I’m waiting to board my Air Canada flight to the rain-drenched city of Vancouver. Residents of that fair city are invited to come to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, dry off for a spell, and hear my talk tomorrow at 7 about Darwin, the flu, and evolution . It’s free, but you have to register here. See you tomorrow.

Originally published November 17, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Math is the subject of my new Discover column on the brain. How do we do it, and when did we (or our primate ancestors) start doing it? The answer, or at least some intriguing new research, is here.

Originally published November 17, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Here’s a fun talk I had Saturday on Science Cabaret, a radio show on WICB in Ithaca. The host, Jennifer Nelson, is a graduate student at Cornell and has only been interviewing people about science for two months, but she’s clearly a natural at this. At the Science Cabaret site, you can listen to her earlier talks, too. Check them out.

Originally published November 16, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Palin didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea, or from monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.

Quoted in Michiko Katutani’s review of Sarah Palin’s new memoir.

Originally published November 15, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

This is definitely going into the swine flu talk! From Colin Purrington’s The Axis of Evo.

Originally published November 12, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.