upcoming events...

When I was a student, I used to get bored doing work (imagine that!) so I'd google my professors. Well, when I googled my rather unassuming Biochemistry Prof., Marvin Makinen, imagine my surprise to find that, during his youth, he'd been incacerated in one of the worst Soviet prisons on charges of espionage.

Why, you ask, was a young American biochemist on such a mission? Well, he'd been interested in the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of literally tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the end of WWII (think: Oskar Schindler but less complicit), but who mysteriously disappeared at the end of the war (most likely b.c. he refused to spy for the USSR).

Makinen's presenting a paper on the statistical studies he's done into Wallenberg's disappearance, and though he's generally pretty tight-lipped about his time in the gulag, it should nevertheless be interesting.

Who: UChicago Biochemist Marvin Makinen
What: "Development of Forensic Database Methods in Search of 'the Disappeared': The Case of Raoul Wallenberg" (paper for lecture)
When: Wed. 1/19 at 4:30 PM
Where: UChicago, Pick Hall 101

Makinen, btw, also discovered how Penicilin works at the molecular level. So he's no Biochemistry hack, either.

Oh, and for those of you who are Woody Allen fans (and what self-respecting WWPD reader isn't!?), check out my tied-for-second-favorite-movie-ever, Manhattan Murder Mystery at Doc tomorrow...

okay Pheobe, I'll stop using your soapbox now.