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Cassandra Quave worries that herbaria might soon be consigned to the past that they conjure. In an op-ed defending the libraries, which have seen some notable recent closures, the Emory University ethnobotanist explains why that would be a great loss to everyone’s future.
As old as an herbarium’s methods might be — or as “tried and true,” Quave writes — scientists still depend on them “for research on climate change, environmental pollution, biodiversity, plant pathology, evolution, ecosystem dynamics and even the discovery of new foods and drugs.”
For example, it is thanks only to specimens collected and pressed in Pisa in the 1550s that we know what the first European-grown tomatoes looked like.
At the end of the day, an herbarium is still “a room full of dead plants,” and an expensive one at that, Quave allows, which makes it harder and harder for herbaria to secure funding. These places might seem too anachronistic to keep supporting, but more plants are disappearing every day, and no one else is preserving them.
As with those European tomatoes, Quave writes, “imagine what scientists 500 years in the future could do with the specimens we collect and save today.”
They know knowledge is dangerous
After the murder of Alexei Navalny, what dissident would still dare to speak out against Vladimir Putin’s repressive rule of Russia?
Lee Hockstader, reporting from a human-rights forum in Geneva, profiles one of them. Dmitry Muratov is not a leader of the political opposition himself, but rather a longtime newspaper editor dedicated to disseminating the truth — which is more than enough to make him an enemy of Putin’s state.
His work rests on a knife’s edge, Lee writes; he has been assaulted and intimidated, and six journalists at his newspaper were murdered during his tenure. Still, he speaks out, delivering a warning “worth heeding in Washington and European capitals,” Lee writes. “He should be heard, for as long as it’s possible to hear him.”
Meanwhile, independent scholar Deborah Plant shares a disconcerting story of suppression of knowledge here at home: She describes how her brother is forbidden by the state from reading a book of Black history “that he, himself, helped write.”
Plant’s brother, Bobby, has been incarcerated at a maximum-security prison in Louisiana for nearly 25 years, and Plant has done her best to send him plenty of books — from bookstores, mind you, because delivery from a home address is prohibited.
But Plant’s own book, “Of Greed and Glory,” a comparison of slavery and mass incarceration in which Bobby appears, was ruled too … incendiary? Too enlightening? — and banned by prison censors.
“It is no coincidence that prisons ban more books than schools and libraries combined,” Plant writes in an op-ed likening the practice to antebellum anti-literacy laws for slaves. “Literacy — the right to read, to write, to think critically — is a civil rights issue. … And where our political and civic leadership, within and beyond prison walls, impinges upon these rights, that leadership is imposing, anew, badges and incidents of slavery.”
From novelist John Green’s op-ed explaining that fighting TB — the world’s deadliest infectious disease, which kills 25,000 people a week — is not a science problem; the illness is eminently curable. Rather, it’s a money problem.
Much of the issue stems from underdiagnosis — an estimated 3 to 4 million cases missed this year. That’s where Danaher’s tests come in. They can identify TB within two hours. Or, they could, if the countries where TB is most prevalent could afford them.
Green reports the Danaher CEO’s recent unsavory boast that the company operates on a “razor blade business model” — that is, make the razor handle (or TB test machine) affordable, but charge exorbitantly for the razors (or test cartridges).
Despite that sort of cold calculation, Green still expresses a faith in humanity — “which is why I believe the humans who work at Danaher can be persuaded to lower their margins to increase sales and improve the overall quality of human life.”
Less politics
You know what communing with the divine in prayer could really use? Corporate sponsors!
At least, that was the recent insight of Fox News, which recently aired a prayer brought to you by the app Hallow. Alexandra Petri saw this and wondered what other ready-made prayers could bring in a quick buck — in fact, why not find a corporate underwriter for each phrase?
Smartest, fastest
- A recent agreement on lower real-estate-agent fees will help home buyers, the Editorial Board writes, but prices are still too high. And we’re about to find out, Megan McArdle writes, what a real estate agent is really worth.
- Eduardo Porter explains how the man in control of the most powerful political narrative in Washington today is the president — of Mexico.
- A New York judge’s ruling on evidence in Donald Trump’s business-records case could not have gone worse for the former president, Jen Rubin writes.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Such hard-won learning
Tossed as chaff, lost to the past
Unknown tomato
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Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
