The BioBus Daily News

Dr. Ben and I had a wonderful time in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois!  On Monday, Ben was interviewed live on morning television for the local news channel.  Today we taught eight classes at Leal Elementary school, where Ben’s brother Alex attended classes as a kid!  After that, we headed over to Countryside School in Champaign where we saw almost 60 kids.  We spent all day looking at Daphnia and talking about the energy cycle / food chain.  We had some really nice sun and made a lot of electricity in our solar panels!

Now we are headed back East, where we will make a stop at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and again at Farber Custom Coach in Columbus, OH before heading to a school in Akron on Thursday.  We are looking forward to getting some new equipment for interior improvements to the bus from the generous folks at Farber.  For now, though, it’s the open roads of Southern Indiana, and travelling always makes me wax poetic..

The highway stretches before us like an artery in this great organism called America, trucks and cells passing silently in the night.  The nation – the world, even – is like some living, breathing beast; each person within is but a single piece of the creature.  Each cell has its job to do.  Liver cells, kidney cells – these remain stationary, performing their function time and time again.  But blood cells, lymph cells, and other types of motile cells take to the road, moving through the highways of the organ systems, transmitting goods, food, supplies, nutrients.  The neural pathways connect us almost instantaneously over great distances, keeping us in touch with friends and family and allowing business to occur despite spacial differences.  The lack of a centralized ” brain” does not prevent our world from functioning – indeed, it gives us strength.  We are many brains and we are one; with redundancy upon systemic redundancy, our survival is ensured.

The study of life always amazes me.  The parallels that can be drawn, from inorganic molecules all the way up to the most complex animals, seem infinite in either direction.  Just as you and I have organs in our bodies, every single cell within those organs has organelles of its own.  Those organelles, in turn, are made up of different types of specialized molecular structures, each of which is made up of unique atomic structures.  Consider a city as a living thing – each factory, each home, each school and office building and grocery store is an organ.  Those organs are made up of living cells.  And just as the cells within our bodies create extracellular materials with which to work, we create the buildings and tools that allow us to function as a society.  There are so many levels of life.

When one paints a picture of life with this broad view in mind, it is difficult not to love and respect all living things.  As I said today to the students at Leal, all living things depend on the other.  Your kidneys can’t function when your liver fails, and your heart can’t pump if your lungs aren’t working.  When the deserts flood the rainforests dry up, and even the insects wouldn’t be happy without the spiders that eat them.  We are all part of a whole; mutual respect is necessary.

R.

About to head back to the Orpheum for our second day there, but I wanted to share this cool picture. Virginia, one of the Visiting Scientists helping us on the BioBus in Urbana, took it yesterday. It is a crustacean that we found in our container of lake water. Can any one identify this whiskery wanderer? Those are eggs on its back. (Hint – it only has one, like the creature Odysseus fought on his way home.)

It’s official – just saw on NY1 that this scruffy scientist is NY1′s New Yorker of the Week. I’ve been on the phone with excited New Yorkers for the past 2 hours solid, ever since the segment aired.

Ryan, BioBus High School Intern

Filming took place at the Belmont Library in the Bronx this past Wednesday afternoon. The event represented exactly why I started the BioBus – bringing scientists, educators, and the public together around exciting science. The BioBus pulled up in front of the library, and I, along with 6 volunteers ranging from a middle-school student to a retired member of the New York Microscopical Society, setup our microscopes. Then, along with  a hundred or so library patrons and community members, we proceeded to have ourselves a grand time exploring the microscopic world around us. By the end of the day, after going a full 90 minutes longer than scheduled, we packed up, euphoric. I think the most important thing the NY1 piece shows is how much fun everyone was having!

Mosquito Larva

Again and again I am struck by the excitement ordinary people have when given the chance to use their own hands in the search for knowledge. Equally impressive is the comraderie it engenders with their fellow explorers. Who knew a mosquito larva could be so beautiful and interesting to look at? One of the highlights of the day came when two students started eagerly searching through the grass for bugs and rocks to look at with the microscope, having realized that amazing things are oft hidden in the most unexpected places.

There are literally hundreds of folks to thank for getting the BioBus to this milestone, including many of you who are reading this post. But today special thanks goes out to Martin Halla, BioBus Volunteer Web Developer, and Justin Yuen, BioBus Volunteer Web Designer. Forgoing food and sleep, they rolled out our new website in time for the NY1 segment. I take full responsibility for it still being a bit rough around the edges – but it is a big improvement over our old site, and, since it is based on Word Press, will be much easier to keep current. Thank you Justin and Martin.

And remember: food + music + biobus = fun.

Please vote for the BioBus and help other BioBus supporters vote too! You know, co-workers, family, roommates, insect larvae, microorganisms, etc. Tuesday at midnight is the deadline, and we’re hanging by a hair to second place in the semi-final round for the $10,000. I don’t want to lose it now that we’ve done so well all week! Thank you for everyone who has already voted and helped spread the word – the final round will be the last week of July (if we make it) and then we will need you to vote one last time.

In other news, we had a great time at Solar One’s CitySol on Sunday. We had many visitors, mostly young ones, and the New York Microscopical Society (NYMS) also joined us with some of their microscopes. We even managed to fish some zooplankton out of the East River – who knew anything was still alive in there!! Though nothing compared with the turtle that Colin from Solar One dredged up! I forgot my camera on the BioBus today, but I will post photos soon.