One of the Navy's first female fighter pilots who currently studies artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is among the five internationally recognized neuroscientists who will deliver free public lectures during the University of Iowa's Health Sciences Research Week 2012.

A public lecture about human skin color and the opening of an art exhibit of DNA portraits will kick off the “What Does It Mean to be Human?” program series Thursday, March 29, through Sunday, April 1, at the University of Iowa.

A University of Iowa College of Law researcher believes that threats from utilities to shut off power over long-past debts are a coercive tactic that violates the utility’s public responsibilities for delivering essential services and should be prohibited by the Iowa Utilities Board.

Economies only grow when they allow people to innovate, but a pair of University of Iowa legal scholars think federal law as it exists now does not encourage creativity, and even actively works to stifle it. Their new book outlines a way to change this.

The decommissioning of the Tevatron represented the end of an era, but it also is ushering in the next generation of physics by providing valuable equipment to other experiments. At the University of Iowa Yasar Onel is using cast-off equipment to design a calorimeter that can detect secondary emissions from particle collisions in high-radiation environments.

UI psychologist Michelle Voss says lifestyle factors can help offset the loss of brain plasticity, making learning more possible for the elderly.

News media are invited to a briefing on the annual "Cancer in Iowa" report at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 28, in the Ellig Classroom (N12) of the College of Public Health Building.

The UI employs 13 full-time staff members and nine students for the Iowa Floodplain Mapping Project of the Iowa Flood Center. The team, established following the catastrophic 2008 floods, began digitizing Iowa floodplains last year.

Tom Casavant, director of the UI Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, who is working this semester with the Plant Energy Biology Center in Australia, took part in a 20-kilometer swimming race in the Indian Ocean.

“Evolution in Iowa Backyards: What the Insects Eating Apples and Sunflowers Tell Us About Origins of Species” is the subject of a lecture by University of Iowa biology professor Andrew Forbes at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 22, in the Biosphere Discovery Hub of the UI Museum of Natural History.

Learn about the research being done by UI graduate students at the 2012 Jakobsen Conference.

An international finance expert at the University of Iowa praised the tenure of outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick and says his departure presents an opportunity to expand the organization’s leadership outside the United States.

Greenhouse gases aren't the only factors to consider when making climate predictions — airborne particles and atmospheric aerosols also merit close scrutiny.

Scientists have studied the prickle gene mutation in flies since the 1930s, but only a couple winters ago did anyone realize these flies had epilepsy. The discovery could provide a new testing route for human treatments.

Efforts to understand air pollution — especially in Asia — have yielded some answers, but an exceedingly complex problem demands more data and better predictions.

How did plants develop photosynthesis — the ability to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen in the presence of light? Turns out they stole it.

Some theorize it's low-pressure fields, but a UI pathologist and colleagues suggest a more basic problem.

The drug-manufacturing unit based at the UI College of Pharmacy is the largest, most-experienced program of its kind, partnering with industry and government agencies on the development of new medications.

Postdoctoral research fellow Nancy Downing can't cure the fatal genetic disorder, but she hopes to help people deal with the diagnosis and the changes it brings.

A University of Iowa study finds the state’s graduated driver’s license program, in place for 10 years, could use some tweaking to prevent crashes and save lives. John Lundell, deputy director of the UI Injury Prevention Research Center, says Iowa was among the first states to launch a GDL program, but now changes are needed.