Sci-Ed Update 251

Fingerprints, artificial skin, the end of tenure, forming memories, race-based medicine, head impacts, and more stories!

Feb 14, 2023

How fingerprints form was a mystery — until now

A theory proposed by mathematician Alan Turing in the 1950s helps explain the process

Three of the most common fingerprint shapes — arch, loop and whorl (traced in purple) — can be explained in part by a theory proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing. J. GLOVER ET AL/CELL 2023

While in the womb, fingerprint-defining ridges expand outward in waves starting from three different points on each fingertip. The raised skin arises in a striped pattern thanks to interactions between three molecules that follow what’s known as a Turing pattern, researchers report February 9 in Cell.
How those ridges spread from their starting sites — and merge — determines the overarching fingerprint shape.

Artificial skin can detect nearby objects without even touching them

A skin crafted from two layers of electrodes around an ion-infused sponge is better at sensing than human skin because it can detect nearby objects and what they are made of

Human skin is sensitive, but an artificial skin might be even better Shutterstock/daily_creativity

An artificial skin is even better than human skin at sensing objects, because it can detect and identify items that it hasn’t touched yet.
“Human skin has to touch something to tell it what is there,” says Yifan Wang at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “Human skin can only tell the softness or hardness of an object. We wanted our artificial skin to have more functions.”
Even without touching an object, Wang and his colleagues’ artificial skin can sense if it is close by and can also discern some clues about the type of material it is made of. “We can tell whether it’s a piece of metal, plastic… or some biological material,” he says.

How the 'construction site' of long term memory gets built in the brain

A species of sea slug called Aplysia (bottom) squirts a purple ink to ward off predators in this close-up view by Wertheim UF Scripps Institute scientists. Researchers used the sea slug to examine how neurons store memory. The slug's neurons are gigantic compared with humans, making them easier to study. Credit: Abhishek Sadhu

Think of a new longer-term memory as a construction site inside the brain. The brain's neurons restructure themselves and build or demolish connections with other neurons to store the memory for retrieval when needed.
The neurons can't do the work without help. They need building materials from a distant warehouse. So, trucks hit the highway to transport cargo to the construction site.
The cargo of those trucks varies over time depending on the strength of the memory. Do the neurons need supplies to build a structure that endures hours, days, weeks or even years?
Researchers at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology have discovered that these cellular building materials—in this case, sets of proteins—undergo experience-dependent changes while forming short- and long-term memories.

Kevin Patton comment→ Not only does this explain my craving for Doritos while I’m trying to learn something new, it also gives us a great analogy to explain memory formation in the brain.

Why Race-Based Health Care is Bad Medicine: From BiDil to Kidney Transplants

Choosing a medical treatment based on patient traits historically used to define races is fundamentally flawed, because race in the context of humans is a social construct, while medicine is based on biology. Race-based prescribing robs some individuals of drugs that could help them, while prescribing them to people who likely will not respond, or even be harmed. Fortunately, the practice of basing treatment decisions on the superficial traits used to define human races is on the decline.

How ChatGPT Can Improve Education, Not Threaten it

A professor explains why he is allowing students to incorporate ChatGPT into their writing process instead of banning the new technology

Photo: Jeff Pachoud/Getty Images

To read the news, the sanctity of everything from college application essays to graduate school tests to medical licensing exams is imperiled by easy access to advanced artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that can produce remarkably clear, long-form answers to complex questions.
Educators in particular worry about students turning to ChatGPT to help them complete assignments. One proposed solution is to roll back the clock to the 20th century, making students write exam essays using pen and paper, without the use of any Internet-connected electronic devices. The University of California, Los Angeles, where I teach, is considering making it an honor code violation to use ChatGPT for taking an exam or writing a paper.
That’s the wrong approach. This semester, I am telling the students in my class at the UCLA School of Law that they are free to use ChatGPT in their writing assignments. The time when a person had to be a good writer to produce good writing ended in late 2022, and we need to adapt. Rather than banning students from using labor-saving and time-saving AI writing tools, we should teach students to use them ethically and productively.

Mechanisms driving the immunoregulatory function of cancer cells

Tumours display an astonishing variation in the spatial distribution, composition and activation state of immune cells, which impacts their progression and response to immunotherapy. Shedding light on the mechanisms that govern the diversity and function of immune cells in the tumour microenvironment will pave the way for the development of more tailored immunomodulatory strategies for the benefit of patients with cancer.
Cancer cells, by virtue of their paracrine and juxtacrine communication mechanisms, are key contributors to intertumour heterogeneity in immune contextures.
In this Review, we discuss how cancer cell-intrinsic features, including (epi)genetic aberrations, signalling pathway deregulation and altered metabolism, play a key role in orchestrating the composition and functional state of the immune landscape, and influence the therapeutic benefit of immunomodulatory strategies. Moreover, we highlight how targeting cancer cell-intrinsic parameters or their downstream immunoregulatory pathways is a viable strategy to manipulate the tumour immune milieu in favour of antitumour immunity.

Review Strengthens Evidence That Repetitive Head Impacts Can Cause CTE

Rare, isolated case studies reporting aberrant findings or using non-accepted diagnostic criteria have been disproportionately emphasized to cast doubt on the connection between RHI and CTE. Image is in the public domain

During the past 17 years, there has been a remarkable increase in scientific research concerning chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) with researchers at the BU CTE Center at the forefront.
While some sports organizations like the National Hockey League and World Rugby still claim their sports do not cause CTE, a new review of the evidence by the world’s leading CTE expert strengthens the case that repetitive head impact (RHI) exposure is the chief risk factor for the condition.
In a review article in the journal Acta Neuropathologica, Ann McKee, MD, chief of neuropathology at VA Boston Healthcare System and director of the BU CTE Center, stresses that now over 600 CTE cases have been published in the literature from multiple international research groups. And of those over 600 cases, 97 percent have confirmed exposure to RHI, primarily through contact and collision sports.

They’ve Been Scheming to Cut Tenure for Years. It’s Happening.

We’re in the execution phase of the profession’s demise.

As we enter the Execution Phase (2020-50) of the American professoriate’s reconfiguration, I hazard a few predictions. First, the mightiest of the three estates will be brought to its knees. By the year 2050, tenure will be either the purview of a few scholars at elite schools, or it won’t exist at all.
Second, academic freedom will be as good as gone. We’ll labor as we did prior to the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The scholar who runs afoul of a trustee, congressperson, tech mogul, or influencer will — poof! — disappear into the night. Last, the divisions and mistrust between the professorial ranks will hasten the developments just described, as well as other malign outcomes.
Only a miracle of guild solidarity can forestall our dystopian future — a future which, for contingent faculty, is actually the present.

Review a Year. Preview a Year. | Debriefing & Predictions

TAPP Radio Episode 132

Episode 132 is the annual debriefing episode, which features a review of the last year and a look ahead to the coming year. And yes, I make my traditional psychic predictions for the new year, as well as review last year’s predictions.

To listen to this episode, click on the player (if present) or this link→ theAPprofessor.org/podcast-episode-132.html

Young people are more likely to die of heart attacks post-COVID, study finds. But why?

A recent study found that heart attacks in people ages 25 to 44 increased by 30% compared to the expected number over the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Demi Washington has recovered from her myocarditis and has returned to playing basketball. Many other young people who developed heart problems after a COVID-19 infection aren't so lucky. Courtesy Demi Washington

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, heart attack deaths across all age groups have become more common in the U.S., according to a September 2022 study by Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.
The age group hit the hardest? People between 25 and 44, who saw a 29.9% relative increase in heart attack deaths over the first two years of the pandemic (which means the actual number of heart attack deaths were almost 30% higher than the predicted number).

The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates

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