Puppetry? Not just for kids anymore. Teatro Hugo & Ines — aka Hugo Suarez and Ines Pasic — create a world of unlimited, cartoon-like possibility, enlisting elements of puppetry, mime and dance to transform hands, feet, elbows, knees and bellybuttons into a colorful parade of extraordinary, oddball characters. At 8 p.m. Jan. 16-17, the Edison […]
Photo by Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoAre gamblers impulsive?Why do people engage in behaviors they know are harmful to them in the long run? Why do we give in to that incredible chocolate cake even though we’re trying to lose weight and stay fit? The answer, suggests a recent study on the psychology of gambling and impulsive behavior, is a simple economic phenomenon known as discounting. While good health may be its own reward, research suggests that the value of that reward diminishes as it’s delayed; and the longer it’s delayed, the less it controls your present behavior. Although gamblers may deserve their reputations as notorious risk-takers, they often do better than non-gamblers at delaying gratification to maximize long-term rewards.
Photo courtesy of National Eye Institute, National Institutes of HealthVisual perception changes as eyes age.Graphic design can be a matter of life and death. Literally. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 40 percent of Americans aged 65 and over use five or more different medications each week, making unintended drug interactions a major contributor to an estimated annual 180,000 fatal or life-threatening adverse drug reactions. Yet drug labeling is a kind of typographical Wild West, says Ken Botnick, professor of visual communications in the School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. “Drug companies are required to divulge certain types of information but there are no requirements in terms of how accessible that information is made,” Botnick explains. “Typically, decisions about the way information is organized — the hierarchy of presentation, the size and clarity of type — are simply afterthoughts.” Medical information design is just one of the issues to be explored as part of “Visual Design for an Aging Population,” a national symposium Botnick is organizing in March 2004.
Photo by David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoWendy F. Auslander, Ph.D. (left), works with St. Louis-area peer counselors in the “Eat Well, Live Well” program she pioneered with colleagues at the School of Medicine.As the cases of type 2 diabetes in African-American women increase at an epidemic rate, researchers are examining risk factors involved with this disease in order to create programs that will hopefully slow this growing problem. According to a recent study at the George Warren Brown (GWB) School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, African-American women at risk for type 2 diabetes experience long periods of depression due, in part, to a lack of economic and social resources. “At the beginning of our study, 40 percent of our sample of African-American women at risk for type 2 diabetes reported clinically significant depression,” says Wendy Auslander, Ph.D., professor at GWB and co-author of the study. “Unlike their nondepressed peers, these women reported fewer economic assets and greater economic distress. Issues such as unemployment, low self-esteem and a low appraisal of their economic situation contributed to their depression.”
Photo courtesy of Washington University ArchivesA Tennessee Williams play will be staged for the first time.Twenty years after his death, one of Tennessee Williams’ plays is seeing the light of a stage for the first time. “Me Vashya,” an early play by Williams, will receive its world premiere at Washington University in St. Louis in February. Written in 1937 while Williams was a student here and known as Tom, his birth name, the play has remained in Washington University archives for more than 60 years. It has never been published or performed — until now.
SadatShould Saddam Hussein be tried through an “Iraqi Special Tribunal” or a U.N. Tribunal? This topic will be heavily debated in the aftermath of Saddam’s capture. Leila Sadat, international law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says the U.S. government’s push for a local Iraqi tribunal rather than a U.N Tribunal is a mistake. “The international community needs to support Iraq through this process, not abandon its responsibilities for Iraq’s successful reconstruction, one of which is the need for justice and accountability,” says Sadat. She outlined her views on the subject in a Dec. 16 commentary in USA Today. Sadat is available to discuss her views on the trial of Saddam and other international law issues surrounding trials of heads of state.
SneiderMost retailers are enthusiastic about sales prospects for the holiday season. Estimates for same store sales growth of five to seven percent are expected, according to Martin Sneider, a professor of retailing at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. “These forecasts are far more robust than the numbers posted last year. Estimates for price-driven stores like Wal-Mart and Costco are at the high end of analyst’s expectations,” Sneider says. Meanwhile, online holiday shopping is expected to grow by 20 to 40 percent, he says.
Courtesy photoThe Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder (TIGER) at the McMurdo base in Anarctica. Aria-9, a joint Washington University/NASA K-12 research project, is scheduled for mid-December; it involves measuring galactic cosmic rays.An estimated 1,000 students from 28 K-12 schools from Missouri, Illinois, Washington D.C., New Jersey, Montana, and Queensland, Australia are participating in Aria-9, student experiment packages that get tested on NASA space flights. The Aria-9 is the latest Washington University in St. Louis Project Aria’s “fly-and-compare” K-12 experiment packages, according to Keith Bennett, adjunct assistant professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and Aria project director.
Image courtesy of Karin Peyer, 2001*Postosuchus*, the “alligator on stilts,’ was quite a mover in its day.How much different do the bones of similar animals have to be for the classification of a new species? That is the question that drove Stephanie Novak, a new doctoral candidate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, to develop a novel model to determine classification of a new species. Novak presented details of her model at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, held Nov.2-5 in Seattle.
Courtesy of Monterey Bay Area Research InstituteA fish on the ocean floor off California gazes at a sight no human has seen first-hand: a modified Raman spectrometer gathering data on a carbon dioxide sample.In collaboration with oceanographers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), a team of geologists at Washington University in St. Louis is using a rare instrument on the ocean floor just west of California. One of their earliest projects was to see if it’s possible to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it on the ocean floor. It’s the first deployment of the Raman spectrometer on the ocean floor.