Newsroom Stories

The members-only resources of the Web site for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education now is available to everyone on the Danforth and School of Medicine campuses.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will present a concert of music drawn from theatrical works at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 25, in the university’s Graham Chapel. Dan Presgrave, instrumental music coordinator in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciecnces, will conduct the concert, which highlights Aaron Copland’s music for the ballet Rodeo. Also on the program are the “Masquerade Suite” of Aram Khachaturian and Frederick Delius’s “The Walk to the Paradise Garden.”

This PET scan shows high levels of an anticancer agent in the tumor.Cancer cells keep growing because they don’t react to internal signals urging them to die. Now researchers at the School of Medicine have found an efficient way to get a messenger into cancer cells that forces them to respond to death signals. And they did it using one of the most sinister pathogens around — HIV.

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computers, has issued a challenge to the music industry, saying Apple would support an open online music marketplace if the four-largest music companies would drop the use of digital-rights management software — the technology that prevents the copying of music sold online. Jobs’ challenge, which some consider shocking, is just the latest brick to fall in the inevitable collapse of a legal wall that since 1999 has been obstructing technological progress and preventing people from enjoying more and better music at a lower price, suggests Michele Boldrin, Ph.D., an economist at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the hidden costs of intellectual property rights protections.

Surgery is the only treatment for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a weak spot in the body’s main artery that dilates dangerously over time. If the vessel ruptures suddenly before surgery to repair it, a quick death is virtually certain. Now, scientists say they have identified a key enzyme that triggers chronic inflammation in the aorta and promotes the growth of aneurysms. Their finding raises hopes for developing a drug that could prevent small aneurysms from enlarging to the point where surgery is necessary.

303 Gallery, New YorkCollier Schorr, *Lina, Opening Braid, Bettringen*Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Germany has re-emerged as a potent intellectual and creative center within the international art world. This month, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis opens Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, the first thematic museum exhibition to examine how contemporary artists have dealt — both directly and indirectly — with the social, economic and political ramifications of German unification.

Terrell CreativeMarch 2007 marks the 150th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s momentous Dred Scott decision that denied full American citizenship to African-Americans and gave legal sanction to a racial hierarchy that would undermine the most basic principles of American justice. Experts say the anniversary should be an opportunity for deep national reflection on enduring issues of race and justice. In honor of this landmark case, Washington University in St. Louis will host a conference, titled “The Dred Scott Case and Its Legacy: Race, Law, and the Struggle for Equality,” from March 1-3.

Eric ChouShow me the money.It’s been said by everyone from Cyndi Lauper to Alex Rodriguez that “money changes everything.” Now psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis have published a paper to support that claim. Studying delayed gratification and risk, the psychologists found that people are more likely to wait on collecting full payment for a non-consumable monetary reward than they are for any of three consumable rewards — beer, candy and soda.

DamianoPhysicians have an effective new option for treating atrial fibrillation, a common irregular heart rhythm that can cause stroke. WUSM heart surgeons under the direction of Ralph Damiano have developed and tested a device that radically shortens and simplifies a complex surgical procedure that has had the best long-term cure rate for persistent atrial fibrillation. The simplified procedure is termed Cox-maze IV, and the surgeons believe it can replace the older “cut and sew” Cox-maze III.

If you wanted to start today to reduce your chances of getting cancer, what would you have to do? Lose excess weight, get more exercise, eat a healthy diet and quit smoking. Those basic behavior changes would have a tremendous impact on the incidence of the most prevalent types of cancer — lung, breast, prostate and colon cancer — says Graham Colditz, associate director of Prevention and Control at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.