I’m thrilled to have a piece of mine in this year’s edition of Best of American Science Writing. The book, edited by Rebecca Skloot and her father Floyd, is officially published on Tuesday, 9/27, but you can order it now on Amazon. My semi-skeptical take on the Singularity is in there, as is lots of excellent stuff–including fellow Discover blogger Ed Yong’s tale of sushi genes in Japanese gut bugs. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the first time a blog post has made it into this series. So congratulations to Ed Yong for giving the old blogs-versus-journalism critics another reason to pull their hair out.

Originally published September 23, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

On Monday, I’ll be speaking at a master’s tea at Morse College at Yale at 4 pm about outbreaks–real and fictionalized, viral and bacterial. It’s free and open to the public.

On Tuesday, I’ll be participating in Story Collider, a marvelous series of performances in which people tell stories about science. I am a bit nervous about this one for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I go on stage after Bora Zivkovic. I’ve sat in Bora’s car, listening to his stories, which he tells with one hand on the wheel and the other sweeping around in operatic gestures. I know what I’m up against.

The fun starts at 8 pm in Brooklyn. Details are here.

Originally published September 23, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

I’ve devoted a few posts (here and here and here) to the saga of a disputed link between chronic fatigue syndrome and a virus called XMRV. This week marks the next chapter in the story, with more evidence that the original results were at least partly due to contamination and a partial retraction of the original paper. Two great writers at Science, Martin Enserink and Jon Cohen, have put together an epic telling of this affair, from the first reports two years ago to the latest developments. The magazine has wisely put the piece out in front of their paywall. Do read it.

As Enserink and Cohen note, this is not the final word. That will probably come early next year, when a larger study led by Ian Lipkin of Columbia. We’ll see then if the link is buried at last, or lives to see another day.

Originally published September 23, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

I’m heading to New York this evening for an exciting conversation about the future of books, hosted by Science Online New York. We’ll be talking about the new opportunities opened up by ebooks and apps, as well as some of the problems they will bring with them. There’s now a waiting list to get into the room, but you can watch it livestreamed here, starting at around 7 pm EST. What makes the event particularly exciting for me is that you could pick any five members of the audience as the panelists, and the conversation would be just as interesting. So the prepared remarks are going to be short (just long enough to show off a few examples of new kinds of science books), and then we’re going to plunge into a wide-ranging, room-wide exchange. We’ll also be tracking questions with the #sonyc hashtag on Twitter, so feel free to join in the conversation.

Originally published September 20, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.