✔️ The A&P Professor Science & Education Updates - Issue #127

Life Science

Lab studies link the oral bacteria Fusobacterium nucleatum to cancers from the gut to the head and neck. Could targeting the microbe tackle tumors?

In a study of more than 1,200 women in the U.S., average age 63 years, 10 kinds of oral bacteria were associated with a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, while five strains of bacteria were linked with lower hypertension risk.

The observational study cannot prove cause and effect; however, the findings highlight possible opportunities to enhance hypertension prevention through targeted oral care, researchers said.

Pills loaded with bacteria from other people’s poop might help adults who are highly allergic to peanuts safely eat the nuts in small amounts.

A new book by neurologist Guy Leschziner looks at the astonishing ways some people’s brains interpret the world, offering insight into how we all experience reality The Man Who Tasted Words: Inside the strange and startling world of our senses Guy Leschziner Simon & Schuster UK VALERIA was 14 year

Omicron also left scientists scratching their heads. It’s riddled with mutations, which might normally doom a virus.

Early experiments showed that omicron wasn’t nearly as good as the previous coronavirus variant champ, delta, at melding with a cell’s membrane — crucial for infecting that cell — or at replicating in lung cells. Yet here it was, sweeping delta virtually off the map in just weeks in some places (SN: 2/10/22). Omicron even managed to infect people who already had immunity to the virus from vaccines or previous cases of COVID-19.

How, researchers wondered, was omicron doing it?

Newly diagnosed diabetes in patients with COVID-19 may simply be a transitory form of the blood sugar disorder

Anti-racism work is hard work, but unless actions move beyond simply tossing about diversity and equity buzzwords, people of color will remain underrepresented in STEM fields. And the United States will continue to miss out on the STEM talent and innovation that exist within communities of color.

Teaching & Learning

There is a widely variable breadth of coverage of skeletal muscle content across both undergraduate human anatomy and undergraduate anatomy and physiology (A&P) courses. In response to the need for...

Nearly a third of contingent and adjunct faculty members covered their costs of moving courses online in 2020, according to one of the first pandemic-era studies of their working lives. The new report, from the American Federation of Teachers, offers a snapshot of how Covid-19 has exacerbated the struggles of this growing population of workers, who have contended for years with low pay and a lack of job security.

Teachers are beginning to think twice about assigning those judgmental A-F grades to students whose learning has been disrupted for two years.

TAPP News & Notes

Dr. Judi Nath discusses her new book about how misinformation affects our lives and laws with host Kevin Patton