The weirdest science story of recent days is the too-good-to-be-true disappearance of the giant oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the BP oil rig explosion. A University of the Pacific professor and an engineering grad student were on the team that discovered the oil-gobbling bacteria.
Pacific Professor William Stringfellow, an environmental engineer, and graduate student Chelsea Spier were on a team that analyzed oil-contaminated water samples for effects the oil is having on oxygen levels and microorganisms that live in the Gulf-Coast region, according ot a UOP press release.
“They discovered a new ocean-dwelling “bug” or bacteria that eats oil,” the press release says.
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These sea creatures along with previously known organisms that eat oil can account for the seemingly miraculous disappearance of oil from the Gulf despite being saturated by one of the worst oil spills in deep-water drilling history.
Here’s the rest of that press release:
“The oil spill research team was headed up by Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist with Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and principal investigator with the Energy Biosciences Institute. As part of Hazen’s team, Stringfellow and Spier measured hydrocarbon concentrations, estimated biodegradation rates, and analyzed the nutrients in the water, including the amount of nitrogen, phosphates and iron. Their paper was published this month in the journal Science.
”Stringfellow is director of the Ecological Engineering Research Program at Pacific. He also conducts research on water quality in the San Joaquin Valley and has a joint appointment with the Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley.”
This remarkable discovery is undoubtedly a career high for both researchers. And I don’t mean to detract one iota from their findings when I say I still can’t believe that a microbe arose from obscurity to heal the deep wound in the sea. I keep expecting scientists to announce they have found the oil somewhere, doing its toxic work. It’s just so amazing.
The mystic side of organ transplants
There’s a paranormal angle in today’s column about the two locals who underwent double lung transplants. More than I published.
Not that I’m uninterested in people’s paranormal experiences, but there were two stories to tell, and limited space.
Anyway, in the story, former Stocktonian Joshua Mompean says he perhaps began to feel and to express elements of the donor’s being when the donor’s lungs were implanted in his body.
“When I had my transplant I underwent this kind of metamorphosis,” Mompean said in the story.
He expanded on that in a cutting-room-floor quote.
“The way that I felt with my transplant, it was a symbiotic experience. These lungs—they weren’t mine—but they were becoming connected to me to help me survive. And without those lungs I wouldn’t have survived. And without me those lungs would not have survived.”
There’s an implication in Mompean’s statement that the donor’s lungs were on board with the transplant, recognizing on some level that the transplant is in their interests.
Now, back to a quote in the story. After the donor’s lungs were implanted, “I definitely feel different than I did before –- way more emotional. I’m a lot more sympathetic to other people.”
One interpretation: before, his end-stage cystic fibrosis was so miserable, he couldn’t really work up empathy for folks feeling lousy with the flu.
But another interpretation is that the donor was a more empathetic fellow and this trait somehow came along with the lungs.
While I’m unaware of any scientific data suggesting such things are possible, there’s apparently ample anecdotal evidence in transplant recipient circles.
Mompean participates in a transplant recovery support group. One member of that group has received two double-lung transplants – the first one didn’t work.
After his first transplant, the man told the group, he developed a voracious love of shopping. He had never cared to shop before. The donor of his new lungs was a woman.
As I said, this transplant didn’t take, so the man underwent a second transplant. He lost all desire to shop.
What to make of that? Don’t ask me. But it’s interesting, as is Mompean’s assertion in the column that the donor’s spirit visited him in the hospital and let him know it was OK to have his lungs.
There’s more.
The sister of Alicia Brogle, the other transplant recipient mentioned in the column, says her sister visited her from beyond.
Sheila Brogle says she was finishing yoga class in Los Angeles with savasana, a mind-clearing pose of relaxation, when “She actually came to me. In spirit.”
“It’s kind of cool story,” Brogle said. “Basically the the whole room is closing their eyes and meditating at the end of practice. And then I felt a real coldness at my feet. And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I definitely felt like someone was standing there. Like the teacher was gong to come over — sometimes they adjust you, pull your head, your feet, something.
“I opened my eyes and no one was there. The teacher said, ‘Whatever you’re holding on to, let it go.’ … I just started crying. Because I knew it was my sister and I had been holding on. I said she could go.
“And about three days later … (her yoga instructor askes a mutual friend), ‘Did Sheila lose someone? Because physically I saw a spirit walk into the room and hover over Sheila.’
“Pretty intense, right?”