Humanities & Society

The ability of brain cells to take in substances from their surface is essential to the production of a key ingredient in Alzheimer’s brain plaques, neuroscientists at the School of Medicine have learned. The researchers used a drug to shut down the intake process, known as endocytosis, in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. The change led to a 70 percent drop in levels of amyloid beta, the protein fragment that clumps together to form Alzheimer’s plaques.

A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis that includes Alan R. Templeton and the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa has developed a technique to detect the ancestry of disease genes in hybrid, or mixed, human populations. The technique, called expected mutual information (EMI), determines how a set of DNA markers is likely to show the ancestral origin of locations on each chromosome.

Photo courtesy of USGSLevees are not infalliable.Midwesterners have to be wondering: Will April be the cruelest month? Patterns in the Midwest this spring are eerily reminiscent of 1993 and 1994, back-to-back years of serious flooding. Parallels this year include abnormally high levels of precipitation in late winter and early spring, early flooding in various regions, and record amounts of snow in states upstream. One thing Midwesterners have not learned is “geologic reality,” says Robert E. Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

While consumer spending once helped keep the economy healthy, rising consumer debt is the reason it’s getting sick. The root cause of the current economic slowdown in the U.S. goes back several decades, according to an economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Women over age 65 have a harder time preserving muscle than men of the same age, which probably affects their ability to stay strong and fit, according to research conducted at the School of Medicine and the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. For the first time, scientists have shown it is more difficult for older women to replace muscle that is lost naturally because of key differences in the way their bodies process food.

“West Bank Story” is a little film about a big subject, uses music and comedy to deliver a serious message, and was created by a young man wise beyond his years. That person – Ari Sandel – will show his Oscar-winning film short and discuss how he came to make it at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 1 in Lab Sciences Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.

Poet Mary Jo Bang, professor of English and director of The Writing Program, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry.

Whether or not Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination for president, the question of how much being a woman helped or hurt her campaign will linger for a long time. A WUSTL professor discusses the unique challenges Clinton faces and why people seem to react so strongly to her. Video available.

Learning something once — like the fact that berg means mountain in German — and studying it over and over again may do little to help you remember it in the future. The key to future recall, suggests a new WUSTL study, is how often over time you actively practice retrieving that information from memory.