The National Center For Science Education (now at its new ncse.com address) is offering a free pdf of a chapter from my book, The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. The chapter, called “Radiations and Extinctions,” is about the two sides of biodiversity. First I look at how biodiversity rises over time (the ascent of the animal kingdom, for example, and the wild exuberance of insects). Then I look at how biodiversity falls, thanks to background extinctions and mass extinctions. And then I take a look forward and see ominous signs for biodiversity’s future, such as corroding oceans.

If you like what you read, you can find out more about The Tangled Bank here. Or you can cut to the chase and get the whole book–as a holiday gift for yourself, or for that special someone who keeps asking you how we can be descended from monkeys if there are still monkeys around.

Originally published December 15, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

This spring I blogged about some marvelous videos made by scientists at Brown University in their quest to understand how bats manage to be bats. Turning your hands into membrane-lined wings makes for some awkward trade-offs. Moving around on the ground, for example, gets to be a special challenge. Bats have not simply evolved a single solution to these trade-offs, however. Instead, they’ve explored lots of different compromises. While many bats can only creep awkwardly on the ground, for example, vampire bats can actually gallop.

Continue reading “Spiderman’s Bats” →

Carl Buell, who illustrated many lovely critters for my new book The Tangled Bank, has been adding some new paintings to his Flickr stream. Here’s his holiday ground sloth.

In the caption, he writes: “I’ve certainly drawn and painted enough of them over the past 15 years. Ground sloths are a favorite subject. Too big to hide from the weather, this big guy just hunkered down and slept through the storm. It’s hard to imagine these guys in snow, but Megalonyx ranged as far north as Alaska. Another Card idea that never got off the ground.”

Card or not, I’m glad he’s sharing his handiwork.

Originally published December 12, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

This fall I gave a number of talks about the flu, and how evolutionary biologists are helping to make sense of this vexing virus. The University of British Columbia, where I spoke in November, has posted the lecture I gave there on YouTube. For ease of viewing, I’ve embedded all six segments of the talk below.

A few caveats. A couple labels got lost in the conversion of my Keynote to Powerpoint during the preparation of the video. And the numbers I gave for the 2009 H1N1 flu are now a bit out of date. As of this week, the Centers for Disease Control estimate that about 50 million people in the U.S. have come down with the new flu strain since it first hit the country in April. 2009 H1N1 is responsible for just about all the flu so far this year. For the past few weeks it has been subsiding, but it may come back for another whack at us in a few weeks. Meanwhile, there hasn’t been any seasonal flu yet. Of the people who contracted 2009 H1N1 in the United States, about 10,000 have died. (As I mention in the talk, 36,000 people a year die of the seasonal flu in the U.S.)

And now, without further ado, I give you the flu! Continue reading “Darwin Gets Swine Flu: The YouTube Edition” →