Pictures From A Proud Book Papa

Posted on August 29, 2009June 30, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

The stork UPS man pitched a box through the front door this morning. Inside was an advance copy of my new book, The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. The paternal photographer in me took over, and now I have to show off my snaps. Above is a picture that I like for two reasons. One is the way it shows off Carl Buell’s lovely (and crowd-critiqued) cover. The other is the way it illustrates the book’s far-less-than-a-doorstop mass, which is all too typical for textbooks these days. In fact, the book’s smaller than Tino, our far-less-than-a-doorstop cat.

Continue reading “Pictures From A Proud Book Papa” →

End of the Week: Radio news and web site restored

Posted on August 28, 2009June 30, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

It has been a week of crazy writing–four pieces ranging from short to way too long. Hence little blogging. I apologize. I will reform. I will honor the blogger’s code. Monday. Continue reading “End of the Week: Radio news and web site restored” →

carlzimmer.com: It’s up. No, it’s down. It’s up again. No, it’s really down.

Posted on August 24, 2009June 30, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Just a technical note, with shades of exasperation: After my web site got hacked earlier a couple months back, I changed ISP’s and spent a lot of time bringing it up to date. Now I’ve discovered that it’s not working again, because of some mysterious error. I’m getting help with it, but it may take a few days for everything to get back in place.

From fishapod to FAIL

Posted on August 22, 2009June 30, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

The Zimmer family takes over Bloggingheads. My brother Ben takes me on a journey through Word World. Check it out.

Microbes within microbes within microbes

Posted on August 20, 2009June 30, 2021 by Matt Kristoffersen

Science Magazine, August 20, 2009

Link

We are, fundamentally, a fusion. As I wrote in my essay for Science on the origin of eukaryotes, there’s now a wealth of evidence that our cells evolved from the combination of two different microbes. The mitochondria that generate fuel for our cells started out as free-living bacteria. Today, they still retain traces of their origin in the bacterial DNA they carry, as well as their bacterial structure, including the membrane within a membrane that envelops them.

Scientists I spoke with as I worked on the essay agreed that this merging was a profound event in the history of life. No living eukaryote, whether animal, plant, fungus, or protozoan, has completely lost its mitochondria since that symbiotic milestone some 2 billion years ago. It wasn’t the only time that two species merged, however. Plants, for example, descend from algae that engulfed a species of photosynthesizing bacteria. Many protozoans have swallowed up photosynthetic partners as well.

Continue reading “Microbes within microbes within microbes” →