Newsroom Stories

CoburnThink you know your daughter’s potential college roommate for her freshman year? Think again. Not to imply that your daughter will be rooming with an alien being, but as Facebook.com continues to gain popularity, it’s become easier for students to post information that may or may not always be true, which can pose problems for professors, friends and future employers. Students need to remember that a Facebook.com posting becomes public information. And the persona they create online may be hard to maintain once they arrive on campus, says a leading expert on the college experience.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/E.Churchwell (U. of WisconsinThe nebula RCW49 is a nursery for newborn stars and exists in circumstellar space, where chemistry is done for the very first time.Picture a cool place, teeming with a multitude of hot bodies twirling about in rapidly changing formations of singles and couples, partners and groups, constantly dissolving and reforming. If you were thinking of the dance floor in a modern nightclub, think again. It’s a description of the shells around dying stars, the place where newly formed elements make compounds and life takes off, said Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., research associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Photo by Jason MerrillWashington University Orthopedics and Barnes-Jewish Hospital have completed construction of a new $13 million outpatient orthopedic facility. The new Washington University Orthopedics and Barnes-Jewish Hospital Outpatient Orthopedic Center opens with its first full clinic day July 30. The first surgical procedure took place on July 25.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered through genetic analyses a metabolic pathway in bacteria comprised of just three genes, all known to be players in metabolism. This pathway was previously shown to be involved in synthesizing modified membrane lipids but data from Petra Levin’s lab indicate that it also has a major role in cell division. This is the first identification of a pathway responsible for regulating bacterial cell size.

Horse Series by Robert Boston is currently on display on the second floor of the Ferrell Learning and Teaching Center. The photos in the series focus on the world-famous Clydesdale horses at Grant’s Farm.

Twenty-one years after they first described a fatal genetic disorder in Missouri and Arkansas families, scientists at the School of Medicine have linked the condition to mutations in a gene known as TREX1. The study appears online in Nature Genetics. The identification will accelerate efforts to understand and treat retinal vasculopathy with cerebral leukodystrophy (RVCL), a rare condition that usually goes unrecognized or is misdiagnosed.

Steven SmithBy claiming far-reaching and unprecedented executive privilege in its power struggles with the U.S. Congress, the Bush White House has roiled the political waters, forcing both Democrats and Republicans to weigh near-term political consequences of their response against a real and tangible threat to the long-term constitutional powers of Congress, suggests a congressional expert from Washington University in St. Louis.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have found further evidence linking a method used to deliver gene therapy in humans with the development of liver tumors in mice. The new research, published in the July 27 journal Science, suggests that ferrying a corrective gene into mice using a disabled virus – an adeno-associated virus (AAV) – inadvertently inserts mutations into the mouse DNA that initiate tumor growth.

An improved approach to gene therapy may one day treat some of the nearly 200 inherited forms of blindness, scientists at the School of Medicine suggest this week. In a paper published online by Public Library of Science ONE, researchers take initial steps toward filling a gap in the toolkit for treating blindness by identifying DNA elements that control when and where genes linked to blindness are turned on.

Itching for a better anti-itch remedy? Your wish may soon be granted now that scientists at the School of Medicine have identified the first gene for the itch sensation in the central nervous system. The discovery could rapidly lead to new treatments directly targeting itchiness and providing relief for chronic and severe itching.