A Q&A with the science writer Carl Zimmer.
I met Carl Zimmer in a small college library many years ago. It will give you a hint of how old we are that smoking was allowed, almost encouraged. (Ashtrays!) Carl and I were among a tiny minority that did not smoke but worked there anyway. When you're 18, you are stupid about a lot of things; we were stupid about secondhand smoke. |
I mostly edit pieces on politics, sociology and history, but I also like to edit stories about science and animals whenever I can, with writers like Frans de Waal, Alexandra Horowitz, Maria Konnikova and Jon Mooallem. Yet somehow I had never worked with Carl, the science columnist for The Times, before plunging into his Sunday Review cover story about where viruses fall on the continuum between animate and inanimate, which ends by showing us that "if viruses are lifeless … lifelessness is stitched into our very being." |
I asked Carl a few questions about what it's like to be writing at the intersection of science and society during these perilous days. |
AR: When we were in college, it felt like the genetic revolution was underway. But what was happening then now seems incredibly primitive. How have you adjusted to writing about science as it has gotten more and more sophisticated? |
CZ: When we met, the idea of reading all your DNA — your genome — was an absurd fantasy. Now you can get your own genome sequenced for a few hundred bucks. |
Sequencing genes has completely changed biology. We're learning not just about ourselves, but about all living things, including viruses. Right now, our best hope of crushing the pandemic is sequencing thousands of genomes of coronaviruses every day to search for new variants that are more contagious or can evade vaccines. |
I still get press releases announcing the first genome sequenced from yet another species — redwoods, octopuses and so on. So I guess I'm jaded now. I'm not thrilled by the mere idea that scientists can sequence a genome anymore. Now I want to hear about what scientists have discovered in that genome. |
AR: Pursuing the intellectual and scientific stories surrounding the pandemic can sometimes feel a little weird, almost incongruous. How do you reconcile your interest in what lies behind the science and the tragedy in front of you? |
CZ: We've always dealt with the tragedy of epidemics, not to mention the steady toll taken by diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. What's different now is that we are learning about the causes of those diseases, down to the molecular details. The fact that viruses straddle the boundary of life and death is important to understand for practical reasons. For instance, we can understand how long they can remain infectious even when they're frozen or crystallized — challenges that would kill ordinary life-forms. Learning how viruses have evolved over huge time spans can tell us a lot about how they may evolve in the future — and how to stop them from overcoming our vaccines and antivirals. |
But it's true that virologists can have a strange fascination with these deadly pathogens. Recently a virologist at the University of Pittsburgh named Paul Duprex was telling me about the elegant ways by which coronavirus variants are evolving their way around our immune systems. They're changing the shape of their proteins so that antibodies can't stick to them, while not losing their ability to replicate in our cells. "It's so cool, it is absolutely brilliant!" he said, almost in admiration. "That's why I love the damn things." |
AR: Your essay in Sunday Review draws on a book you are publishing soon about the space between being alive and … not being alive. Besides viruses, what are some other interesting examples of creatures that exist in the liminal space between animate and inanimate? |
CZ: I've always been fascinated by the fact that biologists spend their careers studying life and yet they can't agree on what life is. For "Life's Edge," I took a number of trips to encounter life as we know it, and as we don't. On the borderlands of life, I got to know not just viruses, but other strange things, such as pea-sized clusters of human brain cells that develop like baby brains and drops of inert chemicals that race around Petri dishes like frantic cheetahs. It's hard to know what to make of these things, which is why they're so important to coming up with a full understanding of life. |
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