Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 48
March 5, 2012
Catching up with Download the Universe: Alien worlds, killer meteorites, and meaningless smiles
Download the Universe, a new science ebook review, is now entering its third week of life. We've been publishing a string of new reviews since I last blogged about it. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, now is a great time to do so. Here are the latest:
Worlds Without End: Sean Carroll on Journey to the Exoplanets
One man and his superorganism: Ed Yong on Before the Swarm
Doomsday Deflected Tom Levenson on Planet Killers
SMILE: The Astonishing Destructive Power of Positive Thinking David Dobbs disembowels SMILE; The Astonishing Power of a Simple Act.
Much more to come!
March 4, 2012
Take the Flame Challenge
Alan Alda has come up with an excellent contest for scientists:
Answer the question, "What is a flame?"
Here's the catch. The audience for the answer is 11-year-olds. Writing this week in Science (free pdf), Alda recalls how he asked this question to his science teacher when he was 11. The answer he got was, "It's oxidation."
Accurate, but not enlightening. This, of course, is a challenge that science writers face every day–how to use everyday language to convey insights that scientists describe to each other and students with precise, but often obscure, terminology.
It's not easy for experienced writers to do this, and it can be even harder for scientists who are just starting to communicate to a broad audience. When I teach workshops for science graduate students, I force them to do without a long list of jargon. (The Index of Banned Words) I want them to think of plain-English alternatives and mind-lifting metaphors instead.
It can be a struggle for them to resist those words. The most vivid way I can illustrate the struggle is to pick someone at random at a workshop and ask, "What do ...
March 2, 2012
Tongue Parasites to People of Earth: Thank You For Your Overfishing
Whenever I give a talk about my book Parasite Rex, I try to gather together the creepiest images of parasites that I can. Every time, there's one kind of parasite that summons an instant reaction: a mix of laughter, sucked-in breaths, and gasps of recognition. I speak, of course, of the parasites that eat your tongue.
I only mean you if you're a fish. Some species of isopods (crustaceans related to the less creepy crabs and lobsters) will swim into the gill of a fish, make their way to its mouth, and devour its tongue. It will jam its legs into the gills to hold itself in place, facing forward, its eyes gazing out of the fish's mouth, taking the very place of the tongue it just ate.
I was first introduced to these disturbing creatures by Matthew Gilligan, an invertebrate zoologist at Savannah State University. I had come across a disturbing picture of one of these parasitic isopods in a paper he published in 1983 and sent him an email, asking questions about it. I wondered what the isopods did once they were done devouring the tongue. ...
March 1, 2012
Viruses: Tonight on This Week in Science
Tonight I'm going to be on the show This Week In Science to talk about A Planet of Viruses and chat about all the many viruses in the news these days. Too many!
I'll be Skyping in at about 8:10 PT/11:10 ET and chatting with host Kiki Sanford for about half an hour. You can watch the livestream here.
February 29, 2012
Science Ink on the Shoreline: Free talk in Guilford CT, March 8
I've talked about Science Ink at tattoo parlors and scientific academies, in New York and Los Angeles. Now I'm delighted to take a stroll through my own town to speak at the Guilford Free Library here in Guilford, CT. I hope Loominaries along the shoreline can join me.
When: Thursday, March 8, 7 pm.
Where: Guilford Free Library, 67 Park Street, Guilford CT.
The talk is free, but you need to register on the library's web site.
February 27, 2012
Controlling Cancer: Today's ebook review at Download the Universe
Download the Universe, the new science ebook review that I and a group of other writers and scientists recently launched, is now entering its second week. I've written this week's first review, of an ebook called Controlling Cancer, by evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald. Ewald argues that the best way to reduce the death rate from cancer is to treat it like an infectious disease–which, to a surprising extent, it really is. Check it out.
[Image: Dividing lung cancer cell/NIH]
February 24, 2012
Emotions and Survival Circuits
Joseph LeDoux of New York University has built his career on studying emotions, especially fear. But now he's arguing that scientists don't really have a good definition of emotions. In fact, he is issuing a call to avoid using the e-word at all costs. At Txchnologist, I reflect on how we can understand emotions without the emotions. Check it out.
Download the Universe: Week One!
We've come to the end of the first week of Download the Universe, a science ebook review. Today's review is from Maggie Koerth-Baker, the science editor of Boing-Boing and author of the forthcoming Before the Lights Go Out, a book about the future of energy. She reviews Into the Forbidden Zone by William Vollmann, in which the author recounts his journey into Japan's post-tsunami hell. Maggie weaves in her own reflections on how hard it can be for us to judge the real risks we face from nature and from our own technology.
It's been a great experience to see the idea for this project go from conference-hallway gabbing to actual publication. Here are the rest of this week's offerings:
"A New Kind of Review for a New Kind of Book"–my introduction to the site and some thoughts about the history of science in books.
"A Cabinet of (Chemical) Curiosities"–Deborah Blum reviews The Elements, an iPad app about chemistry
"The State of the ebook, Early 2012″–John Timmer surveys the business and creative possibilities of ebooks today.
"Narrative and Neuroscience"–Annalee Newitz reviews Blindsight, an Atavist publication about a ...
February 23, 2012
Russian Doll Warfare: Plant, Virus, Bacteria, Aphid, Wasp
There are times when I want to retitled this blog The Continuing Adventures of Parasitic Wasps and Their Unfortunate Hosts. Because there are just so many stories of these sinister insects and how they lay their eggs inside other animals. That's no surprise, really, because there are hundreds of thousands of species of parasitic wasps on Earth, all evolving in different directions as they adapt to their host's defenses.
Last week, for example, I reported in the New York Times about a newly discovered defense that flies use against certain wasps: when the wasps inject their eggs into the flies, the flies drink alcohol to literally turn the parasites inside out.
Since then, I've become obsessed with another species of wasp that attacks aphids. The battle between these two species–and their many allies–makes the story of the boozy flies seem positively pedestrian.
The wasp is known as Aphidius ervi, and its hosts are aphids. Because aphids are major pests on farms and in gardens, researchers have turned A. ervi into a biological weapon against them. If you so desire, you can order 250 mummified aphids with wasps ready to emerge through the ...
