This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
Chasing the Higgs Boson. By Dennis Overbye. Published by The New York Times, 2013.
Reviewed by Sean Carroll
March 5, 2013
This is a story about the discovery of an organ that measures twelve feet long and four inches wide. You might well assume that this is old news. After all, how could something the size of a lamppost go unnoticed by anatomists? And yet, in fact, it’s only just come to light.
The discovery emerged out of a blood-drenched confusion. Alexander Werth, an anatomist, was standing on an ice sheet miles off the coast of Alaska’s North Slope. He was watching Inupiat whale hunters dismember bowhead whales they had caught in the Bering Sea. This government-sanctioned hunt is one of the best opportunities for whale anatomists to get hold of fresh tissue from the animals.
This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
Uprising. By Phil McKenna. Published by Matter.
Reviewed by Virginia Hughes
March 4, 2013
Continue reading “Word Rising: In Long-Form Journalism, How Long Is Too Long?”
Alyssa writes, “I’m a wildlife biology student at UC Davis with a particular obsession with ornithology, as well as a strong love for the rich, diverse ecosystems we have along the coast of northern California. Somehow seeing Brown Pelicans flying by, their bizarre combination of obvious goofiness with an odd elegance never fails to put a smile on my face. I also appreciate that (offshore oil drilling problems aside), their population growth after ESA listing is about as close to a success story as we have in conservation. My tattoo is based of a painting by one of my heroes, John James Audubon. I asked the tattoo artist to darken the hind-neck and redden the gular pouch to reflect the characteristic breeding coloration the pacific subspecies, Pelecanus occidentalis californicus. I also asked for the foliage to be removed to better reflect the roosting habitat in California. The tattoo is by Chris Arredondo at Royal Peacock Tattoo Parlor in Sacramento, CA.”
You can see the rest of the Science Tattoo Emporium here and in Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.
And if you live in Connecticut, you’re invited to hear me speak at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University on Thursday at 5:30. Admission is free. (Poster here.)
Originally published March 3, 2013. Copyright 2013 Carl Zimmer.
Discover, March 3, 2013
David Reich, a geneticist at the Harvard Medical School, has redrawn our species’ family tree. And today, in his office overlooking Avenue Louis Pasteur in Boston, he picks up a blue marker, walks up to a blank white wall, and shows the result to me. He starts with a pair of lines — one for humans and one for Neanderthals — that split off from a common ancestor no more than 700,000 years ago. The human branch divides into lineages of Africans, Asians, and Europeans, and then into twigs for smaller groups like the people of New Guinea or the residents of the remote Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. Reich also creates a branch off the Neanderthal line for the Denisovans, a paleolithic lineage geneticists discovered only a few years ago.