Newsroom Stories

When a company decides to turn to a call center to handle its customer service, company heads assume that signing a contract is the best way to get the best service. Not necessarily, says Tava Olsen, associate professor of operations and manufacturing management in the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. Olsen and a colleague at the University of Toronto, found that some contracts allow call centers to meet their obligations half-way, leaving their clients — and their client’s clients — on hold.

Christine Floss, Ph.D., and Frank Stadermann, Ph.D., examine data on the NanoSIMS in Compton Hall.A collaborative team of researchers including two from WUSTL have discovered what turns the lights out from space. They have discovered that organic carbon and amorphous silicates in interstellar grains embedded within interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are the carriers of the astronomical 2175 Å extinction line, which occurs at a wavelength of 2175 Angstroms and blocks starlight from reaching the Earth.

Sherman Alexie, a writer known for his poetry, novels, short fiction and screenplays, will deliver the Buder Center for American Indian Studies Lecture for the Washington University Assembly Series at 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 16. His talk, “Without Reservations: An Urban Indian’s Comic, Poetic and Highly Irreverent Look at the World,” will be held in Graham Chapel, located just north of Mallinckrodt Student Center (6445 Forsyth Blvd.) on the Washington University Hilltop Campus. The talk is free and open to the public.

The renowned classics scholar Malcolm Schofield will give the annual Biggs Lecture in the Classics at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 17, for the Assembly Series. The event will be held in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge; it is free and open to the public.

CarlinWashington University’s Eliot Trio will highlight late piano trios by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 15, in the auditorium of Uncas A. Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering. The Eliot Trio consists of Seth Carlin, professor of music and director of the piano program in Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences; David Halen, concertmaster for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; and guest cellist Michael Haber, professor of music at the University of Akron.

Rates of celiac disease are significantly higher in patients with osteoporosis, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. They recommend using blood tests to screen osteoporosis patients for celiac disease because their study has shown that treating celiac disease with diet can restore bone health in these patients.

*Arabidopsis thaliana*A team headed by Craig Pikaard, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has discovered a fourth kind of RNA polymerase found only in plants and speculated to have been a plant feature for more than 200 million years.

James L. Gibson, Ph.D., the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government in Arts & Sciences, will receive a 2005 Decade of Behavior Research Award in recognition of his research on democracy issues. The award recognizes high-caliber research that has profoundly influenced the public’s understanding of behavioral and social science principles as well as the use of social and behavioral science knowledge in policy settings.

Will is one of the world’s leading experts in using experimental and observational data to explain Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

The American College Dance Festival Association event will feature student and faculty dancers from 20 universities across nine states.