ho tries to smuggle a loaded Petri plate through customs?
My relatives in blue states are constantly filling my spam folder with copies of people's political blogs. They're all exactly the same: President Trump took away their cheese and so the world's going to end. That makes it my job to explain what I think Trump is trying to do. It's a full time job. Sometimes I just wish he'd keep his big mouth shut once in a while so I can get some work done.
The Kseniya Petrova gambit
The problem, however, isn't Trump. It's those news reporters who try to turn everything that happens into a weapon to use against him. This time the big scandal is about some Russian scientist named Kseniya Petrova, whose research seems to be on genomic analysis of Xenopus (frog) egg DNA. Apparently this virtuous lady tried to smuggle some frog eggs, vials containing unidentified biological or chemical material, and Petri plates, which the INS calls Petri dishes, through customs. Here is the report on Redstate, a conservative news site.
Apparently it was not an accident, but premeditated, according to texts on her phone. It sounds like just another arrogant academic trying to sneak around the safety regulations. But NBC wants to make it all about Trump. This Russian lady is the second coming of Louis Pasteurski who's going to cure cancer, and Trump is interfering with The Science. It's a perfect example of why people need to be suspicious of anything the news media say.
NBC News writes:
Scientists and faculty members are planning to leave institutions across the country, legal experts said, because they're worried that their visas could be revoked or that they could be swept up in immigration actions. . . .
A recent survey by the scientific journal Nature revealed that 75% of the 1,600 scientists surveyed were considering relocating to Europe or Canada, citing actions taken by President Donald Trump. Separately, a tracking database from Inside Higher Ed shows that, as of April 18, more than 240 colleges and universities have reported that over 1,550 international students and recent graduates have had their legal status changed by the U.S. State Department.
What does some smuggler getting caught lying to customs have to do with Trump? What was on those Petri plates, anyway?
Petri dishes on a plane
Nobody would bother carrying around an unused Petri plate. They're cheap and easy to make. That means there is almost certainly a culture of bacteria growing on it. In the lab, when you're making a virus, you often start with a small type of DNA plasmid vector known as a phage because it infects bacteria. The plasmid expresses one or more proteins along with an enzyme that destroys the antibiotic in the plate. This makes it easy to find a single plasmid in your mixture because there's a small circle of dead bacteria around it.
This is a convenient way of “selecting” for a plasmid that was made correctly, and you can use that to make a virus. You wouldn't normally culture anything pathogenic that way, as it might escape and cause problems. But an unknown DNA sequence could be anything, and there are procedures in place for transporting it. Individuals almost never transport this stuff by hand; it's usually from one institution to another because a big institution already has the permits, labels, containers, protocols, and bail money already set up.
This is a very big deal. Whenever I went overseas they made a point of asking me if I had any biological material. It was clear from their tone that I had jolly well better not be. Of course I was not, and every biologist is well aware of the foot-tall pile of forms and permits you need. Even then, samples are usually delayed for weeks—even harmless protein digests for mass spectrometric analysis—and companies told us to send samples to their USA address instead.
Bringing in chemicals is an even bigger deal. We were informed that even carrying a bottle of some harmless chemical from one building to another could get us arrested.
The INS scenario
NBC quotes some biologist as implying she'll be sent to a gulag if INS sends her back:
We really don't know if we're ever going to see her again, because if they deport her to Russia, we may never see her again.
She had her visa revoked for this crime, and she made anti-Putin statements, and now she complains about being in visa limbo. The INS's position is probably this: why would somebody lie about the DNA they're carrying, knowing it is illegal to do so, unless they were up to no good? If she were actually bringing in a deadly pathogen through customs and the INS didn't catch them, the press would go ballistic. And guess who they'd blame.
Meanwhile, in the real world, a raccoon was found hanging out at our local federal courthouse. This is a bigger scandal than those hamsters that got loose last year in an adult bookstore. The cops had to use their thermal infrared night vision goggles to round them up. Now I'd like to see NBC blame Trump for that.
apr 25 2025
