Secret Science Club Post Lecture Recap: Unabashed Fanboi Edition

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture featuring Frans de Waal, Biologist, Primatologist, Psychologist, Ethologist, and personal hero of mine. Dr de Waal is a living legend, just look at the man's affiliations, cut-and-pasted from his website:


De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2013, he is a Distinguished Professor (Universiteitshoogleraar) at Utrecht University. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he was selected by Time as one of The Worlds' 100 Most Influential People Today, and in 2011 by Discover as among 47 (all time) Great Minds of Science. Being editor-in-chief of the journal Behaviour, de Waal has stepped in the footsteps of Niko Tinbergen, one of the founders of ethology.


I approached this writeup by saying, "No pressure, man, just write the post... he's just someone who's work you've followed for decades, that's all."

Dr de Waal began the lecture by joking about the current election, "I wrote a book titled 'Chimpanzee Politics', but this posturing and dick measuring is below chimp politics." He followed this facetious introduction by noting that researchers in the past century downplayed animal intelligence. Behaviorists talked about stimulus and response but eschewed talking about thinking. He identified himself as a primatologist, but noted that he is interested in all animals. He then showed a breathtaking film of Lisala, a female bonobo at the Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary, which houses bonobos rescued from the 'bush meat' trade- in the film, Lisala is balancing a rock on her back while also carrying her child. She walks about a kilometer carrying rock and baby, prompting Dr De Waal to note, "You know she's going to use it (the rock)." After the kilometer walk, which ended at a flat, hard surface, Lisala used the rock to crack nuts. Dr De Waal noted of Lisala, "Lisala thinks ahead." The bonobo knew about the nuts, and knew about the hard place, and she carried the rock to the hard place in order to crack the nuts.

Dr de Waal then noted that it used to be thought that animals were 'trapped in the present', but he noted that they are capable of 'time travel'- they exhibit episodic memory and future planning.

The topic of the talk then shifted to Mirror Self Recognition, a topic which was also discussed in January's lecture. Dr de Waal showed a short video of a female bonobo which had been bitten by a male inspecting the puncture wound in her forehead with a smartphone camera. Dr de Waal joked, "If you have a dog that does that, call me!" He then showed a video of a capuchin monkey interacting with a mirror- while the monkey was interested in the mirror, there was no sense of self-recognition. Chimps, upon discovering the 'mirror trick', tend to inspect their mouths and teeth- parts of their own bodies that they have never seen. Female chimps also inspect their behinds, while male chimps are more interested in inspecting the behinds of the females. Dr de Waal noted that the chimps will even check themselves out in his reflective sunglasses.

Dr de Waal then showed us a video of Ayumu, a genius chimp living in the primate research center of Kyoto University, playing a computer game which involves remembering a number sequence:





Ayumu has beaten human competitors at this memorization game, which has upset more than one person. Dr de Waal attributed this to the attitude that humans feel they need to be at the top, noting that the old 'pyramid' had God on top, with the humans coming next, and then a hierarchy of animals, with those most like humans closer to the peak.

Dr de Waal then posed the question, how does one test an animal's 'IQ'? Dogs and cats exhibit very different behaviors, how could one make a comparison? He then enumerated three important criteria for testing animal congnition: Researchers must beware the 'Clever Hans' trap. Intelligence testing must be species appropriate. Researchers must avoid negative evidence.

Clever Hans was an early 20th century performing horse which was reputed to be able to solve arithmetic problems, but was actually basing its responses on its owner's body clues... the horse was smart, but in a different manner than the way it was billed. One way in which to eliminate the 'Clever Hans' effect is to block the animal subject's view of the tester... as this video of retired psychology professor Dr John Pilley and his dog Chaser demonstrates:





Testing must be species appropriate... for instance, elephants are reluctant to use tools with their sensitive trunks. Dr de Waal joked that we test animals better than children, then contrasted the differences between testing human children and testing apes- children have language ability which apes lack, there are no barriers between children and researchers while ape subjects are separated from their testers, child subjects have parental support while apes are tested alone, and most importantly, children are tested by their own species while apes are tested by a different species.

Dr de Waal noted that apes don't ape... while human children imitate human behavior, apes typically don't. In order to test apes' ability to ape, observations of ape-to-ape learning had to be made. Apes do learn from each other, with the learning of a behavior like nut cracking typically taking five to six years. In the Yerkes research center, the chimps choose to enter the Cognition Room- the chimps recognize not only their own names, but the names of the other chimps. They can get their friends if requested to do so. In one particular experiment Dr de Waal and research fellow Victoria Horner dubbed the 'Panpipe Paradigm' (Pan being the chimp's genus), chimpanzees were given long pipes with which they could activate a reward 'hopper' by either poking the hopper or lifting a lever on the hopper. One group of chimpanzees learned to activate the hopper by poking while another learned to lift the lever, with high ranking females of each group transmitting the knowledge to other members of their group (the high-ranking males were too busy with sex and politics to bother with this task and low-ranking females were ignored by higher status chimps). By imitating the behavior of their high-ranking conspecifics, two separate cultural traditions developed, pokers and lifters.

The third criterion for good testing of animal intelligence is to beware of negative evidence- the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In early tests to determine elephants' ability to recognize themselves in mirrors, the elephants were in enclosures with bars, and the mirrors were small and awkwardly placed. The failure of the elephants to pass the mirror test under these circumstances was a failure of the test, not the elephants. Given large enclosures and large mirrors, elephants can recognize themselves in mirrors:





When dealing with negative evidence, the best procedure is to ask, are we asking the right questions? Is it fair to ask whether we humans are smarter than an octopus?

The lecture then shifted to tool use in animals. It was long held that 'Man is a Tool-Using Animal'. In the early 20th century, German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler tested chimpanzees' problem-solving skills by placing chimps in an enclosure in which bananas were suspended from above, with sticks and crates scattered around the floor. The chimpanzees figured out how to stack the crates in order to reach the reward:





Dr de Waal joked that Köhler's name was 'hissed by psychologists'. He then showed a video of a female chimp which solved Köhler's problem by throwing a box at the suspended bananas, knocking them to the ground, quipping that she had stumbled upon the 'unofficial solution'. He then showed a remarkable video of a chimpanzee downing a drone that was being used to film at a Dutch zoo:





He followed this up by joking, "Welcome to our chimp overlords." He then showed us a video of capuchin monkeys cracking palm nuts with rocks. He noted that the characterization of "Man the Tool User" had to shift to "Man the Tool Maker". Then he noted that chimpanzees make tools, as do New Caledonian crows:





The new claim is that humans make tools to make tools... Dr de Waal noted that chimps have entered the Stone Age, and joked that chimp people are unhappy with competition: "My dolphins are smarter than your chimps." He noted that, with New Caledonian crows making tools in the field, and Aesop's fable of the crow and the pitcher being replicated, the corvids are posing a big challenge to the primate people.

To make matters even more of a challenge for the primate-centric, he showed a video of an octopus carrying a coconut shell to use as a portable shelter, noting that the locomotion of the octopus involves a strong cognitive component:





And an alligator using a stick as a lure for nesting egrets:





Dr de Waal noted that there is a 'Cognitive Ripple Effect'- after tool use was observed in apes, it began to be observed in other animals- monkeys then crows, then alligators... Every cognitive capacity we find in other animals ends up being older and more widespread than we thought. He indicated that while rats and pigeons make good research subjects, studies using them don't apply equally to other species. A wide range of species needs to be studied to gain a better understanding of cognition... noted that social paper wasps can recognize each others' faces while non-colonial wasps cannot. He noted that animals have the cognitive abilities they need due to natural history and ecology.

Dr de Waal quipped that 'animal cognition' was a dirty word in the 1980s... we will never know what animals think. He noted that anthropomorphism, the (mis)attribution of human qualities to non-humans, was something to be avoided, but he questioned whether concerns about anthropomorphism should apply to chimpanzees and other animals closely related to humans. He cited the example of kissing, noting that kissing gouramis appear to kiss when engaging in mouth-to-mouth combat, while chimpanzees kiss to reconcile with each other and those dirty, sexy bonobos engage in tongue kissing. Dr de Waal urged the audience, if similar species engage in similar behavior under similar circumstances, use the same label. Having similar traits due to shared ancestry is homology- homologies are important and deserve the same terminology- the forelimb extremities of humans and chimps have the same function and the same origin, they should both be labeled 'hands'.

If a gorilla is tickled, call the resultant sound laughter, there's no need for obfuscation. Dr de Waal noted that laughter is an animalistic behavior, we lose control of ourselves when we laugh. He then showed video of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin laughing uncontrollably:





Dr de Waal advised us to honor the similarities between humans and our relatives, not to deny them. He presented us with a neologism- anthropodenial: the a priori denial that animals can have human-like mental experiences. He illustrated such experiences by discussing Dr Sarah Brosnan's monkey fairness experiment, in which two monkeys are given unequal rewards, with familiar results... here's Dr de Waal showing video of the experiment:





This experiment apparently raised a bit of a controversy, Dr de Waal joked about the torrent of mail he received, with one philosopher indignantly claiming that it's impossible that monkeys know fairness, because fairness was discovered during the French Revolution, and numerous economists complaining that monkeys aren't economists. He then showed a video of two children, one given a whole cookie and one a half cookie (indignantly thrown to the floor), noting that mothers do this under protocols that would never be approved in animal studies. He noted that the rejection of the sub-par reward is an irrational response, because half a cookie is better than no cookie at all.

I was unable to get in a question during the Q&A... not only was the main room packed to capacity, but front-of-house was filled, with those outside getting the audio feed. One questioner asked if empathy was limited to mammals, and Dr de Waal indicated that he was setting up an experiment to determine if fish had a capacity for it. Another question regarded intelligence versus instinct- Dr de Waal opined that the line between them was hard to draw, giving the example of the weaverbirds, the males of which build complex nests- while all males build nests, some are better at it than others, and females prefer males who build better nests. Dr de Waal stated that it is difficult to distinguish biological tendencies and learned tendencies. He finished the night by urging us all to realize that all organisms are interconnected, and to cherish these connections.

All-in-all, Dr de Waal delivered a fantastic lecture to a packed house. Once again, the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot' was hit- the lecture was informative-yet-accessible, with great video accompaniment and humorous touches. Dr de Waal is a titan in the field of ethology, and it was a privilege to hear him speak. After the Q&A, he had a book signing, with copies of his new book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, on sale. Unfortunately, I had to bug out as soon as the talk was over in order to get to work an uncharacteristic Tuesday half-shift. At any rate, kudos to Dr de Waal, Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House.

Here's a nice one-on-one interview with Dr de Waal on the topic of animals' feelings:





Speaking of feelings, I get a real sense that the man has a love for his subjects... he's a guy I'm glad I share the planet with.

Secret Science Club Post Lecture Recap: The Triumphant Return of Dr de Waal

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture, which featured the triumphant return of Dr Frans de Waal, Emory University primatologist and psychologist, director of the Living Links Center at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, living legend, and one of my heroes. Dr de Waal delivered a Secret Science Club lecture Dr de Waal delivered a Secret Science Club lecture in April 2016 on animal cognition. Last night's lecture, riffing on his latest book, Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves, concerned, you guessed it, animal emotions.

Dr de Waal began his lecture by mentioning Charles Darwin's book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and noting that this book had fallen out of favor by the time he was a student. Scholars used to be able to talk about animal motions, but he was told as a student not to talk about thinking, feeling, or any inner states. The main objection to discussing inner states was the sin of anthropomorphism, (mis)attributing human feelings to non-human animals. Another objection is our inability to know what animals feel.

In Darwin's model of emotions, stimulus leads to emotion which leads to action, and emotions must lead to adaptive responses. For example, fear can lead to hiding. An alternate model of emotion, proposed by William James and Carl Lange, held that stimulus led to action which was the basis of emotion. The current model is that stimulus leads to emotion which leads to action and feelings. Actions are adaptive and feelings are awareness of emotion. Dr de Waal stated that he cannot know an animal's feelings, he cannot know your feelings, feelings are hard to access... not knowing how an animal feels does not mean that he cannot study its emotions.

Dr de Waal then tackled the subject of anthropomorphism, the 'sin' of attributing human characteristics to animals. In some cases, similar seeming behavior is due to convergent evolution, a process by which organisms which are not closely related appear to be similar due to adaptation- by independently adapting to similar environments, they end up looking similar. homology, on the other hand, involves similar traits shared by closely related organisms being due to shared ancestry. Dr de Waal contrasted two kisses... when kissing gouramis 'kiss', they lock their mouths in a form of fighting. Bonobos, which are closely related to humans, kiss for reasons similar to human reasons for kissing. In the case of bonobos, there is homology with human kisses, while the mouth-to-mouth contact of gouramis does not represent homology. Similarly, a chimpanzee forelimb, with its homologous structures, is referred to as a hand rather than a paw (as an aside, I have to note that this courtesy is not extended to monkeys). Dr de Waal showed us a picture of a baby gorilla laughing and quipped that, in the interest of avoiding anthropomorphism, this would be characterized as 'short vocalized panting', which elicited short vocalized panting from the audience. When a baby gorilla, a close relative of humans, laughs for reasons which would make humans laugh, call it a laugh, not vocalized panting.

Dr de Waal coined the term 'anthropodenial' to denote an a priori denial that other animals can have mental experiences or that humans are like animals. He opined that anthropodenial is more dangerous than anthropomorphism- the belief that humans are separate from nature is a major factor in our current ecological catastrophe.

When studying emotions, Dr de Waal advised us to start with the face, the window to the soul. Chimpanzees have as many facial muscles as humans. Inspired by Darwin, Dr Paul Ekman was a pioneer of the study of emotion. When Dr Ekman began his study of emotion, the prevailing belief was that emotions were expressed differently in different cultures- when he looked into this belief, there were no records, no photos... this belief was all in the theorists' heads. Dr Ekman studied emotions and categorized six major emotions: disgust, sadness, happiness,fear,anger, surprise. This model is still somewhat constraining, as there are subtler emotional expressions.

Dr de Waal's professor, Dr Jan Van Hooff, studied emotions and recognized differences between laughing and smiling. While smiling was thought to be a 'lower' version of laughing, Dr Van Hooff discovered that smiles are based on teeth baring behavior (often used to show aggression or submission) while laughter is rooting in play expressions. There are variations in behavior, nervous smiles and aggressive laughter. Aristotle famously wrote 'man is the only animal which laughs', but chimpanzees laugh under similar conditions that humans do. Chimps have the same tickle response that humans do:





Even though rats are ubiquitous lab animals, it was long thought that they didn't exhibit emotion through facial expressions, but when this was finally tested, it turns out that these animals were underestimated. Dr Jaak Panksepp even discovered that rats respond to tickling with ultrasonic laughter:





Showing us the video of the laughing rat, Dr de Waal joked, "As a student, I had a bunch of rats, they tend to multiply."

Studies of humor among apes are relatively new. In one instance, a zoo employee in a mask startled chimpanzees in a zoo, eliciting anger responses. On his last masked escapade, he took off his mask, and the chimpanzees laughed, suggesting that, like humans, they are amused by incongruity. Unexpected endings lead to laughter. When an alpha male allows a baby to chase him, it's funny. When a chimpanzee tricks her son and steals his nut-cracking rocks, she laughs afterwards:





An orangutan can be made to laugh with a simple magic trick:





Laughing represents a loss of control, it can be seen as animalistic- you can pee yourself, you need to catch your breath... why can't people just say 'this is funny'? Dr de Waal showed a video of Bill Clinton laughing uncontrollably, and causing Boris Yeltsin to laugh until he tears up:





A lot of emotional expressions affect our bodies deeply. The problem with the basic theory of emotion is that it is hard to study emotions that have no 'face'. Love, attachment, jealousy, hope, empathy... there are no facial expressions for them. Also, there are animals that don't expression emotions facially, such as cats and dolphins. Dr de Waal cited the example of the grieving orca which carried the body of its deceased young around for seventeen days. Chimpanzees are emotional beings, they express their emotion on reuniting with each other vocally.

Dr de Waal posed several questions: Are there uniquely human emotions? Are animals 'captives of the present'? Are humans the only animals with impulse control? Do only humans know disgust? He noted that he found this question the strangest of them all.

We don't know what animals feel, so the question of uniquely human emotions is unverifiable.

Regarding the notion that animals live only in the present, forgiveness involves a knowledge of the past. After fights, chimps engage in reconciliation- they have conflict resolution to shift from aggression to friendliness. The model for conflict resolution involves PC/MC (post-conflict/matched-control) observation, the reconciliation model is found in the wild and in captivity. Dr de Waal joked that he is from a family with six boys, so he is familiar with reconciliation. Besides primates, reconciliation behavior has been observed in most mammals- goats, hyenas, dolphins all reconcile. In an aside which I found particularly funny, he noted that reconciliation has not been observed in domestic cats. Among human preschoolers, reconciliation behavior was observed, and it was handled better by Japanese children than American children, probably because American teachers intervene in conflicts more frequently.

Dr de Waal displayed some pictures of Barack Obama and John McCain after a particularly contentious meeting, and Barack Obama has his cheeks puffed with air. A similar puffed cheek, bulging lip expression is used by male chimpanzees, and politicians such as Anthony Weiner, Bill Clinton, and others, probably to express regret. This expression is a male behavior, women don't do it.

Besides reconciling for past behaviors, animals also plan for the future. Psychologist Dr Wolfgang Köhler tasked chimpanzees with obtaining fruit that was hanging from the ceiling. The chimps were provided with boxes and poles and were able to employ them to get their reward. Köhler noted that the chimps solved the problem in their heads, not by a laborious trial-and-error process. Dr de Waal joked that this made him very unpopular with behaviorists. When he replicated the Köhler experiment, one particular female chimpanzee solved the problem by throwing a box and bringing down the fruit... she was the chimpanzee which brought down the drone:





Chimps can plan ahead, the collect tools and move them to areas where resources are available- they are not trapped in the present.

Animals can also exhibit impulse control. The standard laboratory test for impulse control is the marshmallow test:





Chimpanzees, like the children in the video, look around at other objects to distract themselves from temptation, they can hold out longer if given toys. Even some birds are able to pass the marshmallow test, with one African grey parrot holding out for fifteen minutes. Animals can control their impulses, such as a cat stalking a chipmunk rather than pouncing prematurely.

Subordinate animals in a hierarchy also exhibit impulse control. In the Menzel test, a chimpanzee is separated from the group and shown a hidden cache of food, which it must keep concealed from dominant chimps. Near the food source, the chimp will act nonchalant, an act of deception. If a low-value cucumber and a high-value banana are hidden, the aware chimp will sometimes lead the dominant chimp to the cucumber and grab the banana while the dominant one is occupied.

Animals feel disgust, it is an important adaptation to avoid contaminants and poisons. Psychologist Dr Paul Rozin opined that disgust seems to be uniquely human and is entirely or primarily cultural. Dogs were held up as exemplars of animals' lack of disgust- they eat feces and lick their testicles. Dogs do exhibit disgust, but only when presented with stimuli which disgust them, such as lemons:





Chimpanzees don't like the rain, and they try to keep their hands dry, hunching over and covering them. They tend to exhibit the wrinkled-nose disgust display when outside in the rain.

In one experiment, food was placed on plastic replica feces and real feces and macaques were observed eating food placed on plastic feces while rejecting the food placed on real feces.

Dr de Waal then discussed Dr Sarah Brosnan's primate fairness study, in which capuchin monkeys were given unequal rewards (a meh cucumber or a prized grape) for performing a task. The monkey receiving the poor reward doesn't take things well:





Inequity aversion is an irrational response- rationally, you should always take what you get. Reject the reward and you get nothing. Chimpanzees subjected to this test will sometimes refuse a grape until the other chimp gets a grape. Dr de Waal joked that this inequity aversion is lost in humans- one percent of us are grape monkeys, while ninety-nine percent of us are cucumber monkeys. In a not-so-funny coda, he noted that this is undermining our societies.

On a lighter note, parents are now doing this experiment on their children, giving one kid a whole cookie and another kid half of one. Dr de Waal also recounted a colleague who has a Great Dane and a Chihuahua which want the same amount of food.

Dr de Waal summed up his take on anthropomorphism: if two related species have the same response to the same stimulus, use the same term. Don't separate animals from humans.

Dr de Waal ended his lecture on a poignant note, addressing consolation behavior. All mammals show empathic concern. Among elephants, consolation takes the form of vulnerable contact- an elephant will stick its trunks in another elephant's mouth, a display of trust. Dr de Waal then turned to the subject of his book Mama's Last Hug. Mama was the alpha female of the Royal Burgers Zoo (Arnhem, Netherlands) chimpanzee colony. She was the most powerful chimpanzee in the colony, a mediator and decision maker, and important contact with human researchers- when she died, conflict arose in the group. At the age of eighty, Dr de Waal's professor, Dr Jan van Hooff, visited Mama, aged fifty-nine, as she was dying. Dr de Waal described the visit as 'two aging hominids meeting'. Typically, because chimpanzees are stronger than humans and are potentially dangerous, all interaction is done through a cage. On this occasion, Dr van Hooff decided to forego protocol and enter the enclosure to pay his final respects to Mama:





The hug, the arm around the neck and the patting, is reassuring behavior. Some viewers didn't expect such an emotional reaction and he felt the need to explain. Animal emotions can be studied objectively, cortisol levels and heart rates can be measured. Humans have no organs that aren't in a rat's body, while our emotions may be more sophisticated, they are not that different.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. One question regarded bad emotions- Dr de Waal noted that animals do kill conspecific animals in conflicts over mates, hierarchical positions, territory. Another questioner asked, do animals have emotions that humans don't have? Dr de Waal noted that cetaceans may have stronger affiliative feelings (which may be a factor in mass strandings), but the basics are similar. To find something foreign to human experience, one might have to look at more distantly related animals, such as octopodes. Regarding the lack of reconciliation among cats, Dr de Waal noted that domestic cats are solitary hunters, so they have less of a need of affiliation than other mammals. Lions, being social, might exhibit reconciliation behavior, but this needs further study. Another question involved altruism- the origin of empathy is thought to be parental care, in which the hormone oxytocin plays a role. Chimpanzees share food, but this may be a case of reciprocity, rather than altruism. Sharing just makes sense. The house was packed, so the Bastard was unable to get a question in until the post lecture book signing, when he asked Dr de Waal about the role of olfaction in the expression of emotion, and how this could be measured. As a primatologist who studies apes, he noted that smell doesn't play as big a role as visual and vocal cues, but that other mammals might communicate that way. The bastard also thanked Dr de Waal for his kindness to linking to the blog.

Once again, the Secret Science Club served up a fantastic program. Dr de Waal's lecture informed, enthralled, saddened, and amused- how appropriate for a lecture on emotions. To use a baseball term, he knocked it out of the park. Kudos to the good doctor, Margaret and Dorian, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House.

Here's a recent interview with Dr de Waal concerning the topic of the lecture:





Pour yourself a nice beverage and soak in that SCIENCE!

The Triumphant Return of Live Secret Science Club Events

Last night marked the resumption of Secret Science Club live lectures at the beautiful Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.  It also marked the end of my two-year-and-two-month exile from the borough. Time being a strange thing, as I walked down 7th Street on a gorgeous afternoon, I felt like it hadn't been any time at all.  I was ecstatic to see the usual Tuesday night bartenders were working- I absolutely love them, and was greatly relieved to see that they had weathered the pandemic unscathed.  My greatest concern for the past two years has been the prospect of people I know missing from my favorite establishments.  So, yeah, major sigh of relief here.

I am also happy to report that the lecture was by a man who I have long admired, primatologist Dr Frans De Waal, professor emeritus of Emory University and former director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center Living Links Center.  I have noted earlier that I read a lot of Dr De Waal's academic papers while in college, and I had enjoyed his prior SSC lectures.  Last night, I also had the great good fortune to be able to speak one-on-one with the good professor before the lecture.  Needless to say, I was unabashedly 'fanboying' the whole evening.

Last night's lecture by Dr De Waal concerned gender, the topic of his new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. I joked to Dr De Waal about his prescience in writing a book about gender in time for it to be released while an acrimonious Culture War regarding gender is raging throughout the United States.  It's going to take intelligent, compassionate, level-headed voices like Dr De Waal's to get us out of the mess we're in.

Dr De Waal began his lecture by commenting on the importance of live events.  While the Zoom lectures were a success, humans want to see, hear, and smell people in person.  He then joked that he would be lecturing on gender because he wanted to pick a topic that's non-controversial, that we all agree on.

The lecture then started in earnest with a discussion of Sex vs Gender.  Sex is determined by biology, it is a matter of chromosomes and hormones.  Humans exhibit less sexual dimorphism than the other great apes.  Men and women don't have many differences in physical capabilities, the one significant difference being males, on average, having more upper body strength.  Gender is how we define ourselves.  Sex is largely, but not entirely, a binary.  Gender is a social construct and is not binary.  As far as the nature vs nurture part of the equation, it's not a big deal.

Dr De Waal, noting that human sexual dimorphism is tiny compared to that of the other apes, illustrated this in hilarious fashion by displaying a picture of himself and his five brothers towering over their diminutive mother.  He noted that growing up in a household of six boys made him curious about gender.  He stated that humans are apes, being large tailless primates, and noted that our closest relatives, chimps and bonobos, are more sexually dimorphic than humans but less sexually dimorphic than gorillas and orangutans.  Male chimps are built like bodybuilders and have larger canines than females, and males are dominant.  Bonobos form social groups in which females are dominant.

The topic then shifted to gender among our ape relatives.  Gender is an important concept for humans.  Humans are culture-oriented, we mature slowly because we need to learn many things.  Apes also mature slowly, a chimpanzee can be considered an adult at 16, they are dependent on their mothers until age 10, and typically become weaned around 4 years of age.  Apes are culture-oriented, they need to learn things from others, such as tool use, what to eat, and, of particular importance, social behavior.

Mothers are the important models for behaviors- they teach their young how to, for example, use twigs to 'fish' for termites.  It's been observed that female chimpanzees tend to follow the examples of their mothers more closely when it comes to the duration of  'dipping' for termites and the form of their twigs.  Males tend to emulate male role models, and often show greater variation in twig length and dipping duration (this raised quite a chuckle from the audience).  When it comes to self-socialization, the young emulate models of their own gender.  In the case of the self-socialization of transgender children, models of the opposite sex are emulated.

Dr De Waal then introduced us to Donna, a gender non-conforming chimpanzee at the Yerkes center.  Donna had been studied since she was two.  Her build was similar to that of a male, and she enjoyed wrestling with other males in her youth.  She also exhibited the long hair typical of male chimpanzees, and would experience less genital swelling than other female chimpanzees.  She was largely asexual, best described as infertile and peaceful.  Donna was well-integrated with the group.  Dr De Waal then noted that some males are atypically non-confrontational.  These males, like Donna, tend to be individually well-accepted- pigeonholing is not done, apes don't play those games.

Chimpanzees and bonobos are equally close to humans genetically, but they contrast greatly with each other behaviorally.  Chimps frequently engage in conflict, and males dominate in social groups.  Bonobos have female dominated societies marked by little conflict.  Dr De Waal noted that the posture of dominant male chimpanzees is best described as a bipedal swagger, but that even the swaggering alpha male usually depends on the support of powerful older males that cease to fight for dominance:

 

Chimpanzee societies are territorial, they often attack, and sometimes even kill, neighbors.  There have been 151 documented cases of violent deaths in chimpanzee conflicts, but only one suspected case of a bonobo killing another bonobo.

Bonobos have high-pitched voices, and before they were recognized as a separate species, were confused for young chimpanzees.  Bonobos are more anatomically similar to humans than chimpanzees are, having longer legs.  Bonobos are known for their sexual ways- they like sex in all positions and combinations, and use sex for social reasons.  Bonobos came to be known in the popular culture as the 'make love not war' apes.  Bonobo sexual activity is often elicited by food- food excites them, and they have sex.

There are 120 bonobos in captivity worldwide, and all of their social groups are led by females.  This dominance is a collective dominance, individual females cannot dominate on their own, so they team up.  This dominance isn't always nice, biting does occur.  

Bonobos are not territorial, and when different groups meet, the females like to mingle and share food.  They will even adopt orphans from other groups.

Dr De Waal then went on to discuss gender preferences in toys.  Young female chimps and bonobos are attracted to dolls, they will care for dolls and even build nests for them.  They will even improvise dolls from logs that they carry like infants.  Young males have a more technical interest, they often rip dolls apart to see what's inside.  

Among macaques, females will handle other mothers' infants, and even juvenile females will handle babies.  Males are not nearly as interested in babies, and mothers are not as willing to let them handle them.  Young females often act as baby sitters, which allows mothers to spend more time feeding and grooming.

Male chimpanzees are more prone to rough-and-tumble play, which provides them with the skills they will need in their adult life.  Adolescents will learn how to control their strength and learn to be gentle with babies.

Regarding intelligence, Dr De Waal noted that, for centuries, belief in male intellectual superiority was used as an argument for inequality.  Even Darwin, so right about many things, was terrible about women's intellectual equality:

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is [shown] by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain — whether requiring deep thought, reason or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.”

Dr De Waal stressed that there is no data to indicate intellectual differences between males and females.  

He then shifted the topic of the lecture to displays of intelligence among chimpanzees, such as Ayumu, a chimpanzee which excels at memorization tasks, beating humans at this game:

He then showed us a video of Lisala, a female bonobo, transporting a rock a kilometer to a place with a hard surface in order to crack nuts.  This necessitated planning ahead.

Dr De Waal reiterated that there are no sex differences in males and females when it comes to intelligence.  Intelligence evolved in tandem between the sexes.  He drove this point home with a video of a group of female chimpanzees which conspired to take down a drone that they despised:

Dr De Waal quipped, "Meet your ape overlords."

The topic then shifted to alpha males, and Dr De Waal noted that not all bullies, and that many notions about alpha males are really excuses for societal inequality.  Using the hamadryas baboon as an example, the males are much larger than the females, but many of the assumptions about their behavior were the result of a study of a captive population in a London zoo composed of 100 males and 5 females... while wild baboon societies are not always nice and gentle, they aren't at all like this London nightmare scenario.

Most ape societies are functional.  Alpha males tend to keep the peace by defending the underdog- females from males, juveniles from grownups.  They generally regulate aggressive behavior.  Effective alpha males are popular, are good leaders, are protective, and well-supported.  Bullies are dealt with, sometimes even killed.  To illustrate good alpha behavior, Dr De Waal showed us a video of a male standing in a road while the group crossed it.  At least half of alpha males are effective leaders, not bullies.

In bonobos, females are the leaders.  Even chimpanzee societies have powerful females- dominance and power are not equal.  Alpha males need support, and powerful matriarchs, such as the famous Mama, can be helpful in this regard.  Dr De Waal posed the question: Who is more powerful?  All societies have hierarchies, which is more important, the dominance or the support?  He joked that the concept of the pecking order comes from hens, not roosters.  Both sexes are hierarchical.  Then, there's the case of Japan's Monkey Queen, a young female which wrested control of a huge macaque troop.

Often, powerful females are mediators.  Mama was known to interpose herself between fighting males until a reconciliation would be reached.

Males are sometimes known for care of juveniles, but they protect rather than nurture.  In Uganda, a respiratory disease killed many chimps, leaving orphans which were often adopted by older siblings. In one case, an alpha male named Freddy adopted an orphaned male named Oscar.  Males have the capability to care for the young when necessary. Things are easier in human societies, in which the nuclear family is important, and males have stronger paternal tendencies.

Dr De Waal concluded his lecture with a list of point, noting that he is a biologist working in the psychology department.  It's useful to distinguish between sex and gender, but they cannot be completely disconnected.  All hominids have genders and behavioral differences exist. Differences are often assumed about topics like female hierarchies and male friendships- lines can be blurry between rivalries and friendships.  There is no difference in intellectual capacity between males and females. 

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session, and some Bastard in the audience noted that the timing of the release of this book could not have been more fortuitous, given the current culture war over gender identity.  Dr De Waal noted that this conflict is primarily over transgender issues, and that primates don't discriminate in this way.  He supports transgender rights, but feels that the issue of competitive sports, while overblown, needs to be, and will be, sorted out, though transgender athletes compose only about one-thousandth of competitors (in our one-on-one, I suggested getting rid of gendered athletics, using body mass and height as neutral qualifiers).  Regarding Donna, the gender non-conforming chimp, no studies were made of her genetically or hormonally- Dr De Waal said, "We took her as she was."  Regarding mental abilities, the only difference between males and females is that males are slightly better at spatial orientation and the rotation of 3D objects- this might be because in most mammal species, males travel from female to female while females tend to have their own territories.

Asked about transphobia, Dr De Waal notes that language does not cause it, but it doesn't help.  Apes can't vocalize about gender or racial differences.  Colombian spider monkeys come in many colors, but there's no labeling.  Labeling can increase pigeonholing due to different appearances.  Among chimps and bonobos, not too many males act in a feminine fashion, but homosexual behavior is pretty common.  Even sex is not a binary- about one to two percent of the population is non-binary or intersex.  Gender is certainly not binary.  Transphobia and homophobia are not observed in chimps or bonobos, the only thing that is greeted with intolerance is disturbing the peace.

The Secret Science Club has returned to form, serving up a fantastic, topical lecture by Dr Frans De Waal, who hit what I call the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot', that heady blend of hard science, advocacy, and entertaining narrative, in this case the exploits of various apes.  Kudos to the good doctor, to Margaret and Dorian, and to the beloved staff of the beautiful Bell House.  I'm overjoyed to be back, learning while intoxicated, with such wonderful people.  Hugs all around!

For a taste of the Secret Science experience, here is Dr De Waal lecturing on alpha males, a topic he touched upon in his SSC lecture:

Pour yourself a nice beverage and soak in that SCIENCE!

Wow, Wow Wow Wow, WOW!

Tonight, I opened my browser and navigated over to the 'design' page of the old blog, and I saw something which amazed me: 1473 hits. Poking around further, I checked out my 'stats' page and found that most of my traffic has been coming from Facebook:

http://m.facebook.com/ 1026

http://m.facebook.com 120

https://www.facebook.com/ 97

I'm one of those holdouts who isn't on Facebook... back in the 90s, figuring I needed to become streetwise, I worked as an investigator, mainly of auto accident claims, in NYC's five boros, mainly Brooklyn and Queens, so I am v-e-r-y leery about putting information out on public display. Luckily, the photograph of my public spanking by a dominatrix at an S&M-themed restaurant on my 30th birthday (courtesy of smartass friends) was taken before social media was a 'thing'.

I decided that I needed to Google 'big bad bald bastard' and 'Facebook', and I found this:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10154171427204700&id=99206759699

I can't tell you all how grateful I am to Dr Frans de Waal, not only for his lifetime of research and advocacy, but for his kindness in linking to my modest little blog. Dr de Waal has worked tirelessly to connect us to our fellow Earth denizens, and I am humbled by his connecting to me.

A glance at the title of my blog is enough to show that I primarily envisioned this as a snarky, tongue-in-cheek weblog serving as a vehicle for letting off steam about current events and the state of politics, and for writing about music, art, and books that I like... oh, and a fan site for my feline co-workers. I owe a debt of gratitude to Margaret Mittelbach, Dorian Devins, and Michael Crewdson of the Secret Science Club not only for their wonderful lecture series and their friendship, but for forcing me to bring my best writing efforts to the blogging game. Oftimes, when one is writing multiple days out of the week, one tosses off posts quickly, but the lecture recaps involve note taking (basically, juggling a note pad and a beer in a darkened performance space) and enough web-surfing to verify the hastily-scrawled notes and provide links and attribution. I have an obligation to the lecturers and my readers to get things right... and I sincerely hope that I've succeeded.

So, to Dr de Waal, here's a heartfelt "Thank you", and for the benefit of visitors from the University of Utrecht, "Hartelijk bedankt!"

This Month, this Month, this Horrible Month

I didn't think this month could get any worse, but Dick Dale died on Saturday night. Dick Dale, born Richard Anthony Monsour, defined the 'surf rock' genre, and incorporated Eastern Mediterranean musical influences, reflecting his father's Lebanese-American heritage (his mother was Polish/Belarussian), into his music. Dale was a guitar virtuoso, the man just ran up and down the fretboard and cranked up the reverb, pushing the limits of the equipment that Leo Fender gave him to test out. Dick Dale was also a genuine surfer, so his songs about surfing and drag racing were played with utter conviction. Dale's best known song is the Greek/Levantine folk song Misirlou, which he rescued from lounge-music purgatory and turned into an absolute amp-buster. While the song was re-popularlized in the 90s when it was featured on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack... I was introduced to his music by listening to college radio starting in my middle school years. Even as I write this, I have his greatest hits CD in my car's disc player, though I admit that it's dangerous to listen to Dick Dale while driving, because the music leadens the foot.

Dale's oeuvre is too numerous to encapsulate in a quick blog post, but the man performed into his 80s, because this country doesn't provide good healthcare to the elderly, displaying the same muscular playing style he did in his youth. Here's a live performance of his from June of last year:





I'm hoping for a break from the general suckitude of this month as I head down to Brooklyn for this month's Secret Science Club lecture featuring the triumphant return of Frans de Waal, who I am a big fan of. Dr de Waal was extraordinarily kind to me, linking to my recap of his lecture on his Facebook page, so there's one bright spot in this month, this month, this terrible month.

Death of a Cat Lover

Just about a year after the death of a beloved feline companion comes the sad news that a beloved celebrity cat lover has died. Like many people around the world, I am saddened by the death of Koko the lowland gorilla at the age of 46. There were controversies regarding Koko's handling and her actual linguistic ability, but her attraction to cats won her the love of millions, including myself. Traditionally, I had always been skeptical regarding the anthropomorphizing of animals, but if Frans De Waal says it's okay to some extent, I think I can lighten up.

At any rate, I am sad to see this remarkable gorilla leave us, she brought a sense of wonder to an all too cynical world. I can think of no better tribute to her than to cherish a feline companion. It's what Koko would do.

A Pall Hangs Over a Homecoming

Tonight will mark my return to Brooklyn after a two-year-and-two-month absence.  It is the return of live Secret Science Club lectures to the beautiful Bell House.  As if that weren't enough, tonight's lecture will feature a personal hero of mine, Primatologist Frans De Waal, who has been working for decades not to bridge the divide between humans and animals, but to point out that there really is no divide.

Today would be an unambiguously glorious day, but for one event which casts a poll over the day, the borough of Brooklyn, the New York City metro area, and the country- a shooting at a D/N/R station at the 36th St stop which claimed ten lives.  Longtime readers might recall that my typical Bell House trip involves a ride on the 4 Train from the Bronx to the Atlantic Ave stop in downtown Brooklyn, then a transfer to the R train.  Looks like I'll be taking shanks' mare down 4th Ave this evening.

I can't complain, this is a minor inconvenience at worst, a chance to check out interesting restaurants at best.  People were killed, people are wounded, that's the thing to remember.  Those deaths sadden me, but I refuse to live in fear.  Brooklyn, here I am come, but with my gladness tempered for sorrow for the fallen.

CORRECTION: None of the ten people shot has died, all in all, 29 people were injured, but there were no fatalities, thank goodness.

Looking Back Over the Past Twelve Months

One of the recurring themes of 2016 was how bad the year sucked. Politically, culturally, the year was terrible, marked by the deaths of beloved celebrities, the ascendance of naked racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny, and the rise to power of a stupid, venal creature who appeals to the worst elements of our society. Yeah, 2016 has been terrible on a 'macro' level.

Personally, I can't say the year was bad for me. On the workfront, I received a decent raise at the beginning of the year, and the organization hired a guy who I really get along with well for my department. The organization itself had a really successful year, and our fundraisers hit unprecedented attendance levels. On one discordant note, they outsourced a lot of the nuts-and-bolts work to hired hands from a temp agency... the part-timers who make up the bulk of our staff are a bit worried that they might not be able to depend on extended fall hours before going on furlough for the winter. I'm not worried about myself, I have the sort of job which can't be easily outsourced- I have the keys to everything, alarm codes, and safe combinations... not the sort of things revealed to a 'hired gun'.

Generally speaking, my life is pretty stable- I've worked for the same organization for ten years, and volunteered for the same organization for twenty-five. While I value novelty in small things, in large matters I prefer things to go on in placid fashion. This year, though, there were two big changes- I bought a newish car and I moved out of the place I'd been living for ten years. Although the new car is small, it's really roomy inside, with no wasted space, and I was able to fit even my largest pieces of furniture, two bookcases (naturally), into the back of the car, secured with a bungee cord and some rope. The car is a lot of fun to drive, being a five-speed stick-shift, and the new apartment is very similar to the old one, albeit on a quieter street that's even closer to the local bars, so I am pleased with these changes.

As far as writing goes, I have to say that the high point of the blogging year has been Dr Frans De Waal's linkage on his Facebook page to my recap of his lecture... as I joked back in April, this is like a sportball fan getting a link from Peyton Manning or LeBron James.

Soooooo... 2016 was a mixed bag- my personal situation has been more than okay, but I am concerned that friends of mine will be adversely affected by the upcoming political and social developments. I'm a straight white man, college-educated and employed full-time... the lowest difficulty setting in the game of life (I'm not rich, but I consider a lot of the paths to wealth as cheat codes), but (besides having a desire for social justice and fair play)I recognize that minorities function as the canaries in the coal mine, and that if bad policies are inflicted on minorities without public outcry, then there's a good chance that they will eventually be inflicted on non-wealthy white persons.

I wish I could say that I was optimistic about 2017, but I really don't see much cause for optimism. As bad as 2016 seemed to be, and as much as I'm not sad to see it recede into history, I don't think it will be any worse than the coming year. I am looking forward, though, to another year of your readership and support.

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: Alvin and the Chipmunks Abyss

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture featuring Dr Mercer Brugler of CUNY's City Tech and the American Museum of Natural History. Dr Brugler is a marine biologist, deep-sea adventurer, and activist helping to get women and minority students involved in the sciences.

Dr Brugler opened his talk with a couple of photographs- beginning with a nice shot of a newly discovered genus and species of low-light coral, following this up with a photograph of a whale turd which had attracted the attention of some hungry sea cucumbers. The bottom of the food pyramid of the sea consists of light-dependent phytoplankton, many of the denizens of the deep sea rely on biological material 'raining down' from the upper levels of the ocean.

The focus of the talk then quickly shifted to coral, which are Cnidarians. The Cnidaria are approximately six-hundred million years old. A coral colony can be likened to a ton of 'mouths' (polyps) that secrete a skeleton and clone themselves. A coral colony is composed of genetically identical individuals. Each individual polyp can be likened to an 'upside-down jellyfish (the technical term for a jellyfish is medusa)'. Cnidarians are two cell layers thick, with a goo called mesoglea filling the space between the layers, and have a two-way digestive system, spitting out undigested material from their 'mouths'. Coral polyps reproduce asexually and the colony secretes a calcium carbonate skeleton over which the polyps can grow. The polyps are connected by a layer of tissue known as a coenosarc. Coral colonies can reach an age of four thousand years. Like all Cnidarians, corals have stinging structures known as nematocysts, which have barbed 'harpoons' which inject venom- Dr Brugler quipped that the venoms are of various toxicity levels- this determines whether or not one has to go to the hospital. Coral colonies shed mucus, which is being studied to determine if it has cancer-fighting or antibiotic properties. Corals that dwell in shallow regions have photosynthetic dinoflagellate symbionts called zooxanthellae. When coral bleaching occurs, the beneficial zooxanthellae die off, stressing the coral.

Corals are divided into subclasses- the 8-tentacled octocorallia, the 6-tentacled hexacorallia, and the tube-dwelling ceriantharia. Among the octocorallia is Corallium rubrum- Dr Brugler ruefully noted that his mother likes coral jewelry, made out of the skeletons of dead animals. Also among the octocorallia is the blue coral. The hexacorralia includes the reef-building stony corals (Scleractinia) and the sea anemones.

Certain corals thrive in extreme environments, such as the vicinity of hydrothermal vents and cold seeps and under polar ice. The black or thorny corals are deep-dwelling hexacorallia with protein based skeletons. Among the black corals are the wire corals, which through convergent evolution resemble the octocorallia sea whips. Dr Brugler displayed a succession of slides which beautifully illustrated the variety of coral forms- branches, fronds, feathers, bushes, spines... He recounted the DNA sequencing of the genus Bathypathes and noted that DNA plus environment equals morphology.

The topic then slightly shifted to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the largest structure of biological origin on Earth. As large as it is, the Great Barrier Reef is succumbing to bleaching.

Dr Brugler then completely changed direction, turning his attention to the deep sea. Sunlight can penetrate seawater to a depth of 200 meters (this sunlit area is the photic zone). Below 200 meters, photosynthesis cannot occur, the water is cold (typically -2 to 4 degrees Celsius), and the pressure is extreme- for every ten meters one submerges, the pressure increases one atmosphere. There is little food in the deeps- the dead bodies of phytoplankton rain down from the shallow waters to the bottom- this detritus is known as 'marine snow'. Among the pictures Dr Brugler displayed of deep-sea life was a time-lapse sequence of amphipods Hirondellea gigas swarming over a feast of dead fish. Despite Edward Forbes' belief in an Azoic region of barren sea beds, there is life in the deep sea. Dr Brugler jokingly described the deep seas as 'Dr Seuss Land'- the sort of biome which houses ten foot-tall corkscrews.

The next topic of the lecture was the means by which humans explore the depths. Dr Brugler began with a question, "Should we phase out human occupied vehicles like Alvin?" Human-occupied vehicles cost about $45,000 per day to operate, while remote-operated vehicles cost $4,000-$11,000 per day to operate. ROVs can stay down longer and collect more specimens. The deepest region of the ocean, the Marianas Trench reaches a depth of perhaps eleven-thousand meters at its deepest area, the Challenger Deep. Seventy-percent of the Earth's surface is covered by the oceans, sixty-five percent by the deep seas- the deep ocean is Earth's largest environment. Dr Brugler gave us a quick overview of the bottom topography of the oceans- the continental shelves border the continents, then the continental slope reaches a depth of about two-hundred meters. Beyond the continental slope, the seabed abounds in trenches, canyons, seamounts, and spreading areas.

In 1934, William Beebe and Otis Barton descended to a depth of more than 900 meters in a bathysphere until the water pressure caused the airhose to collapse, necessitating a hasty retreat to the surface. In 1960, the crew of the bathyscaphe Trieste descended to a depth of about nine-thousand meters when their plexiglass window cracked, necessitating a hasty retreat to the surface (I sense a trend here).

Dr Brugler then described shipping out on the icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer to the Drake Passage between southern South America and Antarctica in order to obtain deep sea specimens- only one sample had been obtained in the region by Russian scientists. Dr Brugler described the area, with its strong currents and multiple seamounts as the 'washing machine of the ocean'. He noted that if one were to fall overboard into the cold waters of the 'Passage, one would die in five minutes, which basically translates into 'you die'. The seas are high, with rogue waves of ten meters in height. Ice chunks in the water can snap chains meant to secure equipment on deck. Deckhands have to work in rotating teams, because frostbite can set in in five minutes. The water freezes into pancake ice, then can form small icebergs. Dr Brugler recounted tales of cetaceans following the icebreaker while 'pterodactyl-like' wandering albatrosses fly overhead. On the pack ice, clueless chinstrap penguins try to flee the unfamiliar humans, and are set into a panic by two stupid individuals which attempt to 'toboggan' on their bellies... uphill.

Despite the difficulties, there are rewards- the team obtained some deep sea glass sponges- Euplectella aspergillum, known as the Venus' flower basket because each sponge houses a mated pair of shrimp.

In the depths of the ocean, hydrothermal vents provide homes for such creatures as the newly-discovered Relicanthus daphneae, a hexacorallian which, through convergent evolution, appears like a giant (meter wide polyp, three meter tentacles) sea anemone... DNA sequencing indicated that this organism doesn't place with other anemones. Other hydrothermal vents seem to be monospecific environments, housing only crabs, only anemones, or only basket sponges.

Dr Brugler then introduced the audience to Alvin, a famed submersible paired with the research vessel Atlantis. He gave us a stem-to-stern description of the submersible- the outside houses electrical equipment, batteries, cameras; the crew compartment is a six-foot diameter sphere which is designed to accommodate three persons (the good doctor is 6'4", so he's a bit cramped)- one driver and two observers. Also inside the sphere are twelve oxygen tanks and two carbon dioxide scrubbers. There's no heater, and the sphere gets cold, so the crew members need to pack a bag of extra clothes. Crew members cannot wear metal accoutrements- while titanium is strong, it is soft, and scratches are a no-no. The Alvin was recently overhauled, and now has five cameras to replace the original three cameras. Additional portholes were added to the sphere, and it is more ergonomically friendly. Often paired with Alvin is the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Sentry- Dr Brugler joked that Sentry 'mows the lawn', taking photos and scouting out the scene before Alvin goes down. Dr Brugler treated us to lovely images of the New England and Corner Rise Seamounts (PDF), chains of seamounts characterized by numerous canyons. A ferromanganese(Fe-Mn) crust overlays a basalt substrate, and corals thrive on it. Dr Brugler cited the work of the University of Rhode Island's Inner Space Center in deep sea exploration.

We were then given a quick 'tour' of the seabed- seamounts are undersea mountains of volcanic origin, the mid-ocean ridges are areas of increased water flow beneficial to life, methane seeps give off plumes of methane which feed communities of micro-organisms, deep sea brine pools are hypersaline pools on the seabed which are denser that surrounding waters- they even have their own 'waves' as they interact with surrounding waters. In 1977, hydrothermal vents were discovered along the Galápagos Rift, home to giant tube worms with bright-red hemoglobin-rich plumes (most worms use copper-based hemocyanin for oxygen transport). Also found near the vents were large mussels and snot-like bacterial mats. Certain bacteria are methane-fixing. Among the chordates thriving in the deep are the sharklike chimaerae.

Dr Brugler then introduced us to a dazzling array of Remote Operated Vehicles- the Pisces IV and V, the Herculesand Argus. Dr Brugler noted that if any audience members liked playing on the XBOX, they should become ROV operators so they could explore the Manning Seamount. Dr Brugler then noted that deep sea exploration is hit-or-miss. Sometimes, hours are spent looking for something, but nothing is found... at a cost of $45,000. Conversely, sometimes a crew will discover a wealth of information.

All the while, Dr Brugler was showing slides of the gorgeous organisms found in the depths, such as the 'bubblegum coral', Paragorgia arborea, which can attain lengths of six meters, and the black coral Leiopathes, which grows micrometers per year, but which can attain 4,265 years of age. While deep sea corals do not form large reefs, the coral Lophelia pertusa forms deep-water reefs off the coast of Ireland and Florida. The big reefs are in the shallows, Dr Brugler noted, but there are singletons in the deep sea. Sea spiders, pycnogonids, feed on corals with a proboscis. Seastars often feed on fallen coral, but avoid the upright corals. Taller corals provide access to greater water flow for worms, crabs, and brittle stars. Some of the larger polychaete worms can attain lengths in excess of a meter. Other organisms lay egg masses on corals- recently, eggs of the Dumbo octopus were found on a coral- one egg hatched in captivity, but the low-pressure conditions led to the death of the octopus shortly after hatching.

Dr Brugler stressed the importance of public outreach- black corals are harvested for jewelry and illegally traded. It is difficult to identify black corals... the Department of Justice collaborates with the Smithsonian and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Sevices, confiscating suspected corals and having them identify biological materials. Dr Brugler recounted having a couple of Feds oversee him while he was attempting to identify a coral item. He displayed a picture of a gaudy bauble made of gold, red coral, and black pearl. One a more hopeful note, deep sea bamboo corals can possibly be used as living bone implants. The Revlon cosmetics company uses an extract from the 'sea whip' Pseudopterogorgia elisabethae in makeup for its anti-inflammatory properties.

Dr Brugler then discussed the effects of global warming and ocean acidification on corals- certain corals, exposed to conditions of high acidity, can stop forming skeletons and take on the appearance of sea anemones (a topic also addressed in Dr David Gruber's July 2014 SSC lecture). Will our kids have coral reefs? When the pH is moved by a factor of .3, the corals adapt to take on their anemone-like forms, the current shift in pH is .1. When acidification ceases, the corals resume forming skeletons.

Dr Brugler then touched on the topic of genome sequencing. He noted that the genetics of leeches are being studied in order to determine medicinal uses for leech anticoagulants (one cannot work in the Department of Invertebrate Biology at AMNH without dealing with the Leech Guy). The DNA sequence of bedbugs is being determined in order to develop better pesticides. DNA sequencing is becoming faster and cheaper, DNA sequencing equipment is getting smaller, and sequencing can be done in real time in the field.

Dr Brugler left off the lecture with a quote from author C.P. Idyll: "It was once considered absurd to expect life to exist in the deep sea- cold, perpetually dark, and subject to crushing pressures."

The lecture was followed with a Q&A session, as always. One individual in the audience asked about the evolution of deep sea corals- it is generally thought that shallow corals invaded the deep sea, rather than vice-versa. Another individual asked about the mechanisms by which animals survive when the pickings are so slim in the deeps- Dr Brugler suggested lipid storage as the best mechanism for long-term survival. Some bastard in the audience asked if different hydrothermal vent communities were compared genetically with each other- how much connectivity is there in the deep sea. Dr Brugler likened hydrothermal vents to evolutionary stepping stones- rich oases of life, but noted that corals evolve very slowly, their changes in DNA tend to occur one-hundred times slower than typical invertebrates (chalk a lot of that up to asexual reproduction). Asked what he wants most to know, Dr Brugler stated that he wants to know what is in the deep trenches (some bastard in the audience, perhaps fed up with this year's presidential election, joked that maybe Cthulhu could be found). When asked about the Hudson Canyon, Dr Brugler expressed a hope that there would be a DIY ROV movement, with hobbyists building there own submersibles to explore the waters around NYC- he noted that this would be a great way to monitor invasive species. When asked what the greatest threat to the oceans was, Dr Brugler stated unequivocally that it was carbon dioxide emissions.

After the Q&A session, Dr Brugler gave a coda to his lecture, describing his roundabout route to his doctorate. As a child in Texas, he was introduced to SCUBA diving by his father, but his diving was limited to lakes with low visibility. He attended University of Miami, Florida as an undergrad and applied to a masters program at the University of Charleston, where he was accepted by mistake. After an initial confusion about his status, he was told to sequence the DNA of black coral, and things smoothed out for him... because of this unorthodox start, he decided that his life goal (which is totally awesome) would be to ensure that no high school or college student who want for experience to pursue the goal of studying what they want to.

This particular lecture hit what I've come to call the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot'- it was a great blend of hard science, adventure narrative, gorgeous visuals, and advocacy. Put succinctly, Dr Brugler hit it out of the park. Kudos to Dr Brugler, Margaret and Dorian, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. High fives all around.

After the lecture, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Brugler and two of his grad students, both young women of Latin heritage. The good doctor takes his goal of STEM diversity seriously. Also in the audience was SSC lecturer Dr Simon Garnier, who has been a regular audience member. One of the other regulars outed me as a blogger... it's kinda odd to come out and tell people you're a blogger, and I'm not big on self-promotion. He read my recap of his lecture and didn't hit me with a shoe afterward. Sorry, Monsieur Docteur, I should have told you earlier... Dr Frans De Waal sussed me out on his own. Dr Garnier was accompanied by a couple of his grad students- as a big nerd, I have to say that it's a lot of fun to be able to geek out on Atta in a bar, and to hear anecdotes about one's homework being eaten by army ants. Good times! This is what the Secret Science Club is all about.