Author: Liam Otten

Charles Mee’s *Big Love*Classical drama collides with modern-day excess in Charles Mee’s Big Love, a fiercely extravagant adaptation of Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Maidens that The New York Times describes as “an MGM musical in Technicolor, a circus and, believe it, a Greek tragedy.”

All three may involve the same gene; the finding “may provide insight into a variety of conditions,” says lead reasearcher Jeffrey H. Miner.

A still from *Having a Ball*, one of three circus-themed e-cards by Kristine Ng.For the estimated 7 to10 million blind and visually impaired Americans, the Internet has proven to be the most powerful — and most empowering — tool since Braille. Widely available software programs such as JAWS for Windows and Windows-Eyes can read aloud online newspapers and magazines and other previously inaccessible materials. Yet as bandwidth and memory improve, businesses have increasingly sought to drive customers to glitzy, graphics-heavy Web sites that are more difficult, if not impossible, for blind users to navigate. Thanks to a group of senior design students at Washington University in St. Louis, blind and visually impaired Web users can now experience some of the Internet’s increasingly expansive potential. The 23 students — design, illustration and advertising majors in the School of Art — have created some of the first Web sites showcasing new accessibility components of Macromedia Flash MX, the increasingly popular authoring tool for Web interfaces, interactive video, Web-based games, streaming music and other multimedia content.

Magnetically guided catheters have been designed to possibly provide better control and access to the heart and brain than their traditional, wire-threaded counterparts.

“Now that we’ve discovered this new gene, we can begin to understand the mechanisms that allow the body to sense gravity and maintain balance,” researcher says.

School of Medicine researchers have completed sequencing the genome of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, one of the most prevalent bacteria that live in the human intestine.

The procedure appears to improve overall health and quality of life for individuals with end-stage emphysema, and these effects last as long as five years in more than half of this population.

He has received the 2003 Potamkin Prize for Research in Picks, Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders; and the Promising Work Award from MetLife Foundation.

A new process may expedite and simplify the procedure for the estimated 400,000 Americans with an amputated limb.

Undergraduate tuition at the University will total $29,700 for the 2004-05 academic year — a $1,400 increase over the 2003-04 academic year.