Science at Cal – Lessons from the Wild: How humans interact with and learn from other animals

At this month’s Midday Science Cafe, we’ll first hear from Dr. Mark Kline from Berkeley Lab and X-Therma, whose work, inspired by Arctic fish, stands to save millions of human lives. Dr. Kline is developing new molecules that can cool transplant organs below zero without freezing, greatly extending the time to move an organ from the donor to the recipient. Next, we’ll meet UC Berkeley scientist Dr. Phoebe Parker-Shames who is studying the impacts of cannabis production on a wide variety of wildlife, from moths to mountain lions. She studies how animals respond to the light and noise disturbance involved in farming cannabis, opening the long-shut window of research on what has become a major economic industry in California. These two case studies from the animal kingdom each offer a lesson we can learn about our own species.