Recently I blogged about how the mere existence of whales might be an important clue to treating cancer. That post has drawn many readers, and many questions in the comment thread.

Happily, the authors of the review I described–Carlo Maley of the University of California, San Francisco, and Aleah Caulin of the University of Pennsylvania–have joined the thread. They’ve answered the first set of reader questions and promise to come back to respond to the rest. Further proof of the majesty of blogs…

[Update: Here’s their next batch of answers.]

Originally published March 25, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

When you’re a teenager, it seems like nobody understands you. And once you’re finished being a teenager and get to observe them as an adult, you have to wonder what on Earth is going through their heads. In my new column for Discover, I gingerly step into the teenage mind, exploring what neuroscientists are learning about how their brains work. Teenagers may do things that seem crazy and/or stupid, but that doesn’t mean they themselves are crazy or stupid. The teen years turn out to be a unique phase of mental life, when we tally up the rewards and costs of our choices with a kind of math that you won’t find in the heads of children or grownups.Check it out.

Originally published March 25, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.