Oct. 7, Tuesday, 4:10 p.m. -- Jared Diamond, evolutionary biologist, UCLA professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author will speak on "Collapses of Ancient Societies, and their Modern Implications" in Room 180, Medical Sciences Building 1C. In his prize-winning book, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies," Diamond makes the case that environment and geography, rather than race, played a pivotal role in the Eurasian conquest of much of the world. He is also the author of two other books, "The Third Chimpanzee," a best-seller that won The Los Angeles Times Book Award for the best science book of 1992, and "Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality." Diamond is a leading expert on the birds of New Guinea and a professor of physiology, environmental health and geography at UCLA. Among his many honors are a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the National Medal of Science, and election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Diamond's talk kicks off this year's Major Issues in Modern Biology lecture series, sponsored by the Division of Biological Sciences.