Global economies and the Internet are upcoming topics by the next two speakers for the Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series. Economic forecaster and social observer Jeremy Rifkin will speak at 2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in Graham Chapel. James Boyle, JD, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, will speak at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29, in the Anheuser-Busch Hall Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.
Chancellor Marks S. Wrighton slices the cake in celebration of George Washington’s birthday Feb. 20 in Tisch Commons, Danforth University Center. George Washington Week, an annual tradition celebrating the university’s namesake, is sponsored by the sophomore honorary Lock and Chain.
“Africa Week 2012: Vive l’Afrique!” highlighting the far-reaching influences of the African continent, begins Monday, Feb. 27, on the Danforth Campus. Events range from free fashion and comedy shows to an in-depth roundtable discussion, a dance workshop and ‘A Taste of Africa.’ The annual week is sponsored by the African Students Association.
Pat Hollinger, a junior majoring in philosophy in Arts & Sciences, placed first out of 10 poets who performed Feb. 17 during the the Fourth Annual Poetry Grand Slam in Edison Theatre. Hollinger performed before three poems before a packed crowd of about 800. He and four other WUSTL poets will represent the university in the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational in Ontario, Calif., April 18-21.
The U.S. Constitution’s global influence is on the decline, finds a new study by David S. Law, JD, PhD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Other countries are increasingly turning to sources other than the U.S. Constitution for guidance in establishing human rights provisions and for general structural provisions in creating their constitutions,” he says. Law, with co-author Mila Versteeg, DPhil, associate professor of law at the University of Virginia, analyzed 60 years of data on the content of the world’s constitutions. “The data revealed that there is a significant and growing generic component to global constitutionalism, in the form of a set of rights provisions that appear in nearly all formal constitutions,” Law says. “Our analysis also confirms, however, that the U.S. Constitution is becoming increasingly out of sync with these global practices.
Cosima Wagner awoke to the sound of music. Her husband, the composer Richard Wagner, had risen early and arranged a 15-piece orchestra on the stairs outside their bedroom. It was the first performance of his Siegfried Idyll, a birthday gift composed for Cosima and titled for their infant son. On Feb. 24, the Washington University Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ward Stare will perform the Siegfried Idyll, along with Sergei Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2, in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.
Mike McLaughlin has had a difficult life. The MBA student at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis was emotionally and physically abused as a child at the hands of his mother and stepfather — a tragedy in its own right but one in which he says helped prepare him for his next big challenge: through-hiking the Appalachian and Ozark trails back-to-back.
Ten thousand people with leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell and other life-threatening diseases need a bone marrow transplant to survive. Donors with diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds are especially needed, which is one reason why the student group WU Marrow Registry is conducting an on-campus registry drive at four locations on the Danforth Campus Wednesday, Feb. 29.
Disease-causing bacteria’s efforts to resist antibiotics may get help from their distant bacterial relatives that live in the soil, new research by Kevin Forsberg, a graduate student at Washington University School of Medicine suggests. The researchers found identical genes for antibiotic resistance in soil bacteria and in pathogens from clinics around the world.
The No. 24 men’s basketball team scored the last 11
points of the game and clinched the 2012 University Athletic Association
(UAA) championship with a 74-68 victory at New York University Feb. 19. Updates also included on women’s basketball, track and field, swimming and diving and women’s tennis.
