The New York Times, March 27, 2007

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Science, March 9, 2007

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Tyrannosaurus rex, it turns out, had a pretty small genome. A team of American and British scientists estimates that it contained a relatively puny 1.9 billion base pairs of DNA, a little over half the size of our own genome.

The scientists who came up with this estimate—along with estimates for the genomes of 30 other dinosaur species—had no ancient DNA to study. T. rex, after all, became extinct 65 million years ago, and its genome is long gone. Instead, they discovered a revealing correlation: Big genomes tend to be found in animals with big bone cells. By comparing the size of cells in dinosaur fossils to those of living animals, the scientists got statistically sound estimates for the sizes of the dinosaur genomes.

Continue reading “Jurassic Genome” →

Forbes, March 2, 2007

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You make partner. You get tenure. You conquer the known world. You achieve greatness in your lifetime. But in the great scheme of things, how much does any of that really matter? After you die, they come to empty your desk. They take down your plaques from the wall. The grand statues you had built for yourself crumble in the desert winds.

One way to overcome your own mortality is to produce a dynasty. A thriving flock of descendants can sustain themselves, generation after generation, passing down your name … or at least your DNA. That’s what Genghis Khan did, and did with astonishing success. An estimated 16 million men today, plus an uncounted number of women, are his direct descendants.

Continue reading “High-Achieving Genes” →

Forbes, December 14, 2006

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To write about the natural history of games and play, I decided to consult an expert. The other day, as I was twirling my 5-year-old daughter around so that she could pretend she could fly with her fairy wings, I asked her why she likes to play.

Charlotte flew on in silence for a moment. I could tell my question seemed strange to her. “Everyone likes to play,” she said. “Except for grown-ups.”

I suppose the thought of not playing is just too absurd for a 5-year-old to take seriously. Play is a kind of lingua franca for children. Charlotte gets a bit shy when we visit friends, but if there’s a child in the house who’s ready to share a train set or a princess costume, she takes off in a sprint. I might as well have asked her why she eats or sleeps.

Continue reading “Games Animals Play” →

National Geographic, November 30, 2006

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The father of evolution was a nervous parent. Few things worried Charles Darwin more than the challenge of explaining how nature’s most complex structures, such as the eye, came to be. “The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder,” he wrote to a friend in 1860.

Today biologists are beginning to understand the origins of life’s complexity—the exquisite optical mechanism of the eye, the masterly engineering of the arm, the architecture of a flower or a feather, the choreography that allows trillions of cells to cooperate in a single organism.

Continue reading “A Fin Is a Limb is a Wing” →