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Originally published March 16, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
Two-alarm Zimmer family radio alert!
My brother Ben will be on On Point today (Tuesday) at 11 am, talking about taking over as the language maven at the Times. Then, at 1 pm, I’ll be talking on the Colin McEnroe show on WNPR about my article on carnivorous plants in National Geographic. You can listen live or get a podcast after the show on the show page.
Originally published March 16, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
Measles looks to be 1000 years old. It jumped from cattle. And you can read more about it here.
Originally published March 16, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
In tomorrow’s New York Times I write about the afterlife of the greatest medical disaster in history. Thalidomide, a drug women took for morning sickness in the late 1950s, caused thousands of devastating birth defects, such as the failure of limbs to develop. Even after the drug was banned, scientists had no idea how it interfered with growing arms and legs. In fact, fifty years later, they’re only just starting to figure it out.
This was a particularly interesting story to write coming after a piece I wrote for the Times last year about normal limb development. Now thalidomide is revealing a new player in the limb development game, a protein that no one knew about when I wrote my 2009 article. In science, very often the only way to understand how something works is to see what happens when it goes wrong.
PS: On Google Books, you can see a 1962 issue of Life with some stunning pictures from the Thalidomide years.
[Image: Science Museum (Thalidomide is currently legal for sale for leprosy and other diseases)]
Originally published March 15, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
[As of 3/17 2 pm, the poll is closed. Thanks to everyone who responded. Results to be posted soon!]
[Update, 2 pm: Thanks for the big turn-out for my survey below. If you have trouble accessing it to enter your information, try again later today. I am hammering out some kinks right now. And I’ll crunch the numbers once the responses start to taper off.]
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