Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 108

"Let's Haunt Their Dreams Forever"

This is good. Parasites have made it to the Colbert Report. It's no secret that Stephen Colbert is a modern sort of Mr. Wizard (see his stuff on electromagnetism, microbes, and naming new species of spiders). Now Colbert introduces the nation, nay, the world, to a fish parasite that plays the part of the fish tongue.

I must, however, correct one thing Colbert said. This parasite has been in the news recently thanks to some awesome photographs of a recently caught infected fish. But that...

Science Writing Workshops: Ashore and At Sea

In 2010 I will be teaching two short courses on science writing, one on land and one at sea.

1. At Yale, I will be teaching my fourth annual workshop for science graduate students next month. It consists of two 2-hour sessions. All the gory details, including how to register, are here.

2. This summer I will be back on Appledore Island to teach a week-long science writing class at the Shoals Marine Lab. The picture shows my classroom from summer 2009.

Here's the course page.

Here's a post about l...

George Will: Uncheckable?

Long-time readers of this blog will be aware of my Ahab-like obsession with George Will's global warming errors in the Washington Post–and the Post's hollow claims to have carefully fact-checked him. I confess that I've let a couple of his more recent columns slip by. But I had to stop to blog about his latest take on global warming, in which he jumps on the recently stolen emails among climate scientists. He does a remarkable job of making no sense at all.

In case you haven't followed it...

The Origin of the Future

Over the course of the year, Science has published a series of essays in honor of Charles Darwin. I've had the pleasure of writing several of them (on the origin of life, the origin of eukaryotes, and the origin of sex). And now I've had the pleasure of writing the final one in the series, on the origin of the future–in other words, where evolution goes from here. Check it out. (Plus, if you're interested, you can listen to a conversation I had about the future of life on Science's podcast.)

ExtInked

Check out this project in which people get tattoos of endangered species. Here's more at New Scientist. If any participants want to submit a piece for the Science Tattoo Emporium, I'll be waiting!

The Index of Banned Words (The Continually Updated Edition)

Over the summer, I posted a list of words I banned from my science writing class at Shoals Marine Lab. Readers offered some equally abysmal suggestions. And this fall, teaching a seminar at Yale, I came across some others. I suspect that this list is just going to keep growing. So I'm giving the list a home here, where I can add in new entries as they arise.

By assembling this list, I don't mean to say that no one should ever use these words. What I mean is that anyone who wants to learn how t...

Denver: Get Tangled This Thursday!

Greetings, people of Denver. On Thursday I will be speaking at the Denver Museum of Natural and Science about The Tangled Bank and my favorite creature of the season, swine flu. Here are the details. See you there!

The Origin of Big

On this happy anniversay–the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species–let us contemplate one of evolution's great works: the origin of giants.

Whales are the biggest animals to ever live. Blue whales can get up to 160 tons–about as heavy as 200 grown men. They are trailed in the rankings by the fin whale and a few other related species of whales. There are no lobsters in their ranks, no clams, no rodents. All these giants feed in much the same way. They swallow up water and filter it...

Sex Pranks of the Orchid World

To find out how orchids exploit sex-crazed wasps for their own reproduction (and for lots of other marvels of coevolution), check out the November issue of Discover, which has an excerpt from my new book, The Tangled Bank.

Gearing Up [Science Tattoo]

Ryan writes, "I am a mechanical engineer, and this tattoo was inspired by the cover of my mechanical engineering design textbook."

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.