A few months ago a neuroscientist named Carl Schoonover sent me the galleys of a coffee table book made for my kind of coffee table. It’s a visual history of the brain, using images to tell the story of neuroscience from its earliest roots to today’s awesome brain scans and micrographs. The book, called Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century is just out. So rather than just blurb and run, I thought I’d share a peek into it with you.

Originally published October 26, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

One of my favorite discoveries in the blogoverse is the Evolutionary Psychology blog, by Rob Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania. Evolutionary psychology had an explosive debut in the 1990s, becoming the subject of best-sellers and well-attended conferences. In recent years, a backlash has emerged, and while some criticisms have been justified, a lot of critics either attack straw men or make counterarguments that have serious flaws of their own. Evolutionary psychologists have been defending themselves, but in a relatively scattershot way. Kurzban started his blog in September, and seems to be blogging pretty consistently, and is offering some cogent and entertaining take-downs of the shabbier examples of evo-psycho backlash. I hope the backlashers jump into the comment threads!

PS–Someone has to fix the formatting on Kurzban’s blog. The excerpts look like one-sentence posts….

PPS–Talk about throwing stones from a glass house. Sorry about the headline typo. Now fixed.

Originally published October 26, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

I’m going to be a guest on Road Dog Trucking Radio, the satellite radio channel for truckers. I’m going to talk about parasites, viruses, and other weird critters. Even if you don’t drive a big rig, you’re welcome to tune in.

Originally published October 25, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Chris Mooney, my fellow Discover blogger, hosts a podcast called Point of Inquiry, and I’m the guest on his new episode. On the occasion of the publication of Brain Cuttings, we talk about the thinking glue that holds our brains together, Francis Collins’s views on the evolution of morality, and the future of books. Check it out!

Originally published October 25, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

On my latest podcast, I take a look at dengue fever, a viral disease that’s infecting some 50 million people a year and is even turning up in the United States. I talk to Thomas Scott of UC Davis about how this cunning virus takes advantage of human networks to spread its aches, pains, bleeding, and death. Check it out.

Originally published October 21, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.