For my new “Matter” column in the New York Times, I look at the latest advance in our understanding of Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthals and humans interbred about 40,000 years ago, and their DNA is still in human genomes today. Scientists are mapping those Neanderthal genes we carry, and figuring out which ones have benefited us and which have made us sick.

One thing I didn’t have room to discuss is a question that I keep asking and to which scientists always respond with intriguingly noncommittal answers: Are Neanderthals members of our own species? Are they Homo sapiens? Are they a subspecies–Homo sapiens neanderthalensis? Or are they a separate species–Homo neanderthalensis? Continue reading “Neanderthals: Intimate Strangers” →

Recently a producer from the radio show Studio 360 called me up to talk science fiction. They wanted to throw a light on some of the artists who gave us the pictures we have of other worlds–of what we see when we step off the spaceship.

It just so happens that I grew up knowing one of them, named Jack Schoenherr, so I threw his name in the hat. It turns out that Studio 360 also runs a series of pieces called “Aha Moments” about experiences with art that change people’s lives. So we decided to combine the two, and I talked about what it’s like to be a ten-year-old boy walking into a barn studio full of giant sandworms and elephants and astronauts. Continue reading “Stepping off the Spaceship” →

When I was eleven, we buried my first dog under an apple tree. We got another one soon after, and he died about a decade later while I was away at college. That was a pretty typical experience when it comes to kids and dogs. In a study published last year, British researchers found that the median lifespan of a pet dog was all of twelve years. Dogs can be fine companions over the course of a human childhood, but they are hardly Methuselahs. Continue reading “How A Dog Has Lived For Eleven Thousand Years–In Other Dogs” →