Carl Zimmer

To find out how orchids exploit sex-crazed wasps for their own reproduction (and for lots of other marvels of coevolution), check out the November issue of Discover, which has an excerpt from my new book, The Tangled Bank.

Ryan writes, “I am a mechanical engineer, and this tattoo was inspired by the cover of my mechanical engineering design textbook.” Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Today at 5 pm EST I am going to be on Science Fantastic, the radio show hosted by physicist Michio Kaku. You can call in at 800-449-8255. Here’s a list of stations that carry the show, either live or repeated later this week.

I’m waiting to board my Air Canada flight to the rain-drenched city of Vancouver. Residents of that fair city are invited to come to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, dry off for a spell, and hear my talk tomorrow at 7 about Darwin, the flu, and evolution . It’s free, but you have to register here. Se...

Math is the subject of my new Discover column on the brain. How do we do it, and when did we (or our primate ancestors) start doing it? The answer, or at least some intriguing new research, is here.

Here’s a fun talk I had Saturday on Science Cabaret, a radio show on WICB in Ithaca. The host, Jennifer Nelson, is a graduate student at Cornell and has only been interviewing people about science for two months, but she’s clearly a natural at this. At...

Palin “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” Quoted in Michiko Katutani’s review of Sarah Palin’s new memoir.

Tomorrow morning I’m hopping a plane and spending the afternoon at Cornell. On Saturday, I’ll be giving a talk about The Origin of Species just down the road in downtown Ithaca. Ca...

This is definitely going into the swine flu talk! From Colin Purrington’s The Axis of Evo.

If you ever find yourself in the forests of Ecuador, you may have the good fortune of spotting a club-winged manakin. The closest the rest of us will probably ever get will be to watch this video. But don’t just watch it. Listen. ...

This post is really just an excuse for me to put up this cool poster. If you want the details on my talk in Vancouver on November 18, you can find them here. Tickets are free, but registration is required.

Just a reminder to my fellow Nutmeggers: I will be speaking tomorrow at 5:30 pm at the Peabody Museum at Yale in New Haven. The title of the talk is “Darwin Gets Swine Flu.” Pigs, ducks, sneezes, and more. Details here.

The winners of this year’s AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award have just been announced. I’m honored to be the winner for large newspapers. (I...