Things have certainly changed since the last Friday’s Elk. The world has experienced over 100,000 infections of Covid-19, caused by a virus, SARS-CoV-2, that we didn’t even know about till a few weeks ago.

At first, we Americans complacently looked at the news as just another overseas disaster. As of this afternoon, there are 370 confirmed cases in the United States (one just a thirty-minute drive from where I live in Connecticut). Because our testing program is a mess, it’s certain there are many more–and transmission will bring more in weeks to come. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, March 7, 2020” →

Happy Groundhog Day’s Eve!

I wanted to start off with a note to Friday’s Elk readers in the Los Angeles area. On Thursday, February 6, I will be speaking in the Aloud Series at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. I’ll be in conversation with Sean Carroll, Caltech physicist, author, and podcaster extraordinaire. We’ll be at the Mark Taper Auditorium-Central Library. Hope to see you! You can register here.

This past month, I took a look at evolution’s imprint on us, as well as a great step that took place two billion years ago to our level of complexity. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, February 1, 2020” →

Best wishes to you for the new year and the new decade!

2019 was busy for those of us who write about biology. Human evolution alone took up much of my time. When it comes to human origins, we had an entirely new species of Homo to contend with, new glimpses at our Denisovan cousins from Siberia and (amazingly) Tibet, and an ancient skull of our species in Europe over 210,000 years ago.

Looking to our biology today, scientists made some surprising discoveries. They investigated mysterious rings of DNA in our cells, along with a protein we make that could potentially shield us from dementia or even boost cognition. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, January 3, 2020” →

December greetings!

Looking back at the past month of writing, I found myself reflecting about how science works. When we journalists write an article, we need to offer readers a hook that lets them know why a story is coming out today. That’s all well and good, but it’s always important to remember that a new scientific paper is never the whole story.

Science is the work of careers, of generations. Debates churn on year after year, often resolving only when researchers realize they all had a piece of the truth, but only a piece. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, December 6, 2019” →