Discover the Bill Book Sample in Word Format for Life Sciences

Bill book sample in word format for Life Sciences

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. Thank you so  much for tuning in tonight. My name is Kate Brouns,   and on behalf of Harvard Book Store, the Harvard  University Division of Science and the Harvard   Library, I am so pleased to welcome you to this  event, with Bill Schutt presenting his new book   "Pump: A Natural History of the Human Heart", joined  in conversation tonight by Patricia Wynne, with an   introduction from Harvard's own Daniel Lieberman.  Uh - before I turn things over to Dr. Lieberman to   introduce tonight's event, I'll just say a few  remarks. uh - This event is a part of our Harvard   Science Book Talk series, which brings the authors  of recently-published science-related literature   to our Cambridge community and now very far beyond  it. Be on the lookout for more virtual Science Book   Talks coming up this fall, including with Mary  Roach on October 5th discussing her latest book   "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law" and the new  edition of her best-selling classic, "Stiff: The   Curious Lives of Human Cadavers". To learn more  about the series, visit the webpage harvard.com/   science, or sign up for the Book Store's email  newsletter at harvard.com. We also have a YouTube   page where you can view previous talks you might  have missed, including Daniel Lieberman's. I will   post links in the Zoom Chat in just a few minutes.  Tonight's event is going to conclude with some   time for your questions. If you would like to  ask our speaker something, please go to the Q&A   button at the bottom of your screen, and we're  going to get through as many as time allows for.   I'd also like to say a tremendous "thank  you" for your patronage during these strange   virtual times. Your support makes this author  series possible and it ensures the future of a   landmark local independent bookstore. So thank  you to our partners at Harvard University,   and thank you to all of you for tuning in and  showing up for our authors, for indie book selling,   and especially for science. And finally, as  you'd likely know, with virtual gatherings,   technical issues do arise and if they do,  I'm gonna do my best to resolve them quickly.   So thank you for your patience and your  understanding. So now I am excited to   turn things over to paleoanthropologist Daniel  Lieberman for tonight's intro. Dan is the Edwin M.   Lerner Professor of Biological Sciences and  Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard.   He's also the beloved author of several previous  science books, including most recently, "Exercised:   Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy  and Rewarding". Dan, the digital podium is yours. --uh- Thank you, Kate -um and -uh- good evening to  everybody. It's a pleasure to introduce tonight's   speakers. So -uh- um- so Bill Schutt was born in New  York City and raised in- on Long Island by parents   who encouraged his early passion for peering  under logs and stones to study the natural world -   and sure enough, he became a biologist,  received a Ph.D. in zoology from Cornell,  and held a postdoctoral fellowship at  the American Museum of Natural History   before becoming a professor of biology at LIU Post  (Long Island University Post). He's now an emeritus   professor but is still a research associate  at the American Museum of Natural History.   Now before his current book "Pump: The Natural  History of the Heart" which he will discuss today,   Bill wrote two other highly acclaimed popular  books on biology: "Dark Banquet: Blood and the   Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures" in  2008, and "Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History".   As you'll see, Bill is a master at interweaving, in  a witty and enlightening way, comparative and human   biology with all manner of anecdotes, stories and  unexpected diversions, to explain seemingly bizarre   and abstruse but fundamentally important aspects  of biology. I should also mention that Bill has   published three novels with J.R. Finch. So tonight,  Bill will discuss his latest book, on hearts,   "Pump: A Natural History of the Human Heart" which  I haven't yet had a chance to read because it   only came out today, but looks to me like a  logical continuation of his previous book on   blood. I'm especially looking forward to reading  the book because my colleagues and I recently   published some studies on how the human heart  evolved to make us exceptional endurance athletes -  and regardless of whether he cites me or not, "Pump" has already received glowing reviews in Publishers   Weekly. the Wall Street Journal, Cool Green Science  and elsewhere, and I'm sure more - more rave reviews   are in the works. And joining Bill tonight is  Patricia Wynne, who is a famous illustrator,   who did the illustrations for "Pump". Patricia is  an award-winning artist, printmaker and freelance   scientific- scientific illustrator based in New  York City, and she's illustrated over 200 books   for both adults and children. And her work has  also appeared in numerous publications, including   New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Cricket and  Scientific American. I'm sure you've probably   seen her illustrations already. So without further  ado, Bill and Patricia, the virtual podium is yours. --Let me give my name here - you  can't miss it. Welcome. So that's us. I hope everybody can hear us. It's really nice  to be here - and uh- and I'm really lucky tonight   because it's - it's -uh- it's rare that I get to  do these kinds of talks with - with Patricia   and -um- and just to give you a little  bit of background about her because you'll -   you'll- she'll tell you more about herself later- is  every single scientific paper, book chapter, novel   and non-fiction book that I've ever written,  Patricia has illustrated, and we've been -uh -  and so I've been incredibly lucky in that- in  that regard, and so - um - when it came time to- to   write "Pump", it was only natural that I asked her to - to do this, and it's- and I think it's worked out    really well - uh- as you'll- as you're going to see.  So I'm just going to move through this and - and -um-   answer your questions at the end, if you have  any. So I'll give you my past history: I've been   asked a bunch of times how did I come to write  a book about the heart, because it doesn't really   seem weird enough to me - and-and-and really, it  was something that my- my agent, Julian McKenzie   and -um- and my editors at Algonquin suggested  that- that I go a bit more mainstream with my   third book. And I thought to myself, 'oh, I don't  know - I'm into the macabre - I'm into kind of   strangeness and weird history and-and-and I just  didn't think that - that there was enough there.   So they said 'Well, check it out' so- so I went and  did some research, and- and I was really surprised   to find that there were, of course, many books  written about the heart, but - but none that had   taken the-the-the sort of tack that I took  with cannibalism, where you look through the   animal kingdom and you- it's not an encyclopedia  or a textbook, but you're looking for interesting   stories to tell, and then you're doing it in a  way that is- uh- that, you know, that's friendly to-   to non-scientist types - don't use a lot of  jargon, try to be entertaining and- and try to   be humorous. And - and so I was lucky enough to  find that there was plenty to write about in-   with "Pump", and - and so- um - what came out of it  is what I'll be briefly going over right now. So how much can you learn about the heart and  circulatory systems? Because I didn't think I  could separate "heart" from "circulatory system" -uh-  so I did both. um - How much can you learn about   that in 30 minutes? Well one of the key things  that -off the bat - is the fact that when you look   at the heart, it is -um- these are structures that  are- that-that have a muscular component - and the   way I describe it here is if you- so- so if you  look down at the bottom right, um- here are muscle   fibers wrapped around a vessel, and- and- and if  those muscle fibers contract - think of squeezing   a water balloon, and-and that's how -um- the blood  vessels help to move blood along. But the heart   does the same thing, too: you're really compressing  a small volume, and the fluid that's in that   small volume is going to move when you contract  it. And -uh- there are two really different types of   circulatory systems that you find in the animal  kingdom, and I'm being really broad here, because   among the- the both of these open and closed  circulatory systems, there's all sorts of different   -uh- you know, there's different takes on both of  these. In a closed circulatory system like ours,  you have a pump, a muscular pump, and it sends blood  out through vessels to supply organs with oxygen,   takes away carbon dioxide, delivers nutrients and  takes away waste, and then that blood heads back to   the heart -um- to be pumped out to the lungs or  to gills, and then the whole thing takes place   over again. But the key here with a note- with  a closed circulatory system, is that the blood   never leaves, it never dumps out of these- of these  vessels, whether it's the heart or arteries or- or-   or capillaries or veins. Most animals on this  planet don't have closed circulatory systems like   we do, like mammals and reptiles and amphibians and  fish - most of them have open circulatory systems.   So you've got a pumping mechanism and when this  substance gets pumped out - and I'm calling it a   "substance" because it might be blood, or if you're  an insect, it might be hemolymph, and an insect's   -um- hemolymph does not carry -uh- doesn't carry gases,  doesn't carry oxygen and carbon dioxide, so - so it's   solely carrying nutrients and waste products. But  the key in an open circulatory system is that the   the hemolymph with the blood gets dumped into a  chamber called the hemocoel, and surrounding that   chamber are tissues and cells that are bathed by  this fluid, and that's how the transport of this   material - oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, waste  products - takes place. So you can see an example   of that on the lower left -um- with the hemocoel and  you've got this- you know- someone who's - uh- who's   a - uh - you know, a card-carrying cardiologist might  not consider this to be a heart, it's - it's really   a - a vessel that is contractile, all right, so you  can see that here and here's the hemocoel and   in this instance, with insects, it's carrying  things like -uh- like waste products and nutrients.   All right, so -um- here's examples of- of hearts  that I found to be really interesting. This is a   non- this is an invertebrate, of course this is a  squid, and the neat thing about them is that they   have three different hearts: they have two brachial  hearts that- that pump blood to the gills, which are   located on either side of the body, and then they  have a systemic heart that takes this oxygenated   blood now and pumps it out to the body tissue,  then the deoxygenated blood comes back, heads into   the brachial hearts, and the same thing takes place  again. By the same , over here, you have - um - fish   and they've got a two-chambered heart, so they only  have a single- or they have a single ventricle and   a- and a single atrium, and you can see that  the blood kind of goes in a single circuit   here, that's the key: um - the ventricle here, atrium  receiving the deoxygenated blood from the organs,   that blood goes into a ventricle which is a  pumping structure, sends it to the gills, out to the organs. Once you get into the reptiles and  to- oops, excuse me - once you get to the reptiles   - you have a three-chambered heart, and in these  three-chambered hearts, there is some mixing   of the blood. The deoxygenated blood -um- mixes- um -  until you get into something like crocodiles,   where the blood is completely separated; you  have venous blood which is coming back from   the body deoxygenated, sent to the lungs to pick  up oxygen, and then back to the left side of the   heart which pumps it out to the body. There's no  mixing of the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood;   so as I said, who has that would be -uh- crocodiles,  and - and alligators - um - birds and - and mammals.   Now there's so much to cover in this that I think I was just gonna- I decided to pick out   some interesting stories that I was able to cover  and - and something unfortunate happened in 2014 -   and that is that nine blue whales -uh- died - uh-  they got stuck in the ice in Canada and then   and- and usually blue whales sink, and so  not a whole lot was known about - about   blue whales, their- their anatomy. And my friends  at the Royal Ontario Museum in -uh- in Toronto,   they've been asked on a number of occasions  "what's the largest heart in the world?" and they   would answer "Well, it's the blue whale heart." "How  big is it? "Well, it's the size of a sedan." but they   didn't really know, and so when these whales washed  up, luckily, uh they were able to go in and recover   two of them and -and one of them, actually, was they  were able to go in and take the- and remove the   heart. So we're talking about -uh- about construction  equipment - uh - four guys getting inside this animal   and pushing the heart out through a space in  the ribs and then putting it through a process   that took five years and you can see right - right  off the bat, if you look at the lower figure,   one of the things that was really interesting  was that the whale hearts are really different   than- than say, a human heart, and they're both  mammal hearts, they both have four chambers,   but when I looked at pictures of this it looked- it  reminded me of a giant soup dumpling it completely   collapsed; it didn't sit there like if you had  a sheep heart or something that you got from   a butcher. And we think that that has to do with  the fact that these animals are able to withstand   tremendous amounts of pressure as they dive deeply,  but here they've- you can see the team it took to   remove this; this is actually just part of the  team and the preservation process took five years.   Here you can see -um- those of you who have been  in biology labs you - you get frightened when you   get a little bit of formaldehyde splashed on  you. Here they were using hundreds of gallons   of this poison and the fear was that someone would  fall into this vat - so they plugged up all of the   blood vessels with -um- with various-size bottles  because they had to fill it with preservatives -  and here you can see it, up top there, in the-  this is after they recovered it - they moved it -   they transported it in a large net -um- and after  five years and - and sending this thing across to   Europe and plastinating it, which those of you who  are familiar with the "Bodies" exhibit, that's- this   is what you get - and this is the largest structure  that has ever been plastinated and it came in - it   weighed about roughly 400 pounds which was a huge  surprise to them, because it was going to be a lot   bigger when they -uh- when they had the exhibition  with this heart, instead of the the car that they   -you know, the large car that they were going to put  next to it - that they would end up putting a little   mini. It's - the thing is more like a golf cart size.  So that to me the interesting thing was well, why   is the heart so small? and - and the answer became  because these guys, they're- they don't have a   really high metabolic rate - maybe their heart  beats 10 to 15 times a minute and when they dive   deeper, it does- when they dive deeply, it can  maybe be two or three times a minute, so they   don't have this huge oxygen demand. But if you  look at something like a shrew or a hummingbird:   now, a hummingbird can- can beat its wings, you know,  can beat its wings 800 times per minute. Now that's   prob- and - and all those muscles need to be  supplied with - with blood. So that 800 times a   minute that - in order to do that, the heart can beat  up to 1200 times a minute and that is about, we   think, the physical limit of how fast a heart can  beat. So if you're going to get more blood to these   muscles the only other way to do that besides  speeding up the heart rate is to have a larger   heart. So relatively speaking, a hummingbird has  a heart that's four or five times larger than   the heart of a blue whale. And that was to me very-  and- and to the researchers up at the ROM really -uh-   extremely surprising. The other thing is  that they if you look at these vessels,   some of them, they don't even know quite what  they are because they've never seen them before,   so this research is ongoing and- and these -uh- and  my scientist friends are learning a lot about this   single specimen. So I want to switch gears now and  talk about something else that I found fascinating,   and that was the horseshoe crabs. And these are  the types of horseshoe crabs that you'd see in   Massachusetts and that's actually where I went up  and - and studied with -uh- with some folks. um - This is   truly a - a living fossil; they probably looked very  much like what you see here for about a half a   billion years. And so when I started to look at-at  structures like their heart and circulatory system,   it was really complex and-and-and it was to me,  because of Patricia Wynne's figures, I could put   this into a form that - that explained it and it  actually made sense, because it's pretty complex   how this works when you compare it to a human  heart. But the thing that I wanted to talk to   you about today is the fact that - that someone  discovered about 30 years ago that horseshoe   crab blood has a substance in it that when you  isolate it, can be used to detect endotoxin, and   endotoxins are produced when you kill bacteria, so  if you're in a sterile environment and you kill   the bacteria that happen to be on a- you know, on  something that's not sterile- when these bacteria   are destroyed, they release a substance that is  not- you know, it wasn't a toxin that they carried   around to protect them, but it's a substance that  was involved in their- in their cell membrane-   and this is released and it is a- it's called an  endotoxin for us, because once it gets into us   -uh- it can cause serious, serious trouble -um- and-and  even death. So it's not that- that this substance is-   is released by these bacteria as they're trying  to ward off humans, it's that when we kill   these bacteria it becomes extremely dangerous. And  so what the substance does is -uh- it allows us to   detect that material that - that - those endotoxins.  The problem is - is that you can see this is now   being done on an industrial scale, where you're  going out collecting horseshoe crabs - many of them   are that- you know, are [in] pre-mating stages, they're  about to mate so they come in and they- they-   um- they gather on beaches like many of you have  probably seen, and at that point they're collected   in large numbers, hung up in these in these sort  of industrial -uh- types of situations, and a cannula-   and a needle- is stuck into their heart and their  blood drains until it stops. And so now because   of this -um- these animals are endangered after a  half a billion years, this and the bait industry   which chops them up; but to me, fascinating that-  that this substance -um- which is vital and has   saved many, many lives has now put these creatures  into -uh- into jeopardy. One of the things that is a   bit of good news is that they have now perfected  a sort of a synthetic version of this material   that they're able to detect -uh- endotoxin with-  without using horseshoe crabs, but unfortunately   when Covid hit -um- these new techniques sort of  got put to the back burner and-and-and there was   this much more of a- an old-time reliance on - on the - uh - the tests that had worked in the past. So what   else do we have here? Other interesting topics  that-that I got to-to-to look at tied into the   medical industry and then- was you can go as far as  your tropical fish tank and see -uh- zebrafish, which   have this amazing ability that if you cut off 20 percent  of their heart, it grows back and it's functional.   So this is functional tissue. It contracts. This  is something that is really the complete opposite   with humans: if you have a -um- if you have the  blood supply to your heart, if there's a blockage   and the-the tissue downstream of that blockage  doesn't receive oxygen and nutrients, it can die.   and now even if you resupply that- if you were  able to clear the clot and resupply that tissue,   then that's problematic, because when that tissue  grows back it's not contractile. That is not real   muscle anymore, it's more like scar tissue. So  researchers are trying to figure out what do   these zebrafish have that enabled them to produce  functional cardiac tissue after such a serious -uh-   event as -uh- as having their part of their- their -uh-  their heart snipped off. uh- Burmese pythons which   are an invasive species - big problem in places like  Florida now. um- they're- The interesting aspect of   their heart is that after they have a large  meal, which you can see here - their heart grows   40 percent. And- and you've heard the term that "enlarged  heart" is bad, but this heart is fully functional   and healthy. So scientists are looking at this not  because they want to grow human hearts instead of   having people exercise that there is a problem, but  in cases where you have someone with a cardiac   condition where they're not able to exercise, is  there a substance that - that we can then -um- add -   you know, give to these people that would cause  their heart to grow but in a in a healthy fashion.   Antarctic ice fish - no red blood cells -um- and  they live in this absolutely frigid - these frigid   conditions - the Antarctic ocean. How do they do  that? Well -um- they have no scales and-and so they   are able to absorb oxygen through their skin. Cold  water has a tremendous amount of oxygen compared   to warm water. Their heart is four times the size  of a fish that would be the same size - a normal   fish; they have 40 percent more blood than you'd  expect in a fish that size. um - Takotsubo syndrome -   that's probably the last animal thing I-I think  I'll talk about and then moving to - into -um- humans.   Takotsubo syndrome was named when Japanese  researchers had these people coming into -uh-   into hospitals that were women. They were  all pre-menopausal women, and they exhibited   symptoms of heart attacks. So they were short  of breath, they had chest pains, but when they   did the the work-up on them they found that  there was no blockage, they were completely fine.   but all these women shared this-this singularity  in that they-they-they'd all gone through some   type of traumatic experience relatively  recently: they'd either lost loved ones   or they lost their jobs or-or they were going  to lose their houses. And so when they did a   ventriculogram was take a picture of the ventricle  -um- when the- after the ventricle contracted,   it took on this form of a-of a -um- an octopus  pot which the Chinese fishermen used to catch   octopuses. And so they called the Takotsubo  syndrome - "taco" for octopus, "tsubo" being the trap.   So this is "broken heart syndrome" and we think that  it is -um- -usually when you get excited or emotional,   the part of your autonomic nervous system which is  the "fight or flight" part, the sympathetic division   of your nervous system, kicks in -um- and-and-  and releases a bunch of chemicals that enable   you to deal with this threat. And then after the  threat goes away, or this emotional experience, then-   then these substances are no longer released and  your heart rate goes back to normal and you sort   of calm down - that sort of thing. um- But what we  think is going on here, what researchers think, is   that there's a disconnect between that part of  the brain that signals this - these substances to   be released -uh- to stop, that there's a problem  there, and so you're getting a sort of an -um- a   hyper-response that does not stop after a certain  period of time. So you're really causing damage to   blood vessels and to the lining of the heart and  that is this- and so there is a connection between   the-the heart and the mind, even though I spent a  lot of time looking at this transition between -um-   between the ancient beliefs which we'll talk about  now -um- that the heart was really the center of   emotion and intellect and the soul. That started  with the Egyptians. They are the ones who first-   who gave so much weight to the-to the value of the  heart. They didn't care much about the brain at all.   They pulled it out with a hook through the nose -uh-  and the heart they- they would preserve and put   back into the body so that it could be weighed  against the temp- against the-the feather of Maat,   who was the-the goddess of virtue and-and truth.   And so from there the ancient Greeks picked up on   that, and from there the Romans and- and- and along  with the medicine and techniques that they picked   up from the from the ancient Egyptians came this  idea that the heart was really central with regard   to things like emotion and the soul. Now, all well  and good, but the Roman surgeon Galen, who lived   in the first and second century C.E. -um-  he was extremely, extremely influential   and-and-and what the problem was is that  he was not able to do any human dissections   so everything that he said about the human body  he learned from animals, and when he- a whole lot   of what he wrote and three million words of his  were preserved -was wrong. So the idea here that   there's two very separate types of blood: arterial  blood coming from from animal spirit and-and other   places and on the- on the venous side, this separate  entity which was being produced by the heart.   um - The problem is that this stayed around for 1500  years because during the translation from Latin -   during the trans- during the translation into Latin  -um- that was actually done by Syrian Christians and   so they put their slant on the translation;  Western Church picked up on that and so,   Galen's work was determined to be divinely  inspired. So for 1500 years medicine stagnated,   and so very, very little was done -um- until - well -  some of the things that you'll see here, and I'm going to have to move a little bit quicker - is that  Galen believed in the four humors that you would-   that you- there were these four substances in the  human body and in order to keep them in balance   you would -uh- you would either get rid of them,  like bleeding, or you would drink blood -um- and   that would cure every disease. That would take  care of any kind of mental problems. People who   were drowned were bled. And this carried on until  the early 19th century - here you can see that -um-   and you used to go to a barber shop not just  to get a haircut but to get bled - um - yeah- so   Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" hated leeches,  which were used to draw blood. John Wayne Bobbitt   loved it, and the reason was- is because the- in  the 1970s, leeches were then- were begun to be   used for reattachment surgeries; uh - they would- if  you reattach the finger or- I'll split back to this   slide- -um- if you reattach the finger, or an ear got  bit off by a dog or something like that, then -um-   instead of having that- the blood clot because  you couldn't really tie these tiny little vessels   together, you'd attach leeches and they would set  up in a sense -uh- their own circulatory system - the   blood would supply the tissue that would have been  reattached - and then the leeches would drain it   off, then new blood would come in, leeches would  drain it off. They also had an anticoagulant   in their blood -uh- that would keep the clots  from forming. So the use of leeches is still   a- popular now and if you were to get - you know,  have a finger sliced off or something like that,  and they did a reattachment surgery, they might use  hundreds of leeches to keep that-that circulation   taking place until your body's ability to heal -uh-  kicked in. um - so one of the things that seemed to   change away from -uh- from Galen that took place  in- probably in like the 17th century, with William   Harvey, who figured out that they were really two  different systems here, that the heart was really a   double pump. -uh- And from there you had a number of  other- and and Igo into these in depth in the book-   -um- and you had all sorts of other -uh- innovations  like the stethoscope, which came around in 1816 -   pretty much -uh- during tuberculosis outbreak in  Paris, and then the first cardiac catheterization,   which to me was maybe the most interesting  thing that I covered as far as -um- as far as   these innovations. This-this-this gentleman -um-  a German - uh- he wound up catheterizing himself   in 1928 after tricking a nurse into thinking  that she was going to be, like catheterized -  he really just wanted to get a-a-a urethral  catheter and she had the key to the cabinet, so he told her 'okay, well, you can do this part of the experiment and I'll- I'll put this   catheter in you' but when he- so he tied her down  to a chair and he wound up doing it to himself.   um- And so - incredibly interesting story... uh - the  Werner Forssmann that- that you see here- um- he   was fired after that from the-the college - from the  hospital that he worked at. He became a Nazi during   World War II; after that, he became a lumberjack;  finally won the Nobel prize years later. As far as   cardiac research in the future, I was completely  blown away by two gentlemen that I met in-in   Massachusetts and - and one was Dr. Glenn Gaudette  at Worcester Polytech and- and what he was doing -   to make a long story short, it's very difficult if  you make - if you're doing transplants, to transplant   veins because they're so thin, whereas arteries  are thicker because they have a muscular layer, but   veins are very thin, very delicate. and so he said  'I'm going to look for a way to to build a vein' so   I walk into his lab. And he shows me a- a salad bowl  that's got spinach in it. He says 'What does this   look like?' I said 'It looks like spinach.' He says 'Let  me show you what we did.' So he takes this spinach   leaf that you can see here, and puts a-a cannula on  the end of it and then hangs it at the- in a bottle   and drips down this solution of detergent  that washes away all of the cellular material   except for the cellulose, and the cellulose is the-  is really the skeleton of that leaf, including the   veins that usually carry water within this leaf,  and he's taking these vessels and you can see now   once this thing has been washed, it looks like  this. This is pretty much done - but if you look   here there's- a there's a vessel in this spinach  leaf and now what he's doing is isolating those,   because they're not going to have a reaction to  the human body, and impregnating them with muscle-   with- with- with cardi- excuse me' with vascular  tissue with vascular cells and growing them   on this scaffold of -um -of cell, of a plant cell  material - absolutely amazing stuff - and the hope   there is that they'll be able to to build these  tiny vessels -um- and then implant them into people.   So then I went to - to Harvard, and you probably  have heard of Dr. Harold Ott, and what he's doing is-   is to me was- was just incredible. There's a problem  with waiting lists for organs - and I'm talking   about not only the heart, but things like kidneys  and- and- and livers, and a lot of people die waiting   on those- on those- on those lists. So what Dr. Ott is  doing and the reason- and one of the reasons why - is   because you've got to find the the correct tissue  type to implant from a donor to a recipient, and   that's very difficult; then you've got to keep them  cold - really tough to do this; and finding enough   hearts is- is generally a problem as well - so what  Dr. Ott is trying to do is take a cadaver heart and   just like you saw in the last slide, put it onto  a system that is - as you can- you can see down here-   what they- what they're doing is they're putting a  detergent- they're running a detergent through this   and- and getting rid of- washing away all of the-  see, this is all muscle tissue here that you see-   as he begins his experiment, and as that- the  detergent moves through it- -um- that muscle tissue,   that becomes less and less, it dissolves away  until finally, down here on the lower right,   all you can see there is connective tissue. So  his idea is this: we now have the ability to take   samples of cells from- -uh- from a person  that's going to be a heart recipient.   And this is not a biopsy, anything that's difficult - you're taking skin cells, called fibroblasts - and we   have the technology now to convert those into stem  cells, and we have the technology to convert those   stem cells into cardiac muscle tissue - so his dream  is to take- that is-is to take these - -um- this-this   cardiac muscle tissue that is generated from the  recipient, embed it - seed it - into this connective   tissue scaffold and grow a heart that will then  be implanted into this person who was -uh- who would   have, beforehand, would have had to wait on-on a  long line and may have died waiting for a heart.   So this is the type of thing that I- that I cover  as far as -uh- as-as new developments, and I said 'So -   so how long do you think this is gonna take?' and  he says that-that-that he wouldn't be surprised   if -um- if we're doing this type of thing -uh- in  10 years. So conclusions: a variety of structures   have evolved to address problems of supply and  oxygen and nutrients to bodies of every size,   every type of heart shape and-and-and some of  them look like hearts and some of them don't.   The ancient Egyptians were probably the first  folks to-to believe that the heart was the seat   of intelligence and emotion and what we consider  to be the soul, and-and the big problem, and this   has really shown up in all three of my books,  has been this lockstep adherence -uh- to-to Galen,   because his works were determined to be  divinely inspired, and that's why many fields advanced over that per- time period, but  not so much medicine, and-and finally that   medical advances in the past and-and present and  future have, and will, transform this, the science   of dealing with-with the heart and trying  to keep people alive. -um- What I want to do now   is-is that- and we're really fortunate- is that  Patricia Wynne is here and I'd like to have her   pick up this talk and and -uh- and give us  some information about what she does and   and how she puts these types of figures together -  so I'm going to turn this over to Patricia. --This is good. Okay. Hi - very glad to be here, and -um-  generally speaking, when I talk with Bill, which we   have done -um- done several times, I explained that  I am not a scientist, I had very few scientific   classes when I was a student, but I've been an  artist my whole life, and I look at everything,   I learn everything, visually, especially when I  receive an assignment like this. So I thought I  would walk you through a little bit of history  and a little bit of how I approach something   that I truly know nothing about. So Bill called  me before he had gotten very far into his book   and said, "Would you like to go to Toronto to draw a  whale heart?" and I said, without skipping a beat, "Yes -   I would like to do that" so we went up - they locked  me in a warehouse with this enormous heart - and   it always looked small to me in the photographs  because it was the largest organic thing I have   ever seen and I drew it in my sketchbook and I never redrew it. The - the piece that's published is   my original sketch, and I would never have changed  it- was- it was an event I will never forget. So here   I am, drawing it, and I was going to get into the  book but I didn't make it -uh- because this was   just a mesmerizing event for me -um- and so I didn't  get in but that's what I would have looked like,   had I gotten in so I have drawn a very long time  that's my Adirondack chair that I told you about   I have been drawing, my mother said, since I was one  years old - that's all I ever wanted to do was be   an artist. I never thought I would be a science  but it's a good fit and I'll show you why. So   I always kept -um- very elaborate sketchbooks.  It's how I learned: I would pick a subject - this,   obviously, is a snow leopard- and I would draw  it and draw it and draw it until I had some hunch   of what it was - and that's the way I do science  books. So -um- I was originally a printmaker. I   taught printmaking at the University of Windsor in Ontario -um- and I love teaching   printmaking - that's what my degree is in- but  there's another print and all kinds of prints -   I wasn't making a good enough living, so I thought  let me see if I can find some freelance work.   I can - I have a really tight hand, this is called  the "tight hand" -um- and I will see if I can find   a job. So I got- I interviewed for a job at  the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.   This is a- this is a piece for Reeve Bailey, who was  an ichthyologist there, and it turns out this is a   very famous specimen - I find these things out later  since nobody tells me about it when I'm trying it -   and I quit my printmaking job and I went into  science. This is one of my first ones. I also   had to do other things to make a living, so  I did Star Wars. uh - I worked for Scientific   American where I learned - really, really learned -  my trade. Uh - The piece on the left is a Scientific   American publication from Lord knows when, some  time ago - and I also work for the Science Times.   Two of my favorite clients that I ever did  for corporations that- were these two people.   I also into- was-was interviewed and was  interviewed by the first people to dive on the   hotbeds, and they came up with lousy photographs  that looked like fuzz - here, there and there -   and I had to put- turn the fuzz into a readable  scene. And this was my scene, which has totally   been surpassed by excellent photographs  but I was very proud of it for the time.   I did the Burgess shale - I did the Burgess  shale ten times - but I did the last Burgess shale   for Stephen J. Gould, and I think I will retire on  that one because it was emotionally a good thing.   Um - I did eplesia i fell in love with eplesia and  um- Eric Kandel uses myoplesia on his website, or he   used to, I don't know if he does now. Um - I also did  archaeology. I love doing points - that's because I'm   obsessive - and this is a little Mississippian figure -  uh- -and I did paleo humans, which is very new for me-   I've only started doing those in the last three  years but I've fallen madly in love with them -   um - and teeth, which is nice because bill's  next book is gonna be white so these are   bad teeth. I went to the Museum of Natural  History in New York and said 'Have you any   jobs?' and they said 'No' and- but I never take  no for an answer, so I ended up working there   with about seven different scientists and I  learned more than I ever thought I could learn.   um - I did marsupials with Ron Foss - and this was  a study that Bill and another friend of mine -uh-   Darren Lundy - had done years ago, and it turned  out to be validated by observation and ended   up in a really good paper on marsupials. This is  also a scientific illustration that I did for   Ross MacPhee talking about possible reasons for  mass extinction in the Pleistocene [-illustrated?], and this is my- my boss at the museum said 'Go  across the hall and meet Bill Schutt; he needs some   art' and that's how I met Bill - I walked across the  hall, he had these bats laid out on his lab table,   and he said 'Can you draw these?' and I said 'Yes' and  that was where we started. So this was my first one.   um - I did a lot of thinking after that: "What do  I do now? Do I keep here? Do I go somewhere else?"   and Bill got this book on blood drinkers, so I-I  got the job to illustrate it. I really loved it.   I knew very little about this and by the end of  the book, I'm-I'm pretty good with blood drinkers.   I'm-I'm not bad about them at all. They are cute -  I buy into Bill's scenario that they're cute -   and more. This is -uh- this is- this is cannibals,  and I enjoyed cannibals a lot; cannibals was a   lot of fun to do. I didn't think it would be, but  it was great. Uh- this is one of- Bill and my favorite   illustrations from "Cannibalism" because quite clearly-  um- if you want to be safe, keep your gills and stay   on the water. And this is a tick- tick- tick waving  at a human to be bitten. um - These - this is a water   spider um really a phenomenal little animal that  lives underwater and so - I'm- I'm still drawing - I'm   still wondering 'How do I learn these things?' These  were two different books- three different   books I was doing and I drew them all on the same  page while I was trying to figure out how to do it,   and that led me to another: we're doing "heart" -  'how do I do this impossible illustration of   the horseshoe crab?' And really, in the whole book,  this is the only one I had some misgivings that   I wouldn't be able to figure out. I thought it was  really hard. So the first thing I did was just draw   them - this is the way they are, I'm going to draw  them - and then I tried to figure out the things   he was telling me that they did. What was the  best way for me to graphically put these down?   My art director at Scientific American used to just  give me one phrase: when I left the room, she would   say "Patricia, make clear, make nice" and that's my - my  marching orders for every illustration I do: it's   got to be clear, it's got to be nice. Well, I was  clear, but I'm not sure I was nice; so I kept going   and then, I thought, 'Well, we're going to turn it  on the side because that's the way people will   recognize it - but then how will I explain it?' So I  turned it on the side that's the lower part, and   the topper part- top part - I tried to interpose what  we were learning about this, which was not easy.   So this was the final illustration. This was the  best I could do; I had a parallel one which was   like a cross-section, a medial section of the guy,  and it looked great, except it only showed three of   the five things we wanted to show. So this showed  all of them, and I will not go through it but good   luck for you to go through it - it really is there,  it's all there. Um - Bill was also doing fiction,   and I did three spots for every fiction book he  did, and this is the mata mata for -um- "Hell's Gate". Then - so Im still sketching. This is- these are from  my sketchbook. If you saw my sketchbook - can you   open it up? - this is what you'll see: I was trying  to figure out what view would be good for ice fish   for the thing that he wanted to- say he wanted an  aggressive-looking fish swimming toward the reader,   chasing little little -uh- krill across the page  and I was trying to figure out 'How do I do that   when I-I don't have an ice fish in my studio and  the ice fish photos online are copyrighted and   they're fuzzy?' So I just kept drawing and -um- that's-  this is- was the final result. It exists nowhere - if   you look for it, good luck- and then the pot here -  I thought, "What view do I do of the pot? What view   do I do of the- of the heart to make this story  seem real?" and he picked one - I just showed him two,   I said "Which one?" and he picked it. But he said  "I think we should do something inside the pot"   and that's where the octopus is. Harry - Harryhausen - homage to Harryhausen - and then the- his favorite   illustration, emotionally, in the book was the  python eating the alligator. And I didn't - I looked   at films, and they're very graphic, and I thought  "Well, I can't do a film, I'm doing a flat drawing".   So the heart itself was not hard - it's a very  easy object, you'll see it there under -under the alligator jaw. um - The python - I've drawn  pythons lots, but I've never drawn a python eating   an alligator, so I just kept sketching and I - actually,  I made a mistake; I had the whole alligator inside   the stomach of the python, not yet digested, and  the heart didn't enlarge at that point so I had   to change it. I changed it by computer at the end  because I got it wrong - it's my last change, so it's   right there - and I did it by drawing a complete  skeleton and then taking my pen and breaking the   lines all the way up and down the skeleton, so it  looked like it was partly- partially digesting and   I was - I was happy with it when it was finished. So  um- I do lot- I do lots of things while I'm waiting   for Bill to get ready to give me my next project;  um - I did this one on the Galapagos tortoise, and   the little turtle sitting on top was my pet who  passed away last year, so it was for scale. um - This   is a print - I still make prints, this is a print -  but you can see the influence of my -uh- learning   over things, called "My Visit to the Pleistocene" - I'm in there somewhere - oh, yeah, there I am - and I   did - I did plants - this was for a book on wine for  Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle; this was copulating   uh- unisexual - lizards - [?] - which  I did for a guy named David Cruz in Texas, and -um-   he sent me a real lizard which I had for years  -beautiful -[?] - um - I never saw this, but   it was for a book on the size of insects, and this  was a big guy - uh - again - for Ian Tattersall's book.  Then I started doing a lot of prints for the  Smithsonian - huge ones - uh and this is one. I love   them - I've done 30 so far, I'm still doing 'em.  uh - Another print: this is an etching - this is my   last drawing - this is the thing I just finished  last week, so you're right up to date. It was very nice   talking to you and -um- I've enjoyed this very  much, so I'll give it back to Bill - there you go.   --Well, for everybody who's -uh- out there watching,  I just want to thank you all and acknowledge   the Harvard Book Store at Harvard; I want to thank  LIU-Post, my school, that just granted me emeritus   status, and-and also the American Museum of Natural  History where I've worked for about the last since-   1992, I think, first as a graduate student,  then a postdoc, and now a research associate;   and -and I really want to thank Patricia for  her friendship and her incredible artwork. And if you'd like to read more  and learn more about Patricia,   you can follow her by going to patriciawin.com and for me, you can- my books are all still for- on  sale; you can visit me at BillSchutt.com or @Bill   SchuttBooks or on Bill Schutt, Author (Facebook) and  there's -uh- I've got three TED-Ed videos out there   that -that you might be interested in - two of  them on cannibalism and one on blood transfusions.   And with that, I'd like to say thank you  very much, and I look forward to your questions. --Thank you so much, Bill and Patricia! -um-   I have -I'm reading off the audience Q&A that  we're getting right now, so if anyone has any   burning questions, please add them - I'm  gonna try and get through all of them.   um - All right, so we have a question from Kat - um  let's see - oh, let me have you stop sharing your   screen really fast, Bill - I think you might still  be sharing --oh - meaning the PowerPoint --I'm sorry Let's click this on the green thing - try that   Oh, got it - yeah - okay - sorry - perfect, that's  fine, all right - so we have a question from Kat   who asks: -um says - "Hi Patricia and Bill, thank you so  much for this presentation. Could you each talk a   bit about how a close collaboration works ideally  for you, a science illustrator and a science writer?   it's always struck me that illustrations  are in a sense more than additive in books   like "Pump": they illuminate, clarify, and even  move in ways that photographs simply cannot."   --I guess I'll start off because usually, it's -  um - well, first of all, I got to tell you that's   incredibly easy now to do, because we've worked  together so long that- that -um- that-that -um- I   think that Patricia knows exactly what I want  before I ask her for it, but it generally starts   with a- with a-a good description of something  that I have in mind, and uh- what do you call it --Steven Spielberg! - --by Steven Spielberg, description -  which is this elaborate description   and very detailed, with you know, things going on in  the background, spaceships, aliens - uh maybe nothing   --No --but in any event, from there, Patricia takes it,  and I will let her explain what happens next. --So   one of the -um- a good collaboration grows over the  years, and if you've got - I once had an editor who   told me 'you like working with that author, don't  let them go, because you do read their minds' - but   it's hard in the beginning because everyone has  a visual -uh- thing that they go through themselves,   and you must learn to see the way they see. What he  describes to me is not what's going on in my head,   so I have to find a way to see the way he  sees. So I told him to pretend he was Steven   Spielberg and write me a tiny paragraph of what  he sees and I can work from that, and it works   perfectly and he likes doing it. um - I worked  with Kat I - we did - we did a book, we're buddies-   and she and I just hit it off right away and  I think we saw things the same way from the very   first conversation. That's not normal, that's very  unusual, and I'll do anything she wants, so I really   enjoy it. You have to like your author; if you  don't like your author, you're in for a long year.   And -and no matter how good the book is, and I've  had this happen - I'm proud of the book- I'm very   unhappy about the memories - so you don't want that.  You -you - I mean, it's part of making a living, but -um-   it's so much better to enjoy it and to respect the  person and to think the same way. Does that help?   --We have run into- to figures where it took a long  time, it took many more versions - so the Humphrey   Bogart -uh, "African Queen" picture was probably the  one, because I said 'all right, all right, I want to   do" --so -so hard! --so I wrote this chapter from the opening of  the chapter from the point of view of the leeches   that attach that attack Humphrey Bogart, and so  the whole perspective of- of these things  swimming towards him, and everything that was  going on in the background, just took a long time.   --One of the problems was people who are not artists  do not think in terms of scale, so if you say you   want Humphrey Bogart and the African Queen and you  want hundreds of little leeches about this long   you're talking about two different  scales altogether, and I had to-   I had to find a way to give him what he wanted  and still say 'it's the scale is your problem -   not the content, the scale' - so a lot of talking.  I don't think we've had a problem like that in   a long time, but it is- it's a little  bit of learning for both of us, so - --That's great, yeah. I've seen actually a few  questions in here about collaboration, especially   virtually. um - The different question for you -um- so  this is an anonymous question: are there any other   unique or interesting hearts like the blue whale's  that you talked about that have yet to be studied   extensively? --Oh, boy, great question. Yeah, yeah - we're  looking for grads- grad student project potential   going on here, so - so since I've - since- you should  contact me, send me an email so that we won't blab   this out, and I can tell you some of the creatures  that-that do need work and some of the topics that   -um- that are out there. One of the things that - I   can give this one away- is the whole idea of-of   cryogenics and what happens when some animals  -uh- go into deep hibernation and actually freeze   their bodies, so - so there's - there's certainly room  in there for - for research -uh- but some- I've got   some others. If you- if you contact me, I'll let you  know as far as -uh- possibly following up on them. --Are there like -I guess my follow-up would be, so  the whale's wasn't accessible because it was, like,   usually at the bottom of the ocean. Are there  things I guess like that that are just like   rare or hard to find? --I-I would say the ice fish  was the one - you know, they- --Yeah --the fishermen had   pulled this thing up in-in nets, but they hadn't  really studied it, and when- when they took a look   at its blood, they were like 'Wait a minute - " these  are scientists looking at this thing - "where's   the red blood cells? This blood is clear' -so much  more recently, scientists started to look at that   and they found that there was- you know, I didn't  even mention this - that-that-there, you know, there   there are substances in there that keep the blood  from-from-from freezing, so it's it's -uh, you know,   it's kind of like the radiator of your car - which  is with anti-freeze compounds. --A non-scientific   point of view: one of the things that surprised  me when I got into this trade and started   running 24 hours a day with scientists - I  found out that new things get found, all   the time, and they are shocking, and you sit  there and say 'How is it this wasn't known?' or   'Where was this hiding?' or 'Why did this come about?'  and it's a whole new - it's a very exciting field.   If I had to start over I'd still be an artist  but I would still do science, because it's very   exciting. --Yeah, it really is. If I could- if I can interject and just give a little bit of-   of a-of a plug to something that I tell my  students all the time: there are a lot of   projects out there waiting for you where if you  take a step back and don't try to - you know - invent   the wheel, but look at projects, look at-at work - research that was done 50 years ago, 40 years ago,   where the technology was very different, or even  further than that, where the questions that they   were asking were very different - or if it's  an anatomical -um- if it's something about- if   it's an anatomical study- excuse me- they were just  looking to describe the structure, where now we're   looking at 'how did it evolve? how does it work  like a machine - the biomechanics of this thing?   um - you know- you know - what's the difference in  this structure between two very similar organisms?'   All those things can can lead to projects where  you take a look at it in your initial responses: 'oh   well, this was done' - so - so that's something that I  always tell my students, 'Just go back and look at   old studies, and - and imagine how would  they do that study today, and then go do it.' --That makes sense. um - Let's see: we have a  question from David: um - "In the non-Christian   world where Galen wasn't - presumably - venerated,  were there advances in cardiology prior to Harvey?"   --Absolutely -um- and - and of course, you could look  at- right at Chinese traditional medicine - there   and certainly in-in places like India, there was  a lot of work done. And - and a lot of these folks   - so there were three or four people who came  who determined that the heart was a double pump long before -um- long before Harvey  did, and it wasn't until this European   who had- who was popular and was able to  publish that this became popularized, and   a lot of it was done- a lot of science was done  by -uh- by non-Europeans and non-Westerners and   that stuff was, you know, basically ignored and  now is being rediscovered. So I found a lot of   that when I was doing the book- working on the- on  this book, so I didn't want to imply that -um- that-   that-that Harvey was the -you know- the beginning  of this new type of understanding about the heart,   because he absolutely wasn't. uh- But-but-but as far  as popularizing that sort of thing in the West. yes. --We have -uh- so we have one last question,  which is perfect for right on time -um-  it's for Patricia: "Do you design tattoos or  would you consider it?" --um- I have designed tattoos   and I have -um- accidentally designed tattoos: I -one  of the first books I did was a book called "Hungry   Hungry Sharks" and I- on the Internet, I got an email  and it was a guy who had photographed his - his   upper arm, and it had a shark, and he said "Is that  your drawing?" and I wrote back and said "Yep, it is" -  so now I- if somebody wants one, I'll do the drawing  rather than have them take it out of the pages   of my children's book. But it's not - I've never  thought of it as a career, but yep, I've done it.   --It's good for inquiring minds to know - including -[?]   Well thank you so much, this was so lovely. I don't  know if you both have closing thoughts - I'm gonna   drop the links that I shared in the Chat one  more time before we close out. Let's see - all right,   there we go. um - Well, thank you both for this  totally fascinating talk with so many interesting   new facts, and as you said, things that I did not  know were still being discovered - that are still   discovered every day, that's really wild. um - That's  not what I think about nowadays when I think about   scientific research - I think of very, very niche  topics and small discoveries in the grand scheme   of things - um- so this is really fascinating.   And thank you, everyone else, for joining us this   evening. If you'd like to learn more, copies of  "Pump" are for sale on harvard.com via the links I   just provided. So on behalf of Harvard Book Store,  the Harvard Division of Science and the Harvard   Library, have a great evening, everyone, please  keep reading, and stay well. --Thank you. --Thank you.