Author: Lori Jia
On Thursday evening, I’ll be talking about Microcosm at the Guilford Free Library just down the road here in Guilford, Connecticut. It’s great to be talking in this lovely space on the Guilford Green, reopened at last after a year-long renovation. Here’s a flyer with more information. The event is free, but the library is taking reservations by phone at 203-453-8282.
Originally published November 10, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Discover, November 10, 2008
Sometimes the best way to learn how the brain works is to watch what happens when it goes awry. When one part—a clump of neurons or a brain-building gene—doesn’t do what it is supposed to, the brain may fail in an illuminating way. Its failure may even expose some of the hidden foundations of the mind.
Neuroscientists have recently become fascinated with a particularly telling pair of rare brain disorders. One was identified in 1965 by English physician Harry Angelman, who was struck by the faces of three children he treated. These children were always smiling and often laughing.
Continue reading “Mom and Dad Are Fighting in Your Genes—and in Your Brain”
The New York Times, November 9, 2008
WOODS HOLE, Massachusetts — The cuttlefish in Roger Hanlon’s laboratory were in fine form. Their skin was taking on new colors and patterns faster than the digital signs in Times Square.
Hanlon inspected the squidlike animals as he walked past their shallow tubs, stopping from time to time to ask, “Whoa, did you see that?”
One cuttlefish added a pair of eye spots to its back, a strategy cuttlefish use to fool predators. The spots lingered a few seconds, then vanished.
Continue reading “Understanding octopus, cuttlefish and other camouflage champions”
Andrew, a marine biologist writes, “I call it ‘the balance of the deep.’ Two hydrothermal vent endemic gastropods to commemorate my first deep-sea cruise. The one on the top is Alviniconcha hessleri and the one on the bottom is Ifremeria nautilei.”
Carl: For more on these cool critters–which live at the bottom of the sea around vents that spew scalding water, getting their food from chemical-feeding bacteria that live inside special organs in their bodies–check out Deep Sea News.
This morning as I was about to board a plane, my phone rang. A reporter with Scientific American wanted to ask me about my father’s campaign for the US Senate. She wanted to talk to me, a science writer, about my father’s experience with science as a Congressman from New Jersey and as a Senate candidate.
As a journalist, I’ve never written about my dad. For the most part, I think it’s a bad idea for science writers to dispense political opinions anywhere except over a beer. We’re entitled to our views like anyone else, but we should not blur the line between our views and the science we write about.