Sci-Ed Update 318

Memories made by breaking DNA, high structure courses, student theories of abilities, pronoun use, human cortex revealed, the end of reading, HAPS meeting tips, more!

May 20, 2024

The team from Brighton and Sussex Medical School -authors of “My Dead Body”: Development, Production, and Reception of a Documentary that Publicly Displays the Dissection of a Human Donor explore and invite discussion as to why they undertook the creation of a documentary that was the first to show dissection of a human donor, what they have learnt and ask how the sector could move forward with public engagement.

5/22/2024 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET

Is Identifying Extra X and Y Chromosomes a Good Idea, or Does it Invite Stigma?

Sequencing our genomes is a 21rst century phenomenon. Discrimination based on genetics dates back to the start of the eugenics movement in the 1880s. Will an effort to determine the sex chromosome constitutions of nearly 600,000 men whose DNA is being analyzed in the Million Veteran Program provide helpful health information – or highlight another possible source of genetic judgment?

Kevin Patton comment→ Besides addressing the question in the title, this article by Ricki Lewis walks us through the biology of sex chromosomes, including atypical patterns.

What Do Brain Worms like the One RFK, Jr., Had Actually Do?

…news broke that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., claimed to have once had a dead worm in his brain. Kennedy had been experiencing memory loss and mental fog, and he originally suspected these symptoms might be caused by a brain tumor. Brain scans in 2010 showed a cyst that his doctors said contained remains of a parasite. The findings and other health issues were revealed in a New York Times article based on a review of a deposition for his 2012 divorce, as well as an interview the outlet conducted with him.
The revelation drew attention in the worlds of politics and parasitology. “I woke up to all kinds of messages from friends in parasitology,” says Shira Shafir, an epidemiologist and an associate adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in response to the news.
…While relatively uncommon in the U.S., such infections can be devastating in many parts of the world. For example, the World Health Organization estimates there are between 2.56 million and 8.3 million people around the globe living with neurocysticercosis, a brain infection caused by the pork tapeworm Taenia solium.
…Scientific American spoke with Shafir and White to discuss how parasitic worms may infect the brain, what symptoms they cause and how infections are diagnosed and treated.

Is This the End of Reading?

*Credit: HARRY HAYSOM FOR THE CHRONICLE*

Students’ declining willingness to put time into their coursework may be related to the way homework has been treated in some middle and high schools, some professors say. In recent years, and especially during the pandemic, some school districts adopted what’s known as “equitable grading practices.”
As part of that movement, some set minimum grades at 50 percent instead of zero and removed penalties for late work, among other shifts. The idea was to provide a safety net for struggling students who would benefit from additional chances to succeed: It’s much harder to rebuild your GPA from a zero, after all, than from a 50.
But critics argue that such an approach can backfire, because, if done poorly, it conveys to students that deadlines, homework, and effort don’t matter. Earlier this year, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-policy group, laid out such a critique, arguing that the practices “lower academic standards and are likely to do long-term damage to the educational equity their advocates purport to advance.”

A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution

**The shared H01 dataset.** A range of histological features in 1 mm³ of human brain were rendered, including neuropil (A) and its segmentation (B) at nanometer resolution, annotated synapses (C), excitatory neurons (D), inhibitory neurons (E), astrocytes (F), oligodendrocytes (G), myelin (H), and blood vessels (I). A previously unrecognized neuronal class (J) and multisynaptic connections (K) were also identified.

A complete understanding of the human brain begins with elucidation of its structural properties at a subcellular level.
To provide a valuable resource for the scientific community and to better understand the structure of the human temporal cortex, Shapson-Coe et al. performed an electron microscopy reconstruction of a cubic millimeter of human temporal cortex.
The authors produced 1.4 petabytes of electron microscopy data; classified and quantified cell types, vessels and synapses; and developed a freely available tool for analyzing these data. Their findings allowed the authors to identify previously unknown aspects of the human temporal cortex.

Kevin Patton comment→ petavoxel is a unit of measurement of 3D pixels (a quadrillion of them)

Pronoun Use Reflects Ideology and Language Structure

Researchers conducted a study examining the impact of language and ideological beliefs on pronoun usage. The study, which compared pronoun use in English, a language with gender-specific pronouns, and Turkish, which uses gender-neutral pronouns, found that pronoun preferences align closely with each language’s structure.
Additionally, individuals with more essentialist views on identity were more likely to favor gender-specific pronouns. These findings suggest that both linguistic context and personal beliefs significantly influence how people use and view pronouns.
Key Facts:
Language Influence: English speakers predominantly use gender-specific pronouns, whereas Turkish speakers use a single pronoun that can refer to any gender, indicating that language structure heavily influences pronoun usage.
Ideological Impact: People with essentialist ideologies about gender are more likely to support the use of gender-specific pronouns, showing a clear link between personal beliefs and language use.
Cultural Considerations: The study highlights the challenges and complexities involved in adopting gender-neutral pronouns in languages traditionally dominated by gender-specific terms.

Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities: Mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs uniquely predict undergraduate educational outcomes

Students’ beliefs about their abilities (called “lay theories”) affect their motivations, behaviors, and academic success. Lay theories include beliefs about the potential to improve intelligence (mindset), who (i.e., everyone or only some people) has the potential to be excellent in a field (universality), and whether reaching excellence in a field requires raw intellectual talent (brilliance). Research demonstrates that each of these beliefs influences students’ educational experiences and academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether they represent distinct latent constructs or are susceptible to the “jangle fallacy” (i.e., different names given to the same underlying construct). We conducted a multiphase, mixed-methods study to 1) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs represent conceptually and empirically discriminable concepts, and 2) evaluate whether mindset, universality, and brilliance beliefs contribute unique explanatory value for both psychosocial (e.g., sense of belonging) and academic outcomes (e.g., course grades). To address these questions, we developed and collected validity evidence for a new measure of science and math undergraduates’ lay theories, called the Undergraduate Lay Theories of Abilities (ULTrA) survey. Factor analyses suggest that mindset, brilliance, and universality are distinct and empirically discriminable constructs. Structural Equation Models indicate that each lay theory contributes unique predictive value to relevant outcomes.

Blueprints for Learning: Justin Shaffer on Structured A&P Course Design

In Episode 148, Justin Shaffer joins host Kevin Patton to discuss high structure course design. Justin shares his success in building a scaffold for learning by using a variety of course structures to improve student engagement and success, such as pre-class and post-class activities, micro-case studies and clicker questions, brief active learning practices, and much more.

To listen to this episode, click on the play button (lower right corner) ▶️ (if present) or this link→ theAPprofessor.org/podcast-episode-148.html

Memories are made by breaking DNA — and fixing it

When a long-term memory forms, some brain cells experience a rush of electrical activity so strong that it snaps their DNA. Then, an inflammatory response kicks in, repairing this damage and helping to cement the memory, a study in mice shows.
The findings, published on 27 March in Nature¹, are “extremely exciting”, says Li-Huei Tsai, a neurobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who was not involved in the work. They contribute to the picture that forming memories is a “risky business”, she says. Normally, breaks in both strands of the double helix DNA molecule are associated with diseases including cancer. But in this case, the DNA damage-and-repair cycle offers one explanation for how memories might form and last.
It also suggests a tantalizing possibility: this cycle might be faulty in people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, causing a build-up of errors in a neuron’s DNA, says study co-author Jelena Radulovic, a neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Kevin’s Unofficial Guide to the
HAPS Annual Conference

According to The Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the number from which all meaning can be derived. It’s also the episode number of The A&P Professor podcast where I provide a ton of tips, tricks, and secrets for a successful HAPS Conference. Whether you are a first-timer or a regular, you’ll want to listen to this before heading to St. Louis (my hometown) for this year’s conclave. Episode 42 is a few years old, but the essential information remains valuable.

To listen to this episode, click on the play button above ▶️ (if present) or this link→ theAPprofessor.org/podcast-episode-42.html

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