“The result is not curing a disease, it’s having an advance in our knowledge.”

In this episode of Useful Knowledge, Martin Chalfie shares the story of how, by building on another scientist’s findings, they both went on to win the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “Useful knowledge” is at the core of the APS, but Chalfie argues for the utility of “useless knowledge.” Some discoveries push us forward by nature of their innovation, but others are useful in the way they inform and influence future scientists. Chalfie insists that scientists should always be concerned with the future implications of their work, and ought to focus on expanding our collective knowledge. In this way, knowledge that might initially seem “useless” is ultimately quite useful.

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Martin Chalfie, University Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his introduction of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as a biological marker.

As a postdoctoral fellow, Martin Chalfie with John Sulston established the first genetic model for mechanosensation using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. He and his lab subsequently used molecular, genetic, and electrophysiological means to study neuronal specification, differentiation, outgrowth, and degeneration, microtubule structure and function, and mechanosensory transduction and its modulation in C. elegans.

Dr. Chalfie is a past president of the Society for Developmental Biology and of the American Society for Cell Biology. A member of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Medicine and a foreign member of the Royal Society, he chairs the Committee on Human Rights of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) have had a huge impact on the world of academic research and writing. These tools may provide new methods of scholarly analysis, but they must not affect the core practices that book and journal authors, peer reviewers, editors, and other publishing colleagues collectively participate in–namely, writing and reviewing.

• The APS Press will not publish work whose arguments or style have been affected by the use of LLMs or generative AI. For the purposes of the APS Press, generative AI is that which is transformative to the author’s argument, intent, prose style, and/or research, whether this involves creation of new material or comparison, analysis, or summarization of the same. Authors may not appropriate content from AI sources to formulate their argument or research question, or to change their writing style. 
• Book authors and journal contributors must explicitly acknowledge and disclose their use of artificial intelligence tools such as Large Language Models (LLMs) or generative AI tools to their acquiring or managing editors at the outset of their relationship with the Press. 
• Acceptable uses may include, but are not limited to, the synthesis or organization of large data sets, checking grammar (not adjusting style), bibliographic searches, or formatting citations, but every author must disclose any use of AI tools to their editor. The APS Press Staff will decide if the disclosed usage is acceptable. If the use is deemed acceptable, use of the tool must be acknowledged within the manuscript (see guidance for generative AI sources from MLA and Chicago). Further, any use of this technology for transcription, textual or numerical analysis, visual comparison, or any other element of a submitted manuscript must be disclosed and discussed as part of the book or article’s methodology. 
• AI tools do not meet legal criteria for authorship; only human authors can hold copyright and enter publishing agreements. Therefore, no APS Press publication—book or journal—accepts work written by generative AI.  
• Book authors and journal contributors are fully responsible for their work, including their use of AI tools. Authors and contributors should carefully review the terms and conditions of any AI tools they use; use of these tools means the author must accept responsibility for those terms, which could compromise the author’s intellectual property rights and undermine copyright protections. 
• Peer reviewers of books or journal articles are not permitted to feed content into any Large Language Model (LLM) or similar tools (e.g., ChatGPT); this has the potential to be a serious violation of the author’s intellectual property rights. Peer reviewers may not use any generative AI tool to create their peer review. 

• AI tools may not be used for extended translations, but authors should check with their editors and acknowledge the use when relying heavily on AI for any translations. Translations of whole works written in another language that are created by generative AI will not be accepted for publication.  

  Failure to disclose the use of any generative AI or LLM technology in the writing of the book will result in a rejection of the manuscript at any stage of the editorial process.
   

Available for sale: The Re-Declaration Project print, issued in a limited edition of 250 copies

 

As a part of our current exhibition, These Truths: The Declarations of Independence, the APS engaged with APS Member, book artist, and cultural critic Johanna Drucker to create a response to the ideas presented in the exhibition. She produced a limited edition print, The Re-Declaration Project, which incorporated the typefaces and visual cues used in past Declarations while interrupting the text with her own edits. In her version, Drucker critiques the promises of equality, freedom, and justice, which remain unfulfilled for many, including women, the dispossessed, and a dying planet. For display in the exhibition, she added a border of hand-drawn frame.

Her Artist Statement:

Respect for the importance of the Declaration of Independence and recognition of the courage and vision of its authors have guided my approach to this project. 

I drew on several source documents in this design. The printed broadside combines John Dunlap’s 1776 iconic single column format familiar with Mary Katharine Goddard’s 1777 two column design and the hand-drawn frame is inspired by John Binns’s engraving, printed in 1819. The frame drawing has been updated to include the seals of all fifty states as well as a few contemporary elements. The broadside is printed in a version of the Caslon typeface used by both Dunlap and Goddard. Designed by the British type founder William Caslon a decade earlier, this robust and versatile typeface was widely used in the Colonies as well as in England. Goddard’s broadside included the ornamental rule like that used here, while Dunlap’s print was without decoration. The layout is meant to invoke the familiar Dunlap document, printed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, and also call attention to printer and publisher Goddard’s contribution in Baltimore, a year later, 1777.

Almost the entire text of the Declaration appears in the broadside. The opening paragraphs are in 18 point type while the lines in 14 point type contain my version in which a few changes in vocabulary or phrasing make the language more contemporary. Shifts in vocabulary or word order are indicated by (phrases in parentheses) while edits to the text are indicated by the presence of blank       spaces.

Throughout, the language of the original text has been preserved with only minor alterations or omissions. The alterations in my text were made to preserve the abiding spirit of the original Declaration as a founding document for our nation by removing the historically specific references. Shifting the focus from particulars to principles emphasizes the ongoing relevance of the Declaration across time and into the present.

This limited edition print is now for sale for $350 (includes shipping within the US). To purchase or for more information, please contact [email protected].

Proceeds support the APS.

In 1999, the American Philosophical Society held a symposium that gathered experts from around the world to make predictions about humanity in the 21st century. One of those experts, demographer and statistician Joel Cohen, met with host Patrick Spero to discuss this millennium’s trends and if we got them right in 1999. In this episode of Useful Knowledge, Cohen reviews his 1999 predictions on topics like population growth, economic equality, immigration, family dynamics, and more to share the outcomes, for better or worse, making recommendations for the coming decades. 

Joel E. Cohen is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Populations at the Rockefeller University, New York. He studies the demography, ecology, epidemiology, and social organization of human and non-human populations using mathematical, statistical, and
computational concepts and tools. He earned doctorates in applied mathematics in 1970 and population sciences and tropical public health in 1973 from Harvard University. He has published 14 books and more than 480 papers and chapters. His books include How
Many People Can the Earth Support? and a book of scientific and mathematical jokes. He was named a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow in 1981 and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1997. In 1992, he received the Mindel C. Sheps Award of the Population Association of America.
 

Dr. Emily Sperou is an ecobiologist and researcher who spent her doctoral studies and the first years of her postdoctoral career studying one of the world’s most elusive apex predators: the leopard seal. She and her colleagues take arduous boat trips through Antarctica, searching for rare animals and studying their diets, reproduction, and their survival amid climate change, melting polar ice, and changing sea levels. Sperou’s work helps inform policymakers and teach conservation groups about how to protect leopard seals and what their livelihood and survival means for the vast polar food web beneath them.

Dr. Emily Sperou is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Rhode Island in the Comparative Ecophysiology of Animals Lab, where she studies the ecophysiology of marine mammals to understand how they survive and thrive in a rapidly changing environment. Her research aims to answer fundamental questions about their health, adaptive capacity, and ecological roles by integrating multiple lines of evidence.

Currently, Dr. Sperou is leading projects investigating the reproductive biology of leopard seals through field observations, necropsy-based anatomical studies, and analyses of historical museum specimens to assess lifetime reproductive success and variation in reproductive strategies. This work is providing unprecedented insight into one of the least studied apex predators in the Southern Ocean and is helping to fill critical gaps in our understanding of how leopard seals may respond to ongoing environmental change. Her goal is to generate data that inform conservation strategies and improve our ability to forecast the future of polar marine ecosystems.

Dr. Sperou was awarded grants from the APS Lewis and Clark Fund in 2022 and 2024. She also joined us as a speaker in our April 2025 Member Meeting. 
 

Before becoming a respected biochemist, Michael Marletta was a child watching Sputnik crossing over Rochester, New York, imagining what it might be like to be a scientist one day. He was his mother’s helper in the kitchen, wondering how spices got their flavor and how they changed when mixed together and heated. He admired the periodic table and the unbelievable truth that those simple elements make up all of life on Earth. As he explored the field of chemistry, he realized the Earth itself is the best biochemist of all–putting all the elements together to shape life as we know it.

In this episode of Useful Knowledge, host Patrick Spero is joined by biochemist Michael Marletta (APS 2016) to discuss how he found his niche in biochemistry and the future of the field for budding scientists. They consider the fascinating history of biochemistry from its earliest days when scientists were encouraged to smell and even taste their creations, and the role of serendipity in scientific discovery. And, Marletta shares one of the foundational chemicals in his work–nitric oxide, which has widespread effects throughout the human body. 

Michael Marletta is a biochemist and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also served on the faculty at M.I.T. and the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, he was appointed to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He joined the faculty of The Scripps Research Institute in 2011 and served as it president and CEO until August 2014.

Marletta has been recognized with numerous honors including a MacArthur Fellowship (1995), election to the National Academy of Medicine (1999), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2001), the National Academy of Sciences (2006), the American Philosophical Society (2016), and the American Institute for Biological and Medical Engineers (2024). Since 2014 he has served a consultant on national security for the US Government. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Fredonia College Foundation and the Chabot Space and Science Center. He is a co-founder of Omniox, Inc.

Marletta's primary research interests lie at the interface of chemistry and biology with emphasis on the study of protein function, enzyme discovery and enzyme reaction mechanisms. He has made fundamental discoveries on the biological action of nitric oxide. His continued studies on NO signaling have led to a molecular understanding of general gas sensing mechanisms in biology. A new research direction involves novel oxidative enzymology of cellulose degradation with application to biofuel production and crop pathogenesis.
 

David Tatel grew up believing in the power of law and science to make life better for everyone. He began doing that work himself, launching a decades-long career as a civil rights lawyer and later, as a judge in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He fought and decided cases on various topics, notably education, voting rights, environmental law, and disability protections. Along the way, disability took on a personal meaning in his life as he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that began to take away his vision. For much of his decades-long career as a lawyer and judge, he hid his failing vision.

Writing his memoir, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, gave Judge Tatel the time and space to reflect back on his 50 years in law and justice, and helped him rethink his relationship to his blindness. The book, along with his trusty guide dog, Vixen, helped him realize that his blindness is an essential part of his life and that "acknowledgement is better for everybody.”

In this episode of Useful Knowledge, Judge Tatel joins host Patrick Spero to reflect on his philosophy of judicial restraint, his concerns about the future of American law, and becoming the role model he never had. 

Judge David Tatel served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1994 to 2024. After graduating from the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago Law School (1966), he served as the founding director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and then director of the National Lawyers Committee. He headed the Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter administration (1977-1979) and then founded and led the education practice at Hogan Lovells (1979-1994), where he is now Senior Counsel. In addition to APS, Judge Tatel is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the past, he co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Science, Technology and Law, and chaired the boards of The Spencer Foundation and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Judge Tatel and his wife, Edie, live in Virginia and Washington, D.C. They have four children, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
 

Born-digital materials are files created and stored in a digital environment: from email inboxes, to Word documents, to photos on your phone. As life becomes more and more digital, so too are archival collections. Current and future research will rely on access to born-digital files.

Born-digital archiving at the American Philosophical Society is a nascent and ongoing project. Many collections at the APS contain born-digital materials, and the Digital Archivists are improving on existing processing and descriptive standards to preserve materials and make them accessible to researchers, both on-site in our Reading Room and through the digital library. Learn more about the born-digital program at the APS and explore resources pertaining to curating your born-digital materials below.