Carl Zimmer author photo
Image via Wikimedia Commons, sous licence CC BY-SA 4.0.

Carl Zimmer

Né(e): July 13, 1966 – New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Carl Zimmer is an American science journalist and columnist focused on evolution, heredity, microbiology, and medicine. He is the author of Parasite Rex, A Planet of Viruses, and She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, and has won multiple science-writing honors while shaping public understanding through books, essays, and journalism.

Biographie et Parcours de l'Auteur

Carl Zimmer came to science writing through literature rather than laboratory training. He earned a B.A. in English, magna cum laude, from Yale University in 1987 and joined Discover in 1989 as a researcher and reporter. Over the next decade he moved through associate and senior editorial roles, learning to translate complex biology for general readers while building a body of work that ranged across evolution, parasites, heredity, virology, and the brain. That long apprenticeship in reporting, editing, and explanation set the pattern for his later career as an author and journalist. ((https://carlzimmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CARL-ZIMMER-CV-2-15-2026.pdf))

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Citations

quote
Nobody actually invented it
-Breakthrough DNA Editor Born of Bacteria
quote
The path from ants to antibiotics is not as roundabout as it may seem
-Experimental Drugs Target Bacteria’s Social Network
quote
Few people would describe bedbugs as most beautiful or most wonderful
-In Bedbugs, Scientists See a Model of Evolution
quote
This process has generated a huge amount of viral DNA in the human genome
-Our Inner Viruses: Forty Million Years In the Making
quote
A tumor, as strange as it may sound, is a little society
-In the Way Cancer Cells Work Together, a Possible Tool for Their Demise
quote
In the standard Frankenstein story, a scientist creates an unnatural monster that breaks out of the lab and runs amok
-Frankenstein Can’t Come Out And Play Today
quote
Tens of thousands of people were sterilized as a result of these laws
-Genetic Screening: Controlling Heredity

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