Newsroom Stories

The School of Medicine’s Infectious Diseases Clinic offers free, confidential HIV testing Monday through Friday. No appointment is necessary. Individuals will receive a rapid HIV test using a finger-prick blood sample, with results available 20 minutes after testing. Testing is offered Monday – Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 – 3 p.m., and on Friday from 9 – 11 a.m. The clinic is located at 4570 Children’s Place, on the medical school campus.

School of Medicine employees will have a chance to test their fitness and learn about smoking cessation at the Health Happening wellness fair Oct. 28 from 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m.The fall Health Happening event, “Form, Fitness and Function,” is sponsored by the University’s Wellness Council.

An historian of politics and American institutions at Washington University in St. Louis says that there is a “profound” difference between the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama and ones to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And it has nothing to do with the fact that President Obama is only eight months into his first term as president and Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson were both near the end of their second terms when they received theirs, says Peter J. Kastor, Ph.D., an associate professor of history and of American culture studies in Arts & Sciences.

Washington University will test its emergency notification system, WUSTLAlerts, at approximately 12:50 p.m. Oct. 21. The test will take place unless there is the potential for severe weather that day or some other emergency is occurring at that time.

The Department of Pediatrics has created a Division of Hospitalist Medicine, naming Douglas Carlson, M.D., as its director. Although hospitalist medicine has been a section of the pediatrics department for more than 15 years, the division was formally created in September. Carlson Carlson, professor of pediatrics, will oversee 37 faculty in the division, said Alan […]

SciFest 09 is festival where everyone can engage in science. The St. Louis Science Center’s SciFest 09, which runs through Oct. 11, brings together world-renowned scientists and experts to help participants see science in a new way. Washington University students and faculty will present sessions exploring everything from the science of baseball and the healing power of puppies to images of a brain at work and the bionics of hip replacements.

Spontaneous brain activity formerly thought to be “white noise” measurably changes after a person learns a new task, researchers at the School of Medicine and the University of Chieti in Italy have shown. The scientists also report that the degree of change reflects how well subjects have learned to perform the task.

Washington University Libraries’ Film & Media Archive has partnered with the University of Hawaii-West Oahu to preserve and digitize an interview with African-American poet and journalist Frank Marshall Davis. Also preserved were photographs, news clippings and poetry readings by Davis, which along with the interview make up the Frank Marshall Davis Collection, a new addition to the holdings of the Film & Media Archive.

Soprano Jennifer Jakob and pianist Maria Sumareva will perform an intimate Liederabend for the Washington University Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, in Graham Chapel. Literally translated as “evening of song,” Liederabend is a German term referring to a recital given by a singer and pianist, particularly of works by 19th-century Austrian or German composers. The program will include examples by Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and Robert Schumann.

Historically, the number of new, entrepreneurial ventures rises during periods of recession. If jobs aren’t available in the traditional market, the argument goes, why not start your own company? Thanks to a program on campus, WUSTL students are doing just that, creating, purchasing and selling on-campus businesses as undergraduate students. It’s called the Student Entrepreneurial Program (StEP) and it helps uniquely position students to get hands-on experience as entrepreneurs while they still are in school. (Video available)