Hydroponic lettuce offers a taste of 'green' food

Video via Quad Talk 

Much of the lettuce sold in the eastern United States comes from California and Arizona. Emory students, however, are getting treated to fresh, campus-grown salads through a hydroponic system developed by Alex Boettcher and Jai Seth, both undergraduates majoring in economics and minoring in sustainability.

Their hydroponic system is currently growing about 50 heads of lettuce in 15-square-feet of the Dobbs University Center (DUC).

California lettuce “has to travel 3,000 miles to get here so it’s about 8 to 10 days before it’s served onto our plates,” Boettcher says. “It’s constantly losing nutrients, plus it takes massive amounts of fossil fuels to get it here.”

Conventional farming needs about three months to produce a crop of lettuce “but here we grow it in about six weeks,” Seth adds. “And because we’re growing it indoors we can have eight different crops cycles as compared to three or four crop cycles at a conventional farm.”

The students aim to promote sustainable, local food and good nutrition through the hydroponic project, which was supported by the Center for the Study of Human Health, the Foundations of Sustainability class and Food Services.

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How close are we to living on Mars?

Matt Damon portrays an astronaut stranded on Mars in "The Martian." The movie opens this week, on the heels of NASA's discovery of liquid water on the Red Planet.

By Sidney Perkowitz, Emeritus Candler Professor of Physics at Emory

Like any long-distance relationship, our love affair with Mars has had its ups and downs. The planet’s red tint made it a distinctive – but ominous – nighttime presence to the ancients, who gazed at it with the naked eye. Later we got closer views through telescopes, but the planet still remained a mystery, ripe for speculation.

A century ago, the American astronomer Percival Lowell mistakenly interpreted Martian surface features as canals that intelligent beings had built to distribute water across a dry world. This was just one example in a long history of imagining life on Mars, from H G Wells portraying Martians as bloodthirsty invaders of Earth, to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kim Stanley Robinson and others wondering how we could visit Mars and meet the Martians.

Drawing of Mars via NASA

The latest entry in this long tradition is the sci-fi flick The Martian, to be released on October 2. Directed by Ridley Scott and based on Andy Weir’s self-published novel, it tells the story of an astronaut (played by Matt Damon) stranded on Mars. Both book and movie try to be as true to the science as possible – and, in fact, the science and the fiction around missions to Mars are rapidly converging.

NASA’s Curiosity rover and other instruments have shown that Mars once had oceans of liquid water, a tantalizing hint that life was once present.

And now NASA has just reported the electrifying news that liquid water is flowing on Mars.

This discovery increases the odds that there is currently life on Mars – picture microbes, not little green men – while heightening interest in NASA’s proposal to send astronauts there by the 2030s as the next great exploration of space and alien life.

So how close are we to actually sending people to Mars and having them survive on an inhospitable planet? First we have to get there.

Making it to Mars won’t be easy. It’s the next planet out from the sun, but a daunting 140 million miles away from us, on average – far beyond the Earth’s moon, which, at nearly 250,000 miles away, is the only other celestial body human beings have set foot on.

Nevertheless, NASA and several private ventures believe that by further developing existing propulsion methods, they can send a manned spacecraft to Mars.
 


One NASA scenario would, over several years, pre-position supplies on the Martian moon Phobos, shipped there by unmanned spacecraft; land four astronauts on Phobos after an eight-month trip from Earth; and ferry them and their supplies down to Mars for a 10-month stay, before returning the astronauts to Earth.

We know less, though, about how a long voyage inside a cramped metal box would affect crew health and morale. Extended time in space under essentially zero gravity has adverse effects, including loss of bone density and muscle strength, which astronauts experienced after months aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

There are psychological factors, too. ISS astronauts in Earth orbit can see and communicate with their home planet, and could reach it in an escape craft, if necessary. For the isolated Mars team, home would be a distant dot in the sky; contact would be made difficult by the long time lag for radio signals. Even at the closest approach of Mars to the Earth, 36 million miles, nearly seven minutes would go by before anything said over a radio link could receive a response.

To cope with all this, the crew would have to be carefully screened and trained. NASA is now simulating the psychological and physiological effects of such a journey in an experiment that is isolating six people for a year within a small structure in Hawaii.

Engineers and technicians are already testing the spacesuit astronauts will wear in the Orion spacecraft on trips to deep space, including Mars. (NASA/Bill Stafford)

These concerns would continue during the astronauts' stay on Mars, which is a harsh world. With temperatures that average -80 Fahrenheit (-62 Celsius) and can drop to -100F (-73C) at night, it is cold beyond anything we encounter on Earth; its thin atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide (CO₂), is unbreathable and supports huge dust storms; it is subject to ultraviolet radiation from the sun that may be harmful; and its size and mass give it a gravitational pull that is only 38% of the Earth’s – which astronauts exploring the surface in heavy protective suits would welcome, but could also further exacerbate bone and muscle problems.

As the astronauts establish their base, NASA is planning to use Mars' own resources to overcome some of these obstacles.

Fortunately, water and oxygen should be available. NASA had planned to try a form of mining to retrieve water existing just below the Martian surface, but the new finding of surface water may provide an easier solution for the astronauts. Mars also has considerable oxygen bound up in its atmospheric CO₂. In the MOXIE process (Mars Oxygen In situ resource utilization Experiment), electricity breaks up CO₂ molecules into carbon monoxide and breathable oxygen. NASA proposes to test this oxygen factory aboard a new Mars rover in 2020 and then scale it up for the manned mission.

There is also potential to produce the compound methane from Martian sources as rocket fuel for the return to Earth. The astronauts should be able to grow food, too, using techniques that recently allowed the ISS astronauts to taste the first lettuce grown in space.

Without utilizing some of Mars' raw materials, NASA would have to ship every scrap of what the astronauts would need: equipment, their habitation, food, water, oxygen and rocket fuel for the return trip. Every extra pound that has to be hauled up from Earth makes the project that much more difficult. “Living off the land” on Mars, though it might affect the local environment, would hugely improve the odds for success of the initial mission – and for eventual settlements there.

NASA will continue to learn about Mars and hone its planning over the next 15 years. Of course, there are formidable difficulties ahead; but it’s key that the effort does not require any major scientific breakthroughs, which, by their nature, are unpredictable. Instead, all the necessary elements depend on known science being applied via enhanced technology.

Yes, we’re closer to Mars than many may think. And a successful manned mission could be the signature human achievement of our century.

(This article first appeared in The Conversation.)

New human health major aims at culture change

“Health is something that’s not just physical,” says Brooke Healey, a junior at Emory. “It’s so much more than that.”

Healey is majoring in human health, an interdisciplinary degree launched this fall at the university that aims to give students practical skills to develop health-related careers, along with a holistic understanding of physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

“We are offering the only bachelors of human health in the country, at a time when health is being redefined,” says Michelle Lampl, director of Emory’s Center for the Study of Human Health. “For too long, our concept of ‘health’ has been limited culturally by our construct of what it is not: The disease state. We are on the cutting edge of using science not just to cure disease, but to identify, predict and support health.”

Emory is uniquely suited to pioneer the human health major, Lampl says, drawing on expert faculty and resources from throughout the humanities and sciences. The first cohort of majors includes students interested in law, political science, economics and business, as well as public health and medicine.

“Human health is a major global issue, and at the same time is a leading sector for job growth,” Lampl says.

The human health graduates, she notes, will help expand and change not just what we mean by the word “health,” but what it means to have a health-related career.



The new major builds on the Center for the Study of Human Health’s programs such as its Health 100 course, launched in 2011, that all Emory freshman are required to take. The course, rooted in predictive health research at Emory, includes classes on topics like nutrition and exercise, as well as small-group discussions to help students manage the stress of college life. Trained upperclassmen serve as mentors, in the form of peer health partners and healthy eating partners.

“The students aren’t just gaining a new perspective on their own health,” says Lisa Dupree, the center’s associate director. “They’re learning how to help their friends, families and others change their behaviors.”

College has long been associated with burning the candle at both ends, Lampl notes, a compressed time when young people are expected to achieve a great deal, while also learning to navigate daily life on their own.

“It’s such a critical period,” she says. “We want to help students step off the moving pathway, take stock of their daily decisions, and get on the right road to true well-being.”

“My peer health partner was great,” says Healey, who recently underwent training to become one herself. “A lot of the things taught to me were valuable in terms of health, stress management and adapting to the college lifestyle.” (Watch the videos, above, to hear more feedback from the students about Emory’s human health classes.)

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Former Miss America discusses anorexia

Beauty pageants actually helped her heal from anorexia, says Kirsten Haglund. Photo by Kay Hinton.

By Mary Loftus, Emory Magazine

Kirsten Lora Haglund, Miss America 2008, is now a junior at Emory, majoring in political science. But as a girl growing up in Farmington Hills, Michigan, her dream was to become a ballerina.

And that was how the trouble with food began.

“When I was 12, I went away to a very intensive ballet camp for the summer. I was living away from home for the first time, and my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer,” Haglund says. “Also, I was going through puberty, and I dreaded that. As a ballet dancer you want to stay thin and graceful and elegant.”

She remembers the day she threw her lunch away for the first time. Everyone else was having a bit of granola, an apple. “I felt like a cow, eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich,” she says.

Not eating felt like being in complete control—at least of her own body. “I felt above mere mortals, that I could subsist without food. Restricting calories was accomplishing what other people couldn’t. It gave me significance. I was the skinny girl.”

Already tall and slim, Haglund started with the aim of losing five pounds, but that number rapidly escalated. She began severely restricting her food intake to just 900 calories a day, living mostly on Diet Coke, coffee, gum, lettuce, and an occasional spoonful of peanut butter or grilled chicken breast with lemon.

“I started to hate dancing,” she says. “I was tired and had no energy, and you always had to look in mirrors. I was never satisfied; I kept seeing parts of my body I hated more and more.”


Always a straight-A student, she was still excelling in school. But deep down, Haglund knew something was wrong. Her hair started to fall out, her nails became brittle, and she was always cold. She stopped having her period. She isolated, staying away from social functions with food or friends who asked questions. She lost 30 pounds in three years.

When her parents intervened and took her to a doctor, Haglund remembers, “I was so mad. And I hated that doctor. Now we’re friends, so I can say that.”

A physical showed that Haglund’s health, at 15, had already been compromised. She had osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis and renal insufficiency. She began seeing an eating disorder specialist, a nutritionist, and a psychologist, multiple times a week throughout high school.

“I can’t even remember now what I saw in the mirror when I was sick, because my eyes have changed,” she says. “But I do remember feeling that my willpower, the restrictions, were never enough. I kept a journal of what I ate and how much I exercised, and had a constant dialogue going on in my brain, whenever I consumed calories, of how and when I was going to burn them off.”

“Genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger,” Haglund adds. “I think I had both a genetic predisposition and also stressors, like ballet.”

But she overcame the disorder before entering her first pageant, Miss Oakland County—a stepping stone to Miss Michigan—at 17. She wanted to attend the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and needed scholarships to afford tuition. Haglund competed in the Miss Michigan pageant in June 2007. She won a preliminary swimsuit award and performed “Adele’s Laughing Song” from the operetta Die Fledermaus.

Haglund believes that pageants, rather than compromising her recovery from anorexia, actually helped her to heal.

“The ideal pageant body is much healthier than the ideal ballet dancer’s body,” she says.

At 19, she went on to represent Michigan in the Miss America 2008 pageant, a newly “modernized” version broadcast for the first time on the network TLC. The youngest of the 53 women vying for the crown, Haglund sang a Broadway-style rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” and her platform was eating disorder awareness.

On January 26, 2008, more than three million TV viewers watched as Haglund was crowned the eighty-third Miss America. With $60,000 in scholarship money, Haglund decided to resume college at Emory, largely because of its location in Atlanta and its top-20 standing.

She has continued to pursue her pageant platform by starting the Kirsten Haglund Foundation to assist girls who need treatment for eating disorders. The foundation has given financial assistance to 13 girls so far and has helped countless others by advocating for their treatment, assisting with insurance, and providing encouragement. Haglund speaks at events all over the country about body image and overcoming anorexia. “Parents can sometimes think it’s just a phase,” she says. “But if you catch it early, like anything else, there’s a much better chance for recovery.”

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