Our calendar tends to get a little thin as the students head out of town, but this week is still busy. See below and keep an eye on our page for updates. Or post your own event by registering for NNB.

Science in the News is a group of Harvard student who try to explain concepts that we journalists don’t always have time or spece to get into in detail. They’re scheduled through June, including tonight’s event: May 18 The Mystery of Sleep: How Neuroscientists are Solving One of the Brains Most Interesting Puzzles.

All 7pm n the Pfizer Auditorium Hall at Harvard University (Mallinckrodt Building, 12 Oxford St, Cambridge)

Coming up:

June 1 Origins and Applications of Pluripotent Stem Cells

June 15 The War on Cancer: Where we Are in the Battle, and Why we Haven’t Won.

At lunchtime tomotrrow, on the other side of the river, Ned S. Wingreen of Princeton University offers a talk on: Why Are Chemotaxis Receptors Clustered but Other Receptors Aren’t? 12:30 pm, Harvard Medical School, Warren Alpert Building, 341, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston.

On Wednesday, it’s back to Cambridge for a talk on “the diversity and speed of change in body patterning squid, octopus, cuttlefishbetter.”

“Nature has evolved elegant solutions for manipulating light to create patterns and coloration for a wide range of functions such as communication, camouflage and thermoregulation.Nowhere is the diversity and speed of change in body patterning squid, octopus, cuttlefishbetter developed than in the cephalopods (squid, octopus, cuttlefish).

Speaking on “Bio-inspired Adaptive Coloration of Nanomaterials” :Roger T. Hanlon , Senior Scientist, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA

3:00 pm Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Pierce Hall, 209, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge.