Recent studies promise to pile additional complexity onto the already heavily ramified field of genomics. In the NY Times, Carl Zimmer introduces us to evidence that will change how we think about the human genome.
Archives
Bobbit Worm: The Stuff of Nightmares
It’s always a joy to be introduced to creatures that show us firsthand how much stranger reality truly is than fiction.
Review: Quantum Physics
A wonderfully helpful little book on one of the most impenetrable topics in the world of science.
Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
For more than a decade, Rebecca Skloot layered herself into the Lacks’ story. This is the culmination of her efforts to inject a human component into the longstanding scientific mystique surrounding HeLa.
Review: The Catcher in the Rye
It may have taken me longer than most to read this literary classic, but it was well worth the wait.
What Would Convince You?
In this essay I present 20 conditions that would prompt me to surrender my atheism in favor of theism.
Review: Bad Astronomy
Plait’s book, his first, is an exercise in clear thinking fused with good science, necessities surely foreign to the moon landing deniers.
Review: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Pirsig’s period-specific text is full of cracker-barrel philosophy and devoid of both readability and sense.
Newtok: The Nerve Center of Climate Change
The Guardian has published a superb series on Alaska, home to America’s first climate refugees. With land disappearing and waters rushing inland at record pace, Alaska’s coast has become an unfortunate epicenter of climate change.
Review: The God Delusion
In the 2006 The God Delusion, Dawkins assumes a two-pronged approach: his thesis is that a supernatural God almost certainly does not exist and that society would be better off without the religions that have congealed around these ideas.
Coelacanth Hangout
Last week science writer Carl Zimmer moderated a discussion on the newly sequenced coelacanth genome and what secrets it holds to our evolutionary past.
Should We Bring Back Lost Species?
Should we use our scientific and economic resources to restore lost species, many of which were stamped out by our own hands? A recent TEDx conference met to discuss the question.
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