A seminar in round-table discussion format. Participants take turns choosing a biological topic of interest. We then select two papers to read: a biological review article and a related mathematical modeling paper. We spend 1-2 weeks discussing each topic.

Mathematical prerequisite: 151-152 or equivalent.
Biological prerequisites: none.

Sample topics for Winter 2008:

1. Seven +/- Two

   Did you ever hear that people can remember a list approximately 7 things long and that there's some physical reason for that limit? We'll talk about how that observation was made and a (much later) neurophysiological explanation that has been proposed.

   papers:
   Lisman JE, Idiart MA, 1995. Storage of 7 +/- 2 Short-Term Memories in Oscillatory Subcycles. Science, vol 267:1512-1515.
   Miller GA, 1956. The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information. The Psychological Review 63(2):81-97.

2. Epigenetics:

   So we all know that the blacksmith's son doesn't inherit his father's muscular build. What silly ideas people used to have about science! But wait - it turns out that acquired traits can be inherited (sometimes). How can that be?

   papers:
   Nafee TM, Farrell WE, Carroll WD, Fryer AA, Ismail KMK. Epigenetic control of fetal gene expression. BJOG 2008;115:158-168.
   Nijhout HF, Reed MC, Anderson DE, Mattingly JC, James SJ, Ulrich CM. Long-range allosteric interactions between the folate and methionine cycles stabilize DNA methylation reaction rate. Epigenetics 1:2;81-87, 2006.