Babbidge Library to offer lunchtime talks by faculty

Interested in learning more about tapeworms in sharks? Maybe the prospect of traveling back in time appeals to you? Or, if you prefer to stay rooted on Earth, how about some tips on battling “boomer-itis?”

Homer Babbidge Library will sponsor a new monthly lunchtime series featuring faculty discussing these and other topics in a program titled “Research Highlights @ Noon.”

Janine Caira, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, will kick off the series on Thursday, Sept. 18 with the talk, “The Denizens of the Deep Reveal Their Secrets: a Global Look at Shark and Stingray Tapeworms.”

Caira recently won a $3 million National Science Foundation Planetary Biodiversity Inventory grant to oversee a worldwide network of specialists to study the biodiversity of tapeworms, her research specialty.

Although present in the bowels of all classes of vertebrates, not much is known about tapeworms, she says.

On Thursday, Oct. 16, Ronald Mallett, professor of physics, will talk about “Time Travel: The Possibilities and Promise.

”In his latest book, Time Traveler – a Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, Mallett tells how a childhood trauma – the death of his father when he was 10 years old – inspired his quest to build a time machine so he could return to an earlier time and save his father’s life. Director Spike Lee has recently acquired the film rights to the book, and will co-write the script and direct the film.