• Summer Courses: February 1
• Housing: February 15

• Published by the MBL, The Biological Bulletin is one of America’s oldest peer-reviewed scientific journals. The journal accepts timely and outstanding reports of original research conducted throughout the world of general interest to biologists everywhere. Fields covered include Neuroscience, Behavior, Physiology, Biomechanics, Ecology, Evolution, Development, Reproduction, Cell Biology, Symbiosis, and Systematics. Members of the MBL scientific community are encouraged to submit papers to the journal using our new online manuscript submission system. (http://biolbull.edmgr.com)
  
  
• The December 2006 issue of the Bulletin, is now available. The Bulletin is pleased to announce that the journal’s content - going all the way back to 1902 - is now freely available to everyone after one year. Members of the MBL Corporation are eligible to receive a complimentary subscription to the journal as part of their membership. We invite you to visit the Bulletin’s web site at http://www.biolbull.org/.

Associates News

• The Associates Board is happy to remind you that there are three more Falmouth Forum programs scheduled for this season. Please plan on joining us this winter for these very diverse discussions of Arab women and democracy, art and bubonic plague in Italy, and a musical presentation of African American gospel music.
  
  
• The next Coffee and Conversation is scheduled for Tuesday, January 30th. Anne Giblin, senior scientist at the MBL’s Ecosystems Center, will present a talk titled, “Microbes to the Rescue: Can They Help Clean Up our Coastal Estuaries?” Dr. Giblin will discuss human influences on the nitrogen cycle from the global perspective and then show what happens at the local level on Cape Cod. She’ll discuss ways we may be able to enhance the natural capacity of microbes to help remove excess nitrogen in coastal waters. The conversation will be held at 9:30 AM in the MBL’s Swope Center Meigs Room. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is requested by calling the MBL Associates Office at 508-289-7281. Another Coffee and Conversation will be held in late March.
  
  
• The Associates Gift Shop has just closed until April. Thanks to all who helped provide us with another successful season! You’re still welcome to shop online, although stock will be limited until we reorder in the early spring.

• MBL Senior Scientist Roger Hanlon was a featured speaker at the Chicago Humanities Festival, October 28 to November 12. Roger gave a talk titled "Octopus Garden" and also presented during the Festival's Gala Benefit titled "Curiodyssey." Click on thumbnail at left for larger image.
  
  
• MBL Corporation member Thomas D. Pollard, chair and Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale and former MBL Physiology course faculty member Joan Steitz, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Yale received the 2006 Gairdner International Awards, which are among the most prestigious in science. Pollard was cited along with Alan Hall, Ph.D., of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, for discovering the molecular basis of cellular motility and the mechanism of its regulation, fundamental knowledge required to understand embryonic development, defense against infections, and the spread of malignant tumors in the body.
  
  Steitz was honored for her discovery of snRNPs, complexes of protein and RNA that edit and splice other RNA strands to form messenger RNA, the genetic recipe used by the cell’s protein-making machinery. (Source: Yale University)

The MBL marks with sadness the passing of Corporation Member Seymour Zigman, Emeritus Trustee Laura Hunter Colwin, and Life Member of the Corporation Madeline Palmer Burbanck.

• The Rowe Laboratory (formerly Whitman) renovation project remains on schedule. View our latest slide show to see how the project is progressing.
  
  
• Four cottages in the Devil’s Lane colony are now being renovated. These cottages are winterized and can be occupied year-round. Renovations will be completed for the summer 2007 season.
  
  
• Carbon monoxide monitors have been added to all the MBL dormitories.

The MBL has received a number of new gifts and peer-reviewed federal grants since LabNotes was last published... More >>>

MBL researchers have published many papers on a wide variety of topics since LabNotes was last published... More >>>

• 1/19: Falmouth Forum: "Arab Women's Dilemmas with Democratic Reform," Andrea B. Rugh, Adjunct Scholar, Middle East Institute
  
  
• 2/9: Falmouth Forum: "The Pathos of Bubonic Plague in Italy (1500-1800) Depicted Through Art," James Welu, Director, Worcester Art Museum and Richard Glew, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, UMass Medical School
  
  
• 3/15: Falmouth Forum: "The Old Ship of Zion: African American Gospel Music,” Horace Clarence Boyer, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Music, UMass Amherst - NOTE: Thursday Lecture

Looking Ahead to Summer…

• 6/22 to 8/17: 2007 Friday Evening Lecture Series - Speaker abstracts and biographies are being posted as they become available
  
  
• 7/11: Whitman Society Reception, J. Erik Jonsson Center of the National Academy of Sciences (by invitation)
  
  
• 7/21: 2007 MBL Chamber Music Concert featuring The Biava Quartet
  
  
• 8/3: MBL Corporation Meeting
  
  
• 8/16 to 8/18: Colloquium on the Biology of Aging, sponsored by the Ellison Medical Foundation and the Marine Biological Laboratory