Presenting a new ebook: More Brain Cuttings

Posted on December 15, 2011September 7, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Last year I decided to play in the ebook sandbox. I brought together some of my favorite pieces about the brain in an anthology I entitled Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind. I teamed up with the publishers George Scott and Charles Nix, and we produced an ebook.

Along the way, we learned a lot. I recounted some of the lessons in this piece for the Atlantic, and others in this conversation with the writer Steve Silberman. Suffice to say, publishing ebooks is by no means a frictionless utopia for writers. Nevertheless it remains strangely addictive. Perhaps we writers get the same jolt of dopamine that readers get when they tap a glass screen and are rewarded with a new book.

Continue reading “Presenting a new ebook: More Brain Cuttings” →

A Long Walk To Land

Posted on December 12, 2011September 7, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Long before Darwin published The Origin of Species, there was talk of evolution. The more acquainted naturalists became with the major groups of animals, the gaps between them grew smaller. Once it seemed as if mammals were profoundly different than other vertebrates, for example. And then European explorers encountered the platypus, a mammal that laid eggs. Perhaps the major groups of animals had not been separately created, some naturalists suggested. Perhaps life had changed over time.

Continue reading “A Long Walk To Land” →

The Science Ink of Moby Dick

Posted on December 10, 2011September 7, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

I’ve been doing some research on the long cultural history of tattoos in preparation for my talk about Science Ink at Harvard on Tuesday. I’m a hard-core Moby Dick fan (this blog’s name comes from there), so it was a delight to stumble across a passage on tattoos, which I had forgotten.

Continue reading “The Science Ink of Moby Dick” →

Do you own your germs? My new piece for the New York Times on micro-bioethics

Posted on December 4, 2011September 7, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

There are 100 trillion microbes that live in your body. Do you own them? Do they deserve the same protections as your own genes and cells? If someone genetically alters a microbe and claims that if you swallow it, it will let you lose weight, should that living germ be regulated as a drug?

Continue reading “Do you own your germs? My new piece for the New York Times on micro-bioethics” →

#scienceink round-up: Der Spiegel, The Toronto Star, and more

Posted on December 2, 2011September 7, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

It’s been a busy week for Science Ink!

1. Science Ink was on TV. The Daily Planet, a Canadian science news show on the Discovery Channel, interviewed me about my favorite tattoos.

2.The Irish Times put Science Ink on top of its list of science books for holiday gifts. (As did MSNBC and io9.)

3. Der Spiegel takes a look.

4. The Toronto Star has a whole package on Science Ink in Saturday’s issue: A Q&A with yours truly, an article by Megan Ogilvie about Toronto-area scientists with tattoos, and a slide show of their tattoos. (I was amazed that there were lots of tattoos I had never seen before!)

5. Just a reminder to folks in Boston: I will be giving a lecture at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Tuesday, 12/13 at 6 pm. The lecture is free and open to the public. (The parking is free too!) Details are here.

[This tattoo of cyanide is from David Lighthart.]