A talk by Mark Decker!
May 20, 7 p.m.
Bryant-Lake Bowl, Uptown
$5-$10 (pay what you can)
Darwin wrote about the competition between individuals that results in the survival of the fittest. But what about competitions within individuals, between the cells inside our bodies? In that struggle, cancer cells could be considered the most successful since they are the most prolific. Can Darwin provide us with a novel approach to understanding cancer? How might Darwin explain the degenerative diseases of old age? Some biologists suspect that evolution actually favors diseases of old age. In fact, an evolutionary approach to studying longevity, scrutinizing the lowly roundworm, may yield secrets to a long and vigorous life. Explore these and other medical applications of Darwinism in a discussion with Mark Decker, an evolutionary biologist in the University's Biology Program.