The Launch of Language

The appearance of language has been ascribed to factors ranging from finer control over our voices, the evolution of a grammar module in the brain, even the shift to a meat-based diet. Professor Terrence Deacon takes a very different view. The human flair for language, he says, emerged in the very same way as all other body structures: in the embryological minuet between evolution and development.

A Giant in a Small, Small World

How electrons quiver in a crystal lattice, lock two atoms together in a mutual embrace, or skitter along a length of wire can explain why silicon is a semiconductor, why iron rusts, why gold is yellow and not blue. Over the last 30 years, physics professor Steven Louie has developed theories and computer algorithms that can calculate these behaviors with great accuracy. More recently, Louie's methods have become indispensable in a much smaller arena: nanoscience, the study of very, very small objects 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.

Directing Enzyme Evolution

Understanding how to design enzymes to work on desired targets would be a great boon to industry and basic science alike. But enzymes are a picky lot. Of the many thousands of molecules drifting through their environment, most enzymes will react with only one: its preferred substrate, or target. Professor Jack Kirsch has developed a way to combine logic and natural selection to custom design enzymes that will react with new substrates.

Professor Terrence Deacon's work explores the origin of the human facility for language.