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Evolution has led to some populations of people being able to digest milk without much trouble when they're adults as well.
Carl Zimmer
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Carl Zimmer
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: July 13
Author
Journalist
Science Writer
Writer
New Haven
Connecticut
Evolution
Trouble
Able
Wells
Digest
Without
Populations
Milk
Well
Population
Much
Adults
People
More quotes by Carl Zimmer
We really depend on viruses for our complete survival.
Carl Zimmer
About 1.2% of the human genome is made up of genes, things that encode for proteins, the stuff that we consider us. There is about 8.3% that's a virus. In other words we're probably about seven times more virus than we are human genes, which is kind of a weird way to thinking about yourself.
Carl Zimmer
The hand is where the mind meets the world.
Carl Zimmer
There is some research that suggests that viruses like the flu are really actually kind of at the razor's edge when it comes to mutation. They're mutating so fast that if they mutated much faster they would actually develop a lot of harmful mutations that could slow them down and cripple them and eventually literally drive them extinct.
Carl Zimmer
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.
Carl Zimmer
Everybody can digest milk when they're little.
Carl Zimmer
Over millions of years the viruses in our genome mutate more and more so the look less and less and less recognizable as viruses and so if there was a virus that infected our pre mammal ancestors like 250 million years ago, which it probably did, we can't see it because it just looks totally random.
Carl Zimmer
One of the big challenges now is to figure out just how many viruses there really are in the human genome. So far the estimate is 8.3% of our genome is virus, but it actually could be a lot higher.
Carl Zimmer
If you're looking for your own idea of your own identity you know the human genome may not be the best place to look for it. You're just looking at a bunch of viruses.
Carl Zimmer
We have Borna virus genes. We're part Borna virus, which is weird, but apparently our cells and our genomes in a weird way might actually be grabbing these viruses, grabbing genetic material from the viruses that are infecting it and pulling them into their own genome.
Carl Zimmer
The reason that viruses are so hard to fight, the reason for example we need a flu virus every year is that they evolve very fast.
Carl Zimmer