CANR
WORK TITLE: Air-Borne
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.carlzimmer.com/
CITY: Guilford
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COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CANR 192
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 13, 1966, in New Haven, CT; married; wife’s name Grace; children: Charlotte, Veronica.
EDUCATION:Yale University, B.A., 1987.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Science writer. Worked as a carpenter; Discover magazine, began as a copy editor, worked as senior editor, 1994-99; freelance writer, 1999—. Guest on radio programs and podcasts; lecturer at universities, medical schools, and museums; California Academy of Sciences, Osher Fellow, 2015; Yale University, New Haven, CT, adjunct writing instructor and professor adjunct in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, beginning 2017.
MEMBER:National Association of Science Writers.
AWARDS:Evert Clark Science Award for Young Science Journalists, National Press Foundation; science journalism award, American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences; fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; media award, American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1997; Pan-American Health Organization award for excellence in international health reporting, 1999; Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea was named one of the best science books of the year by both Discover and New Scientist; Guggenheim fellowship, 2002; science journalism award, Science, 2004; National Academies Science Communication Award, 2007; Stephen Jay Gould Prize, Society for the Study of Evolution; Distinguished Service Award, National Association of Biology Teachers, 2015; Online Journalism Award, 2017; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for Public Understanding of Science and Technology, 2017; National Academies Communication Award, 2019, for She Has Her Mother’s Laugh; Pulitzer Prize for public service, Columbia University, 2021, for science writing on Covid-19.
WRITINGS
Author of commentary and other contributions to the book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, by Charles Darwin, foreword by Frans de Waal, Plume (New York, NY), 2007; contributor to anthologies; author of the “Origins” science column for the New York Times. Contributor to periodicals, including National Geographic, Science, Newsweek, Audubon, Natural History, Wired, and New York Times Magazine. Contributing editor, Discover. Author of the blog The Loom.
SIDELIGHTS
(open new1)Carl Zimmer is a science writer who has authored and edited over a dozen books on popular science topics. He is the author of the “Origins” science column for the New York Times, which contributed to the periodical winning a public service Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for its reporting on Covid-19. Zimmer also serves as an adjunct writing instructor at Yale University.(close new1)
Zimmer’s first book, At the Water’s Edge: Macroevolution and the Transformation of Life, is an in-depth study of the Darwinian concept of macroevolution, an explanation of how entire species change or evolve to adapt to their environments. More specifically, Zimmer examines how primitive organisms first left the seas to adapt to life on land, and then, millions of years later, how certain land mammals adapted again to go back to the sea. In what Zimmer calls “two of the most beautiful opportunities for studying macroevolution,” he explains how, 350 to 400 million years ago, those early fishes crawled out of the seas and evolved into tetrapods, and then forty to fifty million years ago, some terrestrial mammals went back to the water and eventually evolved into the whales and other marine mammals of the world. For the beginning of his book, Zimmer offers an introductory survey concerning the rise of evolutionary thinking, beginning with Darwin and his work. He explains how and why Darwin’s theories were so greatly opposed in the beginning, largely because many people were appalled by the idea that man was descended from apelike ancestors.
In At the Water’s Edge, Zimmer ponders what the reaction would have been had Darwin explained to people that they were really descendants of fish. “Yet the transition from apelike ancestors to humans was a late, minor change in our kaleidoscopic descent. At least an ape can walk and breathe air. At least it has hair and thumbs,” Zimmer writes in the book. “For real alienation, go back to a fish. Who can see a kindred spirit in those flat button eyes? The flattened or elongated body, nothing more than a mouth driven forward by muscle?” According to Zimmer, Darwin was well aware of this and once wrote to a friend: “Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull, and undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind.”
In the first half of the book, Zimmer concentrates on how the fishes left the water and were able to travel despite the strains of gravity. They first evolved into tetrapods, and then into all land animals, including mammals. The rest of the book focuses on the rise of whales, porpoises, and other marine mammals, all of which evolved from well-adapted land mammals. Despite the fact that these animals did not have the aid of gills or fins, they still transformed themselves to live an aquatic life. Zimmer considers this adaptation an incredible evolutionary feat. To back up his claims, Zimmer utilizes a wide array of evidence. First, he interviewed many preeminent scientists as they worked in the field and in their laboratories. In his search he traveled all over the world, including such places as Greenland, Brussels, Pakistan, and Australia, and in his writing he takes the reader along for the ride. He combines evidence from several different fields of study, including paleontology, genealogy, biology, and anatomy. The reader also gets a good example of how scientists work and theorize.
The critical response to At the Water’s Edge was generally positive. Jean E. Crampon, reviewing the book for the Library Journal, called it an “excellent discussion of macroevolution” that is “very readable.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly was also impressed with the book. “More than just an informative book about macroevolution itself, this is an entertaining history of ideas written with literary flair and technical rigor,” the contributor wrote. Calling it a “tale of high-stakes scientific sleuthing,” Booklist critic Bryce Christensen observed that At the Water’s Edge is filled with “marvelously lucid writing.” Quarterly Review of Biology reviewer John A. Ruben commented that Zimmer’s “easygoing, almost folksy, book represents one of the best popular resources available to help remedy the notion that evolutionary theory suffers from a dearth of easily taught, easily understood facts about macroevolution.”
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures deals with “the enormous variety of one- and many-celled organisms that live on and inside other animals and plants,” according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Zimmer analyzes the various parasites and how they affect their hosts, for ill and sometimes for good. He makes the case that parasites can protect against allergies and certain diseases of the digestive tract and suggests that they can alter their hosts’ emotional and sexual behavior. Many parasites, however, do not. Zimmer “introduces readers to some of nature’s most sinister characters: nematodes that cause blindness, worms that swell up a scrotum until it fills a wheelbarrow, 60-foot-long tapeworms and deadly creatures so tiny they hitchhike on the back of a fly,” reported Jill Wolfson in the online magazine Salon.com. The book led the Publishers Weekly reviewer to caution that “one of the year’s most fascinating works of popular science is also its most disgusting.” Forbes contributor Susan Adams commented about the parasites: “Loathsome they may be, but these creatures deserve a little respect. … In fact, parasites are powerful, complex, highly evolved organisms.” Adams called Zimmer’s book “spellbinding,” while Library Journal critic Margaret Henderson observed that it “makes parasitology interesting and accessible to everyone.” Booklist contributor Gilbert Taylor concluded that Parasite Rex is “a well-organized and well-presented survey of parasites’ life cycles and the debilitations they cause.”
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea provides “a sweeping overview of most of the topics critical to understanding evolution, presenting his material from both a historical and a topical perspective,” according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. This book was followed by Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How It Changed the World. In it, Zimmer studies how scientists and philosophers accepted the idea that the brain, not the heart, is the center of the body, overturning the theories of Aristotle and Galen. He focuses on the work of seventeenth-century scientist Thomas Willis, whose understanding of the human brain was accomplished through extensive autopsies of human bodies and experimentation using dead and live animals. Willis attended Oxford University, where he was influenced by men like Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, and Robert Boyle. Zimmer’s profiles and accounting of developments are set within a historical context that includes the English civil war, the beheading of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell’s rise to power, the Restoration, the Irish Rebellion, the plague of 1664 to 1665, the London fire of 1666, and a number of religious conflicts. A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that “the many parallels that can be drawn between politics, religion, science, and human behavior then and now add unexpected dividends to this engaging narrative.” In a Booklist review, Bryce Christensen wrote that Zimmer is “a gifted science writer” and that Soul Made Flesh is “a remarkable fusion of scientific history and cultural analysis.”
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life offers a look at the microbe E. coli, which was first noticed by the nineteenth-century pediatrician Thomas Escherich. In the book, Zimmer discusses E. coli within the context of genetics and evolution. He also examines a number of landmark discoveries in these areas that have involved E. coli, including experiments that reveal how genes function.
When asked what made him choose E. coli as a topic for his book in an interview for Newsvine, Zimmer responded: “I started thinking a lot about life—what it means to be alive, what rules govern life no matter what form it takes. Biologists know so much more today about life than just a few years ago that they can really start to ask these questions in a meaningful way. But I knew I didn’t want to write about all 10 million species of life on Earth.” Zimmer continued: “So it occurred to me, what if I just choose one species? Which one would I choose? The choice was obvious—E. coli. The story of E. coli is really the story of modern biology, from the 1940s, when scientists struggled to discover what genes are, to today, when they are rebuilding life from scratch.”
Microcosm generated positive responses from several reviewers, such as New York Times Book Review contributor Peter Dizikes, who noted: “Zimmer adroitly links the common heritage we share with E. coli and the emerging horizons of science.” He suggested: “If you must limit yourself to only one title on bacteria this year, Microcosm is a good pick.” The book “reminds us that scientific discovery makes compelling reading in the hands of a master storyteller,” commented Journal of Clinical Investigation contributor James P. Nataro. He added: “Mr. Zimmer has woven a fascinating tapestry, intercalating the energy of world- changing scientific discovery with the fascinating complexity of a well- understood living organism. His work will be welcomed by the scientist and the science enthusiast.” According to John Timmer in a review of the book for Ars Technica, Microcosm “would be a valuable book for someone with a bit of knowledge of biology who’s looking for a broad perspective on the field. It’s short, but information-rich and written in a way that will reward those who read it carefully.” Timmer also mentioned, however, that “on either of the extremes of that broad middle audience, there might be some problems” with the book. Times contributor Oliver Morton also had some reservations about the book. He noted that Microcosm “may sometimes overreach at the level of analogy. For example, the similarities between E. coli’s metabolic pathways and the structure of networks such as the internet are skimmed over a bit too quickly to convince. Zimmer’s resolute embrace of brevity is in most places a plus, but there are times when he could afford to stop and unpack things a bit further.” Overall, though, Morton called the book “elegant and engaging.”
In an interview on the Web site Daily Kos, Zimmer talked about how he first became interested in writing about science: “I stumbled into it. In college I was an English major, and I was doing a lot of writing on my own, almost all fiction. But I took writing classes from Vicki Hearne and Peter Matthiessen, both of whom have done a lot of great non-fiction work, and they helped me appreciate the possibilities of non- fiction.” He added: “I spent the first couple years out of college doing various jobs, such as working as a carpenter, and I continued to write stories. Then I moved to New York and couldn’t figure out how to go on being a carpenter there. I decided to look around for jobs at magazines, and I wound up at Discover because they had an opening for a copy editor.”
(open new2)A Planet of Viruses is a collection of essays that discuss various aspects of the viral world. The account covers viruses that are airborne and those that live in water, from those that infect humans to those that give rabbits horns. The tone of the book is informative without reading like a textbook.
Writing in Choice, J.M. Miller stated: “Though geared to general readers, the book may also interest students in the life and health sciences.” In a review in Science News, Tina Hesman Seay remarked that “this is a short book with bite-sized chapters. But like viruses, these essays pack a lot of information into a small structure and will infect you.”
With Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed, Zimmer highlights the various tattoos found on scientists and other science-themed tattoos on non-scientists. The book is divided into thirteen sections with color photographs and grounding text. The book shows tattoos that range from quotes by scientists to the discovery of chemical compound structures.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly claimed: “Encyclopedic in essence, Zimmer’s coffee-table art book presents a wealth of material.” In a review in Science News, Erika Engelhaupt insisted that “this is the kind of book that might give readers some wild ideas.”
She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity considers the history of heredity. From Gregor Mendel’s advancements and beyond, Zimmer shows how scientists have gained a better understanding of how chromosomes work. He also dispels numerous misconceptions about heredity and race.
In an interview in Publishers Weekly, Zimmer admitted; “I’m always prepared for a story I write to generate a lot of pushback, regardless of the fact that the science I’m reporting on is rock solid…. I try to use them as an opportunity to show readers how scientists know what they know.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly pointed out that “Zimmer’s writing is rich…. His book is as engrossing as it is enlightening.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor called it “a thoroughly enchanting tour of big questions, oddball ideas, and dazzling accomplishments of researchers searching to explain, manipulate, and alter inheritance.” Booklist contributor Bryce Christensen described it as being “a wide-ranging and eye-opening inquiry into the way heredity shapes our species.”
Writing in New York Times Book Review, Jennifer Raff insisted that “any fan of his previous books or his journalism will appreciate this work. But so, too, will parents wishing to understand the magnitude of the legacy they’re bequeathing to their children, people who want to grasp their history through genetic ancestry testing and those seeking a fuller context for the discussions about race and genetics so prevalent today.” Raff lauded that “this book is Zimmer at his best: obliterating misconceptions about science with gentle prose.”
In Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive, Zimmer discusses the difficulty and disagreement among scientists when trying to define life. He considers hundreds of years of work by scientists on the topic. The book ends with discussions about the progress in creating life in a laboratory environment.
A Kirkus Reviews contributor described the book as being “an ingenious case that the answers to life’s secrets are on the horizon.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly said that “the result is a pop science tour de force that extracts provocative insights from life’s oddities.” Writing in New York Times Book Review, Siddhartha Mukherjee reasoned that “Zimmer is an astute, engaging writer—inserting the atmospheric anecdote where applicable, drawing out a scientific story and bringing laboratory experiments to life. This book is not just about life, but about discovery itself. It is about error and hubris, but also about wonder and the reach of science.” Writing in Times Literary Supplement, Helen Bynum stated: “In elegant prose, he takes the reader on a fascinating journey exploring the experiences of life.”
Zimmer edited The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023. Many of the twenty science essays in this collection discuss various aspects of Covid-19. Others deal with issues relating to climate change, such as the melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Ice Shelf.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly suggested that “readers will be enthralled.” In a review in Library Journal, Catherine Lantz proposed that “reader can catch up on a year’s worth of well-written discoveries and investigations in this collection.” Lantz added that all ages from middle school and up would find the content “appropriate.”
In Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, Zimmer looks at the air we breathe and how this gaseous space can be contaminated with disease. The account starts with fourteenth-century plague doctors wearing beaked masks that contained the remains of mummies to avoid contracting the plague themselves. He follows the history up to twentieth-century husband-wife scientist team William Firth and Mildred Weeks Wells and their work with airborne viruses that was discredited until scientists working with Covid-19 realized they were correct.
Booklist contributor Tony Miksanek posited that “breathtaking facts plus superior science writing equals engaging, essential reading.” In an article in New York Times Book Review, Robert Sullivan labeled the book both “detailed and gripping.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor found it to be “an astute, accessible look at science’s hard-won understanding of our air.”(close new2)
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 1998, Bryce Christensen, review of At the Water’s Edge, p. 1078; August, 2000, Gilbert Taylor, review of Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures, p. 2090; December 1, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of Parasite Rex, p. 734; December 1, 2003, Bryce Christensen, review of Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How It Changed the World, p. 642; April 1, 2008, Gilbert Taylor, review of Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life, p. 13; April 15, 2018, Bryce Christensen, review of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, p. 7; January 1, 2025, Tony Miksanek, review of Air-borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe., p. 10.
Boston Globe, August 17, 2008, Anthony Doerr, review of Microcosm.
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, September 1, 2008, R. Adler, review of Microcosm, p. 125; June 1, 2016, J.M. Miller, review of A Planet of Viruses, p. 1495.
Columbia Journalism Review, July 31, 2008, Russ Juskalian, review of Microcosm.
Discover, May 1, 2008, Jocelyn Rice, review of Microcosm, p. 73.
Economist, March 27, 2025, review of Air-borne.
Forbes, September 18, 2000, Susan Adams, review of Parasite Rex.
Guardian (London, England), August 2, 2008, Georgina Ferry, review of Microcosm.
Independent (London, England), July 9, 2008, Jon Turney, review of Microcosm.
Journal of Clinical Investigation, December 1, 2008, James P. Nataro, review of Microcosm.
Journal of College Science Teaching, January 1, 2006, review of Virus and the Whale: Exploring Evolution in Creatures Small and Large.
Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2003, review of Soul Made Flesh, p. 1308; March 15, 2008, review of Microcosm; April 1, 2018, review of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh; January 1, 2021, review of Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to be Alive; January 15, 2025, review of Air-borne.
Library Journal, February 1, 1998, Jean E. Crampon, review of At the Water’s Edge, p. 108; June 1, 2000, Margaret Henderson, review of Parasite Rex, p. 190; April 1, 2008, Sara Rutter, review of Microcosm, p. 106; November 1, 2023, Catherine Lantz, review of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023, p. 77.
New Scientist, May 10, 2008, Druin Burch, review of Microcosm, p. 51.
New Statesman, June 14, 2004, Patricia Fara, review of Soul Made Flesh, p. 53.
New York Sun, May 14, 2008, Graeme Wood, review of Microcosm.
New York Times Book Review, May 3, 1998, Philip Gingerich, review of At the Water’s Edge, p. 22; June 29, 2008, Peter Dizikes, review of Microcosm; June 17, 2018, Jennifer Raff, review of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, p. 11L; April 4, 2021, Siddhartha Mukherjee, review of Life’s Edge, p. 1L; May 4, 2025, Robert Sullivan, review of Air-borne, p. 10.
Newsweek, March 7, 2025, Meredith Wolf Schizer, “Q&A: Carl Zimmer on Airborne Diseases.”
Publishers Weekly, February 9, 1998, review of At the Water’s Edge, pp. 83-84; July 10, 2000, review of Parasite Rex, p. 52; August 6, 2001, review of Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, p. 71; November 24, 2003, review of Soul Made Flesh, p. 52; February 18, 2008, review of Microcosm, p. 143; October 10, 2011, review of Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed, p. 1; February 19, 2018, review of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, p. 64; March 19, 2018, Michael Zimmerman, “Down the Generations: PW Talks with Carl Zimmer,” p. 64; January 11, 2021, review of Life’s Edge, p. 54; August 28, 2023, review of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023, p. 108.
Quarterly Review of Biology, June 1, 1999, John A. Ruben, review of At the Water’s Edge, p. 222; September 1, 2004, Christopher Lawrence, review of Soul Made Flesh, p. 290.
Science Books and Films, July 1, 2008, Carolyn Bicknell Black, review of Microcosm, p. 156.
Science News, May 15, 2004, review of Soul Made Flesh, p. 319; May 24, 2008, Elizabeth Quill, review of Microcosm, p. 28; July 16, 2011, Tina Hesman Saey, review of A Planet of Viruses, p. 28; December 17, 2011, Erika Engelhaupt, review of Science Ink, p. 28.
Sciences, September 1, 2000, Laurence A. Marschall, review of Parasite Rex, p. 44.
Science Scope, June 22, 2007, Richard Frazier, review of Virus and the Whale, p. 80.
SciTech Book News, June 1, 2008, review of Microcosm.
Times (London, England), July 20, 2008, Oliver Morton, review of Microcosm.
Times Higher Education, July 24, 2008, Oliver Morton, review of Microcosm, p. 45.
Times Literary Supplement, June 17, 2022, Helen Bynum, review of Life’s Edge, p. 10.
ONLINE
Ars Technica, http://arstechnica.com/ (June 10, 2008), John Timmer, “Ars Book Review: Carl Zimmer’s Microcosm.”
Carl Zimmer website, http://www.carlzimmer.com (July 25, 2025).
Cleveland.com, http://www.cleveland.com/ (July 19, 2008), Karen R. Long, review of Microcosm.
Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/ (February 11, 2006), author interview.
Department of English, Yale University website, https://english.yale.edu/ (August 1, 2024), author profile.
Fresh Air, https://www.npr.org/ (June 11, 2018), Terry Gross, “A Science Writer Explores the ‘Perversions and Potential’ of Genetic Tests.”
Newsvine, http://darkside.newsvine.com/ (May 5, 2008), author interview.
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (July 24, 2025), author profile.
Powells.com, http://www.powells.com/ (January 22, 2009), author interview.
Salon.com, http://www.salon.com/ (February 1, 2006), Jill Wolfson, “You’re a Good Host.”
ScienceBlogs, http://scienceblogs.com/ (December 24, 2006), Sarah Dasher, author interview.
Carl Zimmer is the author of fifteen books about science. His latest book is Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe.
Zimmer writes the “Origins” column for the New York Times. His writing has earned a number of awards, including the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, awarded by the Society for the Study of Evolution. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he contributed to the coverage that won the New York Times the public service Pulitzer Prize in 2021. Three of his books have been named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. His book She Has Her Mother’s Laugh won the 2019 National Academies Communication Award. The Guardian named it the best science book of 2018.
In addition to his written journalism, Zimmer has hosted, produced, and appeared on numerous podcasts. His seven-episode series, “The Future of Aging,” was released in spring 2025. He is also a familiar voice on podcasts such as The Daily and Radiolab.
Zimmer is professor adjunct at Yale University, where he teaches writing. He is, to his knowledge, the only writer after whom both a species of tapeworm and an asteroid have been named.
Extended biography / curriculum vitae
Carl Zimmer reports from the frontiers of biology, where scientists are expanding our understanding of life. “No one unravels the mysteries of science as brilliantly and compellingly as Carl Zimmer,” David Grann, the author of The Wager, has said. New York has called him “the country’s most respected science journalist.” Zimmer has contributed reporting to the New York Times since 2004, and has been a columnist since 2013. In his “Origins” column, he explores how life’s diversity came to be. His journalism has won many awards, including the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, awarded by the Society for the Study of Evolution to recognize individuals whose sustained efforts have advanced public understanding of evolutionary science.
In addition to his written journalism, Zimmer has hosted, produced, and appeared on numerous podcasts. His seven-episode series, “The Future of Aging,” was released in spring 2025. In 2019, Zimmer created “What Is Life?” –an eight-episode series of live conversations with leading thinkers about why life exists, how it began, and other big questions about existence. He is also a familiar voice on podcasts such as The Daily and Radiolab.
Zimmer is also the author of fifteen books about science. His latest book is Air- Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. The Associated Press called it “gripping.”
His previous book, Life’s Edge, was picked by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of 2021 and was a finalist for the 2021 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna praised the book, saying, “Carl Zimmer shows what a great suspense novel science can be. Life’s Edge is a timely exploration in an age when modern Dr. Frankensteins are hard at work, but Carl’s artful, vivid, irresistible writing transcends the moment in these twisting chapters of intellectual revelation. Prepare to be enthralled.”
Zimmer started his journalism career at Discover, where he went on to serve for five years as a senior editor. He has also written for many other magazines including National Geographic, Wired, and The Atlantic. In 2003, Zimmer launched “The Loom,” an award-winning blog which has been hosted by Discover and National Geographic.
Zimmer is a two-time winner of an Online Journalism Award. He won in 2017 for his reporting on genomes for STAT. In 2021, his Covid-19 vaccine coverage was part of the package that earned the New York Times an award for general excellence. Zimmer is also a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Journalism Award, twice for his work for The New York Times and once for the Loom. Zimmer won the National Academies Science Communication Award in 2007 for “his diverse and consistently interesting coverage of evolution and unexpected biology.” In 2015, the National Association of Biology Teachers awarded Zimmer with their Distinguished Service Award. His work has been anthologized in both The Best American Science Writing series and The Best American Science and Nature Writing series. In 2023, Zimmer served as the editor of The Best of American Science and Nature Writing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he contributed to the coverage that won the New York Times the public service Pulitzer Prize in 2021.
In 1998, Zimmer published his first book, At the Water’s Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore and Then Went Back to Sea. Since then, Zimmer has written fourteen more books, for which he has won fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
In 2018, Zimmer publishedShe Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Power, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity.The Guardian named it the best science book of 2018, and the New York Times Book Review named it a notable book of the year. The book won the 2019 Communications Award from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and the Science in Society Journalism Award from the National Association of Science Writers.
Among his other books, Zimmer is the author of Soul Made Flesh, a history of neuroscience. It was also named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, and dubbed a “tour-de-force” by The Sunday Telegraph. His book Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea was called “as fine a book as one will find on the subject” by Scientific American. The Los Angeles Times called Parasite Rex “a book capable of changing how we see the world.” Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life, was hailed by Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See, as “superb…quietly revolutionary.” It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize. Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and The Huffington Post.
In 2021, the University of Chicago Press published the third edition of his book, A Planet of Viruses. In its review of the book, the Washington Post declared “science writer Carl Zimmer accomplishes in a mere 100 pages what other authors struggle to do in 500: He reshapes our understanding of the hidden realities at the core of everyday existence.” In 2021, Poland’s Jagiellonian University named A Planet of Viruses the Smart Book of the Year.
Zimmer is also the author of two widely praised textbooks. The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution was the first textbook about evolution ever published for non-majors. Choice named it an academic title of the year. Zimmer also co-authored Evolution: Making Sense of Life a textbook for biology majors, with University of Montana biologist Doug Emlen. The third edition was published in 2019, and a fourth edition is in preparation.
In addition to writing about science, Zimmer speaks frequently at universities, medical schools, museums, and festivals. In 2009, Zimmer began teaching writing workshops and seminars at Yale, and in 2017 he was appointed professor adjunct in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry.
Zimmer served a contributing national correspondent for STAT, a publication about health and medicine, where he hosted “Science Happens,” a video series that was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.
He is, to his knowledge, the only writer after whom both a species of tapeworm and an asteroid have been named.
You can find Zimmer on a lot of social media channels, such as Bluesky.
For more, check out this “Times Insider” story.
Carl Zimmer
I write the Origins column and cover news about science as a freelance contributor to The New York Times.
AboutContactLatest
What I Cover
I report on life — from microbes at the bottom of the sea to high-flying migratory birds to aliens that may dwell on other planets. For my column, I focus on how life today got its start, including our own species. Along with covering basic science, I write stories about how biological discoveries evolve into medical applications, such as editing genes and tending to our microbiome.
I wrote my first story for The Times in 2004 and became a columnist in 2013. I began my career in journalism at Discover Magazine, where I rose to senior editor. I have also written for The Atlantic, Scientific American, Wired and Time.
I am a professor adjunct at Yale’s Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, where I teach seminars on writing and biology lecture courses. My latest book is “Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe.” I have also coauthored a textbook on evolutionary biology, now in its fourth edition.
My books and articles have earned a number of awards, including the National Academies Communication Award and the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, given out by the Society for the Study of Evolution. I have won fellowships from the Johns Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I contributed to the coverage that won The Times the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2021. I am, to my knowledge, the only writer after whom both a species of tapeworm and an asteroid have been named.
I live with my wife in Connecticut, alongside salt marshes rife with snapping turtles.
Journalistic Ethics
All freelance contributors to The Times are held to the same standards of accuracy, fairness and integrity as staff members, as outlined in The Times’s Ethical Journalism Handbook. They agree to avoid conflicts of interest, to decline compensation or favors in exchange for coverage, and to identify themselves as journalists while reporting, among other rules. When freelancers work for other publications, they are held to those organizations’ standards, which may differ from those of The Times.
Contact Me
For speaking inquiries, contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau.
Email: carl.zimmer@nytimes.com
Professor (Adjunct) of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Lecturer in English
carlzimmer.com
Carl Zimmer is the science columnist for the New York Times and the author of 15 books. His latest book is Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. His previous books include Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive and She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. Both books were finalists the PEN/EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. She Has Her Mother’s Laugh also earned the National Academies Communication Award and the Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers and was a finalist for the Baillie-Gifford Prize for Nonfiction. He has won fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for his books.
At the Times, Zimmer contributed to the newspaper’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Zimmer has also written hundreds of articles for magazines including National Geographic, Wired, The Atlantic, and Scientific American. He is a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award. In addition, Zimmer has been awarded the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, an Online Journalism Award, and the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers. His articles have been anthologized in both The Best American Science Writing series and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He served as the guest editor of the 2023 edition of the Best American Science and Nature Writing.
Courses:
“Writing about Science, Medicine, and the Environment,” an undergraduate seminar.
Zimmer also teaches workshops for Yale science graduate students in science communication.
Selected Books:
Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. Dutton, 2025
Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive. Dutton, 2021.
She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Past and Future of Heredity. Dutton, 2018.
A Planet of Viruses. University of Chicago Press. First edition, 2011; second edition 2015; third edition 2021.
Evolution: Making Sense of Life. Macmillan. First edition, 2012; second edition 2015; third edition, 2019. Co-authored with evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen.
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life. Pantheon, 2008.
Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain and How It Changed the World. Free Press, 2004.
Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature’s Most Dangerous Creatures. Free Press, 2000.
Selected Articles (full archive at carlzimmer.com)
“Do We Need Language to Think?” The New York Times, June 19, 2024
“Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs.” The New York Times, May 7, 2024
“The Secret Life of a Coronavirus, The New York Times, February 28, 2021
“Nuclear Tests Marked Life on Earth With a Radioactive Spike,” The Atlantic, March 2020
“The Girl Who Turned to Bone,” The Atlantic, July 2013
updated August 2024
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the German physicist, see Karl Zimmer. For the German zoologist, see Carl Wilhelm Erich Zimmer.
Carl Zimmer
close-up of Carl Zimmer wearing a light blue shirt and dark gray jacket, speaking into a podium microphone onstage, looking left of camera
Zimmer in 2018
Born July 13, 1966 (age 58)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation
Popular science writerblogger
Language English
Alma mater Yale University (BA)
Subjects
Evolutionparasites
Children 2[1]
Website
carlzimmer.com
Carl Zimmer (born 1966) is an American popular science writer, blogger, columnist, and journalist who specializes in the topics of evolution, parasites, and heredity. The author of many books, he 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 and adjunct professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. Zimmer also gives frequent lectures and has appeared on many radio shows, including National Public Radio's Radiolab, Fresh Air, and This American Life.[1]
Zimmer describes his journalistic beat as "life" or "what it means to be alive".[2] He is the only science writer to have a species of tapeworm named after him (Acanthobothrium zimmeri).[3] Zimmer's father is Dick Zimmer, a Republican politician from New Jersey, who was a member of U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997.
Early life and education
Zimmer received a B.A. in English from Yale University in 1987.[4]
Career
In 1989, Zimmer began his career at Discover magazine, first as a copy editor and fact checker, eventually serving as a senior editor from 1994 to 1998.[1][5][6] Zimmer left Discover after ten years to focus on books and other projects. In 2004, he started a blog called "The Loom", in which he wrote about topics related to his books, but later expanded it into what he terms "a place where I could write about things I might not be turning into an article for a magazine, but were really interesting'.[5] The Loom has been hosted by Discover and National Geographic for many years, and has been invited to be part of Scienceblogs. It was transferred to Zimmer's personal website in 2018.[7] Zimmer writes a weekly column called "Matter" in The New York Times.[8] Zimmer and the STAT team have put out "Game of Genomes", a 13-part series that enlisted two dozen scientists, with the goal of exploring Zimmer's own genome.[9]
He has given lectures at universities, medical schools, and museums.[6] In 2009, Zimmer was the keynote speaker at Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS). He also presented at NECSS 2011 and CSICon 2018.[10] Zimmer has twice been a spotlight speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in 2017 and 2018.[11] In 2009 and 2010 he was host of the periodic audio podcast "Meet the Scientist"[12] of the American Society for Microbiology. Zimmer's 2004 article "Whose Life Would You Save?"[13] was included in the 2005 The Best American Science and Nature Writing series.[6][14]
Zimmer has received a number of awards, including the 2007 National Academies Communication Award, a prize for science communication[15] from the United States National Academy of Sciences, for his wide-ranging coverage of biology and evolution in newspapers, magazines, and his blog. In 2016 Yale University appointed Zimmer Adjunct Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, stating that he is "a world-renowned science journalist and teacher, and his ability to make science, particularly biology, accessible to the general public is without peer". Zimmer has taught a science communication course at Yale since 2017 and participates in other molecular biophysics and biochemistry courses.[16][17]
Fellowships
2002: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.[18]
2005: Poynter Fellowship, Yale University. Invited speaker, Psychology.[4]
2006: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for Public Understanding of Science and Technology[4]
2010: Poynter Fellowship, Yale. Invited speaker, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry[4]
2015: Osher Fellowship, California Academy of Sciences[19]
2017: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant for Public Understanding of Science and Technology[20]
Honors
Zimmer speaking at the 2011 NECSS conference
1994: Everett Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists, awarded "to encourage young science writers by recognizing outstanding reporting and writing in any field of science."[21]
1997: American Institute of Biological Sciences' Media Award that "recognizes outstanding reporting on biology to a general audience."[22]
1999: The Pan American Health Organization's Award for Excellence in International Health Reporting[4]
2004, 2009, 2012: American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science Journalism Award, awarded to honor "professional journalists for distinguished reporting on the sciences, engineering, and mathematics".[23][24]
2007: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Science Communication Award, awarded to "recognize excellence in reporting and communicating science, engineering, and medicine to the general public", in the category Newspaper/magazine/internet[25]
2015: National Association of Biology Teachers' (NABT) Distinguished Service Award, awarded to "recognize teachers for their expertise in specific subject areas, for contributions to the profession made by new teachers, and to recognize service to NABT, life science teaching, or leadership in learning communities."[26]
2016: Society for the Study of Evolution's The Stephen Jay Gould Prize, awarded "to recognize individuals whose sustained and exemplary efforts have advanced public understanding of evolutionary science and its importance in biology, education, and everyday life in the spirit of Stephen Jay Gould."[27]
2017: Online News Association's Online Journalism Award, awarded in the explanatory reporting category.[28]
2019: Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers for his book, She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potentials of Heredity.[29]
2021: Asteroid 212073 Carlzimmer, discovered by astronomers with the Mount Lemmon Survey in 2005, was named in his honor. The naming was announced by the International Astronomical Union on June 16, 2021.[30] The number 212073 is an Easter egg for some of the properties of DNA (the first digit 2 for the double helix, followed by the nucleobases encoded as A=1, T=20, G=7, and C=3).[31]
Bibliography
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (July 2015)
Books
Zimmer, Carl (1998). At the water's edge : macroevolution and the transformation of life. New York: Free Press.
— (1999). At the water's edge : fish with fingers, whales with legs, and how life came ashore but then went back to sea (First Touchstone ed.). New York: Touchstone.
— (2000). Parasite rex : inside the bizarre world of nature's most dangerous creatures. New York: Free Press.
— (2001). Evolution : the triumph of an idea.
— (2004). Soul made flesh. Free Press.
— (2005). Smithsonian intimate guide to human origins. New York: Smithsonian Books.
— (2005). Where did we come from? An intimate guide to the latest discoveries in human origins. Sydney: ABC Books for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Darwin, Charles (2007). The descent of man : the concise edition. Selections and commentary by Carl Zimmer. Plume.
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life London : William Heinemann Ltd., 2008 ISBN 0434016241
The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution. Roberts, 2009, ISBN 1936221446
Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind. Independent Publishers Group, 2010, ISBN 1935622145
More Brain Cuttings: Further Explorations of the Mind. New York : Scott & Nix, Inc., 2011 ISBN 1935622293
A Planet of Viruses (2011) ISBN 0-226-98335-8
Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed (2011) ISBN 978-1-4027-8360-9
Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. Reprint. Sterling: New York, 2014. ISBN 1454912405
A Planet of Viruses. 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2015. ISBN 022629420X
Evolution: Making Sense of Life. co-authored with Douglas Emlen. Roberts and Company; Greenwood Village, Colorado, 2016 ISBN 1936221365
She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. Dutton: New York, New York, 2018 ISBN 1101984597 [32]
Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive New York: Dutton, 2021.
Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe New York: Dutton, 2025.
Essays and chapters
Zimmer, Carl (July 1995). "Carriers of extinction". Discover. 16 (7): 28, 30.
— (August 1995). "No Skycaps needed". Discover. 16 (8): 28.
— (January 1996). "From fin to hand". Discover. 17 (1): 50–51.
— (January 1996). "From teeth to beak". Discover. 17 (1): 50.
— (January 1996). "Verdict (almost) in". Discover. 17 (1): 78–79.
— (January 1996). "The State of the Earth : 1995". Discover. 17 (1): 80–81.
— (February 1996). "Circus science". Discover. 17 (2): 56–63.
— (April 1996). "Beetle of burden". Discover. 17 (4): 27.
— (March 2010). "Fatal attraction". National Geographic. 217 (3). Photographs by Helene Schmitz: 80–95. Archived from the original on February 20, 2010.
— (2006). "Making sense of evolution". In Diamond, Judy (ed.). Virus and the whale : exploring evolution small and large. Arlington, Va: NSTA Press.
— (2006). "Evolution in seven organisms". In Diamond, Judy (ed.). Virus and the whale : exploring evolution small and large. Arlington, Va: NSTA Press.
— (June 2013). "The mystery of the second skeleton". The Atlantic. 311 (5): 72–82.[33]
Critical studies and reviews of Zimmer's work
She has her mother's laugh
Flannery, Tim (March 7–20, 2019). "Our twisted DNA". The New York Review of Books. 66 (4): 38–39.
In ''Air-Borne,'' his detailed and gripping account of aerobiology, Carl Zimmer uncovers the mysteries filling our lungs.
AIR-BORNE: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, by Carl Zimmer
At the start of 2020, a small team of scientists tried and failed to convince public health organizations that Covid-19 was spread through the air we breathe. Why they failed, and how they ultimately won, is the subject of Carl Zimmer's new book, ''Air-Borne.''
Until 2020, explains Zimmer (a New York Times science columnist), scientists thought that respiratory diseases like Covid spread through droplets, and that these droplets had a limited range. Coughed up, they fell quickly to the ground -- like ''soggy raisins,'' to use the vivid if disgusting terminology of a 1990s health official speaking about tuberculosis.
Thus the recommendation offered by the World Health Organization: ''Maintain at least one meter (three feet) distance between yourself and other people, particularly those who are coughing, sneezing and have a fever.''
''Air-Borne'' shows us how the scientific community came to understand that Covid-19 transmission was less akin to shots from a gun, and more like smog in a valley. To explain, Zimmer takes us through the history of aerobiology, and in his detailed and gripping account, he ascribes the reluctance of both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization to a bias born of an ancient battle between two factions known as ''miasmatists'' and ''contagionists.''
According to miasmatists, bad air destroyed health. In the Middle Ages, swamps meant fever. And when Benjamin Rush looked for the cause of 1793's deadly yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia, he smelled bags of spoiled coffee: ''Their sickness commenced with the day on which the coffee began to emit its putrid smell.''
In the 1800s, when contagionists began to see germs as culprits, their theories gained ground -- partly because tools had been invented to see their postulated micro-organisms. Starting in the 1870s, Robert Koch identified the bacterium that caused anthrax, then tuberculosis and cholera.
At the same time, still more microscopic organisms were shown to be airborne. The United States enlisted Amelia Earhart to track them by plane, while on the ground William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells, a brilliant if cranky couple, not known for winning over colleagues to their unorthodox way of thinking, mapped out the ways contagions spread through public spaces like schools. Their work indicated that tuberculosis was airborne. Ditto measles, still among the most contagious diseases on record.
The Wellses hoped their research could protect the troops, warning that respiratory diseases killed more men than the Germans did in World War I. Their colleagues ignored them. The Army, however, became interested in weaponizing airborne contagion, and the Wellses had shown how droplet nuclei could spread diseases over long distances.
''The bearing of these findings on bacterial warfare is far-reaching,'' wrote Theodor Rosebury (in a report written with Elvin Kaba), a dentist recruited to run the Army's secret Airborne Infection Project. Rosebury later renounced his work, which violated the Geneva Protocol's biological weapons ban, but his writings, per Zimmer, encouraged the Soviets to build up their biological arsenal, further encouraging the United States to build up theirs.
It was a Catch-22 that endangered the world and colored the way America managed public health threats. Bill Clinton, stoked in part by a fictional plot in ''The Cobra Event,'' took bioterrorism as a reason to further connect public health and national defense.
Under the George W. Bush administration, Zimmer writes, billions of dollars went to fight abstract threats at the expense of actual ones -- like H.I.V., tuberculosis, malaria, measles and cholera -- that annually kill millions.
Through the 1990s, viruses were described in terms of war -- the ''single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet,'' in the words of the Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg. Slowly, researchers like Linsey Marr returned to the Wellses' work, which was rooted in community.
An environmental engineer, Marr had shifted her focus from smog to the spread of influenza in 2009, a change inspired by her son, who regularly brought home sicknesses from day care. Marr was surprised at how little we knew about how viruses were transmitted, and she worked out the math. ''Every year,'' Zimmer writes, ''she would turn to the chalkboard in her lecture hall and derive equations to show her students that particles much bigger than five microns can readily stay in the air for a long time.'' Winds, for instance, carry grains of sand.
The resistance to work like Marr's was fierce: As Covid spread, The New England Journal of Medicine rejected her work, while Anthony Fauci discounted a warning by Lydia Bourouiba, an engineer at M.I.T. who studied turbulence and whose research showed how breath followed the physics of aerosols, or clouds.
The debate could seem like miasmatists versus contagionists all over again. But researchers like Marr and Bourouiba were reframing public health generally, balancing the warlike defeat of a pathogen with a focus on building safe environments. ''The Covid-19 pandemic made the ocean of gases surrounding us visible,'' Zimmer writes. ''Air-Borne'' shows us the ways seeing where we live means listening deeply -- and being prepared to see what's perhaps never been seen.
AIR-BORNE: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe | By Carl Zimmer | Dutton | 466 pp. | $32
CAPTION(S):
PHOTO: Travelers at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in March 2020 at the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) This article appeared in print on page BR10.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 The New York Times Company
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Sullivan, Robert. "Deep Breath." The New York Times Book Review, 4 May 2025, p. 10. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A838281335/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=62d1ffbc. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Air-Borne. By Carl Zimmer. Dutton; 496 pages; $32. To be published in Britain by Picador in June; £25
ON MARCH 28TH 2020, as many countries went into lockdown, the World Health Organisation (WHO) posted a tweet: "FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne." People could try to avoid covid by keeping their distance from others and washing their hands regularly. The message was simple. It was also simply wrong: the coronavirus is, in fact, airborne. It can remain active as an aerosol for up to three hours, and the droplets can travel farther than scientists realised. (Consensus-breaking researchers in Guangzhou, China, proved this by studying the transmission of the virus in a restaurant.) Yet it took more than a year —and a huge cache of evidence—for the WHO to change its mind and messaging.
In "Air-Borne", Carl Zimmer, a science journalist, shows that the WHO's wrongheadedness has historical precedent. Though epidemiologists have long understood that coughs and sneezes spread diseases, many never took seriously enough the possibility that infective agents could hang around or travel through the air. Instead received wisdom has had it that droplets of liquid, after being exhaled, fall quickly to the ground. Had airborne diseases received due attention from researchers, the book implies, then covid-19 and perhaps some previous influenzas, would have been more quickly controlled or even prevented entirely.
To explain epidemiologists' resistance to the idea of airborne disease transmission, Mr Zimmer goes back to the early days of germ theory in the 19th century. For decades people believed that "miasmas"—phantasmal toxic vapours—caused disease. (The word "malaria", for example, is Italian for "bad air".) But as scientists came to understand more about pathogens, the idea that air could be a source of contagion became deeply unfashionable.
Two of the heroes of Mr Zimmer's book are William and Mildred Wells, a married pair of American researchers. In the 1940s they conducted experiments to see if ultraviolet lamps could kill germs and purify air, fitting the lamps in hospitals, schools, barracks and even an entire town in upstate New York. The outcome was variable, but with enough successes—particularly against measles—that open minds might have conducted larger, better-funded studies. The second world war, however, put paid to much of their research. It is ironic, Mr Zimmer writes, that America's biological-weapons programme was predicated on the idea that the pathogens would spread through the air, but that many still refused to change their opinion about how natural germs got around.
Has the message now got through? Engineers have built on the Wells' research and developed effective "far ultraviolet C" lamps for spaces where aerial transmission of pathogens is likely, such as clubs and restaurants. Yet whether epidemiologists have changed their thinking remains to be seen. The hope is that, when the next pandemic arrives, the WHO and others will give the possibility of airborne transmission more oxygen.
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"Five years after covid, have scientists learned their lesson?" The Economist, 27 Mar. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A832718236/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7ae4dac6. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Byline: Meredith Wolf Schizer
Our air quality plays an important role in maintaining the health of both our planet and the general public. In his new book, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, award-winning science journalist and author Carl Zimmer dives deep into the science behind aerobiology--identifying how microorganisms, pollutants and viruses occupy the air around us. In this Q&A, Zimmer lends his expertise to shed light on the dangers of airborne pathogens, pollutants from wildfire smoke and the potential of biological weapons.
What most surprised you while researching this book?
During the pandemic, scientists sparred over how COVID spread. Some researchers said it was airborne, but public health authorities like the World Health Organization flatly said it wasn't. It took two years for the WHO to publicly turn around. This seemed very strange to me at the time as a journalist. I was very surprised to discover just how much of our basic understanding of airborne transmission had been worked out almost a century ago. Unfortunately, those lessons got forgotten, along with the pioneers who learned them.
Should we be concerned about any specific airborne viruses now?
Some familiar diseases out there are mainly or solely airborne. Tuberculosis is one. Measles is highly airborne as well. For other common diseases, the picture is not yet clear--mainly because there hasn't been enough focus on research that can clearly work out how pathogens are getting from person to person. Influenza may be able to spread by contact with contaminated surfaces, with short-range coughs flinging droplets at people's faces and also by long-term airborne transmission. But scientists are still running experiments to figure out how important each channel is. That's something we really need to understand better--especially with H5N1 threatening to jump from animals to people these days.
Some diseases can travel through the air over staggering distances. Valley Fever, for example, is caused by a fungus that gets kicked up from the soil by erosion and wind and can be blown for hundreds of miles. And climate change is predicted to loft more of these fungi into the air in the years to come and cause more cases of Valley Fever in the United States.
These are all big concerns. But perhaps the biggest of all is what scientists call Disease X: a pandemic pathogen that now circulates among animals but will jump over sometime in the future. If it becomes airborne, it will be all the more difficult to fight. We know this already, because of the surprises that COVID delivered back in 2020.
How much should we worry about air pollution on a day-to-day basis?
Air pollution from sources like cars and coal-fired power plants takes a mind-boggling toll on the world's health. In a recent study, scientists estimated it kills 8 million people annually. Air pollution deaths in the United States have dropped a lot as the country has cleaned up its air. But it's still responsible for 48,000 premature deaths.
What effect do wildfires like the recent ones in Los Angeles have?
Wildfires pump vast numbers of microbes high into the atmosphere. That may be hard to believe--shouldn't wildfires just kill everything in their path? It turns out that life can survive in the intense updrafts created by fires. They can pull bacteria and fungi off of leaves and bark, and even out of the ground. They become airborne and can soar miles into the sky. Then the winds can blow them for vast distances before they settle back to Earth--or get inhaled by us.
What about long-term health implications of smoke and fires?
Wildfire smoke can deliver a huge dose of air pollution in very little time. It has been linked to a range of conditions, from asthma to heart disease. And when wildfires hit cities like Los Angeles, they don't just burn plants. They burn plastic, paint and all sorts of other artificial materials--which create their own set of harms when people breathe them in.
Should airborne biological weapons be a concern? How can we protect ourselves from bad actors?
In World War II, the United States military borrowed pioneering research on aerobiology to design new kinds of weapons. They investigated anthrax bombs that could be dropped from planes and giant hoses that naval ships could use to spray germs on coastal cities. They continued to build biological weapons for decades after the war. But Americans were not the only ones: The Soviet Union worked even longer on biological weapons, experimenting with smallpox and other highly lethal pathogens.
These germ warfare programs raised fears that a rogue country or terrorist cell could start an epidemic that would kill millions of people. But that has not happened. Historians have concluded that the greatest toll from biological weapons over the past century took place in China, where the Japanese army unleashed germs on soldiers and civilians. But their attacks probably only killed tens of thousands of people at most.
The fear of biological weapons--fueled by breathless books and movies--may have caused more harm. The Bush administration justified starting the Iraq War in part with claims that Saddam Hussein had a massive stockpile of biological weapons. He didn't. But Bush invaded Iraq anyway, and the war led to hundreds of thousands of deaths anyway.
What's a favorite fact about air?
It's crazy how much we don't yet understand about the life in the air. Scientists have long suspected that insects migrate in big numbers through the sky, for example. But until recently they couldn't watch the bugs in flight. Last year, a team of scientists used radar to scan for insects above a few hundred square miles of China. They found over 9 trillion insects soaring through the sky each year. That's 15,000 tons of insect biomass--just in one corner of China!
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com
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Schizer, Meredith Wolf. "Q&A: Carl Zimmer on Airborne Diseases: 'These Are All Big Concerns'; Award-winning science journalist and author Carl Zimmer details the dangers of new viruses, air pollution and wildfires on public and planet health." Newsweek, vol. 184, no. 7, 7 Mar. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828525834/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=27954fa6. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Zimmer, Carl AIR-BORNE Dutton (NonFiction None) $32.00 2, 25 ISBN: 9780593473597
What we know--and continue to learn--about a substance that sustains us.
In this enlightening history, Zimmer writes of efforts to study the "gaseous ocean in which we all live," which "contains exhaled viruses that can then be inhaled." Air itself became an embattled space during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as theNew York Times science writer shows, such discord isn't without precedent. His opening chapters evoke dreadful images--14th-century plague doctors tried to evade infection by wearing masks with beaks that contained, among other substances, "the ground remains of human mummies"--and explain advances made by visionary scientists and physicians. In 1864, responding to a colleague who disagreed with his theories about airborne microorganisms, Louis Pasteur used lab tools and edifying props during a pivotal Sorbonne lecture on his "hunt for floating germs." Inspired by Pasteur's breakthroughs, Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, began using carbolic acid when treating compound fractures, substantially reducing infections. In the 20th century, William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells, husband-and-wife collaborators, made essential contributions to the study of airborne viruses. But, Zimmer notes, "their difficult personalities" and misinterpretations of their findings robbed them of due credit, a measure of which arrived posthumously when doctors treating Covid-19 cited the importance of William's work (while mostly ignoring Mildred's role). A recurring theme is the "failure of imagination" that has prevented governments and global organizations alike from recognizing "the full threat of an airborne disease." Such failures, many scientists believe, contributed to avoidable Covid-19 deaths. Alongside informative chapters about terrifying government projects to build airborne biological weapons, Zimmer recounts some of the field's more cinematic episodes. In the 1930s, researchers dropped a spore-collecting device from a helium balloon piloted by military men wearing leather football helmets.
An astute, accessible look at science's hard-won understanding of our air.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Zimmer, Carl: AIR-BORNE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Jan. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A823102341/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=fef1821e. Accessed 2 July 2025.
* Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe.
By Carl Zimmer.
Feb. 2025. 496p. Dutton, $32 (9780593473597). 551.5.
The aerobiome is a complex collection of life, including bacteria, fungal spores, pollen, and viruses transiently inhabiting the atmosphere. It is a domain in constant flux that can alter weather and greatly impact human health. Science journalist Zimmer (Life's Edge, 2021) labels the aerobiome, "a peculiar realm: an ecosystem of visitors." He highlights the personalities, drama, research, novel scientific instruments, and confounding controversy over airborne infections ("floating germs") associated with the elucidation of the aerobiome's composition and importance. A chilling and revealing portion of the book focuses on biological warfare.
In the 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt approved the making of biological weapons, which at that time could have involved anthrax spores or parrot fever (psittacosis). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was suspected of manufacturing smallpox bombs. Zimmer's intriguing discussion includes ideas about how clouds are alive with microbes, the aerosolization of viruses from regular breathing, and the use of ultraviolet light to sterilize the air. Over 100,000 tons of bacteria are discharged into the air annually from dust storms, hurricanes, forest fires, even the crash of ocean waves. Around 50 million tons of fungal spores are set free into the air each year. Breathtaking facts plus superior science writing equals engaging, essential reading.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 American Library Association
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Miksanek, Tony. "Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 9-10, Jan. 2025, p. 10. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A829739235/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dc43e2cf. Accessed 2 July 2025.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023. Mariner. Oct. 2023.272p. ed. by Carl Zimmer & Jaime Green. ISBN 9780063293212. pap. $18.99. REF
This 23rd volume collects 20 essays that were published in 2022 in both general-interest and popular-science publications, such as Harper's, New York Times Magazine, Wired, Scientific American, Audubon, Quanta, and many more. Science journalist and New York Times columnist Zimmer (Life's Edge) and science writer Green (The Possibility of Life) edit this latest edition. There are essays about headline news and ongoing topics--COVID and climate change, for example--that go beyond statistics. The book also focuses on lesser-known science stories about the cows of Cedar Island, NC; successfully tracking a disease outbreak in Provincetown, MA; and the moral injuries experienced by health care workers forced to ration care. Other highlights are texts examining wonder, brain implants that help paralyzed people to communicate, and the collective behavior of fireflies, plus personal narratives that reveal gaps in medical research and health care. VERDICT Readers can catch up on a year's worth of well-written discoveries and investigations in this collection. Appropriate for adults as well as readers as young as middle school.--Catherine Lantz
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Lantz, Catherine. "The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023." Library Journal, vol. 148, no. 11, Nov. 2023, pp. 77+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A773380824/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=fdd6cfe6. Accessed 2 July 2025.
* The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023
Edited by Carl Zimmer. Mariner, $18.99 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-329321-2
New York Times columnist Zimmer (Life's Edge) brings together 20 captivating pieces of science journalism that find reason for hope amid despair. One among several essays focusing on Covid-19, Elizabeth Svoboda's "An Invisible Epidemic" discusses the guilt suffered by healthcare workers who feel they provided inadequate care for Covid patients as hospitals became overwhelmed. On the flip side, Maryn McKenna highlights a rare feelgood pandemic story, describing in "When Covid Came for Provincetown" how adherence to public health guidance and contact tracing curbed a July 2021 Covid wave in the Cape Cod town. Climate change also looms large among the entries, with Douglas Fox reporting in "The Coming Collapse" that the melting of Antarctica's Thwaites Ice Shelf is likely more imminent than previously thought, putting "the homes of at least twenty million US people" at risk of falling below sea level. More uplifting essays describe the efforts of scientists working to save such endangered species as California's marbled murrelets, the Poweshiek skipperling butterflies of the Midwest, and yellow-legged frogs in the Sierra Nevada. The contributors showcase science journalism's capacity to educate while entertaining, and the timely bent of the selections gives the collection a sense of urgency, as in Annie Lowrey's poignant reflection on suffering medical complications during her two pregnancies and the choices women and their doctors face in post-Roe America. Readers will be enthralled. (Oct.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 35, 28 Aug. 2023, pp. 108+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A765086211/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c04487fb. Accessed 2 July 2025.
LIFE'S EDGE
The search for what it means to be alive
CARL ZIMMER
368pp. Picador. 20 [pounds sterling].
In his new book, Life's Edge, Carl Zimmer attempts to explain what being "alive" means. In elegant prose, he takes the reader on a fascinating journey exploring the experiences of life for humans and other primates, as well as bats, pythons, maple trees, bacteria, viruses, liposomes and even four lifelike blue droplets in a dish. His hope is to find a neat, universal definition of "life" that everyone will accept.
Zimmer starts the book by exploring life's beginnings and endings (two of the many "edges" he identifies). He reminds us at the outset that our opinion of what counts as life has changed over time. In a laboratory in California there are globes known as brain organoids, "the size of a housefly head ... made up of hundreds of thousands of human neurones", that do "many of the things that our own brains do". These began as a single cell and have been allowed to grow and organize. They fulfil some of what Zimmer reports as the frequently acknowledged requirements for "life" (feeding, reproducing, evolving, homeostasis, a certain level of complexity), but clearly not all, especially when compared "to the life we know best, the benchmark against which we judge all possible kinds of life: our own".
Technology has created new ways to help us measure the signs of life, and our collective moral compass has tried to rule on how we employ that technology. If the mere potential for a human life, inherent in egg and sperm cells, is considered a beginning, then, in the words of the Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, "Life in fact never begins".
Instead it flows seamlessly through the generations. As to the end of human life, Zimmer considers the example of Jahi, a teenager from California who was declared "brain dead" by the current standard criteria. When her parents opted to maintain life support, her body underwent puberty and it was found that part of her brain, the hypothalamus, was still functioning. Jahi's body continued to operate so long as she was ventilated, fed and generally cared for. Zimmer observes that though the "cells in our bodies are alive", what he calls "our human life is not defined by its parts alone. What matters for a human life is how its parts are integrated".
Next he considers what we can learn about being "alive" from extreme adaptations in the animal world. Zimmer visits Haydee, a Burmese python. Just being alive requires energy in the form of calories to keep the body's cells ticking along. This minimal amount of energy is known as the basal metabolic rate. Humans are regular eaters, and we see only a modest and short-lived increase in our basal metabolism when we eat. This is in stark contrast to Haydee. She is an extreme sit-and-wait, feast-and-famine eater: an adaptation that allows her to remain largely immobile, gorge when the opportunity arises, then eat nothing. A python's basal metabolism starts from a very low level, but as it swallows its prey, and during the days after a meal, it undergoes phenomenal changes. After dinner, some of Haydee's organs break their adaptive dormancy. They grow rapidly and develop an enhanced functionality, digesting, absorbing and distributing nutrients before finally expelling the waste. To achieve this, several thousand genes are switched on in a vast cascade. Dormant pathways that other animals use for normal growth, stress responses and fixing damaged DNA fire up. When digestion is complete, Haydee's genes downshift equally quickly. The extra tissues waste away and she returns to the remarkably low minimal metabolism of her normal life.
Haydee's evolutionary adaptations mean that between meals parts of her body are quiescent, but there's no suggestion that she is not obviously "alive", especially when she is compared with the stripped-back lifestyle of a virus. Viruses are just molecules of nucleic acid in a protein coat. They need another cell to make copies of themselves, exhibiting only a sort of "borrowed life". Yet, unlike others, Zimmer is reluctant to exclude such subcellular organisms from the roster of the living, given that they "outnumber every form of cell-based life combined", and are blended into "life's ecological web". Viruses and less complex organisms are the inhabitants of deep time (and possibly deep space), and this brings Carl Zimmer to his final "edge" of life: its origins. "Life depends on genes for heredity and on proteins for its metabolism, but it also needs membranes to survive", for life "cannot exist as a boundless cloud of chemicals". He tracks down the scientists developing exciting new ways of understanding the origins of these constituent parts, and hence of life itself. But even this only upholds his conclusion that our understanding of life, at least for the moment, remains incomplete and beyond words.
Helen Bynum is a freelance writer. She is the co-author of Remarkable Plants That Shape Our World, 2014, and Botanical Sketchbooks, 2017
Caption: Bacteria growing in a petri dish
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 NI Syndication Limited
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Bynum, Helen. "Land of the living: What constitutes life." TLS. Times Literary Supplement, no. 6220, 17 June 2022, p. 10. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A707876532/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f60be30d. Accessed 2 July 2025.
LIFE'S EDGEThe Search for What It Means to Be AliveBy Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer's book begins with a bang. Not a Big Bang, but a small one. In the fall of 1904, a 31-year-old physicist, John Butler Burke, working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University, made a ''bouillon'' of chunks of boiled beef in water. To this mix, he added a dab of radium, the newly discovered element glowing with radioactive energy, and waited overnight. The next morning, he skimmed the radioactive soup, smeared a layer on a glass slide and placed it under a microscope. He saw spicules of coalesced matter -- ''radiobes,'' as he called them -- that resembled, to his eyes, the most primeval forms of life.
He was convinced that he had made a major discovery. ''They are entitled to be classed among living things,'' he would later write. It was heralded as a monumental advance -- noted in newspapers and scientific journals. That December, black-tied physicists from the Cavendish gathered to celebrate Burke's astonishing achievement. They sang:
Through me they say life was created And animals formed out of clay, With bouillon I'm told I was mated And started the life of today.
Burke's fall from fame, unfortunately, would be as precipitous as his rise. His ''radiobes'' would later turn out to have little to do with living chemicals, or life. But Burke, convinced that he had discovered ''artificial life'' and potentially shed light on life's origins (make soup, throw in radioactivity, then just add water), turned into a ridiculous crank. Brushed off by the scientific community, this fleeting star of biology would die, impoverished and ranting about how his ''radiobes'' held the clue to life. He would eventually become the butt of scientific jokes -- the modern version of the medieval alchemist who was once convinced that a mixture of semen and rotting meat, incubated in a warm hole, could spontaneously form a homunculus, a miniature human.
Zimmer begins his elegant, deeply researched book with this story of a scientist's near-biblical fall to remind us that, for centuries, fables about the origin of life have fascinated, mystified and, at times, bedeviled and confounded thinkers. The book tackles among the most difficult questions: What is life? How did it begin? And what criteria should we even use to define something as ''living''?
Zimmer sprinkles his book with stories that both dazzle and edify the reader. We find him first on a beach in La Jolla, looking at a monster-size kelp and wondering if it can be counted among the living. In a laboratory, he finds scientists creating mini-brains out of differentiating neurons and puzzling over whether what they've created are simulacra of real brains. Are these brain ''organoids'' capable of thinking? Do they dream? And if so, do they satisfy the definition of sentience? Is ''sentience'' -- in its broadest capacity, to sense the world around a being -- the be-all and end-all of life?
But sentience itself cannot be sufficient; we now have machines and robots that can simulate this sort of awareness, even if that ''sentience'' doesn't repose in a living being. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question, Zimmer wonders. Is ''life'' the resistance of death? One mark of resistance is metabolism. Metabolism -- the conversion of matter into molecular forms of energy, and the conversion of molecular energy to fuel growth -- is crucial to all living beings. Is this ''grow or die'' phenomenon the hallmark of life? Zimmer brings us to pythons in a lab that remain in a minimal metabolic state until they are fed, and then ramp up the activity in their tissues; the change from the resting state to their postprandial state has no parallel in the vertebrate world. He visits scientists who store spores from a mold that are dead by all standards: no metabolism, no sentience, no activity, until the addition of a bit of water vivifies them into life. Once alive, these molds exhibit a primeval form of deliberate behavior: They can burrow through mazes, reach under glass and find sources of sugar.
Deep inside a cave of bats, Zimmer discovers yet another defining feature of life: homeostasis, the maintenance of constancy. The bats -- weighing ''about as much as an empty envelope,'' an evocative description -- enter a state of hibernation through the winter, using the cave's own homeostasis to buttress their own (buried in rock, and with little air exchange, the cave retains a relatively even temperature, as do the bats). When the spring comes, and the bats have to fly through gusts of wind, they use homeostasis to stay in place in midair.
If there's a theme that runs through the first section of Zimmer's book, it is this: The definitions of life that arose from the minds of 19th-century thinkers -- metabolism, sentience, homeostasis, evolution -- are physiological descriptions, dealing entirely with the operational. Life is what life does.
But a new sense of what life is began to emerge in the 1940s. In the folklore of biology, it is a breakthrough often traced back to a thin little book recording the words of a lecture. But the roots of this revolution are considerably more complex: World War II, and its terrifying political prelude, had forcibly caused a host of scientists -- physicists and physical chemists, most prominently -- to emigrate from Europe to the United Kingdom and the Americas. And just as much as a physical migration, this was accompanied by an intellectual one. These scientists wanted to explore the new continent of biology, and saw a new question to ask: Could we think of life as a collection of special molecules and reactions? In 1944, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger spoke about these ideas in a lecture in Dublin, and eventually distilled his radical thoughts in a book, ''What Is Life?''
To understand the basis of life, Schrödinger argued, was to understand how information was encoded, transmitted and reproduced. Presciently, he predicted that life's information was carried in a molecule, one that could provide a ''code-script'' for building an entire organism.
That molecule, of course, is DNA (or, in rare instances, RNA). Zimmer is particularly brilliant in telling the story of DNA. He takes us back to Cambridge, where a daydreaming physicist meets a voluble biologist: Watson bumps into Crick. Crick's ''bosses at the Cavendish discouraged him from his daydreaming, but in 1951 he met a young American visiting Cambridge who also loved 'What Is Life?' James Watson was happy to talk about DNA with Crick for hours on end.''
Zimmer cautiously condenses the story of the discovery -- especially the remarkable role of Rosalind Franklin, who was meticulously working on DNA and on the verge of discovering its structure, and whose X-ray pictures Watson became privy to. The iconic structure of the DNA double helix makes its due appearance, but Zimmer is careful to note that this was just the beginning, not the end, of our mechanistic understanding of life, and of those who contributed to it. ''Rosalind Franklin is missing from the photograph, for one thing,'' he writes, giving Franklin her historical due.
But the structure of DNA, too, was merely a prelude to our understanding of life. Crick, Watson, Sydney Brenner, Matthew Meselson, Frank Stahl and Marshall Nirenberg, among many others, would carry forward the mission of deciphering how the ''code script'' written in the DNA molecule leads to how life ''happens'' -- how it reproduces, and how the code is carried forward for generations. Franklin, unfortunately, would never get full recognition for her work: By the time the Nobel Prize for deciphering the structure of DNA was awarded, she had died of ovarian cancer.
The ''new'' biology, Zimmer points out, was no longer about the descriptive (how life is), but about the mechanistic (how life works). Crick wrote his own book -- a sort of answer to Schrödinger's, named ''Of Molecules and Men'' -- which, while criticized for overly simplifying biology, was also praised for laying out a new manifesto. Life, according to Crick, was an epiphenomenon of physics and chemistry -- complex, yes, but still explicable in molecular terms. At a NASA meeting in 1992, scientists captured this new big-picture definition in a sentence: ''Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.'' It was a synthesis, or perhaps an armistice, between the old and the new, between the physiologists and the molecular evolutionists. The ''self-sustained chemical system'' dismissed the idea that there was something special about living chemicals. But the idea of Darwinian evolution -- at the molecular, or organismal, level -- retained ideas from the 19th century.
In his final section, Zimmer turns, predictably, to viruses. This could hardly be more topical: A piece of RNA, packaged inside a molecular envelope, has gripped the globe and caused a pandemic, turning the world upside down. Again, his analysis of virology is succinct but allows for complexity: He acknowledges the debates in the field, and allows the reader an inner glimpse into how scientists are learning to think about these ''borderlands'' -- microbes that are not alive, but can parasitize the biology of living beings.
The book ends where it began: with a search for the origin of life. In the early 1950s, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, building on ideas first proposed by Alexander Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane, performed an experiment that would be a counterpart to Burke's search for ''radiobes.'' They set up an apparatus with a mixture of water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen -- another primeval soup -- and flashed electrical sparks to simulate lightning into the sealed glass chamber. Burke's ''radiobes'' didn't crawl out of the test tube, but Miller and Urey found chemicals, including some amino acids, that might form the molecular basis of living beings.
Zimmer is an astute, engaging writer -- inserting the atmospheric anecdote where applicable, drawing out a scientific story and bringing laboratory experiments to life. This book is not just about life, but about discovery itself. It is about error and hubris, but also about wonder and the reach of science. And it is bookended with the ultimate question: How do we define the thing that defines us?
Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author, most recently, of ''The Gene: An Intimate History.'' LIFE'S EDGE The Search for What It Means to Be Alive By Carl Zimmer 368 pp. Dutton. $28.
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PHOTOS: Rosalind Elsie Franklin in 1955. (PHOTOGRAPH BY UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG, VIA GETTY IMAGES); An X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA. (PHOTOGRAPH BY SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY) (BR20)
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Mukherjee, Siddhartha. "Look Alive." The New York Times Book Review, 4 Apr. 2021, p. 1(L). Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A657275890/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b76fcd83. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive
Carl Zimmer. Dutton, $28 (368p) ISBN 978-0-593-18271-0
"The question of what it means to be alive has flowed through four centuries of scientific history like an underground river," writes journalist Zimmer (She Has Her Mother's Laugh) in this stimulating inquiry into biological fundamentals. He explores scientific phenomena that challenge simplistic concepts of what life and intelligence consist of (such as the notion that life is "something that sustained itself through chemical reactions"). Among his subjects are a girl who was declared brain dead in 2013 but went on growing for years, hibernating bats whose metabolisms all but stop, and hypotheses about what creatures might lurk in the half-frozen sea of a moon of Saturn (namely, life that wouldn't need sunlight). The author travels to laboratories, caves, and botanical gardens for colorful depictions of cutting-edge experiments, as with his reportage on a slime mold without neurons that "followed the trail of sugar into the cul-de-sac and hit the acetate wall. But it did not give up its search. It sprouted tentacles to either side." Zimmer discusses scientists' various definitions of life as well as different schools of thought, such as "vitalists," who believe life has a purpose, and "mechanists," who believe that life is "made up of parts that work together, much like a clock." The result is a pop science tour de force that extracts provocative insights from life's oddities. Agent: Eric Matthew Simonoff, WME. (Mar.)
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"Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive." Publishers Weekly, vol. 268, no. 2, 11 Jan. 2021, p. 54. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A650239838/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=829366a9. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Zimmer, Carl LIFE'S EDGE Dutton (NonFiction None) $28.00 3, 9 ISBN: 978-0-593-18271-0
A master science writer explores the definition of life.
After reviewing the history of the concept of life, Zimmer recounts his global travels interviewing scientists who have made dazzling discoveries. However, when it comes to defining life itself, they cannot improve on the Supreme Court’s view of pornography: They’ll know it when they see it. The author quotes Frances Westall and André Brack, who wrote in 2018 “that there are as many definitions of life as there are people trying to define it.” In the end, writes Zimmer, “to be alive is not to be dead.” Despite the countless possible definitions, most biologists agree on a few hallmarks: Every creature that lives must metabolize (eat and digest), gather information about the surroundings, maintain homeostasis (keep the internal environment steady), reproduce, and evolve. Zimmer gives ample space to nitpickers who point out exceptions, and a few chapters record interviews with scientists exploring each of these hallmarks. None answer the author’s big question, but readers will not complain because Zimmer is such an engaging communicator. Confronting a possibly unanswerable question, the author explores its history, an eye-opening review of three centuries of research by intensely curious, obsessive, often obscure scientists who contributed to many revelations about the amazing attributes of life, when they weren’t deluded—e.g., 18th-century vitalists, who believed that “life contained a vital force that endowed matter with self-directed motion and the power to generate new complex bodies.” Veteran readers will not be surprised that Zimmer’s conclusion describes efforts to create life in the laboratory, a process whose possibility was suggested a century ago and whose first and many subsequent attempts produced headlines and increasingly complex but lifeless organic material. The author leaves no doubt that this century’s dazzling advances in genetics, biochemistry, DNA and RNA manipulation, and lipid membrane formation will bring home the bacon.
An ingenious case that the answers to life’s secrets are on the horizon.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Zimmer, Carl: LIFE'S EDGE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2021. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A646950230/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4dcd719f. Accessed 2 July 2025.
SHE HAS HER MOTHER'S LAUGH The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity By Carl Zimmer 656 pp. Dutton. $30.
''The greatest scare of all, the one that made the world suddenly unfamiliar, swept over me while I was sitting with my wife, Grace, in the comfort of an obstetrician's office.'' In trying to map out his family tree in order to identify potential health risks to his unborn child, Carl Zimmer realized just how little he knew about his ancestors. ''I had willingly become a conduit for heredity, allowing the biological past to make its way into the future. And yet I had no idea of what I was passing on.''
Parents will relate to this. We invest as much care in our young ones as we possibly can, but many of us also pass along to them the black box of our genomes. We usually have little understanding and virtually no control over that inheritance. As Zimmer's healthy daughters grew up, his thoughts moved from their specific genetic legacies to a broader wonder about heredity itself and how we understand it.
In his extraordinary new book, ''She Has Her Mother's Laugh,'' Zimmer (who writes the Matter column for The New York Times) uses history to offer a rigorous introduction to the basic principles of genetics, and molecular and developmental biology. To the Romans, heredity was a tool for passing on the assets of long-dead ancestors -- they were concerned with what it meant to be an heir. In the Middle Ages the concept shifted and connoted instead the connection between the present and a noble past. Prominent families came to use visual depictions of these connections -- pedigrees -- to announce their proximity to greatness. Bloodlines were ways to pass on property and power, but also indicators of both inherent virtue and vice. It was only much later, as scientists like Gregor Mendel began to figure out how genetics works, that we would begin to understand which traits get passed on and why.
''She Has Her Mother's Laugh'' challenges our conventional wisdom about heredity, especially as we enter the new realms of surrogate pregnancy and gene editing. One of the most astonishing insights is that mothers don't just pass traits to their children -- they receive them as well. I read Zimmer's book (occasionally out loud) while feeding my baby son. Like Zimmer, I had genetic counseling and my partner and I experienced the same anxieties as he did. But unlike Zimmer, I was able to assuage our fears using a drop of my own blood. That's because my baby's DNA, floating freely in my bloodstream, could be tested for hundreds of genetic disorders at an early point in my pregnancy. We took great comfort in the test, without realizing all of its implications. The baby wasn't just sharing his genetic secrets during the pregnancy. Fetal cells can persist for years after birth; as I sit and write these sentences, I may very well be a chimera: a mixture of some of my son's cells and my own. This microchimerism may even have eventual effects on my health, although it isn't fully understood. And he may carry some of my immune cells, too.
How does this sharing affect our current conception of heredity? And what about the other inherited elements that influence our development -- like culture, microbes and (to a limited extent) the epigenetic factors that affect the expression of our genes? Zimmer cautions that we should not ignore their influence, arguing that ''we cannot understand the natural world with a simplistic notion of genetic heredity.''
The popular notion of ''a gene for'' a trait is largely a misconception. The Mendelian laws of inheritance -- what most people study in school today -- are not just ''exquisitely fragile'' but ''regularly broken.'' Most complex traits, such as height or intelligence, arise out of the intricate, combined action of hundreds of genes and depend strongly on the environmental conditions under which an individual develops. And failing to understand that has had dire results: ''At the dawn of the 20th century, scientists came to limit the word heredity to genes. Before long, this narrow definition spread its influence far beyond genetic laboratories. It hangs like a cloud over our most personal experiences of heredity, even if we can't stop trying to smuggle the old traditions of heredity into the new language of genes.''
To illustrate this point, Zimmer highlights the story of Emma Wolverton, a woman condemned as mentally defective and institutionalized. In the early 20th century she became a focal point for a movement trying to use Mendelian principles to improve humanity. Charles Davenport and Henry Goddard, a geneticist and a psychologist respectively, believed that the pedigrees of ''feeble-minded children'' would reveal the genetic basis of intelligence -- something they believed would ''conform perfectly to the Mendelian law.'' According to their research, Emma was the fruit of six generations of ''feeble-mindedness and crime'' descending from a ''feeble-minded tavern girl'' during the Revolutionary War. In contrast, they claimed, the children the tavern girl's partner had with his good Quaker wife were all virtuous and respectable citizens.
On the foundation of this ''natural experiment'' Goddard and Davenport advocated for what they called the ''salvation of the race through heredity.'' You know this movement as eugenics, a term first coined by Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton. Goddard helped to popularize eugenics in the United States in a best-selling but inaccurate book about Emma (in which he gave her the pseudonym Deborah Kallikak), using a largely fictitious genealogy to cement intelligence and virtue in the public mind as Mendelian traits. The book was wildly influential in the movement and beloved by Nazi scientists. Ideas built on a wrongheaded understanding of heredity had devastating consequences.
Now that genetic ancestry testing is recreationally available, exploring heredity has become synonymous with a journey of self-discovery. For many people DNA offers a chance to identify and reconnect with ancestral homelands and understand familial histories. For others, it serves much the same function as pedigrees did for the nobility of medieval Europe; a way to claim great ancestors, whether they be nobles, poets or (in my own case) a vaudeville harpist. Regardless of their questionable accuracy, these stories seduce us with the notion that as we inherited genes from our ancestors, something of their greatness might live on in us.
Zimmer takes this journey far beyond what is available to most people. He had his entire genome sequenced and consulted a team of experts on the results. This intense self-exploration becomes a portal for discussing what genetic ancestry testing can -- and can't -- tell us about our own histories, our evolution and the larger picture of human genetic variation.
''She Has Her Mother's Laugh'' particularly shines when it comes to engaging with the notion of race, a topic once again pushed to the forefront of public discourse. In recent years, we have seen the publication of numerous popular books purporting to tackle the ''forbidden'' issue of the biological basis of race. Many have been riddled with scientific errors, uninformed by history or lacking in nuance and clarity when discussing interpretations of patterns of human genetic variation. Zimmer's book is a refreshing antidote. He details the history of scientific racism and explains the meaning (and lack of meaning) of genetic differences between people and populations in a way that is both accurate and accessible to nonscientists.
This book is Zimmer at his best: obliterating misconceptions about science with gentle prose. He brings the reader on his journey of discovery as he visits laboratory after laboratory, peering at mutant mosquitoes and talking to scientists about traces of Neanderthal ancestry within his own genome. Any fan of his previous books or his journalism will appreciate this work. But so, too, will parents wishing to understand the magnitude of the legacy they're bequeathing to their children, people who want to grasp their history through genetic ancestry testing and those seeking a fuller context for the discussions about race and genetics so prevalent today.
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Raff, Jennifer. "Where the Apple Falls." The New York Times Book Review, 17 June 2018, p. 11(L). Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A543061472/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9c1da002. Accessed 2 July 2025.
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HOST: TERRY GROSS
TERRY GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. More and more people are looking to genetics to understand where they come from and what their future might be. Genetic sequencing can tell us about our ancestry and warn us about the risks we inherited of certain diseases and conditions. Meanwhile, scientists are exploring ways of altering genes to prevent or cure illnesses. My guest, Carl Zimmer, has written a new book about state of the art genetic research and the history of genetic research that led us to where we are today. The book is called "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, And Potential Of Heredity." Zimmer is a science columnist for The New York Times. He teaches science writing at Yale University. He's written previous books about viruses, parasites and evolution.
Carl Zimmer, welcome back to FRESH AIR. How accurate do you think the DNA ancestry traces are now?
CARL ZIMMER: I like to think of them as telescopes in the 1700s. You know, they're pretty good. You know, you could look up in the sky with a telescope in the 1700s, and you could see things that you couldn't see with your naked eye. But it was pretty blurry, and there might be things you saw that weren't real and there'd be a lot of things you didn't see. So if you go from one testing company to another in terms of ancestry, you're going to get different percentages. People have done this, and that's what they find. The statistics are still very rough. They are going to get better because what's going to happen is more and more DNA is going to go into these databases, and it may even be possible in the future to zero in at least some of your ancestry to, you know, let's say a town or a village in someplace where people don't move around a lot. So, you know, you shouldn't look at that as sort of absolute truth. We like to look at our DNA as some sort of divine revelation about who we are, but really what you're getting from these tests is, you know, the best guess that scientists can use with the information that they have.
GROSS: What did you learn medically from your DNA?
ZIMMER: I was working with a genetics counselor when I was getting my genome sequenced. You know, I wanted to know if there was anything I needed to worry about. And I have two kids, and I wanted to talk with them about anything that was of serious concern first before even thinking about writing about this. My genetics counselor called me one day and said, OK, your genome's sequenced and we've had a chance to look at it. And I said, OK. And she said, we can just have this conversation over the phone, (laughter) which I thought was weird if she was going to tell me about some terrible, disturbing problem I had that I didn't know about. And she said, you're fine. You have a boring genome. And it's funny how I felt somehow a little crestfallen. Like, I wanted something exciting and exotic, you know, like, I have some obscure, bizarre syndrome that nobody else has and I'll be cool. (Laughter) But she pointed out, no, a boring genome is a really good genome. And so all that means is that I don't have any of these mutations that on their own can knock you down with a particular disease. You know, I have, you know, lots of genes with mutations that raise my risk a little bit for this disease or that. But we all do.
What was actually really interesting to me is that when I showed my genome to some scientists, they said, you know, you actually have an interesting mutation here in this one gene. This isn't a gene that raises your risk of disease. It is actually extremely protective. So I have a mutation that protects me from certain autoimmune diseases. And when I started to learn about what this mutation does and how it sort of tamps down my immune system so it doesn't go out of control, I discovered that scientists have been studying this mutation in other people and have developed a drug based on the biology which has just gone on the market recently and is used for autoimmune diseases. So there's no end of these sorts of things to discover. You know, I can now look to my parents and say, you know, there's a mutation I inherited from each of you on a gene called FTO, and, you know, that makes people on average a few pounds heavier. So, you know, I wish you had given me the other one. (Laughter).
GROSS: No, but they gave you the great one, the one that protects against autoimmune disease.
ZIMMER: That's true. Well, one of them did. I have one copy. (Laughter).
GROSS: But that's good enough, isn't it? No?
ZIMMER: Yeah, it is. I don't know which one personally to thank, though. (Laughter).
GROSS: You know, a question in terms of heredity has always been, like, nature versus nurture. Like, what potentials and problems are you born with - I guess that are inherited through your genes - and what's going to shape you from the world around you, the experiences you've had, the environment you're brought up in, the way your parents raise you. And you say that line is growing increasingly more blurry, and that's in part because of our knowledge of epigenetics, which is a whole new field about how parts of your genetics can actually be changed by the world around you. Would you explain the basic premise of epigenetics?
ZIMMER: Sure. So we have genes, and our cells use genes to make proteins and other molecules. And those genes can be switched on, or they can be switched off. And the way that happens is that our cells have molecules that are hovering around our DNA, and they clamp onto certain genes and silence them. We can actually coil up our DNA to hide genes, and that shuts them down, as well. And these are long-term changes so that, you know, when an embryo is developing and starting to develop muscle and brain tissue and different organs, the cells in each of those tissues are permanently turning off certain genes and turning on others. And that whole area of turning genes on and off is sometimes called epigenetics. And what's fascinating is that, actually, it looks as if some kinds of experiences that we have in the environment around us may alter that epigenetic pattern in ourselves. So it's conceivable that in your own life your experiences can change how your genes work.
This is a very controversial area for a lot of reasons. One is that it's actually surprisingly hard to really pin down what those changes are and what's causing them, but that hasn't stopped epigenetics from becoming incredibly trendy. And where this gets even more exciting but also controversial is the idea that maybe if your experience changes that epigenetics (unintelligible), maybe you could pass it down to children, and maybe they could pass it down to their children. So perhaps, some people argue, epigenetics could be a completely separate channel of heredity.
GROSS: So there was a study related to epigenetics that was done with mice, and what they did was they totally stressed out mice to see if that stress was inherited by the mice offspring. Would you describe that study and tell us how definitive it is? Like, what did we really learn from it?
ZIMMER: These studies are really fascinating because what they're doing is, they are putting mice under stress, male mice in particular. And then these mice are mating. And then researchers are looking at their offspring and later descendants. And you have to think about this that all the male is contributing to its offspring is just sperm. It's not as if females are getting stressed, and that affects the environment in the uterus where an animal is developing. So it's just what...
GROSS: So the stressed-out mice were just male mice.
ZIMMER: That's right. So it's just male mice, and all they are contributing is what's in that sperm cell. And some of these experiments suggested that their descendants seemed to be altered through the experiences of their father or grandfather. And then scientists have actually gone into these individual sperm cells, and they have pulled out some of the molecules that control genes, and they've actually then just taken those molecules and then gone over to some other mouse sperm and inject them into that, and then use that to fertilize mice. And just transferring those molecules into other mice seems to then produce these offspring that also have this kind of altered personality.
This is incredibly tantalizing research. And, you know, it makes you think about how the experiences of our ancestors might alter us. But a lot of scientists are really strongly skeptical about it. They are arguing that these are very small studies, that they're just very random effects that are being picked up and people are claiming that they're real. So, you know, the jury is definitely still out on mice, let alone people. But, you know, that doesn't mean that epigenetics isn't real.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is New York Times science columnist Carl Zimmer, who's the author of a new book about the history of genetic research and current state-of-the-art research. The book is called "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions And Potential Of Heredity." We'll be right back after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Carl Zimmer. He's the author of a new book about the history of genetic research and current state-of-the-art research. It's called "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions And Potential Of Heredity." And he's a science columnist for The New York Times.
Let's talk about CRISPR, which is the word that's used for the process of what's called genetic splicing, like genetic editing - basically changing a gene. And, you know, when you hear genetic splicing, at least for me - I work in radio - I picture, like, audio editing, audio splicing, where in the old days we would remove a piece of tape and splice the remaining pieces of tape together or now digitally edit out a few words or a few sounds. But CRISPR, from what I understand, isn't anything like that (laughter).
ZIMMER: Actually, I think that's not a bad metaphor (laughter).
GROSS: Really?
ZIMMER: Yeah. Because what happens with CRISPR is that scientists will design a molecule. Think of it as a probe. And it will search around in the DNA in a cell until it finds a very specific short sequence, and it'll grab on to it. And it brings along with it basically molecular scissors, which will then cut the DNA at that spot, kind of like cutting tape. And you can cut out a segment of DNA. And if you just do that, then the DNA will heal itself. Basically, the two loose ends will stitch themselves back together, and now that piece is just missing. Or you can add in a little piece of different DNA, and you can actually get the cell to put in that new piece of DNA where you just cut out the old one.
GROSS: Right. So that's pretty remarkable. But it's not like scientists are, like, taking razorblades or anything (laughter) in the lab and changing DNA. You're basically programming - what? - programming other molecules to go in and do the job for you?
ZIMMER: Yeah. You're creating molecules that are going to be able to attach to just one particular place in all of your DNA. And so they are zeroing in with greater and greater precision to just particular spots in the DNA. You know, wherever you want to go, you just craft a molecule that will recognize that place and lock on to it. And then it brings with it these molecular scissors that will make the cuts.
GROSS: I'm confident that if I asked you to explain it more, in more scientific detail, that I would not understand it. So instead of doing that, I'm (laughter) going to ask you for an example of how that's being used now, how this kind of gene editing is being used.
ZIMMER: So here's an example which I think really drives home the potential for CRISPR. It's that scientists can create lines of mice that have some of the diseases that we have. So for example, there is a kind of mouse that gets a muscle disease called muscular dystrophy. And this is caused by a particular mutation on the X chromosome. And it's a really devastating disease in humans, and these mice will develop it too. So you have these mice that, unless otherwise treated, are going to basically waste away. Their muscles are essentially going to turn into, like, a jelly-like substance. And then they're not going to be able to breathe anymore, and they're going to die.
Now, what scientists can do is they can inject these CRISPR molecules into the mice. And these CRISPR molecules make their way into muscle cells, and they then cut out that mutation and repair the DNA. So the mutation that caused the disease is no longer there in those cells. And these mice then become stronger, and they live longer. They are being treated, if not cured of this disease.
GROSS: That's - yeah.
ZIMMER: That's the kind of thing that CRISPR can do.
GROSS: That's pretty remarkable. Is it being used with human beings yet?
ZIMMER: We're just on the verge of human trials. They will be starting hopefully very soon for diseases like sickle cell anemia. There is actually a lot of research on muscular dystrophy as well. There are a few key diseases where scientists think these would be the good - the best places to start, to basically inject CRISPR molecules into people's bodies. These CRISPR molecules will then go to certain kinds of cells and repair one particular spot in their DNA. And that treats the disease.
GROSS: So this could be the future of genetic diseases, genetically inherited diseases?
ZIMMER: It very well could be. Yeah. I mean, we shouldn't look at this as a panacea because it may turn out that these CRISPR molecules, maybe they don't do a very good job of reaching their targets in the human body, or maybe there are going to be side effects. Like, for example, maybe they get distracted by another piece of DNA, and they accidentally cut that as well. I mean, there are a lot of reasons to sort of just kind of hold on because it's so exciting that you want it to work.
But we've been here before. I mean, there have been earlier kinds of treatments known as gene therapy, where you would basically try to add an extra gene into someone's cells. And that seems like it was just a slam dunk, but then it turned out to not work very well for years and years. And that's only starting to recover now after, like, 20 years of research. So CRISPR could be even more exciting and truly revolutionary. We just have to wait and see what these first generation of human clinical trials show us.
GROSS: Is CRISPR being used for genetically modified foods, or is that completely different process?
ZIMMER: It - they are being used for genetically modified foods. They're just beginning to. And it's - the basic logic, is, again, the same in the sense that, you know, plants have DNA, and CRISPR works on DNA. So what scientists are doing in that case is they're not just trying to, say, cure a disease in a plant. They're actually trying to produce new breeds of plants. And so, you know, if you know that there is a gene that controls how a plant deals with high temperature, and you're saying, well, we need to prepare new kinds of plants for climate change, you can test out new kinds of genetics by using CRISPR to rewrite that gene a little bit and see how well it does at those higher temperatures.
GROSS: There are some people who will not eat genetically modified food if they can avoid it. And I'm wondering, after having done all this research for your new book, what your thoughts are about the pros and cons of genetically modified food?
ZIMMER: Well, you know, the fact is that, you know, when plant breeders were producing new kinds of plant varieties, like in the 1900s, you know, they would use methods like basically pointing X-ray machines at seeds and just blasting them and then just seeing if any interesting mutations came out of that and then breeding up some crops from that. That's like a very random, almost blind process. And so there's no reason to think that actually going in strategically and tinkering with one particular gene that you already have a lot of evidence is very important for that trait that you want to change could be any worse. You know, in fact, you might have good reason to think that it would actually be safer.
There's no evidence that genetically modified foods are harmful to our health. And so there's even less reason to think that this new generation of CRISPR foods will necessarily be more dangerous to us. We may object to genetically modified foods for other reasons - for social and economic reasons. And I find those arguments to be totally valid in the sense that - you know, do we want to leave the control of agriculture in the hands of small-scale farmers? Or does everybody have to go to, you know, one big chemical company and buy their seeds each year from these people and be not even allowed to plant those seeds the next year. That's a different argument though. That's a social argument. And it's not - it doesn't have to do with safety.
GROSS: There's also a fear that the genetically modified plants will spread their DNA to places where that genetic modification is not wanted. And then they'll just kind of, like, take over.
ZIMMER: There has been concern about that. But, you know, there's no evidence of that actually happening in any sort of significant way. You know, so genetically modified crops have been around now for a number of years. And in the United States, you know, a lot of, like, you know, the soybeans and cotton and so on are - these plants are genetically modified. And you don't see that sort of a runaway process happening.
GROSS: My guest is Carl Zimmer. His new book is called "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions And Potential Of Heredity." After a break, we'll talk about altering genes in mosquitoes to prevent malaria and how DNA was used to track down the Golden State Killer. And Maureen Corrigan will review two mystery novels she thinks are great for summer reading. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with New York Times science columnist Carl Zimmer. His new book "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, And Potential Of Heredity" is about state-of-the-art genetic research and early genetic research that led us to where we are today. When we left off, we were talking about research into how genes can be modified to prevent diseases.
So another area that applies to modifying genes for genetic reasons to prevent disease has to do with genetically modifying insects that carry disease, such as trying to genetically modify mosquitoes so that those mosquitoes can no longer carry malaria. What's being done in this research?
ZIMMER: So for the research for my book, I went to California and went to the lab of a scientist named Anthony James. And he runs what he calls an insectarium, which is basically a giant room full of mosquitoes. He raises thousands and thousands of mosquitoes. And he's genetically engineered them so that they are resistant to malaria. Malaria is spread by a parasite. And so these mosquitoes basically kill off the parasite if it tries to get in their bodies. And the idea behind these mosquitoes is that, maybe in the future, we would release them into the wild. And these mosquitoes have been genetically engineered in another way so that they will basically push this resistance gene into all of their offspring. And those offspring will push it into all of their offspring as well. So they basically override the normal rules of heredity.
And the theory is that if you were just to release a few hundred of these mosquitoes into a region where you have a lot of malaria - within a few years, the malaria might be gone. This could be a way of eradicating malaria period. And so now there's a huge amount of interest in this from a lot of foundations and governments around the world, focusing on using this new way of tinkering with heredity to maybe attacking malaria.
GROSS: Is there a possible downside of doing that?
ZIMMER: The downside is that once you set these kinds of organisms loose out in the wild and you kind of change the rules of heredity, it might be hard to undo what you've done. You know, we've sort of seen an analogy of this with invasive species - you know, that people brought cane toads from South America to Australia because they thought they would be great at eating the insects that were destroying sugar cane plantations. And it turned out the cane toads like to eat lots of native species, and they've exploded over the continent. And there's just no way of taking them back. So maybe these crisper, altered mosquitoes might do something that we can't predict, and they're just going to keep reproducing and just be part of the environment. And we really don't know much about how to take them back. So there is a lot of research going on into how to make this gene-drive technology super safe and being able to undo any damage that you might do to wild species.
GROSS: So the insectarium that you went to with all the thousands and thousands of mosquitoes - would you describe it to us?
ZIMMER: So yeah. It's kind of amazing. I mean, first of all, you have to gown-up before you go in there. And then...
GROSS: That sounds like a good thing.
ZIMMER: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it does sort of remind you, you're doing something serious here. And then you go through an air lock, and then you're in this room where there are the mosquitoes living in all their different life cycles. So there is a dark room where the female mosquitoes are laying their eggs 'cause they like to do it in the dark. And then the scientists pull the eggs out from these rooms, and they inject DNA into them. And then they put them in water 'cause that's where mosquito larvae like to develop.
And so you go into this other room where there are these tubs of water, and these, like, snakelike things are slithering around in there. And then they develop into adults, and then, you know, the females need to drink blood. And so they have these - they found that the containers for movie popcorn work really well. What they do is they basically clamp a warm container of calf's blood on top of them, and then the mosquitoes are underneath - on the underside of the plastic lid basically poking through and drinking the blood and fattening themselves up. And then the cycle repeats itself. It's kind of spooky. And, you know, when you leave, you go back into the air lock. And then you just look at this white door making sure that no mosquitoes came out with you (laughter) because they - for now, those mosquitoes need to stay in there. We do not want them getting anywhere. It's a very intense experience.
GROSS: So when you were in the room all gowned up, were the mosquitoes wild or are they contained like in an aquarium where everything's behind glass?
ZIMMER: The mosquitoes were always in containers. So they were, you know, in - they were in jars, or they were in these little plastic tubs if they were still in their larval stage. So no, you were not getting bitten by mosquitoes. There were not swarms of mosquitoes in your face. They were all very much where they needed to be in different rooms for different parts of their lifecycle. But, you know, it's always possible that one mosquito might get out. And, you know, they have all sorts of things in place to basically kill any mosquitoes that might escape. These are actually mosquitoes that are native to India, and this is Irvine, Calif. So, you know, even if one were to get out, it would probably just die right away because it's so dry there. It's so unlike their native habitat. So all sorts of things have been put in place to minimize the chance of anything going wrong.
GROSS: And you didn't have any bites when you left?
(LAUGHTER)
ZIMMER: No. No...
GROSS: OK.
ZIMMER: ...I did not. You know, but the flipside is - I mean, there's a - certainly it's a little spooky to be looking at, you know, movie popcorn containers full of blood-engorged mosquitoes. But on the other hand, you look at them and, actually, you can tell that they've been genetically altered 'cause they have red eyes, which is kind of spooky. But, you know, they - you look at that. And you say, well, that means that these could be the cure for malaria. It really - that really could happen. And hundreds of thousands of people die every year of malaria. We've thrown everything we can at it, and this parasite is still knocking us down worldwide. So maybe this could be it, and so that's actually quite exciting.
GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is science journalist Carl Zimmer. His new book is called "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, And Potential Of Heredity." And it's about the history of genetic research and the state-of-the-art, current genetic research. We'll take a short break and then be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And if you're just joining us, my guest is Carl Zimmer. He's a science columnist for The New York Times and author of a new book about genetics, the history of genetic research and current state-of-the-art genetic research. It's called "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions And Potential Of Heredity."
So one of the big stories lately involving genetics was how genetic research - how DNA was used to track down the Golden State Killer in California. And this had been a cold case for years. So how was DNA used to solve that case?
ZIMMER: They were taking an advantage of a pattern in heredity, which is that, you know, as parents pass down DNA to their kids, the DNA on the chromosomes gets shuffled a little bit. And so what that means is that, you know, you and a sibling will share a lot of very long identical stretches of DNA. But you and your cousin will share fewer of these sequences, and they'll be shorter. That's because there's been more shuffling happening over two generations instead of one. And the same is true for three generations back and so on.
So geneticists have actually been able to come up with a method for comparing DNA, identifying these long stretches and saying, ah, these two people must be related. So this method of identifying relatives has become incredibly popular thanks to the rise of websites like ancestry.com, 23andMe. And, you know, they'll offer you this relative-finder service, and basically all they're doing is looking for people in their database with very long stretches of DNA that match yours.
And so for the Golden State Killer case, what somebody decided to do was to take the DNA that they had from these crime scenes and upload it to one of these open-access sites, not a commercial site, and then just see if they could find any close matches. And they found that, you know, there were some people who looked like they were distant cousins of this person. And then they went and did the genealogical research to figure out, well, how would they be related? And then said, OK, who are the possible relatives that this person could be, and where do they live? And that actually helped narrow down their search until they made an arrest.
GROSS: Now, if you just send your DNA to get, like, an ancestry search through one of the companies, like 23andMe, would that mean that your DNA was available for a crime search like that?
ZIMMER: So the commercial companies said, when they were asked about this during the Golden State Killer news, that they won't do this - I mean, that they will not invade people's privacy in this way. Now, what the police did in this case is that they went to an open-access, sort of crowdsourced site called GEDmatch. And there, basically, you know, it's sort of a group effort. And everybody uploads their DNA and works on the software together, and it's sort of a joint effort. And so you know, everybody is free to just try to match up their own DNA to anybody in the database. I don't know how many people thought about the police coming in and secretly comparing their own DNA to a possible suspect.
You know, this is a broad civil liberties issue. There is - has been some long-running concern about police trying to find evidence of crimes by looking for the relatives of criminals with DNA because, you know, things get less and less precise. And there have actually been people who have been arrested because it looked as if, you know, their DNA matched that of somebody in one of these genealogical databases. Like, they looked like they were related. And they said, oh, that's good enough for us, and they would make an arrest. And then it turned out this person was innocent. So this is not the last time we're going to see this coming up in news about crime.
GROSS: Well, getting back to the commercial companies like 23andMe and Ancestry, what kind of privacy agreements do you sign with them?
ZIMMER: So you can choose sort of different levels of privacy with a lot of these services. And so for example, some people will say, I want you to look at my DNA. I want you to tell me about my ancestry. I want you to tell me about - you know, for 23andMe, they'll give you a few bits of information about your medical conditions. And that's it. But they will try to get you to opt in to sharing your data for their own basic research.
So at 23andMe, for example, there's a whole team of researchers who are studying all sorts of things, all sorts of diseases, sleep patterns and so on. And then they will also go into partnerships with drug development companies, who will take their data looking at, say, 50,000 people with lupus and 50,000 people who don't have lupus and try to look for the genetic differences. Those could point the way towards possible drugs.
GROSS: So to sum up, there's some amazing breakthroughs being made in genetic research, but there's so many questions that remain. I know I'm stating the obvious here. But it sounds like there's a lot that's still really inconclusive.
ZIMMER: Yes. You know, if you just look at the genome and look at all the things that we inherit genetically from our ancestors, you know, there's just a lot of it that scientists really can't tell you much about at all. It's still a pretty poorly explored frontier. And, you know, heredity is so important to us. It really is how we explain who we are and how we got that way, by looking to our ancestors and saying, what did we inherit from them? And so we really want it to tell us all sorts of things. And now that we can start to look at our own DNA, we want those answers right now. And the simple fact is that a lot of those answers either aren't there yet, or we'll never find them in our DNA.
GROSS: So - and you decided to have your genome sequenced. And that was really part of the research for this book because you knew you'd be writing this book. Had you braced yourself for the possibility of bad news, that you would find out that you had a gene that showed you would be more inclined to have, say, early-onset Alzheimer's or an inherited illness?
ZIMMER: I was definitely concerned. My father's parents both died pretty young. And in both those cases, they were diseases - you know, heart disease in one case and cancer in another. And so I thought, oh, boy, like I could very well have inherited whatever genes that put them at risk. And, you know, my father is Ashkenazi Jewish background. And so, you know, I immediately started thinking about this gene that people may have heard of called BRCA1, which is a gene that, if it's mutated, can really raise your risk of breast cancer. I have two daughters. And so that got me very anxious as well.
So, yeah, I would say that it was a very nerve-wracking experience going into it. You know, I think we all like think back to, you know, our relatives who got sick and then wonder, well, you know, is that in me. I mean, I have someone else in my family who had an intellectual disability. And I thought, well, is that inherited? I mean, I just - you just keep thinking about these issues. And, you know, I wasn't actually going to write about my genome if something turned up. And, you know, I was going to personally have to deal with a serious medical condition or, you know, have to talk with my daughters about it. I mean, I wouldn't want to sort of, you know, kind of air their genetic laundry, as it were.
But, you know, I have lots of genes that slightly increase my risk of some things and decrease my risk of other things - just, you know, nudging the needle a little bit. And that's pretty typical. You know, it's only a pretty small fraction of people who will get their genome sequenced and discover there's something really serious that they have to attend to. And that could be a lot of people. I think there could be a lot of value to people having their genome sequenced in general. But I think any one person if they really have their fingers crossed that they're going to find some weird exotic mutation may be disappointed. And that's a good thing.
GROSS: Carl Zimmer, a pleasure to talk with you again. Thank you so much.
ZIMMER: Thank you. It's been great.
GROSS: Carl Zimmer is the author of the new book "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, And Potential Of Heredity."
Are you looking for good mysteries to read this summer? Our book critic Maureen Corrigan will have a couple of suggestions after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
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Source Citation
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"A Science Writer Explores The 'Perversions And Potential' Of Genetic Tests." Fresh Air, 11 June 2018. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A542328494/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dea84f90. Accessed 2 July 2025.
* She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity.
By Carl Zimmer.
June 2018. 672p. Dutton, $30 (9781101984598). 576.5.
When Gregor Mendel died, in 1884, his funeral drew thousands of grieving peasants--but not a single scientist. Zimmer here illuminates the Augustinian friar's once-unrecognized scientific breakthrough as a pivotal turning point in a human investigation of heredity, which has replaced Aristotle's speculative conjectures on the topic with the empirical knowledge compiled in the twenty-first-century chromosomal map of the human genome. That map and potent new microtechnologies for manipulating the biochemistry of the mapped genes have opened astonishing possibilities both for probing the distant past of human origins and for creating a brave new future of human development, free from genetic disease and weakness. But alongside this trajectory of stunning progress, readers trace a history of misconceptions about heredity. Some of those misconceptions--such as Darwin's mistaken pangenesis theory of all body cells influencing heredity--have arguably benefited science by stimulating debate and better research. Others, such as those motivating Nazi eugenicists, have augured only brutal racism. As revolutionary science now opens the prospect of designer superbabies--tantalizing some, horrifying others--Zimmer challenges the widespread misconception that DNA alone determines human identity, adducing compelling evidence that the way genes express themselves depends on environment, nutrition, and even culture. A wide-ranging and eye-opening inquiry into the way heredity shapes our species.--Bryce Christensen
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
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Christensen, Bryce. "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity." Booklist, vol. 114, no. 16, 15 Apr. 2018, p. 7. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A537267989/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=df7e601f. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Zimmer, Carl SHE HAS HER MOTHER'S LAUGH Dutton (Adult Nonfiction) $30.00 6, 1 ISBN: 978-1-101-98459-8
A fascinating journey through the history of heredity
Books on the current revolution in genetics are not in short supply, so New York Times columnist Zimmer (Science Writing/Yale Univ.; A Planet of Viruses, 2011, etc.) casts his net more widely in a delightful history of efforts to discover why offspring resemble their parents but sometimes don't and how scientists are learning how to change matters. "Very often genes cannot give us what we really want from heredity," he writes. "Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors." As a journalist, the author believes that readers want to hear a story through the eyes of an individual, so he chooses one: himself. After having his genome sequenced, he showed the results to researchers so that they could interpret them. It turns out that he carries genes for two serious diseases; luckily, his wife does not. Zimmer shares many identical genes with a typical Nigerian and typical Chinese person. In case readers are in doubt, every expert agrees that genetics disproves the existence of traditional races. The inheritance of intelligence has made impressive progress despite no agreement on a definition. Though IQ tests don't measure it, per se, they do measure something worth having. People with a high IQ do better in life and live longer. Zimmer does not ignore famous historical oddities such as the Elephant Man, but he pays more attention to how humans inherit common diseases, height, skin color, aging, intelligence, and other traits. It's a search that begins with hokum--Jews were once considered disease-prone and unintelligent--and ends with captivating knowledge. A brief glossary will help readers with such terms as "endosymbiont" and "pluripotent."
A thoroughly enchanting tour of big questions, oddball ideas, and dazzling accomplishments of researchers searching to explain, manipulate, and alter inheritance.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Zimmer, Carl: SHE HAS HER MOTHER'S LAUGH." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2018. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A532700374/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=45ffda83. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Science writer Carl Zimmer explores the complexities of heredity in She Has Her Mother's Laugh (Dutton, June).
You're a science journalist at a time when science seems to be under attack. How does this affect your work?
I'm always prepared for a story I write to generate a lot of pushback, regardless of the fact that the science I'm reporting on is rock solid. It is overwhelmingly clear that modern humans originated in Africa, for example, and that Europeans 10,000 years ago had dark brown skin. But judging from Twitter, some people can't stand hearing that. I don't shy away from these controversies; instead, I try to use them as an opportunity to show readers how scientists know what they know.
The book describes both historical abuses and cutting-edge advances in the field of heredity. Were some topics more difficult to write about than others?
There are an overwhelming number of stories in the history of heredity, so picking out the best ones for my book took a lot of research. Some of these stories chronicle the brilliant insights that helped us understand the nature of heredity. But to pretend that there was no dark side to this work would be to ignore history. In either case, I looked for the stories that I could tell with the richest human detail.
* You argue that heredity extends far beyond genes. Does that mean genes don't matter?
Definitely not. The genes we inherit can influence us in all sorts of ways--not just the color of our eyes, but our personalities and our skills. And I think we need to be much more skeptical about other forms of heredity, like epigenetics. There's a huge excitement over the possibility that the experiences of parents alter the heredity of future generations. That seems to be true for plants, but the evidence for us is incredibly thin.
You write that we each have an "inner heredity." Why should we think of our own bodies that way?
Each of us starts out as a single cell and ends up as over 30 trillion cells--muscle cells, neurons, liver cells, and more. Each of those cells inherited the genes, and much more, from that original cellular ancestor. Tracing that genealogy in our bodies is one of biology's big challenges today--and it could help doctors come up with new ways to treat all sorts of diseases in which that genealogy goes awry.
What was the most surprising thing you learned while working on this book?
I was surprised by how so many animals have to inherit bacteria from their ancestors in order to survive. Cockroaches, for example, carry bacteria that have to infect their eggs so that the next generation can use them to survive. It's a parallel kind of heredity happening all around us--and maybe even inside us, too.
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Zimmerman, Michael. "Down the Generations: PW TALKS WITH CARL ZIMMER." Publishers Weekly, vol. 265, no. 12, 19 Mar. 2018, p. 64. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A531977375/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=41362d29. Accessed 2 July 2025.
* She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and
Potential of Heredity
Carl Zimmer. Dutton, $30 (672p) ISBN 978-1101-98459-8
In a magnificent work exploring virtually all aspects of heredity, journalist Zimmer (Parasite Rex), masterfully blends exciting storytelling with first-rate science reporting. Although he lucidly explains the basics of Mendelian genetics--which address inheritance and biological diversity--he goes far beyond that topic to explore the complexities of genetic inheritance. For example he notes that there are at least 800 genes influencing height in humans, but collectively they explain only about one-quarter of the heritability of that trait. Zimmer is not shy about taking on controversial topics like the genetics of race, arguing that there aren't genetic fingerprints for race ("Ancient DNA doesn't simply debunk the notion of white purity. It debunks the very name white"), and making the case that it is currently all but impossible to draw significant conclusions about the roles genes play in overall intelligence. He also probes developing field of epigenetics (changes in gene expression rather than alteration of genetic code) as well as the role of genetics in developmental and cancer biologies. Zimmer's writing is rich, whether he's describing the history of the field or examining the latest research and ethical issues certain to arise. His book is as engrossing as it is enlightening. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (June)
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"She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity." Publishers Weekly, vol. 265, no. 8, 19 Feb. 2018, p. 64. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A529357549/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=08fe1521. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Science Ink
Carl Zimmer
Strip away the lab coat, and you'd be surprised what you might find on a scientist's backside. You might uncover not only a butterfly on a lepidopterist, but an extinct lobe-finned fish or the name of a lover spelled in DNA letters.
Zimmer, a science writer and the author of 10 books, pulls together some of the most fascinating tattoos worn by scientists and science fans. Several years ago, Zimmer noticed a scientist friend's DNA tattoo at a pool party and wondered what else scientists were hiding. He posed that question on his blog, and soon he couldn't keep up with the flood of responses. "Without intending it," Zimmer writes, "I became a curator of tattoos, a scholar of science ink."
In the book's tattoo collection, an astronomer carries a whole galaxy on his foot, and Schrodinger's cat is frozen, forever dead and alive, on a forearm. Photographs of tattoos are organized by scientific topic, and each is accompanied by a short essay telling the story of the tattoo and the science behind it. The essays are fresh and clever, adding scientific substance and making the volume more than a coffee-table book.
As Zimmer points out, science is a natural subject for tattoos; of course people obsessed with the particulars of a species or a class of molecules would etch the object of their fascination in their skin, so as to always carry it close.
So watch out: This is the kind of book that might give readers some wild ideas. It's also the kind of subject that makes other science writers wish they had thought of it first.--Erika Engelhaupt Sterling, 2011, 271 p., $24.95
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Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Science News/Society for Science and the Public
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Engelhaupt, Erika. "Science Ink." Science News, vol. 180, no. 13, 17 Dec. 2011, p. 28. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A275920532/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=71c486cb. Accessed 2 July 2025.
* Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed
Carl Zimmer. Sterling, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-4027-8360-9
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Noting a colleague's DNA-inspired tattoo at a pool party, science writer Zimmer (A Planet of Viruses) wondered how widespread the phenomenon of the inked scientist was. He solicited pictures for his blog, "The Loom;' and, inundated with photos and stories from scientists and laypeople alike, quickly became a curator of science-inspired body art. Mary Roach's foreword lays out why, given the passion with which so many approach their fields, it should be no surprise to encounter this worldwide tribe whose obsessed love for every far-flung corner of science's domain was marked permanently on their bodies. Divided into 13 sections, the book is filled with breathtaking color photos accompanied by grounding texts: Portuguese geneticist Donovan Fereira Rodrigues, who got Isaac Newton's "shoulders of giants" quote inked on his back, tells the story behind the phrase; August Kekule's "discovery" of benzene's structure inspired Virginia pharmacology PhD. Jeffrey Ikeda; a tattoo of Nikola Tesla's visions of a wireless future lies on the arm of Abraham Orozco, the science director of a children's community center in L.A. Genetics, neuroscience, and evolution (Darwin gets his own section) form the book's modern cornerstones and the tattoos range from full back pieces and sleeves to little-often concealable-personal reminders. Encyclopedic in essence, Zimmer's coffee-table art book presents a wealth of material. (Nov.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 PWxyz, LLC
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"Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed." Publishers Weekly, vol. 258, no. 41, 10 Oct. 2011, p. 1. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A269776668/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e054068e. Accessed 2 July 2025.
A Planet of Viruses
Carl Zimmer
Reading a book about microbes leaves no doubt about who is in charge: They are. Some of Zimmer's previous books have placed parasites and bacteria at the top of biology's pecking order. In his latest book, they are viruses. The tiny microorganisms that challenge our notions about what is alive are found in every nook and cranny on Earth, making this truly a planet of viruses.
Zimmer's collection of essays takes readers on a guided tour of some of the wonders of this viral world, from ocean-going to bacteria-eating viruses, plus stops for the world's biggest virus and viruses that put horns on rabbits. There's also plenty about humans in sections on HIV, the common cold, influenza and other viruses that infect and inhabit the human body.
As with any great journey, this virtual tour opens your eyes and expands your horizons. You'll learn amazing facts. But this is no textbook. Zimmer does not do boring or stuffy; reading his work is like hanging out with the smartest, most interesting guy you have ever met as he regales you with tales of his travels and fascinating finds along the way. He does get a touch preachy when he admonishes doctors and patients alike for using antibiotics to treat the common cold. (Antibiotics kill bacteria. They are useless against viruses, such as those that cause colds.) But it's worth sitting through that one small lecture to hear the rest of the stories.
This is a short book with bite-sized chapters. But like viruses, these essays pack a lot of information into a small structure and will infect you, in this case with a desire to know more.
Univ. of Chicago Press, 2011, 109 p., $20
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Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Science News/Society for Science and the Public
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Saey, Tina Hesman. "A Planet of Viruses." Science News, vol. 180, no. 2, 16 July 2011, p. 28. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A262143676/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1a172055. Accessed 2 July 2025.
Zimmer, Carl. A planet of viruses. 2nd ed. Chicago, 2015. 122p bibl Index afp ISBN 9780226294209 cloth, $13.00; ISBN 9780226320267 ebook, $13.00
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A Planet of Viruses is a brief, highly accessible introduction to viruses and their impact on the world. Zimmer, an award-winning science journalist, author, and Yale University lecturer, traces the history of people's understanding of viruses, using stories of specific viruses to illustrate biological principles: how epidemiology led to an understanding of cervical cancer being a sexually transmitted infection, how viruses evolve to infect new species, and how war and politics can be roadblocks to disease eradication. The accounts also illustrate ethical issues in virology: should strains of deadly viruses be maintained in secure laboratories in order to study them, or is it better to destroy the viruses completely? The book includes six pages of scholarly references for further reading. Though geared to general readers, the book may also interest students in the life and health sciences. The second edition was updated to include new viral outbreaks and recent research findings. Libraries with the first edition (CH, Oct' 11, 49-0845) should consider purchasing the second edition. Summing Up: *** Highly recommended. All undergraduate students and general audiences.--J. M. Miller, University of Toledo
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
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Miller, J.M. "Zimmer, Carl: A planet of viruses." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, vol. 53, no. 10, June 2016, p. 1495. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A454942780/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4e627a40. Accessed 2 July 2025.