Humanities & Society

WarrenSpurred on by steady increases in staffing and spending within the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. government is budgeting yet another increase in the amount of tax money it spends on federal regulatory activities, according to an annual regulatory spending analysis compiled by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Immigration law expert Stephen H. Legomsky says that an easy way to put a serious dent in illegal immigration is to exempt the spouses and young children of legal immigrants from numerical ceilings, just as we now exempt the spouses and children of U.S. citizens. Legomsky is the author of America’s leading law school textbook on immigration law and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He has advised both Republican and Democratic administrations and several foreign governments on immigration, refugee and citizenship issues. More…

“Teaching Jazz as American Culture”Jazz is “America’s Music.” Established in the early 1900s, the music has remained popular for nearly a century, going through many variations. In the 1920s, jazz was “pop” music, but today it is often shunned by younger people in favor of today’s popular tunes — rap, rock and country. Can jazz, with its broad history and reputation for being “art” music, be relevant to youth today? The director of a summer jazz institute at Washington University in St. Louis hopes to show that jazz is not only relevant, but also essential. More…

Studying Child Protective Services’ effectivenessEfforts to improve Child Protective Services (CPS) would be more effective if they were based on evaluations of available data instead of assertions that are not supported by evidence, say two child welfare services experts. “While there is no doubt that the current child welfare system has flaws, we can find little empirical data supporting the scathing critiques of mandated reporting laws and CPS. We now have enough empirical evidence to scientifically evaluate many longstanding criticisms of CPS, and many of those criticisms appear to be without basis in reality,” write Brett Drake, Ph.D., and Melissa Jonson-Reid, Ph.D., in an article titled “A Response to Melton Based on the Best Available Data,” published in the current issue of the international journal Child Abuse & Neglect. More…

Women who get most of their daily calcium from food have healthier bones than women whose calcium comes mainly from supplemental tablets, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Surprisingly, this is true even though the supplement takers have higher average calcium intake. More…

Is she safe to hire?Companies with 500 employees or more can expect to be sued for discrimination at least once a year, and the cost to defend the accusation can cost as much as $15,000, even if the allegation is found to be without merit. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (CRA-91) held great promise for protecting workers from discrimination in the workplace, but the potential cost of litigation makes some firms wary of hiring minorities. A business professor at Washington University in St. Louis has come up with a plan to circumvent potential lawsuits in a way that benefits both employers and employees.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoErik Trinkaus, WUSTL professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, holding a Neandertal skull, says the evidence is very convincing that Neandertals and early humans mixed.For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neandertals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neandertals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them. As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the central research focus of Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Trinkaus has examined the earliest modern humans in Europe, including specimens in Romania, Czech Republic and France. Those specimens, in Trinkaus’ opinion, have shown obvious Neandertal ancestry.

The list of reasons you shouldn’t smoke has gotten longer. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting that smoking interferes with ligament healing. Each year in the United States there are more than 20 million reported ligament injuries, and MCL injuries—which affect a ligament supporting the knee joint—are the most common. Studying mice with MCL injuries, the team discovered cigarette smoking impairs the recruitment of cells to the injury site and delays healing following ligament repair surgery.

An X-ray of a case of scoliosis.Physicians have recognized scoliosis, the abnormal curvature of the spine, since the time of Hippocrates, but its causes have remained a mystery — until now. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions have discovered a gene that underlies the condition, which affects about three percent of all children. The finding lays the groundwork for determining how the genetic defect leads to the C- and S-shaped curves that characterize scoliosis.

Washington University in St. Louis is creating a new International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) to encourage and coordinate university-wide and external collaborative research in the areas of renewable energy and sustainability — including biofuels, CO2 mitigation and coal-related issues. The university will invest more than $55 million in the initiative, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.