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doi: 10.1111/nyas.15042pmid: 37522868
Social science literatures are rife with disputes over their key words. I show that they tend to conflate two activities. One of them I call “word goes first!” It concerns word uses and how to appraise them. The other I call “distinction goes first!” It concerns distinctions and classifications and how to appraise them. For each activity, social science communities should get clear on what to do, what to circumvent, and what's at stake. I argue that both are practical reason activities. They should be partly driven by the common good, justice, and equality.
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15039pmid: 37478382
What should education aim to accomplish? What are its goals and how should it attempt to achieve them? Much excellent work, by philosophers and by policymakers, takes for granted the institutions and practices devised in the past. Yet, from time to time, it is important to stand back and to think more generally, to pose larger questions. My book, The Main Enterprise of the World, is written in that spirit.
Djebbara, Zakaria; Kalantari, Saleh
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15038pmid: 37429830
Chuquichambi and colleagues recently questioned the prevailing belief that a universal human visual preference exists for curved shapes and lines. Their comprehensive meta‐analysis demonstrated that while curvature preference is widespread, it is not universally constant or invariant. By revisiting their dataset, we made an intriguing discovery: a negative relationship between curvature preference and an object's “affordances.” Taking an embodiment perspective into account, we propose an explanation for this phenomenon, suggesting that the diminished curvature preference in objects with abundant affordances can be understood through the lens of embodied cognition.
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15040pmid: 37468233
Today it has become the norm for individuals diagnosed with severe forms of thalassemia who have access to hypertransfusion regimens, chelation therapy, and annual surveillance to survive well beyond childhood. However, with this improvement in prognosis and subsequent transition to adult care, it has become apparent that most adult healthcare providers, including many adult hematologists and primary care providers, are ill‐prepared to care for these patients and the complications that accompany their survival into adulthood. Collaborative efforts are needed to develop comprehensive approaches to contend with the challenges faced by adult patients to ensure they are properly managed and supported.
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15041pmid: 37497814
The development of automated behavior scoring technology has been a tremendous boon to the study of social behavior. However, completely outsourcing behavioral analysis to a computer runs the risk of overlooking important nuances, and researchers risk distancing themselves from their very object of study. Here, I make the case that while automating analysis has been valuable, and overautomating analysis is risky, more effort should be spent automating the collection of behavioral data. Continuous automated behavioral observations conducted in situ have the promise to reduce confounding elements of social behavior research, such as handling stress, novel environments, one‐time “snapshot” measures, and experimenter presence. Now that we have the capability to automatically process behavioral observations thanks to machine vision and machine learning, we would do well to leverage the same open‐source ethos to increase the throughput of behavioral observation and collection. Fortunately, several such platforms have recently been developed. Repeated testing in the home environment will produce higher qualities and quantities of data, bringing us closer to realizing the ethological goals of studying animal behavior in a naturalistic context.
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15048pmid: 37526975
The melanocortin signaling system consists of the melanocortin peptides, their distinctive receptors, accessory proteins, and endogenous antagonists. Melanocortin peptides are small peptide hormones that have been studied in a variety of physiological and pathological conditions. There are five types of melanocortin receptors, and they are distributed within the central nervous system and in several tissues of the periphery. The G protein–coupled melanocortin receptors typically signal through adenylyl cyclase and other downstream signaling pathways. Depending on the ligand, surface expression of melanocortin receptor, receptor occupancy period, related proteins, the type of cell, and other parameters, the signaling pathways are complicated and pleiotropic. While it is known that all five melanocortin receptors are coupled to Gs, they can also occasionally couple to Gq or Gi. Both direct and indirect neuroprotection are induced by the melanocortin signaling system. Targeting several of the components of the melanocortin signaling system (ligands, receptors, accessory proteins, signaling effectors, and regulators) may provide therapeutic opportunities. Activation of the melanocortin system improves different functional traits in neurodegenerative diseases. There is a potential for additional melanocortin system interventions by interfering with dimerization or dissociation. This review aims to discuss the melanocortin receptor signaling system and its role in neuroprotection, as well as its therapeutic potential.
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15049pmid: 37531552
This review describes the current challenges and recommendations in the transfusion management of thalassemia patients. In addition, it reviews the components of blood safety and blood product modification in special populations. Adverse transfusion reactions are described as are some of the newer technologies being utilized to reduce potential transfusion‐associated pathogens. Lastly, research in blood storage and in manufactured blood is briefly described.
Weiman, Shannon; Cable, Jennifer; Greenleaf, Walter; Rundel, Felix; Whitfield, Kate E.; Wingate, Lory; Gallagher, Richard; Pesanelli, Jennifer; Orr, Dereck; Jarvis, Thale C.; Cadar, Raluca; Uva, Matthew D'; Ruediger, Dylan; Vaez, Robert; Frisby, Adam; Ahmed, Sami;
Xu, Ze‐Hua; Zhang, Hang; Zhang, Chang‐Jun; Yu, Si‐Jian; Yuan, Jing; Jin, Kangxin; Jin, Zi‐Bing
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15045pmid: 37531162
With the increased use of artificial light and the prolonged use of optoelectronic products, light damage (LD) to the human retina has been identified as a global vision‐threatening problem. While there is evidence of a significant correlation between light‐induced retinal damage and age‐related vision impairment in age‐related macular degeneration, it is unclear how light‐induced retinal degeneration manifests itself and whether there are agents capable of preventing the development of LD in the retina. This study investigated a mechanism by which blue light leads to photoreceptor death. By observing blue light exposure in retinal organoids and photoreceptor cells, we concluded that there could be significant apoptosis of the photoreceptors. We demonstrate that regenerating islet‐derived 1 alpha (REG1A) prevents photoreceptors from undergoing this LD‐induced apoptosis by increasing expression of the anti‐apoptotic gene Bcl2 and downregulating expression of the pro‐apoptotic gene Bax, resulting in reduced mitochondrial damage and improved aerobic capacity in photoreceptor cells. For the first time, REG1A has been shown to restore mitochondrial function and cell apoptosis after LD‐induced damage, suggesting its potential application in the prevention and treatment of retinal vision loss.
Showing 1 to 10 of 14 Articles
doi: 10.1111/nyas.15037pmid: 37534923
Scientific conferences play an important role in advancing research, scholarship, and the careers of emerging scientists. The COVID‐19 pandemic offered meeting organizers and researchers alike an opportunity to reimagine what scientific conferences could look like. Virtual conferences can increase inclusivity and accessibility while decreasing costs and carbon emissions. However, it is generally perceived that the digital world fails to adequately recapitulate many of the benefits of in‐person face‐to‐face interactions; these include socializing, and collaborative environments that can forge new research directions and provide critical career development opportunities. On November 15 and 16, 2022, researchers, representatives from diverse scientific conference organizations, leaders in virtual platform technologies, and innovators in conference design gathered online for the Open Access Keystone eSymposium “Reimagining Scientific Conferences.” The meeting focused on how conference organizers can leverage lessons from the pandemic and emerging virtual platforms to engage new audiences, rethink strategies for scientific exchange, and decrease the carbon footprint of in‐person events.