Manufacture and Characterization of Alginate-CMC-Dextran Hybrid Double Layer Superabsorbent Scaffolds

This study focused on the manufacturing of functional superabsorbent sponges using natural polymers. An alginate/CMC-embedded dextran hybrid dual-layer formulation was prepared using the freeze-drying method. The physical properties of the formulation were characterized using a field emission scanning electron microscope and a universal testing machine, and the swelling ratio was calculated. Cell viability assays were performed using keratinocytes (HaCaT cells). The results showed that this formulation can absorb a large amount of moisture and provide morphological stability through its tensile strength and uniform porosity, and this was verified by its biocompatibility. We believe that in the future, by combining this novel hybrid dual-layer superabsorbent sponge with antibacterial agents with excellent porosity, it would serve as a medical material for producing bandages that can absorb blood and body fluids, feminine hygiene products, and functional antibacterial masks.

The living fossil concept: reply to Turner

Despite the iconic roles of coelacanths, cycads, tadpole shrimps, and tuataras as taxa that demonstrate a pattern of morphological stability over geological time, their status as living fossils is contested. We responded to these controversies with a recommendation to rethink the function of the living fossil concept (Lidgard and Love in Bioscience 68:760–770, 2018). Concepts in science do useful work beyond categorizing particular items and we argued that the diverse and sometimes conflicting criteria associated with categorizing items as living fossils represent a complex problem space associated with answering a range of questions related to prolonged evolutionary stasis. Turner (Biol Philos 34:23, 2019) defends the living concept against a variety of recent skeptics, but his criticism of our approach relies on a misreading of our main argument. This misreading is instructive because it brings into view the value of three central themes for rethinking the living fossil concept—the function of concepts in biology outside of categorization, the methodological importance of distinguishing parts and wholes in conceptualizing evolutionary phenomena, and articulating diverse explanatory goals associated with these phenomena.