Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 128

Visions of the Crash

[image error]Fifteen years ago I got my first vision of the future: a pair of black holes, ringed by rainbows of fire, crashed into each other so violently they sent a tsunami through the fabric of space itself.

The vision did not come from angels or mushrooms. I was sitting at my desk, looking at the saucer-sized screen of a MacIIsi. I was not gazing at actual black holes, but a two-dimensional simulation. And it was not  the simulation that astonished me. I was stunned instead by the fact that my Mac was co

The Continuing Return of Carl Sagan

Last summer I had a great time revisiting my geek childhood by watching old episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on Itunes. As I blogged here, it may be as badly dated as a disco ball, but it’s still wonderfully captivating to my twenty-first century daughters.

Well, if you didn’t fork over $1.99 per episode then, here’s a new recession-era deal you can’t refuse. Cosmos is now on Hulu. Here’s episode one…

Please Welcome Our New Bloggers

Chris Mooney (the subject of a Loom post over the weekend) and Sheril Kirshenbaum have brought their blog, The Intersection, to Discover. I think I’ve been reading the Intersection ever since it started, years ago. Mooney and Kirshenbaum focus on the intersection (hence the name) of science and culture in all its manifestations, from scientific literacy to the way science gets treated by the government. Even when I’ve disagreed with them, I’ve found them thought-provoking. So be sure to check th

You Don’t Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Ink Flows

A meteorologist who asked to remain anonymous writes:

This tattoo is of a cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) cloud with bolts of lightning.   My childhood fascination with weather led to a career in it.  Storms are embedded in my psyche & soul, and during a stormy time in my life I decided to embed a storm in my skin.  I sketched a cumulonimbus cloud for the tattoo artist, and he and the other people in the parlor said something along the lines of, ‘Dude, we can make that tubular!’ … and this is how it

Glaciers and Electrons

[image error]Thirty-four days ago, George Will published a column in the Washington Post that was loaded with erroneous statements about global warming. Many people, your humble scribe included, laid out the fact-checking. The Washington Post editorial page editors claimed that they checked the column repeatedly, yet their ombudsman granted that perhaps it might have been a nice idea if somebody had called the scientists Will invoked as his authorities–scientists who themselves refuted him. Yet the Post has

How To Be A Bat [Life in Motion]

When the evenings get particularly thick with mosquitoes where I live, I sometimes sit out in the yard with my daughters and look up at the fading sky. Before too long, a single bat will usually flit out of the nearby trees and start flying circles around the house, scooping up bugs along the way. We can barely make out the bat’s wings as it takes its laps, a flicker of membranes. And so it was a revelation to spend some time earlier this week with two Brown University biologists, Dan Riskin

Alien Jaws, Mutant Microbes, And Darwin’s Trip to Hollywood

My lecture on Darwin’s birthday last month has just been posted online on the web site of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, one of my gracious hosts in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Here’s a review from Bora Zivkovic at Blog Around the Clock.)

A higher-resolution version of the talk is available from Itunes here.

Watch it and learn what Darwin and G.I. Joe have in common…

(Linked fixed)

Update: I’ve updated the lecture here via blip.tv. The quality is so-so; I will try to get a higher-resolut

Two Cultures Come Together In May

Chris Mooney has invited me to participate in an intriguing conference in New York in May called “The Two Cultures.” From the meeting website:

In 1959 the prominent British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow gave a pivotal lecture before a crowd of his colleagues in Cambridge. The lecture focused on what he saw as a serious divide between the sciences and the humanities. As a researcher and creative writer he had a unique perspective on the problem and its impact on society at large. Now, 50 years

The Mysteries of Anesthesia

I’ve only been put under general anesthesia once in my life, and ever since I’ve wondered what exactly happened to me during those lost hours. It turns out nobody really knows. But if they ever find out, they may get a little closer to solving the riddle of consciousness. That’s the subject of my newest brain column for Discover. Check it out.

Science Meets Talk: Tomorrow at Brown

I’ll be in Providence, RI, tomorrow to give a talk at Brown at noon entitled, “Science Meets Talk.” I’ll be discussing the fascinating, troubling, and sometimes bizarre intersections of scientific research and the media. It will be at Metcalf Chemistry Lab Auditorium, 97 Waterman St. Here are the details.