Woods Hole Marine Biological Lab

The Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, founded in 1888 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is the oldest private marine research lab in the western hemisphere.  The research institution started as a summer lab but is now operated year round by several world-class biologists and ecologists.  The MBL is famous for its use of marine organisms as models to make discoveries in the reproduction and development of all organisms.  For example, research done on the eye of a squid at Woods Hole was used to lead the way for today's neurobiology.



http://www.mbl.edu/about/discovery/breakthrough.html

The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect is a theory that describes how small variables can affect large and complex systems.  The example most commonly used to describe this theory is a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world causes a tornado in another.  This theory is attributed to mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz.  The theory poses that it is impossible to predict the behavior of a large system, due to the fact that one would have to provide for countless small factors in the model. 


http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-butterfly-effect.htm