January 5, 2023: The new research on asexuality, starfish bodies are pure head and COVID vaccines will NOT mess with your DNA. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Some people never (or rarely) feel sexual attraction to others. Asexuality is a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality, according to nearly two decades of scientific studies as well as the experiences of asexual people. Medicine has historically treated asexuality as a medical or psychological problem to be fixed. But that's finally starting to change.
Why this matters: Asexual people are often not taken seriously by their doctors and therapists when it comes to their lack of attraction, leading to delays in care, unneeded or unwanted treatments or procedures, and physical and mental trauma. Awareness of this problem is growing, with multiple health care professional organizations putting out position statements affirming the dignity and rights of asexual patients.
What the experts say: The asexual, or "ace," community could expand how we think about connection and intimacy amidst a crisis of loneliness. "Because the ace community was denied the infrastructure of intimacy and had to invent our own, we have become this site of innovation that a lot of people, especially nonqueer people, suddenly are interested in," says David Jay, founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. | | | You might think that starfish bodies are five leg-like appendages coming off a central body with the head somewhere in that core. But a new study shows that, genetically speaking, starfish lack genes for a trunk or appendages and are all head. Just head. How this works: Most animals are bilaterally symmetrical, meaning their bodies can be divided into two identical halves. But starfish have radial symmetry, with five identical segments of their body radiating out from a central point. Researchers determined that head-coding genes are active across the starfish's entire body, with high concentrations in the center of each appendage. (Check out this delightful video about starfish, made by our colleagues at Nature.)
What the experts say: Millions of years ago, all animals in the starfish phylum, including brittle stars and sea cucumbers, were bilateral. "They reformed [that body plan] in a completely novel way, which explains why they're so weird," says the study's lead author Laurent Formery, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford. | | | • Despite what Florida's surgeon general said, NO, vaccines for COVID will not alter or damage your DNA. You're more likely to turn into Spider-Man than have your DNA harmed by mRNA vaccines.| 4 min read | | | The inside of the MiniBooNE neutrino detector. Credit: Gainew Gallery/Alamy Stock Photo | | | • Obstetric fistula affects an estimated 2 million women and girls worldwide (predominantly in lower-income countries) and is almost entirely preventable. We must support policies and efforts to prevent this childbirth complication and to bring proper care to the women experiencing the devastating pain and trauma of this condition, writes Ashley Judd, who is an actor, activist, public speaker and goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. "Unforgivable inequalities result in health and social systems ignoring the most marginalized women and girls in their moment of greatest need—when trying to bring new life into the world," she says. | 5 min read | | | Our most popular stories this week | | | • See-Through Wood Is Stronger Than Plastic and Tougher Than Glass | 6 min read | | | • Stop Asking If the Universe Is a Computer Simulation | 4 min read | | | Cities in the Northeast U.S., including Washington, D.C, Philadelphia and New York City, have all gone more than 700 days since they received an inch of snow. Meteorologists are tracking a storm system that might bring some winter white to the region this weekend (or a dreary mess). Specific forecasts are still quite tentative, partially because predicting snowstorms can be notoriously difficult--which I wrote about earlier this week. | Enjoy your weekend wherever you are. And email your feedback to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you on Monday! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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