Newsroom Stories

Nearly 200 WUSTL students will volunteer their time throughout the continent during spring break, March 8-12. Dozens of groups of students will travel to places as close as Chicago and as far away as Guatemala City, Guatemala, for service projects ranging from building construction and maintenance to helping at an orphanage.

The School of Law is hosting a screening and panel discussion of the award-winning documentary “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam” at 7 p.m. Monday, March 15. Operation Babylift airlifted more than 2,500 Vietnamese orphans out of a war-torn country in 1975 to protect them from the impending threat of the Communist regime. Called one of the “most humanitarian efforts in history,” it was plagued by lawsuits and political turmoil. The event is free, but registration is required. 

The Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory has received a grant of $1.8 million per year for the next five years to extend and improve the Geosciences Node of the Planetary Data System, a distributed data system that archives and distributes planetary data from space missions. 

Humans have long been advised to “know thyself,” but new research suggests we may not know ourselves as well as we think we do. While individuals may be more accurate at assessing their own neurotic traits, such as anxiety, it seems friends, and even strangers, are often better barometers of traits such as intelligence, creativity and extroversion.

Senior Alex Baron, majoring in philosophy-neuroscience-psychology and in political science, both in Arts & Sciences, has won a prestigious Luce Scholarship. He is one of 18 scholars chosen nationwide.

Children with asthma who continue to have symptoms while using low-dose inhaled corticosteroids could benefit from increasing the dosage or adding one of two asthma drugs, according to a new study at the School of Medicine and other institutions. The research is published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Over the past two decades Jolly Stewart has been a force in St. Louis opera. Friday and Saturday, March 19 and 20, the Washington University Opera will celebrate Stewart’s upcoming retirement with an “all-star” performance of Die Fledermaus, the beloved operetta by Johann Strauss II. The production will feature nine returning alumni — all of whom sing professionally — as well as celebrated baritone Ian Greenlaw, teacher of applied music in Arts & Sciences.

A genome-wide study into the genetic roots of alcoholism has identified several areas of DNA that appear to contribute to the disease. But researchers say those genes make relatively modest contributions to overall risk of alcoholism.

The Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis announce the first recipients of grants from the Academic Venture Fund, the purpose of which is  to support collaboration between the two institutions, particularly long-term projects that impact research, education and policy. Grants are available in amounts from $20,000 to $50,000. Interested fellows, faculty, staff, centers, institutes and programs can submit proposals by June 1 for review in July 2010. 

A new test allows scientists to discover whether ticks are carrying disease-causing bacteria and which animals provided their last blood meal. Results suggest three emerging diseases in the St. Louis area are carried by lone star ticks feeding on record-high populations of white-tailed deer.