The Life Science (LS) Series offers events that showcase advances in biology. Topics include how organisms change through time and interact with their environment, animal behavior, the brain, genetics, and technological advances in molecular biology and biotechnology.
Previous LS events have covered gene patenting, the BRAIN Initiative, chimpanzee behavior, dinosaurs, aquatic life, and antibiotic discovery, among other topics.
Distinguished speakers have included Neil Shubin, Ph.D., Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, and host of “Your Inner Fish” on PBS; John Maunsell, Ph.D., Alfred D Lasker Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago and the Director of the Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior; and Katherine A. Barsness, M.D. M.S., Director of Surgical Simulation, Director of Surgical Outcomes Research Attending Physician, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Assistant Professor of Surgery Director of Outreach, Center for Education in Medicine, Department of Medical Education Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Since 1974, there has been mounting evidence of declining human sperm counts in several industrialized populations. But there are marked differences in occurrence and timing between regions, suggesting an environmental effect. Sperm counts have not yet declined to levels where fertility is severely threatened, but how serious is the problem and what might the future hold for our species?
Continue reading “Out for the Sperm Count: mysteries of a declining resource”
Your middle ear comes from the jawbone of a prehistoric fish. Your skin and hair can be traced to a shrew-like mammal that lived around 195 million years ago. As for your bad back — well, you can thank your primate ancestors for that. How did the human body become the complicated, quirky and amazing machine it is today?
Bioluminescence is everywhere on earth—most of all in the ocean, from angler fish in the depths to the flashing of dinoflagellates at the surface. Woody Hastings explores the natural history, evolution, and biochemistry of the diverse array of organisms that emit light.
Continue reading “Bioluminescence: Living Lights, Lights for Living”
Abstract:
There are many serious threats facing our oceans today. Oceans’ Health: An Ecosystem on the Brink will explore two of these merging issues. First, ocean acidification: over the last decade scientists have shown that human-caused increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are affecting the chemistry of our oceans, altering the main food web and proving harmful for many forms of marine life. Continue reading “Oceans’ Health: An Ecosystem on the Brink”
Abstract:
A patent case entitled The Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. was recently decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the appellate court responsible for hearing all patent appeals. Continue reading “Gene Patenting: The Economic, Legal and Health Dilemma”
For years, humans have wondered what it would be like to get inside the mind of another species, to understand how they thought, felt and saw the world around them. Until recently our understanding of the minds of other species that share this planet was little more than guess work; however, new technological and scientific methods have advanced to the point where some of these important questions are now able to be addressed. Continue reading “The Mind of a Chimpanzee”
