I’ve posted the first two stories from students in my science writing class over at Science on Shoals. (plus an explanatory introduction). One piece is about the mysteries of bird migrations, and the other’s on a new technology for seeing skeletons in motion in 3-D. And there’s plenty more to come. Check it out.
Originally published August 19, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
From time to time, I’ve asked around for a good estimate of how many neurons are in the human brain. Ten billion–100 billion–something like that, is the typical answer I get. But there are actually a trillion other cells in the brain. They’re known as glia, which is Latin for glue–which gives you an idea of how little scientists have thought of them. But without glia, our brains would be useless. Scientists don’t yet really understand all the things that glia do for us, but it looks as if they do a lot–perhaps even processing information in their own mysterious way.
In my brain column in the September issue of Discover, I consider the long-neglected neurological elephant in the corner. Check it out.
[Image from Neurophysiology for the Audiologist]
Originally published August 19, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
Discover, August 19, 2009
Some of the common words we use are frozen mistakes. The term influenza comes from the Italian word meaning “influence”—an allusion to the influence the stars were once believed to have on our health. European explorers searching for an alternate route to India ended up in the New World and uncomprehendingly dubbed its inhabitants indios, or Indians. Neuroscientists have a frozen mistake of their own, and it is a spectacular blunder. In the mid-1800s researchers discovered cells in the brain that are not like neurons (the presumed active players of the brain) and called them glia, the Greek word for “glue.”
[Update: See my continually updated edition of this list here.]
Over the past week I held my first real class, teaching a roomful of students writing about science on Appledore Island (along with a few ornithological auditors, shown in this picture of my classroom). They put up with a relentless schedule of researching and writing and ended up with some excellent pieces about everything from robot sharks to the right way to hold a warbler in your hand. I’ll be posting the fruits of their labors in a couple days at Science on Shoals.
Patrick, a research specialist in a computational memory lab, writes,
Yesterday, I got my first science tattoo — and first tattoo period — taking inspiration from you and the lovely people in the Science Tattoo Emporium.
Mine is a hippocampal neuron: specifically, a pyramidal cell found in area CA1. It’s been implicated in spatial memory, which is something my lab works on. (In rodent EEG, hippocampal “place response” has been seen in this type of neuron.) But more than that, I find it to be one of those classically beautiful images in science.
Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement. Science nerd pride!
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published August 15, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.