loom | November 13, 2007Not much blogging this week--I'm heading out to California to receive the National Academies prize I wrote about a while back. In the meantime, let me direct your attention to my lead article in this week's Science Times section of the NY Times. I wrote about swarms, herds, schools, gaggles, and other crowds of animals, focusing on one of the scientists who studies them, Iain Couzin. If you want to find out more about his quest to find the underlying rules of swarm intelligence, check out his web site.
loom | November 12, 2007
I agree with Phil that it's a good term. In fact, when I have to talk about intelligent design, these slides are how I illustrate its evolutionary roots.
loom | November 9, 2007 1. From this week's crop of new tattoos: Abraham writes: "I got mine in grad school (PhD materials science and applied physics, 2004 Cal). The tatoo is a convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) image of 6-4 Ti alloy (hexagonal, or beta phase) one of the first 'super alloys'. Being light-weight, high-strength, and corrosion resistant, I felt it was appropriate to put on my back, to keep it strong."
2. We are now actually inspiring people to get new science tattoos. Janet Stemwedel, my estimable fellow scienceblogger, send the following request:
I'm planning a mini-midlife crisis for…
loom | November 8, 2007This is a new and fascinating map. It shows how next spring is probably going to come early here in New England, as it has come earlier and earlier for the past few decades. But in Florida it will probably come late. Both changes stem from the same source: our carbon addiction. I explain why in my first foray in a new column for Wired.com called Dissection. The column, on all manner of science, will come out every other Friday. Let me know what you think, there or here.
Greenup of the Planet Is Not Black-and-White
loom | November 8, 2007A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I'll be teaching a workshop in January at Yale about science writing. The response has been fantastic, with 90 people signed up at my last count. What makes the response particularly interesting is that a couple subjects of my own articles (like this) will be coming. So I may get them to talk a little about what it's like to be on the receiving end of the media machine.
Several readers have expressed dismay that they couldn't come. I'm happy to report that at least part of the workshop will be recorded and turned into a podcast that will be available for…
loom | November 6, 2007I am a bone geek, I confess. On my bookshelves are a bunch of coffee-table books full of skulls, femurs, and xyphoid processes. They include From Lucy To Language, loaded with hominid remains, Human Bones for our current anatomy, and Fossils for a quick hit of Deep Time. An excellent addition to this sub-sub-genre is called, simply, Evolution. It's loaded with gorgeous pictures of vertebrate skeletons (including this angler). In today's New York Times, I have a photoessay with several other selections. You can check out a slide show here.
Update: I forgot to mention that I talk about the…
loom | November 3, 2007I've updated the talks page on my web site after a long stretch of neglect. I've included links to podcasts and video of previous appearances, and what information I have at this point about upcoming talks. It's going to be a fairly busy spring, with talks hither and yon on extinctions, whales, Darwin, and science writing. And that doesn't even include talking about my next book, Microcosm.
Anyone interested in having me give a lecture or interview about Microcosm when it comes out in the spring is welcome get in touch. Knopf Speakers Bureau can handle requests for lectures on other topics.
loom | November 2, 2007Sorry about the mistake on the last post's headline. (Vengeans? Sort of like vengeful vegans?) Spell-checkers have turned my brain to mush.
loom | November 1, 2007 "Here is a picture of my serotonin tattoo. I don't know that it needs much more explanation than it's my favorite neurotransmitter."--Hayley
I thought there were more science tattoo out there. Last week brought nothing, but this week brought the collection up to 85.
loom | October 30, 2007 For those who may have come to the Loom after seeing me talking about autumn leaves on ABC News this evening, you can learn more about the science in these posts (plus this article I wrote for the New York Times).
Scientists continue to investigate why leaves change colors--check out this new post yesterday from Voltage Gate.
(I should also clarify that the damage leaves suffer in the fall can come from charged atoms within the leaf, rather than directly from the sun's photons.)
Update: Link to the ABC news segment added.
loom | October 30, 2007A quick note: I just found out I'll be on the ABC evening news tonight, about 5 minutes before the end of the show, talking about the mystery and glory of autumn leaves. I'll post a link when I find it.
Update: Voila.
loom | October 30, 2007I'm sometimes asked who my favorite science writers are. I don't like science writers per se; I like science writing, or rather some science writing--the passages and chapters and books that remind me just how good science writing can get, just how high above the wasteland of hackery, dishonest simplification, and cliches it can rise. This morning by chance I stumbled across a recording from 1996 of John McPhee reading one of those passages (he reads from one of his geology books at about 6:20). It has the added bonus of an explanation far more clear than I could offer as to why an English…
loom | October 29, 2007Matthew Chapman, writer and producer, writes an op-ed calling for presidential candidates to have a debate on scientific issues. It's an entirely reasonable piece, but if you stop to think about it, its publication raises two disturbing questions--
1. Why should anyone have to plead for science to be a topic of discussion among presidential candidates?
2. Why did I find this piece on the Washington Post web site filed under a tab called "On Faith"--a section dedicated to religion?
On Faith: Guest Voices: Call for a Presidential Debate on Science
loom | October 26, 2007It appears that I didn't receive a single new science tattoo this week! Could it really be that on the entire planet, there are only 81 people passionate enough about their science to go under the needle? If so, thanks to everyone for a fascinating experiment. If not...keep them coming.
loom | October 25, 2007Ugh. Several days, pretty much day and night, going over the copy-edited Microcosm manuscript with a green pencil. I haven't had any time to write any original blog posts--or even reply to most of my email. But I can at least point you to three articles of mine that went online while I was buried deep in dangling participles. Looking at them now, I see a common theme: comparison.
1. The Internet and E. coli. Some of the most intriguing papers I've read about E. coli while researching Microcosm came from an engineer. John Doyle is a control theory expert at CalTech who has spent lots of time…
loom | October 22, 2007
At least for me, getting to see the cover of a new book for the first time is a great morale boost. The designer usually finishes it up right around the time when I'm starting to wonder if the book will ever become real. Recently I got the new cover of Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life. I wrapped it around another book and stuck it on my mantelpiece, to remind myself that soon (May, actually), the book will be in bookstores. But I can show it to you now, because it's been posted at Amazon and at the Random House web site.
There's still plenty of work for me before it becomes…
loom | October 19, 2007Thanks for all the questions for my talk with Craig Venter for bloggingheads.tv. I didn't end up reading questions verbatim a la Emily Litella ("a Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee New Jersey asks...") But the questions definitely shaped the conversation.
Some readers have been asking when our talk will be posted. Answer: Saturday morning. I'll post a link when it's live, and you can also check bloggingheads.tv directly.
Update: It's up. Comments are welcome over there or over here.
Photo: Evan Hurd
loom | October 19, 2007"I am a biochemist, studying to be a molecular biologist, and the tattoo I am sending is the entry for carbon on the periodic table of elements. Since all living things on this planet at least are carbon based, from a chemical standpoint, it doesn't get much more basic than carbon. Hence the tattoo." --Erin
The call for science tattoos has brought 81 images now. After two months, they keep coming.
loom | October 17, 2007[Update 10/18 8:30 am: Honestly, when I wrote this post last night, I could only access the first couple paragraphs of the op-ed in question. But now the link takes you to the full text. Could it be that my cries were heard?? Doubt it, but open access is always nice.]
In today's Wall Street Journal there was a very provocative op-ed by ecologist Daniel Botkin. He argues that the evidence of potential harm from global warming is overblown. Here is what you can see for free...
Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life -- ours and that of all living things on…
loom | October 16, 2007Permit me a wee bit of nepotism. My brother Ben is on ABC News: World News tonight to celebrate National Dictionary Day. He talks about how language evolves in weird ways. It's already on their web cast here