Science and Medicine

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Entry Category: Science and Medicine - Starting with C

Climate and Weather

Officially classified by climatologist Wladimir Köppen as having a humid sub-tropical climate, Arkansas is indeed humid, but numerous weather extremes run through the state. Humid sub-tropical is classified generally as a mild climate with a hot summer and no specific dry season. The Köppen classification is correct in that regard, but the state truly has four seasons, and they can all range from fairly mild to incredibly extreme. The topography of the land and its proximity to the plains to the west and the Gulf of Mexico to the south play a crucial role in its climate and weather. In the United States, warm, moist air travels into the plains from the Gulf of Mexico and interacts with cool, dry …

Climate Change

aka: Global Warming
The spring of 2019 brought record flooding along the Arkansas River from Van Buren (Crawford County) to its confluence with the Mississippi River in the east. Historic crests occurred at Dardanelle (Yell County), Morrilton (Conway County), Toad Suck Lock and Dam near Conway (Faulkner County), and Pendleton (Desha County) between May 30 and June 6. In July 2019, the National Weather Service reported that the remnants of Hurricane Barry dumped 16.17 inches of rain on Dierks (Howard County), the most rain ever measured in a twenty-four-hour period (1:00 p.m. July 15 through 1:00 p.m. July 16) in Arkansas; the three-day total of 16.59 inches was the most rain associated with a tropical system in recorded state history. Murfreesboro (Pike County) …

Cnidarians

aka: Hydroids
aka: Corals
aka: Jellyfishes
aka: Sea Anemones
Cnidarians (hydroids, jellyfishes, corals, and sea anemones) form a diverse phylum (Cnidaria, old Phylum Coelenterata) that contains more than 10,000 species. The phylum also includes the parasitic Myxozoa. Typical cnidarians inhabit aquatic (predominantly marine) environments. Cnidarians are divided into two major groups: the Anthozoa (corals, sea anemones, and sea pens), which live as sessile polyps, and the subphylum Medusozoa (Hydra, jellyfishes, and sea wasps), many of which form a free-swimming medusa as well as polyps. There are five main classes: Anthozoa, Cubozoa, Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa, and Staurozoa. Only a few cnidarians can be found in Arkansas, including a jellyfish seen in lakes and rivers. In terms of evolutionary relationships, modern molecular phylogenetic results support the notion that anthozoans represent the first …

Coccidia

Coccidians are microorganisms belonging to the Phylum Apicomplexa and Suborder Eimeriorina, which includes eight to thirteen families, about 39 genera, and well over 2,000 species. These protists are intracellular (meaning they function inside the cell) parasites of medical and veterinary importance, including those in the genera Caryospora, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Eimeria, Isospora, Sarcocystis, and Toxoplasma. Most are considered intestinal parasites that infect both invertebrates as well those animals in all vertebrate classes. These parasites cannot complete their life cycle without exploiting a host. Coccidiosis is a general term for the disease they can cause, and it is recognized as a major health concern in wild animal populations, domestic animals, and zoo animals. However, some infections appear not to cause any pathology …

Cockroaches

aka: Blattodea
Cockroaches belong to the Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Labiata, Superclass Hexapoda, Class Insecta, and Order Blattodea. The order includes approximately 4,600 species in almost 500 genera and seven families. Very likely at least twice this number remains to be discovered and described worldwide. Some of the most well-known cockroach examples are two pest species belonging to the family Blattidae: the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) and German cockroach (Blattella germanica). Cockroaches are considered one of the most successful groups of invertebrates because of their adaptability in various environmental conditions and occupy a very wide range of habitats from caves to mountains to rainforests to deserts. As a group, cockroaches also exhibit a remarkable diversity of form, coloration, size, and behavior. Although no …

Coffin, Frank Barbour

Frank Barbour Coffin was an African American pharmacist who owned and operated one of the earliest drugstores serving the Black community of Little Rock (Pulaski County). He was also one of the country’s unnoted African American poets of the nineteenth and twentieth century, barely remembered today for his two volumes of poetry and other works printed in various publications. F. B. Coffin was born on January 12, 1870, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the son of Samuel and Josephine Barton Coffin. Holly Springs was a small town in northern Mississippi, about forty miles from Memphis, Tennessee. His mother died before he was twelve years old, leaving Coffin and at least four other siblings to be raised by their father, a farmer. …

Coggs, Granville Coleridge

Granville Coggs was a pilot in the United States Army Air Corps and was one of the Original Tuskegee Airmen. He later attended Harvard Medical School and became the first African American to serve as staff physician at the Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco, California. In 2001, he became a member of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Granville Coleridge Coggs was born on July 30, 1925, in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to Dr. Tandy Washington Coggs and Nannie Hinkle Coggs. The family later moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County). His father was an educator who served as the president of Arkansas Baptist College from 1937 to 1955. Coggs attended Dunbar High School, graduating in 1942. Coggs took classes at …

Collembollans

aka: Springtails
Springtails (collembolans) belong to the phylum Arthropoda and subphylum Hexapoda. They form the largest (about thirty-five families and 9,000 different species) of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered to be included in the class Insecta (the other two are the proturan and dipluran apterygotes). Since each has internal mouthparts, the three are sometimes grouped together into a class called Entognatha. However, they do not appear to be any more closely related to one another than they all are to insects, which have external mouthparts. Indeed, they do share some features of insects, such as a body divided into three parts, a head with antennae, a three-segmented thorax, and each segment having a pair of jointed …

Community Mental Health Centers

Community mental health centers (CMHCs) are designed for those with mental health concerns but inadequate resources to pay for services. They vary regarding the range of services provided. Some centers offer individual and group psychotherapy and medication management, while others include partial hospitalization programs; psychological, personality, forensic, and intellectual evaluations; emergency/crisis treatment; and consultation/education programs. Most CMHCs determine clients’ fees from a “sliding scale,” meaning that the fee is based upon the person’s income level and ability to pay. Fees can be as low as $5 or $10 per session. The costs of providing services are funded by federal, state, and local grants. As of 2011, fifteen community mental health centers in Arkansas serve more than 141,000 individuals throughout the …

Conway Regional Health System

Founded in 1921, Conway Regional Health System (CRHS), anchored by Conway Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Conway (Faulkner County), serves Faulkner, Cleburne, Conway, Perry, Pope, Van Buren, and Yell counties. CRHS’s mission is to provide high-quality healthcare services for the region. During a meeting of the Conway Rotary Club in 1921, Dr. Cecil H. Dickerson, a local physician and club member, proposed building a hospital in the town. (The Rotary Club is an international community service organization for business and professional leaders.) During 1922 and 1923, Dickerson, joined by community leaders and activists, launched a bond drive to fund the new hospital’s construction. Local women organized the Faulkner County Hospital Auxiliary to raise funds. John E. Little, a Conway banker …

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) began sweeping the world beginning in late 2019. The virus created a large-scale public health crisis and caused some countries to quarantine entire regions—or, in the case of Italy, the entire nation. The pandemic also cratered the economies of many nations throughout the world. The virus was first detected in Arkansas in March 2020. COVID-19 is an infectious disease closely related to the original SARS virus (SARS-CoV), which produced a worldwide epidemic in 2002–2003; the virus that causes COVID-19 is, in fact, designated SARS-CoV-2. The name stems from the virus’s appearance in electron micrographs, exhibiting a crown (corona) shape. Symptoms of COVID-19 include cough and fever, and the disease spreads like influenza, through droplets in …

Cotter Bridge

aka: R. M. Ruthven Bridge
Completed in 1930, the R. M. Ruthven Bridge, originally named and often still called the Cotter Bridge, is located near Cotter (Baxter County) on the business route of U.S. Highway 62 and crosses the White River between Baxter and Marion counties. Recognizable for its Rainbow Arches, it was the first landmark in Arkansas to become a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark and is one of only a small number of bridges designated as such. East-west travelers through northern Arkansas often encountered problems crossing the White River. Although ferries operated at several places along the river, the river had a tendency to flood rapidly, grounding the ferries and hindering traffic sometimes for several days. The fastest detour was to cross 100 …

Coulter, Wallace Henry

Wallace Henry Coulter was an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur who was co-founder and chairman of Coulter Corporation, a worldwide medical diagnostics company headquartered in Miami, Florida. The two great passions of his life were applying engineering principles to scientific research and embracing the diversity of world cultures. Wallace Coulter was born on February 17, 1913, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Joseph R. Coulter and Minnie May Johnson Coulter. His father was a train dispatcher, and his mother was an elementary school teacher; he had one brother. Coulter spent his youth in McGehee (Desha County), graduating from McGehee High School. He attended his first year of college at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri; his interest in electronics, however, led him …

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Often affiliated with anti-abortion Christian organizations such as Care Net and Heartbeat International, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which are also known as pregnancy resource centers, target women facing decisions about unintended pregnancies. In many states, including Arkansas, the centers offer free informational and assistive services designed to dissuade women from choosing abortion. In the late 1960s, before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973) legalizing first-trimester abortion, CPCs originated in response to the liberalization of state abortion laws. Beginning in the 1980s, during anti-abortion Republican Ronald Reagan’s presidency, CPCs began to receive public funding and increase in number. By 2016, CPCs existed in more than 3,500 locations in the United States, outnumbering abortion clinics. By 2021, according …

Cross, John Storrs

John Storrs Cross became a national and international expert in all types of electronic communication as a member of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Navy during World War II, and the U.S. Department of State, as well as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In Arkansas, he was the engineer for Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs (Garland County) in the 1930s and ran a motel with his wife near Eureka Springs (Carroll County) in the later part of his life. John S. Cross was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 18, 1904, to Thomas C. Cross and Elise T. Cross. He had one younger sister, Elise. In his high school years, he attended the private McCallie …

Crustaceans

Crustaceans (subphylum Crustacea) are a very large and diverse group of arthropods (invertebrate animals having an exoskeleton, jointed appendages, and segmented bodies). Crustaceans are distinguished by having paired mandibular jaws and maxillae, along with two pairs of antennae. Recent classifications include six classes within crustaceans—Branchiopoda, Remipedia, Cephalocarida, Maxillopoda, Ostracoda, and Malacostraca. The Classes of Crustacea Class Branchiopoda includes several groups of primitive aquatic and marine animals, including clam shrimp, the small fairy shrimp (less than one centimeter in length and living in temporary pools), and the “living fossil” tadpole shrimp. The most noteworthy brachiopods are the cladocerans, or water fleas, that make up many of the zooplankton in Arkansas lakes and ponds. These small, free-swimming animals are a critical food …

Cude v. State

Archie Cude, a farmer who was born and reared around Houston, Texas, moved his young family in 1948 to the remote community of Board Camp nine miles east of Mena in the mountains of Polk County. Years later, he refused to put his children in school due to his claims that God opposed the smallpox vaccinations children had to take before enrolling. Cude’s long-running legal fight over his unvaccinated children, which embroiled Governor Orval E. Faubus, finally produced an order from the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1964 that his religious beliefs did not exempt him from obeying laws requiring the education of his children and also helping to protect children and teachers from the dreaded smallpox virus. Cude v. State, …

Cyprinids

The Cyprinidae is a diverse family of mainly freshwater fishes belonging to the ostariophysian order Cypriniformes, collectively called cyprinids. They include carps, true minnows, and their relatives. The Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and, in general, the largest vertebrate animal family, with about 3,160 species, of which only 1,270 are extant, divided into about 376 genera. The family occurs in Africa, Eurasia, and North America (northern Canada to southern Mexico). Only two species of cyprinids occur in true marine waters, daces (Tribolodon brandtii and T. sachalinensis) from eastern Asia, and a few stray into brackish water only very rarely. More than sixty-two species of cyprinids are known from Arkansas, which represents almost a third of the …