Arts & Sciences

Image courtesy of NASAThe Earth’s orbital behaviors are responsible for more than just presenting us with a leap year every four years. According to Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, parameters such as planetary gravitational attractions, the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun and the degree of tilt of our planet’s axis with respect to its path around the sun, have implications for climate change and the advent of ice ages.

Preventing Alzheimer’s disease is a goal of Raphael Kopan, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and pharmacology at the Washington University School of Medicine. The moss plant Physcomitrella patens, studied in the laboratory of Ralph S. Quatrano, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor and chair of the biology department on WUSTL’s Danforth Campus, might inch Kopan toward that goal.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoRobert Blankenship, professor of biology and chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, holds the cyanobacteria *Acaryochloris marina*, a rare bacterium that uses chlorophyll d for photosynthesis.Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Arizona State University have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d absorbs “red edge,” near infrared, long wave length light that is invisible to the naked eye. In so doing, the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina, competes with virtually no other plant or bacterium in the world for sunlight.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*She Stoops to Conquer*Class, courtship and dysfunctional families all collide in She Stoops to Conquer, the classic 18th century comedy-of-errors by Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. This month, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a new production of this prototypical “situation comedy” in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.

The Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Structural Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis is presenting a series of seminars and workshops on the topic of reducing the damage that would occur when a strong earthquake strikes the New Madrid fault area again.

Fatemeh Keshavarz, Ph.D., professor of Persian language and literature and chair of the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages & Literatures in Arts & Sciences, will give the Assembly Series lecture at 11 a.m., Wednesday, Feb. 13, in Graham Chapel.

Courtesy photoKyôko Koizumi in *Hanging Garden* (2005).Washington University will host free screenings of two recent Japanese films at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 15 and 16. The first, Hanging Garden (2005), explores the quirky soul of a dysfunctional clan struggling to survive amidst the pressures of the modern age. Linda Linda Linda (2005), which will be screened the following evening, traces the trials and triumphs of an all-girl band on the cusp of adulthood.

Author, environmentalist and multimedia artist Janet Kauffman, Ph.D., will read from her work at 8 p.m. Feb. 7 for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The talk — part of The Writing Program’s spring Reading Series — is free and open to the public and takes place in Hurst Lounge, Room 201, Duncker Hall. […]

Courtesy photoFatemeh KeshavarzIn her most recent book, “Jasmine and Stars,” Keshavarz blends personal memoir with literary analysis and social commentary to break pervasive Western stereotypes of Iranians.

Image courtesy of NASA”How the Earth Works” is a boxed set of 48 30-minute video lectures developed and delivered by WUSTL’s Michael E. Wysession. The lectures explore every aspect of the Earth and are designed to appeal to the curious lay public.Videos have been the bailiwick of rock stars at least since the days of Bob Dylan. But now they’re spilling over into a new arena — academia. Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has 48 lectures on planet Earth coming out in a video format in February. It’s a sort of brainiac’s boxed set. Each 30-minute lecture focuses on an aspect of the Earth, from its origins and composition to its climate, orbit, pollution and relationship to human history.