Rumors have been swirling this week about a press conference NASA is starting right now. Some people have speculated that they’re going to announce evidence for life on another planet.
Well, not quite. Scientists have found a form of life that they claim bends the rules for life as we know it. But they didn’t need to go to another planet to find it. They just had to go to California.
On my latest podcast, I explore the invisible ocean of life through which we swim every day: the air. I talk to Jessica Green of the University of Oregon about life in the clouds, in our houses, and everywhere in between. Gee-whiz science at its finest. Check it out.
Originally published November 29, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
Recently I paid a visit to a place where the world’s most mysterious viruses go to find a name. The result was my profile of Ian Lipkin of Columbia University for tomorrow’s New York Times. I first started thinking about this story when I heard Lipkin give a lecture about his work identifying unknown viruses this spring. And when I read this review of Lipkin’s, entitled simply, “Microbe Hunting,” I knew it was time to get cracking.
One thing I didn’t have room for is the fact that Lipkin has gone all Hollywood. By which I mean that he’s helping Steven Soderbergh on a new movie on a virus outbreak called Contagion, starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, and other big stars. Lipkin seems pretty stoked about the movie, which is slated for 2011, so I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it.
Originally published November 22, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, November 22, 2010
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin was spending the afternoon prowling his empire of viruses. The Center for Infection and Immunity, which he directs, occupies three floors of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Rather than wait for the elevator, Dr. Lipkin ran up and down the back stairs to move from floor to floor, leaning into the doorways of labs and glass-walled offices to get updates from a platoon of scientists.
Gustavo Palacios was sequencing the genes from a new strain of Ebola virus found in a bat in Spain–a worrisome development, since the fatal virus has almost never been found outside Africa.
My new brain column for Discover is online, and it’s about one of the weirder failings of our mind: the way our thoughts can get stuck in a traffic jam. When we are required to do two things in quick succession–like answer a cell phone and hit the brakes–our brains freeze up for an instant. Researchers have known about this so-called psychological refractory period for decades, but they’re still trying to figure out how, and why, it happens. As I explain in my column, this inner weakness may actually reveal an inner strength. Check it out. (And thanks to Slashdot for the tsunami of link love.)
Originally published November 20, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.