Science Out in the World

19.11.30 Science Out in the World hour.mp3

SM Sarah McConnell, producer and host
AS Audio Sample
ASm Ashleigh Smythe
AF Alix Fink
BC Ben Castiel

KA Kathleen Alexander

JT Jake Tu

00:00:00

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SM If you don't know her name yet, you surely will soon. Teenager Greta Thunberg is becoming known across the globe for her climate change activism.

AS For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you are doing enough? When the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that, because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that, I refused to believe.

SM Miss Thunberg says the science is clear. So, she and others of her generation are stepping up to be active critics. From Virginia Humanities, this is With Good Reason. I'm Sarah McConnell. And today on the show, how science education makes better citizens.

AS Science education is so important to us as citizens because science is about asking questions.

SM Later, building a community seed library.

AS And we had someone bring in some pawpaw seeds, for instance, this beautiful and delicious kind of tropical like fruit, that kind of tastes like a cross between a kiwi and a banana.

SM But first, in 2011, a massive earthquake hit Japan. It was the biggest in the country's history and it caused all sorts of unexpected consequences, including the migration of tiny creatures called nematodes. Ashleigh Smythe is a biologist at Virginia Military Institute, and she's been taking a closer look at the nematodes, that traveled across the ocean from Japan after the earthquake.

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ASm The tsunami that generated seems to be the biggest that's ever been recorded and certainly the biggest to really impact an entire other continent, basically. Right - you know, the wave actually went all the way across the Pacific and then for years after, we're still seeing debris that came from the coast.

SM So this isn't a regular thing. We don't have earthquakes that strike Japan or other nearby countries, that then send tsunamis our way and bring us debris.

ASm Right. This is not a normal thing. Yeah. This was a really unusual event.

SM I know you were looking at the tiny worms and the debris

ASm Yes.
SM But what was some of the most remarkable stuff that people recorded actually made it all the way here?

ASm Oh, yeah. I like the motorcycle a lot. That's one of my favorites, yeah, yeah. Like, really that that just survived and floated and lands on our shore - great. And a giant dock like, you know, Mack Truck sized dock, basically like giant dock - like house sized dock. I mean, that's amazing. All the way to little, tiny little baskets and like a soccer ball. I mean, just amazing, giant and little stuff.

SM So the tsunami was in 2011 and then for years - maybe four or five years afterward, debris was washing up on the West Coast. When did you perk up?

ASm Yeah, I - I got connected to it about three years ago when a colleague of mine - he said, you know, ìI've been - been collecting this debris up in the north and I've even had this army of students taking all the animals and stuff growing on the debris. Now that I think about it, we've got a lot of nematodes. Do you want to look at those?î And I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds pretty interesting. So, yeah, so it was about three years ago when I got contacted by Jim Carlton at Williams College, ìCan I send you bunch of nematodes?î And I thought, okay, fine.

SM And what are Nematodes?

ASm So nematodes are worms and they're - so they're un-segmented worms. So that distinguishes them from annelid worms. So, things like earthworms. Most people are probably familiar with parasitic nematodes, so things like heartworm that their dogs might get or pinworms that lots of kids can get. So people are usually familiar with the parasitic ones. But actually, most nematodes are not parasitic at all. They're just free living, sort of out in the world.

SM And where do they mostly live?

ASm Well - actually - the most of them live in the marine environment. So, they're pretty much in every type of sediment and soil and sand, everywhere in the world. So, the lawn right outside your door will have lots of nematodes - rainforests, deserts, every kind of soil and every kind of sediment, in every kind of aquatic system. So, sand and mud and coral reefs and, you know, so they're pretty much everywhere. But the marine environment has kind of the most of them, kind of like the heartland of nematode diversity. There's just tons of species there, most of which are undescribed species, actually. So, it's kind of this crazy amount of diversity waiting to be discovered out there.

SM So, when I saw a picture of one, it looked like the mouth and jaw of that gross monster in stranger things called the Mind Flare.

ASm Oh yes! It kind of does look like that - I never really realized that. But, yeah, it kind of does look like that. But they're very small and sweet. So, you know, they're not - nothing to be - to fear, really. But although the some of the parasitic nematodes have some pretty vicious smells, so like hookworms are - live in intestines and they do feed on blood and they have a mouth that's got some pretty impressive teeth. So, they will latch onto the intestine and - and feed on the blood. And then unfortunately, they - they tend to move a lot and leave, sort of, bleeding lesions in the intestines. So, people even lose more blood than the nematodes are taking. So, they're you know, they're kind of evil, wasteful blood feeders. So, yes, sometimes the big teeth are put to ill use. But for my guys, for the marine free-living guys, they're generally pretty sweet and will feed on algae or bacteria or other nematodes.

SM Did you find any crazy undiscovered nematodes in your pile?

ASm I think I have mostly undescribed species. Yeah, I know, we're kind of weird with nematodes. We get excited when we find a known species because most of what we find are undescribed. So we get kind of excited when we're like, oh, this is the species that so-and-so described, because most of our nematode - most of the nematodes that we encounter, they're new to science, they're undescribed. So, at this point, I've got about 22 species that I've been able to identify. But of my 22, I'm pretty confident that three or four maybe are described. So, they're sort of documented and known to science already. And the rest of them, I think, are going to be new species.

SM And so what will we learn from this? What might you glean?

ASm Well, so the most interesting thing, at least in the big picture - sort of initially - is we now know, that nematodes can do this. You know, it's never been documented. Even nematodes really rafting short distances. And then it was surprised that I've got as much diversity as I do. So, I thought, oh, yeah, maybe just a few species could survive that. Right. So, I thought, oh, itíll be a couple species, and they'll be closely related. Right? It will be all one little group, right? No, it's wildly diverse.

SM So, do we feel welcoming towards these nematodes? Are they a scary invasive species?

ASm That's a great question. We generally don't think of nematodes as invasive species in the sort of like troublesome sort. You know, the way - you know - other things that might be transported around through marine - you know - through shipping and things and can cause a lot of problems for aquaculture or just, you know, shipping ports and things like that. We don't think of nematodes as invasive in that sense. So they're probably not a problem. But, Iím - you know - I'm okay with it being - you know - a little bit of a question, because that's actually led to some interesting, you know, it's sort of part of what has inspired this project is looking for invasive species and the nematodes have been able to kind of tag along with that. So they're probably not a problem. So, yes, we should probably welcome them to our shores. It'd probably be OK. But it's ñ itís an interesting thing to explore.

SM Do we need nematodes? Do they - do they serve an important function in the food chain?

ASm Sure, yeah. Absolutely. When they're where when they're down in the sediment, they're an important food source for all sorts of deposit feeding creatures. So, there's lots of bigger worms and arthropod, you know, crustaceans and things that sort of sift through the sand to feed. And they're chowing up a lot of nematodes there. So, yeah, they're really important sort of base of the food chain in the marine environment, for sure.

SM I can't help but think about how we've imagined populations were able to sort of span the globe and how they got here and whether early ancient populations sailed or some other means. Does it make you think beyond nematodes and think about sort of life formations?

ASm Oh, yeah. I mean, that's - it is amazing to think about how marine life moves around the world, you know, especially life that, you know, sort of specializes on - in coastal habitats. Well, how did they get to another coast really far away? You know, how does that movement happen? And - and how much have we as humans done to move things around? And how much has just rafted around - you know - one sort of natural debris? And yeah, definitely, it makes you think about just humanity moving around the world. And are we bringing all sorts of cool creatures with us?

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SM Ashleigh Smythe, thank you for sharing your insights and With Good Reason.

ASm Thanks so much for having me and letting me talk about my favorite creatures, the nematodes.

SM Ashleigh Smythe is a biology professor at Virginia Military Institute.

00:09:45

SM There's a lot to learn in science class. The periodic table, the stages of the butterfly. But also, how to be an American citizen. Alix Fink is a professor of biology at Longwood University. And she says learning science is about learning how to participate in our democracy.

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AF Science education is so important to us as citizens, because science is about asking questions. Science is about gathering information, and then science is about making some decisions or drawing some conclusions, based on the information that we collect. And so it's very much something that we do all the time in our lives. Those processes transfer to all kinds of decisions. If we're going to buy a house, we are going to collect some information we're going to figure out where we can get a loan, we're going to make some decisions based on that, and then we're going to move forward. And science education is - is a set of skills, a set of process skills that we can use then to make important decisions in our lives.

SM So whether we go into science or not, what are ways in which we encounter science in our everyday lives?

AF I think we are bombarded every day with science news. And so, for example, we - we know there've been a number of big climate strikes in the country recently. And so - so understanding climate change. The news story just a few days ago about whether or not the Naval Academy in Annapolis might need to be relocated because of sea level rise. That's a science news story, right? Whether or not screen time impacts the development of little children. The latest headline about supplements, or medication, or - those are all basically science stories. And - and I hope that more and more young people will feel prepared to digest and unpack those stories, regardless of the path that they've chosen in life.

SM So in addition to making sure that the average citizen knows something about science and the scientific method, what are ways in which people go on to make more impactful decisions as members of society using their science-based knowledge?

AF So I was - I had a conversation just a few days ago with a young family in Brazil, and they're - they're musicians. They - so that both parents are musicians and their children are aspiring musicians. And they were talking to me about attending their local climate strike. And they were four of about eight people on the steps of the of the building where the strike was held. But these - these musicians, these teachers are passionate about the future of their community and how they see a changing climate impacting that. And so folks from all walks of life can collect information and make decisions if they have a bit of confidence in how science works and how they can make those decisions.

SM Do you ever find some of your students have an ìahaî moment when it comes to science that maybe they're just taking the general course requirement, don't consider themselves super into it and then become excited or make a connection?

AF Absolutely. And I think that happens most often when it is something like, ìoh, I never thought about the fact that cell biology can help me understand my mother's breast cancer struggleî or ìoh my gosh, I never thought about the fact that oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay have this big impact on water quality and my - you know - my uncle is a watermanî. If we help them to make those connections to things in our communities in and out, you know, in our lives, then, yes, they do have those aha moments.

SM Do you think that when people leave high school and college that they retain any of the science they had as sort of a general course requirement?

AF Well, so I would hope so, yes. But the fact is that there's a lot of research that tells us that most of the content will not be retained. And, you know, we you and I each have a computer in our pocket all the time. And so if we need to know the stages of mitosis, we can look that up. Right? So, am I concerned if a student doesn't remember the stages of mitosis? Absolutely not. But what I hope they retain is a curiosity, an interest. And - and I really hope that all of my students retain a knowledge and understanding that science does connect to key issues in our lives. And if they remember that, they then, I think, will feel maybe not more confident, but certainly less intimidated when they encounter a science issue and they'll say, îOK, I can do this, I can I can manage thisî. I can learn more about this issue that's related to science, because I remember when my teammates and I tackled this climate change question or the oyster question or something else in class. So class is a laboratory and not just for cookbook science experiments, but for practicing skills of questioning, of data collecting and of drawing conclusions. And that's what transfers to life later on. And mitosis - you know, you can look it up on your cell phone.

SM I remember in senior biology in high school, the teacher was a quirky, delightful, smart woman who was thrilled that I had done an essay on the life of a drop of blood going through the human circulatory system. She was so amused by my language, which was very sci-fi. And her appreciation for my playfulness with that was really thrilling to me. And I thought, really? Is that allowed? I mean, is that something you're welcoming?

AF Right? Absolutely. And that kind of creativity and that what we would now call interdisciplinarity - right - of that of your approach should absolutely be part of science, especially when we're talking about students who are taking a terminal science course. In college, many students who aren't science majors take one science course, right, to fulfill a requirement that puts so much weight then on that science experience. Because from that point on, 95 percent of the science information that we learn is in - in an informal environment, like at the science museum or with a naturalist at a state park or something like that, it's the last really formal experience we have with science education. So it better be really good.

SM So what do we need for science education at the middle school, high school, college level? What do we not have now - or what are we not placing sufficient value on?

AF Opportunities for students to be creative and for students to - to make connections to things in our lives.

SM True, but why is that happening and why aren't they, well, electrified in the class. Yeah.

AF So I think it's messy, right? I think I saw a story just recently about teachers in our region not being able to take students out on field trips because of budgetary issues in the school districts, students not being able to have those experiences in nature. I also worry that one of the reasons why students sit and listen and write things down is because the teacher is - has that level of confidence with the material. Novice teachers oftentimes convey things in a very clear and straightforward and linear way, right? And one of the exciting things that happens when you open the door for students to be creative and to have their own investigations is you as the teacher don't know where it's going. And that can be very unsettling, right? To lose that control, to lose that kind of authority and maybe for things to move beyond your comfort zone in terms of content knowledge. But that's exactly where we need students to go. We need them to realize that they that they can use this information in interesting ways. And so I think, I - I think one of the challenges we face is the obvious budget issue. But another is teacher confidence with teaching science and teaching science in a way that is a much more unscripted and much less linear.

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SM Alex Fink, thank you for talking with me on With Good Reason.

AF Thank you so much. It was my pleasure to be here.

SM Alex Fink is the Wilma Register's Sharp and Marc Boyd Sharp, Dean of the Honors College for Citizen Scholars and a professor of biology at Longwood University.

00:19:00

SM The Appalachian region is home to some of the greatest biodiversity in the country. My next guest has spent his career and really his life embracing that biodiversity. Ben Casteel is a horticulturalist and instructor at Virginia Highlands Community College.

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SM Ben, you actually grew up in Appalachia where you teach now. What was it like growing up there?

BC It's an interesting question. I actually grew up in the suburbs of Appalachia, kind of right on the border of Tennessee, and my experience there was kind of watching as the pastures there turned into pavement, as they began to develop this area right off of the interstate corridor. And I think watching that kind of drove me to go more towards the natural world. I think from the get-go I was really interested in gardening, growing plants that you could eat. And that was developed with my grandmother and my mother, who grew gardens in our backyard. I really enjoyed, you know, all kinds of plant life. I mean, anything that flowered. I was interested in and watching the relationships of insects and plants. And it really just got my young mind grabbed it at attention.

And actually, later on, when I was in high school, I picked up a book in the library called The Secret Life of Plants. And this book really inspired me. At the time, I was really interested in computer programing. But it kind of made me do like a little 180 and switch to the plant world in particular. A couple of things in that book about Luther Burbank, who they called the Wizard of Horticulture, and he bred more plants than any person that we know of.

He basically looked at plants and having a conversation, a dialog with the plants. So he was able to breed such things as spineless cacti and thorn-less blackberries. He even bred a - a white BlackBerry. And just that you could do this just really amazed me.

SM Yeah. Did you try to breed anything yourself?

BC Oh, absolutely. I still have some breeding projects going on.

SM Tell me about them.

BC Iím really interested in breeding wild edible plants. And part of that is just selecting those plants and seeing that natural biodiversity that we have, especially here in Appalachia that is so rich, but trying to find these plants that are edible and have been used by like Native Americans and trying to bring them into cultivation and, you know, the modern day and age - one plant being Greenbrier, which most people think of as a weed, but it produces these really delicious shoots coming up from this vine. And when they're young, they're nice and tender and not thorny. And the cool thing about it is once you cut that shoot, once you harvest it, it just grows two more. So it's - it's kind of like an asparagus almost.

SM Yeah, it sounds like it.

BC But like a little - little easier to grow, I think. And it also has an edible root that can - you can actually put it through this cold-water washing process and get out this red powder that can be used as a vegetable gelatin substitute.

SM What else did you sort of explore in high school or find interesting breeding or foraging for edibles?

BC Well, I have always had this interest in things that I could eat. And, you know, I think that comes from just playing outside all the time as a kid. And you're looking at this plant and saying, hey, this is our red berry, can I eat this? Is it going to be sweet? Just wondering what it was going to be like. And I still do that today. Still, Iíll - we'll find maybe a new plant and say, hey, I wonder what this is. Is it edible? Can I - can I look at the other sensory details of the plant, how it feels, how it smells. And if I be so bold, how does it taste?

SM When I was young, I would go in the woods and pull up Sassafras to chew on the roots of that, which are so spicy and savory.

BC Oh yeah. I love Sassafras and I love the tender leaves too. That's a good one because they actually use it in Creole cooking, and they dry and crush the leaves and use it as a soup thickener.

SM I didn't know that.

BC Also called fillet gumbo.

SM A few years ago you helped to set up a seed savers library in your local library. What's the purpose of that?

BC Well, Washington County Public Library approached me with this interest of starting this Seed Savers library. And at the time, I was running my own business called Appalachian WildSide, where our motto was preserving biodiversity and one backyard at a time. And really, this whole biodiversity thing is very significant in Appalachia because we have some of the highest natural biodiversity on the planet in our backyard here, in these wild places. But we also have the highest agricultural biodiversity, some of the highest in the world. And I think that the - the seed savers library is potentially a way to preserve that. And one, by training people how to save seed and then having a place where they could come and check out seed and then return some at the end of the season. And it's actually been a very successful program. We have people coming in and bringing in old heirloom varieties of particular types of crops all the time.

SM Name some of them, that people have really treasured - that you've become passionate about.

BC Well, one of the big ones is beans. So, things like a pink tip, runner - half runner beans, greasy beans. And there's this whole lexicon of being terminology that I find really fascinating. And people really get excited about it, bringing in their October beans at the end of the season to share with others in the future. I mean, there's so many other crops, too. I mean, people bring in kind of your more traditional kind of backyard gardening stuff like corn as well, squash seeds and even sometimes wild plants. We had someone bring in some pawpaw seeds, for instance, this, you know, beautiful and delicious, kind of tropical like fruit that kind of tastes like a cross between a kiwi and a banana, but grows native on the waterways of Appalachia, and it's actually North America's largest fruit.

SM When did you decide to hike the Appalachian Trail? You probably hiked it a lot, but then you decided to go longer.

BC Yeah. I was actually in high school and some friends and I kind of, you know, said that we were together when we graduated. We're going to go hike the Appalachian Trail. And I was really inspired by my grandmother, who in her 50s decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. And she was kind of doing it in sections, but she ended up making it almost halfway, actually a little bit further than halfway on the trail to Delaware Water Gap on the border of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And unfortunately, she wasn't able to go back and finish the trail because of some family issues that came up. So, I always had this thought in the back of my mind that I would finish it for her. And so, I did. And, you know, she was alive when I finished the trail. She was very proud. She actually would send me money along the way just to make sure that I made it the whole way. And this kind of came full circle to stay a few years ago, my grandmother passed away. We went back and took her ashes up to Maine and spread them on the winds, just as she had kind of thought that she would be there one day. We wanted to take her there.

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SM Ben Casteel is an instructor and program coordinator of horticulture at Virginia Highlands Community College. This is With Good Reason. We'll be right back.

00:28:00

SM Welcome back to With Good Reason. From Virginia Humanities, I'm Sarah McConnell. The following is an encore presentation from 2016. Heralded as a success story, Botswana turned its thriving wildlife population into a major draw for tourists. And yet, while the tourism industry depends on wildlife like elephants and lions, those same animals can cause problems for the very poor. My next guest is Kathleen Alexander. She's a professor of fish and wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech and she's worked in Botswana for decades.

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SM Kathleen, you work in Botswana where big wild animals like elephants and lions still roam in a way that America no longer has such large populations. How fun.

KA It's amazing. Sometimes you're reminded what it must have been like to be this human without any protection. When you walk, let's say, across the road in the town that I work and where you might run into an elephant. And it may be an outcome that would be something you really might not be too keen on. Itís a - it's a different world.

SM I've read that there are more wild animals than people in Botswana. I mean, by far more.

KA Well, it's crazy. And it's - it's amazing. You're going to the store to buy your coffee and bread and you have to park your car and make sure you don't hit the Warthogs.

SM I feel like I wish I had that problem.

KA I know it brings you right into touch with this amazing juxtaposition and richness of - of humans and animals and these landscapes where there is coexistence and overlap and -and sometimes, you know, it just works wonderfully.

SM The center that you created just outside the wildlife park, the Chobe National Park in Botswana, is primarily to care for the animals or to protect the people from the animals?

KA Well, I think it's both. Itís how do you actually provide assistance so humans and animals in the environment move forward in a way that is possible, given all the constraints and challenges for everything from abject poverty and health issues that challenge Hema communities, to droughts and lack of food and water for animals and wildlife. So there's lots of priorities and sometimes theyíre in contrast.

SM Well, tell me how much of Botswana is taken up by the wildlife refuge areas and what the human populations are subsisting on?

KA Well, nearly half of the country is designated as a protected area. Now, this is important because wildlife and tourism is identified as a huge opportunity to bring money in. Agriculture is not going to be as strong and has, in fact, lost traction because there's just not that much water.

SM How do many of the people you know in Botswana view this state of living where animals can roam free in these preserves, while they go about their normal lives?

KA Well, the issue is that the animals don't stay in the preserves. They leave and they live around these people. And in some respects, there's communities that say, why does government and other people, why do they love animals more than us? And then there's others who are, you know, who rightfully recognized the incredible conservation success story Botswana represents. So it's a ticklish situation for government leaders trying to find a balance between, again, sometimes very opposing needs.

SM What are you seeing in terms of the economy in Botswana? Is it all related to wildlife tourism from outside the country?

KA Well, there's a big thrust there. And, of course, there's the diamonds. And that's been the problem, though. It's very hard to bring all of those economic opportunities down to the household level of a rural community or the woman living alone with her five children who may be suffering from HIV. What exactly would she do to grab part of that economic opportunity? And so unemployment remains high despite this amazing effort of the government to pull people forward. It's - it's a difficult situation when your options are restricted.

SM Well, who does make money off the eco-tourism? Are they outsiders who've come in and established these, you know, safari centers?

KA Well, I would say to a large extent, yes. And I think the government's working really hard at - at framing in an environment where partnerships between communities and business sector and - and bringing in citizens of Botswana into those industries is achieved. But that's a process and a pathway. And when you're trying to develop capacity, that's can be very challenging. And then you have the issue where people worry about HIV. That's the reality of working in a place like Botswana where you're struggling with this terrible disease that's affecting the very fabric of life.

SM And are they seeing a lot of new HIV cases there.

KA Oh, it was every day. I mean, who is no longer there anymore? Now, the government has taken a bold step, followed by most of the continent in and providing free of charge, all of the a ARV's to help protect people, that is, drugs that help fight the virus and keep a person healthy and living. And it's an expensive enterprise, but it was necessary. They were going to lose most of their population. And so that bold move has secured a future, but it's not going to go away. And in fact, HIV really is still a problem globally. Yet the conversation is something we don't really have so much in America anymore, I think largely because we're uncomfortable with the fear of - of disease. I mean, it's something that's always on our horizon and it frightens folks.

SM Have you lost friends in Botswana to HIV?

KA Absolutely. I must say that there was probably a decade and a half that every woman that worked with us in the household eventually died of HIV. It changes you, to see that people are holding on and their families have become so resigned to losing people because it's just what happens to you here. People lose people, and there are these just clusters, remnants of families left because of the impact - ravaging impact of HIV.

SM One of the things you're in a unique position to see are diseases that flow between people and wild animals or people, and these animals in the preserves. Ebola is such a disease, yes? How hard hit was Botswana by Ebola?

KA Well, now that's the odd thing, because there was no Ebola in southern Africa, but the fear of Ebola changed people's interest in traveling, made people frightful and - and then it had its own consequences. So it's these knock on consequences of emerging infectious disease and the globalization of our population that really tells the story that is far more than the tragedy of loss of human life at the site, but the ripple effects through our globalized communities.

SM In all honesty, did you go through Ebola fears when you were coming and going during the Ebola outbreak?

KA No, not to southern Africa. But I did want to go and help in - in West Africa. But, you know, even helping in West Africa might have prohibited some of my movement in southern Africa. So, you have to make decisions. You know, if I go there, maybe they won't let me come back in.

SM It's so interesting that you are a veterinarian working with the large animals, with this vast center, doing great things. And yet so much of your time and attention is being given toward the people who live there.

KA And I think that's what's exciting, is that you realize that these complex problems can't be parsed out by one set of animals or one community. That there's this conglomerate of influences and agents and participants that create a problem. And it's that complex problem and all its constituents that we have to pursue. So understanding why a woman would not be able to hear from her son if he has diarrhea and looking at the national diarrheal data and asking questions about water and pathogens, they're all linked. And without including all of that, I don't think we can ever get to addressing these problems that have remained persistent. Diarrhea -it's a global problem. It kills children. We had 500 children die in 2006 in part of Botswana. If that happened here, people wouldn't know what to say. And yet we still can't stop it. And it's an easy problem, really. People should just boil their water. But it isn't easy, and it doesn't go away.

SM And why can't people just boil their water?

KA I think it again, speaks to that, the importance of understanding the cultural context. What sorts of decisions are you making if nobody in your family thinks you should do it or it's worth it? You won't. Or maybe you think, hey, getting sick. It's just what happens. There's no point. And it's those complexities of human belief systems that really drive what people will do or what they won't do and what interventions are possible. So we might and all of our smartness and intellect and institutions generate great ideas and interventions. But if I can't get Mama Umípo to say to me, oh, I understand that I can use it with my children. Let me go and tell my uncle and my father. She's not going to do it. So you're back to square one and spinning your wheels.

SM What do you wish the public understood better about what you see in Botswana?

KA I think it is that one, everybody's struggling with all the complexities of their own world and some more than others. So, we might be cross because, you know, our cable connection went off and we had to wait for the cable guy. And then there's somebody whoís hoping their child can get to school and has shoes and won't be killed by an elephant. You have to know and understand the. Problems from the perspective of the people who own them. Only then can you help them develop solutions that work for them. So, rushing in and telling people what to do was failed at the very start, but engaging people to say, tell me about your problem. Let me help you figure out what you would like to do about it, from an evidence-based perspective.

SM I really admire some of the things that you've done. You've - you've created a craft center where some of the poorest local women can come and make things that they can sell to the tourism trade. Also hired some local young people there to serve as field guides. These are all terrific steps.

KA Well, and I think I'm really excited as well. We've had some NSF support to bring young African American or Black students to work with minority tribal groups there, as well as high school students to start saying, you know what, we need a different tomorrow. We need an improved tomorrow. We need leaders that are from different minority groups, both tribal and racial. We need to empower people to overcome poverty. And we need to be creative. And you know what? Even though if you're a scientist, you whoever you are, you need to put your foot in the water and just say, OK, what can we do and get going? That craft center is amazing. Those women who have no opportunity because they're older and they have lots of children and they're not going to be owning a hotel. How do you help them? And how do you not just sit there and monitor the demise of the world? You have to do something. So I hope we're making our little impact. I think you are, because every day I get my car and you remind me about something I've never thought about, or maybe something I need to do differently.

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SM Well, Kathleen Alexander, thank you so much. I really appreciate this.

KA You're very welcome.

SM Kathleen Alexander is a professor of fish and wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech. Coming up next, could gene editing solve mosquito borne diseases?

00:39:53

SM Media attention has turned away from it, but the Zika virus is still dangerous. If you visit the CDC Website, their recommendation for avoiding Zika is to avoid mosquito bites. They suggest wearing bug spray or long sleeves and pants. But what if we could control Zika by simply eliminating the mosquitoes who bite? My next guest is Jake Tu. He's a professor of biochemistry at Virginia Tech. He's fighting the Zika epidemic with a gene editing technique that cuts down on female mosquitoes.

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JT Because for mosquitoes, only females bite us and only female transmit diseases. Males don't bite. And so they are harmless in that aspect.

SM I've heard that the females are called vampires and the males vegetarians.

JT Right. Right. I like to say that. Yeah.

SM Why do the females bite? So they need the nutrients from our blood to nourish their eggs. And they like to bite humans. They have receptors for different kinds of odors. They also have ways to detect CO2 and heat. And they are able to sort of zoom in on a particular victim.

SM Roughly how many species of mosquitoes are there and how many of those can give us Zika?

JT Right. So there are more than 3000 species of mosquitoes. I work on aedes aegypti, which is the primary vector for Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, yellow fever and those viruses.

SM So what you are trying to do is edit the gene of the mosquito so that we produce fewer females.

JT So mosquitoes are like us. And we have sex chromosome X Y chromosomes and the boys have the Y chromosome. And so on the Y chromosome, you have a gene that makes the boys, boys and mosquitoes are similar in that way. Mosquitoes have a gene on a place that only it's passed on to the boys. That makes boy mosquitoes, boys. We call this Gene Nix. What we're trying to do is to put this Nix gene on to not the X chromosome, but a different chromosome that can be passed on to both boys and girls. So now the girls would take on the boy feature and they don't bite. So now we have a way to bias the sex ratio. So now you have less girl mosquitoes and so you have less mosquitoes that bite us. And also, we have less mosquitoes that makes more baby mosquitoes.

SM Are you producing generations of females that don't bite or are you producing just simply all generations of males - with none of which bite?

JT We were producing generations that are all males. So regardless whether it's genetically your male or not, phenotypically - you're a male.

SM And so the plan is to have males impregnate. Females and produce a generation of all males and no females.

JT So if you are able to do what we just described, right. So if you are able to make a mosquito that carries this extra copy of Nix, the male that carries this extra copy of Nix mate with wild type female. And all of the progeny are males. Right. If you release enough of these males into the wild, they'll be mating with the females and you're producing all males. And those males now would act as your biological control agent, right. So they'll be finding other females to mate and then they'll be making more males only, right. So this process can be amplified over generations. And so potentially you could reduce the population of aedes aegypti in your locality. So it's quite efficient potentially.

SM How long would you estimate it would take for a mosquito population to collapse through this technique of male editing?

JT It depends on how many aedes aegypti you have in your locality, right. So what's the density population to start with, and how much you can - how many of these mosquitoes you can release, how often you release, and how efficient these mosquitoes are at finding these wild-type females. So it's really depends on those parameters. But if you release sufficiently amount of males compared to the wild type males, potentially it takes, you know, dozens of generation that you could really have a huge dent on the mosquito population.

SM How many generations typically of a mosquito in a single year?

JT It takes about two or three weeks for mosquito to go through its lifecycle. You go from egg to the next generation of eggs. It takes about two to three weeks. But an adult mosquito can live longer than that. It can still lay more eggs. Right. So you can basically calculate it depends on how, what - what the temperatures are in your locality and things like that.

SM So a single female can have how many blood meals?

JT It can have a few at least. So this is actually pretty interesting, right. So even when the female emerged becoming adults, right. And after a few days, they're ready to take a blood meal. After that, they would develop eggs and lay eggs. After that, these eggs are laid and they are ready. A few days later, they're ready to take the second blood meal and then so long. So for a mosquito to transmit viruses passages to us, they have to take at least two blood meal. The first blood meal has to be from an infected person or infected vertebrate animal. So those viruses then would replicate in a mosquito for a week or two. And then this mosquito is ready to bite another person and transmit these viruses to the next person. Really, the mosquitoes that cause problems to us are the female mosquitoes that live long enough to have two blood meal.

SM Once you have gotten to the point in your work where you can test these genetically modified mosquitoes in the field, what's sort of place would you be looking to release the male edited mosquitoes? How about an island?

JT Yeah. Yeah, sure. The steps could be, we developed the sting in the lab, and we test whether they're working in the lab first. And then there are facilities, what we call sunai field facilities, and so they are contained and confinement facilities, but they have you know, you can have trees in there, you can have, you know, it basically mimics what's outside. And so you can do experiments there and see how things work. And then potentially the next step would be finding some island of sorts, you have your natural containment. And so - and so that's probably another step forward after you have your center field experiments.

SM Where do you think this would fit in to the panoply of tools we may have to fight the Zika virus and mosquitoes? We have protecting ourselves, we have trying to eliminate whole mosquito populations by reducing the breeding grounds, we've got trucks spraying. Where would male gene editing fit in?

JT Right. So even though this potentially is a very powerful and efficient way of controlling mosquito population, and I don't think we should regard this as a silver bullet. These newly developed message should be used in conjunction with existing tools. And so there's a term called Integrated Vector Management, RV - IBM. And so it's - basically you're trying to use as many different tools at your disposal or the tools that are most effective or efficient for your particular situation. And so I think that's the best way to go. I - I sometimes marvel at how this mosquito, this aedes aegypti, at how adaptive they are to humans and how they evolved the way to allow them to use the blood meal so efficiently. So - so effectively. And so there's a lot of physiology to be learned. A lot of evolutionary question to be asked and answered by studying this particular species of mosquito. And we just have to realize that the important thing as far as the human society is concerned, is to control diseases that caused or transmitted by these mosquitoes. I don't have a particular interest in getting rid of a particular species of mosquito.

SM Let me ask you one last question that all of us have thought at one time or another as we've slapped at mosquitoes. What in the world are they good for? And I think - I think we understand that there are vast populations throughout the ecosystems around the world that depend on mosquitoes as a food source. Have mosquitoes, do you think, also evolved to infect populations of animals, to control them? They're part of the sort of the balance, not just as a food source for animals, but also to infect animals.

JT Right. So let me come back to this point that there are more than 3000 species of mosquitoes, right. The majority of them don't transmit, pathogens that caused diseases to us, right. And so we're dealing was one particular species in this case, aedes aegypti. And this particular species is adapted to human. And so they like to bite us. And that's why they're causing problems to us, right. That's why they're so good at causing problems to us. And the genetic method that we discussed today requires mating, right. So is species specific. Right, because these males would have to be mating was the females for it to exert its effect. We're only targeting this one particular species. And aedes aegypti is an invasive species in the Americas. So it's not native here, it migrate here, most likely through slave trades a couple hundred years ago from Africa, right. So what we're talking about, at least in the Americas, is to suppress a mosquito that is not native here. Right, so we're suppressing a population of invasive species.

SM I'm all for this.

JT Me, too

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SM Jake, to thank you for sharing your insights with me on With Good Reason.

JT Thank you.

SM Jake Tu is a professor of biochemistry at Virginia Tech. This has been an encore presentation of With Good Reason from 2016. Major support for With Good Reason is provided by the law firm of McGuire Woods. And by the University of Virginia Health System, pioneering treatments to save lives and preserve brain function for stroke patients. uvahealth.com. With Good Reason is produced in Charlottesville by Virginia Humanities. Our production team is Allison Quantz and Cass Adair. Jeannie Palin handles listener services. Some of the music from todayís episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks this week to Rosa Bott at UVA Wise. For the podcast, go to withgoodreasonradio.org. Iím Sarah McConnell, thanks for listening.