Author: Lori Jia
It’s been nine years since I published Parasite Rex, but it just got a very cool honor. Amazon has named it one of their highest-rated science books. The criteria are a little squirrely, but I won’t turn it down.
Originally published January 22, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
Tyler Volk, an Earth scientist at New York University, recently wrote a book about climate change and carbon dioxide, called CO2 Rising. I spoke to him about the book in November on Bloggingheads, and he just sent me an email: “I’m on some sort of crazy goal to bring the C-cycle to everyone…I’ve started making some YouTube videos….(I wrote, filmed, acted, did graphics and sound, edited, and played music).”
I’ve embedded Tyler’s first two videos here. It may be a little rough around the edges, but the information’s great and Tyler is quite brave to roll around in leaves and then turn himself into part of a hand-drawn diagram of the carbon cycle. Consider it a garage-band science documentary. Or maybe an audition reel?
Craig writes: “I’m a bioengineering undergrad and am currently interviewing for medical schools (MD/PhD programs). I got this tattoo of a resistor on my wrist, somewhat on a whim. I’ll always be a science geek at heart, however I truly desire to go into medicine in order to help people. The resistor is a sort of reminder to me to ‘resist’ any temptation of money, power, or anything else in order to do good science and to help others.”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published January 21, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
A reader who asked to remain anonymous writes: “This is a Ramon y Cajal drawing of a human motor cortex pyramidal cell. I am a student of neuroscience and greatly admire Ramon y Cajal not only for his scientific contributions but for the artistic and beautiful quality of his images. This image reminds me of the vast and incredible power of the neocortex, and of the amazing capability of the human body.”
Originally published January 20, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
3quarkdaily just picked up my little rant about an awful piece of science writing. They accompanied their post with a picture of the scientist profiled in the article, Hina Chaudhry. That juxtaposition made me a bit queasy–let me just make clear that I was not criticizing Dr. Chaudhry, just the article about her. Dr. Chaudhry is doing what scientists should: running experiments and getting her results published in peer-reviewed journals. Here’s a free link to a 2007 paper of hers on regenerating heart tissue. It’s up to us science writers in turn to find a better way to describe a scientist than as a “a pretty lady.”
Continue reading “Hate the Science Writing, Not the Science”