Newsroom Stories

Many St. Louis area hospitals are overwhelmed with flu sufferers this winter. How can you help protect yourself from getting sick? “One of the most important steps to take is to wash your hands often,” said Alan I. Glass, M.D., director of the Habif Health and Wellness Center on the Danforth Campus.

With a key protein disabled, a pair of kidney filtering units can’t keep antibodies (shown in red) from building up in the filter.The kidney actively cleans its most selective filter to keep it from clogging with blood proteins, scientists from the School of Medicine reveal in a new study. Researchers showed that breakdown of this self-cleaning feature can make kidneys more vulnerable to dysfunction and disease.

Willie Doherty, *Ghost Story* (2007).The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a series of three artists’ talks and discussions on Feb. 7, 8 and 9. All three events come in conjunction with two new exhibitions: On the Margins, which explores the impact of war and disaster on a range of contemporary artists; and Thaddeus Strode: Absolutes and Nothings, which features more than two dozen large-scale paintings by the acclaimed Los Angeles painter.

Image courtesy of NASA”How the Earth Works” is a boxed set of 48 30-minute video lectures developed and delivered by WUSTL’s Michael E. Wysession. The lectures explore every aspect of the Earth and are designed to appeal to the curious lay public.Videos have been the bailiwick of rock stars at least since the days of Bob Dylan. But now they’re spilling over into a new arena — academia. Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has 48 lectures on planet Earth coming out in a video format in February. It’s a sort of brainiac’s boxed set. Each 30-minute lecture focuses on an aspect of the Earth, from its origins and composition to its climate, orbit, pollution and relationship to human history.

A majority of children in the child welfare system maintain stable health coverage, finds a first-of-its-kind study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Ramesh Raghavan, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of social work and psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study, says that these findings are “a testament to the success of policies directed at securing stable insurance coverage for children. “Given this vulnerable population’s dependence on Medicaid, protection of existing entitlements to Medicaid is essential to preserve their stable insurance coverage.”

Marketing students, faculty and community members at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis will critique the television commercials that air during the Super Bowl during the 8th annual “Super Advertising Bowl.” For pre-game action and a presentation by Schupp Company about making commercials effective, join the Olin community for a panel discussion on Super Bowl Sunday, February 3, 2008, from 3:30p.m. – 4:15p.m. Members of the media are welcome to attend the panel and stay for food, drinks and the game, which will be broadcast via large-screen televisions.

In remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Society of Black Student Social Workers at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work will host a “Financial Freedom Seminar: Achieving Economic Independence Through Education,” from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Feb. 2 in Brown Hall, Room 100. The event is designed for members of the St. Louis community interested in building wealth, repairing and maintaining good credit, purchasing a home or starting and expanding a business. The event is free.

Jane Maienschein, the Regents’ Professor and Chair of the Program for Science and Society at Arizona State University, will speak on “From Transplantation to Translation: Why History Matters in Stem Cell Research” at 4 p.m. Feb. 5 in Rebstock Hall, Room 322. Maienschein is the first of six speakers appearing this spring as part of the Center for the Humanities’ 2008 Faculty Fellows’ Lecture and Workshop Series. In addition, Maienschein will lead a workshop titled “Embryos in Context” at 12 p. m. Feb. 6.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service invites students, faculty and staff to participate in “Faces of Hope,” a campus-wide celebration of civic engagement and community service at the University from 4:30-6 p.m. April 8 in Whitaker Hall. A reception will follow. To illustrate the breadth of the University’s involvement in the greater community, “Faces of […]

A 78-year-old St. Louis woman was the first patient in this region to receive an experimental device to replace her defective aortic valve without opening the chest wall or using a heart-lung machine. This procedure was performed by Washington University heart specialists at Barnes-Jewish Hospital Jan. 15.