Newsroom Stories

Photo by Mary ButkusMore than 350 students attended the annual Dance Marathon, helping raise more than $45,000 for charity.

These plans allow employees to avoid paying taxes on money specifically set aside from their paychecks into spending accounts.

Photo by David KilperSenior chemical engineering major Bia Henriques discusses her research with Robyn Bartosch at a recent poster session at the Knight Center.

The world-renowned Reduced Shakespeare Company, those “bad boys of abridgement,” are returning here Nov. 19-20.

If you can’t imagine what it would be like to feed an entire college campus, consider Rick Turner and Marc Foley, who do it every day.

Surprisingly, officers leaving the military — even after service in Iraq — are finding that a bachelor’s degree and leadership experience are not enough to arm them for more than an entry-level job at a Fortune 500 company. So what they’re seeking — and what makes them particularly desirable to employers — is a master of business administration degree, says Stuart I. Greenbaum, Ph.D., dean of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Sandra Day O’ConnorPresident Bush’s re-election, coupled with strengthened Republican control of the Senate, has fueled speculation that the next four years could bring about dramatic shifts in political composition of the U.S. Supreme Court. While Bush may be poised to push the court in a more conservative direction, a forthcoming study suggests his ability to make dramatic ideological changes still hinges on whether he has the opportunity to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoFailure at a university is a word with bad connotations, unless you are involved in building experimental satellites that the U.S. Air Force and NASA find interesting. An aerospace engineer at Washington University in St. Louis who works with students building experimental spacecraft says student-built spacecraft, which he calls “university-class,” have a strong advantage over aerospace industry-built spacecraft: the freedom to fail.

A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis has found surprisingly tough enzymes in a bacterium that “just says no to acid.” Acid resistance is a valued trait for both pills and human pathogens. The bacterium Acetobacter aceti makes unusually acid-resistant enzymes in spades, which could make the organism a source for new enzyme products and new directions in protein chemistry.

Joan Luby helps identify depression in children with “interview puppets.”Although all children are sad sometimes, preschoolers tend to be inherently joyful. But Joan Luby, director of the Early Emotional Development Program at the School of Medicine, has found that, like adults, very young children can experience depression. Her research team has developed a checklist to help clinicians identify young children at risk for developing the disease.