“The evolution of the universe: from the big bang to the formation of the Milky Way”
Edward Rocky Kolb, University of Chicago
http://astro.uchicago.edu/~rocky/
Introduced by Ravi Sheth, Physics & Astronomy

"The Earliest History of Life: Solution to Darwin's Dilemma"
J. William Schopf, University of California, Los Angeles
http://www.ess.ucla.edu/faculty/schopf/index.asp
Introduced by Dick Holland, Earth and Environmental Science

Abstract
In 1859, Darwin stated the problem: “If the theory [of evolution] be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited … the world swarmed with living creatures. [However] to the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these earliest periods … I can give no satisfactory answer. The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.” For the following century, until the mid-1960s, the missing Precambrian fossil record stood out as among the greatest unsolved problems in natural science.

In the 1880s, '90s, and early 1900s, Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927) made the pioneering discoveries -- Precambrian stromatolites, phytoplankton (Chuaria), and the famous Cambrian-age Burgess Shale Fauna -- and in 1914 he reported fossilized bacteria from Precambrian limestones of Montana. But neither the bacteria nor the earlier-reported stromatolites gained acceptance. In the early1950s, Boris Vasil’evich Timofeev (1916-1982) reported plant spores from the Precambrian of the Soviet Union, yet these, too, were widely questioned. Soon thereafter, Stanley A. Tyler (1915-1984) and Elso S. Barghoorn (1915-1984) announced the discovery of microbial fossils in the Precambrian Gunflint chert of southern Canada. The breakthrough publications date from 1965: Barghoorn and Tyler formally described the Gunflint fossils; Preston Cloud (1912-1991) validated the find; and Barghoorn and I reported much better preserved fossil microbes from the Precambrian of central Australia. This last report, followed by a monograph in 1968, suggested that such fossils were not uncommon and established the search-strategy used to the present. From these beginnings, the documented history of life has been extended to 3,500 million years ago, some seven times earlier than was previously known. The missing Precambrian fossil record has been discovered; what was once "inexplicable" to Darwin is no longer so to us.

"Time Ribbon" showing the history of life, and of the planet, from the formation of the Earth (upper left), to the molecular origins of living systems (upper panel), through the vast Precambrian Eon (middle panels), to the rise of life on land (lower panel), and finally to the origin of humans (lower right). The ribbon is scientifically accurate and drawn to scale, from the formation of the planet to the present. This mural was designed by J. William Schopf and drawn by artists Jerome and Elma Connolly, and is displayed at the George C. Page Museum of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Bio
J. William Schopf received his undergraduate training in Geology at Oberlin College, Ohio (A.B., High Honors, 1963) and his advanced degrees in Biology at Harvard (M.A., 1965, Ph.D., 1968). Since 1968 he has been a member of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at UCLA where he is Distinguished Professor of Paleobiology, a member of the Molecular Biology Institute, and Director of the IGPP Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. At UCLA he has received all of the university's campus-wide awards for faculty scholarship: the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award; the Academic Senate's Faculty Research Lectureship; and the Gold Shield Prize for Academic Excellence. Recipient of the Waterman Medal of the National Science Board, the Thompson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Oparin Medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, and a Humboldt Senior Research Award, he has twice received Guggenheim Fellowships. Professor Schopf is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a foreign member of the Linnean Society of London, the A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Geobio-Center of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Műnchen. Two of his edited works have received the annual Scholarly Publishing Award of the Association of American Publishers as the Outstanding Volume in their area of science (1983: Earth's Earliest Biosphere; 1992: The Proterozoic Biosphere); his layman-level book, Cradle of Life, The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils, won the 2000 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. A leading worker in studies of the Precambrian history of life and discoverer of the oldest fossils now known, cellular microorganisms nearly 3,500 million years in age, he has pioneered the use of new techniques to analyze the morphology and chemistry of ancient life.

“The Origins of Genome Architecture”
Michael Lynch, Indiana University
http://www.bio.indiana.edu/facultyresearch/faculty/Lynch.html
Introduced by Paul Sniegowski, Biology

Abstract
Most of the phenotypic diversity that we perceive in the natural world is directly attributable to the peculiar structure of the eukaryotic gene, which harbors numerous embellishments relative to the situation in prokaryotes. These include introns that must be spliced out of precursor mRNAs, transcribed but untranslated leader and trailer sequences (UTRs), modular regulatory elements that drive patterns of gene expression, and expansive intergenic regions that harbor control mechanisms. Explaining the origins of these features is difficult because they each impose an intrinsic fitness disadvantage by increasing the genic mutation rate to defective alleles. To address these issues, a general hypothesis for the emergence of eukaryotic gene structure will be discussed. Extensive observations on population sizes, recombination rates, and mutation rates strongly support the view that eukaryotes have reduced genetic effective population sizes relative to prokaryotes, with especially extreme reductions occurring in multicellular lineages. The resultant increase in the power of random genetic drift is sufficient to overwhelm the weak mutational disadvantages associated with most novel aspects of the eukaryotic gene, supporting the idea that most such changes arose as nonadaptive by-products rather than direct products of natural selection. However, by establishing a population-genetic environment permissive to the genome-wide repatterning of gene structure, the eukaryotic condition also promoted a reliable resource from which natural selection could secondarily build novel forms of organismal complexity.

Time permiting, I will also discuss: 1) the implications of recent theoretical and empirical results that suggest that multicellular organisms are particularly vulnerable to evolutionary increases in the mutation rate; and 2) evidence that mammalian genomes have experienced parallel evolutionary changes in genome architecture, most notably genome-size contraction, following the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary.

Bio
Michael Lynch obtained his Ph. D. from the University of Minnesota in 1977, and immediately thereafter joined the faculty at the University of Illinois. In 1989, he moved to the University of Oregon as Program Director in Ecology and Evolution; and since 2001, he has been a faculty member at Indiana University.

After working in the fields of limnology and population ecology for a few years, his research moved into the area of evolutionary and quantitative genetics, as well as conservation biology. From there his interests expanded to the mechanisms responsible for the evolution of genome complexity. He is currently working on a general theory that ties together a variety of unexplained patterns in comparative genomics, and with collaborators is attempting to estimate the rate and effects of spontaneous mutations. Lynch and his collaborators address these issues through empirical work with several model organisms (including the nematode Caenorhabditis, the microcrustacean Daphnia, and the ciliated protozoan Paramecium), and by the integration of computational analyses of whole-genome sequences with mathematical applications of population-genetic theory and a knowledge of the basic biology of molecules. This work spans the fields of ecology, evolution, genetics, and molecular biology.

Lynch is coauthor (with Bruce Walsh) of Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits; author of The Origins of Genome Architecture; past president and vice president of the Society for the Study of Evolution; past president of the American Genetics Association; incoming president of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution; and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been a regular member of numerous NSF, NIH, and NRC panels, and has been a co-director of three NSF training grants: Genetic Mechanisms of Evolution; Evolution, Development, and Genomics; and the Causes and Consequences of Recombination. About 30 graduate students and 30 postdoctoral associates have worked in his lab.

"The Evolution of Social Minds"
Dorothy Cheney, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.bio.upenn.edu/faculty/cheney/
Introduced by Robert Seyfarth, Psychology

Abstract
In 1838, 20 years before he published On the Origin of Species, Darwin jotted in his M Notebook “He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke”. Darwin was just beginning to formulate his theory of natural selection, but even at this early stage he recognized that the mind could be studied like any other biological trait, and that the behavior of closely related species like baboons could provide clues to the evolution of the human mind. Darwin noted: “We can thus trace causation of thought … [it] obeys [the] same laws as other parts of structure.”

But what sorts of thoughts do baboons have? Like humans, baboons and other primates are fundamentally social creatures that live in large, complex societies in which individuals maintain networks of relationships that are simultaneously competitive and cooperative. Primate social knowledge is often characterized as “Machiavellian”, but how much do baboons and other primates really know about the societies in which they live? Are they aware of other animals’ relationships and rivalries? Are they aware of other animals’ thoughts and beliefs? Are they aware of their own thoughts and beliefs? Does primates’ social knowledge differ in any fundamental way from other animals’, and if so, does it confer any adaptive benefit? In my talk explore some of these questions, focusing in particular on the social behavior and cognition of wild baboons.

"Evolution of Darwin's Finches"
Peter R. and B. Rosemary Grant, Princeton University
http://www.eeb.princeton.edu/FACULTY/Grant_P/grantPeter.html
http://www.eeb.princeton.edu/FACULTY/Grant_R/Grant_BR.html
Introduced by David White, Psychology

Abstract
The problem of explaining the origin of species has remained with us since Darwin’s time. In this lecture we will discuss what has been learned from studies of Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos islands. Fourteen species have been derived from a common ancestor in the last two to three million years, none has become extinct as a result of human activities and part of their environment is still in a natural state. We will discuss the ecological factors promoting diversification, how evolution occurs when the environment changes, what the barriers are to interbreeding, how they are inherited and what happens when they break down.

Bio
Peter and Rosemary Grant have been studying Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos islands since 1973. Their fieldwork is designed to understand the causes of an adaptive radiation. It combines analyses of archipelago-wide patterns of evolution with detailed investigations of population level processes on two islands, Genovesa and Daphne. Their work is a blend of ecology, behavior and genetics. They have collaborated with investigators to estimate phylogenetic relations among the species of finches and their relatives on the continent and in the Caribbean, and to identify the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of beaks that vary so conspicuously among the species. Their work has been published in two books. A third book, entitled “How and Why Species Multiply”, was published by Princeton University Press in 2008.

Rosemary was initially trained at the University of Edinburgh, received a PhD degree from Uppsala University, and is now a Research scholar and lecturer with the rank of Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. Peter is the Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology in the same Department, having trained at Cambridge University and the University of British Columbia. Before joining Princeton in 1986 he taught at McGill University and the University of Michigan.

"Our Constitution's Intelligent Design"
Hon. John E. Jones III, United States District Court for the Middle District of PA
http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/bios/jones.htm
Introduced by TBA

Bio
Judge John E. Jones III commenced his service as a United States District Judge on August 2, 2002. He is the 21st judge to sit in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Judge Jones was appointed to his current position by President George W. Bush in February 2002, and was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on July 30, 2002.

Judge Jones was born and raised in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Mercersburg Academy, Dickinson College, and the Dickinson School of Law of The Pennsylvania State University.

In 1980 Judge Jones began his legal career as a law clerk to the President Judge of Schuylkill County, the Honorable Guy A. Bowe. Subsequently, he engaged in the private practice of law in Pottsville, Pennsylvania until the time of his elevation to the federal bench.

Prior to taking the bench, Judge Jones had numerous public and private affiliations. These included service as Pennsylvania state attorney for the D.A.R.E. program (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), and as chairman of a local foundation which awarded scholarships to high school students based upon vocal music ability. He has served as an Assistant Scoutmaster, and was extensively involved with both the local and national Boy Scouts of America.

In November, 1994, Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Ridge named Judge Jones as a co-chair of his transition team. Subsequently, in May 1995 Governor Ridge nominated Judge Jones to serve as Chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Judge Jones served as Chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board for a total of seven years and two months, until he assumed his current duties. While heading that agency he managed a workforce of over four thousand people, and administered a budget in excess of one billion dollars. Judge Jones also gained national attention in the area of alcohol education, with particular emphasis on underage drinking on college campuses, as well as drunk driving. In November 2000, Judge Jones’ contributions were recognized when he received the Government Leadership Award from the National Commission Against Drunk Driving in Washington, D.C. At the time of his appointment to the bench, Judge Jones was a board member, and president-elect, of the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA).

In 2006 Judge Jones received the Outstanding Alumni Award from the Dickinson School of Law, as well as an honorary doctorate in law and public policy from Dickinson College, where he was recently recognized as one of the twenty five most influential graduates in the College’s over two hundred and twenty year history. In 2007 he received an honorary doctorate in law from Muhlenberg College. In May, 2006 Judge Jones was named by Time Magazine as one of its Time 100, the one hundred most influential people in the world. Judge Jones has also received a Rave Award for Policy from Wired Magazine. In 2006 Judge Jones was the recipient of the first John Marshall Judicial Independence Award, which will be presented annually by the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In 2005 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania appointed Judge Jones to the Pennsylvania Commission on Judicial Independence. Judge Jones also sits on the Board of Directors of the Federal Judges Association.

Judge Jones is a member of the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Dickinson College. He also serves on the board of Justice at Stake, a Washington, D.C. based organization promoting fair and impartial courts in the United States.

Judge Jones has presided over several noteworthy and high profile cases. In 2003 Judge Jones struck down portions of Shippensburg University’s speech code on the basis that they violated the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee. In that same year Judge Jones ruled, in a decision later affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s statute assessing milk producers in order to fund advertising, including the Milk Mustache/got milk® campaign did not infringe the free speech rights of the producers. In 2005 Judge Jones presided over the landmark case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, after which he held that it was unconstitutional to teach intelligent design within a public school science curriculum. In 2006 he ruled that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s ballot access procedures for minor political parties did not violate the Constitution.

In 2007 Judge Jones and the Kitzmiller case were featured in the two-hour Nova special “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” televised nationally by PBS. In April 2008 “Judgment Day” won a Peabody Award, which is the oldest and most distinguished honor in electronic media. Judge Jones has also appeared as a guest on national television shows such as Today on NBC, the NewsHour on PBS, and CSPAN.

Judge Jones resides in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He has been married to his wife Beth Ann since 1982. They are the parents of daughter Meghan, and son John.