NOVA scienceNOW: August 25, 2009PBS Airdate: August 25, 2009 NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON (Astrophysicist/American Museum of Natural History): On this episode of NOVA scienceNOW... NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: ...liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Recently, NASA launched a risky rescue mission. It's all to save the Hubble telescope. MATT MOUNTAIN (Space Telescope Science Institute): Twenty years ago we didn't know how big the universe was, how old it was. Now we do. Without the Hubble none of those things would have happened. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: But how do you perform delicate repairs in a bulky space suit? CHRISTY HANSEN (NASA Astronaut Trainer): We're changing an electronics card out. We've never done that on orbit. MIKE WEISS (NASA, Hubble Program Manager): It could have sharp edges and it could compromise the glove. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: "Compromise the glove" is euphemism for me losing the pressurization of my suit and dying? MIKE WEISS: Ultimately. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Even a tiny immovable screw could be catastrophic. ANDREW FEUSTEL (NASA Astronaut): No turning. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: And a sharp edge could be deadly. MATT MOUNTAIN: These are very brave people, and it's incredible. The risk of dying is one in 70. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Witness the mission first hand... JOHN MACE GRUNSFELD (NASA Astronaut): Card one is out. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...and find out. Did the risk pay off? And... JEFF HOOVER (University of Illinois): We are headed to a site called X swamp. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...in another rescue mission here on Earth,... ANNA LEE STRACHAN (Correspondent): Like X Files X swamp? NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...we'll take you to the Illinois swampland... ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Right here? JEFF HOOVER: Right here. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...where researchers are conducting a unique experiment... JEFF HOOVER: This is the first time that this has been done. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...to find out if this harmless looking bird is really a criminal mastermind. JEFF HOOVER: A cowbird mafia exists. It's Tina Soprano instead of Tony Soprano, in this case, with the cowbirds. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Also, they call him Dr.Q. ALFREDO QUINONES HINOJOSA: All right. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: And he's always on the move. ANNA QUINONES (Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa's wife): Shoo, shoo. ALFREDO QUINONES HINOJOSA (Johns Hopkins University): I have exciting news for you. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: He's in a rush to find a cure for brain cancer but knows the odds are against him. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: So were the chances of me sitting here with you, when I came to this country, 20 years ago. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Twenty years ago, he jumped this fence, on the Mexican border, and entered the United States as an illegal alien. Today, he's recognized as one of America's leading brain surgeons and... ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Alrighty, I want Don's mouth to be a little bit moist. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...and in our profile, we'll follow his remarkable journey. All that and more on this episode of NOVA scienceNOW. Funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation, where discoveries begin. And... Discover new knowledge; biomedical research and science education; Howard Hughes Medical Institute: HHMI. And the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to enhance public understanding of science and technology and to portray the lives of men and women engaged in scientific and technological pursuit. And the George D. Smith Fund. And by PBS viewers like you. Thank you. SAVING HUBBLE UPDATENEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Hi, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host of NOVA scienceNOW. Here's a question I get asked a lot: "How many astrophysicists does it take to change a light bulb?" Well, depends on the circumstances. For instance, what if the light bulb is on a priceless crystal chandelier and you had to change the light bulb wearing boxing gloves? And what if that chandelier is way up high and you have to stand on the top of a tall, rickety ladder to reach it? Whoa! What if this intricate job must be performed in space? These are just the sorts of challenges, all together, at once, facing astronauts on an important and risky mission. A team of specialists prepares for emergency surgery, a risky procedure that will cost millions. Luckily, this patient is a celebrity, with an excellent health plan—courtesy of the U.S. government—the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble is probably the best-known scientific instrument ever. Since 1990, it's brought us unprecedented views of the universe and revolutionized astrophysics. MATT MOUNTAIN: Twenty years ago, before the Hubble flew, we didn't know how big the universe was or how old it was. Now we do. We didn't know that black holes really existed. We now know that black holes are everywhere. And the Hubble telescope was the first telescope to actually examine the composition of a world around another star. Without the Hubble, none of those things would have happened. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: But by last year, Hubble was in trouble. It was dying, and half its instruments, including the camera that took these pictures, were already dead. The only hope to save Hubble was a shuttle mission, launched this past May. Launch day, Kennedy Space Center: Within an hour from now, space shuttle Atlantis will launch, carrying a crew of astronauts to repair and service the Hubble telescope for the last time. I'm not the only one here to witness this historic launch. There's a few thousand spectators, plus news media. This will be the most closely watched shuttle mission in years, because of Hubble's unprecedented popularity. Images from the Hubble telescope brought the universe into our collective backyard. There's nothing else like it in the history of science. So it's a bit emotional for me. I have friends and colleagues on the space shuttle Atlantis. So, good luck, Atlantis. Godspeed. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: 8, 7, 6...2, 1...liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The climb to orbit takes just over eight minutes. ASTRONAUT 1: Vehicle rolling to heads up now to get good communication. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Once there, it will take them two days to catch up to Hubble. Then the real work can begin. MICHAEL MASSIMINO (NASA Astronaut): We're in the middeck of space shuttle Atlantis, with my buddy John Grunsfeld over here. JOHN GRUNSFELD: And our spacesuits are here. We're getting ready to go outside. MICHAEL MASSIMINO: So it's a busy day, and things are just going to keep getting busier. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: It starts with grabbing hold of the telescope. ASTRONAUT 1: Megan McArthur now repositioning the shuttle's robotic arm to align with the telescope. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: Houston, Atlantis. Hubble has arrived onboard Atlantis. MICHAEL MASSIMINO: If you look out there, there's a telescope waiting for us to start working on it. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The work will start tomorrow: five spacewalks, one per day. But the preparation began long ago; these five days have been years in the making. It all starts in 2006, when two teams of astronaut spacewalkers are assigned to the job. John Grunsfeld leads one team; he's been to Hubble twice before. JOHN GRUNSFELD: The Hubble was designed to be serviced by people, to take things out, put things in, turn bolts, keep it running. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: John's partner is Drew Feustel. This will be his first flight. DREW FEUSTEL: We kind of operate on a buddy system. One person does the work, another person's handing off tools, providing support. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: On the second team is Mike Good, also making his first flight. MICHAEL GOOD (NASA Astronaut): Hubble's done some great things, and it's great to know that I'm going to get to go up and have a chance to get up there and touch it, open the doors, get inside of it to work on it. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Leading the second team is veteran spacewalker Mike Massimino. He worked with John Grunsfeld on Hubble, in 2002. MICHAEL MASSIMINO (NASA Astronaut): If we can fix Hubble, with its new capabilities, it's going to make some great discoveries. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: There's lots to do: replace batteries, install a brand new camera, swap out gyros, remove old optics, install a new spectrograph, and more. MIKE MASSIMINO: Generally, what we do is we come up with a whole replacement for an instrument or for a piece of equipment. And even if something little is wrong with it, you don't mess with it, usually. You just pull it out and put the whole new one in. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: That's exactly what Drew Feustel and John Grunsfeld are about to do on spacewalk number one:... DREW FEUSTEL: Ready, John. Let's do this. Oh, this is fantastic. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...pull out the old wide field camera, and put in a new one. They'll loosen one bolt, remove the old camera... DREW FEUSTEL: Copy, John. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...insert the new camera, and re-tighten the bolt; one of the simplest jobs on the entire mission. But early on, there's a big problem. DREW FEUSTEL: Mass, I put in three attempts, and see no motion on the A-latch bolt. MICHAEL MASSIMINO: Copy. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: When Drew Feustel tries to loosen the bolt holding in the old camera, it refuses to budge. DREW FEUSTEL: No turning. MICHAEL MASSIMINO: Try it without a M.T.L. at all. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: NASA copy that. In that case, we're with removing the M.T.L. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The M.T.L. is a multi-torque limiter, a safety feature. It limits the force on the bolt to keep it from breaking. With no M.T.L., there's a chance Drew could break the bolt, putting Hubble in danger. DREW FEUSTEL: How far can we go with this, and what are the implications if I break the bolt? JOHN GRUNSFELD: If it breaks, then wide field stays in. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: What John said is correct. DREW FEUSTEL: Thanks. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: If the bolt breaks, the old wide field camera is stuck in Hubble forever. The replacement, a brand-new $130-million-dollar camera, which took more than 10 years to build, will come back to Earth, never to be used. DREW FEUSTEL: Okay, here we go. I think I got it. It turned; it definitely turned. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: We copied and saw that. That's great news. JOHN GRUNSFELD: Well, it's been in there for 16 years, Drew. DREW FEUSTEL: It didn't want to come out. JOHN GRUNSFELD: I guess it just decided to be a recalcitrant teenager. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: And the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 is clear of the structure of the telescope. MICHAEL MASSIMINO: That's awesome news, Dan. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: In the end, John and Drew finish everything spacewalk number one was supposed to get done. But it was a close call that could have permanently crippled the telescope. The next day, spacewalkers Mike Massimino and Mike Good also have problems. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: Crew members are an hour and a half behind the timeline at this point. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The second spacewalk ends up taking just under eight hours, one of the longest in NASA history. The first two days have not gone well. And the hardest spacewalks are yet to come. Tomorrow, John and Drew will try to fix a broken instrument that can't be replaced: the Advanced Camera for Surveys, or ACS, which died in 2007. It's a new kind of work no one's ever done before: actual repairs in space. CHUCK SHAW (Director, Hubble Servicing Mission): Instead of just replacing or adding components, we're actually going inside. It's more like neurosurgery. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: To learn how they'll try to do these repairs, months before launch I went to Goddard Space Flight Center, in Maryland. Deputy Program Manager Mike Weiss took me through the world's largest cleanroom. Every tool, part and new instrument going to Hubble is kept here. In the heart of this super clean operating room, is a life-sized mockup of the patient: the part of Hubble containing the instruments. Deep inside is A.C.S., the vital organ that's failed. It might look like a refrigerator, but this big black box is actually a precision digital camera. Just like any digital camera, A.C.S. runs off electronics. And that's what's died, the power supply. To fix it, 32 tiny screws have to be removed, then a cover, then circuit boards have to come out. Okay, so this would be the offending power supply board? MIKE WEISS: Right. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Even though right now it's just a smooth surface, I would see printed circuitry here and... MIKE WEISS: Absolutely. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...components? MIKE WEISS: And they're going to pull all four of these boards out. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: So this seems easy enough. Where's the challenge? MIKE WEISS: The challenge is it was never designed to be pulled out like that, with an astronaut wearing a glove, and it could compromise the glove. It could have sharp edges. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: "Compromise the glove" is euphemism for me losing the pressurization of my suit and dying? MIKE WEISS: Ultimately. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Danger is just one challenge. Working while weightless is quite another. Things like tools and loose screws will float. And if you're not strapped down, when you try to turn a screw, your body turns instead. And, ultimately, if just one of those 32 screws that has to be removed to fix the A.C.S. should float into Hubble, it could trash the telescope forever. So how are they going to get those screws out safely? With a special contraption designed just for this mission: the Fastener Capture Plate. JOHN GRUNSFELD: It's basically a panel that is made out of a clear plastic and has holes in that you can put a screwdriver through. MIKE MASSIMINO: But small enough so that nothing will come out. JOHN GRUNSFELD: As a result, we can remove all those screws. They'll float around, but we won't lose any. And then we can take the cover plate off. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: To get a feel for what it's like using the Fastener Capture Plate, I decided to try it myself. MIKE WEISS: You then need to turn three levers. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Three different screws. MIKE WEISS: One, two, and three different locations. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: There we go. In space, 32 screws have to come out. I figured I'd try two. So I've got my miner's light into number 17. Steady. There we go. I'm in. We are succeeding, I think. I am not succeeding. And I can't imagine doing this in a spacesuit. But doing it in a spacesuit is precisely what John Grunsfeld is facing on spacewalk number three. JOHN GRUNSFELD: The Fastener Capture Plate will be next. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: The Fastener Capture Plate now removed, having done its job... NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: But as the repair gets underway... NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: ...capturing the 32 tiny screws. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: ...the one thing that nobody expects is what actually happens: perfection. JOHN GRUNSFELD: Card one is out. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: Nice. JOHN GRUNSFELD: I heard that. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: No loose screws; no cut gloves. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: Oh, that's unbelievable! NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The A.C.S. repair, probably the toughest job on the whole mission, goes without a single hitch. Down on the ground, the Goddard engineers who designed the tools and planned the repair are thrilled. NASA ENGINEER 1: It was a good one today. MARK JAROSZ (NASA Engineer): No issues, ahead of the timeline, it went smooth, just like they practiced it. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Over the next two days, the final spacewalks complete every task assigned to the mission. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION CONTROL: The final spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope is complete. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: This mission hasn't just fixed Hubble, it's set a new precedent for the level of intricate repair work that's possible on spacewalks. MATT MOUNTAIN: We've pulled out boards, replaced boards, struggled with, you know, handles that wouldn't come off, and improvised. I mean, I think we have raised the bar enormously, because suddenly you can see what humans can do in space. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The day after the final spacewalk, Hubble is released back into its own orbit. It's the last time humans will ever touch or see this magnificent science instrument. MICHAEL MASSIMINO: What were you thinking when you patted Hubble goodbye? JOHN GRUNSFELD: "Happy voyages. I hope everything that we did worked." NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Over the next few months, the new instruments get acclimated to the conditions of space. And I can't wait to see what a rejuvenated Hubble can do. MATT MOUNTAIN: It's probably between 50 and 100 times more powerful than it was when we first launched the Hubble, so it's a completely new telescope. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Just weeks ago, Hubble transmitted the first post-repair images. It's the start of a new era in Hubble history, and later this fall, you can see those images and watch the story of the whole mission on NOVA. On Screen Text: The Hubble Space Telescope is the same length as a school bus. They also weigh about the same. A school bus costs about $1,499,890,000 less, but the Hubble is way cooler than a school bus. GANGSTER BIRDSNEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: You know, things can get tough out there in the animal kingdom. Disagreements between species may arise; unpleasantries may occur; sometimes, steps must be taken to ensure the survival of the family. But our expectations have been exceeded by one particular animal, who enforces its will in a manner heretofore seen only in humans. Correspondent Anna Lee Strachan has ventured into the swamps to track down a creature that may be giving its neighbors an offer they can't refuse. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: It may look peaceful, but these quiet cow fields might be a cover for a mob. You know the type from TV. MARLON BRANDO (As Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather): I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Except this time, the goons aren't human. Jeff Hoover is on the case. And we're on the trail of one of the most sophisticated crime schemes in the animal world. AL PACINO (As Tony Montana in Scarface): Say hello to my little friend. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: The suspect: the brown-headed cowbird. If you've ever seen a cow, you've probably seen a cowbird. The males are black with brown heads and the females are sort drab gray. Until now, intelligence was never considered a trait because of a certain reputation. JEFF HOOVER: People describe them as lazy. In general, people hate cowbirds. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Why? Because cowbirds are freeloaders. They never make nests or raise their own kids. They just ditch their eggs in other birds' nests, and let someone else do all the work. Just ask any birdwatcher. BUBBA SCALES (Birder): The cowbird chicks totally dominate the nest scene at the expense of the chicks that are supposed to be there. COURTNEY HOOKER (Birder): You know, it's kind of sad to see a huge cowbird, and this tiny little songbird just running back and forth all day long trying to feed it, and the other chicks starve to death. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: In fact, cowbirds are so good at what they do, they appear to be driving several songbird species to extinction. But things weren't always this way. It's partly our fault. And it all started in the Wild West. Cowbirds used to roam with the buffalo, and only sneak eggs on species living close to open land. But now, with the bison gone and more manmade open land than ever before, we've invited cowbirds into every last corner of the country, pushing dozens of already troubled species to the brink. SCOTT ROBINSON: It's a pretty serious problem. Without cowbird control, some of those populations, perhaps some of those species, would be extinct now. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: And it gets worse. Cowbirds can somehow sucker over 150 different bird species to raise their offspring. How do they get away with this? Why don't the victims just throw those eggs out? That's where Jeff Hoover comes in. He's a bird ecologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, and he thinks something in this story just doesn't add up. JEFF HOOVER: There she goes. She just flew out. For the longest time it's been thought that cowbirds are either dumb or lazy, and they figured, "Oh, all they do is that they come and they lay their egg, and then they forget about it." ANNA LEE STRACHAN: They just ditch it? JEFF HOOVER: They just ditch it, and they never follow up. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Case closed. That is, until Hoover started studying one of the cowbird's local hosts, the Prothonotary Warbler. JEFF HOOVER: We started seeing some really odd things happening. I would be watching a pair of warblers bringing food to a nest, and that nest contained a cowbird baby, and I'd happen to notice, "Oh, is that a female cowbird?" Yeah, there's a female cowbird sitting maybe 50 feet away, kind of hidden, and watching. And then I just kind of wrote that off, but then I saw it again. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Then Hoover stumbled on a surprising twist. It happened when he started removing cowbird eggs from warbler nests in an effort to increase the number of warbler offspring. JEFF HOOVER: And when we started doing that, we found that some of these nests were starting to have things happen to them. We'd see warbler eggs disappear, warbler eggs get broken. The usual suspects would be a raccoon, snakes, flying squirrels, but they weren't a problem before we started removing cowbird eggs. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Trashing nests? Are we talking about revenge? JEFF HOOVER: We were in a little bit of denial because we didn't think that the cowbirds would be capable of this kind of sophisticated behavior. No one had really documented it before, and cowbirds have been studied a lot. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: We are talking about cowbirds here, a.k.a., lazy bums who pal around with cattle all day. Could cowbirds really be doing this? To find out, Hoover would need a scheme to catch these culprits red-handed. And he knows just the place to start. Welcome to Illinois swamp country, where cowbirds get away with dumping over 4,000 eggs on warbler parents every year. So where are we headed? JEFF HOOVER: We are headed to a site called X swamp. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Like X Files X swamp? JEFF HOOVER: Like X Files. There aren't any aliens here, but it's got about 20 pairs of the warblers that we're studying, and there's also cowbirds here, so it fit the bill for what we needed. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: The game plan: first stake out nesting sites across warbler territory. JEFF HOOVER: And maybe if I can take the poles from you.... And this looks like a really good spot to put up one of our nest boxes. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Right here? JEFF HOOVER: Right here. There. Okay. So we've got our two poles and cardboard milk and juice cartons. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Next, we'll line up hundreds of carbon-copy nest boxes all over the swamp. So now we've got a nice little home here for the warbler. JEFF HOOVER: Right, and if we left it out like this they probably wouldn't use it. So we need to make it... ANNA LEE STRACHAN: It looks a little suspicious, I have to say. JEFF HOOVER: Yes, yeah. We need to make it blend in a little better with the environment out here. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: But how do you keep other critters like snakes and raccoons from butting in? So what's that? JEFF HOOVER: So this is axle grease. It keeps things like raccoons from being able to climb up and do anything with the nest. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Ah, so this is like predator-proofing? JEFF HOOVER: Exactly. This is really important for us to be able to eliminate yet another one of the possible suspects for who's ransacking our warbler nests. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: So we've set the scene and ruled out the usual suspects. But to pin any nest-trashing on the cowbird, we'll need to rule out the warblers too. They could be trashing their own nests, for all we know. And that calls for a little custom modification to the housing. Oh, look at that. JEFF HOOVER: There we go. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Perfect. JEFF HOOVER: Yeah. So this is the wide opening, or the big opening that both the warblers and the cowbirds can fit through. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Okay. JEFF HOOVER: What we're going to do next is we're going to take this smaller drill bit, and the warblers, believe it or not, can still fit through that size of an opening. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: It's tiny! JEFF HOOVER: But female cowbirds are about three times the size of the warbler; they can't. Now we've got a cowbird-free nest box. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Nice. It's convertible. JEFF HOOVER: Exactly. So we start with the large opening, because we want cowbirds to come in and lay their eggs in the nests. And then we will remove cowbird eggs, and put this insert in. And if we put this insert in there, these nests should all be safe, because cowbirds can't come in. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: The plan? First start all the boxes with big openings—that way cowbirds can get in and lay their eggs— JEFF HOOVER: Once the female warbler leaves, it's go time for the female cowbird. The cowbird comes stealthily, flies in, lays her in egg in about 10 seconds time and blasts off. And she's done. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: —then take the cowbird eggs out, and for half the boxes, put those inserts in. Now these nests should all be safe. The others still have big openings, so if they're the only ones to get ransacked, we'll know who done it. Leaving one last step: waiting. JEFF HOOVER: Head out this way. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: All right. So have you ever made a cowbird egg omelet? JEFF HOOVER: My guess is that it probably wouldn't taste too bad, especially with a little bit of Tabasco sauce on it. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: The stakeout begins: dozens of nests, day after day, the team slogs through the muck to check the status of the eggs. It takes months, but slowly a pattern begins to emerge: only the nests with big openings are getting ransacked. JEFF HOOVER: And over a number years, the pattern became really, really clear to us, that, you know, "Oh my goodness! We've actually got experimental evidence that female cowbirds are really doing this stuff." ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Sure enough, those small-holed nests cowbirds couldn't fit into were 100 percent safe. It's the most compelling experimental evidence ever of an animal, besides us, exacting a mafia-like retaliation. SCOTT ROBINSON: My first reaction was, "Oh boy, they're way smarter than we thought." ANNA LEE STRACHAN: And they even caught the whole thing on tape. With quick, sharp stabs, the female cowbird does the dirty deed. Within seconds, the entire warbler brood is destroyed. JEFF HOOVER: We had really nailed it. But then why would they destroy the contents of the nest? What does that do for the cowbird? ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Perhaps it's a power play cowbirds use to force other species into accepting their offspring. JEFF HOOVER: Because the warblers could learn, "If you don't play along with this game, if you don't raise my offspring, there's a penalty. And that penalty is that we're going to come back, and we're going to mess up your nest." SCOTT ROBINSON: We suddenly have to view these birds as much more sophisticated than we'd ever thought. That says some amazing things about avian intelligence. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: So maybe it's time to reconsider the cowbird's reputation. JEFF HOOVER: I think the word "debunked" is exactly what we've done. They come back and they monitor nests; they're actually seeing their offspring are being taken care of. What I really like about it is that it's the female cowbirds, too. It's Tina Soprano instead of Tony Soprano, in this case, with the cowbirds. ANNA LEE STRACHAN: Nothing personal, it's just business. On Screen Text: Overseas: another scourge; another bird species that exhibits the same shocking behavior. These cuckoos leave their young with magpies. But the magpie is no angel. Valuables left in its greedy reach are not around long. A lesson to all, worth heeding. PROFILE: ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSANEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Plenty of great scientists have made a mark even though they came from humble origins. Albert Einstein, when he was younger, was a patent clerk. Dmitri Mendeleev, inventor of the periodic table of elements, was a poor kid who hitchhiked thousands of miles across Siberia just to go to college. In this episode's profile, we meet a brain researcher whose journey of discovery was rife with challenges of its own. It's early Monday morning, and Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, or Dr Q., as everyone calls him, slips into his lab coat, as routinely as Mr. Rogers puts on his sweater. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: All right. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: His day begins with a quick sprint through the lab to check on things, and, as always, a good wash. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Clean your hands. You can never clean your hands too much. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: The pace here is fast because lives hang in the balance, lives that could be lost to a dread disease that, so far, has defied understanding. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: What we're trying to understand in my laboratory is very simple. It's really not that complex. We're trying to understand, how does brain cancer originate and how does it spread? NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: To answer those questions, Dr. Q. and his research team are looking at neural stem cells which are taken from human brain tissue. These cells have the ability to become different types of mature brain cells. Dr. Q. thinks that in brain cancer, something may go wrong with these cells, causing them to grow out of control and seed tumors that are frequently malignant. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Certainly, if it is malignant brain cancer...virtually...almost no possibility of cure. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: If these cells are growing out of control, and if Dr. Q. and his team can determine why, then maybe one day they'll be able to stop or reverse the process, transforming brain cancer from a deadly disease to a chronic but manageable condition. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: We are at the forefront of understanding human tissue, human cells. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: It's hard to get human brain tissue to study, especially tissue from living patients. But Dr. Q. has a special connection. It turns out he has a close relationship with one of the country's top brain surgeons here at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Good morning. I have exciting news for you. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: When he's not in his lab, he's with his patients. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: A very, very benign menangioma. Yours was the size of a tennis ball. But the mass is all the way...right here. Ah, look at you. You did cut your hair, huh? How are you? DON (Surgical Patient): Just fine. How are you doctor?
NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Tomorrow, he will be operating on Don to remove a brain tumor, or lesion. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: This is the actual M.R.I. You can see the lesion right here. DON: That whole u-shaped area? ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: That whole u-shaped area. DON: Well, I'd be lying to you, if I didn't say I was nervous. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Yeah, of course. DON: I know I'm in good hands. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Well, I promise you—this is what I always tell my patients—I promise you that my goal is to get you in and out safe. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: On the day of surgery, at the cashier's line at breakfast, he runs into Don's sister and brother-in-law, who asks him, in Spanish, "Are you ready?" ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Listo. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: This isn't a day for theory or larger questions. Today, as he walks into the operating room, the scientist is a surgeon. It's a transformation that can be seen in his eyes. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: No doubt at that moment, okay? There's no place for doubt at that moment. Because that moment, when we're about to walk into the arena, into the operating theater, there's no place for mistakes and there's no place for errors. And I tell them, specifically, when we go in, it's going to be all positive energy. All that passion, all that training, everything that I have done in my life to prepare for that specific moment is going to come out. And we're going to go in together and we're going to take care of this. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Don's tumor, or lesion, is just millimeters from the part of Don's brain that controls his speech. Dr. Quinones has to keep Don awake and talking to make sure that they don't damage his ability to speak or make him mute, for life. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Alrighty, I want Don's mouth to be a little bit moist. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: To be sure, they run a test first. As Don counts, Dr. Quinones stimulates his brain to locate those areas that determine speech. DON: Thirty, uuuuuhhhhhhh... O.R. PERSON: Are you okay? DON: Yeah. Thirty one, 32, 33, 34, 35, thi...uuuhhh... O.R. PERSON: You're okay. DON: Thirty six, 37, 38. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: I know, in my heart, that this is a tough fight. I know that the chances that I may have a significant impact on this disease are not very good. As a matter of fact, to be honest with you, the odds are overwhelmingly against me succeeding in this field, as far as finding a cure or a better way to treat brain cancer. But so were the chances of me sitting here with you today, when I came to this country, 20 years ago. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Chances were about all Alfredo had in 1987, and they were slim to none. He was a Mexican citizen, poor and desperate to come to America, when he jumped this fence and snuck into the country as an illegal alien. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: It is tough to be poor. It is tough to be poor in the United States; imagine how much more difficult it is to be poor in poor countries. And it's tough to survive in that environment, to be honest with you. I think that it was pretty clear to me that this is what I needed to do. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Alfredo grew up in Mexicali, just across this wall, at the California border. Neither of his parents made it past the first grade, the same grade little Alfredo was in when he started managing the finances of his father's gas station. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: By the age of five, I was already working. By the age of 10, I was a major contributor. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: What little the family had disappeared, along with the Mexican economy, in the 1980s, and Alfredo jumped the fence at 19. He became a migrant worker in the San Joaquin valley. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: At first, I was thinking, I am going to take over the world with this. I am going to go back to my country triumphant, and I am going to be making a lot of money. Then I get my first check, about $130 a week, and I realized this might take a little bit longer. This is hard work. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: He lived in this trailer for about a year, all by himself. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: It was a palace. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Alone and depressed, Alfredo made it to Stockton, where he shared a room with other family members and enrolled in English classes at San Joaquin Delta Community College. There, he met Anna. ANNA QUINONES: I kept seeing him walking across this, like, little area, where everybody would sit and relax, and I would see him just fly by, very fast: shoo, shoo. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: They became friends, but didn't date for another two years. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: I just never...you know, I never thought...I mean, it's my insecurities. How can this beautiful woman be interested in a guy who has nothing? ANNA QUINONES: I saw something in him right away, that he was different. And I think that's one of the reasons why I was attracted to him, because I could see, like, the fire within him, that, you know, someday, somewhere, something fabulous was going to happen with him. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Alfredo kept moving quickly. From Berkeley, he went to Harvard Medical School. He became a U.S. citizen; married Anna; had three kids, a dog and a cat; did his residence and post doc at U.C. San Francisco; and started his lab, and became a surgeon at Johns Hopkins. Four hours into Don's operation, Dr. Quinones removes the tumor, leaving Don's speech intact. Don has already agreed to give Dr. Q.'s lab samples of his brain's fluid and tissue from the tumor. And Don, his brain open, and with Dr. Q.'s fingers literally inside of it, says... DON: Take as much as you want. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: Isn't that amazing? I can take his speech away just like that. Just by going a millimeter over. By taking a small vessel, a microscopic vessel that you cannot even see, anything can change radically. And yet he said, "Take as much as you want." NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Don doesn't know that he's just given his tissue to a research team full of hungry overachievers, who understand that ending their week, every Friday night, with a lab meeting to discuss their research until 10:00 p.m., is just part of the price of working with Dr. Q. JASON CHANG (Student, Johns Hopkins University): I'm from San Francisco. I went to University of California San Francisco Medical School. STUDENT 1: ...sophomore at Johns Hopkins University. STUDENT 2: ...from MIT. STUDENT 3: I'm from Oxnard, California. STUDENT 4: ...Ecuador. STUDENT 5: ...from India. STUDENT 6: ...Wakefield, Rhode Island. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Dr. Q. is sharing some of the amazing opportunity he's had. But he's also got a lab to run, and if he can't move fast enough to accomplish his dream, he's hoping one of these young people will get the chance. ALFREDO QUINONES-HINOJOSA: I have to recognize that I may never be able to have a significant impact on brain cancer, so my duty is to train those future generations. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: In Dr. Q.'s version of the American Dream, rigorous, sometimes endless work leads to more and bigger dreams. Earlier that day, just two days after his surgery, Don went home—living proof of Dr. Q's American Dream—living, to dream some more. HOW MEMORY WORKSNEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: Most of us hold in our minds, memories of our lives, so vivid that when we recall them, they seem real and indelible. They're an essential part of who we are. But as we explore the mechanics of the brain, we're starting to learn exactly what these memories are made of. And it turns out a lot of it boils down to chemistry. As correspondent Chad Cohen reports, researchers are discovering the precise molecules that can create memories, as well as the molecules that can erase them forever. CHAD COHEN (Correspondent): This is the brain that, more than any other in history, has allowed scientists to make sense of your brain. For 82 years, it resided in the head of a man named Henry Gustav Molaison, better known as H.M. He was, perhaps, the most-studied patient ever. And that didn't end when he died last year. With H.M.'s permission, neuroanatomist Jacopo Annese went to work, dissecting his brain into 3,000 slices. JACOPO ANNESE (The Brain Observatory/University of California, San Diego): You can imagine the brain being like a book, and our tissue slices are the pages of this book. The only catch is that the slices are transparent. So you cannot really see anything until you use a lot of obscure chemical processes to reveal the features in the tissue. Eventually, the entire book will be completely stained. And they will tell us the story of this brain. CHAD COHEN: It's a story that begins with epilepsy, epilepsy so severe that by 1953, H.M. had reached his breaking point. SUZANNE CORKIN (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): He had to stop working because of the frequency of his seizures. It was just too dangerous. So he was basically at home with his parents. His life was on hold. CHAD COHEN: In desperation, H.M. let surgeon William Scoville remove slivers of brain on either side of his head, each containing a seahorse-shaped structure called a hippocampus. This might have seemed reasonable at a time when we knew almost nothing about memory. And it did quiet his seizures, though at a terrible cost. SUZANNE CORKIN: Do you know what you did yesterday? HENRY GUSTAV MOLAISON (Epilepsly Patient/File Footage): No, I don't. SUZANNE CORKIN: How about this morning? HENRY MOLAISON: That, I don't know myself. I can't tell you because I don't remember. CHAD COHEN: H.M.'s condition might have seemed like simple dementia, but as neuroscientist Brenda Milner discovered, it was anything but. BRENDA MILNER (Montreal Neurological Institute): He would say, "Right now it's like waking from a dream. Right now everything is clear. But what happened just before?" CHAD COHEN: Milner found that H.M. had a normal I.Q. He could crack jokes, solve puzzles. Even, to some extent, remember. ERIC KANDEL (Columbia University): So H.M. could remember everything that happened prior to the operation. He could remember the trauma of his childhood. He could remember going to elementary school, to high school, working in the assembly plant. CHAD COHEN: What he couldn't do was hold on to new information for more than a few minutes. In a moment of insight, Milner concluded the hippocampus must make long-term memories out of short-term ones. SUZANNE CORKIN: That was a groundbreaking finding because it showed that the ability to establish long-term memories is localized to this tiny area in the brain. CHAD COHEN: If H.M. had contributed nothing more, his fame would have been assured. But he would go on inspiring discoveries for decades. The next involved a pencil, a mirror and, again, Brenda Milner. ERIC KANDEL: She did this brilliant test in which she had H.M. draw the outlines of a star without looking at the star, but looking into a mirror. CHAD COHEN: It's hard, at first, to draw within the lines, but could H.M., like people with normal memory, learn to do it with practice? After three days and 10 trials, his performance was nearly perfect. BRENDA MILNER: Well, he said, "I thought this would be difficult, but it looks as though I've done pretty well." He had no memory of all these learning trials that he had been through, and the beautiful learning, that was the real contrast. CHAD COHEN: So H.M. could remember a motor skill, but not recall a fact or an event. It was a key discovery, because it showed there were different kinds of memory, dependant on different parts of the brain. But what is a memory, anyway? Nerve cells communicate by sending electrical signals, which trigger the release of chemicals across tiny gaps called synapses. As one cell speaks to another, chemical changes at the synapse make it easier for the signals to pass. If only a few signals are sent, this transformation among a network of cells is temporary, resulting in a short-term memory. But if the signals keep coming, changes at the most active synapses become permanent, forming a long-term memory. ERIC KANDEL: So long-term memory actually involves an anatomical change in the brain. So, as I like to say, if you remember anything about this conversation tomorrow, it's because you will have a slightly different head than you had today. CHAD COHEN: But what maintains a long-term memory? How can you recall something that you may not have thought about for 20 years? Neuroscientists Todd Sacktor and Andre Fenton think the answer may lie in a molecule called PKMzeta that accumulates at synapses as memories form. ANDRE FENTON (SUNY, Downstate Medical Center): PKMzeta acts as glue, if you will, for fixing the connections amongst the neurons that were active together. So that later in time, those neurons are bound together and permanently bound together, and can become active again to recall the experience. CHAD COHEN: To assess the molecule's importance, Fenton set up an experiment that would give the rat a memory. He placed it on a revolving table, where in one area it would receive a mild shock. ANDRE FENTON: There's the rat, and he's approaching the shock zone. He's beginning to move a little bit but looks like he's going to enter the shock zone. He's gotten shocked, and he's just run away. He's approaching it right now. CHAD COHEN: Soon, the rat always avoided the shock zone. ANDRE FENTON: So when the rat stays away from a particular area, we can imagine that he has remembered where he was shocked. CHAD COHEN: Then Fenton injects the rat's hippocampus with a chemical called ZIP, known to undo the effect of PKMzeta. ANDRE FENTON: And what we observed, which was quite remarkable, was the rat acted as though it had forgotten completely where the shock zone was. And it explored the arena as if it was in the arena for the first time. Just got shocked. CHAD COHEN: Yet the rat could learn once again to avoid the shock zone. ANDRE FENTON: So we hadn't damaged the rat's brain. We hadn't broken its ability to learn anything. What we had simply done was specifically erased the memory for that shock zone. CHAD COHEN: Without PKMzeta, the rat cannot maintain a long-term memory. While this is not the only molecule active at synapses, it does appear we may have found a crucial ingredient of memory, one that explains how a three-pound lump of flesh can store, indefinitely, vivid recollections of everything from birthdays to weddings, to episodes of NOVA scienceNOW. Meanwhile, the man who launched the modern era of brain research is making his final contribution. Three thousand glass slides of H.M.'s brain are being posted on the Internet, where researchers will be able to examine them down to the level of individual neurons. And what would H.M. have thought about all this? HENRY MOLAISON: The way I figure it is what they find out about me helps them to help other people. On Screen Text: We asked scientists to critique our depictions of neurons. 1. The synapse: a neural junction used for communication between neurons. Too far apart. Closer. Even closer. Alright.
Also... 2. Why all the flashing lights? Electricity doesn't zap through your house like this. And it doesn't in your brain, either. Good thing. COSMIC PERSPECTIVE – LOOKING UPNEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: And now for some final thoughts on looking up. Four hundred years ago, Galileo, a mathematician in Venice, Italy, built a telescope of his own design and used it in a way that hardly anybody else at the time thought of. Instead of looking at birds or spying on neighbors, he looked up. He looked up at the sun, moon and stars. Then and there began a four-century legacy of discovery that would permanently transform our relationship to the universe. Over these years, we went from thinking that Earth was the object of Creation, positioned at the center of all motion, to discovering that Earth is but one of many planets; that the sun is one of hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; that the Milky Way galaxy is but one of a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Sounds depressing. But you know what else telescopes have shown us about our place in the universe? They've shown us that we're not somehow separate from the cosmos, we're a part of it. The atoms of our bodies were forged in the fires of stars that burned billions of years ago, exploding these ingredients into space for subsequent generations of stars to use. This atomic and molecular kinship connects the sun to every other star in the galaxy. It connects Earth to every other planet in orbit around them, and us to any life that may thrive there. So, as we say my field of science, it's always best to keep looking up. And that is the cosmic perspective. And now we'd like to hear your perspective on this episode of NOVA scienceNOW. Log on to our Web site and tell us what you think. You can watch any of these stories again, download additional audio and video, explore interactives, and hear from experts. If you want to get the scoop on upcoming broadcasts and find out what goes on behind the scenes, you can sign up for the weekly e-newsletter at pbs.org. That's our show. We'll see you next time. Stay tuned for scenes from the next NOVA scienceNOW, but first... Funding for NOVA scienceNOW is provided by the National Science Foundation, where discoveries begin. And... Discover new knowledge; biomedical research and science education; Howard Hughes Medical Institute: HHMI. And the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, to enhance public understanding of science and technology and to portray the lives of men and women engaged in scientific and technological pursuit. And the George D. Smith Fund. And by PBS viewers like you. Thank you. This NOVA program is available on DVD. To order, visit shoppbs.org or call us at 1-800-PLAYPBS. |
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