Humanities & Society

Cell phone radiation doesn’t stress human cells.Weighing in on the debate about whether cell phones have adverse health effects, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the electromagnetic radiation produced by cell phones does not activate the stress response in mouse, hamster or human cells growing in cultures. The stress response is a cellular protection mechanism set into motion by various adverse stimuli, including heat shock, heavy metals, and inflammation. High levels of the stress response in cells are thought to result in changes associated with malignancy.

Sunlight promotes healthy teeth.As the days get shorter and colder, it gets harder to spend time in the sun, and that’s probably bad for your teeth. According to an article in the Journal of Periodontology from a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, our teeth may be light-sensitive, at least indirectly.

Bernstein”Imagine an electrical appliance industry with plugs of 9,000 different shape and sizes that need one of 9,000 matching sockets to work. Preposterous as that is, that’s the “design” of American health insurance – tens of thousands of medical care providers must plug their billions of billings into thousands of differing insurance policies,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “This wasteful design has its silver lining, though. Eliminating administrative costs through universal Medicare coverage, or Medicare-for-All, would save as much as $280 to $300 billion a year, enough to pay for covering the 45 million uninsured. ”

Also known as the World Year of Physics, 2005 is featuring worldwide events of interest to physicists and the general public.

His talk, titled “The Miracle of Religion in Modern American History,” will serve as the annual Thomas Fulbright Lecture.

De SotoNonpartisan promotion of public service and volunteerism is the goal of the new Gephardt Institute, which is being formally introduced on campus Sept. 19 with major event.

Over the past five years, corporate governance has undergone historic changes. In addition to new policies enacted by state judiciaries and attorneys general, Congress adopted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enacted important securities law reforms, and the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ reformed listing standards. The world’s leading experts on corporate governance will come together to discuss the impact of these changes during a conference at Washington University in St. Louis Sept. 29 – Oct. 1.

What does the U.S. Constitution mean to you, and is it relevant today? These and other questions will be covered at “We the People: The Constitution and You, a conversation led by former Congressman Richard A. Gephardt and professor emeritus James Davis from 2-3 on Sept. 19 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. The event is free and open to the public.

It will feature remarks by Richard Gephardt, a keynote lecture by internationally renowned economist Hernando de Soto and a reception.

Millions of Americans suffer from food allergies, and those numbers are quickly rising. Allergic reactions can range from rashes to life-threatening anaphylactic shock. WUSM physician James Wedner reveals a number of details about food allergies in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.