Off to the races! Root races anyway. I have plates with plants growing in four locations around the Biosciences building; two sets of plates from last Friday and two more started Wednesday. Last Friday’s will cross the finish line in a day or two and Wednesday’s some days after that. But until the results are in, there is little for me to add. The racing theme continued into the weekend: I spent some hours at a “real” race course, I mean the kind for horses. Standing in the viewing pavilion staring out at the vast oval track, I realized that I had never been to an actual horse race. I have zero interest in betting on them; I am not betting on the plant growth spaces either. But galloping horses would probably be striking to watch. No horses were racing that day; the pavilion was given over to the York Antiquarian Book Fair. Laura and I went there to meet up with my mom, who was searching out finds for her collection of early women printers. Apparently, she found some treasures.
Without much lab work this past week, I will break Lab Fab custom and write about an issue. What are traditions without breaking them, occasionally? I submit that no word is more overworked by biologists than regulate (and its associated forms).
What does regulate mean? Ever reliable Merriam-Webster lists three definitions:
1. To govern or direct according to rule
regulate the industries of a country
2. To bring order, method, or uniformity to
regulate one’s habits
3. To fix or adjust the time, amount, degree, or rate of
regulate the pressure of a tire.
The third definition is how biologists use the word. For example, they over-express transcription factor A, observe that protein B also increases, and conclude that A regulates B.
But let’s consider that tire with its dodgy pressure. To ‘fix’ or ‘adjust’ the pressure, I attach a pump and I bring the tire to a selected pressure. This sounds simple but while I change the pressure with the pump, I watch the pressure sensed by the gauge, and I will stop changing the pressure when the gauge reads a certain value. Change, along with sensation and feedback: Regulation is multi-faceted.
Protein B changing concentration when transcription factor A changes concentration is similar to the pressure in a tire changing when the car is filled with sumo wrestlers. These athletes are neither fixing nor adjusting the pressure; instead, the pressure is being influenced.
Presumably, biologists inflate an influence to a regulation for the same reason that leads them to write ‘biosynthesis’ for ‘synthesis’: hype. Biosynthesis sounds more important than common or garden synthesis. But unless you happen to be writing about a compound that is and, at other times, is not synthesized by a chemist, there is no meaning to be gained by adding the bio. Adding bio onto synthesis is inelegant but probably not misleading. In contrast, readers are misled by indiscriminate regulation.
Part of the solution here is to recognize that influence is cool. Art historians long to elucidate which artists influenced Kathe Kollwitz and which artists in turn she influenced. Biology is full of objects that might or might not be connected. Like art, the objects are known or easily discoverable; connections not so much. That transcription factor A is connected to protein B is valuable information. There is no need to hype their connection into a spurious regulation.
