For the new year, let’s look at where new genes come from. Many genes around today have pedigrees going back billions of years. Humans can find analogues of most of their genes in chimpanzees and other primates, suggesting our common ancestor millions of years ago had comparable genes. At the same time, many species including humans have genes found in no other species. As with so many things–to-do lists, spreadsheets, computer code, building plans–there are two main ways to get new ones: copy and modify something existing, or start from scratch. A newly published paper by Ni A. An et al (covered in this news article, if you prefer) explores in substantial detail the pathway by which some human-specific genes came about via the “from scratch” or de novo method. The twenty co-authors further demonstrated that one of these genes could play a role in how human brains came to be larger than chimpanzee brains.
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Science Corner: The Case of a Curious Christmas
Among the holidays widely observed in the United States, Christmas strikes me as the one most concerned with curiosity. Several Christmas songs are posed as questions: “What Child is This?” and “Do You See What I See?” and “Mary, Did You Know?” OK, that last one has a real ‘more of a comment than a question’ energy, but still. There are the magi on a quest of discovery. There is the mystery and anticipation of a wrapped gift. And so I thought the science of curiosity would be an apt topic for this Advent season.
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Science Corner: On Creativity and Thanksgiving
I don’t know about you, but like many people in the United States, a significant amount of my time and attention this week has been dedicated to getting ready for Thanksgiving. I planned the menu for our family’s traditional meal — roasted Meleagris gallopavo (turkey), mashed Solanum tuberosum (potatoes) with gravy, some type of Vaccinium macrocarpon (cranberries), and Cucurbita pepo (pumpkin) and/or Theobroma cacao (chocolate) pie. I also been considered how I will spend the time when I’m not cooking — watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, playing board games, and rereading my favorite Thanksgiving book, Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten by Barbara Parks (no, really). And, of course, I have been reflecting on things I am thankful for (my family, a new church home, relatively good health, and God’s presence in my life). One thing I am especially thankful for this year is the chance to take a few days to rest and mentally prepare for the rest of the semester.
Like many academics, I am guilty of using too many breaks to play catch-up on all the projects I am behind on. But, also like many academics, I am also experiencing some burnout. My energy to do even tasks that bring me joy is fading, and I am struggling to, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, “run with endurance the race God has set before us,†Hebrews 12:1 (NLT). So, this year I plan to be more intentional about planning some time and activities that will replenish my creative energy.
I confess that I only recently realized that creative energy is something that needs to be nurtured as much as my physical energy. It seems obvious now, but I sort of took my mental energy for granted until my friend and writing mentor, Ruth, brought this idea to my attention. During a session of the writers’ group that she leads, Ruth shared about the difficulty she has had maintaining the level of creativity she needs to keep writing during the last couple of years. After some reflection, she realized that a lot of her creative energy comes from traveling and spending time in coffee shops — both things that she hasn’t been able to do during the last two years of The Entroublement. She finished the session by emphasizing the importance of intentionally nurturing creativity, and she asked each of us to name something that gives us creative energy. I didn’t really have a good answer at the time.
Unfortunately, I sometimes forget that creativity is such a huge part of being a research scientist, partly because the term is so often associated with the arts rather than science. For example, the Google dictionary defines creativity as “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.†But there is more to creativity than that. According to a piece in Psychology Today, creativity is “the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems.†This definition of creativity seems more relevant to my work as a scientist. The essay goes on to say that creativity includes the ingenuity and novel workarounds that are parts of everyday life – especially if your everyday life is spent in a research lab (I might have added that last part). Finally, creativity is important because it fosters resilience, sparks joy, and it is part of what makes us human. As Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman nicely put it, “there is little that shapes the human experience as profoundly as creativity,â€
In her book, Why Science and Faith Need Each Other, Dr Elaine Howard Ecklund takes the idea that creativity makes us human one step further. She suggests creativity is an important way that humans are made in the image of God. Moreover, the desire and ability to make things (i.e., be creative) is a key characteristic that God and humans share. Finally, she shared about the acts of creativity in her career as a social scientist have given her the opportunity to serve others with the things she has made in the everyday tasks of researching, writing, teaching, and mentoring. These are all creative acts that are part of my research career as well.
Expanding the definition of creativity to include ingenuity, problem solving, innovation, and the ability to see novel connections certainly convinced me that I need to be more intentional about nurturing my creative brain. The idea that the act of being creative connects me to God and makes me human, just furthered my resolve to be proactive about including things in my life that provides creative energy. However, I am still trying to figure out just what those activities are. I was remined a few weeks ago how important it is to attend national society meetings like the American Physiology Society’s Comparative Physiology Meeting that was recently held in San Diego. This was the first meeting I have attended in-person since January of 2020, and I am still reaping the benefits. Much like being part of a church family, being part of a community of scientists whose research interests are similar to my own, is essential for generating new questions that push my research forward. Both formal presentations and informal chats over coffee or beer provided new ideas that I am still ruminating about. I also have a new appreciation for the ways the time I spend in nature fuels my creativity. I also find creative energy from reading more popular science articles in Scientific American or Knowable Magazine. I also have a huge list of popular science books on my TBR stack including Gulp by Mary Roach, Stars Beneath Us: Finding God in the Evolving Cosmos by Paul Wallace, An Immense World by Ed Yong, and She Has Her Mother’s Laugh by Carl Zimmer (to name a few). I also have a few recent review articles that I am looking forward to reading over the break that give a summary of recent research on topics relevant to my research.
But now I want to hear from you, reader. What gives you creative energy and boosts your mental endurance? Are there books or activities that fill your creative bucket? Please share what you’ve discovered work for you in the comments so our community of can be inspired by your insight.
Science Corner: Who is My Neighbor?
By the time you read this, the United States will be learning the outcomes of midterm elections. Obviously I don’t know the results to comment. Regardless of the outcome, though, I think it is likely we will continue to hear about the partisan divide or variations thereof. And that is a topic which science can offer some insight into, specifically the impact of social media on polarization–specifically, our increased sorting into homogeneous groups with little in common between them. If you suspect social media isn’t helping, you are likely right–but maybe not for the reason you think.
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Science Corner: Dawn – A Proton’s Tale of All that Came to Be
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a biophysicist, a writer, a theologian walk into a bar. OK, so that’s not actually how Dawn was written, but the diverse backgrounds of the three co-writers–Cees Dekker, Corien Oranje, and Gijsbert van den Brink respectively–do sound more like résumés for the cast of a niche joke than for collaborators on a novel. And not just any novel, but one that spans 14 billion years–from the instants after the Big Bang until the moment the manuscript was sent to the printers (or so it seems, given the current events mentioned in Chapter 23, “Space”). As the subtitle “A Proton’s Tale of All that Came to Be” suggests, the protagonist of this novel is also unique; I’ve never read a book from the point of view of a subatomic particle before. (Talk about your unreliable narrators; subatomic particles make up everything!) So what does a proton have to say?
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