Arts & Sciences

U.S. Administration on AgingAging is a women’s issue because women provide the bulk of care and support to older adults.An aging parent wants to keep the car keys, while his adult daughter thinks he is a hazard to himself and others on the road. Or a widow who has lived in her home for 55 years refuses to move out, although her children worry that she’s too frail to manage the stairs. As more and more adult children face caring for their aging parents in the coming decades, an expert on the clinical psychology of aging says the key to dealing with these types of situations is to discuss them before they become a reality. “Don’t procrastinate,” says Brian D. Carpenter, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Start the process of talking to your aging parents early — before a crisis.”

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoSobelGlobalization is creating divisive tensions between developed and developing nations. Many fear globalization, blaming it for their societal ills. Yet, globalization has produced opportunity and improvements in social welfare for those nations able to take advantage of its benefits. Nations who fail to take full advantage of globalization may have only themselves to blame, according to a study in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of International Management.

Courtesy photoWashington University chemists have shown that the shape of nanowires such as this one can affect its electronic and optical properties.Size matters, but so does shape, at least in the world of semiconducting nanocrystals, report chemists at Washington University in St. Louis. Their findings, published in the August 2003 issue of Nature Materials, demonstrate experimentally that the shape of a semiconductor nanocrystal can affect its electronic and optical properties.

Courtesy photoBiologists at Washington University in St. Louis studying groups of lizards have proposed a general pattern among groups in the timing of evolutionary diversification.Many scientists believe that each group of living things evolves in its own idiosyncratic manner. But now biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have proposed a general pattern among groups in the timing of evolutionary diversification.

David Kilper/WUSTL photoWashington University’s Katharina Lodders has developed an innovative periodic table slanted toward astronomy.The periodic table isn’t what it used to be, thanks to innovations by a planetary chemist at Washington University in St. Louis. Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., Washington University research associate professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, has evalutated data from numerous studies including her own and arranged the data into a periodic table slanted toward astronomers and cosmochemists.

Courtesy photoSculpture by Wesley Anderegg, Lompoc, CASo you think you know mosquitoes? Consider the venerable law that rainy weather is the cause of increased mosquito populations. An ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis says if you believe that, you’re all wet.

October Culture & Living Tip Sheet

Washington University in St. Louis is joining two other universities in a new center devoted to developing the basis for environmentally friendly chemical processes. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that the Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis (CEBC) headquartered at the University of Kansas has been selected to receive $17 million under the NSF Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) program. Additional funding streams and donated facilities as a result of the award are expected to bring the total package value to nearly $30 million.

Master carpenter Tamotsu Edo of Awajishima, Japan, will work with students from the Washington University School of Architecture to construct and install a traditional Japanese teahouse waiting bench, or koshikake machiai, in the university’s Elizabeth Danforth Butterfly Garden.

Russell MaynorBryantBass baritone Stephen Bryant will join forces with pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, for the Department of Music’s annual Liederabend at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5.