Author: Carl Zimmer
The New York Times, February 1, 2021
A fast-spreading coronavirus variant first observed in Britain has gained a worrisome mutation that could make it harder to control with vaccines, Public Health England reported on Monday. And on Tuesday, a team of researchers reported an experiment suggesting that this mutation might make vaccines somewhat less effective against the variant.
I’m delighted to share the new cover of my next book, Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive. It will be on sale in March 2021, but you can pre-order it now. Not only can you strike it off your to-do list, but you’ll be doing me a big favor, because lots of pre-ordered books translates into extra attention when the book actually goes on sale. I’ll be updating my web site with more information about the book as the publication date approaches.
The New York Times, February 12, 2020
Scientists reported on Wednesday that they had discovered evidence of an extinct branch of humans whose ancestors split from our own a million years ago. The evidence of these humans was not a fossil. Instead, the researchers found pieces of their DNA in the genomes of living people from West Africa.
Arun Durvasula and Sriram Sankararaman, two geneticists at the University of California, Los Angeles, described this so-called ghost archaic population in the journal Science Advances. Their discovery may shed light on human genetic diversity in Africa, which has been hard to chart until now because the fossil record is sparse.
Continue reading “Ghost DNA Hints at Africa’s Missing Ancient Humans”
The New York Times, January 31, 2020
In recent years, millions of people have been astonished, even thrilled, to learn from those popular genetic tests that their DNA is laced with Neanderthal genes.
Those genes were first discovered in 2010, in a study of Neanderthal fossils. From DNA recovered from the bones, researchers deduced that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals some 60,000 years ago, after leaving Africa.
As a result, the genes of non-Africans today are 1 percent to 2 percent Neanderthal. People of African ancestry, it was thought, have little to no Neanderthal DNA.
Continue reading “Neanderthal Genes Hint at Much Earlier Human Migration From Africa”
The New York Times, March 20, 2018
BOSTON — David Reich wore a hooded, white suit, cream-colored clogs, and a blue surgical mask. Only his eyes were visible as he inspected the bone fragments on the counter.
Dr. Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, pointed out a strawberry-sized chunk: “This is from a 4,000-year-old site in Central Asia — from Uzbekistan, I think.”
He moved down the row. “This is a 2,500-year-old sample from a site in Britain. This is Bronze Age Russian, and these are Arabian samples. These people would have never met each other in time or space.”
Continue reading “David Reich Unearths Human History Etched in Bone”