Sunday morning was cool and foggy, and so we were not surprised to discover the garden full of craters and trenches. A snapping turtle the size of a manhole cover was busy laying her eggs.
The New York Times, May 24, 2010
In 1976, the biologist Robert E. Gill Jr. came to the southern coast of Alaska to survey the birds preparing for their migrations for the winter. One species in particular, wading birds called bar-tailed godwits, puzzled him deeply. They were too fat.
“They looked like flying softballs,” said Mr. Gill.
At the time, scientists knew that bar-tailed godwits spend their winters in places like New Zealand and Australia. To get there, most researchers assumed, the birds took a series of flights down through Asia, stopping along the way to rest and eat. After all, they were land birds, not sea birds that could dive for food in the ocean.
Nick writes, “A tattoo of Vespa crabro. I got it while I was working in the entomology department of Va Tech. I was the most hardcore nerd there.”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published May 23, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
I’ve got some public face time coming up:
Tuesday, May 25, 5:30 pm: In San Diego, I’ll be talking at the American Society for Microbiology. I was asked to speak at the President’s Forum, “Tell the Story of Science.” My own talk is, “Newspapers, Blogs, And Other Vectors: Infecting Minds With Science In the Age of New Media.”
This old English major’s heart is warmed by the news that the new synthetic cell carriesa line from James Joyce, inscribed in its DNA: “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.”
Continue reading “James Joyce’s Words Come To Life, And Are Promptly Desecrated”