The Spring 2006 Saturday Morning Physics series is sponsored by the Dr. M. Lois Tiffany endowment and gifts from friends of the program.

Saturday, January 21, 2006
Philip Gingerich, U-M Museum of Paleontology
Evolution: The Fossil Record and the Origin of Whales
Evolution is a science of change through time, founded in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe and explain fossils that geologists observed to differ in successive layers of the earth’s crust. Microevolutionary studies in paleontology link species through close intermediates and address change on short time scales. Macroevolutionary studies trace profound changes in body plans through longer intervals, as seen in the origin and early evolution of whales.
Professor Gingerich's PowerPoint Presentation
Copyright © 2006 Philip D. Gingerich
This presentation is available for educational viewing only. Please contact Professor Gingerich for any requests to use segments of this program or the program in its entirety.

Saturday, January 28, 2006
Jens-Christian Meiners, U-M Physics
Nanomedicine – A New Frontier for Physics
Life emerges on the nanometer length scale between the size of a molecule and a cell. Discover the often surprising and counterintuitive physical principles that govern biological systems on that scale, and look at how they inspire new approaches in the development of medical diagnostics and therapeutics.
Professor Meiners' PowerPoint Presentation

Saturday, February 4, 2006
Johannes Foufopoulos, U-M Natural Resources
Evolution of Infectious Diseases: from Host-Parasite Arms Races to Superbugs
Pathogens have always existed in a changing environment where keeping up with the quickly shifting immune defenses of the host is key for survivial. Because of their impressive capacity to respond rapidly to change, bacteria and viruses have been able to evolve multiple molecular answers to many of today's antibiotics. Learn how the rise of antibiotic resistance can impact your life and what is being done to deal with this challenge.
PowerPoint Presentation by Professor Foufopoulos

Saturday, February 11, 2006
George Zhang, U-M Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Genomes and Evolution
How big is a genome and what elements are in a genome? How does the genome change in evolution? Do genomic studies provide any novel perspectives on the structure, function, and evolution of cellular life? How will genomics change our daily lives in the future?
Professor Zhang's PowerPoint Presentation

Saturday, February 18, 2006
Randolph Nesse, U-M Psychiatry & Psychology
Natural Selection & the Regulation of Defense Responses: How Much Suffering is Enough?
If natural selection is so great, then why is life so full of pain, cough, nausea, fever, anxiety and fatigue? A signal detection analysis reveals it is for the same reason that smoke detectors scream when we make toast. Knowing that most instances of defensive arousal are unnecessary but completely normal offers the missing scientific foundation for deciding how we should use new drugs.
Professor Nesse's PowerPoint Presentation

Saturday, March 11, 2006
Fred Becchetti, U-M Physics
How Old: The Physics of Dating Artifacts
Documenting the course of evolution depends on the accurate dating and sequencing of ancient artifacts. Physics has provided some of the primary techniques for doing this, in particular radioactive dating such as C14 dating. The basic techniques and some of the recent developments in this field will be reviewed together with some of the implications.
Professor Becchetti's PowerPoint Presentation

Saturday, March 18, 2006
Henry Pollack, U-M Geology
Scientific Uncertainty and Public Policy: Moving on Without All the Answers
One frequently hears scientific uncertainty offered up as an excuse to avoid making important public policy decisions. We will hear about sources of uncertainty, both real and 'manufactured', and offer perspectives on why policy formulation must proceed in the face of uncertainty.
Professor Pollack's PowerPoint Presentation

Saturday, March 25, 2006
Eric Rabkin, U-M English Language & Literature
Mars and the Evolution of Thought
Once the gods fought in our heavens; now we see the orderly progress of stars. Once the night sky harbored our enemies; now we see planets as resources for the taking. This lecture will consider how, driven in part by our changing understanding of the Red Planet, these shifts and others reflect the evolving of self-conceptions of humanity.
Professor Rabkin's PowerPoint Presentation
Original materials copyright © 2006 Eric S. Rabkin
This presentation is available for educational viewing only and may not be copied, distributed, displayed, or otherwise used, in whole or in part, without permission. To request permission to copy, distribute, display, or otherwise use any or all of the presentation, please contact Professor Rabkin, esrabkin@umich.edu

Saturday, April 1, 2006
Peter Swanson, FANUC Robotics America, Inc.
Evolution of Robotics
Take a look at how an industrial robot works, and how it has evolved with improvements in processing power and control technology. See how robotic technologies are being used in telepresence and autonomous vehicles. Look to the future as haptics, prosthetics, and exoskeletons begin to blur the line between human and robot.
Mr. Swanson's PowerPoint Presentation (attached video files may take several minutes to download)

Saturday, April 8, 2006
David Mindell, Curator, U-M Museum of Zoology; Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
An Evolutionary Guide to the Tree of Life
Observe an illustrated overview of life's diversity together with discussion of the history of evolutionary thought, and the computational challenges involved in discovering the patterns of life's diversification over the past 3.8 billion years.
Professor Mindell's PowerPoint Presentation (MAC compatible)

Saturday, April 22, 2006
David Mindell, Curator, U-M Museum of Zoology; Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Applied Evolution: Domestication, Disease, Crime & Culture
Understand how evolutionary biology is much more than an explanatory concept, and that it is indispensable to the world we live in. When we domesticate wild species for agriculture or companionship; when we manage our exposure to pathogens and prevent or control epidemics; when we foster the diversity of species and safeguard the functioning of ecosystems; and even when we link biological crime scene evidence to suspects: in each of these cases, evolutionary biology is applied.
This PowerPoint will not be posted on-line here or on the Web Lecture Archive Project (WLAP) website at the speaker's request.