If you live in central Connecticut, please consider coming to my public lecture tomorrow (Wednesday 4/12). It’s entitled, “Synthetic Biology: Playing God or Harnessing Nature?” The talk is sponsored by the Connecticut Association of Biology Teachers, the Connecticut Valley Branch of the American Society for Microbiology, and Manchester Community College.

Here are the details:

Where: Manchester Community College, Great Path Academy Building, Community Commons. (Here are directions and maps.)

When: 5:30 pm, Wednesday, April 12

More information here.

Originally published April 12, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

Steven Barritz (left) and Travis Bautista pose with their brand new copies of the revised edition of Parasite Rex with a new epilogue. I’ll be sending them an autographed book plate. If you’d like one, here are the steps:

1. Buy a copy.

2. Email me a picture of yourself with the book (it’s marked “with a new epilogue”).

3. I’ll reply to your email and we’ll make arrangements to send you an autographed book plate. (You’ll need to cover the cost of the postage and plate, which should be about a buck.)

Originally published April 11, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

Greetings, Loominaries of Philadelphia! I will be heading your way to give a talk tomorrow (Thursday) at the Center for Neuroscience & Society at the University of Pennsylvania.

My talk will be entitled, “Soul Made Flesh: The Origin of Our Brain-Centered World.” I’ll argue, as I did in the eponymous book, that as we grapple with the implications of twenty-first-century neuroscience, we’d do well to cast our minds back 350 years ago, when scientific revolutionaries first discovered that the brain was not a bowl of curds.

Continue reading “Tomorrow in Philadelphia: My Talk on the Birth of Our Brain-Centered Age” →