Long before Darwin published The Origin of Species, there was talk of evolution. The more acquainted naturalists became with the major groups of animals, the gaps between them grew smaller. Once it seemed as if mammals were profoundly different than other vertebrates, for example. And then European explorers encountered the platypus, a mammal that laid eggs. Perhaps the major groups of animals had not been separately created, some naturalists suggested. Perhaps life had changed over time.
I’ve been doing some research on the long cultural history of tattoos in preparation for my talk about Science Ink at Harvard on Tuesday. I’m a hard-core Moby Dick fan (this blog’s name comes from there), so it was a delight to stumble across a passage on tattoos, which I had forgotten.
There are 100 trillion microbes that live in your body. Do you own them? Do they deserve the same protections as your own genes and cells? If someone genetically alters a microbe and claims that if you swallow it, it will let you lose weight, should that living germ be regulated as a drug?
Continue reading “Do you own your germs? My new piece for the New York Times on micro-bioethics”
The New York Times, December 3, 2011
Imagine a scientist gently swabs your left nostril with a Q-tip and finds that your nose contains hundreds of species of bacteria. That in itself is no surprise; each of us is home to some 100 trillion microbes. But then she makes an interesting discovery: in your nose is a previously unknown species that produces a powerful new antibiotic. Her university licenses it to a pharmaceutical company; it hits the market and earns hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you deserve a cut of the profits?
It’s been a busy week for Science Ink!
1. Science Ink was on TV. The Daily Planet, a Canadian science news show on the Discovery Channel, interviewed me about my favorite tattoos.
2.The Irish Times put Science Ink on top of its list of science books for holiday gifts. (As did MSNBC and io9.)
3. Der Spiegel takes a look.
4. The Toronto Star has a whole package on Science Ink in Saturday’s issue: A Q&A with yours truly, an article by Megan Ogilvie about Toronto-area scientists with tattoos, and a slide show of their tattoos. (I was amazed that there were lots of tattoos I had never seen before!)
5. Just a reminder to folks in Boston: I will be giving a lecture at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Tuesday, 12/13 at 6 pm. The lecture is free and open to the public. (The parking is free too!) Details are here.
[This tattoo of cyanide is from David Lighthart.]
Originally published December 2, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.