Research

Fish on film: uncovering the environmental drivers of black spot syndrome

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 17:18:32 +0000

Fish on film: uncovering the environmental drivers of black spot syndrome Rachel Sauer Tue, 11/12/2024 - 10:18

Blake Puscher

CU ��«��Ƶ researchers use a unique, noninvasive method to determine the environmental factors contributing to several symptoms among tropical fish

For many researchers in biology and other natural sciences, dissecting specimens may not be desirable, though it is often necessary. This is because dissection means killing the animal a researcher is trying to study—a big issue, especially if the species is experiencing population decline.

Over time, such concerns have led scientists to develop a number of non-invasive techniques, including video transects. This is a type of video recording used in marine biology, in which divers film along a line of fixed length and depth to record images for computer-assisted analysis, obtain permanent data that can be reassessed later and survey wider areas in shorter amounts of time.

CU ��«��Ƶ scientist Pieter Johnson and his research colleagues use a unique, noninvasive method to determine the environmental factors contributing to several symptoms among tropical fish.

A recently published study by Pieter Johnson, a ��«��Ƶ professor of distinction in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and lead author Cheyenna de Wit of the University of Amsterdam, demonstrates the benefits of recording rather than dissecting specimens.

In their paper on black spot syndrome in ocean surgeonfish, the researchers use video transects to measure the severity of the disease among thousands of fish and identify the environmental factors contributing to its distribution.

What is black spot syndrome?

Black spot syndrome is a collection of several symptoms, the most prominent being the dermal lesions or spots for which the condition is named, according to Johnson. In many species, Johnson says, these lesions are black, “but in some species they’ll show up as white.” They form on the skin, scales and fins of fish.

The spots appear when the free-swimming, larval form of trematodes—commonly known as flukes, a type of parasitic flatworm—penetrate the skin of the fish and form cysts inside them. The distinctive coloration occurs when fish surround the cyst with melanin in response to the invasion, similar to the formation of pearls in oysters.

Relatively little is known about the genus of trematode that causes black spot syndrome, Scaphanocephalus. “Prior to us detecting it in 2017,” Johnson says, “it had never been reported from Caribbean fish. So, it was wholly undescribed from that area.” Much remains unknown about this trematode, including the type of snail that Scaphanocephalus infects before moving on to fish.

However, trematode infection is clearly very common in certain regions: In Johnson’s study, 70% of observed fish showed signs of infection, while a companion study of other Caribbean fish demonstrated both how high the parasite loads are in that region, and how many different fish species seem to be affected, according to Johnson.

As to the consequences of infection for fish, there is some evidence, Johnson says, that infected fish may graze less and have more trouble maintaining buoyancy. Researchers also hypothesize that they are more conspicuous to predators.

“One in particular, of course, is osprey, which are visual, fish-specialized predators that are looking for fish through the water,” Johnson says. “When these infected fish tend to flash or turn sideways, and you can see those black spots, it probably makes it a lot easier for the bird to detect them.”

If this hypothesis is true, black spot syndrome could bolster the numbers of the trematodes that cause it, as Johnson says osprey are their definitive host. That means these trematodes must enter the body of an osprey to reproduce. The transmission of the parasites is trophic, so they are passed along when infected fish are eaten.

Noninvasive methods

While black spot syndrome can have negative effects on infected fish, the most important consequences could be for reef ecosystems. According to Johnson, black spot syndrome has been increasingly prevalent in important herbivorous grazing fish in the Caribbean, such as surgeonfish and parrotfish.

Learn more

For more information on the complex lifecycles of digenetic trematodes, see this article about other research from CU involving the parasites.

“In tropical coral reef ecosystems,” Johnson explains, “surgeonfish and parrotfish, and other herbivores play a key role by grazing on algae.” Since infected fish are evidenced to graze less, and since they may be more likely to be eaten by osprey, the population of algae in the affected area can increase.

“Algae and coral are in a dynamic balance,” Johnson says, and if there is enough algal growth, “it can start to overwhelm and kill corals. So, in these areas, we try to keep those populations of surgeonfish and parrotfish as viable as possible, so that they can continue to regulate and graze down the algae.”

In fact, some studies have even said that grazing fish can help save coral reefs, with particular emphasis on parrotfish because the prior primary grazer in the Caribbean, spiny sea urchins, were killed off by disease in the 1980s. Also, trematode infection isn’t the only thing threatening surgeonfish and parrotfish populations, as they are popular catches for fisheries.

Because the fish being studied are ecologically important, it is particularly important to avoid interfering with their populations. Ordinarily, this is difficult, since dissection is the surest way to confirm a trematode infection—the parasites being clearly visible inside the fish’s bodies. In this case, though, the black spots characteristic of black spot syndrome allowed for a different approach: the video transect method.

To record as many surgeonfish as possible, and therefore provide an accurate estimate of how many fish were infected, SCUBA divers filmed at 35 sites along the coast of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean. They recorded two and five meters below water for either 10 minutes or until 20 adult surgeonfish had been filmed.

An ocean surgeonfish with black spot syndrome. (Photo: Cheyenna de Wit)

Environmental factors

Besides determining that 70% of surgeonfish showed visible signs of black spot syndrome, Johnson and de Witt correlated different environmental factors with the severity of the syndrome, which they based on the average number of spots per fish.

One of the most significant effects the researchers observed arose from longitude—that is, the position of fish from east to west along the leeward (downwind) shore. Both the prevalence and intensity of black spot syndrome was lower toward the east and higher toward the west.

Johnson hypothesizes that this effect is caused by urban and industrial development, as the east end of Curaçao, where a portion of the research took place, is privately owned and less developed. The researchers observed the same association between development and infection intensity in Bonaire, the neighboring island.

The first component of the effect was wave intensity, which was negatively associated with infection intensity because the larval form of trematode that infects fish can’t swim well enough to overcome opposing tides. Wave energy is usually greatest at the eastern end of Curaçao, so this will have contributed to the lower intensity of infection at the east end.

The other components were positively associated with infection intensity. Nitrogen concentration increases with sewage and domestic runoff, which can contain nutrients and other pollutants. Nutrients can increase the population of trematode hosts, and pollutants can weaken the immune systems of fish that trematodes infect.

While fishing pressure can be either positively or negatively correlated with parasite abundance, Johnson says, this depends on the species involved. In the case of Scaphanocephalus, fishing pressure could increase abundance if it removed predatory fish from the environment, resulting in an increased snail population.

Student learning

CU ��«��Ƶ students also play an important role in this research. Undergraduates in the field course Coral Reef Ecology and Conservation (EBIO 4090, taught by Johnson) spend their fall semester learning about coral reefs and the factors that threaten them before traveling to Curaçao over winter break. During a week-long SCUBA expedition, students learn how to collect video transect data using the same methods Johnson and his research colleagues use and are contributing valuable data to the understanding of black spot syndrome. For the upcoming trip, students will be revisiting some of the same sites as in the study to assess how black spot severity has changed through time, particularly following recent warm water bleaching events that have killed many corals.

Since most of the factors composing the difference between the east and west ends come from human action, it is possible that the severity of black spot syndrome could be significantly reduced if the handling of runoff and/or fishing behavior were changed.

A unique methodology

One noteworthy part of the way Johnson and de Witt’s study was conducted is that, with the videos collected, the researchers had observers record the number of lesions on each fish. This is unique, as prior studies have simply noted whether lesions were present, leaving the severity of infection uncertain.

Moreover, methods like the one used in this study may help to solve the challenges that come with observing ocean life. “There's a lot of ocean out there and not a tremendous number of people to study it,” Johnson explains, “so I think approaches like this could be applied in other areas where we're detecting blackspot syndrome.” Photos are an especially useful way to study the ocean because they are easy for anyone to take thanks to digital technology, he adds. For this reason, community science platforms like iNaturalist can be used to aggregate a large amount of data.

“When people are on vacation, or they’re diving, or they’re swimming,” Johnson says, “they upload all of their observations and fish photos, and we’ve been using that to scan across large sections of the Caribbean and lots of different fish species; and now some of the undergrads in the lab are also extending that to look into parts of the Indo-Pacific and other regions of the world where Scaphanocephalus occurs.

“So, I think those kinds of approaches, video transects and these community science-uploaded images, together start to give a much bigger picture of patterns of infection over large geographic areas.”

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CU ��«��Ƶ researchers use a unique, noninvasive method to determine the environmental factors contributing to several symptoms among tropical fish.

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An ocean surgeonfish with black spot syndrome. (Photo: Cheyenna de Wit)

Remains from CU's Medical School still in ��«��Ƶ

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 20:20:38 +0000

Remains from CU's Medical School still in ��«��Ƶ Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/25/2024 - 14:20

Silvia Pettem

Cadavers used in anatomy classes were buried in unmarked lots in Columbia Cemetery

The University of Colorado Department of Medicine and Surgery opened in ��«��Ƶ in 1883 with two students. By 1890, the medical school included more than a dozen students, two of them women. In order to graduate, each student was required to dissect an entire human body.

Records of these cadavers reveal a little-known cross section of life and death in ��«��Ƶ County. The body parts were interred in unmarked lots, where they remain today, in ��«��Ƶ's Columbia Cemetery.

Prior to the school's opening, Dr. Lumen M. Giffin moved to ��«��Ƶ from New York to become professor of anatomy and physiology. In the early days, tuition for the three-year program was a one-time fee of $5 for in-state students and $10 for those from out of state. The courses included lectures, chemical laboratories and dissections.

CU ��«��Ƶ alum Silvia Pettem is an acclaimed local historian and author of Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon.

One of the bodies donated to Giffin's class was that of miner Frederick Nelson. He had sought refuge from a forest fire and suffocated in the shaft of the Bald Mountain Mine near the town of Sunset. His relatives were unknown, and no one claimed his remains.

Many of the deceased met similarly unusual or violent deaths. According to coroners' records, in 1909 Herman Schmidt's skull was crushed by a falling rock while he worked as a laborer on the construction of Barker Dam, below Nederland. Schmidt was a recent immigrant with no known family or friends.

No one knew anything about Michael Clifford at the time of his death except his name. He was murdered in a drunken brawl in the town of Marshall. The university also welcomed his body.

Few, if any, of the cadavers used in the classroom dissections were female until 1914, when Cyrus Deardoff donated the body of his 70-year-old wife, Ellen, who had been declared insane and starved herself.

Cyrus had, at one time, been a prominent gold miner in Ward. However, he died destitute a few months after Ellen's death. He saved the expense of a funeral and the stigma of being consigned to a pauper’s grave by agreeing in advance to give the university his body, as well.

The year was a busy one for the medical students. By then, CU had purchased its second cemetery lot, and bought a third one a couple years later.

Additional bodies came from people who died by suicide or from influenza or other infectious diseases. Some, like Thomas McCormick, died from an overdose of morphine in the county jail.

Then there was William Ryan, a farmer, who had suffered from chronic alcoholism and was found dead in bed. He had no family, but he did have a watch and chain and a horse and buggy. CU got those items, too.

In 1924, citing a lack of appropriate medical facilities, CU's medical school moved to Denver. In 2008, the school transformed itself again with a move to the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora.

A year before the school left ��«��Ƶ, Giffin died of a stroke at age 72. At the time, he was the oldest physician in ��«��Ƶ. He, too, was buried in Columbia Cemetery—intact and in his own grave with family members. But while Giffin is resting is peace, the other bodies in Columbia Cemetery are resting in pieces.

Top image: Luman M. Giffin (center) and his class in the CU Medical School during the late 1890s. (Photo: courtesy Carnegie Library for Local History, ��«��Ƶ)

Silvia Pettem is a CU ��«��Ƶ alum (1969) and is the author of Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon. This column originally appeared in the Daily Camera. She can be reached at silviapettem.com.

Cadavers used in anatomy classes were buried in unmarked lots in Columbia Cemetery.

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Swastika Counter Project launches

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 21:19:27 +0000

Swastika Counter Project launches Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/24/2024 - 15:19

Bradley Worrell

Public advocacy website envisioned by CU ��«��Ƶ associate professor Laurie Gries tracks swastikas across the U.S. and offers resources to counter those hate-filled incidents

In the months leading up to Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Laurie Gries, director of the ��«��Ƶ Program for Writing and Rhetoric and associate professor of English, became increasingly concerned about almost-daily news reports of swastikas—sometimes accompanied by hate-filled messages—showing up in public spaces across the country.

“This was the same time when various sources were reporting rising incidents of hate and bias in the United States, when Donald Trump and his racist and divisive rhetoric was just coming into political power, and when white nationalist organizations seemed to be coming out of the woodwork,” she says.

Laurie Gries, director of the ��«��Ƶ Program for Writing and Rhetoric and associate professor of English, became increasingly concerned about almost-daily news reports of swastikas—sometimes accompanied by hate-filled messages—showing up in public spaces across the country.

Determined to address the issue of the swastikas head on, Gries began working on a project with a team of interdisciplinary scholars with expertise in visual communication, critical geography and social justice education. Their aim was to identify how and where swastikas were placed, who they targeted, what messages they conveyed and how communities responded. The coordinated results of that five-year effort—which document 1,340 swastika incidents in total—recently went live on The Swastika Counter Project website.

Recently, Gries spoke with Colorado College of Arts and Sciences Magazine about the Swastika Counter Project. Her answers were lightly edited for style and condensed for space limitations.

Question: How did the swastika project come together and why did you decide you needed to address this issue?

Gries: When Trump first came onto the political scene, I started hearing about increased incidents of hate and violence, and as a visual rhetoric scholar, I began noticing more and more reports of swastikas showing up on the streets of the United States.

On the day that Trump was elected, I woke up deeply concerned and asked, ‘What if I tracked these swastikas? What if I took the digital research method called iconographic tracking that I worked for 10 years to develop and applied it to this particular case? What might we discover?’

I didn’t really start tracking swastikas on that day; I just made the commitment because I had long wanted to use my scholarship for public humanities research. I guess, then, one might say that Trump was the motivator, but really it was fear. At the time, a lot of people—the FBI, the Southern Poverty Law Center, journalists and scholars—were attributing a rise in antisemitism and violence to his rhetoric. It was my fear that if that’s the case, those incidents were surely only going to be amplified as he rose to power.

I don’t have any comparative data (i.e., data on swastika incidents) prior to Trump’s arrival on the political scene to confirm whether that’s true or not, so I’m very careful to say that the data we collected can’t really be used as evidence for that claim, but in our data, we certainly can see that there are a lot of associations that people are making between swastikas and Donald Trump and white nationalism.

Question: Was no one else tracking and compiling these incidents in which swastikas were being placed at houses of worship, schools and other sites?

Gries: Actually, there are quite a few projects that have tracked antisemitism, and even swastikas, but they have been constrained in various ways. Some sites only track antisemitism that happen on college campuses. Some track antisemitic events that happened all over the world. Then there are sites like ProPublica, whose tracking projects were limited to a particular year. So, I wanted to create a project that would transcend some those constraints.

Question: What are some of the top findings of your research as it relates to swastika placement, any language accompanying the swastikas, maybe any surprises your research uncovered?

Data analysis by The Swastika Counter Project found at least 1,300 documented incidents of swastikas in the United States between Jan. 1, 2016, and Jan. 20, 2021.

Gries: I think it’s important to note that the swastika incidents we discovered occurred in all 48 contiguous states and in the District of Columbia, so this is a national problem. Of course, they were showing up more in cities with large populations, which is to be expected. But we were surprised that according to our data, swastika incidents most often surfaced in schools, and almost equally in K-12 and higher education settings. We thought swastikas might mostly show up on the exterior of religious institutions, and particularly Jewish religious institutions, but that wasn’t the case.

We also were surprised to discover so many swastikas surfacing in private spaces. Of course, a lot of swastikas were spray painted on the exterior of buildings in urban spaces. But our data discloses how swastikas were often drawn on people’s cars, on their homes, on the dorm doors of students, and in some cases, on the interior walls of people’s homes that had been broken into and, in one case, lit on fire.

I think the other most surprising finding was just the horrific language that was showing up alongside swastikas—from racist and homophobic appeals to white nationalism to implicit threats of surveillance and violence to direct threats of genocide. And also that such threats were directed at not only Jewish community members; a lot of Black American, Latinx, LGBTQ-plus community members and immigrants were also commonly targeted. It was just overwhelming—the multi-directional hate and very graphic violence.

Question: How did Colorado compare to other parts of the country when it came to swastika incidents?

Gries: For Colorado, there were 30 reported incidents in our data set. So, I would say it’s not uncommon in Colorado for these swastikas incidents to occur, and I’ve had a lot of people tell me about swastikas they witnessed that aren’t even in our data set.

We know, for instance, that Colorado State University in Fort Collins has had so many swastika incidents that they recently created an antisemitism task force. One of our (Swastika Counter Project) advisory board members is actually heading up that task force because antisemitism on that campus has become such a serious problem.

In contrast to the incidents of public swastikas that The Swastika Counter Project tracks, some cities worldwide have also seen anti-swastika graffiti. (Photo: Cogiati/Wikimedia Commons)

Question: Beyond tracking incidents of swastika placement around the country, what other kinds of information can be found on the Swastika Counter Project website?

Gries: Part of our challenge was figuring out how to present the data in ways that would be useful for a variety of community stakeholders—people who are dealing with swastika incidents in their communities, such as school administrators, teachers and parents, the local police force, and local and national politicians. We wanted to create a swastika tracking project that has a strong civic component to it, which I think makes this project a bit unique. So, we created an interactive map that can be filtered in different ways; data visualizations that can be easily downloaded; and educational resources and lesson plans for teachers at various levels. We also generated two different reports, one of which describes and analyzes how different communities have responded to swastika incidents, so that stakeholders can read those accounts and learn from them. That’s especially important, because in our research we found that the various stakeholders often worked in isolation in responding to swastika incidents.

Question: The Swastika ‘Counter’ Project—is it fair to say the name is a play on words?

Gries: Yes—it’s a double entendre. The goal is to both count and counter the contemporary proliferation of swastika incidents in the United States. And in that sense, the Swastika Counter Project is very much a scholarly activist project.

When we first began tracking swastika incidents, we planned to simply report our data and let the evidence speak for itself. And to a great extent, the data still does do that. Our findings report, for instance, is largely descriptive. But the longer we worked on the project and discovered the gross horror of violence that was ensuing, the more we felt compelled to also take more concerted action by building out the educational component of the website. So today, I don’t pretend that the data advocacy website isn’t motivated by my own desire to try to address some very real, pressing problems and to use my scholarship to try to create a more just world. This is very much a project where I’m wearing my activism on my sleeve.

Question: What kind of assistance did you have when it came to tracking and compiling data, creating visual representations, developing a website, etc.?

Gries: The central work of tracking, coding, and analyzing was done by myself and Kelly Wheeler (assistant professor at Curry College), but we soon realized we needed more help. I reached out to Morteza Karimzadeh in the geography department here at CU ��«��Ƶ, and he and his former student, Jason Miller, ended up doing all the amazing work with the mapping part of the project.

Residents of Eugene, Oregon, responded against swastikas found in a city neighborhood in 2017. (Photo: SBG Photo)

I am also really proud that we received a lot of help from various students at and beyond CU. For instance, an undergraduate computer science major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, worked on the data visualizations with us, while graduate students from that same institution helped to create some of the lesson plans. Here at CU ��«��Ƶ, a team of undergraduate students enrolled in a technical communication and design class in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric did a user-centered study for us to help develop a website that would be easy to navigate and comprehend for a public audience. And then another group of tech comm students helped us figure out how to invite community participation through features under the Contribute tab of the website. In this sense, the Swastika Counter Project is really exemplary of the immense value that data humanities and public humanities education can have for both undergraduate and graduate students. I am really excited about that.

Question: People who commit several years of their life to a project will often call it a labor of love. Is that how you would describe this project?

Gries: For me, I don’t think it was about love so much as it was about committing to do social justice work and really trying to walk the walk. I mean, as you might imagine, it was not fun to track so many incidents of hate and violence around the country. …

It’s also just been a beast in terms of labor. I tell people that this project was probably more intense work than my first 350-page monograph because I had to teach myself so many new skills, not only in terms of research, but also guiding and managing team projects, doing data advocacy, and developing web content skills. I am so glad I did this project, but for the last eight years, it’s just been very intense.

Question: If former President Trump is elected to a second term in November, do you think you would take up this project again?

Gries: I’m really, really torn. Part of me wants to try to secure some national funding and put together a larger team. If I did, I would also want to research (swastika incidents during) the Biden administration, and then start tracking in the present time, too, because I think that longitudinal study would help us address certain questions that we weren’t able to address in this project.

On the other hand, I started this project in early 2017, and it became a large part of my life. My husband would tell me that on days I was doing the researching and the coding that I was affectively different. I was angry. I was upset. I was impatient.

I honestly don’t know if I want to put myself through that again on a personal level. I truly believe that more arts and humanities faculty need to be doing this kind of work, as I think we can bring an important perspective to data-driven research that addresses pressing socio-cultural problems. And maybe if I had the funding and could put together a large enough team where I didn’t have to bear so much of the burden I would consider it, but right now I just don’t know.

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Public advocacy website envisioned by CU ��«��Ƶ associate professor Laurie Gries tracks swastikas across the U.S. and offers resources to counter those hate-filled incidents.

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Remembering the player behind ‘Fernandomania’

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:44:00 +0000

Remembering the player behind ‘Fernandomania’ Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/24/2024 - 12:44

Jared Bahir Browsh

Fernando Valenzuela, who died Tuesday, was more than just the first Mexican superstar in Major League Baseball; he helped soothe longstanding resentments in a displaced community

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Wednesday that Fernando Valenzuela passed away late Tuesday night at the age of 63. The legendary pitcher debuted late in the 1980 season as a 19-year-old, but it would not be until his first full season when the rookie would initiate “Fernandomania,” fascinating not only Dodgers and baseball fans, but people throughout the United States and Latin America.

Valenzuela helped the Dodgers beat the Yankees to win the World Series in 1981, the last time the two teams met. At a time when the Dodgers struggled to soothe their relationship with Mexican American fans, Valenzuela was not only the balm, but also initiated a wave of players from Mexico that continues today.

The Dodgers’ relationship with the large Chicanx community in Los Angeles had long been fraught after the building of Dodger Stadium. Following passage of the Federal Housing Act in 1949, then-Mayor Norris Poulson chose Chavez Ravine, a shallow canyon in Los Angeles, as the location to build 10,000 housing units, promising the Mexican American community living there that they would have their first choice of housing.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Ethnic Studies.

Yet after most of the neighborhood was razed, the project was delayed, and when the Dodgers decided to move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, the area was chosen to build the new Dodger Stadium. The broken promises led to decades of resentment between the team and the Mexican American community in the city, as the remaining residents were forced out of the neighborhood.

Selling out stadiums

Valenzuela was scouted by several teams, but when legendary Cuban-American scout Mike Brito went to evaluate him in Silao, Mexico, he convinced the Dodgers to buy out Valenzuela’s contract in the summer of 1979, just beating out the Yankees. He worked his way up from the minor leagues, debuting with the Dodgers in September 1980 after learning what became his signature pitch, the screwball, which breaks the opposite direction of a curveball or slider.

He spent the final month of the season as a reliever, helping the team contend for the West Division before they lost to the Houston Astros in a one-game playoff.

The following season, the 20-year-old Valenzuela was tapped to be the Dodgers’ opening-day starter after pitcher Jerry Reuss was injured the day before the game. This set off Fernandomania, as he went 8-0 with five shutouts and an earned run average of 0.50. The 1981 season was cut short due to a strike in June, but when the season resumed in August, Valenzuela helped the team win the World Series, becoming the first pitcher to win both the National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards in the same season.

Valenzuela sold out stadiums both at home and away, becoming a phenomenon only a few years after first signing to the Mexican league from his small, rural hometown in Sonora. An international Horatio Alger story, Valenzuela’s rise is one of the most unbelievable in modern sports history.

Valenzuela spoke very little English and struggled to communicate with many of his teammates; however, team manager Tommy Lasorda spent time in the Caribbean winter leagues and helped Valenzuela’s transition to the major leagues, while Mike Scioscia learned enough Spanish to become the young pitcher’s personal catcher. Valenzuela would go on to make six straight All-Star games before shoulder issues related to overuse and the strain of throwing the screwball derailed his career. He ultimately played 17 seasons and threw a no-hitter for the Dodgers in 1990, but his legacy goes far beyond his phenomenal rise.

The first Mexican superstar

Walter O’Malley had owned at least a minority stake in the Dodgers since 1944, accumulating a larger stake in the team and eventually becoming its president in 1950. He was part of the ownership group that signed Jackie Robinson and led the move to Los Angeles in 1958. O’Malley was tired of the Brooklyn Dodgers living in the Yankees’ shadow—their Ebbets Field had less than half the capacity of Yankee Stadium (32,000 vs. 67,000) and the Dodgers lost six of the seven World Series matchups with the Yankees in the 1940s and 1950s. O’Malley saw a business opportunity in moving to the West Coast and building his own stadium in spite of the displacement of the Mexican American community there.

Fernando Valenzuela, known for his signature 'screwball' pitch, winds up during the Dodgers' April 8, 1986, home opener. (Photo: Tony Barnard/Los Angeles Times)

Much like Robinson brought Black fans to the Dodgers, and baseball more generally, O’Malley sought a Mexican player to draw Latine fans who refused to watch the Dodgers not only because of resentment over the displacement, but also because the Dodgers were seen as a team for the white community in Los Angeles. Walter O’Malley died a month after the organization signed Valenzuela, so he never saw the impact of the first Mexican superstar in baseball.

Though famous, Valenzuela still faced many of the same issues other Mexican immigrants faced coming to America. The language barrier led to isolation early in his career, and after his historic rookie season, he was threatened with deportation as he held out for a new contract in 1982, since he was in the United States on a work visa. It was said that Ronald Reagan pushed for immigration reform partly due to meeting Valenzuela in 1981.

Despite the disappointment of being cut by the Dodgers during 1991 spring training, Valenzuela maintained his legendary status with the team, becoming their color commentator in 2003 and having his number, 34, retired in 2023.

His jersey is still one of the most popular, with Valenzuela jerseys seen throughout Dodgers stadium 34 years after he threw his last pitch for the team. In spite of his status as the greatest player from Mexico to play in the Major Leagues, he has not been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, although many artifacts from Fernandomania sit in the museum in Cooperstown.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Ethnic Studies.

Top image: Fernando Valenzuela pitches a two-hit, 4-0 victory over the Montreal Expos at Dodger Stadium May 21, 1986. (Photo: Marsha Traeger/Los Angeles Times)

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Fernando Valenzuela, who died Tuesday, was more than just the first Mexican superstar in Major League Baseball; he helped soothe longstanding resentments in a displaced community.

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Andrés Montoya-Castillo earns 2024 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 13:43:24 +0000

Andrés Montoya-Castillo earns 2024 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/22/2024 - 07:43

CU ��«��Ƶ chemist will use the five-year support to study tailoring cycles affecting energy flow in solar energy conversion

Andrés Montoya-Castillo, an assistant professor in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Chemistry, has been awarded a 2024 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.

The fellowships, given by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, are awarded to innovative early-career scientists and engineers, who receive $875,000 over five years to pursue their research.

“These scientists and engineers are the architects of tomorrow, leading innovation with bold ideas and unyielding determination,” said Nancy Lindborg, president and chief executive officer of the Packard Foundation, in announcing the 2024 awards. “Their work today will be the foundation for the breakthroughs of the future, inspiring the next wave of discovery and invention.”

Montoya-Castillo is a theoretical chemist who leads a lab that encompasses multidisciplinary skills spanning physical chemistry, condensed matter physics and quantum information science.

Explaining his research that the fellowship will support, Montoya-Castillo notes, “The world’s growing population faces looming food shortages and the pressing need for cheap and sustainable energy sources. Reliable conversion of sunlight–our most abundant energy source–into fuel can address these threats. However, reliable energy conversion requires knowing how to tailor, at an atomic level, photoprotection cycles limiting food production and energy flow in solar cells that convert sunlight into fuel.”

He adds that he “will harness the power of generalized master equations to develop efficient, atomically resolved theories and analysis tools that cut the cost of experiments needed to reveal how to employ chemical modifications to manipulate photoprotection cycles in plants and the photocatalytic activity of metal oxides. Our developments will offer transformative insights into fundamental excitation dynamics in complex materials, enabling the boosting of photosynthetic crop production and optimization of environmentally friendly semiconductors that split water into clean fuels.”

Last year, Montoya-Castillo was named a U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program scientist and earlier this year received the CU ��«��Ƶ Marinus Smith Award, which recognizes faculty and staff members who have had a particularly positive impact on students. He received his BA in chemistry and literature from Macaulay Honors College, CUNY, and his PhD in chemical physics from Columbia University.

“I’m honored and thrilled to be part of the Packard Fellows class of 2024!” Montoya-Castillo says. “With the help of the Packard Foundation's funding, I look forward to finding new ways to measure and control nonequilibrium energy flow for human use.”

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3RtY7QKzxU&t=6s]

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CU ��«��Ƶ chemist will use the five-year support to study tailoring cycles affecting energy flow in solar energy conversion.

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Loving the art but not the artist

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:45:24 +0000

Loving the art but not the artist Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/21/2024 - 13:45

Adamari Ruelas

CU ��«��Ƶ philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller

The transition from summer to fall—trading warm days for cool evenings—means that things are getting … spookier. Witchier, maybe. For fans of the series, the approach of Halloween means it’s time to rewatch the Harry Potter movies.

This autumn also marks the 25^th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in author J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series about a boy wizard defeating the forces of evil with help from his friends. Many U.S. readers of a certain age cite Azkaban as the point at which they discovered the magic of Harry Potter.

However, in the years since the series ended, Rowling has gained notoriety for stating strongly anti-trans views. Harry Potter fans have expressed disappointment and feelings of betrayal, and asked the question that has shadowed the arts for centuries, if not millennia: Is it possible to love the art but dislike the artist? Can the two be separated?

CU ��«��Ƶ philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that, "Even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

“In principle, you can try to focus on the purely aesthetic properties of an artwork. This is the aestheticist attitude,” says Iskra Fileva, a ��«��Ƶ assistant professor of philosophy who has published on topics of virtue and morality. “But even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

The Impact of Knowing

Fileva offered as an example the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro. In a short story called “Wild Swans,” Munro depicts a young girl on a train who is sexually assaulted by an older man sitting beside her, but who pretends to be asleep and does nothing because she is curious about what would happen next.

Munro’s daughter came forward several months after Munro’s death in May to say she’d been abused by her stepfather and that her mother, after initially separating from her stepfather, went back to live with him, saying that she loved him too much.

Fileva points out that in light of these revelations, it is reasonable for readers of “Wild Swans” to reinterpret the story. Whereas initially they may have seen it as a psychologically nuanced portrayal of the train scene, they may, after learning of the daughter’s reports, come to read the story as an attempt at victim-blaming disguised as literature.

Fileva contrasts Munro’s case with cases in which an author may have said or done reprehensible things, but not anything that bears on how their work should be interpreted—as when Italian painter Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, but the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

Fileva points out also that the question of whether the art can be separated from the artist may seem particularly pressing today, because modern audiences know so much more about artists than art consumers in the past may have. If no one knows facts about the author’s life, art consumers would be unable to draw parallels between an artwork and biographical information about the author.

“These are things that, historically, few would have known about—the origin of a novel or any other kind of artwork. Art might have looked a little bit more magical, and there may have been more mystery surrounding the author and in the act of creation,” says Fileva, explaining how the personal lives of artists have begun to seep into the minds of their consumers, something that has recently become common.

"The Crowning of Thorns" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (ca. 1602-1607). Philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that even though Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

In 1919, poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “I have assumed as axiomatic that a creation, a work of art, is autonomous.” And in his essay “The Death of the Author,” literary theorist Roland Barthes criticized and sought to counter “the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person.”

However, early 20th-century movements such as New Criticism, which considered works of art as autonomous, have given way to more nuanced considerations of art in relation to its artist.

“I do think that if you want to understand what work literature does in the world, starting with its historical moment is an important step,” Amy Hungerford, a Yale University professor of English, told author Constance Grady in a 2019 story for Vox. “But I also am fully committed to the idea that every generation of readers remakes artworks’ significance for themselves. When you try to separate works of art from history, whether that’s the moment of creation or the moment of reception, you’re impoverishing the artwork itself to say that they don’t have a relation.”

Too many tweets

The growth of social media has added a new layer to the issues of art and the artists who create it. According to Fileva, social media have made it more difficult to separate the two because of how much more the consumer is able to know, or think they know, about the artist: “Artists are often now expected to have a public persona, to be there, to talk to their fans, to have these parasocial relationships, and that might make it difficult to separate the art from the artist,” she says.

In Fileva’s view, all this creates a second way in which facts about the author seem to bear on the public’s perception of an artwork. While learning about the revelations made by Munro’s daughter may lead some readers to reinterpret “Wild Swans,” other readers and viewers may feel disappointed and “let down” by the author even without reinterpreting the artwork or changing their judgment about the work’s qualities.

This fall marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which many U.S. readers of a certain age cite as their entry point into the series.

This is another way in which it may become difficult to separate the art from the artist: The work becomes “tainted” for some audience members because of what they have learned about its creator.

It may have always been the case, Fileva suggests, that people who really loved a work of art, even when they knew nothing about its creator, imagined that they were connected to the artist, but this is truer today than ever. Fans are able to follow their favorite artists on social media and feel that they know the artist as a person, which creates expectations and the possibility for disappointment.

Perhaps inevitably, greater knowledge of the artist as a person affects how consumers interact with his or her art—whether it’s Ye (formerly Kanye) West’s music, Johnny Depp’s films or Alice Munro’s short stories.

So, where does that leave Harry Potter fans who have been disappointed by Rowling’s public statements?

Different books by Rowling illustrate the two different ways in which biographical information about the author may affect readers’ interpretation of the work, Fileva says. Rowling’s book (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) The Ink Black Heart, featuring a character accused of transphobia, is an example of the first way: Facts about the author’s life may bear directly on the interpretation of the work.

When, by contrast, a transgender person who loved Harry Potter in her youth and loved Rowling feels saddened by statements Rowling made about gender, the reader may experience the book differently without reinterpreting it, Fileva says. Such a reader may think that the book is just as good as it was when she fell in love with it; it’s just that she can no longer enjoy it in the same way.

Some art consumers are more inclined to be what Fileva calls “aestheticists”—Barthes’ account of the death of the author resonates with them. Aestheticists may find it easier to separate the art from the artist in cases in which biographical information about the author is irrelevant to understanding and interpreting the work.

Whether any reader, whatever their sympathies, can separate facts about Munro’s life from the story “White Swans” or Rowling’s public pronouncements on gender from the interpretation of her book The Ink Black Heart, Fileva says, is a different question.

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CU ��«��Ƶ philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller.

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ADHD and reading disability often occur together, study finds

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:56:38 +0000

ADHD and reading disability often occur together, study finds Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/17/2024 - 08:56

Daniel Long

It’s surprisingly common for children to have both conditions, CU ��«��Ƶ researcher Erik Willcutt argues in a recently published paper

According to a paper coauthored by Erik Willcutt, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the ��«��Ƶ and faculty fellow of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also have reading disability, and vice versa.

“A lot of kids tend to have both learning and attentional difficulties,” says Willcutt, a clinical child psychologist by training. “Similarly, many children with reading disability also experience broader learning difficulties in areas such as math and writing.”

This research marks a shift in the clinical understanding of learning disabilities.

In recently published research, Erik Willcutt, a CU ��«��Ƶ professor of psychology and neuroscience, finds that many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder also have reading disability, and vice versa.

“Twenty-five years ago, we all went into an assessment with a child thinking we had to figure out what the diagnosis is.”

“The” diagnosis—singular.

“Back then, it was always kind of surprising if a child met criteria for more than one diagnosis. We’d think, ‘Maybe we’re just wrong, and we’ve got to figure out which diagnosis is correct.’”

Yet, as research has progressed, this either-or thinking has transformed into something more like both-and thinking.

“We’ve realized over time, there are a lot of kids that really do seem to have more than one diagnosis, and that in many cases both diagnoses would benefit from treatment.”

When one diagnosis complicates another

The phenomenon of multiple diagnoses for one person is called comorbidity, a term “that came out of classic medical literature where people could have more than one illness at the same time,” says Willcutt. “For example, heart disease frequently co-occurs with other physical conditions such as diabetes, and this may mean that treatment of the heart disease is complicated by the diabetes or another co-occurring illness.”

It’s the same idea with reading disability and ADHD. “That comorbidity suggests that a child's difficulties extend beyond what they would be if that child had just reading disability.”

Reading disability, Willcutt points out, doesn’t simply mean difficulty reading. It means unexpected difficulty reading, with the expectations being based on a child’s education.

So, a child who struggles to read but hasn’t had an adequate reading education may not have reading disability. Perhaps that student struggles because he or she hasn’t grown up around books, or hasn’t been read to, or hasn’t been given adequate reading instruction. For a student such as this, difficulty reading may not be a disability so much as the natural consequence of a less-enriched reading environment.

It's the children who have had an adequate education and still underachieve in reading who may have reading disability. And if those kids also happen to have ADHD, their reading disability will likely be harder to manage, just as heart disease becomes more challenging for someone who also has diabetes.

“Individuals with more than one disorder often differ in important ways from individuals with a disorder in isolation, with the comorbid group frequently experiencing greater symptom severity, more extensive and severe functional and neurocognitive impairment, and poorer long-term outcomes,” Willcutt and co-author Stephen A. Petrill state in their paper.

Externalizing and internalizing behaviors

Researcher Erik Willcutt notes that reading disability doesn’t simply mean difficulty reading. It means unexpected difficulty reading, with the expectations being based on a child’s education.

There is a range of behaviors associated with reading disability and ADHD, Willcutt explains, some of which are “externalizing” and some of which are “internalizing.”

Externalizing behaviors are those that children express outwardly—“things like aggression, delinquency or conduct problems,” says Willcutt—whereas internalizing behaviors “are more internally focused—so if you feel anxious or you feel depressed or withdrawn.”

Willcutt says that reading disability and ADHD frequently co-occur with both internalizing and externalizing behaviors, but the specific profile varies among children. One student with comorbid ADHD and reading disability may continually show up late to school and disrupt class, whereas another student with the same diagnoses may be quiet and anxious.

“And there are some different behavior clusters that seem to really matter,” Willcutt adds. “The kids who have reading disability and ADHD along with early aggressive or delinquent behaviors tend to be a subgroup that is at higher risk for more severe antisocial behaviors during adolescence. On the other hand, students who have ADHD and reading disability along with internalizing symptoms often show pronounced difficulties in the classroom because they are really anxious about their academic performance.”

Assessment and treatment

Willcutt says that one key takeaway from his and Petrill’s study is that comorbidity matters and is much more common than previously thought. “At least 25% of kids who have ADHD have a learning disability, which is much higher than we would expect by random chance.”

Willcutt therefore hopes those who read his and Petrill’s study, particularly clinicians, adjust their assessment practices in a way that addresses the potential for comorbid diagnoses.

We’re at the point of saying when a child has ADHD and reading disability, both conditions really warrant interventions. Rather than trying to decide which is more important, we should really target both of them by providing the optimal intervention for reading disability and the optimal intervention for ADHD.”

“If you’re assessing learning disabilities, it’s really important to also assess whether a child has attention problems, anxiety or conduct difficulties along with that. For clinicians who specialize in the assessment of ADHD, it's critical to include a screening measure to determine whether the child may also have learning problems. Our results suggest that it may matter quite a bit if they have a comorbid diagnosis.”

For the field more broadly, Willcutt hopes that his and Petrill’s work prompts other researchers to study treatments for comorbid learning disabilities and attentional difficulties.

“We’re at the point of saying when a child has ADHD and reading disability, both conditions really warrant interventions. Rather than trying to decide which is more important, we should really target both of them by providing the optimal intervention for reading disability and the optimal intervention for ADHD.”

In other words, if a child has both reading disability and ADHD, treating only one will likely have little to no effect on the other.

“Reading intervention might really help with the reading, but it may not address some of the other concerns that are also getting in the way for that child.”

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It’s surprisingly common for children to have both conditions, CU ��«��Ƶ researcher Erik Willcutt argues in a recently published paper.

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A reincarnated Elizabeth I greets friendly audiences, even in Scotland

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 20:09:27 +0000

A reincarnated Elizabeth I greets friendly audiences, even in Scotland Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/15/2024 - 14:09

Rachel Sauer

Actor and theater scholar Tamara Meneghini brings the long-ruling monarch to life in a solo performance that earned rave reviews at the recent Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Historical figures are so easily flattened into two dimensions—all stiff pleats and inscrutable expressions rendered in oils.

The challenge for artists and scholars, then, is how to lift these figures from the canvas—to regard them in three dimensions, to allow them foibles and failings and humanity.

For Tamara Meneghini, that meant more than just donning a red wig and pounds of brocade as one of the most famous women in Western history. It meant studying the time in which Elizabeth I of England lived—researching what influenced her behavior in her time period, how she interacted with people, what games she played, how she followed the rules and how she broke them.

Tamara Meneghini, an associate professor in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Theatre and Dance, performed to rave reviews as the titular monarch in "Elizabeth I: In Her Own Words" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

To become Elizabeth I onstage, Meneghini had to understand the monarch as a human woman and bring her to life for modern audiences who may believe there’s nothing new to understand about her.

So, audiences at Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August were surprised and then delighted to rediscover the queen they thought they knew. Playing the not-so-popular-in-Scotland monarch in the one-woman performance “Elizabeth I: In Her Own Words,” Meneghini performed before full theaters and to glowing reviews.

“The key to fringe festivals is audiences want you to connect,” explains Meneghini, an associate professor in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Theatre and Dance. “You have to connect. The audience can’t be just audience. The way our piece was set up, it worked really nicely that audience felt like A) they were in the presence of the queen and B) they could not leave, they were there with me in the moment, in this meta sort of space. I was interacting with them as the queen, but in a very specific circumstance we had created.”

Becoming Elizabeth

Meneghini’s interest in Elizabeth I grew, in part, from her interest in styles and plays from different time periods—"the ways in which we behave in those time periods, how changes in clothing, dances, culture, protocols can affect behavior,” she explains.

While working at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, where she taught before joining the CU ��«��Ƶ faculty in 2008, Meneghini developed a concert of early Renaissance music that involved era-specific instruments such as sackbuts and crumhorns. However, she also wanted to bring in elements of theater and approached Carole Levin, a pre-eminent scholar of Elizabeth I and women in the Renaissance era.

“Carole was pivotal because what we created was a fictitious meeting between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots,” Meneghini says. “Part of that was crafting this improvisation with students that was really cool. It ended up being a combination of theater and film and history, and it was just a blast.”

Fast forward to 2016, when CU ��«��Ƶ was honored as a stop for the first-ever national touring exhibition of Shakespeare’s First Folio.

Tamara Meneghini as Elizabeth I outside Edinburgh's Craigmillar Castle (left) and onstage (right) as the long-ruling monarch.

“When the Folio came through, I was doing a period styles class, and I was asked to create something for the Folio visit,” she says. “I immediately thought of Elizabeth I—the idea of Elizabeth, the time period, Shakespeare’s plays. I know they never met, but she certainly influenced his plays, so I started working on this thing based on Carole’s series of lectures that she did about Elizabeth.”

The initial performance was a duet, with Meneghini playing Elizabeth in front of projected images from the time period to which Levin had access. Meneghini and her acting partner—Bernadette Sefic, a CU ��«��Ƶ BFA/acting graduate and recent MFA graduate of the Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program—performed at universities and sometimes in community theaters, and in costumes designed by theater colleague Markas Henry.

“As the costume as story went on, Elizabeth is becoming more and more like a real person,” Meneghini says. “The portraiture that we have of her was largely staged by how her council and her parliament wanted her to look. We wanted this piece to be an opportunity to see Elizabeth as the woman, as the human, as someone audiences could relate to.

“Markas and I talked a lot about this costume coming apart, and he made this thing that’s close to 30 pounds—the costume is immense—that gradually sheds layers through the performance.”

Fringe opportunities

Two years ago, CU ��«��Ƶ graduate Penny Cole, founder of Flying Solo! Presents, approached Meneghini about creating a solo show and put her in contact with a Scottish theater scholar who asked whether she’d be interested in performing at Edinburgh Fringe.

If you go

What: "Elizabeth I: In Her Own Words"

Who: Tamara Meneghini, associate professor in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Theatre and Dance

When: 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19

Where: Savoy Denver, 2700 Arapahoe St.

Learn more

Meneghini sought Levin’s expertise, as well as that of Denver-based theater guru Sabin Epstein, to craft a solo play from what began as lectures. The 55-minute play, for which Levin is credited as writer, is based on Elizabeth’s own writings. It eschews the projected images of the original duet performance—a lot of which featured the men in Elizabeth’s life—to create an intimate space between Elizabeth and the audience, Meneghini says.

She performed “Elizabeth I: In Her Own Words” several times in New York City before her 14 performances at Edinburgh Fringe, where it was a hit.

“People there are crazy about their royals,” Meneghini says with a laugh. “Elizabeth is not a popular monarch in Scotland; in fact, she’s almost an antagonist. So, when I first performed it in New York, people went nuts about it, but I didn’t think they were going to like it as much in Scotland, so that was a happy surprise.

“In fact, I went to do this photo shoot at Craigmillar Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots convalesced and planned her husband’s murder, and people were coming up to me—I was in full regalia—and saying, ‘Oh, Queen Mary, Queen Mary.’ So, I had to say, ‘No, I’m Elizabeth,’ and they’d run away.”

Thanks to the play’s reception at Edinburgh Fringe, Meneghini is now developing it into a full, 120-minute performance. She also will perform it Oct. 19 in the Denver Fringe Festival. And still, she says, there’s always more to learn about Elizabeth.

“One of my biggest takeaways (from performing at Edinburgh Fringe) was people came out of the show saying, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have a totally different perspective of her as a person. She wasn’t this awful woman, she really struggled with these decisions that she made,’” Meneghini says. “What I’ve learned in my own research with her is that she was a complicated person like we all are, didn’t take any of the decisions that she had to make in her life lightly. When I’m doing the show—whether it’s here, when I was in Edinburgh—I’m constantly reading more about her, and every day is bringing something new.”

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Actor and theater scholar Tamara Meneghini brings the long-ruling monarch to life in a solo performance that earned rave reviews at the recent Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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For some mammals, warming temperatures mean higher elevations

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 17:45:59 +0000

For some mammals, warming temperatures mean higher elevations Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/15/2024 - 11:45

In her Distinguished Research Lecture, CU ��«��Ƶ Professor Christy McCain will highlight how certain traits in some mammal and insect populations indicate who is at greatest risk from climate change

Colorado’s small, mountain-dwelling mammals are moving higher—not for better views or real estate, but because climate change is forcing them to.

This finding is based on a 13-year study of 27 rodent and four shrew species in Colorado’s Front Range and San Juan mountains—research that included trapping, tagging and releasing the various mammals to better understand their range.

While the findings are more complex than a simple trend of animals moving up the mountain, they spotlight the sobering possibility that climate change could force some mammals from Colorado entirely.

Christy McCain, a professor in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and curator of vertebrates in the CU Museum of Natural History, will discuss mountain biodiversity and climate change in her Distinguished Research Lecture Nov. 14.

“We’ve been talking about climate change in the Rockies for a long time, but I think we can say that this is a sign that things are now responding and responding quite drastically," Christy McCain, the study’s lead author, told Denver 7 in Feb. 2021.

McCain, a professor in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and curator of vertebrates in the CU Museum of Natural History, uses mountains as natural experiments to study biodiversity, ecological theory, global change, montane ecology and range limits.

She will discuss mountain biodiversity and climate change in her Distinguished Research Lecture Nov. 14, highlighting the research her lab has done to understand how animals—mostly vertebrates and insects—are distributed on mountains around the world.

She and her research colleagues have found that different groups of animals, driven by their evolutionary history and climate, show distinctive patterns. For example, mountain biodiversity for rodents, salamanders and moths is quite different from birds, bats and reptiles.

The conservation priorities for each group of mountain organisms are closely tied to elevational diversity patterns, land-use change and complex interactions with a rapidly warming and drying climate. McCain will explore these topics through case studies of mammal populations in the Front Range and San Juan Mountains and carrion beetles—examining how various physiological traits like heat and desiccation tolerance may be critical to responses to climate change.

Christy McCain

McCain received dual bachelor’s degrees in wildlife biology and studio art from Humboldt State University, was a natural-resources and protected-areas specialist in the Peace Corps Honduras and earned her PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Kansas.

She was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California Santa Barbara before coming to CU ��«��Ƶ as an assistant professor in 2008.

If you go

What: 124th Distinguished Research Lecture, Mountain Biodiversity and Climate Change

Who: Professor Christy McCain of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and CU Museum of Natural History

When: 4-5 p.m. Nov. 14, followed by a Q&A and reception

Where: Chancellor's Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE)

McCain studies how montane organisms are distributed on mountains around the world and how those populations and species are influenced by human land use and climate change. Her research spans topics across ecology and evolution to understand and conserve biodiversity.

Funded by the National Science Foundation through several grants, her research has appeared in more than 60 peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Ecology Letters, Ecology and Global Change Biology, among others.

McCain is the curator of vertebrate collections in the CU Museum of Natural History, where she is a steward for the continued protection and use of museum specimens for understanding and conserving the world’s biodiversity. Over the years, she has taught mammalogy as well as other topics in field biology, creative conservation messaging and mountain ecology and conservation.

the Distinguished Research Lectureship

The Distinguished Research Lectureship is among the highest honors given by faculty to a faculty colleague at CU ��«��Ƶ. Each year, the Research and Innovation Office requests nominations from faculty for this award, and a faculty review panel recommends one or more faculty members as recipients.

The lectureship honors tenured faculty members, research professors (associate or full) or adjoint professors who have been with CU ��«��Ƶ for at least five years and are widely recognized for a distinguished body of academic or creative achievement and prominence, as well as contributions to the educational and service missions of CU ��«��Ƶ. Each recipient typically gives a lecture in the fall or spring following selection and receives a $2,000 honorarium.

McCain and Jamie Nagle, a professor of physics, have been recognized with 2024-25 Distinguished Research Lectureships. Nagle will give his lecture Feb. 6, 2025.

Top image: Eli Allan/Unsplash

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Uncovering the surprising similarities between sports and politics

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 10:31:43 +0000

Uncovering the surprising similarities between sports and politics Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/10/2024 - 04:31

Jared Bahir Browsh

In just a few decades, Fox went from being ‘the fourth network’ airing The Simpsons and baseball to being a leading voice in U.S. politics

Every four years, Americans oscillate between sports and coverage of the presidential election, and outside of trash talk between competitors, many overlook the commonalities between the two.

The media corporations responsible for covering both sports and politics are the same, and as we experience increasing polarization, it’s important to highlight the direct link between the partisan media and sports media rights—which has existed for 30 years, since Fox first aired NFL football after outbidding CBS for the broadcast rights. That winning bid helped legitimize the nascent broadcast network and establish the partisan cable news environment we are familiar with today.

Fox owner Rupert Murdoch is now known for overseeing one of the largest media empires in the world, but through the early 1980s he was known as a publisher of newspapers, specifically tabloids. He inherited a news publication after his father’s death in 1952, The News in Adelaide.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Ethnic Studies.

He expanded his news empire to New Zealand and the United Kingdom through the ‘50s and ‘60s. Although he became known for his ownership of tabloids, his corporation also oversaw more traditional broadsheet newspapers, including Australia’s first national newspaper, The Australian.

By the 1980s, Murdoch had set his eyes on electronic media, particularly television. He struggled to break into the British broadcast market, so he focused his energy on pay TV, buying a controlling stake in Satellite Television Limited, later renamed Sky. After being excluded from the consortium overseeing British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB), he launched his own satellite-based service, circumventing British ownership laws by using the Astra satellite operating in Luxembourg.

Sky launched in 1989, 13 months before BSB’s launch in March 1990. The two competed for the rights to the FA Premier League, with Sky’s bid, nearly double that of any competitor, seen as overpaying. However, Murdoch saw sports as a “battering ram” for pay television, helping to attract viewers who might otherwise balk at spending money for scripted shows and news.

During this time, Murdoch and News Corporation set their sights on the United States, purchasing Marc Rich’s stake in 20th Century Fox after Rich became a fugitive for tax evasion and selling oil to Iran during the hostage crisis. He bought the stake from oil magnate and investor Marvin Davis, and 20th Century Fox was considering buying Metromedia, which owned broadcast stations. Davis opposed the purchase while Murdoch and executive Barry Diller pushed to expand the media reach of the troubled studio. Davis sold his stake in 20th Century Fox in 1985, incorporating Davis Petroleum in Denver the next year. Murdoch gained American citizenship, since legally he could not own a broadcast network as a foreign citizen, and in fall of 1986 the Fox Broadcasting Company launched with Diller as chairman and CEO.

The six original stations purchased from Metromedia were in major markets including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Fox Broadcasting Company, or FBC, was renamed Fox to leverage the media legacy of 20th Century Fox, and it officially launched on April 5, 1987.

The fourth network

Fox was considered the fourth network, if people had access to its programming at all. Network programmers purposely scheduled just below the minimum number of hours required for network status to avoid federal regulatory restrictions, including Financial Interest and Syndication Rules.

As it built its affiliate base, Fox took lessons from ABC to boost its visibility, building a young audience through its Fox Kids programming, prime-time teenage and young adult soaps like Beverly Hills 90210 and MelrosePlace and reality television, most notably COPS. However, following the precedent of BSkyB leveraging sports to accelerate growth, Fox made a bid for Monday Night Football in 1987, after ABC hesitated in renewing its contract with the NFL. Fox met the NFL’s asking price, but ABC came back and matched, due to ABC’s more extensive reach. The NFL renewed with ABC.

In November 1995, Fox obtained a partial contract for Major League Baseball. (Photo: Ryosuke Yagi/Wikimedia Commons)

At the end of the 1993 season, however, both the NFC and AFC contracts were up for renegotiation, and Fox ultimately outbid CBS for the NFC rights. As a result, Fox executives made a major push to gain affiliates with stronger broadcast signals in major markets, since the network was still using lower-quality UHF frequencies in many markets. This led to a major realignment of affiliations, with stations in markets like Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix, Detroit and Cleveland switching from CBS to Fox.

In November 1995, Fox obtained a partial contract for Major League Baseball, airing 16 Saturday games as well as the 1996 World Series. By the end of the decade, Fox would also agree to air the Cotton Bowl and NASCAR.

Taking risks

Sports and risk-taking in its entertainment programming boosted Fox’s profile, and the network entered the cable market with FX (stylized fX at launch) in 1994 as an interactive network embracing the then-emerging Internet. FX rebranded in 1997 as the network dedicated to Fox’s largest demographic, men 18-49, while also serving as a platform for its expanding sport portfolio and a place to rerun popular Fox series.

Throughout Fox’s early years, several other segments of the media were also quickly expanding. CNN had launched as the first 24-hour news network in 1980, but coverage of the Gulf War in 1990-1991 helped Fox grow into a major news source on par with other national outlets. In 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was officially repealed, leading to an explosion of conservative radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Lastly, the continued deregulation of the media—which was further formalized through the Telecommunications Act of 1996—consolidated the radio market, allowing for more nationally syndicated shows like Limbaugh’s and motivating the major media corporations to further expand, including into cable.

In 1994, NBC spun the news network America’s Talking off from CNBC; it was created by former Republican strategist Roger Ailes, who was president of the financial network at the time. Ailes left America’s Talking under controversy, after allegedly making antisemitic comments to NBC executive David Zaslav, who is now the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Fox News launched Oct. 7, 1996, and has become a significant voice in U.S. politics. (Photo: Steve Bott/Wikimedia Commons)

Ailes was hired by News Corp as founding CEO of Fox News, which launched on Oct. 7, 1996. Three months earlier, NBC had replaced America’s Talking with MSNBC, a collaboration between NBC and technology company Microsoft. MSNBC sought its approach through programming with several conservative commentators, including Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson. MSNBC would not find its identity until after Microsoft divested, becoming the left-leaning alternative to Fox News and abandoning the balance it previously tried to find along the political spectrum.

Unsurprisingly, Murdoch and News Corporation took a more heavy-handed approach, paying cable companies to carry the network. Three days after Fox News launched, Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting, which owned CNN. Because of an antitrust consent decree (in which the government sues a company and the defendant agrees to stop alleged illegal conduct), Time Warner Cable was forced to carry a second news station and selected MSNBC, with News Corp claiming that this broke an agreement to carry Fox News.

Citing the fact that its U.S. headquarters were in New York, and leveraging connections, News Corp convinced Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral administration to pressure Time Warner to carry Fox News. Although Time Warner ultimately won the initial battle, Fox News won the war when Time Warner began carrying Fox News. The ordeal displayed Murdoch’s willingness to leverage his close relationships with the Republican Party to support his media empire.

This relationship is at the core of the seemingly real-life Succession episode currently playing out in Nevada, as Murdoch attempts to rewrite his trust to ensure his more conservative son Lochlan takes over Fox Corporation upon his death and maintains the network’s current place on the political spectrum. Even as the media giant sold off some of its assets in the sale of 21st Century Fox to Disney in 2019, Murdoch retained Fox’s national sports and news entities—including Fox News, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, along with its cable and broadcast networks—as he continues to leverage sports as a battering ram to protect his international media empire.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Ethnic Studies.

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In just a few decades, Fox went from being ‘the fourth network’ airing The Simpsons and baseball to being a leading voice in U.S. politics.

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