Behavioral biologist Dr. Melissa Emery Thompson explains “The Grandmother Hypothesis.” On Wednesday 17 August 2016 at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library, Dr. Thompson will discuss what she learned about female reproduction while studying chimpanzees of the Uganda’s Kibale wildlife preserve. Her talk is part of the Chicago Council on Science and Technology’s ongoing series of programs to give the sci-curious opportunities to talk with real scientist about what they are discovering.

In the past decade, we’ve heard a lot about the innate differences between males and females. So we’ve come to accept that boys can’t focus in a classroom and girls are obsessed with relationships: “That’s just the way they’re built.”

Continue reading “The Myth of Brain Sex with Dr. Lise Eliot and Aaron Freeman”

Toxoplasma Gondii is a parasite with a problem. It hangs out in gardens, parks and forests, but the survival of it and its species depends on somehow getting inside stomach of a cat.

Addiction is one of the most common forms of mental illness in the world. Tens of millions of Americans, and over a quarter of a billion people worldwide, have an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Everyone who has watched a loved one suffer from addiction wonders, “Why are they acting like this? Why can’t they stop?” Continue reading “The Science of Addiction”

Solar power is energy from the sun that is converted into thermal or electrical energy.

Solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant renewable energy source available, and the U.S. has some of the richest solar resources in the world. Continue reading “The Future of Solar Energy with Robert Armstrong”