Arts & Sciences

A judge on July 16 approved a $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and more than 500 alleged victims Frank K. Flinnof clergy abuse, the largest payout yet in a nationwide sex abuse scandal. Frank K. Flinn, adjunct professor of religious studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the recently published “Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” comments.

Gerald EarlyWhile baseball purists may be poised to place a “steroid-fueled” asterisk next to Bond’s name in the record books, to do so would be a mistake, one that follows an unfortunate pattern in the history of blacks in American sports, suggests Gerald Early, Ph.D., a noted essayist and book author who has written extensively on black culture and sports.

Steven SmithWhile members of the U.S. House and Senate are threatening to hold White House officials in contempt of Congress over the administration’s efforts to withhold testimony in an ongoing investigation of the controversial firings of U.S. attorneys, the dispute is likely to fizzle without much of a showdown, suggests a congressional expert from Washington University in St. Louis.

It’s no laughing matter that older adults have a tougher time understanding basic jokes than do younger adults. It’s partially due to a cognitive decline associated with age, according to Washington University in St. Louis researchers Wingyun Mak, a graduate student in psychology in Arts & Sciences, and Brian Carpenter, Ph.D., Washington University associate professor of psychology.

James RichardsThe Gateway Festival Orchestra will begin its 44th season of free Sunday-evening performances with “All American,” a concert highlighting the varied genre of this country’s music — from classical works to patriotic tunes and the music of Hollywood and Broadway. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. July 8 in Washington University’s Brookings Quadrangle. Subsequent concerts take place July 15 and 22 in Brookings Quadrangle and July 29 in Graham Chapel.

Ramanath Cowsik, Ph.D., one of the world’s pre-eminent astrophysicists, has been named director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Cowsik, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, will take over as director July 1. He succeeds Roger J. Phillips, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, who is stepping down after seven years as director.

WarrenSpurred on by steady increases in staffing and spending within the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. government is budgeting yet another increase in the amount of tax money it spends on federal regulatory activities, according to an annual regulatory spending analysis compiled by the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

“Teaching Jazz as American Culture”Jazz is “America’s Music.” Established in the early 1900s, the music has remained popular for nearly a century, going through many variations. In the 1920s, jazz was “pop” music, but today it is often shunned by younger people in favor of today’s popular tunes — rap, rock and country. Can jazz, with its broad history and reputation for being “art” music, be relevant to youth today? The director of a summer jazz institute at Washington University in St. Louis hopes to show that jazz is not only relevant, but also essential. More…

Plants on extrasolar planets resembling Earth could be as black as these eggplants.Washington University biology and chemistry professor Robert Blankenship and his colleagues are seeking clues to life on extrasolar planets by studying various biosignatures found in the light spectrum leaking out to Earth. They are speculating on what kind of photosynthesis might occur on such planets and what the extrasolar plants might look like.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoErik Trinkaus, WUSTL professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, holding a Neandertal skull, says the evidence is very convincing that Neandertals and early humans mixed.For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neandertals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neandertals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them. As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the central research focus of Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Trinkaus has examined the earliest modern humans in Europe, including specimens in Romania, Czech Republic and France. Those specimens, in Trinkaus’ opinion, have shown obvious Neandertal ancestry.