This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
Frankenstein: The Afterlife of Shelley’s Circle. Published by The New York Public Library.
Reviewed by Carl Zimmer
June 8, 2012
Continue reading “The Frankenstein Universe: How The New York Public Library Blew Up the Ebook”
This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
Wonders of Geology: An Aerial View of America’s Mountains. By Michael Collier. Published by Mikaya Press.
Reviewed by Veronique Greenwood
June 6, 2012
Continue reading “Wonders of Geology: Getting High On Mountains”
In the past few weeks, there’s been a string of horrific tales of cannibalism and other zombie-esque behavior in the news. How to explain a handful of reports of people doing the unspeakable? One answer circulating around these days is that it must be parasites. And for some journalists, the question demands a call to the Centers for Disease Control to find out what they’re hiding from us!
Even the most elaborate pictures of the tree of life you can find online are gaunt shadows of life’s full diversity. In tomorrow’s New York Times, I write about a team of scientists who are setting out to build a tree with every described species on Earth–and program it so that the entire scientific community can help tease out its branches and add more branches as they discover the six, sixty, or six hundred million more unnamed species on Earth. Check it out.
Originally published June 4, 2012. Copyright 2012 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, June 4, 2012
In 1837, Charles Darwin opened a notebook and drew a simple tree with a few branches. Each branch, which he labeled with a letter, represented a species. In that doodle, he captured his newfound realization that species were related, having evolved from a common ancestor. Across the top of the page he wrote, “I think.”
Two decades later Darwin presented a detailed account of the tree of life in “On the Origin of Species.” And much of evolutionary biology since then has been dedicated to illuminating parts of the tree. Using DNA, fossils and other clues, scientists have been able to work out the relationships of many groups of organisms, making rough sketches of the entire tree of life.
Continue reading “Tree of Life Project Aims for Every Twig and Leaf”