Light Blogging
Category: General
I'm in Cambridge at the MIT/Harvard Brain Boot Camp this week, so blogging will be light for a few days....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:28 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Loom
A blog about life, past and future
Profile
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
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- 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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- Sex In A Blender: The Microcosm Edition of Bloggingheads
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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
March 29, 2004
March 24, 2004
The Panda's Thumb
Category: Evolution
A great blog is born: The Panda's Thumb is a multi-authored blog that blasts a firehose of reason at distortions of evolution....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:08 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Chew On This
Category: Evolution
Our ancestors branched off from those of chimpanzees some six million years ago. Since then, our lineage became human--and distinctly unlike other apes. Figuring out how that difference evolved is one of the grand challenges of biology. Until now, scientists...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:03 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Getting Closer to the Brain Implant
Category: Brains
In February I wrote an article in Popular Science about a project to implant electrodes in a monkey's brain allowing the monkey to control a robot arm with its mind. The goal of this work is to let paralyzed people...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 9:14 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 23, 2004
Soul of the South
Category: Brains
Attention Virginian readers of the Loom: I'll be heading to warmer climes later this week to speak in Charlottesville at the Virginia Festival of the Book. On Thursday at 4 I'll be speaking on a panel about science and society....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 8:51 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 22, 2004
The Reviews
Category: Brains
I've posted a new batch of reviews for Soul Made Flesh on my web site. The newest is from Ross King, the author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling. His review in yesterday's Los Angeles Times is...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:14 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Dog That Didn't Bark In the Night
Category: Evolution
Last week I wrote about an important new study showing that three very different groups of species--plants, butterflies, and birds--have all been declining at the same alarming rate for over 40 years in Great Britain. The authors concluded that if...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:05 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 18, 2004
Angels and Extinctions
Category: Evolution
When I ask scientists what's the biggest misunderstanding people have about their work, they often talk about how they know what they know. People tend to think that a scientist's job is to gather every single datum about something in...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 2:52 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 17, 2004
Fire Up The Tivo
Category: Brains
Three weeks ago, I gave a talk at Stanford University about my new book Soul Made Flesh. A wonderful crowd turned out and peppered me with excellent questions afterwards, each of which could have become new talks of their own....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 6:10 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Literature Check
Category: Evolution
In one of the weirdest attempts to pretend that creationism is a real science, a student at Harvard Law School wrote a favorable review in the Harvard Law Review of a book about Intelligent Design. You'd think that this would...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 15, 2004
The Accidental Tumor
Category: Evolution
For over two centuries, opponents of evolution have searched for examples of natural complexity that could have only been created by design. Reverend William Paley was fond of the eye, with its lens, retina, and other components all beautifully fine-tuned...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 2:54 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 12, 2004
The Wisdom of the Mailbox
Category: Evolution
I have been grievously mum in response to the many comments that readers have been sending to the Loom. My silence is not hostile--it is the result of way too much traveling, too much magazine writing, and the standard sleep...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 8:51 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 10, 2004
Ohio Loses Its Way
Category: Evolution
Ohio's Board of Education has taken a big step towards forcing its students to waste their time on creationist pseudo-objections to evolution. PZ Meyers has a good round-up of this sad situation....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 4:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 9, 2004
Bioethics of--and in--the Brain
Category: Brains
When George Bush quietly dismissed two members of his Council on Bioethics on the last Friday in February, he probably assumed the news would get buried under the weekend’s distractions. But ten days later, it’s still hot—see, for example, two...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:55 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Building and Breaking The Mental Juke-Box
Category: Brains
Over on my web site I've posted an article I've just written for the Sunday Telegraph Magazine in England about an eerie brain disorder called musical hallucinosis. You've probably had a tune stuck in your head for an hour at...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:39 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 5, 2004
The Loom In the News
Category: General
The Austin Chronicle has an interesting piece today on blogs, which marks the first time anyone's ever interviewed me about the Loom. Conclusion: no money, uncertain future, but much fun....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:21 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Secrets of the Teeth
Category: Evolution
Probing the origins of humanity is actually a lot like being a dentist. The bones of our hominid ancestors tend to fall apart, leaving behind a smattering of shards. But teeth, made of enamel, can do a better job of...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:11 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 2, 2004
The Dawn of Medicine, Plus or Minus a Couple Million Years
Category: Evolution
I was puzzled by an article in today's New York Times called "Researchers rewrite first chapter for the history of medicine." William Honan, the reporter, announced that "an art historian and a medical researcher say they have pushed back by...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 11:18 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
17th Century Soul, 21st Century Mind
Category: Brains
If you want to hear about brain science at its birth and today, check out the public radio show Tech Nation, this week. In the first half of the show, I'll be talking about Soul Made Flesh. In the second...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 4:18 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Creativity of Microbes
Category: Evolution
In my last post, I wrote about how our genes work in networks, much like circuits made of elements wired together in various ways. As genes are accidentally duplicated, mutated, and rewired, old networks can give rise to new ones....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:27 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
