Posted 12/07/07 Eating disorders are most often identified with young, white females, but a new study provides data showing that males and other ethnicities are not immune to developing eating disorders. After examining ten years of data, a group of Wesleyan researchers led by a recent graduate student has found that male adolescents are at increased risk of developing eating disorder symptoms. The researchers also found that black female adolescents are the least likely to practice weight control behaviors. The new study was published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, the official journal of…

Michael Singer, assistant professor of biology, is the recipient of a NSF grant which will enable him to hire a postdoc and undergraduate student to collaboratively research behavior of the woolly bear caterpillar. Posted 12/07/07 When a woolly bear caterpillar becomes infected with a parasite, it can’t go to a pharmacy for medicine, so it does the next best thing: It eats the leaves of medicinal plants. This behavior and recognition for the need to self-medicate when ill is at the heart of a new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a proposal by Michael Singer, assistant professor…

Charles Batambuze, executive director of the National Book Trust of Uganda, visits with guests inside Olin Library during the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression-International Federation of Library Associations conference Nov. 27. Posted 12/07/07 Alice Miranda stood in awe at the plethora of books available for check-out at Olin Library. Miranda, a professor at the Universidad Nacional Costa Rica, says Wesleyan’s library has more books than seven countries in Central America combined, including 15 universities. “There are 1.5 million books in this library,” Miranda says, peering at the wall shelves in Olin’s Smith Room. “In Central America, our…

Posted 12/07/07 Singer, composer, historian and honorary degree recipient Bernice Johnson Reagon will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Wesleyan. Reagon, who founded the internationally-renowned a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, will participate in a class, facilitate a lunch discussion and speak at the community wide MLK celebration Jan. 29. The MLK discussion will begin at 4:15 p.m. Jan. 29 in Memorial Chapel. Reagon received an honorary degree recipient from Wesleyan University in 2001. Wesleyan annually honors and celebrates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., who also received a honorary…

Posted 12/07/07 Barbara Jones has taken her commitment to intellectual freedom around the world and back again. The Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian has put forth extensive work on behalf of intellectual freedom, both in the United States and abroad. For her efforts, she received the 2007 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Dec. 3. Jones's work on behalf of the Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression has taken her to Costa Rica, Dubai and…

Dan Lachman '09 hires designers from all over the world to create images for his T-shirt and computer-skin business, Sharp Shirter. He runs the business when he's not busy with classes. Lachman is wearing one of his designs, above, featuring a gorilla riding an ostrich. Posted 12/07/07 For the past year, Dan Lachman ’09 has gotten used to wearing his heart on his sleeves. The Wesleyan junior has put all his creative energy into an online-based T-shirt company, and his imaginative designs are selling world-wide. Psychology major Lachman created his business, Sharp Shirter, in September 2006 after turning a daydream…

Lori Gruen displays her collection of primate portraits at the Who's Looking exhibit inside Zilkha Gallery. This month, Who's Looking will provide the Wesleyan community with opportunities to explore human's complex relations to chimps through photographs, film, theater and words. Posted 11/20/07 One cannot help but be stirred with emotions upon viewing Who's Looking?Who's Looking? A collaborative, multi-disciplinary investigation of human relations to chimpanzees,” an exhibit at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery that runs until Dec. 2, explores what chimpanzees see when they look at humans and what humans see when they look at chimpanzees. The exhibit, directed by…

Posted 11/20/07 A new series of films will shine a spotlight on how literary works are translated onto screen. The newly-created Adaptation Series, sponsored by the Center for Film Studies and Olin Library, will begin Nov. 29 with a talk by screenwriter and alumnus Stephen Schiff. Schiff will speak about his screen adaptation of Nabokov’s Lolita, filmed in 1997 by director Adrian Lyne. The talk will be preceded by a screening of the film, starring Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith and Dominique Swain. This is the inaugural event of the Adaptation Series, which has been designed by Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor…

Posted 11/20/07 Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion, and Gabriel Greenberg ’04 have written a new book Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. In the 1990s, Gottschalk heard a lecture as a graduate student at the University of Chicago by Professor John Woods about negative images of Muslims and Islam in political cartoons. He used some cartoons when he first began to teach. Following the 9/11 tragedies, Gottschalk started following certain cartoonists daily because of his concern regarding the rising anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment in the country. Greenberg, a student in one of Gottschalk's classes, got…