Utility of Teledermatology in the Diagnosis of Loose Anagen Syndrome.

Introduction: Teledermatology has been shown to improve efficiency and reduce barriers to care for patients. However, teledermatology is limited by the inability to perform diagnostic tests. With proper planning, teletrichoscopy can be utilized with teledermatology to evaluate patients with hair loss. Case Presentation: Diagnosis of this patient was made using images taken during the televisit, including scalp images taken by the patient using a handheld microscope and images of the hair roots taken by her referring doctor. Conclusion: Hair tests that can be conducted during teledermatology visits include a self-performed pull test, measurement of the thickness of the ponytail, measurement of the distance from the hairline to the glabella, and evaluation of the shedding scale. These tests, in addition to mobile applications for imaging or low-cost handheld microscopes, can be utilized to virtually evaluate patients with hair loss.

The racist origins, racialist connotations, and purity assumptions of the concept of "admixture" in human evolutionary genetics.

The concept of admixture is currently widely being used, both in population genetics research and in DNA ancestry testing discourse. It is assumed to describe the process of gene flow between 2 previously distinct populations that eventually become admixed because of this flow. The concept per se does not require pure or unadmixed populations; the changes are relative and what matters is the level of admixture before and after the event under consideration. However, in this paper, we argue that the concept of admixture as currently used assumes the existence of pure or unadmixed categories. These do not need to have actually existed but to be able to exist in principle. We argue that this is a problematic notion that accrues from the racialist origins of the term admixture, which, as a result, is based on assumptions about purity. We suggest that scientists should be very cautious in their use of this term, especially in science education and communication. We also suggest that the term admixture should be better replaced by terms denoting similarity rather than difference.

The third-way third wave and the enduring appeal of bioexceptionalism.

We may induce from a longue durée examination of Anglo-American History of Biology that the impulse to reject reduc - tionism persists and will continue to percolate cyclically. This impulse I deem "bioexceptionalism": an intuition, stance, attitude, or activating metaphor that the study of living beings requires explanations in addition to exclusively bottom-up causal explanations and the research programs constructed upon that bottom-up philosophical foundation by non-organismal biologists, biochemists, and biophysicists - the explanations, in other words, that Wadding - ton (1977) humorously termed the "Conventional Wisdom of the Dominant Group, or cowdung." Bioexceptionalism might indicate an ontological assertion, like vitalism. Yet most often in the last century, it has been defined by a variety of methodological or even sociological positions. On three occasions in the interval from the late nineteenth century to the present, a small but significant group of practicing biologists and allies in other research disciplines in the UK and US adopted a species of bioexceptionalism, rejecting the dominant explanatory philosophy of reductionistic mechanism. Yet they also rejected the vitalist alternative. We can refer to their subset of bioexceptionalism as a "Third-Way" approach, though participants at the time called it by a variety of names, including "organicism." Today's appeals to a Third-Way are but the latest eruption of this older dissensus and retain at least heuristic value apart from any explanatory success.

"What is Dead May Not Die": Locating Marginalized Concepts Among Ordinary Biologists.

Historians and biologists identify the debate between mechanists and vitalists over the nature of life itself with the arguments of Driesch, Loeb, and other prominent voices. But what if the conversation was broader and the consequences deeper for the field? Following the suspicions of Joseph Needham in the 1930s and Francis Crick in the 1960s, we deployed tools of the digital humanities to an old problem in the history of biology. We analyzed over 31,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers and learned that bioexceptionalism participated in a robust discursive landscape throughout subfields of the life sciences, occupied even by otherwise unknown biologists.

Response of Lichen Planopilaris to Pioglitazone Hydrochloride

Lichen planopilaris (LPP) is a cicatricial alopecia that often causes permanent hair loss. Pioglitazone, a peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-gamma (PPAR- γ) agonist, has demonstrated immunomodulatory properties that may offer an effective treatment modality. This retrospective analysis describes 23 patients with LPP treated with adjunctive pioglitazone. Most (18/25) demonstrated significant reduction in patient-reported symptoms and clinical signs of inflammation. No adverse effects were reported. J Drugs Dermatol. 2019;18(12):1276-1279.

The excluded philosophy of evo-devo? Revisiting C.H. Waddington's failed attempt to embed Alfred North Whitehead's "organicism" in evolutionary biology.

Though a prominent British developmental biologist in his day, a close friend of Theodosius Dobzhansky, and a frequent correspondent with Ernst Mayr, C.H. Waddington did not enter the ranks of "architect" of the Modern Synthesis. By the end of his career, in fact, he recognized that other biologists reacted to his work "as though they feel obscurely uneasy"; and that the best that some philosophers of biology could say of his work was that he was not "wholly orthodox" (Waddington 1975c, 11). In this essay, I take Waddington's self-assessments at face value and explore three potential reasons why his work did not have more of a direct impact: Waddington's explicit support for the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead; a lack of institutional support; and Waddington's occasional marginalization from the core network of American neo-Darwinians. Though excluded from the Modern Synthesis in the mid-20th century, it now appears that Waddington's work does undergird the emerging evo-devo synthesis. Whether this indicates concomitant, if implicit, support for Whiteheadian philosophy is an interesting question not explored here.

William Bateson from Balanoglossus to Materials for the study of variation: the transatlantic roots of discontinuity and the (un)naturalness of selection.

William Bateson (1861-1926) has long occupied a controversial role in the history of biology at the turn of the twentieth century. For the most part, Bateson has been situated as the British translator of Mendel or as the outspoken antagonist of W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson's biometrics program. Less has been made of Bateson's transition from embryologist to advocate for discontinuous variation, and the precise role of British and American influences in that transition, in the years leading up to the publication of his massive Materials for the Study of Variation (1894). In this paper, I first attempt to trace Bateson's development in his early career before turning to search for the development of the moniker "anti-Darwinist" that has been attached to Bateson in well-known histories of the neo-Darwinian Synthesis.