Mapping lava tubes in the Galàpagos

Yearly expeditions to explore the lava tubes on the famed archipelago will culminate in an international symposium to be held there next year. In the meantime we may all be able to participate as well, if only vicariously. WUSTL’s Aaron Addison, who has traveled to the Galàpagos repeatedly to map the tubes, apppears in a new IMAX film called Galàpagos 3D. Not yet released in the United States, it stars David Attenborough as well as the archipelago’s fantastic geology and biology.

Avoid impulsive acts by imagining future benefits

Why is it so hard for some people to resist the least little temptation, while others seem to possess incredible patience, passing up immediate gratification for a greater long-term good? The answer, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis, is that patient people focus on future rewards in a way that makes the waiting process seem much more pleasurable.

Sussman to outline critical role of culture in understanding society

“The anthropological concept of culture is extremely important and often misunderstood because many of the things that are assumed to be biologically determined, like criminality or homosexuality or IQ, are really behaviorally and societally defined,” says WUSTL physical anthropologist Robert W. Sussman, and it forms the basis for his Phi Beta Kappa/Sigma Xi Lecture, “The Importance of the Concept of Culture to Science and Society,” the next Assembly Series program held at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 9.

Greg Hrbek April 4

Parents must learn to accept the people their children are, as opposed to the people we wish them to be. A difficult lesson—all the more so when that child is a centaur. In “Sagittarius,” author Greg Hrbek follows a young couple frantically searching for their missing newborn—who is either a child with profound birth defects or a miraculous, mythological creature.

“American Voices” April 7

Featuring more than 100 students from the WUSTL Choirs and WUSTL Symphony Orchestra, the annual Chancellor’s Concert is among the university’s largest performances of the year. “American Voices,” the 2013 concert, which takes place April 7, will feature music by Leonard Bernstein, Randall Thompson, Aaron Copland and Howard Hanson.
View More Stories