The Ed's Up #179

The GOP’s New Bill Would Seriously Disrupt Genetics Research

"But if H.R. 1313 passes, bosses could also force their employees to undergo genetic tests, and demand to see the results. It would mean that an employee has virtually no control over their own genetic information. And all of this is happening at a crucial inflection point in modern genetics. Direct-to-consumer genetic tests are increasingly popular. Advocacy groups have argued that patients and research volunteers should have full access to their genetic data. And researchers are looking to set up larger and more ambitious studies. “At the same time that All of Us is talking about a visionary way of enrolling people into a large-scale research study, suddenly this bill appears,” says Robert Green from Brigham and Women's Hospital. “It’s a terrible irony, and it’s clearly going to hurt research writ large.” (Image: Seth Wenig) 
 

What Exactly Are People Marching for When They March for Science?

"“Science” isn’t a monolithic entity. The term contains multitudes. There’s empiricism itself, and the primacy of evidence in making sense of the world. There’s the scientific method—a system for gathering evidence. There are the various fields and sub-fields in which that method is used. There are the people who deploy it—scientists obviously, but also teachers, journalists, doctors, and more. Given that plurality, I wondered, what exactly are people marching for when they’re marching for science?" (Image: Stephen Senne) 
 

Neanderthal Dental Plaque Shows What a Paleo Diet Really Looks Like

"Neanderthal dental plaque is a precious commodity, so it’s a little embarrassing when you’re trying to dislodge a piece and it goes flying across the room. “We just stood still, and everyone’s like: Where is it? Where is it?” recalls Laura Weyrich from the University of Adelaide. “Usually, we try to wrap the skull in foil and work underneath it, but that time, the foil didn’t happen to cover a small area.” Weyrich and her team of unorthodox dentists eventually found the wayward plaque, and recovered similar samples from the skulls of five Neanderthals. Each was once a colony of microbes, growing on a tooth. But over tens of thousands of years, they had hardened into small, brittle pieces of rock. Still, each nugget contained DNA—from the microbes, and also from whatever the Neanderthals had eaten." (Image: Nikola Solic) 
 

The Transparency Bills That Would Gut the EPA

"Both bills speak of inarguable goods like transparency, balance, and scientific integrity. They’re meant to “promote an open and honest EPA,” according to a statement from Smith, whose largest campaign contributors are oil and gas companies. But several policy experts say that the bills are Trojan horses. They say that the seemingly positive HONEST Act would actually sever the EPA from much of the scientific evidence that it relies upon, while its companion would cut the agency off from many of its scientific experts—and both would strangle the EPA in costly bureaucracy." (Image: Charles Dharapak)

How to Kill a Snake When You’re a Snake

"Typically, when scientists study constrictors, they look at big ones like pythons or boa constrictors, as they attack mice or rats. “Big snakes are strong predators; small mammals don’t do well when squeezed,” says Penning. “Rarely is someone surprised when the snake wins that scenario.” But kingsnakes will successfully constrict victims that are the same size or bigger, and that are also constrictors. How do you kill something that’s larger than you, using the very same method that it uses to kill? Why don’t kingsnakes ever get counter-constricted?" (Image: Peter Paplanus) 
 

Fish Changed in a Surprising Way Before Invading Land

"The earliest tetrapods had much bigger eyes than their fishy forebears. MacIver always assumed that this enlargement happened after they marched onto land, allowing them to see further and to plan their paths. “That was an expectation fueled by ignorance,” he says. Actually, after studying the fossils of many fishapods—extinct species that were intermediate between fish and tetrapods—MacIver found that bigger eyes evolved before walking legs. Perhaps eyes, not legs, led the invasion of the land. Perhaps, as MacIver puts it, “the gateway drug to terrestriality was being like a crocodile.”" (Image: Malcolm MacIver)
 

More good reads in science and technology

• This is the single best piece you will read this month, and perhaps this year. It’s a masterfully reported and beautifully told story about mammoths, de-extinction, hubris, quixotic quests, deep time, and our original biological sin. It’s by my colleague and friend Ross Andersen, and I cannot praise it highly enough.
• “Bad people, bad decisions, bad luck - scare us if we're lucky & scar us when we're not.” An exceptional story by Liz Neeley about finding order amid the chaos of science—and sexism. And to celebrate International Women’s Day, here’s a Story Collider playlist of stories from women in science.
• Would you be comfortable with a panther on your back porch? Great piece by Josh Sokol
• This article won't change your mind: Julie Beck on why facts alone can't fight false beliefs.
• Patrick Soon-Shiong, the man behind a cancer moonshot, made a $12M donation and then steered the cash back to his company. Rebecca Robbins continues her sterling investigative work.
• Institutions “have a tremendous conflict of interest. There’s a terrible temptation to bury it all.” How a cancer researcher was protected by his university despite reams of ethical charges. By James Glanz and Agustin Armendariz
• These women were blinded by stem cell injections into their eyeballs. Important story by Peter Adlhous
• A remote West African village could use gene drives to stop malaria—but only if people agree. By Ike Swetlitz.
• No one has gotten lucky in space, but here’s what that would involve.  By Maggie Koerth-Baker.
• A remote arc of ocean is now, by chance, one of the most thoroughly mapped places of the underwater world, thanks to the search for the missing MH370. By Sarah Zhang.
• Geneticists find out who shot a dog by sequencing the hairs of *the wild boar that the bullet first passed through*
• A great piece, ostensibly about lizards, but actually about how the science we do is deeply affected by our biases and priors.
• These scientists are running for office in 2018 to try to unseat notorious members of the House Science Committee
• Whales have been congregating in large groups off the coast of Africa and scientists aren’t sure what’s going on
• A few bits of hair hold clues to 50,000 years of Australian history.
• "The body didn’t sign on for this arrangement.” On why dentistry is separate from medicine.
• “Archaea are difficult to study, so scientists don’t study them. Because they don’t study them, they don’t know very much about them. Because they don’t know very much about them, they don’t know how best to study them.”
• I would absolutely eat this moon that looks like ravioli. “
• On making mammals fight (hypothetically) for entertainment and education.
• And finally… a panda video

 

More good reads in politics and society

• Rebecca Solnit on why "giving up hope is not an option.”
• The EPA is being stacked with climate change deniers; the chief environmental justice officer has resigned; the EPA head spouts off some stark climate change denial; and it’s all part of Trump’s larger war on climate.
• On Trump’s proposed budget: here are the 19 agencies it would outrightly eliminate; here are all the ways it would slash science funding; and here’s a reminder: it’s primarily a wish list of priorities that Congress is free to accept or ignore."
• The Statue of Liberty goes dark; people make jokes; but Adrienne LaFrance gives us this wonderful essay on tech & metaphors
• “Let’s say it’s an antiprediction: If this future can be described in detail, maybe it won’t happen. But such wishful thinking cannot be depended on either.” Margaret Atwood on what The Handmaid’s Tale means in the age of Trump
• “Free speech does not have to take the form of polite debates between massively privileged media." On the recent university protests.
• On the plans to repeal and replace Obamacare: Vann Newkirk II explains what the new bill entails; the CBO reveals that the replacement would kick 24 million people off their insurance by 2026.
• On life in Trump’s America: a software engineer detained at JFK and given test to prove he's an engineer; American citizens are being forced to hand over cellphones at borders; a Sikh family explains how the simplest interactions have become difficult; a 6^th wave of bomb threats hits Jewish centres around the US; a Congressman says that “we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies”; and here’s a really good thread about white supremacy.
• How To Clear A Path Through 60 Feet Of Snow, Japanese Style
• Such a fascinating piece by Veronique Greenwood about predictive text, Chinese, and "character amnesia"
• On Trump accusing Obama of wiretapping him: it’s just Birtherism 2.0.
• Trump has quietly installed hundreds of officials at agencies across the government, without saying who they are. Here’s the full list from ProPublica.
•  “How does a citizen respond when a democracy that prides itself on being exceptional betrays its highest principles?” Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on Making Athens Great Again
• On Russia: a map of what we know about the connections between Trump’s team and Russia; and a call to caution for journalists.
• The Wikileaks CIA dump is… basically not that interesting.
• The Netherlands election might be a sign that the far-right wave in Europe is petering out.
• A doctor explains why he’d never take the hair loss drug that Trump takes
• Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon, just got a whole lot wrong about the brain.
• Why the women’s strike mattered.  
• Why Trump's Dismissal of US Attorney Preet Bharara Matters
• Rose Eveleth explores a future in which California tries to secede

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And that's it. Thanks for reading.

- Ed