Frankly, if I were Michael Mumma, I’d be going nuts right now. The NASA scientist and his colleagues have either found evidence of life on Mars, or are getting fooled by some weird geochemistry.

The researchers today today are reporting that in 2003 and 2006, they recorded plumes of methane rising from the surface of the Red Planet. Working back from their measurements of methane in the air, the researchers pinpointed some particular spots on Mars where the methane came from. And it’s a lot of methane they’re talking about–19,000 metric tons of the stuff in one plume. It’s coming out of Mars at the same rate seen at methane-producing spots on Earth.

Continue reading “Live Blogging The Mars Methane Mystery: Aliens At Last?” →

Mitchell writes: “My science tattoo is an illustration of the molecular structure of phenobarbital. My cat has epilepsy and I have to give her pheno twice a day to prevent her seizures. I also have a background in chemistry and biology, so this tattoo is a tribute to both my cat and the nerdiness of science in general.” 

Originally published January 15, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Eleven years ago, the philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers made a bizarre claim: our minds were not limited to our brains, but extended out of our heads to encompass many things beyond us, from notebooks to hammers to language. I have been vaguely aware of their “Extended Mind Hypothesis” for a while now, but it wasn’t until I got a copy of Clark’s latest book, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension , that I spent some time getting to know it better. And as counterintuitive as it may be at first, it makes a fair amount of sense when you take a look at the results of recent experiments on real minds.

Continue reading “Extending the Mind” →

Our discussion yesterday about bad science writing took a sharp turn, jumped the rails, and landed over at Language Log, where my brother Ben takes over. Suddenly I feel a new kinship with the Psalms Book of Proverbs….

[Image: Wikipedia]  

Originally published January 14, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

At a recent meeting of biologists, a friend handed me a piece of paper that had been folded into eighths, with hand-drawn pictures and writing about biology. Why…it’s a zine, I thought. It came from the Small Science Collective, which has put together lots of foldable booklets about science that they encourage you to download for free and leave on your bus, at your favorite coffee shop, or anywhere else you might want to spread knowledge about bot flies (and about lots of other science almost as cool as bot flies). And if you want to join the collective, they want to hear from you.

Continue reading “A Science Blog Without the Blog” →