Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmeris a popular science writer and blogger, especially regarding the study of evolution and parasites. He has written several books and contributes science essays to publications such as The New York Times, Discover, and National Geographic. He is a fellow at Yale University's Morse College...
sick flu viruses
When you get sick with the flu you get infected with flu viruses and they make lots of new flu viruses, but those new viruses are not exact copies of the old ones. They have mutations in them. A lot of those mutations are harmful.
research razors flu
There is some research that suggests that viruses like the flu are really actually kind of at the razor's edge when it comes to mutation. They're mutating so fast that if they mutated much faster they would actually develop a lot of harmful mutations that could slow them down and cripple them and eventually literally drive them extinct.
may flu viruses
We may be sucking in all sorts of viruses and we really don't know the full range of them. Maybe we've got flu virus inside of us. That's a possibility. Maybe we're part flu.
basic books checking fact freelance left moved since three
I started fact checking and copy-editing, basic stuff. Then I started writing books and articles, and left in 1999. I've been working freelance ever since and moved here three years ago.
closely compare dna fractions humans living related tiny
Really, all living humans are closely related to each other. If you take different people's DNA and compare it to each other, there are only tiny fractions of difference.
ask calling interested learned neat opportunity scientific took wish
I wish I took more scientific classes, because I've always been interested in science. Most of what I have learned I've learned on the job. It's a really neat opportunity to learn by calling up scientists, some of which are world-renowned, ask them questions.
driving flight fly time until waiting worked
I have been waiting to fly out of here (Jackson), but the flight times never worked until now. When the connections work out, it's a shorter time than driving to Memphis.
allowed appreciate came human learned science
I have learned so much about where we came from. It has also allowed me to appreciate the new science that has come out on human origins.
adds couple discovered evolution five fossils four half human million oldest pushed series seven six
There is so much being discovered about human origins. Five years ago, the oldest fossils of hominids were four and a half million years old. There has been a series of discoveries that pushed fossils back to six or seven million years old, which adds a couple of years to evolution history.
dna cells doe
Borna virus is not a retrovirus. It doesn't actually insert its own genes into our cells. What it does is just hangs out near our DNA and uses some of the molecular machinery to copy itself.
people population able
Evolution has led to some populations of people being able to digest milk without much trouble when they're adults as well.
littles milk
Everybody can digest milk when they're little.
cells might way
We have Borna virus genes. We're part Borna virus, which is weird, but apparently our cells and our genomes in a weird way might actually be grabbing these viruses, grabbing genetic material from the viruses that are infecting it and pulling them into their own genome.
challenges viruses bigs
One of the big challenges now is to figure out just how many viruses there really are in the human genome. So far the estimate is 8.3% of our genome is virus, but it actually could be a lot higher.