Arts & Sciences

Ethnic profiling is illegal in the United States, prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, which requires probable cause for searches and seizures, and by the Fourteenth Amendment, which calls for equal protection under the law. And yet as the recent arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates demonstrates, the issue remains far from settled. This fall Washington University in St. Louis will present “Ethnic Profiling: A Challenge to Democracy,” a semester-long series exploring the history, impact and ethical issues surrounding ethnic profiling through lectures, readings, performances, panel discussions and other events.

This fall, Washington University will present “Ethnic Profiling: A Challenge to Democracy,” a semester-long series exploring the history, impact and ethical issues surrounding ethnic profiling through lectures, readings, performances, panel discussions and other events.

For its 2009-10 season, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a handful of works that together highlight both the boundless possibility and transformational power of the stage.

Live performance has always been a multidisciplinary event, its three great streams — theater, music and dance — forever shifting and combining in new and unpredictable ways. For its 2009-10 season, the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present a handful of works that together highlight both the boundless possibility and transformational power of the stage.

Students who learn history by watching historically based blockbuster movies may be doomed to repeat the historical mistakes portrayed within them, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis. Findings suggest showing popular history movies in a classroom setting can be a double-edged sword when it comes to helping students learn and retain factual information in associated textbooks.

Photo by Janet GumpertRemembering to take daily medications can be a challenge, but new research offers tips for strengthening those memories.Doing something unusual, like knocking on wood or patting yourself on the head, while taking a daily dose of medicine may be an effective strategy to help seniors remember whether they’ve already taken their daily medications, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Traditional rice cultivation methods practiced in the isolated hillside farms of Thailand are helping preserve the genetic diversity of rice, one of the world’s most important food crops, according to a new study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

Data collected during two close flybys of Saturn’s moon Enceladus by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft add more fuel to the fire about the Saturnian ice world containing sub-surface liquid water, according to a report in the July 23 issue of the journal Nature that is co-authored by a planetary researcher from Washington University in St. Louis.

Photo by Randy KorotevLunar geochemist Randy Korotev, Ph.D., a research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, said that there are still many answers to be gleaned from the moon rocks collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts on their historic moonwalk 40 years ago July 20. And he credits another WUSTL professor for the fact that the astronauts even collected the moon rocks in the first place.

An international collaboration of scientists discovers an outburst of very-high-energy gamma radiation from the giant radio galaxy Messier 87, accompanied by a strong rise of the radio flux measured from the direct vicinity of its supermassive black hole. The findings shed new light on the understanding of gamma rays in black holes.