Here’s the final version of the cover of Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. It now includes Mary Roach, who kindly provided a lovely foreword for the book.
The other day I got the July issue of American Scientist and was tickled to no end to see this portrait of mimiviruses on the cover. As I write in A Planet of Viruses, mimiviruses were literally hiding in plain sight for years. Scientists considered them to be bacteria because they were too big to be viruses (see the minuscule HIV and rhinovirus, the cause of colds, for scale). It turns out they are indeed viruses, and perhaps the most interesting viruses on Earth. They may even represent an ancient branch of the tree of life, reaching back several billion years.
Check out James Van Etten’s excellent review of the science of giant viruses in the magazine.
Originally published June 14, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.
During the World Science Festival, I met Baba Brinkman, who performs hip hop about, among other things, evolution. He let me know that his “Rap Guide to Evolution” will be opening this Friday at the SoHo Playhouse in New York. Here are details about the venue and getting tickets.
Here are a couple videos from Baba…
Here’s a one called, “Performance, Feedback, Revision”:
Here’s Baba at TEDxKids:
Originally published June 14, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.
Thanks to all the Loominaries who have taken extra copies of my books off my hands–or, to be more specific, off my shelves. On Friday, I offered autographed copies of the US hardback edition of Evolution: The Triumph of An Idea, and you cleaned me out in a few hours. Here is a picture of what I’ve got to offer today: two other editions of Evolution. If you’d like one of these books autographed and shipped to you, go to my Amazon store and order a copy.
In the continuing quest to avoid packing boxes before our house gets ripped open for renovations this summer, allow me to offer you–for one week only!–another sale. I’ve got 33 autographed copies of the first US hardback edition of Evolution: The Triumph of An Idea, which are available for $20. (The cover price is $40, and this particular edition has been out of print for some time now.)