Author: Lori Jia
Someone just emailed me to let me know she couldn’t post a comment. For some reason that feature has shut itself down. I’ve been traveling, so it’s taken me a while to start dealing with this. I’ll let the Scienceblogs folks know of the problem, and let you know when it’s resolved.
Originally published June 5, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.
In about a month I’m heading to Colorado for the “Science and Media Summit” at the Aspen Science Center. The name may conjure up an image in your mind of a long table with diplomats from Science on one side and Media on the other, tensely negotiating an end to some sort of bloodshed. As I understand it, though, the meeting should be much more amicable and interesting. The subtitle for the meeting is “Getting It Right: Science and the Media in the Emerging Media Landscape.” Our mission will be to come up with a blueprint for good reporting on science in the age of blogs, YouTube, and implanted science magazine brain chips (D’oh! I accidentally revealed my sinister plot.)
Continue reading “Your Thoughts On A Science-Media Sit-Down”
A few months ago I got in my car and drove north until I reached a remarkable building filled with several million mice. At Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, scientists are studying mice to understand many mysteries of genetics and medicine. But I was particularly curious about a project that they’ve only recently launched: an attempt to understand how many genes working together give rise to complex traits. When those complex traits go awry, the result may be a common disease such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. The article I wrote about what I learned, “Mendel’s Mouse,” appears in the May issue of Discover. Discover posted the story today on their web site, where you can read it for free here. (I’ve also archived it here.)
The paddlefish is a surreal giant, with a spatula-shaped nose that some scientists believe it uses to sense the electric fields of its prey, which it sucks up like a whale. You might not think of it as an animal that has much to offer in our quest to understand ourselves. But in fact, underneath the glaring differences, paddlefish and humans share some surprising similarities. And those similarities are precious clues to how our distant ancestors evolved hands and feet.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, let me quickly recap (and then, at your leisure, read this post.) Last November, my article on the evolution of complex features came out in National Geographic. A few weeks later the article inspired a long but baseless attack from the Discovery Institute, an outfit that promotes intelligent design (a k a “the progeny of creationism”). The attack, authored by one Casey Luskin, came in three parts, climaxing in an argument for intelligent design that required me to wire my jaw back shut: “Was the Ford Pinto, with all its imperfections revealed in crash tests, not designed?”
Continue reading “Once More Into the Flaming Pinto, My Friends!”