|
APS Raises $90,000 for Physiology Students, Post-doctoral Students
Affected by Hurricane Katrina
Moving swiftly after Hurricane
Katrina disrupted operations at Tulane, LSU, Xavier and Loyola Universities
in New Orleans, APS distributed about $80,000 of assistance to physiology
graduate and postdoctoral students in the affected area.
Individual APS members generously donated about $15,000, while Council
raised its initial commitment of $50,000 to $75,000. As of mid-October, APS
received 56 applications for assistance and authorized 40 unrestricted
awards of $2,000 each.
APS President Douglas C. Eaton said APS received “offers of assistance from
over 40 universities from as far afield as Taiwan, Alaska and Puerto Rico.”
The offers were for graduate and postdoctoral openings for one to over 10
students each, laboratory space, research assistance and fellowships, often
including housing and stipends.
Donations from APS members and the public can be made online at: http://
www.the-aps.org/katrina.htm.
The APS Executive Office received many thank-you notes and comments from
recipients. Here are just a few:
“Thank you. My family has a long road ahead. We had to leave our house
because of extensive roof damage. I had to retrieve our belongings
yesterday. The APS award will really help. I thank the APS for its
generosity. I will be there whenever you need me.”
Martin Farias III
Senior Fellow, Dept. of Physiology,
Louisiana State University
“It’s an honor to be associated with a Society that reaches out to our young
people in such a caring and financially supportive manner. It is so
reassuring when people reach out to help in this time of natural disaster.”
Lisa Harrison-Bernard
LSU Health Science Center-New Orleans
Chair, APS Membership Committee
“I was extremely gratified to learn the graduate student and the postdocs
associated with my lab had been aided by APS in their time of dire need.
Your prompt generosity will help them restore their lives and their
confidence in a dignified manner. I know this generosity is also being
multiplied many times across APS. Thank you so much!”
Cuihua Zhang
LSU Dept. of Anesthesiology, Surgery, and Physiology
“I would like to personally thank APS for the Hurricane Katrina Award.
Please know that it will greatly aid me with relocation expenses, as well as
with the continuation of my research.”
Melissa Burmeister
Graduate student
LSU HSC
“Ian Bartz is a postdoctoral fellow my lab. He lived about four blocks from
the Mississippi River and has lost everything in the flood. I have already
been very impressed by APS in response to this disaster. The web page and
Katrina blog were very helpful for locating others. I have also been
thankful to other APS members who have offered temporary lab space and
equipment."
Gregory M. Dick
LSU Dept. of Physiology
“I would like to again thank the APS and its members for their help during
this tragedy. It appears I have lost everything and with the help of APS I
can make a fresh start.”
Ian Bartz
Postdoctoral fellow
LSU, New Orleans, Dept. of Physiology
Country Physiology Mouse Takes a
Little Media Bite of the Big Apple
Kirsten Sanford, APS/AAAS Mass Media Fellow
 |
|
Kirsten Sanford |
Thanks to APS and AAAS, New
York City is my home for 10 weeks. Quite a change from the small town of
Davis, CA where I’ve been for the past few years while working on my
doctorate in neurophysiology at the University of California-Davis.
The New York move was prompted because I was the lucky recipient of an AAAS
Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship placing me at WNBC-TV, the
network’s flaghip station. As the APS-sponsored fellow, I have the
opportunity to gain experience writing about science for the public at this
major media outlet in the world’s largest media market.
Little did I realize before I arrived just how big “local” TV could be. The
WNBC news department takes up much of two floors in the NBC building at 30
Rockefeller Center. On the 7th floor, I’m upstairs from Conan O’Brian and
downstairs from Saturday Night Live.
TV news is a fast and furious world. What is here today is absolutely gone
tomorrow: shorter in duration than the life-span of a mosquito! The process
of making the news is rigidly structured, and each story that airs combines
the work of many people in various roles. My role is that of the “adult
intern.” Since all the other interns are around 19 years old, I have a bit
more freedom to practice my skills at writing and proposing stories.
I work with Dr. Max Gomez (the “on-air talent”) and his producer, Cathy
Becker. As the head of the Medical and Health news department, Max has the
final say in the stories we pitch to the head-producers of “Live at 5.”
Cathy helps decide which stories we will produce, organizes all the
interviews, writes scripts, and chooses the video for final pieces. Max has
been the on-air medical and health reporter here for ages. Working in the
field for nearly 30 years, Max is an incredible mentor.
Everyday is a different experience. Monday through Friday we put together an
average of three stories a day: one longer “package” piece that runs about
one minute 40 seconds and two short pieces (“voiceovers” or VOs) that run
20-25” each. So we prepare 15 stories each week, though the head-producers
cut some due to time constraints or sudden “more important” news.
The VOs, which the anchors read “over” the videotape, are always that day’s
“breaking” news. There is definitely a balance between breaking news and
“evergreen” stories (those that are good forever), which I have yet to
understand.
The longer packages often involve going on “shoots” to do interviews and get
“B-roll” (the background video images that fill out a story). Max does most
of the interviews, and the interns tag along to see how it’s done. It is
really educational to see how he formulates leading questions to extract the
information he needs from subjects.
Learning how the system works was my initial challenge. Now I’m trying to
learn the arts of pitching the right ideas and writing for TV. One thing
I’ve learned in my vast four weeks’ experience is that just about anything
related to aging, cancer, smoking, drugs, or FDA or CDC proclamations seems
to get on the air.
A major adjustment comes from the fact that for years I’ve been writing for
academics. Now, I have to put all that knowledge away, because I now write
for a television audience that is assumed to have no more than a sixth grade
education!
As a scientist, I also find VO writing frustrating. While there is an art to
the simplicity of writing that applies to all disciplines, I sometimes feel
that crucial points are left out. The reasons for the exclusions are varied,
but it’s hard to come to terms with not just the time constraints (nothing
gets more than 30”), but also the perceived intelligence of the TV audience.
Another challenge is that the passive nature of television means it may be
only the over-simplified main point that most people remember.
So what interesting stories have I worked on from a scientific viewpoint?
One was a piece about a woman who created an organization to help people
with myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder of the acetylcholine
receptor. Another reported on a study by an international fund that
identified that the SARS virus comes from a species of horseshoe bat.
My term ends around Thanksgiving, but this country mouse is definitely glad
to be working in the big city. Thanks again for the opportunity. |
