Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 113
September 23, 2009
Apocalypse Via Press Release
Today a team of scientists offer a new way of thinking about the environmental fix we're in. In the words of one of the scientists, we're driving around on a mesa in the dark with the lights off and without a map. We may fall off the edge of the mesa before we realize where the edge was.
The scientists argue for a safe operating space for the planet, which they propose should be bounded by limits on the carbon dioxide in the air and other factors. That way, we'll stay away from dangerous...
September 22, 2009
Evolutionary Geniuses
Congratulations to all the Macarthur genius grant winners announced today. Their ranks include two evolutionary biologists.
1. Beth Shapiro, at Penn, studies ancient DNA to understand extinct critters like mammoths and dodos. I've embedded a lecture I saw her give over the summer below.
Another winner is Richard Prum from Yale, who I had fortuitously asked to come talk to my writing class this morning. I had my students interview him for a profile. Voila, instant news hook!
The poor students...
September 17, 2009
Beautifying Bedbugs
I've been thinking a lot about bedbugs recently, because…well, because that's part of my job description. I was asked to be on a radio show a couple weeks ago to talk about the rising tide of bedbugs in the United States (note to self: don't pick up old mattresses left out on trash day). But I also think they're pretty interesting. (Traumatic insemination, for starters…) And, thanks to Alex Wild, Annie Liebowitz to the arthropods, I now also think they're rather lovely. If you haven't...
September 16, 2009
Congratulations to the Age of Wonder [Book Preview]
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes, has won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. I haven't read it, nor is its galleys sitting atop a stack of books I hope to get to. But it does look awfully good, and the Royal Society obviously agrees…Any Loom readers have a review to offer?
September 13, 2009
Life in the Dice [Science Tattoo]
Arnaud writes, "I am a geneticist interested in the processes that make every individual unique. This tattoo symbolizes a living being as the result of a 'game of life' where random and deterministic processes interacts together. Genes provide a solid framework, but random and external factors have an equally important role in determining who you are."
September 11, 2009
To Cap Off A Multimedia Week, How About A Podcast?
Uff da–quite a week!
Monday brought Radio Lab's great take on parasites, which I was thrilled to be a part of.
Tuesday was newspaper day, with a story in the New York Times on the evolution of flowers.
Thursday it was the sexual brain, the subject of my latest column in Discover complete with a safe-for-work video.
Friday brought the new issue of Time to the newsstands, with an article of mine on the minds of dogs.
Now at the close of the week, let me lure you into a different dimension of the m...
September 10, 2009
Your Dog, Yourself
Recently I took a trip down to North Carolina to spend some time with Brian Hare, an anthropologist at Duke University who wants to understand how human nature evolved. While Hare spends a lot of time in Africa studying chimpanzees and bonobos, he also studies dogs. The social intelligence of dogs is not just interesting in itself, but also for the clues it offers about how we evolved. It's possible that wolves became dogs in much the same way our chimp-like ancestors became human.
In the...
This Saturday: Skeptics in New York
[image error]I've spent part of my day working on my slides for my keynote address this Saturday at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism. I'll be talking about science and the news, and the weird new interactions they have these days. Darwinius and other stunning episodes will feature prominently. The whole day looks great. Hope to see some Loom readers there!
Desire in Slow Motion
This video shows what happens inside a (straight) man's brain in the first fraction of a second that he looks at a picture of a sexually desirable woman. There's a lot going on in there–not just the flare-up of some primordial reptile brain. In my latest column for Discover, I take a look at the history of neuroscience's exploration of desire, from the earliest studies on tumors that triggered orgasms to the latest in neuroimaging. Check it out.
[Video courtesy of Stephanie Ortigue of...
