Humanities & Society

Erik TrinkausA human jawbone (left), dated to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago, along with a facial skeleton (center) and a temporal bone (right).A research team co-directed by Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, has dated a human jawbone from a Romanian bear hibernation cave to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago. That makes it the earliest known modern human fossil in Europe. Other human bones from the same cave — a temporal bone, a facial skeleton and a partial braincase — are still undergoing analysis, but are likely to be the same age. The jawbone was found in February 2002 in Pestera cu Oase — the “Cave with Bones” — located in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains. The other bones were found in June 2003.

Former EPA administrators Carol Browner and William Reilly will deliver the first Sesquicentennial Environmental Initiative Lecture at 3 p.m., Friday, October 3. The lecture, which focuses on politics and the environment, is free and open to the public and will be held in Graham Chapel, located just north of Mallinckrodt Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd., on the Washington University campus.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will collaborate with Assistant Professor Jeffrey T. Macher of the Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and Associate Professor Jackson A. Nickerson of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis as part of its strategic initiative to modernize the regulation of pharmaceutical manufacturing and product quality. Under the terms of the material transfer agreement with the FDA, Macher and Nickerson will conduct research and analysis to help the FDA identify the factors that predict manufacturing performance to further refine the agency’s risk-based site selection model for inspections as well as its other efforts to target identified risks to pharmaceutical quality and strengthen its pharmaceutical compliance program.

The George Warren Brown School of Social Work’s fall lecture series will address a broad spectrum of social issues, ranging from affirmative action to neighborhood capacity building. The series will kick off Sept. 24 at 4:30 p.m. with a lecture by Amitai Etzioni, Ph.D., director of the Institute of Communitarian Policy Studies, on ” My Brother’s Keeper: Reflections of a Communitarian.”

The Global Service Institute (GSI) of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at George Warren Brown School of Social Work (GWB) will host its second international research forum, “Civic Service: Impacts and Inquiry,” Sept. 24-26. Symposium participants, drawn from more than 20 countries, will address the impact of civic service, and will continue the discussion that began at the first GSI conference in Buenos Aires last year. The first conference addressed the history, implementation, and forms of civic service worldwide.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the rules of war, but they also changed media coverage of war and politics, several prominent journalists concluded at a panel discussion Saturday celebrating the 125th anniversary of Student Life, Washington University’s campus newspaper.

Amy BloomAmy Bloom, author of NORMAL: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18 and 25, for The Writing Program Reading Series at Washington University in St. Louis.

A memorial gathering commemorating the two-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 11 in Graham Chapel. The gathering will be a brief coming-together of the campus community to reflect on the tragic events of two years ago and look forward to peace. The public is welcome to attend.

Panchapagesan”Decimalization” – the pricing of stocks in dollars and cents instead of fractions – lauded by proponents to be a good thing for investors when it was adopted by the U.S. stock markets in early 2001, is under fire. Critics say it costs institutional investors big. But in a study co-authored by Venkatesh Panchapagesan at Washington University’s Olin School of Business, direct institutional trading costs appear to have declined by about 23 basis points (roughly 5 cents a share) after decimalization. In economic terms, this decrease translates to an average monthly savings of about $133 million in institutional trading costs, the study finds.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hold an unusual four-hour session Sept. 8 to hear constitutional challenges to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002; some suggest the case could determine which political party wins the White House in 2004. D. Bruce La Pierre, a law professor who argued a Missouri campaign finance case before the Court in 2000, suggests the Court should use the BCRA case to rethink two recent decisions that have severely eroded First Amendment protection for political speech. It’s time, he argues, for the Court to send a clear message that campaign contributions are firmly protected by the First Amendment.