This talk is a biocultural exploration of what humans have chosen to eat and the ways we think about what is good (and healthy) food and what is not. Do we really know what exactly are our nutritional needs, and how has our modern society made our choices both immensely wide but also potentially dangerous to our health? Is a vegetarian diet best for our health? Can we understand more about what we should be eating by looking at the diets of our ancestors? Is the heavily meat-based paleo diet really good for us?

The Confederate southern states experienced several smallpox epidemics during the American Civil War, blaming the disease on the Union northern states. Confederate doctors responded by vaccinating soldiers but then discovered that some vaccinations were ineffective (“spurious”) and instead spread other diseases, particularly syphilis. This presentation considers how the Confederacy managed vaccinations and tried to solve the numerous spurious cases. His illustrated tale includes the deliberate infection of children on plantations as a source of vaccine, and allegations of vaccination poisoning in the conflict’s only war crimes trial. In a surprising convergence of history, a museum collection, and current disease research, a detective story concludes the presentation!

In 1939, Richard Feynman, a brilliant graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler's Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. A lifelong friendship and enormously productive collaboration was born, despite sharp differences in personality. The soft-spoken Wheeler, though conservative in appearance, was a raging nonconformist full of wild ideas about the universe. The boisterous Feynman was a cautious physicist who believed only what could be tested. Yet they were complementary spirits. Physicist Paul Halpern will discuss the little-known story of their friendship, which is the subject of his new book The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality (Basic Books). Together, Feynman and Wheeler rethought the nature of time and reality that laid vital groundwork for late-twentieth-century breakthroughs in particle physics. Their friendship and collaboration enabled Feynman to show how quantum reality is a combination of alternative, contradictory possibilities, and inspired Wheeler to develop his landmark concept of wormholes, portals to the future and past.