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Nsikan Akpan

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As seen in: The Council on Foreign Relations, MSN, Goats & Soda, National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Newsweek, NPR, PBS, PBS NewsHour, MDPI, Scientific American and
Covers:  mental health, public health, environment, nature, pediatrics, outbreaks, stroke, neuroscience, infectious disease
Highly melanated. Managing Editor, @ThinkGlobalHlth/@CFR_org. BSky: monscience.bsky.social Past: WNYC, NatGeo, PBS NewsHour | PhD pathobiologist | YNWA
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How To Master Your Third Arm

How To Master Your Third Arm

Popular Science — In the 2002 movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise plays with a futuristic computer like a maestro. With a flick of his wrist, data moves from one screen to the next, and a panoramic view of a park spins like a toy top. "But if it's virtual reality, why should he only use two arms? Why should he even have a humanlike form?" asks Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Last week, Bailenson's team released new research that shows a person can master a virtual third arm within just a few minutes.
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Gecko adhesion takes electric turn

Gecko adhesion takes electric turn

Science News Magazine — Challenging a favored theory, measurements suggest that electrostatic interactions make gecko feet supersticky.
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Mold behind 2013 yogurt recall may cause disease

Mold behind 2013 yogurt recall may cause disease

www.sciencenews.org — Genome sequencing links a new, virulent strain of mold to the 2013 Chobani yogurt recall.
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Microplastics lodge in crab gills and guts

Microplastics lodge in crab gills and guts

www.sciencenews.org — Crabs can absorb microplastic particles through their gills and by eating polluted mussels.
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Supercooling makes livers for transplants last longer

Supercooling makes livers for transplants last longer

www.sciencenews.org — Chilling to subzero temperatures greatly increased survival time of rats' organs outside the body.
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Invasive insect tied to shrinking river

Invasive insect tied to shrinking river

www.sciencenews.org — A river in North Carolina shrank after a hemlock woolly adelgid eradicated eastern hemlock trees in the region.
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Battling Birds Pull Extreme Aerial Maneuvers

Battling Birds Pull Extreme Aerial Maneuvers

Science Magazine — Hotshot jet pilots are no match for cliff swallows. The acrobatic migratory birds rocket over bridges and skim over lakes, careening around each other at accelerations that would knock an Air Force ace out cold. By tracking these contests with high-speed cameras, a new study gives the first, in-depth peek into avian aerodynamics in the wild. The findings may even provide insight into how to design better micro air vehicles-tiny drones. "This technology will be brilliantly useful," says biomechanics expert Jim Usherwood of the United Kingdom's Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, who was not involved in the study.
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Whales Can't Taste Anything But Salt

Whales Can't Taste Anything But Salt

news.sciencemag.org — Tastes are a privilege. The oral sensations not only satisfy foodies, but also on a primal level, protect animals from toxic substances. Yet cetaceans-whales and dolphins-may lack this crucial ability, according to a new study. Mutations in a cetacean ancestor obliterated their basic machinery for four of the five primary tastes, making them the first group of mammals to have lost the majority of this sensory system. The five primary tastes are sweet, bitter, umami (savory), sour, and salty. These flavors are recognized by taste receptors-proteins that coat neurons embedded in the tongue. For the most part, taste receptor genes present across all vertebrates.
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Dog’s Worst Friend

Dog’s Worst Friend

www.the-scientist.com — US dogs face a deadly threat from algae-spawned toxins lurking in lakes, but there may be an antidote.
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ScienceShot: Genetic 'App' Tells You Where You're From

ScienceShot: Genetic 'App' Tells You Where You're From

news.sciencemag.org — Where are you from? Naming a childhood town is an easy reply for many, but for an adopted child or young refugees separated from their parents, the answer may never come. Now, a new app could help those who are unaware of their ancestral home. Using only DNA sequences, the program can trace how far away a person lives from the land of their forebears, according to a study published today in Nature Communications. The system relies on admixture-a genetic principle that argues that when a family migrates across a geographic barrier into a new location, they start mating with the locals; new traits start blending into their gene pool, and this genetic diversity provides a ruler for gauging the distance from home.
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ScienceShot: 'Chameleon' Vine Discovered in Chile

ScienceShot: 'Chameleon' Vine Discovered in Chile

news.sciencemag.org — Move over, Sherlock Holmes. There is a new master of disguise-and it's a plant. Camouflage and mimicry are usually reserved for the animal realm. The hawk moth caterpillar scares away predators by resembling a snake. Myrmarachne jumping spiders imitate ants as they creep up on unsuspecting insects-fangs ready. Fewer examples of mimicry-or crypsis-are known for plants. But as in some mistletoe species in Australia, all of these imposters copy only one other species. That's not the case with the woody vine Boquila trifoliolata, which transforms its leaves to copy a variety of host trees. Native to Chile and Argentina, B.
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Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient for First Time

Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient for First Time

news.sciencemag.org — Get the measles vaccine, and you won't get the measles-or give it to anyone else. Right? Well, not always. A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated. When it comes to the measles vaccine, two shots are better than one. Most people in the United States are initially vaccinated against the virus shortly after their first birthday and return for a booster shot as a toddler.
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ScienceShot: Oldest Cardiovascular System Found in Ancient Shrimplike Creature

ScienceShot: Oldest Cardiovascular System Found in Ancient Shrimplike Creature

news.sciencemag.org — They were crushed. Without warning, 520 million years ago an ancient tsunami or storm trapped 50 shrimplike creatures under layer after layer of fine dirt particles and mud in the seabed that formerly covered much of southwest China. But rather than pulverize them, the powdery silt and Cambrian oceanic chemicals preserved the 6-centimeter-long animals, known as Fuxianhuia protensa, with impeccable statuesque detail (top panel). This underwater Pompeii initially revealed the ancestral brains of arthropods-such as spiders, scorpions, and crustaceans-and today, scientists report in Nature Communications the discovery of the oldest known cardiovascular system (lower panel). It was both modern and unsophisticated.
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Video: How to Make Flies Do the Moonwalk

Video: How to Make Flies Do the Moonwalk

news.sciencemag.org — Walking backward may seem a simple task, but researchers don't know how the mind controls this behavior. A study published online today in Science provides the first glimpse of the brain circuit responsible -at least in fruit flies. Geneticists created 3500 strains of the insects, each with a temperature-controlled switch that turned random networks of neurons on when the flies entered an incubator. One mutant batch of fruit flies started strolling in reverse when exposed to warmth (video, right panel), which the team dubbed "moonwalkers," in honor of Michael Jackson's famous dance. Two neurons were responsible for the behavior.
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ScienceShot: How to Tell if a Spider's Been Sleeping Around

ScienceShot: How to Tell if a Spider's Been Sleeping Around

news.sciencemag.org — It may be an awkward question, but male St. Andrew's Cross spiders ( Argiope keyserlingi) need to know how many partners their potential mate has already had sex with. Females have two vaginalike receptacles, placed side by side, in which males deposit sperm using two penislike palps. To prevent others from copulating with a former love, males will break off a palp after copulation and permanently seal the female's genital orifice. When a male loses a palp, he can have sex again only if his last sex organ aligns with a partner's unfilled genital opening-a left-sided phallus couples with a left-sided "vagina," for example.
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ScienceShot: Gonorrhea Microbe Uses 'Grappling Hooks' to Pass From Person to Person

ScienceShot: Gonorrhea Microbe Uses 'Grappling Hooks' to Pass From Person to Person

news.sciencemag.org — Gonorrhea passes from person to person thanks to some clever hitchhiking. For 40 years, researchers thought that Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes the sexually transmitted disease, glommed on to wiggling sperm during intercourse. But the idea didn't explain how females passed the STD to males. Now, a new study reported this month in mBio shows that rather than using sperm as a surfboard, N. gonorrhoeae bacteria shoot cables-called pili- onto proteins in the semen to tow themselves through coital liquid. The pili are normally wrapped in bundles (left panel, red arrow), but when exposed to seminal fluid, they unwind into individual strands (right panel, red arrows).
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Dragonflies Lack 'Smell Center,' but Can Still Smell

Dragonflies Lack 'Smell Center,' but Can Still Smell

news.sciencemag.org — Dragonflies are full of surprises. They have six legs, but most can't walk. Their giant, 30,000-lens eyes can detect ultraviolet light. And though they lack the brain architecture normally required for a sense of smell, a new study finds that dragonflies may use odors to hunt prey. Smelling, as we humans understand it, requires certain hardware. Our noses are packed with olfactory receptors, each of which is tuned to a precise scent molecule. (Indeed, a recent study suggests we can detect a trillion smells.) When one wafts into our nostrils, these receptors send nerve signals to sensory way stations called glomeruli, which pass them along to the brain for interpretation-"Oh, a rose!"
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700-Year-Old Poop Tracks History of Human Gut Microbes

700-Year-Old Poop Tracks History of Human Gut Microbes

news.sciencemag.org — Petrified human feces from the 14th century have revealed the earliest evidence of an arms race in the human gut. Our intestinal bacteria, it seems, were employing antibiotics long before people developed drugs like penicillin. The bacteria that live in your intestines are territorial little suckers. When new microbes arrive, the natives fight them off with antibiotics. The invaders respond by developing immunity to these compounds. So the native bacteria in your gut-known as the microbiome-develop ever stronger antibiotics. This war has likely been waging in the human intestine for eons, but scientists have had little evidence of its history.
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Genetic Forensics Wakes a Dragon

Genetic Forensics Wakes a Dragon

news.sciencemag.org — A genetic investigation into the illegal trade of sailfin dragons has unearthed a surprise: a new species of the rainbow-colored lizards that resemble small dinosaurs. The finding highlights just how little is known about these mysterious and threatened animals. Sailfin lizards (genus Hydrosaurus) look like they were pulled from a child's coloring book. As the water-loving reptiles mature, their faces, dorsal crests, and saillike tails shift from a drab green and gray to vibrant shades of neon purple, cyan, and harlequin. That's made them a popular target for an illegal pet trade which-along with destruction of their habitat in the Philippines, eastern Indonesia, and New Guinea-has decimated their numbers.
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Lasers Unearth Lost 'Agropolis' of New England

Lasers Unearth Lost 'Agropolis' of New England

news.sciencemag.org — Hidden ruins are customary in the wild jungles of South America or on the white shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Now, researchers have uncovered a long-lost culture closer to Western civilization-in New England. Today, southern New England is shrouded by lush forests, whose autumnal colors attract thousands of tourists and hikers each year. Urban hubs-Boston, Providence, Hartford-are peppered throughout. Rewind the clock 300 years, however, and the landscape would be unrecognizable, with much of the wooded countryside replaced by hundred-acre farms. Agriculture was king in New England until widespread industrialization in the 19th century led farmers to abandon their fields and move to cities.
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ScienceShot: Kangaroo Leeches Use Horny Male Crabs as Taxicabs

ScienceShot: Kangaroo Leeches Use Horny Male Crabs as Taxicabs

news.sciencemag.org — When they must travel, South African leeches ( Marsupiobdella africana) prefer to catch a crab. Unlike many leech species, which attach their eggs to hosts, like frogs or fish, to safeguard them from predators, M. africana has a one-of-a-kind internal pouch where offspring are raised for weeks. Yet these kangaroo leeches still latch on to crabs as adults, though they don't feed on them. That means this phoretic relationship-where one animal uses another merely for transportation-must offer other benefits to the worm. While surveying Cape river crabs near Potchefstroom, South Africa, researchers noticed this ferrying behavior varies by season and by the sex of the crab .
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ScienceShot: Studying Fur Seals Can Give Them a Heart Attack

ScienceShot: Studying Fur Seals Can Give Them a Heart Attack

news.sciencemag.org — Wildlife veterinarians working on Chile's remote Guafo Island discovered fatal heart damage, known as cardiomyopathy, in five South American fur seal pups that they had captured and placed in bags for up to 30 minutes, a standard practice to examine small seals. As part of an ongoing biological survey of the island, the researchers had caught and released fur seals for 4 years with no captivity-related deaths, but the sudden cluster triggered an investigation. Necropsies revealed that the pups had chronic hookworm infections, which aggravated their immune systems and sent their adrenal glands into hyperdrive.
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Doc Comic

Doc Comic

Science Magazine — A comic book for doctors by a doctor.
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Cure For Gray Hair Is Almost Here, Vitiligo Study Claims

Cure For Gray Hair Is Almost Here, Vitiligo Study Claims

www.medicaldaily.com — Many of us have been there. One day you're staring in the mirror or combing your hair, when suddenly you find it... a white hair! Mortality incarnate! Those worries might soon be a thing of the past now that UK researchers have discovered a drug that reverses the graying process. Follow us "For generations, numerous remedies have been concocted to hide gray hair," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, which published the new study, "but now, for the first time, an actual treatment that gets to the root of the problem has been developed.
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