Nature lies.

Organisms send signals to each other, and often those signals are honest–in other words, when another organism receives the signal, it can reliably use it to figure something out about the sender. Male fiddler crabs, like the one shown here, send a big, loud signal with their oversized claw. Often, that signal essentially says, “Do not mess with me.” And in many cases, that’s good advice.

Sometimes, though, it’s a major bluff.

Continue reading “You Want A Piece of This? (Please Please Please Don’t Take a Piece of This!)” →

As I wrote in my story in the New York Times today, much of your DNA is shut down by molecules collectively known as epigenetic marks. Roughly 100 sites are notable exceptions to this rule: your mother’s copy of these stretches of DNA are silenced, while your father’s are free to make proteins and RNA–or vice versa. This imbalance, known as imprinting, is utterly fascinating, and when the imprinting system goes awry–when dad’s genes start becoming active when they shouldn’t, or when mom’s genes go quiet when they should be active–the effects can be catastrophic.

Continue reading “They Imprint Your Genes, Your Mum and Dad” →

Things move fast these days for us science writers.

I’m writing this just after returning home from a radio studio in New Haven, where I was interviewed on NPR’s The Takeaway about my article in today’s New York Times on the gene’s identity crisis. (Speaking of fast, the segment is already archived for your listening pleasure here.)

And now I sit down to find that my next order of business is to respond to a pretty harsh judgment of the article that appeared overnight, from a scientist I respect.

Time for the fourth cup of coffee of the morning!

Continue reading “Hypocrite? Moi?” →

Over the past year or so I’ve been engaging in a bit of science-writing masochism. I’ve been asking a few short questions and trying to get some answers from people who’ve spent years grappling with them. For example:

What is life? (in Seed)

What is a species? (in Scientific American)

What is intelligence? (also in Scientific American)

In tomorrow’s New York Times, I tackle my next question: What is a gene?

Continue reading “The New Genome” →

If all goes according to plan, at 6:50 am tomorrow morning I will not just be awake, but sitting in a studio in New Haven, talking on the Takeaway, a morning news show on NPR. Some stations will broadcast it live; others at later times. And it will also end up on their podcast.

I have to wait until later today to explain the topic; for now, let’s just say it’s a long view of cool biology.

[Note–that’s Eastern standard time]  

Originally published November 10, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.