Newsroom Stories

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 […]

James Kemp will co-lead a campaign to prevent infant death due to unsafe sleep practices with funding from an $11 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Kemp is a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The grant, awarded to Baltimore-based First Candle, a nonprofit organization promoting infant health, will support a national campaign called “Bedtime Basics for Babies.”

Robert EtcheverryDynamo Theatre CompanyMontreal’s acclaimed DynamO Théâtre will launch Edison Theatre’s popular ovations! for young people series with me me me, a whirling mix of gymnastics, theater, juggling and mime that tackles perhaps the toughest of all political arenas: grade school.

More than 75 students in Washington University’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Senior Capstone Design Course, a fast-paced studio experience in which student teams develop designs and construct working prototypes, will display their class projects, including a portable, collapsible disaster shelter and a high-capacity peanut-shelling system to speed the process of making peanut-butter medicine in Third World countries. The Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Design Fair features 26 student projects on display from 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 11, in Lopata Hall’s atrium/gallery on Washington University’s Danforth Campus.

NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteHot spots on Saturn’s tiny satellite, Enceladus, could be telltale signs of life on the frigid moon.Enceladus, the tiny satellite of Saturn, is colder than ice, but data gathered by the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan has detected a hot spot that could mean there is life in the old moon after all. In fact, for researchers of the outer planets, Enceladus is so intellectually hot, it’s smokin’.

A group of children who have sickle cell disease and who experience silent strokes showed some relief from the silent strokes with blood transfusion therapy, researchers at the School of Medicine have found. The study’s results will appear in a future issue of Pediatric Blood and Cancer but are available for review in its advance online publication.

Danforth Campus Transportation Services and the Washington University Police Department will offer extended escort service during reading and finals week to accommodate students who stay late on campus to study. For more information about parking and transportation services during the holiday break, click here.