Carl Zimmer

"An extraordinary history of the perils and promise of every breath we take" James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath"Another brilliant work from one of the very best science writers, Air-Borne will leave you agog at the incredible world that floats unseen around us" Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World--------------------------------------Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air – and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and Baillie Gifford-shortlisted author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. From NASA scientists conducting trailblazing experiments in the sky, to governments building clandestine arsenals of biological airborne weapons, Air-Borne prompts us to look at the world with fresh eyes. Weaving together spellbinding history with the latest reporting on airborne threats to global health, this masterwork makes visible an invisible world.

"An extraordinary history of the perils and promise of every breath we take" James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath"Another brilliant work from one of the very best science writers, Air-Borne will leave you agog at the incredible world that floats unseen around us" Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World--------------------------------------Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air – and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and Baillie Gifford-shortlisted author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. We follow Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh above the clouds, where they conducted groundbreaking experiments, and meet NASA scientists who send balloons even higher, to search for life in the stratosphere. Zimmer chronicles the dark side of aerobiology with gripping accounts of how the United States and the Soviet Union clandestinely built arsenals of biological weapons designed to spread anthrax and smallpox. Air-Borne prompts us to look at the world with new eyes – as a place where the oceans and forests loft trillions of cells into the air, where microbes eat clouds, and where life soars thousands of miles on the wind. Weaving together spellbinding history with the latest reporting on airborne threats to global health, this masterwork makes visible an invisible world.

From the Baillie Gifford-shortlisted&i> &/i>&i>New York Times &/i>science columnist, the hidden biology of the air we breathe, from pollen to viruses such as COVID-19.

The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air—and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for scientists to finally agree that the Covid pandemic was caused by an airborne virus. In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. We travel to the tops of mountain glaciers, where Louis Pasteur caught germs from the air, and follow Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh above the clouds, where they conducted groundbreaking experiments. We meet the long-forgotten pioneers of aerobiology including William and Mildred Wells, who tried for decades to warn the world about airborne infections, only to die in obscurity. Air-Borne chronicles the dark side of aerobiology with gripping accounts of how the United States and the Soviet Union clandestinely built arsenals of airborne biological weapons designed to spread anthrax, smallpox, and an array of other pathogens. Air-Borne also leaves readers looking at the world with new eyes—as a place where the oceans and forests loft trillions of cells into the air, where microbes eat clouds, and where life soars thousands of miles on the wind. Weaving together gripping history with the latest reporting on Covid and other threats to global health, Air-Borne surprises us on every page as it reveals the hidden world of the air.

The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air--and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for scientists to finally agree that the Covid pandemic was caused by an airborne virus. In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. We travel to the tops of mountain glaciers, where Louis Pasteur caught germs from the air, and follow Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh above the clouds, where they conducted groundbreaking experiments. We meet the long-forgotten pioneers of aerobiology including William and Mildred Wells, who tried for decades to warn the world about airborne infections, only to die in obscurity. Air-Borne chronicles the dark side of aerobiology with gripping accounts of how the United States and the Soviet Union clandestinely built arsenals of airborne biological weapons designed to spread anthrax, smallpox, and an array of other pathogens. Air-Borne also leaves readers looking at the world with new eyes--as a place where the oceans and forests loft trillions of cells into the air, where microbes eat clouds, and where life soars thousands of miles on the wind. Weaving together gripping history with the latest reporting on Covid and other threats to global health, Air-Borne surprises us on every page as it reveals the hidden world of the air.

Award-winning writer, columnist, and journalists Carl Zimmer selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in 2022. “What's most compelling about a scientific story is the way it challenges us to think about the concepts we take for granted,” writes guest editor Carl Zimmer in his introduction. The essays in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing probe at the ordinary and urge us to think more deeply about our place in the world around us. From a hopeful portrait of a future for people with Alzheimer’s disease, to a fascinating exploration of the rise of nearsightedness in children, to the heroic story of a herd of cows that evaded a hurricane, these selections reveal how science and nature shape our everyday lives. With tremendous intelligence, clarity, and insight, this anthology offers an expansive look at where we are and where we are headed. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 includes JESSICA CAMILLE AGUIRRE • VANESSA GREGORY • SABRINA IMBLER FERRIS JABR • MARION RENAULT • ELIZABETH SVOBODA NATALIE WOLCHOVER • SARAH ZHANG and others

Kak otlichit zhivoe ot nezhivogo? Gde prolegaet granitsa mezhdu nimi? Na pervyj vzgljad, detskie voprosy. I tem ne menee uzhe mnogo stoletij uchenye i filosofy ne mogut prijti k udovletvorjajuschemu vsekh otvetu. Etoj teme - chto takoe zhizn - i posvjaschena novaja kniga Karla Tsimmera. Avtor polagaet, chto net drugogo obekta nauchnogo poznanija, kotoromu bylo by dano stol mnogo opredelenij. I suschestvuet li edinstvennoe i bezuslovno vernoe? Ved projavlenij zhizni velikoe mnozhestvo. Virus COVID-19 izmenil nash mir, no mozhno li ego schitat zhivym? A eritrotsit ili sorvannoe s dereva jabloko? Oplodotvorennaja jajtsekletka - zhivaja? Mozhno li konstatirovat smert cheloveka, mozg kotorogo umer, no telo funktsioniruet? Kak zarodilas zhizn na Zemle i pojmem li my, chto inoplanetjane zhivye, kogda nakonets vstretimsja s nezemnymi formami suschestvovanija? Temnye voprosy! Blestjaschij populjarizator nauki, uzhe poljubivshijsja russkojazychnoj auditorii, priglashaet chitatelja na poiski otvetov. Udastsja li ikh najti, dostignet li avtor svoej tseli? Nas zhdet poistine intrigujuschee povestvovanie!

Kak otlichit zhivoe ot nezhivogo? Gde prolegaet granitsa mezhdu nimi? Na pervyj vzgljad, detskie voprosy. I tem ne menee uzhe mnogo stoletij uchenye i filosofy ne mogut prijti k udovletvorjajuschemu vsekh otvetu. Etoj teme - chto takoe zhizn - i posvjaschena novaja kniga Karla Tsimmera. Avtor polagaet, chto net drugogo obekta nauchnogo poznanija, kotoromu bylo by dano stol mnogo opredelenij. I suschestvuet li edinstvennoe i bezuslovno vernoe? Ved projavlenij zhizni velikoe mnozhestvo. Virus SOUJu-19 izmenil nash mir, no mozhno li ego schitat zhivym? A eritrotsit ili sorvannoe s dereva jabloko? Oplodotvorennaja jajtsekletka - zhivaja? Mozhno li konstatirovat smert cheloveka, mozg kotorogo umer, no telo funktsioniruet? Kak zarodilas zhizn na Zemle i pojmem li my, chto inoplanetjane zhivye, kogda nakonets vstretimsja s nezemnymi formami suschestvovanija? Temnye voprosy! Blestjaschij populjarizator nauki, uzhe poljubivshijsja russkojazychnoj auditorii, priglashaet chitatelja na poiski otvetov. Udastsja li ikh najti, dostignet li avtor svoej tseli? Nas zhdet poistine intrigujuschee povestvovanie!

'Profound, lyrical, and fascinating, Life’s Edge will give you a newfound appreciation for life itself. It is the work of a master science writer at the height of his skills.' – Ed Yong, author of An Immense WorldWe all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world – from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses – the harder they find it to locate the edges of life, where it begins and ends. What exactly does it mean to be alive? Is a virus alive? Is a foetus? Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can’t answer that question here on earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society’s most charged conflicts – whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead. Life’s Edge is a fascinating investigation by one of the most celebrated science writers of our time. Whether he is handling pythons in Alabama or searching for hibernating bats in the Adirondacks, Zimmer revels in astounding examples of life at its most bizarre. He tries his own hand at evolving life in a test tube with unnerving results. Charting the obsession with Dr Frankenstein’s monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers working on engineering life from the ground up.

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/E. O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD***A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021***A SCIENCE NEWS FAVORITE BOOK OF 2021***A SMITHSONIAN TOP TEN SCIENCE BOOK OF 2021 "Stories that both dazzle and edify... This book is not just about life, but about discovery itself." --Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times Book ReviewWe all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world--from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses--the harder they find it is to locate life's edge. Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can't answer that question here on earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society's most charged conflicts--whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead. Life's Edge is an utterly fascinating investigation that no one but one of the most celebrated science writers of our generation could craft. Zimmer journeys through the strange experiments that have attempted to re-create life. Literally hundreds of definitions of what that should look like now exist, but none has yet emerged as an obvious winner. Lists of what living things have in common do not add up to a theory of life. It's never clear why some items on the list are essential and others not. Coronaviruses have altered the course of history, and yet many scientists maintain they are not alive. Chemists are creating droplets that can swarm, sense their environment, and multiply. Have they made life in the lab? Whether he is handling pythons in Alabama or searching for hibernating bats in the Adirondacks, Zimmer revels in astounding examples of life at its most bizarre. He tries his own hand at evolving life in a test tube with unnerving results. Charting the obsession with Dr. Frankenstein's monster and how the world briefly believed radium was the source of all life, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers engineering life from scratch.

In 2020, an invisible germ—a virus—wholly upended our lives. We’re most familiar with the viruses that give us colds or Covid-19. But viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long that we are actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in deep caves miles underground. Fully revised and updated, with new illustrations and a new chapter about coronaviruses and the spread of Covid-19, this third edition of Carl Zimmer’s A Planet of Viruses pulls back the veil on this hidden world. It presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate as long as life endures

Odin iz luchshikh nauchnykh zhurnalistov nashego vremeni so svojstvennymi emu osnovatelnostju, dokhodchivostju i neizmennym jumorom daet polnyj obzor teorii evoljutsii Charlza Darvina v svete segodnjashnikh predstavlenij. Chto stojalo za idejami velikogo cheloveka, muchitelno prokladyvavshego put novykh znanij v konservativnom obschestve? Pochemu po sej den ne prekraschajutsja spory o proiskhozhdenii zhizni i cheloveka na Zemle? Kak biologi-evoljutsionisty vydvigajut i proverjajut svoi gipotezy i pochemu kategoricheski ne mogut soglasitsja s dovodami kreatsionistov? V poiskakh otveta na eti voprosy chitatel delaet mnozhestvo porazitelnykh otkrytij o zhizni zhivotnykh, ptits i nasekomykh, zastavljajuschikh zadumatsja o ljudskikh nravakh i etike, o meste i prednaznachenii cheloveka vo Vselennoj. Rekomenduem!

The new edition of Evolution: Making Sense of Life is now supported in Achieve, Macmillan's new online learning platform. Achieve is the culmination of years of development work put toward creating the most powerful online learning tool for students. It houses all of our renowned assessments, multimedia assets, e-books, and instructor resources in a powerful new platform. Evolutionary Biologist, Douglas Emlen and Science Writer, Carl Zimmer continue to improve their widely-praised evolution textbook. Emlen, an award-winning evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, has infused Evolution: Making Sense of Life with the technical rigor and conceptual depth that today's biology majors require. Zimmer, an award-winning New York Times columnist, brings compelling storytelling to the book, bringing evolutionary research to life through a narrative sure to capture the attention of evolution students. With riveting stories about evolutionary biologists at work everywhere from the Arctic to tropical rainforests to hospital wards, the book is a reading adventure designed to grab the imagination of students, showing them exactly why evolution makes such brilliant sense of life.

Zimmer, an award-winning New York Times columnist, brings compelling storytelling to the book, bringing evolutionary research to life through a narrative sure to capture the attention of evolution students. The new edition of Evolution: Making Sense of Life is now supported in Achieve, Macmillan's new online learning platform.

Award-winning, celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a history of our understanding of heredity in this sweeping, resonating overview of a force that shaped human society â?? a force set to shape our future even more radically.

2019 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist "Science book of the year"--The GuardianOne of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2018One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018"Extraordinary"--New York Times Book Review "Magisterial"--The Atlantic"Engrossing"--Wired"Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year"--Minneapolis Star-TribuneCelebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities... But, Zimmer writes, "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways." Heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.

2019 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist"Science book of the year"--The GuardianOne of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2018One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018"Extraordinary"--New York Times Book Review "Magisterial"--The Atlantic"Engrossing"--Wired"Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year"--Minneapolis Star-TribuneCelebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities... But, Zimmer writes, "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways." Heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.

At the beginning of Europe's turbulent seventeenth century, no one knew how the brain worked. By the century's close, the science of the brain had taken root, helping to overturn many common misconceptions about the human body as well as to unseat centuries-old philosophies of man and God.

Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mount Everest slammed into the Earth, inducing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs. Vaporized detritus blasted through the atmosphere upon impact, falling back to Earth around the globe. Disastrous environmental consequences ensued: a giant tsunami, continent-scale wildfires, darkness, and cold, followed by sweltering greenhouse heat. When conditions returned to normal, half the plant and animal genera on Earth had perished. This horrific chain of events is now widely accepted as the solution to a great scientific mystery: what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Walter Alvarez, one of the Berkeley scientists who discovered evidence of the impact, tells the story behind the development of the initially controversial theory. It is a saga of high adventure in remote locations, of arduous data collection and intellectual struggle, of long periods of frustration ended by sudden breakthroughs, of friendships made and lost, and of the exhilaration of discovery that forever altered our understanding of Earth's geological history.