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The Loom

A blog about life, past and future

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Zimmer133.jpg 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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NOW ON SALE!
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life



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Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition



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"As fine a book as one will find on the subject."-- Scientific American

Revised with a new introduction





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"Superb...a non-stop delight."-- New Scientist





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"Fascinating...thrilling... Zimmer has produced a top-notch work of popular science." --LA Times





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"A fascinating story, which Zimmer unfolds as a tale of high-stakes scientific sleuthing...thanks to marvelous lucid writing." --Booklist





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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 31, 2006

Learning To Ignore Your Viruses

Category: Evolution

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the 98,000 viruses that have permanently pasted their genes into our genome over the past 60 million years. What makes these viruses doubly fascinating is that scientists are making new discoveries about them...

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March 28, 2006

Not Dead, Just Deadlines

Category: General

No, there's nothing wrong with your RSS feed. This blog has just gone very quiet as I've become insanely busy with an upcoming talk and my new book project (more on both later). I don't expect to have time to...

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March 23, 2006

You're a Dim Bulb (And I mean that in the best possible way)

Category: Brains

I have a fondness for collecting brain lore--memes about the wonders of the human brain that race around the world for decades. The classic of brain lore is the "ten-percent myth." As I wrote here, people often claim we only...

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March 22, 2006

Kate Wong on the Hobbit Trail

Category: Hobbits (Homo floresiensis)

Kate Wong, Scientific American's excellent paleo reporter has a two-parter on the latest dish on Homo floresiensis a k a the Hobbit. No cymbal crashes, I'm afraid, but interesting nonetheless....

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March 19, 2006

Pharyngula on penguins

Category: Evolution

Check out Pharyngula on the new paper that uses penguin fossils to time the evolution of living bird groups. In October I posted this picture of a reconstruction of the penguin in question, which now has a name: Waimanu. I'd...

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March 17, 2006

Gross, and then really gross

Category: The Parasite Files

Even I have my limits....

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Hipster Dodos

Category: Evolution

Randy Olson, who sparked a massive discussion here a couple weeks ago in connection to his movie, Flock of Dodos and how to explain evolution, sends an update: Hello Carl - Big news here -- the official World Premiere of...

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March 14, 2006

Evolution Resumes in November!

Category: Evolution

Harper has put up a new page on Amazon for the reissued paperback of Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. It will include an introduction I've written that surveys some of the important developments in both the science and politics...

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Frivolous Creationist Lawsuits

Category: Evolution

Last October, a lawsuit was leveled against an evolution web site at UC Berkeley, based on the claim that government funds had been used to promote religious belief. I contributed the section on the history of biological thought. Judy Scotchmoor,...

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March 13, 2006

Mothers, Children, and Genes in Conflict

Category: Evolution

Natural selection can favor genes that allow children to grow up healthy. But in order to grow up healthy, they need nurturing from their mothers, both before and after birth. If a baby's development puts a strain on a mother,...

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The Sixty-Million-Year Virus

Category: Evolution

How do we know that we are kin to chimpanzees and howler monkeys and the other primates? For one thing, it's by far the best explanation for the fossil record. For another, our DNA shows signs of kinship to other...

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March 11, 2006

A Retraction and a Deletion

Category: Evolution

In trying to navigate the new ethical territory of blogging, I've decided to delete part of one of my posts. The full explanation is below....

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March 10, 2006

Taking the Temperature on Global Warming Books

Category: General

I take a look at two new books on global warming in Sunday's New York Times Book Review. The International Herald Tribune has already posted it on their site (which has no subscription wall to boot). (Update: NYTBR link.) The...

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Lemonick Blogs

Category: General

Mike Lemonick, Time's excellent senior writer on science, has started a blog. I can't think off the top of my head of another staff science writer at a big magazine or newspaper who has a blog (as opposed to us...

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Caution: Contains Viewing Material That May Not Be Suitable for Younger Cockroaches

Category: The Parasite Files

Loyal readers need no introduction to this bit of entomological "Faces of Death." Others who think this must be some sort of hoax, read this (or this). Courtesy of Dr. Fred Liebersat, oracle of the emerald cockroach wasp....

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Cockroach Zombies Go Cable

Category: The Parasite Files

The Discovery Channel picked up my cockroach zombie story and interviewed Dr. Fred Liebersat on his research. They included some cool footage of the roach and its sinister wasp brain surgeon. To watch, go to their archives and scroll to...

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March 9, 2006

Where There's Liquid Water...

Category: Evolution

Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn, suddenly gets interesting. It may be spewing liquid water. And since the only life we know of needs liquid water--and since Enceladus may now be the second place we know of in the...

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Wrist Walkers Revisited

Category: Evolution

I've revisited the wrist walker story after a scientist involved accused me of spreading "empty gossip." I don't agree with that charge, but I do think I should retract some of what I wrote. But I've still got some nagging...

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March 8, 2006

This Week in Human Evolution

Category: Evolution

I've been in low-blogging mode for a few days as I try to fire off a few dead-tree articles. But I wanted to write up a quick post to draw your attention to threetwo very interesting pieces of human evolution...

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March 3, 2006

Tree of Life, c. 2006

Category: Evolution

Scientists are probably centuries away from drawing the full tree of life. For one thing, they have only discovered a small fraction of the species on Earth--perhaps only ten percent. They are also grappling with the relationships between the...

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