Media Advisory

TO:                     News Editors and PSA Directors

FROM:                Institute of Arctic Biology and Institute of Marine Science

SUBJECT:           IRVING-SCHOLANDER MEMORIAL LECTURER

LOCATION:         Elvey Auditorium Geophysical Institute, UAF Campus West Ridge

DATE & TIME:     Tuesday, November 12, 1996, 7:30 p.m

Barbara Block, assistant professor of marine biology at Stanford University, is this year's Irving-Scholander Memorial Lecturer. She will give a free public lecture, "The Fire Inside: How and Why Animals Stay Warm" at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 12, in the Elvey Auditorium of the Geophysical Institute. The annual memorial lecture sponsored by UAF's Institute of Arctic Biology honors pioneering environmental biologists Laurence Irving and Per Scholander.

Block is world-renowned for her research on the physiological ecology of tuna and billfish. Her studies on how large billfish maintain warm body temperatures in cold seas have led to studies of the specialized tissues that help keep these fish warm. These findings have interested the medical community because of their relevance to thermoregulation in humans.

Block, also co-director of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center in Monterey Bay, has recently received the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award.

Block will be at UAF during the week of November 11. She will also present an Institute of Marine Science seminar, "Endothermy in Fish: Thermogenesis, Ecology and Evolution," from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, November 13, in the Elvey Auditorium of the Geophysical Institute.

FOR MORE INFORMATION contact: Michael Castellini, Assoc. Professor of Marine Science, 474-6825.

TND/11-8-96/96-027