11th EMBL/EMBO Science and Society Conference

Registration is open until 15 October 2010.

We are pleased to announce our next Science and Society conference on 5-6 November 2010 at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. This well-established conference series brings together a wide range of scientists, philosophers, science communicators, policy makers, and members of the public in engaging debate.

In total, four sessions with keynote talks and panel discussions are planned for the two days at the 2010 conference. The first day will be set aside for presenting and discussing questions relevant to the evolution of sexual reproduction, as well as to the development of sex specific traits. For this purpose we are inviting leading scientists to present their field of research, including their own work, to a mixed audience of scientists and non-scientists. Talks in each session will be followed by panel discussions around questions relating to the difference between the sexes from various perspectives.

In the first session of the second day at the meeting the attention will turn to comparative research on sex differences in brain and behavior of various species. Finally, in the fourth and the last session of the conference we will reexamine the relationship between innate versus acquired sexual characteristics in humans, and attempt to assess some familiar questions of differences between the sexes in the light of new knowledge emerging from the life sciences in recent years. As with the past EMBL/EMBO Science and Society conferences, our overall aim is to promote a constructive dialogue between a wide range of professionals and members of the public.