73 Quotes by Carl Zimmer

Researchers keep identifying new species, but they have no idea about the life cycle of a given species or its other hosts. They cut open an animal and find a new species. Where did it come from? What effect does it have on its host? What is its next host? They don't know and they don't have time to find out, because there are too many other species waiting to be discovered and described.

Viruses don't just make us sick. They can actually sometimes end up in our genomes.

The hand is where the mind meets the world.

Today, when we look at a brain, we see an intricate network of billions of neurons in constant, crackling communication, a chemical labyrinth that senses the world outside and within, produces love and sorrow, keeps our hearts beating and lungs breathing, composes our thoughts, and constructs our consciousness.

I have been waiting to fly out of here (Jackson), but the flight times never worked until now. When the connections work out, it's a shorter time than driving to Memphis.

I have learned so much about where we came from. It has also allowed me to appreciate the new science that has come out on human origins.

The people that domesticated cattle and started drinking milk learned how to digest it as adults. Normally, creatures after they grow up cannot digest milk easily. For instance, a kitten will nurse and digest milk, but then will grow up, stop drinking it, and start catching mice.

I wish I took more scientific classes, because I've always been interested in science. Most of what I have learned I've learned on the job. It's a really neat opportunity to learn by calling up scientists, some of which are world-renowned, ask them questions.

There is so much being discovered about human origins. Five years ago, the oldest fossils of hominids were four and a half million years old. There has been a series of discoveries that pushed fossils back to six or seven million years old, which adds a couple of years to evolution history.