Page 1771 – The Source | Washington University in St. Louis

Blood drive Jan. 26

The third of four University-wide blood drives this year will be held Jan. 26 at nine locations throughout the University. FULL STORY

Wrighton to chair steering committee for transit tax initiative

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will serve as chair of the steering committee for the Advance St. Louis campaign to pass a half-cent sales tax increase to support public transportation in the St. Louis area. St. Louis County voters will decide April 6 whether to pass the increase to provide $75 million annually to expand and operate the Metro system, which includes Metro bus, MetroLink and Call-A-Ride services.

Haiti relief: The Chancellor addresses the community

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton addresses the WUSTL community on how faculty, staff and students can help relief efforts in Haiti.

Science & Technology

Physicist Mark Alford comments on latest quark-star research

neutron star with a quark core and a quark core

New calculations by an international group of theorists paint a better picture of the nature of quark stars and suggest a way for astronomers to find the quark stars among the neutron stars. But WUSTL physicist Mark Alford, commenting on the journal publication in a news article posted Jan. 15 at PhysicsWorld.com, suggests that the new work may not be the last word. Alford, who uses mathematical modeling to explore the properties of quark stars, contends that the mathematical theory it uses is only truly accurate when the quarks are millions of times denser than they are in real neutron stars.

Arts & Culture

Maryse Carlin and friends in concert Jan. 21

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will launch its spring Danforth University Center Chamber Series at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, with a performance by harpsichordist Maryse Carlin and members of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Medicine & Health

Staring, sleepiness, other mental lapses more likely in patients with Alzheimer’s

Cognitive fluctuations, or episodes when train of thought temporarily is lost, are more likely to occur in older persons who are developing Alzheimer’s disease than in their healthy peers, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Notables

Ann M. Gronowski, Ph.D., associate professor of pathology and immunology and of obstetrics and gynecology, was elected president by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry for the year 2011. She will serve as president-elect in 2010 and as past-president in 2012. … Young-Shin Jun, Ph.D., assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, has received […]

Campus & Community

Sports update Jan. 18

Celebration of championsThe 2009 NCAA Division III national champion volleyball team will be honored with a Celebration of Champions at 3 p.m. Feb. 7 in the WU Field House. The ceremony will begin promptly following the conclusion of the men’s and women’s basketball doubleheader against Emory University.

Humanities & Society

The politics of faith: PBS’ Suarez to speak in Graham Chapel Jan. 31 – canceled

Ray Suarez, author and senior correspondent for PBS’s The NewsHour, was scheduled to present “The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31, in Graham Chapel. This lecture has been canceled.

Arts & Culture

Connection between craft, war and national identity explored

Allison Smith creates large-scale multimedia installations that critically engage popular forms of historical re-enactment — including sculpture, fabrics, ceramics and other traditional crafts — to redo, restage and refigure our sense of collective memory. Beginning Friday, Feb. 5, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will showcase the artist’s most recent project: the re-creation of European and American gas masks from World War I and World War II.