Boston Flora

Tag: Herman Suit

  • Wednesday, April 10, 6:00 pm – Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

    From the Stone Age diet plan to Paleo workouts, our culture is rife with pseudo-scientific fads based on a time when we supposedly were more “in sync” with nature. Marlene Zuk, professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota, dismantles this nostalgia and argues that evolution yields neither perfection nor a final product. The Wednesday, April 10 lecture is part of the Evolution Matters Lecture Series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free and open to the public. Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking for evening lectures in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Tuesday, March 12, 6:00 pm – From the Big Bang to Broadway: How Things Evolve

    Robert Hazen, Research Scientist, Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory and Professor of Earth Sciences at George Mason University, will speak at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge on Tuesday, March 12, beginning at 6 pm. The concept of evolution by natural selection has long been a lightning rod for anti-science rhetoric. Such attacks are usually aimed at the biological realm, but Darwin’s opponents must now face evidence that complex evolving systems also drive phenomena beyond life science, such as the diversification of minerals on earth. Part of the Evolution Matters Lecture Series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free and open to the public. Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking for evening lectures in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Wednesday, February 27, 6:00 pm – Jurassic Mothers from China: Origins and Evolution of Mammals

    Paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo, Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, will discuss both the origins of modern mammalian biological adaptations in the deep times of the Mesozoic—dominated by the dinosaurs—and how Jurassic fossils discovered in China shed light on the earliest evolution of placental mammals. The Wednesday, February 27 program is part of the Evolution Matters Lecture Series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free and open to the public. Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking for evening lectures in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Tuesday, February 12, 6:00 pm – Looking for Signs of Evolution: Bees, Butterflies, and Bacteria

    Naomi Pierce, Hessel Professor of Biology and Curator of Lepidoptera at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, will speak Tuesday, February 12, beginning at 6 pm at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge on the topic Looking for Signs of Evolution: Bees, Butterflies, and Bacteria. Naomi Pierce examines the behavioral ecology of species interactions, such as insect/host plant associations, and the life history, evolution, and systematics of butterflies and other insects. Part of the Evolution Matters Lecture Series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free and open to the public.  Free event parking in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Thursday, January 31, 6:00 pm – What Art Thou, Little Bird?

    We might think robins are simply a common backyard bird, but actually they represent one of the most unusual, successful, and abundant animals (the order Aves) in Earth’s history. The new science of evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”) sheds fascinating light on the evolution of birds’ highly distinct skulls with toothless beaks, and on how modern birds can generate a seemingly endless array of beak shapes. Arkhat Abzhanov, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, will speak on Thursday, January 31, beginning at 6 pm on Developmental Mechanisms for the Origin and Evolution of Birds. Part of the Evolution Matters Lecture Series, supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit. Free and open to the public. Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking for evening lectures in the 52 Oxford Street garage.

  • Wednesday, February 1, 6:00 pm – The Origin of Cellular Life

    The amazing diversity of life is a result of billions of years of evolution. But how did the process of evolution begin? Nobel Prize winner Jack Szostak, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, will describe how efforts to design and build very simple living cells are testing our assumptions about the nature of life, generating ideas about how life emerged from the chemistry of early Earth, and offering clues as to how modern life evolved from its earliest ancestors. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage. Part of the Evolution Matters lecture series at The Harvard Museum of Natural History. Supported by a gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  For more information, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.