Biology Department Seminar


Hosler1Jay Hosler


“Grab Bag Biology”


Tuesday, November 13, 2007

12:00 Noon

Olin Auditorium (Room 123)

Dr. Hosler is a 2007-08 Distinguished Visiting Associate Professor of Biology at DePauw University.

 

Hosler2Hosler3He will be talking about three projects that his lab at Juniata College is currently pursuing. The first is a summer project examining the possible seasonality of honey bee aggression. Do bees get more irritable as the winter approaches and flowers stop giving nectar? Do these changes trigger alterations in the honey bee venom? In the winter, the lab shifts gears and uses an eye tracking device to examine how people read comics. How do text and images interact to direct the reader ad facilitate understanding? What happens when you take the words away and the reader is left with only images? Finally, all year around, Dr. Hosler writes and draws comics books about science that are designed to inspire wonder about the natural world. Dr. Hosler has garnered national recognition for his work as a cartoonist and has published two graphic novels, CLAN APIS, a comic book on honey bee biology and natural history and THE SANDWALK ADVENTURES, which tells the story of a conversation about evolution between Charles Darwin has with a follicle living in his left eyebrow. His current project is a comic book text book that is funded by a grant form the National Science Foundation.  You can find out more about Dr. Hosler’s work at  http://www.jayhosler.com or at http://www.depauw.edu/discourse/profiles/Hosler_profile.asp