I’m back from California and the award ceremony I mentioned last week. The trip was fun but a little absurd–I flew across the country and back within 36 hours. It’s time for some serious carbon offsetting. I got to hang out with ABC’s Robert Krulwich without having to go into a forest, and was finally able to put a face to RadioLab‘s Jad Abumrad’s incantory voice. I find I can never, ever predict what someone looks like from how they sound on the radio.Eric Kandel came to pick up a prize for his book, In Search of Memory . During a discussion with some journalism students, he and I got into a spirited debate about what science writing is for. He thought it should educate a public seriously in need of education. I said that’s what high school is for.
Category: Blog
Not much blogging this week–I’m heading out to California to receive the National Academies prize I wrote about a while back. In the meantime, let me direct your attention to my lead article in this week’s Science Times section of the NY Times. I wrote about swarms, herds, schools, gaggles, and other crowds of animals, focusing on one of the scientists who studies them, Iain Couzin. If you want to find out more about his quest to find the underlying rules of swarm intelligence, check out his web site.
I agree with Phil that it’s a good term. In fact, when I have to talk about intelligent design, these slides are how I illustrate its evolutionary roots.
Originally published November 12, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.
1. From this week’s crop of new tattoos: Abraham writes: “I got mine in grad school (PhD materials science and applied physics, 2004 Cal). The tatoo is a convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) image of 6-4 Ti alloy (hexagonal, or beta phase) one of the first ‘super alloys’. Being light-weight, high-strength, and corrosion resistant, I felt it was appropriate to put on my back, to keep it strong.”
2. We are now actually inspiring people to get new science tattoos. Janet Stemwedel, my estimable fellow scienceblogger, send the following request:
Continue reading “Science Tattoo Friday: Someone Needs Your Ideas!”
This is a new and fascinating map. It shows how next spring is probably going to come early here in New England, as it has come earlier and earlier for the past few decades. But in Florida it will probably come late. Both changes stem from the same source: our carbon addiction. I explain why in my first foray in a new column for Wired.com called Dissection. The column, on all manner of science, will come out every other Friday. Let me know what you think, there or here.