Today I’ve got an interview posted over at Yale Environment 360 with Tony Barnosky, a paleontologist who’s just written a very interesting book called Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming
Continue reading “Let Us Not Forget The Books: I Need Your Vote Again”
If the world goes crazy for a lovely fossil, that’s fine with me. But if that fossil releases some kind of mysterious brain ray that makes people say crazy things and write lazy articles, a serious swarm of flies ends up in my ointment.
Readers of the Loom may be familiar with the work of Bryan Fry, who studies the evolution of snake venom. (See these two previous posts on his work.) I’ve got an article in tomorrow’s New York Times about his latest paper, to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In it, Fry and a big team of collaborators argue that Komodo dragons, the biggest lizards on Earth, are venomous. (There wasn’t room in the story to describe their argument that an extinct relative of Komodos that measured 21 feet long, was venomous too.) Provocative stuff, to be sure, and certainly not universally embraced by other researchers. I got some highly spicy quotes from critics. Check it out.
(PS: When the paper is put online this week, you’ll be able find it here: http://www.pnas.org/lookup/doi/10.1073/pnas.0810883106 )
[Image from Wikipedia]
Originally published May 18, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, May 18, 2009
The Komodo dragon is already a terrifying beast. Measuring up to 10 feet long, it is the world’s largest lizard. It delivers a devastating bite with its long, serrated teeth, attacking prey as big as water buffaloes.
But in a provocative paper to be published this week, an international team of scientists argues that the Komodo dragon is even more impressive. They claim that the lizards use a potent venom to bring down their victims.
Other biologists have greeted the notion of giant venomous lizards with mixed reactions. Some think the scientists have made a compelling case, while others say the evidence is thin.
Continue reading “Chemicals in Dragon’s Glands Stir Venom Debate”
Donovan, a biologist from Brazil writes, “My tattoo talks about the real scientific spirit. It’s a phrase in Portuguese of Isaac Newton: ‘If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.'”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published May 16, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.