Once the writers’ strike is over, anyone in the mood to make a new monster movie might consider this beast, described today in the journal Biology Letters. It’s Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, a “sea scorpion” that lived 390 million years ago. Based on a fossil of its enormous claws was found in Germany, scientists estimate it measured 2.5 meters long. It’s the biggest arthropod yet known, a giant among giants. At this period in the history of life, lots of insects, millipedes, and other sea scorpions grew to science-fiction sizes, possibly thanks to the high levels of oxygen in the atmosphere at the time. Our own ancestors–lobe-fin fish–might well have been the hapless prey of this spineless behemoth.

Continue reading “A Monster To Remember After the Writers’ Strike” →

“This neuron tattoo was done a few months ago. When I was 18, my dad passed away from Lou Gehrig’s, which is a disease of motor neurons that innervate muscles. His battle with neurodegeneration helped me decide on a career in medical research, and I am currently pursuing my PhD in Neuroscience.”–Lindsay

I fell behind on my Friday uploads to the Flickr site. But the tattoos keep coming. We’re up to 97…so if you want to be tattoo #100, email me soon. 

Originally published November 20, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

The deja vu is hitting hard.

Two years ago a Pennsylvania court was hearing a challenge to introducing intelligent design into a public school in the town of Dover. At the time, I argued that people should look south to understand the stakes of the conflict. Down in Florida the state government seemed to be trying to have it both ways when it came to creationism. The chair of the state House Education Council introduced a bill that would allow students to sue their professors if they didn’t consider intelligent in class. Governor Bush refused to comment on whether intelligent design should be taught in class.

Continue reading “Florida: Where The Living Is Still Contradictory” →

A couple months ago, I wrote a feature for Discover about the intriguing possibility that life might have originated more than once on Earth–and that maybe those alternative life forms were still alive among us today. Paul Davies, one of the scientists who has explored this idea in recent years, has written an account of it that’s the cover story of this month’s Scientific American. Check it out. Davies offers some neat possibilities, such as the notion that living things might use arsenic instead of phosphorus to store energy. One creature’s poison…

Originally published November 20, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

My fellow bloggingheads John Horgan and George Johnson took some time on their latest science talk to dissect my New York Times article on swarms (you can jump to that section here). John wonders if I’m just discovering all the complexity stuff he and George were writing about back in the 1990s. I think it’s always good for John to keep everyone aware of the dangers of hype, of the need to ask how important or new scientific research really is. He’s been particularly tough on the science of complexity, if there is such a thing. In 1995 he wrote a piece in Scientific American that practically brought tears to the eyes of many scientists who thought complexity was the Next Big Thing.

Continue reading “That Old Time Complexity” →