The M.I.T. Knight Science Journalism Fellows spent Thursday, May 4, discovering MBL research. By KSJ@MIT After lunch, it was time for cuttlefish. So 13 of us — the 2016-17 KSJ fellows, a spouse, and staff members — crowded around a pair of tray-like tanks at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to watch
Neil Shubin, interim co-director of the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and Associate Dean for Academic Strategy at the University of Chicago, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society. Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, the APS is the nation’s oldest learned society. Read more
MBL Society member Rita Colwell, a world-renown microbiologist, will receive one of the top awards in science and technology, the 2017 Vannevar Bush Award. Colwell is a member of the MBL President’s Scientific Advisory Council, a former MBL Trustee (2012-2015), and she served on the faculty of the MBL Microbiology course (now Microbial Diversity) in
Six scientists affiliated with the Marine Biological Laboratory are among the 228 people recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). The inductees include some of the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists, as well as civic, business, and philanthropic leaders. Congratulations to: Jeremy M. Berg, American Association for the Advancement
Alan Alda, Neil Shubin of University of Chicago/MBL, and journalist Claudia Dreifus will discuss “How Science Can Save Us/How We Can Save Science,” April 9 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The event will be live-streamed. By Claudia Dreifus On a cold Chicago night in February, 2014, I watched the actor/director/writer Alan
By UChicago News In the past, scientists have estimated that up to half of all species on earth could face extinction by the end of the century if steps are not taken to improve conservation and change human practices. That was part of the backdrop for a workshop on biological extinction held recently at the
TED, the nonprofit organization “devoted to spreading ideas” that has grown from a single conference to a global powerhouse, has selected a talk by MBL Fellow Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado to feature on its homepage at TED.com. Sánchez Alvarado’s talk, “To Solve Old Problems, Study New Species,” begins at the MBL, which he calls “arguably the
The University of Chicago’s annual E.E. Just Lecture will be presented on Nov. 17 by Professor Malcolm Byrnes of Howard University, a scholar of Just’s life and work. Just was an influential American biologist who received his Ph.D. from UChicago in 1916. He first came to the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in 1909 with his
By Andrea Volpe Note: Harvard University Professor Colleen Cavanaugh is an MBL Whitman Center scientist and Speaker of the MBL Society. In this interview, she discusses her longtime association with Woods Hole, including an undergraduate research project on horseshoe crab mating, subsequent work with microbial ecology pioneer John Hobbie at the MBL Ecosystems Center, and
By Buzzards Bay Coalition A few years ago, Jack Reynolds noticed that salt marshes on the Westport Rivers were collapsing. “Big chunks of the marshes were falling in,” he remembered. Reynolds used to fish on the Westport River back in the 1970s each spring, when young striped bass move into the estuary to feed among