Dear Friends and Colleagues,On behalf of the Junior Fellow Lecture Series committee I would like to invite you to the second Junior Fellow Lecture of this year. Please join us at 7:45pm on Thursday October 17th in the Upper Library for three lectures and discussion under the theme “The Empire Strikes Back”. Our speakers and their talk […]

Wednesday, November 3, 4:00-6:00 pm, Gradroom at Grad House, 66 Harbord St, Toronto. All are welcome. No advance registration is required. Presentations: Why hasn’t natural selection made us immortal? Arvid Ågren (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) Only around 100 years ago, the Western world had a life expectancy 25 years lower than today. This was the […]

Wednesday, October 20, 4:00-6:00 pm, Gradroom at Grad House, 66 Harbord St, Toronto. All are welcome. No advance registration is required. Presentations: Genetically Modified Plants and the Law: A Growth Industry Robert Smith (Law) My topic begins with the question “can a company patent a plant?”  In my speech I will explain the extent to which […]

Biphoton Wave Functions: Pictures from Quantum Optics Luke Helt, Physics Although explored by Newton as early as 1672, optics is still an intense area of current research. We can produce various colours for displays (with phosphors, or liquid crystals), reduce glare (with polarized sunglasses), and send information at high speeds (with fiber-optic cables and diode […]

Fidelity in Nature Anna Price, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Darwin viewed reproduction as a co-operative process involving a male and a female, where mutual mate choice leads to the production of high-quality offspring, which benefits both sexes. However, more recent theory and observation reveal that there is nothing inherently co-operative about male-female interactions. In many […]

Darwin the Computer Scientist Paul Grouchy (Institute for Aerospace Studies) With the recent explosion in computational power, scientists are now able to apply evolutionary concepts in ways that Darwin himself could never have dreamed of.? This presentation will provide an overview of how computer scientists are using artificial evolution to solve a wide variety of […]