A PERSONAL QUEST TO BEAT ALZHEIMER’S

Mohammadali Tabatabaei is on a mission. As a PhD student in the Department of Chemistry, Mohammadali's research is bridging the disciplines of physical chemistry, engineering, and biology to better understand Alzheimer's disease. He is painfully aware of the slow, inexorable progress of the disease in his grandmother. "It has come to a point where she does not recognize her own children anymore," he notes. Mohammadali's grandmother is one of the thirty-six million people worldwide living with Alzheimer's. The World Health Organization predicts this number to triple by 2050. Roughly seven percent of Canadians over the age of sixty-five suffered with this memory-robbing scourge with annual healthcare costs of $5.5 billion. This number is projected to exceed three-quarters of a million by 2031.

When Mohammadali learned that his application for a Ph.D position at Western had been accepted, he jumped at the opportunity to pursue neuro-degenerative diseases and eventually Alzheimer's research. "This has been my first chance to truly help my grandmother," he says. For the past thirty years, scientists have been trying to fill in the gaps in our understanding about the disease. Mohammadali, as a researcher in physical chemistry is attempting to make the biologist's job a tad easier. 

In an Alzheimer's patient's brain, abnormal protein fragments called amyloid-beta clump together, forming plaques between neurons. Plaques prevent neurons from communicating with one another and its eventual progress throughout the whole brain manifests in the loss of memory, speech and motor patterns and eventual death. "If we can isolate individual neurons and their connections, obtain high-resolution images of them, and are able to see the distribution of amyloid-beta on them, we can understand Alzheimer's a bit better," notes Mohammadali. 

Neuronal connections are seemingly random assortments of tangles, akin to a collection of wet hairballs, making it impossible to examine them in an organized fashion. To this end, he has built a particular kind of glass-slide on which he can direct the growth of neuronal connections through specific channels that he has etched onto the glass-slide. 

  Mohammadali describes the process as "taking a three-dimensional world of knots and jumbles and making it a two-dimensional world of order." Onto this two-dimensional world, he applies a sensitive measuring device that can discern chemical signatures at an atomic level enabling him to see the distribution of amyloid-beta at a super-high resolution.

Mohammadali has had to combine his knowledge of physical chemistry, engineering and biology in order to understand how beta-amyloid affects neurons. Whilst a PhD student of physical and analytical chemistry in François Lagugné-Labarthet's laboratory, he frequently collaborates with Dr.Stephen S. G. Ferguson, a biologist in the Molecular Brain Research Group and professor of physiology and pharmacology at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. "I had no background in biology or engineering when I joined Western but the learning experience has been more than amazing," he observes. 

Mohammadali is no stranger to improvisation, collaboration and learning on the go. An avid player of the traditional Iranian percussion instrument Daf, Tabatabaei has given a number of concerts as a solo musician and as a part of a traditional Iranian music ensemble called 'Vasl-e-yar' based in Tehran. "Being a musician, especially as part of a group, has really given me an insight into the collaborative and improvisational nature of any creative endeavour." Here in London, he and his friends have music-night get-togethers where he plays the Daf accompanied by guitar and violins. "Playing the Daf helps me unwind and relax after a busy day at the lab," Mohammadali mentions. 

During his undergraduate studies, Mohammadali came across an online video on neuroscience and its effects on social life. His interest piqued, he started researching and reading more about the subject. He remembers being amazed "to learn about how everyday activities and music can affect your brain at such a fundamental level, but also, how the brain releases chemicals that can impact and modify one's behaviour." Years later, Mohammadali's passion for music and biology remains unabated. While he does plan to pursue a career in research, he hopes to start a music band here in Canada to "spread the beauty of traditional Iranian music."

There might come a time in the near future when Mohammadali's grandmother will be unable to recognize the musician behind the music and when he will only be able to soothe his grandmother's heart with the song of the Daf. He hopes that one day, doctors and biologists can use the fruits of his labor to better understand and tackle Alzheimer's. 

WRESTLING WITH BIG DATA AND A TINY ASSASSIN

Kemi Ola’s research mission is to dethrone the deadliest animal on the planet; the mosquito. Surprised? Consider that these tiny assassins transmit life-threatening diseases, including malaria that collectively kill over one million people every year. With rising cross-border trade, international tourism and global-warming, malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases are reappearing in regions where they had been eradicated and are spreading to new geographic locations including North America.

"I have personally endured the full assault of malarial fever and it is not something I would wish upon anyone," says Kemi. Her perspective is shared by numerous public health professionals who are working with officials, physicians and the public to prevent the rise of mosquito-borne diseases the world over. Ironically, one of the major challenges they face is the overwhelming quantity of available data. To come up with effective health-management plans they often need to combine intuition and on-the-job experience with volumes of information that could fill up hockey rinks. 

"We are woefully inadequate at analyzing such large volumes of data quickly and efficiently," Kemi explains. As a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science and a member of the aptly named INSIGHT group at Western (Human-Centered Informatics & Interactive Visual Interfaces), she is developing software to quickly analyze massive quantities of data and visualize them in a way that intuitively makes sense. 

'Trying to make sense' seems to be a well-worn phrase in Kemi's world. She regularly frequents art galleries and museums, getting inspiration to tackle her own work, that of "converting information through a visual medium that facilitates understanding." 

As a passionate pedagogue, she is aware of the importance of communicating information in a way that is easily understood and assimilated. Apart from being a teaching assistant at Western, a former outreach coordinator for the Department of Computer Science and one of the organizers for this year’s Western Conference on Science Education, Kemi spent a year teaching computer science to undergraduates in Nigeria. She strongly believes in "imparting knowledge but also instilling in students a desire to seek it." As one of Western's Learning Development Fellows, she applies her teaching philosophy to build bridges between the instructor and the student.

In the context of her own research, Kemi is attempting to bridge the distance between human and computer. While computers are capable of handling large amounts of data with a well-defined initial set of conditions, humans are more adept at working with the fuzzier, more ill-defined questions that call for active, on-the-fly decision making. A computer could easily multiply three ten-digit numbers within seconds, but would struggle with deciding whether we should watch a movie on Friday night or Saturday afternoon. The latter is a nebulous, ill-defined problem with numerous conditions that we solve quite easily and on a daily basis. "If an epidemiologist wants to track the outbreak of the West Nile Virus in London, how does she divide tasks between herself and the computer and how does she incorporate previous malarial data in order to deal with the current situation?" questions Kemi who is essentially trying to combine the creative problem-solving dexterity inherent in the human mind with the sheer processing power of computers.

“I have seen friends die unnecessarily because of the lack of public health awareness or resources,” says Kemi.  So, an equally important part of her work is targeted towards conveying public health data to the general population so that they understand the risks and are aware of the steps to take to protect their health.

As a young girl growing up in a traditionally conservative Nigerian society, Kemi shares that people laughed at her unconventional academic and career path focused in the areas of math and computer science. Now, armed with undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer engineering, math and computer science, sneers are replaced with quiet admiration as she equips the medical community and the public with newer, more efficient ways to use public health data in order to make informed decisions and implement better health policies. 

THE AUTOPSY OF AN EXPLOSION

Three and a half billion years ago, an asteroid's impact on the moon's surface created a crater the size of Texas in a matter of seconds. As a Master's student of Geology and Planetary Science, Zach Morse spends his days pouring over high-resolution images obtained from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite to create the most highly detailed map of the Orientale impact crater produced to date, in essence, performing the autopsy of an explosion. The map will enhance his study of the patterns and composition of moon debris that resulted from the explosive impact. "The material that is thrown out of the center of an impact basin forms distinct patterns that are characteristic of the chemical composition and density of rocks at the site of impact," Zach explains.

His detective work could have scientists revising their theory of crater formation. "The pattern of rock emplacement beyond the crater rim around the Orientale Basin suggests that the ejecta blanket may have formed through multiple stages as opposed to the prevailing theory that the material that once filled the vast lunar basins was simply deposited all at once as a single massive wave" he explains. His research could not only point out what the moon is actually made up of, but also reveal how Earth and other planetary bodies formed.

The Moon and other planets may be critical to humanity’s ability to cope with Earth's increasing population, ever-dwindling resources and shrinking habitats. As such, space programs are planning missions to specifically mine water and minerals found on the near side of the moon and within near-Earth asteroids. Zach's detailed mapping of the Orientale Basin, a hitherto un-surveyed part of the moon, will aid scientists and astronauts who may someday travel once again to the lunar surface and explore an untapped region that may contain traces of precious minerals and other resources.

As the president of the graduate student council for the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (cpsx.uwo.ca), Zach is heavily involved in outreach and public education and thoroughly relishes interactions with high-school students. 

"To see and feel their excitement when they get to touch billion-year old rocks and literally hold science in their hands is extremely rewarding and motivating to me as someone who loves planetary science, space exploration and research in general," enthuses Zach. His affection for the subject is palpable. 

For the past fifty years, space exploration and research has been a testament to our technological proficiency, symbolic of mankind's curiosity. But in recent years the field has suffered from a dearth of funding. Case in point, the last time we travelled to the moon was in 1972. The by-products of space research include the GPS, mobile phones, artificial limbs, the mammogram and countless other essential technologies which we use in our daily lives. "Governments and the public need to remember that space research and exploration is a crucial long-term investment for all of our futures with numerous practical benefits," says Zach. He continues, "We are definitely entering a new phase of space-exploration with a renewed interest not only in mining resources and establishing bases on the Moon but also on Mars." 

Conscious of and concerned with the myriad of issues pertaining to law and policy-making which accompany such complicated endeavours, Zach plans to pursue a career in international space policy after completing his Master’s degree at Western University. Combining a background in planetary science research with an interest in public education and outreach, Zach intends to be an active contributor; a pioneer in the coming years of renewed space-exploration and an outreach champion to educate the public about this exciting new time.

Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon and narrowed the gap between the hope and the reality of manned space exploration. Zach Morse is following in his footsteps, merging his curiosity, passion and expertise to bring us back to the Moon with a new level of understanding and ability to explore to the next level. 

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF HISTORY

History may have been made by rulers and won on the battlefield. But it has also been captured by painters, moulded into pottery and carved into intricate sculptures. Historians study these various objects in an attempt to shed some light on the lives and times of people from a bygone era. But what can a chemist teach us about history?

Madalena Kozachuk, a Ph.D student in Dr.T. K. Sham's laboratory at The University of Western Ontario, originally wanted to be a dancer. She chose to follow, in her words,  "a more pragmatic and economically viable path." Now, her work as a chemist at the intersection of science and history is enabling researchers to travel back in time.    

Different combinations of elements such as carbon and hydrogen give rise to a variety of materials such as wood, clay and iron. When a potter in ancient Egypt took a handful of clay, moulded it into a pot and baked it in an oven, chemical properties of those elements were changed. By using sensitive instruments to detect these chemical properties, Madalena can indirectly determine the age of the object, the various materials used and how those materials were combined to create the object. Essentially, she use a synchrotron accelerator to shine a beam on her object and then scans it with a special microscope to generate a three-dimensional image. The beam is a stream of charged particles called electrons that are like tiny little balls. When electrons come into contact with different elements present in the object, they bounce back in patterns that are characteristic of those elements. Her three-dimensional scans help Madalena examine the distribution of those elements across the whole sample. 

One of the more interesting applications of her research is determining ancient trade routes. She explains, “Suppose through chemical analysis I discover that the type of iron used in a medieval English sword was only found in a particular mine in, say, China. In conjunction with existing historical texts, I can deduce the existence of a trade route between China and England during medieval times."

Given the preciousness of historical artifacts, museums and conservation institutions take meticulous care in maintaining them. But to study the history, ensure authenticity or assess possible damage, artifacts need to be sampled. "For my work, all I need sometimes is an exceedingly small piece of the object, barely the size of a tiny fingernail," Madalena says. Her methods ensure that these objects endure for decades to come.

Even within Western's strongly inter-disciplinary research atmosphere, Madalena's degree is a niche combination of chemistry, art history and archaeology. She attributes her ease of seamlessly integrating divergent disciplines to her upbringing. 

"My mother is a professional musician while my father constructs armoured military vehicles," she explains. "So while I am heavily drawn towards the arts, I am equally at home in the world of scientific analysis." During the last year of her undergraduate double major in chemistry and art history here at Western, she worked with Dr.Ronald Martin, a professor of chemistry. She used a variety of X-ray techniques to assess the wear-and-tear of wooden prayer beads, which were obtained from the Thomson Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. "That's when I knew what I wanted to do for my Ph.D," she reminisces.   

For her Ph.D project (co-supervised by Dr.T. K. Sham and Dr.Ronald Martin from Chemistry and Dr.Andrew Nelson from Anthropology), Madalena is currently studying bone and teeth samples from coastal communities in Peru and ivory samples retrieved from Alaska. She elaborates, "The raw material for ivory is essentially the same as teeth. Bromine, an element that we believe could be crucial for cell growth and development, is found in these biological materials. Depending on the animal's habitat (for example, a hippopotamus or an elephant), the distribution and concentration of bromine within teeth indicates the animal’s environment. "I am hoping to determine whether the ivory sample is marine or terrestrial in origin," she explains. Apart from the historical importance of her research, it impacts the academic, museum and border control communities that follow the Ivory trade laws listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

 While spanning academic disciplines has become second nature for Madalena, she also spends her time exploring other extracurriculars. She is a certified Pilates instructor and some time back, released an album of songs with her guitar teacher. "I regularly play and perform covers and original works," she informs.

With the expertise that she is gaining, Madalena plans to pursue research positions at major art institutions across North America and abroad. Currently, she is working with her colleagues to organize a conference, bringing together chemists, curators, art historians, and archaeologists across Canada to explore and present recent advancements in the field of technical art history. "While museums and conservation institutions in Europe have utilized analytical techniques to gain invaluable insight into the history of ancient objects, there is much less awareness of the field on this side of the pond," Madalena elaborates. Till then, Madalena is shining lights as a chemist and telling stories as a historian.

RAIN PREMIUM

Weather, being quite a whole-hearted practitioner of the adage, "the only constant is change" keeps us guessing with altered seasons, varying wind patterns and mood-swings in temperature. For a farmer who is growing corn, an unpredictable downpour of rain or an unforeseen and extreme change in temperature may completely annihilate that year's crop haul. Dr. Rogemar Mamon, a Mathematics & Statistics professor at Western University's department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences, observes that, "what the farmer needs is crop insurance linked to weather-related risk to help tide over these unavoidable and unpredictable circumstances."

A mistimed rainstorm can ruin any hope of a profitable harvest. We are all familiar with home and car insurance. The cost and overall value of the contracts are determined based on the likelihood of particular disasters and accidents, among other risk factors. But what is the price of a contract for which the value depends on the level of rainfall or snow? And, how does one insure against the unpredictable vagaries of weather?

Dr.Mamon has been using mathematics and statistics in conjunction with time series data to model temperature dynamics, rainfall level, for example, so that one can put a price-tag on rain. This kind of modelling provides support for the weather-derivative business covering products in the exchange-traded and over-the-counter markets. While it is extremely difficult to, in his words, "mathematically capture the uncertainty inherent in temperature modelling", Dr.Mamon and his students are using powerful mathematical tools to capture the salient features of randomness, seasonality and weather dynamics to more accurately inform the world of finance and insurance.

Take Alessio Giorgini, a visiting graduate student from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and one of only five graduate students at Sapienza University to win the prestigious ten-thousand Euro Torelli-Fiaccodori scholarship awarded by a private foundation, the Fondazione Roma Sapienza, who under the supervision of Dr.Mamon, recently finished a project in Financial Modelling.

"Based on temperature readings that had been collected around the Toronto Pearson Airport, I developed a mathematical model that could accurately describe future temperature movements in and around that area," clarifies Alessio.      

He hopes that eventually the farmers and, in general, the agriculture sector working with catastrophe-focused insurance companies will use these tools to gain financial protection from the potentially harmful effects of weather by acquiring insurance tailored to their needs. "The world of weather modelling and its associated financial consequences is challenging and unpredictable," says Alessio. Currently working as a pricing analyst in Luxembourg, he looks forward to extending his research over the course of his career.

When traded on exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and transacted privately between two counter-parties, Dr.Mamon reckons that the collective notional value of all kinds of weather-dependent contracts could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. Given the increasing and ever-prevalent repercussions of global warming and climate change, farmers will not be the only ones affected and weather insurance will be vital. For instance, Dr.Mamon pointed out that the Winter Olympics Committee could 'weather-insure' itself against the possible decrease in snowfall and governments of developing countries, through the various development banks, could plan ahead and set aside funds for possible drought insurance.

The pricing and risk management of weather derivatives as well as insurance contracts with option- or derivative-embedded features have certainly provided myriads of employment opportunities for graduate students in financial modelling and related fields. "While this field is relatively young, its applications are numerous," points out Dr.Mamon, and he adds that they offer a chance for a synergy of efforts involving researchers coming from various disciplines such as the mathematical sciences, earth sciences and meteorology. This kind of mathematical modelling is akin to modelling and assessing other types of catastrophes like earthquakes, which can wreak havoc on power grid installations and railway lines; but having the right kind of insurance and coverage can potentially save power and railway companies from economically perilous consequences.

Throughout the ages, weather has been revealed to us in various ways. Writers converse about it through words; painters interpret its vagaries through a spectrum of colour and texture, while musicians convey its undertones with woodwinds and strings. Dr.Rogemar Mamon trains his students to become mathematical artisans, capable of extricating patterns and structures from stochasticity and complexity, and then conveying nature's beauty in the language of mathematics and statistics. Alessio considers Dr.Mamon the master artist. “I was just lucky to have an opportunity to spend some time in his studio,” he says.

A MARATHONER'S GUIDE TO GENETICS

Dr. David Smith, the geneticist, loves running marathons. He has partaken in at least seven over the last four years. Long and arduous, stretching physical, psychological and intellectual boundaries to their limit, they are as pervasive in his personal and professional lives as they are intimidating.

As a genetics professor at Western University's Department of Biology, Dr.Smith delves into the fields of biology and computer science to emerge with the tools and expertise to take decisive steps towards deciphering life's genetic design and close the gap in our understanding of its origins. Genetic blueprints are found in every organism on Earth, tightly coiled and cozily tucked within the billions of cells that make up every living thing from tiny mosquitoes, to sprawling Redwoods, and everything in between. 

In Dr.Smith’s lab, the individual blueprints are translated into a string of letters, representing individual chemicals. Every organism has a distinct collection of letters that biologists refer to as the genome. "An organism's genome is like its very own instruction book containing all the necessary information for it to grow, survive and reproduce," explains Dr.Smith. 

Just like letters combine in different ways to produce poems, limericks, short stories and novels, genome chemicals combine with each other in various patterns resulting in the diversity life we often take for granted. Much of Dr.Smith's work consists 'cataloguing' and 'reading' the genomes of various organisms in order to explain how they came to be 'written' in the first place. 

Dr.Smith first encountered and immediately took to two "weird and eccentric" genomes during his graduate studies which would go on to become the mainstays of his research. The chloroplast and mitochondria are structures that capture energy from sunlight and food respectively and deliver it to cells. While every cell in a living organism has a complete genome, due to a biological quirk, chloroplasts and mitochondria have their own separate 'mini'-genomes. 

 "Mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes have highly peculiar characteristics," says Dr.Smith. It's as if they have been 'written' in a different alphabet or the instruction book is in the form of a medieval poem instead of 21st century novel. 

Dr.Smith's early research findings point to neutrally evolving genomes; that the evolution of chloroplast and mitochondria is not necessarily purposeful but simply happening. This is a fairly radical finding which flies in the face of a more traditional perspective in which evolution is spurred by necessity. It is also the beginning of this marathoner’s opus to contribute to and perhaps even reshape current theories of evolution. 

One such glimpse comes from his study on the genome of a parasite called 'Polytomella'. Polytomella and its ilk cause life-threatening and financially crippling diseases in cattle. They are also responsible for devastating tropical diseases such as sleeping sickness that has increasingly been on the rise in North America due to growing global tourism and more accessible air travel. "I consider these radical genomes as moving targets," remarks Dr.Smith and continues, "with a better understanding of such genomes, we can uncover their weaknesses and design more effective drugs to combat such diseases." His work on these genomes has also enabled him to model billions of years of evolution in the efficiency of his laboratory. Not only can he tell us how have these genomes evolved but, biologically speaking, where they are headed towards.

"Who knows, some of these genomes might hold the secret to renewable sources of biofuels or help us discover medicines that can cure cancer," Dr.Smith notes. He optimistically remarks, "I am certain that if more researchers make a concerted effort to study and chart out these woefully under-explored and under-appreciated blueprints of life, such secrets will be ours for the taking." Is the finish line in sight? Not yet. All in good time.

MEASURING LIFE AND LOVING IT

Dr. Ben Rubin is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Western Ontario. While his graduate education is firmly rooted in forest ecology, forest health monitoring and spatial statistics, Dr. Rubin happens to be exceptionally good in quantifying curiosity. He actually liked math as a kid. His Errol Flynn-esque affinity for the numeric has had him swashbuckling from one equation to another, tackling complex derivatives and tussling with tricky formulae.

"Over the years, the study of biology has grown exponentially with a corresponding need to analyze the flood of data accompanying all that research," says Dr.Rubin. From analyzing the genetic properties of a billion nerve cells in the brain to examining the patterns of bird migration across millions of square miles of migratory paths, graduate students and professors at Western Biology are pushing the mathematical and computational limits of life-science research. While statistics usage has greatly increased over the past few decades, graduate students still approach the field timidly. Possibly symptomatic of the inherently intimidating high-school experience of math, fledging mathophobes eventually bloom into graduate students with a durable aversion to the "sadism of statistics," as one graduate student puts it.

The biologist’s world is one of undulating, pulsating life. Life that breathes creates and kills day in and day out in order to live and survive. For many biologists, the heady romanticism of discovery is marred by the clinical lifelessness of numbers. Students of biology peer, poke and prod at life with their version of a meter-stick; they count cells and weigh tissues, assay hormones and assess memory, track migration distances and determine reaction times. By measuring 'life', they inch closer to understanding it. Readings and numbers obtained from a well-designed and well-executed experiment are an unbiased testament to the researcher's skills. They lend a respectable, dignified air to one's inquisitiveness, a measuring cup to hold the spirit of inquiry. Because quantification is in essence numerical in nature, the biologist's dawn of eureka is often shrouded in mathematic-ese.

"My wife is fluent in five languages,” informs Dr. Rubin. Her fluency, he feels, gives her the ability to traverse the subtleties of thought and culture through the kaleidoscope of various linguistic idiosyncrasies, making her world-view richer and more nuanced. Statistics is Dr.  Rubin’s kaleidoscope, his many-coloured lens, to see the world around him. "It is a mathematical discipline complete with its own rules of grammar and syntax. Here, everyday words like 'average', 'probability' and 'random' have strict context-specific definitions around which whole models   and theories are built," he continues. In the biology researcher's world, life after being investigated, scrutinized and inspected, has its essence distilled into numbers, its rumblings and whispers bottled into lists and tabulated in spreadsheets. Numbers are the tessellating pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and statistics is rearranging those pieces in order to see the bigger picture. 

Dr.Rubin hopes to guide students in harnessing the story-telling properties of these numbers using the language of statistics. The fluency, in this case, begins with asking some very basic and vital questions. 

Whereas numbers simply quantify, statistics quantifies differences and relationships. If two or more groups are different, how big is the difference? How are different variables related to each other? Are the observations due to sheer chance and randomness or are they real differences? How does one account for the error inherent in any sort of measurement? Due to the constraints of time, funding and methodology, scientists often extrapolate the results of a handful of samples to draw conclusions about whole populations. How many samples are actually needed to draw a meaningful conclusion? How does one actually go about randomly choosing samples? How valid are the extrapolation methods? It is the confluence of all these moving parts that resembles a fully functional, working car.

In his time here at Western Biology, Dr.Rubin, as the chief statistics-mechanic, has tended to a lot of broken car-parts. He has been able to observe how people "use, misuse, understand and present statistics," all of which has been especially useful from a pedagogical perspective. "It has definitely made me a better teacher and helped me understand the individual needs more clearly." In his time here, he has given statistical Heimlichs to everyone from full-time amateurs to part-time professionals. While some researchers need a crash-course in statistics 101 from Dr.Rubin, he has definitely had his share of interesting cases. "Sometimes, students and professors will come to me with some really challenging problems that I have no expertise on and I'll usually spend a day or two reading about it and catching up. We then tend to figure out the problem together," he says.

For all his numerical gymnastics, Dr.Rubin is a biologist at heart. While he does teach a graduate course on research hypothesis testing and holds workshops in the use of R, a highly popular and powerful open-source statistical software program, he looks forward to his yearly summer field course in the Adirondak Forest, where he teaches natural history and sampling methods. "After my undergraduate degree in Biology, I pursued a Ph.D in forest ecology. I learnt as much statistics as I could in order to understand and figure out ecology," Dr.Rubin professes and considers himself to be an ecologist who just happens to love statistics. The researcher in him lives vicariously through his meetings with different laboratories in the department. Experimental design and sampling methodologies are inextricably dependent on the kinds of questions researchers want to ask, the incorrect implementation of which can completely invalidate the study’s efforts. From the personal experience of this author, talk to Dr. Ben Rubin before you start a project and you’ll be saving yourself hours and even months of frustration! Apart from guiding and directing traffic, smoothing bumpy landings and being the extra push for the partly-initiated; Dr.Rubin thoroughly enjoys being the academic voyeur. He says, "I get to meet about fifty to seventy students and professors over the course of a year." From his perspective he gets to, "snoop around and be the fly-on-the-wall, learning about all this superb potpourri of research going on in our department." Ultimately, as a statistical Dr. Fixit, Ben Rubin is putting a stethoscope on the numerical heartbeat of life and helping others hear it.

WHAT ARE BUTTERFLIES TELLING US ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING ?

Butterflies have often rescued us when we've been in want of that certain sublimity of expression. As if metaphorical wings would convey a feeling with a little more grace or help float an awkward idea on a cushion of air. Take the familiarity of getting butterflies in the stomach when talking to a crush. Or the majesty of Mohammed Ali's boxing prowess being described as, "he flies like a butterfly, stings like a bee." To mathematicians, weird and unpredictable events are akin to a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico causing a hurricane in the Indian Ocean.

Then there are biologists like Dr.Nusha Keyghobadi. A professor at the University of Western Ontario, she has been studying the tiny diminutive butterfly for at least fifteen years now, trying to fathom the big complex phenomenon of global warming. As an explorer standing at the crossroads of genetics and ecology, she is studying how extreme temperature changes and habitat loss affect butterflies in order to answer a key question: just how well suited is nature and the wildlife around us to cope with the consequences of global warming?

Butterflies can provide crucial eco-services such as pollination. The value of butterfly and insect pollination in general, to Canadian agriculture, has been estimated at $1 billion dollars. Pollination is essential for the survival of plants, which happen to be the primary food source for animals. Indirectly, the humble butterfly supports a range of predators and is a crucial element of the food chain atop which the bigger animals purportedly rule. Butterflies are also considered by many to be important indicators of ecosystem health. The responses of butterflies to environmental changes such as global warming are likely to occur in other insects and wildlife, and drastic falls in butterfly populations could signal a disruption of critical ecosystem services. Given the increasing effects of global warming, that possibility seems closer than ever before.  

Dr.Keyghobadi studies the Rocky Mountain Parnassian (Parnassius smintheus), the most common high altitude butterfly species in Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada. Every year, during the two summer months when the butterflies emerge, colleagues of Dr. Keyghobadi, specifically Dr.Steve Matter (University of Cincinnati) and Dr.Jens Roland (University of Alberta) and their students go out to the field counting their numbers, tracking the distance they fly between and around their habitats and collect the genetic data of these butterflies. The study site is close to the field station run by the BioGeoScience Institute (University of Calgary) which has tracked weather patterns, temperature changes and land area around that region for the past twenty years. "I initially studied this eco-system during my Ph.D at the University of Alberta. Back then, the analysis of multiple data-sets and genetic data wasn't as sophisticated as it is now", observes Dr. Keyghobadi. After taking a long hiatus from her Ph.D research topic and branching into other study areas, she has gone back to her roots armed with newer tools and techniques. Dr.Keyghobadi is also harnessing the power of the young and curious mind. As a part of an online global network of ecology professors teaching landscape genetics, she has been working with a group of graduate students from Canada and North America. Dr.Keyghobadi's latest paper features significant contributions from these students who worked with her as a part of their graduate coursework. "It is important that students have access to knowledge, are aware of pressing global concerns and can acquire expertise in dealing with them."

A major part of Dr.Keyghobadi's research has focused on understanding how habitat loss and declining populations affect the genetic diversity of the Rocky Mountain Parnassian. Mother Nature has regularly thrown a veritable shopping list of monkey-wrenches at the Rocky Mountain Parnassian. Bad weather, disease-causing parasites, irregular food availability, and forest fires have all been on the menu and the Rocky Mountain Parnassian has tasted and sampled them all. The Parnassian's ability to adapt and survive under such unfavourable conditions may be attributed to their genetic diversity. Genes, as blocks of DNA, function as units of information that confer some sort of skill or property to the organism that they are a part of. While some genes may influence the colour patterns of a butterfly's wing, others help the Parnassian tackle extreme heat or cold. For a group of organisms, a myriad collection of genes enables them to cope with and adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions around them and is essential for their continued survival. Too little of it can be harmful and potentially fatal in the long-term. With the loss of raw genetic material, populations lose the ability to adapt to new environmental conditions akin to the majority of a hockey team being out of commission due to injuries. A hockey team with a diverse roster of players and playing strategies would have a better shot at the Stanley Cup compared to a small team with a limited repertoire of players and play strategies. It is this genetic diversity that has enabled the Rocky Mountain Parnassian to successfully tackle, in John Keat's own words, "nature's law, not force". 

In the past few decades however, mankind's activities have introduced extreme environmental variables that have sent the Parnassian population scrambling. The Rocky Mountain Parnassian lives in small clusters scattered amongst a patchwork of high-altitude meadows just above forest tree-lines. Due to rising temperatures, tree-lines have been slowly moving up towards cooler altitudes and encroaching into these meadows. Over the years, this process has slowly fragmented and destroyed the habitats of these butterflies. Additionally, in a stark reminder of the effects of global warming, extreme temperature changes in the Kananaskis winter of 2002-2003 resulted in a severe population collapse of the Rocky Mountain Parnassian with more than sixty-percent mortality. Dr.Keyghobadi and her team compared the Parnassian butterflies using population numbers and genetic information collected from these butterflies in 1995 and 2004-5, two years after the severe population collapse.

What she found is profoundly revealing in two ways. Firstly, there has been no loss of overall genetic diversity within the Parnassian population. The inter-connectedness and short distances between these meadows allow for constant movement between local butterfly clusters. This enables the Parnassian population as a whole to preserve and maintain genetic diversity. The butterfly's movements across the meadows is essential in restoring and maintaining the genetic diversity. That the butterflies have re-established the original genetic diversity after a severe population collapse is a testament to the resilience that is Life. It yearns for balance and at every step attempts to minimize the damage done. Life, however, has its limits and mankind's activities for the past few decades have been straining against that precarious upper limit. The painstaking data on weather patterns and land area that has been collected over the decades points to an increasing trend of habitat erosion and severe temperature changes in the Kananaskis Country region.

It is the close proximity of the meadows that has facilitated migration over small distances enabling the butterflies to restore and maintain genetic diversity. It is highly probably that with increased habitat loss, the distances between meadows would increase. Extreme winters may result in another occurrence of a drastic population collapse. The Parnassian population, unable to cope with these severities, might never repopulate completely and consequently reach the same level of genetic diversity ever gain. 

Dr.Keyghobadi's work is an unerring bellwether for global warming research. But why dedicate one's entire academic career studying butterflies to understand global warming when, for example, the majesty of the polar bear or the dignified regality of the grey wolf has reaped visibly ongoing and concerted efforts to save them and their habitats from global warming? "Polar bears for example, have relatively long life-spans of around thirty years, compared to the butterfly's one. Tracking butterflies is also far more manageable than polar bears who tend to have huge home-ranges. The pattern of declining populations and the loss of habitat is a world-wide phenomenon affecting all species. The study-site in Kananaskis has a perfect combination of factors, enabling us to ask difficult questions in a highly tractable environment", Dr.Keyghobadi explains. 

Essentially, she is asking the same questions on a far more manageable scale, spending less money and resources collecting data and more time analyzing it. Her work with the unassuming, unostentatious Rocky Mountain Parnassian has provided us with front-row seats, showing us what is actually happening and gives us an idea of where we're headed to. Nature is resilient, but resilience has its limits. Think back to our fatigued hockey team. They've been in the game too long, accumulating injuries and the wear and tear. They're down but not out. All they need is a break, a moment or two of respite, some time to recuperate.        

Dr. Keyghobadi and her colleagues are sitting on at least twenty years worth of data with information on the genetic make-up of butterflies, weather patterns and population numbers and they don’t plan to stop collecting these numbers any time soon. Armed with her network of students and newer, more powerful analytical tools, she is sifting through trends and looking for patterns to make us better informed global citizens. Her research is going to be the needle that points North, guiding future generations of scientists to help make this world a better place.

-The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. 

Rabindranath Tagore