So much for New Year's resolutions: Not even a full month into my commitment to post every week and I'm already falling behind! But this is a blog about being a scientist with a serious case of travel lust (and a pole habit), and sometimes being a scientist means spending your weekends trapped inside furiously (not at all half-heartedly ;) ) reading and writing.
With hardly a moment spent just relaxing, there was little hope for generating new content for this blog. What I lack in the written word, I'll compensate this week with some photography whose inspiration readily crawled across me while planted on the couch with a laptop. As the subjects of my "work" will readily attest, there are much better things to do with a keyboard than a scientific funding proposal.
Let's face it: calling yourself a pole dancer still raises a few eyebrows today. But with pole athletes competing in national and international competitions, and studios popping up across the globe, it's clearly moved beyond the confines of the strip club. So how did pole expand from the red light district to the fitness studio?
Pole fun :)
Pole dancing has a colorful history which long predates its presence in gentlemen's clubs. Historically, traditional gymnastic-like performances on a pole were performed in both China and India since at least the 12th century, though in both cases this was a men's sport. The Chinese art looked more or less like today's cirque du soleil (performed on sticky poles), and the Indian art, mallakhamb, (performed on wooden poles) was originally developed as cross-training for wrestlers to develop speed, stamina, and agility. Mallakhamb was revived in the 19th century, and youtube offers a wealth of examples, like this one.
It should come as no surprise that cultures across Europe and Africa have also incorporated poles, as phallic symbols, into various fertility dances, perhaps the best-known of which is the maypole dance.
Most sources agree that modern western pole dance began around the turn of the twentieth century. One source traces its origins to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, in which Egyptian women performed a sensual, hip-gyrating dance called the "hoochie cooch." This style of performance was soon incorporated into traveling circuses as a regular sideshow act by the 1920s, performed around the pole that held up the side tent, which soon became a prop. From there, pole dancing was incorporated into the burlesque scene in the 1950s. A woman by the name of Belle Jangles performed the first recorded pole dance in a strip joint in Oregon called the Mugwump in 1968, but it wasn't until the 1980s that pole hit the strip club scene in full force across the US and Canada.
Just about every source I came across seemed to agree that the turning point in pole came in 1994, when Fawnia Deitrich opened the world's first exotic dance school in Canada, focusing on pole dance and fitness. From here, things snowballed. Pole studios began opening and classes were soon offered across the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Two decades later, you can read up on this history in official-sounding websites like United Pole Artists and the International Pole Dance Fitness Association. General news sources like mic.com even report on it. There is even a new movement led by KT Coates as an Olympic sport. Personally, I think this video from the International Pole Sports Federation does the best job summing up pole as I know and love it.
There's some good news coming from lab. For my January science update, I'm happy to fill you in on the big publication that just came from my boss Keisuke. On January 6, the journal Neuron published his latest findings in an article entitled "Congenital Nystagmus Gene FRMD7 Is Necessary for Establishing a Neuronal Circuit Asymmetry for Direction
Selectivity." Quite a mouthful. So let's break this down.
"Congenital Nystagmus Gene FRMD7 Is Necessary for Establishing a Neuronal Circuit Asymmetry for Direction Selectivity"
1. What is congenital nystagmus?
This is an inherited visual disease which occurs in approximately 1 in 1500 individuals. The symptoms of the disease include a lack of optokinetic reflex, the reflex which allows to focus on objects in a moving field, and spontaneous involuntary horizontal eye oscillations. This video does a great job illustrating the condition.
Patients with this condition have severely impaired vision and can have serious social challenges stemming from the aesthetics of the condition. The severity of congenital nystagmus varies from patient to patient, and we don't quite understand why. More importantly, we don't know what causes it, and certainly not how to treat it. (*There is one technique for eliminating the spontaneous eye movements which involves cutting and re-attaching the eye muscles, and even so, we don't know why this works.)
"Congenital Nystagmus Gene FRMD7 Is Necessary for Establishing a Neuronal Circuit Asymmetry for Direction Selectivity"
2. What is FRMD7?
FRMD7 is a gene expressed in limited areas around the body, most especially in certain retinal neurons. It interacts with a membrane-associated protein, and it is especially important during development, but its activity isn't really understood. Several genetic studies have quite clearly linked mutations in this somewhat mysterious FRMD7 gene to congenital nystagmus in humans. How these mutations were causing this condition were totally unknown, until now.
"Congenital Nystagmus Gene FRMD7Is Necessary for Establishing a Neuronal Circuit Asymmetry for Direction Selectivity"
3. What is neuronal circuit asymmetry? And why does it matter for direction selectivity?
First, let's take a look at something called direction selectivity. This refers to the ability of certain neurons in the retina to respond selectively to the movement of objects in a certain cardinal direction: up, down, left, or right. This ability of different neurons to respond to motion in one of the four directions is what allows us to detect moving objects. These neurons develop their direction selectivity after the brain tissue has significantly developed. In mice, it happens after birth, just a few days before they open their eyes. In humans, we assume that the development is similar, though we don't know for sure.
The direction selectivity is established through "circuit asymmetry," the formation of asymmetric circuit connectivity between starburst cells and their downstream signaling partners, the direction-selective (ganglion) cells. The starburst cells are a set of cells which respond more strongly when the light signal begins at their cell body and then moves out into their dendrites. (For instance, if an image signal moves from left to right across this cell, it won't elicit much of a signal from the dendrites on the left of the cell body, but it'll elicit a big signal from the dendrites to the right of body, which it passes after passing the cell body.)
A generic picture of a starburst cell which I grabbed from Psychology Today. The big spot in the center is the cell body, from which all the dendrites emanate.
These starburst cells form stronger connections with the direction-selective cells whose directional preference aligns with the preferences of the starburst cell's dendrites. We don't really know how the starburst cells know how to pick and choose the cells whose preferences align with their dendrites, but we know that they unevenly pair-up with direction-selective cells, at least in healthy individuals...
And here comes Keisuke's contribution: his original work, which just got published in Neuron, shows that mice with a mutated FRMD7 have problems with their direction-selective circuits. Specifically, their up and down direction-selective cells are just fine, but the left and right ones, the ones you'd need to focus on a horizontally-moving object and to keep your eyes from spontaneously oscillating, are all but non-existent in mice with this mutation. And remember, we know that humans with this mutation have congenital nystagmus: they can't focus on objects in a horizontally-moving scene, and their eyes oscillate horizontally. It looks like, in this case, the mouse is probably a pretty good animal model for this life-altering human disease. Through studying this mouse, we think we have the first major breakthrough in understanding this hitherto mysterious human disease.
If our extrapolations from mice to humans are correct, as they seem likely to be, then we now understand that humans with congenital nystagmus are lacking horizontal direction-selective circuits in their retina. This is a major step in understanding the neuronal circuits underlying this disease, an important step towards being able to develop a medical treatment. And more broadly, this is an important step in linking genetic mutations to problems in neuronal circuits. As Keisuke is quoted as saying in a popular science summary of his publication, "To my knowledge this is the first time that we can link a disease to a defect in neurocomputation."
I hope this was clear, and that it gives you a good idea of what that lab and I are working on.
It will be exciting to see where our investigations into the circuitry defects of congenital nystagmus will go over the next few years. Stay tuned!
After a couple of weeks back stateside, exchanging presents, testing apple cider mimosas, and camping out with cousins,
Family Christmas 2015 (including the family trip to the Franklin Institute)
having survived a bus trip up to frosty Toronto to catch up with friends and family,
Toronto, until we meet again
and even squeezing in a day-trip through the Big Apple,
There's nothing quite like Rockefeller Center and the windows at Saks Fifth Avenue at Christmastime.
I've dived back into the Scandinavian winter, which is finally more wintery this side of the new year.
Mars couldn't quite decide if today's snowflakes needed chasing or were fierce enemies to run from.
And in keeping with the fresh starts that come along with the new year, I'm going to be striving for something new when it comes to this blog. For now I'm thinking of rotating weekly updates on my four favorite themes: science, pole dance, Aarhus, and travel. I'm not sure yet just how I'll spin it, but keep an eye out.
As Christmas seasons are wont to do, this year's in Aarhus flew by. Being our first in Denmark, it was filled with cultural discoveries, from the charming to the somewhat disappointing. To lay it out there, the Danes aren't big on lavish holiday displays. Unlike New York or Paris, Aarhus doesn't light up for the holidays. Beyond a few major shopping streets and the mall, the streets were as dark as ever, which is saying something given the amount of daylight this far north at this time of year.
It felt like I scoured the entire city to find this much outward expression of holiday cheer. Showy is one word you can't put on the Danes.
The Christmas markets also weren't something to write home about. If it hadn't been for the mulled wine, "gløgg," which the Danes have really mastered, I'd have been hard-pressed to find much to tempt me past the first couple of disappointments. France spoiled me, in more ways than one. But then again, there were the æbleskriver, the puffy bite-sized pancake balls that the Danes dip in powdered sugar and jam around the holidays. I guess there were a couple things to keep me coming back.
The Christmas markets aren't all they're cracked up to be in Aarhus.
Luckily, you can forget about the Christmas markets over a gløgg and some æbleskriver.
All this is hardly to say that the Danes don't do Christmas. Far from it. The entire month leading up to the holiday is filled with Christmas parties for offices, departments, clubs, teams, and friends. These epic all-night parties (which is saying something, since the sun sets before 4pm and doesn't rise until nearly 9am) are called the Julefrokost, or Christmas lunch, though I still haven't figured out why they call an evening event a lunch. Perhaps it's just typical Danish modesty, as calling it a dinner might sound haughty. Who knows? Regardless, the julefrokost does include a large sit-down meal loaded with all sorts of typical Danish foods: liver paté, lots of red cabbage, "sweet potatoes" (literally potatoes coated in caramelized sugar), duck, and the classic Christmas rice pudding with whipped cream, almond slivers, and cherry compote, the risalamand. Lurking in the depths of the risalamand is a whole almond, whose discoverer is rewarded with prizes like sweets or small gifts. The trouble with trying to slip in a whole almond in a dish packed with almond slivers is that finding the fugitive isn't always so easy. Mix in a few shots of schnapps and the whole almond can go down all too easily, leaving everyone's stomachs packed with the rice pudding— it absolutely had to be searched— and the prize unclaimed, as happened with us this year. (A subsequent dance-off seemed the only logical way to resolve the issue of who should take home the prize.)
Mmm, risalamand. (Prize not included.)
One of my favorite touches of a Danish Christmas is their advent calendar. It's got to be one of the most simple yet charming interpretations I've seen so far. Very fitting for the Danes in their constant quest for hygge, or cozy charm.
Nearly done counting down the days!
And with all that, it's time for me to call it a night. From the Billund airport, where I await my absurdly early Christmas Eve flight home, I'd like to wish you a very merry Christmas.
The Danes may do the Fourth of July, and they've even imported Black Friday, but Thanksgiving has yet to cross the pond. And so I was pleased to induct a large group of newbies into my favorite American holiday this weekend. This year's grand challenge was the turkey, a responsibility I'd managed to hand off every year since I'd begun finding the bird in Paris. There was simply no more dodging the bullet. Luckily, my househusband*'s master culinary skills (I think the French are just born with it), finely honed over the past few months, came to the rescue. Wrapped in aluminum and stuffed with herbs and lemon for flavoring, our turkey came out surprisingly moist and flavorful. (*Nicolas is at home now while in professional transition and I'm affectionately calling him my househusband. You haven't missed out on any surprise wedding.)
A Thanksgiving turkey success thanks to Nicolas
Allrecipes.com was our best friend this weekend. Besides the turkey, we tested out a collection of recipes: gravy with a hint of tomato paste, buttermilk cornbread (with wholewheat flour), a "Thanksgiving turkey" bourbon citrus cocktail, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie cheesecake, and a traditional American hot buttered rum. Coupled with our friends' salads, curry, cheesy bread snacks, mashed potatoes, brownies, and sugar pie, we had ourselves a proper feast.
Our Thanksgiving feast
Our guests hailed from places as diverse as Germany, Denmark, France, Hungary, Ireland, Canada, Honduras, the Faroe Islands, and (if you want to count country of origin) even Bosnia and Iraq. By comparison, Nicolas was a seasoned veteran clocking in his second Thanksgiving. In all, it was a real melting pot of a Thanksgiving which, in a sense, couldn't have been more American, in spite of the total lack of American guests. It didn't take much arm-twisting to convince our foreign friends that the Americans have a few good ideas when it comes to this celebration.
The Thanksgiving bouquet brightened up our windowsill to bring some extra holiday cheer.
With the click of a button today, I submitted my final funding application for the fall 2015 season. It's been a rude, if unsurprising, wake-up call to what it means to be a postdoc-- so many long hours staring at screens, reworking paragraphs, and looking for just the right turn of phrase that might convince someone that my science is just the thing that will lead to that next great break-through, all the while wondering if that's even close to the truth.
I'd love to be able to share more about my project, but my hands are tied. Such is the depressing reality of science these days: it's all so cut-throat that nothing can really be shared before it's all wrapped neatly in a bow and published. Broadly, I am looking to better understand how the circuits develop in the eye (the retina) that allow us to detect motion. We've got some genes that we're particularly interested in, and some implications for better understanding the visual disease called nystagmus. I'm also working to develop tools that fall under the broad category of "optogenetics," a hot new field in science in which we design genetic systems which allow us to use light to control, manipulate, and record from neurons.
What I'm lacking in specifics, I thought I'd make up for in a little art gallery of recent scientific images. The first two are from a series I affectionately call my Starry Night collection.
Starry Night 1/2
Starry Night 2/2
These images are taken from plates of cultured cells growing densely together. I was shocked to find such beauty pop up under the microscope!
This next image is more meaningful. I call it Visualizing Vision. This is a highly magnified image of a cultured mouse retina, which closely resembles that of a human. In it, you can see a whole lot of blue amacrine cells, little intermediate cells in the chain of retinal information flow, which begins with the light-sensitive photoreceptors and goes all the way down to the ganglion cells, which form the optic nerve that sends preliminarily processed visual information along to the brain, in the form of a handful of parallel channels that each carry different aspects of the visual scene. In pink, you can see two ganglion cells, both reaching out to the hole in the top left, from which the optic nerve used to exit the retina and travel to the mouse's brain. In those pink cells, we can see axons extending toward the brain, stretching their fingers in an easily visualized goal of passing along the message as it is begins its transformation from little photons of light into that complex sensation we know as vision.
Visualizing Vision
I might be a burned-out researcher, and a postdoc filled with doubts about my future. And yet, sometimes I see images that really make me pause in amazement. I might read a thousand different charts and diagrams and textbook explanations of how the retina works, but there's just nothing quite like holding one in my hands, placing it under a microscope, and seeing its beautiful functional design first hand, knowing that I am looking at the very system that allows me to look, to perceive the visual world. I hope I was able to transmit a little bit of that wonder to you today.
