Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 124

Talking Trash at The World Science Festival

[image error]The second annual World Science Festival will be taking place in New York next month. I’ll be moderating a panel called, “Wall-E’s World: Designs for an Invisible Footprint.”

We’ll be talking about cities, trash, space travel, and the search for a sustainable future. Here’s the line-up for the panel, from the event page:

Mitchell Joachim: Architect and urban designer Mitchell Joachim is a partner in Terrefuge, a New York–based organization for philanthropic architecture and ecological design. His

Keep That Hive Mind Buzzing

Thanks to everyone who’s voted so far on the cover for The Tangled Bank. As of Monday evening, 641 people have voted. That’s not a focus group–it’s a focus army. If you haven’t voted yet, please do–I’ll check in from time to time to see how the pie slices morph.

The results are interesting. A whale cover (Whale1) is in the lead, with 22% of the vote. Wasp1 comes in second (21%), and Tiktaalik1 (18%) comes in third. Clearly, no huge conquests in this poll. But if you tally up the covers by beast,

A Request For The Design Hive Mind: Vote For A Tangled Bank Book Cover

[Update 4:30 pm: I left off one of the covers (Tiktaalik3) from the original poll. You can re-vote now.]

Greetings, readers. I write to you from that frenzy towards the end of writing a book when everything has to be done at once and the sight of the incoming pincers makes me freeze like a deer in the…pincers. See, I can’t even come up with a good metaphor right now.

As some of you may recall, I’m writing a non-majors textbook called The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. The book include

“the model of journalism that we cherish - the tandem until Watergate ‘Carl Zimmer in pre-Internet - may have been thrown to the nettles.”

This piece in Agence Science Presse appears to be about the future of science journalism. If Google Translate is right, my place in that future appears to be in some type of shrubbery.

Perhaps someone who hasn’t forgotten quite so much of his or her high school French will understand what’s going on here.

The Natural History of the Flu: My Latest Story For The NY Times

You have to hand it to those little flu viruses–with just a few genes apiece, they can infect us humans by the millions, and we can barely keep up with their evolution. In tomorrow’s New York Times, I’ve written a natural history of the flu, looking at how influenza viruses mutate, swap genes, undergo natural selection, cross species barriers, and  adapt to new hosts. The new strain of swine flu (or perhaps more precisely, the new strain of human-and-bird-flu-viruses-swirled-up-inside-pigs-and-t

I Got Your Two Cultures Right Here

This Saturday I’ll be joining fellow Discover bloggers Chris Mooney and  Sheril Kirshenbaum, Discover editor-in-chief Corey Powell, along with luminaires like E.O. Wilson and Lawrence Krauss for “The Two Cultures In the 21st Century,” a daylong meeting at the New York Academy of Sciences (7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St., 40th floor). Chris and Sheril say the meeting is close to sold out, so if you want to join us, please register now.

It’s a weird time to have a meeting about science in t

Math As Useful Beauty [Science Tattoos]

Nicole, a physics graduate student and blogger, writes:

My tattoo is the Taylor expansion of sine.  I consider it the most beautiful thing I have ever learned (it has held that title for about 7 years) and I got the tattoo after my freshman year at MIT.  It has additional meaning to me since sin(x)~x is one of the most useful things in physics.

For a lesson in Taylor series, go here.

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Just Keep Calling It Fact-Checking And Someday They’ll Believe You

Zachary Smith at Talking Points Memo, among others, notes that the Washington Post editorial page editor is still claiming that George Will’s many misrepresentations about global warming were subject to “careful fact-checking,” some two months after many people showed they were anything but–including some who explained the errors in the Washington Post itself. It’s a sad coda to a long tale of op-ed woe.

Swine Flu Got You Worried? Unruffled? Be A Part of Scientific History!

Marcel Salathe, a biologist I know at Stanford, is running a very cool study on swine flu psychology that you can be a part of. Here’s the dope from Marcel:

 As you have heard in the news, there has been an outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and the United States. There is a possibility that this situation might develop into a pandemic if the virus continues to spread around the globe. The news media report excessively about this threat, and while health officials urge people to stay calm, there is

The Swine Flu Is All In Your Head: Is Anyone Awake At the Huffington Post?

I am told that the Huffington Post represents the future of journalism. I sure hope it’s not the future of science journalism. Some of their posts on swine flu have caused a strange creaky sound in my skull, and for a few days now I haven’t been able to figure it out. It turns out to have been the prelude to a full-out head explosion, which took place when I just read this by New ager Marianne Williamson:

Dear God,

Please take away the swine flu.

Amen

According to Martin Luther King, Jr. there is