Washington University staff members looking for an experience described as “wonderful,” “insightful” and “enriching” can apply now to take part in the Global Diversity Overseas Seminar Program. Those selected will travel to South Korea next summer.

Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) has shown early promise as a treatment for severe depression in patients whose symptoms don’t respond to standard therapies, according to a pilot study led by (from left) psychiatrists Charles R. Conway, MD, and Charles F. Zorumski, MD, and anesthesiologist Peter Nagele, MD, at the School of Medicine.

University astrophysicist James Buckley, PhD, is part of a team hunting for an elusive particle, called a WIMP, that may be the fundamental particle of dark matter. To catch this notoriously wily particle, the team built a detector consisting of a large vat of xenon in a deep chamber of a played-out gold mine in South Dakota.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton presented the 2014 Faculty Achievement Awards to (from left) David A. Balota, PhD, Steven L. Teitelbaum, MD, and Samuel A. Wickline, MD, during a ceremony held Dec. 6 in Knight Hall.

As a show of their appreciation for exemplary service in medical education, School of Medicine students recently presented the school’s faculty and house staff — including Linda Pike, PhD (left) — with the annual Distinguished Service Teaching Awards.