Humanities & Society

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will speak on “Our Environmental Destiny” for the Washington University Assembly Series at 11 a.m., Wednesday, Feb. 25 in Graham Chapel. Kennedy has devoted his career to protecting the environment and has used his legal expertise to reduce pollution. He is a clinical professor and supervising attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University’s School of Law in New York. The Clinic takes a leading role in protecting New York City’s water supply and reservoirs. He helped lead the fight to turn back the anti-environmental legislation during the 104th Congress. His reputation is built on a number of successful legal actions, including prosecuting governments and companies for polluting the Hudson River and suing sewage treatment plants to force compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Photo courtesy of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s DepartmentJury selection will be at issue in the Jackson trial.From Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart and Phil Spector to Kobe Bryant and Jayson Williams, celebrity criminal trials continue to be top news items. But as the spotlight on these trials intensifies, attorneys representing celebrities are presented with a unique set of challenges, says Christopher Bracey, an expert in the fields of criminal rights and criminal process and an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Instead of focusing solely on preparing a strong legal defense, these attorneys are dealing with issues such as client management, tainted jury pools and misinformation.”

With the graying of America, millions of people across the nation are facing the same tough question: when do older people become unsafe drivers? In one of the first studies to track driving performance in older adults, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that over time, driving abilities predictably worsen in individuals with early Alzheimer’s disease and, to a lesser extent, in older adults without dementia. People with mild dementia had the fastest rate of decline, but there also were declines in nondemented study participants. The researchers also found that increased age alone appeared to be a risk factor in driving performance. Because Alzheimer’s disease is progressive and driving performance inevitably does worsen, the challenge is to figure out how to predict and evaluate dangerous declines in driving performance. The researchers suggest that testing individuals with mild dementia every six months might be a useful way to keep unsafe drivers off the roads.

A biography of St. Patrick is due out just in time for March 17.St. Patrick’s Day has become an excuse for Americans of all ethnic backgrounds to break out the green and head to their local parade or pub and imbibe in Irish beer and corned beef and cabbage. And just in time for this year’s celebration of St. Patrick’s feast day comes a book that will have many — even the true Irish — saying, “I didn’t know that” about Ireland’s beloved patron saint. Many of the stories about St. Patrick that have been passed down for generations, including the one about him ridding Ireland of its snakes, are false, says an expert in Celtic and classical studies at Washington University in St. Louis in a book being released in early March.

The European Union (EU) will impose trade sanctions on billions of dollars of U.S. goods starting March 1 if Congress fails to repeal an export subsidy ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The export subsidy provision — known as the “extraterritorial income” deduction — gives U.S. companies a big leg up on competitors, but is paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, said William J. Streeter, a professor of international business at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. Streeter says legislation to repeal the export subsidy that has yet to be passed by Congress is projected to save U.S. taxpayers $80 billion over the next decade, but will be offset by lower corporate taxes on the earnings of U.S. firms abroad.

Dr. James Lowe in the operating room.Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but plastic and reconstructive surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to learn the basics of aesthetic beauty in various ethnic groups. When plastic surgeons operate, they don’t want to make African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and other groups look the same. Rather, they hope to preserve ethnicity while at the same time restoring or enhancing beauty. The Washington University team is one of only a handful worldwide that is scientifically studying ways to preserve ethnicity in plastic surgery procedures, and as more people from different ethnic backgrounds seek plastic surgery, defining aesthetic attractiveness in various ethnic groups is becoming more important.

Photo by Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoThe Truster hand-held “Emotion Reader.”Voice-stress analysis, an alternative to the polygraph as a method for lie detection, is already widely used in police and insurance fraud investigations. Now, however, it is being touted as a powerful and effective tool for an array of new applications — everything from screening potential terrorists in the nation’s airports to catching wayward spouses in messy marital disputes. Despite its booming popularity, recent federally sponsored studies have found little evidence that existing voice-stress technologies are capable of consistently detecting lies and deceptions. “You could have gotten better results by flipping a coin,” says Washington University in St. Louis psychologist Mitchell S. Sommers, lead investigator on a recent voice-stress study.

Photo courtesy of The OASIS InstituteVolunteering can have a positive effect on the overall well-being of older Americans.Looking to chase away the winter blues? Interested in staying active after retirement? Need a boost to your health? Try volunteering at your church or a neighborhood organization for a few hours a week — it could do you a world of good. Just two hours of volunteering a week can have a positive effect on the overall well-being of older Americans, according to a study from the George Warren Brown (GWB) School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. The researchers found that older adults who volunteered had better assessments than non-volunteers on three measures of well-being: daily functioning, self-rated health and self-rated depression.

In some people smoking rewires the brain, producing a powerful addiction that may never be entirely cured, experts say. An estimated 35 million smokers try to kick the habit each year, but only about 7 percent succeed in remaining smoke-free for more than a year. Most relapse within a few days of quitting and require multiple attempts before they can give up cigarettes. “The people who could quit, quit. Now we’re left with a group of really committed smokers,” explains WUSTL geneticist Laura Bierut in a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch news article.

Public intellectuals — a class of specialists, all-purpose thinkers — will gather from 10-11:30 a.m. Feb. 12 in Graham Chapel at Washington University in St. Louis to have a “Conversation” about, well, public intellectuals. As part of the university’s yearlong 150th anniversary celebration, Arts & Sciences is sponsoring “Conversations,” a four-part series bringing some of the nation’s top scholars together to discuss key issues that will affect the future of the university, the community and the world.