Why do we tell urban legends as reality when they're seldom true? What makes a successful urban legend, and what does an urban legend say about the person who passes it along? What do urban legends have in common with religion, and what human needs and desires to urban legends exploit for propagation? Like religions, do urban legends serve some legitimate human purposes, or are they simply viral memes?

So you're taking AP Biology, and you're thinking, "Holy helicase, cells are chock full of cool proteins and enzymes, but what can I do with it all besides put it on my mantle and gaze in awe or become a research scientist and discover more?" I'm going to show you how you can hack it. Want to build a photographic plate out of bacteria? Want to make a cell blink with fluorescent proteins like a Christmas tree? Want to find out which company in the Bay Area is hacking yeast to make them produce anti-malaria drugs and biofuels? OF COURSE you do! Come take my class. AP or IB Biology pre/corequisite.

>>I don't usually forward emails, but this one is FOR REAL! Microsoft is conducting research on emailing patterns, and if you forward this to 20 people, a window will pop up and you'll receive $200 from Bill Gates! I did it and it works!!! Does anybody really believe these emails? Yes, they do! Otherwise, you wouldn't see them popping up in your inbox. Legends are alive and well today, and they go far beyond chain emails. Urban legends reinforce our hopes, reveal our fears, and exploit our ignorance. They are an indicator of common thought and sentiment, and sometimes they turn out to be true. We'll have a discussion about what makes a good urban legend, why we have them, and how they reflect the zeitgeist, using legends from snopes.com as material.

We will learn about how people have been rewiring naturally occurring genes to make devices that operate in living cells. Biological oscillators, switches, filters, and loops have been constructed in bacteria and yeast, and cells have been engineered to produce photographic images, to kill and save each other in a mini-ecosystem, and even to reproduce an anti-malarial drug normally found in plants! You'll leave with an opinion on the subject: Is synthetic biology just a hyped-up version of what we've been doing since the '70's, or are we entering the eighth day of creation? No prerequisites--we'll start with understanding what genes are and how they're turned on and off.