The Language Fossils Buried in Every Cell of Your Body

Posted on by admin

Discover, October 17, 2011

Link

It is a shame that grammar leaves no fossils behind. Few things have been more important to our evolutionary history than language. Because our ancestors could talk to each other, they became a powerfully cooperative species. In modern society we are so submerged in words–spoken, written, signed, and texted–that they seem inseparable from human identity. And yet we cannot excavate some fossil from an Ethiopian hillside, point to a bone, and declare, “This is where language began.”

Lacking hard evidence, scholars of the past speculated broadly about the origin of language.

Continue reading “The Language Fossils Buried in Every Cell of Your Body” →

An Infective Arm #scienceink

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Nuria Gonzalez-Montalban , a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Maryland, writes:

My name is Nuria and I am a biologist working with prions. Since the structure of prions has not been described yet (at least completely), I would not want to tattoo a possibly-wrong prion. Instead, I chose a T4 virus since part of my undergrad and PhD were related to E.coli and T4 bacteriophages.

Given that bacteriophages are the most common living thing on Earth, it’s good that at least one person on Earth has it on his arm.

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

Originally published October 14, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

Please welcome Megavirus, the world’s most ginormous virus

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

There are many weird viruses on this planet, but none weirder–in a fundamentally important way–than a group known as the giant viruses.

For years, they were hiding in plain sight. They were so big–about a hundred times bigger than typical viruses–that scientists mistook them for bacteria. But a close look revealed that they infected amoebae and built new copies of themselves, as all viruses do. And yet, as I point out in A Planet of Viruses, giant viruses certainly straddle the boundary between viruses and cellular life. Flu viruses may only have ten genes, but giant viruses may have 1,000 or more. When giant viruses invade a host cell, they don’t burst open like other viruses, so that their genes and proteins can disperse to do their different jobs. Instead, they assemble into a “virus factory” that sucks in building blocks and spits out large pieces of future giant viruses. Giant viruses even get infected with their own viruses. People often ask me if I think viruses are alive. If giant viruses aren’t alive, they sure are close.

Continue reading “Please welcome Megavirus, the world’s most ginormous virus” →