The dynamic sky is topic of 2013 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture Series

The dynamic sky is topic of 2013 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture Series

Shrinivas Kulkarni, McArthur Professor of Astronomy & Planetary Science at Caltech, will deliver the sixth annual Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, in Room 100, Whitaker Hall, on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The talk, titled “Booms, Burps & Bumps: the Dynamic Universe,” describes transient astronomical objects, violent, deep sky events typically visible only for a few days. It is free and open to the public.
VIP treatment for jet lag

VIP treatment for jet lag

A small molecule called VIP, known to synchronize time-keeping neurons in the brain’s biological clock, has the startling effect of desynchronizing them at higher dosages, says a research team at Washington University in St. Louis. Neurons knocked for a loop by a burst of VIP are better able to re-synchronize to abrupt shifts in the light-dark cycle like those that make jet lag or shift work so miserable.

For Holocaust Memorial Lecture, Sarah Wagner tells how DNA technology helped close a painful chapter in Bosnian genocide

Among the victims who lost their lives in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 genocide were 8,000 Muslim males living in Srebrenica whose bodies were dumped into mass graves. There was little hope for their loved ones of identifying their remains until the advent of DNA technology. For the Holocaust Memorial Lecture, anthropologist Sarah Wagner will tell the story of how science helped close a painful chapter for the millions who lived through the worst atrocity in European history since World War II.
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