Open Laboratory 2009, an anthology of science blogging goodness, is out! Get your copy now. (Full disclosure–I’m in there.)

Originally published February 23, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

In my newest podcast , I talk to a kind of viral Indiana Jones. Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona chases down the evolutionary origins of viruses such as HIV and the flu no matter what it takes–including getting dangerously ill in the middle of a civil war. Check it out.

Originally published February 22, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Plush Alien Facehugger out of stock and not back until mid-2010 ?? This is an outrage–let’s get to work, people!

Originally published February 22, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

A year ago this month, George Will wrote a howler of a column in the Washington Post about global warming, loaded with scientific errors and profoundly illogical arguments. It would not have survived even the most perfunctory fact-checking–despite claims from the Washington Post that his columns go through a “multi-layered fact checking process.” In subsequent months, Will has continued to offer new climate howlers, and this Sunday he provided us all with a dubious one-year birthday gift.

Continue reading “George Will: Time For Some Significant Fact-Checking” →

Cecilia writes, “I am working on my PhD in wildlife population genetics, and I can trace my passion for my research to a moment when I was in elementary school and we learned about the extinct dodo bird from Mauritius Island. At first, I could not understand what “extinct” meant, but as the concept sunk in that I would never see this bird, and no one else would ever see it again, I felt a deep sadness and sense of loss. Recently, as I was slogging through field and lab work and my ambition started sagging, I decided to get a dodo tattoo to remind myself why I chose this path. Extinction is forever, and we never know what we’ve lost until it’s gone. Some researchers believe that the dodo was the prime seed disperser for the tambalacoque tree that is declining in numbers because there hasn’t been a dodo around for over 300 years to abrade the seeds. If this is true, it would be a succinct example of how extinctions reverberate through ecosystems. I hope that my work will help prevent future extinctions of wildlife.”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Originally published February 20, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.