“Whoever designed the human visual system has a lot to answer for. Maybe not as much as the knee team, or the lower back group, but a lot.” - @kjhealy.co , making me shoot my afternoon coffee out my nose.

I'm headed to Notre Dame next week to give a public lecture on Thursday 9/25 about science writing in an age of <waves hands> all this. Details here: science.nd.edu/events/2025/...

Robert Hooke's drawings of objects under the microscope were so beautiful. These are from "Micrographia" in 1665

It's been six months since I started tracking the dire science news in my newsletter. For a long time, it felt like an ominous ocean swell. Now it feels like a breaking wave. buttondown.com/carlzimmer/a...

On the value of fighting battles you think you might lose @madva.bsky.social and I with some ideas in today's NYT, drawing from our new book, with @dryan149.bsky.social, Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/o... @mitpress.bsky.social

nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/oop... I bet Stephen Jay Gould would not have approved of the image, but I like to think he would have applauded Madeleine Beekman's THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE.

Dark energy? Inflaton fields? Eternal inflation? “It is a good time for books that take stock of where we are [in modern cosmology] and that illustrate which puzzles modern physicists choose to take seriously.” — @seanmcarroll.bsky.social

The new admin strategy for facts and real data is to fire the messenger or demand retraction. That isn't going to work.

Three thousand years of backstory: carlzimmer.com/books/airbor...

Here we are talking about Ada Palmer’s new book and I think I should tag her @adapalmer.bsky.social and her publisher @uchicagopress.bsky.social.

How did I get this far in life and _just_ find out that every cube is a multiple of 9, ±1? 1³ = 1 = 0⸱9 +1 2³ = 8 = 1⸱9 -1 3³ = 27 = 3⸱9 +0 4³ = 64 = 7⸱9 +1 5³ = 125 = 14⸱9 -1 6³ = 216 = 24⸱9 +0 7³ = 343 = 38⸱9 +1 Proof is easy: any can be written as (3k-1)³, (3k)³, or (3k+1)³; then just expand.

Please enjoy this excerpt from my book Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics on the topic of infinitesimals revisted, exploring diverse issues in nonstandard analysis. www.infinitelymore.xyz/p/infinitesi... #InfinitelyMore #PhilMaths

New paper. Trends in scientific writing. More noun chunks and sensational language. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

If you're looking to improve and maintain your health as you age, take a look at Dr. Eric Topol's new book "Super Agers." It's filled with lots of interesting information. One of the best books I've read in a long time 💪

The Natural Philosophy Symposium is underway! I had some idea of live-skeeting, but the real-time event is too absorbing. www.naturalphilosophyhopkins.org/natural-phil... Anyway, we've had: (cont)

Using new adaptive-optics techniques, researchers have created ultra-high resolution images of the Sun's corona--and the results are astonishing. This video shows "coronal rain": loops of magnetic plasma arching out from the Sun, cooling, and flowing back down. 🧪🔭 nso.edu/press-releas...

I’m thoroughly enjoying this book. Although the part about biological warfare is terrifying.

Thanks to the @newyorker.com for featuring the new @mitpress.bsky.social THE WEAPONIZATION OF EXPERTISE in their "The Best Books We Read This Week" roundup. "Their persuasive account illustrates how tentative conclusions proclaimed by the powerful can harden into orthodoxies." -- The New Yorker

Andy has a gift for reporting on the strangest, most daring people. One of his wildest ever? Trust him.

I'm thrilled to share my new project: a podcast about the science of aging. Here's the trailer megaphone.link/CAD4784658285

Using the advances in the science of aging to prevent the major age-related diseases (no reversal of aging required) www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m... @theguardian.com

Review of SUPER AGERS by @dshaywitz.bsky.social @wsj.com gift link www.wsj.com/health/welln...

The Wellderly. For the most part, it's not in their genes. Mrs Rushall's remarkable healthspan isn’t shared by her family members. Her mother died at age 59; her father at 64. Her two brothers died at ages 43 and 75. As we found in our study of ~1,400 www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

And, hi Acanthobothrium zimmeri!

We talk about ideas from Eric's most recent two books: Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again bookshop.org/p/books/deep... and Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity bookshop.org/p/books/supe...

My conversation with @melrobbins.bsky.social on extending our healthspan, SUPER AGERS, out in 2 days www.melrobbins.com/episode/epis...

Time to catch up on the past week’s news about science and medicine in the US. Whew. 1/10

“When it is assembled at the ITER site in Southern France, the Central Solenoid will be the system’s most powerful magnet, strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier.”

"The broad hypothesis... is that nonkin interactions loosen the cultural grip that relatives have on reproduction, under the assumption that kin communications are relatively more pro-natal." Very relevant idea, fascinating research.

Congratulations to @erictopol.bsky.social on his wonderful new book, Super Agers! The book is comprehensive, instructive and majestic in its health research and advice. Fascinating how different scientific approaches—both basic science and epidemiology—reach similar conclusions about healthy aging.

It was a thrill to participate in the Young Biologists Tournament at the Richelieu Scientific Lyceum in Odesa Ukraine. Their incredibly creative teacher asked me to see if other scientists, writers, or others could connect with these talented students. DM for details!! 🧪 youtu.be/K5w_91oN6cg?...

Our absurd and violent era requires a new kind of dystopian storytelling. In the latest episode of @ouropinions we talk about Severance and more. Plus, science journalist @carlzimmer.com tells us about what lives in the air we breathe. ouropinionsarecorrect.libsyn.com/severance-an...

Undark Magazine reviews paleontologist and Friend of Darwin award recipient Neil Shubin's (@neilshubin.bsky.social) new book, Ends of the Earth. undark.org/2025/03/28/b... via @undark.org #BookSky #ScienceSky #nonfiction

The Smithsonian will be hosting my talk tonight about the living air. Information here: www.si.edu/events/detai...

Decentred Quartet: Angharad Davies, Benedict Drew, John Edwards, and Tom Chant The Horse Hospital. Tuesday 22 April 2025. 7:30 pm - 10:30 pm www.thehorsehospital.com/events/decen...

Deeply harmful to Hopkins and Baltimore, but even more to the health and welfare of people around the world who these programs were helping. It’s profoundly cruel to target these efforts specifically.

Had so much fun reading @carlzimmer.com’s new book on the fascinating history of aerobiology and getting to talk to him about it on the First Opinion podcast for @statnews.com. It’s packed with revelations about how the field was sidelined for decades, with huge implications for public health today.

Thoroughly enjoyed your talk!

The New Yorker selects ENDS OF THE EARTH as one of the "Best Books We Read This Week!" 🧪 💙📗 www.newyorker.com/best-books-2...

How bad is this? Let me count the ways Also, and related, short of firing Powell (or trying, anyway) screwing with economic data would be just about the dumbest (and worst) thing to do apnews.com/article/trum...

1/ This past week I received my copy of Air-Borne (The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe) by award-winning New York Times columnist Carl Zimmer. It is a brilliant and riveting historical analysis culminating in COVID-19.

This is such an excellent talk. I just purchased this book. I'm so happy to see the recognition of some people that literally changed the course of the pandemic for me. Like Linsey Marr, her early PNAS presentation was simply brilliant.

Happy Birthday Dearc! The first named Scottish pterosaur, described in 2022, Dearc the birthday boy, is now 3️⃣! Since its discovery, it got a new neighbour (other Scottish pterosaur, Ceoptera) and has been recovered as one of the "missing links" in pterosaur evolution. Also, immortalised as toys!

I'm grabbing this new book the first chance I get! Carl Zimmer's earlier book, She Has Her Mother's Laugh, taught me an SO MUCH about genetics in a readable, compelling, entertaining way. I can't wait to see what he's written about “the hidden history of the life we breathe”!

This talk has rung in my head ever since I heard @carlzimmer.com deliver it. Sad to say, it is as timely now as it was then. Thanks for posting.

Very much looking forward to this symposium with an amazing line-up www.naturalphilosophyhopkins.org/natural-phil...

On Charles Darwin's birthday, I bring you a concise edition of his THE DESCENT OF MAN edited and with extensive commentary by the brilliant @carlzimmer.com (@hankgreely.bsky.social notes it is also exactly Abraham Lincoln's... what would they have said to one another at the surprise party?)

Co-author (with Cecile Dewitt-Morette and Margaret Dillard-Bleick) of one of the most magisterial and intimidating books on geometry and physics out there.