A couple of my articles are included in a new book, The New York Times Reader: Science and Technology. Edited by S. Holly Stocking, it’s an anthology that can stand on its own, or serve as reading for a journalism class. Here’s a description of the book from the publisher’s web site:

Science writing poses specific challenges: Science writers must engage their audiences while also explaining unfamiliar scientific concepts and processes. Further, they must illuminate arcane research methods and statistics and at the same time cope with scientific ignorance and uncertainty. Stocking’s volume not only tackles these challenges, but also includes extraordinary breadth in story selection, from prize-winning narratives, profiles and explanatory pieces to accounts of scientific meetings and new discoveries, Q&As, traditional trend and issue stories, reviews, essays and blog posts. These Times exemplars, together with Stocking’s guide to reading stories about science and technology, are perfect for science writers who aspire to diversify and hone their reporting and writing skills in a changing media climate. Holly Stocking is an experienced science writer, award-winning teacher, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

You can order it from CQ Press. Here’s the Amazon page, too.

(Hat tip: Leigh Boerner)

Originally published April 5, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

I’ll be giving a talk at the Museum of Science in Boston on Saturday, April 17. It’s the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Academy of Science. I’m going to talk about spangled dinosaurs, how scientists are splashing colors all over the history of life, and what all that color can tell us about evolution.

My talk is just one part of an all-day celebration of science for all ages. (The entire Zimmer clan will be in attendance.) For information on registration and tickets, visit the meeting web site.

Originally published April 5, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

At the AAAS meeting a few weeks back, I sat down with Lindsay Patterson of the radio show EarthSky to talk about evolution. Here’s a new 90-second piece that’s now airing.

Originally published April 5, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

There’s a certain kind of headline I have become sick of: “Scientists Have Sequenced the Genome of Species X!”

Fifteen years ago, things were different. In 1995, scientists published the first complete genome of a free-living organisms ever–that of a nasty germ called Haemophilus influenzae. Bear in mind, this was in the dark ages of the twentieth century, when a scientist might spend a decade trying to decipher the sequence of a single gene.

Continue reading “Yet-Another-Genome Syndrome” →

This morning, during my daily graze of news and commentary, I’ve come across some fairly excellent science-themed April Fool’s jokes. But it will take an exceptional hoax to mount a serious challenge to what is arguably the finest science-themed April Fool’s joke of all time, which today celebrates its fifteenth anniversary: the tale of the hotheaded naked ice borer.

Continue reading “Who Will Dare To Challenge The Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer?” →