Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 24-26). / Octopuses are extraordinary creatures: Despite their numerous biological divergences from humans, they display impressive intelligence. Aquarists and scientists alike have noted instances of octopuses having what appear to be personalities, and some (Roland Anderson and Jennifer Mather) have gone so far as to propose that octopuses are just as capable of having personalities as humans. There has been significant push-back from ethologists (Roger Hanlon and David Sinn) who instead say that this is the result of projection, and that animal behavior science ought to take a more quantitative and experimental approach to studies of behavior. The case of the octopus is a valuable opportunity to consider how we as humans go about observing animal behavior. The contentious debate over whether to apply human terms like personality to animals may ultimately tell us more about the nature of humans as observers than the animals themselves. Octopuses provide a philosophical mirror by which we can consider our propensity to look at the world through a decidedly human lens. / by Hannah Lauren Krakauer. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-41). / Many people assume there's only one kind of "seagull." On the contrary, the world is home to dozens of gull species spanning an array of shapes, sizes, plumage patterns, behaviors, and lifestyles (and some of those gulls aren't affiliated with the sea at all). The pattern of similarities and differences between species poses an interesting taxonomic challenge: Can we interpret that pattern to reconstruct evolutionary history and determine where each species fits on the gull family tree? Up through the twentieth century, our efforts to retrace evolution relied on comparisons of superficial traits-but as we discovered along the way, such traits can be misleading. In the past couple of decades we have developed a much more reliable window into the evolutionary past: rather than comparing outward characteristics, we have begun comparing genes. Modern taxonomy has taught us much about the gulls and helped us better understand the planet-wide ecological network that we all belong to. / by Abigail D. McBride. / S.M.in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 38-40). / Prenatal diagnosis has given doctors the ability to predict problems before a child is even born. But what happens when the information gleaned from these tests is that the child is fatally sick? Doctors call these "futile" pregnancies. The increasing sophistication and prevalence of prenatal diagnostic tests means that prospective parents and their doctors are grappling with ethical questions unheard of just half a century ago. Legislators try to demarcate what choices are "good" and "bad". However, there is no good choice when it comes to a fatally ill infant. While archival research is used to frame modem perspectives, this thesis aims to explore the different choices women make and the difficulties they must grapple with in this day and age. / by Emma Sconyers. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 41-45). / The Caribbean spiny lobster fishery is one of the most important industries in the economy of the Bahamas, and in turn it is one of the largest lobster industries in the world. The natural geography of the Bahamas makes its waters into a lobster haven that Bahamian fishermen have successfully exploited over the past few decades. In 2009, in order to safeguard the industry's future and earn a higher margin, the government and the lobster processors together sought sustainability certification for their product. However, they came up short. The international assessors deemed the data on the health of the lobster stocks to be too minimal, and the legal structures to protect the lobster from over-harvesting to be too weak. In response, the government, together with the World Wildlife Fund, set up a program called the Fishery Improvement Project to get the country's lobster industry on the right track. Under the auspices of the Fishery Improvement Project, the government, local and international NGOs, the processors, and the fishermen themselves are contributing to improving the availability of information on the lobster and to crafting new laws to control the industry. Despite successes in improved communication and stock assessments, there are many obstacles to be overcome: differences of opinion, the spread-out nature of the country, and the limited resources available to enforce the laws. Through interviews with fishermen, government officials, processors, and scientists, this thesis tells the story of how the Fishery Improvement Project began, what it has accomplished, and where the lobster and the humans who harvest them might go from here, when the program wraps up and the fishery reenters the sustainability certification process. / by Jennifer E. Rood. / S.M. in Science Writing

Thesis: Ph. D. in Microbiology Graduate Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Biology, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / Microbes have adapted to life in complex microbial communities in a large variety of ways, and they are continually evolving to better compete in their changing environments. But identifying the conditions that a particular microbe thrives under, and how they have become adapted to those condition can be exceedingly difficult. For instance, Clostridium difficile became widely known for being the world's leading cause of hospital associated diarrhea, but people can also have C. difficile in their gut without developing diarrhea. Although these asymptomatic carriers are now thought to be the largest source of infection, we know very little about how these people become colonized. In the first chapter of my thesis I use publicly available microbiome survey data and a mouse model of colonization to show that C. difficile colonizes people immediately after diarrheal illnesses, suggesting C. difficile is a disturbance adapted opportunist. / However, the differences between very recently diverged microbial populations that are adapted for growth in different conditions can be very difficult to detect. To address this limitation, I developed a method of identifying regions that have undergone recent selective sweeps in these populations as a means of distinguishing them, and specifically quantifying their abundance in complex environments. But part of what makes microbial evolution so difficult to interpret is the vast diversity of genes that are only shared by a fraction of all the members in a population. To better understand how these flexible regions are structured, I systematically extracted all contiguous flexible regions in nine marine Vibrio populations and compared their organization and evolutionary histories. / I found that horizontal gene transfer and social interactions have led to the evolution of modular gene clusters that mediate forms of social cooperation, metabolic tradeoffs, and make up a substantial portion of these flexible genomic regions. The observations made in these studies help us understand how microbes are organized into socially and ecologically cohesive groups, and how they have evolved to interact with complex and changing environments. / by David VanInsberghe. / Ph. D. in Microbiology Graduate Program / Ph.D.inMicrobiologyGraduateProgram Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Biology

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2020 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 14-15). / The discovery of extraterrestrial (ET) life would be a revelation of scientific and cultural magnitude that rivals Darwin's theory of evolution and Copernicus's hypothesis that the Earth revolves around the Sun. But while conjecture about the existence of ET life predates industrialism, it is only within the past century or so that technology has developed to the point where humans can add empirical observations to centuries of wondering. With rapid advancements in biological, chemical, and technological science, discovering ET life could be within reach. However, investigations of other planetary environments are still on the edge of technological capability and researchers may need to rely on indirect signs of life to make a detection. These signs may be difficult to interpret. This thesis surveys some of the main techniques and technologies that researchers currently use or are developing to search for alien life. It also teases out some limitations and ambiguity inherent in contemporary data interpretation. / by Kate S. Petersen. / S.M. in Science Writing / S.M.inScienceWriting Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2020 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 15-17). / When a single remaining population of black-footed ferrets was discovered in Meeteetse, Wyoming in 1981, scientists had one last chance to save North America's only native ferret from extinction. Though the discovered population numbered over 100 individuals when it was found, ferrets began to die at an alarming rate just a few years after the rediscovery of the species. With their options running out, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service made the drastic choice of pulling every single surviving ferret into captivity. Thanks to decades of captive breeding and release efforts involving hundreds of people, there are now a few hundred black-footed ferrets back in the wild today. The black-footed ferret recovery effort has yet to overcome its greatest challenge, however: plague. Keeping ferrets alive in the wild is time consuming and cost intensive. Every wild ferret needs to be rounded up and vaccinated, and insecticides are sprayed over hundreds of thousands of acres each year to stave off the looming threat of a plague outbreak. To make matters worse, ferrets are becoming more inbred each year, making them even more susceptible to disease. Recently the black-footed ferret recovery effort has turned to cutting-edge genetic technologies to introduce more diversity into the ferret line, and, eventually, resistance to the plague. Some researchers think that such drastic measures might now be the only way for black-footed ferrets to ever have a hope of surviving on their own in the wild again. / by Rachel Fritts. / S.M. in Science Writing / S.M.inScienceWriting Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2020 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 13-15). / Health foe. Confidence booster. Female oppressor. No other shoe style has taken on as many roles as the high heel or had those roles as passionately debated. Throughout their long history in Western fashion, high heels have changed shape and had new ideas about femininity, performance and compliance heaped on them Warnings about the health dangers of chronic high heel use also have a long history, with medical professionals counselling against them for almost 300 years. Still high heels have remained a staple of womenswear, always returning after brief sojourns out of style. This thesis unpack s the high heel, first looking at the effects of high heel use on the body before turning to the history of the high heel and discussing the reasons why countless w omen have endured a shoe that is by design uncomfortable. Then we look at attempts to reengineer high heels so that they are more comfortable for wearers and discuss the future of high heels in the footwear landscape. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how attempting to fathom the long narrative of high heels can change your relationship with the object. / by Fernanda de Araújo Ferreira. / S.M. in Science Writing / S.M.inScienceWriting Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2020 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / The U.S. Mexico border is a challenging place to survive for a Sonoran pronghorn. Nearly two decades ago, this endangered species faced near extinction in it s only home, an embroiled, increasingly shrinking habitat in Southwest Arizona. There in the Sonoran Desert, a passionate recovery team has dedicated significant efforts and investments to sustaining the approximately 200 remaining Sonoran pronghorns left in the U.S. The team face s two enormous obstacles that mo st endangered species rescue missions don't usually have to deal with. The first: a persistent drought that zaps water and plant life from the desert, making it hard for the animal to stay hydrated a nd fed. The second: Human disturbance in its range from off road driving by U.S. border patrol agents monitoring migrants. Its home happens to be one of the most concentrated areas of illegal activity at the border, and the off road driving further dries out vital plant life and diverts waterflow in the desert. It's also not the only environmental impact of border activity, as the recovery team's research shows. For the Sonoran pronghorn -- North America's fastest land mammal, an iconic creature seen on the landscape since prehistoric times -- there is nowhere to go when the rain never comes during drought The recovery team monitors the dire situation chasing pronghorns that can sprint up to 60 miles per hour to deliver food and water when the Sonoran Desert is too dry to graze. As it become s harder for the Sonoran pronghorn to escape increasingly inescapable human activity, it also become s harder for the recovery team to ensure the Sonoran pronghorn survives its estimated nearly one in four chance of being extinct by the end of this century. / by Ashley Belanger. / S.M. in Science Writing / S.M.inScienceWriting Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2020 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 13-15). / A few blinks of an eye. The time it takes a hummingbird to flap its wings 80 times. For a photon of light to travel from Los Angeles to New York and back almost 40-fold. The second has been there since the literal dawn of time, if one exists. But what defines the second? Like a pop star constantly reinventing themselves, the second has undertaken a myriad of identities, first defined as a brief moment in the daily rotation of the earth around its axis. Today, the second is officially defined by over 9 billion oscillations of a cesium atom. Although it has changed costumes, its astronomical roots still ground the second. These definitions, these identities are projected onto it by an ever-curious, ever-demanding fan base. These fans are, of course, us - humans living in a complex, evolving society. They have been priests, farmers, scientists. Now, whatever our relationship is to one tick of the second hand, today we are beholden to this new, atomic second far beyond matters of time. Our entire technological infrastructure, from airplanes to smartphones, televisions to stock markets, driving directions to space research, would crumble without the atomic second and the 21st century horologists that build the timekeepers of the modern second: the atomic clock. / by Jessica Hendrickson. / S.M. in Science Writing / S.M.inScienceWriting Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing