When I recently gave a talk at Rockefeller University, I met a remarkable grad student named Alexis Gambis, who has organized the Imagine Science Film Festival. Last year was its launch, and this year they’re at it again. Alexis asked me to be on the jury, and while I warned him that I think bad science makes for good science fiction, I signed on. They’re now eager for submissions–visit their web site for more details. I’ll be waiting to watch. 

Originally published February 17, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

I had to spend a couple hours this morning footnoting my next column for Discover so that it can be fact-checked. I had to assemble the papers I read, the web sites I visited, and the contact information for scientists who helped me understand the subject. One of Discover‘s intrepid fact-checkers will then spend many hours following in my footsteps and discovering where I tripped. He or she will have no compunction about writing up a detailed report of my mistakes. I’m sure some mistakes will turn up, and I won’t be angry to see them in a fact-checking report. I’ll be grateful that my column won’t inadvertently misrepresent someone’s research. And I’ll be personally glad to have any misunderstanding of mine put straight.

Continue reading “George Will: Liberated From the Burden of Fact-Checking” →

On bloggingheads.tv today, I talk to John Horgan about the week in Darwin. We range from the tree of life to why your doctor should learn about group selection. 

Originally published February 14, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

Mar writes: “I’m a pharmacist, and I’m doing a Biomedicine Phd. When I began the PhD I decided to have a tattoo. When I was little I used to rest for long times apparently doing nothing. My mother always told me, ‘Leave the atoms and come to the Earth.'”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium. 

Originally published February 13, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.

I’m just back to my hotel after my Darwin Day talk–a fine, big crowd showed up that included at least a few fellow science bloggers (Bora and Reed, to name two). And if you can handle…just…one…more…wafer-thin Darwin-related experience, please check out my essay, “Darwin Evolving” in the new issue of Time. In honor of his birthday, I take a look at Darwin’s legacy, and the new directions evolutionary biology is taking today.

“We can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history,” he wrote at the end of On the Origin of Species. He saw his work not as the end of biology but as a beginning.

Continue reading “A Good End to Darwin Day” →