Humanities & Society

Extending supervised outpatient rehabilitation by six months helps elderly patients more fully recover from hip fractures, according to the first controlled study of its kind. The study also showed for the first time that these patients, previously thought to be too frail for weight training, can benefit from progressive resistance exercise training.

With the November election quickly approaching, many people want to know more about the key issues facing the candidates. If that’s you, then you need to educate yourself! “Educate Yourself: 2004,” sponsored by Student Union, will comprise a series of weekly forums aimed at helping the University community, and the public, fully understand all sides of some of the larger issues in the upcoming election.

A page entitled, “Rankings of WUSTL by News Media.”

The aim is to help the University community fully understand all sides of some of the key political issues.

Washington University in St. Louis, host of a presidential debate scheduled for Oct. 8, 2004, offers the media a rich source of expertise on presidential politics and related campaign issues. The University has a strong connection to modern presidential politics, having been selected to host presidential debates in each election since 1992. Presidential debates were […]

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.

An electron micrograph of strep bacteria infecting muscle tissueMicrobiologists at the School of Medicine discovered that Strep A, the bacteria responsible for strep throat and other more serious disorders, has a wasplike “stinger” it uses to infect cells. Scientists had expected to find a random profusion of pumps for spraying infection-related compounds. The newly discovered, dedicated stinger could prove to be an easier target for new infection-preventing drugs.

Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoA new book co-authored by a memory researcher at Washington University in St. Louis is one-stop shopping for all the questions we have about memory and how serious our lapses might be as we grow older. Mark A. McDaniel, Ph.D., professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL, says his book, Memory Fitness: A Guide for Successful Aging, relies on many rigorous academic studies but is written for the lay person. “Our mission is to give the general public a good idea of what they can reasonably expect from their memory capabilities as they age,” says McDaniel about the book he co-authored with Gilles O. Einstein, Ph.D., professor and chair of the psychology department at Furman University. “It also outlines some reasonable expectations about things people can do to perhaps increase their memory performances.”

Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoIf in doubt, throw it out!A power outage. It can happen at any time of year for any number of reasons: a strong spring thunderstorm; an increased demand for air conditioning; heavy snow or ice on power lines or tree limbs; or even a wayward driver crashing into a utility pole. Whatever the cause, a power outage can spoil more than just that TV show you’re watching or the book you’re reading. A lack of refrigeration can jeopardize the safety of food. But what do you need to pitch and what can you keep once the power comes back on?