Lab Girl

Jahren spends her evenings in her father’s laboratory, playing with the scientific instruments she finds in the drawers. She particularly likes the slide rule, which she uses as a sword, imagining herself in the biblical story of Abraham, sacrificing his son Isaac. She plays with the silver nozzles of the air and gas lines, makes use of the miscellaneous tools she finds in drawers, and tests the pH of spit, water, root beer, and urine. Having the privilege to play with these grown-up instruments makes Jahren feel special, and contributes to the feeling that she and her father own the entire science building. Her father teaches her how to fix broken equipment, and she carefully sets out the items needed for the next day’s experiments in her father’s class.

Jahren and her father walk home every night at 8 P.M. through the frozen landscape of small-town southern Minnesota, in complete silence. She notes that her family, like many Scandinavians, have developed the habit of not speaking to one another for long stretches of time. This is a trait they have inherited from their Viking ancestors, who emigrated from Norway in the 1880s—she notes that things must not have been going very well in Europe for them to move to Minnesota to work in the local slaughterhouse, so she can understand why they might not share much of their personal history.

Located 100 miles south of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jahren’s town is the home of the community college where her father would go on to work for 42 years. Most of the people in town have lived there all their lives, as have their parents and grandparents: on her walk home with her father, Jahren passes the local school, where her teachers had once been her father’s students; the church where her parents met, married, and had their children baptized; and the office of the doctor who had delivered her and treated her every childhood ailment. Jahren cannot remember a time when she didn’t know all of the other children in the homes she passes on her walk, and it would only be years later, in college, that she realizes that the world is filled with people she doesn’t know.

In addition to the community college, the slaughterhouse is one of the economic centers of the town, as most of the local families are employed there or somehow associated with it. Jahren notes that it processed around 20,0000 animals per day, whose meat was placed on a train north to the city of Saint Paul, which left promptly at 8:23 P.M. every night. Jahren and her father can often hear the train leaving the station from the other side of town as they walk down the street to their house. Jahren notes in hindsight that while her fingers were so cold they would hurt, as they walked into her house, she prepared to face a different kind of cold.

Every night when Jahren and her father get home, Jahren’s mother is always in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher loudly, signaling a lifelong anger that puzzles young Hope Jahren. As children do, she assumes it is her fault, and silently pledges to behave better in the future. Jahren’s mother is a housewife, tending to the garden and knitting warm items for the children for winter, but she had once been a science star, winning an honorable mention in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and going on to study chemistry at the University of Minnesota. She found it difficult to attend college while working to pay her way, so she ended up moving back to her hometown, married, had four children with him, and fully assumed the role of homemaker.

The elder Mrs. Jahren never gave up her dreams of a college degree, however, and once the children were in school, she re-enrolled and took correspondence courses through the University of Minnesota, studying literature rather than science this time. Her mother’s studies became a staple of Jahren’s childhood, as the girl was included in the painstaking work of reading and analysis. In between their work in the garden and other domestic tasks, Jahren and her mother would consult the Middle English dictionary, map out symbolism in Pilgrim’s Progress, listen to poetry by Carl Sandberg, and mull over the theories of Susan Sontag. All of her mother’s energy was not wasted on young Jahren, who followed in her mother’s footsteps “to make real the life that she deserved and should have had.” Jahren even briefly studied literature before declaring a major in science.

Jahren describes science as the place where she belonged, because in her science classes growing up, she did things, rather than just talking in a classroom. She enjoyed working with her hands, and the work paid off much more quickly. She also found that her science professors prized the characteristics that her schoolteachers had previously found frustrating, such as her extreme persistence and perfectionism. Her science professors even accepted her despite her gender, and although Jahren had never heard a single story of a female scientist up to that point, she understood that it was her destiny to have her own lab, just as her father had. Her work in science reminded her of her joyful evenings as a child playing in her father’s laboratory.

Now as an adult, Jahren has her own laboratory, and she considers it her refuge from the rest of the world. The unanswered phone calls and incomplete chores are of no importance once she enters her self-contained, windowless space that is dedicated to her work. She describes it as both immensely important work—where she pursues “the noble breakthrough”—and an extension of the fun she had in her father’s lab as a girl. She also notes that her lab is a place where not everything goes as planned, despite the fact that her publications include only the successful results; this clearing away of the imperfections of scientific work leaves Jahren with another story to tell, of all the “pain, pride, regret, fear love, and longing” that a scientist feels along the way.

When Jahren turns 40 years old, after 14 years as a professor, she and her lab partner, Bill, finally create a machine that will work with a mass spectrometer, which is a major breakthrough in chemistry. This is three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation, designed for the forensic chemical analysis of terrorist attacks. It is not exactly Jahren’s passion, but the funding is more substantial than any she has received in the past, and she believes that she can work on this project and her plant biology work—her passion—in her off hours. They are coming to the end of their funding—in fact, Jahren has calculated the exact date on which they will run out of money for the project—when Bill announces that their experiment has worked.

Jahren calculates that she must make approximately four near-miraculous discoveries per year for her work to be fully cost-effective. While the university pays her salary, nearly every other aspect of her work—from the notepads to the mass spectrometer itself to the salary of her lab partner and any assistants—must be raised by Jahren herself, from the federal government or private organizations, which become more elusive every year. As she mentioned, forensic chemical analysis work is not Jahren’s passion, but anti-terrorism work is much more likely to be funded than “science for knowledge,” as she calls it. The other issue with science funding is that experiments rarely work the first time around, and this one was no exception. Jahren details the issues they dealt with in terms of the chemical reaction, turning previously simple tasks into procedures that would take days to complete.

This struggle came to an end, however, when Bill entered Jahren’s office to announce “the motherfucker works” and handed her the paperwork to prove it. They worked as an effective team, with Jahren dreaming up bigger and better ideas and pitching them to potential funders, and Bill painstakingly focusing on the details to push them to success, and then Jahren writing up the final report, making the whole process look streamlined from the beginning. The two scientists triumphantly discussed what to name the apparatus they created, with Bill joking that they should call it “four hundred and eighty thousand dollars of taxpayer money.” Jahren tried to find the words to thank Bill for his hard work, but she knew she didn’t have to.

Jahren has a specific tree she remembers from her childhood: a spruce tree that stood outside her window, which she would hug, climb, and talk to like a close friend. Her studies in science have led her to realize that just like her, the tree was once a child, a teenager, and an adult. Many years after Jahren left her childhood home, her tree “made a terrible mistake,” preparing for summer too early in the season, losing its branches in a snowstorm and forcing Jahren’s parents to cut it down. When Jahren heard this news from her parents, months later, it reminded her of the complicated nature of life, both plant and human. It also reminded her that the written word is the only way to keep from forgetting about important things that once existed, like her childhood spruce.

Seeds are very good at waiting, Jahren explains. They may wait one, 100, or even over 2,000 years for a special moment known only to them, when the temperature and moisture and light are just right to begin to grow. More than half of them will die while waiting for this special opportunity, but a single tree will produce 250,000 new seeds per year. And when the seed does begin to grow, it sheds the hard, protective coating and stretches out into the world, ready to become what it is supposed to be.

Jahren worked at least 20 hours per week during her entire undergraduate career, and more during school breaks, to supplement her scholarship to the University of Minnesota. One of her more memorable jobs was at the university hospital, where she began as a “runner,” transporting IV pain medications from the pharmacy to the nursing stations around the hospital. Jahren was well-suited to this position, as she needed the constant movement to satiate her boundless energy, and the relative isolation—she would go hours without speaking directly to anyone—gave her the time and mental space to think about her schoolwork.

Based on her experience in the hospital, Jahren decided to write her English term paper on “The Use and Meaning of ‘Heart’ Within David Copperfield.” She would memorize passages from the novel during the day, allow her subconscious to work through their meaning as she walked medications around the hospital, and then go home after her shift and write her paper. This routine changed, however, when she was trained to “shoot bags,” or fill the intravenous bags with exactly the right amount and combination of mediation for the specified patient. She found value in this work, recognizing that this medication might hold off the progress of a tumor or give a patient just enough relief from their pain; this slowly turned into disenchantment, however, and when she received an offer to work in a research lab instead, she jumped at the chance.

Jahren explains that the root takes a great risk, as it anchors itself to the ground, ending its chances to move around in search of a more perfect spot. And taking root will use all of the seed’s energy, with no opportunity to make new food until it grows a shoot, which could be days or even weeks later. But if it is successful, it will create a taproot, which will grow powerful enough to absorb gallons of water, intertwine with the plants around it to create an information network, and to regenerate even if its plant is ripped from the ground. Jahren references the acacia tree found along the Suez Canal, whose roots were found to be somewhere between 12 and 30 meters long, depending on the information source.

Jahren was encouraged to obtain her Ph.D., and so the day after graduating from the University of Minnesota, she donated her winter clothes and hopped a plane to San Francisco, where she would begin her doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. That was also where she met her lab partner and lifelong friend, Bill. Jahren was the graduate assistant on a field trip through California’s Central Valley, aiding the undergraduates in their study of the soil composition; Bill was a student on that trip, known for separating himself from the group and digging on his own, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket in the searing heat of the day. He and Jahren were drawn to each other’s dry sense of humor, and found themselves spending most of their free time together.

While the other students giggled and gossiped about the possible romantic relationship they saw blossoming, Jahren and Bill developed a strong platonic bond that would last beyond the California field trip. Before the trip ended, Jahren approached her advisor and asked him to hire Bill in the lab, as he was clearly one of the smartest students she had met up to that point. Her advisor agreed, and as Jahren dropped off Bill after the trip was over, she offered him the job. He casually mentioned that he had nowhere else to go, so he would prefer to start immediately.

Jahren returns to her explanation of a plant’s growing process. Once the seed has anchored itself in the ground, its energy shifts in the other direction, reaching up towards the sun, its source of energy and fuel. The plant begins to make leaves, which have only one job: to make sugar out of inorganic matter, something that only plants can do. The veins of the plant bring water to the leaf, where its is transformed, with the help of sunlight, into sugars, which are then transported back down to the roots and stored for later use. The plant then uses that sugar to grow deeper roots and absorb more water, reinvesting its energy in further growth.

For Jahren, the definition of a true scientist is one who creates her own experiments, generating new knowledge. She recalls the day she became a true scientist, marveling at the new piece of knowledge that she had generated via the research for her Ph.D. dissertation. She was studying the hackberry tree, and more specifically the hard seed it produces, to unlock the secrets of the climate between glacial periods in the Midwest of the United States. The first step in this larger project was to find out what a hackberry seed was made of. She dissected the pit, bathed it in acid to break down the harder parts, and examined them using an x-ray diffraction machine. She discovered that the pit was made of opal—and she was the first person in the world to discover this.

This discovery would usher in a host of conflicting feelings for Jahren, who was completely alone in Berkeley, far from her family, with few connections outside of her lab. She felt like she should call to tell someone about her discovery, but had no one to call. Years later, she would get married and have a child, would mentor scores of students in her own laboratory, and most importantly for her, she would have a friend she considered closer than any family member, who would understand the importance of discoveries like these. But in that moment, Jahren cried. She then packed up her work and went back to her office, and shared her discovery with Bill, who turned off the radio he was listening to, and gave her his full attention.

Jahren received a grant from the National Science Foundation for the second part of her research, and spent the summer in Colorado, monitoring hackberry trees. Unfortunately for her research, that year, the hackberry trees did not bloom, and Jahren was panicking. She returned in the fall, feeling a distinct sense of failure. Bill’s suggestion, presumably made in jest, was to set one of the trees on fire as a threat to the others, or to go into the woods and shoot a BB gun at leaves and branches for an afternoon. Jahren did not take this advice, and used her failed summer to learn something about science: experiments, she explains, are not about making the subject fall in line with expectations. With this, she changed her mindset and began to see the world from the perspective of a plant.

Plants contain three parts, Jahren explains: leaves, stems, and roots. The stem’s job is to move water from one part of the plant to another—it moves water from the roots to the leaves, and brings sugar water back to the root. For trees, the stem is made of wood, which is an amazingly strong, durable material. In addition, a tree’s wood can tell its story: arborists read the rings of a trunk to learn how old a tree is and what might have happened during its development. Finally, wood is resilient, repairing and replacing broken limbs and branches as necessary. The monkeypod tree that stands in the middle of Honolulu might look as though it has achieved perfection, but if someone were to cut it down and read its story, they would see the history of branches lost and repaired.

Jahren speeds through the four years of her Ph.D. program, and she and Bill both graduate in May 1996. Jahren had applied for jobs early, and by graduation she has secured a position at Georgia Tech. She and Bill spend graduation day together, in the absence of their own families, and once the ceremony is over, they head back to the lab and continue working. They spend the night filling glass tubes with carbon dioxide, which they would later use as references for their mass spectrometer. The work is tedious, but requires their full attention to fill each tube with exactly the right amount of gas. As they work together, Jahren begins daydreaming about her future, enjoying the thought of even the most mundane tasks as they pertain to her larger dream of running her own lab.

As she finishes filling a tube, Jahren looks up at Bill, who is also fixated on his work. Jahren asks if he wants to listen to the radio, and walks over to turn it on. Bill comments that he will listen to anything but NPR, as he has enough of his own problems to worry about, which leads Jahren to wonder about his life, about which she has learned very little in their time working together. As she is considering this, and fiddling with the knobs on the radio, she hears a earsplitting pop, and then can hear nothing for about five minutes after that. She looks around the lab, which is now covered in broken glass, and doesn’t see Bill—luckily, he jumped under a desk to shield himself from the explosion of glass.

Jahren then realizes that she had been distracted while filling her glass tube, and had overfilled it with carbon dioxide, causing it to explode after she placed it on the counter. As she considers the damage around her, Bill ushers her outside for a cigarette break, helping her calm down. Jahren chews on the back of her hand, overtaken by anxiety and self-doubt. Bill comments that he once had a dog that chewed on her paws, but they loved her just the same. Back in the lab, they clean up the glass together, and Jahren asks Bill what he plans to do, now that he has graduated. He jokes that he will live in a hole in his parents’ backyard, but Jahren asks him—in all seriousness—if he will come with her to Atlanta to work in his lab.

Jahren moves out to Atlanta first, dropping Bill off with his parents in Southern California along the way. She meets Bill’s father, an Armenian filmmaker who spent his adult life documenting the genocide in his home country. Jahren then embarks on her career as a science professor. After teaching class, she orders supplies for her new lab, and generally prepares for Bill’s arrival in January. When he arrives, Jahren drives to the airport in Atlanta, and finds herself standing at the baggage claim—the wrong one, in fact—in a daze, with no recollection of how she has gotten to that point.

Bill comments that she looks different, and Jahren informs him that she is one of the 25 million Americans with anxiety and later shows him her prescription for lorazepam. As they leave the airport, Jahren offers to let Bill stay on her couch until he finds a place, but he is unconcerned about where he sleeps—he wants to go straight to see the lab. Despite the fact that it is a dingy and abandoned space, Bill can see its potential and begins planning immediately. With that, the two get down to the business of setting up the first Jahren lab.

Trees have developed ways to be in more than one place at the same time. Willows, for example, will strengthen their lower branches and then allow them to drop off; one or two of those branches will then replant themselves, becoming the trunk of a new willow tree, genetically identical to the original. There is a hybrid strain of the horsetail plant, known as ferrissii, that is sterile and can only replicate itself by sending out branches to be replanted, like the willow. In this way, there are ferrissii plants from California to Georgia—tracing a path similar to that of Dr. Jahren, the newest professor of science at Georgia Tech.