Arts & Sciences

While measles and the human papillomavirus (HPV) are vastly different diseases, failing to get vaccinated against them can have equally serious consequences, suggests Bradley Stoner, PhD, a medical anthropologist who studies infectious disease transmission at Washington University in St. Louis.

The killing is not in doubt: A black man is dead; a white man pulled the trigger. The only real question is why. James Baldwin wrote “Blues for Mr. Charlie”  in 1964. But today, the echoes of Ferguson are impossible to ignore. The production of the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis runs Feb. 20 through March 1 in Edison Theatre.

Sarah Negron, a 2014 Arts & Sciences graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, is the recipient of the Regional Arts Commission’s prestigious Katherine Dunham Internship.

Pathogens, pesticides and nutritional deficits have previously been identified as stressors linked to colony collapse disorder, but it was a mystery why bee colonies sometimes collapsed so rapidly, leaving bee keepers with an empty hive box. A new study suggests that when a colony is stressed, young bees are forced to become foragers much sooner than they otherwise would and this accelerated development leads to their early death.

Since 1968, the United States has been represented by 28 secretaries of state. But only 25 vocalists have had the chops to call themselves King’s Singers. At 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, the celebrated British ensemble will bring its peerless polyphony to Washington University in St. Louis’s 560 Music Center.

Abram C. Van Engen, PhD, assistant professor of English in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship award to do research for a book.

​Class Acts takes a look at John Schmidt, a senior in Arts & Sciences and the white playwright behind this weekend’s Black Anthology. Schmidt also is an editor for Student Life, writer and director for Lunar New Year, a residential advisor and opera singer. Schmidt says his “listening ear” helps him in his various roles. Black Anthology takes place at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 6 and 7.

A three-dimensional seismic image of the mantle beneath the Lau Basin in the South Pacific just published in Nature has an intriguing anomaly. The image showed the least magma where the scientists expected to find the most. After considerable debate, they concluded that magma with a high water content was flushed so rapidly that it wasn’t showing up in the images.

The Eliot Trio — pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, violinist David Halen and cellist Bjorn Ranheim, both of the St. Louis Symphony — will play the music of Beethoven, Bruch and Mendelssohn for its annual concert at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, in Holmes Lounge on the Danforth Campus.

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research has announced the eight winners of the 2014 University Research Strategic Alliance (URSA) grants. The URSA program aims to encourage new groups of investigators working on new research or using new approaches to solve problems.