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Beep beep, it's Max! We've got some cool stuff to share with you this week, and to introduce it all, I wanna first tell you about Jaansi Patel, a 16-year-old soon-to-be high school senior. Jaansi is a busy kid. She has conducted in neuroimaging research at MIT, and recently won a gold medal at the 2024 International Research Olympiad For the past four years, Jaansi has produced LearnOn Podcast, a show for kids about scientific innovation and mental health with thousands of listeners in almost 100 countries. She was kind enough to invite me on to talk about my professional journey in a conversation now out. Afterward, we chatted about how social media has exacerbated information in schools like her own. She had this to say: "Social media is great in the sense that you're able to access a lot more platforms for education and discover a lot more people. There's some really amazing influencers who are doctors that share their day-in-the-life and what their medical practice looks like, and people who break down the latest science news. A lot of our listeners have discovered us through social media. But at the same time, I think it's become a really hazy space where there's a lot of wellness influencers and people who claim to have credentials that they don't, or over-inflate the amount of knowledge that they have in order to gain a following."
From when she first got an Instagram account at age 13, Jaansi wanted to use her podcast and platform to address this problem. "If you aren't well-informed about science to begin with, it can turn into a really dangerous spiral of not knowing who to trust. So I think, from an early age, teaching kids to employ the scientific method in their own everyday life — not being afraid to question things or do a double-take when they hear something that sounds a little too good to be true."
I agree with Jaansi's perspective on this. But I'm going to say something that she might disagree with: We shouldn't revere science and scientists the way we often do. I say "we" as someone trained as a scientist. I also say "we" as a journalist who can only do his job by understanding how science works and how scientists operate. I say "we" as a curious consumer alongside you. As a member of these three communities, I think a lot about the problems that cast shadows over modern science. There are many. But in the interest of keeping this newsletter brief, I'd like to focus on just one here: prestige. A prestigious university attracts more money and more opportunities to publish in prestigious journals. That money and those opportunities help turn hard-working students into prestigious names of their own. That's not a given — researchers still have to actually do the research. But a lab's resources and attention make that work easier. (With robotics in biology, sometimes exponentially so.) None of this should be surprising. The problem is that prestige is a monopolizing force. As research grants feed the "publish or perish" engine driving modern science, a researcher's priorities can too easily become more papers, more students, better papers, a better name. Those priorities can elevate a person's profile for accomplishing wonderful work. (Not inherently bad!!) However, they generally only do so by propping up a world run by "high-impact" academic journals and scientists who are no less flawed than you or me. It's natural to trust the names of scientists, journals, universities, and labs that we recognize more. It's also natural to underestimate that bias. The credibility we lend to science and scientists should not obviate the need for criticism. Prestige-forward science gets us into trouble because too few people understand what science really is. The myth of the single Great Scientist is just that. Modern science is inherently a teaching process conducted by poorly paid 20-and-30-somethings under the (often minimal) guidance of (often overworked) supervisors. The goal is to learn individually, not just societally, hence the utter shame it is when academic departments prioritize publications over mentorship. This makes science an incremental, collaborative sequence of trial-and-error. If you're reading Sequencer, you probably already know that, but let's not forget how reflexively people turn to doubt and conspiracy when they see science happening in real-time (e.g. Covid). It's easier to overturn someone's thinking that camel milk treats autism, than it is to preserve trust in public health guidance that evolves with a new disease, as we saw with Covid, for example: sanitize your cereal boxes; close the parks; open the parks; it's not airborne; yes it is, and so on. Good science is supposed to be mildly messy and hotly debated. That brings me back to prestige and Jaansi's great insight. When we accept that a person's name or title grants them a blank check for credibility, we become more vulnerable to disinformation. Making a name can be easier than earning one. When we don't communicate what science really is, warts and all, we preserve the admittedly valuable fantasy of science as an Infallible Source of Objective Truth at the expense of something even more valuable: a resilient scientific literacy. OKAY. Steps off soapbox. Thank you for reading. Tell me what you think max@sequencermag.com, and forward this to a friend or three. Don’t forget to check Jaansi’s LearnOn podcast and read on for updates from Kim, Maddie, and Dan. À la prochaine, max
What we’re working on:Max: Building off my lil rant above, I’ve been following a high-profile case of science “warts and all.” The FDA rejected a MDMA-therapy combo application because of major concerns raised about its two clinical trials. The company may appeal or conduct an additional trial. The community is still optimistic about psychedelic approval, but it's a major setback that, while applauded by many experts, may trigger conspiratorial blowback. Kim: I’m popping out from deep within my field reporting to say hi and apologize for neglecting the Sequencer audience for the last few weeks. I’m currently in Week Two of my traveling all around Brazil to speak with rural farmers about their agricultural practices. First off, Brazilians are the most wonderful bunch (Max will agree with me on this). Their hospitality is on another level. The locals have welcomed me and my local reporting partner, Amanda Magnani from the state of Minas Gerais, wherever we’ve trod. I’m so honored to hear about their rich personal stories and see the non-touristy, mundane — and true side of Brazil. It’s been loads of fun.  Olá from the state of Rio de Janeiro! Maddie: I found out today that the maker of the one approved dengue vaccine (Sanofi-Pasteur, the shot is called Dengvaxia) is discontinuing the vaccine due to “lack of demand in the global market.” And this is in spite of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s health advisory in June warning Americans about an increased risk of dengue. From the CDC: “Global incidence of dengue in 2024 has been the highest on record for this calendar year.” So clearly there’s a global public health story here that I want to dig into. Get in touch if you know more about Sanofi’s decision, the market for dengue vaccines, or what increased cases are doing to your community (maddie@sequencermag.com). And stories from the day job: reefs; Muay Thai; how neighborhoods change after wildfires. Dan: We ran a little reader survey a little while back and one of the things we heard from a few people was “more plant stories” and “more physics/chemistry/non-biology” stories. Here’s a few reasons why that makes my life so difficult and why this is actually a form of you, the readers, bullying me, Dan: - Plant biology is really complicated, in a way that I don’t really think any other form of biology is. It’s really hard and I’m lazy. On the other hand, plant genetics is hilarious: so many of the rules of how we think genes or genomes or mutations work in other organisms simply do not apply in plants. Take the concept of “fasciation.” This is an (admittedly rare) phenomenon where a plant’s plane of growth suddenly switches from roughly cylindrical and perpendicular to the ground to perpendicular to the original plane of growth. Like this coneflower that stopped growing up and started growing out:
 The idea that any other kind of organism — bacteria or mammal — could meaningfully survive a mutation like this beggars the mind. Beggars! I am working on some plant stories now. - I got straight Cs in college physics and chemistry. Maybe you can tell from the physics of skateboarding story I wrote last week:
Feel free to email me and apologize for making my life harder!! What we’re reading:Max: The Paris Olympics have wrapped! The LA Olympics are rollin! One of my favorite all-things-LA journalists, Alissa Walker, recently started newsletter called Torched, which "trains a critical eye on the civic investments and policy decisions that Los Angeles is making in preparation for its megaevent-hosting era, including the 2026 World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and most notably, the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games." Climate and environment will play a big role, as in this Torched piece on the "Car free" games commitment and surprising reminder that LA summers are hot!!! (Tbh I can feel my leg getting sunburnt from the August sun through my apartment window as I write this.) Kim: When two Brazilian friends gush to you about the novel “A Hundred Years of Solitude” by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, you better believe them! I’m really enjoying what I’m reading so far — the book is narrative heavy, full of magical realism that it borders on ludicrous. I’m starting to see why this book is considered to be one of the most important pieces of Latin American literature. Maddie: It’s “Why Your Team Sucks” season over at Defector, which we have no choice but to read. Dan: Over at Quanta read agog about Base…3 and how in some ways it truly kicks the shit out of the warmed over binary system we’ve been using all our lives.
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