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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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--Moby Dick
December 27, 2007
Category: Evolution
Last week I wrote about a new study that identified a fossil mammal as the closest relative to whales, helping to shed light on how whales moved from land to sea. The mammal, Indohyus, was a small four-legged creature that...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:49 AM • 14 Comments •
December 21, 2007
Category: Writing Elsewhere
Nobody wants to be hit on the head with a ten-mile asteroid. But what if giant impacts are actually good for life in the long-term? I contemplate that strange possibility over at Wired.com. Check it out. Meteorites May Have Fostered...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:46 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Science Tattoos
"My right forearm has a 8" ruler on it that I use for everything from measuring PVC diameter to wire lengths. My background is in embedded hardware design, but I choose to spend my time doing experimental building, transportation, and...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:00 AM • 8 Comments •
December 19, 2007
Category: Evolution
When I first met Hans Thewissen, he spending an afternoon standing on a table, pointing a camera at a fossil between his feet. He asked me to hold a clip light to get rid of some shadows. I felt like...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 1:00 PM • 25 Comments •
December 18, 2007
Category: General
Is it wrong to find pictures of destruction beautiful? This is a frame from a supercomputer simulation of the Tunguska meteorite. It exploded over Siberia in 1908 and flattened miles of trees. The simulation suggests that the devastation could have...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 10:19 PM • 1 Comments •
December 17, 2007
Category: Microcosm: The Book
This is the sort of thing that made me decide to write a whole book about these bugs... LS9 Inc., a company in San Carlos, Calif., is already using E. coli bacteria that have been reprogrammed with synthetic DNA to...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 4:02 PM • 3 Comments •
December 16, 2007
Category: Global Warming
I've got a new conversation up at bloggingheads.tv. This time around I talk to University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward about the mass extinctions that wiped out millions of species in the past, and how disturbingly difficult it is to...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:15 PM • 1 Comments •
December 13, 2007
Category: Microcosm: The Book
Some of the blogs that I find most interesting are also the most sporadic. Fortunately, RSS feeds mean their occasional utterances don't disappear off my radar. Rob Carlson's blog, synthesis, is an excellent, deeply considered blog on the rise of...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 12:50 AM • 5 Comments •
December 12, 2007
Category: Writing Elsewhere
In my latest column for Wired, I take a look at the ever-fascinating intersection between engineering and biology. An electrical engineer-turned-ecologist uses the principles of circuits to track the flow of genes in endangered species. Remarkably, it works. Take a...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 8:06 PM • 3 Comments •
December 10, 2007
Category: Evolution
In tomorrow's New York Times, I have a story about some very fun research--the study of the world's biggest gulp. Some new research indicates that the biggest species of whales eat by gulping their own weight in water every thirty...
Posted by Carl Zimmer at 11:09 PM • 4 Comments •
