Newsroom Stories

The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis has announced the semi-finalists in the 2008 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition. This year’s semi-finalists represent a range of proposals including of a group of college students with a plan to provide counseling and mentoring services for low-income students, to an established nonprofit with a proposal for a mixed-use small business incubator.

NASA/JPLThick or thin ice shell on Jupiter’s moon Europa? Scientists are all but certain that Europa has an ocean underneath its surface ice, but do not know how thick this ice might be.Jupiter’s moon Europa is just as far away as ever, but new research is bringing scientists closer to being able to explore its tantalizing ice-covered ocean and determine its potential for harboring life. William B. McKinnon, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is discussing some of these recent findings and new opportunities for exploring Europa in a news briefing on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007, at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Twenty-eight-day-old *Physcomitrella* gametophyte showing the leafy gametophores in the center and the protonemal filaments radiating outward.The complete collection of genes — the genome — of a moss has been sequenced, providing scientists an important evolutionary link between single-celled algae and flowering plants. Just as the sequencing of animal genomes has helped scientists understand human genomic history, the sequencing of plant genomes will shed light on the evolution of the plant kingdom, according to Ralph S. Quatrano, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and the corresponding author of the paper.

WolffSt. Louis businesswoman and philanthropist Edith L. Wolff has made a commitment of $20 million to support biomedical research at the School of Medicine. The funds will establish the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Institute, which will support biomedical research projects that lead to the prevention, treatment and cure of disease.

Certain types of tantrums in preschoolers may be a sign of serious emotional or behavioral problems, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. Although temper tantrums are common and normal in young children, the researchers found that long, frequent, violent and/or self-destructive tantrums may indicate the presence of psychiatric illness.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that a controversial phenomenon known as antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection is suppressed by C1q, a blood-borne, immune system compound. Better understanding of ADE should help public health experts and clinicians working to control some viral disease outbreaks and aid efforts to design safe and effective vaccines.

When the alert goes out that a virus has invaded the body, cells that have yet to be attacked prepare by “armoring” themselves for combat, attaching specific antiviral molecules to many of their own proteins to help resist the invader. Scientists believe adding these molecules to cellular proteins, like putting on armor, changes the proteins in ways that make the cells resistant to the coming viral attack.

Coffee shop encounters could lead to new business ideas.Clustering similar firms in a relatively small geographic area is a common economic development tactic. Research from a business professor at Washington University in St. Louis shows the strategy is most effective when companies are within 500 meters of each other. After that, the benefits of proximity quickly lose its power.

For college students, the winter break can be a welcome time off. Classes are over, finals are finished and it’s a time to spend with family and friends. But, says a practicing psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis, the break between semesters can also be a very stressful time for students.

Washington University encourages photographic coverage of sports events by news media. We welcome students, faculty, staff, and their families to attend and photograph athletic events in our varsity, intramural and club programs — with the understanding that the images are intended for personal use only and not for any commercial use or general distribution. Still […]