An Up-to-Date Neanderthal Genome Fits Into the Web of Humanity

Posted on December 19, 2013November 18, 2018 by admin

There’s more news on the ancient human DNA front: as I report in my new “Matter” column in the New York Timesmy new “Matter” column in the New York Times, scientists have now reconstructed the genome of a Neanderthal with exquisite accuracy. Their genome sequence is as good as what you’d get if you had your own genome sequenced with the finest equipment available today. And yet the DNA comes from a fossil that’s approximately 130,000 years old.

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Can Boosting Immunity Make You Smarter?

Posted on December 19, 2013May 21, 2020 by admin

Discover, December 19, 2013

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After spending a few days in bed with the flu, you may have felt a bit stupid. It is a common sensation, that your sickness is slowing down your brain. At first blush, though, it doesn’t make much sense. For one thing, flu viruses infect the lining of the airways, not the neurons in our brains. For another, the brain is walled off from the rest of the body by a series of microscopic defenses collectively known as the blood-brain barrier. It blocks most viruses and bacteria while allowing essential molecules like glucose to slip through. What ails the body, in other words, shouldn’t interfere with our thinking.

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A Phenomena(l) Year!

Posted on December 18, 2013November 18, 2018 by admin

A year ago today, Phenomena was launched, and I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for reading the work of Virginia Hughes, Brian Switek, Ed Yong, and myself over these past 365 days. The Loom has seen a lot of homes in its ten years, but Phenomena has been the best, I must say, from its delightful design to the support of people at National Geographic such as Jamie Shreeve and Brian Howard.

In case you’re curious, here are the ten most-read posts I wrote here over the past year:

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In Search of the First Animals

Posted on December 12, 2013November 19, 2018 by admin

All animals–from Corgis to Greenland sharks, from dog ticks to toucans to you–descend from a common ancestor. The fossil record of animals, which runs back over 600 million years, can help us travel back some of the way through animal evolution towards the origin of the kingdom. But those early rocks contain precious few remains of animals, and so fossils alone can’t tell us what our common animal ancestor looked like.

Scientists can add to their supply of clues by studying living animals. And it now looks as if some of the most important clues to how animals got their start come from a beautiful creature called the comb jelly. This video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a good introduction to their luminescent loveliness.

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Learning From the History of Vitamins

Posted on December 12, 2013May 22, 2020 by admin

The New York Times, December 12, 2013

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Our health depends on vitamins, and to understand that dependency, it helps to understand the history of vitamins. As I wrote in an article in Science Times this week, our ancestors have probably needed vitamins for billions of years. By studying how we and other species make vitamins, scientists hope to find new ways to keep us healthy — perhaps even by using vitamins as a weapon against our enemies.

There are two ways of getting those vitamins: making them or eating them. Our microbial ancestors probably made many of their vitamins, but later much of that ability was lost. Our primate ancestors lost the ability to make their own vitamin C about 60 million years ago.

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