Andrew, a marine biologist writes, “I call it ‘the balance of the deep.’ Two hydrothermal vent endemic gastropods to commemorate my first deep-sea cruise. The one on the top is Alviniconcha hessleri and the one on the bottom is Ifremeria nautilei.”
Carl: For more on these cool critters–which live at the bottom of the sea around vents that spew scalding water, getting their food from chemical-feeding bacteria that live inside special organs in their bodies–check out Deep Sea News.
This morning as I was about to board a plane, my phone rang. A reporter with Scientific American wanted to ask me about my father’s campaign for the US Senate. She wanted to talk to me, a science writer, about my father’s experience with science as a Congressman from New Jersey and as a Senate candidate.
As a journalist, I’ve never written about my dad. For the most part, I think it’s a bad idea for science writers to dispense political opinions anywhere except over a beer. We’re entitled to our views like anyone else, but we should not blur the line between our views and the science we write about.
It’s already end-of-the-year-list time, and I’m delighted to see that Amazon has picked Microcosm for their top ten science books of 2008. I must confess I’ve been slow this year on reading science books. What little free time I’ve got I’ve signed over to trying to finish War and Peace before I die. I’m enjoying it greatly, but at the rate I’m going, it’s a toss-up whether I’ll hit my biological deadline. Of the books on Amazon’s list, I can certainly recommend Your Inner Fish, having reviewed it in Nature. But are there any 2008 science books missing from this list, in your opinion?
Originally published November 3, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Julia writes, “6 years ago I decided to change my life and go back to uni to study medicine. I decided that if I got through I was going to get a tattoo to celebrate. I wanted a tattoo that said something about me–about where I’d come from. It took a long time to come up with the idea, but I came up with this: the neurone represents my medical degree, which synapses with my first academic passion–the biogeography of plants (so maybe I’m a bit of a freak). To tie these together further, I chose plants that have medical (or at least pseudo-medical) uses: the dog violets can supposedly improve renal function (I want to be a nephrologist–many people think that makes me even more of a freak), and chamomile is known to have a calming effect (I thought it might help with all those stressful on-calls!).
Scientific American, October 31, 2008
In Robert Plomin’s line of work, patience is essential. Plomin, a behavioral geneticist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, wants to understand the nature of intelligence. As part of his research, he has been watching thousands of children grow up. Plomin asks the children questions such as “What do water and milk have in common?” and “In what direction does the sun set?” At first he and his colleagues quizzed the children in person or over the telephone. Today many of those children are in their early teens, and they take their tests on the Internet.