Author: Matt Kristoffersen
Greetings–
Here are a couple pieces for your weekend reading…
Over the summer, I wrote in the New York Times about an impending ecological disaster. The United States is home to 190 species of salamanders, the greatest diversity of these amphibians in any country. Scientists worry that a newly discovered salamander-killing fungus in Europe could drive American salamanders extinct if it shows up in the U.S. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 15, 2016”
Greetings–
Happy New Year! I’d like to welcome all the new subscribers who joined us here during the holiday hiatus. I hope you’ll enjoy Friday’s Elk in 2016 and beyond. Each week I send out a relatively brief email to bring subscribers up to date with the stuff I’ve been publishing, along with talks I’m giving and any other relevant news. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 8, 2016”
STAT, December 23, 2015
In science, the future is a treacherous place.
Each time researchers publish an exciting new study, we’re all too tempted to extrapolate far beyond the initial findings to imagine all sorts of tremendous benefits very soon. In medicine, these giddy predictions can be downright cruel. They may offer false hope to people grappling with all-too-real disorders.
Yet the future isn’t going to leave us high and dry. Researchers are unquestionably making important advances in their understanding of how our bodies work — advances that might indeed someday change the practice of medicine. As we round the corner toward the start of 2016, here’s what we may reasonably expect in a couple of high-profile biomedical fields.
Continue reading “Science in 2016: Separating the hype from the promise”
Greetings–
Like many of you, I’m in a final scramble to finish off a ridiculous to-do list before the holidays hit me like a falling grand piano. So this will probably be the last issue of Friday’s Elk I’ll send out for 2015. I’ll be up and running again on January 8, 2016. So here’s a quick look at the old and the new. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, December 18, 2015”
Greetings–
I was traveling for much of this week on a reporting trip, part of which I spent suited up in the outfit you can see above. So I don’t have a Matter column this week. Instead, let me direct your attention to the second installment of my “Science Happens” video series for STAT. I pay a visit to a lab where scientists are trying to engineer bacteria to heal our microbiomes.
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Best wishes, Carl
Originally published December 11, 2015. Copyright 2015 Carl Zimmer.