Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmeris a popular science writer and blogger, especially regarding the study of evolution and parasites. He has written several books and contributes science essays to publications such as The New York Times, Discover, and National Geographic. He is a fellow at Yale University's Morse College...
ideas identity looks
If you're looking for your own idea of your own identity you know the human genome may not be the best place to look for it. You're just looking at a bunch of viruses.
dna cells doe
Borna virus is not a retrovirus. It doesn't actually insert its own genes into our cells. What it does is just hangs out near our DNA and uses some of the molecular machinery to copy itself.
people population able
Evolution has led to some populations of people being able to digest milk without much trouble when they're adults as well.
littles milk
Everybody can digest milk when they're little.
challenges viruses bigs
One of the big challenges now is to figure out just how many viruses there really are in the human genome. So far the estimate is 8.3% of our genome is virus, but it actually could be a lot higher.
survival viruses depends
We really depend on viruses for our complete survival.
school dna political
Evolution is a large political controversy as to what should be taught in the schools. But there is no scientific controversy that we evolved when we talk about evidence from fossils and DNA.
hands mind world
The hand is where the mind meets the world.
ancestors biggest book evolution evolve history human papers people questions scientific spent spring talking time walk
I read a lot of scientific papers on the history of evolution and spent time talking to scientists. I started to write it in the spring of 2004 and wanted the book to look at the biggest questions people have about human origins, such as what were the first hominids and how did our ancestors evolve to walk upright?
ancestors began birds evolved history interested life looked
I'm really interested in the history of life in general. How life began to how birds evolved to what our ancestors looked like.
successful dna viruses
Parasites are not only incredibly diverse; they are also incredibly successful. There are parasitic stretches of DNA in your own genes, some of which are called retrotransposons. Many of the parasitic stretches were originally viruses that entered our DNA. Most of them don't do us any harm. They just copy and insert themselves in other parts of our DNA, basically replicating themselves. Sometimes they hop into other species and replicate themselves in a new host. According to one estimate, roughly one-third to one-half of all human DNA is basically parasitic.
communication heart breathing
Today, when we look at a brain, we see an intricate network of billions of neurons in constant, crackling communication, a chemical labyrinth that senses the world outside and within, produces love and sorrow, keeps our hearts beating and lungs breathing, composes our thoughts, and constructs our consciousness.
sick viruses sometimes
Viruses don't just make us sick. They can actually sometimes end up in our genomes.
cutting animal discovery
Researchers keep identifying new species, but they have no idea about the life cycle of a given species or its other hosts. They cut open an animal and find a new species. Where did it come from? What effect does it have on its host? What is its next host? They don't know and they don't have time to find out, because there are too many other species waiting to be discovered and described.