This optical illusion is so cool, you’ll swear you’ve just damaged your brain. From Michael Bach’s peerless collection.
Originally published February 11, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Stephen Colbert is the twenty-first century Mister Wizard. He’s had guests on to talk about great experiments in physics and shock their fingers, addressed the thorny issue of species delimitation, reveled in microbes, and even screamed in horror at the sight of tongue-eating parasites. If you still doubt me, look at the list of videos at Colbert Nation tagged “science.”
What? You think science is a thing of the past on the show? Well, consider this: Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance will be on March 3, and Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will be on in the second week of March. Tune in.
Originally published February 11, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
Suddenly this obscure, blind cave dweller has become extremely interesting. It turns out to be a close cousin of the most diverse group of animals on Earth, the insects.
Insects–all one-million-plus-species of them–belong to a lineage of animals called arthropods. The arthropods emerged early in the history of animals, and while many of the early arthropods such as trilobites disappeared long ago, a vast diversity thrive on Earth today. Living arthropods share a number of traits in common, such as a hardened, segmented exoskeleton and compound eyes. But they’ve evolved into lots of different forms, ranging from scorpions to horseshoe crabs to centipedes to daddy longlegs to butterflies. They fly through the sky, plunge to the bottom of the sea, thrive in scorching deserts, and hang out in your kitchen.
Continue reading “Blind Cousins to the Arthropod Superstars”
Nature’s Nicola Jones interviewed me about the art and business of writing books, and you can read it in this week’s issue. It’s part of a series of interviews about books that will be appearing this month.
Originally published February 10, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.
Here at Fortress Zimmer, we’re gradually getting buried under the latest Snowmageddon, Blizzaster, SnOMG, or whatever you want to call it. The real spectacle so far has been the giddiness of local meteorologists on television and on weather blogs. My wife Grace reminded me of this excellent 1954 essay by E.B. White, in which he described listening to the radio about Hurricane Edna. Suddenly, I feel linked to history.
It became evident to me after a few fast rounds with the radio that the broadcasters had opened up on Edna awfully far in advance, before she had come out of her corner, and were spending themselves at a reckless rate. During the morning hours, they were having a tough time keeping Edna going at the velocity demanded of emergency broadcasting. I heard one fellow from, I think, Riverhead, Long Island, interviewing his out-of-doors man, who had been sent abroad in a car to look over conditions on the eastern end of the island.
“How would you say the roads were?” asked the tense voice.
“They were wet,” replied the reporter, who seemed to be in a sulk.
“Would you say the spray from the puddles was dashing up around the mudguards?” inquired the desperate radioman.
“Yeah,” replied the reporter.
It was one of those confused moments, emotionally, when the listener could not be quite sure what position radio was taking–for hurricanes or against them.
Originally published February 10, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.