Humanities & Society

David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoBottled water or tap? A WUSTL environmental engineer specializing in aquatic chemistry sees no difference between the two in terms of health.Paying extra for bottled water? You may be wasting your money, says an expert in aquatic chemistry. Daniel Giammar, Ph.D., a faculty member in the Environmental Engineering Science Program at Washington University in St. Louis, says that tap water is just as safe to drink as bottled water. He also says that the pricey bottled water you value so highly might well be nothing more than repackaged tap water. “The tap water we drink meets very strict standards that are designed to protect our health,” Giammar says. “These are developed over many years of study and they all include fairly large factors of safety. Any differences between tap and bottled water, in terms of health, are negligible.”

WUSTL researchers are investigating how to infuse grains with folate typically found in green vegetables such as broccoli.A team of researchers led by Karel Schubert, Ph.D., affiliate research biology professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, recently achieved a breakthrough to enhance levels of folate, a vitamin essential to human and animal health, in the model plant Arabidopsis.

People who are enrolled in Medicare Choice HMO plans with drug coverage die at about the same rate as those in traditional fee-for-service Medicare plans, but mortality rates for those in Medicare HMO plans without drug coverage are substantially higher. That’s the conclusion of a recent study done by Gautam Gowrisankaran, Ph.D., an assistant professor of economics at the Olin School of Business of Washington University in St. Louis, with University of Minnesota colleague Robert J. Town. The researchers’ estimates imply that a 10-percentage point shift in coverage from fee-for-service to HMO plans without drug coverage could result in 51,000 additional deaths per year among the elderly.

“Give me a one-armed economist,” President Harry S. Truman once demanded as he vented his frustration over economic advisors who offer straightforward recommendations, then hedge their bets by tacking on a slew of caveats, often beginning with the phrase “but, on the other hand…” Now, Murray Weidenbaum, the chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s first Council of Economic Advisers, has published a compilation of essays that offers the clear, no-nonsense economic policy analysis that Truman craved. Titled One-Armed Economist: On the Intersection of Business and Government, the book provides a distillation of four decades of Weidenbaum’s writings on key public policy issues.

Washington University has a number of internationally recognized experts and researchers on terrorism and homeland security who can address issues including intelligence, critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, target identification, and many other areas of concern related to the latest news on threats to the U.S. Faculty associated with the University’s Center for Security Technologies may be of […]

As the Oct. 8 presidential debate looms closer, many in the University community are hard at work preparing for its arrival. The University will host the debate scheduled for 8 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Athletic Complex. This is the fourth consecutive time the University has been selected by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the event’s sponsor, to serve as a host.

Everyone sweats, but it’s unlikely many people ever consider the social and economic impact of our bodies’ built-in air conditioning system. With summer’s hottest days likely still to come, Michael Heffernan, assistant professor of dermatology at the School of Medicine, helps St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Jeff Daniels take a closer look at this hot topic.

Scientists have known for years that eating less tends to make animals live longer, but no one is quite sure why. Several School of Medicine researchers studying the effects of caloric restriction on humans may help provide an answer to that question. This story was written by Tina Hesman and published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

MorrisStress appears to increase the severity of Alzheimer’s disease. That’s just one of more than 40 studies presented by Washington University researchers at the Alzheimer’s Association’s 9th International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders July 17-22 in Philadelphia. The University’s Alzheimer’s team is led by John C. Morris, M.D., principal investigator of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

For decades, bicycles have been a recreational mainstay for youngsters, especialy during the summer months. Bikes can, however, become extremely dangerous and even deadly to the children who ride them. Robert Bo Kennedy, M.D., a WUSTL pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, outlines some dangers of bicycling and steps that can be taken to reduce the risk.