In my National Geographic article last year on carnivorous plants, I mentioned one particularly swift killer, the bladderwort. This aquatic plant grows little suction traps that can be triggered by passing animals. In a new paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, French researchers take the closest look yet at these ultrafast killers. They find that the door to the traps buckles like a popped bubble of chewing gum–but can then almost immediately swing back shut. Along with the new study on jumping fleas I wrote about last week, this is evidence of how far we’re just starting to explore the world of quick biology.

Science News has a nice write-up, and here is an excellent YouTube video provided by a co-author of the study, Philippe Marmottant, a physicist at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France–complete with computer simulation, rubber-cap demos, and groovy soundtrack.

Originally published February 16, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.

Over the weekend, Charles Darwin turned 202. I celebrated in Stony Brook on Long Island–which just so happens to be a very appropriate place to mark the event. Stony Brook University was the intellectual home of one of Darwin’s most important followers, the scientist George Williams. Williams may not be a household name, but for evolutionary biologists he looms large. Some fifty years ago, he framed some of the most important questions they are still seeking to answer today.

Continue reading “The Price of Youth: My Darwin Day 2011 Lecture” →

Seth Mnookin has written an important book chronicling one of the most tragic blasts of anti-science in memory: the fraud that was the autism-vaccine link. I asked Seth to come to Yale to talk about The Panic Virus, and he’ll be there on Thursday, February 17.

Here are the details:

February 17, 4 pm

Morse College Master’s Tea

Morse College Master’s House, 304 York Street, New Haven

Originally published February 10, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.