For a science writer, it’s always exciting to report on the dawn of a new kind of science.
In the 1990s, journalists furiously wrote about gene therapy, a treatment that medical researchers promised would cure hereditary diseases by injecting working genes into people’s cells.
At the same time, champions of the Human Genome Project also promised tremendous benefits to mapping all our DNA. Continue reading “Friday’s Elk, September 9, 2018”
The New York Times, September 4, 2018
In a study carried out over the summer, a group of volunteers drank a white, peppermint-ish concoction laced with billions of bacteria. The microbes had been engineered to break down a naturally occurring toxin in the blood.
The vast majority of us can do this without any help. But for those who cannot, these microbes may someday become a living medicine.
The trial marks an important milestone in a promising scientific field known as synthetic biology. Two decades ago, researchers started to tinker with living things the way engineers tinker with electronics.
Continue reading “Scientists Are Retooling Bacteria to Cure Disease”
A remarkable new study on a 90,000-year-old fossil fragment gives us an extraordinary look at what the world was like when a wide range of humans walked the planet. It was a real privilege to get to write up this discovery for the New York Times. You can read my story of this find here. (I’m also experimenting with responding to comments on the article.)
Along with ancient DNA, evolutionary medicine is another obsession of mine. It’s fascinating to see how scientists gain new insights about diseases and health by observing how different branches of the tree of life have adapted. Some species have evolved some remarkable defenses against cancer, for example. I’ve written previously about naked mole rats, which have strange proteins that may keep them from ever getting cancer. Elephants ought to get more cancer than they do. In 2015 I wrote about one intriguing mutation that may protect them. Now scientists have found another unique feature of the species that may allow them to kill off mutant cells more effectively than we can.
1. I had a great chat with the psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman about what heredity can tell us about psychology (and can’t).
2. Sapiens, the online anthropology magazine, has launched a podcast. I’m delighted to be a guest on their first episode, “Is Your DNA You?”
3. The Open Notebook, a great web site on science journalism, asks whether you need a science degree to do the job. My answer: I sure hope not!
October 4, 2018, 92nd Street Y, New York: “What Makes Us Human? Panel with Maria Konnikova, Nathan Lents, and Sebastian Seung.
NEW!–> October 9, 2018, New York University: “Why You’re You: Explaining Heredity to a Confused Public”
October 17, 2018, Colorado State University: Murray Honors Visiting Scholar Lecture (details to come)
October 19, 2018, Las Vegas: CSICon
October 23, 2018: Mount Holyoke College
November 7, 2018: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (details to come)
November 13, 2018, New York: House of Speakeasy
November 14, 2018: Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ (details to come)
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Best wishes, Carl
Originally published August 24, 2018. Copyright 2018 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, August 22, 2018
In a limestone cave nestled high above the Anuy River in Siberia, scientists have discovered the fossil of an extraordinary human hybrid.
The 90,000-year-old bone fragment came from a female whose mother was Neanderthal, according to an analysis of DNA discovered inside it. But her father was not: He belonged to another branch of ancient humanity known as the Denisovans.
Scientists have been recovering genomes from ancient human fossils for just over a decade. Now, with the discovery of a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid, the world as it was tens of thousands of years ago is coming into remarkable new focus: home to a marvelous range of human diversity.
Continue reading “A Blended Family: Her Mother Was Neanderthal, Her Father Something Else Entirely”
The New York Times, August 14, 2018
Elephants ought to get a lot of cancer. They’re huge animals, weighing as much as eight tons. It takes a lot of cells to make up that much elephant.
All of those cells arose from a single fertilized egg, and each time a cell divides, there’s a chance that it will gain a mutation — one that may lead to cancer.
Strangely, however, elephants aren’t more prone to cancer than smaller animals. Some research even suggests they get less cancer than humans do.
Continue reading “The ‘Zombie Gene’ That May Protect Elephants From Cancer”