Humanities & Society

Veteran New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert will explore the debate over global warming based on her groundbreaking book “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change” for the Assembly Series on Wed., Sept. 17 at 4 p.m. in Graham Chapel.

BernsteinAccess to affordable health care has been a recurring topic in current political discussions. Merton C. Bernstein, leading health insurance expert and law professor emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis says that Medicare is the most practical platform for both extending coverage to everyone and taming medical cost inflation. He is available to discuss the candidates’ health care proposals.

Now that the U.S. government has taken the controls of distressed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, American taxpayers facing billions of dollars in losses in home loans issued by the private sector are left wondering, “What does this mean for me?”

In this election year and with the Vice Presidential Debate Oct. 2, a host of programs, projects and panels have been developed to engage students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and neighbors in the electoral process.

For the first time, researchers have described hour-by-hour changes in the amount of amyloid beta, a protein that is believed to play a key role in Alzheimer’s disease, in the human brain. A team of scientists at the School of Medicine and the University of Milan report their results this week in Science.

“We are headed into a time when a confluence of changes are going to lead to a perfect storm, making us finally realize that our health care system needs a major overhaul,” says Timothy D. McBride, Ph.D., leading health economist and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. “As the elderly population doubles between now and about 2030, projections are that we will see at least a doubling of the costs of the federal and state health and retirement programs,” he says. “That will likely be when the perfect storm hits. But if we miss it then, we will likely have missed all the storm clouds for the foreseeable future.”

Senior Hana Greenberg and junior Scott Friedman are participating in a Washington Center educational program focused on the election year that takes Greenberg to the Democratic National Convention and Friedman to the Republican National Convention.

James WertschRussia’s leaders and its population tend to view current developments in Poland through the lens of a basic Russian national narrative that focuses on Russia as a target of invasion by foreign enemies, claims James V. Wertsch, an expert on post-Soviet democracy movements at Washington University in St. Louis. Wertsch was interviewed on this subject and on the Georgia/Russian conflict recently on KMOX radio. The interview is available here.

Senior Hana Greenberg and junior Scott Friedman, both in Arts & Sciences, will gain an inside look at the U.S. political process by participating in a Washington Center educational program focused on the election year. As part of the program, Greenberg will attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver while Friedman will travel to Minneapolis to attend the Republican National Convention. Both will receive media credentials through Student Life, the University’s student newspaper, to have access to exclusive events at the conventions.

Senior Hana Greenberg and junior Scott Friedman, both in Arts & Sciences, will gain an inside look at the U.S. political process by participating in a Washington Center educational program focused on the election year. As part of the program, Greenberg will attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver while Friedman will travel to Minneapolis to attend the Republican National Convention. Both will receive media credentials through Student Life, the University’s student newspaper, to have access to exclusive events at the conventions.