Snakes inhabit our fears and stories. Why do they have such a hold on us? For my New York Times column this week, I take a look at a provocative theory that snakes have shaped our evolution since our primate ancestors first clambered through the trees. This week, a new study added a neurological twist to this idea, as scientists offered evidence that some of our neurons may be exquisitely sensitive to snakes. Check it out.

Continue reading “Snakes on the Brain: My New Column for the New York Times” →

One of the strangest episodes in the history of biology occurred in 1953. A physicist named George Gamow, who is best known for his work on the Big Bang, sat down and read a new paper by two biologists named James Watson and Francis Crick. They reported that DNA is arranged as a double helix. Gamow then wondered how DNA encodes proteins. DNA used four “letters” in its genes, while proteins are built from a chemical alphabet of twenty amino acids. He realized that the question turned life into a problem in cryptography. Continue reading “The Code of Life: My New Feature for Nautilus Magazine” →