Newsroom Stories

The Blues and the Abstract Truth by St. Louis saxophonist Oliver Nelson (1932-1975) is among the most influential jazz albums of the 1960s, a masterpiece of blues structure, modern arrangement and post-bop cool. On Thursday, Sept. 12, Washington University will pay tribute to this distinguished alumnus with a free concert at 8 p.m. in Holmes Lounge as part of the Jazz at Holmes series.

The seas have risen and covered the earth. A few soaked survivors cling to mountaintops and tall buildings. So begin The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer, an inventive, heartwarming and visually spectacular tale by Australia’s Tim Watts. On Oct. 5, this acclaimed one-man-show, part environmental parable, part Orpheus and Eurydice, will launch Edison’s ovations for young people series.

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have selected the collaborative firm Freecell Architecture as winner of PXSTL. The $50,000 urban design competition winner will create a temporary space for outdoor performances in Grand Center beginning in spring 2014.

Deeply concerned about an “innovation deficit” that is threatening the nation’s economic growth, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Timothy M. Wolfe, president of the University of Missouri System, sent a joint letter last month to Missouri’s U.S. congressional delegation urging their support in helping close this innovation gap. Wrighton and Wolfe also  joined more than 160 university presidents and chancellors in signing an open letter July 31 to President Obama and the U.S. Congress asking them to restore federal investments in higher education and research.

Students captured life on campus and abroad for WUSTL’s first summer photo contest. Winning images will be displayed in January Hall next month.

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, has received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is the first faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis to receive the award, which recognizes an elite group of scientists early in their careers at research universities.

The mix of microbes living inside the gut can protect against obesity, but a healthy diet is critical, according to School of Medicine scientists who transplanted intestinal microbes from obese and lean twins into mice and fed the animals different diets. Pictured are researchers Vanessa Ridaura, a graduate student, and Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, director of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology.

Growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was drawn to the itinerant musicians known as chorões, whose improvised concerts filled the streets and cafes. On Sept. 16, the Danforth University Center will launch its fall Chamber Music Series with Villa-Lobos’ Choros No. 2, as well as works by Emmanuel, Debussy, Schmitt and Saint-Saëns.

At Washington University in St. Louis, students in the School of Engineering & Applied Science learn more than how to be an engineer. With opportunities to go abroad to get hands-on experience beyond what they learn in the classroom, they also learn to be leaders in a global society. Sixteen WUSTL students went to Brisbane, Australia, for the International Experience program, sponsored by the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering and the McDonnell Global Energy and Environment Partnership (MAGEEP).

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, works with Synechocystis 6803 — as well as other microbes and systems — in the areas of synthetic biology, protein engineering and metabolic engineering, with special focus on synthetic control systems to make the organism reach its untapped prowess. He says the biotech world has to overcome several challenges to put the engineered microbes in the applications stage.