Sci-Ed Update 340

Pre-A&P refresher, growing human teeth in pigs, embracing our Gen Z students, researching oximeter use disrupted, factors influencing drug actions, brain rot from internet & AI?, vagus stimulation...

Feb 12, 2025

*Image: Natalia Kokkinos in New Scientist*

Theodor Diener had a problem. It was 1967, and he and a colleague had successfully isolated the infectious agent causing potato spindle tuber disease, which devastates crops. But it wasn’t like anything they recognised. Although they called it a virus, it didn’t behave like one.
It took Diener four years to demonstrate that the mysterious entity was something even simpler than a virus: a single “naked” molecule that could infect the cells of potato plants and thereby reproduce. He suggested calling it a viroid. It was the smallest replicating agent ever identified. At a stroke, Diener had expanded our understanding of life in the microscopic world.
You might think that such a dramatic discovery would go, er, viral. Yet hardly anyone noticed. Apart from a few other plant pathologists, the scientific world largely forgot about viroids for half a century. So obscure were they that, in 2020, when Benjamin Lee at the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Maryland, was advised to try looking into viroids, he had never even heard of them.
Since then, thanks to Lee and others, there has been an explosion of discoveries. We now know of thousands of viroids and viroid-like entities, with exotic names like obelisks, ribozyviruses and satellites. They appear to be everywhere, in a huge range of organisms and microorganisms. We have no idea what most of them are doing, including whether they are benign or dangerous. But these simplest-possible replicators raise fundamental bquestions about what it means to be alive.

Identifying Chemicals in Our Environment Could Help Medicines Work Better

Your genes play a major role in determining your height, hair and eye color, and skin tone, but they don't tell the entire story of who you are.
Your environment is incredibly important in shaping your personality, your likes and dislikes, and your health. In fact, your diet, social interactions, exposure to pollution, physical activity and education often exceed the influence of genetics on many of the features that define you.
Figuring out how your genes and environment increase your likelihood of developing asthma, heart disease, cancer, dementia and other conditions can have life-changing consequences.
The field of genomics has made it relatively straightforward to test both in the hospital and at home for a wide range of genetic variations linked to disease risk.
And in recent years, science has been making progress on tracking down the environmental culprits that drive risk for several diseases – and on identifying ways to optimize treatments based on your personal environmental exposures.
My work as a pharmacologist and toxicologist has led me to the emerging science of exposomics – the study of all of the physical, chemical, biological and social factors that affect your biology.

Are the Internet and AI affecting our memory? What the science says

Adrian Ward had been driving confidently around Austin, Texas, for nine years — until last November, when he started getting lost. Ward’s phone had been acting up, and Apple Maps had stopped working. Suddenly, Ward couldn’t even find his way to the home of a good friend, making him realize how much he’d relied on the technology in the past. “I just instinctively put on the map and do what it says,” he says.
Ward’s experience echoes a common complaint: that the Internet is undermining our memory. This fear has shown up in several surveys over the past few years, and even led one software firm to coin the term ‘digital amnesia’ for the experience of forgetting information because you know a digital device has stored it instead. Last year, Oxford University Press announced that its word of the year was ‘brain rot’ — the deterioration of someone’s mental state caused by consuming trivial online content.
“What you’ll see out there is all kinds of dire predictions about digital amnesia, and ‘we’re gonna lose our memory because we don’t use it anymore’,” says Daniel Schacter, who studies memory at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In fact, various studies paint a more complicated picture.

“Anatomy Is a Living Wholeness of Function…Not Static Academic Structure”

The title of this issue's editorial is taken from a quote from Dr. James Jealous and, in its entirety, reads,
“Anatomy is a living wholeness of function and should be seen as a mystery of form, not static academic structure.”

Vagus nerve stimulation may tame autoimmune diseases

Tiny pulses of electricity may provide the ne
xt big advance in treating diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.
The pulses would be delivered via implanted devices that stimulate the vagus nerve, and they are showing promise in people with arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, including Crohn's, and multiple sclerosis.
Currently, autoimmune diseases are usually treated with drugs that suppress the immune system. Some of these drugs are given by infusion, and can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. They also increase a person's risk of infections.
Vagus nerve stimulation might offer a way to augment or replace drug treatment, doctors say.

Trump's anti-DEI initiatives could hamper pulse oximeter research, doctors worry

Dr. Michael Lipnick, right, works with Dr. Cornelius Sendagire in setting up a pulse oximetry lab at the Uganda Heart Institute in Kampala, Uganda. Lipnick and other experts worry that anti-DEI initiatives will disrupt work focused on how pulse oximeters work in people with darker skin tones. Courtesy Dr. Michael Lipnick

The Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs threaten to derail efforts to fix racial disparities associated with pulse oximeters — just as the federal government was finally making headway on the matter.
“We are very concerned,” said Dr. Michael Lipnick, an anesthesiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, whose work is dedicated to resolving how pulse oximeters perform on a variety of skin tones. “We’ve been trying to figure out where the money is going to come from next.”
Eighty percent of Lipnick’s research funding has typically come from federal health agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Scientists grew human-like teeth in pigs. Could it lead to living tooth replacements?

…researchers may be on track to developing a way to grow new, living teeth replacements. In a paper published in late December, a team at Tufts University reported having successfully grown human-like teeth in pigs.

Why Generation Z Gives These Professors Hope

Gen Z is a puzzle to many professors. Over the last year, The Chronicle has published a series of stories on attitudes and behaviors among young people that make teaching them a challenge. For a host of reasons they may seem indifferent to learning yet desperate to find meaning and purpose. They don’t do much reading outside of class and may freeze in the face of difficulty. Many are hyper-focused on grades and are blasé about cheating.
Yet professors continue to say students are some of their greatest sources of hope and job satisfaction. Many find members of this generation inspiring in their emotional acuity, authenticity, creativity, and willingness to question authority. Those professors understand their colleagues’ frustration. At a time when resources are shrinking and faculty members are taking on more responsibilities, finding ways to bring out the best in their students can feel like a herculean task. But some have managed. How?

Pre-A&P: A Refresher for Student Success in Anatomy & Physiology

In episode 140, we introduce the development of the pre-A&P course and the A&P1 Supplement course. These courses address the challenges faced by A&P students and improve their readiness and comprehension. In this first of two episodes, we focus on the pre-A&P course. It focuses on filling subject knowledge gaps with 10 modules and cumulative tests. Student surveys and studies show its effectiveness in achieving higher grades in the A&P 1 course. Implementing these nontraditional courses requires collaboration and support from advisors and faculty members. Together, we aim to bridge the gap in subject preparation and learning skills for student success.

0:00:00 | Introduction
0:00:49 | Pre-A&P
0:22:37 | Course Design
0:39:51 | More About Module Tests
0:52:38 | Other Course Features
1:09:51 | Wrapping Up
1:21:10 | Staying Connected

To listen to this episode, click on the play button above ⏵ (if present) or this link→ theAPprofessor.org/podcast-episode-140.html

The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates

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