A breakthrough discovery has been made by researchers on a brand-new shape named as Scutoids. Until last week, the medical as well as geometrical science was unaware of such a shape. It’s neither a cube nor a sphere but does resemble to them at some extent. While studying epithelial cells, researcher came up with a discovery of scutiod cells which build blocks of embryos that further form the linings of various organs, even of skin. The research has also explained why these cells are tightly packed, and has complex enclosed structures.

Let’s see how it looks like

Origin of life has always been a mystery to the man-kind, which further raised a query on how a single-cell turned out to be multi-celled organism. But to concern most is the shape acquired by cells while and after the division and packing process. An individual cell twists and turns in accordance to the shape of whole very efficiently. This packing challenge is a geometrical problem depending on the unknown factors which leads a cell to form designated shape. Javier Buceta, biophysicist at Lehigh University and one of the Scutoid’s discoverers briefed it as a prism with a zipper. As per reported to Nature Communications by research biologist, the cells were believed to be an almost replica of the shape of frusta, as in Roman Arch. But here, it was not the same case. The most concerning matter was to be presence of scutoids everywhere and in every living being. This scutoid shape has played crucial role in building blocks for the multi-cellular organisms. It’s sort of odd to say, but without this new shape the complex life might never have seen the light. Meanwhile, the name scutoid was coined by researchers due to its very much resemblance with the shape of scutellum in insects like beetles in the Cetoniidae sub-famiy.

Whereas, an entry at Wikipedia described the shape as a geometric solid between two parallel surfaces—‘the boundary of each surfaces is a polygon, and the vertices of the two end polygons are joined by either by a curve or a Y-shaped connection.’

Discovering Scutoids

During an embryonic stage, the tissues start to form into organs by constant folding and bending. At first, scientists believed that to remain tightly packed, they have to be in bottle-shaped i.e. column-shaped. Latter with the help of advanced computer simulations, scientists came to conclusion that the new shape is more complex than they have thought. Before getting into the geometry of shape by hand, they used a computer model to predict most efficient cell shape i.e. scutoids which perfectly connects with the fellow cells in curved as well as flat layers.

Obtained computerised image was unexpectedly quite different than it was assumed before. The results were clearly indicating that the shape should be slightly similar to the prism but with a bizarre triangular surface on one of the edges. This strange new shape shows the perfect fitting of cells with each other. In order to justify this, researchers closely studied fruit fly salivary glands and Zebrafish cells through computer imaging & microscopy, and results were astonishing. These cells were indeed shaped like the predicted ones. The new shape was unknown even to the mathematics, which clarified that the shape was a new discovery itself.

Scutoids discovery will help to comprehend the fundamentals of morphogenesis, developmental biology, and also, how tissue generation and regeneration processes actually works.

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Somewhere in the world, an old man was on his death bed, doctors pumping life into him artificially. He wished to die peacefully in his own home, surrounded by his family, and not on some hospital bed. Placing this will in front of the doctor and his family members, he asked them to take him home when still alive and let him die at his own conditions. After all the arguments and looking at his irreversible medical condition, they had to comply with his wish and they arranged to take him home. Living at the mercy of a ventilator, he asked to be free of this life-support after he met all his family for the last time, dying happily surrounded by everyone that he loved. The old man chose what we today call Passive Euthanasia.

The word Euthanasia, widely known as mercy killing, has created a hustle enough to grab everybody’s attention today. Sometimes attached with sentiments, sometimes with controversies, and sometimes with ethics, it has divided the world population in two parts- those in favor of and those against. Coming from the Greek words- ‘Eu’ meaning good, and ‘Thanatosis’ meaning death, Euthanasia is basically a term for ‘Good Death’. It is a term used for what they call peaceful, dignified, easy, or gentle death.

Turning Back the Pages

In our history, we can find countless acts where hopelessly incurable patients were given easy death. Years ago, in Greece, patients with terminal illness suffering with a lot of pain were given a poisoned drink, in the form of a medicine, by the physicians in order to bring them an easy death. Also, in India, incurable patients were drowned in River Ganges, to release them from the life full of pain. These are the perfect examples of active euthanasia- an act to bring upon a deliberate and direct death to a patient. In ancient times passive euthanasia, correctly termed as orthothanasia, was also practiced. In this, the patients are allowed to die, by with-holding or withdrawing the treatment, rather than killing them directly. During the rise of Nazis, under a program to eliminate life unworthy of life, Hitler ordered the sick and disabled to be euthanized on large-scale, in 1939. Although all through the history most of the religions and philosophers deemed euthanasia as a sin or a crime, there were some who advocated the action, for good, bad, as well as horrendous reasons.

Forms of Euthanasia

There are various forms of Euthanasia- active and passive that we saw before, voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary, direct and indirect, and assisted suicide. Euthanizing a person on his/her own request is voluntary euthanasia. In non-voluntary euthanasia, a person is not in the condition to place the request or unable to make the choice, like a child or a mentally unfit patient, so someone on the behalf of them takes the decision. When the patient refuses to die and even then is euthanized, such a case falls under involuntary euthanasia and is mostly ruled as murder. In indirect euthanasia, a patient is given a treatment that has the side effect of speeding up the process of their death. This is usually done with the intention of reducing the pain and also called as palliative care today. As the motto is not to kill the patient but reduce the pain, it is accepted as euthanasia. In assisted suicide, a dying person who needs help to kill themselves is assisted in doing so to allow easy death.

Ethics around Euthanasia

The argument about the morality as well as the legality of mercy killing is age-old. It prevails even today and may exist always.

Most of the religions believe that the life is given to us by god and it is not ours to take. Moreover, euthanasia decreases our respect towards the sanctity of life, they argue. Although free to do our will, by taking someone’s life or helping in the act, we deny god’s right over our lives and hence euthanasia is morally unacceptable.

While this is the religious attitude, there are several practical reasons that put euthanasia under the bad light. People have argued about how there is no way to perfectly regulate euthanasia and how, once legalized, it can be misused to take somebody’s life for other benefits. There is an argument that voluntary euthanasia can be the beginning of the slippery slope towards the involuntary one. Then there is some philosophers’ long-standing feud about mercy killing not being in the best-interest of the patient and no living soul, in how much ever suffering, should be willing to kill themselves, under the pressure of euthanasia. They have also argued about how ending a person’s life not only affects him/her, but also their family and friends as well as society as a whole, and hence is not in the best interests of everyone. It is also said to give too much power to the doctors and hamper their commitment to the patients and demotivates the research of better cures. Many people believe that palliative care eliminates the need of euthanasia.

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