The Walt Disney Company’s research division plans to open a lab in Cambridge next month to investigate social sciences for the Disney theme parks.

The lab will open in the American Twine building next month, coming 11 years after Disney shut down a low profile lab in East Cambridge.

“While labs tend to grow organically according to who ends up joining, my initial plan is to have the lab focus on social sciences, broadly defined, and also on commercialization of some existing research,” said Joe Marks, head of Disney’s research division.

The new lab is looking to hire researchers in social and behavioral sciences, data analytics and mining, media and transportation. On a more technological level, they are also looking for software engineers with Web and mobile background.

The previous lab, run by Bran Ferren and Danny Hillis, mainly kept their business a secret. An anonymous source told the Boston Globe that they mainly worked on “high performance electric robots,” which could roam the theme parks freely and talk to guests.

The old lab also designed a toy called “Pal Mickey,” that provides guests with information about the parks and parade times and dates when they pass certain infrared transmitters located around the parks. The toys are sold for $50 in the theme parks.

The new lab promises to be less secretive than the last.

“We’re committed to engaging fully with the global research community through collaboration with academe, publication of our results, participation in professional service activities, etc.,” Marks said. “In that regard we’re following more in the tradition of Pixar Research.”

The Walt Disney Company announced Monday it has agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment, the comics powerhouse behind Iron Man, X-Men, Spider-Man and thousands more, for about $4 billion in cash and stock purchases.

“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and … unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the value of creative properties across multiple platforms and territories,” said Robert A. Iger, president and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company, in a statement. “We are pleased to bring this talent and these great assets to Disney.”

Under the deal, Marvel shareholders will receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own.

The gives Disney more than 5,000 new characters to work with.

It also gives Marvel a cash influx.

“This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world,” said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s chief executive officer.

In 2006, Disney bought Pixar Animation Studios, the creator of “Toy Story” and “Cars,” for $7.4-billion.

Both companies’ boards of directors approved the deal, which is pending governmental antitrust review.

This is the first of a new line of articles about old-school comic books.

Published since 1940, this venerable “funny animal” comic book has enjoyed 700 issues over 70 years. WDC&S is an important title for many reasons — including the fact that it had the honor of being the home of hundreds of the first and original stories about Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and the dreaded Beagle Boys written by Carl Barks.

Barks’ stint with WDC&S began with issue 31 in 1943, (the first 30 issues contained reprints of newspaper comic strips by Al Taliaferro) and he didn’t stop writing and drawing at least one feature story in every issue until #312, in 1966. Along the way, Barks created an entire extended family for Donald, including his girlfriend Daisy, his rich but miserly Uncle Scrooge McDuck, his maddeningly lucky cousin Gladstone Gander, the aforementioned Beagle Boys, Grandma Duck, zany inventor Gyro Gearloose and many other characters.

Barks never received credit in the pages of this or other comics on which he worked, but his zany stories and characters and unparalleled depiction of the duck characters earned him fame of a sort even back in the day. He was known simply as “the good artist” because compared to him, no one could really do Donald and the gang justice visually. (As a lad, my mother, who’d been a fan since childhood, raised me right and I quickly learned to discern Barks’ work from the pretenders’ – if the story wasn’t drawn by “the good artist,” she wouldn’t read it to me.)

WDC&S sold in massive quantities, but the characters and stories were so widely popular that most copies were passed around over the years, so finding copies in grades higher than fine is extremely difficult.

Issue #’s 49, 59, 62, and 87 range in publication date from Oct. 1944 (issue 49) to Dec. 1947. ‚ Values for these Golden Age gems vary considerably, with low-grade copies listing for $25-30 or so and high grade copies commanding $500 to $1,000 if you can find them. Issue 167 is from the mid-’50s and is worth considerably less.

WDC&S sold in massive quantities — as many as several million copies of each issue were printed monthly during its heyday. But the characters and stories were so widely popular that most copies were passed around among dozens (or even hundreds) of young fans over the years, so finding copies of the Golden and early Silver Age issues in grades higher than Fine is extremely difficult.