Arts & Sciences

Glenn Stone, a professor of anthropology and environmental studies at Washington University, joins National Public Radio host Ira Flatow for a broadcast of NPR’s Science Friday live from St. Louis. The show will focus on the pros and cons of genetically modified crops.

The Tyson Living Learning Center at Washington University in St. Louis has been called one of the greenest buildings in the U.S. Green technologies behind the building are the focus of a National Public Radio Science Friday news video and an NPR radio discussion broadcast live from St. Louis March 12.

The annual African Film Festival will be held Friday through Sunday, March 26-28, on the Danforth Campus, offering “one of its very strongest programs this year of unique and yet universally-relevant films,” says Gaylyn Studlar, PhD, director of the Program in Film and Media Studies in Arts & Sciences and the David May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities.

Johann Sebastian Bach never wrote a conga, a bolero or a cha-cha-cha. Fortunately this oversight has been rectified by Tiempo Libre, which has earned national attention for its high-voltage interpretations of many of the composer’s best-loved works. At 8 p.m. Friday, March 26, Tiempo Libre will bring its infectious mash-up of Cuban rhythms and classical melodies to the Edison Theatre OVATIONS Series. 

As President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress head for a final showdown over long-stalled health-care reform legislation, pundits are struggling to explain an array of arcane congressional rules and protocols that may determine whether health care reform passes or dies on the vine. Many of these pundits are getting it wrong, suggests WUSTL congressional expert Steven S. Smith, Ph.D.

Senior Alex Baron, majoring in philosophy-neuroscience-psychology and in political science, both in Arts & Sciences, has won a prestigious Luce Scholarship. He is one of 18 scholars chosen nationwide.

Over the past two decades Jolly Stewart has been a force in St. Louis opera. Friday and Saturday, March 19 and 20, the Washington University Opera will celebrate Stewart’s upcoming retirement with an “all-star” performance of Die Fledermaus, the beloved operetta by Johann Strauss II. The production will feature nine returning alumni — all of whom sing professionally — as well as celebrated baritone Ian Greenlaw, teacher of applied music in Arts & Sciences.

The Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory has received a grant of $1.8 million per year for the next five years to extend and improve the Geosciences Node of the Planetary Data System, a distributed data system that archives and distributes planetary data from space missions. 

The Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis announce the first recipients of grants from the Academic Venture Fund, the purpose of which is  to support collaboration between the two institutions, particularly long-term projects that impact research, education and policy. Grants are available in amounts from $20,000 to $50,000. Interested fellows, faculty, staff, centers, institutes and programs can submit proposals by June 1 for review in July 2010. 

A new test allows scientists to discover whether ticks are carrying disease-causing bacteria and which animals provided their last blood meal. Results suggest three emerging diseases in the St. Louis area are carried by lone star ticks feeding on record-high populations of white-tailed deer.