I had no idea that the origins of sweet potatoes were so mysterioius until I dug into a new study on their DNA. Turns out, it helped inspire Thor Heyerdahl’s famous voyage on the Kon-Tiki. He wanted to test the idea that sweet potatoes got from the Americas to remote Polynesian islands through pre-Columbia contact. The new study claims instead that the sweet potatoes spread across thousands of miles of ocean on their own. Here’s my New York Times story on the ongoing debate.
I’ve written a third post about books on my Facebook author page. This time I take a look at a fine biography of Rosalind Franklin, who did pioneering work on DNA only to sink into obscurity. (Here’s a previous post on Stalin and the Scientists, and here’s one on Being Mortal.)
“A wide-ranging and eye-opening inquiry into the way heredity shapes our species.”
Booklist gives a starred review to She Has Her Mother’s Laugh. It’s the third star for the book, coming after one from Publisher’s Weekly and one from Kirkus Reviews.
Episode Two of “The Code”–Can We Cure Diseases By Altering Our DNA?
May 2, 2018 “From Ebola to Dinosaurs to 23andMe: Writing about the Science of Life” Columbia School of Journalism
May 3, 2018 MIT, Knight Science Journalism seminar
May 17, 2018 “Exploring the Complexity and Controversy of Heredity” Keynote Lecture, Bio-IT World, Boston
May 21, 2018 “Biotechnology and Its Future Impact on Greater Boston” (panel discussion) Boston Athenaeum
May 30, 2018 Harvard Book Store
May 31, 2018 RJ Julia Bookstore, Madison CT
June 6, 2018 Kramerbooks, Washington DC
NEW–> June 19, 2018 Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley, Palo Alto CA
June 20, 2018 Denver Museum of Nature and Science (details to come)
September 20, 2018 University of Bath (UK), Evolution in the 21st Century (details to come)
October 19, 2018 CSICon, Las Vegas (details to come)
October 25, 2018 Mount Holyoke College (details to come)
She Has Her Mother’s Laugh will be published on May 29, but you can pre-order it now. You can find information and ordering links for my other books here. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads. LinkedIn, and Google+. If someone forwarded this email to you, you can subscribe to it here.
Best wishes, Carl
Originally published April 20, 2018. Copyright 2018 Carl Zimmer.
