Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 119
June 26, 2009
Sex and “Sex”
Over at the Origins blog on Science’s web site, I take a look at what means to have sex–especially if you happen to be bacteria. Check it out.
June 25, 2009
Congratulations Are In Order
Congratulations are in order to the writers who are now finalists for the Royal Society Science Book Prize:
What the nose knows: The science of scent in everyday life by Avery Gilbert
Bad science by Ben Goldacre
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes
Decoding the heavens: Solving the mystery of the world’s first computer by Jo Marchant
The drunkard’s walk: How randomness rules our lives by Leonard Mlodinow
Your inner fish: The a
June 24, 2009
Book (P)review #1: Life Ascending, The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution
Last month, I asked you how to handle the ever-growing pile of science books I receive (before I donate most of them to the library, of course). A plurality of you voted in favor of frequent thumbnail descriptions, rather than alternatives like the less frequent all-out review. That’s a relief, because that was my own preference. So let me pull off the top book from the pile, Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane.
The reason it’s on the top is that it happened to be
June 22, 2009
Viruses That Make You Fly, Bacteria That Keep You On the Ground
Yet more totally weird examples of parasites manipulating their hosts
. Viruses make aphids sprout wings. Bacteria keep spiders from making silken balloons to float away from home. All the details are at Mystery Rays From Outer Space.
June 21, 2009
The Three Faces of Life [Science Tattoo]
Cheri writes, “I am a huge fan of yours. I also want to share my new science tattoo, which I got because I am a biotechnologist and wanted to show my love of science….The blue atomic symbol is for science; the black biotech is for, well, biotech; and the flower is my home state’s flower, the Alaskan forget-me-not which also symbolizes life.”
June 20, 2009
John Hodgman: I Hear They’re Going to Make Evolution Legal
I just loved this speech John Hodgman made at the Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner yesterday. Hodgman spoke for all us nerds, perhaps even including the president himself. And best of all, while talking about that fine nerd novel Dune, he showed the president a painting of a giant sand worm from Dune by John Schoenherr. (It shows up at 11:20.)
I grew up a couple miles from Schoenherr and spent much of my nerdy youth with his son Ian, hanging out in his fabulous old barn-slash-studio, filled
June 19, 2009
Visiting Scholar a k a The Wandering Blogger
I’m delighted to report that I’ve been appointed the first Visiting Scholar at the Science, Health, and Environment Reporting Program at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. I’ve felt like an informal visiting scholar there for a while now, having given talks and spoken with classes of journalism students a number of times. But I was particularly impressed on a recent visit when I could see how they’re grappling head-on with the changing nature of journalism. Nobody gets
A Big Prize For Finch Beaks
The Kyoto Prize has gone to Peter and Rosemary Grant, I see from 80 Beats. Congratulations to them both for this Nobel-esque honor. If you don’t immediately recognize their names, you can start with this post I wrote last fall about the Grants’ research on the evolution of Darwin’s Finches, and then finish up with a couple books: their own How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin’s Finches and the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
by Jona
Behold The Irreducible Complexity of the Almond
Florida Citizens for Science asked me and my fellow Discoverite Phil Plait to be among the judges for their “Stick Science Cartoon” contest, in which entrants used stick figure cartoons to explain a misunderstanding about science with humor and brevity. You can now see the winners here. Congratulations to all. Next time I’m bogged down with an explanation that’s just too long and too dull, I’ll bear you folks in mind and start cutting.
Left Brain, Right Brain Redux
I wrote about the two sides of our brains in April for Discover. Now some of the scientists whose research I highlighted have an article of their own in Scientific American, focusing on the ancient evolutionary origins of specializations in each hemisphere. So if you still have interhemispheric cravings, check it out!
