitting the coast – roughly one and a half hours after the earthquake – lives would have been saved.

“That should have happened,” said Zubair. “Any middle school student could see [that] if you have an earthquake hazard in the middle of the ocean, there is going to be a tsunami risk. You don’t need sophisticated scientists to come and tell you this. Why did people fail? And, why did people fail in Sri Lanka? Why did people fail in India? Lastly, why did people fail here? I don’t think we should push these questions under the carpet, as scientists.”

An Early Warning System

Zubair said he made his way to the “plush” part of Colombo to visit the disaster management center several times in the year prior to the tsunami, seeking to discuss early warning systems. He was offered tea, but never an audience with anyone willing to talk about technical issues. An early warning system had indeed been proposed after Sri Lanka’s 1978 cyclone. Plans were made, reports were written, money was disbursed, but the ideas were never implemented by the center. “They exist, with a name-board and a plaque, for donors,” he said, concluding that a “perverse incentive system” exists for those involved in disaster management and related fields.

“Every time there’s a disaster, they get rewarded with larger and larger amount of funds,” he said. “In countries such as Sri Lanka, fields like disaster management and energy conservation are seen as fields in which you can get foreign funds, opportunities for scholarships and maybe some sort of benefit. There’s no integration of the disaster management system itself into the internal networks of science, into the internal networks of education, into the internal networks of governments itself and disaster management.”

High Price of Neglecting Science

Sri Lanka’s Geological Survey and Mines Bureau possessed both a functioning seismograph and a 100-year scientific pedigree, but on December 26th it had no one working on site to analyze the seismic measurements. Data were sent instead to the Scripps Institute in San Diego. “The question is, why is it that you’re sitting on probably the most important piece of scientific data Sri Lanka ever recorded or needed and you just ship it off?”

The answer is controversial. Zubair traced it to the pressures of mounting foreign debt, which forced the bureau to shift its focus away from science to supporting commercial mining interests. “Because of the fact that the country is dependent…services that look after the safety of the population got converted into a service that helps repay debt,” he said. Hewing to World Bank and Sri Lanka’s central bank guidelines, the bureau did not have the authority to spend the roughly $2,000 needed to hire someone to monitor the seismograph.

In fact, $2,000 is the government’s entire yearly grant to Sri Lanka’s Academy of Sciences. “The investment of the Sri Lankan government in science is about .18% of GDP. It’s just miniscule. You should at least have 1% or 2%, because what you’re doing is investing in people, you’re investing in safety, in the future.”

Empowering Humanity

Zubair concluded that the death toll from the tsunami was in great part a function of unmitigated exposure and vulnerability of the population – factors he laid at the doorstep of a government that neglects science and technology, and international donor organizations that offer a shower of funds for emergency relief, but turn off the spigot for prevention efforts.

“The basic message here is we really should be talking about disaster preparedness and risk management,” he said. The goal is to integrate modern scientific and technological advancements with emergency preparedness and public education. “You can have policy, but there must be implementation and there must be good governance…governance that looks after the welfare of the people.”

Despite the failures, Zubair recalled that when he visited Sri Lanka a week after the disaster he came away with hope as well as frustration. At a time when the government and international agencies had not yet swung into action, he saw the local inhabitants themselves saving lives. “Church groups, community groups, temples, mosques, workplaces. It was like 9/11 here – extraordinary mobilization. It’s not a poor country in that sense.” The key, he says, is to support the “huge capacity of people.” Chief among them? The scientists.

Also read: Tsunami Relief Efforts: A Personal Account

Tsunami Relief Efforts: A Personal Account

Water splashes and people scramble during a tsunami.

Collaboration is key when dealing with disasters. A medical doctor offers guidance from her experience in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Published June 1, 2005

By Sheri Fink, MD, PhD

A photograph of the 2004 tsunami in Ao Nang, Krabi Province, Thailand. Image courtesy of David Rydevik via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

During two months working in Thailand and Indonesia after the tsunami, I was struck by the many ways that science and technology was employed during the disaster recovery process, although not without controversy and complications. Geospatial imaging information guided aid workers to highly populated disaster zones, but not all countries immediately released the sensitive information. Instant cell-phone messaging allowed disease surveillance specialists to track emerging infectious outbreaks across widespread areas, but not all health workers reported their cases.

One of the most interesting applications of science was in the field of forensics. In Thailand, the tsunami stole the lives of an estimated 3,442 Thai nationals and 1,953 foreigners, many of them European tourists. While tsunami victims’ bodies were buried or cremated in countries with fewer tourists, identification teams from more than two dozen countries showed up in Thailand to identify the victims, using techniques ranging from forensic anthropology to genetics. Most of the experts worked on the verdant grounds of a massive Buddhist temple known as Wat Yan Yao.

Quickly, however, a problem emerged: Each team had its own standards for evidence collection. Brendan Harris, a young volunteer from Vancouver, Canada, provided assistance to the teams, heaving waterlogged bodies onto mortuary tables in the first weeks after the tsunami. “There are a lot of arguments going on about how to deal with the bodies,” he said.

Collaboration is Imperative during Crises

Clad in hospital gowns, masked and gloved, the foreign teams at first focused their efforts on Caucasian-appearing bodies. That left Thai forensic scientists and dentists to photograph, examine and take fingerprints and DNA samples from Asian-appearing bodies, or bodies where decomposition had wiped away all traces of race. The result was two separate identification efforts, one foreign and one Thai, proceeding within earshot of each other. A month after the tsunami, the Thai and foreign teams had established completely different computer databases and were not sharing information crucial to identifying the missing. With only roughly 1,000 bodies identified, family members of the missing were distraught.

Ultimately the scientists realized that they had to work together. The foreign teams and the Thai interior ministry formed the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification Center, adopting protocols based on Interpol standards. The Center’s members committed to identifying all recovered bodies, regardless of nationality.

Scientists cautioned that the identification process could take many months, but expressed hope for what had become one of the largest international disaster identification efforts in history. “I have no doubt this will be a very highly successful system,” said DNA expert Ed Huffine, of Bode Technology Group in Springfield, Virginia. “This is developing a world response system to disaster. And it’s beginning a standardization process that uses all forms of forensic evidence, where DNA will play the leading role.”

The Need for a Crisis Response Network

A laboratory in Beijing, China, offered to test all victims’ DNA samples for free. Weeks later, scientists were surprised when the Chinese lab, and eventually several labs in other countries, had difficulty deriving usable DNA profiles from the degraded DNA in tooth samples. By the end of March, more than three months after the tsunami, the Victim Identification Center had put names to only an additional 1,112 bodies, the vast majority of them matched exclusively through dental records. Only three IDs came exclusively from DNA.

Continued disagreements and frequent personnel turnover have plagued the identification center, which insiders refer to as “a mess.” The disappointing experience has pointed out the need for better preparation and coordination among multi-national forensics experts responding to disasters.

Just as the World Health Organization plays a coordinating role for diverse groups of health professionals working in disaster and conflict zones, so, too, an international organization is needed to coordinate disaster victim identification teams. Such a group would be wise to standardize not only technical procedures, but also ethical principles – including the impartial treatment of bodies of all nationalities and races.

Perhaps most importantly, family members of the missing, who have the largest stake in the outcome of identification efforts, should be offered both full access to information and decision-making representation in any future crisis. It is crucial that their preferences and belief systems count.

Also read: The Science Behind a Tsunami’s Destructiveness

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Artists Consider Manipulation of Human Form

A woman gets a needle injection, presumably Botox, into her lip by a gloved hand.

Analyzing how cosmetic surgery, science, and art interact in a new exhibit on display at the Academy.

Published March 31, 2005

By Fred Moreno

Image courtesy of Acronym via stock.adobe.com.

Although the Hindu surgeon Sushruta noted how to reconstruct a nose from a patient’s cheek as far back as 600 B.C., plastic surgery is said to have begun during the Renaissance with the Italian Gasparo Tagliacozzi. He originated a method of nasal reconstruction in which a flap from the upper arm is gradually transferred to the nose.

Plastic surgery (a term which covers both reconstructive and cosmetic surgery) has come a long way since then and it is now one of the largest medical specialties in the United States. It is a good example of how market demand can drive medical developments, as technology races to keep up with consumer desire. But the decision to alter one’s face or body, surgically or otherwise, continues to raise questions about the social impact of medicine and technology, the manipulation of the human form, as well as issues of identity, self-esteem, and health, both physical and psychological.

Face Value: Plastic Surgery and Transformation Art

An exhibition opening April 8 in the Gallery of Art & Science of The New York Academy of Sciences, Face Value: Plastic Surgery and Transformation Art, takes a look at these questions through the eyes of more than a dozen contemporary artists who are imagining new parameters for body identity in a wide range of media, from painting to photography— and even through personal body manipulation. Curated by artist Suzanne Anker, chair of the Art History Department at New York’s School of Visual Arts, the exhibition will include works by Erica Baum, Aaron Cobbett, Margi Geerlinks, Leigh Kane, Daniel Lee, Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault, Orlan, Julia Reodica, Aura Rosenberg, Chrysanne Stathacos, and Linn Underhill.

“In many ways, plastic surgery lies at the nexus of medicine and consumerism,” Anker says. “How visual artists interpret that interaction can say a lot about the nature of beauty and our society’s medical and cultural values.”

Also read: The Art and Science of Human Facial Perception

Academy Aids Effort to Release Political Prisoner

A recipient of The New York Academy of Sciences’ Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award was recently released from a Vietnamese prison.

Published February 3, 2005

By Fred Moreno

Image courtesy of Cavan for Adobe via stock.adobe.com.

Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, a Vietnamese doctor who won The New York Academy of Sciences’ 2004 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award for his efforts to improve the lives of his fellow citizens, has been released from prison by the Vietnamese government following a campaign by a coalition of individuals and organizations, including the Academy.

In a letter to the Academy from Dr. Que’s brother, Dr. Quan Nguyen wrote about his brother’s release: “It is wonderful news and you’ve made it happen. On behalf of Dr. Que and my family, I thank you for all that you’ve done for Dr. Que and other dissidents around the world.”

Dr. Nguyen accepted the Pagels prize on behalf of his brother in ceremonies at the Academy in September, 2004. Awarded annually in recognition of services on behalf of the human rights of scientists, the Pagels award was given to Dr. Que “in recognition of his courage and singular moral responsibility as a medical doctor committed to the welfare and health care of the Vietnamese people and for peacefully promoting human rights in Vietnam.”

The Academy’s first human rights award was given in 1979 to Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov. Renamed in 1988 in honor of former Academy president Heinz R. Pagels, the award has been bestowed on such imminent scientists as Chinese dissident Fang Li-Zhi, Russian Nuclear Engineer Alexander Nikitin, and Cuban Economist Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello.

Also read: Promoting Human Rights through Science

From Imagination to Reality: Art and Science Fiction

A SciFi scene of an insect-like spacecraft causing harm to Earthlings.

A new art exhibit on display at the Academy explores more than 100 years of science fiction history.

Published October 27, 2004

By Fred Moreno and Jennifer Tang

*An illustration from the 1906 French language edition of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, a classic in the field of science fiction. Image courtesy of* *Henrique Alvim Corrêa via Wikimedia Commons*

The blending of fantasy and prediction with science gave birth more than 100 years ago to a unique literary genre known as science fiction. It takes the latest ruminations from the realms of science and extrapolates them to present conflicts that drive some of the most thought-provoking-and entertaining—fiction of our time.

The New York Academy of Sciences Gallery of Art & Science will take a close look at the eye-catching and exotic images that often illuminate science fiction and how the concepts depicted are grounded in real science in an exhibition opening November 5. From Imagination to Reality: The Art of Science Fiction will feature works illustrating such themes as robotics and extraterrestrials, space development and habitats, genetic engineering, computers, and time travel.

Artists represented will include Wayne Barlowe, John Berkey, Vincent Di Fate, Dean Ellis, Donato Giancola, Paul Lehr, Richard Powers, John Schoenherr, Gene Szafran, Murray Tinkelman, and Michael Whelan. A special feature of the show will be a selection of sci-fi movie props, including the severed hand for the 1951 film, The Thing from Another World, and a fiberglass casting from the final headpiece worn in the classic 1954 movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Ubiquitous in Popular Culture

Guest curator for the exhibition is Vincent Di Fate, one of the world’s leading painters of futuristic themes whose book, Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art, is considered the definitive volume on the subject.

“At its very best science fiction can provide compelling insights into the future and a better understanding of the human condition,” said Di Fate. “That it can sometimes predict the future with a stunning accuracy is only an incidental consequence of its purpose to entertain.”

Di Fate noted that the art of science fiction has become so ubiquitous in culture that virtually anyone can identify a robot, a ray gun and a few dozen other iconic objects of the genre on sight, whether they’ve actually ever read a science fiction story.

“For example, most of what we think about anthropomorphic mechanical beings-robots-comes from science fiction, with some important preliminary thinking on the subject presented in Isaac Asimov’s robot stories,” he said. “Computer technology also has long been a subject of science fiction literature, with the widely-used term ‘cyberspace’ coming from the pages of William’s Gibson’s landmark novel Necromancer.”

Other staples of the genre, such as rocket ships, aliens of all types, and space exploration have inspired some wonderful and exciting art, Di Fate explained. Even sociological issues such as overpopulation and racism are reflected in science fiction and the images it inspires.

“In a sense, science fiction is about the shape of things to come,” he said. “The Academy exhibition demonstrates that SF art, in reflecting things yet to be, illustrates how imagination can become reality.”

From Imagination to Reality: The Art of Science Fiction will be on view from November 5, 2004 to January 28, 2005.

Also read: The Art and Science of Human Facial Perception

The Beauty of Geometry and Art of Minimalism

A colorful graphic consisting of reds, oranges, and yellows.

New Academy art exhibit explores the beauty of the minimalist art movement, which saw a renaissance 1960s and 70s.

Published September 8, 2004

By Jennifer Tang

Image courtesy of YesPhotographers via stock.adobe.com.

In the 19th century, mathematicians such as David Hilbert turned to the work of Euclid, the ancient Greek mathematician, for new ways in which to study geometry. Hilbert uncovered new foundations of geometry by reducing mathematics to its most basic elements: lines, squares, circles, and triangles. Reflecting this line of thought, European and Russian artists in the early 1900’s began producing art based on the simplicity of ancient geometric shapes. Known as Minimalism, this movement later took the art world by storm during the 1960’s and ’70s.

To celebrate the ways in which geometry has inspired art, the New York Academy of Sciences is presenting a new exhibit, “Plane Geometry: Minimalist Work on Paper”, which will run from September 8 to October 29, 2004. The exhibit brings together about a dozen artists whose work reveals how planes of geometry can inspire artworks of startling beauty.

Included are works such as Constellations II (1967) by Jacob Drachler, which features a grid structure filled with a vocabulary of shapes (circles and squares) that are repeated in various arrangements (“constellations”). Another work, Trepass, offers a dense grid filled with gradations of color, reflecting Julian Stanszak’s study of visual perceptions.

Randomness Within Rules

Geometric shapes are also prominent in Left Turn (1979), by Alan D’Arcangelo. Here, the artist uses geometric shapes derived from road signs to give the illusion that the shapes recede into space, as if they are part of a road. Another bold design, “Untitled”, by Jimmy Ernst, son of Max Ernst, the famous Surrealist painter, presents a stick figure and the “X”-shape of a traffic sign.

Other artists include Alexander Calder, Patrick Hughes and Kenneth Martin. This fascinating collection of works from Minimalism’s heyday in the 1960’s and ’70s is from the collection of the Binghamton University Art Museum. The show will go on to Binghamton from November 5 to December 10. Lynn Gamwell, artist and chair of the Department of Art History at the School of Visual Arts, is the curator.

“Artists seeking ideal proportions have always come under the spell of numbers and mathematics,” Ms. Gamwell observed. “The current age has been driven by the possibilities of generating seemingly random phenomena from a set of precise rules.”

Also read: From Imagination to Reality: Art and Science Fiction

Scientists and War: An Ethical Dilemma

A black and white photo of an atomic bomb test, showing a massive mushroom cloud.

Major advances were made in the development of chemical weapons between World War I and the Cold War. This would present scientists with a moral dilemma.

Published August 1, 2004

By Mary Crowley

Atomic cloud during Baker Day blast at Bikini atoll. Image courtesy of National Archives Catalog. Public domain.

“Of arms I sing, and the man,” man,” began the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem on war and heroism, written in the first century BCE. Battle and humankind’s relationship to it is a timeless theme.

But war and weaponry took on new meaning in the 20th century, when nuclear arms created the potential to eliminate entire cities and even civilization. From the chemists who manufactured gas in World War I to the physicists who designed the atom bomb in World War II, scientists were at the fulcrum of a world literally in the balance.

And they are still there now, in the post-9/11 era, this time with molecular biologists facing off against the shadowy enemy of bioterrorism. Hopefully, they have gleaned some insights from their forebears, particularly physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who has come to represent the ethical dilemma that scientists face when called on to use their skills to defend their nation.

“The association of scientist, arms and the state is fraught with troublesome questions, many centering on whether the scientist’s obligation to the state requires deploying his or her expertise to hazardous, potentially destructive purposes and/or defending against them,” said Daniel J. Kevles, Ph.D., Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University. Oppenheimer continues to fascinate us, prompting books, plays and even a coming opera because of the “vexing vitality of these issues,” he said at a recent meeting of The New York Academy of Sciences’ (the Academy’s) History and Philosophy of Science Section.

Chemists at War

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 condemned the development of chemical weapons (despite objections from the Americans and the British). The ban, instituted because of fears that chemical weapons like gas could be used against cities and civilians, demonstrated “the widely supported belief, even in military circles at the time, that at the opening of the 20th century civilian populations should not be fair game in warfare among the advanced civilized nations,” said Kevles.

But by the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Institute of Chemistry in Germany was trying to produce nitric acid for munitions. The Institute was headed by Fritz Haber, the “father of chemical warfare,” who with Carl Bosch won a Nobel Prize in 1918 for devising a method to fix nitrogen from the air. As Haber envisioned it, gas released from cylinders got around The Hague Convention’s prohibition against delivering it via projectiles. Indeed, Haber himself led the first gas attack at Ypres, in Belgium, in April 1915.

Public Opposition to Chemical Weapons

In response, the Allies quickly implemented their own programs. When the United States joined the battle in 1917, it established the Chemical Warfare Service, involving some 700 chemists and more than 20 academic institutions. Quite rapidly, the letter of The Hague Convention was ignored, as well as its spirit, as the French began using gas shells to better disperse the noxious agent. By war’s end, there were an estimated 560,000 gas casualties.

Artists and writers depicted the horrors of gas attacks. A poll of Americans showed such overwhelming opposition to chemical weapons that a government advisory committee noted, “The conscience of the American people has been profoundly shocked by the savage use of scientific discoveries for destruction rather than for construction.”

Nonetheless, as the Allies were poised for victory in 1918, “gas was hailed as a triumph of Allied industry,” said Kevles. Should the war have continued, the U.S. and Britain had plans to aerially assault cities with chemical bombs, despite vehement opposition from many military officers, including General John J. Pershing. Chemical weapons were seen as a necessary evil. At hearings on Capitol Hill, General Amos A. Fries argued that the more deadly the weapons, “the sooner…we will quit all fighting.”

In part through lobbying by the gas industry and in part through support of veterans who counted gas a “humane weapon” that ended the war sooner, the Chemical Weapons Service received generous research funding. And American gas chemists “displayed no moral anguish about their wartime role,” according to Kevles. They agreed with Haber, who said that gas was “a higher form of killing.”

Physicists at War

Physicists played the starring role in World War II science. Early on, it was clear that this war would be “an unprecedented technological conflict,” one that would require physicists to enjoin the battle for more powerful weaponry, explained Kevles.

They were eager to do so. The Blitzkrieg in 1940 and other early assaults “established a new imperative for the social responsibility of science: Do whatever possible to meet the technological threat from fascist aggressors by forging an all out technological response in the democracies,” said Kevles. With the memory of Germany’s World War I surprise gas attack still raw, the Allies had no plans to be caught unaware. “The willingness to develop an atomic bomb, a dramatically unconventional innovation that promised to wipe out entire cities, was to prevent being beaten to the punch by the Nazis,” according to Kevles.

But the bomb never went off against its preferred target. By the time Fat Man and Little Boy were completed, the Germans had surrendered. The bombs were used instead against civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even as Japan was on the brink of surrender.

The Oppenheimer Paradox

By the time the atom bomb was dropped, “moral sensibilities about bombing civilians had been almost completely shattered, among scientists as well as policy and opinion makers,” said Kevles. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s experiences during World War II and the postwar years poignantly capture the inherent ethical dilemmas of scientists at war.

World War II transformed Oppenheimer from “an otherworldly theoretical physicist into the internationally renowned creator and sage of American nuclear strength,” who was then humiliated and destroyed by “the vicious and bare-knuckled politics of national security,” described Kevles.

Oppenheimer entered the war years eager to apply his physicist’s craft against the Nazis. He was the research head of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, feverishly working to develop an atom bomb before the Germans did. In 1945 he wrote, “We recognize our obligation to our nation to use the weapons to help save American lives [and] we can see no acceptable alternative to military use.”

That the bomb was used against Japanese civilians horrified Oppenheimer. He publicly stated in 1947, “Physicists felt a particularly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for achieving the realization of atomic weapons. Nor can we forget that these weapons, as they were in fact used, dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.”

A Dutiful Soldier of Science

Despite these reservations, he remained a “dutiful soldier of science” during the early Cold War years, when intense investment into the machines of war was considered essential for national security. Oppenheimer signed on to the plan for creating an H-bomb, and served on various government advisory boards on national defense, until he lost his security clearance in 1953. Most significantly, he was chair of the General Advisory Committee of the just-formed Atomic Energy Commission, which he claimed was supposed to “provide atomic weapons and good atomic weapons and many atomic weapons.”

“Oppenheimer is something of a paradox, embodying at one and the same time a sense of sin associated with the forging of nuclear weapons and a commitment to improving and multiplying those weapons for the sake of national security, a task that could lead to further sin,” contended Kevles. “Yet the power of nuclear weapons, the reach of new delivery systems, the utter vulnerability of cities, and the potential combustibility of the Cold War forced Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists to embrace their paradox, to accept both the anguish of their sin and the continuing responsibilities of national security.”

Biologists at War

The science warriors of our era – the biologists who are at the forefront of research that can be turned to new types of weaponry – face a similar paradox. “The horrendous events of September 11, 2001 placed bioterrorism high on the national security agenda,” noted Kevles. Biomedical researchers are confronted with a new dilemma: Much of their research can serve both the beneficent needs of health and the nefarious needs of terrorism.

Due to the contemporary global nature of biology, with thousands of journals easily accessible, the information is highly transparent – and the key agents of bioterrorism require relatively small-scale investments. Meantime, the funding stream for biology is rich. The National Institutes of Health earmarked $1.7 billion for bioterrorism research in fiscal 2003.

How biologists contend with this challenge is history waiting to be written. “The challenge posed by bioterrorism is unprecedented in the history of science, arms and the state,” concluded Kevles. “To deal with it, one would like from the country’s biomedical leadership the kind of courage, tenacity and vision that Robert Oppenheimer provided – an engagement with the problems of arms and the state that offers, to paraphrase the majority report on the hydrogen bomb, some limitation upon the totality of war, some cap to fear, some reassurance for mankind.”

Also read: National Security, Neuroscience and Bioethics

At Any Cost: Cheating, Integrity, and the Olympics

Runners take off from the starting line.

Researchers continue to advance the science behind doping in sports and are developing detection measures to catch the cheaters. But will it be enough to maintain the integrity of the Olympic Games?

Published August 1, 2004

By Diane Kightlinger

Image courtesy of zhengzaishanchu via stock.adobe.com.

Crossing the finish line in Athens this August should mark the climax of the athletes’ quest to put native ability, training, perseverance, and courage to work in pursuit of their Olympic moment. And provided that’s all the athletes bring into play, they won’t mind the team waiting on the sidelines to signal the start of the next challenge – the contest between the dopers and the testers.

The result can topple victors, strip medals, and bar athletes from competing, possibly for life. For now, the competitors know only that sometime between the victory lap and awards ceremony and press conference, the doping control team will take aside the top four finishers and two other randomly selected athletes to find out if they played true.

Drug testing in the Olympic Games began in 1968, a response to illness and death caused by widespread amphetamine use in prior decades. Since then, the estimate of how many athletes use performance-enhancing drugs in sport has ranged from almost none to almost all. Look at test results and the dopers amount to less than 3% of athletes; ask coaches and trainers and the number can rise as high as 90%, according to “Winning at Any Cost: Doping in Olympic Sports,” a September 2000 report released by the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

Banned Substances

Today the pharmacopoeia of substances banned at the Olympic Games includes not only stimulants, but narcotics, anabolic steroids, beta-2 agonists, peptide hormones such as EPO (erythropoietin) and hGH (human growth hormone), and a shelf-full of masking agents. Add designer drugs like the steroid THG (tetrahydrogestrinone), around which the Balco scandal churns, plus the specter of gene doping, anticipated by the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and the testers face increasing odds of losing the detection game.

But don’t count them out just yet. The researchers and administrators focused on catching dopers have won important battles in recent years by developing tests for THG and EPO and by using them to catch abusers. Testers are increasingly taking a proactive stance, anticipating their opponents’ next moves and the techniques needed to identify illegal substances and methods. And the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 1999 should soon result in near-universal standards for doping control across sports federations and countries.

Whether in- or out-of-competition, sample collection today is a painstaking ritual overseen by the athlete, his representative, doping control agents, and independent observers who act as the public’s eyes and ears. The athlete selects a sealed collection vessel and provides a 75-ml urine sample in view of a doping control officer (DCO) of the same gender. After dividing the urine into A and B bottles, the competitor seals them securely and makes sure the DCO records the correct code on the control form. Blood tests employ a phlebotomist and similar procedures to obtain 2 tubes of at least 2-ml each.

Gaming the Tests

On site, the DCO checks the urine’s pH and specific gravity to ensure it will prove suitable for analysis, and may also screen the blood sample for reticulocytes, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. Athletes must document all prescription and nonprescription drugs, vitamins, minerals, and supplements they take; then all parties sign the doping control form and the samples are sent by courier for analysis at one of 31 laboratories accredited by WADA.

But testing during the Olympic Games accomplishes only so much: It won’t catch athletes who use steroids to bulk up during training but stop months before the Games, or those who use EPO much more than a few days before competition. “Ninety to 95% of the solution is effective, year-round, no-notice testing,” according to Casey Wade, WADA education director. “Give athletes more than 24 hours’ notice and they can provide a sample all right, but it’s going to be free from detection.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) requires most Olympic athletes to make themselves available for doping tests anytime and anywhere for one year prior to the opening of the Games. WADA plans some 2,400 tests this year, with a selection process based on the requirements of each sport, the substances an athlete might use, when the abuse might occur, and how long the body will take to clear the drug from the athlete’s system before the Athens Games start.

Once the Olympic village opens for the Games, the IOC will take charge of testing at sporting venues. WADA will continue to conduct out-of-competition tests inside and outside Greece, however, and at non-Olympic venues in Athens to determine which athletes will be allowed to take part in the Games.

The Key to Meaningful Doping Tests

The key to meaningful doping tests lies in the lab’s ability to detect substances and also to document the chain of custody meticulously enough to meet the burden of proof in court cases. Once the samples arrive in the lab, scientists store the B bottle for use in confirmation tests, and open the A bottle, withdraw multiple aliquots, and test for substances on the WADA Prohibited List. The U.S. Olympic Lab at the University of California at Los Angeles, a preeminent testing facility, employs an array of mass spectrometry techniques to work through the samples.

“Mass spectrometry breaks up the molecules and sorts the resulting fragments by mass,” said Don Catlin, the lab’s director. “We can identify steroids by chemical moieties with characteristic masses but, for example, THG was modified in such a way that it lacked those characteristic fragments, making it difficult to spot on conventional tests.”

THG posed only one of many challenges the lab has faced and overcome. Catlin said that the detection of EPO and hGH abuse is particularly vexing. EPO increases oxygen delivery to the muscles, and hGH enhances muscle growth. As potent substances, both appear only in minute quantities in body fluids.

“With methyltestosterone, you might have 500 nanograms per ml of urine; with EPO, you might have less than a nanogram,” explained Catlin. “You have to extract the EPO from the urine, and the less there is, the more difficult it is to extract with good recovery. Then you’re faced with the final jolt: EPO has a molecular weight of 30,000 to 35,000, whereas most of the drugs we’re working with have molecular weights of 300. EPO molecules are too large for our mass spectrometers, which means we have to use different approaches based on molecular biology. It’s really tough work.”

Blood and Gene Doping

A long-acting form of EPO, darbepoetin, became available shortly before the Winter Games in 2002. The existing test for EPO could detect darbepoetin, but Catlin chose not to announce it – catching two gold medalists. Both were stripped of medals for events in which they tested positive in Salt Lake City and, later, of all medals they won at the Games.

For hGH, scientists, lab directors, physicians, and administrators have not yet agreed on a test, but that doesn’t mean athletes can freely abuse the substance. WADA has placed hGH on the Prohibited List, and DCOs will draw, freeze and store blood samples during the Athens Games for later analysis.

In addition to banning dozens of substances, the Prohibited List also bans methods such as blood and gene doping. The proliferation of gene therapy trials, which now number in the hundreds, and the promise of gene transfer methods to build skeletal muscle and increase red blood cell production, make genetic approaches to enhancing performance an encroaching reality.

“All the technology is in the medical literature,” said Theodore Friedmann, director of the Program in Human Gene Therapy at the University of California at San Diego. “The genes are all available or you can make them. The vectors, the viral tools, are all published and available. All it takes is three or four reasonably well-trained post-docs and a million or two dollars.”

On and Off: Inducible Genes

With that in mind, researchers are already focusing on several approaches for gene doping tests. Geoffrey Goldspink, professor, University College Medical School, London, England, described some of the possibilities being pursued. If an adenovirus or lentovirus is used as the vector to transmit a gene such as hGH, Goldspink said, the virus might also move into cells in the blood or mucus. A scrape of the inside of the cheek, followed by real-time RT-PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), could produce sufficient sample for scientists to distinguish the wild-type virus from the engineered version.

In addition, some gene transfer techniques may involve inducible genes, which can be switched on and off. Without a mechanism to stop production, EPO could swamp the body with red blood cells, for instance. But introducing a gene that can handle the switching function might give testers a detectable bit of DNA on the vector. Friedmann cautioned that although these approaches represent reasonable first steps, new technology will be required to characterize the system and enable researchers to predict when vectors or genes or gene products will appear and then detect them.

Whatever techniques ultimately prove viable, they are likely to drive one change already taking place: the shift from urine to blood tests for detection. “Some of the new tests that we are developing are based on the blood matrix,” said Olivier Rabin, WADA science director. “This is clearly going to be used to detect new substances, to better detect blood transfusions, and also in the future to detect gene doping.”

The Magnitude of the Doping Problem

For decades, the magnitude of the doping problem among Olympic sports and the rewards made possible by ignoring the issue tarnished every medal awarded, even if the athlete tested clean. Tom Murray, bioethicist and president of the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York, and a longtime member of the committee entrusted with drug control for the U.S. Olympic team, said “I think for most of the time, drug control was just seen as a nuisance that they’d rather have go away. Their concerns were marketing and bringing home medals. Drug control was just a pain.”

Since the inception of quasi-independent organizations such as WADA and the national anti-doping agencies, which are funded only partly by their respective Olympic committees, many of the problems cited in the CASA report of 2000 have been alleviated. WADA employs a standard protocol for establishing the Prohibited List; accredits testing labs around the world; sends independent observers to oversee major events; and provides timely notice of banned substances and methods for athletes, coaches, and administrators. In addition, a detailed approach to reporting and managing results insures legal recourse and standard sanctions for athletes who test positive.

Making Strides

On the other hand, the $3 million in research grants doled out by WADA each year, combined with $2 million from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, still runs far shy of the $50 million to $100 million collaborative effort over five years that the CASA report called for. But scientists are making strides by developing effective tests, streamlining existing procedures, and lowering costs.

And they seem almost eager to face sophisticated new substances and delivery systems, no matter how difficult detection may be. Catlin summed up his view by saying, “We’re still here, we’re still able to hold our heads up. When I toss in the towel, because there’s so much doping by so many means that we can’t detect it, then it’s an issue. But I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Also read: The Science Behind Doping in Sports

Advancing Human Rights and Heathcare in Vietnam

A stethoscope in focus in the foreground, while an out-of-focus medical professional reviewing paperwork is seen in the background.

Long-imprisoned Vietnamese doctor is named recipient of Human Rights Award from The New York Academy of Sciences for his commitment to healthcare, bettering humankind.

Published July 21, 2004

By Fred Moreno

Image courtesy of joyfotoliakid via stock.adobe.com.

Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, a 61-year old Vietnamese medical doctor who has dedicated his life to improving the lives of the Vietnamese people and who has spent nearly 25 years in prison or under house arrest, has been named the recipient of the 2004 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award by the New York Academy of Sciences.

The Pagels prize, awarded annually in recognition of services on behalf of the human rights of scientists, will be bestowed at the Academy’s Annual Meeting on Monday, September 13, 2004. Dr. Que will be cited “in recognition of his courage and singular moral responsibility as a medical doctor committed to the welfare and healthcare of the Vietnamese people and for peacefully promoting human rights in Vietnam.”

Joseph L. Birman, chair of the Academy’s human rights committee, said that Dr. Que was chosen because of his “unwavering efforts to improve the daily lives of people in Vietnam and to promote a peaceful transition to democracy and freedom there.” Prof Birman added that Dr. Que, who is the founder of the Vietnamese Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights, was rearrested in March 2003 and has been held incommunicado since then.

Clinic for the Poor

Dr. Que has been committed to providing medical care for the poor since graduating from medical school in 1966, including a free clinic he founded and staffed with volunteer doctors, nurses, and medical students. One of the first of many examples of his civil courage was his willingness to treat students and others who were injured during demonstrations against the government.

After further medical studies in Europe under a scholarship from the World Health Organization, Dr. Que returned to Vietnam to join the Saigon University Faculty of Medicine and, later, became director of the Medical Department at Cho Ray Hospital. He also resumed his work at the free medical clinic, where he became well know for his efforts on behalf of the poor, especially from rural areas. In the late 1970s, he challenged the government’s health care policies and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for 10 years without charge or trial.

Even after his release in an amnesty in 1988, he continued to speak out for basic human rights in Vietnam and demanded the government invest in the welfare of the people and reductions in the military. Charged with “activities aimed at overthrowing the People’s government,” he was rearrested in 1990. During his imprisonment under harsh conditions, Dr. Que did whatever he could to improve the health care of his fellow inmates, even performing minor surgery with homemade instruments.

Refused to Leave Vietnam

Released again under a presidential amnesty in August 1998, Dr. Que’s health had worsened considerably and he was unable to walk without assistance. Refusing to leave the country, he was held under house arrest for over four years but continued to promote respect for human rights. For example, in addition to appealing to the government to improve prison conditions, he wrote articles calling for democracy and for better treatment of indigenous minorities.

Harassment of Dr. Que intensified, including 24-hour surveillance, disconnection of his telephone and Internet service, and interrogation of visitors. After writing an article criticizing recent Vietnamese government claims that there is freedom of information in Vietnam, he was arrested once more in March 2003.

“Repeated requests to visit Dr. Que of even just speak to him by telephone by his family, as well as international diplomats, have all been denied,” said Prof. Birman. “Given his current isolation and the fact that he was denied medical care during his previous incarcerations, it is feared that he may not be receiving any medical attention for his grave ill health.”

Pagels Award

“In his fight for human rights and freedom of speech, Dr. Que exemplifies the virtues demonstrated by our first award winner, Andre Sakharov,” said Nobel Laureate Torsten Wiesel, chair of the Academy’s Board of Governors. “The Academy is proud to have Dr. Que join the list of more than 25 exemplary citizens of the world who have been honored with this award.”

Also read: Academy Aids Effort to Release Political Prisoner

The Science Behind Doping in Sports

A man claps a cloud of gym chalk as he prepares to deadlift a heavy weight.

Scientists fear new drugs and genetic doping lie ahead for Olympic athletes: Can cheating be stopped?

Published July 20, 2004

By Diane Kightlinger

Image courtesy of weyo via stock.adobe.com.

Can doping athletes be stopped? With the Athens Olympics about to open, scientists are increasingly concerned that sophisticated techniques for evading drug tests will make it difficult for testers to catch athletes using steroids and other drugs, especially at future athletic competitions when genetic-based enhancements are expected to be prevalent.

Advances in drug production and genetic engineering are benefiting athletes interested in evading tests – and the ways in which scientists are figuring out ways to create ever-better detection techniques.

Today, the pharmacopoeia of substances banned at the Olympic Games includes not only stimulants, but narcotics, anabolic steroids, beta-2 agonists, and peptide hormones such as EPO (erythropoietin) and hGH (human growth hormone). Last year, the drug company Balco was charged with distributing designer drugs such as the steroid THG (tetrahydrogestrinone).

Putting Drugs to the Test

In recent years, researchers focused on catching dopers have won important battles by developing tests for THG and EPO and using them to catch abusers. In addition, the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 1999 may soon result in near-universal standards for doping control across sports federations and countries. However, current methods of Olympic testing still cannot catch athletes who use steroids to bulk up during training but stop months before the Games, or those who use EPO more than a few days before competition.

To combat these tricks to avoid detection, new techniques are being developed to identify illegal substances and methods. WADA has also implemented “year-round, no-notice testing,” says Casey Wade, WADA education director. “Give athletes more than 24-hour notice and they can provide a sample, but it’s going to be free from detection.”

The International Olympic Committee requires most Olympic athletes to make themselves available for doping tests anytime and anywhere for one year prior to the opening of the Games. This year, WADA plans some 2,400 tests, a process of selection that takes into account the substances that an athlete might use and the time it would take a body to clear the drug from an athlete’s system before the Athens games start.

Lab testing faces many challenges. The U.S. Olympic testing lab facility at the University of California at Los Angeles employs an array of mass spectrometry techniques designed to analyze testing samples. The technique identifies steroids by breaking up molecules and sorting the resulting fragments by mass. However, it may miss drugs like THG because THG may have been modified in such a way as to make detecting those characteristic fragments difficult to spot on conventional tests.

Doping Through Genetic Engineering

Don Catlin, the lab’s director, says that the detection of EPO and hGH abuse is particularly difficult because they appear only in minute quantities in body fluids. EPO increases oxygen delivery to the muscles, and hGH enhances muscle growth. When extracting EPO from urine, Catlin says, “the less there is of it, the more difficult it is to extract with good recovery.”

He adds, “Most of the drugs we’re working with have molecular weights of 300. EPO has a weight of 30,000 to 35,000, which is too large for our mass spectrometers to work on.”

Yet another challenge to testers comes from genetic approaches to enhancing performance. According to Theodore Friedmann, director of the Program in Human Gene Therapy at the University of California at San Diego, the promise of gene transfer methods to build skeletal muscle and increase red blood cell production means that anyone can dope their performance via genetic engineering.

“The genes are all available and you make them,” he said. “All it takes is three or four well-trained postdocs and a million or two dollars.”

In response, the WADA has added methods such as blood and gene doping to its list of prohibited substances. New tests are being developed to detect “gene” tampering, and blood tests, rather than urine tests, is already on its way to becoming the standard for catching dopers.

In spite of these challenges, researchers are confident that they will be able to face these increasingly sophisticated substances and delivery methods. Scientists are making strides by developing effective tests, streamlining existing procedures, and working with agencies such as the WADA to ensure that 21st century technology benefits, rather than compromises, the spirit of the ancient Olympics.

Also read: The Intersection of Sport and STEM

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