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SNYDER LECTURE The evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis delivered the annual Richard E. Snyder Presidential Lecture at Tufts, an exploration of the complex dance that has gone on between organisms and the environment since primordial times. full story

INAUGURAL SEMINARS Global health and the role of water rights in international relations will be the focus of the first two University Seminars, a new program that will combine interdisciplinary research with civic engagement. The seminars, open to students from across the university, will begin this fall. full story

TUITION RELIEF The university is replacing loans with scholarships for all undergraduates whose family income is under $40,000. full story

DIRTY BALL Physicist Roger Tobin has determined that steroid use by Major League Baseball sluggers, which may produce only modest increases in muscle mass and bat and ball speed, can still boost home runs by 50 percent or more. full story

DENTAL EXPANSION Tufts School of Dental Medicine has embarked on an ambitious expansion plan that will add five floors to its existing ten-story building at One Kneeland Street in Boston. There’ll be more space for students to learn and treat patients, expanded facilities for continuing education, and much-needed offices and meeting rooms. full story

FOLIC ACID WOES Tufts nutrition scientist Joel Mason has found evidence that folic acid, added to cereals to promote prenatal health, may have caused a spike in colorectal cancer rates. full story

SEASONAL SICKNESS Researchers at Tufts School of Medicine are developing mathematical models based on the weather and other environmental factors to predict the timing and severity of disease outbreaks. full story

CHANGE AGENTS Thirteen undergraduates have begun working throughout Boston in internships focused on social policy through the student-run Institute of Political Citizenship. full story

FIELD OF DREAMS Urban and environmental policy students at Tufts are helping the city of Salem, Massachusetts, transform a parcel of polluted land into a neighborhood park. full story