Arts & Sciences

Image courtesy USGSA team of geologists from China and the United States, including two from WUSTL, report evidence of at least three ice ages occurring between 750 and 600 million years ago.Glaciers reached Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the most recent ice age about 20,000 years ago. But much harsher ice ages hit the Earth in an ancient geological interval known as “the Cryogenian Period” between 750 and 600 million years ago. A team of geologists from China and the United States, including two from Washington University in St. Louis, now report evidence of at least three ice ages during that ancient time.

A biomedical engineer at WUSTL has determined love taps are better than love jolts in addressing defibrillation.When it comes to affairs of the heart, love taps are preferred over love jolts. That is the result of a team of heart researchers including Igor Efimov, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, trying to effect a better implantable heart defibrillator. Efimov and his colleagues have modeled a system where an implantable heart defibrillator focuses in on rogue electrical waves created during heart arrhythmia and busts up the disturbance, dissipating it and preventing cardiac arrest.

Poet and translator Heather McHugh, visiting Washington University as a Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, will speak on the craft of poetry oat 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28. In addition, McHugh will read from her poetry at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL Photo Services”The Awakening”The Awakening (1899) by St. Louis author Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was perhaps the most controversial novel of its day. In October, Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will mark the centennial of Chopin’s death with an original stage adaptation of The Awakening by Henry I. Schvey, Ph.D., chair and professor in the PAD. Performances begin Oct. 14-17 in Edison Theater, and continue Oct. 28 and 29 at the Missouri Historical Society.

PakrasiA research team of biologists and engineers led by faculty at Washington University in St. Louis is seeking to find the Fountain of Youth — not in Florida, but in photosynthetic cyanobacteria (ancient little blue-green algae). Looking at the cellular systems in cyanobacteria, and then in a model plant and a moss species, these researchers want to determine how these organisms protect themselves from radicals, which are chemical culprits in the aging process in everything from bacteria to human beings.

Photo by David KilperKaren Brannon, mathematics coordinator for the University’s Science Outreach Program, works with teachers Kathy Simon and Katie Laramie.Teachers are working with WUSTL faculty members to align curriculum to the national standards and to improve instruction.

Courtesy image Memory Fitness: A Guide for Successful Aging relies on many rigorous academic studies but is written for the layperson.

Adults of all ages are being invited to become volunteer participants in research conducted by faculty and students connected with the Aging and Development Program of the Department of Psychology in Arts & Sciences. Some of the studies deal with practical problems, others with basic abilities such as thinking, memory and perception. Current projects range […]

Literary historian Harold Love, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in Washington University’s Department of English in Arts & Sciences for Fall 2004, will speak on Print and Voice at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23.

The institute’s goal will be to “offer teachers new and engaging ways to teach popular music as a humanities subject,” Gerald Early says.