Meet "Scarface" the white dwarf star—also, Medicaid, 3D printed eyes, epigenetic silencing as therapy, and the awful legacy of eugenics
Issue #7 of American Journalist
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Happy leap year from American Journalist—JSB
1) Do not go gently into that racist night!
Francis Galton coined the term “eugenics” in 1883, defining it ambiguously and in a number of different ways before he died decades later. But one thing is unambiguously clear: He gave name to an indelible blot on early 20th-century science and politics. The eugenics movement, so popular in the 1920s and 1930s, informed U.S. law, was used to justify thousands of forced sterilizations in the United States, and led to millions of murders in Europe.
You may think eugenics is a thing of the past—so thoroughly discredited as it was after World War II. It’s almost hard to believe how popular it was 100 years ago, when many scientists, politicians, and other people widely subscribed to the notion that mass sterilization would improve the future of humankind. Those activities are long gone. But are the beliefs that informed them forgotten?
While Galton’s original term may be retired, and while most people rightfully look indignantly upon the actions of early eugenicists and nazis in horror and scorn, we are still nevertheless left with a one lingering legacy of the eugenics movement: a strong belief in genetic determinism—the idea that genes and genes alone are responsible for behavior.
A new perspective by scientists at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign calls for rethinking and expanding genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to move away from old and inaccurate ways of thinking about heredity and behavior. They advocate incorporating environmental data in such studies to arrive at a better, broader, and more accurate view of how our genes interact with our environment and (possibly) influence our behavior.
“Genes influencing behavior operate within gene regulatory networks that respond flexibly, contextually, and stochastically, not deterministically,” the researchers write. “However, most GWAS for behavior are not constructed to capture this dynamism.” PLOS Biology
2) Obamacare: Where the goose lays its golden eggs
People could think we at American Journalist are anti-ACA because sometimes we are given to criticizing the 2010 Affordable Care Act for its failure to address health care costs, which is perhaps the single most pressing health care problem in the United States. So as not to seem so anti-Obamacare, let’s celebrate one of the hugely successful achievements of that 2010 legislation: enrolling millions of additional Americans into Medicaid.
Not every state expanded Medicaid, of course. But for the states that did, the money has flowed. Under Obamacare, 90 percent of the cost of expanded Medicaid is borne by the federal government—U.S. taxpayer dollars—some $155 billion for an expansion population of 19 million people in FY 2022 alone. With all those dollars pouring in, it’s worth asking all sorts of questions about where it’s gone, how effectively it’s been spent, and how many human lives were saved.
We won’t answer those questions today, but an interesting study from the University of Pennsylvania this week follows money from the Medicaid expansion into the states and asks how it trickled down to health workers.
Looking at the experience of 1,322,263 health workers from 2010–2019, from top executives to the lowest-paid orderlies and janitors, they found the money flowing into hospitals and clinics due to Medicaid expansion was associated with pay increases for health workers, but only among the highest paid workers—people like hospital executives, doctors, and nurses. The lowest paid workers did not see any significant pay increases.
Instead, what all the hard-working low- wage earners at our nation’s hospitals and doctor’s offices saw as the new Medicaid dollars flowed in under Obamacare was a decrease in employer-paid coverage of their health insurance—which paradoxically led to an increase in the likelihood they themselves would enroll in Medicaid and the SNAP food stamp program. JAMA Network Open
3) Oral drugs for inherited blindness?
Gut bacteria are implicated in some forms of inherited blindness, according to researchers at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou Medical University, and the University of South China, Hengyang. Specifically, certain gut bacteria appear to play a role in Leber congenital amaurosis and retinitis pigmentosa, which means that some cases of blindness in those two diseases could be potentially be treated or prevented using antibiotics.
OK, OK, you might say—What about trachoma? Don’t we already administer antibiotics to tens of millions of people around the world to prevent blindness from that widespread disease? Well… yes, but no. Trachoma is caused by a bacteria (Chlamydia trachomatis) that infects the eyes directly. The researchers here discovered something new. Looking at a gene called Crumbs homolog 1 (CBR1), which is found in the retina and helps maintain the integrity of the tissue, they showed that in mice with blindness associated with inherited variants of CBR1, the gene causes gut bacteria to migrate to the retina and damage this sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. So no, this is completely new—and potentially huge. Cell
4) Beauty is in the eye of the 3D-holder
A potentially better, faster, cheaper way to make artificial eyes for people needing ocular prostheses is described this week by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Darmstadt, Germany. Researchers there used optical coherence tomography, a standard eye-scanning technology, to drive the design of prosthetic eyes shaped to fit waiting sockets automatically—something that has always been done manually.
Working with ten people, they used the data to generate 3D models of artificial eyes, which they fabricated with a 3D printer in about 90 minutes. “Compared to a current manual process, our approach requires five times less labor of the ocularist and produces reproducible output,” they report. Nature Communications
5) First demonstration of “epigenetic silencing,” a new potential medical treatment, in mice
A new approach to temporarily shutting down genes called “epigenetic silencing” holds great promise for treating human diseases according to researchers at the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy and the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy, who demonstrated its potential for controlling cholesterol levels in mice. Similar to gene therapy, which permanently alters the DNA in the cells of a patient who receives it, this new approach promises a one-and-done treatment if it proves safe and effective.
In a proof-of-principle study in mice, the researchers showed they could target a liver gene called Pcsk9, which makes a protein found in the blood that’s involved in controlling cholesterol. A single infusion of the medicine almost halved the circulating levels of PCSK9 proteins for nearly one year. “Our study lays the foundation for the development of in vivo therapeutics that are based on epigenetic silencing,” they write.
Our hope: This will be much cheaper and than the high cost of gene therapy and therefore more readily available to people who need it. Nature
6) Childhood up in smoke: Cutting tobacco to reduce suicide risk?
In a study of 8,988 boys and girls age 9–11 enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School found children who self-reported using tobacco products had a significant increased risk—3–5 times—of attempting suicide. “The findings suggest that smoking tobacco products may be a modifiable risk factor that can be addressed in suicide prevention efforts, especially among children,” the doctors write. JAMA Network Open
7) Psychologists signal support for transgender care
The American Psychological Association announced a new policy today that affirms evidence-based care for transgender, gender diverse, and nonbinary individuals, including children, adolescents, and adults. In a statement, the APA says “legislative attempts to obstruct access to psychological and medical interventions for such individuals puts them at risk of depression, anxiety, and other negative mental health outcomes.” Bravo, APA! Read the full policy statement here (PDF)
Editor’s note: JSB is a journalist and member of the American Psychological Association.
8) When you wish upon a Scar
Leave it to the astronomy community to throw an otherworldly discovery into this week’s mix. Using the powerful if absurdly plain-monikered “Very Large Telescope” in Chile, astronomers at the U.K. Armagh Observatory and Planetarium and University College London have discovered a scar upon a star—specifically a huge metal scar accreted on the magnetic white dwarf WD 0816-310, an Earth-sized remnant of a star once slightly larger than the sun. We decided to call this white dwarf “Scarface.”
(As an aside, why can’t we ever name celestial objects after people or Greek gods or interesting things anymore and give them better names than those groaner alphanumeric designations?!)
Scarface has a massive feature in the form of a scar is imprinted on its surface from mass accretion, having made a meal of broken planets and other stellar debris that were funneled into it by the star’s powerful magnetic fields—Yum!. The discovery suggests magnetic fields may play a fundamental role in recycling exoplanetary bodies in the final stages of a star’s life—a mechanism that has been a mystery up to now. Scarface is also notable as perhaps the largest case of indigestion in the galaxy. Astrophysical Journal Letters