By Christian Fehlberg
More than 1,700 Biology 100 students will fill the Garden Court of the Wilkinson Center Monday and Tuesday in the Biology 100 Symposium to showcase posters that present various society-related biological issues.
Approximately 120 posters will be on display each day while students discuss the different issues their posters address. Each of the posters present issues related to the evolutionary process, said Secretary of Integrative Biology Samantha Hall.
The symposium is open to the public and will go from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Students and faculty are invited to browse the posters and ask the biology students questions about their posters and the topics they address.
The explosion of biological technology in the 1990s thrust these and other similar issues into the world spotlight. The topics that will be presented at the symposium have become increasingly important and relevant to every-day people.
One of the issues the posters will address, for example, is the evolution of resistance of infectious diseases. With bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, public health is being increasingly compromised.
'Resistance of infectious diseases against antibiotics is becoming one of the major problems we face as humans,' said professor of integrative biology Rex Cates. 'There are some simple things we can do to combat bacterial resistance, and yet we don''t seem to know about them, or if we do we don''t follow through on them.'
The professors of BYU''s Biology 100 course created the symposium to help students gain greater exposure to these types of societal issues, Cates said.
'We thought the symposium would be a good way to get students involved and enjoy the course as well as to educate the public a little bit also,' he said. 'I don''t know how successful we have been in helping the students enjoy this experience, but hopefully they have learned something.'
Other issues the symposium will address include the development of genetically modified foods and conservation of genetic variation in agriculture.
'These issues deal with both the problems we have with resistance and how we can improve crops and animal sources to improve our quality of living,' Cates said.