Tiny Conspiracies: Cell-to-Cell Communication in BacteriaSeptember 23, 2021, via Zoom
Presented in association with the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Kansas City, the Princeton Alumni Association of Greater Kansas City, and the Yale Club of Kansas City.
The program:
Bacteria are tiny ancient organisms. Harmful bacteria have the capacity to kill humans, animals, and plants. How do bacteria do it? The answer is that bacteria work in groups: They communicate, count their numbers, and act as collectives to carry out processes that would be unproductive if undertaken by an individual bacterium acting alone. Current biomedical research seeks to interfere with bacterial communication as a strategy to combat globally-important bacterial pathogens.
The speaker:
Dr. Bonnie Bassler, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, wants to understand how bacteria communicate and orchestrate group behaviors. This process, known as quorum sensing, relies on chemical “words” and enables populations of bacteria to regulate gene expression, and therefore behavior, on a community-wide scale. Through a range of approaches, Bassler and her team are providing insight into: intra-species, inter-species, and inter-domain communication; population-level cooperation; and the principles underlying signal transduction and information processing at the population and individual cell levels. One objective of Bassler’s team is to develop quorum-sensing interference strategies to combat pathogenic bacteria that use this process to regulate virulence. Dr. Bassler received a BS in biochemistry from the University of California at Davis, and a PhD in biochemistry from the Johns Hopkins University.
The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human EvolutionSeptember 17, 2020, via Zoom webinar
18th Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture
Presented by the Linda Hall Library in association with the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Kansas City, the Princeton Alumni Association of Greater Kansas City, and the Yale Club of Kansas City.
The lecture:
We Homo sapiens can be the nicest of species and also the nastiest. What occurred during human evolution to account for this paradox? What are the two kinds of aggression that primates are prone to, and why did each evolve separately? How does the intensity of violence among humans compare with the aggressive behavior of other primates? How did humans domesticate themselves? And how were the acquisition of language and the practice of capital punishment determining factors in the rise of culture and civilization?
Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham offers a startlingly original theory of how, in the last 250 million years, humankind became an increasingly peaceful species in daily interactions even as its capacity for coolly planned and devastating violence remains undiminished. In tracing the evolutionary histories of reactive and proactive aggression, he argues for the necessity of social tolerance and the control of savage divisiveness still haunting us today.
The speaker:
Richard Wrangham is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and founder of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project. He has conducted extensive research on primate ecology, nutrition, and social behavior. He is best known for his work on the evolution of human warfare, described in the book, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, and on the role of cooking in human evolution, described in the book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. His latest book, The Goodness Paradox, was published in 2019. He earned a BA from Oxford University and a PhD in zoology from Cambridge University.
How the Social Brain Builds Itself—But Sometimes Doesn’t: Genes, Experience, and the Biological Roots of Autism** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall **
April 17, 2018, in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library.
The lecture
From birth to age one, an infant’s brain forms 10 million new synaptic connections per second. After that, synapses are pruned away at a net rate of 5 million per second for the rest of childhood. This volcanic churn, driven by genetics and shaped by experience, makes us who we are. Dr. Wang will discuss how developing brains build themselves—and how the process can go off track. In particular, he will focus on the cerebellum, a sensory processor that helps teach the brain to reach its potential. The answers may unlock doors to understanding—and someday preventing—autism.
The speaker
Sam Wang is professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University. His work focuses on the neurobiology of learning, at levels ranging from single synapses to the whole brain. Dr. Wang’s research places special emphasis on the cerebellum, a brain region generally associated with the coordination of muscle movements. He is particularly curious about the cerebellum’s role in cognition and social thought processes, and he is using neural imaging of this part of the brain to search for clues to the causes of autism, a major concern of his laboratory.
An alumnus of the California Institute of Technology, where he received a BS with honor in physics, Dr. Wang went on to earn a PhD in neuroscience from the Stanford University School of Medicine. He conducted postdoctoral research at Duke University Medical Center and then Bell Labs Lucent Technologies. In the mid-1990s, he also worked on science and education policy for the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Dr. Wang joined the Princeton University faculty in 2000.
Dr. Wang’s first book, Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life, published in 2008, was named Young Adult Science Book of the Year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2011, he published Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College, which is available in 15 international translations.
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
What Darwin Didn’t Know: Evolution Since The Origin of Species** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall **
15th Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture
April 6, 2017, in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library
The lecture:
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was a Victorian tour de force: a remarkable synthesis of natural history observations and simple experimental results. Perhaps, though, the most impressive thing about the theory is the way in which it has survived more than 150 years of remarkable progress in biology. It has proved a truly resilient idea. That is not to say, however, that the theory has not undergone modifications as our biological knowledge has expanded in directions that would have been inconceivable to Darwin. This talk reviews the essence of Darwin’s ideas while taking excursions into some of the most exciting post-Darwin discoveries. In particular, the focus will be on human evolution, an area in which our knowledge has recently expanded massively with fossil discoveries and the application of modern genetics to both ourselves and, remarkably, to our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals.
The speaker:
Andrew Berry is an Assistant Head Tutor in Integrative Biology and Lecturer on Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. His research interests include genetic and statistical approaches to detecting adaptive evolution (instances of positive natural selection) in genomes. He is especially fascinated by islands because they are so often home to remarkable evolutionary innovations. Professor Berry is also a historian of science with research interests in Alfred Russel Wallace and in the role of natural history in the development of evolutionary thinking. He has an undergraduate degree in zoology from Oxford University and a PhD in genetics from Princeton University.
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
The Evolution of Beauty** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall **
April 14, 2016, in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library
14th Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture with Richard Prum, William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University
About the lecture:
Why is bird song so rich, complex, and variable? Why do animals perform elaborate courtship displays? Unlike adaptations that solve challenges to survival, bird song and courtship displays function through sensory seduction. Darwin proposed that some of these aesthetic traits evolved by sexual selection. Today, most evolutionary biologists view sexually selected displays as adaptive, honest advertisements of mate quality. But how do we account for the diversity of aesthetic preferences? And what is the relationship between aesthetic evolution and human culture? I expand on Darwin’s original views, proposing that a fundamental feature of mate choice is the co-evolution of mating displays and aesthetic mating preferences. This research provides a framework for a “post-human” aesthetic philosophy that spans all biology, human arts, and culture—from warblers to Warhol.
About the speaker:
Richard Prum is an ornithologist who draws from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including developmental biology, optical physics, molecular genetics, phylogenetics, paleontology, and behavior ecology, to address central questions about bird development, evolution, and behavior. He is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, where he also serves as curator of ornithology and head curator of vertebrate zoology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
TMI: Identity and Privacy in the Digital Age** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall **
April 1, 2015, in the Linda Hall Library Main Reading Room
Dr. Edward Felten, Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs, Princeton University
About the lecture
From attacks against retail merchants and banks to the revelations about the broad scope of government surveillance around the world, the assurance of privacy and the safety of personal information are increasingly difficult online. Even popular social media outlets such as Facebook, where people publish detailed information about their lives, are vulnerable to security breaches and the mishandling of personal data. This talk examines the technical tradeoffs and the future of information security policies in the Digital Age.
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
The Lost Art of Finding Our Way** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall **<br />
<br />
About this lecture: <br />
<br />
12th Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture<br />
May 13, 2014 in the Linda Hall Library Main Reading Room. <br />
<br />
Dr. John Huth, Donner Professor of Science, Department of Physics, Harvard University <br />
<br />
Long before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, Dr. Huth puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death.<br />
<br />
The Linda Hall Library Bartlett Lecture is presented in association with the Yale Club of Kansas City, the Harvard/Radcliffe Club of Kansas City, and the Princeton Alumni Association of Greater Kansas City, and with generous support from Marilyn and Jim Hebenstreit and Mr. and Mrs. Paul D. Bartlett, Jr.<br />
<br />
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at http://new.livestream.com/lindahall **<br />
<br />
11th Paul D. Bartlett, Sr., Lecture - April 16, 2013, in the Main Reading Room of the Linda Hall Library.<br />
<br />
Dr. Sean Carroll, Senior Research Associate, Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology.<br />
<br />
On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced an achievement on par with splitting the atom: the discovery of the Higgs boson, a particle that holds the key to understanding why mass exists. Join Caltech physicist and acclaimed writer Sean Carroll for a behind-the-scenes look at this landmark event as he explains the importance of the Higgs boson and what it means for the future of science. This is an irresistible story with a certain amount of conniving, dealing, and occasional skullduggery—and Dr. Carroll explores it all.<br />
<br />
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
The Evolution of Economic Irrationality: Insights from Monkeys** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at http://new.livestream.com/lindahall **<br />
<br />
About this lecture: <br />
<br />
February 23, 2012, at the Linda Hall Library<br />
10th Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture<br />
<br />
Can the collapse of the world financial markets be explained in part by human evolutionary history? Are human economic decisions--rational & irrational--determined as much by nature as by intellect? Psychology professor Laurie R. Santos delves into questions about human economic behavior and decision-making through her behavioral studies of capuchin monkeys. <br />
<br />
Dr. Santos is an associate professor of psychology at Yale University and the director of Yale University's Comparative Cognition Laboratory.<br />
<br />
Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
Who Discovered The Periodic Table? The Anatomy of a Priority Dispute
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at http://new.livestream.com/lindahall **<br />
<br />
About this lecture: <br />
<br />
Eighth Annual Paul D. Bartlett, Sr. Lecture - February 25, 2010, at the Linda Hall Library<br />
<br />
Did humans become human when they developed the ability to create and use tools or was it when they learned to flambé? Richard Wrangham, author of "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human," explores the role of cooking in evolution.<br />
<br />
Dr. Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University, Curator of Primate Behavioral Biology at the Peabody Museum, and Director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda.<br />
<br />
Video produced by The Video Works of Roeland Park, Kansas.
