Carl Zimmer
Central Park home to more wildlife than meets the eye
In 2003, an army of 350 scientists and volunteers swept out across Central Park. Their mission, called a BioBlitz, was ...
How very similar genes give rise to diversity of life
There’s a unity to life. Sometimes it’s plain to see, but very often it lurks underneath a distraction of differences ...
Video: How do new genes get made?
When life emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago, the earliest microbes had a set of basic genes that ...
Are we puppets of our own gut bacteria?
Your body is home to about 100 trillion bacteria and other microbes, collectively known as your microbiome. Naturalists first became aware ...
Mapping evolutionary history with genes for smell
Animals have been smelling for hundreds of millions of years, but the evolution of that sense is difficult to trace ...
What can our microbiomes tell us about ourselves?
Some of my friends are sporting wristbands these days that keep track of their bodies. Little computers nestled in these ...
When individual has multiple genomes, genetic tests get complicated
When Meriel M. McEntagart, a geneticist at St. George’s University of London, met the family in May 2012, she suspected ...
Could we end malaria with GE mosquitoes?
The ability to edit genomes may offer us the ability to build and release mosquitos resistant to malaria, ending the ...
Human blood types remain a mystery despite a hundred years of study
In 1900 the Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner first discovered blood types, winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for ...
Mutation rates may explain why plants can live much longer than animals
Scientists can’t offer a simple, straightforward answer to why plants can get so much older than animals. But they have ...
Rapid DNA sequencing saves teenager from fatal bacterial infection
Joshua Osborn, 14, lay in a coma at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, Wis. For weeks his brain had ...
Metabolic changes in human evolution: Hungry brains and frugal muscles
For decades, scientists have wondered how our metabolism compares to that of other species. It’s been a hard question to ...
Marmosets offer clue to human stillbirths, programmed while mom is in grandma’s womb
One way to learn about reproductive health is to observe how our primate cousins have babies. And a new study ...
One man’s junk: What non-coding DNA really means
Genomes are like books of life. But until recently, their covers were locked. Finally we can now open the books ...
Antibiotic resistance now major threat to public health
The Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico is a network of chambers stretching 1,600 feet underground. The bacteria that grow on ...
Dating the origin of our genes
Each of us carries just over 20,000 genes that encode everything from the keratin in our hair down to the ...
Mummy geneticist’s memoir
In the summer of 1981, a Swedish graduate student named Svante Paabo filled a laboratory at the University of Uppsala ...
How much of our genome do we share with other organisms? Take this quiz.
Find out how much genetic material humans share with grapes, round worms and dogs ...
Resurrection ecology: Searching for ancient DNA
Scientists can revive thousand-year dormant mosses and they're searching for viable cells that would make it possible to revive extinct ...
Deciphering the mysterious X chromosome
The X chromosome is part of the system that determines gender. Yet, despite its significance in human life, the X ...
Evolution from water to land, bone by bone
Travel back far enough in your genealogy, and you will run into a fish. Before about 370 million years ago, ...
Resurrected 700 year-old water flea eggs show human impacts on evolution
DNA evidence says some tiny water fleas hatched from eggs at the bottom of a Minnesota lake, are 700 years ...
E. coli: still showing us new evolutionary tricks after a century
It’s hard to believe that Escherichia coli could have any secrets left. For over a century, scientists have picked the ...
When it comes to human brain, size isn’t everything
According to new research, expansion of the brain in our ancestors ripped apart tethered neurons, enabling new circuits to be ...
Idea of genetic mosaicism hits psychiatry
The title of my blog post is provocative, I know, but I’m actually just lifting it from the title of ...
Toe fossil provides glimpse into the racy social lives of Neanderthals
A single Neanderthal toe bone has provided scientists with the most complete genome to date, offering a new glimpse into ...
Is same-sex coupling a matter of genetics or choice?
A new report has found that nearly a third of Laysan albatross pairs on Oahu are of the same gender, ...
Old age is programmed in human embryos
Researchers found senescent cells--normally associated with old and damaged tissue--in embryos. Now, they suspect senescence plays a role in differentiating ...