Bits and Pieces

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the US! I hope that you all had a nice holiday. We celebrated with a few other American ex-pats over the weekend and with a little creativity we were able to put together a meal that was recognizable as a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. While hunting for ingredients for these dishes, I kept thinking of the differences between the US and Finland. There have been a number of things that I've noticed about life in Finland and with no place to fit them nicely, I thought that I would throw a few together in one post.

Thanksgiving:
There is no Thanksgiving holiday in Finland. However, in Finland there is no shortage of celebrations as there are a number of holidays and flag days. To celebrate holidays, the Finnish flag is flown and all of the shops are closed. Flag days are only marked by flying the flag. Recent holidays, All Saints Day and Fathers Day, were marked by flying flags and closed shops. Finland also held a municipal election recently and it was only marked with flying flags. Lucky for me, my coworkers realize that coming from the US, I don't know all of these holidays and that likely I am accustomed to stores being open at all times, and they warn me a few days ahead of the holiday so that I can be sure to do my shopping beforehand. On these days, we have seen a lot of people carrying take-out pizza.

Elections:
There was a municipal election here at the end of October. There were no ads on the TVs, but they were rampant on the buses, metros, and trams. There were also special stands set out to advertise all of the candidates. The election was held on a Sunday in order to make voting available to as many people as possible. There is no early voting of which I am aware. Shockingly, voter turnout was at 58%! That was a surprise for me and the Finns: I was amazed that it was so high for a municipal election, and they were disappointed that it was so low. By comparison, the voter turnout for the recent US presidential election is thought to be around 57%.

Daylight:
It is getting darker here. The length of the day is now 6 hours and 46 minutes. So that means that sunrise is at 8:44 and sunset is at 3:30. Most all of the Finns that I talk to are grumbling about how dark it is. While true that it is dark, it has not yet affected my mood. Bright light lamps, called Nordic Lamps, are widely available in the stores and there are people who swear by them. The only tough part for me is thinking that I should be wrapping things up at work for the day when it gets dark, only to realize that it is not even 4:00 yet. Just another month to go of the encroaching darkness before the days start to get longer!

Safety in the dark:
Since it is so dark, there is a law on the books in Finland that pedestrians and bikers must wear some sort of reflective gear. While no one would actually be cited for not having reflective gear, judging by the number of people who follow this law, personal safety is held in high regard. I see adults wearing reflective bands around the cuffs of their coats (they look like the straps used to hold pant legs tight while biking), or dangling snowflake-shaped reflectors from their zippers. Children's coats have reflective features built in. People even go so far as to outfit their dogs with reflective coats and coin-sized flashing lights hanging from their collars.

These are just a few of the differences that I've noticed. I'll post more as I encounter them.

My day job...

Some of you may think that all I do is hang out and live the life in Helsinki. Not so. I am here because of work. Today's post is about my work: what I spend my 9-5 (and more) thinking about.

When you see yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Likely your eyes first, and then maybe your other facial features: nose, mouth, teeth if you’re smiling, maybe your ears, and most likely your hair: eyelashes, eyebrows, and that which may or may not be growing on top of your head. What you can’t help but see is your skin: look at you – it’s everywhere! It covers your face all the way down to your toes. It is our largest organ and despite our abuses, it remains in place to protect us from the outside world. You may be thinking, “…but what is really out there that I need to be protected against?” Plenty. Mechanical abrasion, ie anything that rubs on your skin from clothes to the door your hold open with your arm. Tiny microbes that could make you very very sick, and even the weather: our skin helps to keep our insides warm and hydrated on the coldest of days. So, quit abusing your skin!

Our skin has developed some pretty handy additions to help it out and to help us. Scientifically, they are ectodermal appendages and they include teeth, nails, hair, sweat glands and sebaceous glands, to name a few. While they seem rather innocuous, they are actually quite important. Your teeth are critical for obvious reasons, but your sweat glands help to regulate your body temperature, as does your hair. Hair is also really cool because the follicles from which they grow also contribute cells to aide in wound healing. These appendages begin to form during skin development. More or less, your skin started out as a blank canvas and these appendages began to form half-way through. Interestingly, the very first couple of steps in building teeth, hair and the rest have a lot in common in that they use many of the same genes, types of cells, and intermediate structures before taking on their characteristic forms by using genes in the next steps that are different. So by studying early development of one appendage, we can sometimes learn about the rest.

When development of these appendages goes wrong, there can be serious consequences. This is a rare occurrence, but the most famous is that of actor Michael Berryman. Unfortunately, most of his on-screen appearances are as monsters, most notably in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Hills Have Eyes. His skin began to develop normally, but when it came time to make hair and teeth, those pathways failed, which left him with sparse hair, a few misshapen teeth, and no sweat glands or nails. The biggest risk for people like Michael with hypohydrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED) is overheating as they have no way to cool themselves since they have no sweat glands. There is no cure for HED, only cosmetic fixes (ie dentures and wigs) and close monitoring of body temperature in extreme conditions.

Now that you know the background and if you are still reading, here is where my work comes in. I am studying hair development. I glossed over what goes wrong in HED, but in brief, there is a mutation in any one of the genes that contribute to the development of all skin appendages. Thus, all appendages are affected by a mutation of one of these genes in the early steps of the appendage building pathway. Why care at all about this stuff? In the bigger scheme of things, studying how appendages are built may help to develop regenerative therapies. And in hair and tooth loss, once it is gone, there is no getting it back. Some of you may know that my previous work also involved skin: wound healing. Check out your scars: they have no hair in them, do they? They are also lacking sweat glands. If you’re lucky, you likely only have a couple of large scars, and maybe a few small ones. Truth is, these will never have hair follicles or sweat glands in them. Imagine patients with very large wounds such as burn victims. These patients, like those with HED, have large parts of their body that are forever without the benefit of hair follicles and sweat glands (ie temperature regulation and assistance in healing). This is aside from the psycho-social issues that may arise due to ‘looking different’.

So, take a close look at your skin, which is in my opinion, the coolest organ. And take care of it! There are people who are not so lucky to have been born with it properly made, or have lost some of it to accident. If you have questions, or want to know more, please let me know!