SCIENCE SPEAKERS 2010 FALL
4:00 pm, Friday, October 1, 2010, SC106
Science Speakers
Phil Roth is a retired fruit farmer from Adams County Pennsylvania and served with Mennonite Central Committee in the Chacos. One retirement project was to build a biodiesel plant. This is no pilot scale biodiesel plant similar to Goshen College’s plant, but rather a complete stainless steel, chemically engineered, fully operational biodiesel facility. He uses the fuel in his farm equipment. Mr. Roth will speak about his facility 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 1 in SC 106.
4:00 pm, Monday, November 29, 2010, SC106
Science Speakers
Two students speak about their research: Nathaniel Tann, Marine Biology Research, and Michael Fecher, Membrane Transport in Red Blood Cells.
4:00 pm, Friday, December 3, 2010, SC106
Science Speakers
Two students speak about their research: Hannah Eberly, Composting, and Chaim Hodges, Graph Coloring Games.
SCIENCE SPEAKERS 2011 SPRING
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4:00 pm, Friday, March 18, 2011, Science, Room 106
The Secretly Sinful Life of Bees
Peter Martin and Greg Thiessen, Goshen College students, will speak on Development of Ethanol Tolerance in Apis Mellifera: The Secretly Sinful Life of Bees.
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Science Speakers
Bringing Limbs Back to Life via a Brain Machine Interface: Stimulating the Brain to Cause Artificial Sensation and Rewire its Circuits
Lee Miller, Northwestern University
Science, Room 006, Monday, March 21, 4:00 PM
Abstract. Brain Machine Interfacing (BMI) is an exciting new technology that allows direct connections to be made between the brain and a computer. While BMIs have thus far shown tremendous promise in routing brain commands around a spinal cord injury to control movement of a computer cursor or a robotic arm, our laboratory has focused on the potential of BMI to restore more natural-seeming movement directly to a paralyzed limb itself. Patients with spinal cord injury also lack proprioception, the ability to absorb information communicated very rapidly to the brain from sensors in the muscles. Even patients that are not paralyzed, who have nonetheless lost proprioception, make movements that are slow, poorly coordinated, and require great concentration. Existing BMIs rely exclusively on slower visual feedback, which may account, in part, for their as yet relatively limited performance as a practical solution for paralyzed subjects. My laboratory group, in experiments with monkeys, has developed a BMI that could allow patients with a spinal cord injury to regain voluntary control of their paralyzed muscles. We have further begun to develop an interface that will provide information to the brain, rather than extract information from it. By stimulating the brain with implanted microelectrodes, we hope to mimic normal proprioceptive feedback. Finally, we are investigating the adaptive changes that occur within the brain as the monkey adapts to these artificial interfaces. A process called Hebbian association, thought to underlie learning, normally causes the connections between neurons to be strengthened when they experience correlated patterns of activity. Relying on Hebbian association, we intend to use appropriately patterned stimulation to cause changes that would assist a monkey’s—and, we hope in the not too distant future, a human patient’s–adaptation to a BMI.
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Mathematics Department and Science Speakers
Math Doodles by Vihart and You
Patricia Oakley, Goshen College
Science, Room 106, Tuesday, March 22, 7:00 PM
Patricia Oakley, Professor of Mathematics, Goshen College, will show Math Doodles by Vihart YouTube videos and guide the participants in making their own math doodles.
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Science Speakers
And A River Runs Through It
Nate Bosch, Grace College
Science, Room 106, Monday, March 28, 4:00 PM
Dr. Nate Bosch, Assistant Professor, Environmental Biology, Grace College, and Director of the Kosciusko Lakes and Streams program will be presenting And A River Runs Through It. His topic will focus on his limnological research and education programs related to protecting and improving the quality of lakes and streams in Kosciusko County. With one of the widest smiles and reddest hair on the Grace College campus, Nate is seldom happier than when he is standing on a sunny day in the middle of a creek in chest waders with a group of students pulling water samples for chemical and biological analysis.
Dr. Bosch has a Ph.D. in limnology (the study of freshwater lakes and streams) from the School of Natural Resources & Environment, University of Michigan while working as a researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research in Michigan.
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Brenda Marshall, Academic Account Executive, Wolfram Research, Inc. will demonstrate the software program Mathematica in SC 106, on Monday, April 4, 4:30 – 5:30 PM.
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Science Speakers
A Day in the Life of a Medical Physicist
Brent Murphy, Radiological Technologies University
Science, Room 106, Tuesday, April 5, 4:00 – 5:00 PM
Brent D. Murphy, MS, DABR is Founder and Chairman of the Board, Radiological Technologies University. RTU offers Master’s Level programs in Medical Physics, Medical Dosimetry, and Medical Health Physics. RTU is an ICPPE accredited Institution. Brent has been a Medical Physicist for 23 years and for nearly 10 years has been the lead Physicist for Goshen Center for Cancer Care.
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Science Speakers
Life in Graduate School
Mellissa Gillette, Andy Ammons, Christine Noria, Dan Smith, Patricia Oakley, John Buschert
Science, Room 106, April 11, 4:00 – 5:00 PM
Each panelist will introduce herself or himself and tell a story (2-5 minutes) that illustrates some aspect of graduate school life that the panelist thinks is especially surprising and/or important. After each panelist has told her or his story, the panel will answer audience questions.
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Science Speakers
T Cell Receptor Cross-Reactivity is Directed by Peptide-MHC Molecular Flexibility
Brian Gloor, Notre Dame University
Science, Room 106, April 18, 4:00 – 5:00 PM