If all goes according to plan, at 6:50 am tomorrow morning I will not just be awake, but sitting in a studio in New Haven, talking on the Takeaway, a morning news show on NPR. Some stations will broadcast it live; others at later times. And it will also end up on their podcast.
I have to wait until later today to explain the topic; for now, let’s just say it’s a long view of cool biology.
[Note–that’s Eastern standard time]
Originally published November 10, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, November 11, 2008
Over the summer, Sonja Prohaska decided to try an experiment. She would spend a day without ever saying the word “gene.” Dr. Prohaska is a bioinformatician at the University of Leipzig in Germany. In other words, she spends most of her time gathering, organizing and analyzing information about genes. “It was like having someone tie your hand behind your back,” she said.
But Dr. Prohaska decided this awkward experiment was worth the trouble, because new large-scale studies of DNA are causing her and many of her colleagues to rethink the very nature of genes. They no longer conceive of a typical gene as a single chunk of DNA encoding a single protein.
On Thursday evening, I’ll be talking about Microcosm at the Guilford Free Library just down the road here in Guilford, Connecticut. It’s great to be talking in this lovely space on the Guilford Green, reopened at last after a year-long renovation. Here’s a flyer with more information. The event is free, but the library is taking reservations by phone at 203-453-8282.
Originally published November 10, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Discover, November 10, 2008
Sometimes the best way to learn how the brain works is to watch what happens when it goes awry. When one part—a clump of neurons or a brain-building gene—doesn’t do what it is supposed to, the brain may fail in an illuminating way. Its failure may even expose some of the hidden foundations of the mind.
Neuroscientists have recently become fascinated with a particularly telling pair of rare brain disorders. One was identified in 1965 by English physician Harry Angelman, who was struck by the faces of three children he treated. These children were always smiling and often laughing.
Continue reading “Mom and Dad Are Fighting in Your Genes—and in Your Brain”
The New York Times, November 9, 2008
WOODS HOLE, Massachusetts — The cuttlefish in Roger Hanlon’s laboratory were in fine form. Their skin was taking on new colors and patterns faster than the digital signs in Times Square.
Hanlon inspected the squidlike animals as he walked past their shallow tubs, stopping from time to time to ask, “Whoa, did you see that?”
One cuttlefish added a pair of eye spots to its back, a strategy cuttlefish use to fool predators. The spots lingered a few seconds, then vanished.
Continue reading “Understanding octopus, cuttlefish and other camouflage champions”