TELLURIDE – This summer marks the eighth season for the popular Pinhead Town

Talk science lecture series, now in its eighth season.

From archaeology to anthropology, from chemistry to energy, the areas presented in the 2010 Pinhead Town Talks run the gamut. While abridged to five talks this year, the summer series is robust.

Presenting fresh perspectives on human health, solar energy and the U.S. War on Drugs, the speakers in this series hail from Yale University, Northwestern University and the State University of New York, among others.

New this year, the series will be held at the Palm Theater in the Telluride Intermediate School at 715 West Colorado Ave. Underwritten by the Telluride Science Research Center, the series is free of charge and will run every Tuesday from 6-7:15 p.m., starting July 6 and ending on August 3. Kicking off the summer program on July 6 is “The Rise of Civilization and the Decline of Human Health: A Surprising Relationship,” given by Dr. Mark Cohen, a distinguished Anthropology Professor at SUNY. Cohen, who has conducted field research in numerous places including Kenya, Tanzania, Peru, and Chile, will discuss his theories on the evolution of human health from prehistoric to modern times. Utilizing historic and prehistoric data to analyze human nutrition, disease, and life expectancy, he concludes: “We clearly need to rethink both scholarly and popular images of cultural progress and human evolution.”

On July 13th, Carol Conzelman will debunk the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s vilification of traditional coca use among indigenous Andean populations and will elucidate the social, political, and economic impacts of the United States’ “War on Drugs” in the Andes. Her talk is titled “Coca versus Cocaine: How an Ancient Medicinal Plant Became a Modern Narcotic Drug.” Conzelman, a field researcher with extensive experience in Boliva, holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Colorado, where she is a visiting lecturer. She also lectures at University of Denver. “To equate chewing coca leaf with doing a line of cocaine,” she says, “is like equating eating a bunch of grapes with drinking a bottle of wine.”

Switching gears, the following two talks (July 20 and July 27) will focus on the science behind a powerful new approach to creating solar fuels efficiently and sustainably for the 21st century. Two pioneers in the field will be in Telluride to give talks a week apart.

On Wednesday, July 20, Yale University Professor of Chemistry Victor Batista will present “Following Nature's Blueprint: Mimicking Photosynthesis to Fuel the Planet.” He is a member of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute and a TSRC scientist.

The following week, on July 27, Northwestern University Professor of Chemistry Michael Wasielewski will focus on the challenge of storing solar energy with “Fuels from Sunlight: Storing Solar Energy to Meet Global Energy Needs.” Wasielewski is the Director of the Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center.

Wrapping up the series, and circling back to the first talk on human health, Cynthia Burrows will present “Wine, Chocolate, and DNA: The Chemistry of Free Radicals and Antioxidants.” Burrows, a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at University of Utah and a past TSRC board member, will unveil some of the myths and truths around the recent hype of super-foods.

The 2010 series is brought to the community by TSRC in collaboration with Pinhead Institute. Both organizations Telluride Mountain Village Owners Assn. or generously funding the program the past four years at the Telluride Conference Center.

For more information visit www.telluridescience.org/pinhead/2010 or contact Nana Naisbitt, TSRC Executive Director, at 970/708-0004. Donations are encouraged to help sustain the program.