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dobbspic I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. In August 2010, I'll be moving to London for a year to work on the book. I'll also serve as a senior fellow at City University London's MA science journalism program.

You're encouraged to check out my third book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career; subscribe to Neuron Culture by email; see more of my work at my main website; or track Twitter feed, my Google Reader shared items, or my Tumblr log, which gets it all.

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    Copernicus corpse confirmed

    Posted on: November 24, 2008 5:06 PM, by David Dobbs

    45F1224D-A782-456B-9C5B-84CBEEB22542.jpg

    Computerized reconstruction, via BBC


    from Nature's The Great Beyond:

    Copernicus corpse confirmed - November 21, 2008

    A skull from Frombork cathedral in Poland has been identified as that of revolutionary astronomer Copernicus.

    Marie Allen, of Uppsala University, says DNA from the skull is a match for DNA from hairs found in books owned by Copernicus, whose book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium started the movement to viewing the sun -- rather than the Earth -- as the centre of the solar system.

    "The two strands of hair found in the book have the same genome sequence as the tooth from the skull and a bone from Frombork," she says (AFP).

    Polish police have used the skull to create a reconstruction of how its owner might have looked. This, says AFP, "bears a striking resemblance to portraits of the young Copernicus."


    More via the BBC and the Guardian

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