Calendar: May 10-16
Tonight
DO WE HAVE TO BE DEPRESSED?The first national bestseller about depression drugs, Peter Kramer's ''Listening to Prozac," clearly struck a nerve -- and even triggered a backlash from critics who see Prozac and similar drugs as an unhealthy attempt to ''medicalize" problems that are better solved by talking and analysis. Now comes Kramer's newest book, ''Against Depression," an even more forceful argument that depression is a medical disorder that should be fought just like cancer, diabetes or any other deadly disease. Tonight, he will read and sign books in Kenmore Square. ''Against Depression," Boston University
Wednesday, May 11
DO QUARTERBACKS NEED TRIG?
Math and sports have important links that go way beyond just figuring out Manny's slugging percentage. From Vegas oddsmaking to the physics of a golf swing, math is a tool that affects everything about our recreational lives. On Wednesday, applied-math specialist Joseph B. Keller will lecture at Harvard on the wide and sometimes surprising importance of numbers in understanding fun. ''The Mathematics of Games and Sports," Harvard University, Maxwell Dworkin Lab, Lessin Auditorium, 33 Oxford St., Cambridge. At 4 p.m. Free. Call 617-496-3815.
Thursday, May 12
YOURNEWKIDNEY.COM
In Denver last October, a 58-year-old man named Bob Hickey underwent transplant surgery to receive a kidney he had found over the Internet after paying a fee to a website that connected him with a donor. Is this new matching service a welcome gift for people desperately in need of a lifesaving organ -- or does it amount to an end-run around the carefully built national system for organ donation? On Thursday, a Harvard Medical School panel of ethicists and doctors will tackle this question; the panel includes the medical director of MatchingDonors.com, the company that helped Hickey find his kidney. ''Soliciting Organs on the Internet," Harvard Medical School MEC Amphitheater, 260 Longwood Ave., Boston. From 4 to 6 p.m. Free. Call 617-432-2570 or e-mail dme@hms.harvard.edu to RSVP.
Friday, May 13
SPRING OVERHEAD
As the weather gets warmer, stargazing gets more pleasant. On Friday, Harvard's Oak Ridge Observatory will hold a public viewing night, training its 25-inch-diameter telescope past Leo and the dippers to discern strange and distant galaxies hanging in the familiar-looking skies above us. ''Early Spring Skies," Oak Ridge Observatory, 40 Pinnacle Road, Harvard. From 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Free. Call 617-495-7461 for information and weather cancellation notices.
Saturday, May 14
WHAT'S NEW WITH ALZHEIMER'S, MS?
Despite the great differences between Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis, the two disorders have certain things in common: They are perplexing neurological diseases on which much important research is being done in Boston, and at least one Alzheimer's drug seems to help MS patients. On Saturday, the McCourt Foundation and Brigham and Women's Hospital are to host two forums, one on each disease, in which local researchers discuss the cutting edge in research and the prospects for future treatment. ''Advancing Research and Treatments of Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimer's," Boston Harbor Hotel, 70 Rowes Wharf, Boston. At 9 a.m. (MS) and 11:30 a.m. (Alzheimer's). Free. Call 781-444-2544 for information and reservations.
ASTRO-NOTS
NASA hasn't launched a human being into space since the 2003 shuttle accident, and the future of the famous Hubble telescope is in doubt because NASA's chief thought it would be too dangerous to send astronauts into orbit to repair it. Yet, President Bush talks in grand terms about a manned mission to Mars. On Saturday, former astronaut and physicist Jeffrey Hoffman, who flew on five shuttle flights, will talk about why we send people into space at all, and whether robots could -- or should -- replace much of what humans have been doing up there. ''Exploring Space with Humans and Robots," Sterling Center YMCA, 254 Essex St., Beverly. At 4 p.m. Free. Call 978-927-6855, ext. 117, to RSVP.
Event notices may be sent to healthscience@globe.com. 
