Arts & Sciences

The Tango Group at Washington University will begin its spring season from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday, Jan. 21, with a tango/swing/salsa dance featuring the band Farshid Etniko.

MLK delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech.”Be The Change” is the theme of the University’s annual Commemoration Celebration honoring Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday at 7 p.m., Jan. 17 in Graham Chapel. The celebration is free and open to the public. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will begin the program with a welcome and remarks. The evening will include performances by Vashon High School’s drumline, the YMCA Boys Choir, the University’s Vision Gospel Choir and Black Anthology, as well as testimonials from University students.

Carmen is perhaps the ultimate operatic femme fatale, a beautiful yet unfaithful Gypsy who maddens her Spanish lover, with tragic results. On Jan. 30 and 31, the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences will present a two-day symposium on “The Many Faces of Carmen” as part of it’s 2004-05 Translation Series.

CarlinSeth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, will join Washington University’s Kingsbury Ensemble at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 29, as featured fortepianist in “The Splendor of Vienna,” a concert of chamber music by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum”Inside Out Loud”This spring, more than 30 campus and community partners will join the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis to present close to 70 events relating to women’s health. Events — which range from exhibitions, concerts and theatrical performances to lectures, seminars and health screenings — are held in conjunction with the museum’s Inside Out Loud: Women’s Health in Contemporary Art, the first major exhibition dedicated to the topic, which will be on view Jan. 21 to April 24.

Calm seas can turn deadly when tsunamis strike.Tens of thousands of people who perished in the Indonesia tsunami would be alive today had there been a warning system in place in the Indian Ocean basin similar to one in place for 40 years in the Pacific Ocean, says a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Douglas A. Wiens, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Art & Sciences, says it’s unfortunate, but the catastrophic tragedy will be the catalyst for developing such a system, just as the 1964 Alaska tsunami event triggered the installment of the current Pacific Ocean system.”

Chimpanzees don’t need haircuts.Mammals have fur over most of their bodies, but at some point during evolution, we humans lost that fur covering. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis argue that hair on the head is somehow different from fur because fur stops growing when it reaches a certain length, but our head hair continues to grow.

Jupiter: a core of tar.After eleven months of politics, now it’s time for some real “core values” – not those of the candidates but those of the great gas giant planet, Jupiter. Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis research associate professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, studying data from the Galileo probe of Jupiter, proposes a new mechanism by which the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago.

Rendering of the new CORTEX buildingEfforts to develop a significant biotechnology industry in St. Louis got a major boost with the groundbreaking for a new laboratory and office building that will provide space for growing companies. The new building at 4300 Forest Park Avenue in midtown St. Louis is being developed by CORTEX, the Center of Research, Technology & Entrepreneurial Exchange.

Photo by Bill StoverThe Concert Choir of Washington University performs the national anthem before the Dec. 5 St. Louis Rams game.