The Quarterly Review of Biology delivers a rave for The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. Daniel McShea of Duke University writes:

This is the first textbook I have seen by a professional science writer. If this is a sort of experiment in textbook publishing, it is a spectacularly successful one…The result is an introduction to the field that is not only accurate and up to date, but — of course — well written. How important is the prose in a textbook? For students, lively versus leaden, or clear versus cryptic, can be the difference between understanding and not, between being turned on to a field and being turned off. For what it is worth, I solicited help for this review from a biologically inclined high school student, who read a few chapters and reported it to be both clear and engaging….In summary, this is an excellent textbook, one that ought to be — and will be, I predict — widely adopted.

Originally published March 30, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

Christof Koch is one of the world’s leading experts on consciousness. A longtime professor at Caltech, he’s just become the chief scientific officer at the Allen Brain Institute, an innovative research center that was funded with $100 million from Microsoft’s Paul Allen. The institute has spent the past eight years building remarkably detailed, three-dimensional atlases of mouse brains. Now, as Koch explains to Nature, he will use those atlases to launch an ambitious new project:

Continue reading “Tattooed scientists are taking over!” →

In 1996 I had just turned thirty. If you had told me at the time that parasites were about to become an integral part of my life for years to come, I would have said, “Oh, look at the time! I’ve got to go feed my hyrax!” and headed for the nearest restroom to scrub my hands.

But it would have been true. I just had finished my first book, and I was wondering what to write next. I had a couple vague ideas I bounced around with my agent over lunch. How about an exploration of the intersection of biology and philosophy? A blank look. How about a book about parasites? Boom: my agent sat up.

Continue reading “Parasite Rex Redux: Now with a new epilogue” →

I’ll be giving public talks fairly regularly for the next few months, partly due to the publication of A Planet of Viruses. Here’s an updated list of my talks. (If you’d like me to give a lecture or appear on a radio show, please get in touch.)

Continue reading “Springtime Yammerings” →

Over the weekend, I was contacted by Melissa Townsend, an Arizona high school teacher, with this question:

Getting ready to assign spring reading to my students. What are your favorite non-fiction science books a HS kid can handle?

Continue reading “Great science books for high school students: The hive-mind speaks” →