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CORVALLIS - A University of Pennsylvania scholar who is writing a history of genetic screening will give a free public lecture on Monday, April 25, at Oregon State University as part of OSU's Horning lecture series.

The talk by Ruth Schwartz Cowan, "The Revolution in Genetics and Its Meaning for Everyday Life," begins at 4 p.m. in Memorial Union Room 206.

In her lecture, Cowan will explore how human genes have carried our secrets for many millennia and have just started revealing their secrets within the last 50 years. Exposing these secrets, however, has created some interesting ethical, emotional and financial dilemmas for individuals, physicians and society, she argues.

Cowan is known for her work in the history of science, technology and medicine. She is the Janice and Julian Bers Professor in Penn's Department of History and Sociology of Science, and is professor emeritus at State University of New York at Stony Brook.

She is the author of numerous books and articles, and is past president of the Society for the History of Technology.

OSU's Horning lecture series, "Scientific Revolutions Old and New," is sponsored by the Horning Endowment in the College of Liberal Arts, and the Department of History.