After I saw this tattoo over on a sibling blog, Science Not Fiction, I knew it had to join the emporium. Its owner, Mark Yturralde, sent me this description of its origin:

After the Columbia accident, I felt compelled to do something. Space has always meant so much to me, and I felt I wanted to memorialize them somehow.

I donated to college funds and other charities in their name, but still felt like I needed to do more, and I found myself reliving and considering Challenger, and Apollo one too, Gus Grissom being a long time hero of mine.

One morning, I made a list of all of them. It just struck me. I’ll put their names on my forearm. People will see them. They’ll ask who they are. I can then tell them about my tattoo, and what it means to me. Everytime someone asks, and I explain it, they take a second. They reflect. They remember.

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Originally published August 9, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Two of my stories came out this week–one on the near future, and one on the distant past.

1. Global warming is beginning to drive evolution of plants and animals. And soon it will be shifting to high gear. Read more at Yale Environment 360.

2. You, me, and the mushroom over there are all eukaryotes. So are slime molds and Giardia. We all share a number of features that set us apart from prokaryotes like E. coli. The split between eukaryotes and other living things is arguably the deepest in all life. In this week’s issue of Science, I have an essay that looks at how the basic eukaryote cell, complete with nucleus, mitochondria, and all its other bells and whistles came to be. Check it out (here or here). And you can also listen to me talk about the question on this week’s Science podcast here.

Originally published August 7, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

A while back my web site was hacked and my archive of stories vanished. After switching servers, I left the site frozen in time while I dealt with more pressing matters. I’ve finally gotten a little stretch of free time to refresh my memory of Dreamweaver, and now the site is back up to date. Along with the archive, you can also find an updated list of past and future talks. I’m starting to make plans for talks about The Tangled Bank and the 15th anniversary of The Origin of Species this fall, and appearances are now just starting to fall into place. I expect more talks to pop up in the weeks to come, and I will be much more diligent in getting the information online quickly.

Originally published July 29, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Nature offers suggestions for summer reading in the latest issue, andMicrocosm is on the list. Don’t worry–just because the book is about E. coli doesn’t mean they’ll have to close the beach:

Continue reading “Bacteria on the Beach: Microcosm on Nature’s Summer Reading List” →