Investigations

> > Resetting the evolutionary clock with fossils and DNA
A typical expedition for paleontologist Michael J. Foote, SM'88, PhD'89, means a short walk across the science quad from his second-floor office in Hinds Laboratory to the John Crerar Library. The professor in geophysical sciences has nothing against fieldwork-last summer he spent a week helping two Chicago graduate students collect fossils in the Marshall Wilderness of northwest Montana.
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> > Temper, temper
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians…." So begins Richmond Lattimore's translation of Homer's Iliad, a text famously centered around the ire of Achilleus (or Achilles) at being dishonored by his leaders. Achilles's anger is translated by other writers as wrath and even mania. Emil Coccaro, the director of the clinical neuroscience and psychopharmacology research unit in the Department of Psychiatry might more accurately-if less poetically-diagnose the Greek warrior with IED: Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
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> > African-American cinema verite
Wednesdays! Come and see the race's daredevil movie star," reads an advertisement for the Owl Theater in the January 19, 1918, Chicago Defender. "Noble M. Johnson supported by Eddie Polo in 'The Bull's Eye.' Most sensational serial ever filmed! 18 episodes." At 47th and State Streets in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, the Owl was one in a stretch of theaters along the "Stroll," a lively business district catering to the South Side's black residents during the early 20th century.
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