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What a way to oversell the discovery. The reality is: * Different brain regions have different functions: ancient knowledge. * Different regions conta
by itvision 10d ago
What a way to oversell the discovery.
The reality is:
* Different brain regions have different functions: ancient knowledge.
* Different regions contain distinct cell types and molecular programs: also well established.
* Anterior and posterior brain structures may trace back to fundamentally separate progenitor lineages that were independently specified very early in evolution and development: that's the interesting new result.
The headline should have been: "Human forebrain and hindbrain arise from distinct embryonic progenitor lineages" - not that we have "two organs" in the brain.
- t-writescode 10d agoI mean, I learned a bunch of neat new stuff, so I’m excited!
- sandeepkd 10d agoThough I agree with the detailed differentiation, still for the headline purpose a generic one that resonates with people easily isn't a bad choice
- deleted 10d ago[deleted]
- jibal 10d agoLying is always a bad choice. The paper in Nature says "Hence, we postulate the brain is a composite organ emanating from two lineage-restricted progenitors; these dual progenitors may be evolutionarily conserved across 550 million years from hemichordates to mammals."
- KajMagnus 10d agoIf they had written instead: "Human brain was two separate organs" Then, both attention grabbig and true?
- b112 10d agoProbably not, because by the time hominids were a thing, it was one. (if I'm reading parent poster correctly)
- bryanrasmussen 10d agoHuman Brain Evolved From Two Separate Organs.
- nextaccountic 10d agoAre there other composite organs?
- hulitu 10d agoYes, but this is left for the next years because they give only one Nobel preis per year.
- thaumasiotes 10d agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophore
- mcherm 10d agoThat isn't even remotely related to the parent question. Organisms =/= Organs.
- thaumasiotes 9d agoDo you think siphonophores don't have organs?
- grvbck 10d agoDoes the adrenal gland count?
- TeMPOraL 10d agoI think "Human brain evolved from two separate organs" would've been more accurate and sufficiently simple/short for a headline, but I guess it won't fly either due to political reasons.
- HelloImSteven 9d agoBut the evolution isn’t necessarily the important part, it’s the two parts having separate development processes in modern day humans that is notable.
- TeMPOraL 9d agoYou mean like, "assembled from two separate components"?
- sdenton4 9d agoMore like, they are two separate components, with some interwiring. Components, which we might also call organs. Two of them.
- TeMPOraL 8d agoMy objection is with the word "organs", which for everyone except maybe biologists and doctors (depending on the specialist definition of "organ") connote the developed piece of machinery inside a living thing. Not the transient state while it's still gestating.
- sdenton4 7d agoOrgans are all interconnected as well. The hind brain and fore brain take on different tasks, as we've known for ages. I don't really have a problem calling them different organs.
- locknitpicker 9d ago> I think "Human brain evolved from two separate organs" would've been more accurate and sufficiently simple/short for a headline, but I guess it won't fly either due to political reasons. I don't agree. For that you need to distort the definition of what an organ is to comply the requirement for two separate organs with distinct origin, genetic, and biochemical traits, and different function and responsibilities to somehow remain classified as the same organ.
- lucideer 10d agoGiven the parallel example cited in the article of jellyfish having two spatially separate organs, & the subsequent speculation that our own ancestors could also have had spacially separate anterior & posterior masses, the title doesn't really seem unreasonable in its hyperbole. While it might not be perfectly accurate it's hardly misleading.
- stymaar 10d agoI found the title confusing, at the very least because it can be argued that the two brain hemispheres are two organs already, as they operate independently when severed from each other.
- finghin 9d agoTotally valid point just as both kidneys are separate organs
- foo-bar-bat 9d agoThis is not a good analogy, because both kidneys do the same thing and we don't need both of them to live. Whereas the left and right brain hemispheres do different things that enable our species to be what it now is; which is more similar to what the article calls hind and fore/front brains, which again do different things that we wouldn't be us without. We would still be human if we had only one kidney the way we have only one bladder or one pancreas. Kidneys are more like say lungs, gonads, breasts, or nostrils in that we have +1 extra; but the benefit created by multiplicity is ~doubling or capacity and resilience to local disease and random injury-- not a profound functionality. (Like is created by the second eye or second leg.) Of these, the second breast is radically more useful than the second kidney, and is probably a special case as it changes how we live so evolved.
- evilduck 9d agoThe right and left hemispheres do different things… unless you had a hemispherectomy as an infant and then one half is able to mostly perform the duties of both.
- lovich 10d agoAdditionally the only images in the linked article are also face pics of the researchers instead of anything on the information about said research. I want to trust science and dislike anti vaxxers but it’s difficult to argue against them when researchers act like the caricature they are mocked as. Self aggrandizing articles with misleading headlines is giving me 2 triggers for not trusting the content.
- dare944 9d ago> I want to trust science and dislike anti vaxxers but it’s difficult to argue against them when researchers act like the caricature they are mocked as. Wait, you think the article was written by the researchers? You know, it's also difficult to trust someone's criticisms when they misassign responsibility. Just like anti-vaxxers do.
- Mistletoe 10d agoIt’s the PR arm of a university, they always do this.
- bell-cot 10d agoPretty much, and they've less shame than a British tabloid in how far they go. When submitting, one can try to replace the title with something honest. HN does not favor that, mostly due to submitters having their own biases. The best tactic is finding a higher quality article on the subject, to submit instead. That's uncertain, takes time, and may run into paywall issues.
- oivey 10d agoPossibly making matters worse, this is from Stanford where they had the university president caught engaging in fraud on Alzheimer’s research.
- bell-cot 9d agoPossibly, but I wouldn't assume any connection. In sociological terms, modern universities are mid-last-millennium noble houses*, locked in an endless competition for power, wealth, prestige, and influence. Adding a few stanzas of hyperbole when bragging about one of their knights vanquishing some infidel of ignorance? That's simply how things are done. *Yes, there's never really a king or duke or whatever. But consider the history of the word regent.
- popalchemist 10d agoIf the two parts arise independently, then the headline may be a bit clunky but it is technically correct.
- nkmnz 10d agoI'm pretty sure the third thesis has been taught in my university physiology classes 20 years ago, too.
- akoboldfrying 10d agoOh, I think we could crank that headline even harder while still keeping one toe on the truth. For example: "Elon Musk's Brain is Two Separate Organs"
- delichon 10d agoBoth of Taylor Swift's Brains are Over 500 Million Years Old
- dotancohen 10d agoPeople with maternal Jewish DNA have two brains.
- hilariously 9d agoYou'll be SHOCKED at what we found out about Taylor Swift's TWO BRAINS - that's flying much closer to the sun.
- TeMPOraL 10d ago"and both are asbestos-free"
- xg15 10d ago> "Human forebrain and hindbrain arise from distinct embryonic progenitor lineages" I'd have never clicked that headline nor understood why this finding is important. If you think the original headline is not "truthful" enough, at least do something like "Researchers found the reason why hindbrain cells cannot be grown in a lab and found a way to overcome it" > not that we have "two organs" in the brain. Depends what the definition of "organ" actually is. What speaks for different organs here is that the cells both have a different pathway from stem cells and have different evolutionary histories. That is different from other brain regions that may have separate functions but still evolved together.
- savolai 10d agoTo me, this suddenly turned the discussion into a fascinating exploration and demonstration of different standards of truthfulness in marketing.
- xg15 10d agoI still don't see how the original headline was not truthful.
- UnknownBanana 10d agoIt's as truthful and useful as "75.6% of humans who ingest oxygen end up dead".
- AltruisticGapHN 10d agoMain issue I have with the title is it immediately reminded me about McGilchrist's "The Divided Brain" and I thought they meant the two halves - but that is not the case. So the question still remains... https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain
- jimnotgym 10d agoI don't have a problem with the 'two organs making one' framing. The fact that they are 'symbiotic' now doesn't change that. In fact it helps me understand two key facts. One can't grow out of the other, and they work differently. Great
- ChrisMarshallNY 10d agoThe Portuguese Man o’ War[0] is a symbiotic organism. If you want to get technical, I guess we are, as well. We’re really kind of fascinating meatbags. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war
- smt88 9d agoWe are absolutely symbiotic from our cells upward. A large percentage of your body mass is bacteria, including the symbiotic bacteria you feed in your gut with the food you think you’re eating only for yourself.
- nephihaha 9d agoRecent research has suggested that viruses supply us with a second immune system. These viruses keep down the numbers of bacteria and other microbes in our gut etc We are so used to reading negative things about viruses that it makes a change to find out how they can benefit us too.
- jijijijij 9d agoThis is meaningless semantic drama over a meaningful discovery. From a biological and medical perspective, the collective term "organ" is pretty useless, if there is a distinct progenitor lineage. For the sake of a simplified explanation for the public, describing this discovery as finding "two organs" is absolutely fair. A similar example: The melanocytes in the skin originate from the neural crest, not the epidermis. As a significant consequence, melanocytes share cell attributes with neurons. One of these attributes is the ability to infiltrate other tissues. Because of that, malignant transformation of melanocytes has vastly different consequences, compared to epithelial cells. If you asked your doctor why squamous cell cancer and melanoma have such different prognoses, describing your skin as effectively "two organs" would be illustrative and easy to understand, without getting into developmental biology.
- ocimbote 9d agoI think you're right. And I would even assume that, should the article be from Fox News (just an example), every other commenter that excuses the title would have yelled at journalism slop, clickbait and whatnot. But that's stanford.edu, so we must tread lightly.
- tarun_anand 9d agoAgree on the ancient knowledge and some other interesting aspects I discovered when working with a Doctor who modeled 3D Brain apertures with me. Comments somewhere down below has details.
- acd10j 9d agoNo one will want to open your headline.
- blacklion 9d agoBut third item means that there are two organs almost by definition, so original headline maybe slightly sensationalist, but not technically false.
- dboreham 9d agoI've found it useful to think in terms of how such structures might have evolved. The beginning state is always something very simple: the first nerve. It must go from A to B. Perhaps from a food sensing area to a muscle. Sense food, stop moving, something like that. Organisms could evolve multiple copies of that structure: N nerves going from A(n) to B(n). At some point the next invention arises: some logic gate type thing that branches and/or combines nerves. So now sensing food can make movement stop and also digestion begin. Or food response can be attenuated during the day time. And so on. There's no reason why you'd have exactly one of these "nerve processor" nodes. There's also no reason why several different kinds of them and different instances might evolve. They're useful. Then at some point the next discovery is made: by combining several nerve processor nodes in close proximity, with their own inter-node connections, you can perform more complex processing. You've now got a proto-brain. But again there's nothing to say you have exactly one of these things, or that they're exact replicas of each other.
- huurtehoog 9d agoI'm sorry, it just sounds like you're mad at medical researcher for trying to make their research more accessible? What do you mean by oversell? And why do you think the general public would be more apt to understand "distinct embryonic progenitor lineages" than "two organs"? What exactly is the problem here? You think medical researcher are using medial nomenclature wrong? Honestly write a paper about it then.
- xtiansimon 9d ago> “…make their research more accessible.” I wanted a drawing, but was disappointed.
- dreamcompiler 9d agoAgreed. Anybody who looks at a picture of the brain can see the cerebellum (part of the hindbrain) is obviously a different organ. I only clicked the link to find out if there was any new science buried under the hype of the title.
- _alternator_ 9d agoThey also use this result to great hindbrain neurons in the lab for the first time, so it's a strikingly useful discovery. I think it's also fair to say they are different organs based on the developmental physiology. Many other organs come from distinct embryonic cell lines.
- adrian_b 9d agoNonetheless, there is some truth in the headline. When an organ is known to be generated from 2 distinct embryonic preforms, which become merged and integrated at a later stage of development, there is a likelihood that in some distant ancestor the integration into a single organ was much less advanced than now and possibly the two parts remained as relatively separated organs even during adulthood. There are many groups of animals that include both some species that have retained a more primitive condition, where some nervous ganglia have remained separated, while other species have a derived condition, where those nervous ganglia have fused into a single ganglion. In this case it is not known for sure what happened, because the early evolution of the nervous system, from a sensory structure embedded in the skin to a complex internal system that mediates the communication between sensors and motor or secretory organs, is still poorly understood. In any case, this research confirms that the differences between forebrain+midbrain (which includes the cerebrum) and hindbrain (which includes the cerebellum) are very important, because they become established very early during the development of the embryo, at a time when the progenitors of many organs are still interchangeable.
- Pavilion2095 9d agoInstead of starting a meaningless argument about the title, try reading the article. It explains the significance of this discovery.
- kingkawn 9d agowe already knew the last part, they’ve just defined it a little better
- smolder 9d agoYeah, this is a frequent failure of science communication. Misleading clickbait overselling a paper that made real progress in some capacity. I'd be more interested in hearing the truth of the matter and about the researchers passion for their study area. Spinning everything into some high stakes breakthrough that fundamentally changes our understanding of the world just makes me feel like my time was maliciously wasted and that I shouldn't click on news about science.
- itsalwaysgood 9d agoThat's true, and hype to secure future funding is probably related somehow. The article did change an understanding about worlds though, it's just the inner one. I thought the article title was ok, and material was accessible. I didn't have to go look up 15 new words. I don't mind learning new words, just not all the time. I have seen the hype based articles you mentioned in the past.
- JJMcJ 9d agoOften the headline is not created by the author of the article. Also newspaper headlines used to give a quick summary of the story, online articles as you say, clickbait.
- sci4all 9d agocan confirm from experience that the headline and press release were likely 100% from Stanford’s comms department and the authors are likely panicking about the hyperbolic spin
- philipov 9d agoIt's much simpler to change "is" to "was"
- fluidcruft 9d agoWhen I studied neuroanatomy in the early 2000s it was already taught that the evolutionary history of the forebrain (from comparative anatomy) seems to have invaded the hindbrain and seems to control it like a puppet. It's nice to see this sort of confirmation but it doesn't strike me as an earth-shaking discovery except that it might give some insights for differential drug targeting.
- digitaltrees 9d agoThis is one of the problems with modern academics, every paper has to be framed as some revolutionary idea or insight. We should celebrate “boring” research that serves nothing other than curiosity.
- deleted 9d ago[deleted]
- fasterik 9d agoAcademics themselves rarely frame their research in sensational terms. This happens in press releases and media coverage, which they have little control over. You can see this by comparing the title of the press release to the quotes by the actual researchers: "We’ve shown for the first time that the front of the brain arises from a totally different progenitor cell than the back of the brain." "I was surprised at our findings because the word ‘brain’ implies a contiguous organ that likely has a singular origin," Jokhai said. "But even 500 million years ago, there were these separate neural systems, which now almost operate as one, which is very cool." I don't hear much overselling or hype in this, I hear an accurate description of the research and a bit of nerding out over it.
- thenoblesunfish 9d agoIt's the same problem as when a journalist or nonfiction author writes a thoughtful, nuanced piece of work, and some editor slaps a catchy title and subtitle on.
- nntwozz 9d ago
- icefrog98 9d agoA physical connection and collaborative function aren't enough to define a single organ anymore. It must also share a developmental and evolutionary origin.
- Spooky23 9d agoThe audience for a news headline is a layperson who may have no knowledge of or context to infer past factoids about brain regions or evolutionary biology. There’s a balance between being informative to the audience and satisfying for pedants.
- johnnyanmac 9d ago>The headline should have been: "Human forebrain and hindbrain arise from distinct embryonic progenitor lineages" - not that we have "two organs" in the brain. Well we see why you're not a journalist.