One Year after Sandy, Uneven Recovery at New York University’s labs

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How were researchers faring one year after Hurricane Sandy? I wrote this article to answer that question. I got the cleaned-up version of reality from NYU Medical Center, and the unvarnished truth from some researchers. This article appeared on SFARI.org, and was also syndicated on Scientific American on 29 October 2013, Hurricane Sandy’s one-year anniversary.

Walking through Gordon Fishell’s lab now, you would never know that much of his research was swept away by last year’s superstorm. Other scientists at New York University’s medical center cannot say the same.

Walking through Gordon Fishell’s lab now, you would never know that much of his research was swept away by Hurricane Sandy, almost exactly a year ago.

The lab’s staff is back at work, studying — among other things — the role of certain neurons in disorders such as autism. With gleaming floors under glowing lights, the space resembles nothing of the dark, dank disaster zone it was back then.

“It’s really hard to remember how bad it was,” says Fishell, director of the Smilow Neuroscience Program at New York University (NYU). Until, that is, he begins to recall the damage.

On 29 October 2012, ‘superstorm’ Sandy surged through the east coast of the U.S., with water levels in New York Bay reaching 13.88 feet — 2.68 feet higher than the nearly 200-year-old previous record.

At NYU’s Langone Medical Center, which sits right next to the East River, the staff successfully evacuated 322 patients, including 20 babies from the neonatal intensive care unit. But mice and machines did not fare as well.

Read the rest of the article on Scientific American‘s website.

India’s watchdog: A breath of fresh air

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(I met Sunita Narain, the charismatic leader of the Center for Science and Environment, while on a reporting trip to Delhi about Indian science. She’s extremely press-savvy, so I was certainly being shown what she wanted me to see, but after several disheartening interviews with government officials about AIDS and other pressing issues, I couldn’t help but be impressed with her efficient and single-minded approach. Nothing is simple in India, as even this article, which began as a straightforward profile of this organization, shows. The feature appeared in Nature in February 2007. You can download a pdf of this article.)

How often does independent research change laws as well as minds? A lobby group in Delhi is forcing the Indian government into new regulations. Apoorva Mandavilli meets its leader.

Sunita Narain

A decade ago the city of Delhi was choking. Fumes from the growing traffic rendered the air thick and foul with toxic chemicals, earning India’s capital city the dubious distinction of being the fourth most polluted city in the world. Levels of fine particles in the air were nearly 17 times higher than the permissible maximum. You could almost feel them as you breathed.

Visit Delhi today, and the difference is palpable. Green-striped buses and auto rickshaws rush past powered by compressed natural gas. Levels of sulphur in diesel have been brought down from 2,500 parts per million to 500 parts per million. Concentrations of particles in the air are still three times the national standard, but more bearable — the air feels unmistakably cleaner.

The improvement is largely due to the efforts of one small non-governmental organization, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Founded by the science journalist Anil Agarwal in 1980, the Delhi-based group launched a relentless campaign in 1996 to replace diesel in Delhi’s public transport with a cleaner fuel: compressed natural gas. Its headline-grabbing tactics were what you might expect from a group founded by a science journalist: at one point it hired a booth at a Delhi car show and offered attendees lung tests. In April 2002, after years of legal battles, India’s Supreme Court forced Delhi’s public vehicles to switch to compressed natural gas. “It’s undoubtedly one of the most influential organizations in the country,” says Mahesh Rangarajan, a former Rhodes scholar and commentator on Indian politics based in Delhi.

So how did a small band of campaigning journalists evolve into a respected environmental pressure-group powerful enough to change laws and send multinational companies running for cover?

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DDT is back

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(This article was #29 in Discover Magazine’s top 100 stories of 2006.)

More than 30 years after the use of DDT was abandoned in many countries, the much-maligned pesticide is making a comeback. In September the World Health Organization openly endorsed indoor spraying of DDT, saying it is not only the best weapon against malaria, it is also cheaper and more effective than other insecticides. The announcement followed a similar move in May by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

One of the reasons for the more aggressive stance is President Bush’s Malaria Initiative, launched in 2005 after Congress reproved USAID for spending the lion’s share of its budget on operational costs—and less than 8 percent on the insecticides, bed nets, and medicines that would actually save lives. In 2007, USAID plans to spend more than $20 million on indoor spraying—up from less than $1 million spent in 2005.

Many environmental groups support the use of DDT for malaria—but only in the short term. Meanwhile, USAID representatives say that, when used properly, the chemical poses little risk to the environment or to human health. “Until we find that it is hazardous,” says Admiral Tim Ziemer, coordinator of the President’s Malaria Initiative, “it’s unconscionable not to use something that can save lives.”