VOL VIII Issue II Spring 2023

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Journal of Undergraduate Science & Technology

JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 Cover photograph by Andrew Akindele

LETTER FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR Dear Reader, I could not be more excited to present Volume VIII, Issue II of the Journal of Undergraduate Science and Technology (JUST) which you now hold in your hands. This issue is the continuation of an interdisciplinary campus-wide effort to highlight the exciting research happening worldwide and locally by our undergraduates. I would like to congratulate the two undergraduate researchers whose submitted work now lies printed in this edition and all faculty and staff who supported their development as scientists. Additionally, I have to give my deepest thanks to all the JUST staff writers, editors, designers, and marketing team. Without your diligent work over an undoubtedly busy semester, these pages would have stayed a Word document on a hard drive. Additionally, without the generous support of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, the Associated Students of Madison, and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the publication of this journal would not have been possible.

This semester we made some exciting changes to our organization. We began publishing editorials written by students unaffiliated with JUST; resulting in excellent publications about Blue Carbon and a student's experience applying to grad school. The latter also serves as a departure from many previous editorials as it functions as a commentary on the process of becoming a researcher. I hope that this piece may serve as a touchstone for those planning to continue their education past undergrad and inspire future JUST members to publish diverse and exciting editorials. Additionally, our marketing team began developing a newsletter in which we aim to to dispense more routine and rapid scientific information to our student body.

Even if you do not consider yourself a STEM-minded person (perhaps, especially in this case) I hope that this journal inspires you to stay curious and explore the multitude of topics held under the umbrella of science. Scientific literacy has only gained importance in our civic and personal lives, and we are honored to hold a small role in the larger movement to make accurate scientific knowledge accessible to all members of the public.

The publishing of this issue will mark the end of my undergraduate studies here at UW-Madison. JUST, its mission statement, and all its members, have served as continued inspiration for me. As I continue my career in scientific research, I will cherish the passion for scientific communication imparted to me by this journal and know that the diligent, open-minded, and kind members of this organization will continue my work where it ended.

In this issue, you will find one of our most diverse editions yet. We are pleased to have writers covering everything from the science of birth control, to the new field of necrobiotics, to generative AIs, and more.

Please join me in this celebration of science communication and curiosity. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me.

Sincerely,

Lucas Chini Managing Editor

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SPONSORS & PARTNERS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Naba Rao MANAGING EDITOR Lucas Chini, Manasi Simhan DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Hannah Landsly

We would like to sincerely thank the Integrated Studies in Science, Engineering, and Society Undergraduate Certificate Program [ISSuES] at UW-Madison; The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences [CALS]; The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery; the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for financially supporting the production of JUST’s Spring 2023 issue. Thank you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIALS 6. ChatGPT : A Threat to Academic Honesty Amy Li

10. Gender Inequity and the Future of Birth Control Daniel Molina

MARKETING ASSISTANT Chloe Hansen 14. Venomous Heroes: The Biological Applications of Jellyfish Collagen DIRECTOR OF DESIGN Jennifer Schaller

Khadijah Dhoondia

18. Necrobiotics: The New Scientific Field that Reanimates the Corpses of Spiders

DESIGN ASSISTANT Quinn Ruzicka

Zane Brinnington

WEBMASTER Ethan Wang, Shreyanshu Dekate

22. Leather, Toys, Feet, and More - The Science of Fetishes Natalie Martinson

EDITORS OF CONTENT Manasi Simhan Lucas Chini Adina Shaikh Dima Hamdan Riya Anandpara Siya Mahajan Trang Pham Shreeya Rajesh

25. Through the Wringer: Thoughts from a Recent STEM Graduate School Applicant Anna Jansson

29. In the Shadow of Forests: The Role of Blue Carbon in CO2 Sequestration Emily Smith

PIXELS

HEAD STAFF WRITER Tala Shaibi STAFF WRITERS Amy Li Mahak Kathpalia Khadijah Dhoondia Zane Brinnington Natalie Martinson Danny Molina Caleb Smith Winston Thompson

32. Andrew Akindele, Anna Jansson, Manasi Simhan The Journal of Undergraduate Science and Technology (JUST) is an interdisciplinary journal for the publication and dissemination of undergraduate research conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Encompassing all areas of research in science and technology, JUST aims to provide an open-access platform for undergraduates to share their research with the university and the Madison community at large.

REPORTS 36. The relationship between the severity of mental illness symptomatology and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals

SCIENCE + SOCIETY: How to be creative and effective in a rapidly changing environment Caleb Smith

48. Manduca sexta exposed to over 2.5 ppm of Cyromazine via their food may experience dose-dependent growth inhibition

Thompson Integrated Studies in Science, Engineering,Winston and Society Undergraduate Certificate Program (ISSuES) at UW–Madison

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ISSuES offers undergraduate engineering and natural science students an opportunity to interact with the social sciences and humanities in a

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OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen. Source: NurPhoto via Getty Images.

ChatGPT : A Threat to Academic Honesty

By Amy Li, Edited by Trang Pham

In November of 2022, Artificial Intelligence company, OpenAI, launched ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer), a chatbot that converses with users in dialogue format. It gained one million user interactions in just five days, which is more than what most social media started with. (Firat, 2023) According to the company OpenAI, ChatGPT can “answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.” (OpenAI, 2023) It is an incredible feat of modern technology. Chatbots are created with the goal to answer specific questions and perform administrative tasks. We often see chatbots on company websites pop up and offer guidance and help for users through an automated dialogue interaction box. What sets ChatGPT apart 6

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from other chatbots is the huge dataset it utilizes, and its ability to perform a wide range of tasks from debugging code to writing essays. However, with such an intelligent chatbot making its entrance, there is already debate on its use and the threat it poses. Not only have people begun to wonder about the cybersecurity risk ChatGPT poses, but also its threat to education for younger generations.

Many schools have already banned its use to protect academic dishonesty while others set out to educate students on how to use it responsibly.

A New York Times article discussed students’ perspectives on ChatGPT. Some believe that it shouldn’t be used in education, including Tim from Hinsdale Central High School,

To Use or Not To Use? ChatGPT is a very helpful tool. In a matter of seconds, it can gather information from the web and condense it into a little chat dialogue for the user. The dialogue response it uses also makes the information more digestible, since it’s like hearing a person explain it. To many people, this is very convenient. It eliminates the need to dive deep into the internet and find an obscure topic they need to

know. Students who study computer science or related disciplines may find this chatbot helpful to analyze. Furthermore, many people can research this chatbot on its capabilities, which fosters education.

While ChatGPT is useful when trying to understand material, it’s not entirely reliable. Therefore, it is best to factcheck. Additionally, ChatGPT only has information from 2021 because of the dataset that was used to program it.

This means it has no knowledge on current events or recent occurrences. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, courses like Biology 152 have already started using ChatGPT to generate examples of why you should not trust it. Worksheet instructions state, “We asked ChatGPT* to: ‘List 5 features that would allow us to tell if a plant is a fern or an angiosperm’ Below is its answer. It got fewer than 50% right. For each of the points in its answer, is ChatGPT right or wrong? Write True or False next to each of these.”

With courses already proving the inaccuracy of ChatGPT, students should learn to not completely rely on it.

Directly using this chatbot to do exams or essays for you will not be helpful at all in the long run. Considering that exams are there to test your knowledge and make sure you understand the material. What’s the point of going to school to learn if someone else does it for you? Students will eventually fail in life because they’ve relied so heavily on ChatGPT. In addition, this chatbot creates lack of motivation for students. Students may begin to wonder why they should do work if a chatbot can do it for them?

Essays could be done in a few minutes just from inputting a prompt to ChatGPT. Moreover, ChatGPT decreases the JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 7

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"With such an intelligent chatbot making its entrace, there is already debate on its use and the threat it poses."

who felt ChatGPT should be blocked because it ruins the whole idea of schools. He believed questions while learning should be directed to the teacher, since the “teacher is way more reliable than any internet source.” However, he explains how ChatGPT could potentially be helpful outside of school, but it’s “important to know how to use real books and not always rely on the internet.” (Network, 2023) Some students stated that it would make them lose motivation, creativity, and critical thinking skills. On the other hand, the article presented contrasting views from other students. They believed becoming familiar with AI could aid learning. Grange from Glenbard West High school explains how ChatGPT has been helpful for her as she used it for “personal questions, joke questions, or help on school assignments” and it supports her in “[gathering] research or [understanding] the topic a lot better and faster”. A notable point she mentions is how, as a programmer, she can play with ChatGPT, and it’ll give “new ideas and ways to think about code.” (The Learning Network, 2023) Although students understand schools should learn how to use this technology, boundaries must be set. What’s the best route to go then?

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Arial photo of Science Hall at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

efficiency of learning. Let’s imagine that you are learning how to approach an exam problem and ChatGPT gives you a couple of ways to solve it. When the exam includes this type of problem, you vaguely remember that there were three ways to solve it, but you never looked at one approach in-depth. You tried to skim the material quickly through ChatGPT without ever trying to understand it comprehensively. On the other hand, if you studied this content by yourself and developed a method that worked best for you, the exam would be more straightforward.

These potential risks to students, and their motivation to continue to learn, necessitate limitations on the use of ChatGPT for school.

While ChatGPT can facilitate learning, it should not be actively used by students to complete assignments or exams for them. Research already describes “one of the most impressive capabilities of ChatGPT is its ability to reason critically, as well as express thoughts and ideas in flawless prose.” (Susnjack , 2022) A study in 2022 by Massey University asked ChatGPT how it would prevent students from using it to cheat in online university exams. The solutions given included education providers implementing plagiarism detection software that can flag answers similar to answers generated by ChatGPT, using machine learning to analyze exam answers, educating students on the ethical implications of ChatGPT, and more secure online exam platforms. However, these solutions are easier said than done. Since the way people ask their questions is framed differently each time, ChatGPT creates responses that change, so it’s difficult for plagiarism software to catch it. Many universities also do not have the budget to 8

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What stops students from using ChatGPT to cheat then?

Four solutions were given by the chatbot, and all four are impractical. In response, Massey University’s study brings up a well-known limitation of ChatGPT; it has uni-modal input capabilities. What does that mean? ChatGPT can only accept human text as input. This means if exams have images that questions refer to, students can’t input images into ChatGPT and get solutions. Other ways include oral exams, pre-recorded questions mixed with images, and checking student’s work with GPT language detector models. These are ways to combat academic dishonesty, but it’s not foolproof.

Where to Draw the Line and What’s Next?

Does this mean ChatGPT should be banned completely?

No, that’s not what this article is implying. ChatGPT has many benefits such as directly searching a topic and having information compiled in one place. However, directly using it to complete assessments is not the right path to go down on. Not only will students lose motivation and creativity, but also not learn what they are paying to do in school. We should also remember that ChatGPT is still an AI even with its capabilities that nearly mirror humans.

It cannot decipher the subtleties of a student’s question nor understand their feelings of confusion towards an answer. ChatGPT is programmed with human-like dialogue by humans. Ultimately, ChatGPT works in patterns and

when a question that is asked reaches farther than what it knows, only humans will be able to perform, and answer based on the specialization of certain subjects.

Due to Covid-19, the world has already changed the way people can learn. Many schools and offices now offer hybrid and online options. However, this shift to online learning has come with a wave of academic dishonesty.

This is one of the reasons ChatGPT has become a threat to student’s online exams and take-home essays. As of now, schools should consider banning ChatGPT for use on exams and assignments, specifically using it to directly answer questions for students. Researcher Teo Susnjak states that this publicly available technology can “generate compelling and accurate answers to difficult questions requiring an advanced level of analysis, synthesis, and application of information”. (Susnjak, 2022) He goes on to say that “it can even devise critical questions itself, the very questions that educators in different disciplines would use for their students’ evaluation of competencies.” (Susnjak) Usually, chatbots used by students are limited in their answers because they are not advanced enough, but ChatGPT is able to create college-level questions and answers. Not to mention, ChatGPT isn’t the only chatbot that is becoming more advanced. Other companies like Google are trying to create chatbots such as Google Bard that is anticipated to launch soon. All students should consider the benefits of learning and understanding material while only using ChatGPT on the side, not as the primary worker. In the future, the pros outweigh the cons if people are independent and not heavily relying on chatbots. With ChatGPT’s endless capabilities and new chatbots arising, educators should tread carefully on their next actions to prevent further academic misconduct and inefficient learning.

References Firat, Mehmet. “How Chat GPT Can Transform Autodidactic Experiences and Open Education?” OSF, 12 Jan. 2023, https://osf.io/9ge8m/.

Network, The Learning. “What Students Are Saying about Chatgpt.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Feb. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/learning/ students-chatgpt.html#:~:text=By%20now%20you've%20 probably,text%2Dbased%20Harry%20Potter%20games.

OpenAI. “CHATGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue.” OpenAI, OpenAI, 2 Feb. 2023, https://openai. com/blog/chatgpt/.

Susnjak, Teo. “CHATGPT: The End of Online Exam Integrity?” ArXiv.org, 19 Dec. 2022, https://arxiv.org/ abs/2212.09292.

Picture: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ openai-logo-displayed-on-a-phone-screen-and-chatgptwebsite-news-photo/1245391728?phrase=chatbot&adppopup=true.

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ChatGPT and Plagiarism

use machine learning algorithms to detect this, making it unrealistic. Finally, educating students is important, but if students disregard this information and have every intention to cheat, explaining ethics will not cause them to stop cheating (Susnjack, 2022).

The starting portal when ChatGPT is opened with the text input box at the bottom. It gives small blurbs on examples you can input, ChatGPT’s capabilities, and its limitations.

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Current Common Birth Control Options. Source: InviTRA

(Randolph, 2007). What this often leads to is a complete disregard of contraceptives entirely, relying on chance or the deeply flawed withdrawal method, resulting in increased risk of pregnancy.

Gender Inequity and the Future of Birth Control

By Daniel Molina, Edited by Manasi Simhan

Whether in middle or high school, most students in American schools were taught about contraceptives.

Some schools required students to memorize all of them, with others skimming over the topic and neglecting the reality of teenagers' active sexual behaviors. With so much information and different statistics available on the most popular contraceptives, students are often confused about some of the other options: oral pills, cervical caps, female condoms, diaphragm, or implant. Interestingly enough, there is a common denominator among most contraceptives: they are almost all designed for women.

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With so many options on the market, where does the responsibility of men fall? Well, there’s an inequity at play here because, as some people see it, women bear more responsibility than men when it comes to preventing pregnancy as they are the ones subject to the consequences. Yet, such a philosophy has grown increasingly outdated with many men saying that they wished they could do something more to play their part.

Condoms are a reliable and consistent option, but a study from the Medical College of Wisconsin showed that both men and women alike felt less pleasure when using a condom, but that for men in particular, the difference was great enough to do away with the condom altogether

So where does that leave the question of responsibility?

With the overturning of Roe v Wade, access to abortion has been placed in jeopardy in many states around the country, making the prevention of unwanted pregnancies even more important. This is a problem that researchers and scientists around the world have set out to address.

Male Birth Control Let’s talk logistics. One man can get multiple women pregnant daily, but one woman can only be pregnant once for 9 months. So why aren’t there more birth control options catered specifically to men? There is one alternative to condoms for men: vasectomies.

In a recent 2016 study, researchers proposed and developed a birth control for men that included a series of injections that would temporarily decrease sperm count in patients during the time of medication. Out of the 302 subjects tested, only a handful of their partners reported pregnancies over the 8-week trial. The study was prematurely terminated as many of the subjects complained about the medicine’s side effects with acne, mood swings, and weight loss being a few of the most common ones. No birth control is perfect, but women have been dealing with the same side effects, whereas similar solutions, when marketed to men, have proven largely unsuccessful and unprofitable.

Biochemistry of Male Birth Control There are a lot of considerations to make when developing male birth control. Women have a cyclical release of eggs whereas men have constant sperm production, making it harder to block the production without doing permanent and irreversible damage.

There are two main male birth control options currently in later stage clinical testing that show great promise: Nestorone® and YCT529. Nestorone is a gel that can be applied by men once a day on the upper arms or shoulders alongside a testosterone gel. Nestorone is a progestin, or a synthetic progesterone, that works as an artificial hormone reducing the production of sperm in a non-permanent way and with very few side effects.

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"Many men have been more willing to do their part to prevent such pregnancies and science is catching up to meet those growing interests."

Products catered towards women make up a huge market. For women, products like sanitary products and birth control are necessary, yet they are forced to pay high prices and deal with the very real health-related side effects. What’s unique in the market for birth control is that it is almost entirely one-sided; products made for women like oral pills are the best and only option to avoid pregnancy – and it's a terrible option. Birth control establishes a significant financial weight that women are alone in bearing, but the hormonal consequences of birth control can prove even more formidable. Oral birth control pills, used by approximately 25% of women aged 15 to 44, are made up of two main components, estrogen and progesterone (Cooper, 2022). Progesterone prevents ovulation, the release of an egg cell that is ready to be fertilized, while estrogen is added to control menstrual bleeding. These pills give rise to an entire host of side effects from nausea, headaches, abdominal cramping, and mood changes to the risk of blood clots, heart attacks, and even liver tumors.

Vasectomies are semi-permanent procedures where a surgeon cuts and ties the vas deferens, the tubes that transport sperm. Vasectomies are quick, can be done without general anesthesia, and are usually reversible.

However, the possibility of irreversibility makes an expensive procedure quite risky and unrealistic for the average person. There has yet to develop a functional and marketable version of oral birth control for men that would be more user-friendly than condoms, but less permanent than vasectomies.

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J is another answer. It gives men the choice and forces them to face the reality that they have the opportunity to take responsibility into their own hands instead of placing it on their partners. The general outlook on unwanted pregnancies has changed and so should the responsibility to prevent them. Many men have been more willing to do their part to prevent such pregnancies and science is catching up to meet those growing interests. There are birth control options being developed every day that need to be supported and invested, creating a future that could change the landscape of unexpected pregnancies, gender equity, and bodily autonomy.

References Anawalt, B. D., Roth, M. Y., Ceponis, J., Surampudi, V., Amory, J. K., Swerdloff, R. S., Liu, P. Y., Dart, C., Bremner, W. J., Sitruk‐Ware, R., Kumar, N., Blithe, D. L., Page, S. T., & Wang, C. (2019). Combined nestorone–testosterone gel suppresses serum gonadotropins to concentrations associated with effective hormonal contraception in men. Andrology, 7(6), 878–887. https://doi.org/10.1111/ andr.12603 Are birth control pills safe? Planned Parenthood. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www. plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birthcontrol-pill/how-safe-is-the-birth-control-pill

A non-hormonal pill could soon expand men's birth control options. American Chemical Society. (2022, March 23). Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https:// www.acs.org/pressroom/newsreleases/2022/march/nonhormonal-pill-could-soon-expand-mens-birth-controloptions.html Randolph, M. E., Pinkerton, S. D., Bogart, L. M., Cecil, H., & Abramson, P. R. (2007). Sexual pleasure and condom use. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36(6), 844–848. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9213-0 Steiner, A. (2023, February 7). University of Minnesota researcher: 'world is ready for male contraceptive'.

PMinnPost. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www. minnpost.com/health/2023/02/university-of-minnesotaresearcher-the-world-is-ready-for-a-male-contraceptive/ Wang, C. C.-L. (2022, December 19). Male birth control options are in development, but a number of barriers still stand in the way. The Conversation. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://theconversation.com/male-birthcontrol-options-are-in-development-but-a-n mber-ofbarriers-still-stand-in-the-way-186537 Picture: Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition

An Individual Holding a Birth Control Pill and Pill Pack. Source: Scientific American

The drug works similarly to that of female birth control but has yet to be studied in long term and large-scale experiments. Furthermore, the gel application method has some shortcomings in terms of user error, application efficacy, and logistic feasibility which are part of the reason it is still in the experimental phase.

YCT-529 chemical structure Source: Wikimedia Commons

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As mentioned earlier, there are no perfect birth control options. Every drug has its side effects, every answer has its drawbacks, and there is no way to make everyone happy; what these two male birth control options outline

Cooper, D. B., Patel, P., & Mahdy, H. (n.d.). Oral contraceptive pills. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https:// pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28613632/ Effectiveness of birth control methods. ACOG. (n.d.).

Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.acog.org/ womens-health/infographics/effectiveness-of-birthcontrol-methods Light, L. (2022, April 14). There's a pink tax on women.

Forbes. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www. forbes.com/sites/lawrencelight/2022/02/12/theres-a-pinktax-on-women/?sh=769f2d087318

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The second option, YCT529, is an antagonist for a protein known as RARA (retinoic acid receptor alpha) which is a transcription factor, meaning that it causes increased cell production and differentiation as well as embryonic development and apoptosis (programmed cell death).

This transcription factor and the DNA it pertains to is an enormous contributor to sperm production and sperm count in semen. What YCT529 does is it acts as an inhibitor to the gene that produces RARA, decreasing its production and therefore decreasing cell production and differentiation. Preliminary research in living mice has shown that by introducing an antagonist (YCT529) — a molecule that blocks the efficiency or performance of a protein — RARA will slow down, causing the mice to produce drastically less sperm (Clagett-Dame, 2011). What’s promising about this option is that an antagonist to RARA can be found in vitamin A, or a very similar form. So, a possible drug solution could be a concentrated form of vitamin A that effectively stops RARA efficiency, slowing sperm production with very few side effects. The study also demonstrated that after 4-6 weeks of stopping the medication, subjects' sperm count returned to normal levels, and they were able to reproduce. Unlike the first option, YCT529 is not a hormonal drug, which means that, in theory, patients who take it will suffer dramatically fewer of the side effects common to hormonal birth control.

Clagett-Dame, M., & Knutson, D. (2011). Vitamin A in reproduction and development. Nutrients, 3(4), 385–428. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu3040385

Nestorone®/testosterone transdermal gel for male contraception – population council. Population Council – Ideas. Evidence. Impact. (2023, February 21).

Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://popcouncil.org/ project/nestorone-testosterone-transdermal-gel-for-malecontraception/

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J One primary field investigating the applications of jellyfish collagen is the field of tissue engineering. Tissue engineering is a discipline that aims to “assemble functional constructs that restore, maintain, or improve damaged tissues or whole organs” (“Tissue Engineering…”, n.d.). Although engineers have been successful in remodeling complex heart, lung, and liver tissues, this field remains in its early stages–significant research must be conducted before full organs can be produced and implanted in patients. Therefore, scientists are searching for novel sources for biomaterials, such as jellyfish collagen, that may improve the success of engineered tissues in the clinical setting.

CELL BIOLOGY

A swarm of jellyfish. Source: Getty Images.

membrane-bound sac that transports substances in and out of cells), collagen can support sustained drug delivery (Lee, 2001). Collagen has also been used as surgical sutures, as a sponge for burns, and as a replacement for artificial blood vessels (Lee, 2001).

Venomous Heroes: The Biological Applications of Jellyfish Collagen

By Khadijah Dhoondia, Edited by Shreeya Rajesh

No undersea cartoon would be complete without jellyfish.

When SpongeBob SquarePants isn’t working at the Krusty Krab, he can be seen chasing after jellyfish–despite the risk of painful swelling from their stings. Jellyfish appear once again in Finding Nemo; in a fan-favorite scene, Marlin and Dory engage in a friendly competition to see who can swim through a swarm of jellyfish without touching them.

These beloved childhood films and shows have contributed to making jellyfish infamous for their stinging tentacles.

However, jellyfish deserve to be known for more than just their venomous shock. Instead, jellyfish should be celebrated for something even more electrifying – their collagen.

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Researchers specifically turned to marine-derived collagen because its biological properties more closely model human collagen, and it is also less likely to transmit diseases compared to traditional collagen (Harussani, 2023). Furthermore, jellyfish are also a common waste product of fisheries as they are commonly caught in fishing nets and gears (D’Ambra & Merquiol, 2022). Therefore, the jellyfish could be repurposed for scientific needs, eliminating waste and the cost associated with harvesting jellyfish. Given the structural and economic advantages it offers, jellyfish collagen has tremendous potential for biological applications.

Jellyfish Collagen and Tissue Engineering

The Importance of Jellyfish Collagen Found in 25% of an animal’s body (Kiew et al., 2013), collagen is an insoluble protein that plays a role in many structures – such as the skin, tendons, blood vessels, cartilage, bone, and connective tissue (Harussani et al., 2023). Because the biochemical structure of collagen offers several useful properties – such as high-water absorption, adhesion, cohesion, and biocompatibility – collagen is a widely used material across the pharmaceutical, medicine, and biomedical engineering disciplines (Harussani et al., 2023). For example, when formed as a gel and combined with liposomes (a

Figure 2: “Schematic of the scaffold-based tissue engineering approach” (Asadian et al., 2020). Source: Asadian et al., 2020.

Researchers at the Hanyang University in Seoul, Republic of Korea have specifically tested the use of jellyfish collagens in scaffolds (Figure 1). Scaffolds are a common biomaterial used for tissue engineering, and their primary purpose is to “support cells during their growth and fulfill the function of the replaced tissue until its regeneration” (Perez-Puyana et al., 2020) (Figure 2). The materials that scaffolds are made from are crucial to consider, because scaffolds must be biocompatible with the host. This means that the materials must not cause the body to elicit a toxic response when it comes in contact with living tissue (“Biocompatibility”, n.d.). To investigate the biocompatibility of scaffolds with jellyfish collagens, researchers implanted them in mice. After comparing immune cell populations of mice who had received the jellyfish scaffolds and those who had received traditional scaffolds (made of cow collagen and gelatin), the researchers found that both scaffold models experienced a similar immunological response (Song et al., 2006). This means that the jellyfish collagen scaffolds were proven to be as biocompatible as traditional collagen scaffolds, serving as a safe alternative for tissue engineering applications (Song et al., 2006).

Jellyfish Collagen and Neuroscience

Figure 1: (A) Jellyfish scaffold. (B) An image of the jellyfish scaffold taken under a scanning electron microscope. Source: Chan et al., 2013.

Jellyfish collagen is also being tested in the field of neuroscience for its ability to model microglia. Microglia are immune cells found in the central nervous system, a system that is composed of the brain and spinal cord. Studying JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 15

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"Jellyfish deserve to be known for more than just their venomous shock. Instead, jellyfish should be celebrated for something even more electrifying – their collagen."

Historically, many industries have extracted collagen from land inhabiting animals, such as cows and pigs. However, recent studies have found that these animals are susceptible to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). This is problematic because BSE can develop into a variant called Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease (CJD), which is a fatal brain disease (Harussani et al., 2023). To prevent the spread of this lifedamaging disease, scientists were compelled to search for another source of collagen – jellyfish.

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Jellyfish swimming about. Source: Pexels.

References

Jellyfish. Source: Pexels.

microglia is incredibly important because studies have shown that microglia are a primary factor in the development of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease (MearnsSpragg et al., 2020). (Figure 3).

Researchers of Jellagen, a jellyfish collagen biotechnology company (figure 4), found that jellyfish collagen matrices were actually a better alternative to collagen derived from rat tails (Mearns-Spragg et al., 2020). This is because when iPSCderived Microglia (iMGL) were cultured on jellyfish collagen, the cells did not die, nor were they activated (which indicates biocompatibility) (Mearns-Spragg et al., 2020). Alternatively, iMGLs cultured on the rat collagen experienced a significant amount of cell clumping, indicating that cell death occurred.

In other words, this study found that jellyfish collagen proves to be a more successful tool for research of neurological disorders than traditional sources of collagen.

Figure 3: A hypothesized model of the role of microglia in neurodegeneration. When cell death occurs or when certain proteins accumulate in the brain, this leads to proinflammatory activation of microglia. In response, microglia produce neurotoxins which further contribute to cell death (Walker, 2020). Source: Walker, 2020.

To further investigate the role of microglia in neurodegenerative diseases, researchers model the microglia using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) – adult cells that have been programmed in a lab into an embryonic state (Mearns-Spragg et al., 2020). However, scientists are in need of a more effective platform, or matrix, on which these stem cells can grow upon; that’s exactly where jellyfish collagen comes in.

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Recent studies have proven that jellyfish collagen is a safe and necessary alternative to collagen derived from land inhabiting animals. This marine-derived source of collagen not only eliminates the risk of disease associated with traditional collagen sources, but also serves as an effective scaffold for tissue development and improved platform for iMGL growth. Although additional testing is needed before it can be officially applied in the clinical setting, jellyfish collagen is already showing promising potential in the tissue engineering and neuroscience fields. Jellyfish may continue to be known for their stinging tentacles, but their contributions of collagen to the scientific world perhaps are deserving of a new title. What about “venomous heroes?”

Lee, C. H., Singla, A., & Lee, Y. (2001). Biomedical applications of collagen. International journal of pharmaceutics, 221(1-2), 1-22.

Biocompatibility. (n.d.). Spine-health. https://www.spinehealth.com/glossary/biocompatibility.

Mearns-Spragg, A., Tilman, J., Tams, D., & Barnes, A. (2020).

The biological evaluation of jellyfish collagen as a new research tool for the growth and culture of iPSC derived microglia. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, 689.

Chan, E. C., Kuo, M., Kong, A. M., Morrison, W. A., Dusting, G. J., Mitchell, G. M., Lim, S. Y., & Liu, S. (2016).

Three-Dimensional Collagen Scaffold Promotes Intrinsic Vascularization for Tissue Engineering Applications. PLOS ONE, 11(2), e0149799.

Perez-Puyana, V., Jiménez-Rosado, M., Romero, A., & Guerrero, A. (2020). Polymer-based scaffolds for soft-tissue engineering. Polymers, 12(7), 1566.

D’Ambra, I., & Merquiol, L. (2022). Jellyfish from fisheries by-catches as a sustainable source of high-value compounds with biotechnological applications. Marine Drugs, 20(4), 266.

Harussani, M. M., Sapuan, S. M., Iyad, M., Wong, H. K., Farouk, Z. I., & Nazrin, A. (2023). Collagen Based Composites Derived from Marine Organisms: As a Solution for the Underutilization of Fish Biomass, Jellyfish and Sponges.

Composites from the Aquatic Environment, 245-274.

Hoyer, B., Bernhardt, A., Lode, A., Heinemann, S., Sewing, J., Klinger, M., et al., (2014). Jellyfish collagen scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering. Acta biomaterialia, 10(2), 883-892.

Kiew, P. L., & Don, M. M. (2013). Modified Lowry’s method for acid and pepsin soluble collagen measurement from Clarias species muscles. Sci. Rep, 2, 1-5.

Song, E., Kim, S. Y., Chun, T., Byun, H. J., & Lee, Y. M. (2006).

Collagen scaffolds derived from a marine source and their biocompatibility. Biomaterials, 27(15), 2951-2961.

Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. (n.d.).

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. https://www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/science-topics/ tissue-engineering-and-regenerative-medicine.

Walker, D. G. (2020). Defining activation states of microglia in human brain tissue: an unresolved issue for Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation, 7(3), 194-214.

Zimmer, C. (2018, October 18). Jellyfish are more appetising to deep sea creatures than we thought – and scientists don’t know why. The Independent. https://www.independent. co.uk/news/science/jellyfish-food-chain-deep-sea-creaturesmarine-biology-fish-a8574761.html.

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Conclusion

Asadian, M., Chan, K. V., Norouzi, M., Grande, S., Cools, P., Morent, R., & De Geyter, N. (2020). Fabrication and plasma modification of nanofibrous tissue engineering scaffolds.

Nanomaterials, 10(1), 119.

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J spiders always curl up when they die, as they lose the ability to control their internal hydraulics and thus their muscles have no opposition to contraction (Yap et al.). The spider’s unique muscle properties give it advantages in nature.

Without having to spare room for an opposing muscle, those designed for flexion can afford to be significantly larger and stronger than otherwise, making them more efficient in spinning webs and capturing prey (Yap et al.).

BIOENGINEERING

Image of a wolf spider, the type of spider experimented on by researchers at Rice University. Source: Smithsonian.

Yap working in the laboratory of mechanical engineering professor Daniel Preston, who focuses largely on using “nontraditional” materials in robotic systems. Generally, this refers to materials that aren’t hard plastics, metals, or electronics. As far as “nontraditional” goes, spiders are pretty high on the list.

Diagram of human muscle flexion and extension (left) (Source: NY Bone & Joint) vs. that of a spider (right) (Source: Weihmann & Blickhan).

The Anatomy of a Spider Hijacking the Spider Body

Necrobiotics: The New Scientific Field that Reanimates the Corpses of Spiders

By Zane Brinnington, Edited by Riya Anandpara

Understanding the unique mechanisms through which a spider functions provides insight into why an arachnid makes for a practical grabbing machine. The muscles of both humans and spiders are only able to contract – they cannot extend on their own. You are able to flex and unflex your bicep thanks to the agonistic nature of your muscles.

When you flex your arm, your bicep contracts to move the muscle. When you unflex, your triceps contract to pull your arm down. The muscle is only capable of unflexing because of the triceps contracting, not because of the bicep muscle uncontracting (Morris J. Biology).

Ever since human beings donned the pelt of another animal to protect ourselves from the cold, we have analyzed the features of other living creatures for inspiration in making the tools that assist us in everyday life. We looked at birds when developing airplanes, mimicked the echolocation abilities of bats when devising sonar technology, and even saw the genius in duck feet and translated them into modern swimming assistants like flippers. Last year, researchers at Rice University showcased the timeless relationship between human technology and animal biology in a whole new way; they used technology to transform the actual body of a deceased spider into a grabbing device powered by pressure.

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The researchers consider their work the first in an entirely new scientific field, which they call “Necrobiotics–” Necro coming from the root word necr- meaning corpse, and biosmeaning life (Etymology). Seemingly oxymoronic, the name is a reflection of the field’s main goal, repurposing the dead bodies of animals and insects and applying a whole new function to them that ultimately benefits humankind. In other words, using biotic materials as robotic components in novel hybrid machines.

The first research explicitly labeled as “Necrobiotics” was conducted in the summer of 2022 by graduate student Faye

The researchers determined, based on established data, that the typical pressure keeping a spider’s legs extended is between 4.0 to 6.1 kPa. They selected a pressure of 5.5 kPa to input into the body via the syringe to avoid causing any damage to the gripper while also ensuring that its legs would open wide enough to grab objects (Yap et al.).

Image demonstrating the functionality of a Necrobioticallyenhanced wolf spider (Source: Yap et al.).

Similarly, spiders are only capable of contacting their muscles. However, they don’t rely on an agonist muscle to contract and extend their legs outward. They instead contract muscles in their prosoma (a part of their head and thorax attached to their limbs) to increase their internal hydraulic pressure to the point that their legs extend outward. The control over their own hydraulic pressure is so precise that they can direct each leg individually. This also explains why

The Grabber With the process of reanimating the spider complete, it was time for the researchers to discover how well it functioned as a grabbing device. They applied the grabber tool to a number of uses, including manipulation of a circuit board, moving objects, and even grabbing and transporting the body of another spider.

The researchers were able to conclude that the procedure had allowed them the chance to take advantage of the JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 19

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"Necrobiotics: the name is a reflection of the field’s main goal, repurposing the dead bodies of animals and insects and applying a whole new function to them that ultimately benefits humankind."

The Rice researchers took advantage of the spider’s contraction mechanisms to repurpose its corpse into a robotic device.

How exactly were they able to “hack nature,” so to speak?

They began with the euthanasia of a wolf spider by exposing it to freezing temperatures for about a week (Yap et al.).

Assembly of the cadaver takes only one step, much simpler than the generally monotonous and complex endeavor of assembling fluidically driven grippers. The researchers insert a hypodermic needle into the prosoma of the deceased spider, where the hydraulic pressure is generated, and add a drop of superglue to seal it in place. After letting the glue set for a mere ten minutes, the needle is replaced with a syringe of the same diameter that allows for air to be administered into the body of the spider (Yap et al.).

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J could capture insects in nature. One such insect could be mosquitos, particularly in countries where their presence is the most dangerous (Yap et al.). Being almost entirely organically based makes necrobiotic devices especially remarkable. They’re almost completely biodegradable, as are all living (or formerly living) organisms. If the field is further developed, it could usher in an entirely new era of eco-friendly machines that leave behind little, if any, environmental waste following their creation.

Of course, that future is speculative, and decades away. What can be expected of Necrobiotics in the coming years? Rice researchers already have plans that involve extending the procedure to different insects with different capabilities. Two mentioned specifically are the whip scorpion, which can enable them to experiment with “high-speed articulation” and the Patu digua spider, the smallest in the world, enabling them to experiment on an increasingly micro scale (Yap et al.). Necrobiotics might not really resurrect creatures from the dead, but it does bring many exciting possibilities to life!

Images illustrating the multiple tests to which the grabber was subject to.

Top image (Yap et al.) showcases it operating a circuit board, bottom image showcases it grabbing and lifting a cotton ball (Yap et al.).

A spider web. Source: Pixabay.

The Future of Necrobiotics

References

Despite successful trials, the grabber itself doesn’t display any abilities that existing tools are incapable of. Add that to the fact that the machine relies on the dead body of a creepy crawly bug, and it seems unlikely that it’ll be a tool the average person will be buying for the garage anytime soon; but the field isn’t even a year old yet. While the spider-corpse grabber is fascinating, it’s the future of Necrobiotics that is most captivating. Although some might consider Necrobiotics to be nothing more than a crazy-sounding idea, its uniqueness promises genuine practicality in the world of robotics.

Biceps Tendon Repair Specialist in NYC | NY Bone & Joint. (n.d.). New York Bone & Joint Specialists. Retrieved April 27, 2023, from https://nyboneandjoint.com/conditionstreatments/biceps-tendon-repair/.

As stated earlier, they are quite convenient to assemble.

Provided that a source of spider corpses is accessible, it would take a matter of ten minutes to create a machine capable of moving objects around at incredibly small scales, like in the assembly of microelectronics. A bonus is that harvesting the natural machinery of the spider’s body eliminates a great portion of the expense that would otherwise be necessary in the manufacturing of micro hydraulic grabbers.

Necro-. Etymology. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https://www.etymonline.com/word/necro#etymonline_v_2358.

Another proposed use by researchers is thanks to the unique appearance of the robot. Considering that the robot looks exactly like a spider, it would be much more effective than an entirely synthetic or metal machine at camouflaging in nature. Spiders could be transformed into tools that 1 There are currently no guidelines regarding the ethics of humane euthanasia of spiders, or any alternatives to procuring spider cadavers (Yap et al.).

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Biotic (adj.). Etymology. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https://www.etymonline.com/word/biotic.

Morris J. Biology : How Life Works. Third ed. New York: W. H. Freeman/Macmillan Learning; 2019.

Upper left: An image of a whip scorpion. Source: Johnathan’s Jungle Road Show. Lower right: An image of a Patu digua spider, the smallest spider species known. Source: Sprintally.

Sketch of a spider leg showing all segments: Joints without... (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https:// www.researchgate.net/figure/Fig1-ASketch-of-a-spider-legshowing-all-segments-joints-without-extensor-muscles_ fig1_221779105.

jonathansjungleroadshow.co.uk/meet-the-animals/taillesswhip-scorpion/.

(2020, September 28). Top 10 smallest spiders in the world.

Sprintally®. Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https:// sprintally.com/top-10-smallest-spiders-in-the-world/.

Weihmann, T., Günther, M., & Blickhan, R. (2012). Hydraulic leg extension is not necessarily the main drive in large spiders.

Journal of Experimental Biology, 215(4), 578–583. https://doi. org/10.1242/jeb.054585.

Yap, T. F., Liu, Z., Rajappan, A., Shimokusu, T. J., & Preston, D. J. (2022, October). Necrobotics: Biotic Materials as ready-to-use actuators. Advanced science (Weinheim, BadenWurttemberg, Germany). Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9561765/.

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spider’s natural abilities to create an impressive machine.

By attaching a weight to a heavy metal shaft placed on an analytical balance, the researchers were able to use the balance’s reading to determine the lift force generated by the gripper. From these tests, the researchers concluded that the gripping device demonstrated an ability to lift objects approximately 1.3 times their own body weight, and exert a gripping force of 0.35 millinewtons, about 100 times its body weight. It also was able to successfully grab and lift objects with “varying geometries, volumes, and masses” (Yap et al.).

According to their tests, the spider was able to last for 700 cycles of flexing and unflexing until it began to degrade.

Smithsonian Institution. (n.d.). Wolf Spider. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https://www. si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/wolf-spider.

Tailless whip scorpion. Jonathan's Jungle Roadshow. (2023, February 5). Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https:// JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 21

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J cortical areas communicate with each other through action potentials, which are like the language of brain cells. This communication and the adjacent location in the cortex are theorized to be a major cause of one of the most common types of fetishes– foot fetishes (Ventriglio et al.). Sometimes that crosstalk between the sensory locations gets confusing for the brain to separate back to where it came from, and sensory experiences relating to feet will be associated with those of the genitals, leading to arousal.

PSYCHOLOGY

William). Therefore, pain can release endorphins and serotonin, commonly considered “natural painkillers” and the “happy hormone”, respectively (Lehmiller, Justin). Since these hormones lead to feelings of euphoria, a connection can be drawn between pain and sexual pleasure, possibly offering an explanation as to why some people cannot finish without pain involved in their sexual regimen. Without this pain, the high of the sexual experience will not be enough to reach an orgasm without the extra boost.

Not So Gross Anymore A study in 2015 showed that the disgust reflex of the brain is decreased during sexual arousal, but only for “sex-related” stimuli (Fleischman et al.). Examples of these may include urine, feet, spit, etc., as these are all things typically deemed gross but common in pornographic materials. Lehmiller, a sex psychologist and author, theorizes that this decrease in disgust encourages people to try adding these stimuli into their sex lives. If pleasure is obtained, these stimuli can very possibly become a fetish (Lehmiller, Justin). This can actually connect back to the theory of Pavlovian principles governing fetishes as well, as we may end up classically conditioning ourselves to have a sexual response to these triggers after enjoying them in a sexual setting.

Figure 1: The cortical homunculus.

Leather, Toys, Feet, and More The Science of Fetishes

By Natalie Martinson, Edited by Siya Mahajan

Sex is a fundamental part of human life; we simply would not exist without it. Given its function in our lives, however, it’s often considered a taboo subject in social situations, especially when focusing on the pleasure of sex instead of sex as an activity with the sole purpose of reproduction.

The stigma surrounding it becomes much more exasperated when fetishes are mentioned, making the person seeking pleasure through them seem like a social deviant when they are, in fact, very rooted in simple neurobiology and psychology. A sexual fetish is defined as a strong devotion to an object, often marked by the inability to climax without the stimulus present (Merriam-Webster). They are natural and common, considering the ways in which they arise, although their exact causes are debated. A few biological 22

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theories dominate the field of fetish/sexual science, and I am here to lay them out for you!

Cortical Perceptions Overlap The brain overlap theory is one of the most primitive theories regarding the origins of fetishes. Certain areas of the brain are responsible for detecting sensation and producing motion in different body parts, as mapped out on the cortical homunculus (Figure 1).

As demonstrated, the area of the cortex that processes sensory information from the genitals is adjacent to the area that processes sensory information from the feet. These

Ivan Pavlov, a researcher from the late 1800s–early 1900s, conducted famous experiments on dogs to discover the classical conditioning theory of learning. This theory of classical conditioning is said to be based on Pavlovian principles. As a summary of the experiment, Pavlov already knew that dogs would salivate when presented with meat; he called this an unconditioned response. Pavlov then decided to present the meat to the dogs when a bell rang.

After doing this many times, the dogs would begin to salivate at the sound of the bell with no meat present. This was a conditioned response (Rehman et al.). In 1966, using classical conditioning, psychological researcher S. Rachman classically conditioned men to experience arousal upon seeing an image of a pair of boots after being exposed to many erotic images with boots in them (Rachman). The Pavlovian Theory of fetishes concludes that we may (accidentally or purposefully) classically condition ourselves into feeling sexual attraction to inanimate objects– producing fetishes. In this way, our mind takes something that is not stereotypically considered sexy by itself and connects it to the idea of sex and arousal, making it a conditioned stimulus for a sexual response.

Although other theories of fetish origins do exist, these are the most agreed-upon ones in the field of sexual psychology.

As laid out here, fetishes are natural in the ways they form and persist in bodies and minds. It’s important to never forget the importance of safe words so your partner knows when to stop if you need to, general safety measures such as using protection from STIs, and consent, which always means a clear and enthusiastic yes. That being said, feel free to get your freak on!

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"A sexual fetish is defined as a strong devotion to an object, often marked by the inability to climax without the stimulus present."

Pavlovian Tricks

Conclusion

Pain and Pleasure Harvard researchers have found pain receptors in the same neural circuits that provide pleasure to the body. This linkage suggests that pain and pleasure are related and may be confused when processed in the neural cortex (Cromie,

Sex toys.

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J OPINION

Fetish items. Source: Pexels.

References Cromie, William J. “Pleasure, Pain Activate Same Part of Brain.” Harvard Gazette, Harvard Gazette, 31 Jan. 2002, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/01/pleasurepain-activate-same-part-of-brain/.

Lehmiller, Justin. Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Boston, Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2018.

Merriam-Webster. “Fetish Definition & Meaning.” MerriamWebster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster. com/dictionary/fetish.

Rachman, S. “Sexual Fetishism: An Experimental Analogue.”

The Psychological Record, vol. 16, no. 3, 1966, pp. 293–296., https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03393671.

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Ventriglio, Antonio et al. “Sexuality in the 21st century: Leather or rubber? Fetishism explained.” Medical journal, Armed Forces India vol. 75,2 (2019): 121-124. doi:10.1016/j. mjafi.2018.09.009.

By Anna Jansson, Edited by Manasi Simhan

"There are a lot of things to expect when you begin preparing your applications for graduate school and, unfortunately, not every part is especially pleasant."

Hopefully, if you are an undergraduate student interested in staying in academia and beginning a doctoral program in STEM you have noticed that there has been a clear shift in the last year to elevate graduate students’ quality of life.

Granted, the premise of a doctoral program is to “put you through the wringer,” so that you can develop the necessary skills to prove that you are a capable learner and researcher, however, there has been a lot of additional, and some may say unnecessary, taking advantage of individuals who are excited to learn at this level. This ill-treatment

has many origins; lack of funding sources, elitist mindsets regarding who is “deserving” of earning a PhD, and the “well, that’s how I was treated when I was a student” mentality, to name a few. In programs where these attitudes are prevalent, these outlooks are translated to the doctoral student in the form of extremely low pay, intense work commitment expectations, and forced obsessive competition. The system seems to inherently put students at a disadvantage throughout the graduate experience, including the application process, even though graduate students are JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 25

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Fleischman, Diana S et al. “Disgust versus Lust: Exploring the Interactions of Disgust and Fear with Sexual Arousal in Women.” PloS one vol. 10,6 e0118151. 24 Jun. 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118151.

Rehman I, Mahabadi N, Sanvictores T, et al. Classical Conditioning. [Updated 2022 Aug 22]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/ NBK470326/.

Through the Wringer: Thoughts from a Recent STEM Graduate School Applicant

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J an important piece to any institution’s success. Therefore, it is important to understand the recent trends regarding United States STEM doctoral programs as you begin to make choices about your next admissions cycle.

Admissions: Fees, Waiting, and Decisions

Once your application is submitted, you now get to sit back over your winter break and enjoy “The Wait,” while the admissions committees assess you against your peers.

This waiting process is very program and discipline specific. For example, neuroscience programs generally take two to four weeks, but for clinical psychology it can be up to two months. Following this waiting period comes a small window of time in which the admissions team will send out acceptances or calls for interviews. Generally, biomedically adjacent programs (Neuroscience, Pharmacology, etc.) will invite you for an interview and more fundamental STEM programs (Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, etc.) will provide a direct acceptance and invite you for a visit weekend. While this can be an exciting and positive time for prospective graduate students, it can also 26

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This potential rejection will not be especially timely.

Universities will continue to hold all their cards (your admissions applications) close to their chest until they can safely decide it is in their best interests to reject you.

Most universities participate in the “April 15 Resolution” of the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States, which means they must allow applicants until April 15th to make decisions on admissions offers that also include financial support (CGS, 2023). This means that after you apply in November/December, if you are not offered an interview or an acceptance in December or January, you may not hear from the program until March or April, even if it is only to receive a rejection notice. While this makes sense from a business perspective, it is certainly not kind to the applicants who are juggling multiple program correspondences and often other job opportunities.

Acceptance: Considerations, Stipends, and Unions Though you should have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your programs before applying, once you get an acceptance/interview for a school, you need to closely examine the organizations and their universities. There are a lot of general things you need to take into consideration with moving to a new school for 5-8 years: What is the program location (in relation to your family/friends, weather conditions, etc.)? Are there faculty that you are interested in working with (do they have available space in their labs and/or funds to take you on)?

How well is the program ranked (depending on your goals post-graduation this could be more or less important)?

Your doctoral programs will make an effort to help you answer these questions during your interview/visit. These are all important considerations alongside the money of the matter.

As a STEM doctoral student, for any quality American program, you will be offered, at minimum, tuition remission (program or lab pays tuition costs for students) and a stipend. The stipend is a year's salary that is intended to pay for your housing, food, and other expenses in compensation for your work as a researcher. Although such stipends are often meager, they should be reasonable enough to let you live near your university. When allotting money towards living costs, the federal recommendation is that 30% of your income should go towards housing, but this unfortunately is not always the case for graduate students.

In the Fall of 2022, University of California graduate student researchers and academic student workers held a sixweek strike for increased wages and benefits (Zinshteyn,

UC Graduate Students on Strike, 2022. Source: Pablo Unzueta, CalMatters.

2023). Many students were using around 49% of their stipend to live in California's major cities, some of the most expensive in the country (Kimberlin, 2019). The student workers were able to achieve new contract ratifications, but still only make a few thousand dollars more a year than some programs here at UW-Madison (UC Office of the President, 2022). The University of California graduate student strike has been a historic moment for graduate and postdoctoral researchers and has initiated many other similar actions across the country.

These strikes have been met with a variety of interesting responses from their universities. A great example is Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which has a clear history of reasonable increases in stipends that match the general U.S. inflation rate of 2-3% (Knuth, 2020). This year, Cornell announced an 8% increase for the 2023-24 school year in reflection of the current estimated inflation rate (Cornell University Graduate School, 2023). Some of the more presumptuous examples include Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and University of Chicago in Illinois. After students began striking at Temple University in the Winter of 2022, they had their health insurance and tuition remission revoked, while their stipend pay was withheld (Snyder, 2023). University of Chicago, after conversations surrounding graduate students joining a union, asked their students in multiple emails to vote against joining the union (Rodriguez, 2023). Whether or not you agree with unionization and striking, it should never have been the university's place to interact with graduate stu-

dents with these tactics. If universities do not want strikes and unionization, they should make an effort to listen to the students and provide alternative resources that cover their needs.

Other Influences on Your Final Decision Bearing situations like these in mind, you should not only avoid the ugly programs but look for the beautiful ones too. One of the easiest ways to identify schools that are looking out for their students is by searching for specific perks that those programs offer; the University of Wisconsin - Madison has some great examples of this.

The university’s graduate school programs participate in a graduate student union and offer graduate-specific health insurance plans at a reduced rate compared to

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There are a lot of things to expect when you begin preparing your applications for graduate school and, unfortunately, not every part is especially pleasant. The letters of recommendation, CVs/resumes, transcripts, personal essays, research statements, and, for some programs, GRE (Graduate Record Examinations) scores to be compiled and submitted are all time consuming, but customary. How else are they supposed to get to know you and your aspirations? You would think the amount of time required to pull these materials together would be the limiting factor regarding how many applications you can submit, however, you also must consider the lovely price tag of application submission; almost all STEM graduate programs in the U.S. have fees ranging between $75 and $125. With our competitive academic climate, most applicants apply to at least five programs, meaning that in one application cycle, you will have spent what some undergraduates would deem “rent money.” Most programs will argue that they charge this fee to cover the time put into reviewing applications or that it is meant to encourage only those who are passionate about the program to apply, but these arguments are hard to justify. Almost all admissions committees are composed of currently employed faculty and any additional required staff often have other roles in their departments. From the student standpoint, many people are not going to spend 8+ hours on an application for a program they are not interested in. These fees make applicants feel like a number on a spreadsheet or a participant in a weird profit scheme. While I do not think we can expect all programs to do away with application fees, green flags to look for from universities include simple fee waivers for a wide range of situations, lower application fees (think in the range of $40-65), and tiered fees based on when you apply (lower if you apply by November 1st instead of the more customary deadline of December 1st, for example).

be a moment when applicants get the short end of the stick. Given the competitive nature of these programs, the admissions team often extends interviews and admissions to more than the expected number of applicants who will matriculate, with the assumption that some students will choose to go elsewhere. Therefore, if you are not contacted in this window of time, there is little chance of expecting an acceptance.

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J other employee types. Additionally, specific programs like the Neuroscience Training Program (NTP) provide a moving check (normally around $1,000) and have a student organization beyond the union called GAINS (Graduate Association for Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Students), focused on advocating for student needs directly with the administration (GAINS, 2023). Other benefits to look out for include single-use networking awards for conference travel, reduced/free childcare, and parental leave.

Regardless of whether you decide to attend a university with a few red flags, or a few green ones, hopefully this information will assist you in making an informed decision.

These examples are not meant to try and drive you off from academia but are simply important premises to keep in mind as you begin to make plans for the fall application cycle. From one prospective graduate student to another, I wish you the best of luck and encourage you to start your applications early (potentially in the Summer).

One Last Note for The Administrators If you are reading this as an individual connected to admissions and graduate student care, please consider some of these situations honestly. While not every negative circumstance can be solved and wrapped up with a neat little bow, even just considering where some concessions could be made, and being willing to have open discourse about it, could really elevate prospective students’ views regarding your program. Think about how different adjustments could impact your programs future credibility and, more importantly, how you would appreciate being treated in these scenarios. Graduate students desire a living wage (housing, food, savings account, and all) and, as the backbone of many universities’ teaching and research success, I think we are moving towards the idea that they deserve it.

As students we appreciate faculty and administration who treat us as scientists and not reduced-cost labor. Through understanding and collaboration, graduate students and universities have the potential to work towards a more efficient and constructive academic setting for everyone.

References Cherry, K. (2022, March 23). Phrenology's History and Influence. Verywell Mind. Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-phrenology-2795251.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Hayes, S. (2019, January 20). Phrenology: A cautionary tale for Data Science and how ethics can help. LinkedIn. Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://www. linkedin.com/pulse/phrenology-cautionary-tale-data-science-how-ethics-can-sherrill-hayes.

Hays, B. (2020, May 22). Artificial intelligence can predict a person's personality using only a selfie. Retrieved April 10 from https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/05/22/ Artificial-intelligence-can-predict-a-persons-personality-using-only-a-selfie/4981590158009/?spt=su.

Kachur, A., Osin, E., Davydov, D., Shutilov, K., & Novokshonov, A. (2020). Assessing the Big Five personality traits using real-life static facial images. Scientific Reports, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65358-6.

Rayne, E. (2020, December 15). AI just got way creepier because it can now read your personality from a selfie. SYFY WIRE. Retrieved April 10 from https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/ai-can-now-read-your-personality-from-a-selfie.

Tech Xplore. (2020, May 22). Artificial intelligence can make personality judgments based on photographs. Tech Xplore - Technology and Engineering news. Retrieved April 10 from https://techxplore.com/news/2020-05-artificial-intelligence-personality-judgments-based.html.

Ujjwalkarn. (2016, August 10). A Quick Introduction to Neural Networks. The Data Science Blog. Retrieved April 10 from https://ujjwalkarn.me/2016/08/09/quick-intro-neural-networks/.

Cover Picture: Sourced from Aileen Devlin

In the Shadow of Forests: The Role of Blue Carbon in CO2 Sequestration

By Emily Smith, Edited by Lucas Chini

"Blue Carbon is an effective alternative or addition to tree-based CO2 sequestration methods."

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Trees, both mighty in stature and resplendent in their beauty are carbon sequestration machines. Trees are estimated to capture roughly 50% of global carbon emissions. Though impressive, it’s important to note that this number comes from trees in forests which have the help of a robust soil microbiome and other organisms. What about lonely trees though, have they been considered?

Due to their carbon capturing super-powers many companies have started to use the marketability and simplicity of tree-planting plans to advertise carbon capture services to individual consumers. According to some sources, trees are the one of the best ways to sequester carbon (Bastin et al., 2019). One thing about trees though is they take up space. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1 billion hectares of additional trees are JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 29

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If you are someone who has been paying attention, you know that climate change is real. You may already be familiar with many of the mechanisms (human-made or otherwise) that are contributing to the insidious threat of changing weather, water, and decay. For those not in the know, one of the biggest players in this game is carbon dioxide or CO2, a clear and increasingly abundant gas that traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere in a process called the Greenhouse Effect. Since the industrial revolution, humans have increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere from zero additional tonnes of carbon in the early 1800s to the present, when humans emit 34 billion tonnes of CO2 a year (Ritchie et al., 2020). Luckily there have been efforts to combat this exponential rise in emission through a process called Carbon Sequestration.

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J required by 2050 to limit temperature increases caused by global warming. According to the previous study however, there is only 0.9 billion hectares available for additional trees. This means that even if every available tract of open land is covered in trees, it would still not be enough to slow global warming. This strategy would limit the development of every other type of land-use including conservation of habitats not dominated by trees. A different study on the trade-offs of afforestation (planting trees) found that the burden of many tree planting schemes falls on tropical places. Change in land-use from agricultural to tree fields over a broad area is predicted to result in increased food prices and thus increased hunger. The places forecasted to be most affect by a tree planting plague were Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (Doelman et al., 2020). This is not even to mention the shadier side of plant-trees-now initiatives that at best result in a paltry amount of trees planted and at worst throw a monoculture of poorly chosen saplings into the ground only for 90% them to die months later (Jones, 2021). All of this is not to slander trees but to make the point that there can be drawbacks to even the most pleasant-sounding solutions, utilizing many ways to decrease atmospheric CO2 is going to be far more effective moving forward.

Considering some of the downsides to tree planting are there other ways to sequester carbon without dramatic shifts in land-use? Yes! It's green, it’s gooey, it’s algae! Before we dive in let us define what algae refers to. There are many diverse types of algae some microscopic and some

macroscopic. Macroscopic algae a.k.a. kelp, is technically not a plant but a fast-growing protist that like trees can use photosynthesis to sequester carbon! The type of carbon sequestered in this way is called Blue carbon and is stored primarily in coastal habitats like salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrass. Both free-floating micro algae and macro algae (kelp) also store Blue carbon (Scott and Lindsey, 2023)! The way algae sequester carbon is through fragmentation. Basically, algae make sugars (which contain carbon) via photosynthesis and when that alga dies the clumps of organic matter float down into the sediments of seafloor. The effectiveness of carbon sequestration differs between types of algae but due to its easy and fast growth it has nonetheless been identified as an effective strategy to capture CO2 (Krause-Jensen and Duarte, 2016). Seagrass is another particularly space-effective organism since it outpaces even rainforests in their rate of carbon capture.

Some additional benefits of Blue carbon beyond carbon sequestration include increasing water quality, increasing coastal biodiversity, and preservation of traditional ways of life in coastal communities (Douvere, 2021). Tidal wetland restoration initiatives, like the ones in Tillamook Oregon, have been successful in not only reducing flood damages, but increasing habitat for the endangered Coho salmon (NOAA Office of Habitat Conservation; Fisheries, 2021). In the Pacific, the first Indigenous lead Blue carbon regime has been established as of 2022 called Hinemoana Halo Ocean Initiative. Through Hinemoana Halo, Indigenous Māori and Pacific Leaders will provide conservation leadership to the region. Additionally, the project aims

Coastal Blue Carbon Sequestion Cycle. Source: Brodeur, Jean. NOAA Blue Carbon White Paper. 2022

to empower local Indigenous people through creation of sustainable jobs, infrastructure, and financial opportunities while also utilizing a combination of traditional and scientific methods to promote ocean conservation (Hinemoana Halo, 2023). In these ways, Blue Carbon is an effective alternative or addition to tree-based CO2 sequestration methods.

There are more ways to help fight climate change than just planting trees. Fostering diverse methods in the fight against climate change is a better way to approach climate solutions. Blue Carbon solves some of tree’s shortcomings while still being an effective method to sequester carbon.

So, when considering next how to fight climate change, forget about trees and look to Blue Carbon.

References Bastin, Jean-Francois, et al. “The Global Tree Restoration Potential.” Science, vol. 365, no. 6448, July 2019, pp. 76– 79. www-science-org.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu (Atypon), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax0848.

Doelman, Jonathan C., et al. “Afforestation for Climate Change Mitigation: Potentials, Risks and Trade-Offs.”

Global Change Biology, vol. 26, no. 3, 2020, pp. 1576–91.

Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14887.

Douvere, Fanny. “Blue Carbon Can’t Wait.” Science, vol.

373, no. 6555, Aug. 2021, pp. 601–601. www-science-org. ezproxy.library.wisc.edu (Atypon), https://doi.org/10.1126/ science.abl7128.

Hinemoana Halo. https://www.conservation.org/aotearoa/ hinemoana-halo. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.

Jones, Benji. “The Surprising Downsides to Planting Trillions of Trees.” Vox, 22 Sept. 2021, https://www.vox. com/down-to-earth/22679378/tree-planting-forest-restoration-climate-solutions.

Krause-Jensen, Dorte, and Carlos M. Duarte. “Substantial Role of Macroalgae in Marine Carbon Sequestration.” Nature Geoscience, vol. 9, no. 10, 10, Oct. 2016, pp. 737–42. www-nature-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu, https://doi. org/10.1038/ngeo2790.

NOAA Office of Habitat Conservation. “Oregon Coastal Habitat Project Restores Coho and Reduces Flooding | NOAA Fisheries.” NOAA, 28 May 2021, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/oregon-coastal-habitat-project-restores-coho-and-reduces-flooding. West Coast.

Ritchie, Hannah, et al. “CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Our World in Data, May 2020. ourworldindata.org, https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions.

Scott, MICHON, and REBECCA Lindsey. Understanding blue carbon | NOAA Climate.gov. http://www.climate. gov/news-features/understanding-climate/understanding-blue-carbon. Accessed 27 Feb. 2023.

Coastal Kelp Piles Showing the abundance of Biomass public domain.

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EDITORIALS

Brodeur, Jean. NOAA Blue Carbon White Paper. 2022.

DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.25923/V5FX-R089.

Fisheries, NOAA. “Coho Salmon (Protected) | NOAA Fisheries.” NOAA, 14 Oct. 2022, https://www.fisheries.noaa. gov/species/coho-salmon-protected. West Coast.

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where science and art collide Mouse Coronal Brain Slices Anna Jansson Mouse coronal brain slices, soaking in oxygenated artificial cerebral spinal fluid and dipicrylamine, in preparation for fluorescence imaging.

42-Degree Sun Halo Manasi Simhan A sun halo created by the reflection of sunlight at a 42-degree angle off of hexagonal ice crystals in the atmosphere

Rain Droplets on a Dead Leaf Andrew Akindele As rain falls in Madison, Wisconsin, a dead leaf collects droplets on its surface, showcasing the hydrophobic properties of its waxy cuticle. While this leaf may no longer be living, it still plays a role in the water cycle, as the rain it collects will eventually evaporate back into the atmosphere or seep into the soil. This process highlights the interconnectedness of the natural world, as even the smallest components can have a significant impact on the environment.

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The relationship between the severity of mental

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There is a large population of incarcerated individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for mental illness or who have had a history of mental illness. Deepening our understanding of this complex relationship between mental illness and incarceration is critical for providing the necessary treatment. There is a large amount of literature that has focused on mental illness severity and conduct reports in prison, using different methods and conceptualizations of mental illness. This study focuses on the relationship between the severity of mental illness symptomatology and conduct reports received. We used regression methods to determine the relationships between eight different symptomatologies and conduct reports. Our results revealed that one symptomatology, hypomania, had a positive relationship with conduct reports. The other seven symptomatologies did not have positive relationships with conduct reports which is directly at odds with previous literature. These results are critical to help better understand the relationship between mental illness severity and conduct reports because of our studies' use of symptomatology scales instead of diagnostic reports.

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The relationship between the severity of mental illness symptomatology and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals

By Caleb Smith, Edited by Manasi Simhan and Lucas Chini ABSTRACT There is a large population of incarcerated individuals who meet the diagnostic criteria for mental illness or who have had a history of mental illness. Deepening our understanding of this complex relationship between mental illness and incarceration is critical for providing the necessary treatment.

There is a large amount of literature that has focused on mental illness severity and conduct reports in prison, using different methods and conceptualizations of mental illness.

This study focuses on the relationship between the severity of mental illness symptomatology and conduct reports received.

We used regression methods to determine the relationships between eight different symptomatologies and conduct reports. Our results revealed that one symptomatology, hypomania, had a positive relationship with conduct reports.

The other seven symptomatologies did not have positive relationships with conduct reports which is directly at odds with previous literature. These results are critical to help better understand the relationship between mental illness severity and conduct reports because of our studies' use of symptomatology scales instead of diagnostic reports.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION Background Many incarcerated individuals meet the diagnostic criteria for a severe mental illness or have had a history of mental illness (MI). The U.S. prison system is ill-equipped to properly treat them, posing serious safety and health risks for both prison staff and incarcerated individuals suffering 36

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Individual mental illnesses are also much more prevalent in incarcerated individuals. The estimated prevalence of psychosis, major depression, mania, borderline personality disorder (BPD), and anxiety disorders are all considerably higher than prevalence rates in non-incarcerated individuals (Fazel & Danesh, 2002; Prins, 2014; Fazel & Seewald, 2012; U.S. Department of Justice, 2006; Jansen et al., 2011). The mental illness with the highest prevalence in incarcerated individuals is antisocial personality disorder (APD), which is estimated to be present in 47% of incarcerated individuals, while prevalence in non-incarcerated populations is estimated to be 3-5% (Fazel & Danesh, 2002; Goldstein et al, 2017). The high prevalence of these MIs in incarcerated individuals compared to non-incarcerated individuals is a serious problem when considering the health and safety ramifications it poses to individuals with MI housed in a prison system not properly equipped to care for them.

Prior Research

Current Study

The high prevalence of MI in incarcerated individuals can become a safety risk in carceral settings. Previous studies have found that incarcerated individuals with MI are more likely to commit infractions that result in a conduct report (behavioral infraction resulting in a written report) (Ruddell et al., 2006; Lovell & Jemelka, 1996; Kupers, 1999; Toch, 1993; Toch & Adams, 1986; Walters & Crawford, 2014). One study found that the presence of MI was the most important factor contributing to violence in prison, even more so than gang membership or length of incarceration (Ruddell et al., 2006). This relationship is not reserved for violent behavior, as multiple studies have found that incarcerated individuals with mental illness have increased risks of engaging in both violent and nonviolent behavior (Kupers, 1999; Toch, 1992; Toch & Adams, 1986; Walters, 2011).

In this study, we are investigating the relationship between the severity of certain symptomatologies of MI and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals. The symptomatologies we are investigating are depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder (BPD), hypomania, schizotypy and psychopathy. The symptomatologies depression, BPD, and psychopathy were chosen because they have all been studied in relation to conduct reports before. The study of anxiety, hypomania, and schizotypy in relation to conduct reports is novel and these will be exploratory analyses. These symptomatologies also cover a wide array of symptoms and all are highly prevalent in the prison population. We will be using total conduct reports received by an incarcerated individual within a multiyear timeframe to operationalize the conduct report variable in this relationship.

Research has also investigated specific diagnoses in incarcerated individuals and their relationship with conduct reports.

Felson et al. (2012) found that major depression and psychosis have strong positive effects on the amount of conduct reports received as well as a wide variety of infractions, additionally mania also had a relationship with the number of infractions received (Felson et al., 2012). Symptoms of thought insertion or control ideation, two symptoms of psychosis, increased the chances of violent or disruptive behavior in incarcerated individuals (Friedmann et al., 2008). Additionally, it has been found that both APD and BPD were associated with infractions in incarcerated individuals (Matejowski, 2017; Swanson et al., 2006). It is well established that within incarcerated individuals those who have been diagnosed with psychopathy commit more infractions than those without (Edens et al., 1999; Rogers et al., 1997; Edens & Vincent, 2008). Not all research has been conclusive on the relationship between MI and conduct reports however, as some studies have found null or mixed results for the relationship between MI and conduct reports in prison (Cao, Zhou, & Van Dine, 1997; McCorkle, 1995; Baskin, Sommers, & Steadman, 1991). Despite this, the majority of available evidence supports a well-established relationship between MI and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals.

Based on the previous research done to understand the relationship between MI symptomatology, conduct reports, and the severity of symptomatology, we can formulate multiple aims for this study:

Most studies that have investigated the relationship between MI and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals have focused on comparing a group of individuals with MI to a group without MI. However, mental illness varies across a severity continuum, there is no clear “cutoff” for impairment.

It is still unclear what role severity of symptomatology plays in the relationship between MI and conduct reports. One study that found a positive relationship between MI and conduct reports, used the amount of healthcare an individual received to operationalize severity of mental health (Toch & Adams, 1986). This operationalization does not properly capture the complexity of symptom severity. This lack of consensus on the relationship between severity of MI symptomatology and conduct reports leaves a gap in the literature and this study attempts to further our understanding of the complex relationship between MI and conduct reports.

Aim 1: Replicate the relationship discovered in previous research between depression, BPD, and psychopathy symptomatology and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals. We hypothesize that these relationships will be positive, meaning higher severity of symptoms would be related to more conduct reports.

Aim 2: Conduct exploratory analyses of the relationship between the severity of symptomatologies associated with anxiety, schizotypy, and hypomania and conduct reports in incarcerated individuals. We hypothesize that these symptomatologies will also have a positive relationship with conduct reports.

METHODS Sample The participants included in this study are 491 men and women who were incarcerated in a Wisconsin state correctional facility. Different numbers of participants are included in each individual analysis depending on if they have completed that specific symptomatology questionnaire.

Inclusion criteria for these individuals require that they are between the ages of 18 and 55, have no history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, possess at least a 4th grade reading level and an IQ of at least 70.

Conduct Reports The conduct report data for this study was provided by the Department of Corrections and contains the conduct reports received for 54 categories of offenses ranging from assault to possession of contraband. In this study, we will create a total conduct reports variable by adding the JUST VOL VIII // ISSUE II // SPRING 2023 37

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I would like to personally thank Talia Cohen who helped supervise my thesis and very patiently taught me how to use R throughout this past year. I would also like to thank Professor Michael Koenigs and the rest of the Koenigs lab for all the academic support and opportunities they provided me over the past three years that I have been a part of the lab.

from mental illness. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 45% of incarcerated individuals in federal prisons had a recent history of mental health issues, and 56% of incarcerated individuals in state prisons (James & Glaze, 2006). The prevalence of MI in currently incarcerated individuals is much higher than the prevalence found in individuals who were never incarcerated. Compared to the approximately 50% of incarcerated individuals who had a recent history of mental health issues, about 21% of nonincarcerated individuals in the U.S. suffered from MI (NIMH, 2022). The prevalence of severe mental illness (SMI), MI resulting in severe functional impairment, is also higher in incarcerated individuals; about 10% to 25% of incarcerated individuals suffer from an SMI, compared to an average rate of about 5% in the general U.S. population (Collier, 2014).

The high prevalence of MI in incarcerated individuals shows that those with MI are incarcerated at higher rates and that incarceration may exacerbate preexisting MIs.

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three dimensions, positive schizotypy (MSS-B-Pos), negative schizotypy (MSS-B-Neg), and disorganized schizotypy (MSS-BDis), and an analysis will be done for each dimension as well.

Measures Analysis Strategy The measures used to operationalize our symptomatology variables are all self-report measures and were administered to incarcerated individuals in a correctional facility in the Midwest.

Depression (BDI): The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck et al., 1961) is a 21-item self-report scale that measures characteristic attitudes and symptomatologies of depression.

Participants rate the severity of their experience with depression symptoms from 0 to 3, with 3 indicating more severity.

Anxiety (STAI): The State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger et al., 1983) is a 40-item scale with 20 items measuring trait anxiety and another 20 items measuring state anxiety, participants score each question from 1 to 4, and the STAI can be used to separate anxiety symptomatologies from depression symptomatologies. For this study, we will only be using the 20 items measuring trait anxiety (STAI-Trait), as we are not interested in the current mood of incarcerated individuals but the severity of their anxiety symptomatology.

Borderline Personality Disorder (PAI-BOR): The Personality Assessment Inventory-Borderline Scale (PAIBOR; Morey, 1991) is a self-report measure that contains 24 items and evaluates 4 subscales that pertain to core features of BPD. The four subscales are identity problems, affective instability, self-harm (impulsivity), and negative relationships.

Psychopathy (PPI-S): The Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Short (PPI; Tonnaer et al., 2012) is a 56 item selfreport inventory based off the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI), which is a 187 item 154 item self-report inventory that measures the personality features associated with psychopathy without asking the self-reporter to endorse particular criminal behaviors. The PPI-S has shown high internal consistency with the longer PPI and had high correlations with the scores of the PPI (Ruchensky et al., 2017).

To determine the relationship between the severity of each symptomatology and conduct reports received by incarcerated individuals, we will use multiple linear regression and control for gender, education, and age of the incarcerated individuals. Conduct reports have been found to be increasingly concentrated in younger incarcerated individuals, and the number of conduct reports received decreases with an increase in age (Cunningham et al., 2005; Toch & Adams 1986; Toch & Adams, 2002; Wooldredge et al., 2001). Infractions have also been found to occur more frequently in incarcerated individuals who have lower levels of education than in those who have a high school diploma or higher (Friedmann et al., 2008; Toch et al., 1986).

Additionally, males have been found to have higher rates of conduct reports than females in populations of incarcerated individuals (Craddock, 1996; Celinska & Sung, 2014). Because the literature on the relationship between race and conduct reports has been mixed and a previous study in our lab did not find a relationship between race and contact reports, we will not be controlling for race in this study (Flanagan, 1983; Goetting & Howsen, 1983; Ramirez, 1983; Petersilia & Honig, 1980; Berg & DeLisi, 2006; Poole & Regoli 1980, Poole & Regoli 1983).

We checked all symptomatology measures for skewed distributions. If a symptomatology measure had a skewed distribution, we first applied a log transformation to approximate a normal distribution. If the symptomatology measure contained scores that were ‘0’, we used a square root transformation to approximate a normal distribution instead. We then centered all symptomatology variables, as well as age and gender for each analysis, before conducting our multiple linear regression analysis.

RESULTS Sample Characteristics

Schizotypy (MSS-B): The Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale-Brief (MSS-B; Kemp et al., 2020) is a 38 item self-report scale derived from the 77 item Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale (MSS) that measures positive, negative, and disorganized schizotypy and scores constructs similarly to the MSS. The MSS-B has demonstrated high-correlations with the MSS on separate testing showing it examines similar constructs (Kemp et al., 2020). The scoring of the MSS-B is split into 38

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Demographic information by symptomatology measure can be found in Table 1. Descriptive statistics for each measure and conduct reports received can be found in Table 2.

Relationship Between Symptomatology and Conduct Reports For this study, we hypothesized that severity of depression, BPD, and psychopathy would have a positive relationship conduct reports. We also had an exploratory hypothesis on the relationship between conduct reports and anxiety, hypomania, and schizotypy, and we hypothesized that conduct reports would have a positive relationship with these symptomatologies as well. We will present the findings for

each analysis below. All analyses were controlled for gender, age, and education.

the relationship between anxiety, hypomania, and schizotypy and total conduct reports received by incarcerated individuals.

Depression (Figure 1): We regressed conduct reports on depression (BDI). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of the severity of depression on conduct reports was not statistically significant (F(5,465) = 3.016, p = 0.863).

We conducted multiple linear regression analyses to better understand the relationship between symptomatology severity and total conduct reports in an incarcerated sample. These analyses were unique from previous studies that examined the relationship between mental health and conduct reports. Previous studies have not used a total conduct reports variable while also using symptomatology data on a continuum for severity. Combining all of our conduct report data from individuals into a variable that contained a total conduct report amount for each subject, instead of only using violent conduct reports for example, allowed us to see if as symptomatology scores increased did the number of total conduct reports change.

Psychopathy (Figure 2): We regressed conduct reports on psychopathy (PPI-S). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of the severity of psychopathy on conduct reports was not statistically significant (F(5, 480) = 3.031 , p =0.810).

Anxiety (Figure 3): We regressed conduct reports on trait anxiety (STAI-Trait). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of the severity of trait anxiety on conduct reports was not statistically significant (F(5, 469) = 3.013, p = 0.811).

Borderline Personality Disorder (Figure 4): We regressed conduct reports on borderline personality disorder (PAIBOR). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of the severity of borderline personality disorder on conduct reports was not statistically significant (F(5, 407) = 3.502, p = 0.281).

Hypomania (Figure 5): We regressed conduct reports on hypomania (HPS). As hypothesized, the effect of the severity of hypomania on conduct reports was statistically significant (F(5, 61) = 5.496, p <0.001), indicating higher scores on the HPS were associated with higher number of conduct reports.

Positive Schizotypy (Figure 6): We regressed conduct reports on positive schizotypy (MSSB-Pos). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of the severity of positive schizotypy on conduct reports was not statistically significant, though it was trending in a positive direction, (F(5, 59) = 2.586, p = 0.056).

Negative Schizotypy (Figure 7): We regressed conduct reports on negative schizotypy (MSSB-Neg). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of the severity of negative schizotypy on conduct reports was not statistically significant (F(5, 59) = 1.751, p = 0.687).

Disorganized Schizotypy (Figure 8): We regressed conduct reports on disordered schizotypy (MSSB-Dis). Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect of disorganized schizotypy on conduct reports was not statistically significant (F(5, 59) = 1.729, p = 0.795).

Age: Nearly all of the analyses found a significant age effect in the relationship with conduct reports consistent with prior research.

DISCUSSION In this study, we sought to understand the following: (1) if the positive relationship between depression, BPD, and psychopathy and the total number of conduct reports received can be replicated, and (2) an exploratory analysis of

Our results suggest that the severity of hypomania has a positive relationship with the total number of conduct reports that incarcerated individuals receive. This result supported our exploratory hypothesis. This relationship has not been studied before, although mania has previously been found to have a relationship with total conduct reports received (Felson et al., 2012). The symptoms of hypomania, which can increase irritation and agitation, reduce social inhibitions, and increase risk taking behaviors, can explain why this symptomatology was related to an increase in conduct reports received (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2022).

Our results did not find that the severity of the other symptomatologies besides hypomania had a positive relationship with total conduct reports received. The analyses found no significant relationship between the severity of depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, psychopathy, or schizotypy (positive, negative, and disorganized) and the total number of conduct reports incarcerated individuals received. We had initially hypothesized that all of the symptomatologies we were analyzing (depression, anxiety, psychopathy, borderline personality disorder, hypomania, and schizotypy) would have positive relationships with total conduct reports received. We reached this hypothesis because prior literature had found positive relationships between mental illness severity and conduct reports, as well as positive relationships between individual symptomatologies and conduct reports (Felson et al., 2012; Matejowski, 2017; Swanson et al., 2006; Edens et al., 1999; Rogers et al., 1997; Edens & Vincent, 2008; Toch & Adams, 1986).

The unique set up of our study enabled us to find more of an effect between severity of symptomatologies and conduct reports. Not using a cutoff for severity allows us to account for more variation in the severity of a symptomatology.

Therefore, it is notable that our study could not find a positive relationship between severity of symptomatology and conduct reports in 7 of the 8 analyses conducted while accounting for more variation.

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REPORTS

Hypomania (HPS): The Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS; Eckblad & Chapman, 1986) is a 48-item true-false scale that measures trait-like manic and hypomanic characteristics. The HPS measures subscales of hypomanic symptomatologies including upbeat mood, exaggerated self-perception, hypersociability, and impulsivity.

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J One of our analyses revealed that the severity of positive schizotypy had a trending, but insignificant relationship, with total conduct reports received. Comparatively, negative and disorganized schizotypy did not have a similar relationship with conduct reports. This could be because of the positive symptoms that categorize positive schizotypy.

Positive symptoms, such as delusions, hallucinations, or confused thoughts, can cause a person's behavior to become unpredictable or disorganized (NHS, 2022). It has been well established that psychosis and psychotic symptoms have a positive relationship with conduct reports and this finding may be because of the positive symptomatology of positive schizotypy (Friedmann et al., 2008; Felson et al., 2012).

CONCLUSION

Understanding the relationships between mental illness and conduct reports can help improve the treatment of incarcerated individuals with mental illness. Although our analyses revealed only one significant result between hypomanic symptoms and conduct reports, combined with prior research, our results make it clear that hypomania and mania have a complex relationship with conduct reports. Even just hypomanic traits, and not full-blown mania, may increase an incarcerated individual's chances of receiving a conduct report. While previous studies have found relationships between mania and conduct reports, more work needs to be done on the effect of hypomania and mania on conduct reports received.

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Our study did not control for length of incarceration, a potentially confounding variable. Furthermore, our conduct report variable was constrained to conduct reports received during a 2-year time span. Because of this, we did not think controlling for length of incarceration would be necessary, since it would not be conduct report data from an incarcerated individual’s entire time in prison. However, length of incarceration has been found to have a positive relationship with conduct reports, with incarcerated individuals who are incarcerated for longer receiving conduct reports at a higher rate (Berg & DeLisi, 2006). Not being able to control for this variable is a potential limitation for this study.

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Celinska, K., & Sung, H.-E. (2014). Gender differences in the determinants of prison rule violations. The Prison Journal, 94(2), 220–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885514524882.

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REPORTS

Limitations

We have provided evidence that severity of hypomania symptomatology has a positive relationship with total conduct reports received in incarcerated individuals. Our study also provides evidence that the severity of anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, schizotypy (positive, negative, and disorganized), and psychosis do not have positive relationships with total conduct reports received in incarcerated individuals. This second result goes against findings from previous studies, but the setup of our study allows us to consider severity, making it notable that we found no effect.

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J Prins S. J. (2014). Prevalence of mental illnesses in US State prisons: a systematic review. Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.), 65(7), 862–872. https://doi.org/10.1176/ appi.ps.201300166.

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Predictors of adolescent psychopathy: Oppositional and conduct-disordered symptoms. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 25(3), 261–271.

Ruchensky, J. R., Edens, J. F., Donnellan, M. B., & Witt, E. A. (2017). Examining the reliability and validity of an abbreviated Psychopathic personality inventory—revised (PPI-R) in four samples. Psychological Assessment, 29(2), 238–244. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000335.

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Stepp, S.D., Scott, L.N., Morse, J.Q., Nolf, K.A., Hallquist, M.N. & Pilkonis, P.A. (2014). Emotion dysregulation as a maintenance factor of borderline personality disorder features. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 55(3). 657-666.

Swanson, J. W., Swartz, M. S., Van Dorn, R. A., Elbogen, E. B., Wagner, H. R., Rosenheck, R. A., Stroup, T. S., McEvoy, J. P., & Lieberman, J. A. (2006). A national study of violent behavior in persons with schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63(5), 490. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.63.5.490.

Wooldredge, J., Griffin, T., & Pratt, T. (2001). Considering hierarchical models for research on inmate behavior: Predicting misconduct with Multilevel Data. Justice Quarterly, 18(1), 203–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418820100094871.

J FIGURES AND TABLES

Demographic Characteristics by Symptomatology Variable

% (N) or M (SD)

BDI

PAI-BOR

(N=471) Age

STAI

(N=413)

PPI-S

(N=473)

33.8 (7.7) 33.9 (7.6)

MSSB

(N=486)

33.8 (7.7)

HPS

(N=65)

33.7 (7.7)

(N=67)

34.5 (8.3) 34.7 (8.4)

Gender Male

74.5% (351) 86.0% (355) 74.4% (352) 74.9% (364) 58.5% (38) 59.7% (40)

Female

25.5% (120) 14.0% (58)

25.6% (121) 25.1% (122) 41.5% (27) 40.3% (27)

Black

35.7% (168) 37.8% (156)

35.3% (167) 36.0% (175) 35.4% (23) 37.3% (25)

White

52.4% (247) 50.4% (208)

53.1% (251) 57.7% (256) 60.0% (39) 58.2% (39)

Race

Asian

0.9% (4)

0.9% (4)

0.8% (4)

0.8% (4)

1.5% (1) 1.5% (1)

Native Am. 4.9% (23)

4.4% (18)

4.9% (23)

4.7% (23)

3.1% (2) 3.0% (2)

Unknown

6.5% (27)

5.9% (28)

5.8% (28)

0% (0)

6.2% (29)

0% (0)

Education < H.S. 34.8% (164) 36.6% (151) 34.7% (164) 36.0% (175) 17.0% (11) 17.9% (12) H.S.

47.3% (223) 48.6% (201) 47.8% (226) 46.5% (226) 53.8% (35) 53.7% (36)

> H.S.

17.8% (84)

14.8% (61) 17.6% (83) 17.3% (84) 29.2% (19) 28.4% (19)

<H.S. = Less than High School Degree, >H.S. = More than High School Degree BDI = Beck Depression Inventory, PAI-BOR = Personality Assessment Inventory-Borderline Scale, STAI = State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, PPI-S = Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Short, HPS = Hypomanic Personality Score, MSS-B = Multidimensional Schizotypy Scale-Brief Table 1: Demographic statistics for BDI, PAI-BOR, STAI, PPI-S, MSSB, and HPS populations.

Toch, Hans, & Adams, Kenneth (1986). Pathology and disruptiveness among prison inmates. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 23(1), 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0022427886023001002.

Tonnaer, F., Cima, M., Sijtsma, K., Uzieblo, K., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2012). Screening for psychopathy: Validation of the psychopathic personality inventory-short form with reference scores. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 35(2), 153–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862012-9333-2.

Walters, G. D., & Crawford, G. (2014). Major mental illness and violence history as predictors of institutional misconduct and recidivism: Main and interaction effects. Law and Human Behavior, 38(3), 238–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000058.

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Mean Symptomatology Scores and Conduct Report Totals Variable HPS

BDI

M (SD) PAI-BOR

STAI

PPI-S

MSSB-P MSSB-N MSSB-D

Score 14.6 (9.8) 31.5 (12.2) 41.7 (11.5) 132.2 (14.5) 1.4 (1.9) 3.1 (2.9) 2.0 (3.0) 15.0 (7.6) Total CR 2.1 (4.3) 2.1 (4.4) 2.1 (4.3) 2.1 (4.3) 3.4 (6.4) 3.4 (6.4) 3.4 (6.4) 3.5 (6.3) Score = Score on the relevant Symptomatology Assessment, Total CR = Total Number of Conduct Reports Table 2: The mean symptomatology score and amount of conduct reports received with standard deviations for BDI, PAI-BOR, STAI, PPI-S, MSSB, and HPS populations.

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REPORTS

REPORTS

Toch, H. (1993). Violent men an inquiry into the psychology of violence. Amer. Psychological Assoc.

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FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: The relationship between severity of BDI and Conduct Reports received; a non­significant positive relationship (p=0.714).

Figure 3: The relationship between severity of ST Al Trait and Conduct Reports received; a nonsignificant positive relationship (p=0.825).

Figure 2: The relationship between severity of PPI and Conduct Reports received; a non­ significant positive relationship (p=0.809).

Figure 4: The relationship between severity of PAI-BOR and Conduct Reports received; a nonsignificant positive relationship (p=0.349).

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FIGURES AND TABLES

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FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 5: The relationship between severity of HPS and Conduct Reports received; a significant positive relationship (p= <0.001).

Figure 7: The relationship between severity MSS-Neg and Conduct Reports received; a nonsignificant positive relationship (p=0.687).

Figure 6: The relationship between severity of MSSB-Pos and Conduct Reports received; a nonsignificant positive relationship (p=0.056).

Figure 8: The relationship between severity of MSSB-Dis and Conduct Reports received; a nonsignificant positive relationship (p=0.795).

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FIGURES AND TABLES

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Manduca sexta exposed to over 2.5 ppm of Cyromazine via their food may experience dose-dependent growth inhibition

By Winston Thompson, Edited by Dima Hamdan ABSTRACT The molecule Cyromazine is a well-established pesticide for Manduca sexta, a common agricultural pest. This chemical prevents proper growth and development of the organism by competitively inhibiting ecdysone, a steroid hormone necessary for cuticle development and molting.

Unfortunately, Cyromazine can cause eye, skin, and respiratory irritation in humans. Despite this, little research has been done to understand the minimum amount of Cyromazine required to effectively inhibit Manduca sexta growth to reduce its negative effects on human health. Our research team wanted to test the lower limits of Cyromazine usage on Manduca sexta and hypothesized that 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine would lead to dose-dependent decreases in Manduca growth (as measured by length, width, weight, and delayed pupation ) as compared to the Manduca with only water added to their food. Our results show that 5ppm of Cyromazine led to some statistically significant growth inhibition, while 2.5ppm had no noticeable effects on our growth indicators. This could indicate that researchers and agriculturalists are using more Cyromazine than necessary.

The insect Manduca sexta, more commonly known as the Tobacco Horn Worm or just Manduca is a common pest found on many agricultural crops such as tobacco leaves, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes (Marsden, n.d.). Its affinity for agricultural products can lead to the destruction of entire crop fields, which in turn can have negative economic impacts. There has been significant research on pesticides, such as Compazine, that inhibit Manduca’s growth (Byron & Gillett-Kaufman, 2017). This chemical inhibits growth and development in many insects, making it an effective way to stop the spread of Manduca (Reynolds & Blakey, 1989).

Unfortunately, Cyromazine can also have negative effects on human health such as skin, eye, and respiratory irritation (PubChem, n.d.). The Environmental Protection Agency has a safety dashboard for Cryomazine with over 50 studies done 48

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While Cyromazine is used to treat many insects, this experiment focuses on Manduca due to their distinct life stages. Manduca start off as eggs that hatch into larvae.

There are 5 different parts to the larvae stage called instars.

Each instar lasts 3-5 days and is determined by various developmental changes to the larvae, such as size increase, cuticle development, and other growth indicators. After about 3-4 weeks, the larvae build cocoons and become pupas which turn into adult moths a week later, as seen in Figure 1 (Byron & Gillett-Kaufman, 2017). There are several different hormones involved in the development of larvae into pupas such as Ecdysone, which plays a substantial role in regulating cuticle development in Manduca larvae (Riddiford et al., 2003). Manduca molt their cuticles before each instar as they outgrow them (Byron & Gillett-Kaufman, 2017).

To understand the overall growth trends in our results, it is important to explain the growth patterns of Manduca.

Manduca larvae grow rapidly for the first 2-3 weeks until the week before pupation when they eat less and prepare for pupation (Harris & Kowalkowsk, 2022). This is evident in the time V.S. growth graphs , as there is a steep increase in growth variables over the first 10 days followed by a 10-day plateau of growth variables and in some cases even a decrease growth variable (figure 8).

Several studies have been done on Cyromazine exploring its effects on insect growth and the mechanisms by which it works (figure 2). Insects treated with it commonly exhibit

abnormal growth, increased turgor pressure, fluid-filled vesicles, and cuticular lesions (Root & Dauterman, 1996).

While Cyromazine’s exact growth inhibition mechanism is not completely understood, it is known to directly affect the bonding of the hormone Ecdysone, a steroid hormone that binds to intracellular receptors. Ecdysone is a molting and metamorphosis hormone; it triggers the detachment of the old cuticle layer and the secretion of a new cuticle layer (Khalid et al., 2022). Research has shown that Cyromazine does not break down cuticle protein nor stop Ecdysone f rom being produced (Friedel, Hales, and Birch, 1988). Thus, for the purposes of this paper, it is assumed that Cyromazine acts as a competitive inhibitor to Ecdysone, preventing proper cuticle development (Figure 3 ).

Since Cyromazine can negatively impact human health, this experiment focuses on finding the minimum amount of Cyromazine that can be used on Manduca and still inhibit growth. To answer this question, 3 groups of 10 Manduca were exposed to 5ppm, 2.5ppm, and 0ppm of Cyromazine via addition to their food. The concentration of Cyromazine used in our experiment was based on the lower limits used in our pilot study. It was hypothesized that increasing levels of Cyromazine would lead to dose-dependent decreases in Manduca growth as measured by length, width, weight, and delayed pupation as compared to the Manduca in the control given only water in their food. Figure 4 depicts the process by which we expect increased Cyromazine levels to impact the Manduca.

METHODS

Manduca for research purposes. Manduca food ingredients are more thoroughly described in Figure 5. Manduca were fed 4 grams of food and had their enclosures cleaned on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week. Data collection occurred simultaneously to ensure minimum disruption to the Manduca, pictured in Figure 6.

In all experiments, the Cryomazine was dissolved in water and added to the Manduca food. The Cyromazine was dissolved in a stock concentration of 13g/L. To achieve the 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine, 1.923*10^-4 mL was pipetted on per gram of food for the 2.5ppm treatment and 3.845*10^4 mL was pipetted onto the food for the 5ppm treatment.

In¬¬ total there were 3 groups with 10 Manduca in each. One group of Manduca received 2.5ppm of Cryomazine on their food, another group received 10ppm of Cryomazine on their food, and the control group was just given water on their food with no Cryomazine dissolved in it.

Manduca development was measured based on changes in weight, length, width, and days until pupation. Weight and length were measured 3 times a week using a digital scale , and ImageJ respectively. ImageJ is an online tool used to measure the length of objects in pictures using a ratio of pixels to a known length in the image (in this case a ruler). Width measurements were taken at the midpoint of the Manduca length from one side of the body to the other. Manduca length was measured from the two most distant points of the Manduca (head to tail). The segmented line tool in ImageJ was used to measure length to account for any curves in the Manduca’s body. Finally, we compared the length of time it takes for each treatment group to develop their pupa.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

A pilot study was performed before starting this experiment which followed the same procedure as described below.

The pilot study included 3 groups of 3 Manduca. One group acted as a control, another group was treated with 10ppm of Cyromazine, and another group with 5ppm. With such small group sizes, no statistically significant evidence was collected; however, by looking at the average change in length and weight and other secondary observations, it seemed as though the Cyromazine had successfully inhibited development over the one-week period the pilot study was performed. This caused our research team to further decrease one of our Cyromazine concentrations. Figure 7 displays the final setup for our experiment.

Statistical calculations were performed in R using an ANOVA test to check for statistically significant results across all treatments. After that, a Tukey-HSD test was performed between each individual result to test for statistical significance between each treatment group. The Tukey-HSD was most useful for comparing results between our treatment groups and the control, as those results revealed whether our results were statistically different than our control. Statistical significances were defined to be any p-values below 0.05.

The Manduca enclosure is set up according to Biocore lab manual guidelines. Manduca were maintained at 28 degrees Celsius and received light for 16 hours a day (Harris and Kowalkowski 2022), and were all the same age. Given their natural habitat in crop fields across North and South America, as well as Asia, we allowed the specimens to acclimate to lab conditions for a week in our experimental laboratory setup before administering Cyromazine treatment during their third instar. This approach ensured that the specimens were better adapted to the experimental conditions to prevent excessive stress (Byron & Gillett-Kaufman, 2017). All Manduca food was provided by the Russel laboratory that breeds

To understand whether 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine had a significant impact on Manduca growth, the most relevant comparisons are between the individual treatments and the control. These comparisons are important because they show whether there was any statistically significant difference between adding water to the Manduca’s food (control) and adding low doses of Cyromazine. First, looking at the Tukey-HSD comparison between the control and the 2.5ppm Cryomazine for all variables (Figure 8), we found there were no statistically significant differences in our dependent variables. In other words, the Tukey-HSD revealed a p-value well above.05 in all analyses between

RESULTS

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INTRODUCTION

on dogs, rats, rabbits, and mice utilizing various amounts of Cyromazine; they found similar results across dosages and organisms. It demonstrated body weight increases in model organisms treated, hematological effects, and changes in nasal discharge (Toxicology, EPA’s National Center for Computational, 2019). While many studies have looked at the biological effects of Cyromazine on various model organisms, little research has been done to understand the minimum amount of required Cyromazine to achieve the desired growth inhibition in insects.

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J 2.5ppm and 0ppm of Cyromazine. For this reason, we choose to focus on the comparison between the control and 5ppm of Cyromazine groups. We also included additional graphs with comparisons between just these two groups to help better visualize the results (Figure 8). While the only statistically significant comparison between the control and the 5ppm Cyromazine was the width variable (Figure 8E/F), other variables showed a biologically relevant trend. In this paper we define a trend as anything with a p-value between.05 and.1, recognizing that this data is not significant, and instead requires further studies. For instance, length and weight data comparing 5ppm and 0ppm Cyromazine have Tukey-HSD P-values below.1 with values of.094 and.0527 respectively (Figure 8).

Furthermore, we collected additional data on time to pupation and the status of the Manduca at the end of each experiment.

It was discovered that the ANOVA value for pupation had an overall p-value of.0646, which was insignificant and thus required no further Tukey-HSD analysis (Graph 1). While no statistical analysis was done on the status of the Manduca after the experiment, the 5ppm treatment had more deaths than the control and 2.5ppm ; however, the statistical significance of this is unknown (Graph 2).

Finally, to understand the significance of the dose dependency of Cyromazine, it is important to look at the comparison of the effects of 5ppm and 2.5ppm of treatment. In the weight data there was trend with a Tukey-HSD p-value of 0.0531 between the two treatments, and in the width data there was statistical significance with the Tukey-HSD p-value reaching nearly 0.

While high amounts of Cryomazine are known to have inhibitory developmental effects on Manduca, the lowest concentration of Cyromazine required to still achieve noticeable changes in Manduca growth and development is not known. Furthermore, it is unknown how chronic low-dose Cyromazine treatment effect Manduca viability. Cyromazine is known to cause inhibition of cuticle development by interfering with the molting hormone Ecdysone (Khalid et al., 2022). In this paper, while not tested directly, we assume that Cyromazine competitively inhibits Ecdysone which leads to the cuticle and molting interference. Inhibition of cuticle development leads to decreased growth and development in the Manduca (Root & Dauterman, 1996). Our results clearly indicated that Manduca treated with 2.5ppm of Cyromazine is not enough to significantly inhibit their growth, nor is it enough to cause any general growth change trends.

Further literature review revealed that the introduction of Cyromazine at earlier instar stages of the larvae of other insects could result in increased cuticle malformation due to inhibition of molting over a longer period (Van de Wouw et al., 2006). Thus, if we were to have exposed the Manduca to Cyromazine earlier on in their development perhaps 2.5ppm of Cyromazine would have statistically inhibited growth.

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While much thought was put into the setup of our experiment, there are several important shortcomings that should be acknowledged. The Manduca were kept in a lab environment instead of their typical outdoor habitat. Additionally, due to time and resource constraints, only 10 Manduca were used in each of our three groups. Finally, being able to measure the stiffness of the Manduca cuticle would have been another telling variable to measure. With all that said, our research team came up with a well-thought-out plan to take care of our Manduca after thorough background research. The Manduca were kept in idealized lab conditions, fed identical diets, and experienced identical living conditions, thus our research team is confident in the results of our experiment.

Better understanding the dose of Cryomazine required to inhibit Manduca growth is important from a human health perspective. Since Cryomazine can cause skin and eye irritation, being able to reduce the amount used could be beneficial to humans and other organisms living in agricultural areas, as they would be less exposed to this chemical. Furthermore, limiting the amount of Cyromazine used could help prevent other unknown biomagnification effects. Recent reporting has shown that some communities are pushing back on these harmful pesticides, as they believe farmers are using dangerous dosages (Reporter, 2021). Further research is necessary to understand how harmful these levels of Cyromazine are to human health. Additionally, while our research provides evidence that 5ppm of Cyromazine is effective at inhibiting Manduca growth in a lab setting, more studies are required to understand its effects in agricultural environments.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research project was completed by the research team: Darshigaa Gurumoorthy, Jeremy Kolasa, Jessica Fox, and Winston Thompson. Our team collaborated on the experimental setup, taking care of our model organism, data collection, graph and figure creation, and data analysis. The project was done with funding and support from Biocore, a part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our research team was supported by our Teaching Assistant, Jax Phillips, Professor/Course Manager Dr. Anna Kowalkowski, Biocore Lab Manager Seth McGee, and Undergraduate Teaching

Assistant Lucy Minner. Finally, Manduca sexta and the Manduca sexta food were provided by Russell Lab’s at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

REFERENCES

Root, D. S., & Dauterman, W. C. (1996). Cyromazine toxicity in different laboratory strains of the tobacco hornworm (Lepidoptera:Sphingidae). Journal of Economic Entomology, 89(5), 1074–1079. https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/89.5.1074

Byron, M., & Gillett-Kaufman, J. (2017, October). Tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta (Linnaeus); tomato hornworm, Manduca quinquemaculata (Haworth). Featured Creatures. https://entnemdept.uf l.edu /creatures/f ield /tobacco_ hornworm.htm

Toxicology, EPA’s National Center for Computational. (2019).

Animal Toxicity Studies: Effects and Endpoints (Toxicity Reference Database - ToxRefDB files) (p. 0 Bytes) [Data set]. The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure. https:// doi.org/10.23645/EPACOMPTOX.6062545.V3

Friedel, T., Hales, D. F., & Birch, D. (1988). Cyromazineinduced effects on the larval cuticle of the sheep blowfly, Lucilia cuprina: Ultrastructural evidence for a possible mode of action. Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology, 31(1), 99– 107. https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-3575(88)90034-X

Van de Wouw, A. P., Batterham, P., & Daborn, P. J. (2006).

The insect growth regulator insecticide cyromazine causes earlier emergence in Drosophila melanogaster. Archives of Insect Biochemistry and Physiology, 63(3), 101–109. https:// doi.org/10.1002/arch.20146

Harris, M., & Kowalkowsk, A. (2022). Biocore 486 Principles of Physiology Lab Manual. University of Wisconsin-Madison Biology Core Curriculum.

Khalid, M. Z., Sun, Z., Zhang, J., Zhang, S., & Zhong, G. (2022).

Cyromazine affects the ovarian germ cells of Drosophila via the ecdysone signaling pathway. Frontiers in Physiology, 13, 992306. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.992306 Manduca Anatomy & Life Cycle | Molecular Ecology. (n.d.).

Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://molecularecology. russell.wisc.edu/manduca-anatomy-life-cycle/ Marsden, C. (n.d.). Hornworms. Wisconsin Horticulture.

Retrieved September 24, 2022, from https://hort.extension. wisc.edu/articles/hornworms/ PubChem. (n.d.). Cyromazine. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/47866 Reporter, S. (2021, November 28). Unpacking the public petition to withdraw harmful pesticides from the Kenyan market. Farmers Review Africa. https://farmersreviewafrica. com/unpacking-the-public-petition-to-withdraw-harmfulpesticides-from-the-kenyan-market/ Reynolds, S. E., & Blakey, J. K. (1989). Cyromazine causes decreased cuticle extensibility in larvae of the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta. Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology, 35(3), 251–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/00483575(89)90086-2

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DISCUSSION

Contrastingly, the 5ppm of Cyromazine treatment did reveal a statistically significant change in the width of Manduca. Additionally, Manduca treated with 5ppm of Cyromazine showed non-significant trends of decreased weight, length, and increased time to pupation. Our research team believes these results are strong enough to imply that a lower range of Cryomazine– around 5ppm– is successful at inhibiting Manduca’s growth. This would imply that 5ppm of Cyromazine is still high enough to competitively inhibit Ecdysone receptors which facilitate the growth and development of Manduca potentially suggesting that the current levels of Cyromazine used on agricultural fields are too high.

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Riddiford, L. M., Hiruma, K., Zhou, X., & Nelson, C. A. (2003). Insights into the molecular basis of the hormonal control of molting and metamorphosis from Manduca sexta and Drosophila melanogaster. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 33(12), 1327–1338. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ibmb.2003.06.001

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Figure 1: This cycle portrays the life stages of Manduca sexta. The adults lay eggs which hatch and move through the 5 instars over the span of 3-4 weeks until they become pupas which emerge as fully formed adult moths (Manduca Anatomy & Life Cycle | Molecular Ecology, n.d.)

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Figure 2: Molecular depiction of the Cyromazine.

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Figure 3: Ecdysone is a steroid hormone that can enter the cell and cause a molting and new cuticle development – the cellular response.

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Figure 4: At the point marked independent variable (IV), the Manduca are fed either normal food with the water vehicle (A1) or normal food with the addition of Cyromazine (B1). After the Manduca is fed the normal food with just water, Ecdysone can be seen binding with Ecdysone receptors (EcR), allowing for cuticle development (A2), which allows molting to occur (A3), and the Manduca to move through its normal life stages into an adult moth (A4). On the other hand, when the Manduca are fed the treatment with Cyromazine, it is assumed that the chemical inhibits Ecdysone’s function (B2), preventing cuticle development and normal molting (B3). This in turn leads to decreased body weight and length, decreased CO2 production, and abnormal pupa formation (B4).

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Figure 6: This image shows what the Manduca enclosures look like.

Figure 5: This image displays the ingredients for making the Manduca food provided by Russell Labs.were calculated at the quadrat level (15m2).

Infrastructure was calculated in QGIS using satellite imagery as m2 of buildings and impervious surfaces per 27,225m2. Visitors per minute was calculated using a 4G LTE Cellular trail camera.

Figure 7: This diagram shows a simplified depiction of the methods for the experiment with the dosage of Cyromazine on the left, the enclosures in the middle, and the dependent variables being measured on the right.

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Figure 8: Graph 1A Shows % change in width of the Manduca since days from start of treatment comparing our 3 treatments groups of 0ppm, 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine. We got an Anova of p =.0384 and comparing all the individual groups we got Tukey-HSD of 5.0ppm-2.5ppm: P=0.0531, Control2.5ppm: P=984, Control-5.0ppm: P=0.094. The error bars represent +/- 1 SEM. Graph 1C Shows % change in width of the Manduca since days from start of treatment comparing our 3 treatments groups of 0ppm, 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine. We got an Anova of P=2.2e-16 and comparing all the individual groups we got Tukey-HSD of 5.0ppm-2.5ppm: P= ~0.000 Control-2.5ppm: P=0.8402 Control-5.0ppm: P= ~0.000. The error bars represent +/- 1 SEM. Graph 3. Shows % change in weight of the Manduca since days from start of treatment comparing our 3 treatments groups of 0ppm, 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine. We got an Anova of P=0.063 and comparing all the individual groups we got Tukey-HSD of 5.0ppm-2.5ppm: P=0.325, Control-2.5ppm: P=0.597, Control-5.0ppm: P=0.0527 (+). The error bars represent +/- 1 SEM. Graphs 1B, 1D and 1F show 5ppm and control groups from Graph 3 separated for clarity.

Graph 2. This graph provides some additional data on the status of each Manduca at the end of our experiment. The graph shows the control, 2.5ppm and 5ppm groups and whether they died, pupated, or survived but failed to pupate.

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Graph 1. Shows time until pupation comparing our 3 treatments groups of 0ppm, 2.5ppm and 5ppm of Cyromazine. We got an Anova of P=0.0646. The error bars represent +/- 1 SEM.

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Image 1. This image shows the change in growth over time of the Manduca, starting small at around instar 2 and 3, then in the middle at instar 5 and then pupated at the end of the experiment. One important note is that the size does not always increase and decreases immediately prior to pupation which can be seen in our growth variable graphs.

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The Journal of Undergraduate Science and Technology (JUST) is an interdisciplinary journal for the publication and dissemination of undergraduate research conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Encompassing all areas of research in science and technology, JUST aims to provide an open-access platform for undergraduates to share their research with the university and the Madison community at large.