Seymour Benzer, Geneticist, Is Dead at 86

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, December 8, 2007

Link

Seymour Benzer, a geneticist who made scientific history by discovering that genes were structured like words and who went on to do pioneering work on the ties between genes and behavior, memory and longevity, died on Nov. 30 in Pasadena, Calif. He was 86.

The cause was a stroke, according to a statement from the California Institute of Technology, where he was a professor emeritus.

Dr. Benzer was born in New York City to immigrants from Poland. On summer vacations in the country as a boy, he had his first experiences in studying biology, catching frogs and dissecting them.

Continue reading “Seymour Benzer, Geneticist, Is Dead at 86” →

Farewell, Seymour Benzer [This Time In Print]

Posted on by Lori Jia

Here is my first obituary in the New York Times, for Seymour Benzer. (It was pure coincidence, apparently, that they contacted me a couple days after I blogged about Benzer here.) It’s a nerve-racking experience summing up someone’s life in a few hundred words, especially a life as jam-packed as Benzer’s. Here’s one of many things that didn’t make it in: Benzer’s quest to find the genetic basis for loving spicy Asian food (via Jim Hu) 

Originally published December 7, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

Science Tattoo Friday: We Have A Winner!

Posted on by Lori Jia

“I did my Ph. D on olfaction in sea turtles, sequencing the olfactory receptor genes of the three species featured in my tattoo (leatherback, loggerhead and green). The “bubbles” represent DNA.”–Dr. Michelle Vieyra, University of South Carolina.

Congratulations, Dr. Vierya–your submission is the 100th addition to my Flickr set of science tattoos. Make full use of your bragging rights.

[See also New Scientist’s droll blog coverage of this project.]

Continue reading “Science Tattoo Friday: We Have A Winner!” →

My Daughter Is Now Officially Data

Posted on by Lori Jia

Back in 2005 my daughter Charlotte, then a four-year-old, took part in a study to see how kids stack up mentally against chimpanzees. I wrote about the ambivalent experience of watching her as both a father and a curious science writer in the New York Times. The emerging lesson of the study, led by Yale grad student Derek Lyons, was that children overimitate even though they should know better. Lyons showed the children how to get a toy out of a container, adding in lots of unnecessary tapping of walls and sliding of rods and such. Other scientists had tested chimpanzees on similar contraptions and found that they pay more attention to the basic mechanics of the task at hand. As a result, the chimps generally leave kids in the dust (Charlotte included).

Continue reading “My Daughter Is Now Officially Data” →