The Ed's Up #174 - immigration bans, frog tongues, and sleeping brains.

Trump’s Immigration Ban Is Already Harming American Science

“Many talented friends of mine can’t come back to finish their degrees, simply because they went back to their hometowns to visit their parents,” says Saeed Mehraban, an Iranian Ph.D. student who is working on quantum computing at MIT, and is currently in Austin visiting his advisor. “I’m just taking a domestic flight from Texas to Boston, and I’m still scared they may do me harm.” “Professional and personal lives are being destroyed,” says Josh Plotkin from the University of Pennsylvania. One of his postdoctoral fellows—an Iranian, and a legal permanent resident of the U.S.—was traveling abroad when Trump’s order was signed. “They are now separated from their spouse, and likely unable to attend faculty job interviews that are scheduled in the coming weeks. This postdoc was working on new ways to treat HIV/AIDS.” (Image: Patrick Fallon)
 

Why Frog Tongues Are So Sticky

"To find out, Noel gathered tongues from the dissection class, and—in the grand tradition of naturalists—prodded them with her finger. She and Hu were astonished at how soft the tongues were. “It’s like a piece of silly putty; when you touch it, you can’t tell if it’s a solid or a fluid,” Hu says. “And they were incredibly sticky. Freshly chewed chewing gum is similar, or marshmallow fluff that you can’t get off your hands.” Noel then went to a materials-testing lab with bloody bags full of frog tongues, and human tongues collected from an on-campus cadaver farm." (Image: Alexis Noel) 
 

Scientists Open Their Labs to Colleagues Stranded by Trump’s Immigration Ban

"On Tuesday evening, EMBO launched the Science Solidarity List—a register of “scientists offering temporary bench or desk space, library access and possibly even accommodation for U.S.-based scientists who are stranded abroad,” due to Trump’s executive order. It’s like a Craigslist for the marooned. She was the first to add her name. Within four hours, 50 people had volunteered as hosts. At the time of writing, the list has been active for less than a day and has 380 volunteers from 31 countries. Most are based in Europe, but others are offering lab space in Canada, Israel, Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Singapore, India, Brazil, and China." (Image: Dru Bloomfield) 
 

The Brain’s Connections Shrink During Sleep

"Brains have a way of avoiding this disaster. Neurons can scale down their synapses en masse, weakening them proportionally so that their relative strengths are the same but their absolute strengths go down. If one synapse was previously stronger than another, it would stay that way, although both would become weaker. Chiara Cirelli from the University of Wisconsin-Madison theorized that this mass downscaling happens specifically while we sleep. In fact, she argued, it might be one of the reasons that sleep exists at all—to provide a quiet time when our brains can effectively renormalize our synapses, ready for another day of learning. That may partly explain why sleep is so universal among animals, and why our mental abilities take a hit after a sleepless night. Sleep is the price we pay for the ability to learn, and it’s non-negotiable." (Image: Rafael Marchante) 
 

The Climate Scientist Who Became a Politician

For most of his life, Weaver was a climate scientist. His name was on more than 200 scientific papers. He edited one of the top climatology journals for five years. He was a lead author on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th scientific assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the reports that have repeatedly updated the world on the impacts of climate change. But in 2013, he abandoned academia to run for office, as part of the Green Party of British Columbia. And he won, beating his rivals by a substantial margin, and becoming his party’s first ever provincial Member of the Legislative Assembly. He now leads the party, and is headed into another election in May. I talked to Weaver about his experiences moving from academia into Parliament. (Image: Andrew Weaver) 

 

Book news

I'm delighted to be longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize, and I really hope that either When Breath Becomes Air or The Essex Serpent wins. There are a lot of good books nominated but it would frankly be a travesty if the prize didn't go to one of those.  

 

More good reads in science and technology 

• "We believe sharing intensely personal and political stories of science is essential." So proud of Story Collider, and what it stands for. I highly recommend this recent double-bill—one about having no sense of smell, and another about raising a kid with a genetic disorder.
• "Multiple studies suggest social conservatives are more attuned to threats—even when they are not real." By Olga Khazan. She also wrote another fascinating piece this week: "Conservatives are more likely to support issues like immigration if the message is “morally reframed” to their values"
• Year-long BBC investigation by David Shukman and Sam Piranty exposes secret network of wildlife traffickers selling baby chimpanzees.
• The link between language and cognition is a red herring, argues Frans de Waal.
• "In science, to name something is to mark it as known, to claim it from the dark." Alan Burdick on a Trump moth.
• A thorough look at the biases and barriers that women face in science, from peer review to the very concept of what it means to be brilliant. By Julia Rosen.
• The charred corpse of the stone marten that knocked out the Large Hadron Collider will go on display.
• Scientists are planning to march on DC. Nicholas St Fleur writes about the history behind the idea. Meanwhile, Christopher Petrella writes on race, history, and how “science is and always has been a function of power and politics."
• Avocados responsible for the deaths of four aye-ayes
• The moon may be covered with oxygen beamed from Earth.

 

More on politics and society

• "In an epic week... he has lived down to expectations." Bush-admin staffer Eliot Cohen explains how fellow Republicans should view Trump’s presidency. “Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist.” Bush speechwriter David Frum also wrote an incredible cover story for the Atlantic about the authoritarian threat we face. “If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled.”
• On Holocaust Memorial Day, Trump signed an executive order that bans people from 7 predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US, bans all refugees for 120 days, and bans Syrian refugees indefinitely. The ACLU sued Trump and won; one judge, Ann Donnelly, blocked the order, followed by three more. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Justice Department to not uphold the order—so Trump fired her. (Trump’s nightmare: women opposing him.) The State Department sent a “dissent cable” that attracted over 1,000 signatures.
• Where to even begin? First, the ban. Krishnadev Calamur explains exactly what the ban does and doesn’t do. Dara Lind explains that the order “lays the groundwork for a fundamental shift in how the US allows people to enter the country.” Garrett Epps explains why, yes, it’s a Muslim ban. Declan Walsh wrote that the ban betrays America’s friends and bolsters its enemies. Charlie Winter, who studies radicalization, says that the ban is a propaganda victory for ISIS. Olga Khazan writes about why the ban is so unprecedented. Derek Thompson writes about the ban’s chilling message to immigrants, especially poor ones. ("This is how a country builds a wall without laying a brick.") Buzzfeed maps the seven affected countries, and those whose nationals have carried out or planned terror attacks in the US: note the lack of overlap. Amy Maxmen writes about how the ban endangers work on fighting diseases. ("We stopped Ebola by working with other countries.”)
• Now, the people affected by the ban. Alice Su has a heartbreaking story about her time interviewing refugees from the affected countries, including those who have suffered to help US troops. Khazan, again, writes about the devastating conditions that Syrian refugees are living through: "One of the worst humanitarian and public-health crises in recent memory." Masha Gessen and Martina Navratilova—both queer immigrants—write about how Trump has taken away their homes. And in an incredible piece, Julia Ioffe writes about her experience coming to America as a refugee.
• Meanwhile in more refugee-related stories, the @Stl_Manifest Twitter account commemorated refugees turned away by the U.S. in 1939, who were then murdered by the Nazis. And the Washington Post pointed out that Anne Frank would be a 77-year-old woman living in Boston if her family hadn’t also been turned away.
• A couple of posts—one about how the week’s events were a lead-up to a coup; another calling them a “headfake”—circulated widely. I’m not going to link to either, but I would encourage you to read the following. Here’s Sam Kriss on the rise of conspiracy theories from the left. Here’s Ijeoma Oluo on the narrative that “we are fighting brilliant white dudes and only other brilliant white dudes can save us.” Here’s Tom Pepinsky on why weak leaders can seem like strong leaders (and David Roberts echoing the same). And here’s AV Flox on why it’s important for people to try and assimilate diverse sources and work stuff out, even if they might get it wrong.
• "My experience there, as part of the *non*-white working class, is still invisible." The media is talking more about the Rust Belt, and the working class, but still ignoring non-white people, says Alia Hanna Habib.
• Trump engaged in softcore Holocaust denialism by failing to mention Jews at all during his Remembrance Day speech.
• Steve Bannon replaces the head of the US military at National Security Council. Kelly Magsamen, who served on the National Security Councils of Bush and Obama, analyzes the move.  
• Trump will shift the Countering Violent Extremism program to focus solely on Muslims, and away from tracking white supremacist who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States. Or, y’know, in Canada on Sunday.
• "There’s a long history of using false claims of voter fraud to justify voter suppression” but the dog-whistle has now turned into a klaxon, writes Vann Newkirk.
• Trump somehow manages to screw up a call with Australia of all places. (And here’s more on the refugee deal that he maligned. "Best-case scenario: the president dislikes a deal he also doesn’t understand. Worst-case scenario: he'll break it.")
• Trump named Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Here’s an analysis of his views on assisted suicide, and perhaps on abortion.
• "First They Came, in other words, is particularly attuned to the needs of the modern protest.”
• A Conversation With the Rogue National Park Service Twitter Account
• The Army Corps of Engineers moved to speedily approve the Dakota Access pipeline, reversing itself from last month. By Robinson Meyer.
• What will become of public lands under Trump? By Michelle Nijhuis.
• A leaked EPA memo reveals that not even the EPA knows what’s going on with the EPA.
• Some additions to the five journalistic Ws.
• And finally, Barry White Jr, a 5th grade English teacher in NC, has a special handshake for each one of his students: 

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And that's it. Thanks for reading.

- Ed