The Ed's Up #185

May 12, 2017

The Ed's Up took a brief break last week, but it's back now with a bumper edition that catches up on everything I wrote, and everything that's happened, in...

The Ed's Up #184

April 27, 2017

A New Study Says Humans Were in America 130,000 Years Ago “If the authors are correct, it would completely rewrite our best understanding of the peopling of...

The Ed's Up #183

April 22, 2017

How The March For Science Finally Found Its Voice "They marched for science, and at first, they did so quietly. On Saturday, as thousands of people started...

The Ed's Up #182

April 6, 2017

Octopuses Do Something Really Strange to Their Genes "Octopuses and their relatives—the cephalopods—practice a type of genetic alteration called RNA editing...

The Ed's Up #181

March 31, 2017

Bill and Ed's Excellent Adventure Apparently, when you're the richest man in the world, and you like someone's book, you can fly them over for a chat! Which...

The Ed's Up #180

March 24, 2017

A 130-Year-Old Fact About Dinosaurs Might Be Wrong "For most of my life, I’ve believed that the dinosaurs fell into two major groups: the lizard-hipped...

The Ed's Up #179

March 15, 2017

I took a brief hiatus from newslettering so you get a bumper issue this week. Enjoy! The GOP’s New Bill Would Seriously Disrupt Genetics Research "But if...

The Ed's Up #178

March 3, 2017

How Brain Scientists Forgot That Brains Have Owners "He and his fellow curmudgeons argue that brains are special because of the behavior they...

The Ed's Up #177

February 23, 2017

Book news I'm delighted to be a finalist for the LA Times Book Prizes, in the Science and Technology category, alongside books like Luke Dittrich's Patient...

The Ed's Up #176

February 16, 2017

The Life, Times, and Departure of Bao Bao the Panda "Next to us is a white metal crate—four feet high, and six feet long. The FedEx logo is emblazoned on the...

The Ed's Up #175

February 10, 2017

Roses are red Violets are blue Vaccinate your kids This Crab Clones Its Allies by Ripping Them in Half "The American novelist S. E. Hinton once said, “If you...

The Ed's Up #174 - immigration bans, frog tongues, and sleeping brains.

February 2, 2017

Trump’s Immigration Ban Is Already Harming American Science “Many talented friends of mine can’t come back to finish their degrees, simply because they went...

The Ed's Up #173

January 26, 2017

Professor Smith Goes to Washington "Many scientists are asking themselves: What can I do? And the answer from a newly formed group called 314 Action is: Get...

The Ed's Up #172

January 19, 2017

First, as is now self-evident, this newsletter still exists! When I announced last week that I was closing down my blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, I...

The Ed's Up #171 - a goodbye, and then the usual.

January 12, 2017

First, a farewell... Everything ends, so let’s start there. Effective immediately, I’m closing down my blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science. I’m not going...

The Ed's Up #170

January 5, 2017

So, that happened... An Ingenious Experiment of Jungle Bats and Evolving Artificial Flowers "And here’s the wonderful bit: Nachev and Winter allowed the...

The Ed's Up #169 - The Bye-Bye 2016 Edition

December 29, 2016

This has been a tumultuous, paradoxical year—one of lost icons and unsettling events. For me, it’s also been a year of personal happiness and professional...

The Ed's Up Holiday Special (#168)

December 23, 2016

There are no links, to my pieces or anyone else’s, in this edition of The Ed’s Up. Instead, a short story. A few weeks ago, in the dead of night defeated by...

The Ed's Up #167

December 21, 2016

How a Pandemic Might Play Out Under Trump "Infectious diseases are emerging faster than ever before. By encroaching into the territories of wild animals, we...

The Ed's Up #166

December 16, 2016

Busy Times at the World’s Largest Polar Bear Prison "Built in 1982, the facility has space for 28 inmates, and has held over 2,000 to date. When the time is...

The Ed's Up #165

December 8, 2016

Giraffes Edge Closer to Extinction "This is a recurring theme in the natural world: Fragmentation brings disaster. It’s as if the cause of the giraffe’s...

The Ed's Up #164

December 1, 2016

How Trump Could Wage a War on Scientific Expertise "A Trump administration can easily repeal regulations that were enacted by federal agencies in the final...

The Ed's Up #163

November 24, 2016

Notable! I'm delighted to say that I Contain Multitudes was selected by the New York Times as one of its 100 notable books of 2016. It's a great list, too. I...

The Ed's Up #162

November 17, 2016

Why Online Allies Matter in Fighting Harassment "By programming a variety of Twitter bots to respond to racist abuse against black users, he showed that a...

The Ed's Up #161

November 10, 2016

First, a word on politics After the last newsletter, one reader wrote in asking me to stop linking to political pieces. He felt it "inappropriate" and said...

The Ed's Up #160

November 5, 2016

Book news I Contain Multitudes made the Publisher's Weekly list of Best Non-Fiction Books of 2016! And you can also vote for the book in the Goodreads Choice...

The Ed's Up #159

October 26, 2016

First, some trivia... For reasons that aren't very interesting, I recently had to compile a complete list of all my publications. Turns out, in the 10 years...

The Ed's Up #158

October 19, 2016

Rock-Smashing Monkeys Unintentionally Make Sharp Stone Tools "In 2014, Michael Haslam wedged between two boulders in northeast Brazil and filmed some monkeys...

The Ed's Up #157

October 13, 2016

A Google Maps for the Human Body "Over the last few years, Regev has been slowly laying the foundations for compiling a Human Cell Atlas—a complete portrait...

The Ed's Up #156

October 5, 2016

The Weak Evidence Behind Brain-Training Games "The team, most of whom have worked on brain-training themselves but have not received money from the industry,...

The Ed's Up #155

September 29, 2016

Chinchillas, man. Who knew? If you're wondering about humans, look below. And if you're wondering about this particular, non-murderous human, here's a list...

The Ed's Up #154

September 21, 2016

Hello! I've been travelling incessantly between and within the UK and USA; hence, the absent Ed's Up from last week. In the meantime, I Contain Multitudes...

The Ed's Up #153

September 8, 2016

Book news I Contain Multitudes has been out for a month now. The legendary Tim Radford reviewed it in the Guardian calling it a "marvellous, thrilling and...

The Ed's Up #152

September 1, 2016

UK Launch! I CONTAIN MULTITUDES is now out in the UK, and you can listen to a really fun interview I did with BBC Radio 5Live's Afternoon Edition. Meanwhile,...

The Ed's Up #151

August 25, 2016

New York Times Bestseller! Exceeding my wildest expectations, I Contain Multitudes is a New York Times bestseller, and not just in the science-specific list...

The Ed's Up 151 -

August 18, 2016

Book news I Contain Multitudes has been out for 10 days now and where am I? What is happening? Is this just real life? Ahem. Four very big things happened,...

The Ed's Up #150 - Book news, 400-year-old sharks, and defensive mosquitoes

August 11, 2016

Book news The book is here! The response on Twitter and elsewhere has exceeded my nervous expectations, and it is so gratifying to see people posting...

The Ed's Up #149 - Book Launch Edition

August 8, 2016

IT’S HERE! After what seems like a geological era, I Contain Multitudes has finally been unleashed upon the world—or at least upon the US and Canada, which...

The Ed's Up #148

August 3, 2016

I CONTAIN MULTITUDES is almost here! After what feels like an eternity, my first book is finally being unleashed upon the world (er, or at least, upon the US...

The Ed's Up #147

July 28, 2016

Book news We are less than two weeks from the publication of I CONTAIN MULTITUDES and things are heating up! Smithsonian.com published the second excerpt...

The Ed's Up #146

July 21, 2016

The First Book Excerpt Is Up! I'm really excited to announce that the first excerpt from my book is now up, at the New Yorker, no less! It's doubly...

The Ed's Up #145

July 14, 2016

Book news The first hardbacks arrived at my door this week. These are the UK editions; the US ones are out in 25 days! As always, you can pre-order your...

The Ed's Up #144

July 7, 2016

Book news We're almost a month away from publication in the US and I wrote a little post about it on my blog. (It's funny; the publication date almost marks...

The Ed's Up #143

June 22, 2016

Book news It's 7 weeks from the US publication of I Contain Multitudes, and I've got a couple of dates for your diary. If you're in New York, I'll be talking...

The Ed's Up #142

June 15, 2016

Book news Io9 included I Contain Multitudes on their list of "All the Books You Desperately Need to Add to Your 'To Read' Pile This Summer", along with many...

The Ed's Up #141

June 8, 2016

Book news I Contain Multitudes is just two months way from publication. Last week, Wired included it on its list of 14 must-read books for the summer,...

The Ed's Up #140

June 1, 2016

Book news The first reviews are in for I CONTAIN MULTITUDES, and I'm delighted to say that the book got two starred reviews from both Publisher's Weekly and...

The Ed's Up #139

May 25, 2016

I CONTAIN MULTITUDES is 75 days away from publication in the US, 98 days away from publication in the UK, and available to pre-order right now. A Shocking...

The Ed's Up #138

May 19, 2016

Book stuff I Contain Multitudes is 11 weeks away from publication, and is available to pre-order on Amazon. I just gave my first talk about it at the...

The Ed's Up #137

May 13, 2016

The Genetics of Staying in School "In a study of almost 294,000 people, an international team has identified variants in 74 genes that are associated with...