Carl Zimmer's Blog, page 84

Now bring me a T. rex tapeworm!

I had planned to spend today NOT writing about parasites, but this morning I've already gotten comments and tweets informing me about a very cool new paper that was published today, documenting parasitized zombies 48 million years ago.

All right, then. The parasite overlords cannot be ignored.

The parasite in question is the fiendishly awesome Cordyceps, a fungus that forces its insect hosts to climb up high on plants, clamp down, and hold fast. The fungus then sprouts out of the ant's body...

Parasitic wasps on Weeds: We have video!

Thanks to Mandarb for posting this clip from Weeds I was wondering about yesterday. I should point out that it's a very abridged version of my original piece on the radio. For example, it sounds as if I'm giving God my own personal forgiveness for parasitic wasps. I was actually talking about a letter written by Darwin in which the wasps figured in his musings about God.

And I have to say that I'm not much closer to figuring out what parasitic wasps have to do with the show's plot. I guess...

I have it on good authority my voice makes its cable TV premiere tonight

I have a strange job. A few weeks back I was wandering through the aisles of the local Walmart, searching for bug spray, when my phone rang. A very excited Robert Krulwich was calling. As I drifted past the potato chips and plasma-screen TVs, he declared to me with great excitement that I was going to be on the cable series Weeds.

Now, I'm pretty sure that if I had actually auditioned for the show, I would remember it. Or at least I could find some trace of the experience over on IMDB...

Slime-a-palooza!

I've been waiting a long time to see a hagfish in person. Last year I took a class miles out to sea, hauled up traps from 300 feet, and came up with nothing but mud. Today, however, we discovered not just one hagfish–but fifty. Buckets full of squirming jawless beasts that seemed to slither straight out of the Cambrian Period. Their slime is more like a jelly made of glass–a marvelous thing. I am here to declare that a day with fifty hagfish is a good day.

(For more, read "Secrets of the...

The beautifully brutal life of gulls

This week I'm on the Island of Science Writing. Today we wandered rocky coves with Tufts University biologist Julie Ellis, an expert on gulls. She showed us how to catch and band juvenile herring gulls–and  how to recognize the matted remains of juvenile herring gulls coughed up by their great black-backed gulls predators. Life here is pretty, and yet not so pretty. But always interesting for writing about.

Science Tattoo Emporium–The Book!

[image error]It was three years ago to the day that I wondered out loud whether scientists wore tattoos of their science. The result was a resounding yes, and that yes turned into the Science Tattoo Emporium. And today, I'm pleased to announce, the emporium is going to turn into a book.

The book, tentatively entitled Science Ink, will be published next year by Sterling. The images will be accompanied by some of my own reflections on the tattoos, in which I will unpack the inside jokes and strange...

Darwinius versus blog power: A look back

Brian Switek, one of the junior members of the science-blogging-whippersnapper brigade, has written a detailed look back at the saga of Darwinius, the primate fossil that held Mayor Bloomberg captive at a press conference. It was just published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach and is free for the taking. Switek has kind things to say about the impact of the Loom's coverage of the subject, although I'm pretty sure this blog–and the many others that hopped on this crazy...

Gasp! My new article on global warming and oxygen

It's becoming increasingly clear that global warming may trigger many changes beyond the obvious change in temperature. Earlier this year I wrote about how rising carbon dioxide is driving down the pH of the oceans, with some potentially devastating consequences. Today in Yale Environment 360 I look at a potential change that's also starting to get scientists very worried: a drop in the oxygen dissolved in the world's oceans. Check it out.

[Image: Christopher Sebela on Flickr]

Further thoughts on arbitrary desire: Rick Prum chimes in

I dropped Rick Prum an email to make him aware of the lively discussion about my post on his ideas about the arbitrariness of desire, and he has kindly written a long comment of his own in response. Check it out.

Letter from SciFoo: The joys and sorrows of the Unconference

This morning I am sitting down at my desk with a small red notebook with the words "Google: Open Source Programs Office" on the cover. It is filled with my scrawlings from a meeting this weekend at Google Headquarters, known as SciFoo. The notebook was part of a standard meeting goody bag SciFoo dispensed, along with one of those very heavy plastic cubes that meeting organizers love to engrave as a memento of a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Since I never check baggage when I fly, I left t...