Arts & Sciences

A biology lab at Washington University in St. Louis has successfully cracked the structure of an enzyme made by Plasmodium falciparum, the parasitical protozoan that causes the most lethal form of malaria. Plasmodium cannot live without the enzyme, which is uses to make cell membrane. Because people don’t make this enzyme, it is an ideal target for an anti-malarial drug.  Such a drug might kill Plasmodium but have minimal side effects for people.

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.

Constitutional courts worldwide are increasingly turning to legal arguments and ideas from other countries for guidance and inspiration. But scholarly interest in the growing judicial use of foreign law paints a very misleading picture of the globalization of constitutional law, says David Law, JD, PhD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He says that for those who want to see the U.S. Supreme Court make greater and more sophisticated use of foreign law, encouraging its members or inviting them to additional conferences and gatherings is likely to have little impact. “At this point in time, the greatest obstacle to judicial comparativism in the United States is not the unwillingness of individual judges to consider foreign legal materials, it is the current political economy of the American legal education.”