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Articles by Jeff Wheelwright
Gifford Fire burned SLO County’s only bloom of a rare plant. Will it grow back?
The Gifford Fire burned San Luis Obispo County’s only population of snowdrops, which grew along Caldwell Trout Creek. Jeff Wheelwright The Gifford Fire destroyed the only known cluster of a rare flowering shrub in San Luis Obispo County — but with a little luck, the plant could rise from the ashes of the blaze. White flowers once hung like bells from the California snowdrop bush in the Garcia Wilderness.
Is Stealing Redwoods Sometimes Okay?: On Lyndsie Bourgon’s “Tree Thieves”
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The Case for a Nuclear Renaissance
Controversies Retiring existing plants, especially a problem-free facility like Diablo Canyon in California, will aggravate the real problems: energy dependence and climate change. By Jeff Wheelwright The fate of Diablo Canyon is still shrouded in fog. In the mid 1990s my beat as a science writer was nuclear energy and radiological health issues. For the Los Angeles Times I visited the Trinity site in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was detonated.
COVID restlessness is threatening California’s wild places | San Luis Obispo Tribune
A remote sandspit, part of Morro Bay State Park, is home to golden eagles, deer, sandpipers and egrets. Courtesy Photo Probably the wildest area on California’s Central Coast is the Morro Bay Sandspit. Making a barrier between bay and ocean, the sandspit is roughly six miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It’s within the bounds of Morro Bay State Park, but has no road access. You get there by kayak or by walking north along the beach from the abutting Montana de Oro State Park.
Mystery Illnesses Writ Large
DECEMBER 24, 2021 MASS PSYCHOGENIC ILLNESS (MPI) is the formal name for incidents of “mass hysteria.” The outbreaks are a favorite topic of the popular press, but they are poorly understood. A cluster of strange illnesses that appear to have an organic basis are shown, after further scrutiny, to be a psychosomatic fabrication by a close-knit group of people. Most of the time this finding neither assuages the patients nor resolves the controversy.
Wildfires Revisited - The American Scholar
Firefighters battling the Caldor Fire in California (CalFire_Official/Flickr) I have backpacked in the high wilderness of the Sierra Nevada nearly every summer for 20 years. Often, I have smelled the tang of wildfires burning somewhere to the north or south, and on a few trips, I’ve awakened to dismaying haze cutting the blue morning, and I’ve observed plumes of smoke in the distance.
Wildfires in the Wilderness - The American Scholar
The Creek Fire soon after it started in September 2020. In all, four million acres of land burned in California last year. (Clovis [California] Fire Department) Ponderosa Way sounds like an address in a faux-sylvan California subdivision, a street you might imagine next to Redwood Lane and Happy Brook Drive. More than a dozen Ponderosa Ways dot the woodsy western flank of the Sierra Nevada range, each about an hour’s drive from the bustle and smog of the Central Valley.
Schizophrenia Study Finds New Genetic Links
Schizophrenia, which affects 1 in 100 people worldwide and an estimated 2.4 million Americans, exacts tremendous social costs and great human suffering. Drugs can calm the inner voices, delusions and hallucinations, but few patients recover fully, and there is no cure. Nor are there predictive tests or internal markers for the disease — it must be diagnosed by outward signs alone. But this problem is at last yielding to progress on the genetic front.
The Public Domain Review
Petrarch's Plague: Love, Death, and Friendship in a Time of Pandemic By Paula Findlen The Italian poet and scholar Francesco Petrarch lived through the most deadly pandemic in recorded history, the Black Death of the 14th century, which saw up to 200 million die from plague across Eurasia and North Africa.
The Skeptical Pilgrim: Melville’s Clarel
Detail from photograph of Herman Melville in 1860, photographer unknown — Source. In October 1856, Herman Melville left the tinted hills of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for a lengthy excursion to Europe and the Holy Land. Just thirty-seven years old, Melville was a half-broken man. He suffered from headaches, sciatica, eyestrain, crushed hopes — in a word, burnout.
Studying the Footprints of Human Ancestors
At Walvis Bay in Namibia, a scouring wind pushes sand dunes across an ancient mud flat. Sometimes when the dunes shift, the tracks of long-gone people and animals are exposed — much to the delight of Matthew Bennett, an ichnologist at Bournemouth University in England. Ichnologists study tracks and traces and other signs of living creatures, including the footprints left by our human and pre-human ancestors.
Disease Strikes in the Heart of Mississippi
When you hear that Mississippi is a red state, you think politics, but red also applies to the toll of its cardiovascular disease. Look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s map of the death rates from heart disease down to the county level across the U.S. Colors range from a healthy pale pink to deep red — those areas are the sickest. Mississippi is bathed almost entirely in crimson.
The Hunt for the Unknown Volcano
In February 1809, Francisco José de Caldas, director of the Astronomical Observatory in Bogotá in present-day Colombia, addressed an issue that everyone was talking about — namely, the weird sky and crazy weather. Caldas published a weekly newsletter about science called Semanario del Nuevo Reyno de Granada. Under the headline “Meteorological News,” he described how the sun had changed its appearance since the previous Dec. 11.
On Peter Matthiessen's Lifelong Fascination with Bigfoot
In the early 1980s Matthiessen’s conception of Bigfoot was guided by a man named Craig Carpenter. Carpenter, who claimed Mohawk ancestry and had many contacts on Native American reservations, began to take Matthiessen around, introducing him to more traditionally inclined Indians. Among other things Carpenter was a curator of legends about Sasquatch. The term comes from the coastal peoples of the Northwest, but numerous other Western tribes have a Big Man figure in their traditions.
On Peter Matthiessen's Lifelong Fascination with Bigfoot
In September 1976, Peter Matthiessen took me aside at a family wedding in Seattle. He was 49 and at the acme of his ambidextrous literary powers. Far Tortuga, his finest novel, about a doomed voyage of turtle hunters, had been published the year before, and his next book, set in the Himalayas, would be The Snow Leopard, his finest work of nonfiction. I had mentioned to Peter that my wife and I were headed for Vancouver, B.C., on a short vacation.
Disease Strikes in the Heart of Mississippi
Environment? Genetics? Why does heart disease strike so many more African-Americans? By Jeff Wheelwright|Friday, October 07, 2016 When you hear that Mississippi is a red state, you think politics, but red also applies to the toll of its cardiovascular disease. Look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s map of the death rates from heart disease down to the county level across the U.S. Colors range from a healthy pale pink to deep red — those areas are the sickest.
What's the Chin Good For?
For more than a century, anthropologists have wondered why we possess a chin when apes and our Homo ancestors are chinless. The chin sticks out, so to speak, as a distinguishing human trait. As such, experts have numerous theories about the chin’s evolutionary purpose. We present the best in Science Smackdown. The Chin as Biomechanical Brace The biomechanical view has two camps. Human language arose around the same time as the chin.
Reading Through the Notes for Peter Matthiessen’s Would-Be Autobiography
Sometimes I feel that Peter Matthiessen is the most underappreciated of recent American writers. I am biased, because he was my uncle and my godfather, but I think he should be mentioned in the same breath as Saul Bellow, William Styron, Philip Roth. The 20th-century version of the cultivated 19th-century adventurer, he brought back elegant accounts of the wild parts of every continent, including Antarctica.
The American Scholar: Force of Nature - Jeff Wheelwright
Sometimes I feel that Peter Matthiessen is the most underappreciated of recent American writers. I am biased, because he was my uncle and my godfather, but I think he should be mentioned in the same breath as Saul Bellow, William Styron, Philip Roth. The 20th-century version of the cultivated 19th-century adventurer, he brought back elegant accounts of the wild parts of every continent, including Antarctica.
A Cancer Doctor Explores Role Of Spirituality In End-of-Life Care
The research terms are unusually slippery. It doesn’t help, Balboni concedes, that spirituality and allegiance to traditional churches are increasingly separate. All religious people can be considered spiritual, but not all spiritually minded people are religious. Keeping it simple, Balboni defines spirituality as “a search for meaning and purpose, which may or may not include reference to the divine.” To measure it, she uses various questionnaires devised by psychologists and other researchers.
A Writer’s Controversial Past That Will Not Die (Published 2018)
Richard Wright and Peter Matthiessen (left) in front of Notre-Dame, circa 1953.Credit...The Paris Review Feb. 2, 2018 In the winter of 1953 the young writer Peter Matthiessen came to the edge of a crisis. He and his wife, Patsy, who was also an aspiring writer, were living in Paris. Patsy was eight months pregnant with their second child, the first, named Thomas, having died within hours of his premature birth the year before. Peter never talked about my little cousin Thomas.
A Writer Asks Science To Explain His Aging Brain
Veteran science journalist Jeff Wheelwright is both the subject and the reporter, as scientists study his brain. I’m lying on my back in the tunnel of an MRI scanner, my skull immobilized in a head coil, which looks like a cage fighter’s mask. There’s a vitamin E capsule taped to the right side of my forehead.
Marijuana: An environmental buzzkill
On a hot August morning, Mourad Gabriel steps out of his pickup onto the gravel road that winds up the side of Rattlesnake Peak. Dark-bearded and muscular, the research ecologist sports a uniform of blue work clothes, sturdy boots and a floppy, Army-style camo hat. He straps on a pistol. “Just to let you know,” Gabriel says, sensitive to the impression the gun makes, “it’s public land, so I open-carry.” Another 100-degree day is promised.
An Encounter To Last An Eternity
Duk Koo Kim died in Las Vegas on Nov. 17 of brain injuries he suffered in a fight with Boom Boom Mancini four days before. Kim's death attracted a lot of attention because he was fighting on network television for some alphabet world championship. But to this day, the most celebrated boxing death remains Benny Paret's, and it happened way back in 1962. Paret, the welterweight champion, was battered by Emile Griffith as the world's most famous referee watched, apparently mesmerized by the brutality.
Finland's Fascinating Genes
On Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles, just off the University of California campus, the street is jammed at lunchtime. The tones of all humanity flow past, faces from Santa Monica, Singapore, and Senegal, a stroboscopic stream of light and dark. Notwithstanding such contrasts in appearance, comparisons of our DNA show that human populations are continuous, one blending into the next, like the spectrum of our skin coloring.
Studying the Footprints of Human Ancestors
At Walvis Bay in Namibia, a scouring wind pushes sand dunes across an ancient mud flat. Sometimes when the dunes shift, the tracks of long-gone people and animals are exposed — much to the delight of Matthew Bennett, an ichnologist at Bournemouth University in England. Ichnologists study tracks and traces and other signs of living creatures, including the footprints left by our human and pre-human ancestors.
The Gray Tsunami
On a bright February morning under a blank desert sky, three experts in world population get into a van in Tempe, Arizona, and drive back to the future. From the campus of Arizona State University on the edge of Phoenix, the three head northwest along Grand Avenue, following old U.S. Route 60 out of the city. On either side, what used to be cotton fields and cattle feedlots, and before that catclaw bushes and cactus scrub, has turned into suburban sprawl.
Want better trails at Montaña de Oro? Ask state to impose a user fee | The Tribune
To get to Oats Peak in Montaña de Oro State Park used to entail a pleasant, 3.5-mile hike through the chaparral. No more. If you haven’t hiked to the peak in a while, you ought to take extra food and water because you’ll probably get lost, thanks to hapless management of the trail system by State Parks. The story is a bit complicated. It starts with the erosion on what is now called Old Oats Peak Trail. The original trail was pretty much a straight shot up the gentle canyon beside Valencia Peak.
The Revolution Will Be Edited
Doudna founded Berkeley-based Caribou Biosciences early in 2012, just as her paper with Charpentier was published. The company is her commercial stake in Crispr-Cas9, and, backed by UC Berkeley’s lawyers, she’s launched a patent action against MIT researcher Feng Zhang, who contends that he invented the technique about the same time and has the right to commercialize it.
What's the Chin Good For?
For more than a century, anthropologists have wondered why we possess a chin when apes and our Homo ancestors are chinless. The chin sticks out, so to speak, as a distinguishing human trait. As such, experts have numerous theories about the chin’s evolutionary purpose. We present the best in Science Smackdown. The Chin as Biomechanical Brace The biomechanical view has two camps. Human language arose around the same time as the chin.
From Diabetes to Athlete's Foot, Our Bodies Are Maladapted for Modern Life
It’s not true that hunter-gatherers died young, before heart disease and the like could manifest themselves. Those who survived infancy could live to around 70. Granted they had infections and parasites, but even at old age, they apparently didn’t suffer from the chronic health conditions of affluent societies. Our Paleolithic cousins affirm the case, by counterexample, for the mismatch hypothesis, raising an obvious question: How might we become more like them?
The Many Droughts of California
Photo Credit Eric Nyquist MORRO BAY, Calif. — CALIFORNIA has only two seasons, rainy and dry. In March, when the rains stop — assuming they have begun — we must forget about precipitation for at least six months. The rainfall determines our mood for the summer and fall. Where I live, on the Central Coast, 17 inches of rain per winter has been the long-term average. Beating that number — we last did it five years ago — feels like winning the lottery.
Artificial Platelets Could Soon Enter Human Trials
Artificial Platelets Could Soon Enter Human TrialsCell-sized particles could help with blood clotting in the face of donor shortages.On a war-torn street of the future, an American soldier lies sprawled, unsure if a nearby blast has harmed him. Is there internal bleeding? He carries an injector containing artificial platelets, which will augment his body’s normal clotting mechanism and curtail any hemorrhaging. Yet the injection will be harmless if he has escaped injury.
The Hunt for the Unknown Volcano
In February 1809, Francisco José de Caldas, director of the Astronomical Observatory in Bogotá in present-day Colombia, addressed an issue that everyone was talking about — namely, the weird sky and crazy weather. Caldas published a weekly newsletter about science called Semanario del Nuevo Reyno de Granada. Under the headline “Meteorological News,” he described how the sun had changed its appearance since the previous Dec. 11.
How risk factors drive medical overtreatment
Most health-conscious people are familiar with the concept of risk factors for disease. We’re too familiar, in fact. A risk factor is like the guest that nobody invited to the party, a spoiler. Though we might feel fine now, our individual risk for (fill in the blank) tells us that our wellbeing might not last. That vague and remote prospect of a stroke or a tumour has taken on a sharply numerical precision, thanks to screening tests that expose and quantify our risk factors.
Platelet Production, Pumped Up
#26 Platelet Production, Pumped Up"Bioreactor on a chip" could help meet rising demand for blood transfusions.More than 2 million units of platelets — the blood cells responsible for clotting — are transfused each year, with cancer patients receiving an important share of them. However, donors alone can’t possibly meet the need; platelets have a shelf life of only five days, and by 2019, demand will exceed supply by 533,000 units.
Schizophrenia Study Finds New Genetic Links
#11 Schizophrenia Study Finds New Genetic LinksA mental disease currently diagnosed just by its symptoms may soon yield genetic markers.Schizophrenia, which affects 1 in 100 people worldwide and an estimated 2.4 million Americans, exacts tremendous social costs and great human suffering. Drugs can calm the inner voices, delusions and hallucinations, but few patients recover fully, and there is no cure.
Stem Cells Make Insulin, Restore Retinas
#12 Stem Cells Make Insulin, Restore RetinasA field long touted for its therapeutic potential is finally producing results.Since embryonic stem cells were first cultured in the lab more than 30 years ago, researchers have talked up their therapeutic potential. Able to differentiate into dozens of tissue types, stem cells might be used to regenerate organs and treat numerous diseases. The proof has been slow to come, however.
Bionic Blood Sugar Control
For 14 years, ever since his son was an infant, Edward Damiano has worriedly checked on David as he slept. David has Type 1 diabetes and cannot regulate his blood sugar. His pancreas fails to produce and release two hormones: insulin, which lowers glucose levels in blood, and glucagon, which pushes glucose back up again. Despite insulin injections and regular monitoring, diabetics are whipsawed between extremes: High blood sugar degrades their organs over the years, while low blood sugar at any ...
A New Path to Better Cybersecurity
It was a terrible year for the health of computer systems. Cyberthieves stole credit- and debit-card numbers from up to 56 million customers of the retail giant Home Depot, even more than the 40 million they stole in 2013 from Target. At JPMorgan Chase, 76 million bank accounts were compromised. The Heartbleed bug poked a big hole in widely used encryption software, and the Bash bug exposed millions of computers to malware. A Russian gang made off with more than a billion email addresses and pa...
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