Everyone loves penguins, but how much do you know about them? This course will cover the essentials of these fascinating birds, including geographic distribution, anatomy, feeding, and reproduction. Get ready to excite the inner ornithologist in you!

Look at your shoes. The polymers in the soles were made with organometallic catalysts. Look at your hand, alive because of nitrogen fixed by bacteria capable of harnessing the tremendous energy of atmospheric N2. Look at your phone, or even this computer screen, and gaze upon millions of LEDs, all made using an organometallic vapor deposition technique! Our society would not exist were it not for organometallic chemistry. Organometallic chemistry is the chemistry of transition metals interacting with carbon, and is one of the most active frontiers of modern chemistry. Without overwhelming anyone, this class should provide you with a taste of the vast world of current organometallic chemical research. Class will focus around the work of two Yale professors, Robert Crabtree and Patrick Holland, and will include a paper to be read before class, so we can dedicate fifteen-twenty minutes to the discussion of its contents and ramifications. This class is for you guys, so if there's a subject you'd like to cover please let me know at david.minoli@yale.edu and I'll work it in if it's relevant.

Did you know that the very first bony structure to appear on Earth was a tooth? Join me for a 50-minute whirlwind tour of the history of teeth and their fundamental importance to the rise of life as we know it. Why are our teeth harder than bone? Why do we lose teeth, and armadillos don't? When, and why, did a fish capable of crushing steel beams in its jaws ever swim in our oceans? Find out all this and more as we run through the fascinating evolution of your pearly whites.

Thought you knew everything about our fine feathered friends? Think again! Thought penguins were cool birds? Wrong! They actually keep a higher basal body temperature than you. Thought Happy Feet was 100% fiction? Penguins don't sound very musically attuned to our ears, but their calls are complex enough for two mates to find each other in a colony of thousands. Join us for a 50 minute presentation on everyone's favorite avian, where you'll learn everything about penguins and then some, from their ecology and evolutionary biology to penguin prostitution, wandering penguin syndrome, and ancient penguins penguin-dinosaurs. So what are you waiting for? Penguins await!

Ever wondered how we came to have living rocks in our mouth? Come embark on a 500 million year journey through dental history, from the very earliest calcified structures of Conodonts, to the truck-crushing jaws of Dunkleosteus, to the toothed birds of prehistory, all the way to your modern chompers. We'll explore how teeth have changed since their first appearance half a billion years ago, and in many respects, how they haven't. We'll see how the adaptability of collagen-laden hydroxiapatite has both driven evolution, and been molded to shocking extremes by the needs of species over the course of time. Come see how even the best prosthodontists (fake teeth specialists) can't compete with a two hundred million year old product, and much, much more!

Everyone loves penguins, but how much do you know about them? This course will cover the essentials of these fascinating birds, including geographic distribution, anatomy, feeding, and reproduction. Get ready to excite the inner ornithologist in you!

A brief primer on the explosive history of firearms, going from the first smokeless powder rifles to wonders of the modern world such as GAU-8. The class will focus on six firearms which shaped the history of the modern world: the Maxim gun, the Mosin-Nagant rifle, the M1 Garand, the AK-47, the M16 and the Phanlax CIWS. Both the mechanical innovations and the real-world consequences of each gun's introduction to the battlefield will be discussed in depth, and the last part of the class will be dedicated to an open discussion on the figure of Mikhail Kalashnikov and his legacy.

Everyone loves penguins, but how much do you know about them? This course will cover the essentials of these fascinating birds, including geographic distribution, anatomy, feeding, and reproduction. Get ready to excite the inner ornithologist in you!

Let's set one thing straight: Italian food is hands down the best food on Earth. This 50 minute culinary extravaganza will lead students on a gastronomical journey from Sicily to Valle d'Aosta, seeing, discussing (and sampling!) some of Italy's most famous and most interesting foods. By the end of this class you will know the difference between tortellini and cappelletti, the origin of modern pizza, and what food Italians give you if they REALLY don't like you. Not for the weak of stomach.