Author: Ken Duenke

Best-selling author Peggy Orenstein will deliver the Olin Fellows Conference keynote address as part of the Assembly Series at 4 p.m., Tuesday, October 21 in Graham Chapel. Orenstein’s talk is titled, “Where’s the Map? Navigating Women’s Lives in a Half-changed World.”

One of the nation’s most celebrated journalists, Carl Bernstein, will deliver the Elliot Stein Lecture in Ethics at 4 p.m. Thursday, October 23, in Graham Chapel. The Assembly Series lecture, titled “Public Ethics: The Responsibilities of Elected Officials,” is free and open to the public and is being co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values in Arts & Sciences.

Diet and lifestyle changes, combined with medication, can lower the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients with high levels of so-called bad cholesterol. But some patients genetically predisposed to high levels of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) don’t respond well to drug therapy. Now physicians at the School of Medicine can help these patients with a technique called LDL aphersis.

Scientists have used a technique originally developed for economic study to become the first to overcome a significant challenge in brain research: determining the flow of information from one part of the brain to another. Researchers at the School of Medicine and Florida Atlantic University report the new capability in The Journal of Neuroscience. It will provide important insights into brain organization and function, advancing efforts to help patients recover from brain injuries and mental disorders.

Photo by Joe AngelesWUSTL students participated in a practice debate Oct. 1 so CNN — the network providing the pool feed for all television media covering the debate — could check lights, sound and camera angles.

Photo by Kevin LowderExperience the sights and atmosphere of debate day with a slideshow.

Photo by Bill StoverThe vice presidential debate at Washington University was “a homecoming of the most special kind” for the Commission on Presidential Debates, said Executive Director Janet Brown. More than 73 million viewers tuned in to watch Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin debate Oct. 2 at the Field House in the Athletic Complex.

The debate from inside the Field House.

Before the two candidates verbally sparred, engineering students created a set of blue and red rock ’em sock ’em robots that duked it out on campus before the debate. EnCouncil president Lee Cordova, a senior biomedical engineering major, and seniors Sam Wight and Matt Watkins, mechanical engineering majors, built the red and blue robots. They […]

Photo by Jerry Naunheim Jr.Against a backdrop of political theater, the dramatic question-and-answer session between Sen. Joseph Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin was just the first act. Act II, with its assorted cast of characters, was staged around the corner from the debate hall in the Media Filing Center.