Arts & Sciences

A new brain-imaging study is shedding light on what it means to “get lost” in a good book — suggesting that readers create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements described in a textual narrative while simultaneously activating brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life.

The 2009 spring concert series presented by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences continues with an array of events that will entertain, inspire and inform music-loving audiences in the St Louis and surrounding areas.

The Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanites Lecture Sries, “FanZ and Enthusiasts: The Passions of Modern Reading,” will open with a program by noted cultural historian Janice Radway at noon on Tuesday, February 17 in the Women’s Building Lounge.

Frank FlinnPope Benedict XVI’s decision to lift the excommunication of British Bishop Richard Williams, along with three other bishops appointed by an ultra-conservative archbishop more than 20 years ago, has created controversy around the world. Williams has said he believes no Jews were killed by gas chambers during World War II. Frank K. Flinn, Ph.D., adjunct professor of religious studies in Arts & Sciences and expert on Catholicism, says this is the latest in series of blunders that are coming to define Benedict’s papacy.

National Science FoundationBuilding on plant virus research started more than 20 years ago, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleague at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis have discovered a technology that reduces infection by the virus that causes Rice Tungro Disease, a serious limiting factor for rice production in Asia.

The 2009 spring concert series presented by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences continues with an array of events that will entertain, inspire and inform music-loving audiences in the St Louis and surrounding areas.

Photo by David KilperBeginning Friday, Feb. 13, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will put a new twist on the production of “Hamlet.”

Photo by David KilperBeginning Friday, Feb. 13, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will put a new twist on the production of “Hamlet.”

A crater on the moon has been named after the late Larry Haskin, Ph.D., who spent much of his career as a researcher in the WUSTL Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences.

Washington University’s Jazz at Holmes will present internationally acclaimed musicians Marc Copland, Gary Peacock, and Bill Stewart in concert at 8 p.m. Feb. 13 in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall at the 560 Music Center in University City.