Arts & Sciences

An international team of researchers based at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, including a physical anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has discovered well-dated human fossils in southern China that markedly change anthropologists perceptions of the emergence of modern humans in the eastern Old World.

Richard Heinzl, M.D., founder of Doctors without Borders, Canada, will present a talk, “Lessons from Abroad: The Opportunities of a Borderless World” at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 8 at Graham Chapel on the Danforth Campus.The event is co-sponsored by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy, the Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the School of Medicine

Scientists from across Missouri will gather Wednesday, Oct. 27, at Washington University in St. Louis to learn — in one jam-packed day — about the latest advances in nanotechnology and opportunities for commercializing them. Co-organized by seven Missouri universities, the 2nd Annual Missouri NanoFrontiers Symposium is co-hosted by Washington University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis and begins at 7:45 a.m. in Whitaker Hall on the Danforth Campus. The meeting is free and open to the public. 

Poet Timothy Donnelly will ready from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, for Washington University’s Writing Program in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. Donnelly’s first book, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebensziet, was published in 2003 by the Grove Press Poetry Series. His second collection, The Cloud Corporation, was released by Wave Books earlier this month.  

Washington University in St. Louis alum Robert L. Behnken, PhD, a NASA astronaut who has completed two missions to the International Space Station, returns to campus for two lectures Wednesday, Oct. 20, and Thursday, Oct. 21. Behnken will deliver the third annual Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, in Room 300, Laboratory Sciences building. He also will deliver a colloquium titled “Astronaut Training” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, in  Room 245, Compton Hall. WUSTL’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences is sponsoring the lectures.

Greece is experiencing a financial and social crisis of epic proportions. The newest Nobel laureate in economics and a colleague at Washington University in St. Louis co-founded a blog to share ideas to rescue Greece’s economy. They’ve published a plan to overhaul Greek government and society. Will these economists become modern day Greek heros and save the country where Aristotle first pondered economics?

David Fike, PhD, assistant professor of isotope biogeochemistry in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, was named a Packard Fellow Oct. 15, a prestigious distinction awarded to only 17 top young researchers nationwide this year.

Tiffany Stern, PhD, professor of English at Oxford University, is the visiting Hurst Professor in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences the week of Oct. 18. Stern, whose expertise is in Early Modern theatrical practice, will give three presentations in Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall, Oct. 19, 21 and 22.

Frank J. Stadermann, PhD, senior research scientist in physics, member of the Laboratory for Space Sciences and director of the NanoSIMS and Auger laboratories at Washington University in St. Louis, died of a cerebral hemorrhage Oct. 4, 2010. He was 48. “He never uttered an angry word in all his years at the university,” said a friend, “always seeking to use patience, humor and reason to undermine conflict and promote harmony. He was a true friend and beloved colleague.”

Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear/And he shows them pearly white … So is introduced Macheath, the dapper bandit and notorious womanizer more infamously known as “Mack the Knife.” And thus begins The Threepenny Opera, a merciless send-up of operatic conventions, which will be presented by the Performing Arts Department Oct. 22 through 31.