Shi-Hsia Hwa writes,
I’m a virologist in a biotech company in Singapore. Here’s my story: I’ve been interested in infectious diseases since I was a kid, because my father almost died of TB when he was an infant. I must have been the only kid who looked forward to mass vaccination days in school. For a field trip to the Philippines after my bachelor’s and my first job shortly thereafter, I had to be immunized against a lot of other things that the average person doesn’t.
Charles Darwin wondered if animals were aware of themselves. Allowed to visit a rare orangutan in the London Zoo, he brought a mirror and observed the ape apparently make faces at its own reflection. It’s hard to say for sure that the orangutan really was aware that its reflection was its own. Over a century later, a scientist named George Gallup turned Darwin’s idea into a more rigorous test. He would secretly put a mark on an animal’s forehead and see if it noticed the difference the next time it passed a mirror.
Continue reading “Monkeys in the mirror and the nature of science”
Three weeks from today I’ll be in New York to host a special screening of the movie Creation, a fictionalized account of Darwin’s life starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. It’s a collaboration between the Science and Arts program at CUNY and the Imagine Science Film Festival (for which I’m serving as judge). After the movie, I’ll moderate a talk with the director, John Amiel, and biologists Cliff Tabin and Sean Carroll (of deep homology fame). It should be an excellent evening.
Here are the details:
Wednesday, Oct 20, 7:00 PM
Elebash Recital Hall, at the CUNY Graduate Center on 5th Avenue at 35th St. (Map)
No reservations. First come, first seated.
Originally published September 29, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
I’ve got several announcements to post over the next few days. Many eggs are beginning to hatch.
Continue reading “Announcements, Announcements! First up: Michael Specter coming to Yale”
On my latest podcast, I talk to David Baker of the University of Washington about a remarkable new way of studying biology: turn a problem (protein-folding) into a game, and get 57,000 people to play. Check it out.
Originally published September 24, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.