Carl is an amazing writer.  I’m currently reading his book Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life.  It’s about life and evolution, as seen through the lens of the most well-researched microorganism.

His latest book is Planet of Viruses which will be out in hardcover from University of Chicago Press on May 1.

Carl also has a book about science tattoos coming out later this year.  Here is a recent post about Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

His growing collection of science tattoos resides at his Science Tattoo Emporium.

Visit his blog The Loom on Discover Magazine’s website.

He’s also written on evolution (Evolution: Triumph of an Idea and the textbook The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution).  And I just received the brand new edition of his ten-year-old book about parasites:  Parasite Rex.

I also have his first book (which he says is his favorite):  At the Water’s Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea

Here is a recent (Sept. 2010) article on consciousness at the NYTimes.com.

A list of great science books for high school students.

Carl’s Slate article about the controversy surrounding the NASA study of arsenic-based life - “This Paper Should Not Have Been Published”

Follow me and Carl on Twitter:  @sciencecomedian and @carlzimmer.

My “Virus Walks Into A Bar” series of jokes on YouTube.

Dr. Richard Lenski’s Experimental Evolution Lab at Michigan State University has an evolution odometer on the front page, tracking how many generations of E.coli the lab has bred – over 50,000 generations, so far!

Oh – and listen for me on NPR’s Science Friday tomorrow.  The show streams live (and airs on your local public radio station, too, probably) from 11am-1pm Pacific/2-4pm Eastern.  Listen here.

Here’s the video I made for Time.com, in celebration of their 200th birthdays.  Just like the new Singularity video – I wrote, Craig Duff produced, and Jim Fields edited.

Link:
Lincoln and Darwin: Birthdays and Evolution

The opening act was the hilariously geeky Nick Pettigrew (link is to a previous set of his), and I did a whopping hour and forty minutes, including some Q&A.  I’ll be putting more clips online soon.  Here’s the first.

My fever-dream inspired by the unbearable heat of an Arizona summer.  Some might fantasize of bikinis and water sports; I can only imagine global devastation, mutation, human extinction…

Link:  Science Comedian Brian Malow – 125 Degrees

Other speakers include Eugenie Scott, Seth Shostak, Kirsten Sanford, Brian Dunning, and more.  See the list of speakers.

• Date: Saturday, April 24, 2010. 9AM to 6PM.
• Location: Brower Center, Berkeley, California.
• Sponsors: Bay Area Skeptics and Sacramento-Area Skeptics
• Tickets: Tickets are $40 for the regular registration and $55 for registration and a t-shirt. See the fantastic t-shirt design by Ranch7 Creative. This event is expected to sell out, so please reserve your ticket as soon as possible!

Last year was the big year – 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Origin of Species.”  This video essay was my first project for Time Magazine’s website.  Produced by Craig Duff and edited by Jim Fields:

Video:  Lincoln and Darwin: Birthdays and Evolution

The February theme was Evolution, as we mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, hailed by many – including E. O. Wilson – as the greatest science book ever written.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is the cornerstone of biology as we understand it today.  Since its publication it has been reinforced by discoveries in many disparate fields of research, including paleontology, geology, nuclear physics, comparative anatomy, and genetics.

There is hardly a theory in all of science that is better supported by multiple lines of study.

Yet, somehow, it remains controversial to this day, especially in the United States, where perhaps 50% of the general public (but only 0.15% of scientists) are still clinging to a vision of creation that involves talking snakes and an improbable ark capable of carrying mating pairs of several million species.  I wonder who fed and cleaned up after them everyday?  Why do 99.85% of scientists believe in evolution?

Incredibly, as Sean B. Carroll points out in The Making of the Fittest, despite the rejection of evolution by half the nation’s populace, our legal system relies on DNA evidence to determine the freedom or incarceration – even the life or death – of thousands of individuals every year.  DNA evidence which, of course, is firmly grounded in our understanding of evolution and is utterly meaningless outside of it.

I suppose we’ll always be a nation of contradictions but some are more glaring than others.

There is no insult in the fact that we are related to every living thing on this planet!

It’s really quite astounding what can become of a single-celled organism given a few billion years and a variety of ecosystems.  If you’ve ever left a casserole in your refrigerator for even a couple months, you start to get the picture.

Things change.

Related posts:
Year of Science, March: Nobel, Edison and the Speed of Light
Year of Science, March: JetBlue and Cell Phones
Year of Science, January:  Why is the Sky Blue?

Now, combine that with my obvious respect for Charles Darwin – who shares his birthday with Lincoln (February 12, 1809) – and you’ll know how excited I am to have tied it all together in a video piece celebrating their birthdays – and also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species.”

I wrote the piece and it was produced by Craig Duff – and today it’s featured on the front page of Time.com – as a “Must See” video about Lincoln and Darwin.

“Lincoln and Darwin – Birthdays and Evolution”

Check it out, let me know what you think – and please feel free to forward it to EVERYONE!

* Update 2/23/09: Although it was only a “Must See” video for a short time, now it’s displayed as one of the most popular videos!

It was one of her favorite things to say: “Stand up straight!”

Many other people, I have discovered, also grew up hearing that phrase. It’s nearly universal. As if mothers were programmed to say it. In fact, I believe mothers have been telling their children to “stand up straight” longer than we realize. Perhaps even to pre-human days.

What if that were the driving force behind the evolutionary trend to walk erect?

Mothers nagging their children up the evolutionary ladder:

“Stand up straight!
“Don’t drag your knuckles when you walk!
“What’re ya born in a tree?
“You want the other families to think we’re not evolving?”

“No, mom…”

Then: “How many times do I have to tell you?”

And, therein lies the origin of mathematics:

“How many times?…well, if I put the three here and carry the one….”

A couple clips from my 2008 performance appear earlier in this blog (on cell phones and Karma) and more are coming soon.