by Mark Goode
This was a great part-time job for a student of science, although perhaps a bit esoteric for a biologist. She welcomed the additional income, and the affiliation with computer experts in the Department of Defense exposed her to some very sophisticated computing technology.
Angela loved this job and found herself contributing at a level not previously seen for a student. She presented at meetings in the lab and coauthored a number of publications.
On the biological side, she was interested in the cell cycle and aging. Specifically, she was looking for the “on and off switches” that regulated life cycles and that enabled cells and organisms to know when to grow and multiply, and when to die. The latter process, apoptosis, is also known as programmed cell death. A lot of your grandmother’s work involved plants, for many reasons including the fact that they were easy to grow in the laboratory, had relatively short life cycles, and could be manipulated and studied using real-life plant viruses.
She also believed food science was very relevant in a world struggling to feed everyone. Water was in short supply and society needed alternatives to meet these challenges.
She wanted to know how a seed knew that spring had arrived, that it was safe to start germinating and emerge from the earth? How did the plants know that it was time for rapid proliferation and growth, producing the fruits of a bountiful harvest? What molecular signal brought this process to a halt and opened the gateway to dormancy for a long winter’s nap.
Even Angela found it challenging to describe and understand such a system with multiple nonlinear variables, such as the length of the day, amount of sunlight, amount of moisture, variations in temperature, availability of micronutrients, effects of insects and predators, and so forth. It was a lot like studying and trying to predict the weather. Eventually, the mathematics of the complex nonlinear systems led her to the developing field of chaos theory.
It was not the biology but rather the mathematics that drew the attention of her superiors at the Department of Defense. It soon became necessary for Grandmother to obtain a security clearance.
She was offered a full-time position but was torn between the hard sciences at the lab and her primary interests in biology. Eventually, she was able to engineer a compromise allowing her to work as a consultant for the Department of Defense and become an assistant professor in the Department of Biology.
Her work on photosynthesis and chloroplasts would ultimately lead to the development of a commercial bioreactor that could fix carbon and ostensibly reduce the carbon dioxide burden in the atmosphere.
Chapter 7
Grandmother’s
Laboratory
Angela’s laboratory was located in the Biomedical Sciences building. One of the previous professors had moved on into administration, leaving considerable empty space, which she quickly occupied. She shared the entire floor with a number of other scientists, including microbiologists, immunologists, and virologists. The lab boasted a library and computing center; it also had the latest equipment required for the work of dissecting cells, separating them into their constituent parts, down to their proteins and DNA. In addition to her own space and special computers, Angela had a greenhouse. Her colleagues jokingly suggested that she was growing funny plants in there.
It was a cordial environment shared by a number of faculty and staff who frequently congregated in the lunchroom and lounge. No food was allowed in the laboratories, although Angela had cookies in her desk. A virologist named Emma Green used the lab occasionally, and she and Angela frequently had lunch together. They were both runners and sometimes ran on campus while waiting for experiments to process. Angela had a very fast computer, loaned to her by the DOD, complete with a holographic simulator. It required a security clearance to log on and ran its own operating system.
Historical review of Angela’s works can be accessed in the National Library of Science. Apparently, she had reasoned that regulation of the cell cycle was linked to the total energy available to an organism. She postulated a sort of fuel gauge mechanism warning and allowing cells to go into an energy-saving mode, such as cell cycle arrest, before it was too late. She studied chloroplasts, the “solar panels” of plants, where sunlight is captured and the energy used to fix carbon and convert it into sugar molecules. These plant organelles have their own power converters, DNA, and ribosomes, which are the factories where long chains of amino acids are linked together to make proteins.
The regulation of protein enzymes was known to be related to their size, shape, and surface features, or topology, like a 3D map. Using her computer, she constructed maps of ribosomes so she could study their structure. She thought that perhaps programmed cell death in plants was related to the decreasing amount of sunlight and energy available in autumn. She ran the computer simulations using a range of temperature and sunlight conditions, hoping to find a clue.
Her supercomputer was so fast that it actually hummed as it churned through the trillions of calculations. One day she came to the laboratory and walked in front of the computer, which recognized her.
“Hello, Angela, I have results for you,” it said. “Would you like to view them?”
“Of course,” she said, siting down in front of the holographic screen.
On the display she saw what appeared to be a three-dimensional picture of a ribosome in magnificent detail. It was as though it were alive and looking back at her. She must have sat there an hour staring at its beauty and trying to comprehend its significance. The math had predicted the existence of an alternative ribosome. The challenge would be determining whether this was a by-product of the mathematics or was actually real and what its function was.
Angela spent many sleepless nights in the ensuing weeks thinking about her potential discovery. She counted ribosomes like an insomniac counted sheep, and she dreamed of their existence and meaning.
It was not unusual for Angela to get wrapped up in thinking about problems. Sometimes it was helpful for her to distance herself from difficult problems she was wrestling with.
After a few weeks she thought she would do an experiment making extracts from dying plants to see what effect the solution might have on healthy plants. In her greenhouse she stimulated the autumn-like conditions of decreasing sunlight and temperature. The leaves started to lose color, halted photosynthesis, and descended into inexorable decline. She found that healthy plants growing in full light and warm temperatures also exhibited these seasonal changes. She called the extracts “autumn in a bottle.”
Next, she set out to determine the obvious, which was identifying what in the extract was responsible for this phenomenon. She did cell separations routinely in her lab and eventually isolated the DNA from the chloroplasts.
The final proof of the pudding would be the introduction of this DNA into healthy plants.
Chapter 8
Enter the Virus
Angela called her virologist colleague Emma Green to discuss the problem. The two women conceived of an experiment to insert the DNA into healthy plants cells. Hitching a ride on a virus, DNA carried into a cell, if incorporated, can result in new genetically modified cells displaying new traits.
“Sure, our lab can do that,” Emma concluded, “but it won’t be cheap. I can get you some preliminary cost estimates if you can find a source of additional funding. I think this is a doable project.”
Angela provided Emma with an account number and selected DNA isolated from spinach plants, which she labeled to identify the source.
Emma went to work in her laboratory to construct the virus. The process seemed to take a long time for the somewhat inpatient Angela. She checked in with Emma during their afternoon runs and occasional lunchtime encounters.
“You can’t rush this,” Emma said. “Why don’t you start working in your greenhouse and get a new batch of plants ready? We’ll need them once my work has completed. The timing should be about ri
ght.”
“Oh, I already thought of that. I started a new crop a few months ago,” Angela replied.
It seemed like an eternity until Emma announced she was ready. The two of them proceeded to infect the new, thriving plants.
Angela checked on the plants daily. Like the proverbial watching grass grow, nothing seemed to be happening. After about three weeks, the new crop took an almost imperceptible turn, suggesting that something was going on. About a week later, the brightly colored green leaves started morphing into a lighter shade followed by the appearance of a hint of yellow.
Shortly thereafter, the greenhouse looked like an aspen grove in late September. Subsequently, the plants shed their leaves and were lifeless.
Angela and Emma were ecstatic and celebrated with dinner and a bottle of champagne. Over dinner the conversation circled around to the relevance of this discovery. Emma was very motivated to submit their work for publication and had already produced a draft article.
“Whoa! Not so fast,” Angela responded, putting up a substantial resistance and stating that they needed to do more investigation.
Emma grew angry. “This is a great paper! The information is relevant at this point in my career. I need to publish this!”
But Angela was steadfast and insisted they continue studying the underlying biochemistry and physiology. She changed the subject abruptly. “Shall we order dessert?”
“No, thank you. I just lost my appetite,” Emma said, with an edge in her voice. “I think I need to leave now. Perhaps you can perform the additional research by yourself. Enjoy your dessert.” Emma then briskly departed the restaurant.
Angela continued to do just that and documented everything, as usual. She really wanted to know what had happened within the plants. It seemed a déjà vu when she found herself once again examining specimens under the microscope and contemplating what was going on.
Not finding anything spectacular, she decided to send the tissues out to another laboratory for a closer look with the electron microscope (EM).
She was astonished when she was unable to find any ribosomes in the specimens!
Certainly, this was inconsistent or incompatible with life, but where did they go?
She thought this impossible and concluded that something had gone wrong, maybe a lab error. However, the EM laboratory assured her that was not the case and stood by their processes.
Angela communicated with an outside lab in Switzerland that agreed to investigate further and requested more samples for analysis.
“Well, this will take a long time,” she thought. Frustrated, but remembering the years spent working on her computer models, she would wait and temporarily stepped back from the project.
Typical of Angela, after a few weeks she concluded that the ribosomes had to be there but could not be seen. She jokingly called them quantum ribosomes from another dimension, the covert executioners of apoptosis. She envisioned an experiment whereby the ribosomes could perhaps be labeled and use that to find them, which she communicated to the Swiss lab scientists.
—
“Living with your grandmother was always interesting and challenging for both of us,” Grandpa Jack told me one evening, after fondly relating stories about her. “We were sort of opposites but complementary in certain areas, and the combination turned out to be mutually beneficial, but not easy. Angela’s work is beyond the comprehension of many, including me,” he admitted. “However, she did share with me in simpler terms I was able to grasp.”
Apparently, her mathematical models predicted the existence of two types of cell protein factories known as ribosomes. “I was looking for the other one,” she said. When DNA from plants that were dying was inserted into new healthy plants, it caused their demise. Under the microscope there were no visible ribosomes. The hallmark of apoptosis and death, however, was not the absence of but rather the presence of “invisible ribosomes” — the labeling experiments revealing their footprints!
She called them “quantum ribosomes” for sure, then, and thought they were present in cells that were descending the death spiral of apoptosis. She thought that they might be invisible because of some “spooky physics.” Perhaps they were entangled, or maybe a slight difference in the quantum physics favored one ribosome form over the other. She had established that whatever they represented, they were codified in DNA and appeared under circumstances of triggered apoptosis.
She laughed and acknowledged the sci-fi nature of this far-reaching explanation. It required a reconciliation between her keen scientific mind and the utility of a crude working model, speculative at best but allowing her to move forward with the science. It was her ability to work and live in these disparate worlds that made her such a visionary.
Chapter 9
Grand County, Colorado,
Big Thompson,
and The Aquaterrians
Before the war, industrialists and farmers were no strangers to this particular part of Colorado, where Reset.com headquarters is located. Grand Lake, the region’s largest natural lake just west of the Continental Divide and surrounded by the majestic Rocky Mountains, sits at the headwaters of the Colorado River. The railroad and river exit the valley on their westward journey toward California and Mexico.
The town of Grand Lake was founded in 1881. Within a few years a hotel and meeting place had been erected from hand-hewn timbers sourced locally. Wealthy businessmen and politicians congregated in the area for its majestic scenery and hunting and fishing. A number of entrepreneurs and businessmen had been rumored to have mysteriously disappeared in the area, presumably lost in the wilderness or drowned in the deep, cold waters of Grand Lake.
The Grand Lake Yacht Club, a private sailing club — yes, in the middle of the continent high up in the mountains — was established around 1902 by a Denver businessman. It was touted as the highest-elevation registered yacht club in the world.
In 1912, members of the yacht club entertained Sir Thomas Lipton, a British tea merchant and yachtsman. Lipton committed to sponsoring a sailing competition on Grand Lake and bestowed to the club an ornate sterling silver trophy. From then on, sailors competed each summer in the race bearing his name, the Lipton Cup Regatta.
Approximately 80 percent of the state’s precipitation falls as rain and snow on the western side of the Continental Divide. In contrast, most of the population lives on the east side of the Divide, along the Front Range. It soon became apparent that the eastern part of the state’s water supply had been overallocated. In order to sustain their agricultural needs, western water was diverted to the Front Range. The Big Thompson water project was conceived and built under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Reclamation.
Touted as the world’s largest trans-mountain construction project, this artificial river, as it was called, delivered water that would otherwise flow in the Colorado River to the west to be “wasted.” Such water could instead be diverted to the thirsty farmlands of eastern Colorado. Engineers estimated that the project could deliver a large city with both water and electricity.
The project was conceived in the 1930s and approved by President Franklin Roosevelt. Construction started in 1938. Taking approximately 20 years to complete and consisting of multiple reservoirs, dams, dikes, canals, and hydroelectric power plants. The central feature, however, was the 13-mile-long, 10-foot-diameter tunnel named after the project’s major proponent, US senator Alva Adams. The tunnel passes beneath the Continental Divide through the mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park.
A substantial engineering feat, the tunnel was excavated from both sides, starting at Grand Lake, at the base of the mountains, heading eastward and downward, and from Rocky Mountain National Park to the west, meeting beneath the mountains.
A collateral benefit of the project was the immense knowledge and experience gained, rightly establishing the region as expert in hydrology and wat
er management.
Indeed, my great-great-grandfather Clyde was a founding member of the engineering and hydrology fraternity that would one day become the AQNS. Grandpa Jack aspired to the ownership of the tattoo on Clyde’s massive biceps, like the inscription he had seen on the family barn, but Hettie would have none of it. Ultimately, Jack realized his childhood fantasy later when he ascended the ranks of the organization on his own merit.
The AQNS’s stated mission is to responsibly disseminate technology for the development of water resources. They established standards and guidelines for the industry and operate in the open, but their business meetings and conventions traditionally are private, for members only.
Ironically, born from the seeds of the Big Thompson water project, this secretive organization calls themselves Aquaterrians, the name deriving from the Latin for water and land, representing AQNS’s roots and, importantly, their philosophy and mission to protect water and the environment. The three-for-one principle of land, water, and air required that industrial projects involving one would deliver benefits to or at minimum not negatively impact the other two sides of the triangle.
AQNS membership is coveted and consisted largely of those early engineers, farmers, workers, and their descendants. Over generations, the organization worked closely with and became quietly embedded in the political infrastructure of the nation.