This week I asked my editor at the New York Times if I needed to make a disclosure of possible conflict of interest. The trouble is that I have a tapeworm named after me: Acanthobothrium zimmeri.
The reason for the question was the topic of my column: the dire threat that parasites now face. A massive study of parasites around the world shows that climate change could drive as many as 1 in 3 species extinct. I worry that Acanthobothrium zimmeri, which infects a tropical skate, will wink out of existence. My editor didn’t see the need for a disclosure. But I figured that you, dear reader, should know.
On a separate note, the video of my recent talk about science, journalism, and democracy, is now posted on YouTube.
I’ve got more talks coming up, listed below–including a couple new additions: I’ll be talking on the closing night of the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York on October 20, and I’ll be speaking in Rochester NY in February.
October 11, Stony Brook University, New York: Provost’s Lecture. Science Reporting in the Age of Fake News.
NEW: October 20: New York: Imagine Science Film Festival Closing Night. Details.
October 28 & 29, San Francisco. World Conference of Science Journalists. I’ll be speaking at two sessions. Details.
November 1, New York. “What Is Life?” Night 2: How did life start?
November 8, University of Oxford. Twelfth Annual Baruch Blumberg Lecture
December 6, New York. “What Is Life?” Night 3: Is life inevitable?
December 20, New York. “What Is Life?” Night 4: What did the first life look like?
January 3-7, 2018 San Francisco: Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting, Plenary Lecture
NEW: February 15, 2018, Rochester, NY: Neilly Series Lecture. Details to come.
As always, if you have friends who would enjoy getting this newsletter, please let them know they can sign up at http://tinyletter.com/carlzimmer.
You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads. LinkedIn, and Google+. And there’s always carlzimmer.com.
Best wishes, Carl
Originally published September 16, 2017. Copyright 2017 Carl Zimmer.