This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

Got a minute?

President Obama arrived in Cuba March 20th,

the first visit by a U.S. leader since Calvin Coolidge in

1928. Last spring I spoke to Cornell Laboratory

of Ornithology researcher Eduardo Enigo Elias about what improved relations between the US and Cuba could mean for science.

For the last 12 years the Lab of Ornithology have been involved in a research and conservation and training building local capacity with biologists and scientists from Cuba.

So you can imagine the amount of work that we have on the back from our lawyers from Cornell University to get the permits to work through the Treasury

Department and the State Department here in the U.S. but also has been a lot of

paperwork to do you know the things that we want to do,

collaborated with Cuban scientists and or Cuban scientists have to deal also with their

restrictions that they have.

I noticed there's a book on your desk called The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy, which gives you an idea of the kind of things we've been talking about.

You have to do this kind of thing where you're not just a research scientist. You're also a diplomat.

You need to be, you know, there are many challenges, especially you learn this with migratory birds.

There is a natural resource shared by everybody and there are many issues that affect, you know,

when the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened, you know, everybody was calling here and ringing, oh, where are the people that you

know in Cuba that can help us to understand, you know, if the water changed in that direction

and the oil starts going to the shore, what are going to be the impacts, especially now that the migratory birds are moving.

So the thawing of the US-Cuba relationship is a really big deal for you and your colleagues.

I think so.

...