William Safire's 2004 Predictions
Category: Brains
Number seven...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:51 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Loom
A blog about life, past and future
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Carl Zimmer is a science writer. His articles appear in the New York Times and many magazines. He is also the author of six books about science. Send messages to blog/ at/ carlzimmer/ dot/ com
Books by Carl Zimmer
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Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition
"As fine a book as one will find on the subject."-- Scientific American
Revised with a new introduction
"Superb...a non-stop delight."-- New Scientist
"Fascinating...thrilling... Zimmer has produced a top-notch work of popular science." --LA Times
"A fascinating story, which Zimmer unfolds as a tale of high-stakes scientific sleuthing...thanks to marvelous lucid writing." --Booklist
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Swatches from the Loom
- The Wisdom of Parasites
- Eyes Part One: Opening Up the Russian Doll
- Hamilton's Fall
- Old Hands and New Fins
- The Origin of the Ridiculous
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Why the Loom?
"...among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters, heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad."
--Moby Dick
December 31, 2003
December 30, 2003
Why The Cousins Are Gone
Category: Evolution
They say that history is written by the winners, but if that's true, then natural history is written by those who can write. Our ancestors split from the ancestors of chimpanzees some 6 or 7 million years ago, and since then they've given rise to perhaps twenty known species of hominids (and potentially many more waiting to be discovered). Today only our own species survives, and only ours has acquired the intelligence to learn things about the distant past--such as the fact that we are the product of evolution. Our survival and our intelligence sometimes blur together, with the result that a lot of the research on human evolution (and most of the popular accounts of it) revolve around what makes our own lineage unique and successful. All the other branches of homind dynasty become our foil--the losers who, through their extinctions, reveal what is most glorious about ourselves. As a way of thinking, this is both unfair and foolish. We become satisfied with our own false assumptions about other hominids, and may miss some lessons they have for us. Exhibit A: our ancient thick-headed cousin Paranthropus.
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:12 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 24, 2003
Mad Cow Memories
Category: Brains
I can already see the grim look many Americans will have as they chew on their Christmas roast tomorrow. They'll be thinking about yesterday's report that a cow in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease. There's some comfort in knowing that so far it's just a single cow, and that American cattle are regularly screened for bovine spongiform encephalitis. The grimmest look this Christmas may be on the faces of McDonald's shareholders and cattle ranchers. A single Canadian cow that test positive wreaked havoc on the entire beef industry up north. But this Christmas also brings a fascinating discovery about the bizarre agents that cause disorders such as mad cow disease: they may actually record our memories.
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:28 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 22, 2003
Your Loss is Your Gain
Category: Evolution
Evolution isn't simply about the genes you gain. It's also about the genes you lose.
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:57 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 18, 2003
A Little Soul For The Holidays
Category: Brains
I will never figure out the publishing world. My new book, Soul Made Flesh officially publishes on January 6, 2004. But Amazon and Powell's both say they've got it now and can get it to customers in 1-2 days. I...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:56 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Hamilton's Fall
Category: Evolution
Just before the winter solstice brings autumn to an end, here's a chance to blog about the great evolutionary biologist--and student of fall foliage--William Hamilton. Hamilton, who died in 2000, has never reached the household-name status of other evolutionary biologists...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 11:21 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 17, 2003
The Genes Behind Big Brains
Category: Brains
Here's a new development in the search I described last week for the genes that make us uniquely human. Science's Michael Balter reports on a new study about a gene that's crucial for making big brains. Mutant versions of the...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 3:33 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 15, 2003
Reading the Body
Category: Brains
Darwin's spirit lives on in everything from the Human Genome Project to medicine to conservation biology--the three topics I covered in my post on Friday. It also lives on in brain scans. While Darwin is best known for The Origin...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:22 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 12, 2003
A (Re) Introduction, Complete With Rams, Plagues, and Chimps
Category: Evolution
To those who are new to my web log, thanks for checking it out. To those who have come from my old site, thanks for clicking through. This week, while a sickly laptop robbed me of the opportunity to blog,...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 6:35 AM • 2 Comments •
December 3, 2003
Eight Little Piggies Redux
Category: Evolution
In a post last month, I pointed out how aerospace engineers can learn a lot from looking at the fossils of ancient flying reptiles. Today's issue of Nature contains a variation on that theme: ancient swimming reptiles can teach geneticists...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:38 PM • 0 Comments •
Venter's Virus--Assembly Instructions Now On-Line
Category: General
Craig Venter has followed up on his announcement that he and his coworkers have assembled a virus from its genome sequence. Now there's a paper available at the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science web site. A bleary-eyed late-night...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 3:49 AM • 2 Comments •
December 1, 2003
Free Will Starts...Now
Category: Brains
Two decades ago, a neuroscientist named Benjamin Libet published a classic experiment on conscious will. He had his subjects rest a finger on a button as they stared at a specially designed clock. It had only one hand, which swept...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 8:50 PM • 5 Comments •
