This video is one of the many “trophies” posted on 419eater.com, a website that sees its purpose as exposing and shaming perpetuators of the “Nigerian 419 scam,” in which an individual receives an email informing them of a large amount of unclaimed money that can only be accessed with the payment of an advance fee.  Members of the site, who call themselves “scambaiters,” obtain their trophies by pretending to fall for a scammer’s story. Through an extensive game of cat-and-mouse, they convince the scammer to provide proof that he or she is a real person by sending a very specific, usually humiliating, photo or video.

Nearly all of the images collected in 419eater.com’s “Trophy Room” depict black men, and some women, holding self-ridiculing signs or performing demeaning acts. One image shows a young black woman holding a sign that reads, “I will do everything that I am asked.”

This striking image inspired the title of Lisa Nakamura’s talk for the Art History and Communication Studies (AHCS) Speaker Series, delivered on March 14: “‘I Will Do Everything That I am Asked’: Spambaiting, Dogshaming, and the Racial Violence of Social Media.”

Nakamura, a professor in the American Cultures department and the Screen Arts and Cultures department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, views the images on “scambaiting” sites, like 419eater.com, as digital-age expressions of racial violence.

In contrast, users view these sites as enclaves of vigilante justice. 419eater.com even goes out of its way to state that scambaiters do not target particular races or nationalities, but simply respond to whatever scam emails they receive.  They estimate on their website that over 50 per cent of these scams originate from Western and Southern Africa.

The “Nigerian 419 scam,” a version of the centuries-old “Spanish prisoner” scam, was popularized in Nigeria in the 1990s. The fraudsters, motivated by political and economic unrest and a sense of entitlement to Western wealth siphoned out of colonial Africa, brought this scheme to the digital age. Today, the scam has gained worldwide notoriety, with perpetrators all over the world using outlandish tales of ousted politicians or deposed princes to con around $3 million a year out of their victims.

Despite the global nature of the scam, the images posted on scambaiting websites retain a racial dimension. Nakamura, who studies racial constructs online, noted that some images mirror primitive tableaus of “exotic” cultures, which were once used to illustrate ads and product labels. Other images explicitly degrade the scammer through acts of primitivism. They reduce cybercriminals to “professional savages,” performing for Western audiences as colonized people once did at exhibits and World Fairs in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Nakamura placed the images in the context of a larger culture of “digital pillory,” a form of public shaming that makes use of the internet’s inclination towards visual humour, as well as its reach and permanence. She pointed out a variety of trends – some harmless, some not – that have made viral rounds, including dogshaming, slut shaming, body shaming, and even child shaming.

In a world where individuals communicate online by exchanging funny images, memes like this become rhetorical tools, which reinforce social attitudes. Yet, users who see scambaiting images on meme-sharing sites, like Reddit, often fail to see the images as racist. By placing these images in an intentionally humourous context, Nakamura noted, viewers are primed to see the images as funny. Even as the internet becomes a central means for interaction, it is still often viewed as virtual in the purest sense; that is, what appears on the internet is not necessarily real. However, in a society with increasing dependence on this digital method of communication, anything represented online has very real ramifications offline.

While the internet can be used to educate and inform, Nakamura concluded, “maybe some memes should die.” She ended the discussion on a positive note, however, remarking that memes can also be used to challenge attitudes. In one forum, for example, a user responded to a scambaiting meme with another meme: an animated gif of a child shouting, “That’s racist!”

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Robert Zatorre is a professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery. He runs the Auditory Processing Laboratory at the Montreal Neurological Institute and is co-director of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research. His lab focuses on cognitive processes involving the auditory system, particularly those relevant to music.

When he first started studying music, Zatorre fought to convince others that his work was valid. “The scientific community was not always completely enthusiastic,” he remembered. “They would reject it out of hand if you put ‘music’ in the title.  They would say it’s fluffy, it’s not hard science.”

Over the years, interest in the field has snowballed. Music casts a whole new light on memory, learning, motor performance, emotion – according to Zatorre, “almost all of the cognitive functions that we think of as representative of being human.”

Musicians have also become more open to a scientific take on their art. “It took a couple of decades,” he said, “but now I give a lot of lectures to musicians at musical festivals, in music departments, and so on.”

Despite burgeoning interest in the field, Zatorre, like many scientists doing basic research, still has battles to fight. When the Quebec government cuts $14.8 million from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT) in the next fiscal year, Zatorre will be left in the lurch. He and his colleagues have a FRQNT-backed project, but with a 15 per cent reduction in funds, he’s not sure how he’s going to pay all his staff.

Meanwhile, health researchers across the province saw their proposed cuts altered from $10 million to $2 million after launching an ad campaign featuring a woman fighting ovarian cancer. Zatorre said,“They’re going out and finding a cure for cancer –  that’s an easy sell.”

Curiosity-driven research is harder to justify, making it much more difficult to receive funding. Zatorre recalled being asked point-blank: “Why aren’t you doing something important, like curing Alzheimer’s?” Basic research, he responded, provides a crucial foundation for applied research. “When we do an experiment that makes us understand the connection between the auditory [system] and the motor system, that research gives very good background for people using musical interventions for Parkinson’s. That’s a typical result of basic science.”

Zatorre noted that applied researchers are just as supportive of basic research. “It shouldn’t be a zero sum game,” he said. “Scientists are united on this. I understand that there are constraints, but you don’t get something for nothing, either.” The funding agencies, it seems, have yet to realize the importance of the synergy between applied and basic research.

On languages and learning 

Very few places flow seamlessly between languages the way Montreal does. With many growing up in bilingual homes, children in Montreal are naturally immersed in the city’s polyglot environment. Fred Genesee, a professor in the Department of Psychology, draws the city into his research by studying second language acquisition in preschool and school-aged children.

Genesee’s work has been influential in debunking the myth that learning a second language can hinder a child’s educational progress. On the contrary, children simultaneously learning two languages reach the same developmental milestones – speech segmenting, babbling, and first words – at the same age as monolingual children. “It’s not a challenge to the children,” Genesee said. “The challenge is for the parents to provide enough [linguistic]input.”

In fact, Genesee pointed out that there are cognitive advantages to learning two languages. Bilinguals tend to be better at executive functions, processes which control the flow of attention for decision-making and everyday problem-solving. Children who learn two languages constantly control which language they use. Genesee called it a kind of “mental calisthenics.”

These advantages carry into adulthood as well. In bilingual people who develop Alzheimer’s disease, the onset of the disease is delayed compared to monolinguals.  Bilinguals are also less likely to suffer from dementia and age-related cognitive decline.

Canada is a bilingual country, and immersion programs have been offered in schools since 1965; however, some of these programs still suffer from the misconception that bilingual language acquisition may delay progress. In addition, immersion programs don’t always provide the same range of resources as regular schools.  As a result, children who are struggling in school are often discouraged from participating in immersion programs.

Genesee sees this as a serious ethical concern.  “In a sense, these programs can become elitist,” he noted, adding that “all kids should have access to these programs and discouraging kids that might struggle in them is exclusionary. You’re potentially depriving them of skills they need later in life.” Conversely, students who struggle in math are not discouraged from learning math – it’s a skill they need to function in the world.

With globalization, bilingualism is more valuable than ever. In areas outside North America, English immersion is in demand, and many schools use the immersion programs initiated here in Canada as models. “If you know French and you learn English, your possibilities explode,” Genesee reflected. “You have far more access if you’re bilingual.”

On research in the age of the internet

Cognitive training tools, brain games, cognitive exercises: call them what you will, personalized online games that supposedly make you smarter have grown rapidly in popularity as computers have become ubiquitous in our society. Lumosity, arguably the best-known of these, calls upon its users to “harness [their] brain’s neuroplasticity and train [their] way to a brighter life.” But these cognitive tools are used in a slightly different way in the Prevention of Neurodegenerative Diseases in Everyone at Risk (PONDER) initiative currently underway at the McGill Centre for Studies in Aging, under the guidance of Jens Pruessner.

In an interview with The Daily, Pruessner defined PONDER as “a cognitive training program that…[allows people] to train in areas of cognition that have been shown to benefit from routine exercising and repeated training.” However, it is also a research project that makes use of the users’ results to analyze the changes in cognitive data over time, in hopes that this will identify variables related to age-related disease. Eventually this may aid in the prevention of disease onset, though Pruessner says that at this point, the timespan for such developments is not clear.

The research conducted through PONDER is targeted at adults who are forty to sixty years old, and while the online interface allows the project a broad reach, it also introduces unique challenges, for example, the difficulty of accurately identifying an individual’s age from behind a screen. The researcher must rely on the information the subject provides.  This is why Pruessner emphasizes that the cognitive training tools are available to all. If the program was restricted to a certain demographic,  the scientific controls of the experiment could be compromised, by causing, as Pruessner told The Daily, “people [to] claim to be forty and over even though they’re not.”

This is one example of the challenges related to the control elements of the experiment. Pruessner also mentioned other typically controlled aspects of experiments that are made more difficult through an online interface, such as testing environment and time of day. On using this online interface for conducting an experiment, especially in an age of increasing technological literacy, Pruessner noted that “it’s attractive to think of the amount of time and resources you can save,” but stressed the importance of finding “a good question that can be answered with these types of tools.”

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The subject matter will inevitably prompt audiences to reevaluate their views of mental illness and medication. But how much of the movie is true to life, and how much is dramatic hyperbole?

The film starts with a vivid, sympathetic portrait of depression. As Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), welcomes her husband, Martin Taylor (Channing Tatum) home from prison, she falls into a state of despair. She describes her feelings as a “poisonous fog,” which saps her strength, leaving her unable to work or concentrate, and deprived of her former joys.

After she deliberately slams her car into a wall, she begins a course of therapy and antidepressants with Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law). She reacts poorly to the medication, and asks to try an experimental new drug. Things take a turn for the worse, and Banks desperately tries to salvage his integrity and his career.

“You are a victim of circumstance and of biology,” Banks tells Emily. In Canada, 8 per cent of the population will experience depression sometime in their lives. Often, it can be traced back to a specific trigger. In other cases, it seems to come out of nowhere. Dr. Perry Adler, a clinical psychologist at the Herzl Family Practice Centre of the Jewish General Hospital, compared the emergence of depression in a person with Chinese water torture. “Each individual drop is innocuous,” he said in an interview with The Daily. “A sad event here, a betrayal there. Over a period of years, it adds up.”
Pharmaceutical companies tend to highlight the biological underpinnings of the disease. In commercials and websites, they give equal weight to physical and emotional symptoms, and frame the disease in terms of chemical imbalances.

These same companies have a clear incentive to emphasize the biology, but this view may have another benefit. Lingering stigmas – that depression is a sign of weakness, that the victim is somehow to blame – leave many sufferers unwilling to seek treatment. A biochemical account can help people accept depression as a treatable medical condition, on par with heart disease or diabetes.

However, chemical imbalances are not the whole story. People with depression have less neural plasticity, which can be caused by exposure to stress. As a result, they have trouble forming chemical connections in brain regions that process positive emotions. Antidepressants can help boost plasticity, but ‘the gold standard’ for treatment combines antidepressants with what Dr. Adler calls “talk therapy.” Through the help of a trained professional, patients can learn new coping strategies that help reestablish some of those positive links. Without this extra step, Adler says, many patients relapse when they stop taking antidepressants.

Non-pharmaceutical treatments have also had some success at treating major depression. Dr. Marcelo Berlim, a psychiatrist at the Douglas Institute, is also the director of the Neuromodulation Research Clinic. Neuromodulation encompasses several techniques that deliver controlled electric or magnetic pulses that can either stimulate or inhibit key areas of the brain. Like antidepressants, these new treatments are not cure-alls, but Dr. Berlim believes the results are promising.

At McGill, students can seek treatment for depression at McGill Mental Health Services (MMHS). While MMHS offers both short-term therapy and medication, it remains cautious of prescribing antidepressants to students. The former director of MMHS, Dr. Norman Hoffman, recommends caution when dealing with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants, which increase the level of serotonin in the brain. In a set of recommendations for the Canadian Organization of University and College Health, closely reproduced on the MMHS website, he states that while SSRIs are effective in treating major depression, this diagnosis is rare among young adults. Instead, university-age students experience a range of depressive states, which are liable to change. The effects of SSRIs have not been well documented among young adults. Studies have shown that adolescent and young adult brains are still developing, so hasty interference with pharmaceuticals may actually leave youths more vulnerable to depression later in life. Hoffman believes that labeling depression as purely “biological” is misleading. “While it is important to continue to destigmatize mental illness,” Hoffman believes that “this is best done by helping individuals deal with their emotional difficulties and needs rather than by labelling them.”
Still, pharmaceuticals remain deeply ingrained in psychiatric practice, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. In Side Effects. the psychiatrist Dr. Banks plays up a more insidious relationship between doctors and ‘big pharma’. In between writing prescriptions for his wife and lunching with pharmaceutical representatives, Banks rakes in money conducting clinical trials for drug companies. “Everyone takes them,” he says of pills. “They just make it easier to be who you are.”

The pill culture portrayed in the film is undoubtedly exaggerated for dramatic effect. “If someone said, ‘I’m sad because the Canadiens lost,’” Dr. Berlim commented, “and the doctor gave him a pill, that would be malpractice.”

While the events in Side Effects may not be the norm, they tell a compelling cautionary tale. “I tend to mistrust doctors who say ‘I’ll do what I want, [the pharmaceutical companies] won’t influence me.’” Dr. Berlim noted. But, “the idea is not to bash the industry. Doctors should be patient advocates. You’ve been trusted to offer guidance and you’re doing the best you can with the least bias that you can. The doctor should be someone who tries to be independent and skeptical.”

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Einstein believed in the ideal of science, in the unbending search for truth with a “deep conviction of the rationality of the universe.” Inherent in his beautiful, almost spiritual portrait of scientific inquiry is a wall, a division between ‘us’ and ‘them’, between scientists and the rest of the world.

But Einstein’s vision is never quite what we see on the ground.  The pursuit of science does not exist in isolation. Whatever gaps in understanding exist between the vanguards of knowledge and its consumers, the advancement of science has always been tightly and irrevocably intertwined with the impetus of society. There is no determining where one ends and the other begins.

1844, London, England
An evolving world

Robert Chambers, publisher and amateur geologist, anonymously publishes a book titled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. The book suggests that the world as we know it, rather than being the result of intervention by a divine creator, is the product of “transmutation” resulting from natural forces. The book is promptly lambasted by scientists and clergy, who claim that it is rife with scientific errors, wholly speculative, and carries more than a whiff of foreign French materialism.

But the book is a must-read in Victorian parlors. Popular science is in vogue, and while scientists are leery of popular publications blurring the lines between science and pseudoscience, the public is hungry for a new world view. When Vestiges is published, the gentry are suddenly entertaining what were recently considered radical ideas: atheism, materialism, and science subsuming the authority of the Anglican Church.

Some are fearful of the consequences. “I can see nothing but ruin and confusion in such a creed,” geologist Adam Sedgwick writes of Vestiges in 1850. “If current in society, it will undermine the whole moral and social fabric, and inevitably will bring discord and deadly mischief in its train.” 15 years later, Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, a more rigorous exposition of evolutionary theory. Vestiges paved his way, laying groundwork for the public to accept his portrait of humanity as the product of an indifferent natural world.

The consequences of these ideas reach into the next century.  Science is no longer a spectator’s sport –  it is being used to redraw the world.  In 1912, the First International Eugenics Conference is held in London.  In 1932, Aldous Huxley paints frightening visions of human genetics in the grasp of a technocratic state in his book Brave New World.  The last International Eugenics Conference is held in 1933, just before the Nazi Party rises to power in Germany.

1939, Long Island, New York
Keep calm and do science

Following decades of social and economic upheaval, world powers find themselves drawn into another world war. Over the past few years, Nazi Germany has been fostering ties with eugenicists in the United States, whose own forays into Social Darwinism resulted in the forced sterilization of thousands of women. Using pseudoscientific rhetoric, the Nazis garnered support for their campaign of “racial hygiene.”   Once, wars were fought in the names of gods and kings.  Now, they are fought under the flag of science.

Meanwhile, Albert Einstein signs a letter to President Roosevelt, one he would later regret.  “It may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated….This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs.”

His letter recommends continued research into the new substance, and ends with the ominous suggestion that Germany is already attempting to harness the element for themselves.

Roosevelt complies with the scientist’s request, although it takes another three years of convincing before the Manhattan Project is established.  Einstein never shakes a sense of liability for the outcome.  “I made one great mistake in my life,” he later admits, “when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made.”

Despite his regrets, Einstein acknowledges that the arms race necessitated the development of an Allied bomb. The dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 precipitates four decades of technological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. In between the witch-hunts and the fear of the Cold War, both East and West put their trust in the transformative power of science to gain a foothold over the enemy.

1962, New York City, New York
The right to know

Now deep into the Cold War era, this decade will see the invention of the artificial heart, the development of string theory, and the first man to walk on the moon.

In 1962, the New Yorker publishes an anecdote of an imaginary American town.  A sweet, pastoral vision is ravaged by death and illness, heralded by the mysterious disappearance of the birds.  “The people had done it themselves,” writes author and biologist Rachel Carson.

Two more installments of Carson’s work would be published in the New Yorker that summer, while the full book, Silent Spring, would be published in the fall.  Through extensive research and powerful rhetoric, Carson traces the devastating consequences of pesticide overuse.  While she doesn’t argue for the complete eradication of pesticides, she does furnish a quote from Jean Rostand: “The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.”

When the book becomes a hit, the chemical industry stages a massive backlash. It levels attacks against Carson’s credentials and her character, but to no avail. Carson’s book had exposed an ugly side to scientific progress, and in its wake, the United States government establishes the Environmental Protection Agency, and eventually bans the insecticide DDT from use in the U.S.

Silent Spring also launches the modern environmental movement. The movement champions the “balance of nature,” urging humans to live harmoniously with the natural environment rather than trying to control it.  Despite having roots in the environmental sciences, the movement harbours a deep mistrust for advances in science and technology. It was science, after all, that brought on our present environmental woes.

2009, Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia
Fragile trust

In 1999, Benny Haerlin and Doug Parr of Greenpeace contend that “The relationship between the scientific community and the general public has never been worse in living memory.”  A decade later, that relationship plummets to a new low.  A hacker attacks a server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), releasing thousands of emails exchanged between climate scientists. Extracting quotes from the missives, the blogosphere explodes with ‘proof’ that climate change is a scientific conspiracy. They accused the researchers of colluding to hide evidence that anthropogenic climate change does not exist.  The scandal is dubbed “Climategate.”

Over the following months, scientists at the CRU receive death threats. The controversy threatens to stall the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The scientific community defends its colleagues, stating that the scandal was spurred by a small, vocal minority. Several independent inquiries clear the researchers of any wrongdoing, but the damage is already done.

The scandal demonstrates a new change in the way science is portrayed to the public.  The damning emails were first released on climate-skeptic blogs, and spread rapidly to mainstream outlets.  New social media give audiences fast, unparalleled access to groundbreaking science, “but we don’t have good filters for social media yet,” says Dr. Renée Sieber, an assistant professor with the McGill School of Environment. “We’re in this intermediate space where we can’t tell the good from the bad, we can’t tell the wheat from the chaff.”

2013, worldwide
Where to next?

Like Victorian audiences of the past, the public is hungry for science. But science is not just a curiosity confined to French salons or English parlors. Nor is it simply a tool or weapon for governments to wield against one another. We know from experience what a profound and often direct impact science and its application have on our lives, and today’s audiences demand to know what that impact will be.

Science has a strange sort of authority on this front. Its unbiased objectivity is well placed to find “truth,” as Einstein envisioned it, but it remains ill-suited for telling people how to act. Part of the problem, Sieber and others argue, is a lack of scientific literacy among lay audiences. Some of the blame for this rests on the science establishment. The academic system that provides tenure and prestige does not reward researchers for taking time to educate the public. Thus, the chaff becomes more prominent in the media, with few means to filter it out, further eroding public appreciation for good science.

The other problem is uncertainty. Science favours healthy skepticism as a crucial component of objectivity. In a 1996 Commentary to Nature, John Ziman of the University of Bristol wrote, “The complex fabric of society is held together by trust in [sciences’] objectivity, exercised openly by scientific experts.” At the same time, this skepticism can leave scientists vulnerable to critics who are bent on maintaining their own preconceptions. Yet, any knee-jerk attempt by scientists to squelch uncertainty is met, in its own turn, with skepticism from the public at large.

For scientists to maintain public trust, it will not be enough to attempt to spin certainties out of the unknown. Instead, there is a growing movement to engage the public in the scientific process, through citizen science initiatives, like GalaxyZoo and Fold.It. Active and ongoing debate between scientists and the public is another avenue for ‘democratizing’ science, as are hands-on, community-level projects.

The past centuries of scientific progress have seen people act both as consumers of science and as disgruntled witnesses to its outcomes. But the future will see them converted to producers of science, and acknowledged players in the pursuit of knowledge.

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As of February 1, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 615 human cases of H5N1 worldwide. Of those infected, 364 died. The virus does not pass easily between humans, but the death rate has raised fears within the scientific and medical community that if it were to become easily transmissable, avian flu could spark a global pandemic worse than the 1918 Spanish flu.

In late 2011, the furor over avian flu took a turn. Two studies, one led by Dr. Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and another lead by Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reported lab-made variants of H5N1 that were readily transmissible in mammals. The U.S. government flagged the work as “dual use,” signifying that the findings could be used not only for academic progress, but also for the more sinister purpose of developing bioterrorist weapons. The public went into uproar, with some arguing that the research should never have been done.

In the midst of the controversy surrounding this label, Fouchier, Kawaoka, and 37 other scientists announced a voluntary moratorium on H5N1 research. “We recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks,” they wrote last January.

A year later, the scientists declared that the goals of the moratorium had been met, citing policy reviews conducted in Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S., as well as technical consultations hosted by WHO and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These consultations were carried out largely by scientists in conjunction with government representatives, with the aim of alleviating public fears.

Whether their goal to increase public support was successful is debatable; the decision to continue the research was met with controversy. Proponents of the work fear that without continued study, an H5N1 pandemic could catch us unprepared. Detractors fear that developing mutant strains with added capabilities could actually increase the risk of a pandemic, should the new virus escape.

For some, these worries are exaggerated. “The chances of one of these viruses coming out of these labs is relatively unlikely,” Dr. Brian Ward, associate professor at McGill’s Centre for the Study of Host Resistance, told The Daily. To minimize the risk, WHO recommends enhanced biosafety level 3 (BSL-3+) in labs working with the virus. In Canada, only labs with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4), which include air locked entries and shower exits, are permitted to work with H5N1.

Ward conceded that with “human nature being what it is, the more labs doing this, the more likely someone […] could have access to these things and release them intentionally.”  But, as long as the number of labs doing this work is limited, the risk is minimal. “There are several labs that work with smallpox [for example], and we haven’t had any evil person releasing smallpox.”

In fact, the last fatal case of smallpox, in 1978, was the result of an accidental leak from a research lab. After that, a research moratorium on wild-type smallpox was imposed. Every stock of the virus was destroyed or transferred to two BSL-4 labs: one in the United States and one in Russia. The final stocks were meant to be destroyed decades ago, but both the U.S and Russia demurred. In 2011, the international community agreed that the risks inherent in smallpox research outweighed the benefits and again called for the virus to be destroyed. Despite this pressure, these stocks remain.

The history of smallpox makes the threat easy to assess. In the case of avian flu, we’re stuck with guesses and projections. The main fear is that, as the wild virus circulates, it could mutate into something catastrophic, as H1N1 did in the pandemic of 1918.

To this day, scientists are unsure why the 1918 flu strain was so deadly.  Researchers have no samples of the virus, and modern descendants are not nearly as virulent. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult to evaluate the chance of repeating history. “We don’t have anything to hang our hats on,” Dr. Dalius Briedis, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, pointed out to The Daily. “In the past 100 years or so, this has only happened once. It’s one of these low probability, high risk events.”

The possibility of H5N1 becoming transmissible outside the lab is certainly real. Each of the mutations that Fouchier identified in his lab-made strains already exists in nature. If viruses with key mutations were to recombine, the result would be a human transmissible virus. “If you say this is only a 1 in a billion chance,” Ward said, “well, you have a billion birds and a few billion pigs and seven billion people, so statistically the chances are not bad.”

On the other hand, it’s possible that a transmissible strain may not be as deadly. Fouchier’s mutant virus was lethal in ferrets, but only when it was passed from ferret to ferret via syringe. When the contagion was passed through airborne droplets, it wasn’t lethal.

So the question remains, does the risk of a natural pandemic outweigh the risk of a man-made one? The debate left the scientific community divided. After a year of consultations and debates, a full consensus still hasn’t been reached. Ward noted, however, that, “in the end, the split wasn’t 50/50.  The large majority of the world’s scientists fall on the side of the line where releasing this [research] is not a bad thing.”

Briedis, for one, remains unconvinced. “I do not think that it’s wise research to do,” he said.  “I personally would not have gotten involved in doing it, and I would have attempted to sway people from doing it.” But, he added, “the academic ambitions of individual researchers are not to be underestimated.  If there’s something interesting to be done, generally someone somewhere will end up doing it.”

As biotechnology moves forward, we may see more and more cases like this. The consultation process has clearly set a precedent for how scientists deal with controversy in the public eye. But one questions the effectiveness of such an insular decision process in gaining public trust. While the attempts to address public fears are a step in the right direction, lingering fears about the release of a supervirus suggest that more transparency is needed.

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Science is apparently an antisocial career for antisocial people. But I know a lot of scientists and a few mathematicians, and none of them fit this caricature. So what are scientists really like? And what does it take to succeed as a scientist?

Fortunately, scientists themselves have some answers, based on personality research. A popular framework for personality is the Five Factor Model. The five factors, known as the Big Five, are essentially personality traits that appear to varying degrees in an individual. The first of these, openness, describes a willingness to entertain new ideas and experiences. Conscientiousness is the ability to stay organized and finish tasks on time. Extraversion encompasses a person’s ease in understanding and interacting with other people. Agreeableness describes how accommodating, caring, or unselfish a person is. Finally, neuroticism subsumes negative emotions, like worry and anxiety.

In the simplest portrait, scientists are painted as high in conscientiousness and low in extraversion. This seems to agree somewhat with media stereotypes, implying someone dedicated to their work, with little care for the people around them.  According to the research, these traits seem particularly strong in those who work in the so-called “hard” sciences, like physics or chemistry, which are devoted to the study of things, rather than people. But look a little deeper, and the picture quickly gets more complicated.

The most introverted and conscientious of aspiring scientists may enjoy science, but end up struggling in academia. They quickly learn that doing science is only one part of the job. The rest is communicating it. Scientists spend a good deal of time actively convincing others that their research is worthwhile and sound.

Introverts must put aside their natural reservedness, or academia becomes a miserable experience. According to a study done by John Lounsbury and his colleagues at the University of Tennessee, career satisfaction among scientists in academia actually correlates with extraversion and agreeableness. Despite attracting introverts, academia rewards “prosocial behaviours” involved in presenting and networking.

Yet, Dr. Gregory Feist, a major researcher in the psychology of science, suggests that agreeableness actually correlates negatively with creativity in science. This is in part due to the competitive nature of the academic environment.  “Success is more likely for those who thrive in competitive environments, that is for the dominant, arrogant, hostile, and self-confident,” Feist stated in a 2006 review article.

So, while advancement in science favours creativity, the system itself supports conformity and agreeableness. This is especially apparent in graduate school. Creative students may generate excellent ideas, but can also generate friction with their supervisors.  In fact, students who choose not to continue with their graduate degrees often cite irreconcilable differences with their supervisors as the main cause.

So what does all of this mean for an undergrad interested in a career in academia?  Well, maybe not very much.  Individual traits correlate only weakly with real measures of career interest and job performance. In the end, there is no one type of person pursuing science, because type doesn’t really matter. There is one trait, however, that all successful research scientists have in common: persistence.

Notes from the ivory tower is a Sci+Tech blog, published every two weeks. Caitlin Mouri can be reached at ivorytower@mcgilldaily.com. 

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The race has become so intense  that even undergraduates are feeling the heat. For students applying to graduate programs, “a publication certainly makes an application stand out,” said Dr. Bärbel Knäuper, graduate program director of the Psychology Department at McGill. But having a publication doesn’t just look nice; it has practical value as well. “The potential supervisor will also know that the application will have good chances of winning a fellowship, which is definitely another plus,” added Knäuper.

Graduate fellowships certainly compound the benefits of publishing early. A fellowship means another prized line on a CV and, in many cases, the financial freedom to skip a teaching assistant position and devote more time to research.

Undergraduate publications aren’t crucial in all the sciences, though. Areas steeped in theory or high-level mathematics offer undergraduates little chance to get their names on a published work. Dr. Jan Seuntjens, director of the Medical Physics Unit, told The Daily that while research experience is important, undergraduate students simply don’t have the background to make scholarly contributions in his field. “Research shouldn’t come at the expense of getting a good basis [of understanding],” he added.

On the other hand, in biology-based fields like neuroscience and pharmacology, publications are more important than ever. “There’s less and less money for fellowships and grants,” observed Dr. Josephine Nalbantoglu, director of the Integrated Program in Neuroscience, “so people are setting the bar higher and higher. Now, they do give quite a few marks if you’ve presented or published [as an undergraduate]. This was unheard of five, six years ago.”

Still, many in academia caution against overemphasizing publications, fearing that quantity may come at the expense of quality. Professor Joaquín “Quim” Madrenas, chair of the McGill Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Canada Research Chair in Human Immunology, is emphatic on the issue. “Publications should not be the goal,” he told The Daily. “The goal is discoveries, and these discoveries translate into publications.” Undergraduate Research Officer at McGill, Victor Chisholm pointed out that if a student is disappointed about not getting a publication, they might be in it for the wrong reasons. “It’s more important to get an appreciation of what science is,” he said. “When you’re in the lab, you’re participating in the creation of new knowledge.”

Much of the pressure on undergraduates to publish stems from funding agencies, rather than from the research community. Dr. Sivakumaran Nadarajah, graduate admissions and scholarship director for the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill, questions the space on Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) applications that asks for previous publications. “It makes students worry needlessly,” he said in an interview with The Daily. “Most [engineering] faculties don’t expect undergraduates to have publications.”

Students should focus instead on finding research topics that engage them intellectually. Dr. Laura Nilson, associate professor of Biology and associate dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies believes this can be just as important as getting published. A sophisticated understanding of their own research is a huge strength, she observed of graduate applicants.  “If you can develop that, that’s something.”

Unfortunately, many undergraduate researchers find themselves doing grunt work, with little chance to engage in the research, let alone get publication credit. “They end up in these work study positions that involve feeding fish or just running gels,” said Irene Xie, co-editor-in-chief of the McGill Science Undergraduate Research Journal (MSURJ). “And of course, that’s not the really intellectually stimulating thing they want to be doing.”

So how does an undergraduate get involved in high quality research? It helps to become integrated into the fabric of the lab. That takes a lot of time and commitment, and not just from the undergraduate student. “The hardest thing to do is to match them up with a graduate student who’s prepared to put their time in,” said Dr. Derek Bowie, associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Dr. Bowie also motivates his undergraduates by giving them small projects with the potential to become short papers. But for one former undergraduate, Patricia Brown, it wasn’t the possibility of a publication that kept her motivated, but her engagement in the lab itself. “When I wasn’t in class, I was in the lab,” she recalled. “I had a spot, I had a computer where I could put my stuff. It was very much like you were part of a team. I don’t know if, without that, I would have stayed.”

Brown did publish a paper from her undergraduate work, and stayed in Dr. Bowie’s lab for graduate studies in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience. To students familiar with the ups and downs of research, Brown’s story may sound too good to be true. Her supervisor, however, emphasized the importance of sheer determination. “When they want it to happen, they make it happen,” he said of his students.

Dr. Hugh Bennett, graduate program director for the Division of Experimental Medicine, agreed. “There’s a lot of luck involved, but you make your own luck. You’re not going to get anywhere if you’re too passive.” He added, “You’re not going to put the hours in if you’re not interested.” Most professors agreed that one of the most important benefits of research experience is figuring out where your interests lie. “You don’t go into research because it’s a job. You go into it because it’s a passion.”

In the end, passion, not publications, is the greatest asset an aspiring researcher can have. “If you’re sincerely interested in research,” said Dr. Nilson, “that will show through whether you get published or not.”

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