Newsroom Stories

Young women who transition from taking their first drink to becoming alcoholics have a stronger influence from genetics. School of Medicine researchers found that although environment is most influential in determining when girls begin to drink, genes play a larger role if they advance to problem drinking and alcohol dependence. The researchers studied 3,546 female […]

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Six distinguished individuals, including a pioneer of women in medicine and a multimedia entrepreneur, will receive honorary degrees May 16 during Washington University’s 147th Commencement ceremony. The university also will bestow academic degrees on more than 2,500 students during the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle.

St. Thomas Seven Pepper Hot Sauce is one of the hottest pepper sauces in New Orleans, grown and bottled at God’s Vineyard Community Garden, 918 Felicity St. Yet like much of the city, this nonprofit farm was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina. Over the last several months a group of St. Louis architecture students have collaborated with garden founders Earl Antwine and Noel Jones to reestablish God’s Vineyard by designing, building and installing a new chicken coop. At the same time, the students also have been working with the Good Work Network on redevelopment plans for the Franz Building, located at 2016 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. The latter project was recently named a finalist in the 2008 JP Morgan Chase Community Development Competition.

In early January, two patients undergoing kidney dialysis at St. Louis Children’s Hospital had sudden life-threatening allergic reactions that caused their eyes, lips and tongues to swell, raised their heart rates and dropped their blood pressures dangerously low. After the dialysis staff treated the children with medication that relieved the symptoms, they called infectious diseases specialist Alexis Elward, who sprung into action to help determine the cause. Little did she know it would spark an international investigation into a common blood thinner and a recall of the drug from the market.

The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute of the School of Law announced a two-year project to study the international law regarding crimes against humanity and to draft a multilateral treaty condemning and prohibiting such crimes. Leila Sadat, J.D., the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law and director of the Harris Institute, recently convened the […]

Newsboys of St. Louis: In 1910, Ina T. Tyler, a student and researcher in the St. Louis School of Social Economy (now the Geroge Warren Brown School of Social Work), studied a third of the 1,800 local newsboys, more than half of them children of immigrants, to see what their lives were like— and how this work affected their education. Her findings showed that limits on this work, which involved children as young as nine years old, were urgently needed.

Courtesy PhotoFaculty from the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences gathered at Whittemore House April 30 to celebrate the 90th birthday of Annelise Mertz, professor emerita in dance.

This summer, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will join other local institutions in celebrating the life and work of neoclassical sculptor Harriet Goodhue Hosmer with a special exhibition on view May 2 through July 21.

The Washington University Opera will perform close to a dozen excerpts from eight well-known operas at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 2 and 3, at Umrath Hall Lounge as part of its “Opera Circus” concert. Performances are sponsored by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and are free and open to the […]