Examination of the many approaches to the study of animal behavior. Topics include history of the field, physiological bases of behavior, and behavioral ecology and evolution. Prerequisite: one of the following: BIO 260, 272, 363, a statistics course or permission of the instructor.

Topics course. There is increasing evidence of epigenetic phenomena influencing the development of organisms and the transmission of information between generations. These epigenetic phenomena include the inheritance of acquired morphological traits in some lineages and the apparent transmission of RNA caches between generations in plants, animals and microbes. This seminar explores emerging data on epigenetics and discusses the impact of these phenomena on evolution. Participants will write an independent research paper on a topic of their choice.

This lab will introduce the computational and quantitative tools underlying contemporary bioinformatics. We will explore the various approaches to phylogenetic reconstruction using molecular data, methods of data mining in genome databases, comparative genomics, structure-function modeling, and the use of molecular data to reconstruct population and evolutionary history. Students will be encouraged to explore datasets of particular interest to them. Prerequisite: BIO 334 (normally taken concurrently), or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 14.

This course will focus on methods and approaches in the emerging fields of bioinformatics and molecular evolution. Topics will include the quantitative examination of genetic variation; selective and stochastic forces; shaping proteins and catalytic RNA; data mining; comparative analysis of whole genome data sets; comparative genomics and bioinformatics; and hypothesis testing in computational biology. We will explore the role of bioinformatics and comparative methods in the fields of molecular medicine, drug design, and in systematic, conservation and population biology.

Discover the compelling evidence that most of the mass of a galaxy is dark matter based on analysis of orbital data, stellar populations, and basic laws of physics in a simulated research experience. Interactive format includes computer simulations, data analysis, and confronting observations with theory. Final projects explore the viability of dark matter candidates. Offered in alternate years with 224. Prerequisites: PHY 115, MTH 111, plus one astronomy class.

Topics course. Naive pawn in European geopolitics or political intriguer? Fashion leader or obsessive consumer? Scandalous pleasure seeker or devoted mother? French Queen or Austrian spy? Instigator of the French Revolution or innocent victim? More than two hundred years after her execution, Marie Antoinette continues to fascinate, caught between history and myth and open to conflicting interpretations. How can we understand the persona behind or in the body that proliferated so many meanings? How can we trace the origins and the impacts of those meanings?

Topics course. This course considers the city as both a setting for anthropological research and as an ethnographic object of study in itself. We aim to think critically about the theoretical and methodological possibilities, challenges, and limitations that are posed by urban anthropology. We will consider concepts and themes such as urbanization and migration; urban space and mobility; gender, race and ethnicity; technology and virtual space; markets and economies; citizenship and belonging; and production and consumption.

This course explores the roles, representations and experiences of women in 20th-century China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan in the context of the modernization projects of these countries. Through ethnographic and historical readings, film and discussion this course examines how issues pertaining to women and gender relations have been highlighted in political, economic, and cultural institutions. The course compares the ways that Asian women have experienced these processes through three major topics: war and revolution, gendered aspects of work, and women in relation to the family.

This course considers the unique perspectives, techniques and theories that anthropology offers for understanding the visual world. We focus both on the production of visual materials (photographs and films, in particular) by anthropologists, as well as the anthropological analysis of visual artifacts produced by other people. We will consider the historical (particularly colonial) legacies of visual anthropology as well as its current manifestations and contemporary debates.

This course looks at peoples and cultures of Africa with a focus on population, health, and environmental issues on the African continent. The course discusses the origin and growth of human populations, distribution and spread of language and ethnic groups, the variety in food production systems (foraging, fishing, pastoralism, agriculture, industrialism), demographic, health, environmental consequences of slavery, colonialism, and economic globalization, and contemporary problems of drought, famine, and AIDS in Africa.