Greetings after a week of vacation!
Bet you never saw those words in that particular combination. Here’s the story:
Recently two scientists put together a new hypothesis about the evolution of the female orgasm. They argue that female mammals had orgasms, or at least precursors of them, 150 million years ago. And it started out with a function that was lost in our ancestors long ago.
I wrote about their study, and the response from other researchers, for my column last week in the New York Times. It triggered a lot of comments, including much snark.
Even JK Rowling chimed in, cracking a joke on Twitter.
But a writer for the Daily Mail got my tweets mixed up and wrongly reported that I had scolded Rowling for not reading my article.
I tried to sort things out on Storify. No correction from the Mail, though.
The Forward talked to me about my Game of Genomes series at Stat. We discussed what it’s like to get up close and personal with your genome, and what DNA can–and cannot–tell you about yourself.
Just wanted to draw your attention to a couple newly added talks below–one with fellow scribe Ed Yong in Brooklyn, one at the Library of Congress, one at the University of Alabama, and one at the next Future of Genome Medicine meeting.
September 8: University of Nebraska. Lecture: A Journey to the Center of the Brain. Details here.
September 15: Washington DC. “The Emergence of Life: On the Earth, in the Lab, and Elsewhere.” Panel discussion at a daylong public conference at the Library of Congress.
September 18: Brooklyn Book Festival. I’ll be joining Ed Yong and others. Details to come.
October 6: University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Details to come.
January 28-29, 2017 Rancho Mirage Writers Festival
March 2-3, 2017 San Diego. The Future of Genome Medicine. Details to come.
You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook , LinkedIn, and Google+. And there’s always carlzimmer.com.
Best wishes, Carl
Originally published August 12, 2016. Copyright 2016 Carl Zimmer.