Volume 107, Number 4
Mar–Apr/15

Features

Object lessons

On Antiques Roadshow, appraiser Gary Piattoni, AB’83, teases out the stories that things want to tell. Plus—Old saws: Five myths about art, antiques, and collectibles.

Social constructs

Michael Murphy’s MASS Design Group strives to make an architecture of community cohesion.

The great escape

Notes on an intellectual and musical journey.

Small universe, big glass

Leading cosmologist Wendy Freedman trains a telescopic lens on the biggest questions in the universe.

Eye of the beholder

For its 40th anniversary, the Smart Museum offers inviting, unexpected avenues to approach art.

Mega data

Chicago Booth economist Matthew Gentzkow sifts insights about the media from massive amounts of digital information.

Editor’s Notes

The things we carry

Artifacts and their nostalgic value.

Letters

Readers sound off

Readers comment on heart-smart eating; 1960s integration in Hyde Park; the tension between national security and civil liberties; quantitative and qualitative data; Mike Nichols, EX’53, at an early stage in his career; how workplace structures influence the gender wage gap; College memories lost and found; the late poet Mark Strand; the indispensable role of doulas in a community program; and more.

Course work

Scare tactics

A popular Theater and Performance Studies course directs students on how to stage terror.

Alumni essay

The urban wild

Zachary Cannon, AM’99, became attuned to the natural world all around him in Chicago’s urban landscape.

UChicago Journal

The four seasons

Amid winter’s darkness, an art installation multiplied the colors in Rockefeller Chapel.

Behind the scenes

Happy in his corporate day job, a Chicago Booth graduate pursues Broadway producing on the side.

Echoing care

A UChicago Medicine program shares specialized knowledge to improve health care in the city.

Learning process

A mixed picture develops from a study of the closure of 47 Chicago elementary schools.

Following the money

Bruce Freed, AB’66, tries to bring more transparency to corporate political spending.

Encounter culture

Jeffrey Quilter, AB’72, digs into the history of human societies for deeper insight into who we are.

Minding the gap

Researcher Ariel Kalil finds “light-touch, low-cost” parenting tools.

William Rainey Harper’s Index: Vax populi

The importance of measles immunization, by the numbers.

Original Source: In a bind

A UChicago Library restoration project rescues a 500-year-old manuscript.

Fig. 1: Heated opinions

Carbon dioxide worries more Americans than global warming.

Interview: A matter of identity

WIlliam Bila, IMBA’02, advocates on behalf of Romani people.

For the record: University news

An express commitment to free speech, a prehistoric achievement, a prestigious faculty appointment, fresh (water) ideas, the Crime Lab expands its reach, and more.

Citations: Faculty research

“Genomic parasites” jumpstart the evolution of pregnancy, a UChicago economist recommends paying NCAA college athletes, some regulations make power plants less efficient, and neural responses predict generosity in three- to five-year-olds.

Peer review

Releases

The Magazine lists a selection of general interest books, films, and albums by alumni. For additional alumni releases, browse the Magazine’s Goodreads bookshelf.

Notes

Highlights from the latest alumni news columns.

Mike Nichols’s first career

Herbert J. Gans, PhB’47, AM’50, professor emeritus of sociology at Columbia University, reminds us that Chicago is also where Nichols left his mark on classical music radio.

Deaths

University obituaries

Recent faculty, staff, trustees, and alumni obituaries.

Lite of the Mind

Not without merit

You need these stinking badges.