In 2009, I published The Tangled Bank: An Introduction. I intended it as a textbook for non-majors, as well as a guide to evolution for people looking for a thorough but non-technical account of how life has gotten to be the way it is. The project proved to be far more work than I had reckoned, but I was happy with how it turned out, especially thanks to the talented artists and designers I had the privilege to work with. The reception has been gratifying; the Quarterly Review of Biology, for example, called it “spectacularly successful.” A number of courses have adopted The Tangled Bank both in the United States and abroad.

It’s hard to believe that four years have rushed by since the book came out. A lot has happened in the world of evolutionary biology during that time, some of which I’ve tried to document here and in my articles. And so, next month, I’ll be publishing the second edition of The Tangled Bank.

Continue reading “The Tangled Bank 2.0, Ready For Pre-Order” →

Dan Weston writes, “Given your interest in Moby Dick and tattoos, I thought you might appreciate my recent tattoo, based on an illustration by Rockwell Kent from the 1930’s edition (that I inherited from my grandmother and have read so many times that I had to have it rebound).”

Clearly, Dan has read my post from last year, “Herman Melville, Science Writer.”

For years I owned a copy of Moby Dick with Rockwell Kent’s dream-like engravings. The book disappeared a while ago, but the pictures remain how I see the story. The Plattsburgh State Art Museum has an online gallery of Kent’s illustrations here; I’ve reprinted the source of Dan’s ink below.

I think I need to buy myself another copy as a birthday present.

You can see the rest of the Science Tattoo Emporium here or in my book, Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

Originally published July 7, 2013. Copyright 2013 Carl Zimmer.

I’m off this week for an extended Fourth-of-July break. I won’t be writing any new posts here (except for a pointer to my “Matter” column in the New York Times on Thursday).

But with nearly ten years of archives, I can offer some old favorites to read in the meantime, from oldest to newest:

Continue reading “Some of My Favorite Loom Posts To Tide You Over” →

I’ve lived in central Connecticut for ten years now, and so I missed their last emergence here in 1996. I was looking forward a June deafened by the songs of lovesick male cicadas, but my month turned out to be disappointingly quiet.

And yet, when my two daughters paid a visit to friends who live just seven miles away, they came home with a shoebox full of exoskeletons.

This year’s cicada emergence was anticipated by many millions of people in the eastern United States, but many of them missed it. But that doesn’t mean that the brood was a bust. Instead, it tells us something about they mysterious seventeen-year cycle of the cicadas.

In today’s New York Times I take a look back at Swarmageddon 2013, and look at what scientists learned about the bugs thanks to some newly invented tools. Check it out.

And see you next year in Iowa!

Originally published July 1, 2013. Copyright 2013 Carl Zimmer.