I’ll be at Reddit for Ask Me (Almost) Anything: [UPDATED: Monday 12/10 3 pm ET]
In the wake of my story in the Times on zombies and today in Slate on our inner viruses, I figured I had stirred up enough questions to try out Reddit’s feature, Ask Me (Almost) Anything. So I’ll be there tomorrow Monday 12/10 at 3 pm ET. See you then!
Me on BBC: Viruses of the Future–Friends or Enemies?
I was recently interviewed by a BBC reporter about viruses and their potential to devastate or help us in years to come. The video is now posted, and you can watch it here.
New on Slate: How koalas are becoming part virus…just like us
Slate is running a “pandemics” series, and I’m offering up the view from deep time. Koalas are getting hammered by a viral epidemic right now, and we’d do well to understand their woes. Because over the past 60 million years, we’ve experienced much the same thing, and it’s helped make us who we are today. [...]
What Pharma can learn from a parasite: my new piece for the New York Times
As you may be aware, I have a thing for parasites. So it was with great pleasure that I read through the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, which is entirely dedicated to the ways in which parasites turn hosts into zombies. What’s particularly newsworthy is that scientists are finally getting down to [...]
Heredity: New Radiolab Episode (Introducing Charlotte and Veronica Zimmer)
Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich have a new episode of Radiolab airing this week. The theme of the show is heredity and its attendant mysteries. I had great fun telling the strange and tragic story of the early twentieth century biologist Paul Kammerer, who thought he could change the human race with the help of [...]
Creeping Out the Kids: @TEDYouth tomorrow
TEDYouth is in its second year of putting together an afternoon of short talks for high school students. I’ll be joining in with a quick introduction to my favorite parasite. The event, which takes place in New York City, will be live-streamed–visit this page for more information for viewing. It will run from 1 pm [...]
Fear, Reward, and The Bottle: An Update to My Column on Neurogenetics
In May I wrote in Discover about a major experiment in neuroscience. Ahmad Hariri, a neuroscientist at Duke, is gathering lots of data from hundreds of college students–everything from genetic markers to psychological profiles to fMRI scans. He hopes that the Duke Neurogenetics Study, as he’s dubbed it, will reveal some of the ways in [...]
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