Secret Science Club Post Lecture Recap: Collective Intelligence

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 Simon Garnier of the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Swarm Lab. Dr Garnier's topic was collective intelligence, how millions become one.

Dr Garnier began his lecture with a brief discussion of American football- football is a complex problem of coordination involving actions with partners being performed against the actions of opponents. Dr Garnier joked that it is such a difficult problem that four tries are necessary to move the ball forward. He then noted that traffic is a problem of coordination as well. That being said, fish are able to move in coordinated schools, even though they have very small brains. He then noted that starlings are the champions of coordinated movements, showing videos of a "bird ballet":





Dr Garnier then showed videos of leafcutting ants, genus Atta, in action. These ants form nests up to twenty meters wide and eight meters deep, which house generations of workers- one single queen can give birth to five million workers. These ants are masters of coordination, even though their brains contain fewer neurons than a human pinkie does. The human brain is also a 'master' of coordinated activity- life is dependent on one's body being coordinated.

Dr Garnier posed the question, how do one million act as one? The short answer is 'self-organization'. He then showed an adorable video of Scotties feeding, noting that, with time, they coordinated their movements:





Coordinated interactions are local, repeated behaviors... if these behaviors are not constant, dispersal occurs. Coordination involves coupling of action and reaction, with various actors synchronizing like metronomes on a moving platform:





This synchronization takes place in a few steps, which Dr Garnier demonstrated in an audience-participation exercise. Audiences can synchronize clapping. He had us clap our hands, then exhorted us to synchronize our clapping with our neighbors, then to listen for more distant audience members, and to synchronize with them. Within moments, the whole audience was clapping in unison. Well played, Dr Garnier, well played.

Coordinated movements are necessary for information transfer, construction, decision making, and traffic organization. Dr Garnier posed the question, how do we make decisions? The fasted way to make decisions is to make many random trials. A better way to make decisions is to search for information and narrow down possibilities to optimize- choose the best course of action. There is an exploration/exploitation trade-off... one must spend resources to search and select the best option based on current knowledge. Dr Garnier compared the decision making process to a multi-armed bandit, a series of slot machines with different programming, with some machines paying better than others. In order to seek optimal winnings, one must try multiple machines in order to determine which provide better outcomes. Dr Garnier joked that some birds are better at making these choices than some humans.

After noting that most decision-making experiments are performed with animals that have a lot of brainpower, that organization is possible without a brain, whereupon he showed a slide of the U.S. Congress. He noted that some plants and some bacteria engage in coordinated behavior, which he termed the Homer Simpson Paradox- how does an organism thrive without brains? He then launched into a long digression about slime molds. A moving slime mold is a single-celled organism, but that single cell can have billions of cell nuclei. The yellow Physarum polycephalum slime mold and the 'dog vomit' slime mold, Fuligo septica are two of the better known slime molds. While in their mobile stage, slime molds start oscillating by pumping cytoplasm and then move in the direction of food sources, effectively making a decision in their search for sustenance. When the food runs out, the slime molds stop and develop into a sporulating form in order to reproduce. Dr Garnier informed us that slime molds are used a lot in research because they are cheap and fun to work with. He treated us to several time-lapse videos of slime molds moving, similar to this BBC video:





This zero-neuron organism is able to beat the 'multi-armed bandit' in its movements- in environments with consistent rewards, the slime mold tends to move in one direction, mainly toward the last reward. In environments with irregular rewards, slime molds will change directions, with the general movement being in the area with the highest mean of relative successes- they move in proportion to the number of reward sites. Dr Garnier paused and gave us the Twitter version: slime molds ignore failures and focus on successes.

Dr Garnier then showed an image of Berlin, taken from the International Space Station:

He noted that there was a city center with radiating arteries, allowing for ease of defense and the control of a large territory. He then showed a slide of the foraging paths used by Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), noting the similarities to the roadways of Berlin. The trails of the ants are marked with pheromones, so that other members of the colony can follow them. He then returned to the subject of genus Atta, which forms well-defined paths through its forest habitats, removing debris from these pathways. The leaf-cutter ants cut vegetation into pieces and use these scraps of vegetable matter to cultivate edible fungus in their nests. They have not only figured out traffic control, they also engage in agriculture.





The talk then shifted to army ants, specifically the genus Eciton of Central and South America. These ants form colonies of up to two million individuals. They move for a period of about two weeks and then form stationary colonies for about three weeks, during which the queen lays eggs. Due to their cycle of movement and lack of a permanent colony, they cannot form well-defined paths like the leaf-cutter ants do. They have to move quickly while carrying the queens brood. When their movement is restricted by obstacles, these ants form bridges with their own bodies, using hooked feet to lock together:





Swarming ants can also form rafts, having hydrophobic bodies:





The ants self-organize through a basic rule, "Walk all over me!" If there is a lot of traffic, an ant stays in place, if the movement behind stops, the ant proceeds. Dr Garnier had a hilarious aside about the the bites of army ants... they really hurt, which is why grad students are made to do the studies. While moving, ants seek to move the shortest distance, so their will form shifting bridges to bypass sharply angled paths:





Ecologists are the economists of the natural world, they perform cost/benefit analyses- the ants balance the building costs with the benefits, the less distance they have to move, the more efficiently they move. It's possible that swarming robots could be developed which operate in a fashion similar to the ants' behavior to bypass obstacles. Dr Garnier noted that the army ants are blind, they follow pheremone trails and are basically automatons designed to kill things and to bring them back to the nest as food. The individual ants have little memory, but they lay down little 'fridge notes' which can be followed, a process known as stigmergy.

Dr Garnier then shifted to the subject of traffic organization among humans, noting that, in 2011, Americans wasted 5.5 billion additional travel hours and 2.9 billion gallons of fuel due to traffic jams, at a cost of $121 billion. We know why it exists... density, and how to solve the problem. The number of cars that pass along a given stretch of roadway per hour is known as flux- when there are few cars on the road, passing is possible. As density increases, flux is diminished until a critical density is reached and a 'crystallization' process occurs, a traffic jam. Dr Garnier then ran a neat traffic simulator to demonstrate how density affects flux. He joked about wishing to set 'politeness' parameters, ranging from 'Swiss' to 'New Jersey', then noted that any perturbation of flux creates a traffic jam. He then showed images of the 'Snowmageddon' which crippled Atlanta in 2014.

Throughout the lecture, Dr Garnier would make an aside to display photos of his colleagues and to give short biographical notes, stressing that science is a collective adventure. Personally, I think that is a wonderful statement, and kudos to Dr Garnier for being so good to his grad students. He then described some an experiment in which subjects had to avoid a stationary individual while walking through a corridor- subjects usually showed no preference as to which side they passed a stationary subject, fifty percent passed to the left, fifty to the right. When passing individuals moving in the opposite direction, there was a social convention among individuals to pass on the right in countries in which motor vehicle traffic travels on the right. In conditions of high density, such as the Hajj in Mecca, pedestrian movement occurs in stop-and-go waves, with extremely high density causing turbulence, in which people lose control of their movement, a very dangerous situation. In areas of high population density, traffic problems increase. Dr Garnier characterized traffic jams as 'human self-organization gone wrong', but noted that we know the solution. He proposed a density-reducing solution based on a combination of public transportation, bicycle use, and smaller transportation footprints. He exhorted us to 'go back to the ants', to take turns. He noted that a flexible traffic system was needed, and mentioned that smart traffic lights could reduce congestion, noting that the city of Zurich implemented the use of traffic lights with no fixed timers, using lights that optimize traffic flow. He also mentioned the redesign of traffic patterns, such as substituting roundabouts for intersections, and ensuring that drivers don't have to cross in front of traffic moving in the opposite direction. He ended the lecture proper by joking, "I welcome our new ant overlords, may they fix the FDR and the Tappan Zee."

In the Q&A, some bastard in the audience, noting that eusocial species have evolved in distantly related clades, if swarming behavior can be induced in species which don't have well-defined social groups. Dr Garnier noted that some spiders can flip between sociality and non-sociality, probably due to hormone levels in their eggs. During optimal conditions, they tend towards a solitary existence, but under marginal conditions, they exhibit sociality.

All told, Dr Garnier delivered a fantastic lecture, one with applications to the crowed metropolitan area in which his audience resides. Let's hope that the findings of the Swarm Lab can be applied to the human swarms that take to the roads every day. Thanks again to Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House, and to Dr Garnier. Here's a video of Dr Garnier briefly covering the subjects he mentioned in his talk:





Pour yourself a nice beverage and soak in that Secret Science ambiance.

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: Secret Science Horde Descends on Brooklyn

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture.  This month's lecture featured my great and good friend Dr Simon Garnier, who heads up the New Jersey Institute of Technology Swarm Lab.  Dr Garnier is a Renaissance man, he's a biologist whose study of ants and their behavior has led him to being a robotics expert.  I arrived early to the beautiful Bell House and had an opportunity to catch up with him- he regaled me of tales of transporting his cat to Europe while on sabbatical, and other humorous slices of life from a tragic period of time.  Needless to say, it was time well-spent catching up, especially since we were joined by a couple of other SSC regulars in a long-overdue reunion.

Dr Garnier's lecture topic was The Self-Assembling Horde: Building Functional Structures on the Move.  Dr Garnier began his talk with a self-deprecating joke about his accent, assuring us that he was talking about the ant, an insect, rather than the aunt, that weird lady at Christmas asking you why you don't have kids.

Dr Garnier then posed the question: What is life?  He noted that, as a biologist, everything he does depends on this definition.  He used Emerson as an example of a poet's definition of life: The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.  Biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi's definition was: Life is an electron looking for a place to rest.  Astrobiologist Michael Russell stated: The purpose of life is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide.  Life creates entropy, resulting in more chaos.

Dr Garnier then gave us his somewhat jocular definition of life: Life is a complex, autonomous, multi-level game of Lego.  He then gave us an overview of the various levels of organization: atom, molecule, macromolecule, organelle, cell, tissue, organ, organ system, organism.  The self-organization of individuals through interaction results in disordered elements forming a global order.  He illustrated this with an adorable video:

Things that aren't very smart bump into each other and eventually organize.  

Dr Garnier concluded: self-organization plus natural selection equals life.  He added that he would add another layer to the atom-to-organism self-organism, the superstructures formed by some organisms, such as social insects.  He displayed several examples of such superstructures as fire ant rafts:

And clusters formed by honeybees to ward off the attacks of wasps and hornets:

Dr Garnier then narrowed his focus to army ants of the genus Eciton.  Army ants are not defined taxonomically, but by behavior- they are nomadic, form new colonies by fission, they have strict reproductive cycles, and they are very carnivorous, being top predators equivalent to lions ecologically.  Dr Garnier noted that they are very strange ants.  The genus Eciton is completely blind.  Eciton forms colonies of up to a million individuals- Dr Garnier compared the movement of a large colony to the inhabitants of Philadelphia packing up and moving thirty kilometers every day.  When the ants stop moving, they form living bivouacs in which they shelter the queen and her brood.

Being nomadic, army ants cannot engineer the environment like ants that build nests.  Ants such as leafcutter ants build elaborate nests, and use the leaves they harvest to grow gardens of the fungus that they feed on.  Colonies of up to twenty-five million ants form highways along which they transport leaves:

Army ants such as Eciton, being constantly on the move, do not build infrastructure- they inhabit a chaotic environment which cannot be engineered due to time constraints.  The ants have evolved behavioral and anatomical adaptions to attach to each other to build structures on the fly.  These structures are self-repairing.  

The NJIT Swarm Lab has studied the ants, which do not thrive in laboratory settings, in the field for over ten years.  Dr Garnier broke down the study of on-the-fly construction of superstructures as a function of achieving three objectives: overcoming constraints on movement, maintaining traffic along a pheromone trail, and traversing dynamic/unstable substrates.

Why do ants build where they build?  They build where it is difficult to move.  In a recent experiment, a board was placed as an obstacle interfering with an army ant column- the angle of the board to the ground was changed in order to make scaling it more difficult.  The difficulty was measured by the number of ants which fell off the board.  As the angle of the board got steeper, and more ants fell off, the ants would attach to each other to form scaffolding.  Dr Garnier made the analogy of human rock climbers using each others' bodies instead of pitons to climb a cliff face.  As scaling the board became more difficult, more ants would join the scaffold.  

The decision whether to move or to join the structure depends on the constraint on movement- more difficulty in movement means that more ants join the structure.  Dr Garnier likened the decision making process of an ant to that of a thermostat.  Ants build until a structure gains maximum efficiency.  Simple behaviors suffice to build complex structures- in the case of constraints on movement, if it is difficult to walk, the ant stops and helps others to overcome the constraint.

Traffic occurs along trails. In a 2012 experiment, natural bridges formed by ants were destroyed using tweezers, and the ants repaired these bridges within thirty seconds.  If traffic is disrupted, it is restored using packing functions- ants crowd in to complete structures.  As structures near completion, fewer ants crowd in.  How long does an ant stay in a structure?  This is a function of traffic, as long as traffic is high, and and would stay indefinitely, but as traffic lessens, an ant will move itself.  Dr Garnier proposed and analogous situation in which human commuters assembled the George Washington Bridge every morning at 7AM, then dissolved it at 9AM, then reassembled it at 4PM and kept it up until 7PM.  He joked that this is the way it should be: "We don't want you in Jersey."  He followed this up by noting the time the governor did exactly that.  Dr Garnier proposed an army ant lesson: YOUR WORK IS NOT DONE UNTIL EVERYONE HAS GONE.

Dr Garnier noted that, besides the reproductive queen and male drones, there are four Eciton castes:tiny non-reproductive females whose role is largely unknown, typical food-gathering workers, long-legged workers which transport food, and long-mandibled soldiers which defend the food source by biting.  Army ant colonies are parasitized by various birds which steal food from the ants, a case in which the parasites are larger than their hosts.

He then described the way in which ants build bridges to form shortcuts, displaying a video of the process:

Note that the bridge 'moves' to improve the shortcut, and the bridge is longer than an ant's body size.  There is a cost/benefit analysis at work- the cost of building the bridge should not exceed the cost of moving the unspanned distance.  Dr Garnier noted that there are mathematical models about this tradeoff which can predict where a bridge will be built.  He gave us another army ant lesson: SOME CORNERS, IT SEEMS, ARE WORTH CUTTING.  Up to twenty percent of the colony can be used to build bridges.

Ants move along a dynamic substrate... the surfaces on which ants move can be unstable, the weight of the ants atop it can move it.  How do these blind ants build on changing substrates?  In one experiment, the gap which had to be bridged was increased:

Army ants use hysteresis to stabilize control of constructions.  Hysteresis is a delay between cause and effect upon change in the direction of a cause.  As a bridge nears a stable state, the probability of ants leaving or staying is about equal.  After a stable state is achieved, the probability of ants leaving becomes lower than the probability of ants joining.  This asymmetry creates hysteresis.

Hysteresis stabilizes complex structures.  Traffic varies a lot, but hysteresis prevents overreaction to variations in traffic, and creates bridges which do not collapse and are not overlarge.

It's here where I note that, appropriately for a Swarm Lab, a gaggle of Dr Garnier's grad students were in attendance at the lecture.  From time-to-time, Dr Garnier would call out to one of his colleagues for a clarification of a mathematical model, or a clarification on a project to vacuum up an entire bivouac.  In our conversation prior to the lecture, he noted that he did not like remote teaching or lecturing, and it was mostly due to the lack of feedback from both audience and colleagues.

Dr Garnier then mentioned the lack of funding for the sciences, and noted that one way he was able to get a National Science Foundation grant was to partner with Northwestern University's engineering department to create robots which can assemble themselves into structures by melting and melding together in any configuration.  Dr Garnier quipped: "Your money at work!"

No additional parts are needed.  Ant models can be used as models for building auto self-assembling robots.

Dr Garnier ended his lecture by urging us to support science education, noting that we are living in a time in which book burnings are occurring and women's bodily autonomy is being attacked.  He noted that we may not be the resistance yet, but we very well might be.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session.  Before the first question, Dr Garnier jokingly warned the audience that living in Jersey had destroyed his French but had not improved his English, so they might have to ask for clarification.  The first question involved the last ant forming a bridge- Dr Garnier joked that she was able to safely cross an obstacle: "Don't worry about her."  Regarding colony sizes, they range from about ten thousand (recently 'fissioned off colonies') to about a million- smaller colonies use shorter trails with fewer bridges?  Which caste is the most important in bridge construction?  It's unknown at this time.  Soldier ants, about 2% of a colony, are not involved- they only bite, and cannot even feed themselves due to the size of their mandibles.  Do other ants form bridges?  Weaver ants in Australia form bridges, but these are a function of other ants walking over them- in contrast to Eciton army ants, weaver ants have excellent vision and stop at gaps.  Weaver ants can see if an impasse is unbridgeable.  Blind army ants just find another route if a gap proves insurmountable.

Why did ants evolve social behavior?  The prevailing theory is because the workers are the offspring of diploid queens and haploid males who develop from unfertilized ova, therefore each of these ants shares 75% of its genome with its sisters, while it would share 50% of its genome with any offspring.  It's an indirect passing of genes, inclusive 'fitness'.  In other organisms, social behavior may result from more 'selfish' behaviors- a fish in a school might hide behind other individuals, or otherwise avoid predators.

Why are army ants nomadic?  Army ants are weird ants.  They have a strange reproductive cycle in which many larvae are produced at once, which necessitates the consumption of a lot of protein.  The ants need to move so they don't exhaust the resources in a constrained area- its a case of move or starve.  Are army ants cannibalistic?  This hasn't been observed, but some ants lay eggs as a food resource.  Why are they blind?  They re-emerged after living underground.  

Are their atypical ants?  Outliers?  One study of ant foraging behavior noted that ants wander around in search of food sources, the trails are more varied in environments with patchy resources, and are less varied when adequate food sources are found.

How about castes?  Eciton has four observed non-reproductive castes, but some leafcutter ants have 13 castes, the smallest of which can perch on the heads of the largest.  The smallest leafcutter ants tend the fungus gardens that the ants subsist on.  Regarding intelligence, a typical ant has about 12,000 neurons, they don't know much.

Regarding field work, the main difficulties are finding the ants and making them walk your setup.  As far as the energy it takes to make bridges, the exoskeletons of the ants can lock into position, so it requires little energy to sustain weight.

Asked about a particularly weird study, Dr Garnier noted that he was approached by a law enforcement agency about a crime prediction project- looking at data, can criminals be likened to an army ant swarm dependent on environmental factors?  Can a model be formed of crime (e.g. drug dealing) as a collective market-based activity and used to predict where a criminal 'swarm; will hit next?

What is the purpose of bivouacs?  To protect the queen and her brood.  Bivouacs even provide temperature regulation, with ants shifting position in order to maintain optimal conditions for larvae.  Among nest building ants, the brood is moved throughout the colony to maintain optimal temperatures.

Some Bastard in the audience asked Dr Garnier if the Swarm Lab has sent any researchers to study distantly related Old World ants which behave similarly to New World army ants.  Alas, the NJIT Swarm Lab has not sent any grad students to Cameroon to study driver ants.

Once again, the Secret Science Club has served up an excellent lecture.  I often talk about the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot', and Dr Garnier always hits it- he serves up interdisciplinary material, illustrated by memorable video footage, he finds ways to involve his graduate students in the lectures, and he leavens his material with humor.  Suffice it to say, he consistently knocks it out of the park.  Kudos to the good doctor, to Margaret and Dorian, and to the staff of the beautiful Bell House.

Now, for a taste of that Secret Science Club magic, here is Dr Garnier lecturing on the self-assembling horde:

Pour yourself a nice beverage and soak in that SCIENCE!!!

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: Simon and the Swarmbots

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 the triumphant return of biologist, transportation expert, and all-around fantastic human being, my great and good friend Dr Simon Garnier of New Jersey Institute of Technology's Swarm Lab. Dr Garnier delivered the December 2015 SSC lecture and has been a regular attendee of lectures since then. Over the years, I have become an unabashed fanboi, but don't let him know that... he has a knack for self-deprecation, so he might be embarrassed.

I have to confess that I arrived at the lecture late, after a two-and-a-half-hour MTA ordeal. I boarded a 4 Train at the Woodlawn station, as usual, but train traffic was delayed because of a fire at 51st St in Manhattan which closed down the Lexington Avenue subway line. At 161st St, an announcement was made, suggesting transfer to the B/D line, which ends up going down 4th Avenue Brooklyn, which is exactly where I was headed. It was a no-brainer, but for the brainlessness of the MTA holiday second-stringers who were on duty- the platform for the B/D trains was closed, no trains. I had to wait for another 4 train, and take it to 149th St, to transfer to the 2 Train, which ordinarily would have taken me to Brooklyn, but for construction. I had to transfer to the N/R train at Times Square. The N train was slow-going, but I might have made the lecture on time but for the boobery of the conductor of the train, who never mentioned that there was no local service along 4th Ave. I exited the N at Atlantic Avenue and I dutifully waited on the platform for an R train to take me two measly stops... no R trains were forthcoming. On a hunch, I boarded the third N train that stopped at the station, whereupon I learned that I would have to take the train to 36th St, then transfer to a Manhattan bound local train to get to 9th St. Facchinello!

I finally arrived at the beautiful Bell House and I have to say that EVERYBODY had been worried about me, because the only lecture I'd ever missed was on the date of my father's death. I was greeted effusively by staff, Dorian and Margaret, and the regular crowd- here's a big hug and molto amore to everybody- thanks for being so great. I had arrived about halfway through Simon's lecture, and he was showing a video of swarm-robots combining to pull a child across a floor:





As usual, don't read the YouTube comments, it seems that there are too many people who refuse to see the practical applications of this technology to post-disaster rescue efforts.

One conundrum in coordinating robot 'swarms' is whether a central control should be implemented- a centralized control system would require a lot of computing power and would be hard-pressed to adapt to changing conditions. For example, a centrally-controlled swarm of aerial drones could be stymied by the presence of birds. To illustrate the capability of swarming drones, Dr Garnier showed us a video of Intel's drone exhibition for the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics:





There are three rules to being able to swarm like a flock of seagulls starlings: If too close to another individual, move away. If too far from another individual, move closer. Align movement.

Using these three roles, the European Union is developing swarming drones with no central control, in a venture called the COLLMOT Project:





Predictably, the project is receiving major funding from military organizstions. To illustrate the potential dangers of weaponized swarming drones, Dr Garnier showed a brief clip of a fictional short titled Slaughterbots:





Suddenly, the idea of package delivery by drones is a lot less appealing...

The topic of the lecture then shifted to transportation infrastructure (my particular travail of the evening). It is estimated that $120-305 billion worth of productivity is lost to traffic each year in the United States. Dr Garnier joked that, if there were a percentage bounty for solving the problem, he'd take it. Much of the transportation infrastructure in the country is too old, was designed for less traffic, and bad behavior on the part of users compounds traffic problems. Dr Garnier displayed a video of a simulation of phantom traffic jams similar in subject matter to this video. He followed this up with Hyundai's 'Empty Car Convoy' commercial, which illustrates the 'too close slow down but not too much' approach to traffic control:




During the video, he called our attention to the 'terrible moment that didn't happen', and noted that undisciplined drivers could be helped by robots. He capped off the segment on robots by posing the question: Autonomous swarms- problem or benefit?

Dr Garnier then pivoted to the subject of morphogenesis- processes leading to the formation of functional structures. He emphasized the importance of functionality. This portion of the lecture involved discussion of structures formed by social insects. Dr Garnier displayed a diagram of an African termite mound. These structures, built by blind workers with tiny brains, can be several meters in height and have a complex 'architecture'- the queen is housed in the core of the mound, and there are multiple nurseries and fungus gardens. A central shaft provides ventilation, 'breathing' in or out in response to temperature changes. Dr Garnier noted that such ventilation systems could be incorporated into skyscrapers.

Dr Garnier then brought up to topic of stigmergy, the mechanism of communication through modification of the environment. He joked that every internet post ever is an example of stigmergy. To illustrate stigmergy among social insects, he began with the example of paper wasps- the first cell made by an individual wasp stimulates the construction of the next cell, and the process is continued until an entire nest is constructed. Put simply, the rule is 'observe what is done and make the best next step'. The simple probabilistic rules used by the wasps result in regular structures. Different rules result in different shapes, and in computer simulations, rules are modified to create new structures.

A potential application for this type of construction would be the use of swarming robots to build structures on Mars before the arrival of human explorers or colonists. Dr Garnier displayed a video of Harvard University's robot swarm construction crew:





In typically droll fashion, Dr Garnier joked 'robots are better at Lego than you' and followed it up with a hashtag: #childhoodruined. Other robots are pre-programmed self-assembly units, with the body of the robots being the actual construction materials:





Dr Garnier then brought up his particular specialty- ants, which are capable of using their own bodies with much flexibility. He opened with Australian weaver ants, which form chains in order to form nests:




He joked, "do not let these ants get on your body, they bite and they inject acid into you and they are hard to get off- I am speaking from experience."

He then displayed a video of fire ants forming rafts in order to survive floods, then shifted to the topic of army ants, which form nests out of the own bodies to protect their queen, then move and reassemble the nest. These temporary nests can conform to any environmental condition- filling tree cavities or depressions in the forest floor. The Harvard University kilobot swarm mimics the ability of army ants to form specific shaped structures:





One particularly useful skill of army ants is their ability to form self-repairing bridges:





The Harvard lab developed a climbing microbot which could possibly be developed into temporary patches for weak spots in bridges until the money is available for a more permanent fix:





Self-repairing infrastructure, it's what's needed when nobody is repairing infrastructure.

Dr Garnier finished his talk by noting that these robots in development are individually stupid, but collectively capable. I would editorialize that humans tend to be the opposite.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. One individual asked about ant castes- ants often have a diversity in body shape along with a diversity in purpose, but swarming robots tend to be uniform. Regarding the danger posed by robots, Dr Garnier noted that the danger lies in how humans use them- will the robots be delivering packages or less nice things? Dr Garnier noted that he wasn't a complex AI expert, but that swarming robots were dumb, easily controllable. He noted that swarm behavior can be exploited- for example, dolphins and sharks can often exploit swarm behavior to catch fish. Regarding computer viruses, they can exhibit swarm behavior, overwhelming computer systems through sheer volume. Some bastard in the audience asked if swarming organisms changed their behavior when introduced to novel environments, and Dr Garnier brought up the example of invasive Argentine ants- in their native environment, ant colonies are territorial, and fight each other. Introduced to alien environments, a lack of genetic diversity has led to the formation of megacolonies, such as one which stretches from the Portugese littoral along southern Europe to Italy. These colonies seem to be collapsing though, probably due to the lack of genetic diversity which led to their formation. One final question concerned Von Neumann machines, which Dr Garnier noted are far from development.

Once again, the Secret Science Club has delivered a fantastic lecture, so thanks to Simon, Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House... and sincerely, thanks to everybody for your concern- I love you all. I also have to note that SSC alum, good guy, and rockstar Mark Siddall was in the audience as was the NJIT crew and some Rockefeller University scholars. The ride to the Bell House was horrible, but I would not have turned around for any reason!

Brooklyn Bound to See an Old Friend

Tonight, I am headed to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture.  This lecture marks the return of Friend of the Bastard Dr Simon Garnier of the New Jersey Institute of Technology Swarm Lab,  Longtime readers will know that Dr Garnier has delivered multiple SSC lectures, and is a regular attendee of the lectures, many of which have been by his colleagues.

For those who aren't familiar with the Good Doctor, he is an entomologist and robotics expert, who has parleyed his observations of insect swarms into the programming of autonomous robots which can act in swarms to achieve needed goals- for instance, searching unstable buildings for individuals in need of rescue.  He also models traffic patterns, and is a very entertaining, informative lecturer:

 

He's also a friend, the perfect sort of fellow to have a beer with, and a mentor to his graduate students and post-doc fellows.  

Tonight, I'm expecting Dr Jen to meet me at the Bell House after she finishes with work-related consultations.  It'll be a 'meet the family' moment, because the Bell House staff, the audience regulars, and the SSC mavens, including the lecturer this month, are such old, good friends.  The important thing here, though, is that I'm winning another covert over to the Secret Science Club.

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap:Formidable Formicidae

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 myrmecologist (how I love that word), evolutionary biologist, and adventurer Dr Corrie Moreau of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History.

Dr Moreau (could there be a more perfect name for a biologist?) began her lecture with a note of gratitude toward her subjects, noting that ants have taken her around the world, and that tropical fieldwork is tough, fun, and rewarding. She learned how to do rainforest 'canopy work' in French Guiana, and her travels sometimes involved unintended consequences, such as dealing with tropical illnesses. While her collecting of specimens was typically above-board, involving extensive dealings with customs agents, she once smuggled a tick out of Uganda... in her nose (this seems to be a trend). She underscored the importance of documenting biodiversity by noting that habitat degradation is affecting many ecosystems. Dr Moreau chose to study ants because they are beautiful and diverse, with approximately thirteen-thousand species known to science, with estimates of unidentified species being twice that number. Notable ant varieties include the fungus-growinng ants, the army ants, which can be used as emergency sutures in the field, and the honeypot ants, which include two convergently-evolved lineages, one in Mesoamerica, one in Australia. Dr Moreau noted that the honeypot ants live in environments which have boom-or-bust resource cycles, so 'repletes' store liquid resources until they are needed. She offered this piece of advice- eat the golden repletes, which are filled with nectar... the dark ones are often filled with the remains of rotting carcasses. Dr Moreau then covered the Dracula ants, which feed prey items to their larvae, then poke holes in them in order to drink their hemolymph, resulting in heavily-scarred larvae.

After this introduction to some of the more outré ants, Dr Moreau then discussed the processes that generate biodiversity. Some branches of the ants' evolutionary tree have more species than others, and some regions of the globe harbor more species of ants than others. Some traits have evolved numerous times in different ant lineages. Speciation can occur due to geographic separation of populations. Determining the pace of evolution, whether fast or slow, depends on studying the fossil record. One crucial factor in evolution is symbiosis- organisms evolve together. Dr Moreau quoted her doctoral advisor, E.O. Wilson, who characterized ants and other invertebrates as "The little things that run the world." Then she amended this observation by noting that microbes are the little things which run the little things which run the world.

Dr Moreau then covered variety of symbiotic relationships which ants have with other organisms. There are ants which 'farm' scale insects for the honeydew they secrete. Other ants have a mutualistic relationship with acacia trees- the trees provide food and shelter for the ants, which defend the trees from herbivores. Also, there are ants which have symbiotic relationships with fungi, both beneficial and horrifically deleterious. Ants don't exist in isolation, when studying them, researchers need to think about other organisms as well.

Ant evolution and the evolution of the flowering plants are inextricably linked- although ants aren't pollinators, some groups of ants exploded evolutionarily with the spread of the angiosperms. Many ants shifted from predation to plant-based diets. Ants play an important role in seed distribution, with certain plants having evolved structures called elaiosomes, protein-rich and fatty tissues which are attractive to ants. After eating the elaiosomes, the ants discard the rest of the seeds in their nitrogen-rich middens, far from the mother plant.

With thirteen thousand ant species known to science, a phylogeny of ants is needed to understand evolutionary relationships and dispersal. Fossil ants are not uncommon- ant fossils are typically of insects trapped in amber and insects being compressed in fine sediment. To form a decent paleontological record, at least forty-three fossils are needed for minimum calibration points. The are extant ant fossils from one-hundred million years ago on, but there seems to be an explosive radiation of ant genera in a narrow window, about thirty million years ago- this ant invasion explosion occurred when the ants rode the wave of flowering plants.

There is a latitudinal gradient in ant species richness, with the tropics harboring more species than colder regions. Dr Moreau indicated that there are two models to explain the biodiversity of the tropics- the cradle model and the museum model. The cradle model posits that evolution occurs more quickly in the tropics, that new species evolve in the tropics more frequently than in higher latitudes. The museum model posits that older evolutionary lineages tend to survive better in the tropics, that ancient forms persist. Put succinctly, in the cradle model, the tropics are species pumps, in the museum model, they are stable places in which species can hold out for a long time. The first ants evolved about one-hundred and forty million years ago. The configuration of Earth's continents was different then- subsequent plate tectonics affected the distribution of ants. The greatest diversity among the ants, the most endemic genera and the most species, is in the Neotropics. With evidence of the survival of older forms and the diversity of novel forms, it would be safe to characterize the tropics as both cradle and museum.

Ants are efficient at exploiting novel ecological niches. With the evolution and spread of flowering trees, ants were able to spread into the forest canopy (conifers aren't a rich source of exploitable resources). The evolution of herbivory among the ants coincided with the co-evolution of ants and endosymbiotic bacteria. Ants provide an excellent opportunity to study the diversity, distribution, and influence of gut bacteria. While ants harbor diverse bacterial communities, the nitrogen-fixing Rhizobiales are common among plant-eating ants, which feed at low trophic levels. The highly predatory army ants do not need nitrogen-fixing symbionts. Herbivory necessitated bacterial symbionts, which are not distributed equally throughout the ants' evolutionary tree. In the co-evolutionary process, more closely related ants have more closely related bacterial symbionts.

Dr Moreau then gave us an overview of the gastrointestinal anatomy of an ant, with an emphasis on the locations in which bacterial symbionts are found. Dissections of ants were conducted, and the bacteria in the mouth, the crop (from which ants can regurgitate liquid for other ants), the midgut, and the hindgut (the leg was also sampled as a 'control'). All of the dissected individuals had similar bacterial flora in their midguts and hindguts. The bacterial communities of the ants were dictated by what the ants ate. The herbivorous turtle ants have co-evolved with their gut bacteria for over forty-five million years. The bacterial communities of various ants- the herbivorous ants, the highly predatory army ants, the not-entirely predatory bullet ants- have to be compared and contrasted. In one particular project, Costa Rican bullet ants were collected, and their gut bacteria were studied.

After this fantastic overview of ants and their bacterial symbionts, Dr Moreau shifted the topic of the talk to the importance of science outreach, and the diverse tools needed to share scientific knowledge. Commitment to science necessitates outreach and popularization. Scientists have to convey to people how important science is to their lives. In order to combat the stereotypical view people have of scientists, scientists have to meet with people. Dr Moreau put together an exhibit called The Romance of Ants to chronicle her life and career in graphic novel form. The theme of the exhibit is that everyone is a scientist at heart.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. The first question involved the evolution of eusociality in the hymenoptera- eusociality evolved several times among the different branches of the hymenoptera- there are non-eusocial bees and wasps as well as eusocial ones. Here's an overview of eusociality and genetics (ants, bees, and wasps are haplodiploid- males are born from unfertilized eggs, so sisters are more closely related to each other than they are to the mothers or to any potential offspring). Some bastard in the audience asked about the antibiotic properties of ants- ants have a metaplueral gland which produces an antibiotic fluid which protects against bacterial or fungal pathogens- ants have a lot of associated bacteria and fungi. Dr Moreau then pointed out that the bastard had attended all-but-one of the Secret Science Club lectures, which caused said bastard to blush in a most incandescent fashion, luckily the beacon-like effect wasn't so apparent in the darkened Bell House. The bastard then asked Dr Moreau a hypothetical about using ants to treat a cut in the field- while ant, uh, antibiotics aren't a panacea, the use of army ant heads as sutures would definitely be in the tropical pharmacopeia. Another attendee asked about the ant population of New York- after a joke about hipster ants in Brooklyn, Dr Moreau noted that fungus-growing ants survive on Long Island, tending to build their colonies under power lines. Another question concerned invasive ants- out of the one-hundred worst invasive species worldwide(PDF), five are ants. Invasive ant species can devastate ecosystems and outcompete native species. They thrive in locations disturbed by humans. Ants have many characteristics which make them good invaders, such as the ability to exploit novel ecological niches. In the case of the Argentine ant, the insects form mega-colonies which do not compete- offspring of different queens will interact cooperatively, probably due to the ants passing through a narrow genetic bottleneck, so all of them are closely related. Another questioner asked when eusociality first appeared in the Tree of Life- the termites, which can be likened to eusocial cockroaches, were the first eusocial insects to evolve and there are even fungus-farming termites. How do ants communicate? Ants communicate through scent- they have glands which produce pheromones, which are chemical signals to other ants. How do researchers determine fossil ant affinities? Some fossil ants have unique morphologies, but many fossil ants are similar to modern genera- younger specimens look more similar to modern ants than older ones. Regarding behavior, every ant colony acts as an individual, each worker ant can be likened to a cell in a multicellular animal. This breaks down in the case of the invasive Argentine ant supercolonies, in which neighboring colonies are not recognized as different from each other. Regarding dissection, ant specimens are handled with jewelers' forceps, though Dr Moreau joked that a common refrain in the lab is, "Don't talk to me on dissection day!" Dr Moreau noted that there is ant-specific citizen-science- volunteers can catch ants in their backyards and send them to the lab. Dr Moreau then discussed the various body forms among ant species, and while most ants produce small workers and big soldiers, there are about ten species which produce super-soldiers, and that the 'super-soldier' gene can be switched on in individuals to produce these oversized soldiers... super-soldiers can be produced in the lab. Regarding the acquisition of gut bacteria, every time an insect sheds its exoskeleton, it sheds its respiratory and digestive invaginations, and loses gut bacteria. New bacteria are obtained from other ants through oral/anal trophallaxis.

Dr Moreau ended her lecture by stating that she is unwilling to let go of field research... She is a typical field biologist, she likes looking at live things as much as studying dead ones. She joked that some of her keenest observations were picked up lying on the ground picking up chiggers and ticks while studying her subjects.

As an individual who tends to prefer biology to the other sciences, I have to say that Dr Moreau really hit a grand slam with this lecture. She imparted important knowledge about some of our most interesting fellow denizens of Earth with passion, she outlined a model for communicating scientific knowledge to the general public, and she was very entertaining. I like to talk about the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot'- that combination of hard-science lecture, adventure narrative, and advocacy that characterize the best of the lectures, and this lecture hit on all of those cylinders. Also, Dr Moreau was in town for a conference, and all-around good-guy Dr Simon Garnier was the person who told her about the SSC, inspiring her to lecture in Gowanus. Dr Garnier attended with a bunch of students from his lab, and there were a gaggle of entomologists hanging out in the beautiful Bell House. In an informal discussion over beers, I had a talk with a young entmologist about haplodiploploidy and eusociality, and he mentioned that the thrips, which are haplodiploid, also have some eusocial species. Surrounded by entomologists, I made a joke about these entomologists forming a 'hymenoptera gang' and zooming along the highways and byways on Vespas. Good times, nerding out with great people!

Kudos to Dr Moreau, Dorian and Margaret, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. Also, high fives to all of the assorted biologists in attendance, you are all doing great work.

Here's a short video of Dr Moreau lecturing on the evolution of ant gut bacteria:





Here's a longer video featuring Dr Moreau lecturing on biodiversity and the evolution of ants:





Dr Moreau also has several videos on the Field Museum's Brain Scoop YouTube channel. If you are going to get stuck in a time-sink, I can think of few better ones than the Brain Scoop.

Senseis Nerding Out

This morning, as is usual for me this time of year, I went down to Manhattan for my volunteer gig, teaching children's judo classes. The latest addition to our roster of senseis is a women's national champion judoka who is all of twenty-two years old. Like most judoka I have met, she is tough as nails but nice as can be- there is something magical about the sport, it involves combat with compassion. When an athlete throws an opponent, there is an emphasis on proper form so the thrown individual's safety is fostered. A few years back, when asked what he thought of MMA, one of my senseis thought for a minute, then answered, "It lacks warmth."

After we taught four kids' classes, we were hanging around the dojo and I started talking with our young champion about her field of study in college, and she mentioned that she studied ecology, with an emphasis on botanical systems. The conversation soon turned to the topic of slime molds, and she started rhapsodizing about these amazing, protean eukaryotes. She recounted how she convinced a professor, a fungi specialist, to order a slime mold for her. I had to ask, "Oooh, was it from Carolina Biological Supply?" Needless to say, we went down the nerdery rabbit hole, and the two of us were regaling Sensei Big Al about the wonders of slime molds, and our new sensei showed us gorgeous pictures of the slime mold colony that she had fostered, and we discussed the 'brainless intelligence' of these organisms. This sort of 'intelligence' in food location can mimic the highways of a country:





I'm pretty sure one of those slime trails is Route Nationale 7. When Sensei Frenchie's wife came to the dojo after our classes, we subjected her to this onslaught of nerding out. Slime molds just aren't popular enough, and we were in evangelical mode.

Me being me, I mentioned the Secret Science Club and suggested that I introduce sensei to mon bon ami Simon Garnier of the NJIT Swarm Lab- he's totally down with slime mold fandom. I envision a trail of New York nerdery to rival a slime mold's peregrinations across a culture medium.

Thoughts on Notre Dame

I typically stick to one blog post per day, with one notable exception, but this has been a momentous week. When I left the house to head down to Brooklyn on Monday, the Cathedral of Notre Dame was burning. I'd check my smartphone whenever the train was stopped long enough in a station for me to access the MTA wifi service. When I arrived at the beautiful Bell House, I was able to discuss the fire with my great and good friend Dr Simon Garnier, whose sister in Paris sent him a picture of the cathedral roof aflame in the night.

Kudos to the Paris fire department for their heroic effort in saving the cathedral. Thankfully, nobody was killed in the fire... this brings me to my main point. I visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame seventeen years ago, and while I remember the building being extremely beautiful, my main memories of Paris were of people- a bistro owner who took a shine to my handsome nephews, a busload of Italian tourists who were, to my sweat-stung eyes, were wearing about two layers of clothing too much while I was roasting in a short-sleeved collared shirt. The cathedral was beautiful, it was designed to be beautiful, to draw pilgrims to Paris to increase the prestige of the city and the nation.

My mom's dad's mom was a Parisienne, she left France to avoid an arranged marriage and sailed to Buenos Aires where she met her husband, an Alsatian sailor... her's is the most romantic emigration story of them all, the one which didn't boil down to 'you can't eat scenery'. Walking the streets of Paris, visiting the cathedral- these experiences made me feel a connection to my great-grandmother. The Cathedral of Notre Damn was a testimony to the inspiration, the aspiration, and the perspiration of its builders. They built for the glory of God and Country over the course of a couple of centuries. Unlike Frank Lloyd Wright, I love Gothic and Neo-Gothic architecture, that particular genius which makes a massive stone pile look almost diaphanous... I imagine the spires of Elfland would look much like a Gothic belfry.

I have no doubt that Notre Dame will be repaired... the fires probably started due to a mistake made during the renovation work that was in progress (or perhaps Michelle Obama using a drone-delivered Directed Energy Weapon on the roof). The cathedral has undergone alterations and renovations throughout its eight-century existence. Money is pouring in for reconstruction efforts. The damage to the cathedral is extensive, but can be repaired. There are disasters which can be rectified. Meanwhile, there is an irreparable crisis in France, the ongoing deaths of marine mammals offshore. Notre Dame will most likely be rebuilt in my lifetime, but the ecological catastrophe that is occurring won't be. Notre Dame is eight centuries old, and if rebuilt may very well last another eight centuries, but the plastic garbage gyres in the world's oceans will outlast our species.

Secret Science Club North Post Lecture Recap: A Glorious Ignorance

Last night, I headed down to the scintillating Symphony Space on Manhattan's Upper West Side, for the latest Secret Science Club North presentation, featuring particle physicist Dr Daniel Whiteson of the University of California at Irvine and CERN, teaming up with Dr Jorge Cham, recovering robotics researcher and the genius behind the Piled Higher and Deeper comic. Drs Cham and Whiteson have a new book, We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe. Their presentation concerned the topic of the book and was a celebration of a certain type of ignorance- that ignorance which inspires inquiry, that ignorance which seeks to remedy itself with discovery.

The good doctors first decided to combine their talents a few years back when Dr Whiteson approached Dr Cham to ask if he did commissioned work. They combined forces and produced a video which has been described as the best explanation of the search for the Higgs boson for the layperson:





The video was a distillation of eight hours of conversation between Dr Cham and Dr Whiteson, a brilliant 'editing' job on the part of Dr Cham combined with his charming cartoon art.

The presentation was lovely, a casual tour through millennia of inquiry with a recap of the current state of particle physics. I pretty much just sat back and enjoyed the lecture, which had Dr Whiteson lecturing in front of a screen displaying Dr Cham's art, with Dr Cham improvising comical additions to the background. As such, I figure that the best way to recap the lecture is to present a video of it (seeing as Dr Cham's drawings are an integral part of the program):





I had a lot of fun- the interplay of Drs Whiteson and Cham was funny, and they quickly imparted a fantastic overview of the state of physics to an audience ranging in age from grammar school children to senior citizens, from second graders to PhDs. The talk covered such topics as dark matter and dark energy and particle physics. There were some hilarious moments, such as Dr Whiteson's observation that, even as a kid, he was one to smash rocks together to see what they were made of, and Dr Cham's characterization of his life as a grad student as reminiscent of a video he made of a cockroach-modelling robot on a treadmill occasionally getting smacked by an offscreen aggressor. There was a brief Q&A session afterwards, during which the bastard asked about antimatter, and possible reasons why it is in such short supply compared to regular matter- Dr Whiteson indicated that it is unknown whether there was a higher proportion of matter from the beginning of the universe, and that there might actually be entire sectors of the universe that are composed of antimatter, joking that the residents of such an area would call it matter. There were a lot of questions about dark matter- could it even be considered made of 'particles', is there a fifth force which determines how it interacts with the universe?

The night was a love-fest, I have to note that, in particular, Dr Cham is held in esteem and affection by the world's grad students... my friend Dr Garnier noted that Dr Cham's cartoons are ubiquitous in university offices worldwide. At any rate, the presentation was fun and informative, and I do not hesitate in plugging Dr Cham's and Dr Whiteson's book.

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.