Author: Suresh V. Kuchipudi

Clinical Professor and Associate Director of Animal Diagnostic Laboratory, Penn State – March 4, 2020

The coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19, is a frightening reminder of the imminent global threat posed by emerging infectious diseases. Although epidemics have arisen during all of human history, they now seem to be on the rise. In just the past 20 years, coronaviruses alone have caused three major outbreaks worldwide. Even more troubling, the duration between these three pandemics has gotten shorter.

I am a virologist and associate director of the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State University, and my laboratory studies zoonotic viruses, those that jump from animals and infect people. Most of the pandemics have at least one thing in common: They began their deadly work in Asia or Africa. The reasons why may surprise you.

Continue reading Why so many epidemics originate in Asia and Africa – and why we can expect more →

Shortly after Phyl died, I asked friends and family to send me a short video clip of themselves talking to our grandchildren about their GG. I made the following two videos from these clips. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

John Gerber

1.Family and friends from the “old days” tell GG’s grandchildren about their GG – 28 minutes

2. Remembering Phyl Part II – Amherst Friends – 45 minutes

In addition, there are two videos from Phyl’s Celebration of Life

3. Wildwood Celebration for Phyl – Part I

4. Wildwood Celebration for Phyl – Part II

And a few favorites

5. There is Love – 4 minutes

6. A Parade for Phyl and Sue – May 22, 2020

7. Three Years of Phyl in Four Minutes – 4 minutes

8. Phyl Goes to MIT – 3 minutes

9. Phyl at the Beach – 3 minutes

And finally…

10. Phyl’s story – 38 blog posts

This is what our mermaid is doing now……

The seeds of truly green technologies are being planted now.

By Linda Rodriguez McRobbie – November 29, 2020

Karen Sarkisyan’s tobacco plants glow. Not quite enough to read by, and less than, say, a freshly cracked glow stick, but much more than your average tobacco plant glows, because your average tobacco plant doesn’t glow at all. In fact, although many species of marine creatures, insects, fungi, and bacteria naturally emit light, no plants do.

“I personally am amazed every time when I look at them in the dark room,” says Sarkisyan, a synthetic biologist at the London Institute of Medical Sciences at Imperial College London and the CEO of the biotech startup Planta, based in Russia, where Sarkisyan got his degree. A time-lapse video of the plants growing over several weeks shows their

glowing leaves and trumpet-shaped flowers, green as an alien invasion, flaring bright as they curl upwards. Sarkisyan acknowledges that the video makes the genetically modified plants look a bit brighter than they are to the naked eye, but in any case, the sight is captivating.

Continue reading Plants will save us – if we let them do it →

Original Post – AmherstINDY; November 13, 2020 by Darcy DuMont

Editor’s note: This column appeared previously in The Amherst Bulletin

“We humbly acknowledge that we stand on historic Nonotuck and current Nipmuck land, acknowledging also our neighboring indigenous nations, the Nipmuck and Wampanoag to the east, the Mohegan and Pequot to the south, the Mohegan to the west and the Abenaki to the north.”

This is a Statement of the Indigenous Heritage of the Land provided at the opening of each of the Amherst climate task groups over the last three months. Such land acknowledgements are becoming common now, throughout Canada and the U.S., on college campuses and generally as a movement in support of Indigenous heritage and rights.

Continue reading Local and Green, Curbing Climate Disaster by Modeling Indigenous Values →

In my Agricultural Systems Thinking class we were talking about the concept of holarchy. This idea suggests that a farm, a business or a person is a “holon”, that is a unique system in itself.

At the same time, a holon (farm, business or human being) is also part of a larger system (holon) and is composed of smaller systems (holons).

A holarchy is a nested hierarchy of holons, where a holon is both a part and a whole. The key relationship in a holarchy is that “we look out for purpose and in for function.” That is the holon represented by a “word” in the diagram below looks “within” (letter) for its function. And the holon “word” finds its purpose in serving the next holon (the sentence).

Get it?

This also works for biological and social systems. So, the individual human might find purpose at the next larger level (family, community etc.) and function within (heart, liver, lungs etc.).

To help us understand this in another way, Michael Dowd claims that we are all “stories within stories.”

And to further “paint a picture” of the concept of stories within stories, we watched this video….

By LAWRENCE J. WINSHIP

For the Daily Hampshire Gazette   –    April 25, 2020

Hundreds of years ago, the flowering bulb markets of Holland were overcome by tulip mania. Buyers bid up highly desired varieties to astronomical prices, paying enormous sums for rarity and flamboyance. Fortunes were made and lost. One of the most sought-after varieties was the Semper Augustus, with striking streaks of white in its red petals — strange, magnificent, and deadly to other tulips.

Not until 1928 was it shown that the dramatic white streaks in the Semper Augustus tulips were caused by a viral infection, spread by aphids, and ultimately lethal to all infected tulips and lilies. But so highly desired and valuable were these infected plants that it took years before government stepped in to protect the bulb industry. Continue reading Will we head viral lessons from “broken” tulips? →

The Earth’s Human Rights Day, December 10, might be an appropriate time to consider the following…

Assuming there are 400 billion galaxies and about 250 billion stars in each galaxy in the universe, it is not too far-fetched to imagine there is not only life on many planets circling stars throughout the universe but also “thoughtful life”.   If so, it might also be possible that a Community of Universal Thoughtful Species might send the following letter to the people of the Earth….

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Dear Earth,

Good day, I am your representative from the Community of Universal Thoughtful Species, and I bring you greetings from Us All. As you are interested in sharing our Cumulative Knowledge, we have a couple of questions to ask you first, questions that would be obvious to any responsible membership manager.

How are you going to get along with 10 trillion other species in our community if you do not respect even your own? If you permit yourselves to treat your own kind so despicably, why would we grant you the power and reach to treat others as badly?

Moreover, if you do not have the highest respect for the natural bounty that has befallen you, if you do not protect and nurture it for all you are worth, why would we afford to you the means to abuse as badly similar treasures elsewhere?

Continue reading A Letter to the People of the Earth… →