I have a strange job. A few weeks back I was wandering through the aisles of the local Walmart, searching for bug spray, when my phone rang. A very excited Robert Krulwich was calling. As I drifted past the potato chips and plasma-screen TVs, he declared to me with great excitement that I was going to be on the cable series Weeds.
Continue reading “I have it on good authority my voice makes its cable TV premiere tonight”
I’ve been waiting a long time to see a hagfish in person. Last year I took a class miles out to sea, hauled up traps from 300 feet, and came up with nothing but mud. Today, however, we discovered not just one hagfish–but fifty. Buckets full of squirming jawless beasts that seemed to slither straight out of the Cambrian Period. Their slime is more like a jelly made of glass–a marvelous thing. I am here to declare that a day with fifty hagfish is a good day.
(For more, read “Secrets of the Slime Hag” (pdf)” in Scientific American by Frederic Martini)
[Image courtesy of Charlotte Zimmer, age 9]
Originally published August 11, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
This week I’m on the Island of Science Writing. Today we wandered rocky coves with Tufts University biologist Julie Ellis, an expert on gulls. She showed us how to catch and band juvenile herring gulls–and how to recognize the matted remains of juvenile herring gulls coughed up by their great black-backed gulls predators. Life here is pretty, and yet not so pretty. But always interesting for writing about.
Originally published August 10, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
It was three years ago to the day that I wondered out loud whether scientists wore tattoos of their science. The result was a resounding yes, and that yes turned into the Science Tattoo Emporium. And today, I’m pleased to announce, the emporium is going to turn into a book.
Brian Switek , one of the junior members of the science-blogging-whippersnapper brigade, has written a detailed look back at the saga of Darwinius, the primate fossil that held Mayor Bloomberg captive at a press conference. It was just published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach and is free for the taking. Switek has kind things to say about the impact of the Loom’s coverage of the subject, although I’m pretty sure this blog–and the many others that hopped on this crazy story–won’t stop this sort of fiasco from happening again. All we can do is help set the record straight.
Originally published August 5, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.