Greetings–
It’s a quieter week this time around, but here are a few things for your enjoyment…
The study of ancient human DNA just keeps getting more interesting. In the New York Times, I write this week about a new survey of the Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA lurking in our genomes. It looks like there was even more interbreeding between our ancestors and these extinct humans than we previously thought. Here’s the story. P.S.: As a big fan of the comedian Harry Shearer, I was tickled to see on Twitter that the column inspired him to write a Neanderthal love song.
(Photo above by Erich Ferdinand via Creative Commons)
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’m an advisor to a new magazine about science called Undark. The editor-in-chief, Deborah Blum, has written an essay to explain why she’s launching it. Check it out.
If you’re in New York, please consider coming to the Strand Bookstore on Thursday to hear me talk to the eminent historian of science Daniel Kevles about CRISPR’s place in the history of our manipulations of nature–and of ourselves. Details are here.
On Wednesday I visited the office/studio of Columbia virologist Vincent Racaniello to record an episode of his podcast, This Week in Virology. We spoke for over two hours with Racaniello’s regular podcast crew on a huge range of subjects, from Ebola to Moby Dick. The recording will be posted Sunday–check in at the podcast web site for the episode.
That weird wall in the photo is made up of plastic containers from a polio experiment. I’m assuming it’s not contagious…
March 24: Strand Bookstore, New York: Should We Re-engineer Humanity? With Daniel Kevles. Details here.
June 17: Austin, Texas. Public Lecture for the Stephen Jay Gould Award. Details here
June 23-25: Durham North Carolina: International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Plenary Lecture. Here’s the meeting site.
June 29: Boston: Festival of Genomics, Plenary Lecture, “Tales from the genome beat: how journalists explore (& sometimes get lost in) our DNA.” Details here.
July 31: Keynote lecture at the annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America in Savannah
January 28-29, 2017 Rancho Mirage Writers Festival
You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook , LinkedIn, and Google+. And there’s always carlzimmer.com.
Best wishes, Carl
Originally published March 18, 2016. Copyright 2016 Carl Zimmer.