A blog about life, past and future
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
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Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition
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"...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
September 23, 2004
Category: Evolution
Every now and then you come across a scientific hypothesis that is so elegant and powerful in its ability to explain that it just feels right. Yet that doesn't automatically make it right. Even when an elegant hypothesis gets support...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 3:44 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 20, 2004
Category: Brains
I am sure that in 50 years, we are going to know a lot more about how the mind works. The fusion of psychology and genetics will tell us about how our personality is influenced by our genes, and...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 2:33 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 15, 2004
Category: Brains
The soft spot on a baby's head may be able to tell us when our ancestors first began to speak. We have tremendously huge brains--six times bigger than the typical brain of a mammal our size. Obviously, that big size...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 1:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 13, 2004
Category: Evolution
Evolution works on different scales. In a single day, HIV's genetic code changes as it adapts to our ever-adapting immune system. Over the course of decades, the virus can make a successful leap from one species to another (from chimpanzees...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 11:27 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 2, 2004
Category: General
See you September 13....
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 8:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
Today scientists took another step towards creating the sort of simple life forms that may have been the first inhabitants of Earth. I wrote a feature for the June issue of Discover about this group, led by Jack Szostak at...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 1:52 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 1, 2004
Category: Brains
"A world without memory is a world of the present," Alan Lightman wrote in Einstein's Dreams. "The past exists only in books, in documents. In order to know himself, each person carries his own Book of Life, which is filled...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 4:06 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
