Newsroom Stories

Juvenile male chimpanzee in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialized “tool kits” to forage for army ants, reveals new research published Sept. 3 in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed a sustainable way of harvesting food. A team from the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, led by Crickette Sanz, Ph.D., assistant professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences, studied several communities of chimpanzee throughout the Nouabalé-Ndoki national park in the Republic of Congo.

Julie Otsuka will present the Assembly Series and Neureuther Library lecture at 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, September 15 in Graham Chapel. Otsuka’s debut novel, “When the Emperor Was Divine” is this year’s Freshman Reading Program selection.

McBrideThe health reform debate to date has been characterized by a lot of confusion and misinformation. “The conclusion that most of the uninsured either are voluntarily uninsured or do not need assistance is erroneous,” says Timothy McBride, Ph.D., leading health economist and associate dean of public health at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. The Census Bureau will announce the official health insurance estimates on Thursday, Sept. 10. According to McBride, because of the economic downturn, the number of uninsured may top 50 million.

Around the world dance is often quite literally the physical embodiment of cultural identity and practice. Yet for individual dancers, the power of such traditions can give rise to certain expectations and even stereotypes based on perceived identity. On Sept. 12 the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will explore the role of ethnicity in contemporary dance with “Dancing Who I Am,” a panel discussion and informal concert featuring faculty members as well as leading critics and choreographers from around the country. The event comes as part of the semester-long series “Ethnic Profiling: A Challenge to Democracy,” organized by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values. Also as part of the series, the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies will screen Ancestor Eyes, an award-winning Native American short film, Sept. 13.

Photo by Mary ButkusJudge David Coar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois addresses students after the School of Law’s annual Matriculation Ceremony last month in the Crowder Courtyard of Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Photo by Joe AngelesChancellor Mark S. Wrighton visits in his office Aug. 21 with Yoshio “Matt” Matsumoto (second from left), Yoshio’s son Joseph and his grandson, Andrew, a current freshman. Yoshio was sponsored by the University to leave a Japanese internment camp in the 1940s to attend classes here and had not been back to St. Louis since earning his degree in 1944.

Jan Amend, Ph.D., Dennis L. Barbour, Ph.D., Yehuda Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. and more…

World-renowned artist and computer scientist John Maeda will serve as opening speaker for “Economies: Art + Architecture,” the first joint conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the National Council of Art Administrators.

The new WUSTL Family Network Web site — WUSTLfamily.net — provides an online forum where members of the WUSTL community can exchange information about parenting, events and the St. Louis area.

Philip R. Dodge, M.D., one of the founders of pediatric neurology and head of the Department of Pediatrics for 21 years, died Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009, of heart failure at Barnes-Jewish Extended Care in St. Louis. He was 86.