It’s a brave new world for us book authors. Today’s case in point: PZ Myers assigned some of his students to ready my book Soul Made Flesh, which chronicles how humanity figured out what the brain is for. Some of his students have bravely agreed to post their reports on the book on Myers’s blog Pharyngula (here and here). The comment thread has turned into a wide-ranging book-club discussion. I’m chiming in from time to time too (here and here, for example). I’m definitely enjoying it and will check in as long as the discussion goes.

Originally published September 21, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

Mark sent this picture in, with this explanation:

I don’t quite have a science tattoo, but I have a math tattoo. That’s close enough, right?

Now, for the explanation. This is a formula called the Y Combinator. It is a fixed-point combinator in the lambda calculus and was discovered by Haskell Curry, a rather prolific mathematician and logician whose work helped start Computer Science.

Continue reading “Mathematical Markings” →

The Scientist recently asked me to name the three best life-science blogs. I just sent them three ones I enjoy and read a lot–I find this sort of ranking to be interesting but fundamentally artificial. (I’d recommend all of the blogs on my blogroll on the left of your screen.)

I didn’t realize that the request was actually part of a bigger undertaking: the Scientist is asking all of its readers to pick the best life-science blogs. If you want to help make the selection, click here forthwith.

Originally published September 19, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

My first book, At the Water’s Edge, was graced by illustrations by the marvelous Carl Buell. He’s got a lot of irons in the fire these days, including Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, which publishes this month. Paleontologist Donald Prothero is the author, and it’s packed with illustrations such as this one, which shows mammal-like reptiles that were increasingly more closely related to the first mammals. While you wait for the book to arrive, you can peruse his Flickr pages.

[Illustration courtesy of Carl Buell]

Continue reading “Link Love: Follow Carl Buell Through the Ages” →

I just took a survey about blogs about science, and you should too. Here’s the description:

This survey attempts to access the opinions of bloggers, blog-readers, and non-blog folk in regards to the impact of blogs on the outside world. The authors of the survey are completing an academic manuscript on the impact of science blogging and this survey will provide invaluable data to answer the following questions:

Who reads or writes blogs?

What are the perceptions of blogging, and what are the views of those who read blogs?

Continue reading “Link Love: Surrender Your Data!” →