Congratulations to all the Macarthur genius grant winners announced today. Their ranks include two evolutionary biologists.

1. Beth Shapiro, at Penn State, studies ancient DNA to understand extinct critters like mammoths and dodos. I’ve embedded a lecture I saw her give over the summer below. [Update: Sorry, sorry–Penn State, not Penn!]

Another winner is Richard Prum from Yale, who I had fortuitously asked to come talk to my writing class this morning. I had my students interview him for a profile. Voila, instant news hook!

The poor students. They were overwhelmed by the torrent of work Prum described, from the sophisticated optical properties of bird feathers to the origin of birds among the dinosaurs to the deep unity of biology and aesthetics. I’ve embedded the Macarthur’s video of Prum from their 2009 Fellows site, where he talks a bit about his stuff.

Originally published September 22, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about bedbugs recently, because…well, because that’s part of my job description. I was asked to be on a radio show a couple weeks ago to talk about the rising tide of bedbugs in the United States (note to self: don’t pick up old mattresses left out on trash day). But I also think they’re pretty interesting. (Traumatic insemination, for starters…) And, thanks to Alex Wild, Annie Liebowitz to the arthropods, I now also think they’re rather lovely. If you haven’t checked out his blog, do.

[Note: To all the professional exterminators who are trying to post crypto-ads for their companies in the comments, please don’t bother. I’ll delete it. Why not buy a real ad from Discover and support the site?]

Originally published September 17, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science , by Richard Holmes, has won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. I haven’t read it, nor is its galleys sitting atop a stack of books I hope to get to. But it does look awfully good, and the Royal Society obviously agrees…Any Loom readers have a review to offer?

Update: I should really have entitled this, Congratulations, Richard Holmes. Books don’t appreciate good wishes very much.

Originally published September 16, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Arnaud writes, “I am a geneticist interested in the processes that make every individual unique. This tattoo symbolizes a living being as the result of a ‘game of life’ where random and deterministic processes interacts together. Genes provide a solid framework, but random and external factors have an equally important role in determining who you are.”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Originally published September 14, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.