PennScience treated their editorial staff to a dinner and lecture from a celebrated ecologist, environmentalist, conservationist and Penn Biology professor Daniel Janzen.
PennScience, the University's undergraduate research journal, hosted the event last evening in Skirkanich Hall in an effort to publicize some of Penn's research and to encourage undergraduates to engage in their own research.
Janzen spends almost as much time at Penn as he does in Costa Rica at the Area de Conservacion Gunacaste - one of the oldest and largest habitat restoration projects.
He spent the hour expounding upon his recent research with Costa Rican caterpillars and a technique called "DNA barcoding."
In DNA barcoding, a section of the specimen's DNA is sequenced and compared with the corresponding DNA sequences of another individual.
In this way, seemingly identical butterflies are revealed as different species, since every species has its own unique barcode.
Using the barcoding technique, Janzen explained that it would be possible to construct a database containing a "species page" for every known species - analogous to a Facebook profile. "If you can have one, why can't butterflies have one?" Janzen said.
Eventually, this database could expand to include all life forms on earth.
Janzen said he hopes that this would increase "bio-literacy" throughout society, arguing that bio-literacy could become important in society if "democratized."
"People didn't teach you to read for anything specific," he said. "They taught you to read because it would be useful to you."
In addition to the raw biological topics, Janzen also talked about the social repercussions of the employment methods he uses to get research assistants.
His team in Costa Rica consists of about 20 local "farmers and housewives" to whom he gives graduate school-level training in taxonomy. These "parataxonomists" expedite the data-collection process.
Although the event was intended for PennScience staff members, it attracted a few members of the public as well.
The discussion of the numerous butterfly species in Costa Rica amazed many in the audience.
"It made me realize how many infinite numbers of species are being discovered and coming into existence" said College freshman Dara Kritzer-Cheren.
As for Janzen's thoughts on undergraduate research, he said, "Don't do what your professor does. Don't do what your roommate does. Don't worry about if it's trivial or not. Just do something that excites your curiosity."
