Julie Andrews versus The Jackson 5? Led Zeppelin meets “The Lonely Goatherd”? What has happened to “My Favorite Things”? Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata, that’s what. This Friday, the cutting-edge ensemble will make its St. Louis debut with The Hills Are Alive, a genre-bending adaptation of songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music.

At the bottom of plants’ ability to sense touch, gravity or the proximity of a nearby trellis are mechanosensitive channels, pores through the cells’ plasma membrane that are opened and closed by the deformation of the membrane. Elisabeth Haswell, PhD, a biologist in Arts & Sciences, is studying the roles these channels play in Arabdopsis plants by growing mutant plants.

Jean Ponzi, green resources manager at the Missouri Botanical Garden's EarthWays Center, spoke Oct. 18 at the School of Medicine on “Sustainability 101” as part of Campus Sustainability Week activities on the Danforth and Medical campuses.

Social Security recipients will receive a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 3.6 percent beginning in 2012, the first increase since 2009. “COLA is welcome but will not fully maintain beneficiary purchasing power,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security and the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at the School of Law.

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., and Washington University announced recipients of grants from the joint Academic Venture Fund. The purpose of the fund is to support collaboration between scholars at WUSTL and the Brookings Institution, particularly long-term projects that impact research, education and policy.

12:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24

Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology Inaugural Symposium

“Systems Biology of Cell Circuitry.” Free and open to the public. Reception and poster session follow at 5 p.m. in the Farrell Learning & Teaching Center lobby. Panel discussion in McDonnell Sciences Bldg., Cori Aud. (314) 362-0269.

McLeod memorial service video available

Video of the service celebrating the life of James E. McLeod, vice chancellor for students and dean of the College of Arts & Sciences who died Sept. 6, is available online.

Diversity, inclusion grant proposals due Nov. 5

The deadline for submission of 2011-12 Diversity and Inclusion Grant proposals is Saturday, Nov. 5. The grants are available to faculty and administrators for initiatives that improve the campus environment for women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and other diverse groups at WUSTL.

Andrey Shaw, MD

Former music major studies immune system, kidney problems. FULL STORY

Road warriors

Football and men’s and women’s soccer all were on the road last weekend, while volleyball had the weekend off. Find out how your favorite WUSTL sports team fared by visiting bearsports.wustl.edu.