Arts & Sciences

Ralph S. Quatrano will serve as co-chair until June 30, 2005, at which point he will take over as chair of the division.

Lowry explores the dynamics behind efforts to restore rivers.As America celebrates the bicentennial of Lewis & Clark’s epic journey up the untamed Missouri River, the nation finds itself on the verge of a new era in modern river management, one in which proponents of environmental protection and ecosystem restoration stand on equal footing with those of the hydropower, barge and boating industries. In a new book, Dam Politics: Restoring American Rivers (Georgetown University Press, 2003), noted environmental politics expert William R. Lowry explores the dynamics behind recent efforts to restore American river systems to a more pristine state. The politics of river restoration run deep, and it is politics, argues Lowry, that will ultimately dictate the success or failure of future efforts to restore and preserve the nation’s riverways.

Illustration from a Hans Christian Andersen story.What is “children’s literature?” As we pause between the perfect, all-ages storms of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the upcoming Lord of the Rings: Return of the King film adaptation, the answer seems less clear than ever. In the current issue of Belle Lettres, a bi-monthly publication of Washington University’s International Writers Center in Arts & Sciences, a culture critic and a director of teacher education explain that the genre, always hard to define, remains poorly understood and frequently underestimated.

Photo by David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoErik Herzog, Ph.D., and graduate student Rachel Huckfeldt attach electrodes to a multielectrode array.Getting over jet lag may be as simple as changing the temperature —your brain temperature, that is. That’s a theory proposed by Erik Herzog, Ph.D. assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Herzog has found that the biological clocks of rats and mice respond directly to temperature changes.

Photo by David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoGrendel is a Solomon Islands Prehensile Tailed Skink.Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have documented unprecedented levels of speciation and diversification in Caribbean anolis lizards. The discovery is completely unexpected and challenges the way evolutionary biologists think of evolution.

ZengerIt takes more than a firm handshake to guarantee trust in any business relationship that’s going to last. In empirical research recently published in Strategic Management Journal, Olin School of Business Professor of Organization and Strategy Todd R. Zenger completed an in-depth survey of senior corporate managers that confirms his suspicions about the importance of contracts in generating trust.

In his new position, he will guide an initiative that will focus on ways to expand the intellectual interests and educational skills of undergraduates.

Seismologists record unexpected volcanic eruption on Pacific isle

A levitated droplet during heating by a laser to just above the melting temperature.Using the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis led a research team that validated a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into solids. The research, led by Ken Kelton, Ph.D., a professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, is featured in the July 2003 issue of Physics Today, including an image on the magazine’s cover of a solid drop of metal suspended inside the levitator. The NASA-funded research challenges theories about how crystals form by a process called nucleation, important in everything from materials to biological systems.”Nucleation is everywhere,” says Kelton. “It’s the major way physical systems change from one phase to another. The better we understand it, the better we can tailor the properties of materials to meet specific needs.”

Using the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis led a research team that validated a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into solids. The research, led by Ken Kelton, Ph.D., a professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, is featured in the July 2003 issue of Physics Today and includes an image on the magazine’s cover of a solid drop of metal suspended inside the levitator. The NASA-funded research challenges theories about how crystals form by a process called nucleation, important in everything from materials to biological systems.