Following up on yesterday’s post on Spore, here’s a new video Seed magazine put up about, in which Spore designer Will Wright and astrobiologist Jill Tarter. Tarter brings up some of the same concerns I’ve heard from other biologists (and today from Larry Moran at Sandwalk). What do you think of Wright’s responses?
Originally published September 2, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, September 1, 2008
NEW HAVEN — By day, Thomas Near studies the evolution of fish, wading through streams in Kentucky and Mississippi in search of new species. By night, Dr. Near, an assistant professor at Yale, is a heavy-duty gamer, steering tanks or playing football on his computer. This afternoon his two lives have come together.
On his laptop swims a strange fishlike creature, with a jaw that snaps sideways and skin the color of green sea glass. As Dr. Near taps the keyboard, it wiggles and twists its way through a busy virtual ocean. It tries to eat other creatures and turns its quills toward predators that would make it a meal.
Behold Guilfordus horribilus, and shudder all thee ye who cross its path…
At some point in the distant past, I became aware of a very cool-sounding game in the works. It was called Spore, and it was the creation of Will Wright, who first came to my attention long ago with SimCity, an addictive game that let you build and run a toy city. There was no prize for your reward, no cheesy trumpet music of victory–just the quiet satisfaction of overseeing a thriving metropolis, or watching it collapse as you unleash Godzilla and falling meteorites on its fair streets.
Recently I had the chance to talk to Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone and other memorable books and articles. I was curious to learn how he reports his remarkable stories, getting inside the heads of scientists doing very bizarre work. Here’s our conversation, courtesy of Bloggingheads.tv.
Originally published August 31, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Stasia from Germany writes,
“I made this tattoo when I was second year student in physics. Then I had just started my first scientific project and this simple but beautiful shape impressed me. Now I am a Ph.D student in chemical physics and this picture of hybridisation perfectly fits in the area of my scientific interests.”
Carl: This is a diagram of pi orbitals (or p orbitals), a particular kind of room in which electrons live. For more, see here. And if you don’t like your pi orbitals tattooed, how about a towering sculpture?