Paul writes:
“I have a degree in Computer Science, and I work with RFID (or at least I did till recently).” On his Livejournal blog, he adds, “For the curious, this is an Alien Technology’s European model Gen 1 Squiggle RFID tag. It’s actually copper in color and about six centimetres long. I scanned it and blew it up to a bit over twice it’s original size, and changed its color to black.”
Today in the Boston Globe, I write about how scientists are revising their understanding of the evolution of animals, thanks to more DNA and more weird animals. My favorite quote comes from biologist Mark Pallen, who says that the human genome would have been worthless without understanding how humans are related to other animals.
Unfortunately, this research has been subject to some poor reporting, and to some distortions from creationists. Ryan Gregory and Troy Britain set them straight, respectively.
Originally published April 28, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
The Boston Globe, April 28, 2008
Casey Dunn has gathered his share of weird animals. He dredged up sea spiders that live around the docks in Waikiki. He dived to the sea floor to scoop up mud, in search of bizarre, spiny creatures called kinorhynchs that are smaller than a grain of sand.
Dunn, a biologist at Brown University, hunts for weird animals to get his hands on their DNA. Hidden in their genes is a record of the history of the entire animal kingdom, some 700 million years of evolutionary change.
By analyzing the DNA of dozens of different kinds of animals, he and his colleagues have made some astounding discoveries about animal evolution. For one thing, the common ancestor of all living animals may have been more complicated than once thought.
Therese writes, “I teach molecular and cell biology at a University in Atlanta. Many of my students have commented on the tatoo, I think they think it makes me ‘cool.’ Haha!”
Carl: In honor of National DNA Day, here’s another image of one of the most common images on this blog.
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published April 27, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
I recorded a video for my Facebook page about the Microcosm book tour, which I’ve cloned below. Still fine-tuning my video interfaces…how does YouTube embed, compared to blip.tv?
Originally published April 24, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.