Presidential Lectures

Autism and epilepsy are often comorbid disorders with overlapping epidemiology, genetics, clinical features, neuroanatomic abnormalities and neurophysiological mechanisms. Defining the genetics and clinical features of individuals with comorbid autism and epilepsy is ongoing, and development of genotype-phenotype correlations has just begun. Understanding shared and distinct mechanisms underlying autism and epilepsy is likely to improve prognosis, therapy and prevention.

In this talk, Mike Shelley discusses problems in fluid-structure interaction ranging from the macroscopic, i.e. flapping of flags and bending of tree leaves, to the micro – collective behaviors of micro-organisms and the transport of subcellular structures.

No one knows when life first colonized planet Earth, nor if or when Mars ever supported life. We see numerous, unequivocal lines of evidence for life on Earth from some 3.5 billion years ago to the present day. But the further back in time we look, the more clues about our earliest ancestors are clouded by doubts, uncertainties and controversies.