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Looming Ahead with Carl Zimmer Written by Ava

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As if writing for publications like New York Times, Popular Science, Discover, and National Geographic, publishing seven books, and keeping up the acclaimed science blog The Loom wasn't enough, Carl Zimmer has an incredible knowledge of the evolution of marine life to boot---from the intelligence of octopuses to the origin of four-legged vertebrates. I came across this very obvious fact upon doing a short Q&A with the author, journalist, speaker, and blogger. I was lucky enough to pick his brain and now you can, too...just head on over to his official website CarlZimmer.com, where you'll find his blog, The Loom, and lots of articles to choose from as well as summations of the books he's written and a short bio so you can get your fill on all things science, all things marine life and all things Carl Zimmer.


What's on your current work schedule? What are you doing these days?


I'm juggling finishing up a textbook about evolution, articles for the New York Times and elsewhere, and giving a lot of talks this spring. Keeps me out of trouble.

How did you get into the work you're involved in? What's your background in science and journalism? In what way does marine science play a part?

I was an English major in college, but I was always interested in science. I was something of a freak in my college physics class, because I wasn't pre-med or an engineering major. I just liked physics. A couple years out of college I started work at Discover, where I learned how to write about science. After a few years I came to focus on biology, and obviously much of biology is underwater, so I've been writing about marine biology for a long time, from the early evolution of life around hydrothermal vents to the intelligence of the octopus.


Tell me about the books you've written.


I've written seven books so far. My first was called At the Water's Edge. I wrote about the transition of vertebrates out of the water and onto land, and the subsequent return of some vertebrates back to the water. That was a wonderful experience; I went fossil hunting with paleontologists and found the teeth of giant lungfish, and then I went scuba diving with biologists who were trying to figure out how a warm-blooded mammal like a dolphin keeps from overheating as it acts like a fish. Since then I've written about parasites, brains, evolution, bacteria, human origins, and the question of what is life.

Does marine science play a role in any of your books and/or articles on evolution?

Absolutely. For most of the history of life on Earth, it's been limited to the ocean, and the ocean is still a vast biological playground. I look for weird and important biology to write about, and very often I end up in the water.

Tell me about your blog, The Loom.

I started the Loom five years ago as a place where I could write about whatever I felt like. It's been a kind of writing laboratory for me, where I can experiment with different styles and combine writing with other media, such as video. But in that time, the whole world of media has become very blog-like, so now it gets harder to draw the line between my blogging and my other writing.

According to your blog, global warming and overfishing are killing reefs while scientists struggle to save them. Expand on these issues and talk about some of the other problems that are affecting our marine life and environment.


Global warming is the result of extra heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, carbon dioxide is moving from the atmosphere into the oceans, and it's doing so at such a tremendous rate that the water is starting to turn acidic. It's projected to acidify more over the next few decades, and the change in ocean chemistry may make life very hard for corals and shell-building animals. The combination of acidification with rising temperatures, pollution, and overfishing is going to put marine life under huge stress.

How smart is the octopus according to your article for Slate magazine?


The octopus won't score very high on an SAT test, but it's got a remarkable brain. It can solve complex problems and can camouflage itself in a dynamic, sophisticated way

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