I’m always learning something from the readers of the Loom. Yesterday, I wrote about how scientists had inserted their names into a synthetic genome, and how such signatures would erode away like graffiti inside real organisms. But how about the opposite case–what if evolution has produced sequences of DNA that happen to form words?

In the comment thread, Peter Ellis asked,

What actually is the longest word (in any language) encoded by the reference human genome? If I had the time and computer power I’d have a look…

Continue reading “The Genome As Word Puzzle: Who’s Ready to Play?” →

Earlier today, I took a walk in the blustery winds of Washington DC with Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist from MIT. We had just been talking with Congressional staffers about the promise and perils of being able to manipulate life. There was too much to fit into the ninety minute session, and so our conversation spilled out on the street. And one of the things we talked about was the question of whether you can put your signature on a living thing.

Continue reading “‘Frankenstein Was Here’: Synthetic Biology as Graffiti” →

I’ll be yammering this week.

First stop on the yak fest, tomorrow morning, is over in New Haven, where I’ll be running the first session of a two-part science writing workshop for science graduate students at Yale. It’s my second year at this, so I’m hoping it goes smoothly. We’re going to record it and post at least some of it on Yale’s Itunes site as a free podcast. I’ll let you know when that becomes available.

Continue reading “Moving Target” →

I know you read every one of the Scienceblogs. But if you still have some extra free time to kill in an interesting way, check out my updated blogroll over to the left. It’s a selection of some of the blogs I check out semi-regularly. Here are details on a few of the additions.

All in the Mind–Natasha Mitchell hosts a radio show about the brain in Australia

The End of the Pier Show–Henry Gee, Nature editor, Tolkien guru, dinosaur maven, garage band monster…the list goes on

Continue reading “More of My Favorite Wastes of Time” →

“Here are my two Copernicus/scientific revolution homages. I teach science at a public school in eastern MA. It’s nice to see the size of the subculture of science geeks that are also tattoo geeks.” –Chris

They’re two of the newest contributions to the my flickr set of science tattoos, but they’re two of my personal favorites. Check out all 131 images. 

Originally published January 25, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.