Category: Newsletter

Friday’s Elk, June 3, 2016

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Greetings–

It’s late spring here in New England, and that means one thing: an invasion of snapping turtles, in search of a place to lay their eggs. Here’s a story I told two years ago about learning to love my monstrous neighbors.
 

Two Weeks Till the Stephen Jay Gould Prize Lecture!

If you are in Austin, or if you’ll be there for the Society for the Study of Evolution meeting, please join me on June 17 for a public lecture, “The Surviving Branch: How Genomes Are Revealing The Twisted Course of Human Evolution.” Details here Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, June 3, 2016” →

Friday’s Elk, May 20, 2016

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Greetings–

In previous issues of Friday’s Elk, I’ve shared a number of stories about ancient DNA and what it’s telling us about our history. This week, I wrote a long profile for the New York Times about one of the most intriguing figures in this exploding discipline, a geneticist named Eske Willerslev. His story conveys not only the excitement of this field, but the powerful, complex resonance that ancient DNA has for today’s world. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, May 20, 2016” →

Friday’s Elk, May 13, 2016

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Greetings–
 

Getting Astronaut Blood From Space

I’ve got a new video out in my Science Happens series for Stat. This time, I paid a visit to the lab of Chris Mason in New York, where he and his colleagues are studying blood and other samples from astronaut Scott Kelly. They’re examining his DNA to see if life in space brings about any changes in how his genes work. Check it out. (GIF from NASA) Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, May 13, 2016” →

Friday’s Elk, May 6, 2016

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Greetings–

I’m back, with some further reading for your enjoyment and edification (I hope!).
 

Fighting Zika with the Most Amazing Microbe

Have you ever heard of Wolbachia? If not, you have a wonderful surprise in store. It’s arguably the most successful symbiont on Earth, a species of bacteria that lives inside several million species of invertebrates. And it thrives in those hosts with weird manipulations of their reproduction. I’ve written about Wolbachia a few times in the past (here for example), and this week in the New York Times I revisit it to explore an exciting possibility: that Wolbachia could block mosquito-borne diseases including Zika and dengue fever. Check it out. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, May 6, 2016” →