Metabolism and Brain Health – By Professor Susan Masino
Scientia
Metabolism is a fundamental process whereby living cells convert food to usable energy and materials. This process occurs in all cells of the body, and metabolic dysfunction can cause profound dysfunction in physiological systems. Not surprisingly, metabolic disturbance may play a major role in numerous diseases, including neurological diseases, even those it is not typically a therapeutic target. Classical pharmacological approaches aim to identify and modulate highly specific targets that contribute to the symptoms of disease – or its underlying cause, if known. However, the goal of specificity notwithstanding, many pharmacological treatments cause off-target side effects or produce unforeseen consequences by modulating their targets in ways that would not occur under normal physiological conditions. Furthermore, pharmacological effects are often not long lasting, requiring chronic repeated treatment – and are often masking their target symptoms rather than promoting or restoring health…
Professor Susan Masino of Trinity College, Connecticut, studies the mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of the ketogenic diet, an almost 100-year-old therapy for epilepsy, with a view to apply what she has learned to the treatment of other disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder.

Middle school students get hands-on environmental lesson
Journal Inquirer
Joan Morrison, a professor of biology at Trinity College, is completing what could be her final bird-banding sessions with Two Rivers Magnet Middle School students after 14 years. Morrison is set to retire from Trinity at the end of the semester. During her 16-year tenure, she managed to create the school’s environmental science program while focusing her research on birds living in environments impacted by humans. Despite the college-level pedigree she brings, Morrison’s lessons are an enthralling break from the classroom for the middle school students, who are able to experience bird banding firsthand in the verdant pathways behind the school. Bird banding is the process of safely catching birds in tree-hung nets before placing a tag, or band, on one leg. The coded bands help other researchers track where the birds may have originated, and the process helps scientists determine important facts about the birds and their migration patterns…

study
“Real Hartford” blog
In a time when a self-proclaimed equity warrior abandons her post only halfway through her four-year contract and few bat an eye because those in front of the classroom are rotating out just as fast, Jade Hoyer’s work ‘study’ manages to comment on public education simply and with few buzzwords.
Coincidentally, on the same night as this gallery opening, Hartford Public Schools’ outgoing superintendent announced through the Equity 2020 advisory panel plans to close Burns, MLK, and Simpson-Waverly schools at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year, with other schools potentially closing permanently and Clark not reopening, if the Board of Education approves. Part of Hoyer’s exhibit includes materials reclaimed from an abandoned school elsewhere in the country. Hoyer, the Ann Plato Fellow at Trinity College for 2016-17, uses a combination of printmaking and installation to recreate a classroom, complete with desks, chalkboard, and the United States flag. Colorful monoprints created from the student desk tops hang on the “classroom” walls. … Jade Hoyer’s work is on display Monday-Saturday, 1-6 p.m. until December 9, 2016. The gallery is closed from November 23-27. This is located in Austin Arts Center at Trinity College.

The KR Conversations: Clare Rossini
Kenyon Review
Clare Rossini’s most recent book, Lingo, was published by the University of Akron Press. She is currently completing a collection that includes poems about science, technology, and climate change. She is artist-in-residence at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where she directs a program placing Trinity students in a public school arts classroom. Her poem “The Man Transfused with the Blood of a Sheep” can be found here. It appears along with another poem in the Sept/Oct 2016 issue of the Kenyon Review.
Q: What was your original impetus for writing “The Man Transfused with the Blood of a Sheep”?
A: My dad was a high school chemistry teacher, a guy with a passion for the wonder and drama of science; one of my last conversations with him was about the search for the Higgs boson. At the same time, I was given a strict, old-fashioned Catholic education and attended daily mass for years, which meant that I was regularly immersed in the pageantry of ritual and sacrament. I don’t want to romanticize my Catholic upbringing, but the sensory aspect of it—the music, poetic language, “bells and smells” as a friend calls it—became, like science, another way to know the world and frame human experience….

Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories sound anti-Semitic. Does he even realize it? – By Cheryl Greenberg
The Washington Post
Donald Trump is not known for pulling his punches. Sexist? He boasts about groping women and agrees that his daughter Ivanka is a great “piece of ass.” Racist? Mexicans are “rapists” and can’t be trusted to make just legal decisions. Immigrants? They’re “bad hombres” who traffic drugs and slaughter innocent American citizens on the streets. Muslims? Exclude them all or face a bloodbath. Hillary Clinton threatens gun ownership? “Second amendment people” might be able to do something about that.
In the past few weeks, Trump has begun leveling accusations that smack of anti-Semitism, too, but much less openly than the xenophobia he has directed at other groups all through the campaign. The conspiracy theories Trump has been talking up recently play on long-standing tropes used against Jews for decades or even centuries, and the echoes are unmistakable for many of Trump’s alt-right followers and for Jews who are familiar with the history of anti-Semitism. But his language veils the bigotry in a much more subtle way than when Trump talks about Mexicans or Muslims — so much so that it’s not clear that Trump himself fully understands the implications of what he’s saying…
Cheryl Greenberg is the Paul E. Raether distinguished professor of history at Trinity College and the author of “Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century.