Category: Grad School

Book Review: Poisoner’s Handbook

My holiday break is starting to wind down (as evidenced by the Christmas tree that has made its way out to the front lawn to await collection) but thing are just as busy as ever. I spent a large chunk of today applying to internships for the summer, and pitching one of my articles from last semester. We’ll see if I get responses, but for now I feel productive having at least sent out so many emails.

After such a productive morning I treated myself to an afternoon of reading and was able to finish my advisor Deb Blum’s latest book Poisoner’s Handbook. I said back in the fall that I wanted to read her book, and I was lucky enough to win a signed copy at the end of the semester event for UW’s online literary magazine Corkboard (which features the work of some very talented student writers, so you should check it out.)

Poisoner's Handbook coverPoisoner’s Handbook tells the story of New York City’s first chief medical examiner, Charles Norris and famous toxicologist Alexander Gettler. The book is a work of literary journalism that chronicles the rise of toxicology and forensic medicine in the 1920’s and 1930’s covering prohibition and the great depression. I thought the book was well written, and I’m not just saying that because Blum has say over my grades. She does a great job of making chemistry approachable, and I hate chemistry so that is actually a big compliment.

The book is organized with each chapter representing a different poision, with some paragraphs on Norris, Gettler, and the science of toxicology and some paragraphs describing a murder case showing the effects of each chapter’s poison. If anything I would say that because some of the people described in some of the murder cases reappear in other chapters, it can be hard to remember who is who. But even so, that did’t dampen my enjoyment of the book. The structure was easy to follow, and even in moments where I had to think back to remember a character I was never really lost.

Knowing Deb Blum personally there were points where I could actually hear her in my head reading aloud the words on each page. In our literary journalism class she would read us experts from each of the authors we studied so I’ve gotten used to the cadence of her speech. I found it pretty interesting that I could see the same rhythm in her writing, and it made me wonder if I write the way I talk.

Poisoner’s Handbook is the fifth book I’ve read since coming home, and hopefully I’ll be able to finish one more before heading back next week. I am running out of space on my bookshelves at home, but I still love seeing my little library. It makes me feel oddly accomplished.

USGS says the nose knows prominent lake toxins

I wrote this article for my J800 class last semester at the beginning of October. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get it published in any of the local papers when it was still timely. But, the nice thing about having a blog is that I can use it to publish pieces that don’t get picked up elsewhere, so here you go…

A U.S. Geological Survey study has found that cyanotoxins in Midwest lakes emit odors, adding smell to the public’s arsenal against exposure to hazardous aquatic toxins.

Before you enter your local lake, stop and smell the water. A new study shows that lakes in the throes of a toxic algae bloom give off a characteristic scent that can warn people to stay away. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the findings should help the public identify hazardous lakes based on their smell, reducing the instance of cyanotoxin-related illness.
“Cyanotoxins pose the largest hazard to human health during recreational activities, so public health is one of the motivations behind studies of these toxins,” said Jennifer Graham a researcher at the USGS’ Kansas Water Science Center, and lead researcher on the study.
Simply avoiding lakes with algae isn’t a realistic way for residents to stay safe because algae occurs naturally and is not usually harmful. According to Graham, residents need new ways to tell whether specific algae blooms contain toxic compounds. The researchers tested for chemical signatures that indicate the presence of odor, and found that cyanobacteria blooms give the water what Graham describes as a musty smell.
The study showed the odor consistently occurs when toxins are present, but toxins can occur without the odor. According to Graham this makes smell a useful indication that toxins are present, but not something the public can rely on with absolute certainty.
“Smell is something that anybody should be able to use, the human nose is very sensitive to the compounds produced by the cyanobacteria. It is musty and might smell like dirt and so that could be used to evaluate a situation,” said Graham. “From a recreational perspective it is useful because odor gives a cue that there might be something of concern going on in an area.”
Would your nose know?

While Graham maintains that the odors given off by toxic algae blooms are distinctive enough to identify a toxic bloom, some Madison residents have doubts.
University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) sophomore Martin Feehan doesn’t think smell is a reliable way to identify cyanotoxin episodes in Wisconsin’s lakes. Feehan is president of Hoofer Scuba, a recreational group at UW that uses the lakes surrounding campus regularly.
“I think smell could be a good way, but it could also be misleading because the different smells in the lake could come from several sources,” said Feehan. According to Feehan, the decomposition of plant material or fish could easily cause earthy, musty smells at the lakes that could be confused with the toxin scent.
Feehan says participating in Hoofer Scuba has made him aware of cyanotoxins, but the group does not actively look for toxic blooms. Instead, they rely on notices from the Madison Department of Public Health. “We have warnings that go up at the boathouse if there are blooms,” said Feehan.
Todd Miller, a postdoctoral researcher at UW-Madison is wary of encouraging the public to sniff out cyanotoxins.  Miller, who holds a doctorate in marine estuarine environmental sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Trina McMahon since 2007.
“The study is intriguing and I think opens the door to potential new methods for early toxic bloom detection,” said Miller, in an email message. “But there are many sources of the odor compounds the researchers measured, and as the study shows toxins can be present in the water at dangerous levels even when the odor compounds are not present.”
According to Miller, smelling the lakes to identify the presence of toxins is unreliable. “It is probably not reasonable to expect the public to identify toxic or non-toxic waters based on smell,” said Miller. “I tell people to enjoy the lakes, but don’t swallow the water, pay attention to public warning signs by the health department and don’t enter the water if the lakes are closed to recreation.”
Graham says smell is not the only one way that the public should identify potentially toxic blooms, and advocates using multiple means to avoid exposure to cyanotoxins including visual cues (green or red tint to the water or scum floating on the water’s surface) and checking for warning notices before entering a lake.
A persistent problem

Cyanobacteria and the toxins they produce are a problem that has affected Midwest lakes for several years. According to the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network and the UW-Center for Limnology nine beaches in Madison were closed due to cyanotoxins in July 2009, the largest cyanotoxin episode in Wisconsin that year.
According to Graham, cyanobacteria are microorganisms that occur naturally in aquatic ecosystems as part of algae blooms. Some of these blooms contain cyanobacteria, which can create toxic chemical compounds that can be dangerous.
The three main types of toxins are dermatoxins, which cause skin or respiratory reactions after direct contact; hepatotoxins, which are absorbed by the liver and cause gastroenteritis; and neurotoxins, which are absorbed by the central nervous system.
Though cyanobacteria exist naturally in lakes, according to Graham, the toxins they produce become problematic when they occur in increasingly large concentrations. This happens when algae the bacteria thrive on grow rapidly.
“Cyanobacteria blooms are a natural phenomenon, but they can be aggravated by human activities,” said Graham. These activities include land development that causes soil to erode and runoff from farms or landscaping that washes fertilizer and soil into lakes.
According to Graham in addition to testing for odors, this study was the first to quantify the presence of multiple toxins in a single algae bloom. The study evaluated lakes in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Minnesota, chosen because they have long-standing cyanobacteria problems.
Until Next Year

With the outdoor recreational season ending and Midwest residents heading back to land, Graham, Miller and Feehan agree that cyanotoxins remain a pressing issue.
Cyanotoxins are continuously researched. Miller is studying how environmental factors like temperature and pH influence the production of toxins in freshwater lakes, and Graham is working to identify what organisms produce cyanotoxins and why.
“Cyanobacterial blooms are an issue that has been exacerbated by human activities, so it won’t be an easy issue to solve because it is something that has evolved over time,” says Graham. “But, with public education and increased information about what hazards are in natural water bodies the incidents of human illness and animal illness from recreational exposure can really be reduced.”
For water enthusiasts like Hoofer Scuba’s Feehan, research like Miller and Graham’s is a step in the right direction because staying out of the water every time there is a toxic bloom isn’t sustainable. “I understand that the algae is toxic and can cause health problems,” said Feehan. “But it makes people lose out on fishing and other water activities so I think something definitely needs to be done to fix the situation.”
The research paper, “Cyanotoxin mixtures and taste-and-odor compounds in cyanobacterial blooms from the Midwestern United States” was published in the September 2010 issue of Environmental Science and Technology

The Results Are In

Well my first semester of Grad School is officially closed. Grades came out today, and for the first time in my 17 years of schooling, I managed to pull off a 4.0!

When my Dad retired he went back to school to get his Master’s degree and he graduated with a 4.0, so I made a bet with him that I could pull off grades like that too.

I’m glad I didn’t fail at our bet in my first semester, that would have been a disappointment. I still have three to go, but at least I’m starting off in great shape to have a GPA I can be proud of. Now I can turn my attention to getting ready for school to start again in mid-January.

Book Review: What Is The What?

While I was snowbound I read Dave Eggers’ What is the What. I’d read his book Zeitoun for J669 this past semester, and I’d heard a lot of good things about What is the What so I decided to check it out for myself. Ultimately I liked Zeitoun more, but I do think that What is the What is a great read, especially for someone who knows little about the civil war in the Sudan.

whatThe novel tells the story of Valentino Archak Deng’s life, (note: he is a real person) from the years before Sudan’s civil war reached the southern region where he lived – which were prosperous and happy, to his experiences after he fled his village and left his family (whom he believed were dead) to seek refuge in Ethiopia and Kenya, before being chosen to be resettled in America.

What is the What is a novel, because Eggers was forced to reconstruct scenes based on Deng’s memory of events that began when he was only 7 years old when he fled his home in the Sudan and became one of the Lost Boys. The book flips back and forth between Deng’s present life (at 27) and his childhood. Having to go back 20 years, Deng couldn’t remember all the details that would have been necessary to write the book as is. But don’t let the novel status fool you, What is the What is a true story. I have a lot of faith in Eggers as a writer, so I’m confident that the events described are as close as can be to the real events experienced by Deng.

I learned a lot about African history and the civil wars and conflicts that have plagued the continent in my J620 international communication class, but I still wouldn’t say I’m well informed. Reading What is the What solidified my opinion that the majority of conflicts are incredibly complex politically, economically, and socially, which few clear cut solutions.

The writing is clear cut and easy to understand, because Eggers does a really good job at explaining complex situations in a concise and comprehendible way. The sheer volume of death and violence witnessed by Deng and the other children of southern Sudan is rattling and reading this book has certainly made me want to find out more about what the current situation is in Sudan.

Book Review: Devil in the White City

Yesterday I spend five hours writing my final paper for J669. It still needs some work but I’m very happy to have a first draft, at 12 pages (3,955 words) it is a relief that all I have left to do is edit it. The assignment was to read a literary journalism book and then write a report on it, critiquing its success.

devilI chose to read Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City. Although it came out in 2004, I actually hadn’t heard of it until I moved out to Wisconsin. I guess because the book is set in Chicago and Madison has a close proximity to the Windy City it is more popular out here. Overall I really liked the book, but I did sort of question whether or not it should fit into the category of journalism.

The book brings together two stories, the architects designing the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the serial killer H. H. Holmes who lured women away from the fair and killed them in his hotel just outside of Chicago. The stories do go together, but there is far more factual evidence for the actions of the architects and the events leading up to the fair, than there is a record of Holmes actions, because after all what kind of killer would leave evidence of his crimes to public record.

The reason that I’m not sure Devil in the White City should count as journalism is because Larson recreates some of the murders committed by Holmes in great detail, including what the victims were thinking at the time. There is no way Larson could have known what they were thinking, certainly not in a way that could be backed up by concrete evidence like letters or a journal. The recreation of scenes in this way is my biggest problem with the book.

Other than that, I enjoyed the book. I thought the amount of detail that Larson was able to dig up regarding the fair was pretty incredible. I loved learning the background to things that I hadn’t known before, like that Walt Disney’s father was a carpenter at the fair (which probably inspired Disney World,) or that the Ferris Wheel was developed to trump the Eiffel Tower.

I thought it was very compelling for a historical account, but then again adding a few gristly murders can go a long way to sucking in a reader (especially one like me who loves a good murder mystery.)

Fun fact: the book is going to be made into a movie staring Leonardo DiCaprio as Holmes, which I think has the potential to be a pretty good film (if it actually gets made that is.)