Author: Matt Kristoffersen
Alan Alda has come up with an excellent contest for scientists:
Answer the question, “What is a flame?”
Here’s the catch. The audience for the answer is 11-year-olds. Writing this week in Science (free pdf), Alda recalls how he asked this question to his science teacher when he was 11. The answer he got was, “It’s oxidation.”
Whenever I give a talk about my book Parasite Rex, I try to gather together the creepiest images of parasites that I can. Every time, there’s one kind of parasite that summons an instant reaction: a mix of laughter, sucked-in breaths, and gasps of recognition. I speak, of course, of the parasites that eat your tongue.
I only mean you if you’re a fish. Some species of isopods (crustaceans related to the less creepy crabs and lobsters) will swim into the gill of a fish, make their way to its mouth, and devour its tongue. It will jam its legs into the gills to hold itself in place, facing forward, its eyes gazing out of the fish’s mouth, taking the very place of the tongue it just ate.
Continue reading “Tongue Parasites to People of Earth: Thank You For Your Overfishing”
Tonight I’m going to be on the show This Week In Science to talk about A Planet of Viruses and chat about all the many viruses in the news these days. Too many!
I’ll be Skyping in at about 8:10 PT/11:10 ET and chatting with host Kiki Sanford for about half an hour. You can watch the livestream here.
Originally published March 1, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.
From this:
to this?
Originally published March 1, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.
I’ve talked about Science Ink at tattoo parlors and scientific academies, in New York and Los Angeles. Now I’m delighted to take a stroll through my own town to speak at the Guilford Free Library here in Guilford, CT. I hope Loominaries along the shoreline can join me.
When: Thursday, March 8, 7 pm.
Where: Guilford Free Library, 67 Park Street, Guilford CT.
The talk is free, but you need to register on the library’s web site.
Originally published February 29, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.