I’ve been reading the Carl Zimmer book Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, and I came across an amusing passage. He’s talking here about the defenses that organisms to fight parasites:
Any adaptations that can keep a host disease-free will be favored by natural selection. Leaf-rolling caterpillars, for instance, fire their droppings out of an anal […]
Sorry I’ve been absent this place for a while. I’m sure all three of you would like to see more content here from time to time.
One interesting advantage of my job is that I come across announcements and reviews of cool new books. Today, for example, I was indexing the latest issue of American Biology […]
In late 2004, I blogged about a case in which an Iranian human-rights activist, Shirin Ebadi, faced a Treasury Department ban on the American publication of her memoir. Although I never followed up, the ban was eventually lifted, and her memoir will finally be published next month by Random House.
The NY Times Magazine has a […]
Coinciding with the AMNH exhibit I mentioned previously are two new books, each compiling Darwin’s four major works on evolution: Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. Prior to these releases, the four works had never been published together.
The first […]
This looks amazing:
One hundred exquisite medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, dating from the 10th through the 16th centuries and ranging from miniature portable Bibles to oversized Gospel books, make up a new exhibition at The New York Public Library. The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library, […]
Via just about everywhere, Time’s top-rated English-language novels, from 1923 to now:
http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html
I’m not going to bother debating the merits of any book on the list, nor will I lament the absense of a particular book or author. What I will do is list the books that I’ve read and those I’d like to read. Here […]
Copyright and IP stuff again. I know, it ain’t your bag, probably. Oh fucking well. But this is more ha-ha than zzz-zzz, so be cool.
I was out at St. Mark’s Bookshop tonight and I bought a couple issues of 2600, along with the paperback edition of Laurence Lessig’s latest book, The Future of Ideas. My […]
Cracked, yellowing–in which I muse about bookstores I’ve loved.
I’ve been reading George Orwell’s first novel Down and Out in Paris and London in preparation for my trip. I’ve intended to read this book for quite a while, and this seemed like the perfect time. Orwell writes about a young writer living in poverty in the two cities. The book is based in part […]
I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And […]
