Expert to discuss evolution of warm-blooded creatures
August 28, 2017
Barry Lovegrove, who studies warm-bloodedness in birds and mammals, will present the 2017 Irving-Scholander Memorial Lecture at 6 p.m. Aug. 31 in the Margaret Murie Building auditorium at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Lovegrove is a professor emeritus at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's School of Life Sciences in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. His free lecture is titled “Fires of Life: Why We Are Hot."
Lovegrove's early research centered on small bird and mammal energetics. During the past decade, he has focused on the evolution of endothermy — the metabolic regulation of body temperature — in birds and mammals. His book on the topic, “Fires of Life: The Evolution of Endothermy in Birds and Mammals,” will be published later this year.
Lovegrove's lecture is sponsored by the Institute of Arctic Biology and Institute of Marine Science at UAF. The annual lecture series memorializes the scientific contributions of Laurence Irving, IAB's founder, and Per Scholander, with whom Irving established the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory at Utqiagvik in 1947. The lecturers' visits are supported by private donations to an endowment within the University of Alaska Foundation.
Lovegrove will present a second free seminar, titled “The Legacy of Some Irving-Scholander Lecturers: Heroes and Mavericks," at 3 p.m. on Sept. 1 in the Murie Building auditorium.
For more information, go online to https://www.iab.uaf.edu/events/irving_scholander.php.
CONTACT: Sonnary Campbell, 907-474-7811, sonnary.campbell@alaska.edu