“Therefore his shipmates called him mad”: The Science of Moby-Dick

Posted on January 9, 2018November 26, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Medium, January 9, 2018

(In 2013, the Los Angeles Public Library asked me to write an essay about the science in Moby-Dick for an online celebration of the book. At some point, its page vanished into the digital ether. So I decided to re-post it here.)

“To have one’s hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan!”

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In the Bones of a Buried Child, Signs of a Massive Human Migration to the Americas

Posted on January 3, 2018May 25, 2020 by Zimmer

The New York Times, January 3, 2018

Link

The girl was just six weeks old when she died. Her body was buried on a bed of antler points and red ocher, and she lay undisturbed for 11,500 years.

Archaeologists discovered her in an ancient burial pit in Alaska in 2010, and on Wednesday an international team of scientists reported they had retrieved the child’s genome from her remains. The second-oldest human genome ever found in North America, it sheds new light on how people — among them the ancestors of living Native Americans — first arrived in the Western Hemisphere.

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Fiber Is Good for You. Now Scientists May Know Why.

Posted on January 1, 2018May 25, 2020 by Zimmer

The New York Times, January 1, 2018

Link

A diet of fiber-rich foods, such as fruits and vegetables, reduces the risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. Indeed, the evidence for fiber’s benefits extends beyond any particular ailment: Eating more fiber seems to lower people’s mortality rate, whatever the cause.

That’s why experts are always saying how good dietary fiber is for us. But while the benefits are clear, it’s not so clear why fiber is so great. “It’s an easy question to ask and a hard one to really answer,” said Fredrik Bäckhed, a biologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

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Scientists Are Designing Artisanal Proteins for Your Body

Posted on December 26, 2017May 25, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, December 26, 2017

Link

Our bodies make roughly 20,000 different kinds of proteins, from the collagen in our skin to the hemoglobin in our blood. Some take the shape of molecular sheets. Others are sculpted into fibers, boxes, tunnels, even scissors.

A protein’s particular shape enables it to do a particular job, whether ferrying oxygen through the body or helping to digest food.

Scientists have studied proteins for nearly two centuries, and over that time they’ve worked out how cells create them from simple building blocks. They have long dreamed of assembling those elements into new proteins not found in nature.

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Ancient Penguins Were Giant Waddling Predators

Posted on December 12, 2017May 25, 2020 by Lori Jia

The New York Times, December 12, 2017

Link

The 57-million-year-old fossil is both fearsome and comical: a long-beaked penguin that stood 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed about 220 pounds.

“It was as tall as a medium-sized man,” said Gerald Mayr, a paleontologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, and lead author of a report in Nature Communications on Tuesday announcing the discovery.

By comparison, the tallest living species, the emperor penguin, reaches about four feet in height. Kumimanu biceae, as the fossil was named, would have towered above the emperor, and above just about all other known ancient penguins.

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