Now these are good office hours. I’m sitting in front of a big tide pool on a hot day at Appledore Island. My children are playing some Byzantine game involving princesses on the raft in the middle of the pool. A student of mine has just walked passed me, snorkel and goggles in hand. “I’ve just sent you an outline for my project, and I’m going to take a break,” she says. As she floats off to gaze at the algae and the crabs, I use the awesome wireless on this island to check my email. The outline is in my inbox. So by the time she’s done snorkeling, we can discuss it.

I’m doing my best to counter this tranquility by editing these students nearly to the point of tears. But my impersonation of John Houseman in the Paper Chase just can’t measure up on a day like this.

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

We’re three days into the science writing class here at Shoals Marine Laboratory, and the exhaustion and enlightenment are neck and neck.

Monday we arrived on Appledore Island and settled in among the squawking herring gulls, which grudgingly walk out of our way as we walk by, as if to say, it’s our island. Tuesday morning we marched out to the northern edge of the island to learn about the intertidal zone, the place where the ocean meets land in necklace of pools and rocks battered by waves and coated in slimy algae.

Continue reading “Parasite Island and Hagfish Knots” →

On August 11, 1999–ten years ago tomorrow–the State Board of Education in Kansas voted to take evolution out of the state’s science curriculum.

Continue reading “Book [P]review: For The Scientist” →

We arrived on Appledore Island this afternoon, which is drenched in sunshine and heat. The gulls are screaming and the students are busy reading up on tidal pools (or, as I was informed at dinner, the intertidal) in advance of our journey tomorrow. But despite the fact that New Hampshire is just a strip on the horizon, the email and the cell phones work here, and this evening I was asked to talk on the radio tomorrow about my recent article on global warming and evolution. I’ll be on the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC in New York some time between 12:30 and 1 pm EST on Tuesday. You can listen live here, or wait for the archived podcast.

Listen right here!

Originally published August 10, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

After I saw this tattoo over on a sibling blog, Science Not Fiction, I knew it had to join the emporium. Its owner, Mark Yturralde, sent me this description of its origin:

After the Columbia accident, I felt compelled to do something. Space has always meant so much to me, and I felt I wanted to memorialize them somehow.

I donated to college funds and other charities in their name, but still felt like I needed to do more, and I found myself reliving and considering Challenger, and Apollo one too, Gus Grissom being a long time hero of mine.

One morning, I made a list of all of them. It just struck me. I’ll put their names on my forearm. People will see them. They’ll ask who they are. I can then tell them about my tattoo, and what it means to me. Everytime someone asks, and I explain it, they take a second. They reflect. They remember.

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Originally published August 9, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.