What do human spit, baker’s yeast, and fly sex have in common? Together, they illustrate a way in which new kinds of genes evolve.

Scientists published a paper in Nature Genetics Sunday in which they studied an enzyme called amylase that’s produced in saliva and breaks down starch. Human amylase genes share a common ancestry with the amylase gene found in our close relative, the chimpanzee. But they are different in some important ways. Instead of one amylase gene, we have several. Human amylase genes range from 2 to 15 copies, averaging three times as many as chimpanzees.

Continue reading “Today’s Odd Bedfellows: Spit, Yeast, and Mating Flies” →

Science Made Cool writes from Tokyo, describing the world’s only parasite museum. Someday I’ll get there…

Sadly, the keychain with the sushi worm embedded inside is not for sale online…

Update: Mark asks whether there’s an American museum in Maryland. It’s a collection, not a museum. I write about my visit there in Parasite Rex. A wonderfully creepy place, but no parasite-entombing keychains for sale. 

Originally published September 8, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.

Your scientific body art just keeps getting more attention. Can I just say that, as a science writer, I find it strange to get calls from other reporters wanting to interview me about other people’s tattoos? Who put that in my job description? Anyway, here are a few links–

Wired: The Coolest Science Tattoos

Metro (UK newspaper): Sci-ink-tific tattoos all the rage

Chemical and Engineering News: Science Tattoos

Continue reading “Science Tattoos Hit Mainstream Media” →

I want to give readers of the Loom a heads up about book that I’ve edited that’s coming out in November. The author is a very interesting writer named Charles Darwin.

In 1871 Charles Darwin published pretty much his first and last word about human evolution: The Descent of Man. It’s a marvelous, but sometimes maddening book. Darwin did a remarkably good job of hypothesizing how humans evolved, especially when you consider that barely any hominid fossils had yet been found. But Darwin packed the book with detail, a lot of it having to do with all sorts of animals other than Homo sapiens. 

Continue reading “A New Look At the Descent of Man” →

At about a pound and a half, Mahakala omnogovae was certainly a cute dinosaur. But cuteness is not why paleontologists traveled to the remote ends of Mongolia to find it. It’s part of a much bigger story.

Paleontologists have known for a while now that birds evolved from one group of dinosaurs called theropods–the two-legged beasts that include the likes of Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. But precisely which lineage of theropods birds belong to has been the subject of a lot of debate. These debates, like all debates in science, are fueled by uncertainty. Paleontologists can base their arguments only on the fossils they have already pulled out of the ground. So when a new dinosaur turns up, it provides an opportunity to give these arguments a fresh look.

Continue reading “Dinosaurs: Beyond Cute” →