An immunologist who requests anonymity writes:

“Nearly every faculty member I meet seems to become instantly curious about my tattoo (attached). I have had it for almost 2 years now. My wife was simply shocked when I returned home after the first sitting. Yes, it took n=3 sittings of ~6 hours each.

Personally, it represents a collection of ideas, experiences, and memories that I chose to mark myself with. I wanted to make a difference with my scientific training as a viral immunologist, so I left my “ivory tower” postdoc position to do translational research at USAMRIID.

Continue reading “Pandora’s Viruses” →

Martijn ter Haar, a person from the Netherlands I’ve never met, clearly knows what sort of movies I like to watch. The ones with big parasitic worms crawling around inside a sealed box of fish at the supermarket. Warning: Safe for work, not safe for lunch.

This bad boy is Anisakis, a worm that would much rather be off in the sea than in your gut. Its eggs float through alll the world’s oceans until they’re scarfed up by a crustacean, inside of which they mature into a new larval stage. Their next host is the fish that eats the crustacean–they escape from its gut and drill into its muscle. Finally, the fish is eaten by a dolphin or a seal, whereupon the worm becomes an adult and lives harmlessly and happily, churning out eggs that the predators kindly squirt out with their poop. In other words, the good life.

Continue reading “What’s In *Your* Sushi?” →

I’ve got a pretty lax attitude towards comments. Creationists are free to add theirs. But there are limits.

In response to a post on evolution Friday, the first comment I got a very long announcement about “A PARAGON OF SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENT!” [sic]–a book that proved evolution was wrong. It came from someone named C. David Parsons.

Others responded.

Jeered might be the right word.

Continue reading “No Sock-Puppets, Creationist or Otherwise” →

The Guardian has just reviewed Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life:

“This is a thought-provoking book that wrenches us from our human-centred perspective and gives us a guide to life through the chemical-sensing molecules of a species that was here long before we were, and which will certainly outlive us.”

The full review is here.

The Columbia Journalism Review wants you to read it too…

Continue reading “Microcosm in the Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review” →

Readers of this blog will have to indulge me from time to time so that I can respond to personal attacks from creationists. I write about science, and I strive to do so accurately. I also point out misinformation about science and explain why it’s wrong. So when someone claims I can’t admit a mistake when I make one, or that I suffer from an overactive imagination, I have to respond.

The Discovery Institute, which promotes Intelligent Design, tried to cast doubt a couple weeks ago on a transitional fish-tetrapod called Tiktaalik. The author of the post, Casey Luskin, wanted to convince us that despite the claims of scientists that it had a wrist, it didn’t seem to have one.

Continue reading “They Call Me Mister Zimmer” →