Share this post ✔️ The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates - Issue #28theapprofessor.substack.comCopy linkFacebookEmailNoteOther ✔️ The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates - Issue #28Kevin PattonJun 18, 2021Share this post ✔️ The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates - Issue #28theapprofessor.substack.comCopy linkFacebookEmailNoteOtherShareLife ScienceSperm have long fooled scientists. Instead of swimming straight by twirling their tails like propellers, human sperm flick their tails lopsidedly and roll to balance out the off-center strokes.Over 300 years ago, microscopy pioneer Antonie van Leeuwenhoek described sperm tails swaying in a symmetric pattern, like “that of a snake or an eel.” The prevailing view that sperm tails move in a balanced way, however, doesn’t capture what actually happens in three dimensions, researchers report July 31 in Science Advances.High-speed 3-D microscopy of human sperm swimming freely in the lab revealed that the cells corkscrew as they move, consistent with previous studies. The sperm almost seemed to be drilling into the surrounding fluid, says Hermes Gadêlha, a mathematician at the University of Bristol in England.New mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are making headlines. What scientists still don’t know exactly is what these variations might mean for how infectious or deadly the virus is.What do you think was riskier during the pre-vaccine days of the pandemic: having your lonely parents over for dinner or going to a beach filled with dozens of strangers? Or how about going to the doctor for a prescription refill versus playing baseball at a nearby park?When it comes to catching COVID-19, outdoor activities, in general, are safer than indoor activities (SN: 8/15/20). But if you chose the beach or baseball as riskier, you are not alone. Two new studies show that people consider activities that they think are immoral or unreasonable as riskier — even when they’re not.A new chemical analysis has revealed an ugly truth about beauty products: Many may contain highly persistent, potentially harmful “forever chemicals” called PFAS.PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, include thousands of chemicals that are so sturdy they can linger in the body for years and the environment for centuries.The health effects of only a few PFAS are well known, but those compounds have been linked to high cholesterol, thyroid diseases and other problems.In the image above, two skulls appear to be two different colors, purple and orange, when in reality they are the same hue. The pigments morph because of the Munker-White illusion.Teaching & LearningIf you are not suffering from a color vision deficiency it is very hard to imagine how it looks like to be colorblind. The Color BLIndness Simulator can close this gap for you. Just play around with it and get a feeling of how it is to have a color vision handicap.The past few months in education have been like no other. From remote learning, teacher-assessed grades and filling learning gaps at a rate of knots, to ensuring that all children have access to some of their most basic needs to safeguard them, teachers have continued to work incredibly hard. TAPP News & NotesAudio episodes focused on recent journal articles helpful in teaching human anatomy & physiology hosted by Krista Rompolski with Kevin PattonPreviousNext