Sci-Ed Update 256

Intersex, least helpful teacher, eyedrops for myopia, fixing hears, and many more interesting stories for you!

Mar 02, 2023

When I work with teachers, I often tell them that my goal is to be the “least helpful teacher possible.” I believe I first had this goal after watching Dan Meyer’s TED Talk. While the idea of being the “least helpful” usually elicits a few laughs, I never mean it to be funny. To better explain my goal, I use the metaphor of a bench presser and a spotter.
I tell teachers that students are the bench pressers and we are their spotters. A spotter’s job is to give the bench presser the least amount of help necessary so that he or she can lift the weight. If the spotter gives too much help and does most of the lifting, then the spotter gets stronger, not the bench presser. If the spotter gives too little help, the weights fall on the bench presser and the bench presser dies.
So, the spotter’s job is to give the bench presser the least amount of help so that the bench presser can lift the weight. No more help and no less help.
Taking this back to the classroom context, this is no easy task.

Medicated eye drops may delay nearsightedness in children

The earlier myopia starts, the worse eye health can become later in life

Medicated eye drops taken nightly for two years delays nearsightedness in children, a new study suggests. PIXELSEFFECT/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

Using nightly eye drops with 0.05 percent atropine, a medication that relaxes the eye muscle responsible for focusing vision, may delay myopia onset in children, researchers report February 14 in JAMA.
Myopia, also called nearsightedness, is an irreversible condition in which the eyeball grows too long front to back, causing blurred distant vision. It typically begins in childhood, and the earlier it starts, the worse eye health can become later in life. Elongated eyes increase the risk for ocular complications including cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration.
The prevalence of myopia has risen rapidly over the last few decades. About one-fourth of the global population currently has the condition. It is expected to affect half of people worldwide by 2050.

A new biomaterial heals heart attack damage in animals. Humans could be next

The treatment, delivered through IV, could go to human clinical trials soon

A new biomaterial, pictured in a University of California, San Diego laboratory, can be injected through the veins to heal tissue after a heart attack. DAVID BAILLOT/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

“In an ideal world, you treat a patient immediately when they’re having a heart attack to try to salvage some of the tissue and promote regeneration,” says Karen Christman, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego.
The pursuit of this ideal inspired Christman, along with a team of researchers, to develop the biomaterial. In rodents and pigs, it appears to repair tissue damage and reduce inflammation directly after a heart attack, Christman and colleagues report December 29 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Exercise More Effective Than Medicines to Manage Mental Health

The largest benefits were seen among people with depression, pregnant and postpartum women, healthy individuals, and people diagnosed with HIV or kidney disease. Image is in the public domain

University of South Australia researchers are calling for exercise to be a mainstay approach for managing depression as a new study shows that physical activity is 1.5 times more effective than counseling or the leading medications.
Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the review is the most comprehensive to date, encompassing 97 reviews, 1,039 trials and 128,119 participants. It shows that physical activity is extremely beneficial for improving symptoms of depression, anxiety, and distress.
Specifically, the review showed that exercise interventions that were 12 weeks or shorter were most the effective at reducing mental health symptoms, highlighting the speed at which physical activity can make a change.
The largest benefits were seen among people with depression, pregnant and postpartum women, healthy individuals, and people diagnosed with HIV or kidney disease.

Size matters! Investigating the effects of model size on anatomy learning

Image: Anatomical Sciences Ed, First published: 01 December 2022, DOI: (10.1002/ase.2233)

Three-dimensional (3D) scanning and printing technology has allowed for the production of anatomical replicas at virtually any size. But what size optimizes the educational potential of 3D printing models? This study systematically investigates the effect of model size on nominal anatomy learning.
The study population of 380 undergraduate students, without prior anatomical knowledge, were randomized to learn from two of four bone models (either vertebra and pelvic bone [os coxae], or scapula and sphenoid bone), each model 3D printed at 50%, 100%, 200%, and either 300% or 400% of normal size.
Participants were then tested on nominal anatomy recall on the respective bone specimens. Mental rotation ability and working memory were also assessed, and opinions regarding learning with the various models were solicited.
The diameter of the rotational bounding sphere for the object (“longest diameter”) had a small, but significant effect on test score (F(2,707) = 17.15, p < 0.05, R² = 0.046). Participants who studied from models with a longest diameter greater than 10 cm scored significantly better than those who used models less than 10 cm, with the exception of the scapula model, on which performance was equivalent across all sizes.
These results suggest that models with a longest diameter beyond 10 cm are unlikely to incur a greater size-related benefit in learning nominal anatomy. Qualitative feedback suggests that there also appear to be inherent features of bones besides longest diameter that facilitate learning.

Autopsy Findings of Vaccinated People (With Covid Vaccines): An Update

Fatalities from mRNA vaccine-induced fulminant myocarditis are possible but extremely rare — in about 1 in 10 suspected post-vaccine deaths (i.e., 1 in 20,000,000 vaccinated individuals).

Source: Enrique Simonet (1866–1927). Public Domain. Painting title: Anatomy of the heart; And she had a heart!; Autopsy.

Post-covid vaccine deaths — deaths occurring shortly after the vaccine — are extremely rare, affecting <0.003% of the vaccinated population.
Post-covid vaccine deaths — with the suspected cause of death being the vaccine — are even rarer, affecting <0.00005% of the vaccinated population. And most of these suspected deaths are due to causes unrelated to the vaccine, usually pre-existing cardiovascular diseases.
Nearly all post-covid vaccine deaths are due to DNA vaccine-induced VITT, an acknowledged risk of DNA vaccines, particularly in younger females. This is why many countries have limited the use of DNA vaccines to the older population only.

The way we think about biological sex is wrong | Emily Quinn

Did you know that almost 150 million people worldwide are born intersex -- with biology that doesn't fit the standard definition of male or female? (That's as many as the population of Russia.) At age 10, Emily Quinn found out she was intersex, and in this wise, funny talk, she shares eye-opening lessons from a life spent navigating society's thoughtless expectations, doctors who demanded she get unnecessary surgery -- and advocating for herself and the incredible variety that humans come in. (Contains mature content)

All Living Cells Could Have The Molecular Machinery For a 'Sixth Sense'

Every animal on Earth may house the molecular machinery to sense magnetic fields, even those organisms that don't navigate or migrate using this mysterious 'sixth sense'.
Scientists working on fruit flies have now identified a ubiquitous molecule in all living cells that can respond to magnetic sensitivity if it is present in high enough amounts or if other molecules assist it.
The new findings suggest that magnetoreception could be much more common in the animal kingdom than we ever knew. If researchers are right, it might be an astonishingly ancient trait shared by virtually all living things, albeit with differing strengths.
That doesn't mean all animals or plants can actively sense and follow magnetic fields, but it does suggest that all living cells might, including ours.

New Study Reveals Yet Another Surprising Function of Telomeres

Telomeric protein (green) accumulating in nuclei (blue) in cancer cells (red). (Griffith Lab)

We've known about telomeres for more than 80 years, but these tiny, protective structures at the end of the chromosomes keep revealing secrets to us, including the possibility of having surprising functions.
It turns out that these key biological cogs can produce proteins, something previously thought impossible due to their simplicity.
While it's not clear

The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates

Discussion about this post