Skip to content

Surprising Science — January 7, 2010

Of Parasites and Men

How many parasites live inside us? What is the relationship between internal parasites and allergies? And could one parasite even have affected our brain chemistry over the course of millennia? Science journalist Carl Zimmer (“Parasite Rex”) stopped by Big Think this week to discuss these and a host of other hot topics in science.

The conversation also touched on neuroscience (what is the “speed of thought”?), viruses in the human genome, and Zimmer’s popular blog, The Loom. Zimmer’s interview will be posted later this month.

Related

a computer generated image of a human brain.

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

jwst Abell 2744 450 million

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

The only official survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs in Japan has died of stomach cancer in his nineties.