Newsroom Stories

A psychiatric geneticist at the School of Medicine is one of several principal investigators around the country who will participate in the Genes, Environment and Health Initiative (GEI), a unique collaboration between geneticists and environmental scientists. The $48 million initiative is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Laura Jean Bierut, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, will head the national study of addiction, looking both at genetic and environmental factors that contribute to the problem.

Software developed using a concept discovered at WUSTL may be used to optimize high-speed machining processes, leading to lighter, stronger, and more accurate parts for the aircraft or medical device industry.An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has helped find a way to “cut the chatter” in high-speed machining of aluminum and titanium aircraft parts. Chatter in milling is an instability that arises because the cutting tool vibrates, making oscillating patterns on the work piece. Now researchers including Philip V. Bayly, Ph.D., Washington University Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, have developed software that predicts when chatter is going to occur as well as the accuracy of the cut.

In an effort to create more diversity at the research bench, eight college students – all minorities majoring in science – spent their summer in St. Louis, getting their first laboratory research experience as part of the Genome Sequencing Center’s new Opportunities in Genomics Research summer program.

Presentations about Guantanamo and the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy are among the highlights of the School of Law’s tenth annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, which begins Sept. 10. All lectures will be held at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. They are free and open to the public.

Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker believes passionately that building strong communities takes individual effort and commitment, and he will explore that topic in detail for the Ervin Scholars 20th anniversary celebration at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14, in the Laboratory Sciences Building auditorium. The talk, co-sponsored by the Assembly Series and the Campus Week of Dialogue, is free and open to the public.

Photo by Mary ButkusA student of Liggett Koenig Residential College enthusiastically displays house pride at the Convocation Aug. 23 in the Athletic Complex Field House. The inaugural event of the academic year is Chancellor Mark Wrighton’s opportunity to welcome new students and parents to the University.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will launch its fall 2007 concert series with “4 x 4,” a performance by the Washington University Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. tonight in Holmes Lounge.

The International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) is initiating a seminar series aimed at providing a forum for diverse disciplines in the area of renewable energy.

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CraigSen. Larry Craig’s arrest for alleged gay overtures in a Minneapolis restroom may spell the end of his political career, but some in the lesbian, gay and bisexual community are hoping the scandal has a silver lining. “Regardless of Larry Craig’s true sexual orientation, the real story here is the extremes that some people must go through to hide their real self from a hostile society,” says James Reid, a clinical psychologist who studies sexual identity and prejudice at Washington University in St. Louis.