I was delighted to discover this morning that the journal The American Biology Teacher gives thumbs-up toThe Tangled Bank. From the review:

“For students of evolution or scholars who want to know the specifics about particular evolutionary processes, this is an excellent read. The fact that it is understandable to beginners and fascinating to scientists makes this book truly unique and valuable.”

Originally published May 12, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Here’s the newly anointed best visual illusion of 2010. No fancy computer graphics. Just cardboard, glue, and some wooden balls. Fabulous.

[Update: Thanks to Sam Mackrill for directing us to the inventor’s web site, which includes building instructions.]

Originally published May 11, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

How should teachers use the media to teach students about evolution? Carefully! That’s my advice in a paper I was asked to write for the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach, where I take a look at the history of journalists writing about evolution.

I start way back, at the beginning:

Evolution has been news from the start. On March 28, 1860, The New York Times ran a massive article on a newly published book called On the Origin of Species (Anonymous 1860). The article explained how the dominant explanation for life’s staggering diversity was the independent creation of every species on Earth. “Meanwhile,” the anonymous author wrote, “Mr. DARWIN, as the fruit of a quarter of a century of patient observation and experiment, throws out, in a book whose title has by this time become familiar to the reading public, a series of arguments and inferences so revolutionary as, if established, to necessitate a radical reconstruction of the fundamental doctrines of natural history.”

If you want to read the rest of that 1860 article, you can find it here. And if you want to read the rest of my paper, check out thepdf I’ve posted over at my web site.

Originally published May 10, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Attention, DC readers! I’ll be one of the speakers this Saturday at a meeting entitled “Science Writing: From Eureka to Digital Publishing.” I’ll be giving the “digital tools and techniques” talk. Don’t expect an html tutorial; I’ll be talking instead about how to adapt the fundamental of good science writing to new formats.

Continue reading “This Saturday: Science Writing at the Smithsonian” →

An anonymous reader writes, “I am a computer programmer and amateur herpetologist. On my leg is Henry, a North Brazilian Boa constrictor — rare in captivity at the time. I brought him in for photos before we began, and again after it was completely healed. As you can see in this photo, his colors were altered in the tattoo to stand out better. It took 20 hours over the course of 14 months to complete and was done completely freehand. Each scale was drawn individually. This photo is so special, since he’s posed very much the way he came out on my leg, tongue and all. It’s not like I could give him instructions on what to do.”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Originally published May 9, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.