Month: January 2021

100 Years: Standing on the Shoulders of Suffregettes

On By marmietedwardsIn Uncategorized1 Comment
Vice President Kamala Harris

“Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” – Plato

Today’s woman may cringe when they think it took 51 years from the first Suffragette Convention in Cleveland in 1869 until women got the vote in 1920. Then it took another 100 years before women’s votes helped elect a female vice president—U.S. Senator and former California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris.

President Woodrow Wilson spoke to Congress on September 30, 1918: “We have made partners of women in the war. . . Shall we admit them to a partnership of suffering, sacrifice, and toil and not to a partnership of privilege, and right?” Eventually Congress voted affirmative.

Since then, women’s progress has moved at a snail’s pace. Some women believed they had achieved status hitched to their spouses. Others were brainwashed. In the 1970s, sociologist David Riesman surveyed women under 45, who had been or were currently married, and found that 80 percent believed “it is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” (Reisman, “Two Generations,” in The Woman in America.) Then the average salary for a female teacher was $4,680, while a man straight out of college could make $5,400.

The fact that there were housewives working to support their families did not register with the male politicians, business executives, editors, and scriptwriters who set the tone for public discussion. They were better paid, their wives worked at home, and “of course, it was better to have women at home.”

My first year at the newspaper in 1972, I did better than the teachers at $8,500/annually. I worked some 16-hour days but felt happy to have a job at a newspaper. That same year women protested women going into the workplace, fearing they were taking a job that belonged to a man. I did not see those women in Fort Wayne, but I am quite sure they were lurking. I was the only woman reporter in the newsroom.

           “Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.”

  • Frederick Douglass

Maybe it is no surprise that the Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed in 1923, written to end legal distinctions between men and women in divorce, property, and employment. This was how the 1972 legislation read in its entirety:

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S. or any state on account of sex.”  –  Equal Rights Amendment

When the ERA passed Congress in 1972, it glided through the House 354-24, but 51 Members did not vote. The Senate tally was 84-8. Thirty of the required 38 states ratified it in the first year, but then the pace slowed considerably. Phyllis Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum, a ‘pro-family” socially conservative organization, organized specifically to defeat passage of the ERA. Schlafly’s STOP ERA stood for “Stop Taking Our Privileges,” which might now be seen as White Privilege, but she linked the ERA to every liberal cause the Forum stood against.

Result: the ERA was not ratified I 1979, although the deadline was extended to 1982. But after Schlafly died in 2016 at 92, the Illinois Legislature, which was her home base, ratified it as the 37th state in 2018.

Albert Einstein might have had a saying for that:   “Failure is success in progress.”

Women have marched forward without the ERA.

Example: Vice President Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, immigrated to California from India to complete a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, where she met Kamala’s father, Donald Harris. He had come from Jamaica to Berkeley to study for a PhD in economics. While achieving doctorates, they took time from their studies to participate in the civil rights campaign and married in 1963. They encouraged their daughters to aim high, but they divorced in the 1970s.

Dr. Gopalan became well known as a biomedical scientist completing successful breast cancer research.  Her daughters went with her to Canada to continue her research at McGill University in Montreal. Kamala Harris returned to California after she completed high school. Her mother died of colon cancer in 2009 but had built strong shoulders for her daughters to stand.

 Abraham Lincoln, speaking 160-years before her inauguration in his 1864 State of the Union, addressed the future role of immigrants like Dr. Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris:

“Immigrants are the principal replenishing streams which are appointed by Providence to repair the ravages of internal war and its wastes of national strength and health.”  – Abraham Lincoln

Since her swearing in, Vice President Harris has repeated her mother’s words: “You may be the first to do many things—don’t be the last.” A mantra for women to repeat until we have pulled up the next generation to lead.

Democracy-Busting Ghosts

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Ghostbusters

I have “Ghostbusters” in my mind. This is a serious matter, but I don’t want to think these people are real. Can we absolve the nation of a scourge that has opened gaping wounds of misunderstanding, fear, animosity, disbelief, and selfishness?

I see the ghosts of 1860 floating above the U.S. House and Senate, as members refuse to admit to the damage 147 of them have inflicted against democracy by thinking they are advancing their own political ambitions. Or because they fear going against a failed leader just a few days before his replacement. His successor will be sworn in Wednesday above the very steps where a mob carried the Confederate banner along with the American flag. These invaders used the pole carrying the flag to batter down the door to the U.S. Capitol and seriously injure one officer and kill another. Reporters, who have been verbally bashed for four years as the source of “fake news,” were threatened with bodily harm. An Associated Press news team covering the Capitol had their camera smashed and escaped before experiencing a similar fate.

Now 25,000 National Guardsmen are camped out in and around the U.S. Capitol to insure there is no repeat of January 6 mob-rule there. As a nation we have experienced ongoing political disagreements. Americans upset over the decisions of the President or Congress have come to Washington many times in the past. Think about the WW I veterans who camped out on the Mall demanding their promised bonus pay during the early days of the Depression. But they did not batter down the doors of the Capitol, create mayhem inside, force Members of Congress to hide in the tunnels, or kill or maim Capitol Police Officers.

Beat the Drum for Discontent

This time the one who had beat the drum for discontent for four years had molded those fearful of the loss of blue-collar jobs and a changing world into a movement to take the nation backward—Make America Great Again. Red hats of the GOP right-wing flutter all over the Washington Mall and State Capitols where followers refuse to believe political decisions are tipping towards the Democrats, who want to boldly walk into the future to attempt to solve the nation’s problems.

What we have never had before is a leader elected as President who was willing to lie repeatedly to followers, whose critical thinking skills were relaxed by the words they wanted to hear. Lies repeated by such a leader can easily incite brain-washed followers to riot, as they did two weeks ago. The MAGA crowd that flocked to his speeches in 2020 became “true believers” during the first three years of his administration. Then in the fourth were trained to disbelieve the risk of COVID, shun mask-wearing and infect others at their events, including the President.

From “Fake News” to the “Big Lie”

Next he laid the groundwork for his biggest lie: “The only way I can lose this election is if the Democrats steal it from me.” And what was the chant outside and inside the Capitol on January 6? “Stop the Steal.” Then he planted the seeds of “fraud” and “evil” done by the opposition and repeated the lie over and over and over again, until it became unrefutable among the MAGA. Critically thinking people might consider whether he would say that if he were not afraid of losing.

The mob he called to Washington for the final counting of the Electoral College votes and confirmation of the 2020 Election Jan. 6, he then recruited to go up to the Capitol to attack the people who had denied him “another four years.” (He lied again telling them he would be going with them, of course he did not, being only the one who incites.)

306 to 232 – Final Tally

He conviently forgot that it is the American people’s votes who decide who will sit in the Oval Office in 2021, not the Congress. The final tally after all the millions of dollars and personal hours spent on recounting in PA, GA, MI, and WI resulted in the same final outcome. Joe Biden won, receiving 81,281,891 popular votes to Donld Trump’s 74,223,254 and the electoral votes were 306 for Biden to 232 for Trump. When Trump received 306 electoral votes in 2016, he called it a “landslide.” He doesn’t see the number that way now.

There will be no voting system that could satisfy people who fail to trust any organization other than MAGA, particularly if the system doesn’t consistently yield a win for their leader.

The Rolling Stones put it this way, “You Don’t Always Get What You Want” in politics or in life. John Adams in1800 felt he got a raw deal in his second term election against Thomas Jefferson. He didn’t attend Jefferson’s Inauguration, but he didn’t draw a mob to battle inside the Capitol. More recently, 200 years later, Gore and Bush came down to the “falling chads” in Florida that some argue to this day, but Gore, being the out-going Vice President, stood as did Vice President Pence, and gracefully and methodically certified Bush’s win without a temper tandrum. We work with what IS, not with what we’d like it to be.

The current President’s response to this election sets a bad precedent for Little Leaguers who REALLY want to win their games, same for high school football players, one of whom tackled a referee on the sidelines this year when he didn’t like a penalty called against him. We need to walk this back so we can begin to play the entire game fairly—down to the handshake at the end that is customary in baseball and was in politics, even when we lose.

America, its politicians, and its people have a huge job ahead, slowly beginning to look at each situation to establish fairness as a standard.  To begin to reestablish that facts DO exist and to work towards trust by listening to other views. Maybe it will take more than four years to unravel the mind-numbing double-think of the last four years, but we must start the process now.

If we can do that, we won’t need Ghostbusters. We’ll begin to whittle away at the ghosts of the past who are haunting our present and threatening our future.

Discovering Factories of Innovation

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Vector illustration with a touch of 80’s style depicting COVID-19 concept and handmade grain effect. istock.

Discovering Factories of Invention

January 7, 2021. As a former Congressional staffer early in my career, I am particularly shocked by the invasion of the U.S. Capitol and loss of life we saw yesterday. In earlier blogs I have discussed the importance of finding “common ground” and treating each other with civility. This is a serious wound to our democracy that will take a concerted effort to repair. To move forward, I continue to address issues of importance to the nation. Here relying on science to help tame critical problems like Covid-19 here and around the globe.

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  Thanks to Thomas Edison’s initial electrical genius our neighborhoods and homes twinkled with electric red, green, blue and white bulbs for the holidays, providing a brief respite from the Pandemic. Putting the light bulb within financial reach of everyone was just one of Edison’s inventions. Over a lifetime he received 2,332 patents in 34 countries.

Drey Family Christmas Lights, NW Austin 2020 Photo by M. Edwards

Yet none of Edison’s 19th century inventions solved the puzzles we’re grappling with in the 21st century—a virus that has killed over 330,000 Americans, flooding ICUs and leaving millions with lasting heart, lung, and brain traumas growing out of COVID-19.

Menlo Park “Factory”

Can today’s researchers glean anything from Edison’s “Factory of Innovation”?  How does his body of work compare with modern scientific discovery? Having the mind of a genius aided his cause, but his wisdom also led him to assemble a group of well-trained, top-drawer scientists in Menlo Park, outside Newark, NJ. Edison realized he needed a village of scientists to be productive and prolific. Edison hired 25 young scientists from colleges and tech schools to carry out his experiments—several at a time. They toiled for “workmen’s wages,” but as one said: “The privilege which I had being with this great man for six years was the greatest inspiration of my life.” Others did privately complain about the 55-hour week, six-days-a-week that could expand into overnight stints when an experiment demanded it.

Many of those scientists, who Edison called “Muckers,” began at New Jersey’s Menlo Park or the West Orange lab complex and went on to continue working with him for great chunks of their lives. The cadre grew to 200, developing specialization along the way, working on batteries, the telegraph or phonograph, a prototype of an electric railway, the motion picture cylinder, and an electrographic vote recorder.

Their efforts took communication and entertainment to levels never anticipated. While Edison lived into the 20th century (1931), he was a man of a wired world. Heck, he made the wires possible that sped the 19th century far forward into the digital, wireless world we embody today. A new raft of scientists and inventive dreamers followed him to bridge the gap between.

Areas of Discovery 2020

The 21st century scientists are branching well beyond “wires” or define them more as “branches” on DNA trees and cultured viruses in laboratories filled with computerized test tubes and syringes and a raft of supplies unfamiliar to Edison. He built his initial 25 X 100 laboratory filled with every apparatus, including a 10-horsepower engine, and chemicals on every shelf for 19th century “scientific research.” He promised to produce a minor invention every ten days and a “big thing” every six months.

Such promises are nonsensical in today’s world of modern biological research, COVID-19 earnest push behind the 21st century work at biotech firms like AbCellera, Abbott, OxGene TESSA, Codex DNA, GIGAGen, 10X Genomics, and countless others. All those mentioned have been selected to be among the Top 10 Innovations of 2020, reported in The Scientist.

While my knowledge of their work can barely meet the task of describing it, I will rely on The Scientist, a publication “exploring life, inspiring innovation,” that selected esteemed judges, who determined the awaredees. As beings alive in this century, we should be aware of the achievements and the trials of these tireless workers.

Are these “factories of invention”?  Since necessity is the mother of invention, in 2020-21 the science of biology has become one essential tool to address the international concern with COVID-19. So rather than look to electricity and electronics, two areas of burgeoning success beginning in the 18th century, attention now turns to laboratory technologies.

Companies and laboratories focused on pharmaceuticals, genetics, and building the tools they need to discover COVID vaccines are the winners. Scientists, who focus their efforts on medicines and the lengthy search for cures, are on the front lines—some of them just as hidden from the public as the “muckers.” Here are a few winners among the Top 10 scientific discoveries in 2020 in core laboratory technologies: single-cell proteome (a system’s collection of protein) analyzer and a desktop gene synthesizer and Pandemic-focused products.

AbCellera Celium TM  The Scientist reported in late March this biotech firm hosted a call with 40 researchers to review the data they’d collected on potential antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. The company deciphered the genetic sequences encoding hundreds of antibodies that might treat COVID-19. They fed their results into Celium, a data visualization tool that intersects more than a million high-quality data points to those antibodies to reveal which ones might work best in a potential therapy. This process helped them focus on the LY-CoV555 antibody, which later entered into clinical trials as a potential treatment, according to Maia Smith, lead of data visualization at Celium, “I think that kind of says it all.”

Fernando Cortea, a protein engineer at Kodiak Sciences in Palo Alto, who partners with AbCellera to identify antibodies to treat retinal diseases, says the company’s package of microfluidics, single-cell analysis, and the data visualization tool “streamlines the process of antibody discovery in a user-friendly manner.”  One of the contest judges praised the “power of the Celium platform as being at the intersection of biology and AI to make new antibody discoveries at a blazing speed.”

Abbott ID NOW COVID-19 Test  For six years, Abbott has helped physicians detect influenza A and B. strep, respiratory syncyt virus (RSV) and more recently SARS-CoV-2, in less than 15 minutes. The toaster-sized device heats samples in an acidic solution that cracks open the viruses, exposing their RNA. This was one of the first tests accessible to the US public in the COVID crisis and its quick response “is critical to stopping viral spread,” according to Normal Moore, Abbott’s director of scientific affairs for infectious diseases. He explained “you’re most infectious early on—and we don’t have that result in that timely fashion, what does it help if a molecular test comes back two weeks later?” In January 2020, there were more than 23,000 ID NOW machines in use in the US, mainly in urgent care clinics and pharmacies. The ID NOW platform costs $4,500 and each COVID-19 test costs $40.

Contest Judge Charmion Cruickshank-Quinn, a scientist at Agilent Technologies, pointed to the ease of the throat or nasal tests using the mobile platform in the field at drive-thru testing locations.

BioLegend TotalSeq  TM Human Universal Cocktail v1.0  allows researchers to analyze blood samples from nearly 300 patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. “I actually know a lot of colleagues across the United States and Europe that have used this same panel to analyze their COVID cohorts. . .which means we’ll be able to combine all of our data and compare. And that’s incredible.”  It also builds an international online laboratory, expanding the size and speed of virus investigations and testing.

Judge Robert Meagher, Sandia National Laboratories, technical staff: “This is a really nice merging of next-gen sequencing as a digital readout for sequence barcodes and single-cell barcoding technology to enable single-cell quantitative proteomics (the entire set of proteins produced by an organism).”

Codex DNA BioXp TM 3250 System   released in August 2020 , following a 2014 platform for on-demand DNA assembly and amplification, allowing researchers to synthesize genes and genomes faster than ever before to accelerate the development of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments, according to Peter Duncan, director of produce management at Codex DNA. The equipment can be used on cancer cells or a variety of infectious agents, including SARS-CoV-2.

Prior to this platform, researchers needed to send out samples to be processed, taking weeks or months. This system sequences up to 7,000 base pairs in length can be assembled in a matter of days with the push of a button. Mark Tornetta, Biologics Discovery at Tavotek Biotherapeutics told The Scientist: “All of these methods (that are on the run)on the BioXP save us time and cost to perform.”

Factories of Invention, where researchers work to answer our pressing needs, drawing together science talent and the latest tools to serve society—whether it’s the 18th century or the 21st. To learn more about the other outstanding innovations in 2021, check out the bottom URL below.

https://www.thoughtco.com/thomas-edison-muckers-4071190

Read for yourself about the other 2020 Top 10 Innovations:

https://www.the-scientist.com/features/2020-top-10-innovations-68176