Carl Zimmer
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carlzimmer.com
Carl Zimmer
@carlzimmer.com
52K followers 1.6K following 24K posts
NYT columnist. Signal: carlzimmer.51
Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/carlzimmer/
Web: http://carlzimmer.com
[This account includes a tweet archive]
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carlzimmer.com
An engineer wanted to make a quiet high-speed train. “The question then occurred to me — is there some living thing that manages sudden changes in air resistance as a part of daily life?” The answer: the kingfisher. See my story today for more tales of bioinspiration. Gift link: nyti.ms/4otNQyl
An illustration comparing a kingfisher beak to a high-speed train
November 10, 2025 at 5:10 PM
carlzimmer.com
I wrote some reflections this afternoon about how the discovery of the double helix changed the course of science. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qPS3y6
November 8, 2025 at 3:43 AM
carlzimmer.com
With the gift-giving season upon us, how about an autographed book? You can order one (or more!) here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Covers of three of my books, Evolution, Airborne, and Life's Edge
November 4, 2025 at 12:21 AM
carlzimmer.com
Here's my latest contribution to the "Lost Science" series at the New York Times: Jay Falk, a scientist who studies why some female hummingbirds look just like males. Gift link: nyti.ms/4qF7Qje
White-necked jacobin, a hummingbird, perched on a branch
October 30, 2025 at 2:05 PM
carlzimmer.com
How bowhead whales live for centuries—and how we might borrow some of their biology to extend our healthy lifespan. Gift link to my new column: nyti.ms/4hyD9ry
Bowhead whale. Illustration by Uko Gorter/American Cetacean Society
October 29, 2025 at 4:33 PM
carlzimmer.com
Pandas, snow leopards...and bacteria. A newly formed team of scientists is setting out to conserve the world's diversity of microbes. Here's my story: nyti.ms/47vEfRC
Photo of Grand Prismatic Springs, Yellowstone (home of thermophilic bacteria) Photo by Mike Goad https://flic.kr/p/Gm8fZc
October 17, 2025 at 12:58 PM
carlzimmer.com
Wall-to-wall Ambulocetus!
Three screens with my slides for a talk at Notre Dame
September 25, 2025 at 8:32 PM
carlzimmer.com
Hello @notredame.bsky.social ! Looking forward to my lecture tomorrow. Details here: science.nd.edu/events/2025/...
September 24, 2025 at 9:03 PM
carlzimmer.com
How Did Hands Evolve? The Answer Is Behind You. (My story of some surprising evo-devo!) nyti.ms/42Cg8xH
Gray's Anatomy illustration of a hand
September 17, 2025 at 9:21 PM
carlzimmer.com
It's been six months since I started tracking the dire science news in my newsletter. For a long time, it felt like an ominous ocean swell. Now it feels like a breaking wave.
buttondown.com/carlzimmer/a...
Painting of a breaking wave
September 6, 2025 at 2:51 PM
carlzimmer.com
First day of class!
September 2, 2025 at 5:05 PM
carlzimmer.com
On the new acting CDC director. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
O’Neill, unlike Monarez, has no training in medicine or infectious disease science. He is a former speechwriter for the health department, during the Bush years, who went on to work for the tech investor and conservative megadonor Peter Thiel. During the Covid pandemic, O’Neill voiced public support for unproven treatments that were not supported by scientific evidence, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, as well as vitamin D as a supposed “prophylaxis”. He also posted a number of conspiratorial theories on social media, including the baseless claim that “the name #COVID was chosen to conceal the origin of the virus. This name made it harder to study and probably slowed the response.”
August 29, 2025 at 1:59 AM
carlzimmer.com
A genetic flip helped turn us into upright walkers. Here’s my evo-devo story about the ilium. Gift link: nyti.ms/45BOenz
An engraving of the pelvis from Gray’s Anatomy.
August 27, 2025 at 3:08 PM
carlzimmer.com
Do you need a pygmy sea horse break? Here's my story on the deep lesson about evolution they have to teach us. Gift link: nyti.ms/4mrKIC8
Pygmy sea horse pretending to be a piece of pink coral. Photo by Richard Smith.
August 25, 2025 at 7:16 PM
carlzimmer.com
This summer's raging wildfires in Spain are the red spike in this graph. atmosphere.copernicus.eu/copernicus-i...
Graph showing wildfire carbon emissions in Spain. This year's fires are in a league of their own.
August 19, 2025 at 4:33 PM
carlzimmer.com
The skull according to ChatGPT: Mandible mandible mandible!
A terrible diagram of the skull courtesy of ChatGPT.
August 15, 2025 at 2:34 AM
carlzimmer.com
Decoding inner speech. A volunteer who cannot speak imagines saying the sentence on the screen. A computer decodes the signals from an implant in her brain and correctly guesses what she's saying to herself. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/3UpEiat
August 14, 2025 at 3:14 PM
carlzimmer.com
It's a lot to fit on a chimpmunk's spine.
a real scull
August 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
carlzimmer.com
Yesterday I discovered that ChatGPT's PhD-level expertise didn't extend to bird anatomy. This morning I thought, perhaps I was being too hard on the half-trillion-dollar company. Birds are a little weird, anatomically speaking. Let's try something more familiar. A mammal. Behold.
August 14, 2025 at 2:16 PM
carlzimmer.com
The team of Ph.D. level experts in ChatGPT apparently doesn't include any anatomists.
Grade F level diagram of an ostrich skeleton. The pelvis is labelled as a humerus, and sternum appears to be labeled as the pelvis.
August 13, 2025 at 10:06 PM
carlzimmer.com
The special torture that a crossword-making brother can inflict. Arg!
Crossword made by Ben Zimmer
August 8, 2025 at 12:44 AM
carlzimmer.com
Snapshot of US beliefs about science and flat-earthy stuff. [1000+ people surveyed, +/- 3%] carsey.unh.edu/publication/...
A graph showing agreement with various statements about science as well as conspiracy theories
August 7, 2025 at 5:13 PM
carlzimmer.com
NSF and NIH cut off almost 300 grants to UCLA. Story by @dangaristo.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...
The suspensions landed perhaps most heavily in math. NSF suspended a $25 million grant for the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), an international center at UCLA that hosts about 2000 visiting researchers every year for workshops and other programs. One of its stars, Terence Tao, a Fields Medal winner frequently named as one of the greatest living mathematicians, also had his only NSF grant suspended. The $750,000 award was in its first year and supported Tao’s own research and a handful of graduate students in developing tools to tell whether a set of numbers is structured or random. Tao says he now cannot offer research assistant opportunities during the academic year, and he calls the cuts to IPAM “quite disastrous.”
August 2, 2025 at 4:21 AM
carlzimmer.com
Covid measures pushed down deaths from influenza to remarkably low levels. The death rate is surging back--including 266 children. 90% of children who died in the 2024-2025 flu season were not fully vaccinated against the flu. www.cdc.gov/fluview/surv...
July 28, 2025 at 3:14 PM
carlzimmer.com
Here's a newly uncovered fossil that's an evolutionary puzzle. Its plume is not made of feathers. But it's feather-ish. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/40UUlAP
A 247-million-year-old reptile with a bizarre feather-like crest. Art by Tobias Wilhelm/State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart
July 23, 2025 at 3:16 PM