Author: Ken Duenke

Do images of the injured and dead have any effect on its viewers? Do images of suffering and violence generate compassion, arouse hunger for revenge, or do nothing? These are the questions writer and cultural critc Susan Sontag tries to answer in her most recent collection of essays, Regarding the Pain of Others, and will share her thoughts with the audience at the next Assembly Series lecture.

WarrenThe United States’ recent economic slowdown has been punctuated by some of the largest bankruptcies in history, including Enron and WorldCom. Leading academics and prominent practitioners will examine the fallout of these bankruptcies at the F. Hodge O’Neal Corporate and Securities Law Symposium April 2 at the Washington University School of Law.

W. Ralph Johnson, a distinguished professor emeritus of classics and comparative studies at the University of Chicago, will be the John and Penelope Biggs lecturer in the classics. Johnson’s writings present refreshing interpretations of classical texts, and reveal new insights into ancient writers and the value of their work to contemporary society.

Sam and Marilyn Fox, who have donated time and money to a wide range of community and civic groups that touch the lives of many St. Louisans, are being recognized for their extraordinary generosity and leadership with the 2004 Jane and Whitney Harris Saint Louis Community Service Award.

LawlorEdward F. Lawlor, Ph.D., dean of the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, will become dean of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work (GWB) on July 1, 2004, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. Lawlor will succeed Shanti K. Khinduka, Ph.D., who last year announced his intention to retire as dean on June 30, 2004.

The results of an experimental cross-species transplant suggest the innovative approach might halt type 1 diabetes while greatly reducing the risk of rejection. Click here for more medical articles

“The Tenth Circuit’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the ‘Do Not Call’ registry is a straightforward application of the Supreme Court’s commercial speech jurisprudence, but this may not be the end of the ‘Do Not Call’ list cases,” says Neil M. Richards, an expert in the fields of privacy law and constitutional law and an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s likely that the telemarketers will petition the Supreme Court to take the case, and I think there’s at least some chance that the Supreme Court might hear it,” he says. “Supreme Court commercial speech doctrine is confusing, and this would be an opportunity to clear up some of the confusion.”

As the spotlight focusing on same-sex marriage in the United States continues to brighten, the issue is affecting more than the gay and lesbian couples desiring to obtain marriage licenses. “The rapid progress we are seeing on this issue is changing how some gay and lesbian youth are envisioning their own futures,” says Diane Elze, Ph.D., an assistant professor of social work at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. “They are beginning to see marriage as an option for themselves — not just traveling to Vermont for a civil union, or having a commitment ceremony, or acquiring domestic partnership benefits from their employer, but some of them can now imagine themselves as future married persons.”

A fluroescent-tagged antibody bearing silver and gold particles reveals I and L bradykinin receptors lit in a ghostly green glow on the surfact of cultured human cellsPreliminary research suggests it may someday be possible to diagnose and forecast risk for Alzheimer’s disease using skin cells, thanks to a small protein, or peptide, that few previously associated with the disease. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that skin cells from people with inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease respond to the peptide by triggering Alzheimer’s-like changes, but skin cells from healthy individuals do not. They say the findings need to be explored further in cases of non-inherited Alzheimer’s disease, but the results could eventually lead to a way of determining an individual’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s before clinical symptoms arise.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoHiring outlook looking good for 2004 grads.Overall hiring activity has increased in all industry sectors this year, according to Gregory Hutchings, Associate Dean and Executive Director of Career Resources at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. “Last year was probably one of the worst hiring markets for newly minted grads in the last 10 or 15 years, but we have seen a substantial increase in employers coming to campus this year with about a 30 to 40 percent increase,” says Hutchings.