Arts & Sciences

On the occasion of the City of Clayton’s centennial year, Washington University’s Assembly Series will present a panel discussion exploring the region’s future prospects and opportunities for growth featuring leading international authorities from our institution: William Powderly, Peter Raven and Holden Thorp. The “Innovation and Infinite Possibilities in the 21st Century” program will begin at 7 p.m Wednesday, November 6 in Simon Hall May Auditorium on the Danforth Campus.

On Saturday, Nov. 2, Washington University’s “family” will come from near and far to gather in St. Louis and celebrate its founding in 1853. The annual Founders Day dinner and ceremony, sponsored by the WUSTL Alumni Association, will feature an address by Jon Huntsman Jr., former U.S. ambassador to China. Other highlights include the presentation of Distinguished Faculty and Alumni awards and the Robert S. Brookings Awards.

A small molecule called VIP, known to synchronize time-keeping neurons in the brain’s biological clock, has the startling effect of desynchronizing them at higher dosages, says a research team at Washington University in St. Louis. Neurons knocked for a loop by a burst of VIP are better able to re-synchronize to abrupt shifts in the light-dark cycle like those that make jet lag or shift work so miserable.

As America’s longest war comes to an end, WUSTL panelists join author/journalist Fariba Nawa to bring their perspectives on the future of Afghanistan.

Remember the thrill of trick-or-treating as a child? The excitement of going door-to-door on Oct. 31? Well, here’s your chance to relive that treasured childhood tradition — 2013 style! It’s called Trick or Tweet, and the treat at the end could be an iPad Mini for an Arts & Sciences undergrad.

Ram Dixit’s lab at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that a protein named after the katana, or samurai sword, plays a crucial role in patterning the “skeleton” inside plant cells. The work provides a clue to the long-standing mystery of how the cytoskeletons within both plant and animal cells become organized in function-specific patterns.

Among the victims who lost their lives in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 genocide were 8,000 Muslim males living in Srebrenica whose bodies were dumped into mass graves. There was little hope for their loved ones of identifying their remains until the advent of DNA technology. For the Holocaust Memorial Lecture, anthropologist Sarah Wagner will tell the story of how science helped close a painful chapter for the millions who lived through the worst atrocity in European history since World War II.

A new exhibit, “In Character: The Life and Legacy of Mary Wickes,” celebrates the legacy of character actress and Washington University in St. Louis alumna Mary Wickes. Events include a screening of Sister Act, one of Wickes’ later films, and a lecture with biographer Steve Taravella.

Alan Templeton, PhD, professor emeritus of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, has an unusual screen saver on his office computer. If you ask him about it, he’ll tell you it is a frost flower, or ice flower. The “flowers” are fleeting natural creations that appear only once or twice in the fall and are seen only by those who rise early and know where to look.

Evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton predicted that organisms ought to evolve the ability to discriminate degrees of kinship so as to refine their ability to direct help to individuals with whom they shared the most genes. But two WUSTL biologists point out that there seem to be many cases where “a veil of ignorance” prevents organisms from gaining this kind of information, forcing them to consider a situation from the perspective of all members of their group instead of solely from their own perspective or that of their close kin.