The Ed's Up #178
How Brain Scientists Forgot That Brains Have Owners
"He and his fellow curmudgeons argue that brains are special because of the behavior they create—everything from a predator’s pounce to a baby’s cry. But the study of such behavior is being de-prioritized, or studied “almost as an afterthought.” Instead, neuroscientists have been focusing on using their new tools to study individual neurons, or networks of neurons. According to Krakauer, the unspoken assumption is that if we collect enough data about the parts, the workings of the whole will become clear. If we fully understand the molecules that dance across a synapse, or the electrical pulses that zoom along a neuron, or the web of connections formed by many neurons, we will eventually solve the mysteries of learning, memory, emotion, and more. “The fallacy is that more of the same kind of work in the infinitely postponed future will transform into knowing why that mother’s crying or why I’m feeling this way,” says Krakauer. And, as he and his colleagues argue, it will not." (Image: Reuters)
Do Scientists Lose Credibility When They Become Political?
"By surveying the volunteers afterwards, Kotcher found that almost all of Wilson’s statements had the same effect as each other. Whether he was sticking to the facts or pleading for action, the volunteers found him to be equally credible. His increasing advocacy didn’t change their view of the broader climate community, or their support for funding climate research. “We were pretty surprised,” he says. “Conventional wisdom till this point would have suggested that crossing the line from being purely informative to advocating for specific policies would harm a scientist’s credibility.” And that wasn’t the case." (Image: Bettmann) 
Wild Elephants Sleep Just Two Hours a Night
"The skin around the middle of the trunk is so thick that the implants went unnoticed, and quietly recorded the animals’ movements for a month. By analyzing their data, and looking for five-minute windows when the trunks were still, Gravett could deduce when the elephants were asleep. And she found that they slept for just two hours a day on average—the lowest duration for any animal thus far recorded." (Image: Thomas Mukoya) 
This Speck of DNA Contains a Movie, a Computer Virus, and an Amazon Gift Card
"In the famous double-helices of life’s fundamental molecule, Yaniv Erlich and Dina Zielinski from the New York Genome Center and Columbia University encoded the movie, along with a computer operating system, a photo, a scientific paper, a computer virus, and an Amazon gift card. They used a new strategy, based on the codes that allow movies to stream reliably across the Internet. In this way, they managed to pack the digital files into record-breakingly small amounts of DNA. A one terabyte hard drive currently weighs around 150 grams. Using their methods, Erlich and Zielinski can fit 215,000 times as much data in a single gram of DNA. You could fit all the data in the world in the back of a car." (Image: New York Genome Center) 
Coral Reefs Shouldn’t Look Like Finding Nemo
"When John Bruno sees shark fins circling his boat, he’s happy. They tell him that he’s sitting on top of pristine coral reefs, like the ones he swam among as a child. “When you drop down, there’ll be four to six sharks circling you, bumping you, checking you out,” he says. They’ll be accompanied by six-foot goliath groupers, three-foot snappers, barracuda, and more. Such reefs were the norm for the Caribbean in the 1970s. Now, they’re vanishingly rare. “In 99 percent of the reefs, the predators are absent,” says Bruno. “I once went 10 years without seeing a shark.”" (Image: Neil Hammerschlag) More good reads in science and technology
- Worse than Tuskegee: Seventy years ago, American researchers infected Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea, then left without treating them. Their families are still waiting for help. By Sushma Subramanian
- “We’re just trying to make the best of a bad situation. That’s all taxonomy is." An implausibly delightful story about naming birds, and vitriolic hyphen fights that ensure. By Andrew Jenner.
- An Ice Age squirrel found by gulag prisoners gets its scientific moment. A great story by Sarah Zhang with a wonderful coda.
- Hunted, haunted, stateless and scared: the stories of refugee scientists. By Gunjan Sinha.
- The danger of an early spring. By Robinson Meyer.
- Salome Karwah survived Ebola. She survived 2 civil wars. Last week she died during childbirth.
- Humans can echolocate too. By Veronique Greenwood.
- "If even one of those mystery passengers is a woman, SpaceX would be making history." Will Elon Musk send a woman around the moon?
- And finally, this is an amazing science quiz.
More good reads in politics and society
- Here are two wonderful reviews of Moonlight—a truly deserving winner of the Best Picture Oscar. "It’s also, by nearly any standard, not just a great movie but a historically great movie."
- "They really want to blow this place up." A deeply unsettling Julia Ioffe piece on the status quo within the State Department.
- What exactly is a populist, and is Trump one? Uri Friedman explains.
- Adam Purinton acted alone when he shot two Indian men in a Kansas bar—but hateful rhetoric enabled his crime. Anand Giridharadas on the administration’s culpability in the recent murders.
- On the sociology of knitting sweaters for animals. By Cara Giaimo.
- Republican lawmakers introduce bills to curb protesting in at least 18 states
- "The president asked for an intelligence assessment. This is not the intelligence assessment the president asked for." An assessment contradicting the travel ban is just ignored.
- What happens—logistically, psychologically, politically—when constituents call Congress?
- "Should we expect heroism of people who just want to get off an airplane?" On crossing borders in the Trump era.
- "While we know that Justice is supposed to be blind, is she also ripped?” A journalist tries Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s workout to hilarious effect.
- Trump begins dismantling Obama’s EPA rules today. Step one: the Clean Water Rule.
- Everything is AWS, um. How a flaw in an Amazon service screwed the internet for a spell.
- The president wants to dismantle the FDA to usher in more medical “miracles.” Julia Belluz explains why that won’t work.
- Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador during Trump’s campaign, despite what he told the Senate.
- "One elderly woman let out a startling moan." An emergency doctor’s experience of telling amnesiac patients who the current president is.
- Two former presidential speechwriters explain why Trump’s speech to Congress was not “presidential”.
And that's it. Thanks for reading.
- Ed
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