As we sink into the prime season for colds and flus, it’s a good time to remember that most kinds of viruses that invade our bodies aren’t interested in us. They attack the bacteria inside us instead.
Category: Blog
Emily writes, “Ever since I was a kid, I have had a love for astronomy. I studied Earth and Planetary Sciences in college and am now in graduate school, studying to be a middle school science teacher. Another love I had as a kid was reading Calvin and Hobbes. My science tattoo combines these two childhood loves — with Calvin and Hobbes looking up at the 8 planetary symbols and the symbols for a star and water. Just like Calvin and Hobbes, I will always be gazing up at the sky with wonder and awe.”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published January 2, 2010. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
Tasmanian devils have given rise to a weird new quasi-form of life: a cancer that spreads from animal to animal like a parasite. In tomorrow’s New York Times, I report on the latest analysis of devil’s facial tumour disease, published in this week’s Science. Scientists have now tracked down the cancer to its progenitor: nerve cells known as Schwann cells.
Now scientists can use this evolutionary history to design diagnostic tests for the cancer and perhaps even vaccines. Let’s hope they succeed–the cancer has wiped out 60 percent of all Tasmanian devils since 1996 and has the potential to drive the whole species extinct in a matter of decades.
Continue reading “Saving Tasmanian Devils From A New Form of Life–Themselves”
What’s with all the tongue-eating parasites popping up these days?
At least this one is pretty. (As it should be, given that it’s the winner of the symbiosis-and-parasitism photo contest over at WetPixel.)
Originally published December 30, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
A healthy brain, with white matter tracts visualized with diffusion tensor imaging. Source.
Originally published December 30, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.