Women’s health focus of major exhibit for the first time

Hannah Wilke, “Intra-Venus #4, February 19, 1992,” (1992-93)Women’s bodies — nude, adorned, eroticized, abstracted — figure prominently in the history of art. Yet the art of women’s health is shockingly new. In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Inside Out Loud: Visualizing Women’s Health in Contemporary Art, the first major museum-level exhibition dedicated to the topic. The show tracks the emergence of women’s health in American art from the early 1980s to the present, and includes approximately 50 artworks in a variety of traditional and cutting-edge media by more than 30 internationally known artists and artists’ groups.

Homeless for the holidays

Alcohol and drug abuse remain the biggest problems among homeless individuals.The homeless population is changing. In the days of the Great Depression, many homeless people were victims of bad luck and a worse economy. But after studying St. Louis’ homeless population since the 1980’s, experts at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say the problem has become more complex in recent times.

Einstein experts available to talk about 100th anniversary of his 1905 ground-breaking papers

Remembering Einstein’s “miracle year.”The United Nations has declared 2005 the International Year of Physics — and there’s a very good reason why this particular year was chosen to raise worldwide public awareness of physics. It is also the 100th anniversary of physicist Albert Einstein’s miraculous year in which he wrote five — or three depending on whom you ask — of his most famous scientific papers. Also known as the World Year of Physics, 2005 will feature worldwide events of interest not only to physicists, but also to the general public. Two physicists from Washington University in St. Louis who are both known for their ability to speak and write clearly about physics to the layperson will be giving talks throughout 2005 about Einstein’s ideas and their impact on science and society 100 years later.

Dynamic pricing in retail can boost bottom line

The right pricing strategy can keep the cash register full.Determining the right pricing strategy can make or break the overall profitability of a firm, especially during the all-important December holiday season. One such strategy, dynamic pricing, long practiced in the airline and hotel industries, is showing promise and profitability in the world of retail. When applied to products sold over a short sales season — new toys, skiwear, and the like — dynamic pricing can boost profits for a firm, say two professors of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

First analysis of chicken genome offers many new insights

Red jungle fowlThe first detailed analysis of the chicken genome has identified a chicken counterpart to an important human immune system protein, revised scientists’ assessment of the chicken’s sense of smell, and suggested that the chicken, long used to study gene activity in the earliest stages of life, may provide a good model for studying changes in DNA linked to aging and death.

SIDS risk linked to lack of experience with tummy-sleeping

sleeping baby
On their backs is the safest way for babies to sleep. Babies who never sleep on their stomachs don’t learn behaviors that may lessen their risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), researchers at the School of Medicine have found. Even so, the researchers caution that infants should always be placed on their backs to sleep.

Olin Cup awards $70,000 in seed investment to entrepreneurship competition winners

The John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis on Dec. 2 awarded a total of $70,000 in seed investment capital to two startup businesses in its annual Olin Cup entrepreneurship competition. The Olin Cup, along with $50,000 in seed money, went to Luminomics, a biotechnology company that develops regenerative drug therapies for degenerative diseases. An award of $20,000 went to The Blessing Basket, a not-for-profit company that imports baskets made by weavers in undeveloped countries. Honorable mention was given to Core Devices, maker of a portable anesthesia machine.

WUSTL flag at half-staff

Jonathan Townsend, Ph.D., emeritus professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, died on Monday, Nov. 29, 2004. He was 82. The burial was private.