Greetings! Here is a quick midsummer update.
Best American Science and Nature Writing: As I mentioned in the last newsletter, I had the honor of editing this year's volume. Publisher's Weekly just gave it a starred review. "Readers will be enthralled," they say. If you'd like to be enthralled, you can pre-order it now.
The endless parade of weird fossil whales: It has been 25 years since I published my first book, At the Water's Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales With Legs, And How Life Came Ashore But Then Went Back To The Sea. I tried in the book to capture a remarkable moment in the history of science in the 1990s, when spectacular transitional fossils came to light, helping us understand some of the most dramatic transformations in the history of life. Of course even books can only be just snapshots of history, so I knew that new developments would come after it was published. Still, I was astonished to learn last month of a huge early whale that may have been the heaviest animal to ever live. Here's my story of the perplexing Perucetus.
(Image by Alberto Gennari)
Blood boys and epigenetic clocks: The urge to live forever never dies. There's always something new to buy that will supposedly stop your biological aging. While it's wise to stay suspicious of these products, that doesn't mean that there isn't some fascinating work on aging taking place. I wrote about two interesting lines of research: the rejuvenating power of young blood, and the relentless ticking of the epigenetic clock.
More stories! A bet on consciousness. A controversy over a hominin graveyard. A bunch of human embryo models. A debate about the evolution of human pregnancy. Using DNA to join enslaved African Americans to their living relatives.
That's all for now.
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