There’s a lot of dismally wrong coverage of global warming these days (see some recent examples chronicled by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum at The Intersection, for example). But the way global warming gets treated on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post–particularly by George Will and his enabling editors–is particularly exquisite. For my little Ahab-like obsession with the editorial process there, check out this string of posts. Many other observers have made similar points, so you’d think that somebody over at the Post might have learned something from the experience.

Today, we see that they haven’t.

Continue reading “George Will, Now With Misleading Links!”

I’ve posted my John Wesley Powell Memorial Lecture, “What is Life?” on  blip.tv  and have embedded it here. It’s a combination of my slides for the talk and a so-so audio recording. I stopped recording after my main talk, because the questions and answer period was pretty inaudible. That’s too bad, because we got into some interesting questions about whether viruses, prions, or even the Internet can be considered alive. Abbie Smith, who was at the talk,  wrote about the discussion , and her own distaste for hard lines between life and non-life.

Continue reading “What Is Life? Slides and Gramophone”

 ERV  informs me there’s some snow between me and my delivery of this year’s John Wesley Powell Memorial Lecture on Sunday in Oklahoma ( details here ). But if Powell could paddle down the Grand Canyon one-handed, the least I can do is hang out in airports a few extra hours. I look forward to seeing any Loom readers around Tulsa.

Originally published March 27, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.