Exploding ant brains, mice who love cat piss, and people who eat too much cake

All animals live in close contact with microorganisms of all sorts. These microorganisms depend on animals for food, shelter, places to reproduce, etc... These microbes' lives are thus affected by ways in which the animal behaves, and many of these microbes have evolved ways to ensure that their hosts behave in ways that are good for them - often at the expense of the animal. Dr. Michael Eisen will talk about new work from his lab and elsewhere looking at a variety of different ways in which microorganisms use chemical signals and targeted disruption of cells in the nervous system to alter animal behavior. He will also touch on the ongoing battles over public access to the scientific literature.

Michael Eisen is an evolutionary biologist at UC Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the evolution and population genomics of gene regulation in flies, and on the ways that microbes control animal behavior. He is also a strong proponent of open science, and a co-founder of the Public Library of Science.