The Ed's Up #182

"Octopuses and their relatives—the cephalopods—practice a type of genetic alteration called RNA editing that’s very rare in the rest of the animal kingdom. They do so extensively, to a far greater degree than any other animal group. They use it to re-code genes that are important for their nervous systems—the genes that, as Rosenthal says, “make a nerve cell a nerve cell.” And only the intelligent coleoid cephalopods—octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish—do so. The relatively dumber nautiluses do not." (Image: Jon Nazca) 
 

How the GOP Could Use Science’s Reform Movement Against It

"These introspective concerns have fueled a burgeoning “reproducibility movement,” where researchers are developing ways of making science more reliable. One solution is to encourage “open science,” where researchers share their data so that others can more easily verify their work, and where they publish in freely accessible journals so their results aren’t locked behind expensive paywalls. But in this new environment, many are concerned that attempts to improve science could be judo-flipped into ways of decrying or defunding it. The worry is that policy-makers might ask why so much money should be poured into science if so many studies are weak or wrong? Or why should studies be allowed into the policy-making process if they're inaccessible to public scrutiny?" (Image: Jonathan Ernst)
 

Trees Have Their Own Songs

"Just as birders can identify birds by their melodious calls, David George Haskell can distinguish trees by their sounds. The task is especially easy when it rains, as it so often does in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Depending on the shapes and sizes of their leaves, the different plants react to falling drops by producing “a splatter of metallic sparks” or “a low, clean, woody thump” or “a speed-typist’s clatter.” Every species has its own song. Train your ears (and abandon the distracting echoes of a plastic rain jacket) and you can carry out a botanical census through sound alone.“I’ve taught ornithology to students for many years,” says Haskell, a natural history writer and professor of biology at Sewanee. “And I challenge my students: Okay, now that you’ve learned the songs of 100 birds, your task is to learn the sounds of 20 trees.” (Image: Abrget47j
 

More good reads in science and technology

• This is a truly beautiful piece about humanity's secret war against the moon. By Sam Kriss
• "A wounded ecological reading of the microbiome is not inevitable." Very smart essay by Nitin Ahuja
• “I was there to learn about learning: How do doctors learn to diagnose? And could machines learn to do it, too?” Siddartha Mukherjee discusses the gradual, inevitable encroachment of machine learning on medicine.
•  “As long as scientists – individually and collectively in our societies and journals – drag our heels on making needed reforms, there will be a vacuum that others will try to fill.” Sanjay Srivistava repsonds to my piece about the GOP weaponizing the repoducibility movement.
• Julia Belluz watched Alex Jones of Infowars give his viewers health advice and it's worse than you think.
• The scientist who found this tick in amber with 20 million-year-old blood is the same guy who inspired Jurassic Park.
• Announcing Unpaywall: unlocking open-access versions of paywalled research articles as you browse.
• Young poo makes aged fish live longer.
• “By day, he worked on fossil fuels, by night, he discovered climate change.” You really should subscribe to Alice Bell’s newsletter of historical climate scientist biographies. It's very good.
• The Snail That Only Lives in a Hole inside Another Hole under a Sea Urchin

More good reads in politics and society 

• This is a superb primer to how the EPA actually works. Well, used to work. Is meant to work. By Robinson Meyer.
• In Syria, Assad launched a horrendous chemical weapons attack on civilians, including dozens of children. Here’s a history of sarin gas as a weapon. In response, Trump ordered military strikes against Syria, “as though he were sliding toward putting US troops into action without understanding why or wanting to do it." Here’s what that means for the fight against ISIS. 
• "Mr. Trump was not pleased by the “President Bannon” puppet-master theme.” The NYT explains why Steve Bannon’s fortunes are falling, while Rosie Gray explains what to make of his National Security Council exit and the escalating in-fighting within the White House.
• What it would take for Trump's supporters to actually blame him for something. Olga Khazan on the psychology of culpability.
• The GOP used the “nuclear option” to confirm Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Here’s why the filibuster’s demise might be a good thing. 
• The Trump administration takes aim at a Twitter critic.
• Here's how the maker of a "smart" garage-door opener avenged a customer's bad review
• Pepsi’s awful protest ad was actually a tremendous success, explains Ian Bogost.  
• Jeff Sessions has made clear that when it comes to police abuses, Americans are now on their own
• And finally, “Every story I have read about Trump supporters in the past week,” by Alexandra Petri