Daily Archives: August 6, 2020

There are many articles lately talking about career opportunities one can have without a four-year college degree. Many fields in STEM rely not just on graduates of doctoral, masters and baccalaureate programs but teams of workers trained in technical schools with two-year degrees.

While this can all be true, the numbers offered can often be misleading. Telling an 18-year-old how much she might earn in one year or one hour based on what degree a worker holds gives a very incomplete picture of lifetime income. Over a working life of 40 to 50 years, what you might earn five years from now is only one part of story.

New studies and datasets show that a traditional education that leads to a bachelors degree over ones working life can still yield higher lifetime income. Particularly when analytical and scientific skills are paired with communication and creative skills, the returns to education last years and years after graduation.

Consider the following evidence:

Georgetown Universitys Center for Education and the Workforce recently calculated return on investment for over 4,500 colleges and universities across the nation. They conclude that two-year programs have the highest returns in the short term, 10 years after enrollment, though returns from bachelors degrees eventually overtake those of most two-year credentials.

Research by David Deming and associates at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University demonstrates that returns to a four-year degree in applied sciences have the highest value in the first few years after graduation, but over half of its earning differential disappears after 15 years. He wrote recently in the New York Times, Help-wanted ads for jobs like software developer and engineer were more likely to ask for skills that didnt exist a decade earlier. And the jobs of 10 years ago often required skills that have since become obsolete. Skill turnover was much higher in STEM fields than in other occupations. These same observations apply to the technical fields in our two-year schools.

Last April, Burning Glass Technology looked at over 22 million online job openings at various levels of employment and found as one went up the corporate ladder the skills that hiring officers valued most were not digital skills but human ones like critical thinking, creativity, communication, analytical skills, collaboration, and relationship building. Of senior management positions, 62% required at least one of these human skills, compared with 39% for business skills like project management or 16% for data analytical skills.

Here at St. Cloud State many students who study in a traditional liberal arts discipline end up in well-paying careers that have longevity. We gathered a file of 7,239 alumni of the School of Public Affairs and the College of Liberal Arts and their predecessors between 2004-18 and collected their job titles from surveys and social media. This separates most of the STEM departments as well as our traditional professional schools. The sample contains 913 (13%) educators at the secondary or college level. Another 171 are analysts in some area of part of the economy. Nine are already presidents or vice presidents (remember that the vast majority of these graduates are still under 40) while another 490 have manager in their job title and 137 report as administrators or their assistants. Remarkably, 194 have the word technical or technology in their titles and 25 are engineers. These numbers are just a sample of the great careers launched in the liberal arts.

Please do not take from this discussion that we are championing solely a liberal arts degree. The best-paying jobs and quickest returns on investment really are in STEM when paired with something in the humanities. And the returns last longer too. But the point made is that beyond providing the skills that those in STEM need to succeed in their fields, more traditional liberal education is a launch pad for many in the STEM fields. We have found this works better when students have STEM and liberal education integrated intentionally by a universitys curriculum.

Not every graduating high school senior should start a four-year university right away. And associate degrees and alternative certificates can get someone quickly into a middle-class income, which for some is necessary to meet immediate needs. But popular views about the benefits of university have always swung from oversold to underbought throughout the 20th Century, and we believe the 21st Century is no different. Looking for a happy medium by talking to employers, counselors, financial advisors and parents is the best advice we can give.

King Banaian is an economist and dean of the School of Public Affairs at St. Cloud State University. Michelle Schmitz is executive director of the Career Center at St. Cloud State.

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Banaian, Schmitz: Are 4-year degrees oversold? Not at all, even in the liberal arts - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

The origins of the long-living tuatara have been revealed.

Sequencing of the tuatara genome has shown the reptile, which is only found in New Zealand, shows they have been on their own branch of the evolutionary tree for some 250 million years.

That has excited the team of University of Otago scientists, led by geneticist and lead author, Professor Neil Gemmell, who says urther discoveries lie ahead for tuatara, which can live for 100 years.

The longevity of the tuatara has long been of interest to researchers.

Neil says an examination of some of the genes that protect the body from the ravages of age found tuatara have more of these genes than any other vertebrate species thus far examined.

Could this be one of the keys to their long lifespan?

Tuatara also dont appear to get many diseases, so looking into what genetic factors might protect them is another point of focus for our study, as too we have also explored genetic aspects that underpin the vision, smell and temperature regulation of tuatara.

With the genome now sequenced, the international science community now had a blueprint to examine the many unique features of tuatara biology, which would aid understanding of the evolution of the amniotes, a group that includes birds, reptiles and mammals, Neil says.

It is not far-fetched to suggest that through our new understanding of the tuatara genome, there may be novel insights that emerge that will benefit our understanding of our own biology and health.

The team's finding have been published in the prestigious international scientific journal Nature.

Neil says the sequencing of the tuatara genome was 67 per cent bigger than the human genome, and revealed a genomic architecture unlike anything previously reported.

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Secrets to tuatara's long life revealed - The Bay's News First - SunLive

While humans are all too familiar with the ravages of getting older, many trees seem to handle ageing a lot better.

Certain trees can live for thousands of years and appear to be immortal.

But not everyone is convinced these old timers can escape death due to old age.

Regardless, could humans with their relatively puny lifespans have something to learn from these ancient trees? Some scientists think so.

Establishing how old the oldest living tree is depends a bit on which plants are in the running for the title.

You could argue that Australia's Wollemi pine, which has been cloning itself for more than 60 million years, deserves the title. But that's kind of cheating because this involves multiple stems growing from the one rootstock.

This is why the oldest tree in the world is generally regarded as a single-stemmed bristlecone pine called Pinus longaeva.

This species can live to around 5,000 years and does well where most other plants cannot even grow in rocky, dry, high-altitude areas in the United States.

What's amazing is that scientists have not so far been able to show that getting older directly affects the health of such millennial trees, plant biologist Sergi Munne-Bosch from the University of Barcelona says.

It's because of this, some have suggested these trees are essentially immortal.

But in a recent article, Professor Munne-Bosch argues that it's likely even ancient trees could die from old age assuming something else doesn't kill them first.

He emphasises that there's a difference between ageing, which is about how long an organism has lived, and age-related deterioration, which is referred to as senescence.

"Just because we can't track senescence in long-lived trees doesn't mean they are immortal."

Professor Munne-Bosch points to recent research on centuries-old Ginkgo biloba trees that found no evidence of senescence.

The study was the first to look for evidence of age-related changes in cells of the cambium, a layer just beneath the bark that contains cells that can produce new tissue throughout the plant's life.

It confirmed the long-lived trees, which in this case were up to 667 years old, were just as healthy as younger ones says Professor Munne-Bosch.

"They grow very well, they produce seeds, they produce flowers, so they are healthy."

He points out that even though a 667-year-old tree seems old when compared to a human, it is relatively young for a ginkgo.

"This species can live for more than two millennia."

Professor Munne-Bosch argues that the ginkgo researchers' data shows that older trees had thinner vascular tissue and that this hints at possible age-related deterioration that would be more obvious in even older trees.

Yet despite this deterioration, he says these trees are more likely to die from insects, disease, fire, drought or loggers, than old age.

"For a species that can live for millennia, aging is not really a problem in evolutionary terms because they are much more likely to die of something else."

The problem is there are so few of these long-lived trees that it's hard to get the data to know for certain whether they can die of old age.

"We cannot prove it either way," Professor Munne-Bosch says, adding that age-related deterioration is likely to happen in these trees at such a different pace compared to in humans.

"For a Ginkgo biloba, six centuries is not as physiologically relevant as it is to us."

Brenda Casper, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania says it's not clear that the changes found in the older Ginkgo biloba trees were necessarily detrimental to the tree.

But she agrees the low number of millennial trees makes it hard to study their longevity.

"It's difficult to find statistical evidence for senescence."

Even if there were enough trees, she says some of the age-related deterioration may be hard to detect, or we may not know what to look for.

"It's not just internal physiology per se but it's the interaction of the tree with its environment."

For example, she says it would be hard to measure whether age had made a tree more susceptible to disease, or less structurally sound so it's more likely to fall over in a windstorm.

Even if the jury is out on whether millennial trees are immortal, some experts say their longevity could be inspirational for medical research.

Professor Munne-Bosch says such trees can draw on a bag of tricks to help them "postpone death".

First is having a simple body plan with modular-like branches and roots. This means they can compartmentalise any damaged or dead roots or branches and work around them.

"They can lose part of leaves or roots and continue to be healthy..

And he says although 95 per cent of the trunk of a tree might be dead, the living cambium just beneath the bark is "one of the secrets of longevity" in trees.

Millennial trees have used the combination of these features to their best advantage and Professor Munne-Bosch says these tricks are providing a model for scientists researching the negative effects of ageing.

"Imagine if we could regenerate our lungs or circulatory system every year, we would be much healthier than we are."

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Professor of biomedical engineering at the University of New South Wales, Melissa Knothe Tate is one researcher who is inspired by millennial trees.

"They have units and if one unit breaks you can replace it with another unit."

Only a small percentage of an individual long-lived tree may be alive, but she argues it's all about survival of the cells that are able to regenerate the tree.

"Those that survive best, survive longest."

"Millennial trees are the best survivors because they've seen a lot."

While a tree and a human might seem worlds apart, Professor Knothe Tate sees the similarities, pointing to the role of stem cells in maintaining bones in humans.

She says cells add new layers to bone, like tree rings, to increase girth and when bone is injured, stem cells quickly help repair it.

"We're constantly renewing our bones and trees do something similar."

Professor Knothe Tate says she is using stem cells and new biomaterials that emulate tree cambium, to create replacement tissue in the lab, and has several patents for the work.

"I think about plants a lot when I'm up in the mountains and amongst the trees."

Professor Knothe Tate, who draws on her training in philosophy, biology and mechanical engineering for her work, sees other similarities that can inspire research.

For example, she likens the human brain to the network of roots and branches that helps a tree remain resilient if one part is damaged, another part can sometimes take up the slack.

"As parts of the brain are injured or die, it's remarkable what functionality we can retain,

"If we knew which of the brain's networks were essential for certain functions, we may be able to grow them."

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Professor Knothe Tate also set up a science education project for girls that explores the parallels between the biomechanics of trees and bones. It was inspired by her observation of how huge trees sway like a blade of grass in the wind.

She has high hopes for the potential of regenerative medicine research that draws on knowledge from other disciplines like plant biology to extend human life.

"We can then start to think about making ourselves immortal."

Plant biologist Professor Munne-Bosch is also enthusiastic.

"The future of medicine is very similar to what has evolved in millennial trees."

But while regenerating tissues will help humans live much longer, he doubts we will ever be immortal.

"It won't be forever, because we are more likely to die of something else, whether it be an accident or a pandemic."

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Are very long-lived trees immortal and what can they teach humans? - ABC News

Newswise A lizard-like creature whose ancestors once roamed the Earth with dinosaurs and today is known to live for longer than 100 years may hold clues to a host of questions about the past and the future.

In a study published Aug. 5 in Nature, an interdisciplinary, international team of researchers, in partnership with Mori tribe Ngtiwai, sequenced, assembled and analyzed the complete genome of the Sphenodon punctatus, or the tuatara, a rare reptile whose ancestors once roamed the earth with dinosaurs. It hasnt changed much in the 150 million to 250 million years since then.

We found that the tuatara genome has accumulated far fewer DNA substitutions over time than other reptiles, and the molecular clock for tuataras ticked at a much slower speed than squamates, although faster than turtles and crocodiles, which are the real molecular slowpokes, said co-author Marc Tollis, an assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University. This means in terms of the rate of molecular evolution, tuataras are kind of the Toyota Corollanothing special but very reliable and persistently ticking away over hundreds of millions of years.

Tuatara have been out on their own for a staggering amount of time, with prior estimates ranging from 150250 million years, and with no close relatives the position of tuatara on tree of life has long been contentious. Some argue tuatara are more closely related to birds, crocodiles and turtles, while others say they stem from a common ancestor shared with lizards and snakes. This new research places tuatara firmly in the branch shared with lizards and snakes, but they appear to have split off and been on their own for about 250 million yearsa massive length of time considering primates originated about 65 million years ago, and hominids, from which humans descend, originated approximately six million years ago.

Proving the phylogenetic position of tuatara in a robust way is exciting, but we see the biggest discovery in this research as uncovering the genetic code and beginning to explore aspects of the biology that makes this species so unique, while also developing new information that will help us better conserve this taonga or special treasure, said lead author Neil Gemmell, a professor at the University of Otago.

One area of particular interest is to understand how tuataras, which can live to be more than 100 years old, achieve such longevity. Examining some of the genes implicated in protecting the body from the ravages of age found that tuatara have more of these genes than any other vertebrate species thus far examined, including humans. This could offer clues into how to increase humans resistance to the ailments that kill humans.

But the genome, and the tuatara itself, has so many other unique features all on its own. For one, scientists have found tuatara fossils dating back 150 million years, and they look exactly the same as the animals today. The fossil story dates the tuatara lineage to the Triassic Period, when dinosaurs were just starting to roam the Earth.

The tuatara genome is really a time machine that allows us to understand what the genetic conditions were for animals that were vying for world supremacy hundreds of millions of years ago, he said. A genome sequence from an animal this ancient and divergent could give us a better idea about what the ancestral amniote genome might have looked like.

While modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, they are less suitable for this type of research because avian genomes have lost a significant amount of DNA since diverging from their dinosaur ancestors.

But the tuataras, which used to be spread throughout the world, have other unusual features. Particularly relevant to this research is the size of its genome; the genome of this little lizard has 5 billion bases of DNA, making it 67 percent larger than a human genome. Additionally, tuataras have temperature-based sex determination, which means the ratio of males to females in a clutch of eggs depends on the temperatures at which they are incubated. They also have a pronounced third eyea light sensory organ that sticks through the top of their skulls. Mammals skulls have completely covered the third eye, though they still contain the pineal gland underneath, which helps maintain circadian rhythms.

The tuatara also is unique in that it is sacred to the Mori people. This research, for all the scientific knowledge that came from it, was groundbreaking for its collaboration with the Indigenous New Zealanders. The purpose was to ensure the research aligned with and respected the importance of the tuatara in their culture, which has never been done before in genomic research.

Tuatara are a taonga, and its pleasing to see the results of this study have now been published, Ngtiwai Trust Board resource management unit manager Alyx Pivac said. Our hope is that this is yet another piece of information that will help us understand tuatara and aid in the conservation of this special species. We want to extend a big mihi to all of those who have been involved in this important piece of work.

With the genome now sequenced, the international science community has a blueprint through which to examine the many unique features of tuatara biology, which will aid humanunderstanding of the evolution of the amniotes, a group that includes birds, reptiles and mammals.

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Arizona biologist part of international team to sequence genome of rare reptilian living fossil - Newswise