Arts & Sciences

Photo by David KilperThe Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a two-weekend run of “Measure for Measure,” one of Shakespeare’s most confounding “problem plays” that explores the nature of power, the relationships between men and women and the battle between justice and mercy.

Bill Michalski/WUSTL PublicationsA loan finances a young person’s education. Twenty years later, that child is working, contributing to the economy and paying off their loan. As they repay, the capitalized value of the loan pays back their debt to the previous generation in the form of a pension.Funding social security and education are often thought of as separate issues. But the two issues should be linked, says economist Michele Boldrin, the Joseph Gibson Hoyt Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. In the same way that younger generations take care of their elders as a kind of “return” on their parent’s investment, so too can the U.S. invest in the educational needs of its children and have the accumulated debt be paid off to retirees when it comes due.

Brock ClarkeNovelist Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (2007), will read from his work at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The book — Clarke’s fourth — tells the darkly comic story of Sam Pulsifer, a literary bumbler who, at the age of 18, accidentally burns down the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Mass.

The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a two-weekend run of “Measure for Measure,” one of Shakespeare’s most confounding “problem plays” that explores the nature of power, the relationships between men and women and the battle between justice and mercy. Performances begin at 8 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10, and at 2 p.m. Nov. 11 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre in the Mallinckrodt Student Center. Performances continue the following weekend at 8 p.m. Nov. 16 and 17, and at 2 p.m. Nov. 18.

Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The event, part of the Writing Program’s Fall Reading Series, is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Rm. 201, Hurst Lounge.

As reservoirs of valuable information go, nothing beats the sun. This sphere of heat and energy holds 99.9 percent of the solar system, saved in all original proportions after planets and meteorites formed. Analyzing the mix of hydrogen, oxygen and noble gases found in the sun can answer one of the biggest questions of the universe: How did our solar system evolve? Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and a large team of colleagues marked the beginnings of that odyssey by examining samples of solar wind for neon and argon, two abundant noble gases. The work was published in the Oct. 19, 2007, issue of Science.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesRosie Mandel as IsabellaOne of Shakespeare’s most confounding “problem plays,” Measure for Measure explores the nature of power, the relationships between men and women and the battle between justice and mercy. In November the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present a two-weekend run of Measure for Measure in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.

WUSTL researcher Stanton Braude, Ph. D., lecturer in biology in Arts & Sciences, says the secret to a long life in humans might exist in the wrinkled body of one of the world’s ugliest animals — the naked mole rat.

Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. Ellis, a native of Washington, D.C., is the author of The Maverick Room (2005), a collection exploring the city’s social, geographical and historical neighborhoods. His Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets, is forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press’ Poets on Poetry Series.

Charlie Duke, Apollo 16 astronaut and moonwalker, will discuss “A Journey to the Moon!” on Nov. 1 in Brookings Hall, Room 300, at Washington University. His talk, which is free and open to the public, will immediately follow a public ceremony at 2:30 p.m. in which he will present WUSTL Arts & Sciences senior Lonia Friedlander with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.