Over the past few years, more and more scientists have been talking about the possibility that life exists, or can theoretically exist, in exotic forms that lack DNA, or perhaps even carbon or water. I’ve been keeping up with the conversation, and writing articles about it in the New York Times, Discover, Popular Mechanics, and, most recently, in Seed.

Today I report in the New York Times that a panel of scientists arranged by the National Academies of Sciences has issued the first official weird life report. They’re calling for a more aggressive search for strange forms of life. You can read the report for yourself here.

Continue reading “Weird Life Goes Legit” →

For the past few days I’ve been rushing around, first to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to talk to some people at the Marine Biological Laboratory about the E. coli book, and then on an infinite chain of connecting flights to come out to Aspen to participate in a science-media summit. It’s a relief to be finally sitting down in one place, and the view of the mountains from here making blogging very fine. But until my blood thickens up a little, I probably won’t be writing much.

Continue reading “Hither and Yon” →

If you want to know how a new word gets into Oxford dictionaries, or are interested more generally in the bubbling cauldron of modern English, check out the the first post of new blog from Oxford University Press, From A to Zimmer. That’s Zimmer as in Ben Zimmer, lexicographer, editor at Oxford University Press, and brother. 

Originally published June 28, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

In the past few months, the New York Times science section has been putting together some special packages of articles, and this week’s bundle is on the topic of evolution. You can read John Noble Wilford on hominids, Nicholas Wade on recent human evolution, Carol Kaesuk Yoon on the evolution of animal development, and more. No animals for me, thanks–I got the microbes. Which is just fine with me. It’s a world of evolution I get all to myself.

Continue reading “A Feast of Bugs” →

If you sometimes look around and ask yourself, “So what is life, anyway?”–even if you haven’t ingested some illegal substance–you may be interested in a story I’ve written for Seed magazine. “The Meaning of Life” is the cover story for the August issue, which just turned up at my doorstep. The story isn’t online yet, but when it does pop up, I’ll make a note of it.

The idea for the story crystallized during the course of my work on my next book. My initial idea for the book was to investigate this very question, “What is life?” There is actually a lot of new research and thinking going into this ancient puzzle. But I recognized that I probably would not come out of such a vast enterprise alive, or at least with my wits intact.

Continue reading “Starts with L, Rhymes with Rife” →