Gregory Cochran

Gregory Cochran grew up in a small town in Illinois, picked up a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Illinois, and worked for years in aerospace, mainly on advanced optics and laser systems. He later segued into evolutionary genetics and anthropology. He collaborates with Henry Harpending (University of Utah): and they put out a book in 2009 about the recent evolutionary change in humans: The 10,000 Year Explosion.

Come on in, the Plague Is Fine

People are afraid of Ebola, and they have a right to be"but they also need to understand it. Ebola is a highly dangerous viral infection, killing more than half of those infected. The death rate is higher than that in cases without hospital care, lower when supportive therapy (oxygen, ...

Paranoid About Asteroids

A meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk around 9:20AM local time Friday. First there was a fireball brighter than the sun, followed by a blast wave that blew down doors and smashed windows. More than 1,000 people were injured, mostly from flying glass. Chelyabinsk is a tough town; ...

Thawing out the Neanderthals

If Harvard geneticist George Church gets his way, we may be seeing Neanderthals in the not-so-distant future"without having to first drink a quart of Old Overcoat. The kerfuffle arose when Der Spiegel interviewed Church about his recent book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent ...