Tomorrow I’m flying to Iowa City for a couple talks. It’s my first time to the city and the state, so I’m looking forward to it. I hope some Iowa-based Loominaries can catch me at the following events:

Friday, July 13, 9 am, Medical Alumni Auditorium, University of Iowa: “Infecting Minds: Science Communication With New Media.” Sponsored by the Divisions of General Internal Medicine & Infectious Disease in the Carver College of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology in the College of Public Health. Details here.

Saturday, July 14, 1 pm, Macbride Hall, University of Iowa: “A Planet of Viruses.” I’ll be speaking as part of the Iowa City Book Festival. Details here.

Originally published July 11, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.

I’m spending the weekend in Ottawa, where a couple thousand scientists have gathered for the Joint Congress of Evolutionary Biology. I’m drowning in a torrent of fascinating talks, on everything from sexually cannibalistic crickets to the future of the Amazon’s biodiversity. In the evenings, the meeting features high-profile talks–Friday night, the science writer David Quammen spoke about his career, on the occasion of winning the Stephen Jay Gould Prize. I have a particular interest in tonight’s talk, so much so that I’m going to live-blog it. The speaker is one Rosie Redfield, and she’ll be talking about the endlessly intriguing case of Arsenic Life.

Continue reading “Live-blogging Arsenic Life” →

As I’ve mentioned a couple times, I’ve been working for a couple years with biologist Douglas Emlen on a new textbook about evolution, intended for biology majors. It’s scheduled to be published next month, and we’ve gathered some gratifying endorsements. Here are a selection:

Continue reading “Presenting “Evolution: Making Sense of Life” (and a free app!)” →