Arts & Sciences

Banana-slinging catapult? Check! Smoke ring cannons? Check! Bright orange lab coat and goofy protective goggles? Check! Say hello to Doktor Kaboom!, “ze smartest man to ever enter any room.” Later this month, the humble Doktor will bring his sidesplitting, family-friendly tour of the modern scientific method to Washington University’s Edison Theatre for a special one-time-only performance. 

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis has announced the recipients of the Innovation Grants for Community-Based Teaching and Learning. The grants are intended to provide faculty members with financial support for curriculum development and implementation. The Gephardt Institute also offers technical expertise in key areas of community-based teaching and learning, such as reflection assignments, evaluation methods and tools for working effectively with community partners.

The Washington University Chamber Orchestra will present “Follow the Fugue,” a concert of fugues in a variety of forms and arrangements, at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24, in Graham Chapel. The program will feature examples by Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Ernst Toch.

The Advisory Committee for the Diversity and Inclusion Grants has awarded eight grants to Washington University faculty and staff for initiatives that improve the university environment for women and members of underrepresented minority groups.

Undergraduate tuition at Washington University in St. Louis will be $40,950 for the 2011-12 academic year — a $1,550 (3.9 percent) increase over the 2010-11 current academic tuition of $39,400. The required student activity fee will total $410, and the student health fee will be no more than $632. Barbara A. Feiner, vice chancellor for finance, made the announcement. 

Growing up in Maryland, Shanti A. Parikh, PhD, knew early on she wanted to be an anthropologist. But at the encouragement of her p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:115%;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri;} .MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in;margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} mother, Parikh majored in finance at the University of Virginia. A stint in the Peace Corps following graduation returned Parikh to her original passion and to the area of study that would remain her lifetime focus.

When the Senate convenes Jan. 25, it is expected to weigh a resolution to reform the filibuster rule and eliminate secret holds — protocols that many have blamed for encouraging congressional gridlock. Although the proposal is put forth by the Democratic majority in the Senate, it contains a series of relatively modest changes that should hold some appeal to the Senate’s Republiican minority, suggests congressional expert Steven S. Smith, PhD.

Who knew? The chance discovery that spikes in seismometer noise recorded in Africa corresponded with soccer matches has led to the discovery that there’s a lot more buried in the noise, including a signal from the famous storms of the Southern Atlantic Ocean, the bane of ships of sail.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will launch its spring Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series with a concert titled “Music from Spain and the Middle East” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19. The performance will include works by Joaquin Turina, Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granados and Pablo de Saraste, as well as traditional Kurdish and Persian folk music. Soprano Stella Markou will perform with pianist Martin Kennedy April 7.

A Washington University in St. Louis team is participating in the modENCODE project, a massive ongoing effort to map all the elements in model organisms that affect whether genes are silenced or expressed. The work supports the more complex ENCODE project, which is tasked to map the same elements in the human genome. While the genome is the same in every cell, each cell type expresses a different set of genes. In people, moreover, roughly 95 percent of the genome is silenced. Together the projects will “put flesh on the bones” of the Human Genome Project, says team leader Sarah C.R. Elgin.