No abstract

Social media is a critical avenue for national discourse -raising awareness, advocating for specific campaigns, mocking current events, and truly revealing the pulse of a nation though the lens of its citizens. With the current fascination regarding big data, there is a push towards discovering correlations between one's behavior online and their actions in the physical world. Our research seeks to establish a correlation between social media activity and policy in the context of reproductive health. We analyzed state-based reproductive rights policy along with Twitter activity related to reproductive health issues, and found a significant correlation between online political discourse within states and those states' political and policy-oriented leanings on reproductive health.

Metamorphic development in the bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana, is characterized by widespread changes in peripheral transduction pathways and in the auditory brainstem, in preparation for the transition from a fully aquatic to a semi-terrestrial existence. Little is known about the time course of development of the inner ear in this species. Trichrome and hematoxylin-eosin stains of thinly-sliced head specimens were analyzed to outline changes in otic capsule dimensions and in the sizes of two of the inner ear otolith organs, the saccule and the lagena, over the course of larval development. Head diameter increases over larval development, until narrowing during metamorphic climax stages. Changes in the area of the otic capsule do not parallel these changes in head diameter. The saccule and the lagena are co-extensive in the otic capsule until the later stages of the late larval period (Gosner stages 37), when they separate to form their own cavities. The saccule and lagena both take up similar areas of the otic capsule throughout development, suggesting that they follow a similar developmental program. These results have implications for the understanding the processing of acoustic particle motion during larval life.

Metamorphic development in the bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana, is characterized by widespread changes in peripheral transduction pathways and in the auditory brainstem, in preparation for the transition from a fully aquatic to a semi-terrestrial existence. The time course of development of the inner ear organs has not been as extensively examined. A combination of immunohistochemical, cresyl violet and trichrome staining to were used to delineate the development of the saccule, an otolith organ sensitive to particle motion and to seismic stimuli, across metamorphosis. From early embryonic to metamorphic climax stages and extending to the froglet period, the saccule increases linearly in area, correlated with the growth in body size. Myosin VI label indicates that hair cell density in the central region of the saccule remains relatively stable in tadpoles, but then decreases between froglet and subadult stages. From these results, it is hypothesized that hair cell proliferation occurs more extensively in tadpoles than in froglets.