(Image: Macalester College)
A number of people just signed up this week for Friday's Elk--I'm guessing after seeing a link to it in my Reddit Ask-Me-Anything session on Tuesday. Welcome!
Just so you know, I use this email to keep interested folks up to date with my writing and talks. And, taking a page from science writer Ed Yong (who puts out a superb email newsletter), I'm going to start sharing the science-related things I'm consuming--articles, podcasts, etc.--that I consider particularly link-worthy.
Parasites are a thing for me. In Parasite Rex, I sang the praises of creatures like tapeworms. (One of my career highlights is lending my name to the tapeworm Acanthrobothrium zimmeri.) I've explored the exquisite stripped-down cunning of viruses in A Planet of Viruses. I have defended the reputation of parasites on Radiolab. But this week was the first time I reported on what is perhaps the ultimate parasite: deformed proteins called prions.
Prions replicate by forcing normal proteins to bend into their own disease-causing shape. On Tuesday, I wrote a story in the New York Times about a raging epidemic of prions that's spread across much of the United States over the past fifty years. Aside from hunters, most people aren't familiar with it. That's because chronic wasting disease attacks only deer and elk. For now, there's no clear evidence of people getting sick from eating prion-laced meat from these animals. But that's no reason not to be concerned. One expert told me he sees only one promising way to slow down the outbreak: fire. (You could say, "Kill it with fire," except that the prion was never really alive to begin with.)
To understand why we get old, scientists have been searching for genetic variations that are more common in long-lived people. It's been a hard search, but in recent years scientists have had a few successes. I wrote earlier this month in the Times about a variant in the gene for the receptor for growth hormone that appears to extend people's lives by a decade. For some reason, though, the effect only works on men. The study raises a lot more questions than it answers, so don't expect an army of immortal men any time soon. Here's my story.
The Aspen Ideas Festival asked me a few questions about how CRISPR and other new technologies are changing science and shaping our future. Here's my response.
If you like to get your updates on Goodreads, here is my page. On Facebook, I've started posting updates on my books and such on my author page. Hit "like" to get the posts in your feed.
Your moment of geological Zen.
STAT looks at the horrifying future of opioid addiction.
The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy is now entirely empty.
How climate change will impoverish the American South.
Following up on my recent story on genes that influence intelligence, a geneticist shows just how badly they predict actual intelligence--at least for now.
A landmark study nails down just how dangerous a popular class of insecticides are to bees.
NASA runs a child slave ring on Mars. At least that's what Alex Jones is suggesting.
British journalist Adam Rutherford has published a great book on how genetics is changing how we think about human ancestry: A Brief History of Everyone Who Has Ever Lived. It will come out in the U.S. in October, but you can pre-order it now.
Maia Szavalitz writes about the Holocaust survivor who is bankrolling the psychedelic revolution in psychology.
John Oliver continues to bring the science: this week he talked about vaccines.
October 11, Stony Brook University, New York: Provost's Lecture
November 15, University of Oxford. Twelfth Annual Baruch Blumberg Lecture
January 3-7, 2018 San Francisco: Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting, Plenary Lecture
You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook , LinkedIn, and Google+. And there's always carlzimmer.com.
Best wishes, Carl
If you'd like to learn more about my books, you can visit my web site
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