Greetings--A couple weeks ago I stopped by the offices of Business Insider in New York to chat with the editors there, both on camera and off, about all sorts of things biological. They've transformed our conversations into a series of short articles and videos that they've been sprinkling onto the Internet for the past few days like pinches of chili powder.
Here's what they've released so far...
--An article about giant viruses thawing out of the Siberian permafrost after being buried alive for tens of thousands of years.
--And another one on the antibiotic resistance crisis, and how bacteria-killing viruses might help us overcome it.
--Here's a video in which I offer my 90-second dinner-table explanation of CRISPR, the remarkable new gene-editing tool. (Also, in case you missed it, Business Insider put out a short video last week in which I talk about the risk we run of contaminating Mars with Earth life.)
--Oink!
Speaking of CRISPR, last week I was watching a live video feed from a scientific meeting on the subject when one of the scientists said something that made me do a double-take (and tweet in disbelief).
George Church of Harvard said he and his colleagues had altered 62 genes in one go in pig cells. That blows past the previous record-holder of six genes. After Science rushed the paper into print on Sunday, I read it, talked to Church, and checked in with other experts. As I write this week in the New York Times, the experiment is definitely a tour de force, but it may not fulfill your wildest Frankenstein-fueled dreams.
--Science Ink Is Everywhere
In 2011, I published a book called Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. Since then, scientists and science-o-philes regularly pull up their sleeves and pant legs (and more!) to show me their ink. On Sunday evening, while I was at a party at the annual meeting of the National Association of Science Writers, I took a couple pictures:
Two people showing off the same tattoo--"brain" in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Here's Goya's Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.
--And finally, a list of upcoming talks (no new additions this week)
October 21, Farmington, Connecticut, at the Jackson Laboratory: "From Viruses to Whales, From Newspapers to Twitter: A Career in Science Writing." Details here.
October 24, Pittsburgh: A discussion about the future of DNA editing at the annual conference of the National Society of Genetics Counselors.
November 13, Providence, RI, at the National Association of Biology Teachers: I'll be giving a talk in conjunction with receiving their Distinguished Service Award.
November 19, the New York City Genome Center: A panel discussion on "Jewish genomics" Details here.
January 28, the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, NJ: Details to come.
--That's it.
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Best wishes, Carl
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