Quentin Kramer

The American chestnut was the dominant tree of the eastern US forest for thousands of years. One in every four trees in the Appalachians was a chestnut. Then, between 1904 and 1940, a fungal blight from Asia killed roughly four billion of them. The species nearly went extinct as a forest tree within a single human lifetime. The recovery effort is now in its fourth decade. The American Chestnut Foundation breeds disease-resistant hybrids by crossing American chestnuts with blight-resistant Chinese chestnuts, then backcrossing for generations to recover the American tree's form. Other researchers have used gene editing to insert a wheat gene that detoxifies the blight. The first restoration plantings are alive and growing in the Appalachians. They won't be mature for another 50 years. None of the people who started this work will see it finished, but we should all be glad they're doing it.

I refuse to support any policy that makes it harder for the world's smartest people to come to the US.

Know-nothing tech workers think they're going to marginally increase the avalanche of wealth that rains down on them by booting out their immigrant colleagues. They're about to discover that attracting the best and brightest is the defining comparative advantage of US tech.

Abdul Carter was not a fan of seeing Jaxson Dart presenting Donald Trump...