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Harbor Branch Lecture on The Life That Lives on Us

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute will offer a lecture entitled, The Life That Lives on Us, presented by Paul Hargraves, Ph.D. at 4 and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10.  An opportunity to meet the speaker follows each presentation.  Light snacks are provided after the 4 p.m. lecture and an appetizer buffet and cash bar follow the 7 p.m. presentation. The lectures are open to the public,  free of charge and reservations are not required.

For more information please call (772) 465-2400.

About the Speaker

After a multi-decadal career at the Graduate School of Oceanography of the University of Rhode Island, Dr. Paul Hargraves is now an Affiliated Research Professor in Harbor Branch’s Center for Marine Ecosystem Health.  His research interests focus on the biodiversity, systematics, ultrastructure, and life cycles of microscopic life in aquatic environments, and his &>100 publications include research on freshwater, coastal, and oceanic environments from the North Atlantic to the Antarctic, from the Peruvian Amazon to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, from the Indian River Lagoon to 50-million year-old fossils.

During his career, Dr. Hargraves has received research funding totaling several million dollars from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Agency, the National Sea Grant program, and several private organizations.  He has been a visiting professor at the National University of Costa Rica and at the University of Salzburg, Austria, served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography, and held adjunct positions at several other universities.  His former students, including 12 Ph.D. and 20 M.S. recipients, have gone on to successful careers in academia, industry, and government, and he has served on the thesis committees of over 50 additional graduate students.  He attributes his early and lifelong interest in the marine environment to many summers spent digging in the mud on Cape Cod.  His interest in skin biodiversity is recent, and only skin deep.

About the Lecture

In a complete change from the usual marine-oriented talks, Dr. Paul Hargraves will present a remarkable survey of the hundreds of millions of bacteria, mites, insects, fungi, yeasts, and algae that can (and do) live happily on the skin of each and every one of us.  One individual person may have as many as a thousand or more different species of microbes on and in our skin, which are often different from the ones living inside us.  With only a comparatively few exceptions, they are benign, even helpful.  This presentation will focus on the biodiversity of the microbes and will stay away from the YUCK factor as much as possible!

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