Newsroom Stories

Haba na Haba (Swahili for “step by step”) is an internationally renowned Kenyan performance group that first formed in the slums of Nairobi, using acrobatics, music, dance and drama to raise awareness and educate their communities on topics such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, reproductive health, women’s issues and violence. They are visiting St. Louis through March 23.

Fourteen students from the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences took part in the Central Region American College Dance Conference, held March 11 to 14 at Hendrix College in Conway, AZ. Adjudicators chose two works — Stuck in the Waiting by junior Eliotte Henderson and Falling Petals by lecturer Ting-Ting Chang, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance — to be performed as part of the concluding Gala Concert.

Since its inception a decade ago, the Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award has been given annually to a husband and wife couple dedicated to improving the St. Louis region through service, generosity and leadership. In a ceremony on February 26, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton bestowed the 10th such award on Barbara and Andrew Taylor.

Blood drives at Washington University have come a long way in a short amount of time. Contention between blood banks, four-day-long drives and limited appeal have been replaced by efficient one-day, campus-wide drives at numerous University locations, which have garnered massive support from students, faculty and staff. The next drive is March 25.

AgarwalA mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles — planes, autos and trucks. Drag is an aerodynamic force that is the result of resistance a body encounters when it moves in a liquid or gaseous medium (such as air). Reduction in drag means less fuel would be required to overcome the fluid resistance encountered by the moving vehicle. Working with undergraduate and graduate students, Ramesh K. Agarwal, Ph.D, the William Palm Professor of Engineering at WUSTL, has successfully demonstrated that the drag of airplane wings and cars/trucks can be reduced by employing the active flow control technology.

The Gateway Arch soars above the City of St. Louis. Eero Sarrinen’s awe-inspiring design is visually stunning, extraordinarily graceful and an architectural masterpiece, but it is also a mathematical marvel.

Washington University School of Law will host a delegation of ten senior diplomats from the United Nations for a public town hall meeting on “Food Security and Humanitarian Intervention” on Tuesday, March 24, from 9-11 a.m. in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. The ambassadors will give brief presentations and then take questions from the audience.

The WUSTL flag is at half-staff in honor of engineering student Anthony Olasov.

Have African-American intellectuals abandoned the Civil Rights Movement? Do black academics need to reengage the larger community, and if so, how? What is the relationship between contemporary politics and popular culture? Some of the nation’s most prominent African-American writers and thinkers will address these questions and more during the 2009 Callaloo Conference, which takes place March 25-28 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Exposure to a chemotherapeutic drug makes the branches of a normal nerve cell degenerate (left).Scientists have identified the first gene that pulls the plug on ailing nerve cell branches from within the nerve cell, possibly helping to trigger the painful condition known as neuropathy. The condition is a side effect of some forms of chemotherapy and can also afflict patients with cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, viral infections, neurodegenerative disorders and other ailments.