Arts & Sciences

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill will participate in a roundtable discussion with Washington University in St. Louis administrators and energy researchers, and the region’s energy leaders on the nation’s urgent energy needs. The roundtable energy discussion will be held at noon Monday, Jan. 9, at Washington University’s Brauer Hall, Room 3015, followed by a tour of WUSTL’s Ultrafast Laser Facility. 

Edison Theatre at Washington University in St. Louis has received a prestigious Challenge America Fast-Track grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). A repeat recipient in the Challenge America category, Edison will use the $10,000 award to support Algo Nuevo (Something New), a series of free activities to be held in March exploring the history and aesthetics of Hispanic dance and traditional costuming.

Experts will address the idea of mercy during a Saturday Master of Liberal Arts Seminar Series throughout February. Topics range from mercy in sexuality debates to mercy in the practice of medicine. Now in its 31st year, the popular MLA series annually addresses a common theme from a variety of backgrounds. Free and open to the public, the series is sponsored by University College.

The following are among the new faculty members at Washington University in St. Louis: Jan Bieschke, PhD; John Cunningham, PhD; Kristen Naegle, PhD; and Kedron Thomas, PhD. Others will be introduced periodically.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers and changed baseball forever. Now, imagine traveling back in time to witness Robinson’s historic season first-hand. In Jackie and Me, young Joey Stoshack does exactly that, when a rare baseball card transports the headstrong Little Leaguer to Ebbets Field.

In the December 24 issue of Physical Review Letters, WUSTL physicist Ramanath Cowsik and his collaborators put their finger on a problem with the now-famous OPERA experiment that reported faster-than-light, or superluminal, neutrinos last September. Cowsik raises theoretical considerations that would make the creation of superluminal neutrinos impossible.

With the delicacy of a spider web and the rigorous logic of a chain reaction, three miles of sky blue cord stretch outward from the stage and into the seats, enveloping dancers and audience alike. Choreographer Brian Brooks is known for creating works defined by their cheeky wit, audacious visuals and superhuman endurance. In January, the Brian Brooks Moving Company will present Motor, a major new piece exploring notions of time, entropy and perpetual movement, as part of the Edison Ovations Series.

Richard Stang, PhD, professor emeritus of English in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Dec. 14, 2011, of pancreatic cancer. He was 86. Stang specialized in 19th-century English literature, particularly the Victorian period.

Some WUSTL news stories never get old, and some just get better with time. WUSTL news editors picked 11 stories from 2011 — some new, some old — but all worth a second look as we head into 2012.

Any multicellular animal poses a special difficulty for the theory of evolution. Most of its cells will die without reproducing, and only a privileged few will pass their genes. Given the incentive for cheating, how is cooperation among the cells enforced? In the Dec. 16 issue of the journal Science, Washington University in St. Louis biologists Joan Strassmann and David Queller suggest the answer is frequent population bottlenecks that restart populations from a single cell.