Understanding Goosebumps

Welcome back. You’ve been waiting on pins and needles. Finally, it can be told! We now understand  goosebumps (or goose bumps). 

To avoid confusion with R.L.Stine’s exciting series of Goosebumps books, please note that I’m referring to the little bumps on a person's skin which may develop involuntarily when the person is cold, tickled or experiencing strong emotions. The affected skin resembles that of a plucked goose and, in years past, was described as goose-flesh (1803), goose-skin (1761), goose’s skin (1744) and hen-flesh (early 15th century). Many other languages use “goose” to describe the phenomenon; some use a different bird. But I digress.

Close-up photo of goosebumps and hair standing on end (from scitechdaily.com/charles-darwin-investigated-goosebumps-now-harvard-scientists-discover-the-real-reason-behind-them).

Lest you think the topic is trivial, the discovery came in a study conducted by an international team affiliated with Harvard, National Taiwan and Rockefeller universities, ETH Zurich and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Be warned, goosebumps serve no practical purpose. Unlike fur-covered animals, where a similar phenomenon may make them look larger and more threatening, in addition to keeping them warmer by increasing the air between hairs, we’re rather hairless (some more than others). The study was performed with mice, yet the findings explain why goosebumps survived human evolution.

Here’s what we knew and what they found.

What We Knew
Our skin is made of three types of tissue--epithelium, mesenchyme and nerve--and has multiple stem cells surrounded by diverse cell types.

The sympathetic nerve, part of the nervous system that controls body homeostasis and response to external stimuli, connects with a tiny smooth muscle in the mesenchyme. This muscle in turn connects to hair follicle stem cells, a type of epithelial stem cell critical for regenerating the hair follicle as well as repairing wounds.

The association between the sympathetic nerve and the muscle is well known, since it is the cellular basis behind goosebumps. Cold triggers the nerve to send a signal, and the muscle reacts by contracting. This causes the hair to stand on end and the skin around the hair to pull inwards, creating the bumpy skin texture.

What’s New
The researchers examined the skin with extremely high-resolution electron microscopy and found the sympathetic nerve fibers actually wrapped around the hair follicle stem cells like a ribbon.

The sympathetic nervous system is normally active at a low level to maintain body homeostasis. They found this low level of nerve activity maintained the hair follicle stem cells poised for regeneration. When the tissues were exposed to prolonged cold, however, the nerve was activated at a much higher level. A flood of neurotransmitters was released, causing the stem cells to activate quickly, regenerate the hair follicle and grow new hair.

Responding to cold, the muscle (pink) in the hair follicle contracts, resulting in goosebumps. In addition, the sympathetic nerve (green) releases neurotransmitters that target hair follicle stem cells (blue), causing them to activate and grow new hair (from news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/the-hair-raising-reason-for-goosebumps-is-revealed/).

Delving deeper, the researchers determined how the nerve reaches the stem cells in the first place. The developing hair follicle secretes a protein that regulates the formation of the smooth muscle, which then attracts the sympathetic nerve. That interaction reverses in the adult; the nerve and muscle regulate the hair follicle stem cells to regenerate the new hair follicle. It's a loop with the developing hair follicle establishing its own niche.

Wrap Up
In summary, goosebumps appear to be part of a two-phased response to cold. In the short term, the sympathetic nerve reacts by contracting the muscle below the skin to form goosebumps. If the cold persists, the second phase kicks in. The sympathetic nerve drives hair follicle stem cell activation, new hair growth and repairs for the old ones.

The researchers suggest future study explore how the external environment influences skin stem cells under both homeostasis and in repair situations such as wound healing. Because the skin is the interface between our body and the outside world, the skin’s stem cells can potentially respond to a variety of internal or external stimuli. This affords the opportunity to study what mechanisms the stem cells use to integrate tissue production with changing demands.

See? None of this is trivial. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Background on Goosebumps:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_bumps
www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=6842
www.etymonline.com/word/goosebumps#etymonline_v_33710
Goosebumps study in Cell journal: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092867420308084
Article and short video on study:
eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/hu-trr072020.php
www.wqad.com/video/tech/science/amaze-lab/harvard-scientists-find-the-real-reason-we-get-goosebumps/609-3a521ee6-4720-4c47-9e72-96e292c97a7c

Women Skipping STEM

Welcome back. If you don’t mind terribly, I’d like to expand a bit on my last blog post, The More Brilliant Gender. That post reviewed a study that demonstrated how people implicitly conceive of brilliance and genius as male more than female traits despite the lack of any gender difference in intellectual ability.

The issue isn’t really which gender is more brilliant but that women are underrepresented in fields perceived to require high-level intellectual ability, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The concern is that the male-brilliance stereotype might (i) arise from observing the distribution of women and men in these fields, (ii) cause those working in the fields to perceive women as unsuited and (iii) undermine women's inclination to pursue careers in the fields.

Highlighting the last, a recently published study by researchers affiliated with Cornell, Tel Aviv and Johns Hopkins universities traced women’s underrepresentation in STEM fields to gender differences that emerge in high school.

Educational Longitudinal Surveys
The source of data for the analysis was the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, in which the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics monitored a nationally representative sample of young people from 10th-grade (high school sophomores) in 2002 through 2012.

The data included base-year questionnaire surveys in 2002 and follow-up surveys in 2004, 2006 and 2012. Schools provided high school transcripts in 2005, and additional information was collected from other sources, such as the American Council on Education (General Educational Development test data) and SAT/ACT (entrance exam scores).

Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 base-year to third follow-up school and student response rates, 2002-13 (Table A-1 from nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014363.pdf).

Approximately 10 years after their 10th-grade year, 19% were working for pay and taking postsecondary courses, 63% were working for pay only, 5% were taking postsecondary courses only and 13% were neither working for pay nor taking postsecondary courses. Education-wise, 33% had earned bachelor’s degrees or higher, 9% associate’s degrees, 10% undergraduate certificates, 32% postsecondary attendance but no credential, 13% high school diplomas or equivalent and 3% hadn’t graduated high school.

Women’s Underrepresentation in STEM
The researchers found that, of the college entrants who graduated high school in 2004, men were more than twice as likely as women to complete bachelor's degrees in STEM fields, including premed, and men were more likely to persist in STEM/biomedical after entering these majors by their sophomore year in college.

Seeking possible reasons for the gender and persistence gaps in STEM, the researchers showed gender differences in high school academic achievement, math test scores, advanced math and science courses, self-assessed math ability and attitudes toward family and work were only minor factors. 

What stood out from the surveys were the responses to one question in the 2002 baseline survey, repeated in 2004--Where did they see themselves at age 30.

Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 survey question asked in base year and first follow-up regarding occupational plans (from nces.ed.gov/surveys/els2002/questionnaires.asp).

The gender gaps in STEM outcomes were strongly associated with gender differences in high school students' occupational plans. Among high school senior boys, 26% planned to enter STEM or biomedical occupations, compared with 13% of girls, while 15% of girls planned to enter nursing or similar health occupations compared with 4% of boys.

Wrap Up
The study results suggest that efforts to reduce gender differences in STEM outcomes need to begin early in students' educational careers. The researchers judge that achieving the objective will be difficult in the face of the underrepresentation of women in STEM, which influences young women's beliefs about the types of occupations where they will be welcome and rewarded fairly. But there’s lots that can be done. 

Brownie and Girl Scout Troop students conducting hands-on experiments at Johns Hopkins University’s Montgomery County Campus (from mcc.jhu.edu/news/girl-scout-troops-learn-science-at-jhu).

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Status of women in STEM from World Economic Forum: www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/stem-gender-inequality-researchers-bias/
Education Longitudinal Study of 2002: nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014363.pdf
Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 questionnaires: nces.ed.gov/surveys/els2002/questionnaires.asp
Study of gender differences in STEM in Sociology of Education journal: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038040720928484
Article on study from Cornell Chronicle: news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/07/gender-gaps-stem-college-majors-emerge-high-school

The More Brilliant Gender

Welcome back. Here’s today’s survey question: Which gender is more brilliant? Hmm…Will your answer differ if you respond publicly or privately?

A toast to brilliant men and women
(from imgflip.com/i/wu987).

The gender-brilliance stereotype favors men, and it stands apart from other gender stereotypes related to intellect. One can think men and women are equally intelligent on average but also think men are more likely than women to be brilliant. Accurately measuring the stereotype is a challenge given that people are often reluctant to admit stereotypes.

A recently published study by researchers affiliated with Denver, Harvard and New York universities set out to extend prior work on the gender-brilliance stereotype using implicit rather than explicit measures. Do people implicitly associate brilliance with men more than with women?

Testing Implicit Gender-Brilliance Associations
The researchers employed the Implicit Association Test, a computer-based measure that requires users to rapidly categorize two target concepts (e.g., men, women) with an attribute (e.g., genius). Because easier pairings (faster responses) are interpreted as more strongly associated in memory than difficult pairings (slower responses), the test scores are thought to reflect implicit attitudes that people may be unwilling to reveal publicly. (A typical procedure involves a series of tasks, which are described in several references, see P.S.).

In all, the researchers tested implicit gender-brilliance associations in five experiments with a total of 3,618 participants from different regions of the U.S. and seven regions of the world. Although the focus was implicit associations, they also collected data on explicit gender-brilliance associations for comparison in a subset of the experiments.

Experimental Design
One experiment tested whether 818 participants (520 women), recruited from Mechanical Turk, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and New York University, associate the trait genius with the category male more than the category female using photographs of White men and women. The male-genius association was pervasive across all participants, in men and women and in each of the three source groups.

A similar experiment, which used photographs of Black men and women, also found a strong and widely prevalent implicit stereotype associating men with genius across participants, among women and men and in each of the three sources groups.

Explicit association testing in these experiments found the participants did not endorse a gender-brilliance stereotype favoring men and even associated “super smart" with women more than with men. Whether they were unaware of holding the stereotype or unwilling to report it, they did report that others--not they themselves--think of brilliance and genius as male qualities.

Other experiments with 103 10-year old children (52 boys; from Urbana-Champaign, Ill., or New York City) and 514 participants from 78 countries (360 men) had comparable results. Both the children and the international participants showed evidence of a moderate-to-strong implicit stereotype associating men with genius across participants and with all segments.

Wrap Up
The study demonstrated that people implicitly conceive of brilliance and genius as male more than female traits. Why? The stereotype favoring men has no basis in actual intellectual ability.

At least some people reach beyond the gender-brilliance
stereotype (from www.azquotes.com/quote/864006).

The researchers suggest that a likely source of the gender stereotype are inferences drawn from observing the current and historic distribution of women and men across careers.

Women are underrepresented in fields perceived to require high-level intellectual ability, including many in science and technology as well as in social sciences and humanities. The stereotype may lead those working in these fields to perceive women as unsuited, or it might undermine women's inclination to pursue careers in the fields. The stereotype would thus be an artifact of the structural factors that have historically constrained women's intellectual pursuits.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Study of gender-brilliance stereotype in Jour. of Experimental Social Psychology: doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104020
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/nyu-mml062920.php
Example articles on Implicit Association Test:
implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit-association_test

Climate, Roman and Ptolemaic History

Welcome back. A recently published study identified the cause of abrupt climate change that contributed to some of most important political transitions in the history of Western civilization--the fall of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom and the rise of the Roman Empire. 

Map of Roman Republic in 1st century BCE (from Pinterest).

Historians had speculated that a volcanic eruption of unknown origin was the most likely cause. The study pinpointed the volcano and characterized the eruption severity.

If like me, you’re a bit shaky on that era, I’ll begin with a quickie on the affected transitions. Squeezing centuries into a handful of paragraphs and focusing on dates, I’ve omitted a wealth of important background, such as the relationship between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.

Historic Background
The Late Period of Ancient Egyptian history ended in 332 BCE, when the Greeks conquered Egypt. The Greeks formed the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 305 BCE, and the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt until the Romans took control in 30 BCE, with the death of Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic queen. Despite controlling Egypt for nearly three centuries, the Ptolemaic dynasty never became Egyptian, instead, isolating themselves in Alexandria. 

Rome was a small city-state in the 6th century BCE, governed by kings. The Romans managed to overthrow the monarchy and create a republican government in 509 BCE. The Roman Republic lasted five centuries, growing in strength and conquering swathes of the Mediterranean region. 

Bronze statue of Julius Caesar located
at the Roman Forum in Rome (from
cestmoi.ca/en/bronze-statue-of-julius-caesar-in-rome/).

Although the Roman Republic was a democratic society with elected magistrates, Julius Caesar was appointed and reappointed dictator, the last time in 46 BCE, as Cleopatra was attempting to restore Egypt as a major power in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BCE. His death triggered a 17-year power struggle that ultimately ended the Roman Republic and led, in 27 BCE, to the Roman Empire. The Empire would be ruled by a series of Emperors and expand its rule in Asia and Africa.

The political transitions in Rome and Egypt in the 40’s BCE were exacerbated by a period of unusually cold climate, crop failures, famine and disease in the Mediterranean region.

Documenting the Volcano
The study was conducted by an international, multidisciplinary team of 20 researchers, led by the Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nev. The team determined that the climate-related impacts were caused by eruptions of the Okmok volcano some 6,000 miles away in Alaska.

World map showing Okmok volcano in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, Rome and Alexandria.

The researchers analyzed volcanic fallout records in six Arctic ice cores from Greenland and Russia. They were able to delineate two distinct eruptions encompassing Caesar’s death in 44 BCE: a powerful, short-lived, relatively localized event in early 45 BCE, and a much larger, more widespread event in early 43 BCE, the fallout from which continued more than two years. The geochemistry of deposited tephra (ejected rock fragments and particles) identified the Okmok volcano as the source.

Members of the team collected corroborating evidence from around the globe, including tree-ring-based climate records from Scandinavia, Austria and California, and climate records from cave formations in China.

The climate proxy records indicated that 43 and 42 BCE were among the coldest years of the recent millennia in the Northern Hemisphere at the start of one of the coldest decades. Modeling also suggested that the high-latitude eruption led to pronounced changes in hydroclimate, including seasonal temperatures in Mediterranean region as much as 7°C (13°F) below normal during the 2 years following the second eruption.

The team matched the scientific findings with written and archaeological descriptions of the eruption’s impact, including the failure of the Nile River to flood and the unrest in the region.

The Okmok volcano caldera in 2013; the summit of the cone formed during the 2008 eruption is eroding and a lake is filling the crater’s bottom (photo by J.R.G. Schaefer, from Alaska Volcano Observatory, Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, avo.alaska.edu/images/image.php?id=54161).

Wrap Up
Many different factors contributed to the fall of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom; however, the climatic effects of the 43 BCE Okmok eruption played an undeniably large role. Identifying and characterizing the volcanic source and eruption fills a knowledge gap that long puzzled archaeologists and historians.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Example sources of Roman and Ptolemaic history:
www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Republic
www.historycrunch.com/republic-vs-empire-in-ancient-rome.html#/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire
www.ancient.eu/Ptolemaic_Dynasty/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom

Study of effects of Okmok volcano eruption in Proc. of National Academy of Sciences of USA: www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/25/2002722117
Articles on study on EurekAlert! and Science websites:
eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/yu-cca062220.php
www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/alaskan-mega-eruption-may-have-helped-end-roman-republic

Freedom, Regulations and Ideology

Welcome back. In my blog post Go Explore, I mentioned that, while I paid little attention to those protesting the lockdowns, I thought justifying the opening as American freedom was a bit much.

Although states have begun to reopen, ending the protests, I kept thinking about that claim of freedom. I dug a little and came up with an insightful commentary on the subject as well as a recent study that points to the relation with political ideology.

Commentary on Lockdown Protesters
Ronald W. Pies, MD, is professor emeritus of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University and clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. In his commentary, he distinguishes between freedom, which embraces responsibility and is guided by reason and virtue, and license, which removes responsibility, is incompatible with virtue and destroys community.

He also distinguishes between individualism and what he calls hyper-individualism.

San Diego freedom rally for California to open
(from timesofsandiego.com/politics/2020/04/18/).

The motto, Don’t Tread on Me, from the American Revolution, epitomizes the spirit of American individualism. But American society has always had a strong communitarian dimension. The community can be thought of as a bearer of rights, the holder of interests, to which an individual’s interests may be subordinate. The imposition of isolation and quarantines to contain infectious diseases is a prime example of communitarian priorities.

Dr. Pies empathizes with protesters voicing concerns about unemployment, missed opportunities and social isolation; however, he feels that protesters who characterized COVID-19 safety precautions as acts of tyranny revealed a troubled mindset, hyper-individualism.

Further, many protesters did not comply with directives on social-distancing or wearing masks, under notions of freedom. He characterizes this as a raw manifestation of license, not a mature construct of freedom. In his view, the actions are not rugged individualism but hyper-individualism, bordering on sociopathy.

Political Ideology and Regulations
Dr. Pies emphasizes that, while the lockdown protests were by the far right of the political spectrum, hyper-individualism is not the province of one political party or ideology. (Some of us remember the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests by the far left.)

Nevertheless, researchers affiliated with Miami, Utah Valley and Notre Dame universities observed the same reaction by conservatives, not liberals, against government regulations toward safer and healthier choices.

In a series of experiments, they found conservatives were more likely than liberals to use mobile phones in cars when their use was restricted and to purchase unhealthy foods and view smoking e-cigarettes more favorably after being exposed to consumption regulations from the government (e.g., laws or Food and Drug Administration warning labels).

FDA warning label on e-cigarettes (from
808novape.org/fda-requires-warning-labels-on-e-cigarettes/).

And here’s a touch of hyper-individualism again. These reactions by conservatives were not observed when the government’s message was presented as a notification rather than a warning or when a non-government source was used. Apparently, conservatives were only concerned and felt a threat to freedom if the regulations were government imposed.

Wrap Up
The research study points to the roles of political ideology and message source in increasing response to regulations, thereby mitigating the effectiveness of government public policy initiatives.

On 26 June, 46 states required masks to be worn statewide or had some requirement in certain locales (from abcnews.go.com/Health/us-states-require-masks/story?id=71472434).

Given the spikes in COVID-19 and people ignoring mask requirements, state and local governments could try framing the wearing of masks as a notification rather than a mandate or warning. It’s unfortunate that a mixed message has replaced national leadership. Well, keep your social distance; things are changing.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Commentary on lockdown protestors in Psychiatric Times journal: www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/freedom-does-not-mean-being-loose
Study of political ideology and regulations in Jour. of Marketing Research: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022243720919709
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/uond-ghs061020.php