Arts & Sciences

When many people think of St. Louis, the Gateway Arch, Cardinals baseball or Anheuser-Busch beer comes to mind. With the help of her book, Meet Me: Writers in St. Louis, Catherine Rankovic is looking to add another feature to that list: literary hub. 

Three Washington University biologists are being honored this year by the American Society of Plant Biologists, two for sustained achievement in their careers, and the third for a promising beginning.

Fidel Desir is the winner of the 2010 Stalker Award. The prize is named in the honor of the late Harrison D. Stalker, PhD, who was professor of biology; a leading evolutionary biologist, geneticist and inspired teacher; and a true enthusiast of the fine arts.

The ArtSci Council honored eight Arts & Sciences faculty for “positively and profoundly” influencing students’ educational experiences during its annual Faculty Awards Recognition Ceremony April 12 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

Whether it’s for money, marbles or chalk, the brains of reward-driven people keep their game faces on, helping them win at every step of the way, even when there is no reward at stake, suggests a surprising Washington University in St. Louis brain scan study published online today by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Most of us return from a business trip with receipts for coffee and perhaps a glass or two of wine. Doug Wiens, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, once came back with receipts for several hundred dollars of kava root.

Western cultural perceptions of the human body will be the focus as the East Asian Studies Program in Arts & Sciences holds a free seminar at 4 p.m. May 4 in Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall. The event is a prelude to a four-semester seminar program on Japanese views of the body that begins in fall 2010.

The sudden shortage of a nuclear weapons production byproduct that is critical to industries such as nuclear detection, oil and gas, and medical diagnostics was the focus as a House Science and Technology panel heard testimony today from a physics professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

A lecture on “Violence and Social Orders: Where Are We Going” by economics Nobel Laureate Douglass C. North, PhD, the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences, has been rescheduled for 12 noon May 3 in Room L006, Seigle Hall, Danforth Campus, Washington University. 

Water and energy is the theme of an Earth Day seminar sponsored by the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering. Paul Bishop, PhD, the Herman Schneider Professor of Environmental Engineering and associate vice president for research at the University of Cincinnati, will deliver the keynote speech “The Water-Energy Nexus” at 11 a.m. Friday, April 23, in Lopata Hall, Room 101.