Here’s my quick visit to TV land this afternoon. I do wonder why my face is in a permanent scowl. On the inside, I can be very cheerful, honest!
Originally published January 11, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.
Author: Matt Kristoffersen
Another week, another snowpocalypse.
With a foot of snow looking like a sure thing tomorrow, the Guilford Free Library has rescheduled my upcoming talk to Monday, January 24.
As I mentioned yesterday, the talk is called, “Step Inside Your Brain.” I’ll be discussing some of the cooler nooks and crannies of our skulls, drawing partly on my new ebook, Brain Cuttings.
The talk is free, but you’re encouraged to reserve a spot. For more details, check out the library web site.
Originally published January 11, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.
I’ll be on MSNBC at 3:30 pm EST on Tuesday (1/10 11) to talk about the future of our brains, based on this excerpt from Brain Cuttings. I’ll post the web archive once/if they put it online.
Originally published January 10, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.
It’s always a pleasure to take a short stroll to my local library to talk science. That’s what I’ll be doing this Wednesday (1/12) at 7 pm, at the Guilford Free Library here in Guilford, CT. The talk is called, “Step Inside Your Brain.” I’ll be discussing some of the cooler nooks and crannies of our skulls, drawing partly on my new ebook, Brain Cuttings.
The talk is free, but you’re encouraged to reserve a spot. If the weather doesn’t play nice, the library will reschedule the talk for some time soon. For more details, check out the library web site. Here’s a pdf flyer for the talk.
Originally published January 10, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.
To make soap, you must mix grease or fat with lye or some other alkaline substance. Sometimes, however, the stuff makes itself. If, for example, water laced with alkaline soil seeps into a coffin, it can transform a human body into soap. (This cadaver soap is known as grave wax or adipocere.) Here’s a picture of a “soapman” in the collection of National Museum of Natural History in Washington, just posted in the Smithsonian’s “Snapshot Series.” It belongs to a man who was buried in Philadelphia around 1800. His body was discovered in 1875 during an excavation to build a train depot. This particular example of grave wax is kept under lock and key in the museum’s “Dry Environment room,” so this is the closest you’ll get to seeing it. But if you want to see grave wax in person, be sure to get to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, which keeps its eerie “Soap Lady” under glass.
Originally published January 4, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.