On bloggingheads.tv today, I talk to John Horgan about the week in Darwin. We range from the tree of life to why your doctor should learn about group selection.
Originally published February 14, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
Author: Lori Jia
Mar writes: “I’m a pharmacist, and I’m doing a Biomedicine Phd. When I began the PhD I decided to have a tattoo. When I was little I used to rest for long times apparently doing nothing. My mother always told me, ‘Leave the atoms and come to the Earth.'”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published February 13, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
I’m just back to my hotel after my Darwin Day talk–a fine, big crowd showed up that included at least a few fellow science bloggers (Bora and Reed, to name two). And if you can handle…just…one…more…wafer-thin Darwin-related experience, please check out my essay, “Darwin Evolving” in the new issue of Time. In honor of his birthday, I take a look at Darwin’s legacy, and the new directions evolutionary biology is taking today.
“We can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history,” he wrote at the end of On the Origin of Species. He saw his work not as the end of biology but as a beginning.
Photographer Justine Cooper has taken a haunting series of photographs behind the scenes at the American Museum of Natural History. Seed Magazine has posted a slideshow of her work, and I’ve written an accompanying essay on the hidden world that lies behind the dioramas. Check it out.
Originally published February 12, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
Okay, you’re approaching Darwin saturation, I know. But how about Darwin’s impact on the English language? The Oxford English Dictionary credits him with the first use of 144 words. Did you know Darwin was the first person to use the word alfalfa in English? Or rodeo? Check out this post from my brother Ben for more. And be sure to read to the end to catch the most surprising neologism of all.
Originally published February 12, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.