Arts & Sciences

Four eminent scientists will explore the subject of “Plant Sciences: The Environment and Sustainability,” and topics ranging from phytoremidiation, the inorganic carbon cycle, carbon sesquestration, the impact of genetically modified crops on the environment, and the issue of sustainability.

Roberta Freund Schwartz, assistant professor of historical musicology at the University of Kansas, will present a lecture titled “An Investigation into the Late Renaissance episteme Embodied in the Musical Writings of Joachim Burmeister and the Motets of Orlando di Lasso” at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27.

Tenor Joseph Michels, a master’s candidate in vocal performance in Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, will present a voice recital at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, in the university’s Graham Chapel.

Pianist James Prell will join the Washington University Symphony Orchestra for a performance at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, in University’s Graham Chapel.

DaviesFiction Writer Peter Ho Davies will present a pair of events Feb. 26 and March 4.

LeeHelie Lee, author of the national bestselling memoirs Still Life with Rice (1996) and In the Absence of Sun (2002), will host a pair of events Feb. 23-24 for The SmartSet Series: Where Great Writers Read, sponsored by Washington University’s Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences.

Photograph © Douglas M. Parker StudioJean-Michel Basquiat *Horn Players* 1983 Acrylic and oil paintstick on three canvas panels, 96 x 75Works by contemporary composers John Adams, Emma Diemer, William Bolcom and saxophonist Anders Lundegaard will highlight a concert of American Music of the 1980s at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, at the Washington University Gallery of Art.

Photo by Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoThe Truster hand-held “Emotion Reader.”Voice-stress analysis, an alternative to the polygraph as a method for lie detection, is already widely used in police and insurance fraud investigations. Now, however, it is being touted as a powerful and effective tool for an array of new applications — everything from screening potential terrorists in the nation’s airports to catching wayward spouses in messy marital disputes. Despite its booming popularity, recent federally sponsored studies have found little evidence that existing voice-stress technologies are capable of consistently detecting lies and deceptions. “You could have gotten better results by flipping a coin,” says Washington University in St. Louis psychologist Mitchell S. Sommers, lead investigator on a recent voice-stress study.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoBruce Fegley, Jr. and Laura Schaefer, with a chunk of galena, or lead sulfide.Lead sulfide — also known by its mineral name, galena — is a naturally occurring mineral found in Missouri, other parts of the world, and now. . .other parts of the solar system. Because recent thermodynamic calculations by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis provide plausible evidence that “heavy metal snow,” which blankets the surface of upper altitude Venusian rocks, is composed of both lead and bismuth sulfides.

A graduate student in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis has combed the dinosaur fossil record from T. Rex to songbirds and has compiled the first quantitative analysis of the quality and congruence of that record.