Newsroom Stories

An olive leaf served as the inspiration for the first Olympic Torch that will travel to all five continents, carrying the message of peace for the Olympic Games of 2004.Washington University in St. Louis will part of the Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay as part of the 100th anniversary of the 1904 Olympics held at the university, starting at approximately 7:45 p.m. Thursday, June 17. The torch will be carried into Washington University’s Francis Field, as well as up and down the steps of Brookings Hall, the main administration building. Torchbearers are St. Louis philanthropist E. Desmond Lee, former Washington University volleyball coach Teri Clemens, and Michael DeBaun, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and of biostatistics at the Washington University School of Medicine. Click here for complete information on all Torch and rededication events on campus.

When a major branch of the mouse immune system is disabled, a normally harmless virus can rapidly mutate into a lethal one, according to WUSM researchers. These findings may help clinicians better understand how otherwise harmless viruses can cause severe disease among patients with weakened or suppressed immune systems.

The Field House has a rich and storied past. It was the site of several NBA games and outstanding Missouri High School state championships, not to mention numerous Bears games with Illinois, Missouri, Princeton, Harvard, Purdue, Arkansas and others. The university has also been asked to host debates in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 — an unprecedented record.

How much have the Olympics changed in 96 years? View a brief comparison between the two.

Courtesy NASA/JPL/CornellArtist’s rendition of the rover on Mars.Washington University faculty, staff and students are making critical contributions to the success of NASA’s ongoing rover mission to Mars. Visit here for links to the latest news on the 2004 Mars Rover Mission, as well as background on other Mars-related research at Washington University.

One hundred years ago, St. Louis was the first city in the Western Hemisphere to host the modern-era Olympic Games. The 1904 games, held on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, had been revived in 1896. Although the III Olympiad was overshadowed on the world stage by the concurrent 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair (a.k.a. the Louisiana Purchase Exposition), the event, held from Aug. 29 until Sept. 3, was notable and takes a place in the history books.

Although the III Olympiad was overshadowed on the world stage by the concurrent 1904 World’s Fair (a.k.a. the Louisiana Purchase Exposition), also held in St. Louis, the event left lasting impressions in the St. Louis area. The official games were held Aug. 29 through Sept. 3, 1904, although numerous so-called “Olympic” events were held from May through November as part of the fair’s Department of Physical Culture.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have made the surprising discovery that people with Alzheimer’s disease retain the capability for a specific form of memory used for rote learning of skills, even though their memories of people and events are extinguished. The scientists’ discovery suggests new strategies to improve training and rehabilitative programs that may bolster the retained cognitive function of those with Alzheimer’s disease and healthy older people.

Io, satellite of Jupiter, is the most volcanically active and hottest body in the solar system.The hottest spot in the solar system is neither Mercury, Venus, nor St. Louis in the summer. Io, one of the four satellites that the Italian astronomer Galileo discovered orbiting Jupiter almost 400 years ago, takes that prize. The Voyager spacecraft discovered volcanic activity on Io over 20 years ago and subsequent observations show that Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. The Galileo spacecraft, named in honor of the astronomer Galileo, found volcanic hot spots with temperatures as high as 2,910 Fahrenheit (1,610 Celsius). Now computer models of volcanic eruptions on Io performed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis show that the lavas are so hot that they are vaporizing sodium, potassium, silicon and iron and probably other gases as well into its atmosphere.

The Ponderosa gang. The “Big Bonanza” was part of the Comstock Lode, now newly mapped.Remember the burning Ponderosa map at the beginning of the long-running TV show “Bonanza”? It’s up in flames before you can read all the place names. Now a geologist at Washington University in St. Louis has replaced that map with one of the famous ore site known as the Comstock Lode, a part of which is the “Big Bonanza.” While it’s doubtful that Hoss, Adam and Little Joe – not to mention the sages, Pa and Hop Sing – could make heads nor tails of it, the map is a valuable contribution to geology because it gives an interpretation of the flow of hot waters interacting with rock some 14 million years ago that created the ore district.